Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people from Republic County, Kansas


 * 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 merge to Republic County, Kansas. Or, alternately, merge to List of people from Kansas. In any case, consensus seems to be fairly strong that lists of people from individual US counties an individual list of people from this particular county is not necessary. &mdash;SW&mdash; converse 17:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

List of people from Republic County, Kansas

 * – ( View AfD View log )


 * There is already a List of people from Kansas, which should be sufficient. No reason is given why Republic County, Kansas is notable enough to merit such a list.
 * If there are truly people who are notable because they are somehow associated with this county, then they could be added to a section within the Republic County article. This article is a better example:[] Note that it doesn't list everyone who happened to be born there; it just details citizens who were noteworthy within that county during their lives.
 * In this Republic County list, for example Lloyd Cardwell and Edwin C. Johnson both seem to have spent most of their time in Nebraska. *Again, the criteria is *not* notability of the people. From WP:MOS:"When establishing membership criteria for a list, ask yourself: If this person/thing/etc., wasn't an X, would it reduce their fame or significance? Would I expect to see this person or thing on a list of X? Is this person or thing a canonical example of some facet of X?"
 * WP:LC also says "The list should originate as a section within that article, and should not be broken out into a separate article until it becomes so long as to be disproportionate to the rest of the article."
 * In addition, per WP:LISTN, "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources." There aren't any independent notable sources cited that reference people from Republic County
 * Thus I'd suggest that this and other county-notable lists created by this editor be merged into the county articles as a separate section, and focus the contents on people who are really notable for having done something for that county, not just having happened to have been born there. Karl.brown (talk) 12:57, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge with Republic County, Kansas, as per just about every other place in the world that we have articles on. The list has to be very large to justify splitting off, and this isn't. Emeraude (talk) 14:02, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * this and other county-notable lists created by this editor Really? You start off with a personal attack?  Any similar article created by me should automatically be removed because you don't like this one?  In the interest of having a fair and full discussion, I suggest that such comments be struck before moving forward.  Actually, I suggest that this AFD be closed administratively and a new one opened without those statements.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Paul, sorry it wasn't intended as a personal attack. It was more of a suggestion that, if other admins agree to merge this one, then we should merge the others as well - I just noticed you had created a number of them, and rather go through this process one by one, perhaps we could come to a general consensus for these types of lists (i.e. List of people from County X, list of people from small town Y, etc). --Karl.brown (talk) 16:47, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Apology accepted. Let's move forward on the discussion (which is what matters anyway!).  I'm going to move forward first by improving the article in question to address the issues before responding further in the discussion.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep for starters, go here [] for a discussion of the county history. This list is far from complete.  Time prevents me from writing more...--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:17, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Kansas-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 20:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 20:32, 25 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Merge to Republic County, Kansas. This list is relatively short (only 8 people listed) and would not make the county article overly long if it were merged in. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Bibliography Here is a link to a selected bibliography of the county history As you can see, it is a topic of discussion for more than just myself.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what that list establishes. Most of the titles on that list don't imply that the publications discuss residents who would be considered notable (at least not by Wikipedia standards). Maybe those publications do discuss such persons, but some editor would have to provide confirmation of that. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:23, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Or one could simply read the title of most of the entries: 1) "Pioneer Memories"; 2) "History of Bands in Belleville Goes Back to Early Days"; 3) "Mrs. Joseph Johnson Tells of Pioneer Day Incidents of Late Charles Isaacson"; 4) "Osborne Family Among the Early Tillers of Soil"; 5) "Lone Homesteader of Beaver, Norway [Townships]"; 6) "Two More Veterans of Civil War Here"; 7) "Coming to Kansas for Health in 1871, E.D. Haney, Pioneer Lived to be 83"; 8) "Pioneers Were Hardy Lot as They Settled Republic County"; 9) "Settling in County in 1868 the Charles Family Encountered Indians in Early Days"; 10) "Tom Lovewell Government Scout in Early Days Came to Kansas in 1850".  That's ten independent references from 1931 to 1961 on people from the county just from the title of the article.  Further, many of the other titles in the bib can be reasonable to assume that people in the county will be at least some of the topics, such as "New Scandinavia's Ninety-Three Years, 1868-1961: From Indian Days to Space Dreams" or "A Gift to the Future Our Heritage: A History of Agenda and Elk Creek Township".  This is all clearly verifiable information.  While it should be verified, the gap between verifiable and verified is not grounds for deletion.  