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the "keep" rationales all ignored fundamental and glaring policy violations. The value of tall as stated in the lead is subjective, and always was. It has been changed to a number of different subjective values, but they are all subjective. That is original research. It doesn't matter how many people get together to agree that we can have it despite it being original research, policy says if it's original research we can't have it.
Just look at the lead now - in order to make this not a list of basketball players plus some other tall guys, there is a different arbitrary cutoff for bb players. This sucks! I mean, really sucks! Sorry, I seem to have broken the template, hopefully I've now added all the info. Guy (Help!) 15:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete - very few of the keep arguments addressed the lack of reliable sources on the topic. Sure, the article is sourced, but all the sources are primary - this is textbook original research. Wikipedia is neither a publisher of original thought nor an indiscriminate collection of information. --Coredesat 14:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete, inherently subjective, numbers do not outweigh policy. --Sam Blanning(talk) 16:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. The list is in a much better state than previously. Yes, what "tall" means is subjective. It means different things to different people. This does not preclude having a list on the subject; compare list of countries. The sources here demonstrate that being tall is a characteristic of interest by which people are grouped; for the purposes of this list, we choose a height that keeps the list to a reasonable size. There is no problem with this, it is standard editing; we take the facts and synthesize them to create a useful and informative article. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- List of countries does not constitute original research or subjective entry criteria, so I don't know why you want to compare with that. There is no "right" or "wrong" criteria to decide "tall" by, and so it's the subject of endless edit warring as some people tries to keep the article short and other people try to lower the bar to include their favorite celebrity. And neither side is right, because the criteria are original research anyway. There's no verifiable way to bound the lists, and we do not allow original synthesis. — coelacan talk — 21:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The entry criteria for the countries and tall men lists were developed in exactly the same way: we know that there is no universially accepted definition of either "tall" or "country." Therefore there is a dispute about what definition to use. Various bodies have posited a variety of definitions for each term. On each list, the consensus process assimilates and synthesizes those definitions to create an unambiguous criterion for inclusion. The vast majority of lists on Wikipedia have no "right" or "wrong" criteria, rather they have the criteria that we have generated through consensus. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. I don't agree with exactly how "tall" is defined in the current version, but there is clearly no consensus to delete these articles. I don't see how any fundamental policies are being violated. --- RockMFR 20:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- OK, so can you cite the reliable secondary source which supports the definition of "tall" used in this article? If there is no widely-agreed objective definition of tall, then the list fails WP:NOR. That's policy. And I don't see that interpretation being credibly rebutted anywhere in the debates. Guy (Help!) 10:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The main purpose of Afd is to decide whether the existence of an article is violating policy. There is no consensus that it is violating policy. You can say that it is, but your opinion is simply an opinion. --- RockMFR 19:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse keeping. As RockMFR said above! Worded perfectly. Mathmo Talk 21:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete. The "keep" voters ignored multiple calls to WP:NOR and WP:NOT. Regardless of number, arguments have to be based in policy. Only one side of the discussion was doing so. — coelacan talk — 21:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Daydreaming wish.... that there someday be a WikiList-o-rama where all lists of every kind can be carted off to. Deeply flawed list (no historical trend and very little ethnic consideration (apart from Filipino basketball players (??). I think there might be a case for a list of tall people who have achieved verifiably significan celebrity for their being tall and nothing else (although I dislike the idea of Wikipedia being a Guinness Book of Records archive). Original research synthesis elements and poorly thought out content can just be purged from article at any time. Bwithh Join Up! See the World! 22:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and Delete Unconvinced by eventualist/give it a chance arguments. Articles have existed for since '05 and have gone through a number of afds as well as plenty of editing. There's been plenty of chance Bwithh Join Up! See the World! 01:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- endorse and keep the afd close was rational, based on the discussion, where numerous people pointed out that a cange of name to teller or tallest or something more specific,and a clear statement of scope , was all that was necessary. The article is in line with other WP lists. Very few lists on WP except for winners of X or Officeholders of Y have actual fixed criteria. If opposition is based on disliking WP lists based on criteria of this sort, that policy does not have community consensus. DGG 00:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete. A List of people by height would be fine, but that's not what this is. This is a list of only the "tall" people, and like people have repeatedly said, who decides what height is "tall"? A list of tallest people makes no sense, either, because then you've just renamed it; you still have to have a lower cutoff point, which will still be entirely arbitrary. -Amarkov moo! 00:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- OMG!!!! please not a List of people by height...! Bwithh Join Up! See the World! 05:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- An easy solution would be to restrict it to only people who have been refered to by the media as tall. Mathmo Talk 10:52, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Not a solution. "Notable tallness" would be established by any passing mention by any short journalist. Such statements as "Barack Obama stands above the crowd" or "Bill O'Reilly towers over his guest", recorded in media, will be "notable tallness". Are those guys tall? Yes, but where does this end? Damn near everyone over 5'10" has been called tall by someone, somewhere, and 5'10" is going to result in a list ten times as large as the current one. This will actually be a very big problem for politicians, because it is part of the spin system to drop mentions about height, since it's a fact that tall politicians tend to be elected more readily. Mentions of notable height are quite spammy for many occupations. — coelacan talk — 20:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Not true. Here's what "notable tallness" might mean:
This is a list of men who are notable for their height. It is limited to men who:
- are notable only for being extremely tall or short (e.g., Robert Pershing Wadlow); or
- are otherwise notable, but whose height (either tall or short) has been noted as directly relevant to (e.g., Yao Ming) or contributing (e.g., Peter the Great) to their notability.
- Notability here is defined as an extension of WP:Notability. In order for someone to get on the list, their height (not they themselves) has to be mentioned in "multiple reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself" (I think the non-trivial condition should be loosened here for the 2nd category of men--everyone recognizes that Yao Ming's height is directly relevant to his notability as a basketball star, but I think it would be too much to expect that there be published works out there that discuss only his height). Black Falcon 03:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse close. Whilst I, personally, feel these articles are bullshit, arbitrary, and of no benefit to Wikipedia in their current form, there wasn't a consensus in the AFD discussion to get rid of them, even discounting the odd "keep it because it is awesome!" style argument. The closing admin made the correct call, but a six month moratarium on AFDing them again, no. There are many concerns still being raised, many of which are valid, and if the owners of the article (and I use that term deliberately) fail to fix the article as they promised to do so repeatedly, it should go back to AFD forthwith. Proto::► 11:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete, original research, arbitrary list. >Radiant< 13:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Give it a chance, sheesh. The keep votes were generally offering to improve the list, and there seems to be consensus that it could be improved. Lay off the list for a month and stop ping ponging this back and forth. Work on the content, bring it up to standards. There's nothing fundamentally incapable of being tweaked to standards. Moving to List of tallest men and making it a list of superlatively tall people would remove the subjectivity that occurs at the bottom end. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Really? How do you objectively determine what "superlatively tall" means? — coelacan talk — 00:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Tallest man in the world is pretty objective. Tallest national leader, tallest basketball player, tallest is objective. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The tallest man is completely objective, yes. But when you have a list, you're going to have a list of tallest men, and who decides the lower bound? -Amarkov moo! 04:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Editorial consensus, the same way we do for bridges, buildings, and every other list of the biggest things out there. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- But the editorial consensus just keeps dreaming up new arbitrary criteria, without ever actually finding an objective external definition of tall. That's the problem. Guy (Help!) 08:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and Delete many of those arguing keep suggested that these lists be transformed into other, policy-compliant lists (such as people notable for their height or people of the greatest verifiable height), but those lists aren't these lists and these lists aren't really a usefull basis for creating those lists. As they stand these lists fail policy and there is no consensus as to how the can or should be cleaned-up. Thus, they should be deleted and any similar lists created to replace them evaluated on their own merits. Eluchil404 11:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete, fails WP:NPOV and WP:V, which is a fundamental pillar of Wikipedia. There is no authoritative definition of the word tall and constitutes original research. — Nearly Headless Nick 11:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, This isn't AFD round twenty five. The arguments here should focus on whether the AFD was closed properly. Given the disagreements there and here, I feel the no-consensus close was procedurally correct. DRV is for when procedure breaks. If you want to argue on the article's merits, rather than procedure, open another AfD. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Oh please, I know this is not an AfD. I hope you understand how administrators gauge consensus by considering *valid* arguments. None of the keep arguments were *valid*. Hence, that was not a valid close. Hope you understand, what this means. — Nearly Headless Nick {C} 08:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The nominator's argument that "the "keep" rationales all ignored fundamental and glaring policy violations", specifically naming WP:NOR, is an argument that the AFD was closed improperly. Arguments for keeping or deleting have to be based in policy. The nominator feels that only one side of the argument was using policy. We're firmly in DRV territory. — coelacan talk — 01:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure for no consensus. Please, give people a chance to work on this article. There has probably been 10 times more effort spent on trying to delete or keep this article than to improve it! Many of the keep arguments in this last AfD were aimed at improving the article (to address concerns raised) by turning to internationally-recognized medical institutes and/or changing its focus to List of the tallest men or List of men notable for their height. Come on, already! Yes, these would be different lists, but why make it so much harder on those who're going to be working on this article? There is plenty of useful information in List of tall men that could be used to refocus it. If you delete it now, everyone will have to start from scratch. -- Black Falcon 21:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- 'Comment The tall men list was first created Oct 11 2005 and first afd'd Oct 24 2005 (the women list was created April 16 2005 and first afd'd Sept 6 2006). Both have gone through substantial additions and editing and several more afds since. They have also broadened their title focus from "famous tall" to just "tall" (is this intended as an improvement?). How much more time do you think is needed? (and if we delete it all, it doesn't mean that "everyone will have to start from scratch" (you can just an admin for the data dump into your user space) but it will mean that new versions will have to go through deletion review approval first) Bwithh Join Up! See the World! 01:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Reply - the improvements suggested in this AfD were not suggested in any of the previous AfDs, so these proposals should be given some time. Also, dumping the data into one person's userspace stymies opportunities for multiple people to work on, improve, and/or refocus the article. -- Black Falcon 02:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I intended to be gone and boycotting, but I still get weak and check it on occasion. I have to say you should stop pinging this article back and forth from AFD to DRV. Insanely protracted stuff like this doesn't do you any good. At this point one side has to give. If it being deleted is really so important for integrity, or whatever, that deleters will fight on forever, than I say let it die. Likewise if keeping it is important to maintain featured lists of long or tall things than I say move this to "List of tallest men" and then limit it to a set number of examples. In either case make a dang decision and stick with it for more than a week. Sheesh, you people make me glad again that I quit editing.--T. Anthony 05:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse half-year moratorium. The nature and content of the article do not clearly violate WP:NOR or WP:NOT; if it were so obvious, then there would be consensus. The overturn arguments appear to imply that the decision was based more on numbers than actual reasoning - please assume good faith and the rational capacity of your fellow Wikipedians. The ultimate motivation for continuing this debate probably does include some sentiments of WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but this doesn't seem to be a significant problem in the actual arguments. Please do not merely cite policy, and they serve as shortcuts better for clear-cut debates, and are probably misinterpreted in an unresolved discussion such as this one. On WP:NOT#DIR and WP:NOT#IINFO: List of tall men does not directly violate them because it doesn't fall under any of the classes of articles explicitly listed to be not fit for inclusion. Whether any collection of information is indiscriminate is subjective - I claim that this article is encyclopedic and a valuable inclusion on Wikipedia's discriminate collection of information, and the list itself is discriminate because it lists only notably tall people who fit an objective criteria. Those of you who think that the list should consider nationalities and basketball players separately, how is that less arbitrary? The list is not outright arbitrary (there is a specific inclusion criteria); it is only arbitrary (with the lower bound) to the extent that this helps reduce any further arbitrariness. The lower bound of the list is only a secondary concern, and only indirectly related to the article's subject. On WP:NOR: The lack of secondary sources does not mean there are none, for tall men are certainly a notable subject for