Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion/List of people by name

Appendix to the accompanying AfD page

Excerpt from Category:Living people, copied & pasted by Jerzy•t, to supplement a deletion-discussion point i've not yet contributed.

1. Romain Larrieu
2. Jorge Larrionda
3. Preston Larrison
4. Tito Larriva
5. Gaby Larrivée
6. Salvador Larroca
7. Alicia de Larrocha
8. John Larroquette
9. Omar Larrosa
10. Gérard Larrousse
11. Larry Harris
12. Larry Hirst
13. Larry Larsen
14. Larry Mark
15. Larry Milberry
16. Larry Nesper
17. Larry O'Bannon
18. Larry Penley
19. Larry Pinto de Faria
20. Larry Richert
21. Larry Scott (radio personality)
22. Larry Thompson
23. Larry West
24. Larry the Cable Guy
25. Anne Margrethe Larsen
26. Arne Larsen
27. Art Larsen
28. Bent Larsen

Unsigned by User:Jerzy

I am unclear as to what the above list and comment pertains to. El_C 11:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Give him time, and I'm sure he will explain. I have a pretty good idea what he is arguing here, but will leave Jerzy to explain himself. Carcharoth 13:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how I'm not giving him time, but I, however, have no idea, none whatsoever. El_C 13:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

He probably means that categories are very badly pipe-sorted, and so are useless as an alphabetical index. Here's a question for you. Do we have a list of articles on people who's names begin with X. The sort of things you would find under X in, say, the Dictionary of National Biography? Carcharoth 13:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that's nominally comprehensible. In answer to your question: I have no idea. El_C 13:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

That was a rhetorical question. I assumed you were aware that List of people by name: X is one of the pages that would be deleted if this MfD goes though. Simple functionality would be lost. At least can we replace the functionality before deleting? (Hence my question below about lists). Carcharoth 14:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

You assumed incorrectly (I was aware in the most peripheral sense only); I'm here just to ensure the flow of debate. El_C 14:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. That too is nominally comprehensible. :-) Carcharoth 14:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion period

I think that the discussion period should be extended at least by the amount of time the page was protected. I assume this is an uncontroversial suggestion. Are we agreed? — The Storm Surfer 13:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It's only been a day; xfDs do not have an absolute fixed time limit anyway (I close many a day early/later than the guideline suggests), so it dosen't make a difference. El_C 13:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for list

Since my request for a list of all the articles listed on the pages proposed for deletion has been ignored, I would like time to produce such a list myself. This will involve laboriously clicking on an URL designed to edit each link at Template:List of people by name compact page-index, and then copying the content of that page to a file for further analysis. I suspect there is a better way to do this, and would plead for someone to do this the easy way, or at least give me time to do it the hard way. Carcharoth 13:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by you would like time? Time is free. El_C 13:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

How would I do this if the pages are deleted? Carcharoth 13:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

How much time are we talking about? El_C 13:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Um. How many links are there at Template:List of people by name compact page-index? I know it is less than 26*26, but say 10 seconds for each one? I couldn't do it before the weekend though. Carcharoth 13:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

If I'm the one who gets to close this debate, I would certainly leave it open throughout the weekend, although, this may not stop another admin from closing the debate beforehand. But, no "suspension," one way or the other. El_C 14:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Struck out. Now I definitely am not going to be the one to close this debate, nor will I participate in it in at all, for that matter. El_C 22:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of suspension of MfD discussion

I simply didn't have the time, nor do i have the time now to do more than be politely by acknowledging the day's events.

I'm very pleased that an uninvolved admin has intervened, and would have seriously considered requesting that via AN had time allowed me to make respond to discussion of the need for such a request.

I didn't notice who used the expression "wheelwarring", and i think i'll try do avoid doing so. In light of

1. the reasons i gave,
2. the insignificance of a delay to the outcome -- look up the word "suspend" -- in deleting what has been here long enuf that its history can no longer be traced back to its creation,
3. the inability of suspension to affect the outcome (unless by avoiding, as i had hoped to, risk exhaustion of any participants before resolution, which i should think would be a laudable goal, no matter which outcome the exhaustion would benefit), and
4. what i think is my four-year record as admin, marred if at all by good-faith errors whose only effect was that i learned from them to avoid repetitions,

i am insulted that i was denied WP:AGF. (Or, for that matter, if it was not addressed to me, i am offended on behalf of any admin who was perceived as needing to be warned off from turning the suspension attempt into a wheelwar, that it was thrown out in inflammatory fashion on the page, rather than something like

I presume you are wise enuf not to be about to wheelwar.

on, at worst, talk pages of such admins.)

