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- CfD can be found at
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 September 30#Category:Deaths by age
- The 00:55, 8 October 2008 comment below was
merged from a duplicate deletion review
Umbrella nomination of hierarchy. Closing admin disregarded a clear consensus and instead made an argument based on precedents to support deletion (and in effect also discounted
WP:CCC). Close should be overturned.
meco (
talk) 16:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn I had contacted the closing admin asking for a reconsideration, but it appears that the DRV was created before the admin would have had a chance to respond, I will be more than happy to address any response from the admin in question, but he seems to have anticipated a DRV in the close. To go through the arguments presented in the close. 1) Precedent - The three CfDs offered as "precedent" are poor matches for the series of categories discussed here:
this prior CFD and
this prior CFD both involve deaths (and more irrelevantly, births) in the specific month of October, and I know of no source that groups by month;
This prior CFD seems to be one of those "quadruple intersections" that solely address entertainers. The death by age category structure addresses only age, provides clear inclusion and calculation criteria, and is not a multiple intersection. 2) Not Defining - While I understand that many voters, including the closing admin, have called age at death "trivial" or "not defining", I have provided examples of numerous obituaries that include age in the title, including one day's worth of obituaries in
The New York Times in which all four articles included age of death in the brief title. All three of the obituaries in today's New York Times include age in the title. I also showed examples where the exact calculation of age was relevant for someone who died the day before a birthday. I could provide millions of references showing that age of death is a defining characteristic, above the four I already provided. Given Wikipedia's standards of verifiability, it was demonstrated that the media deems age of death to be a rather strong defining characteristic. 3) WP:NOT -
Wikipedia:NOT#INFO states that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". Age of death meets none of the criteria specified here, and this is a policy about articles. We would not have an article
List of people born in 1937, but we certainly have
Category:1937 births. The relevant standard for categories is not "would we have an article about this", but "is this a defining characteristic" and reliable sources have been provided to show that it is. 4)
WP:DEATHAGE -
WP:DEATHAGE is an effort to come to agreement on a structure by which age of death would be organized into categories and to provide clear inclusion criteria for its use. It appears to have been established in good faith to reach consensus on the subject, and the claim that it was "created to try to hold off a CFD exactly like this one" appears to be both in
extremely bad faith and a rather poor argument for deleting this, or any other, category structure. The arguments provided in the close appear to have been written in the form of a vote for deletion reflecting personal preferences and biases, rather than a balanced and dispassionate consideration of relevant Wikipedia policy based on the evidence provided by all participants in the CfD. As the arguments for deletion have been shown to be irrelevant to supporting deletion under Wikipedia policy, and as it appears that well-sourced, and unrebutted, evidence showing that the age of death is a rather strong defining characteristic appears to have been disregarded, it seems that this close as out of process and should be overturned.
Alansohn (
talk) 17:26, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse as closer. I stand by my close, and I'm not going to go tit for tat on each point. I will respond to the trivial/not defining reason, though. As in the discussion itself, and above, it was not established that age of death is a defining characteristic. Just because the NYT prints it in the title doesn't make it defining. Example: if I asked you what defines George Washington, would the first thing you'd reply with be "he died at age 67"? Would it even be in the top ten? Just because you can cite a fact about someone doesn't make it defining, nor does WP have categories about every little tidbit about a person. --
Kbdank71 17:40, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- To someone asked at random, age at death may not be the first characteristic listed about
George Washington, but it would rank up there with "born in 1732" or "died in 1799", all of which establish a clearer precedent and are covered by a thorough categorization system. That age of death is not the first characteristic listed in a hypothetical original research project about George Washington is not a valid argument for deletion, nor are we limited to one category per article. I have Monday's edition of
The New York Times on my desk, which has three articles titled "Donald Blakeslee, Who Commanded Fighters Over Berlin, Is Dead at 90", "Aaron Katz, 92, Advocate for Rosenbergs" and "A. Biran, 98, Archaeologist Who Studied Biblical Sites". For that matter, every single obituary listed at [
The Times' obituary web portal includes age of death, including historical ones listed in its archive, and I could provide thousand of other sources from each of thousands of other publications showing that media sources deem it to be a strong defining characteristic.
Alansohn (
talk) 17:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Characteristic, yes. Defining characteristic, no. Is Aaron Katz known for dying at 92 or is he known for being an advocate for the Rosenbergs? 500 years from now, are we going to remember Donald Blakeslee for dying at 90? Are they going to start A. Biran's eulogy with "A. Biran was 98 when he died"? Again, just because you can cite a fact about someone doesn't make it defining. --
Kbdank71 18:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Again, I have offered reliable and verifiable sources to show age of death as a defining characteristic, which stands fairly strongly against an imaginary anecdote. 500 years from now, we won't know the ages these people died at, let alone who they were. We won't know what year they were born or what year they died. We won't understand why anyone would fly a plane driven by a spinning propeller and we won't know who the Rosenbergs were or care about their death (circumstances, year, or ages). But I am pretty sure that Wikipedia will still be around. Archaeologists studying the early history of our universal encyclopedia will try to answer the question on the minds of many, "why was so much time wasted by so few trying to delete so much useful information?" If only a fictional time traveler would come back and tell us (with reliable sources) whether "age of death" will be a defining characteristic and if it will stand the test of time.
Alansohn (
talk) 18:26, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- The fictional time traveller would probably consider both sides to be wasting their time. The information is still there, no matter what the result of this discussion. This is merely presentation. Where and how, and how many times, should this information be presented? You do realise that even if the categories are deleted, it is still possible to use various methods to generate lists using the deathage template in the infoboxes, right? What you do is include a custom-formatted "invisible" link, and then use "what links here" for that specific invisible link to find all the people who died at a certain age. I think someone (Rick Block?) suggested doing this for maintenance categories. I'll ask him.
