Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sarah Knauss (3rd 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 no consensus. There are a number of decent rationales here, and whilst the Keeps outnumber the Deletes, a number of the former are brand new or fairly new accounts that have never been near AfD before. When you discard the obviously invalid !votes, we have it at 6-6. Obviously, this means the article can be re-nominated at any point. Black Kite (talk) 19:25, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Sarah Knauss
AfDs for this article: 
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This person's only claim to notability was her advanced age. Her name and age are properly recorded in various tables, such as List of American supercentenarians and List of the verified oldest people. Available sources do not cover her life and deeds in any noteworthy detail, and the article offers nothing more than trivia, hence WP:NOPAGE applies. — JFG talk 13:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Pennsylvania-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete This article fails WP:GNG, WP:BIO1E, and WP:NOPAGE. There is no policy that the "oldest x" is notable and this article is packed with longevity fancruft like her husband was a local Republican leader, how many wars she lived through, how many presidential administrations she lived through, etc. She lived. She avoided the Reaper longer then most. She died. In her own words, "So what?" Her name, life dates, and nationality are best handled on the five lists they already reside on. This WP:PERMASTUB is not needed. Newshunter12 (talk) 00:52, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
 * "She avoided the Reaper longer than most" is an extreme understatement. Specifically, she avoided the Reaper longer than every other American whose age can be verified. Futurist110 (talk) 01:26, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, and she has five separate list entries informing readers about her unusual age. Nothing more is needed. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:47, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, a revision of Wikipedia policy to explicitly admit that being verified as living an absolutely amazing amount of time makes one much more notable than Patrick Bouvier Kennedy is desperately needed. LE (talk) 18:35, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:WAX. Go nominate that article for deletion. CommanderLinx (talk) 06:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Snow Keep Per the two previous AFD nominations that were both withdrawn. Passes WP:GNG. Are you even serious with this nomination ? Did you look through the first two ? You should withdraw your nomination. Into the Rift (talk) 12:19, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Into the Rift has been blocked as a sockpuppet. EEng 04:15, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Why should he withdraw? The last nomination was 3 years ago and the first one 11(!) years ago. People are asked not to renominate within 6 months, and this is clearly longer than 6 months. &raquo; Shadowowl  &#124;  talk  15:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete Oldest something is not autonotable and the person is not significant. A perfect candidate for a list, not an full article. &raquo; Shadowowl  &#124;  talk  15:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep She is the 2nd verified oldest person EVER. She is certainly notable. RightGot (talk) 20:57, 2 December 2018 (UTC) — RightGot (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Keep Beyound she is the second oldest person, at that time her age received news coverage and since then nobody lived that age once more. If she is not relevant so Jeanne Calment is neither. --IacobusBr (talk) 22:21, 2 December 2018 (UTC) — IacobusBr (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Where to start... point me to this overwhelming news coverage. There's certainly no evidence of it in the article. And WP:WAX is relevant, especially as Calment was notable for more than being super old. Maybe a mini up at most, but certainly not enough for a standalone article. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 02:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:WAX CommanderLinx (talk) 06:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.

