Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of British Chinese people


 * 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. There is no numerical consensus, but the strength of the respective arguments, based on applicable policy, is determinative. After meaningless comments like "very legitimate list" are dismissed, the WP:NOT and WP:NOT concerns, which are grounded in policy, outweigh the fewer opinions that British Chinese are a notable population group. That is undisputed, but does not really address the aforementioned concerns that this list is not an appropriate way for an encyclopedia to categorise notable members of that community. (This closure overturns an earlier non-admin closure; see bottom.) Sandstein 06:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

List of British Chinese people

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Similar previous AFD. There are about 198 countries in the world last I checked. If we create full "List of X people in Country Y" articles for all groups of people in each country, that's 39,006 articles. WP:BIAS states that we can't use the argument "Country X is more significant that Country Z, so Country Z doesn't deserve an article". I posted a query about this in the article's talk page, but got no response. An argument that Britain contains a significant population of Chinese people might be floated, but I'm sure that British Nigerians and Italian Chinese feel their population is significant as well. Lastly, the article is bait for redlinks that clearly have notability issues. I'll nominate other similar articles as I find them or they are pointed out. - Richfife 15:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * See also: Articles for deletion/List of British Asian people - Richfife 16:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOT. Could however be served as a category. Nen  yedi  • (Deeds•Talk) 16:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep. The Chinese are the third largest visible minority in the UK. But I agree there are notability problems with some of the names in the article. LDHan 16:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Per the nomination, making arguments that say "Country A deserves an article and country B doesn't because country A is bigger" is POV and leads to WP:BIAS. Also, saying that a group deserves a small list of significant members simply because it is large doesn't quite follow.  Why should a famous British Mongolian receive no coverage because he's a member of a smaller population? - Richfife 17:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - "Chinese" is a designated ethnic category on the British census, which is an objective signifier that they are a notable ethnic group (and not just people from a single country as nominator makes out to be, see Chinese diaspora for more), It would be highly inconsistent to remove them and keep the lists of Asian and Afro-Caribbean people as well. If nominator wishes to remove every kind of this list then do so en masse, but do not single out a specific group, especially a census-designated one. Qwghlm 17:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Regardless of their route to Britain, the defining point of the article is that people are ultimately from China. The ethnic group is therefore tied to that single country. All descendents of all countries can be categorized as ethnic groups in the same way. As far as removing the other articles, I'll put them up when I get the chance: WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. I saw this one when patrolling recent changes, so here we are. Nothing more complicated than that. As I mentioned above, an ethnic group being large doesn't apply as an argument that they should have an article about their most famous members. - Richfife 17:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll put them up when I get the chance - what is stopping you from nominating them right now, out of interest? An AfD takes comparatively little time. Besides, my point was not that the British Chinese are a "large" ethnic group (quite subjective), but an official census designation (fairly objective), and you have failed to answer this in any satisfactory way. Qwghlm 00:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Adding an actual link would have helped, but I'll track down the ones you mentioned. As far as the existence of a check box on a census form goes, we need more to go on. - Richfife 04:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Takes very little Googling to find out, actually - the UK National Statistics office discusses the ethnic-related results of the 2001 census here and a sample form can be downloaded here (PDF) - it's on page six. Qwghlm 12:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The form has a number of checkboxes plus a place to fill in a respondents actual country of origin if none of the checkboxes apply. The checkboxes represent the creator of the form's opinion of which countries are most common while allowing room for any other country.  It's not intended to place China into a separate category, it's simply a convenience. - Richfife 16:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The form was not designed in that way on a whim of the designer nor for "convenience" - it is an official classification by the UK Office of National Statistics and the form accurately reflects this. Why do you not feel this is sufficient condition? and why are you so reluctant to not nominate any other such lists for deletion? I take that second question back, after seeing your further AfD Qwghlm 17:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I just did a scan, apparently there are 58 pages of Lists of American people by ethnic or national origins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_American_people_by_ethnic_or_national_origin. I am not sure if you are realistically going to nominate all these pages. It is clear the "Lists of X people in Country Y" has a clear need in Wiki and a Mass AFD is not the way forward Chineseartlover 19:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As an addendum - there is no single country of "China" - nor has there ever really been, especially in the view of people like myself, who are British and of Hong Kong Chinese descent. None of my ancestors have ever lived in or been citizens of the modern nation state of the People's Republic of China (which is what I presume what you mean by the term). There is, on the other hand, a more general Chinese civilisation that peoples of Chinese descent consider themselves as belonging to and that is why I stress it is an ethnic grouping, not a national one, so to talk of "countries" with respect to Chinese people is totally missing the point. Qwghlm 01:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This is true of almost every pairing of countries in the world. There are people of Peruvian descent descended from ancestors that never lived in the modern state of Peru currently in Canada, ethnic Libyans in France, ethnic Mexicans in Australia.  