Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of women who have murdered their husbands


 * 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. A close examination of the below discussion reveals that consenus clearly endorses deletion. Such a list is not suitable for inclusion, and will never be able to satisfy basic content policies. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 13:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

List of women who have murdered their husbands

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

I really hope this doesn't even have to be explained other than to say it's time to write a guide about what kinds of lists are appropriate for an encyclopedia and what kinds aren't. This list is almost entirely unsourced and serves as a category rather than an informative article, not that we need such a list as this in any format. If it's so important, create a category. Lara 11:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Actually, it is fairly important to provide some grounds for deleting an article when starting a deletion debate, and I don't see any here: especially if you are claiming that a list is "inappropriate" for unspecified reasons.  Clicking through some of the listed articles confirms their eligibility for inclusion; the larger problem is completeness, but that's not grounds for deletion either. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 12:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment My wife said she would kill me if I didn't support this article, but it's unsourced and, worse, the classic indiscriminate list. If you can't do more than slap up a bunch of blue links, don't bother. Mandsford (talk) 13:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Should be a category, if there isn't one already, not a list. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 14:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per lack of proper sourcing. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 16:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep All the links go to sourced articles, so the list in itself doesn't have to be sourced (but it should be, of course). Being unsourced isn't a valid reason to delete and AFD is not cleanup. How would converting this to a category help sourcing? It doesn't.  Lugnuts  (talk) 16:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. per nom and per WP:V. Ironholds (talk) 19:45, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Another list that has a hopelessly skewed POV, and can never be a neutral presentation of the subjects. Kevin (talk) 23:40, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Per nom. Can never be balanced, can never be complete (even restricting to just notable). delete And yes, we need some firm guidance on lists and when a list amalgamating a particular fact about things that are themselves notable and which are written about in a balanced way is unbalanced. ++Lar: t/c 03:04, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - per nom, and second the proposal that we need tighter guidelines for lists (particularly BLP) to guard agaainst poor sourcing, cat duplication and POV. See for example the recreation of List of Dictators after 3 delete afds, I'm sick of trying to explain to people why "LIst of bad people from a liberal western pop-culture POV" is such a bad idea. --Scott Mac (Doc) 03:08, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * So from which cultures' POV is murder not bad? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That a standard "when did you stop beating your wife?" question. "Murder" is a term for a homicide that reflects a moral and legal judgement of a particular culture and jurisdiction. To take an admittedly extreme example, from a staunch Islamic POV, US troops have "murdered" many members of the Taliban. To return to the case in point, many women have killed their husbands - but have been admonished, or found guilty of lesser crimes than murder.--Scott Mac (Doc) 14:12, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - per nom (create a damn category if necessary) and yes what Scott says - we all need to tighten list guidelines.-- VirtualSteve need admin support? 06:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * comment many of the women on the list are actually serial killers, thus this can also be seen as a POV towards LESSENING the severe nature of their notability. the black widow line doesnt apply for serial killers. I would prefer a category, and i agree, lists are horribly loosely allowed and often poorly structured. im ambivalent about deletion, i think it might be salvageable under another name (list of people who have killed their spouses, list of female serial killers), but i wont shed a tear if it is deleted, and a category makes more sense for this small list.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 16:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Women who have murdered their husbands have been singled out for special treatment in their method of punishment in a non-liberal culture, and in the method of body-disposal in a non-Western culture, so this is clearly a notable class of people. I don't understand the comments above which both say that sourcing is an issue and that a category would be better. One of the major advantages of a list over a category is that it can be sourced. How would having a category without sources satisfy the usual suspects who scream "BLP" without thinking things through? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I've just reviewed five of these entries and provided sources for three of them. The other two I have removed from the list because, although suspected of killing husbands, they were only actually convicted of cocaine traficking and of murdering non-marital partners. I note that Kevin sourced a couple of entries before the deletion nomination. If everyone commenting here who is concerned about sourcing would take on two or three of the entries we could get this fully sourced with no more effort than it takes to argue about deletion. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:09, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a good suggestion. It still doesn't address the inherent unbalance issue. Sourcing can be fixed, and if the list is a keeper, should be. Inherent unbalance is not fixable since it's intrinsic to the nature of the list. ++Lar: t/c 21:38, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Per Lar and Lara, this article can never expect to be neutral and complete Peter Symonds ( talk ) 19:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep no list of people having a characteristic or known for something can ever be complete. That's not an argument. Neutral--if limited to the facts of the convictions, it would be neutral. Whether it is unduly influenced by various cultural biases is another matter, and could be dealt with by List of men notable for having killed their wives.    DGG ( talk ) 19:13, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Collection of names that adds no useful information. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 23:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. It's nothing more than a collection of names that adds no real encyclopaedic knowledge. Create a category- it would be a much better way of organising the information, easier to maintain and keep up to date. HJMitchell    You rang?   02:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. In this case, a category would be more complete and more accurate. On point, a list is an encyclopedia article that makes the claim "These women murdered their husbands", which must be sourced. A category makes the claim "These articles have the wikicode Category:Women who have murdered their husbands". That wikicode is added to the article itself, and its inclusion must also be supported by sources. The trick there is that the sources already exist in the article, likely in the lead, so the fact is documented, and the category justified. UltraExactZZ Claims~ Evidence 15:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Just as a note for general information (not directed at UEzz) addition of a living person to a category is governed by BLP policy and it must be verifiable (sourced) that the person belongs in that category. We had someone a while back putting people into "Afro-xxx" where xxx was any of a number of things ("irish" etc) based purely on their observation. That's a no no. ++Lar: t/c 18:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Wikipedia is not a repository of indiscriminate information. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, concur with Headbomb, Wikipedia is not a repository of indiscriminate information. As a grouping, it's trivia not encyclopedic. However, if a spate of husband-killing results in societal changes e.g. new laws, and the more famous husband-killers are cited by independent, reliable sources as the reasons behind these changes, then a list containing those individuals would be encyclopedic. But to get on the list, you should be noted as a husband-killer beyond the initial crime. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  03:32, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * keep Is an interesting list. Lists can be more flexible than categories. In particular, lists can be more narrowly tailored than categories and this is an excellent example of where something is a reasonable list but would not work well as a category. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:48, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, some of the names were interesting, I guess. Velma Barfield, Betty Lou Beets, Daisy de Melker, Belle Gunness, Tillie Klimek, Bathsheba Spooner.  I couldn't make those up.  Mandsford (talk) 17:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:INTERESTING ? JBsupreme (talk) 06:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know, maybe there's a label for "wp:notTHATinteresting". I don't really agree with JoshuaZ's assessment that this is an interesting list.  It's basically indiscriminate information that might be... uh-oh, here comes Mrs. Mandsford and she looks like she's pissed.  Back later. Mandsford (talk) 16:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete While I think it's an indiscriminate collection, I also feel that the sourcing is an issue that a category would solve. In fact, even if the list was improved to be well-referenced, it would still work better as a category. I fail to see where the need to be "narrowly tailored" and/or "flexible" comes in, or how a list would provide that vice a cateory.  bahamut0013  words deeds 07:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong Delete - Indiscriminate collection; what's the criteria for inclusion exactly? This category is forever plagued with OR issues. Shadowjams (talk) 10:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - no possibility of completion, no defined inclusion criteria, no possibility of having an actual lead section per WP:LIST, etc. - Biruitorul Talk 03:29, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Question do any of the arguments made in this discussion equally apply to Articles for deletion/List of criminal organizations? Just curious.  JBsupreme (talk) 06:30, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Strong keep -per DGG, JoshuaZ and Smerdis of Tlon together. This is a well defined list, informative, with crisp clear criteria for inclusion (just look the title); sourcing not really an issue if entries are correct. Practically no reason for deletion is based on relevant policies and guidelines -an editor cites WP:V but it is obviously verifiable. -- Cycl o pia -  talk  01:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm still trying to figure out what's informative or interesting about this particular list. I haven't joined in the calls for deletion, since it could be a good subject.  If nothing else, the authors of this list should get an award for figuring out to make "true crime" boring.  Mandsford (talk) 12:50, 23 October 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.