Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Hungarian 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 Keep. WaltonOne 13:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

List of Hungarian Americans

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

As with List of German Americans this list has a problem making legitimate criteria for why a ethnicity-nationality-occupation intersection such as the ones present on this list is notable. For quintessential examples of Hungarian-Americans who are known for their Hungarian-American-ness...Hungarian American. Further, half of these people hardly qualify as Hungarians by any definition...they may have been born in Hungarian-territory, which would make some refer to them mistakenly as Hungarians, but many are Jews and Germans who have no relationship to Hungary except chance birth-place. Bulldog123 23:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment As with the other similar lists, without an explicit definition for inclusion, these lists are a mess. I would Delete unless strict definitions are required, with references. MarkBul 23:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So you would delete Category:Hungarian-Americans for the same reason? Kappa 23:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment From WP:LIST:

"''Criteria for inclusion in lists

Lists should always include unambiguous statements of membership criteria based on definitions made by reputable sources. This is particularly important in the case of difficult or contentious topics. Beware of those cases in which the definitions themselves are disputed. Many lists on Wikipedia have been created without any membership criteria, and editors are left to guess about what or who should be included only from the name of the list. Even if it might "seem obvious" what qualifies for membership in a list, explicit is better than implicit.''"

I would delete anything that does not fulfill the Wikipedia criteria for inclusion - that's what we're here for. MarkBul 00:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * So.... you would delete Category:Hungarian-Americans for the same reason? or not? Kappa 22:52, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: List of Hungarian American is not a random "ethnicity-nationality-occupation intersection", as claimed in the nomination, but a list of notable Americans falling within the established United States Census Bureau ancestry category "Hungarian Americans"; USCB defines ancestry as "a person’s ethnic origin, heritage, descent, or 'roots,' which may reflect their place of birth, place of birth of parents or ancestors, and ethnic identities that have evolved within the United States." This official definition is applicable to List of Hungarian American as well; the statement, "these people hardly qualify as Hungarians by any definition...they may have been born in Hungarian-territory, which would make some refer to them mistakenly as Hungarians" is therefore pointless and irrelevant. Pia 01:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete, seems more appropriate to have category:Hungarian Americans, as the rationale of this article is better as a category (which is a list).Spevw 23:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hungary-related deletions.   -- John Vandenberg 12:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletions.   -- John Vandenberg 12:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong keep - List is encyclopedic, well sourced (containing 39 footnotes), valuable to our project and, as with this user's other deletion proposals this is a highly disruptive, WP:POINT proposal. Bad faith is shown by the fact that the editor proposing the deletion states that the list is not sourced, and by the fact that earlier articles proposed by this editor, then deleted (many containing up to hundreds of references), often against consensus, were not merged but blanked from our project entirely. Improve, don't delete. Badagnani 18:53, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep this, and he other similar articles should have been kept as well. One incorrect deletion does not justify others. Lists offer an opportunity to say something about the individuals, and this facilitates browsing, an important function of an encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 03:14, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete trivial, arbitrary, OR, NPOV, and SYNTH, how Hungarian does one have to be to be a Hungarian American? And what WP:RSes tell us that the person is that much? Carlossuarez46 17:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - You see very well from the dozens of footnotes! Or did you even look at the article before voting here? It seems that your vote is always the same at these pages, so maybe it doesn't matter to you. To answer your question, the sources include The New York Times, U.S. government agencies, and Hungarian government websites. Those are reliable. I'm not sure that any of these facts will matter to you, however, as it seems you're rather dead set on blanking this content (rather than merging, as seems to have happened each and every time in the against-consensus deletions of several of these types of pages in recent weeks) for our users. Badagnani 19:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Plenty of reliables sources exist both to demonstrate the notability of "Hungarian American" as a class, and whether particular individuals can be classified as a Hungarian American or not. Since WP:OR and WP:NPOV apply to categories as well as lists, it is not reasonable to simultaneously say that this list violates those policies but that a category would be better. The list is plainly manageable as it exists now, and if the list were to get too large to maintain, editorial discretion can be used to limit the inclusion criteria (or split the list), using one's