Carcharoth (
talk) 22:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Yes, I suggested adding an invisible link for the maintenance categories (prior to the implementation of hidden categories). This technique is used for
template:update after. I think the real answer here is something more like
Semantic MediaWiki, but I suspect we're not likely to get there soon. Hidden categories are probably better than invisible links, since the presentation order for a category is more user friendly. --
Rick Block (
talk) 13:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Hidden categories are probably better than hidden links? I agree, but since categories are tied up in bureaucracy, I asked someone else (who knows more about template syntax than I do) about hidden links, and they went ahead and made the change to the template (see details I will post below in a new comment). I didn't expect that (I didn't explicitly point them at this CfD), but the result has been that there is now (depending on the progress of the job queue), a set of "what links here" links that provide all the data needed. People may argue that this sort of data analysis is something that should be done "properly" by bots and approved categories, but when the one process (categories) gets caught up in red tape like this, and the other doesn't, well, it seems like a simple choice. I'm sure people will object to this as "circumventing" the CfD, but why not think of it as a bold demonstration of the possibilities of trying other methods, rather than a merry-go-round of CfD discussions?
Carcharoth (
talk) 23:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Whether age of death is a defining characteristic or not (And it is. Is
Jeanne Calment notable for dying at 122 or dying of natural causes?), is not the question here. DRV is not CFD round 2. A DRV is meant to determine whether an admin properly evaluated the comments in a CFD. This DRV is
meant to determine whether you, Kbdank71, correctly interpreted that there was consensus to delete these categories. A DRV is meant to determine if an admin's close was appropriate. And you participating in this DRV is incredibly inappropriate. You endorse your own closure? Really? How surprising. --
Pixelface (
talk) 19:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- So you determined there was no consensus to delete
Category:Entertainers who died in their 20s in these three CFDs
[1]
[2]
[3] and then you determined there was consensus to delete
Category:Deaths at age 93 by citing
Category:Entertainers who died in their 20s as a precedent? Is that correct? Could you perhaps enlighten us into how you go about determining consensus or a lack thereof? --
Pixelface (
talk) 09:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse This seems like over-categorisation to me.
Spartaz
Humbug! 18:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse, properly closed as over-categorization. Supporters mainly argued that other existing categories were no worse than this scheme; it was never explained why it was useful to group biographical articles together based on their age at the time of death. That it is a relevant and important fact means it should be noted in articles; it does not mean it's defining of the subjects (not every fact worthy of inclusion in an article is), or that it's meaningful or helpful to group individuals on the basis of that fact without any context. This is particularly true given the wide range of life expectancy between cultures contemporaneously and the range even within a given culture across human history.
Postdlf (
talk) 18:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse, closure was proper and within admin discretion.
Stifle (
talk) 18:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse closure - admin closed a difficult discussion and his closing statement indicates that he took arguments into account on all sides as well as other similar CFDs before making the decision. No procedural error in this close.
Otto4711 (
talk) 18:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse closure - Per above, difficult but well argumented decision. Note, I voted delete myself, still see no use at all in these categories.
Garion96
(talk) 19:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn. The closer's own words in the CFD are "nobody has made any good arguments to delete/keep" which is tantamount to saying there is no consensus. Reading the arguments presented on both sides of the issue, I find reasonable arguments for, as well as against, delete. There is clearly no consensus. The closer used his own opinion, bordering on
original research to try to resolve this and that is not within the scope of the closer's responsibilities. The close as delete was done in contravention of Wikipedia policy, which is grounds enough to overturn. The additional arguments for the validity of the category expressed above further solidifies a no consensus for delete opinion of the Wiki community. At an absolute minimum, the closer should recuse himself from this discussion and let community consensus (or lack of it) rule.
Truthanado (
talk) 20:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Sorry, where exactly did I say "nobody has made any good arguments to delete/keep"? --
Kbdank71 20:59, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Answer: second line of
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 September 30#Category:Deaths by age after "The result of the discussion was ..." I assume your signature at the end of the paragraph means you wrote them.
Truthanado (
talk) 21:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- That was clearly Kbdank71's characterization of others' comments; he was noting that anyone saying "keep" or "delete" purely because they didn't think anyone had offered good arguments to the contrary was themself not offering a good argument.
Postdlf (
talk) 21:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- First of all, not making valid arguments for or against delete is a good argument because Wikipedia policy requires consensus to change things; if there is no consensus, you leave things as they are ... status quo. Secondly, the use of quotation marks infers that someone actually made that exact statement, which is not found in anyone's comments. Therefore, one can only conclude that this is the closer's opinion. In which case, there is no consensus.
Truthanado (
talk) 21:22, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- For fuck's sake, the whole first sentence was as follows: There are many arguments here on both sides which are along the lines of "keep/delete: nobody has made any good arguments to delete/keep", which is not a good argument to keep or delete. Disagree with his conclusion if you like, but let's not pretend we can't understand what was and wasn't his own opinion as if we have no better than a first-grader's reading comprehension level.
Postdlf (
talk) 22:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- This part of the discussion needs a cup of
WP:TEA. Swearing, assuming pretence and comparing people to first-graders will not help. Thouhg for the record I agree with you that people are misunderstanding what Kbdank71 said.
