Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Shi'a Muslims


 * 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. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 01:03, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

List of Shi'a Muslims

 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Islam-related deletion discussions.

AfDs for this article: 
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First, articles of these kind of things shouldn't be existed, that's why the categories are there for. Secondly the person who made this article is adding football players, which if we go by this, others will make lists for footballers of each sect and religion in this word... Imagine how many useless articles will be in Wikipedia.. List of Christians footballers, list of Christian Catholic Footballers, List of Christian Orthodox footballers, list of.. Suna footballers, Ismailizim footballers, Druz footballers, Jews footballers, Buddhism footballers … etc. Again, that's why the categories are there for. Mussav (talk) 00:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak keep, although if no attempt is made to source the article, then delete it. I don't know where the idea comes up that we'll have a zillion "list of _____ footballers" articles.  Don't we have articles about individual Christian church denominations called List of Baptists, List of Methodists, etc., some of whom may be athletes?  What's the difference? Mandsford (talk) 14:33, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. This kind of list would allow things like List of right handed politicians or List of baseball players with red hair or List of blond actresses.  Wikipedia may not be paper, but it is still a good idea to keep Listcruft down. Googlemeister (talk) 15:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete per Googlemeister. B.Rossow talk contr 18:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Some folks don't like lists, but they have been allowed from the earliest days of Wikipedia, and we have lots of lists on various subjects. I may not agree with the (sometimes extreme) religious beliefs of followers of the Shi'ite sect, but a list of such persons is not ridiculous as suggested.  I cannot at all see comparing a list of people who subscribe to a particular belief system to a "list of right-handed politicians" or a "list of baseball players with red hair".  Mandsford (talk) 22:32, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a Category already exists of such thing and more useful, Category:Shi'a Muslims. so what is the point of creating of articles? Mussav (talk) 00:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Categories are seldom more useful than lists, although both categories and lists are acceptable. On a good list, one can tell at a glance what the different persons are notable for.  I like a category if I have time to click on each entry one by one.  If I want to know what I'm looking for, a category isn't much help at all.  However, I'm glad that you've pointed out that we do have a category called "Shi'a Muslims".  It indicates that Shi'a Muslim, unlike "baseball players with red hair", is considered important enough to take note of. Mandsford (talk) 02:12, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. as long as each name either links to an article which mentions that the subject is a Shi'a Muslim, or if a redlink or nonlink a reference here for notability AND religion, how is this any different than the aforementioned List of Baptists, List of Methodists? This is an easily verifiable list with definable inclusion criteria. its not "cruft", as this is a real religious denomination, and affiliation with it is eminently notable, and a major factor in the public persona for many of these people. dividing the list into subcategories could become hairsplitting, but the degree of categorization of the list is not an argument for deletion. proposing this for deletion opens up for deletion every list with definable inclusion criteria that has lots of links to existing articles. thats all of them. while i agree that there is often redundancy between lists and categories, and i do prefer category over list for things like this, if someone wants to put in the effort to create this list, and others make some effort to maintain it, i say leave it. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 01:43, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - The list of Shia Islam is actually un-sourced and disputed so this article does not match the criteria in many ways. Mussav (talk) 02:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Other than unsourced (which is the main problem that I see with this), what other criteria do you think it doesn't meet? As noted, we have a category tag added for Shi'a Muslims, and we have other lists of people of a certain religion.  List of Baptists is quite well-sourced.  On the other hand, List of Methodists suffers the same problem as this list.  So what's the difference between List of Shi'a Muslims and List of Methodists?  Easy.  Nobody would dare nominate a list of Methodists.  To do so would attract a swarm of !keep votes and "this can be rescued" comments from white American, Australian and British men who grew up around Christians.  But a list of Shi'a Muslims?  Nah.  I'd say that most Wikipedians, even if they do one of those "Why some of my best friends are Muslims" lines, wouldn't know or care whether that person was Shi'a, Sunni, Wahhabi, etc.  Mandsford (talk) 12:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
