Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of self-identified LGBTQ New Yorkers


 * 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 keep. So Why  09:11, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

List of self-identified LGBTQ New Yorkers

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We already have numerous Lists of LGBT people, grouped by occupation or religion or in alphabetical order -- but I cannot think of any good reason why we would need to maintain a list of LGBTQ-identified residents of one specific city. As big and important as New York City is, its LGBTQ community is not so much more special than anywhere else's LGBTQ communities that it needs unique treatment denied other cities -- if we do this for New York City, then we have to do it for Los Angeles and San Francisco and Chicago and Seattle and Atlanta and Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver and London and Manchester and Berlin and Paris and Barcelona and Madrid and Rome and Sydney too, and I can't think of a single compelling reason why we should do that. Historically significant figures should certainly be named in LGBT culture in New York City, where their importance can be contextualized, but we do not need a WP:INDISCRIMINATE list of every LGBTQ person who happens to live there if we're not doing the same for any other city on earth. Bearcat (talk) 19:26, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 19:26, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 19:26, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 19:28, 3 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Strongly keep the article: That line of reasoning is absolutely frivolous and ridiculous, Bearcat. Nobody "has" to create an article for "Los Angeles and San Francisco and Chicago and Seattle and Atlanta and Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver and London and Manchester and Berlin and Paris and Barcelona and Madrid and Rome and Sydney" - if those cities don't have enough WP:NOTABLE LGBTQ souls to list -> then tough shit for them. That's no reason or excuse to penalize the prominent LGBTQ community of New York. Where the hell were you over the past four years while this list was being diligently compiled, expending a heck of a lot of sweat and toil by editors Figurefour44, Chrish65, Collier09, and myself, and very recently assisted by admin Risker, while you were still editing the original LGBT culture in New York City article and editing this very list at some point or another???!!! This article meets WP:NOTABILITY standards to the tee. And no city is being "denied" anything- if you want to start a notable LGBTQ souls list for another city -> go for it!!! If this article somehow offends you -> then don't read it. But don't destroy someone else's parade. Castncoot (talk) 04:25, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Firstly, you've completely missed the point. "If those cities don't have enough WP:NOTABLE LGBTQ souls to list -> then tough shit for them" literally has nothing to do with what I said, for starters — I picked the specific cities I named precisely because every one of those cities does have enough notable LGBTQ souls to create a list of: every last man jack one of them is a major international gay mecca whose importance in LGBTQ history is comparable to (or even surpasses, in the case of Berlin especially) NYC's. New York City, as important as it is, does not tower over all other cities as The Ultimate Colossus of the Gay World — it's merely one member of a large group of international world cities that all played significant roles in LGBTQ history, not the king-for-life of the club. The point isn't that other cities couldn't have similar lists, it's precisely that they all could — but whether they should is a different matter entirely. We definitely do not need a comprehensive set of dozens or hundreds of lists of LGBTQ residents of every individual city on earth that has a significant LGBTQ community, and NYC's is not more special than everybody else's. Bearcat (talk) 15:35, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia 101A: Just because something doesn't "have" to be there doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be there. Wikipedia 101B: Just because something is not there doesn't mean that something analogous can't or shouldn't be there. Each article is to be judged on its own merits, so stop the comparisons please. Castncoot (talk) 00:48, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia 101C: When somebody tries to introduce a novel type of article into Wikipedia, it is entirely proper and appropriate to evaluate the logical consequences of accepting it. For example, is it a unique topic that stands alone as a uniquely notable thing, or is it a boilerplate topic for which dozens or hundreds or thousands of similar articles about other equivalent things could also be created — and if it's the latter, then do we really need or want that at all?
