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 of the nomination was delete, after discounting anons, already has an category. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 04:31, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of vegetarians[edit]

Previously kept by default at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of vegetarians, I keep coming back to this one. It is:

• large
• incomplete to an unknown and probably unknowable degree
• may include entire religions with all their adherents
• hence, unmaintainable
• largely uncited
• no better than a category would be
• sometimes used to push a POV (e.g. Shakespeare, Hitler)
• contains real and fictional characters mixed, always a bad idea
• contains contemporary and historical characters in no kind of balance

I would suggest this should be replaced by categories for contemporary, fictional and historical vegetarians. Just zis Guy you know? 17:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• List should stay! There already exists a Category:Vegetarians, but people prefer the List_of_vegetarians and post there much more and also visit the List_of_vegetarians more often!

Categories are O. K., but real Wiki pages are much more fascinating.

Ohter countries also have their "List of vegetarians" Wikipedia Page!!!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.46.205.118 (talk • contribs) 10 July 2006.

• Don't change it!

The Wiki Page "List of vegetarians" is great as it is! I esp. like the many different categories and side categories! All these categories and side categories make the Wiki Page "List of vegetarians" different and special from other "Lists of vegetarians" that you can find on the internet!

So, don't change it, it is really fascinating as it is! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.46.205.92 (talk • contribs) 10 July 2006.

• delete and create catagory as per nom. Chrisd87 19:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Categorize per nom. Tevildo 20:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Categorize, I don't see why the list should exist when a category would be satisfactory. Is there not already such a category? HumbleGod 20:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per the various reasons stated in the nomination. This makes so much more sense as a category. (Also, Frankenstein's monster? Really?) ScottW 23:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and create category per above. --Coredesat talk. o.o;; 00:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Categorise --- GWO
• Why?!? new categories? The old ones are O.K. And who will sort all the names new?

• Keep and Keep an eye on; the article is virtually unsourced and makes no distinction between people who may have changed from carnivorous to vegetarian status and vice versa. This should be distinguished or the article is meaningless: if I have a salad for lunch and another for dinner, have I been vegetarian that day? Carlossuarez46 20:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Categorise per nom. --Ezeu 04:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Don't delete it, many vegetarians love this list. And visit Wikipedia more often because of this list. Other countries also have a "List of vegetarians" on Wikipedia.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.46.204.236 (talk • contribs) 11 July 2006.
• Delete redudant to category. Quotes should be transwikied to wikiquote or spun off into a seperate article is encyclopedic notability is asserted. Eluchil404 07:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• To deal with those points in order, and bearing in mind the conventions of WP:CLS (which is a must-read on category vs list vs serial box issues):