Carcharoth (
talk) 22:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Missing the point - seriously, why do people seemingly not want to look at the bigger picture here? I raised it at the CfD discussion (suggesting a hidden category), but the timing was bad as the discussion was nearly due for closing and not many people saw my comments. Year of birth, year of death, age at death, name, index sorting value (i.e. DEFAULTSORT), and so on. All these are standard biographical values that can be requested and (where available) supplied on practically all biographical articles. The fact that people try and do so in different ways (plain text in the article, templates in the infoboxes, categories, persondata, DEFAULTSORT) suggests that the disparate systems need integrating and consolidating. This would need a co-ordinated effort with much discussion and bots to implement the changes, but would allow people to extract the stats to their heart's content, as well as avoid perennial discussion like this one. I realise the "category" people want to put an end to the categories before they spread (though actually, they can be implemented using templates and enabled and disabled at the flick of a switch on the template), but the aim here should be for people to work together to get a result that satisfies everyone, not for people to stick to and focus on their "specialities", whether that be categories, biographical data, or whatever. So to return to what I said at the start of this comment, deleting or keeping these categories is misssing the point. The real need is to improve the way biographical data is handled on Wikipedia's biographical articles. I've made attempts towards this in the past (and others have tried to and achieved more, and have done stuff quietly with bots), but the task is so massive that it really needs a co-ordinated effort and if some of the people here would be prepared to devote some time towards that, it would really, really help. If anyone agrees with this and has advice or wants to help out, please comment here, so the closer of the DRV can take this into account.
Carcharoth (
talk) 21:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Actually I had considered the possibility of a hidden category when I saw this one. I'm not sure that this is the right solution, but it could be a good starting point for a compromise that includes an automated system to create the entries. This specific problem is yet another instance of AfD deciding that something should not be an article but it should be a category. So some articles get deleted and some categories get created. Then someone points out that the categories are not the right solution so those editors who wanted the data are left out in the cold and frustrated. To complain about the CfD process is anger misdirected. The real problem in my mind is the lack of foresight at AfD when someone presupposes that a category will in fact be considered the best solution. I like the talking points raised by
Carcharoth since that could produce a broader solution then a discussion here. The issue would be making sure that all of the parties are at the table. Not sure how to make that happen. Considering that there is a discussion about linking or not linking the birth and death dates, or at least I think that discussion is still happening, then maybe the best solution here would be to defer to the other discussion. If the dates are to be linked, then create a template to do that and calculate the age. The including of links or hidden categories becomes a simple template change.
Vegaswikian (
talk) 22:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Lack of foresight? Before the categories were created, Sebwite asked multiple people in the AFD what they thought and there was clear support for creating the categories. Sebwite also created
WP:DEATHAGE to discuss the issue. Do you think it's a bad idea to ask people what they think before creating a category? Like I've already said, I've changed {{
death date and age/sandbox}} and the categories can be turned on and off by putting that code into {{
death date and age}}. Several people gave their support for automatic categories, which is why I began testing with the sandbox template. It's a shame these categories could be deleted without people even seeing what they would look like anchored to that template. --
Pixelface (
talk) 19:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Whether or not these should be hidden categories is a matter of finding consensus to change "what is allowed" for hidden categories. And while the CfD could be noted in that discussion, I don't think that Kbdank could have determined that suddenly hidden categories could now be used for this, due to this single CfD. (Or even due to this current DRV.) That said, it sounds like it's worth discussing at least, so perhaps someone should start a discussion at
WT:CAT or one of the
Village Pumps (if they haven't already). -
jc37 21:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- As I've noted below, I've started
Wikipedia:Biographical metadata. If anything, "Births by year" and "Deaths by year" could become hidden categories as well, except that they should be visible merely to remind people to add them. Getting people to update the persondata template is well-nigh impossible. By the way, there are cases of people from the same era dying young, such as at times of war (
World War I and the
1918 influenza pandemic being the canonical example of a 'lost generation'), but I suppose that is more cause of death than anything else.
Carcharoth (
talk) 00:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse. The action is supported by the previous related CfDs, the fact that apparently this attribute about a person is not mentioned in most bio articles and the strength of the reasons presented in the discussions.
Vegaswikian (
talk) 22:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn to no consensus which is the fair evaluation of the situation. There just wasn't any. It's not a question of when it's balanced, the closer decides. As there's 1500 of us, that's a prescription for chaos. When it's balanced, it's no consensus. Additionally, as Vegaswikian points out, there were various suggestions for automation that may make this moot.
DGG (
talk) 01:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse closure. My personal opinion is that the categories could be kept—on a strictly personal level, I wouldn't mind having them for my own use. However, whatever the result, I don't think the closing admin can be faulted in this case, as it appeared to be a hard situation. Why I say this is that while I think in terms of numbers there was somewhat of a "balance", if not a tilt towards keep, but the arguments in favour of keeping were, in my opinion, not very good, while those for deletion were quite strong. So at first glance it really looks like a no consensus, but on closer examination I think it comes clear what the decision needed to be. The closer could have taken the easy route and just closed as no consensus, but he actually read the arguments and considered them. There is no procedural error here, and the decision seems well within the discretion of the admin.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 01:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Comment. If this were true, then the CfD would have been closed with a statement like There is Clear Consensus to delete based on strength of arguments. But the closer didn't do that. He gave a wordy opinion (some of it not based on the arguments presented, reflecting his own opinion) and that is not proper process.
Truthanado (
talk) 01:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- I wouldn't pretend to know exactly how another admin will enunciate comments based on his or her own thoughts. It never ceases to amaze me how many editors can read the mind of admins and how many know exactly how an admin should write about what they are thinking. But since from the above it looks like you've had a hard time discerning the difference between the closer's own opinion and his paraphrasing of others' comments, I won't put too much stock in your
Kreskin-esque suggestions.
Good Ol’factory
(talk) 02:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- This comment was merged from a later discussion above on this page.
- While there was no concensus to keep, there was no concensus to delete either. Should have been closed as "no concenus, default to keep." The closing administrator was concerned about the triviality, though I personally feel this is not trivial, this is of high importance. People are compared constantly for having lived to the same age. For example, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford are two presidents who have lived to age 93, the oldest of any U.S. presidents. There are connections that are commonly cited at times between historic figures who live to the same age, even if centuries apart. A category like "deaths from falls off the roof" or "deaths after x amount of time of hospitalization" may to a little too trivial and fit under WP:NOT#INFO, but this is not a collection of statistics or any other indiscriminate information; in fact, this does not provide statistics on age of death. It does, however, show who shared a common age of death with the subject in the article, which does have importance as to what the reader views as a "long" or "short" life. There was plenty of concensus to keep this set of categories.
