Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Chinese Americans


 * 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 no consensus. Any possible splits are editorial decisions. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

List of Chinese Americans

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Lists of members of major ethnic groups in America (those with, say, 3 million 1.5 million or more members) are too broad to adequately maintain, although I'd support splitting up such lists into more maintainable lists, such as "Chinses American actors" or "Chinese American writers". I expect to quickly add other major ethnic groups to this nomination, but not minor ethnic groups, where the lists can be more easily maintained. There are already deletion debates ongoing for List of African Americans and List of Caucasian Americans. Noroton 17:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages because the same arguments apply to all large ethnic groups. I will check with some reliable source to make sure I've got a reasonable (in my mind) cutoff point between "large" and "small" ethnic groups. I'm not sure how to treat smaller ethnic groups. Anyone can also nominate the rest of them. Noroton 18:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * mistaken nomination, population too small--WITHDRAWN
 * mistaken nomination, a list of lists -- WITHDRAWN Noroton 19:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * mistaken nomination, population too small--WITHDRAWN
 * mistaken nomination, a list of lists -- WITHDRAWN Noroton 19:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * mistaken nomination, population too small--WITHDRAWN
 * mistaken nomination, a list of lists -- WITHDRAWN Noroton 19:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * mistaken nomination, a list of lists -- WITHDRAWN Noroton 19:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Added after Otto's and Hong Qi Gong's comments below: Noroton 19:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I have not found a list of French Canadian Americans Noroton 19:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

This looks like a good cutoff point for major ethnic groups. I'm going to arrange the list of nominated deletions accordingly. Noroton 18:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC) (added several others after "Swedish" immediately above in subsequent editNoroton 18:58, 6 March 2007 (UTC) )
 * Comment: What are the largest ethnic groups in the U.S.? According to this U.S. Census PDF-file Web page, these numbers of people identified themselves in the 2000 Census as being in these ethnic groups:
 * German American &mdash; 42.8 million (one in six Americans), 15 percent of the population
 * Irish American &mdash; 30.5 million, or 11 percent
 * African American &mdash; 24.9 million, or 9 percent
 * English American &mdash; 24.5 million, or 9 percent
 * Mexican American &mdash; 18.4 million, or 7 percent
 * Italian American &mdash; 15.6 million, or 6 percent
 * Polish American &mdash; 9 million or 8.2 percent
 * French American &mdash; 8.3 million
 * American Indian &mdash; 7.9 million
 * Scottish American &mdash; 4.9 million
 * Dutch American &mdash; 4.5 million
 * Norwegian American &mdash; 4.5 million
 * Scotch-Irish American &mdash; 4.3 million
 * Swedish American &mdash; 4 million
 * French Canadian &mdash; 2.3 million
 * Russian &mdash; 2.7 million
 * Puerto Rican &mdash; 2.7 million
 * "Hispanic" &mdash; 2.4 million
 * Chinese &mdash; 2.3 million
 * Filipino &mdash; 2.1 million