But, again today, i have not choice but to stop editing, without saying all i would like to.
--Jerzy•t 01:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not going to respond at length to this line of argument, and I caution against being so defensive and plead for greater introspection. I did, as well, expect greater efforts toward clear and lucid expression. It's regretful to see that few if any lessons appear to have been drawn. El_C 03:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Let's forget the protection, suspension, intimations of wheelwarring and whatnot, and keep discussing things. There are several technical solutions I have seen in this discussion that I don't think have been suggested previously, or were even possible before. Can we concentrate on discussing those please? In particular, Jerzy, please have a look at the way {{largeCategoryTOC}} works (you can see it in operation on Category:Unassessed biography articles). Do you think that is a first step towards a system that incorporates part of what has been built up here? I would also like to point out the discussion here, where it has been determined that there are (currently) 376,274 biographical articles marked as such on their talk pages. To compare, do you have any idea how many articles are in LoPbN? Can you provide a full list on a single page, or at least split the list up into a page for each letter of the alphabet? Carcharoth 23:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps we could use a bot to catify the list? I believe that a full list on a single page (or even 1/26th of such a list) would be too long for practical editing. We get that "this page is long" warning for a reason. >Radiant< 08:17, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah, thanks for the response. I'm afraid I've just ranted on the MfD closer's talk page about your comment there. Apologies for that. I'd love to try and implement the fairly detailed plan I proposed on the MfD page. Would you have time to comment on that in detail? I'll copy it below. Carcharoth 10:50, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Also, in case people have missed it, there is a very relevant discussion going on at Template talk:WPBiography#Category with all the articles in it. Carcharoth 11:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed solution

Initial proposal copied from Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/List of people by name.

My proposed solution is:

• (1) Turn LoPbN into a single master list, in alphabetical order.
  • (1a) Preserve the annotations for possible use in disambiguation pages.
• (2) Compare the LoPbN list with the list of approx 380,000 articles transcluding {{WPBiography}} (this is a 10MB file that is too large to be uploaded as a wiki-page), and ensure that any LoPbN articles lacking {{WPBiography}} on their talk page have that tag added.
• (3) Use a bot to add a Category:Biographical articles tag to all articles with {{WPBiography}} on their talk page, plus an attempt at DEFAULTSORT or pipe-sorting.
• (4) Create Category:Biographical articles.
• (5) Design a new (three-letter) version of {{largeCategoryTOC}} for use on Category:Biographical articles. (see next)
• (5) Access the category using an index similar to this test index (for Category:Living people).
• (6) Initiate and maintain processes to ensure correct pipe-sorting or DEFAULTSORTing of biographical articles.
• (7) Browse the new category using the index provided by the newly-designed three-letter version of {{largeCategoryTOC}}, and use this new functionality to improve Wikipedia's disambiguation pages.

Please discuss below. Carcharoth 00:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• (8) Tidy up the links to existing LoPbN pages, and then blank the existing pages and redirect to a compact index page in the style of this test index (the test index links to the Living People category).

This additional point has been added to make clear that I don't want to keep the existing pages, but they should only be blanked and redirected, keeping the history available for people who want to carry on transferring information (to disambiguation pages, for example). Carcharoth 22:42, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Advantages

• This new system can be easily maintained.

Disadvantages

• The annotations to the LoPbN lists are difficult to transfer.

Additional suggestions

• One possibility is to create categories for the sections, e.g. Category:Surnames beginning with F; the advantage to this option is that it would be completely "self-maintaining" - once an article was tagged with the category, the list would self-generate. PaladinWhite 02:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
  • And then have an index page for the 26 categories. That would be easier than having a three-letter largeCategoryTOC. What about cases like Fry Family (Chocolate)? Carcharoth 07:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
    • That one is easy, at least. Articles about an entire family are not biography articles, whether the family is Fry, Arbuthnot, or the Hatfields and McCoys. Only articles for specific individuals count in this regard. Serpent's Choice 11:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, they are tagged on their talk pages with {{WPBiography}}, and I understand the reasoning behind that. I would actually call them biographical articles, but maybe others disagree. Another consideration is the disambiguation pages. Should they be accessible from such an index, or not? Carcharoth 11:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible problems

• Automated DEFAULTSORT or pipe-sorting is difficult in many cases.
• How much time and volunteer effort needed?
• How much bot programming and running time is needed?

General comments

• Please put general comments here.
• See also Template talk:WPBiography#Category with all the articles in it. Carcharoth 11:04, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's a comment: why not use categories? That's what they're there for, no? >Radiant< 09:57, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Um. I am proposing to use categories. The problem with categories is that there is no overall listing easily obtainable from the category system, and pipe sorting of names to appear in the correct place in a category is difficult to automate (producing a bottleneck due to the need for humans to do that bit). Have you looked at the way Category:Living people is set up? I'm simply proposing to do that for all biographical articles (both dead and living people). Carcharoth 21:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You also seem to be missing the point that once this category system has been set up, I will be the first to support the deletion (or maybe just the blanking and redirecting) of the unmaintainable LoPbN pages, though before any deletion, the links pointing at LoPbN pages would have to be examined. Carcharoth 21:58, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• For example. Look at this category-based list of living people from "Bo" in the 'index'. If there was a category with all biographical articles in it, then the LoPbN index could simply be replaced by that. It is trivial to produce an equivalent of Template:List of people by name compact page-index for living people, so why not do it for all biographical articles? Carcharoth 21:58, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
  • And here it is: User:Carcharoth/List of living people compact index. That is what I eventually envisage replacing LoPbN. Click on the links and look at the underlying code to see what I mean. Any actual lists needed can be generated from the category and kept elsewhere (eg. disambiguation pages, and so forth). Carcharoth 22:34, 23 May 2007 (UTC)