Sebwite (
talk) 00:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn as clearly no consensus. Both keep and delete arguments made vary good points, showing that the issue has yet to be resolved.
Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Non-defining_or_trivial_characteristic does not require that the age of death be a defining characteristic to be used as a categorization. Per
OCAT non-defining it needs to be (i) "useful for categorization", (ii) non trivial, and (iii) notable in a person's life. That part of OCAT says, "If something could be easily left out of a biography, it is likely not a defining characteristic." Age at death is vital to a biography, which addresses the notable in a person's life requirement. Age at death is not similar to the other trivial examples listed at OCAT non-defining. The issue seems to come down to usefulness and both keep and delete arguments made vary good points on this. Mozart dies at age 34 in 1791. What relationship does that have with someone who dies in 2008 at age 34? The usefullness of the category, including the inherent intersection in these categories between age at death and year of death, should be clear before a keep or delete consensus is determined.. Comment - To get a different perspective of how age is used in categorizing, see
Category:Awards by age of recipient. --
Suntag
☼ 14:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Comment - Some other efforts in this area:
Category:Actors who died in their 20s CfD,
Actors who died in their 20s AfD,
Artists who died at 27 AfD, and
List of people who died before the age of 30 AfD. --
Suntag
☼ 15:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn deletion, there was no consensus to delete in that CFD. Kbdank71 should have participated in the CFD instead of substituting his opinion for everyone else's. Categories at CFD are deleted when there is consensus to do so, not by the whim's of one admin. The closing admin shows his close was in bad faith by saying
WP:DEATHAGE "appears to have been created to try to hold off a CFD exactly like this one."
WP:DEATHAGE was created by Sebwite to list the criteria for inclusion in the category. That material belonged at
Category:Deaths by age. Then the closer listed 3 CFDs that had nothing to do with this one. Kbdank71 kept saying the age of death is "trivial" (unimportant), but if a person's age of death is trivial, why is it given in so many obit headlines? Why is it listed on every entry on
Deaths in 2008? Ask anyone what age Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain died at. A person's lifespan is a defining characteristic of that person. Indeed, the only reason
Jeanne Calment is notable is because she died at the age of 122. In addition to the deletion being overturned, Kbdank71 should be de-sysopped because he shows a colossally bad misunderstanding of how CFD works and what an admin's role in closing a CFD is. If an admin is not going to read entire discussions and instead just do whatever they want, they should just remove the category from the CFD log and stop wasting the time of everyone participating in a CFD. --
Pixelface (
talk) 18:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Re: dying at age 122, we have
Category:Centenarians and
Category:Supercentenarians, for whom lifespan certainly is at least in part definining of their notability because it's remarkable for someone to survive that long. Anything short of that, it may be important to Person A that he died at age 27, but it's not defining (would you introduce
Jim Morrison as "a man who lived until age 27"?), and it's an unrelated trivial coincidence that Person B also died at age 27, particularly when context of time and place are ignored. That culture sometimes seizes on these coincidences as significant may be reason for an article like
27 Club, but it certainly doesn't justify an across-the board system of context-blind categories for all potential lifespans.
Postdlf (
talk) 19:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- I assume you'll be nominating both of those categories next for being "over-categorization"? Both of those categories group articles together based on the age of the person. Would you introduce Jim Morrison as "a man who lived until 1971"? Is it not also an "unrelated trivial coincidence" that
Hugo Black died in 1971? Isn't any category taken by itself "context-blind"? This is not another CFD. This DRV is meant to determine whether Kbdank71 correctly interpreted that there was consensus to delete these categories based on the comments of Bearcat, Benito Sifaratti, Eliyak, Garion96, Johnbod, Lugnuts, Occuli, Otto4711, Polstdlf, Reywas92, Stifle and Alansohn, Banime, Cgingold, DGG, Fluence, Geo Swan, Josiah Rowe, Meco, Pixelface, Robde68, Sebwite, and Werdawerdna. --
Pixelface (
talk) 19:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- No, yes, in a way, no, yes, and I wouldn't put it that way.
Postdlf (
talk) 21:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- I count 7 terminating punctuations, and 6 responses. Would you clarify for the curious in the gallery? : ) -
jc37 00:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Sigh... Then make that "No, if you say so, yes, in a way, no, yes, and I wouldn't put it that way."
Postdlf (
talk) 14:41, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Well first off, please explain how
Category:Centenarians is not overcategorization but
Category:Deaths at age 30 is. --
Pixelface (
talk) 03:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse:
- Easily within administrative discretion. And seriously, where have we misplaced the
rubber stamp to remind "voters" that XfD is not a vote? A closer closes based upon reading for content in determining
consensus in a closure. It has absolutely nothing to do with counting up support and oppose. And in order to determine that
consensus has changed, there needs to be consensus that it has changed. All of you above claiming that there was no consensus in the discussion actually are supporting the closure, by showing that there was no consensus for the change. See the very recent
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people who died before the age of 30 (2nd nomination) for those of you only interested in "vote counting". And in my opinion, one of the best comments in the CfD discussion was Otto4711's:
- "Where are the independent reliable sources that indicate that "people who died at the same age as other people" is the subject of independent research, such that a few paragraphs or more could be written on the topic per
WP:CAT? That two people separated in time and space by centuries happened to be the same age when the died is coincidence, not encyclopedia fodder. Regarding your counter-examples, if you believe that "deaths in Washington DC" or "Deaths from pancreatic cancer" or any other category is unencyclopedic, then by all means bring it here for discussion. The
existence of one category does not justify the existence of another. And again "it's
interesting" is not a particularly strong argument. There are all kinds of things that people may find interesting that are not included in Wikipedia because they do
not belong here."