academia. Perhaps it is also because there is nothing to interpret, meaning the primary sources about heights speak for themselves. This is not original research, but source-based research. The article does not make any claims about the people other than that they are tall. Can anyone honestly say that these people are not tall? Of course tall is a relative term, but we all know what is meant by (correctly) labelling these as tall(est) men. The sources of international institutions' consideration of 'tall' have been rejected because they differ, and yet these are notable differences that should be documented in the article. I may have missed it, but I haven't seen anyone refute the implication deleting this list has on other lists. Overall I think this process is a mess and should be left alone to default to closure, as there are valid points scattered and unattended across the AfDs and DRV, and I'm not sure anyone wishes to rigourously go through every detail involving policy and whatnot. Pomte 07:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, several editors assert that it does not violate WP:NOR / WP:NOT, but none of them has yet managed to provide the external objective consensus definition of tall that is required to substantiate that. Can you provide it? If not, then I'm afraid that "it does not violate" is just your opinion, and must be taken against the opinions of a large number of experienced editors who say precisely the opposite. Guy (Help!) 11:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Is there an objective external consensus definition of what's a long bridge or tall building? That doesn't preclude us from having lists of the biggest structures. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- That would be WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Not a good argument. Guy (Help!) 22:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The "other crap" to which you refer are featured lists. -- Black Falcon 22:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Irrelevant. A list which lacks externally verifiable objective criteria amounts to "list of things we like" and is necessarily bad. Guy (Help!) 22:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- How external do you want them to be? Even external to the limitations imposed by the English language? -- Black Falcon 23:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- JzG, I notice you did not reply to a single suggestion for refocusing the article in the last AfD (and at least three were proposed). Although this DRV is not the place to discuss it (the appropriate place would be the talk page), I am wondering why that is. You condemn the article for not meeting WP standards and yet make no effort to collaborate with others to improve it or, at the least, to give them a chance to discuss/collaborate amongst themselves. Also, please do not misrepresent the disagreement as one between "a large number of experienced editors" and a small minority of inexperienced editors (I've simply taken the opposite of what you wrote). Despite the fact that experience should not matter (inexperienced editors can make good points and experienced editors lousy ones), there were a "large number" of experienced editors on both sides. -- Black Falcon 18:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- We've been round and round the circles. The only way to make this encyclopaedic is to have a completely different article, on men (and women) considered by reliable secondary sources to be notable for their height, and these lists do not provide a useful starting point for that. Suggestions of numeorus different arbitrary criteria do not fix the problem that there is no independent objective definition of tall to underpin this list, and the definitions used are subject to systemic bias. There is nothing to be gained through polishing a turd. Guy (Help!) 22:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- JzG, please follow WP:CIVIL (which applies not only to comments about editors, but also their edits). Many people have contributed many edits to the list (I am not one of them) and they should not be so disrespected. As regards your arguments, these lists do provide a good starting point for two reasons. First, those people who will be most active on the project already know where the page is. Second, the articles contain numerous sources which will be useful in any new revised/refocused article. If this page is deleted now, editors will have to find these sources all over again. And no, userfying is not an optimal solution as it restricts the degree to which a project can be collaborative. Any refocusing of the article would require some agreement among (some) editors. This will take time. The few-hours timeframe from when the last AfD was closed to when this DRV was opened is not enough time to discuss proposed changes let alone to implement them. -- Black Falcon 22:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Do feel free to point out where I have been uncivil about any edits. The article is crap and successive attempts to fix it have only made this more apparent, but that is the fault of the flawed underlying premise not any individual editors' efforts. I saw no new suggestions which were not rebutted in thr fourth (consensus delete) AfD, and the only fixes which do not violate canonical policy involve scrapping both content and title. Where are the relibale sources underpinning the definitions as currently used in the article? Without those, it fails WP:NOR, a firm policy, and must be deleted. There has never, at any point in the article's history, been a cited external consensus definition of what constitutes tall. Not once. Guy (Help!) 22:56, 15 February 2007 (