 * comment I too have some concerns about whether this article may get some unfairly biased commentators. I hope and trust that WP will try to avoid that kind of behavior. this list is not the same as a list of "islamists" which is probably a much more controversial term. and to address Mussavs issues of sourcing and disputed content: the blue links dont need sources in this article, only in the article they point to. and any blue linked name where the persons religion is either not sourced or not patently obvious (say, leaders of nations with solid shi'a govts), should just be removed. they can always be added later if a source is found. I dont like saying "why not improve it by checking the linked articles?" cause it always sounds like im abrogating responsibility, but then i remember this is a voluteer effort, and im not obliged to go any further than i feel. (though i do try to not start projects and stop them midway, leaving articles half cleaned half not).Mercurywoodrose (talk) 15:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment - Look at this - Lists of Jews. Izzedine (talk) 06:24, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete This is way too broad of a topic for us to pretend to have a list that covers each of the entities with due respect. This is appropriate for a category, but as there are many different Shi'ite sects it would be inappropriate blend them together within one list article and assert that their religion is a defining characteristic which bonds them all together, which is the inherant nature of list-type articles. Instead, I would advocate lists of a smaller scope where the clumping of individuals has more encyclopedic relevance; such as a list of Imams, list of companions to Muhammad, list of theologians, etc  Them  From  Space  04:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Couldnt we then have this article broken up into sections, by sect or other terms relevant to Shi'a Muslims? That would be like having a "lists of christians", with various sects, and eventually each could have a separate list as it developed.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep - When all these exist -
 * Lists of Jews
 * List of Jewish historians
 * List of Jewish scientists and philosophers
 * List of Jewish nobility
 * List of Jewish economists
 * List of Jewish United States Supreme Court justices
 * List of Jews in literature and journalism
 * List of Jews in the performing arts
 * List of Jewish actors and actresses
 * List of Jewish musicians
 * List of Jews in politics
 * List of Jews in religion
 * List of Jews in the visual arts
 * List of Jews in sports
 * List of Asian Jews
 * List of fictitious Jews
 * List of Jewish feminists
 * List of Jewish pacifists, peace activists and supporters
 * List of Sephardi Jews
 * List of Asian Jews
 * List of South-East European Jews
 * List of East European Jews
 * List of West European Jews
 * List of North European Jews
 * List of Jews from the Arab World
 * List of Jews from Sub-Saharan Africa
 * List of Latin American Jews
 * List of Oceanian Jews
 * List of Galician Jews
 * List of converts to Judaism
 * List of Sephardic Jews
 * List of Karaite Jews
 * Crypto-Jews
 * It would be unacceptable to delete it. Izzedine (talk) 06:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment - IMO, These lists should be deleted and converted to categories. A list of Asian Jews and A List of African Jews? Isn't that discrimination? List of a religion separated by race... interesting. Mussav (talk) 14:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * can we please have civility? this type of arguing is unconstructive and to most people i suspect crosses over into racism, antisemitism, or prejudice against islam. NONE of this is relevant. Shi'a Islam is a major, documented branch of Islam, and lists of people of that faith can and should be created, as long as they are verifiable and have objective inclusion criteria. the same goes for all the other lists above. I would suspect major Jewish and Moslem social scientists would agree on this.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 15:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Mussav has not said anything uncivil. I would add that to the extent that anyone intends to suggest that another person is a bigot, that is most definitely not civil.  I'm assuming that it is not your intent to imply that anyone else in this discussion is guilty of racism, anti-Semitism (whether Judaism or Islam), etc.  I'm like Mussav; I think it's kind of unusual that all of the articles listed as examples seem to have the word "Jews" in them, but that's just my observation.  Mandsford (talk) 16:06, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * you are correct, no incivility has occurred. but i am very concerned that we are starting to move away from what are considered valid reasons for having lists. there is NOTHING "discriminatory" about having lists of people by nationality, ethnicity, religion. these are facts. if the lists are well sourced, have inclusion criteria that make sense, and someone, anyone, wants to create and help grow the list, then it stands. i actually am more inclined to support categories over lists, but lists are here to stay (some are poorly defined, though). some lists do provide more information than the categories, esp. when the name has birth and death years, and a few words about notability. I would support having more lists for each and every ethnic group and religion, and having names appear on multiple lists. What i would NOT support is peoples names going on lists where its not crystal clear they beling on the list, or crystal clear that that notability is somehow connected to the lists subject. i wouldnt want people who privately practice their religion listed publicly. and im sorry if i implied bad intent, i was just concerned about the way the arguments were being presented. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 17:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The reason why all the examples I listed are about Jews is because I copied the list from the Lists of Jews page, in case my earlier comment would be ignored, to show how many lists there are for Jews alone. That I had to explain this is frustrating. Izzedine (talk) 20:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
 * i am sorry if seemed to misunderstand you, or offended you. your point, though, is well taken, though we have to be careful about invoking other articles to justify one particular one. however, i think the evidence (some of which you show here) is overwhelming that we have many list articles on nearly exactly parallel subjects, and they are not being subject to afd's.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 01:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep as a useful list per WP:LIST, yet not because WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Bearian (talk) 00:35, 30 September 2009 (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.