See WP:VERIFY.--Paul McDonald (talk) 10:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Updates as you can see from recent changes at Republic County, Kansas, there is hardly room to extend the details further and the list is definitely warranted.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Another source Here is another source including sections of biographical data of people from the early days of the county. --Paul McDonald (talk) 00:07, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I would note that mention in a single book does not usually equal notability. Notability is based on multiple independent secondary sources WP:BASIC. From reading several of these biographies, it's not clear what makes them notable. --Karl.brown (talk) 01:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I would note that we're talking about more than a single book here. Greta Granstedt has 15 sources on her article alone.  Richard Wilke has 6.  And on and on.  If you want to address the notability of any article on the list, I guess you can do that but I'd recommend starting a different AFD to get into that.  Any and/or all of them currently on the list could at least theoretically be considered not notable and deleted, but that does not mean that the list article we're covering here shouldn't exist and couldn't be re-built from the other potential candidates for inclusion in this list.  But as for the WP:BASIC standard, I'm pretty sure that most if not all of those on the list have at least met if not exceeded that mark.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:40, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, when I said 'biographies' I meant the biographies from the Cutler book you referenced above, I wasn't trying to challenge notability of Greta. In addition, the Cutler book (and the bibliographies you cited from the Kansas historical society) cover every county in Kansas, not just Republic County, which suggests it is not inherently more notable than other counties. I guess that's why I think this brings up a larger question - what is the standard for notability for a list like this? The references used to defend this list could be used to defend a similar list for every county in Kansas (and eventually every county in the US). Finally, it's not clear what is the standard for inclusion on this list. For example, Allen Wikgren, according to his bio, was born in Chicago, and died in Wisconsin; his only connection with Republic county seems to be his time as a Minister, which doesn't seem to be the thing he's most notable for, and it's not clear how many years this lasted.--Karl.brown (talk) 04:05, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * On Wikgren: that is a prime example why this list should exist. Including him with a paragraph summary in the county article wouldn't be appropriate at all, because there are others that are better suited for that setting.  But having this list allows a central location with some brief commentary and references for a larger group that might not quite fit in the county article.  Further, the list provides the option for more detail and quick references from one page, unlike a category which is limited to just existing article names.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:36, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * "The references used to defend this list could be used to defend a similar list for every county in Kansas (and eventually every county in the US)." So what? postdlf (talk) 03:26, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Paul McDonald (talk) 04:44, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment there has been significant changes in the list since it was nominated. Just thought anyone passing along would like to get caught up.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge to Republic County, Kansas, as the notable people from a certain place are an unquestionably valid subtopic of that place. Who the list should include, and whether it is too long to keep in the place article instead of splitting off or should be merged back, are matters for normal editing and discussion to handle. Per WP:ATD deletion is off the table so this AFD should never have been started. postdlf (talk) 03:23, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) The list has been broken into classifications
 * 2) The list has grown in size form 8 to 19
 * 3) The Republic County, Kansas article section has grown to provide details of selected people and no longer has room for such a list, thus warranting a separate list article.
 * Prune and convert/change to category, namely Category:People from Republic County, Kansas. This is what categories are for (and "people from..." should, with a few exceptions, be just where people are born). - The Bushranger One ping only 06:59, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment per WP:CLN, I think that would be a huge mistake. This list article provides so much more than a category:  1)  supplemental image; 2) supplemental information; 3) sources; 4) history of contents; 5) Can be edited and modified to include information about people who do not currently have an article; 6) Can include other linked information like Philadelphia Eagles; 7) items on the list can be linked to specific sections of articles; 8) templates can be added; 9) list is presently sorted by topic classification rather than alphabetical; 10) list articles like this one show up in search engines where categories do not.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Re: your "should...be just where people are born", that's not a "should" most editors follow, nor is it even going to be the best option in many cases (more than a few exceptions). It's not at all uncommon for people to grow up or live and work in a place other than where they were born. postdlf (talk) 13:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree such as Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Texas but always said he was "from" Abilene, Kansas. Just one example among many.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:19, 2 April 2012 (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.