Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Portuguese 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. It may be a better idea to list these individually if these are ever renominated in the future. --Core desat 06:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

List of Portuguese Americans

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

There are almost 200 countries in the world, not to mention distinct ethnic groups, with almost 40,000 "X residing in Y combinations". Lists like this serve little purpose and ultimately become dumping grounds for WP:COI redlinks. Feel free to use ~ to indicate your displeasure that I haven't been able to find and list all variants at once. Richfife 21:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I also nominate these for the same reasoning:


 * Keep - Firstly I don't like mass AfD nominations because I think each article should be examined on its own merits. Secondly subjects like Asian Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans are well-written about and are notable topics.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:47, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * They may well be well written about somewhere, but not here. These are just lists.  (Unrelated to keep or delete vote)  If I nominate one at a time, I get accused of favoritism before I have a chance to nominate the others, so I did a bunch at once. - Richfife 22:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletions.   —— Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 22:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. If these were nominated individually, people would say, "Keep, no reason to single this one out." Carina22 23:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Firstly, I must say that I don't find the mass-grouping to be very efficient due to the vast difference between some of the articles (for example, I don't think List of Chilean Jews can be judged on the same grounds as List of Asian Americans). Still, that being said, it seems that the nominator's argument is that the general intersection between a person's ethnicity and nationality is either trivial or does not serve any organizational purposes. With this I strongly disagree. Many ethnic groups are connected by more than a common origin, but in addition share similar customs, culture, etc., which carries over when communities of these ethnic groups form in different countries, only to form an entirely new cultural layer. People who belong to a specific ethnic group are indeed connected, and grouping them by nationality, along with organizing them geographically, organizes them based on a common culture that in many cases does not extend to people of the same ethnicity, but a different nationality. Now, I am not saying that these intersections are always appropriate. For example, I hardly see the need for a List of Swedish Nigerians, but it should be clear where the line is drawn, and that groups such as Korean Americans, Chinese Americans and the like do indeed have enough common ground to warrant such a list. Any separate, clearly trivial intersections should be nominated separately. Calgary 23:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, unfortunately, the U.S. is an ethnic minded society. I guess that is why you have the Italian-Americans, African-Americans and so on. People identify themselves with their ethnicity and therefore in my humble opinion, these lists are useful for those who wish to know the accomplishments of the people who share a common ethnicity. Tony the Marine 01:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep, although the U.S. is becoming more and more homogenous every year, it's great to have a place where people can document their heritage. In my opinion, the same can be said for countries like Canada, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Argentina etc. Alexander_Lau 23:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak keep and relist. I think these lists should be considered on their own merits, or in groupings with more commonalities. For example, within List of Latin American Jews there are links to lists of Mexican, Peruvian, and Venezuelan Jews. Listing all the lists of Latin American Jews in one AfD would make sense. Including lists of ethnic Americans (United Statesians) with a few (but not all) of the lists of Latin American Jews unnecessarily clouds the issue. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 01:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep all That 200 x 200 = 40,000 insight is nice, and so is the "ethnicity protest" that we should feel free to use. Maybe that reasoning is okay in Great Britain, but over here, we're all Americans, and we look at ethnicity as a matter of pride.  And the hell of it is that we celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Day, plus a lot of other ethnic celebrations without worrying about whether we're welcome.  We're proud of the Brits too, what with Thanksgiving and all, but the 4th of July is the best holiday of all.  