Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of richest Americans in history to 1998


 * 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   no consensus. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 20:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

List of richest Americans in history to 1998

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This is the kind of infinitely regressive article we don't need. List of richest people to 2007, then list of richest people to 2008, etc... there's nothing notable about the list up to date X. Cynof  G  avuf 11:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Although this seems to be pretty much covered by List of Americans by net worth, this article is based on a publication by Forbes in 1998. The difference between this list and the net worth list is that the latter does not show their worth as a %age of the US economy. Also, the latter does not show historical figures from what I can see. I am undecided about whether this should be kept or deleted, as I can not find an equivalent list that includes the all-time richest Americans, which is what this appears to do. If I get a chance, I will look into this some more during the next few days, and then make a decision here. --  Phantom Steve / talk &#124; contribs \ 12:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment to the comment The other difference is the information on which List of Americans by net worth is based is updated every year by Forbes, (and in fact I am in the process of updating the WP article to reflect the latest, 2009, information), so no date qualifier is needed in that article's title. UnitedStatesian (talk) 12:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - Even if this article is an accurate reproduction of a list created by Forbes in 1998, then that Forbes article will be the only reference that this WP article will ever have. The choosing of 1998 as a landmark date is completely arbitrary and unencyclopedic.    talk 12:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 19:43, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep As the creator of this article, I obviously feel differently: I don't see how this list is different from List of billionaires (2004), List of billionaires (2006), and List of billionaires (2007), all of which are by necessity based only on one source (also Forbes), as are many, many other list articles in Wikipedia. In fact this list is better, because it is not released every year, and so we will not have the (largely redundant) year after year after year versions that we will have with the Sunday Times List articles and similar. Imagine this article were titled simply List of richest Americans in history: I am sure even the nominator would agree this is a sufficiently notable topic; the problem with leaving off the "to 1998" is that it would invite original research as misguided editors took it on themselves to "update" it year after year or day after day with their own calculations and without the benefit of reliable sources. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:59, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge somewhere. Valid information I imagine, but it easily can go into an existing article that doesn't have problems with arbitary cut-off dates and lack of sources, rather than sitting off in an obscure corner on its own. In the event it is kept it should be renamed - "Americans in history to 1998"? As opposed to those pre-1998 Americans who managed somehow to exist outside of history? Declan Clam (talk) 02:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep and expand. There is no reason not to bring this up to date --the sources for each individual will be public enough: the wealth can be sourced, and so can the size of the economy.    DGG ( talk ) 05:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Can you explain to me how doing all that math would not be original research? UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:41, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete, arbitrary and not encyclopedic. Someidiot (talk) 23:43, 8 December 2009 (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.