 * Keep on the basis that this list is really not difficult to maintain, as it's not that long of a list. Population size of the ethnic group is no absolute indication of how many notable people are in that group.  And if other editors find it difficult to maintain, then the obvious solution to suggest is to split it up by occupation, and not article deletion.  This article doesn't really meet deletion criteria.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all per nom as indiscriminate lists and directories seeking to capture anyone of a common ancestry or heritage with no regard as to whether that ancestry or heritage has anything to do with their achievements or notability. We are rightly suspicious of over-categorization on the basis of race or ethnicity. We should be equally suspicious of over-listification on that basis. I would not make the distinction that the nom is making between "major" and "minor" ethnic groups as that leads to POV issues in deciding what ethnicities are "minor" enough to warrant listification. Otto4711 19:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Since when is ethnicity not a discriminating criterion? And over-listification?  It's a list of people of an ethnic group; there is no over-lapping classification (unless you include people, but ethnicity implies that we're talking about people).  -- Black Falcon 20:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep and agree with Hong Qi Gong. The alternative would implicitly encourage list-ification of non-list articles about these same groups, which is highly undesirable.  Also, is this setting an arbitrary qualification population for list articles?  If so, would this apply across articles, or would we have separate qualifiers for each "class" of articles?  That seems like a messy proposition.  --Ishu 19:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all per nom. These lists have an inclusion criterion that is far too broad and far too indiscriminate and have the potential to stretch to lists thousands of names long and thus cannot be maintained.  Arkyan 19:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * And the categories will not stretch to thousands of names? -- Black Falcon 20:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I was unaware that this discussion had anything to do with the categories? Arkyan 21:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * When comments are made that this is "better handled by and/or redundant to a category", the categories and their merits are necessarily involved. -- Black Falcon 06:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment This is the first time I've nominated something for deletion. It took a while and I made some mistakes. The Jewish list article is a list of lists, which seems fine to me since individual lists it links to should be maintainable. I don't see anything wrong with lists that categorize by BOTH ethnic group AND occupation. The Japanese list was a mistake: there are fewer Japanese Americans than I thought and I felt I had to cut the list somewhere. The top 20 ethnic groups in the U.S., by population, are now covered, and I think those are the lists that are too hard to maintain. Anyone participating in this discussion should also participate in Articles for deletion/List of African Americans (3rd nomination) and Articles for deletion/List of Caucasian Americans (second nomination) in order to treat all the larger ethnic groups the same way. Noroton 19:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment This list is not an indiscriminant list as it is a list based of notable people that are discriminantly American of Chinese-descent.  Furthermore, I'm not aware that a "potential to stretch" is criteria for deletion, and again, if the list one day becomes difficult to maintain, the obvious solution is to split it up by occupation.  As of now, it is hardly difficult to maintain, and even if it were, deletion is uncalled for.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 19:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Response The lists still violate WP:NOT.  As section one states, we should not have "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as quotations, aphorisms, or persons."  A list where the ONLY required associative property is ancestry is the perfect definition of being loosely associated.  Claiming that the criteria include notability is implicit in any Wikipedia entry and trying to use that to fortify an argument that a list is narrower doesn't work.  Arkyan 20:32, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No, that's only your subjective assumption that "ancestry" is a loose association. Loose association does not require multiple associations if a substantial one will suffice.  And ancestry, unlike favorite breakfast foods, is a defining characteristic of individuals. -- Black Falcon 20:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll concede that in large part what it boils down to is a subjective definition on where the line seperating loose associations exists. Ancestry is indeed an inherent, defining characteristic as you say and is thus a lot more palatable than many.  I suppose it's just my interpretation that ancestry is still too broad a qualifier - but then again I guess that's the purpose of these discussions, to establish a group consensus in situations where a key definition like "loose associations" is subject to interpretation. :) Arkyan 21:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, Arkyan, the definition of "broad" is ours to make. Fourty-two million-plus German Americans; 30 million Irish Americans, more than 15 million Italian Americans. Too broad by my book. I think most nations have fewer people than these. And for the potential of these lists to grow, take a look at List of Puerto Ricans, covering the notable people of an ethnic group with 2.7 million Americans. Noroton 23:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Response HongQiGong, if all these lists are deleted, I'd be happy to help set up lists organized by Ethnic group/occupation, with lists of lists similar to the Lists of American Jews to help organize it, starting with the Chinese lists. I think the Chinese list could easily be much larger than it is right now, and so could the Chinese American category, although I can't prove it. Noroton 20:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I think the reason this article exists is precisely because multiple lists of Chinese Americans by occupation would be entirely too small each to merit their own individual existence. I really can't agree that the list as it is now is difficult to maintain, and deleting on the basis that it may become too difficult to maintain is very presumptious, as the criteria for inclusion on this list is a person's notability, which is not exactly easy to achieve like a listing of fruits or something.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:53, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Good points, but consider Puerto Ricans, with 2.7 million people (I assume both in Puerto Rico and in the rest of the U.S.) and the extremely long List of Puerto Ricans, which seems to be made up of every third Puerto Rican, almost all of whom have their own Wikipedia article. I think it would be presumptuous to think that there won't be a similar size list from among the 2.3 million Chinese Americans (and I'm not sure whether the Census includes in that the Taiwanese Americans). I think numbers of notable people also increase over time, so that the older the ethnic group is in America, the more notable people there will be, proportionally. But I still think there's an enormous number of Chinese Americans that Wikipedia isn't covering. I don't think smaller lists are a problem, even for navigation if there is a central list of lists. Noroton 23:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Minor correction - as of 2005, there were 3.9 million Puerto Ricans (see Puerto Rico) and 3.4 million Chinese Americans (see Chinese American). Anyway, to compare how this list might grow like the list of Puerto Ricans kind of demonstrate a lack of understanding of Chinese American demographics.  If you put most Chinese Americans on their own island territory, I'm sure this list would grow like the Puerto Rican list, because they'd have their own concentrated society and culture.  Everything that's notable in Puerto Rican society and culture has to do with some notable Puerto Rican.  But the fact is that Chinese Americans are very underrepresented in the media, sports, and basically anything that would make them mentionable in news media.  Now, I try to keep myself informed with what's going on with the Chinese American population, and to the best of my knowledge, this list is pretty complete in terms of who is nationally notable.  Most of the notable people that the list misses are probably people who are only locally notable in certain cities.  And granted, the list may be missing people, but the fact remains that this list as of now is not large, and even if it grows, the natural solution is to suggest in its Talk page that it be split, not that it be deleted.  I don't see how a potential for growth of this list is criteria for deletion.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 01:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent points. You're convincing me. I'm going to sleep on it and mull it over a bit, but you're persuading me. Noroton 04:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment: How are these lists different from List of people from Los Angeles to name one example?  --Ishu 20:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Response: Good point. If it gets nominated, I'm voting to delete it.Noroton 20:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, This nomination is not following proper procedure.

