Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/debated


 * 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 of the debate was DELETE. -Doc ask? 00:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/debated
Almost entirely original research, which is really all it ever can be. It seems that the main purpose of the article is to speculate on celebrities' and politicians' sexuality. This kind of article is not contemplated under Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality, and should be deleted.


 * Delete. Jersyko   talk  06:25, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. The sibling articles on people who self-identify as GLB seem fine in principle (some editors have been trying to cleanup citations, but it's doable with work).  But anyone is trivially "debatably" GLB; there's nothing except original research to decide which debates are plausible, and which merely, well, debatable. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. OR. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 12:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom. CalJW 13:10, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. I'm sure this article will be of interest to a lot of people, just as a lot of people buy gossip magazines. but the fact that the article starts with the phrase "who some people legitimately believe" shows some of its problem. Just what is a legitimate belief and how does one define it or differentiate it from other beliefs?  Vague, incomplete and poorly-defined.-  Crunch 14:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete agree with Lulu and Crunch -- SusanLarson (User Talk, New talk, Contribs) 19:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. --Revolución (talk) 22:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete There's a school of thought that everyone is on a spectrum of bisexuality. Although I don't believe that in principle it means anyone can be placed here. Even taking that aside it's basically open to wild speculation/nonsense. Just as many of these "List of people alleged to be X" type deals would be, but in this case moreso as the subject is of greater interest.--T. Anthony 00:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Not encyclopedic RicDod 11:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Incognito 01:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Although I recognize that such a list can be problematic, I don't see it as a delete per se. Here's why:
 * There are a significant number of people for whom an ongoing debate about their sexuality is a pretty central part of understanding their historical and cultural context. William Shakespeare, for example, wrote a large number of love sonnets addressed to other males; it's impossible to understand his context without at least acknowledging that an unresolved debate about the deeper meaning of that fact exists.
 * There are even a significant number of people (e.g. Morrissey, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie) who've deliberately cultivated a sense of sexual ambiguity as part of their marketing strategy. In Morrissey's case, particularly, the debate isn't just a part of his cultural context as with Shakespeare — to a very large extent, that sexual ambiguity is the cultural context of his work, and divorcing him from that context would be entirely wrong. (And yes, Bowie later recanted and therefore shouldn't be listed as "debated", but that doesn't change the fact that an ambiguous sexual presentation was part of his public persona at one time.)
 * It is not original research to report on the existence of a debate that's already been placed in the public sphere by other people outside of Wikipedia, so characterizing this as OR is a misrepresentation.
 * Deleting this list actually increases the likelihood of people being inappropriately added to the "confirmed" lists. We already have an ongoing problem with people being listed as confirmed GLBT based on circumstantial evidence, even with this list available — without this list that problem will become even more uncontrollable.
 * My bottom line, basically, is that I don't see why this needs to be held to different standards than the confirmed list: names listed should provide some support, either in the article itself or through listed sources, that a debate about the person's sexual orientation legitimately exists in the public sphere, and otherwise a name shouldn't be listed at all. If that standard is properly met, however, I don't see why this can't be a keep. Bearcat 22:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I definitely see Bearcat's point. In the examples he names, there's something notable about their sexuality being "debated".  There are a couple reasons this doesn't quite persuade me to change my vote though:
 * Given that just what is notable in each debate varies widely, do we really lose anything in having these discussions only in the subject articles? I definitely think it's worth mentioning that David Bowie said he was bisexual in the 1970s, but said he was straight in the 1990s (and it's not hard to meet WP:V on this fact). If the list had meaningful annotations about exactly what the nature of the "debate" is in each case, I might be more sympathetic; but it doesn't, and I'm not up to the huge effort of making it so personally.
 * The quality of the list as it stands is absolutely terrible. Names are added almost at random, or on "a friend-of-a-friend told me" basis.  Not to say that some of the same problem hasn't applied to the "confirmed" lists; but we've made a good start at improving the quality of those others (and cites are more straightforward: e.g. the person really said something to so-and-so newspaper).  But this "debated" one seems even more gossipy, and more or less certain to stay there if it is kept. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:21, 19 January 2006 (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.