- One of the things that's typically looked for when closing a discussion is whether or not policy and guidelines have been discussed. And I think that in this case, they clearly were. And Otto makes several very good points, several of which others had made before and after his comments. And now let's take the closure section by section:
- "There are many arguments here on both sides which are along the lines of "keep/delete: nobody has made any good arguments to delete/keep", which is not a good argument to keep or delete."
- Discounting "justavote" is fairly common practice, as is noted in the essay
WP:AADD. XfD discussions are just that: discussions. And "drive by voters" may and should find that they should address the nom, the topic, the scope, the intent, etc. Comments of "IWantIt" or "ILikeIt", or accusing that "You JustDon'tWantIt" or saying "ThereIsNoReason" will likely not be weighed as heavily as the comments of those who address policy and guidelines, and ground their comments in references, citations, and the like.
- And here he established that this has been discussed previously. And anyone who says that XfD doesn't rely on precedent needs to look at
G4 again. Yes
Consensus can change (I'm a firm believer in that myself), but there needs to be evidence that it has changed.
- "This is not to say that with these categories, you cannot find, for example, someone else who also died when they were 45, but I can't see, nor has anyone explained below, why we should categorize this way (aka why it is defining), nor has anyone explained why we should ignore
WP:NOT#INFO."
- He actually could have closed the discussion with these comments alone. To put it another way, no one has noted why we should
WP:IAR in this case and ignore a core policy, or even to show why it doesn't apply in this case.
- "What people have done, is point instead to
WP:DEATHAGE, which not only isn't policy and doesn't seem to have consensus for its status as a proposed policy/guideline, but appears to have been created to try to hold off a CFD exactly like this one."
- Which sounds a heckuvalot like
gaming the system.
- "That all said, I'll hold off emptying and deleting these categories for the inevitable DRV to be filed. Just remember that consensus does not mean counting votes."
- And this is him knowing that there are those out there who do count votes rather than understand that a discussion is based upon the weight of the arguements. And he knows this quite well, as he is a long time closer of CfD (several years), and has witnessed previous closures going to DRV based solely on "vote count" (though typically to be endorsed, as most commenters here do understand that XfD is not a vote). Again, I honestly think we need to (re-)find the rubber stamp that says "XfD is not a vote" (similar to
WP:TROUT). -
jc37 21:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Nobody said it had to do with counting up support and oppose. What are you talking about determing that "consensus has changed"? If there was no consensus to delete the categories (and there wasn't) the CFD should be have closed as no consensus. The idea for the categories was introduced in that AFD, but what does that have to do with anything? That AFD was to determine whether people wanted a list of famous people who died young. I can't see anything these categories violate in
Wikipedia:Categorization of people. You quote Otto4711 who said "Where are the independent reliable sources that indicate that "people who died at the same age as other people" is the subject of independent research, such that a few paragraphs or more could be written on the topic per WP:CAT?" but that's not what
WP:CAT says.
WP:CAT says "Questions to ask to determine whether it is appropriate to add an article to a category: If the category does not already exist, is it possible to write a few paragraphs or more on the subject of the category, explaining it?" And I was asking Otto4711 how he could be in favor of "Deaths from pancreatic cancer" and not "Deaths at age age 56." I wanted him to explain how one was valid and the other not.
- Since my name's being bandied about, let me just jump in here to answer. Yes, the questions at
WP:CAT are prefaced as you say. However, I find the suggestion that a category, once created, is somehow exempt from the notion that there should be the ability to write a lead article about its subject to be absurd. As for my being in favor of "deaths from pancreatic cancer" (and since my dad died in February of pancreatic cancer, I can say I am profoundly not in favor of them, so can we pick another example please?), I have lost count of the number of times, when I have been asked how I can be in favor of Category X but not Category Y, I have pointed out that the existence of one category has no bearing on the existence of another.
Otto4711 (
talk) 08:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Kbdank71 said "There are many arguments here on both sides which are along the lines of "keep/delete: nobody has made any good arguments to delete/keep"" but he cited nobody. I see plenty of "justavotes" that were "delete, overcategorization" and in a CFD, that is pretty much the same as saying "delete, this should be deleted." Those 3 CFDS
[4]
[5]
[6] are unrelated to these categories. That's like saying
Category:2008 deaths should be deleted because
Category:Entertainers who died in 2008 was deleted.
- You want evidence that there was consensus to create these categories? Okay.
Here Sebwite says "I would support categories being created for people who died at each age."
Here Matthewedwards said "categorize per User:Sebwite." After that AFD closed, Sebwite asked multiple editors what they thought about creating the categories.
[7]
Here Hersfold said "That's possible, I think, and we should be able to set up infoboxes to handle it automatically with {{
age}}. Good idea!"
Here DGG said "Yes, and it could be populated automagically."
Here Josiah Rowe says "I agree that it should be possible to create automatically generated categories for this, possibly based on the existing "births" and "deaths" categories. I think that this would be a good idea, and should be implemented."
Here Banime says "Yeah I like the idea so far. Maybe give it a try and we can see where it leads."
Here I express my support to Sebwite.
Here Explodicle says "Couldn't hurt, I don't really have an opinion one way or the other." The only person who replied to Sebwite and didn't express support was TenPoundHammer , who
said "That might be too narrow a categorization." There was a rough consensus to create the categories before they were even created.
- These categories have not been up for CFD before. So those 3 CFDs you refer to are not precedents.
