Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of homeschooled individuals (2nd nomination)


 * 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. I did think about just ruthlessly trimming this to properly sourced entries, but there would've been practically nothing left once we'd removed the entries sourced to blogs, a forum, user-generated content sites and HomeSchoolAcademy.com. More problematically, though, the exact definition of "homeschooling" is vague (for example, should someone who only became homeschooled as a teenager be included?). WP:NOT appears to apply here, and I am also mindful of User:Ecoleetage's comments. Black Kite 20:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

List of homeschooled individuals
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Previous AfD resulted in a merge. List violates WP:NOT, and provides no meaningful context. Five Years 12:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.   --  Beloved  Freak  13:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - As currently constituted, this is a very incomplete list of almost unrelated elements. (It mixes a few notable historical people who were educated at home in prior centuries before common schools existed with a few notable contemporary people who were educated at home.) Without annotation, it is no more useful and informative than the online homeschooling forum posts from which the content seems to have been based. There may be value in a thoroughly sourced and well-annotated list that explains the circumstances under which each listed person was home-educated, but until such a list is ready to be published, the most notable examples could be discussed in Homeschooling. --Orlady (talk) 13:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions.   —Orlady (talk) 13:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Unnecessary list. The information provided by the list are trivial. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 13:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, not entirely fair to say "First nomination ended in merge vote", when the first nomination consisted of an articlespace with the same title that the creator himself asked to be merged because it was a list with only one name on it. In addition, how does this violate NOINFO anymore than any other list? Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 16:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, per Sherurcij. - Diligent Terrier  (and friends) 18:23, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - there are lists of notable alumni and university people, aren't there? This is just a different kind of school. Basketball110  My story/Tell me yours 20:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per Orlady. The problem is that the definition of "homeschooling" here is far too loose.  To include Lincoln and Shackleton, for instance...  well, you'd probably have to include also the vast majority of (say) the British aristocracy, and the entire British royal family until Prince Charles (who was, I think, the first to be sent to a "regular" school), not to mention vast swathes of the third world (where children are too poor to go to school) and so on. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree it needs refining, issues that should be raised on its talk page. I'd favour it being renamed and having a narrower focus to people in the 20th and 21st century who were homeschooled. But again, isn't that an issue for the talk page of the article, rather than a call to delete the entire thing? If we delete it, and somebody tries to recreate it "properly" in the future, they'll see it get re-deleted as "previously deleted list". Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 21:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Saying that everyone was homeschooled before compulsory schools is wrong, and I would like to point out that all through history in many places (like the Roman empire) schools were quite possibly as popular as they were now, making homeschooling at that time as rare is it is now. - Diligent Terrier  (and friends) 22:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This issue is currently being discussed on the article talk page with Diligent Terrier thinking we should include people from past century and other believing to not include them. This is not a reason to delete however. Zginder 2008-05-19T12:15Z (UTC)
 * Delete as per Orlady. "Homeschooled until the third grade" ? "Taught by a governess" ? There's no meaningful definition here. DS (talk) 12:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep WP:NOT is irrelevant here, WP:Home is working to resolve all the issues with the page itself such as ref. and inclusion criteria. Zginder 2008-05-19T13:18Z (UTC)
 * Delete Not only is it indiscriminate collection of information but is also quite original. Someone who was self-taught or received their education prior to the creation of the notion of compulsory or para-compulsory education would really be struggling to fit this category even if they were in effect schooled at home. Also agree with DF67 on the definitional aspects. Orderinchaos 17:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 11:03, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per Orlady. Article with the same title can easily be created using a narrower definition of homeschooling inline with the accepted modern definition of that term. Said article would not be a recreation of previously deleted material because it would not be similar enough to this one to meet that criteria. Jasynnash2 (talk) 13:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: Actually, WP:NOT is quite relevant here. That there is a Wikiproject working on homeschooling issues doesn't automatically make a vague, unencyclopedic list anything more than a subjective trivia list which fails WP:NOT, and any definition of "homeschooled" the project could derive would still be subjective and mutable.    RGTraynor  14:22, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Although ... hang on, now that I think about it, there are enough home schooling articles on Wikipedia to sustain a Wikiproject? (raises an eyebrow, archly)    RGTraynor  15:22, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete The recently reinstated introductory note further clouds this pointless mishmash by conflating compulsory education and compulsory school attendance - these are not the same thing. The term Homeschooling is used predominantly in the US but the list usurps nationalities and individuals for whom the term (and concept) would have been alien. In the past there was nothing notable about children being educated at home.  Lame Name (talk) 14:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Yuck! Not only does that introductory note fail to explain what compulsory education has to do with homeschooling, but contrary to the assertion in the note, the list still includes individuals (such as Anton Bruckner) whose education clearly predated the era when common schools (compulsory or otherwise) were widely available. Additionally, the list includes people who probably would be more correctly described as self-taught, such as Irving Berlin; child actors whose alleged "homeschooling" most likely consisted of study by correspondence when they weren't performing (e.g., Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff); and more than a few people whose Wikipedia articles give no hint of home education (e.g., Wright brothers and Irving Berlin). --Orlady (talk) 16:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep per Lists (discriminate and verifiable list). Consistent as well with First pillar in that almanacs typically contain lists.  Also, per the GFDL, if anything was in fact merged to somewhere else then those contribs need to be restored per Merge and delete.  Sincerely, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 16:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment The list seems to be copied straight from a homeschooling site, which has its own biases, obviously, in favor of homeschooling. Were these celebrities home-schooled during all of their school years, or just for a year or two?  Were they educated by a parent, or by a tutor (guys like the one who was "educated by a governess" weren't home-schooled, they were "tutored").  It's a valid topic, so I don't want to see it deleted, but as it is now, it seems to be propaganda along the lines of "if the Wright Brothers were homeschooled, your child will be a success too".  Mandsford (talk) 19:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete due to vague and over-broad inclusion criteria (per WP:SAL). The first problem, noted above, is the definition of "homeschooled". The second is: are these only notable people? If so, how is notability defined in the context of the list? Jakew (talk) 20:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, agree that WP:NOT most certainly applies here. Arkyan 20:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete as a group of unrelated items for lots of trivia. Also, Mandsford was concerned on its neutrality and probably a copyright violation. Alexius08 is welcome to talk about his contributions. 23:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Neutral. I can imagine this list becoming reasonably good, if the following standards are enforced: (1) every entry must be sourced to a reliable source, and I don't count the indiscriminate list at HomeSchoolAcademy.com as a reliable source; and (2) nobody born before a specified date (for example, 1900) should be included, because the list itself purports to exclude people from before the era of compulsory schooling. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Number three should not be done. Any one that was raised where their was compulsory schooling, but was rather schooled at home should be included. The world did not make schooling compulsory at the same time. Zginder 2008-05-21T16:04Z (UTC)
 * In that case, there should be some exclusion date for each relevant country (or part of a country if applicable), which should be specified on the page itself. I'm not sure how the inclusion of Philipp Melanchthon (born 1497) is currently justified. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep with clearer criteria ?1950+ and requiring sources for the individuals. Improve, don't delete. DGG (talk) 03:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete A wildly incomplete hodgepodge. This looks more like propaganda to promote home schooling than a serious article on the subject. Ecoleetage (talk) 13:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep It is a legitimate topic. 05:24, 25 May 2008 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cooltobekind (talk • contribs)


 * 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.