brain and consensus among interested editors to arrive at that inclusion criteria (or how to split it), which can then be explicitly stated in the article per WP:LIST. Despite an aggressive, and occasionally successful, effort to delete lists of this type, no actual consensus has ever been demonstrated that these lists ought to be deleted. If anything, those deletions demonstrate that AfD and DRV are currently flawed mechanisms for implementing the deletion policy, which says that "If there is no consensus, the page is kept ..." DHowell 02:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep based on an absence of policy violations and based on the list's adherence to the quality criteria set for lists, including the verification guidelines, at WP:LIST and WP:CITE . Also "keep" based on the fact that the nomination does not focus on any short-coming of this particular article, but makes wide policy interpretation for such lists in general, without reference to any policy or guideline. The nomination does not show how this particular list may fail the quality criteria set for lists. (Not even Featured list criteria) mentions the above grievances as a guideline to adhere to in order to control the quality of lists. It is not mentioned in the guideline for WP:LIST either.) There is no WP:NOR violation: The article has legitimate criteria to show why it is notable; its notability claim is established by the abundance of reliable published sources giving the intersection notice and performing similar groupings or listing of people who fall within this intersection. No WP:NPOV violation: The article has a stated inclusion criteria. It is not limitless or in any other way failing WP:NOT and WP:LIST guidelines. There is no WP:OVERCAT violation: obviously, this is not a category. In addition, the nominator uses faulty logic in asserting that an item's inclusion on one list (such as Jewish) must ensure its exlusion from another list (such as Hungarian American) or one list must be deleted. There is no such policy, as far as I know. The nominator attempts to introduce a novel, personal policy, which has so far never reached consensus: Lists of notable persons constructed on the basis of inclusion in a certain immigrant population or based on a country's ancestry classification are not inherently policy violations by reference to WP:NOT. ("Wikipedia is not a directory"  proves equally problematic, without exception, for ALL lists on Wikipedia and could be used as a deletion criteria for every single one of them--lists are navigation aids, easing focused research of narrow topics, which would otherwise overload the system if transformed into categories; they are thus a form of "directories" by definition. The WP:NOT#DIR therefore lacks relevance in deletion discussions concerning individual lists and should be carried to the portal for all lists.) Pia 01:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:NOT doesn't, and can't, apply to all lists. There is an WP:OCAT. It's just in an altered form than a category, but still has the exact same problems. WP:LIST says nothing about not deleting well-formed lists; I don't understand why everyone keeps citing a manual of style article. The article has no justification for notability. The existence of external references does not substitue as an explanation of relevance - which should be added to a three-way intersection list like this. Bulldog123 22:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No, sorry, but I'd say your assertion that WP:OCAT applies to lists because "It's just in an altered form than a category", is a little bit premature. And your second claim, that the article lacks relevance, is also a personal opinion that may never be shared by the community here or the world around us. But in case "no explanation of relevance" or "no justification", rather than "policy violation", is your proposed deletion criteria, I will still spell it out then: The reason the majority of participants in the deletion discussions regarding "XXX Americans" may find lists such as List of notable Hungarian Americans/notable African Americans/notable Taiwanese Americans/etc., etc., valuable and relevant is that most immigrant groups or people connected by ancestry in the US value the contributions of their ancestors (for having overcome the hardships of migration, having rebuilt their lives from scratch, in many cases combined with the added hardship of indentured labour and/or enslavement). Lists of accomplished members of immigrant populations can therefore be a source of pride, a positive form of "collective memory of achievements" for younger generations; lists of role models offer people courage to face prejudice and to find hope, nourish dreams of success, and assurance of their intrinsic worth in moments of crisis, self-doubt, etc, etc. In my opinion, that is why so many, myself included, find your claim that these lists lack "relevance" both incomprehensible and arrogant. Pia 09:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It's WP:SYNTH and undue weight when one less-reliable source is used to justify inclusion in a list where notability is asserted by many strongly-reliable sources (such as those that define who a Hungarian-American is, while a journalist might accidently not define Hungarian-American in the same way). So yes, there is a policy violation, but as we all know, articles don't have to be kept just because they meet WP:V. I see no justification for occupational-divisions such as the ones on these list. Or any comment on them perhaps being WP:OCAT-like. There are plenty arguments for keeping Category:Hungarian-Americans, but few that apply equally to this list. Bulldog123 22:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * No, WP:SYNTH is when you join A and B together to advance position C. This list does not "advance a position". It is a navigation aid, designed to give easier access to