- I find it odd that you do not see the labeling of the combined efforts of at least 100 editors "crap" or a "turd" as at least somewhat uncivil (pardon my sarcasm). Also, allow me to note once more that you are ignoring my mention of proposals to radically refocus the article (either to "tallest"--which I know you disagree with as well--or to "notable for tallness/height"). -- Black Falcon 23:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Your request for an "external consensus definition" of 'tall' can be reduced to a request for an accurate lower bound for the list. As Black Falcon stated, this is a fundamental "flaw" in language that cannot be refuted by an interpretation of policy. In the most objective and austere sense, 'tall' is merely an extension of the set comprising the tallest man, to which we add the second tallest man, the third tallest man, and so on. The size of this new 'tall' set is only secondary to the meaning of 'tall' itself. There does not need to be consensus for an article to exist; there are articles on controversies, and this could be one of them. Reliable secondary sources would be more arbitrary than what we have now, because it would be their less objective interpretation of 'tall'. Pomte 04:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Just to clarify, I think you were referring to Guy, not me. It is not the purpose of Wikipedia to correct supposed "flaws" in language (although I don't see how this is a flaw); rather, we should work within the constraints of (in this case the English) language to create an encyclopedia that people will read (and extremes of height are an interesting and notable topic--how the article about the topic conveys information is something for the talk page). -- Black Falcon 04:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse six-month moratorium. Seriously, give it a rest. Firstly and most importantly, the closing admin correctly diagnosed an utter lack of consensus over the numerous AfDs surrounding this list.
- Those who oppose the article on WP:NOR grounds are guilty of a laughably broad (mis)reading of one of the encyclopedia's fundamental policies. Nowhere in the policy does it suggest the contents of a given article must be bounded by an external and immutable criteria; it says that the facts contained in the article must be previously stated or researched by a reliable source. As long as these facts (in this case the heights of the list's occupants) are verifiable, it is up to the editors to decide which facts are most relevant to the article's subject and how best to present them. No one is proposing a radical re-definition of what tall means; that would be original research. "Tall," like most adjectives that might appear in Wikipedia list titles, has a widely understood but not empirically precise meaning. Using published statistics to argue where and when an individual might be considered tall might be a poor use of an Wikipedian's time, but it violates the original research rule no less than, say, trying to pinpoint the exact moment the Great Depression ended or debating the Western boundary of Asia. We are not forbidden from writing articles about that which cannot be neatly defined. What a boring place this would be were that the case.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 03:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse keeping. I am (was) an active editor mainly at the Bulgarian Wikipedia and I come here mostly to read, rather than write ot edit. As a reader I can tell you these two articles have been more interesting and of more use to me than most articles here. I totally can't understand why you people would want to delete them and it's not for a lack of knowledge of English, believe me. --Christomir 03:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure of the most recent AFD. I argued to delete the page. Facts and arguments were fairly laid out by both sides. Closing this discussion as "no consensus" was entirely reasonable. No new arguments are being presented here to justify overturning the closure. Give the list's proponents their chance to prove their point. If the page is still fundamentally unimproved in 3-6 months, renominate it then. Rossami (talk) 19:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure `'mikka 19:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse no consensus People have to start understanding that not everyone interprets policy in the exact same way. Not because they're crazy, not because they can't read, not because they're acting in bad-faith in order to keep an article that they like but simply because Wikipedia policy is not a text of law, was never written as such and, at times, has a certain degree of intended vagueness. It's only normal that people have slightly different understandings of these policies and actually, there would really be no need for AfD if this was not the case. I see a constant abuse of the idea that some AfD arguments are correct while others are the result of twits who have not read policy properly. True, some AfD arguments are indeed bogus and they should be discounted but they are not as commonplace as one might think. More often than not, closing admins will discount opinions of people that do not agree with this admin's specific interpretation of policy. There will only be a growing sense of frustration in the community when people are invited to give their opinion only to be told by an admin "you don't know what you're talking about, I'm sorry I even asked for your input." Pascal.Tesson 23:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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