Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Bidwell


 * 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 defaulting to keep, disagreement over whether the sources establish notability or not. Davewild (talk) 19:01, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Mary Bidwell

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Unreferenced stub on an old person, fails WP:BIO test of substantive coverage in reliable sources. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There are other such articles featured on the List of the oldest people. Dlae  │  here  17:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. I am going through those lists nominating any such articles; the fact that some have not yet been deleted is not a reason for keeping this one. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:30, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the content could be merged into a list of American supercentaurians, like List of British supercentenarians? Dlae  │  here  17:32, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no objection to that, but whenever I perform such a merger it is reverted without comment by User:Kitia, so I see no point in wasting my time trying to preserve these unreferenced snippets when other editors prefer edit-warring to improvement. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:37, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * By the looks of things, Kitia seems "confused" or may well be a 114-year old their self. Considering how notable the Mary Bidwell article is, stub or not (unlikely to get much further), if the user intefers with the merger again, "enforce policy". > The content is concise, which is quite suitable for the list if I don't say so myself. Dlae  │  here  17:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Please refrain from personal attacks. I have almost 100 years before I turn 114. And I wanted to delete that "list" in the first place because it's not very much of one at all. Of this article, I don't really care what you do to it because it doesn't really say much. &#39;&#39;&#91;&#91;User:Kitia&#124;Kitia&#93;&#93;&#39;&#39; (talk) 21:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually I switch my vote to a Keep because of this pretty good source: http://www.bidwellhousemuseum.org/Articles/mary_electa_bidwell.htm The article needs work though, but being older than Edna Parker is now warrants an article. &#39;&#39;&#91;&#91;User:Kitia&#124;Kitia&#93;&#93;&#39;&#39; (talk) 21:41, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply. That's not exactly substantial coverage (only 350 words, mostly trivia) and it's not a reliable source. Plus, I don't see WP:BIO listing "being older than Edna Parker" as proof of notability. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:19, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Now to your references. First, can you explain why three of them for which provide a retrieval date do not provide the URL from which you retrieved them, so that they can be verified? Secondly, even if a local museum website is a reliable source, is it really evidence of notability that she gets a writeup in a website on her ancestor's house? Doesn't seem very independent to me. Thirdly, less than half of the 591-word NYT article is devoted to Bidwell, which is hardly substantial coverage. Maybe the other refs are more substantial, but there is no way of knowing unless you provide the links ... and so far, although notability is closer than when I made the nomination it is not yet established. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom. RMHED (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, BrownHairedGirl Bad Faith Nomination and try to reference better. If your voting delete, please do a Google search at the minimum. How can you vote without doing the minimal due diligence? This is also a bad faith nomination over frustration during an edit war.   --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:50, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply. Norton, please do try to learn a bit of a bit of basic good manners and to assume good faith. This is not a bad faith nomination: it was a good faith nomination of an unreferenced article, one of dozens and dozens of unreferenced stubs created on older people by editors who seem to entirely reject WP:BIO. I tried to draw attention to this problem by tagging the articles for improvement, but the tags got deleted; I tried to preserve the info in the under-referenced articles by merging them, and it was only when all other efforts were blocked that I nominated them at AfD. That's not revenge, it's the last choice option for dealing with unreferenced stubs which cannot be improved, and this one had existed for 4 years; it was tagged as unreferenced in the summer, and has been edited by all the editors who claim the greatest expertise in this area. I assumed that if there were refs, they would have supplied them at some time in the last 4 years.


 * Delete. Per WP:BIO simply not notable. - Gallo glass  13:11, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but that's because there is no notability guideline on super-cs. &#39;&#39;&#91;&#91;User:Kitia&#124;Kitia&#93;&#93;&#39;&#39; (talk) 00:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The result is at best marginally notable, but it's a well-sourced snippet. Surely the ideal thing to do with something like this which is trivial but fully-sourced is to include it as a paragraph in a merged list article? This mergeist approach has been followed very successfully by WikiProject Middle-earth, where a collaborative effort has been systematically mergeing the minor articles to these combined lists, such as the merger of many short articles to Kings of Númenor. To show how this works in the case of Mary Bidwell, I have copied the entire text with refs to List of American supercentenarians, where it forms one neat section. Surely this mergeist approach is preferable to having a proliferation of articles which will rarely expand beyond 100 or 200 words unless they include utterly trivial aspects of people's lives or commentaries on the era on which they lived? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per richard and Kitia above. You&#39;ve Got Mail! (talk) 00:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep multiple sources cited with evidence to notability. I'll bust your beak! (time for some beak bustin'!) 00:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC) — I'll bust your beak! (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Keep Keep, per the references provided below. Neal (talk) 01:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC).
 * Delete per BHG. --Kbdank71 (talk) 17:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * keep I accept the noms GF, but the principle of deleting because they've been here a while without improvement does not seem reasonable, if it seems they are individually notable. There seems to be at least minimal sourcing here. Lets get rid of the worst of these--actually--I think BHG's good work has already gotten rid of the worst of these, and not turn this into a campaign against all articles of the type. I suggest this would be a good time to stop on these--enough has been accomplished. DGG (talk) 08:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments, DGG. I suggest that this is a good point to step back from the history of how we got here, and look at what we have now. After all the extra references, we have only a 135-word article, which says in full (when collapsed to one para):Mary Electa Bidwell (May 9, 1881 - April 25, 1996) was an American supercentenarian. She died at 114 years and 352 days, making her the 25th oldest person to ever live and the oldest American living at the time of her death. She was also the oldest person ever to die in Connecticut. Her parents were Charles Woodruff Bidwell and Alice Beach Nobel. She was a descendant of John Bidwell, one of the founders of Hartford, Connecticut. Bidwell worked as a teacher in a one-room school house for six years. She married Charles Hubbell Bidwell, a distant cousin, in 1906. Bidwell lived on her own in North Haven, Connecticut until she was 110. Bidwell died at the Arden House, a nursing home in Hamden, Connecticut. She was the last surviving person documented as born in 1881. Perusing all the references, that's probably all that can ever be said about her without indulging in either original research or copyvio by reproducing an excessive proportion of one of the source articles.
 * Looking at some of the items further down the list, BHG is correct that there are still a number of articles that need to be deleted. I'd still keep this one. I wouldn't necessarily object to merges, but  that of course could be done without coming here. As a general approach I agree with BHG in that DGG (talk) 16:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, it hasn't been possible to merge without coming here, because Kitia simply reverted such merges on sight, and without comment. In many of these cases, I would much rather have merged or PRODed them than clog up AfD, but when any such efforts are simply reverted without discussion, then AFD is the only way to get a consensus decision. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:19, 14 December 2007 (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.