Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people known as war heroes

This page is an archive of the discussion surrounding the proposed deletion of a page entitled List of people known as war heroes.

Further comments not related to deletion should be made on the talk page rather than here.

The result of the debate was to keep the page.


 * List of notable war heroes. How can the use of the words "notable" and "war hero" ever be NPOV? RickK 05:29, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. The first paragraph of the article answers your question. This article may need renaming, but the content is as worthy of Wikipedia as other such lists ;-). -- Cyan 05:36, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, cannot be NPOV. If kept, move to List of war heroes per naming conventions. --Jia ng 05:44, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep Jack 06:33, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. The only diffeence between War Heroes and War Criminals is perspective.   Perhaps all suicide bombers should be automatically included in the list; or possibly they should be totally ruled out.    Or a compromise, include ours and delete their's.   Definitely Delete.ping 07:31, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Rename to List of Warriors only if those who have committed Crimes against humanity can be kept out of it. Otherwise, delete. Humus sapiens 07:39, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Irredeemably POV. Bmills 09:44, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * the objections here are inadaquate. The list includes rommel and benidict arnold, both people who are disliked by some, and neither of which was on "our" (USA) side. Look up the word hero. Its not only POV, sometimes it is a historical fact. I find this attempt to remove a clearly encyclopedic article to be POV in itself (angry rant removed by author in respect for good taste). Jack 09:56, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * How do you propose that the term hero will be defined to everyone's satisfaction? The current definition at the top of the article leans on recognition by a state, and so excludes many that may be heros to the stateless (also, what of anarchist heroes?). As a pacifist, I might consider everyone on this list a criminal. I see no way of this list ever being NPOV. Bmills 10:25, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Nothing is ever truely NPOV. An encyclopedia is trying to provide information in as unbiased a manner as possible. To ignore the common definition of war hero (someone who has distinguished themselves in military service to a state) and substitute your own paridigm (war is bad, non-state entities or persons are equivilent to states, the word Hero in its traditional meaning is meaningless, etc....) is counter to the utilitarian purpose of an encyclopedia. The word Hero has been, and will continue to be, used objectively in regards to those who have distinguished themselves in combat in service to a state. I do think that a paragraph about the issues relating to the word hero, and a link to an article on dubious individuals such as Revoloutionaries/terrorist's like Osama or Che would be appropriate Jack 10:39, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * the common definition of war hero (someone who has distinguished themselves in military service to a state). That's not really the common definition of war hero, though, is it? It just one which happens to be convenient for the purposes of arguing that this list might some day be neutral. Revolutionaries, for example, are by definition not in military service to a state, but clearly can be war heroes (e.g. Simón Bolívar). Why not just move this thing to list of people notable for military service and include the war criminals? Onebyone 11:47, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Or to put this another way, the reason we don't have List of good people and List of evil people is irredeemable POV. Similarly, I don't think it's a great idea to go creating List of heroes or List of villains. No matter how hard we try to create unambiguous local definitions of "hero" and "villain", it's ultimately a matter of opinion. Onebyone 12:14, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, agree with original assertion that "hero" and "notable" are just too POV. Fuzheado 13:33, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, the labelling of someone as a hero is subjective. Maximus Rex 17:58, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep under an NPOV name like the one I moved it to. Morwen 21:22, Jan 6, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Add sources if you must. Rmhermen 00:58, Jan 7, 2004 (UTC)