 >p?The article notes: "Sarah Knauss, at 119 years and 97 days, is the oldest American whose age has been validated. She was named the “world’s oldest person” by Guinness World Records upon the death of Marie-Louise Meilleur of Canada on April 16, 1998. More importantly, she is listed as the oldest verified supercentenarian in the Social Security Administration’s Kestenbaum study of U.S. supercentenarians who reached the age of 110 or greater between January 1, 1980, and December 31, 1999 (see chapter by Kestenbaum and Ferguson in this volume for study details). The Sarah Knauss case first garnered international media attention in August 1997, following the death of Jeanne Calment at 122, who had held the Guinness record for “world’s oldest person” for several years4. In an attempt to gain Guinness recognition following the Au- gust 4, 1997, death of France’s Jeanne Calment, the Sarah Knauss case was researched in 1997 by genealogist Edith Rogers Moyer for Phoebe Ministries. Prior to that time, the Sarah Knauss case had already at- tracted the attention of both the American media and the scientific community, but documents had not yet been located. Her 117th birth- day in September 1997 drew major attention, as did her ascent to the title of “world’s oldest person” in April 1998. Her family was featured in Life magazine in February 1999, complete with a photo of six living generations. Meanwhile, international researchers Tom Perls, Jean-Marie Robine, Bernard Jeune, and John Wilmoth visited Sarah Knauss in 1998. Some may have arrived skeptical, but all left convinced she was really the age claimed. Documents that were located and reported by the genealogist Moyer in 1997 (a partial list of these results has been published) (Robine and Vaupel, 2002), included a 1900 census match, an 1880 census record for the family, a 1901 marriage license, and an August 29, 1901, newspaper article. Indeed, checking back through the local Allentown newspaper archives (http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/mcall/) one finds scores of news articles, including coverage of her 106th, 107th, 108th, 111th, 113th, 114th, 115th, 116th, 117th, 118th, and 119th birthdays. Sarah Knauss was featured in a national news article as far back as age 115. There can be no doubt that Sarah was well-known in her hometown as a centenarian a decade before the international media coverage began. In the case of Sarah Knauss, the Social Security records accord with the birth date of September 24, 1880. Indeed, she was featured in a news article as “Three Generations on Social Security.” When she was 115, her daughter was 92, and her grandson was 70."  The book notes: "Stories from the lives of our oldest neighbors are worth telling. Here are a couple of examples. 'So what,' said Sarah Knauss nearly fifteen years ago, when told that she was the world's oldest living person. Knauss relinquished that title on December 31, 1999, when she died at the age of 119. She had lived through seven US wars, the sinking of the Titanic, and Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic. She was older than the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty and was already eighty-eight when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in July 1969. Knauss died in the Phoebe-Devitt Homes Foundation nursing home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she had lived for nine years. Born September 24, 1880, in the small coal-mining town of Hollywood, Pennsylvania, she married Abraham Lincoln Knauss in 1901. He became a well-known Republican leader in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Sarah was a homemaker and insurance office manager. When her daughter, Kathryn Sullivan, was ninety-six, she explained Knauss' three-digit age by saying: 'She's a very tranquil person and nothing fazes her. That's why she's living this long.' In 1995, when asked if she enjoyed her long life, Knauss said matter-of-factly: 'I enjoy it because I have my health and I can do things.' Her passions were said to be watching golf on television, doing needlepoint, and nibbling on milk chocolate turtles, cashews, and potato chips. 'Sarah was an elegant lady and worthy of all the honor and adulation she has received,' said Joseph Hess, an administrator of the facility where Knauss died quietly in her room. Officials said she had not been ill. She inherited the 'oldest' crown, validated by the Guinness Book of World Records, with the death of Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur of Corbeil, Canada, on April 26, 1998. Meilleur had been Knauss' senior by twenty-six days."  