Wikipedia talk:WikiProject World's Oldest People

Portal and question

Hi,

I have a request and a question :

• The Portal:Supercentenarians has been left unfinished by Leoj83 since september. Could somebody finish it ?
• Is the List of supercentenarians who died before 1980 complete or not ? ie. is there any unexploited sources or something like that ? (it's for a matter of Authors' rights/pma, I need to know who was the oldest people to die at specific years like 1951 and 1941)

Cdlt, VIGNERON * ^discut.

Shivakumara Swamiji

Hi,

Dr.Shivakumara Swamiji from India is still living. His age is 107 years 196 days as of now. The link for it in wiki is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivakumara_Swamiji.

Please update the list.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.51.235.255 (talk) 11:55, 13 October 2014

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So how do we proceed?

This Wikiproject is a complete mess and needs help. Editing is going nowhere as we're just going back and forth and sooner or later someone's going to get blocked and nothing will be fixed. I agree with the above discussion in that the country articles need a serious look at before the other articles can be fixed. So how do we proceed? Pinging everyone either active in this topic area (User:Waenceslaus, User:Ollie231213, User:930310), User:Inception2010) had/s experience in this topic area (User:DerbyCountyinNZ, User:Randykitty, User:The Blade of the Northern Lights, User:EEng) and those that participated in the discussion above (User:Ca2james, User:Ricky81682). Color and original research need to be addressed. Every name in every table needs a source or it needs to be removed. I'd suggest looking at the "chronological list of oldest person" sections first. If sources cannot be found that states that a person was oldest from death of previous, then the table needs to be removed. I'm not 100% sure if the oldest in Britain website is reliable for Wikipedia or not. Opinions? Not sure how the color concerns get addressed either. Perhaps something like the List of supercentenarians who died in 2014 for example? Once the country articles are looking solid, we can tackle the other "lists of" pages and the individual bios as many could be redirected/deleted without loss of information. purple monkey dishwasher CommanderLinx (talk) 17:46, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I was in fact planning to make a post on this talk page about this project, and more specifically its guidelines. The ones that exist currently are outdated and are being used as a tool to remove information on articles in the scope of this project. Let me firstly put forward my views on these:

1. Let's start with this statement: "There is currently no consensus about the reliability of the tables of data hosted at www.grg.org, nor of the journal Rejuvenation Research." ---> I don't know much about Rejuvenation Research but I don't know why it would not be considered a reliable source given that it is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It's also clear that the Gerontology Research Group is a reliable source. The GRG has several thousand citations in Google News at the moment. Do a quick search for articles on supercentenarians such as Susannah Mushatt Jones, Sakari Momoi, Jeralean Talley, etc., and you will see that most articles reference the GRG (i.e. "according to the Gerontology Research Group"). This, this, and this are but a few examples. I understand that there may have been some disagreement about the reliability of this source but consensus appears to have changed over the last few years based on greater media acceptance. The GRG is also considered an authority on longevity by Guinness World Records.

2. "Gerontology Research Group data from grg.org should be attributed and used only as backup for reliable sources." ---> No, it should be the OTHER WAY AROUND. It's the news outlets that quote the GRG! The GRG does the initial work to verify people's ages, which the media certainly do not do - just take this article about a "160" year old man.

3. The final point regarding the GRG is that being verified and included on the GRG tables does count as coverage in reliable sources. Supercentenarians are not celebrities like Kim Kardashian who are just famous for being famous - their notability should not be determined purely by the amount of media coverage they get. This issue was debated at Lucy Hannah's AfD. She's the third oldest person ever, living to the age of 117, but was not covered widely in the press. On the other hand, it's common to see people as young as 100 covered in media articles. Does that make Lucy Hannah less notable for her longevity than a 100 year old? No of course not.

4. "Some long-lived people are notable principally for their advanced age, e.g., Jeanne Calment. If the individual is not notable in any other way, the article is subject to Wikipedia policy guidance on one-event biographies." ---> The "one event" guideline is meant to deal with people who, say, were witnesses to an event but were not largely involved, but who might have been interviewed by the press. It's these kind of people who are only notable for being involved in one event and are likely to remain to low-profile. In other words, people whose notability is not substantial or long-lasting. On the other hand, as discussed at Antonia Gerena Rivera's AfD, longevity is not "one event" - it's an integral part of the person. Furthermore, someone who holds a record is notable in the long-term, because that record lasts for a (often long) period of time.

This leads me on nicely to my next point, which is this: I feel that some people hold the view that supercentenarians aren't important/aren't famous. This has been the most-persistent issue recently - the push to delete supercentenarian articles as "not important", "one event," Firstly, the media itself shows that someone can be famous for age alone (such as Jeanne Calment). The question after that is: "how famous"? Consensus seems to be that "World's oldest person" and "world's oldest man" titleholders generally merit an article, but after that, there is no consensus. Secondly, a birthday party is "one event," but someone setting a record such as "Minnesota's oldest person on record" is a recurring citation, as I have discussed above. Take, for example, this article about 110 year old Hermina Wahlin. This article references Catherine Hagel, Minnesota's all-time longevity record holder, who died in 2008. Also, two birthdays are two events...someone turning 113, 114, 115, 116, etc. is a person with multiple-event coverage.