 * It's exactly the same principle as why we don't routinely accept all municipal fire or police departments, public library systems, mayors and city councillors, chambers of commerce, local chapters of national organizations, etc., as "inherently" notable just because they exist. Every city has those things, so making one particular city's local version of a universal thing notable enough for a Wikipedia article requires a lot more than just using one or two pieces of WP:ROUTINE local media coverage to demonstrate that it exists. Thousands or even millions of other equivalent topics can always show exactly the same — so the notability test, in that instance, is that the sources have to demonstrate a reason why this city's version is uniquely more notable than most other cities' versions, precisely because we can't feasibly sustain or maintain a blanket program of articles about every city's local version of the same things.
 * All of which is why the comparisons are not a distraction; they're exactly the crux of the point. To justify this, we need one of two things: either (a) a reason why New York City's LGBTQ community is of such uniquely greater notability than other cities' LGBTQ communities that this can stand alone, or (b) a reason why a comprehensive program of "list of LGBTQ residents of city", for every city in the world that has a sizable LGBTQ community with notable members, would be desirable. "Is this demonstrably more notable than other cities' versions of the same thing" is a test that we apply to local interest content all the time.
 * Wikipedia 101D: Don't talk to long-established Wikipedia administrators as if they were newbies who didn't understand how Wikipedia works. HTH. Bearcat (talk) 14:55, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The logic you employ seems to be like running from Home base to 1st base retrograde through 3rd and 2nd base. Is this an informative and notable article that is reliably sourced? Yes. Done. Pretty simple. On the other hand, trying to censor an entire particular topic that is informative and verifiable and neither illegal nor promotional is absurd and not at all consistent with the mission of Wikipedia. Also, article size is uniquely a legitimate issue for the New York City article's page, at least for now. You're ballooning a technical issue into a philosophical question of sibling rivalry, which is the equivalent of the expression "making a mountain out of a mole hill." I also doubt that Berlin for example has even one-tenth the number of LGBTQ members who have their own English Wikipedia pages as NYC- but if Berlin's list ever unexpectedly grows as big as NYC's > then by all means, fork it off at that time. Castncoot (talk) 05:57, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The logic I employ seems to be like nothing of the sort; it seems to be exactly what it is, which is a perfectly logical and correct summary of exactly what Wikipedia actually does on a lot of topics. For example, when somebody tried to create a list of LGBT activists in Sydney last year, listing every single name they could glean from any source whatsoever of anybody who had ever lived in Sydney and could be characterized as an LGBT rights activist, it was deleted for being too indiscriminate, and not uniquely more important than the hundreds or thousands of similar lists that could be compiled for other cities.
 * Even size issues are sometimes better dealt with by trimming the list for contextual importance than by spinning it off into its own standalone list: for example, somebody once tried to add a list of guest stars on the TV series Murdoch Mysteries to its article, indiscriminately listing every actor with a Wikipedia article who had ever been on the show at all, and then tried to spin it off into its own article on size grounds. But because a similar list could be compiled for absolutely every television series that exists at all, and there's no reason why having a guest role on that show was more notable than having a guest role on any other show, consensus still killed off the list and landed on trimming the embedded list down to only the guest appearances that could be reliably sourced as important enough to warrant being noted in the main article at all rather than indiscriminately listing every guest actor who had ever been on it. Do we need an indiscriminate list of every LGBTQ person who has ever lived in NYC at all? No. What we need is for the LGBTQ culture in NYC article to restrict itself to mentioning the names of people who can claim historic importance: Ali Forney, sure. Marsha P. Johnson, absolutely. Christine Quinn, by all means. Every single queer actor who ever had a supporting role in a Broadway musical? No.
