Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people on the postage stamps of Honduras


 * 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. ✗ plicit  23:53, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

List of people on the postage stamps of Honduras

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Still completely unsourced and un-maintained. Still no proof that this is a notable topic per WP:SALAT. Prod contested with a WP:SOFIXIT rationale, but again, there's no proof that this can be fixed. Ping and  Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 15:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Lists of people and Honduras. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 15:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. This is something for another kind of project, outside of Wikipedia. BD2412  T 21:46, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep (This vote of course is meaningless since the decision to delete has already been made). Book indexes and Wikipedia lists are both very similar. They provide quick ways to search for information in a large "collection". No-one would ever dare to remove an index section from a non-fiction work. The work would become almost useless and impossible to search. Wikipedia lists could provide the same function. The issue of "notability" has been raised. Are lists "NOTABLE"? Probably not. Are lists "USEFUL"? Highly.

Wikipedia started in 2001. The embryo of Lists of People on Postage Stamps (LPPS) started in 2002 and has been added to sporadically over the last 20 years. Philately is a hobby so updates occurred once in a while as collectors chose to enhance the data. I chose to update Central and South America in 2013 and was doing the same in 2022. I followed the format and content developed over 20 years. I believed that it had been vetted and approved before I started my updates. Hundreds of volunteers have dedicated thousands of hours to creating and maintaining these lists. Obviously there is no point in continuing.

For some reason, this particular set of lists (LPPS) seems to have galled users Fram, Johnpacklambert, and TenPoundHammer to the point where they have initiated a complete purge of the list tree. One of them actually referred to the lists as "philatelykruft". (I assume "kruft" is Newspeak for Bovine Fecal Matter). There was no round table discussion on how to improve the articles. There was no call for volunteers to work on changes or improvements. There was no effort to make the list more "notable" (a highly vague concept). Instead a major purge has been started. Further discussion is meaningless in AfDs since the purge effort is in full swing.

Thank you to all of the stamp collectors who built the lists over the years (although you may never see my thanks!!!). I had enough notice that I was able to take copies of many of the files for my personal use. I am saddened that so much effort is being destroyed. Good bye Bill Blampied (talk) 22:43, 30 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I posted a request to discuss this situation to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philately nearly three weeks ago, with no response whatsoever. It's an unfortunate reality of WP that a small group of determined editors can override the preferences of a larger group of more casual participants.  (A couple of these lists came up for AfD years ago, and had plenty of votes to keep at the time, but most of those users are now gone I think.) Stan (talk) 02:52, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Consensus can change, you know. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 03:34, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There has been a movement away from making too many lists of what amounts to trivia on Wikipedia. We used to have lists of state leaders for every year dating back centuries. We abandoned that at one point. Those lists at least had some sources and were regularly updated, and clearly being a state leader is notable, while being on a postage stamp does not make one notable, and some people are on postage stamps in ways that it is trivial and incidental, being prime minister or president of a place is centrally defining.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:20, 31 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete Wikipedia lists are not a book index. Lists need to be backed by reliable sources that show that the topic as a group is worth noting. There are no sources backing this article. Beyond this, the only way to make this article have any encyclopedic value is to list this by year. Wikipedia is not Wikia, just because a few focused editors can churn out unsourced drivel on a subject does not make it notable. Wikipedia is not the place to endlessly list cruft. There is a notability requirment, and comprehensive lists of everyone who was ever pictured on a nation's postage stamps do not pass the notability test. There are no sources presented that cover this topic as a group. Wikipedia does not do original research, so just because you can group together some things because of a shared trait you feel matters does not mean we should create an article on it. We need reliable sources that treat the combined subjects as a group. I challenge anyone to present an article anywhere that sees these people as a group sharing being on Honduran postage stamps as even a trait that makes sense to group them. This is a list of trivia and does not belong on Wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:07, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia was a much different place in 2003. We have since started having things like notability requirements, and notability requirements mean that every minutia that hobbyist find interesting is not covered. Wikia is a place where you can create unlimited lists of minutia with no need to source it reliably. Wikipedia seeks to be a reasonably accurate encyclopedia, that goal is defeated by having lists that sit for 19 years with no sources.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:09, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * To have an article, it needs to be shown to be notable. Cruft is a reference to overly specific articles on topics that do not recieve adequate coverage in reliable sources. The main use of the term was for articles on points in fictional works that were never covered reliably in a broad perspective. In this case, the point is that the exact pcitures on postage stamps are of interest to stamp collectors, but no one has shown that the exact pictures on postage stamps are broadly historically notable or worth cataloging. No one has argued why having these lists with no analysis is needed. What we need is sourced analysis of broad trends in who is pictured on postage stamps in articles like Postage stamps and postal history of Honduras, broad trend analysis from reliable sources. To show a topic is notable it needs to have recieved significant coverage from multiple reliable sources that are secondary and indepdent of the topic and of each other. Just because a catalog has a list does not mean copying the list into Wikipedia is justified. We need those reliable sources. Notability is not a vague topic, it is a central pillar of Wikipedia, and has been since at least 2006. Wikipedia does not have a grandfather clause. We do not keep low quality articles that do not meet notability criteria just because they have existed for a long time.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:18, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I would also contend that this list does not meet the listed perameters on acceptable lists that Wikipedia has.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:28, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete No evidence whatsoever exists that this meets WP:NLIST, as already stated: not in this AfD, and not in the article. Otherwise, this and all similar pages fail WP:NOTDIRECTORY (as generally "Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit."); and furthermore, because having this is definitively a WP:BADIDEA (as evidenced by the fact people keep citing the existence of these lists as a reason to keep having them even when they fail inclusion criteria), as Wikipedia is not a philatelical catalogue and there is no indication how this kind of page is of any broader encyclopedic significance. An encyclopedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, even if it is true, and despite it possibly being interesting to a limited number of dedicated philatelical enthusiasts. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:02, 3 June 2022 (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.