The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus, default to keep. My reading of the debate below is that every attempt to invoke policy in the debate, whichever way the policy points, has been refuted. There is a split vote, and I can't see this discussion getting unstuck anytime soon, so I'm closing this as NC. Der yck C. 17:48, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of people with surname Jones[edit]

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Following Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people named Jacob and other precedents listed there, there is a consensus that lists of people sharing name are not useful when there are very many notable people with that name. – Fayenatic London 21:32, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question. Is there a precedent for deleting a list of people with the same surname, on the "list too long" theory or otherwise? Whatever one may think of the result at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people named Jacob, I would anticipate (and maybe agree with) the argument that a surname-based list is potentially more helpful to navigation. --Arxiloxos (talk) 22:24, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I looked, but did not find one. – Fayenatic London 14:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There's a slight difference between lists of people that share a common forename and one that shares a common surname. Especially given that Jones is one of the most common Welsh surnames out there. This list is an extension of the Jones (surname) page. Most surname pages are in a sense disambiguation pages, and list a number of notable people who share that name. ~~So if anything this page should be Merged with it.~~ Funny ^Pika! 22:28, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

On second thoughts, the page looks far too long to merge together. Looking through this category Category:Lists of people sharing a surname there's quite a few lists of surnames. Although WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't a valid reason for inclusion, I'd still say the list should be kept in some form like Arxiloxos states - as a means of searching for articles on people named Jones. Possibly by breaking down each section into separate pages based on occupation?

Previous attempts at consensus is listed here: Wikipedia:Deletion policy/names and surnames. Funny ^Pika! 23:25, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that the page was created by splitting it from Jones (surname). I am glad that you do not want to merge it, and I would certainly oppose re-merging. As for the others in Category:Lists of people sharing a surname, I would advocate deleting others that are too long to merge back into the surname page, such as List of people with surname Johnson and List of people with surname Williams. Pages in it that are regular surname pages (anthroponymy articles), which include a list of notable examples anyway, do not need to be in that category; I intend to prune it, but will defer that until after this discussion. – Fayenatic London 14:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the page is useful, for example someone looking for a singer called Jones but not sure of the first name. When pages get too long they need to be broken up, which is presumably why it got split off from Jones (surname). It is over 500 lines long already, which is probably unmanageable for someone trying to navigate it on a mobile phone. I would oppose deletion but splitting it into different categories as FunnyPika suggested is the best solution I can think of. Jll (talk) 23:40, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I would merge the "See also" section (listing Alan Jones (disambiguation) etc) back into Jones (surname), but as for the biography articles, I have added a link for All pages including "Jones" in the title and IMHO that is enough.
- If I wanted to look for a singer named Jones, without this list, I would simply search Wikipedia for singer jones; this first brings up Joneses that have "(singer)" in the page name, then redirects, and after those it shows others that have the word "singer" in the article.
- Wikipedia has a policy page which says Wikipedia is not a directory. As a matter of policy I think this page should go. – Fayenatic London 14:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - We can have a reasonable discussion about whether this page is useful and appropriate in its current form, but to haul out the "policy" nuclear option to attack something like this seems incorrect. If WP:NOTDIR really prohibited the creation of navigational disambiguation pages intended to help readers sort through existing articles, then it's WP:NOTDIR that would need changing, not this page. But that's not what the policy is about. As far as the suggestion that using the search engine is enough: Look at the 18,142 results you get[1]. The search engine spits them out titles first, yes, but otherwise in more or less random order; not to mention, of course, that it won't distinguish between first and last names, and (except for the rare articles that actually have "singer" in the title) it won't distinguish between articles that are about a singer and those where the word happens to be used somewhere in the article, and it presumably won't identify articles that use a different word like "musician" instead of singer. My own experience is that the Wikipedia search engine is often not very helpful for working through larger batches of results; Google may be better, but why, exactly, do we need to get rid of a proper disambiguation page just because it's big? --Arxiloxos (talk) 17:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - But it is not a (proper) disambiguation page; see MOS:DABNAME. It is clearly a directory.
    - Moreover, it is a very incomplete directory, and the potential contents are so large that I think it would be unmanageable to try to finish it. Special:Search/intitle:Jones gives over 4,300 pages. Doing the same search for jones singer and jones musician gives 24 + 43 = 67 pages, but only 12 of those 67 are currently in the 50 or so currently listed under Music.
    - If people want to keep directories like this, then start a discussion at WP:NOT. Meanwhile, WP:ILIKEIT is not a good argument. The task of the participants at AfD, especially the person who closes, is to implement Wikipedia policy. If we delete this and later on the policy does get changed, the page could always be undeleted and then split, expanded or otherwise improved. However, it seems to me that WP:NOTDIR is a clear and strong line in WP policy. – Fayenatic London 14:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It may well be a directory, but as are most lists that Wikipedia encompasses. For me, inappropriate directories in Wikipedia are those that just list schedules or point to an external link (List of breweries in South Carolina). Here the list is pointing to a page on Wikipedia and could help users find articles on people named Jones.

WP:NOTFINISHED is an equally poor argument. Most pages on Wikipedia are unfinished, but that does not mean we should delete every unfinished page. Yes, the list is extremely large and borderline indiscriminate. Yet I don't understand why your suggestion that it could be "split, expanded or otherwise improved" cannot be done prior to deletion rather than after, as per WP:NCLL. Funny ^Pika! 16:02, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree about List of breweries in South Carolina, as none of the contents have Wikipedia articles, so I have proposed it for deletion.

