Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of college dropout billionaires


 * 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. As evenly split as the arguments are in terms of number, I do not find sufficient evidence presented by those supporting keeping that this does not violate WP:NOTDIR, and that it is not trivia. However, I am cognizant of the opinion that information of this nature could be reasonably included encyclopedically somewhere, and will provide a copy of this article upon request to assist in that endeavor. Thank you to all discussants.  Go  Phightins  !  00:19, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

List of college dropout billionaires

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Why should this article exist? How is this a notable topic? It's just a list of people who happen to have two things in common. I don't believe it is encyclopedic.  Rcsprinter123    (jaw)  @ 17:47, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  Jinkinson   talk to me  00:06, 12 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete - Violates WP:NOTDIR (non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations) as a list of people who are X and are also Y. The sources provided relate only tangentially to the article topic - none of them deal in depth with the subject of the education levels of the super-wealthy. The article is woefully delineated in scope - the definition of "billionaire" seems to based on the US Dollar and on the opinions of a single magazine. A more appropriate title would be List of college dropouts who are billionaires according to Forbes and providing their wealth is measured in USD. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 01:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 02:50, 12 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep I find the topic interesting, that is, what is the relation between education and wealth. The presumption is that collegiate education helps people become affluent and wealthy, and the list is a counter-example -- showing people who became billionaires despite stopping their collegiate education before graduating. In my view, it's a useful list. The objections, above, can be handled quite easily, by simply noting that the term billionaire is based on US dollars, by using a specific methodology of a magazine.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:00, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
 * A single-nationality perspective based on a single source?? o_O ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 04:05, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Easily fixed: add billionaires from other countries, add additional sources, no big woof.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:47, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure enough, there is a precedent that has been set - The World's Billionaires is based on the USD and Forbes magazine. I've amended my !vote to reflect that. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 13:23, 14 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep I would opine that this is a useful, encyclopedic topic. If the article has problems, deletion is not the solution. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 04:37, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * What is the solution? ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 04:05, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep improving the article.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:47, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete per Suriel1981, Wikipedia is not a depository of information, nor an indiscriminate list of people. Sure, it's nice to see college dropouts become billionaires, but this is likely NPOVed to either encourage people that dropping out results in getting rich, or rich people who dropped out are very lucky. I'm not sure where this article suggests but it definitely leads to some questions. Ultimately, you'll have to point to the issues I stated earlier and come to the conclusion that this is not a list that needs an article. Aerospeed (Talk) 03:56, 15 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete this is an indiscriminate collection that corresponds to no rational category--it might conceivably be rational to have an article or section on ones with different degree of education, but not this one specific intermediary level between those who finished college and those who never attended.  DGG ( talk ) 04:26, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Rcsprinter123    (lecture)  @ 15:20, 22 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. Obviously interesting list topic, obviously subject of discussion frequently in the media.  Not indiscriminate at all, not a matter of random X category cross random Y category, not at all.  If one wants to expand it / revise it to cover different degrees of education, too, but what is well-known is that there are college dropouts who are billionaires, like Bill Gates etc.  It is not so much a topic of discussion to speak of high school dropouts or of Ph.D.s. who are billionaires;  I don't recall any general remarking about those types.  Give it a rest. -- do  ncr  am  00:55, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep but rename List of billionaires without college degrees. This gets rid of the arbitrariness of the criterion. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:15, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, I think it's not arbitrary: those who chose to drop out of college are sending a more stinging message, like "i don't need no stinkin' college".  I'm sure there are rich persons who didn't go to college, because they couldn't at the time, they were in the military or whatever, or they worked hard and hit paydirt in the Comstock Lode, or they were real purdy or real gold-diggers and married the right man.  Those are all rags-to-riches stories, which is a different genre, a different list.  The deliberate college dropouts becoming billionaires is an indictment of the hifalutin college-types.  You and I are agreed that it should be kept though, and sure, revising the focus of the article and/or creating an alternative list can be considered at its Talk page. -- do  ncr  am  02:10, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Now you're skating on thin ice. I doubt that many of the listed people dropped out to make some sort of social statement (which isn't even part of the explicit criteria). Mark Zuckerberg? Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Don't think so. They left to do something they found more interesting/profitable. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:03, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, sure, I shouldn't assert they were themselves trying to make a social statement. But part of the general interest in articles about these types is the perceived social statement that some others (me included) see as implicit in their actions.  And Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford were relatively uneducated (and not college educated), of the "rags-to-riches" genre, which is different than those who were in Harvard and chose to drop out because they had even better things to do.  I think there's room for list-articles about both types, and that they are different.  Sure, include indexing for inflation, else Carnegie (worth 380m a long time ago) would be excluded from the rags-to-riches list, while he should be included. -- do  ncr  am  21:01, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sam Walton (talk) 00:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete - pure trivia, an indiscriminate list with an arbitrary inclusion criteria. This is almost entirely cited to Forbes, and a lot of the coverage is actually on the millionaires/billionaires who didn't obtain degrees, NOT solely on those who dropped out of college/university, as this list portrays. Whilst there is obviously a lot of crossover there, it doesn't help make this current article notable. This list is also solely centred around modern-day folk; people in the past, with levels of wealth that are equivalent to a modern-day billion, are obviously not going to qualify. It even lacks people in the past who DID have this level of wealth, so is a case of WP:RECENTISM. WP:ILIKEIT arguments seem to be prevalent above. An article of List of billionaires without college degrees probably should exist, but I'm not seeing how the current article is worth keeping in any form, and the change in inclusion criteria is pretty dramatic, and thus, this content being in the history would be redundant. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 02:33, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't think "pure trivia" is necessarily a trigger for deletion as User:Lukeno94 says. Nor do I think the subject is not notable: it seems like at least several times a year I read an op-ed or magazine article about self-made billionaires like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and there is great public interest in how people become successful outside traditional avenues of material gain (college). As User:doncram says above, one of the things that makes the people in this list notable, besides that they are billionaires, is that they are billionaires in spite of dropping out of college. Having said that, I would vote keep (but I am abstaining as this is my first post in an AfD discussion), unless the info in this can be merged into the table at The World's Billionaires (e.g. a sortable "Education" column that would make it easy to find them). Also, I think we should consider whether "billionaire" is an arbitrary threshold (wouldn't dropout CEOs of Fortune 500 companies be equally interesting and meaningful) and whether to broaden college dropout to include those who never went to college at all—or does it already? Just my thoughts. Ultrauber (talk) 05:34, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Quick question Is this list including just US$ billionaires? It's based on the Forbes list, but does it include people not included in that list?  If kept, the list needs to be renamed, since any country with severe hyperinflation will have lots and lots of college dropout billionaires.  Nyttend (talk) 04:55, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No, there are more non-US nationals than there are Americans, or at least a rough 50/50 split; I don't know if they live in the US, or not. But yeah, the list would also need to be renamed, as most of Zimbabwe probably qualified at one point. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 08:28, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, not quite what I meant. Is everyone on this list either (1) worth more than $1 billion US, or (2) worth enough in another currency that it would convert to more than $1 billion US?  I'm trying to filter out the Zimbabwean dropouts, not people like Gautam Adani who are valued in rupees.  Nyttend (talk) 12:33, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, they certainly would appear to be, since basically everything is cited to Forbes. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 21:09, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It makes sense to set the cutoff at a billion dollars US. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:04, 2 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete - looks too much like someone's original research project, however interesting. Metamagician3000 (talk) 10:37, 7 December 2014 (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.