• • large - could be split if necessary, there are several ways to do this (splitting lists is perfectly common)
  • incomplete to an unknown and probably unknowable degree - doesn't matter. Sometimes a selected list - even slightly arbitrarily selected - is more interesting. Look, if the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (okay, bad example, but bear with the logic) contains everything anybody had ever been recorded as saying there'd be no point reading it. It's fine for a list to be a work in progress, no different to any of our other articles.
  • may include entire religions with all their adherents - indeed, just stating the religion would save space without losing information. Indeed a link to the appropriate category could be provided.
  • hence, unmaintainable - there's a risk of it degrading, but I think once it's cleaned up, the periodic cull of unreferenced articles will keep it tidy enough. If needs be it can be split.
  • largely uncited - cleanup, not afd. Yes, needs culling to the barebones, but remember that (a) categories themselves don't have any citations and (b) articles will only give references for the vegetarianism of their subjects if you're very lucky! With most articles you're lucky to get a reference on anything, let alone something like that. The most straightforward place to find references about people's vegetarianism is probably a secondary reliable source list of vegetarians
  • no better than a category would be - no. Just no. There are things that this list is much worse at (categories stay up to date) but here are some things that this list does far better:
    • It's actually an article. You could print it out and show it to your vegetarian/meat-eating friends; you could take it for your bedtime reading. It's actually quite an interesting read! Why? Because when I see all those names in a category, I have no idea who they all are. In this article, there's some brief contextual details, which I for one found rather interesting.
    • It's sorted in quite a good way i.e. people who you would associate with one another appear quite near each other. The categories are only sorted alphabetically (other than the fact that there are subcategories for nationality). They're purely arranged you can find stuff. You'd have to be even more anal than I am to actually print out page after page of category listings for your bedtime reading. There's no context to it. (And as for the "associated" aspect, WP:CFD would break down in howls of laughter at the sight of Category:Vegetarians by occupation and subcats - that would be a ridiculous cross-cat in terms of our category system; yet on the other hand, it seems quite natural, indeed the way most books would do it, on a listings page.)
    • You can also check the references. Here of course, there's basically nothing, so you know straight away not to trust anything included so far :-) On the category system, you could load up a page of listings and find that only a couple of the articles actually had references for the vegetarianism - and that would only be after loading up and reading through 200 articles! That hardly makes verifiability a piece of cake; you're just left trusting that there's enough editors taking tender care of those articles.
  • sometimes used to push a POV (e.g. Shakespeare, Hitler) - the list's not inherently POV-pushing so that's a matter for cleanup, not AFD. It's also quite a neutral thing to report that Hitler was vegetarian - I'd be more worried to see a list of vegetarians that deliberately left him out as an "unrepresentative example" than one that put him in.
  • contains real and fictional characters mixed, always a bad idea - cleanup matter, not AFD. But good point nonetheless.
  • contains contemporary and historical characters in no kind of balance - cleanup matter, not AFD. Again a good point, though.

• Basically, the thrust of the objection here is based on WP:CLS, which actually makes perfectly clear that there are both advantages and disadvantages to a list, many of which have been listed (between JzG and myself) above. It's not a case of finding a "winner" but finding whether it's useful for them to sit side by side. As far as I can see, they may be useful complements to each other. (Suppose, for instance, you did want to source a claim about a person's vegetarianism in their article - this list would be a perfect place to check whether it's already covered by a general vegetarianism reference.) I'm not going to shy away from the fact that the list at the moment, while a rather interesting and definitely quite offbeat read, is basically substandard and shouldn't go anywhere near "magic 1.0", but most of these concerns are cleanup ones being used to bolster a one-side-of-the-argument-only CLS case. If this is deleted (and given its current shoddy state I can understand that) may I request that it be userfied in its final, pre-deletion state to User:TheGrappler/List of vegetarians? Once the organization, inclusion criteria, and most importantly the references get sorted, I can't see why the list shouldn't be put back in article space. There's no clear policy against such lists (in fact, it's closer to the reverse), and a well-referenced, humanly readable (rather than purely intended for "eyeball searching") list would have additional (not "alternative") benefits to the categories. TheGrappler 09:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem at all with that. My favourite kinds of lists are the ones which add something encyclopaedic beyond the bare list of names. Here one could have a group of people named by foo source as following certain diets, for example. There's lot that could be done with it. Starting with sourcing it and removing the possibility of ioncluding a third of the world's population ;-) Maybe people noted for advocacy? People who have publicly spoken out about vegetarianism or against the eating of meat? Something a bit more than "does not eat dead animal" anyway. Just zis Guy you know? 15:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I can see perfectly well the problems with the list in current form. At the moment, I'm too busy to commit personal resources to it but on the other hand, having seen it, I'd definitely like to over the next few weeks/months. If it does end up userfied at least it will give me chance to slash and burn with impunity... as anyone who has encountered me on WP:GAN or WP:FAC may be aware, I take sources and references seriously, and this list's in trouble at the moment, especially given the ambitious claims of pro-vegetarianism groups. Nevertheless, I still think it should be kept in article space so that other people can have a bash at knocking it into shape. TheGrappler 12:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Do not delete!. It can be optimized (as everything can be optimized). Imho, there is no reason to delete it. Alex ex 17:58, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. There is a category, but this list currently includes more information than a category could. It may need to be improved, but I don't see why it should be deleted. --musicpvm 06:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete and categorize - this is what caetgories are for. BlueValour 02:39, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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.