The book notes: "Sarah Knauss: second-oldest person ever ... Second place belongs to Sarah Knauss, who lived for 119 years, 97 days. She was born Sarah DeRemer Clark on 24 September 1880, in Hollywood. Not that one – it didn't exist yet. This was Hollywood, Pennsylvania, a coal-mining village. Life expectancy back then was 40 years. Sarah would achieve nearly treble that. In 1901 she married Abraham Knauss, whose middle name was Lincoln (this was only three decades after the President's assassination). The couple honeymooned at Niagara Falls, then set up home in Allentown, which was then still a small town. Sarah felt like an outsider because the grocery store assistants spoke in Pennsylvania Dutch. The town had horse-drawn trolleys – Sarah saw the last one ever finish its service. In 1903 she gave birth to her only child, Kitty. In the 1920s the family got its first-ever refrigerator – before that, ice had been delivered by the ice man. For Christmas 1940, when she was already 60, Sarah received an electric sewing machine. She would make her own clothes and hem her family's clothes right up to her death – another 59 years. Her life was simple: watching TV (particularly golf and the QVC shopping channel), making pot pie and Moravian sugar cake, playing bridge with friends. She never flew in a plane or learned to drive. Kitty called her mother 'a happy warrior in her home'. Her husband died in 1965, aged 86. In 1998, when Sarah was 117, family members walked into her dining room and told her she had become the world's oldest living person. She smiled and said: 'So what?' The following year, on 30 December, one of the carers at the Allentown nursing home where Sarah lived called in to check on her. She was fine, and showed no signs of any illness. Less than an hour later another check was made: Sarah had passed away. By just 33 hours she had missed out on becoming one of the very few people to live in three centuries. She left many descendants, including one great-great-great-grandson, four-year-old Bradley."  The book notes: "It is striking how Jeanne Calmont, Shigechiyo Izumi and Jiroemon Kimura all lived virtually their whole lives in the same area, and the same is true of the oldest American and second-oldest human being who ever lived, Sarah Knauss. Knauss, who entered this world on 24 September 1880, always lived in Pennsylvani. The daughter of a mining engineer, she was born Sarah Clark in a small town called Hollywood. At wenty she married, and she and her husband were together for 64 years until he died aged 86 in 1965, leaving her a widow for the last 34 years of her life. Knauss never had a full-time job, but she was a talented seamstree who made her own wedding dress and went on creating clothes and hand-sewn quilts until she was 107. ... A journalist who went to visit Knauss just over a year before she died reported that she was five feet tall (1.5 m) and weighed just over six-and-a-half-stone (44 kg). Slight as she was, she sat 'tall and graceful' in her wheelchair. The staff ... Knauss's daughter, who lived to be 101, credited her mother's long life to her relaxed attitude: ... In the final week of her life she went to the hairdresser, just as she did every week, 'wearing a fashionable dress and her trademark smile'. A volunteer at the home said that people thought Knauss looked much younger than her formidable age. She could still talk, though her voice was very soft. The main downside of her advanced age, according to her daughter, was the she had gone 'almost totally deaf'. ..."</li> <li> The article notes: "Sarah Knauss, 118, the oldest resident of Allentown and the world, is delighted with Life Magazine's feature on her family's longevity. 'Oh my goodness, is that me?,' Knauss replied Friday when shown the two-page color spread in Life's February issue. 'It's so nice.' In a family portrait by the internationally-known photographer Theo Westenberger, Knauss is surrounded by five generations of her longevous family. A story by Michael Vitez, a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer, outlines Knauss' remarkable life. ... With Knauss is her 95-year-old daughter, Kitty Sullivan of Allentown; her 73-year-old grandson, Bob Butz of Fleetwood, Berks County; her 49-year-old great-granddaughter, Kathy Jacoby, an Allentown teacher; her 27-year-old great-great-granddaughter, Kristina Patton, and her 3-year-old great-great-great-grandson Bradley Patton."