Talk:Oldest people

Oldest living women/people lists

Now that I see the oldest living man now is in the top 10 list of living people, I hereby resurrect my argument that we should name these two lists "Top 10 women" and "Top 10 men". Why? Because we have, with the lists as they stand, the seeming priority in seeing a ten-deep list of men, but not a similar list for the top 10 women, even though the 10th-oldest woman would be close to two years older than the #10 man! It has been argued before that it is far more interesting to see a top 10 overall list than one limited to women, another to men, but I counterargue it would be instantly apparent who the oldest living person is anyway.

And, I agree it looks a bit better to have the two lists - 10 oldest people, 10 oldest men - but only when the two lists are exclusive. When they aren't, such as right now, then we we should have the male/female lists. If more men make the top ten lists, then the logic of keeping the lists as they are now becomes even less tenable as it makes little sense to keep track of the oldest men while ignoring the same requirement for women. Canada Jack (talk) 15:47, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I have a different but related point to make. I think the alltime list shouldn't be 115+ because we now have 24 names and in a year maybe 26. It's far too cumbersome. It should be 116+ or Top 10, which currently happen to be the same list. 84.13.47.181 (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)Captain celery

Why not keep it 115+ as is (i.e., a list of those who pass an arbitrary number) then when another person reaches the list, make it a top 25 list (i.e., a list of arbitrary length)? Canada Jack (talk) 17:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I just think it's too long, and 115 is not as impressive as it once was. 84.13.47.181 (talk) 19:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)Captain celery

I think the lists should be kept as the 10 oldest people and men for this reason: People who come to view this page are likely to want to see a list of the currently oldest people in the world as opposed to the 10 oldest women, and your average reader is not going to want to amalgamate the 2 lists in their head to make it. Secondly, I think having top 10 people/women/men lists is too much and too much repetition, so I think that it out of the question. SiameseTurtle (talk) 23:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

If that is so, then what is the point of having a separate list for men? If those two men currently tied for second on the men's list outlast enough of the older women, we could see three men on the top ten list. It's not outside the realm of possibility. And the rationale for the need for a 10-deep list for men - while no similar list exists on this page for women - becomes ever more creaky. The fact that, statistically, men don't live as long and therefore need a separate list isn't the point - the point is why do we need to know all ten of the oldest men, but only as many women who happen to make the over-all 10 list (currently 9, could be 7 down the road)? The solution is either to have two lists separated by sex, or to have a single list of oldest people. Canada Jack (talk) 23:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I can see the point of having the list at 115+ getting long in the near future, I also think 10 is to few. The top 15 or 20 seems like a better number. --Npnunda (talk) 03:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I would also go along with Canada Jack about making it a top 25 list. 10 is to few. --Npnunda (talk) 03:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we only need list the Top Ten for consistency. Four lists of the Top Ten men/women living/all-time would be the most sensible. If someone wants to see where men feature in the overall lists they can refer to the List of the verified oldest people or List of living supercentenarians. The only potential difficulty is, as has been discussed previously, when there are less than 10 male supercentenarians. However it seems that this will become less frequent and is a bridge that can be crossed when we come to it. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 12:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. We wouldn't have top 25s for every list. It just looks bad. The chronological list is necessarily long but the others don't have to be. People can cross reference. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone on Wikipedia are complete idiots. Top 10 women of all-time would include Barnes, who was possibly older, and then Mortensen could slot in to the male list. As far as living men goes, we're currently on 11, with Borroni to come next month, and a likely Japanese influx in September, when they release their new list. Even with a numbers collapse we could use Fernandes, since Portugal are just behind Germany in terms of reliability. 89.242.218.62 (talk) 13:42, 18 July 2008 (UTC)Captain celery

I stongly agree with "Canada Jack" and "Npnunda". Extremely sexy (talk) 12:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

In terms of the 25-deep all-time list, we may get that 25th 115+ person as early as September, so perhaps if and when, we can change the title of the "Oldest people ever (115+)" list to "Oldest people ever (Top 25)." Assuming of course there is consensus. Seems to be a sensible thing to do before it becomes too unwieldy. Canada Jack (talk) 15:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

As I said before, I would go along with Canada Jack for top 25+ --Npnunda (talk) 22:55, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Country of residence

Is it REALLY necessary to include the state/region/whatever of residence? Surely the country is sufficient, if anyone wants to know more information they can look at the article of the person concerned. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 22:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

That was discussed [1]. The concenses then was to keep the states/provedence. --Npnunda (talk) 23:03, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

