Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Martha Graham (supercentenarian) (2nd nomination)


 * 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.  Sandstein  16:52, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Martha Graham (supercentenarian)
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The subject of this article was once recognized by Guinness (retroactively) as having been verified the oldest person ever to live, although now it seems that was not the case and they have retracted their recognition. Regardless, what is important here is that there is insufficient coverage to satisfy WP:N’s criteria for a standalone article; what is here seems to be trivial mentions of this individual's former record.

Due to the contentious history of editing surrounding World’s Oldest People topics, it behooves me to emphasize that there is no policy on Wikipedia claiming that the oldest living person in the world is automatically notable. People will still claim this anyways (because people always come to these discussions to vote keep without reading the nomination), but it is not true; there have been at least five cases where an article on the world’s oldest living person was deleted or redirected through discussion/consensus:. This means that “oldest people” articles are judged on their individual merits and that the only relevant criteria are the general guidelines at WP:N, which requires non-trivial coverage in multiple, reliable third-party sources. Since Graham seems to have been discovered after the fact, it seems unlikely that there was significant contemporary coverage and, regardless, notability is not based on theoretical sources. Moreover, the article itself says “Little is known about Graham's life.” Any material of encyclopedic merit here can be included on the many longevity-related lists on Wikipedia Canadian   Paul
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:29, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of North Carolina-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:29, 28 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete I concur with the nominator, both about this specific subject failing to meet our notability rules and about the threshold for determining notability of people alleged to have been especially long-lived. Often, in these discussions, longevity enthusiasts assert that a supercentenarian is inherently notable or that any holder of some mythical record or championship for elderliness is inherently notable. While that might be true under their understanding of the meaning of the word "notable" in everyday conversation, it is most assuredly not true as notability is defined in our guidelines. I can find none of the coverage in multiple, independent reliable sources that would cause a subject to be notable under our Wikipedia definition. David in DC (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete or merge. Aside from the lack of coverage, as usual there's nothing in the article after strip away the discussion of the longevity horserage -- NOPAGE.  E Eng  04:58, 30 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete Non-notable supercentenarian with no coverage in reliable sources. The four references would most likely have her in some table somewhere. This is far from significant coverage. This article will never expand beyond anything that could be in a list of but I'm not seeing a good redirect. CommanderLinx (talk) 10:42, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Being the "oldest person ever recorded" has a lot more to do with records not covering births very well. I have done enough indexing of birth records around the start of the 20th-century in Texas to know that actually recording the given name of the child was not a universal practice in that time and place.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:57, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect or Merge with List of supercentenarians from the United States. It is the research done in this case that is one of the examples why age validation is necessary, and would therefore serve as evidence that not every claim to supercentenarian research is necessarily true - unfortunately, people seem to have forgotten this over the course of time and seem to take Internet sources over research published in scientific journals. Therefore, a redirect is still an appropriate solution in my view, as this case serves to illustrate the history of age validation. Fiskje88 (talk) 18:32, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Addition, forgot about this... : Moreover, Martha Graham's case also represents how the world's oldest people are, in fact, notable in themselves, as she was researched over a long period of time - thus showing she was not a one-off event, but was able to capture scientists' interest for several decades. Fiskje88 (talk) 18:41, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:BURDEN of proof is on you to provide the sources. I think keeping this article on the basis that sources "might" exist is a very weak argument. She also isn't mentioned in the US supers list either so I'm not really seeing a good reason to merge/redirect. CommanderLinx (talk) 01:03, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment First, please note that the first three votes in this AfD were made by members who always appear in supercentenarian AfDs and always vote in favour of deletion; as a result, the votes they have case do not represent a third-party, non-biased, random member's point of view. Evidence for this would be, for instance, EEng's comment in the AfD regarding Susie Gibson (see ), where he said to have been "thrilled to say [he got his] very own starring role as villain" - therefore, these votes seem to come across more as a personal vendetta towards people representing the field of gerontology than votes based on logic. Second, also take into consideration that an AfD is not decided by the number of votes cast, but by the strength of arguments given - an argument such as the ones made by CommanderLinx and Johnpacklambert, which is my third point, is a weak one in this case, as even the Wikipedia community has indicated that old age alone in itself can be a sign of notability. An example of this would be, where it was decided that Sarah Knauss' life was notable. As such, old age alone can inspire other people and the media to take note of this and gives these people plenty of media coverage. Therefore, I do feel that a case such as Martha Graham is still notable - the case had been researched in the 1970s (by A. Ross Eckler, Jr.), in the 1980s (by Guinness World Records), and in the 1990s (by Louis Epstein), before finally being debunked in the zeros. Although, unfortunately, this material no longer appears to be online - if it ever was to begin with - this does not mean the sources do not exist; its mere coverage alone has existed for over forty years (showing this is not a case that has simply come and gone), and therefore I feel that a redirect is definitely a respectful and appropriate gesture for this case. Fiskje88 (talk) 18:32, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * While it's amusing that Robert Young's still preoccupied with Wikipedia more than four years after he was banned for sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, self-promotion, edit-warring, POV pushing, COI, personal attacks, violating his topic ban, and any number of other things over the years (I was one of the people who provided evidence of his sockpuppetry), that says nothing about me or my vote here. Knowledgeable editors typically vote delete on longevity bios because so many of them were created by people who didn't (or wouldn't) understand notability.  E Eng  21:56, 5 December 2016 (UTC)


 * "even the Wikipedia community has indicated that old age alone in itself can be a sign of notability."
 * Looking through the article alerts archive (here) suggests there is no consensus that old age makes you notable. CommanderLinx (talk) 01:03, 5 December 2016 (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.