</li> <li> The article notes: "Born Sept. 24, 1880, in the small coal mining town of Hollywood, Pa., Knauss married Abraham Lincoln Knauss in 1901. He became a well-known Republican leader in Lehigh County, Pa. Knauss was a homemaker and insurance office manager. Her daughter, Kathryn Sullivan, who is 96, once explained Knauss' three-digit age by saying: 'She's a very tranquil person and nothing fazes her. That's why she's living this long.'"</li> <li> The article notes: "Sarah Knauss, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest person, died Dec. 30 at the age of 119, apparently of natural causes, according to an official at the Allentown, Pa., nursing home where she lived. 'She died quietly in her room. She was not ill,' said Marcella Moyer Schick, executive director of the Pheobe-Devitt Homes Foundation. 'They had stopped in to see her just less than an hour before, and when the nurse went back, she had passed away.' Knauss, who was born Sept. 24, 1880, and lived a quiet life as a homemaker and insurance office manager, found herself in the international spotlight after Guinness declared her the world's oldest person in 1998 upon the death of Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur, of Quebec, who was 117."</li> <li> The article notes: "Knauss was born on Aug. 24, 1880, the only child of Amelia and Walter Clark, in Hollywood, a small mining town in Luzerne County. The family moved to Bethlehem, where her father was a superintendent at the former New Jersey Zinc Co. in Bethlehem. She met the charming and gregarious Abraham Lincoln Knauss at Mealey's Dance Auditorium, a dance hall on Hamilton Street in Allentown, where City Hall is now. The popular 'Abe' Knauss would later become one of Lehigh County's best known Republican leaders. The couple married in 1901, moved to west Allentown and two years later had Sullivan. After her husband retired as recorder of deeds, the couple drove to St. Petersburg, Fla., every winter. She has never flown in an airplane. Knauss was a homemaker who played bridge and had a talent for sewing. She sewed all her daughter's clothing, including her wedding dress."</li> <li> The article notes in a footnote: "The case of Sarah Knauss provides a good example of validation in the absence of a birth record. Sarah De Reemer Clark Knauss was born September 24, 1880, in the village of Hollywood, Hazle township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. We do not have any birth documentation for her but she was recorded on June 5, 1900, in the Twelfth Census of the United States as Sadie, daughter, born September 1880, age 19, single living with: Clark Walter, Head, born April 1849, age 51, married since 25 years; Amelia, Wife, born June 1857, age 42, married since 25 years, having 7 children, 4 living; Charles, son, born July 1878, age 21, single; Sadie1...4; Earl, son, born May 1889, age 11, single; and Emily, daughter, born May 1893, age 7, single. Walter Clark was recorded in the 1880 Federal Census of Hollywood village with his family: Walter Clark, age 31, engineer; wife Emelia, age 23, keeping house; son albert L, age 4; and son Charles H age 2. The age correspondance between the two census is right for Walter Clark, Amelia and Charles. Sarah was born the following September 24, 1880. Sarah De Reemer Clark and Abraham Lincoln Knauss were married by Rev. Dr. Gilbert Henry Sterlingon August 28, 1901 (Application for marriage license, Sarah DE R. Clark, 21 years; Marriage record Cathedral Church of the Nativity Bethlehem, Sarah Deremer Clark, age 20; The GLOBE, South Bethlehem, Thursday, August 29, 1901: '...of the contracting couple, Abraham Lincoln Knauss and Miss Sadie De Reemer Clark'). Thus there is no doubt that a daughter of Walter and Amelia Clark, born in September 1880 and named Sarah (Sadie) De Reemer, was 19 years old in September 1900 (Twelfth US Census) and 20 years old (Close to 21 years old) when she married Abraham Lincoln Knauss on August 1901. There is no reason to consider that this person is other than Sarah Clark Knauss who was resident of the Phobe Home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, known to be 118 years old when we have visited her in November 1998. Since her marriage her family history is well documented. This case was documented by Edith Rodgers Mayer (PhoebeMinistries, 1997)." </li> <li> The book notes: "Världens näst äldsta människa Sarah Knauss, blev 119 år