Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/General list of Roman emperors


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete.  Ryan Postlethwaite See the mess I've created or let's have banter 18:58, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

General list of Roman emperors

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We have lists already covering the topic at List of Roman emperors and List of Byzantine emperors, both of which are more fully developed. The phrase "general list" fails to designate the scope of the list in a way that would distinguish it from either of those two lists; it particularly creates undue confusion with List of Roman emperors. This list serves no purpose, and is a mere duplication of content. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:02, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. — Mike  moral  ♪♫  20:17, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. — Mike  moral  ♪♫  20:17, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

This article was previously up for deletion under a former name: Articles for deletion/Concise List of Roman Emperors. Agricolae (talk) 01:18, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete - Looking quickly at the history of these pages and their Talk pages, it seems to have first been created because there was a dispute over using a table format in the List of Roman Emperors page and how much information to include in that table. That is ancient history now as they use similar table formats.  The original deletion vote occurred immediately after this page was created, and hence the most common 'keep' vote was that the new page was a work-in-progress, so should not be deleted.  They didn't address whether having duplicate lists, a List and a Concise List, was worthwhile.  (The second most common 'keep' vote I see is to keep the List and not the Concise List and I suspect that these were misinterpreted as keep votes for the page being challenged.)  After surviving that vote there was little activity until about a year ago when an editor decided there should be a list that includes both east and west, and after suggesting it on List, decided instead to expand Concise List, which was then renamed.  All this history aside, looking at them now, they are duplicates.  The General List is not easier to follow as a result of leaving out birth and death details and full name: fundamentally this list is the same, except that it combines the East and West.  There is no need for this duplication, and the more detailed lists are the ones to keep. Agricolae (talk) 01:18, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete: Content fork. It simply duplicates the information on the other two lists, to no advantage. The other two lists are superior in quality. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 01:32, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete: The article was only ever there to mollify the sensibilities of those who consider the List of Roman emperors to be too detailed to qualify as a list. JohnArmagh (talk) 08:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "Mollify the sensibilities" is a phrase to treasure for the vast truth it contains. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:54, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete as redundant.  davidiad { t } 12:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete redundant. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete per all above. Paul August &#9742; 13:29, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete -- The otehr two articles deal with the matter much better. My only query is whether the page should not be retained as a dabpage for mthe otehr two articles.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:57, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems unlikely that anyone would search for "general list" instead of "list", so I don't see it as a useful dab title. List of Roman emperors has a hatnote to List of Byzantine emperors. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:46, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Neither. Regardless of the origin of the two articles, this is not quite the simple duplication it appears to be. The main article contains only those emperors deemed 'legitimate': this is based on the emperors usually given in regnal lists in books (the whole question of legitimacy is a bit of a fudge, but that's a separate issue). The 'general' list used to be called 'concise', and contains anyone who ever claimed the emperorship, ie usurpers, minor emperors, and so on. These emperors do not belong on the main list, since they were clearly not the "true" emperors, and often, very little is known about them - quite a few are only known from coin finds. But it does make sense to list them somewhere -- many of them have their own articles -- and that's where the 'concise/general' list was supposed to come in. However, I completely agree that it's not very good, doesn't make its point clear, and should be deleted -- in it's current form. The question is...what to do with the extra content? Any thoughts?  M.F.B.T.  Yes, Minister? 20:47, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * emperors usually given in regnal lists in books: If they aren't generally recognized as emperors, and don't share an easy label, perhaps these figures aren't amenable to a list format. Their historical role might require a discursive treatment. But there are, for instance, usurper lists floating around, such as the oddly named Gallienus usurpers. For comparison, we have List of Roman consuls designate, for those who were elected but prevented by circumstances by serving, and List of undated Roman consuls, who are known by name but can't be securely placed in the chronological List of Roman consuls. Both these have a clearly defined scope. It's unclear in the General list of Roman emperors what the names in italics might mean: these include Pertinax and Didianus Julianus, who appear also on List of Roman emperors; at other points, the italics seem to indicate usurpers. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:28, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The formatting on the article is hopelessly wrong - it did used to be usurpers in italics, no idea what they are supposed to mean now. As long as we keep a list of the emperors/usurpers who aren't on the main list somewhere (even if it's just on my page), while we figure out what to do with them, then I'm happy for the general list to be Deleted. M.F.B.T.  Yes, Minister? 18:25, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * About emperors, if they're actually emperors they belong on the main list; but this is not always synonymous with soldiers declaring an imperator. I'm not so familiar with the details of 3rd-century succession, when most of these issues arise (and the role of the Senate in legitimizing emperors declines), but I wonder whether that's the sticking point: an acclamation of imperator by the soldiers, but no other formal recognition of a potential usurper. A certain number of emperors whose legitimacy is recognized came to power through "usurpation" or a version of it, so that alone is not a test of legitimacy. Could there be a list of usurpers acclaimed as emperor by no one other than the soldiers under their command, or some such? Since I nominated for deletion, I suppose I have a responsibility to see what would be left if we removed all the figures who appear on List of Roman emperors. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:46, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * We have List of Roman usurpers and List of Byzantine usurpers, which both appear to be pretty near exhaustive. Srnec (talk) 06:24, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks! The general list can be checked against those lists, and any usurpers moved there who aren't already represented. Cynwolfe (talk) 07:16, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That would indeed probably solve the issue. It does need re-writing though - see below. M.F.B.T. Yes, Minister? 18:32, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

KEEP - The other lists referred to are the ones that should be deleted as they are fatally compromised by a a lack of neutral POV in their structure. The pages are protected by trolls who insist on using wikipedia to promote their personal views on topics like the nomenclature of the medieval empire (Byzantine or Roman) and the nature of legitimacy. These folks have cooked their opinions into the structure of the articles, effectively end-running wiki's requirements to cite sources and provide balance. (Which is wise since their positions are consistent with 18th and 19th century conventions but not with contemporary scholarship.) The imperative for neutrality in wiki makes it a wiser course to keep and expand this article and delete the other twoTheCormac (talk) 14:37, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Would you care to name the editors you're characterizing as trolls? And I don't see how neutrality applies: there are an infinite number of books from scholarly presses such as Oxford and Cambridge, published from 1970 to the present, that follow the conventions of periodization reflected by the constructs "Roman Empire" and "Byzantine Empire". Neutrality means reflecting the weight of scholarship as it exists. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:09, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how an article can be fatally compromised to the point of deletion. Surely it can just be re-written? The point is, the usurper articles are more suitable topics than 'general list of roman emperors', which is just confusing. The fact that they may currently be non-NPOV does not mean that general list roman emperors should be kept. You are conflating two different issues. I fully intend to re-write the Roman usurper article to reflect the on-going discussions here - in fact, I have already started. So whether those articles are bad or not should not directly affect the discussion here (especially since the general list is also badly written. M.F.B.T.  Yes, Minister? 18:32, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * If you're working on that, Minister, I won't look further into comparing the two lists. I too fail to see what the Roman/Byzantine designations have to do with checking General list of Roman emperors against List of Roman usurpers to make sure the former doesn't contain info lacked by the latter. Re: TheCormac's comment, I would object to our inventing our own tests of legitimacy, as a form of OR. Legitimate emperors are those recognized as such by RS. Periodization is a just a convenience for organizing content into comprehensible chunks. It isn't that hard to look at books from the last 30 years with a title containing the phrase "Roman Empire" and to compare their periodization to those that contain the phrase "Byzantine Empire". These universally recognize an overlap and shared history from the founding of Constantinople through the Justinian dynasty, while viewing the midsections of the two periods as distinct. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:15, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.