That discussion was on a different page and, for what it's worth, this page is already cluttered and messy enough as it is, so I believe that it's a double reason to remove them here. The country where a person is from is relevant for this page, but not the state/province. Also, I think a lot of the highlighting is redundant/unnecessary as well, particularly in light of the fact that living people are already bolded. Cheers, CP 00:06, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Paul, I agree with you about the highlighting being unnecessary/redundant. After reading your comment, I've thought about the states/providence thing again. I have looked at this page again and you are right it is kind of messy and cluttered. I still think It's important to keep the states/prov on List of living supercentenarians but on a page like this with so many tables and different things it can be a "information overload". Maybe it would be best to remove them from this page. --Npnunda (talk) 01:58, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It stems from people adding the US state. I can kind of understand someone wanting to point out that Seattle and Tampa, or San Diego and Boston, are a long way apart. But then other people, such as myself, don't want to revert the changes, and so feel compelled to do the same thing for Japan (Hokkaido and Kyushu) etc. Similarly notes are added for those without articles, and then well meaning completists do the same for those with articles. But not everyone on the main page can have an article. I didn't agree with the notability purge by the people who decided that this article was what most needed changing on Wikipedia. But for some people, especially the innumerable Japanese cases, we've hardly got anything to go on. 89.242.218.62 (talk) 13:42, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I think that this whole page needs to be revamped. It needs agreed-upon standards, better referencing, a major stylistic cleanup and a thorough checking for NPOV (as happened with List of living supercentenarians). I may try to start working on this come August but, in any case, the article needs more than a few fixes. Cheers, CP 00:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

A New Start For This Page

There has been talk about making major changes on this page. I think some of the changes should be better organization (or a new format alltogether) and removing some of the tables. Any ideas on changes that you would like to be made to this page? regards --Npnunda (talk) 23:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that it should follow a transformation similar to List of living supercentenarians: clear standards for inclusion (who counts as "verified" etc.), better referencing (direct citations for each entry, as opposed to a handful of notes and some general links), NPOV check (no one arbitrarily assumed "verified" before they actually are, as was a big sticking point with the original LoLS), stylistic changes (I don't have many suggestions for this, as I lack a sense of good style, but removing the highlighting in redundant cases and the states would be a good start) and citation/removal of the bottom two uncited text sections. And while I kind of like the graph, it does make an already cluttered page even more messy, but I could go either way with that one. Also, in response to above, I believe that chopping down the "Oldest people ever" to just the top 10 is the best solution because a) This page is "information overload" enough as it is, and all that data is replicated elsewhere and b) Most other "summary" lists are restricted to the top ten (example: Lists of state leaders). Cheers, CP 01:43, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with most of what Paul says here. I think what this page lacks is a main focus. What I mean by that is it has alot of tables and information that is already on other pages while not really having an identity of It's own. I think the first paragraph at the begining is a good place to start because it talks about "Oldest People" in general.

Removing the highlights has been brought up before. I don't remember any objections to it so why not just remove them. My test edit to remove them messed up the page or I would have done this myself. I've already said that I would like the list of "Oldest people ever" to be somewhere between 15-25. Not really a big difference. We have time to figure that out though and other things. Regards --Npnunda (talk) 03:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I have created a template with my vision of what this page should look like here. I ask that, with the exceptions of uncontroversial changes (such as spelling errors) or the addition of proper citations, that no editing be done to my page. I have listed the changed that I have made on the talk page, and will be happy to discuss other substantial ones there. If you wish to create an alternate version, please do so in your own user space. The only thing that I feel that my version is missing is proper citations for the individual individuals, which I will set up in due course. Time to start building consensus and bringing this page up to code. Cheers, CP 21:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

This is perhaps an aside for this topic, but I think we need to add clear and concise information for disputed cases. We can't make a list of people, whether it's oldest in the world at each point in time, or the oldest people ever without having to mention a disputed case, like Izumi. What we can do on the other hand is give readers unbiased information so they can come to their own conclusion.

I think the Nation of death section should be shortened to eg. top 15, or 112+, and the emigrant table removed (these can be viewed on the longevity records page). SiameseTurtle (talk) 22:19, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

For the disputed cases, if there was a reliable source that mentioned the dispute, I kept it with a note, otherwise I removed it. I have no objection to the restoration of the "dispute" on those cases that I removed it from, so long as it is covered in a reliable source. I also have no objections to trimming down the "Nation of death" and emigrant table sections either... I could go either way with those tables. Cheers, CP 20:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Reaction from Robert Douglas Young to this:

1. We don't even see the "emigrant records" on the national longevity records page.

2. "Oldest People" is supposed to be a concise summary...the national longevity records page has too much gobbledygook on it.

3. We can easily see with the way it is that the "oldest person" from Greece, for example, died in the U.S. Leave it the way it is.

Also, why are so many people messing with the "old" flags? Come on, do we see the old American flags being used? When Edna Parker was born, there weren't 50 stars (or even 48) on the flag. But she's alive today, right?

In short, the "emigrant records" and "national longevity records" already seem to be concise and trim. No need to delete. Also of note, not all the information is on the "main" article "national longevity recordholders"). In addition, the "main article" is bogged down with nonsense such as the oldest person in Greenland, Kosovo, etc.

It makes sense to have a quick summary on the "oldest people" page.

Extremely sexy (talk) 20:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Eva M. Jacobi 122 Years

According to the Social Security Death Index http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ Eva M Jacobi was born May 5, 1885 and died Sept. 18th, 2007. She was 122 years old and 136 days. LuluWorld (talk) 05:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

As this was not mentioned at the time of her death it would seem highly unlikely to be reliable! DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 06:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)