och Thomas Perls träffade henne när hon var 118 år och bodde på ett äldreboende. Hennes 95-åriga dotter levde i ett boende alldeles i närheten. – Hon bodde hemma utan behov av hjälp till hon var 111 år. Anledningen till att hon flyttade till boendet var att hon började se och höra illa. I övrigt hade hon inga allvarliga sjukdomar, minns Thomas Perls. Fortfarande nâr hon var 118 år kunde Sarah Knauss föra vanliga konversationer. Det var först under sitt sista halvår som hon inte alls var kontaktbar. Till skillnad från Jeanne Calment, den enda människan som blivit äldre, rökte aldrig Sarah Knauss. Däremot delade de en passion för godis och inte minst choklad. Hennes dotter förklarade att hon 'hatade grönsaker', och fortfarande på äldreboendet kunde Sarah Knauss strunta i huvudrätten för att gå direkt på efterrätten." From Google Translate: "The world's second oldest woman, Sarah Knauss, became 119 years old and Thomas Perls met with her at age 118 and lived in a retirement home. Her 95-year-old daughter lived in a place close by. – She lived at home without the need for help until she was 111 years old. The reason she moved to the accommodation was that she began to see and hear badly. By the way, she had no serious illnesses, remembers Thomas Perls. Still, when she was 118, Sarah Knauss could conduct regular conversations. It was only during her last half that she was not at all touchable. Unlike Jeanne Calment, the only person who grew older, Sarah Knauss never smoked. On the other hand, they shared a passion for candy and not least chocolate. Her daughter explained that she 'hated vegetables', and still at the retirement home, Sarah Knauss was allowed to go to the main course to go straight to the dessert."</li> <li> The book notes: "Highest combined age for a parent and child (ever) Sarah Knauss (USA, 1890–1999) and her 96-year-old daughter Kathryn 'Kitty' Knauss Sullivan (USA, 1903–2005) had a combined age of 215 years 140 days when Sarah passed away. She was 119 years 97 days old at the time, while Kathryn was aged 96 years 43 days."</li> </ol>There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Sarah Knauss to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 03:45, 3 December 2018 (UTC)</li></ul>


 * Pinging Articles for deletion/Sarah Knauss (2nd nomination) participants:, , , , , , , , , , , , , and . Cunard (talk) 03:45, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep As I said at AfD2,, We have very reasonably gotten much more limited in our coverage of supercentenarians over the years, but deleting the article on someone who actually has been the verifiable world's oldest person  is carrying things to the level of utter absurdity.  DGG ( talk ) 04:01, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - This is per WP:NTEMP, we have had two AfD discussions so far that have proven her notability. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Notability isn't the question; it's NOPAGE. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 04:16, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete/redirect to appropriate list. As usual in these cases, the issue isn't notability but NOPAGE. There are literally two sentences about her life in the entire article, other than when she died: Sarah DeRemer Clark was born on September 24, 1880, in Hollywood, Pennsylvania, a small coal mining village. She married Abraham Lincoln Knauss in 1901. The absurdity of the remaining strained fancruft is almost painful:
 * At age 116, she was recognized as being the new United States national longevity record holder, then thought to have been held by Carrie C. White (reportedly 1874–1991). In 1998, she became the world's oldest person when 117-year-old Canadian Marie-Louise Meilleur of Quebec died. When her family members told her of her newfound fame, her response was a smile and "So what?" ... Knauss lived through seven wars involving the U.S. (including both World Wars) and the administrations of 23 presidents (from Rutherford B. Hayes to Bill Clinton). At her death, she was one of seven living generations of her family. She died just thirty-three hours before the 2000 year celebrations began, which were sometimes reported as having just missed living into a third century, although the 21st century and the 3rd millennium actually began on January 1, 2001 ... died of natural causes in Allentown, Pennsylvania on December 30, 1999 at Phoebe Home (now known as Phoebe Allentown, a subsidiary of Phoebe-Devitt Homes, Inc.)