The N Squared problem still exists. - Richfife 04:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopaedia so the N-squared problem isn't really a massive concern - we have room for it. If you dislike the idea of categorisation of people in this way then fair enough, but the practicality of it is not an issue. Qwghlm 12:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete I think its over categorization to make lists of people based on intersection of races.  Corpx 17:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep THis needs to be discussed at the portal level. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 18:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure restricting the article entirely to discussion within a portal is a good idea. The article is part of the whole of Wikipedia, even if it's sublinked to the portal. - Richfife 18:44, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - I strongly urge that all articles with that support this trivial balkanization of individual countries is worthless; there is no notability and racial heritiage, in an of itself, is meaningless. --Storm Rider (talk) 18:57, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong delete as a meaningless WP:NOT of names (the same goes for all such articles). What are the inclusion criteria? Chinese parent(s)? Grandparent(s)? A Chinese-sounding name?... EyeSereneTALK 19:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Convert to category, then delete as a mere list not providing any meaningful context beyond a list of names. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 23:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Categorize (if not already done) I doubt that this is a meaningless list, but I think it would be more suitable for a category as ObiterDicta explained above.--JForget 01:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Though I sympathize with the nominator's misgivings, there are similar lists of Chinese-Americans, Chinese-Canadians, Chinese residents of China, etc., and I don't like the idea of unintentionally opening the way for an "ethnic cleansing" of Wikipedia. Mandsford 04:05, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ethnic cleansing is a severe overstatement of the facts. Each of these groups has articles dedicated to them. - Richfife 04:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as extreme overcategorisation. Bigdaddy1981 06:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - it's a category not an article.--Svetovid 20:36, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - Not all names are organise as Catergories EG: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_MPs:_A is a list and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MPs_for_English_constituencies_2005- . Why is it more a problem if people organise a list of names according to their race than say their common achievements or talents? See examples here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Contemporary_Christian_music_artists. Should this list page be change into Categories too? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_characters_in_Pirates_of_the_Caribbean Chineseartlover 09:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Questionable sources should only be used in their article. Ethnicity should only be in its own article. ---Dark Tea  &#169;  08:49, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete: it could be a category, but not an article. Also because they are on a Census does not make it notable nor objective. - Jeeny Talk 16:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep very legitimate list.-- Sef rin gle Talk 03:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletions.   — Sef rin gle Talk 03:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete There's no point of subdividing national lists by ethnicity without having the opportunity to show the relevance of such subdivisions. Leave this for articles and categories. Bulldog123 05:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep This ethnic demographic is a group that is officially recognised by the UK government. Not all "X people in Country Y" is notable or significant, but this particular group is.  Furthermore, lists can do a lot more than what Categories can do.  Lists can organise these people by occupation, and make short mention of why the people are notable.  We can also have red links in lists.  Categories cannot do any of the above.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The result was Keep. Nominator should read WP:PAPER, we can indeed accommodate 39,006 "List of X people in Country Y" articles, and the lack of or presence of other such articles has no bearing on having this one: WP:ALLORNOTHING. Other deletion arguments about notability of specific individuals listed can be fixed by editing, and are not reasons for deletion. However, pretty much everyone agree that the Chinese represent a notable, distinct ethnic group in Britain, which is the only notability that we need to meet to keep the article. (non-admin closure)--Cerejota 01:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Closing admin's note: this comment was originally left as a non-admin closure rationale, which I overturned per WP:DPR. Sandstein 06:38, 25 August 2007 (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.