WP:DEATHAGE was created to list the criteria for inclusion in the category. So explain to me again how there was consensus to delete in that CFD. If CFDs are judged based on the "weight" of the arguments as you said, tell me which argument Kbdank71 said carried the most weight. Kbdank71 said "but I can't see, nor has anyone explained below, why we should categorize this way (aka why it is defining), nor has anyone explained why we should ignore WP:NOT#INFO." but nobody in the discussion brought up
WP:NOT#INFO and Alansohn already explained why lifespan is a defining characteristic of a person. --
Pixelface (
talk) 03:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse as original nominator, and because there was no credible counter to the
WP:OCAT argument, except for the pre-emptive proposal at
WP:DEATHAGE and claim of consensus. —
Arthur Rubin
(talk) 22:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- So someone claims "overcategorization" and someone else says "no it's not" and the first person wins? Is that right? Your nomination said "Overcharacterization" which apparently you made up yourself.
WP:DEATHAGE listed the criteria for inclusion in the category. It wasn't a "pre-emptive proposal." And the only person who claimed consensus without giving any actual proof was Bearcat. Oh and the closing admin Kbdank71. --
Pixelface (
talk) 03:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Another method has been activated (possibly accidentally - trying to work out who was aware of what). Some people here may take exception to what has happened, so let me explain the sequence: (1) I remembered this "hidden link" method (that I was already aware of since 2006) and that Rick Block had mentioned earlier this year when hidden categories were being proposed or discussed. I mentioned this in this
comment earlier in this DRV. (2) I then went to Rick Block's talk page and left
this message. I did notice, though, that Rick hadn't been active for a few days (in the end, he actually did respond fairly quickly, see the comment
here), so I went to
User:CBDunkerson's (CBD's) talk page (someone who knows a bit about template code) and left
this note. He replied with
this note, saying that he had made an edit to put this system in place. I checked his contribs and discovered that he (CBD) had made
this edit. This now means that hidden links (well, hidden in the sense that they are piped to appear as a space) appear in the infobox such as
People who died aged 23. Thus it is now possible to use "what links here" to get a list for each age. For age 23, the list is
here. For age 70 (rather more people), the list is
here. One advantage of categories over this method is that categories list the numbers of articles, whereas "what links here" does not, but this is trivial stuff to calculate. The important point is that both methods are dynamic. (3) Anyway, I realised that this might put a strain on the job queue (I'm sure CBDunkerson knew this as well, but I assume he knew how many pages transclude
Template:Death date and age - the figure is over 20,000 at least, and could be in the hundreds of thousands). I suspect the job queue is still dealing with updates to this template change (compare with changes made to
Template:WPBiography). (4) Anyway, when I got back to the computer, I saw that things seemed to be OK, and no-one seemed to have noticed. (5) So I started commenting on this DRV, including my reply to Rick
here. That's the story so far. After writing this, I intend to leave messages for both Rick and CBD so they can comment here, and in particular to explicitly tell CBD about this DRV and CfD (not sure if he was aware of them). One point I do want to make: reverting the edit CBD made will make an equal strain on the job queue, so despite this ending up as an awkward sort of fait accompli (for which I can only apologise), I would ask that we discuss things before any reverts of that edit to the template to implement "hidden links". The other point is that these links have actually uncovered at least two instances of inaccurate stuff that I intend to correct (one instance of someone dying age 0 and another of someone dying aged 119 - in both cases the template had been incorrectly filled in). So I want to track down those and similar errors first. Then the discussion of what to do with the hidden links and the dynamically generated lists can take place. Quite where, I don't know. I suppose it kind of feels that this has exploded the whole debate and moved it into a different area. I make no apologies for that, as something was needed to move the debate beyond a "keep categories" and "delete categories" to something more like "can we do this another way". OK, I'm off to leave the talk page messages with Rick and CBD, and then draw up a page of "what links here" links for all ages from 0 to 125 (cos I can't remember exactly how old the oldest person is). Maybe I'll put them on
Wikipedia talk:Death by age, or maybe somewhere new, as I see that proposal has been rejected. Maybe
Wikipedia:Biographical metadata?
Carcharoth (
talk) 23:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- I have no objection, but: Does the {{
Death date and age}} template work for years BC? (And, IIRC, there's a certain editor who would object to the template being used before the Gregorian calendar became active.) —
Arthur Rubin
(talk) 00:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Goodness only knows. I'm currently working my way down
User:Carcharoth/People who died aged XX. This method has correctly found two notable people (well, royals) who died in their first year:
John I of France and
Princess Elizabeth of Clarence. It also pointed out two mistakes, which I corrected
here and
here (both had previously been stated to have died "aged 0"), and
this correction here. Two of those were due to AWB mistakes by the same editor (
here and
here). If I forget, could someone chase that up and check to see if there were further mistakes by that editor using AWB?
Carcharoth (
talk) 01:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- I contacted the editor in question. Also, does anyone know what to do with
Red Hat Linux? I don't think that template should be used there. I've also browsed through the results for those dying aged 20 or younger. A depressing number of murder victims from contemporary times, but also a scattering of saints, smallpox victims, medieval royals dying young, war dead, a featured article, a child actress, a musician, a figure skater, a concentration camp victim, a childbirth victim, and an epilepsy victim.
Philomena,
Samantha Smith,
Heather O'Rourke,
Maria Goretti,
Prince John of the United Kingdom,
Peter II of Russia,
Dominic Savio,
Czesława Kwoka,
James Martin,
Arthur, Prince of Wales,
Edward VI of England,
Francis II of France,
Laurence Owen,
Lady Jane Grey,
Ritchie Valens,
Louis I of Spain,
Stanislaus Kostka,
Maria Manuela, Princess of Portugal,
Charles L. Gilliland,
Tongzhi Emperor,
Władysław III of Poland. Quite an ecelectic mix. Some might say trivial, but I found it interesting to read through some of those articles, and if others feel the same, that is reason enough for some form of unified presentation of this theme, even if a category is not the way to do it (an article or a portal are two possible approaches).