1. You cannot lump together a group of "Lists" to be deleted under one sole nomination. Each list to be deleted must be nominated separately thereby, giving each of the interested parties an opportunity to express themselves. That is the norm even if the nominator believes that the same arguments apply to all.

2. To list only the major ethnic groups in America because as the nominator states "those with, say, 3 million 1.5 million" is the same as discriminating per population. If you are going to nominate the deletion of a list of an ethnic, you either nominate "all" of the ethnic groups or none at all. This will also include lists that include people of different religions.

3. The nominators assumption that these lists cannot be maintained is a personal assumption of point of view. I'm sure that there are many editors who are looking out for the integrity of the lists which interest them.

4. The procedure which the nominator used to determined what legally constitute a major ethnic groups in America should have been discussed. Was a consensus held or was it the nominators assumption?

I ask that this nomination receive a "Speedy removal." Tony the Marine 20:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Response from nominator:
 * You can lump, it's in the rules here: Articles for deletion
 * I don't think my argument about overly large lists holds water if the ethnic group is itself small -- that kind of self-regulates the list to keep the size down. What's a fair way of figuring out which ethnic groups are large or small? I thought it was fair to go to the U.S. Census and find out the biggest ones, but I had to make a decision as to how far down the list to go. What's a fair way of doing that? You have to pick a number, and that's a judgment call. Anyone who doesn't like my judgment call can vote against deletion, and by having a larger number of lists in this deletion debate, I hurt my own chances for deleting them, because more supporters are likely to come out. I don't see any fair way around that, and I don't see any clear mark for what's a major or minor ethnic group, so I did a bit of guesswork. I don't see any way around that, either.
 * Yes, it's my opinion. Maybe it's other people's opinion. Let consensus rule.
 * I wouldn't know where to have that discussion you speak of except right here, right now. Nominators get to choose how broadly they want their multiple nominations to run, unless there's no reasoning behind it, in which case an admin will make changes, I assume. If someone believes I chose badly, they should vote to keep, which is an incentive for me to try to choose wisely. I don't know what you mean by "legally", I consider "major" my own judgment call, which I mentioned up near the top of this discussion. Noroton 21:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC) (Edited my response at No. 1 and changed indenting. Noroton 21:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC) )