Mandsford 02:00, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, nobody is doing away with ethnicity metions. That is why categories and articles exist. What this nomination seems to be about is a listing of potentially unrelated people asserting pseudo-connective notability they all share for this relationship. There is no intent to "erase" the pride of ethnicity. Bulldog123 05:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete excessive overcategorisation. Bigdaddy1981 04:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - also, what on earth is the criteria? One person might appear on scores of lists. Is one grandparent enough, or one great-grandparent? Or is it claimed heritage? Bigdaddy1981 06:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete all. For example, on List of Swedish Americans, list members Robert Englund, Jake Gyllenhaal and James Franco have absolutely nothing to do with each other, save for the fact that Franco has a single grandfather of Swedish descent, Englund has some undefined Swedish ancestry, and Gyllenhaal's great-great-grandfather was Swedish. This isn't a very strong connection to tie people into on a list. Yes, I'm aware that there are some Swedish-Americans whose heritage is reflected in their work - perhaps writers or the like - but these can be mentioned on the main article, Swedish American, along with maybe a handful of names to illustrate some examples of notable Swedish-Americans. Such a comprehensive list serves little to no purpose. The same is true for the other lists. Mad Jack 04:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete too much over-categorization of racial/national intersections.  The inclusion criteria is way too loose Corpx 04:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Move to divide the question (sorry, it's the parliamentarian in me - for simplicity's sake, let's call it a procedural keep). These articles should be considered separately and on their own merits, rather than as a large group that does not take into account all of their differences. bwowen talk•contribs• review me please! 04:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all For one thing, I don't find any of the !keep arguments convincing. "Keep because you should nominate them by one by one" is a request for shrubbery, essentially. If the nom missed a few nominations, saying "KEEP BECAUSE YOU MISSED SOME!" also isn't convincing. They'll simply go in another nom. Finally, the most famed argument of "improve don't delete" is getting more and more nonsensical. Take a look at the Brazilian list, for example. It's been sitting in its same horrid state for, according to the tag, what appears like half a year. This is an indication that nobody really cares about some obscure religious/ethnic list enough to work on it, which tells us that its encyclopedic value is "interesting" to a "select minority." However, we generally leave out information that doesn't attest to a person's biographical notability. If ethnic background DOES have relevance to a person's occupation or biography, then it will be mentioned in the article along with an explanation of why it is important. On bulletin lists like this, there is no room for explanation, and so no room for notability checks. Hence, they shouldn't exist. Bulldog123 04:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep all, speedy close and list separately. This sort of a nomination is plain wrong. It amounts to trying to say that NO article on List of [nationality]-[other nationality] can be notable, and there is no such policy anywhere in Wikipedia. Start by instead nominating one or two articles that you have individually examined, and can show specifically why you think they are certainly unencyclopedic, and go by what the community thinks on them. DGG (talk) 05:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletions.   —— Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 07:05, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Firstly, I have no doubt that a few of those lists are not notable, but I can't agree that they are all non-notable - which is one of the reasons why I think these mass AfD nominations are counter-productive. We might start getting votes to keep these, delete those.  Then the closing admin has to comb through all the votes and count which article exactly had how many votes to delete or keep.  Secondly, the fact that some of these lists may be deleted does not mean that they should all be deleted.  The fact of the matter is that some of these demographics are more notable and have been written about more so than others.  Thirdly, I have no idea why it is a reason to delete any one of these lists just because it may be unclear who is considered, for example, Swedish American.  Whether or not the subject of Swedish Americans is a notable topic, this I am not personally sure.  But if it is unclear whether or not Person X is Swedish American, then you bring it up in the Talk page.  Is there some policy that I'm not aware of which states that if it is unclear to a few editors how a list or article ought to be written, then we delete it?  To the best of my knowledge, the question of whether or not people like Jake Gyllenhaal should be in the List of Swedish Americans is not a criteria for deletion.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I just brought Gyllenhaal up as an example to illustrate the fact that no one in the section of, say, "actors" under "Swedish Americans" has anything strongly in common enough with one another to warrant joint inclusion on a list. It's a piece of trivia for pretty much all of them. (Except, I suppose, people like Ingrid Bergman, who was born in Sweden and acted in Swedish films, but in that case, the nexus of her notability is being a Swedish actress, not being Swedish-American) Mad Jack 18:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. Such lists maintain racial/ethnic divides in society. They emphasize the differences and not the cohesion. The content is so broad that hundreds or even thousands could be added. Ancient ethnicity is not a particularly relevant discriminant in a multicultural nation. WWGB 14:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Racial prejudice is not going to go away just because some people pretend there is no racial differences amongst people. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ancient, current, or perceived ethnicity is extremely relevant in America (eg - as above). But how is political correctness relevant to a keep/delete recommendation here? — Becksguy 08:21, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - there may be certain lists that aren't as relevant as let's say 'German Americans' or 'Irish Americans'. The contributions made by first and second generation Americans from places like Germany, Ireland, England, Italy, etc. are vast and early and should be documented. With that being said, I don't think you can allow one group and not another. It would be sad to see this leave. Alexander_Lau 14:48:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep To relist seperately. i said 20:59, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions.   —Kappa 21:34, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Since most of the proposed deletions come from Lists of Americans, do you suggest deleting every list on Lists of Americans? If yes, with this reasoning, do you mean to delete every list of ethnic/regional/national people such as List of Poles, Lists of Jews, List of French people, etc.? After all, the collection of "List of X Americans" is merely an "organized list of notable Americans" instead of, in your view, "X residing in Y combinations". Count de Chagny 01:29, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Count de Chagny 19:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete not only does this list people who are by no means american, like Tixa Penicheiro, but also people with very faint and unsourced links to Portugal, besides, lista are next to useless, categories exist for a reason. Galf 09:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - very similar to what 'Hong Qi Gong' stated, then take it to the Talk area. Delete 'Tixa Penicheiro' if you feel that person is inappropriately being listed. Alexander_Lau 11:40:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Categories are plain lists of names, which are next to useless compared to annotated and structured lists of names. They exist for the reason that manual lists are not automatically generated, and even something as pathetic as a category list is better than nothing. Kappa 07:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete These lists fill up Wiki with useless information. A major problem in the ethnicity articles is having these sorts of lists of everyone who is part of said ethnicity.Dark Tea  &#169;  11:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep - The United States is probably one of the few societies that put a pathetically large ammount of burocracy to divide their population by ethnicity and Wikipedia must reflect that. -  Ca ri bb e a  n ~ H. Q.  16:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know why everyone thinks this but where has anyone suggested we remove all references to ethnicity from wikipedia? The argument for deletion doesn't consist of "ethnicity is irrelevant" but "these lists are unmaintainable and give the wrong idea." As described above, anybody can be placed on these lists no matter how distant their background is, only if some source describes them as such. And as we all know, you can find just about anything on the internet. Another problem, like in the Latin American lists, is that...there simply aren't sources (especially not in English) to use. And so digging up the most periphery mentions of it to use as sources don't establish why it is notable. On the other hand, categories do and will always exist for ethnicity, and will be justified by a mention of the ethnicity in the article, likely along with its relevance. You can't do that for these lists. Bulldog123 18:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Another problem with some of these lists, List of Chilean Jews for example, is an abundance of red links and a paucity of blue links. If editors don't think these people are notable enough to write Wikipedia articles about, they're not notable enough to be added to lists such as these. — Malik Shabazz (Talk | contribs) 19:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Bulldog - I had no idea that difficulty in maintainence is criteria for deletion. Care to point out where this is stated?  And yeah, you can find just about anything on the internet.  But that's why we're supposed to be using reliable sources.  You can read WP:Reliable sources to get an idea what kinds of sources are considered reliable.  So a blog of some 15-year old claiming that such-and-such is Italian American should not mean that the person gets added to the Italian American list.  And it's possible that for some of the lists above, no reliable sources exist as references to keep the list populated.  In which case, sure, let's delete them.  But firstly, how about bringing it up in a Talk page?  "Can editors please find reliable sources to back up the claim that such-and-such is Swedish American?"  Has this been tried?  And secondly, this affirms why these lists ought not be listed all together in one single AfD.  Some of them are going to be more notable and more written about than others - this is a very simple concept and it really shouldn't be difficult to understand at all.  I mean, topics like "French Americans"?  I really don't know how notable that is.  But I've personally read multiple books specifically about Asian Americans and Chinese Americans, and they usually make mention of notable persons in these demographics.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 20:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It can be if consensus finds it so. For the kazillionth time, the categories are not, and will never be, considered for deletion. So all these arguments about Asian ethnicity being relevant are pointless. The best place for that type of stuff is the article Asian American and a relevant category. Bulldog123 23:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If these lists can be deleted based on the argument that it's difficult to maintain (who qualifies to be added, what sources to use as references, etc), then I don't see why similar categories cannot be deleted for the same reasons. And lists can do more than what categories can do.  