Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people from the United States

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was delete. Joyous 01:10, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

List of people from the United States
This is a textbook example of an unmaintainable, unnecessarily broad list that should certainly be coverted to categories. It is so incomplete that it's completely useless. For example, it doesn't list either Bush or Clinton in the politician category and doesn't have Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal or Barry Bonds in the Sports Persons category. Delete this article and either use existing categories or create new ones. Carrp | Talk 20:17, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, This list is incomplete. Nuh uh. Useless. What's next, List of everything that ever existed ever, honest!? Inter\Echo 20:32, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. If the aim is to categorize biographical articles in the Wikipedia according to whether they are about Americans, that is the purpose of categories.  Not that I'd favor the creation of that category, mind.   --BM 21:46, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I'd rather use categories instead of a large broad list. Zzyzx11 22:28, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. Of course, there are situations where a list is useful, especially when all of the articles in the list have not been started yet. But the list in question is not one of them. Zzyzx11 22:44, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, categories shouldn't take over completely from lists, but this is an exception to the rule. Mgm|(talk) 22:34, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. How many kilobytes would it take to list 260 million+ names anyway? 23skidoo 23:12, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * If we assume an average name length of, say, 16 letters (first, middle, last), then that would be about 3.4 GB? Hmm.. you know, for only around 710,000 TB we can have List of all DNA bases for all people in the United States! Remember guys, Wiki is not paper!--Fastfission 00:48, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Easier than that - A, T, G, C, U. There. That's all of 'em. DS 03:38, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia isn't paper, but still you have to draw the line somewhere! ;-) 23skidoo 06:15, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, unmaintainable pointless list. Megan1967 01:50, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Pointless and unencyclopedic. And by "unencyclopedic," I mean "it doesn't have any reason to exist." /s&#618;zl&#230;k  &#762;/  07:49, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, this is insane, something that would never be finished. How would anyone go by doing this, unless you had a bot automatically find every notable person in the U.S. and got it to put them all in here. -- Riffsyphon1024 07:51, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Jonathunder 03:53, 2005 Feb 28 (UTC)
 * Delete all unmaintainable lists. Jayjg (talk) 21:13, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Could also use a List of people from planet Earth.  &mdash;RaD Man (talk) 04:14, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming that you're not serious. If so, please don't make "joke" votes. Carrp | Talk 13:07, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. We have similar lists for many countries. Obviously, this should only be a list of people of encyclopedic notability. Like other such lists (vs. categories), allows the inclusion of people for whom articles should be written. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:10, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * How many people would you consider to be notable in the US? 10000? 50000? The list is so general and huge that it would be useless. For small countries, it may make sense to have an all-encompassing list. For a country with nearly 300 million people, the list is far too large. Carrp | Talk 13:05, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Probably it should mostly be breakouts to smaller lists. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:30, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete, mosnter useless list.--LexCorp 03:43, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete Unmaintainable monstrosity. --Lee Hunter 12:22, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.