 * Keep all. The "List of Caucasian Americans" seems to me to be created as a disruption per WP:POINT.  These lists are not overly broad as they include not all members of a given group, but only those members who are notable, per WP:NOT. -- Black Falcon 20:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * What purpose do these lists serve? They're all horrendously sourced, where anyone who's described as of "BLANK" background is automatically assumed to be BLANK-American if some nationalist or mistaken journalist calls them that. It can NEVER be perfectly sourced as someone on here described before. 03:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Response Please see my response at Articles for deletion/List of African Americans (3rd nomination). (It's going to get very annoying conducting this discussion in three places. . . . ) Noroton 21:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Noroton, I agree--both with discussing in one place and with your suggestion as to what to do with these lists. I have also replied there. -- Black Falcon 00:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but nowhere in WP:NOT does it say that collecting only "notable" items exempts an article from its provisions. The policy forbids "loose associations" without regard to how notable or non-notable those loosely associated subjects are. Otto4711 22:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Ha! "Ethnicity" a loose association?  I guess someone forgot to tell the thousands of academics studying it and the tens of millions of people involved or caught up in ethnic conflicts.  As for the listing of notable entries, please see Lists (stand-alone lists) (part of the MOS), which states: "Selected lists of people should be selected for importance/notability in that category... ." --
 * The MOS is not policy. WP:NOT is policy. If the assertion that this list violates policy is correct, appealing to the MOS does not save it. And yes, ethnicity is a loose association. Academics tend to study segments of different ethnic groups, associated by other factors like socioeconomic status, education levels, and the like. Otto4711 01:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmmmm . . . like, maybe, occupation?? Noroton 01:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Couldn't disagree more. There has been a lot of studies on history or group demographics of specific American minority groups as a whole, not just specific segments of these groups.  Here's a sample course offering from San Francisco State University Asian American Studies department.  We see courses like "Chinese in America", "Chinese American Personality", "Chinese American Culture-Language and Literature", "Selected Topics in Chinese American Studies", and other similar courses for other Asian ethnicities - not "Chinese Americans in Sports" or "The Chinese American Middle Class".  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 02:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Otto, .... your statement is inaccurate. Sure, there are academic who study the relationship between ethnic affiliations and other factors such as SES, education, occupation, etc.  However, there is also an entire field of study dedicated to the study ethnic identity, including its bases, its relevance, and its consequences.  There are separate classes of theories as to the origins of ethnic identity (broadly termed, instrumentalism, primordialism, and constructivism).  There are entire academic literatures dedicated to the study of ethnic/racial/national groups or groupings themselves (mostly in sociology, cultural anthropology, and political science).  You don't even need to trust me.  See the works of scholars such as Ted Gurr, James Fearon, Milton Esman, Pierre van den Berghe, etc.  I can provide hundreds of more names of scholars who focus on ethnic groups in their entirety and not on subdivisions of such groups by income, age, and other non-cultural factors.  -- Black Falcon 04:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- Noroton 21:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * keep - racially based lists seem ill defined in comparison with these ethnically based ones. Smmurphy(Talk) 23:08, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Did you mean delete or keep? Usedup 03:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I meant that its pretty deep that such a list exists... Umm, no I meant keep, sorry. Smmurphy(Talk) 04:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep all per User:HongQiGong and his suggestion to split into sub-lists by primary occupation or reason for notability. Wl219 02:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep all, the list provides informative list of notable names of each nationality. This has nothing to with pride. Wikipedia is meant to be a source of information, not division and if there is a demand for a list of famous Caucasian-Americans, so let it be. I have no objections. --XLR8TION 20:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry but saying that a list should exist if there is a demand for a list suggests that you have no intention of maintaining the encyclopedic element of wikipedia. Do you have a reason for wishing to keep these lists besides "they're information and wikipedia is meant to be a source of information"? WP:NOT suggests otherwise. Usedup 04:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep but reorganized by occupation pls. --Vsion 05:32, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete alll None are needed, and would be too large too maintain. TJ Spyke 04:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all lists of _____-Americans: Basically we'll be listing off every notable American on about 40 lists. That will be just too plain big. Superior1 04:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, as this information is already available as part of the category system. --Xnuala 04:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - A category is unable to give brief mention of each person's occupation like this list does. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete All (or Split All) All of these "List of XX-Americans" lists are necessarily overbroad. There are thousands (or even tens of thousands for the larger ethnic groups) of "notable" people from each of these groups.  Throwing all of those names into one giant list would not only be impossible, it would also be of no use to anyone.  I have yet to hear any compelling reason argument for the utility of a five-thousand item list where the only common thread between the names is ethnicity or ancestry.  Plus, the category system already handles this same data in a more efficient manner. Vicjm 04:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - The list has existed since April of 2003. Four years later, today, there are exactly 169 names on the list.  It's hardly in any danger of growing into a list of "thousands" anytime soon.  And even if the list becomes unmanageable, the natural solution is to split the list, not to delete it.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Response - That's entirely true. It its current form the list is managable.  But it is also incomplete.  This simply isn't a list of every "notable" Chinese American.  I can be pretty sure that's case because more people are tagged in the Chinese American category and its subcategories  than are on this list.  And that doesn't even include the Chinese Americans who have not been tagged as such in their articles.  Relatively speaking, it just seems to me that notability is too low of a standard.  Like I mentioned on the African-American deletion discussion, while Martin Luther King is certainly a reasonable inclusion on that list, I'm not sure the Detroit Lions' fifth string wide receiver would be (although he is "notable" and thus meets the list's criteria.)  I understand that this is a much bigger issue for the larger ethnic groups than the smaller ones, but the underlying issues are the same.  I just don't think that notability is restrictive to generate a useful list. Vicjm 16:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Response - I understand your point, however, the potential for a lot of growth of a list is not criteria for deletion. Even if this particular list is too large, the natural solution is to split the list, not delete it.  But I do not see any suggestion in the Talk page of the article to split the list because it might become too large.  For one thing, we actually do not know if this list would become unmanageable.  It's purely conjecture to say it would become so.  Chinese Americans are not Caucasian Americans and not African Americans.  Arguments for why those lists should be deleted do not necessarily apply to this list, especially if the argument is that the lists are, or would become, too big.  Chinese Americans are a much smaller population, and they are very underrepresented in basically anything that would make them mentionable in news media, and thus notable.  This is not true of Caucasian Americans and African Americans.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Response If you look up at my original post here, you can see that I slightly modified my vote. My primary concern relates to the utility of a list where the only criteria for inclusion are notability and ethnic heritage (neither of which are particularly restrictive).  I believe that splitting this list (perhaps in the same manner as this list's Jewish-American counterpart: Lists_of_American_Jews) would address that issue by narrowing the scope of each individual list.  Vicjm 19:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete All, as indeed completely unmaintainable as a practical matter. Shenme 05:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I would not exactly call a list of 169 names "unmaintainable". But that's just my opinion.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep as categories or rename to "List of notable XX-Americans."  bibliomaniac 1  5  05:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Since there was a call for clarification on my talk page about what I said, I meant delete list, create categories for the former.  bibliomaniac 1  5  23:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep All for now and renominate some of them. I agree that these articles are sufficiently diverse that they don't really belong in a mass AFD. I think some of these should be deleted because they are too long, unsourced, or both; but some of them don't look that bad.  This is too much to consider in one go. --Brianyoumans 07:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. These lists are overly broad, unwieldy and unmaintainable.  As noted above there are over 2.3 million Chinese Americans and even limiting it to all the famous ones who have ever lived is going to result in a very long list.  Lists like this tend to become less useful and less encyclopedic the longer they get, in asmuch as their main point of existing is to point people to other articles they might be interested in.  Dragomiloff 08:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all, broad classifications like these are why we have categories. Krimpet 12:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep all The lists are fine. Certainly until wikipedia's category system is fixed to make it useful.  