The lists can group people by occupation, for example, and give short descriptions of why they're notable.  Not to mention lists can include red links.  Categories cannot do any of the above.  Morever, AfDs are not supposed to be binding polls.  Technically speaking, closing admins are to consider the arguments presented and decide for themselves if the articles nominated should or should not be deleted.  And what I'm pointing out is that difficulty in article maintainence is not criteria for deletion.  Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 05:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * keep bad nomination. Not legitimate concerns.-- Sef rin gle Talk 03:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep all and speedy close. I am extremely uncomfortable with mass deletions/discussions.  I can understand why the nominator proposed this—his concern about perceived bias. However, the perceived advantage here is massively outweighed by the disadvantages.   The discussion has already become very hard to follow, including comments about lists in general, ethnicity, ethnic lists, hyphenated-American lists, maintainability of these lists, specific articles (as to included or not included articles), who belongs on which list (and how many), and even a few specific persons.  In other words, the discussion has become very unfocused. The lists in question seem to range from badly written and maintained to well done.  And, according to some comments, range in notability also.  If a list has maintainability, quality, notability, or any other appropriate criteria issues, that discussion belongs on its talk page, or on an individual AfD discussion page, not in an unfocused group deletion discussion page.  Never mind that the closing admin will have to deal with the nightmare of trying to sort out which comments belong to which article, subset of articles, all of them, or none of them (being too general or off topic) and then try to look for a consensus on each article. Or even worse, decide to delete all of them as a group, as some editors are urging. Inevitability, there will be complaints of unfairness, and lack of input to the process, and rightly so.  I just don’t see how this process can be applied thoughtfully in such a short time across all these articles.  The process of AfD nominating and discussing an article is like placing it on academic probation.  Improve, or out.  The article can be improved while the discussion proceeds, which is part of the process.  How can a group of articles realistically be sufficiently improved to meet the concerns in such a short time?  Each article should be dealt with individually and unhurriedly, following process, so that we end up with better articles, not less articles.  Discussion about lists in general should not appear here, or on individual articles, but in some other, more abstract forum.  There is no policy against lists in general. In fact, some editors say that they keep laundry lists from cluttering up the parent article.  I’m very concerned about healthy babies being thrown out with the potentially moribund babies in the bath water of what feels a bit like anti-list deletionism. So lets speedy close this discussion without prejudice. If there is a concern with an individual article, the editor with that concern nominates it for speedy, prod, or AfD as appropriate, so it can follow process properly and fairly. IMO. — Becksguy 11:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all - we already have, for example Category:Portuguese-Americans, and there is no possible way to link the members of this list together, except that one of their ancestors was Portuguese. ugen64 17:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep- The list is informative and just blatantly should not be deleted. Socom49 20:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete all per WP:NOT --Shirahadasha 21:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Close this discussion with no prejudice toward future individual nominations. Previous mass nominations composed of similar articles have failed to gain consensus due to the differences from one article to the next.  It is therefore wiser to consider these articles individually. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 16:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Many of these lists cover highly notable topics that are widely written about. Ethnicity is very important to many people and should not be disregarded in a cavalier fashion.  Anyway, this AfD covers a heterogeneous collection; why not restrict it to people from the USA?--Bedivere 19:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep I can see what the nominator intends, and I agree with those intentions, either keep all or delete all, however I see he has refrained from nominating Lists of African Americans probably on the grounds that such a nomination would be divisive. However the same logic applies and to delete any one of these lists, sets a precedent that all such lists should be deleted.KTo288 01:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Response There is no such thing as precedent in deletion discussions. All articles are judged based on Wikipedia policy and so forth, and every discussion exists independent of every other discussion. The outcome of one discussion does not necessarily have any bearing on separate discussions of similararticles (see also WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS). Calgary 02:50, 23 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.