notable individuals in the population sector "Hungarian Americans". There is no policy violation: Like all non-trivial, useful and valuable Wikipedia lists, this one brings together a group of existing articles related by well-defined entry criteria (here the criteria is "person of verifiable Hungarian American ancestry with verifiable fame/notability"). It is factually accurate, verifiable against reliable sources that accurately presents published knowledge. It is well-constructed and easy to navigate (it is sorted into sub-sections, which you appear to confuse with "three-way intersections"). It has value as a research tool for people who are interested in the accomplishments of immigrants of this ancestry, and as a navigation aid in general for those interested in learning about famous individual contributors to the American society from this group. If it is the definition that concerns you, I would simply suggest including in the article the official United States Census Bureau definition of ancestry, against which journalists' definitions can be checked for accuracy. Pia 09:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - As stated above (and promptly ignored), The New York Times, the U.S. government and Hungarian government websites are not unreliable sources on such matters. Your view that these lists are policy violations, against all evidence that they are well sourced and of great value to our users, represents a fringe position, probably motivated by POV that "everyone should just be American" and that national origins should be ignored. This POV, like all others, should be eschewed in the strongest terms here. Badagnani 01:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * keep for the comprehensive reasons shown by Pia and DHowell. Finally, we have WP experts providing analyses of the multitude of faults used in the current deletionist campaign against ethnic/national lists--which has resulted in the deletion of several valuable articles with their WP information being lost.   Hmains 02:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep. Keep this, as well as all other list of citizens of USA by nationality. List is rich and informative. We aren't guilty that there're so many peoples on this world. At last, why do we have encyclopedias? Articles about so many things. Some things someone finds unimportant, but somebody other earns for living on those and makes millions of dollars out of that. In these lists, only the persons that are worth of mentioning should be there, not just "any man picked up from the street". At last, these info is useful. Do you know how many successful international business meetings and business cooperations (I mean all of them, from small shop and taxi cab events to statemen's meetings) began/became more appreciated, just because someone knew whome "belonged" certain "celebrity"? Kubura 22:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Another good reason for keeping Category:Hungarian-Americans only. Bulldog123 22:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You can see very well that the category is not broken down by occupation, all on a single page, with footnotes, in a very usable manner. The category serves a different purpose. Do not attempt to dismantle or disrupt Wikipedia, making obtaining necessary information impossible for our users. Your previous deletion rather than merging of huge amounts of similar data in several deleted articles (some of them deleted against consensus) shows bad faith. Badagnani 01:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no notability justifying why Hungarian-American by occupation are notable. Just because some of these people might write Hungary-oriented writing, doesn't mean everyone sourced as having Hungarian-American background is equally a "Hungarian-American writer." So it is WP:SYNTH-like. Bulldog123 11:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep. While Wikipedia may not be a compendium of lists, these listings are extraordinarily helpful with research, as those searching for individuals of a particular ethnic background can easily find specific individuals and possibly contrast with others in the article. These listings for deletion are disruptive, in my opinion. They smack of nationalism and seem to presume that Americans have no (or shouldn't have) interest in the extreme diversity of the ethnic fabric of America. ExRat 02:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * And a category can't do this? To me, voting "Strong Keep" on some List of _x_ Americans, while deleting others smacks of nationalism. Leuko 03:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: These lists often (or should) be referenced with birth and death dates, occupations, etc. Categories don't do that. ExRat 04:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - It has s already been pointed out that these lists are greatly superior in their content and usability (being on a single page, with individuals broken down by occupation, complete with footnotes and references), for ease of navigation and finding the information they are looking for, for our users. Thus, your argument holds no water, and your continued assertion that "categories are just as good as lists" in this context shows bad faith against the editors who have repeatedly pointed out that this is clearly not the case for our users who rely on having this information readily available, and not blanked by presumptuous characters such as yourself. Badagnani 04:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep. I agree with ExRat and Badagnani. In addition, this mass nomination is too POINTY. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I would suggest that interested editors join the discussion at WikiProject Ethnic groups/Lists of Ethnic Americans, as it concerns this article. Leuko 23:52, 13 September 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.