IE displaying more than 200 at a time, and automatic ordering alphabetically. David Spart 12:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, the motivation for deleting these articles all stems from the fact that someone created a "Caucasian-American" list. That is not a good reason to throw out many useful litings. StudierMalMarburg 15:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment So you mean this was a WP:POINT AfD nomination...? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all per Otto4711 above; limited utility, border-line original research absent a source saying the person's ethnicity is notable. Tom Harrison Talk 21:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I fail to see why one's ethnicity should be reason for his or her notability before the person is added to the list. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 23:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all per above. Usedup 02:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I just sorted List of Native Americans, and I'd like to make it a list of lists, but only if their is a consensus that doing so won't be deleted in a couple days. Smmurphy(Talk) 04:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all I've been waiting for the nomination of these lists. Glad someone finally came across to it. Bulldog123 04:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, as the anonymous parent of two Puerto Rican schoolchildren, I can assure you that this list is a primary source of information that at least one of my kids will consult on a weekly basis to do school assignments. Administrators should take into account the users' needs and, as a user, this list is invaluable!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.50.30.193 (talk • contribs) 2007-03-10 11:53:38
 * Strong Keep Inclusion to such lists is only given when sources, so this does not violate WP:NOR. Michael 0:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * As already stated, the way these lists are sourced is horrible. Basically its a search for any journalistic mistake. Usedup 01:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, the lists are relatively well-sourced. Sourcing is an even bigger problem for categories, because you can't just source one list, but must source every article in the category. -- Black Falcon 06:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. These lists are useful. The argument that they are too broad and general is nonsense because there are notability guidelines that stop any random Chinese American from putting him/herself on the list. The fact that some of them are sourced poorly is a job for the cleanup tag, not for AfD. enochlau (talk) 02:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all It's not just a question of sourcing them. The question that needs to be asked is: do these lists help people looking for information? My answer to that would be no. Having a list of American Jewish philosophers or Russian American mathematicians would actually serve a purpose, these lists however do not do that (in my opinion of course). Pax:Vobiscum 14:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * An offer has been made above to split these lists by occupation as you have suggested. In order for that to occur, the lists must be temporarily preserved until this split can be performed.  Would you reconsider your recommendation in light of this?  -- Black Falcon 19:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * If this discussion ends with no consensus or a keep that definitely sounds like the best solution. But nevertheless I still recommend a delete. Pax:Vobiscum 19:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Splitting is only really necessary when a part of the list becomes too long. List of Native American musicians makes sense (although the list needs a lot of work still), but an article for a list of Native American authors is manageable as a part of a section of List of Native Americans. Smmurphy(Talk) 20:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Right. With only 169 names on the list, splitting it by occupation would result in a few very short lists, because the current list is already pretty short.  If this list is deleted, then I guess we'll have to split it up into occupation lists.  But it looks like this AfD is heading into no consensus.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 22:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - I can't believe I just did that. I don't like these lists or categories but something in me says to keep, especially grouped together even though that shouldn't matter. Anyways, --Tom 01:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - Definitely has potential utility, regardless of whether other editors find it for themselves. If any of the lists are deemed too long, then splitting should be based on Talk consensus. –Pomte 04:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * We're not deleting the lists in entirety. Sheesh. Usedup 04:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's precisely what deletion at AFD is: the complete removal of an article and its history from availability to non-admin readers with no opportunity for restoration except by DRV. If the issue is splitting the lists (to which I and a number of others agree), then the appropriate venue is the article's talk page, not AFD.  -- Black Falcon 04:13, 14 March 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.