Carcharoth (
talk) 01:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- As I mentioned above, the presentation order for whatlinkshere is not nearly as friendly as a category. For maintenance articles I didn't think was a big deal, but for this purpose I think the order matters far more and should clearly be the same as "category ordering" (alphabetical subject to DEFAULTSORT overrides). If we leave this as a whatlinkshere, we're left in the perverse situation where the maintenance categories are hidden categories (with the "nice" presentation order) and the death-by-age lists are in the pseudo-random whatlinkshere order (it's not random, but is a little hard to explain). We could fix this with a bot that generates an actual alphabetical list, at which point we'd effectively have a category! If we really want death-by-age lists, we should keep the categories. If we're worried about category clutter, we should
IAR and make them hidden categories. If it were completely up to me, I'd just wait until semantic wikipedia is a reality (but I'm perhaps rather more patient than some). --
Rick Block (
talk) 02:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- I appreciate the effort (and I looked at all 125 WLHs), but it still lacks the
related changes function which makes categories so useful as watchlists. There already was as an article,
List of famous people who died young, but it was renamed
List of people who died before the age of 30 in order to give a definite age for "young" and that article was recently deleted (and during that AFD, the idea for Deaths at age X categories was introduced). I also think the information is interesting and useful, but why should we give millions of readers information they can use when a handful of editors find it "trivial."</sarcasm> --
Pixelface (
talk) 04:41, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Well, as I said at
this MfD, I think the lists work better as a resource from which to build other articles or specific lists. I intend to do one on the death of child royalty, for example. Both ends of the death "bell curve" are interesting, while the stuff in the middle is not (thousands of people in the dataset died in their 70s and early 80s). On the other hand, looking at the ages-at-death of people in different centuries might show something interesting (not for an article, but more as a genuinely original use of the metadata). Not that it is likely to show anything people haven't done research on already. I know this sounds like original research, but as long as it doesn't end up in articles, it should be OK (it would be a meta-analysis of our articles and what they cover).
Carcharoth (
talk) 21:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse, closure seems a reasonable interpretation of the debate, certainly, it is not true that the closer "disregarded a clear consensus" as claimed here, there was no clear consensus whatsoever to keep in that debate. --
Stormie (
talk) 02:47, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Um, the question is whether there was a consensus to delete and whether Kbdank71 interpreted the debate correctly. --
Pixelface (
talk) 03:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- And the answer is, yes, I believe his interpretation was reasonable. --
Stormie (
talk) 02:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Obsolete discussion - Let's see. Yes, I was aware of the CfD & DRV. I had actually noticed the discussion around this issue in passing several days ago, but had no significant interest and did not get involved. When I got the note from Carcharoth asking about the 'hidden links' method of tracking usage I traced his interest back and then read through both discussions. Yes, I was aware that updating the template would generate a significant job queue. However, that was not a concern because the very reason whatlinkshere has taken so long to update is that safeguards were built in to throttle such jobs and keep them from impacting regular editors. As to why I went ahead and made the change... in looking at the template I saw one obvious design flaw which needed to be fixed anyway (there is a second apparent flaw which I am seeking more info about on
Template talk:Death date and age). Since I was going to fix that, with the consequent job queue, I went ahead and included the links as well... because the one overwhelming message which came through, and was picked up on and cited by the CfD closer, is that without having these 'categories' populated we didn't know if they would serve a useful purpose or not. No 'proof' of a valid use could be supplied without the categories being in existence. I dislike attempting to read tea leaves so the logical course would seem to be to get the data and THEN determine whether it is useful or not... rather than trying to guess based on a total lack of information. The data is now there. Carcharoth used it to identify several pages which had mistakes on them. It took me only a few seconds to find
another one. I think that indicates a use for this information. Which wasn't observable at the time the CfD and most of this DRV were running. If this use is found (along with any others) to be of significant benefit then the logical course would be to eventually change this over to categories (possibly hidden) - as they are obviously easier to work with than the links. However, that's really a discussion for another day. The categories were deleted based on lack of information. This DRV is largely endorsing that. Ok, but now the information is available... though in an admittedly clunky form. Analyze the info. See what it is good for. And then decide whether we should reopen the category discussion again later. BTW, if we DO go back to categories at some point it might be worthwhile to make that change in conjunction with the other issue I was pursuing on the template talk page. --
CBD 08:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- I noticed three more incorrect "zero age" ones, but someone else corrected them before I got the chance - did anyone notice which articles those were? I also wonder if there are any "minus" ages out there that need correcting?
Carcharoth (
talk) 21:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Overturn there certainly was no consensus. Tough close, but I just can't get a delete out of it.
Hobit (
talk) 21:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Categories and tracker links needed for maintenance purposes - well, either that or something needs to be built into the template to alert people when they get the birth and death dates the wrong way round and end up with negative ages of death. Two examples which I found by clicking on four or five random ages and inserting a minus sign, are for "-63". See
here and
here. I did the fixes
here and
here. The errors were introduced
here and
here. I would alert both the editors, but really what is needed is to tweak the template so that a large warning sign pops up if the calculation produces a negative age of death. Plus a tracker link to find all the ones that currently have a negative age of death. I'll tap some people on the shoulder again...
Carcharoth (
talk) 21:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
-
Category:Child deaths - one final comment. People have noted the existence of
Category:Centenarians and the like, at one end of the "bell shape" curve for age-of-death. Those who die young and those who live a long time, become noted for the age at which they died. While looking at the "under 20" links on
User:Carcharoth/People who died aged XX, and the relevant sections at
User:Sjorford/List of people who died before the age of 30 and
User:Sebwite/30, and in
Category:Death-related lists, I found some relevant lists, categories and articles where age is one of the criterion. For example,
Child saint (the martyrs died as children),
Category:Child saints,
Category:Executed children,
Category:Murdered children and
child murder. While
Category:Deaths by age may not have been quite the way to go, I think that
Category:Child deaths is acceptable, and will create it and populate it with the executions and murders, and hopefully the other child deaths can be used to populate it. An alternative is
Category:Children and death, modelled after
Category:Women and death. I am currently writing an article/list on the deaths of royal children, particularly of child rulers, heirs to a throne or title (which impacts succession issues) and even those outside the line of succession. I know that infant mortality was high throughout most of history, but the cases of infant and child mortality in royal families is better documented than elsewhere, so it should be possible to get a reasonable list/article out of this, though I may need help finding sources.