 * America-centrism is entirely inappropriate in an international encyclopedia, by the way. "American people are more important than German people because they're American" is not a thing we do. Bearcat (talk) 12:43, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Apples and oranges, a fallacious argument, because the Sydney example WAS indiscriminate, employing mostly non-notable names WITHOUT their own Wikipedia articles. As opposed to that or the Murdoch example, this article is composed strictly with people who BOTH have English Wikipedia articles, AND, I have to say, thanks to admin Risker, who forced me to source each entry with in-line citations confirming both LGBTQ status and the NYC connection, or remove the entry entirely- thereby making this now THE most robust list of LGBT notables of any city LGBT article, most of which don't even contain in-line citations in their relatively small lists, including by the way, the LGBT culture in Berlin article. And who are you to determine that historical context alone is more important than current notable presence? Your time and energy would be far more appropriately spent cleaning up every other LGBT city article rather than looking the other way from those and trying to attack this article for being robustly sourced, if anything. Also, a couple of other things- 1) This list has been growing right under your eyesight over the past several years. Where were you to critique then? Seems hypocritical. 2) Don't try to attribute some sort of "America-centric" blame to this article. That's just flat-out false, and very inappropriate on many levels. Castncoot (talk) 17:03, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * (1) It's not my job to be omnisciently aware of what every article on Wikipedia is doing; my job is to work on the things I notice, not to psychically divine the existence of problems I haven't seen on articles I haven't looked at. (2) You literally flat-out just said that New York's LGBT community is more important than Berlin's, so exactly what am I supposed to think you meant? I'll give you a free hint: the reason the LGBT culture in Berlin article doesn't have a list of LGBTQ residents of Berlin as long as New York's is not that Berlin doesn't have as many notable LGBTQ residents as New York — if anything they've got more, because Berlin's noteworthy LGBTQ history goes decades further back than NYC's — it's because the Berliners correctly ascertained that a comprehensive list of every single queer person who ever lived in the city isn't a thing the article needed.
 * And while the notability of Sydney's LGBTQ residents was certainly questioned, the central issue to its deletability was the fact that you could just as easily compile the same list for 10,000 other cities around the world with no reason why 10,000 lists of LGBTQ activists divvied up by city was warranted. And the issue with the Murdoch Mysteries list was also not the base notability of the actors, since it comprised predominantly notable actors with Wikipedia articles — it was the fact that you could compile a comparable list for every TV show that ever existed, without a reason why that would be necessary or valuable. Which is why those aren't false comparisons to this: they illustrate exactly the point that precisely because you can compile a virtually identical list for dozens or hundreds of other cities around the world, you need to show either (a) a compelling reason why keeping dozens or hundreds of "LGBT residents of Specific City" lists would be warranted, or (b) a compelling reason why New York's LGBTQ community is somehow so much more unique than any other city's LGBTQ community that keeping it wouldn't even set a precedent in the first place. Bearcat (talk) 19:03, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * You're doing a lot of inferring and projecting here, and incorrectly so. I never said that one city's LQBTQ community is any more important any other city's, or that one country's people are more important than another's, as they are all significant. If anything, the facts speak the opposite- I don't want to compare NYC with any other city in this regard- primarily four but also other editors over the past several years have de facto compiled a list of notable LGBTQ New Yorkers, minding our own business, concerned only with the New York article, (trying to) follow Wikipedia's rules and standards for WP:Lists, and not worried about any other city's LGBTQ community article. Then all of a sudden, years later, you come back out of thin air trying to find a problem for a solution and espouse this extraordinary theory that somehow this list doesn't have a right to exist. I'm also amazed that you're able to read the minds of all Berliners as if they are a monolithic entity. I don't doubt that Berlin has more notable LGBTQ members on the German Wikipedia- maybe the "Berliners" have already created a list article there. If you really believe that Berlin or any other city has as many WP:NOTABLE LGBTQ individuals as NYC on the English Wikipedia, then as they say, WP:PROVEIT. I doubt you'll be able to do so, but hey, I've been wrong many times before and will be wrong at some point again; however, in this particular instance, I don't believe you are correct. Castncoot (talk) 03:44, 7 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. Per the requirements of WP:Lists this seems to be perfectly adequate and sustainable. Indeed many cities have notable LGBTQ communities that contribute and shape history and culture. Certainly New York