Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suuret suomalaiset


 * 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. (non-admin closure) Alpha_Quadrant    (talk)    16:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Suuret suomalaiset

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non-notable, possibly copyvio. cf. Articles for deletion/200 Greatest Israelis. List articles that simply reproduce lists published elsewhere are non-notable. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:00, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Finland-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 20:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. In short: Not a mere list. Is notable. Not a copyvio. But agree on shortening.
 * a) Contrary to what the deletion nomination claims, this is not simply a reproduction of a list. The article does give context as to when and by whom the poll was organized, among others.
 * b) By a quick reading of the deletion discussion quoted in the nomination, it seems that the Israeli poll was organized by a commercial newspaper and received low publicity rendering the poll not notable, the stated reason for its deletion. In contrast, the Finnish poll was organized by the state-funded broadcaster YLE, akin to BBC, and the poll was widely publicized, receiving considerable attention from multiple independent sources (citations upon request).
 * c) I do not believe that this article is a copyvio, and such claims without legal reasoning have no basis whatsoever, as noted very well in the linked deletion discussion, where the closing admin specifically states that the reason for deletion was not a copyright violation, but lack of headword notability. As a side note: although facts by themselves are never copyrightable, one could theoretically conceive someone claiming that this list has legal protection under database right, which actually is a form of copyright under the Finnish law. However, I do not believe that an ordered list of 100 names representing a result of a public poll with limited commercial exploitability invokes protection under these statues.
 * d) Irrespective of above, I do agree that Wikipedia is not a directory, and would support redacting the entries 11 to 100 from the article altogether, leaving only the "Top ten" and "Humoristic voting" section of selected, surprising results in the article. This is in line of the precedent of 100 Greatest Britons, that this format was based upon, and which has weathered an AfD. --hydrox (talk) 01:14, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have taken the liberty of redacting entries 11-100 from the list per WP:NOTDIR. --hydrox (talk) 01:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. As explained at length at the indicated AfD, there is obviously no copyvio at all.  If there were, we would have to delete (and no press could reflect) the results of Academy Award polls, and Gallup Polls, and the like.  The relevant Supreme Court case (Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, 111 S. Ct. 1282 (1991)) is set forth at the above-indicated AfD.  See also (with the same conclusion) Articles for deletion/100 greatest Romanians and Articles for deletion/100 Greatest Britons; and note that copyvio wasn't even claimed in the failed Afd at Articles for deletion/The Greatest American.
 * I note, as well, that this appears to be part of a series of PRODs and 2 dozen AfDs today by the same nom, of many most of the national poll results reflected here.--Epeefleche (talk) 01:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. Nominator is mistaken in this generic non-notability claim about articles whose topic is a list published elsewhere. If simply reproducing that list, it would indeed quite likely be a copyvio, and thereby a reason for speedy deletion. But that has no bearing on the issue of notability. There, the criterion is whether the topic of the article has received significant coverage in independent reliable sources. --Lambiam 05:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete fails WP:GNG. Stuartyeates (talk) 05:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice one. But how so? --hydrox (talk) 16:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This poll was itself organized by a reliable source, the Finnish national broadcaster YLE.2004 home page I think back in 2004 this received quite significant coverage in many a Finnish media, but it is a bit hard to prove because most newspapers don't publish free online archives of such old stories (2004). Nevertheless, below are some more recent examples of sources independent of the subject engaging in secondary reporting:
 * (in English) Helsingin Sanomat, 2009, mentions the placing of Lalli
 * (in Finnish) Helsingin Sanomat, 2008, "In 2004, Ahtisaari was not among the Great Finns."
 * (in Finnish) Ilta-Sanomat, 2005, again mentions the placing of Lalli.
 * (in Finnish) Aamulehti, 2011, tribute to Arto Javanainen. Mentions his placing on the list.
 * I hope these citations are enough to settle the question of notability for good. --hydrox (talk) 18:08, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * As a non-Finnish speaker, I can really only evaluate the first of these, and that contains less than one sentence on the topic at hand. For an English-language topic I would reject that as evidence of notability. Stuartyeates (talk) 18:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi ... I'm unclear. Are you rejecting only the English-language ref?  Or all the Finnish language refs?  As to foreign language refs, I believe that the norm at AfDs is either to run them through googletranslate (or the like) if you wish to understand their coverage, or AGF.  Best.--Epeefleche (talk) 18:48, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I am sorry if you do lack the competences to decide on this matter (like firing up a translator or mastering a language), but I won't stand up to someone presenting arbitary arguments. Deletionism is an immerse failure where it boils down to Anglophone chauvinism. --hydrox (talk) 06:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It would be rather sad if English Wikipedia could not, at all, write about subjects lacking good sources in English. Other encyclopedias, after all, usually rely on people who know Finnish to write about Finland, Chinese to write about Chinese literature et cetera. That's why it's fortunate that we, as well, have writers who can read more than one language. Of course, an English source is preferable when one of, as WP:IRS says, "equal quality and relevance [is] available", but seeing how that is not the case her, we can hardly discard the Finnish sources. /Julle (talk) 10:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - meets notability criteria for TV programmes. Deb (talk) 19:29, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, as with the other similar nominations. It's not copyvio, as has been shown pretty thoroughly. As for the nom's argument, we have no such policy. If the list is cited elsewhere, and this one clearly is it's notable under our ordinary guidelines.   DGG ( talk ) 03:11, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep These lists are very useful for finding very notable biographies.♦ Dr. Blofeld  22:45, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. First, I note that at Articles for deletion/100 Welsh Heroes, the closer of the AfD to which the nom points objected to nom's use of his close as precedent.  He wrote: "No blanket declaration about the inherent notability of such lists was made, or even implied, in my closing statement .... And I don't know how much clearer I could have been that copyright issues were not considered as a factor in that close."


 * Second, it is clear as discussed above that there is not any copyvio. In addition, nom's last sentence is simply inapplicable.  As to notability, I agree with the majority of the editors who have commented on this page that sufficient notability has been evidenced.  I also note (as wp:otherstuffexists permits) that we have thousands of lists of people from country x (or city y, or college z), which weren't even the results of polls -- just collections that random editors chose -- and this certainly has greater indicia of notability than such lists.


 * Finally, I note that at the 2-dozen-odd AfDs that nom made of the same ilk most commentators are expressing keen disagreement with nom's parallel nominations. The AfDs, which are running concurrently with this one, can be found at most of the national poll results reflected here.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:14, 10 October 2011 (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.