My argument about this Jones list is that it should only be kept at all if Wikipedia policy is changed. Although I sometimes work myself on a page during an AfD to see if it can be rescued, I would not encourage editors to do extensive work on a page which I believe does not belong here at all under the present framework. WP:NCLL is about breaking up pages that are justifiable and should be useful when complete; I do not believe those apply here. – Fayenatic London 17:07, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well something useful happened today -- another editor has rescued that list of breweries! The whole list is now supported with an external citation. – Fayenatic London 17:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 02:28, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The list is well structured so that the contents index guides the reader well. There may be a better way of doing this but, per WP:PRESERVE, we should keep the blue link and edit history as a foundation. Deletion would just be disruption. Warden (talk) 20:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:PRESERVE is a good one, and I normally give it a lot of weight. However, because this is (i) so incomplete and (ii) practically impossible to complete and maintain, I do not think it is desirable to encourage further work on it. – Fayenatic London 14:11, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It seems quite complete to me. For example, off the top of my head I think of three famous Jones: Tom Jones (singer); John Paul Jones and Jones the cat. I find that they are all in the list and so we're good. Warden (talk) 15:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's part of the problem: it consists of the most famous people and some editors' favourites. If it was complete, it would list about 4,000 existing articles. See the stats I added earlier today: only 12 of 67 pages that include Jones as well as either singer or musician in their page name are listed.

Lists are not required to be exhaustive and complete. That's why we have the template ((dynamic list)) which states "This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness.". Lists such as list of numbers are provably infinite. Lists such as list of rivers tail off into inummerable minor streams and creeks. It is quite normal, natural and expected that we should concentrate upon the more famous cases. Warden (talk) 07:46, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, →B music ian 03:52, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:NLIST; "Furthermore, every entry in any such list requires a reliable source attesting to the fact that the named person is a member of the listed group." - we're gonna need proof that everyone named "John" is equally reliable per sourcing in order to attest they belong as a member of the list. So solly Ren99 wha? 05:06, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment — that is not a problem, just a matter of work through drawing over a citation from each of the articles supporting the person being so named ... assuming that a biographical article actually has a citation supporting the person's name in association with the identity of the person being described. I would be interested to know if you have examples where this assumption is incorrect; such examples should be deleted ASAP, I would think. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or redirect to Jones. To have such a list would be an indiscriminate collection of people who just happen to share the same, very common, surname. Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 06:48, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or redirect to Jones. IronKnuckle (talk) 15:48, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete -looking at Wikipedia is not a directory it states "...there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic" and clearly none of the folks in this list are famous because of their surname. I'm not seeing any rationales for keeping being presented other than I like it. J04n(talk page) 20:12, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Its use as a navigational page was presented as a valid argument. As was the statement: long lists are indiscriminate directories. The proposal is for users who want to search for people based on a surname and an occupation to be able to find a list that points to an article for that person. The searchbox in this case would be more indiscriminate, displaying a random list of people named foo in no particular order. The article is possibly salvageable if split, so I believe there's a format problem here rather than a content one.

In reference to WP:NLIST, I don't think anyone here is debating whether foo belongs in said list. If you really want to go down that route you'd just have to prove WP:V (or WP:N), something all biographical articles should meet. WP:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue in reference to whether people named Jones should be included in lists of Joneses. Funny ^Pika! 00:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - WP:NOTDIR. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WP:VAGUEWAVE. There's nothing in WP:NOTDIR which is relevant. It does not forbid long lists and we have many such, e.g. the humunguous list of minor planets. Warden (talk) 07:55, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I almost presented a "keep" argument, saying that we should ignore the letter of the rules here, and that this list is inherently useful. However, I could not find an instance where the search box would be any less useful than this list. If you know a person's last name and what they are notable for, using Google and/or the Wikipedia search function will take you to their page. I don't see any reasonable use for this list. Jujutacular (talk) 04:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If I put "jones cat" into the search box, thinking of the character in Alien (film) then I get zillions of false hits such as Doctor Jones because the word cat is used in a technical sense. I am an expert in searching for things and it isn't easy. What you need are multiple approaches and tools. Depending upon a single tool is unwise. Deleting a useful index just because you can is disruption. How is such deletion supposed to help the encyclopedia or our readership? Deletion just seems purely obstructive and unhelpful. Warden (talk) 08:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per what wiki is not. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 08:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You could say that about anything but you provide no evidence. The actual evidence is that Wikipedia has many such lists:

List of people with the surname Abney

List of people with the surname Beaman

List of people with surname Clarke

...

List of people with surname Vogler

List of people with surname Williams

See Category:Lists of people sharing a surname for many more examples. Why should we discriminate against the Jones? Warden (talk) 08:44, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion they should be deleted also. I'm not nominating them at this time however it would probably be a good idea. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 08:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some in that category should be removed from it, others merged/converted into surname articles, others deleted; see my comments above timed at 14:21, 30 January 2013. – Fayenatic London 10:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, this is a subpage of the main disambiguation and surname pages, and like disambiguation pages it's a list for navigation purposes not a list as a presentation of encyclopedic content. It's no more a directory than any disambiguation page or set index. Peter James (talk) 12:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Instead of arguing for deletion of these things one by one, why not find a broader discussion somewhere, and determine if Wikipedia should have these sorts of list or not? Category:Lists of people sharing a surname has 163 entries. This list aid in navigation. You search for the last name of someone, you can then see which person it is you are looking for. You could call it a disambiguate page instead of a list if you wanted to. That is what it is after all. Dream Focus 13:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with Jones (surname). Generally speaking, that's how lists of people by last name are covered p b p 14:51, 6 February 2013 (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.