Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people who have beaten Bobby Fischer in chess


 * 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 of the debate was merge to Bobby Fischer. -- ( drini's vandalproof page &#x260E;  ) 02:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

List of people who have beaten Bobby Fischer in chess
Does this list serve a purpose? Should we also create lists of all people who have beaten Garry Kasparov or Anatoly Karpov in chess? Fred-Chess 22:43, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Why yes it does serve a purpose. It tells about everyone who has beaten one of the greatest chess players in chess. I find it informative and useful. Job  e  6  [[Image:Peru flag large.png|20px]] 23:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. If there were only a few names it might be notable for that reason, but this is a lengthy list. In a pinch maybe merge with Bobby Fischer. 23skidoo 23:12, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge into Bobby Fisher article. Stu 02:33, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Bobby Fischer. MCB 04:21, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Bobby Fischer. --Condorman 04:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete pointless list &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 05:00, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge. No redirect necessary. TheMadBaron 08:20, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. This kind of stuff was considered interesting enough for a book to be devoted to the subject, a collection of the 61 games Fischer lost in championship chess (since 1958 i think). It was called How to Beat Bobby Fischer and was written by Edmar Mednis. Not entirely sure about the notability of that book, if we get an article on that book some time this list should probably redirect there, but at the moment we don't have one. Whether this belongs in an encyclopedia however is another matter. Neutral. Sjakkalle (Check!)  08:41, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Hey, I seem to remember that book! If it is the book I have in mind then it was some introduction to chess, nothing remarkable, and Bobby Fischer's name was on there only to promote sales. That fact is actually important. His name was used not because he was an excellent player, it was because he was well-known and notorious for his eccentricities. Are we going to have n "Lists who have beaten $NOTORIOUS_PERSON at $GAME", as in "List of supermodels more famous than Naomi Campbell", or "List of people who beat Mike Tyson"? Pilatus 12:56, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * No, it was a really a book collecting all the games Fischer lost in championship play. I think you might be thinking about Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, yes that book is truly unremarkable. Didn't learn much chess from that one... Sjakkalle (Check!)  14:26, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to to Bobby Fischer. The mere list of names is irrelevant. From the chess-playing point of view, if the aforementioned book includes analysis of why Fischer lost in these cases, it could give relevant information about his play style. - Skysmith 10:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, see my reasoning above. Pilatus 12:56, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge to Bobby Fischer. --Jacquelyn Marie 04:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't understand above comments like "If there were only a few names it might be notable for that reason, but this is a lengthy list. In a pinch maybe merge with Bobby Fischer." Isn't the fact that it's a nicely long list a reason not to merge or delete it, since it's not a mere stub? If it had, say, a hundred names on it, I'd understand wanting to delete it because it's overlong and uninteresting, or if it had only ten names or so on it, I'd understand wanting to merge it into Bobby Fischer, but the mergists in this case confuse me terribly&mdash;if the information should be on Wikipedia at all, why clutter up an already long biography page by adding it, rather than just linking to it? The 46 items currently on the list seems like the ideal length for a list page, neither too short to merit a distinct article nor too long to be easily navigable. If anything, rather than deleting some interesting and valuable information, I'd say expand&mdash;provide specific information on how, why, and under what circumstances each person won, since half the reason to use lists like these instead of categories are to hollow specific detailing of each item on the list. The exact same holds true for List of people who have beaten Garry Kasparov in chess: expand and clarify, don't delete. -Silence 22:43, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge, to Bobby Fisher . On second thought, merging would make a big mess, Change vote to Keep, but clean up, expand, then move to something like Bobby Fisher chessplaying history -Andrew 03:21, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Do not merge. Merging would in my opinion be a terrible choice. The list would be like a carnuncle in the nice article Bobby Fisher. I have a slight preference for keep above delete, but most important to me is that the list is not merged into the main article, which is already over the "traditional maximum length" of 32 kB. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:34, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Exactly so. Merging would be the worst of all worlds, much more harmful than deletion. I think we should consider, though, expanding this into a more general article of specifically analyzing Fischer's chess career in detail, since if we had an article like that, it would be a nice place to merge this into. Likewise, a general article for in-depth analysis of Kasparov's records might be the best place to incorporate List of people who have beaten Garry Kasparov in chess into. However, making such articles would take some effort and research, so we should keep these articles where they are now until we do have someplace acceptable to merge them into. Or go with my earlier suggestion of just trying to expand the current articles significantly. -Silence 04:05, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Strong keep This is one of those rare instances when a list nominated on AFD is not a bad one. Items are easily verifiable per WP:V; the construct is neutral, per WP:NPOV; inclusion to the list rests on a simple question with a binary yes/no answer - you have either beaten Fischer at chess or you haven't, there is no need for subjective, non-NPOV decisions over inclusion. Merging this into an article would damage it, as has been pointed out by Silence.  encephalon  01:12, 4 November 2005 (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.