Carcharoth (
talk) 22:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Not quite a final comment - wanted to note here that a very useful maintenance category has come out of all this. CBD kindly added logic to the age calculation templates to detect negative ages, along with a warning sign. For an example, see
here (the editor who saved that version would not have got the warning, as the template didn't have the warnings encoded at that time). The category is at
Category:Pages with negative age errors. If a couple of people could put that link somewhere and check it ocassionally, most of the errors should get picked up and corrected fairly quickly.
Carcharoth (
talk) 23:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Comment. The simple fact that so many editors are contributing arguments on both sides of this topic is tacit proof that there is no consensus to delete this category and, without consensus, the category should remain per Wikipolicy. Having more or better worded arguments for one side or the other does not create consensus. Lest we forget, consensus is difficult to achieve, see
Wikipedia:Consensus.
Truthanado (
talk) 00:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- No it's not, since DRV is not AFD round 2. The question is whether the closing admin made a procedural error in the close. Much of the discussion here does not deal with that question and is irrelevant.
Otto4711 (
talk) 06:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Actually, Kdbank71 is doing quite an excellent job of demonstrating procedural error with his attempts to explain why prior CfDs for 'Deaths in October" and "Births in October" are acceptable rationalizations for deletion, noting that "I say there was precedent, you say there wasn't". The rest of the argument is just more of the same arbitrary injection of personal bias rather than any objective evaluation of policy.
Alansohn (
talk) 06:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Otto, which parts of the discussion above are irrelevant? The stuff about
Category:Children and death? That newly-created category structure (which directly resulted from my reading around the topic of this discussion) deals with one end of the deaths-by-age spectrum, just like the previously-existing
Category:Centenarians does (the stuff in the middle of this age-spectrum is mostly trivial, I agree). Do you think the stuff about the tracker links placed in infoboxes, leading to
User:Carcharoth/People who died aged XX, is irrelevant. That, with the help of CBDunkerson, has led directly to the very useful maintenance category
Category:Pages with negative age errors. This has been populating overnight and now has 32 pages in it. That's 32 pages with glaring errors that can now be corrected (including vandalism that was
20 months old). There may have been more that have been noticed by other editors and reader and have since been corrected. Do you think
Wikipedia:Biographical metadata is irrelevant - that is an attempt to look at the bigger picture. It may, strictly, be irrelevant to the DRV question, but sometimes when a discussion is deadlocked, working around the edges or in the larger context can help move things on or make clearer what the real problem is. I would suggest that what I've mentioned above, has been more productive and relevant to improving the encyclopedia than most of this discussion. That's not to say that category discussions are not useful. They are. But they only take things so far, and there is lots more to be done than just finishing up a DRV. When ideas are sparked off a discussion, I do tend to write things down there-and-then, when I should really take the ideas to another page. For that, I apologise, but that's the way I work sometimes.
Carcharoth (
talk) 07:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- To clarify what I believe was Otto's point: All of these "broader" discussions may be awesome, but in the end, for determining the appropriateness of the close, the "broader" discussions have little value. (Though they may have value if the closer decides to make a "broader" determination for the future, which is not uncommon.) But that aside, (personally) I think it's great that you're having these broader discussions, and I must say it's always awesome to see someone working to turn lemons to lemonade, and working for the greater betterment of Wikipedia, rather than just pushing their own POV of IWANTIT. It's one of the many reasons I do respect you, Carcharoth. -
jc37 08:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Comment: This seems to be one of the most difficult topics on which to reach a concensus, with so many people taking both sides, and using policies both ways to support their case. There may never be a consensus, and the way a deletion discussion without a concensus is supposed to be handled is to default to keep. We can name all the policies we want to here, but policies are not in stone, can be changed by anyone with a few keystrokes, and are susceptible to edit warring just as much as anything else. The percentage of people who take either side here may not be a perfect 50-50, but regardless, this is not a vote. These categories should be kept and continue to be built, while a more ongoing discussion takes place outside of a deletion venue, where more long-term considerations can be given. Meanwhile, people will get to see whether or not they really work, or are congruous with what the community is trying to establish.
Sebwite (
talk) 15:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Actually, I would have thought that for a category which might be filled automatically, a "no consensus" result should still result in a delete. But I still see a consensus for delete in the discussion. —
Arthur Rubin
(talk) 06:32, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Endorse decision I think the closer correctly interpretted
consensus. With a few exceptions (such as the
27 Club) people are rarely grouped by the age they died and too many of the users who argued that the categories should be kept based their arguement on a claimed, recently formed consensus which - throughout the course of the discussion - was found to not actually exist.
Guest9999 (
talk) 17:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- More on the other work being done. While this debate has been happening, a system of maintenance categories has been set up. The old system set up halfway through this debate has now been moved over to the following:
Category:Template computed age,
Category:Template computed age over 99, and
Category:Template computed age non-articles. This allows (fairly easy) maintenance of the "calculated age" system. Several more "negative ages" and other errors have been picked up by this
24 examples. I will try, at some point, to start a wider debate over whether the use of hidden categories as maintenance categories needs formal debating (have hidden categories ever been debated before at CfD?), or whether the extension of "maintenance categories" should be done to include "tracker" categories, designed to both track metadata (such as
Category:1913 births) and track errors in the metadata.
Carcharoth (
talk) 14:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
- Relevant discussion - in case those reading or particpating here are interested:
Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Hidden_categories_and_what_is_acceptable.
Carcharoth (
talk) 14:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
reply
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