 * The lessons on calendars, wars, and presidents, and the bit about the parent company of the nursing home, are just delicious. A perfect NOPAGE case. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 04:12, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete WP:NOPAGE applies. I think EEng is being charitable saying there are two sentences about her. The town description "a small coal mining villiage" is not about her and knowing the name of her non-notable husband "Abraham Lincoln Knauss" does little to help us understand her life. Legacypac (talk) 04:33, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I wrote the following in AfD2: "20-Mule-Team Keep: Oh for pity's sake. Passes the GNG with flying colors, and that's all she wrote. I understand that Xxxxx is waving around NOPAGE with all the force and furor that your average American Republican politician screams "Liberal! Liberal! Liberaaaaalll!!" -- as if the mere word is a trump card that automatically supersedes all other considerations or arguments -- but sooner or later the fact must be faced that it's not that the Keep proponents don't understand his argument, we don't agree with it. The Knauss article is, I freely concede, poorly written and longer on irrelevant blather than on encyclopedic fact, but that's a content dispute, not an appropriate issue for AfD." My feelings have not changed in the three years since, except to add that the So She Was The Oldest Living Human Being, So What? premise being pushed by some of the Delete proponents could be just as readily pushed on damn near every biographical article on Wikipedia. We do not keep or reject articles based on "So What?"  We do so using well-established guidelines on notability.  The subject meets the fundamental one.   Ravenswing    07:45, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's apparent that you really don't understand the NOPAGE argument, since you're still talking about notability, and NOPAGE has nothing to do with notability. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 08:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Amusingly enough, I get to repeat another quote from AfD2, this one to you: "@EEng, let's see if I can phrase this in terms unlikely to mistake. Yes, I have read NOPAGE.  Yes, I have read your arguments. I do not agree with you. What about that is so hard to understand?  I'm sorry ... if you find the consensus against you bewildering, but it is obvious that more editors reject your curious interpretation of that section as meaning "Any article that any one editor argues can be redirected into a broader topic must be redirected into a broader topic" than otherwise.  I am among them."  Indeed, NOPAGE does not talk about notability (however much it's part of WP:N).  What you did not understand three years ago and do not seem to understand now is that there is nothing about NOPAGE that supersedes or overrules the GNG.   Ravenswing    17:22, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep Those who refer to WP:NOPAGE ignore that being the second oldest human is something that is researched by many people. Wikipedia should provide the necessary facts for journalists and scholars. For scientists judging about a longevity claim, the personal dates of the person (not just birthday and age) are extremely important for judging about the reliability of a claim. Jansan (talk) 09:50, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per the reasons I cited in the two prior AFD discussions and the rationale proffered by User:Knowledgekid87 and User:Jansan. WP:No page is a subpart of WP:Notability.  Easily meets WP:GNG. <b style="color:#060">7&amp;6=thirteen</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b>) 10:06, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * <small class="delsort-notice">Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. <b style="color:#060">7&amp;6=thirteen</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b>) 11:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)


 * And after all the sources above... where's the article? Living and dying certainly isn't enough for a page, and the sources in question go into no detail beyond this. Wikipedia isn't here to right great wrongs about who did and didn't receive enough coverage for an actual standalone page. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 13:50, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment The article is complete, referenced and obviously WP:Notable. You are merely rehashing arguments that were heard (and better argued at the time) and rejected Articles for deletion/Sarah Knauss (2nd nomination).  <b style="color:#060">7&amp;6=thirteen</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b>) 14:46, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The fact that this article is complete is more evidence that it doesn't need a standalone page. When only a couple sentences are about her, and the rest is borderline ridiculous cruft about what happened by virtue of her not dying; this is not a competition with milestones. Once stripped of that, we're left with a paragraph that neatly fits as a minibio. The puffery EEng details above is just filler. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 17:46, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep. This woman was well known for her last two years, covered in multiple media. That she is a poster child for the extraordinary notability of attaining extraordinary longevity puts her in the crosshairs of those determined to deny that notability but this deletion pogrom needs to be stopped cold. LE (talk) 18:31, 3 December 2018 (UTC) — LE (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Because I vote against multiple attempts to delete supercentenarian biographies, those who start multiple attempts to delete supercentenarian biographies hang that tag on my votes in an attempt to discredit me. But my contrib history clearly shows that it's far from the only subject on which I make contributions. LE (talk) 02:15, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Pogroms and crosshairs... just like old times. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 18:42, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * You'd be better entitled to wax indignant over LE's language if you hadn't tried to discredit an editor with 670 live edits on many different subjects as a fly-by-night SPA.   Ravenswing   18:36, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I think LE's "arguments" did a rather fine job of discrediting themselves without my help... besides, come back to me when you've dealt with this for 8 years. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 13:47, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * If you're playing "mine is bigger than yours" games, come back to me when you've dealt with this for thirteen years. Eeeeesh, seriously??   Ravenswing    18:02, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * She is only 2nd out of ca. 7 billion (actually it would be more if you count ongoing and additive world population since recorded history began). Her achievement is far above the norm as of the date she expired.  As the BBC writes: "There are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived. This means that we are nowhere near close to having more alive than dead."  <b style="color:#060">7&amp;6=thirteen</b> (<b style="color:#000">☎</b>) 18:47, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Her achievement, as you say, is fully recorded at List of the verified oldest people, where her #2 status is even more visible, and her age is easily compared to other supercentenarians. The rest of the article has nothing to say about her life and deeds. — JFG talk 12:43, 4 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep The second-oldest fully documented supercentenarian in history is notable. --Davidcpearce (talk) 19:06, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * According to what policy or guideline? CommanderLinx (talk) 06:20, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Keep Per DGG and Mr. Thirteen. Julia Kinsley (talk) 21:18, 4 December 2018 (UTC) — Julia Kinsley (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete. The several "keep" !votes saying that being very old is notable are not based in any policy (and are therefore likely to be ignored by the closing admin). In addition, in a sense the question of notability is moot, as WP:NOPAGE obviously applies. The little that's worth mentioning about this person can be included in the appropriate list article. --Randykitty (talk) 11:16, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment by OP – If the article is deleted, the name "Sarah Knauss" should be redirected to our List of the verified oldest people, in order to facilitate search. — JFG talk 12:45, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Per DGG and Mr Thirteen. Old people like this typically get the coverage needed to at least make a start class article worthwhile, this does.♦ Dr. Blofeld  12:58, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTAVOTE and another brand new account that figured out how to vote in AFD's. CommanderLinx (talk) 06:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep One more vote to keep. Sarah Knauss is the second ever oldest person validated, she is notable enough to have an article of her own, and just to point out the inconsistency, for example: there are many articles for minor sport figures that are not that famous and are kept. It is very lopsided and unjust to just delete the article of the second oldest validated person ever. --Garlicolive (talk) 20:00, 4 December 2018 (UTC) — Garlicolive (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Please provide some policy based reasons for keeping instead of WP:WAX and WP:NOTAVOTE. Because no notability guideline or policy says "Oldest X is notable". Note that this edit is the above accounts first edit to Wikipedia. CommanderLinx (talk) 06:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Note I am adding the NOTAVOTE tag due to the presence of at least three brand new accounts that somehow figured out how to vote in AFD's as some of their first edits. I suspect some canvassing has been going on somewhere again. CommanderLinx (talk) 05:57, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment I've lost interest in these supercentenarian AFDs, but FWIW editors who came here because they received a notification from a mysterious IP should probably disclose that fact. was blocked for sockpuppetry shortly after this. I also wouldn't be surprised if it turns out there was off-wiki canvassing going on, given the above. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:53, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep I just found this discussion by chance as I was researching around longevity. So the necessity of keeping this page kind of speaks for itself. Also, there are currently some discussion around the longest living person ever, Jeanne Calment, and if she actually lived as long as claimed. []. That could lead to more interest in the no 2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by V95micfa (talk • contribs) 09:22, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Do tell, how did you come across this after 6 years of total inactivity? It seems like such an amazing coincidence... The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 13:48, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets GNG, and per NOPAGE there is plenty of context to provide information about this topic as a standalone, there is enough information in this article that to combine several articles of this length and depth would make the result unweildly, and sourcing is more than sufficient, passing GNG and all. Wikipedia is a generalist encyclopedia and a specialist encyclopedia.  Yes, she is notable only because of her age, but that is notability nonetheless.  Wikipedia exists to provide encyclopedic information about topics of general and specialist interest.  This particular article is of general interest, there are many, many people beyond those who obsess over every supercentenarians who are interested in encyclopedic information about the oldest person ever from the United States.  The article violates nothing in WP:NOT.   78.26  (spin me / revolutions) 14:44, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.