City is prime of them given the LGBTQ history preceding and then including the Stonewall riots, and continued presently. Gleeanon409 (talk) 05:22, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree with Gleeanon, who has also contributed to the parent article. And by the way, multiple editors have alluded to the fact that this list has been rivaling the original parent in size, over the years, and so this spin-off was necessary even to meet WP:Articlesize guidelines. Admins Risker and Drmies have also elaborated upon the WP:Articlesize concern. Castncoot (talk) 05:33, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment on similar lists such as List of LGBT Jews its been held that both statements, in that case LGBTQ status plus Jewishness and in this case LGBTQ status plus New York residency/origins, must be explicitly sourced. This list appears to have acceptable cites for LGBTQ status but many dont seem to support the New York half of the statement. Not sure I support outright deletion though, that might be an overstep. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 05:37, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * @Horse Eye Jack: if you find an instance of any reference not including the NYC connection, then please let me know so I can properly re-source it. I believe, however, that we've been cognizant to make sure that this detail was already attended to on most if not all of the entries. Castncoot (talk) 05:53, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep -- Not sure why the hostility to this list. Never fail to be impressed, when surfing it, with the immense LGBTQ contribution within the city of New York. It is fascinating -- and quite moving, to be honest -- to see just how integral the LGBTQ community is to NYC. This is worth showcasing.Chrish65 (talk)
 * This was a notable comment by User:Figurefour44 which also clearly supports Keep, posted when the article was temporarily Userified while still at the stage of sourcing being challenged. Castncoot (talk) 07:03, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: Since my name has been invoked here, I think I should at least make a comment.  Speaking personally, I'm not a fan of wide-ranging lists, but I know that's a preference rather than a policy-based point. I used to say that it would be ridiculous to have a List of redheads - until it was pointed out to me that, not only did we have such a list, but it had twice survived AfD.  This list is far narrower, of course.  Every entry has had double-checked reference sources that confirm the subject has self-identified as being LGBT (or whatever variant adds up to "does not have a straight sexual identity"); I can say that with certainty, because I did the checking as a requirement before returning the list to article space in order to comply with BLP. (See extensive notes on the talk page.) Most, but not all, of those references also confirm that the subject is either resident in, or works in, NYC.  The need for additional referencing of residency/workplace is something that can be addressed short of an AFD. There are other potential improvements to the list - should its formatting be changed? does it have too many images? should the listing be alphabetical rather than categorical?  should it have a different title? - but none of these points are relevant to whether or not the list should exist. I don't know which administrator will be closing this discussion, but I assume that they will be looking closely at policy-based reasons that support deletion, and I'm not sure I see much of that. Risker (talk) 20:24, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep I’ve read the nominator’s rationale several times and I’m afraid I just can’t see any merit in it. Mccapra (talk) 06:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's not indiscriminate, but defined and sourced properly. LGBTQ history/ studies is now an area of academic focus at many universities and has even become a mandatory part of some state public school curriculums (elementary and secondary) within the United States. Lists such as this one are useful academic tools for teachers/researchers in New York. Encyclopedias are first and foremost reference tools, and this is a good reference tool for educators and students in this field of study.4meter4 (talk) 04:07, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see a line of reasoning but not a WP:PAG-based argument presented as deletion rationale. The one policy invoked is WP:INDISCRIMINATE, but I do not see how the language of that policy applies to this article. And for what it's worth, I disagree with the line of reasoning presented as well: this article's content is accurate, verified (i.e. properly sourced), and, IMO, a net positive to the encyclopedia. I also think that the creation of similar articles for Los Angeles and Toronto and London and Berlin and Paris et al. would be a net positive to the encyclopedia. Armadillopteryxtalk 04:31, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep I understand where WP:INDISCRIMINATE gets invoked here. I don't fully agree with it because I think it's no more indiscriminate than any other list that leads to well-cited material, but I understand where it's coming from. As for the rest of this argument, it feels based in slippery slope fallacy, and while I don't want to write off an argument entirely for having logical fallacies, I struggle to see the merit in it. he who am are is myself  07:09, 11 November 2019 (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.