Regarding your question about the Oldest in Britain website, you can see that it is maintained by Dr Andrew Holmes, who is the GRG's correspondent for England, Scotland, and Wales. It is definitely reliable.

Finally, I will address the original question of "how do we proceed?". Firstly, I appreciate that sourcing is an issue in certain articles, particularly "chronological list of oldest people in country X" articles. Something needs to be done about that. But certain users, such as yourself CommanderLinx, need to take a more positive approach to editing. Looking at your user contributions, almost all of your edits involve removing information or placing tags on articles. That's all very well, as long as you also make an attempt to add content to articles to improve them. But you don't, and in the past, you have even taken it upon yourself to redirect biography articles (effectively deleting their content) without gaining consensus, which is not on. Maybe consider trying to search for some citations yourself. For example, you added "citation needed" tags to Emma Tillman's article. I did a quick Google search and was able to find plenty of citations to add and cleaned up the article.

So in summary, we all need to work together to not only solve the problem of unsourced content, but to recognise that people can be notable for their longevity and also to improve longevity-related articles by making constructive contributions. Sorry for the long-winded post. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 19:41, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

First, Ollie, nothing is gained by labeling people as "positive" or "negative" editors here. If someone wants to add content, fine, if someone thinks that the content should be fixed, that's also fine as long as it's not overall disruptive (and placing tags in and of themselves is not considered disruptive). This WikiProject has gotten in trouble with Arbcom specifically because it only wanted to let in people who "supported" the project, regardless of how the sourcing and other issues worked within the greater Wikipedia policies and procedures. The issue isn't "is GRG reliable or not" on its own. The issue is context. GRG is generally I think reliable for general points about oldest people (and it's been used that way) but it depends on whether we are talking about the GRG peer reviewed papers as a source or simply their webpages. The real question is if GRG alone is sufficient as a reliable source on a person's birth and death dates (i.e. their age)? No one is really disputing the peer reviewed material, just the use of their webpages alone. My view is that GRG was doing their analysis based on secondary source review and while they are experts on something (it's not aging itself but basically on data regarding the oldest people I'd say), they aren't say experts on birth certificates from 100 years or death certificate or history in general or the other points, that's not their training necessarily. For that reason, I'd say we need to have another source (even if it's a secondary peer-reviewed source that just supports the GRG), even if it's a pretty lazily done newspaper source, that supports the claim. In that line, absent some particularly terrible almost absurd newspaper source, even if the GRG doesn't include them, I think it's fair to include other names here as well. I think the best thing would be a general RFC on sourcing rather than individual discussions like this. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:47, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Let's say "constructive" editing then (used to mean actually searching for citations and adding content sometimes, rather than just removing content or adding tags). As for your comments about the GRG, they appear misinformed.

1. They are the ones who do the research to verify the person's age, so I don't see how any other source can be more reliable than the GRG for a person's birth and death dates. I also don't know how you can be an "expert" in birth certificates. How much expertise do you need to say that if someone has a birth certificate saying "born 1 January 1900", then they were born on 1 January 1900?

2. The GRG is an authority on ageing. Just look at their publications in scientific journals.

3. Why would a terrible second newspaper source be helpful? -- Ollie231213 (talk) 21:36, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree with Ollie231213 on GRG as a reliable source. Any other source on age verification whether newspaper or academic, traces back to the GRG. On the notability of supercentenarians, we have thousands of articles on cartoons, TV, and movie characters, many much longer than any articles on supercentenarians. I think if cartoons are notable enough for Wikipedia, the extraordinary lives of supercentenarians (as covered in reliable sources) are clearly notable. And certainly a life is not merely an event. --I am One of Many (talk) 21:57, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if GRG is a reliable source. It's been brought up at WP:RSN several times[1][2][3][4] but there doesn't seem to be consensus one way or another, although people not involved with the GRG seem to indicate that it might not be reliable. Personally, I think that Table E (Verified) is probably reliable because the entries are fact-checked whereas all other tables are not reliable because they haven't been verified. I propose that we take this issue back to WP:RSN and try to get consensus from the community on whether GRG or any portion of it is a reliable source.

Whether or not GRG is determined by the larger community to be reliable, we need to find other reliable sources to support the information in the tables. Are there any? If information in the tables isn't supported by reliable sources, it can't be included in Wikipedia, full stop. This isn't about these people being not important; it's about sourcing.

While the GRG RSN discussion is ongoing, I think removing the "pending" indication on tables is the next step because that's an internal GRG designation; for Wikipedia readers, the information is not verified by the GRG. Ca2james (talk) 01:01, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem with declaring that GRG is not a reliable source is that any resulting tables become encyclopedically meaningless. Treat any source that passes RS as have the same validity as the GRG (or any other independent organisation with similar standards/purpose (if only!)) is that we would end up with one list including GRG verified, unverified and the fringe entries at Longevity claims. I don't see how that would improve Wiki. On the other hand I totally agree that GRG pending cases should be treated as unverified and any such cases removed from any lists which are for (GRG verified) supercentenarians only. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 04:21, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Why is it such a bug bear to you that the GRG is the only widely recognised organisation that verifies supercentenarian's ages? -- Ollie231213 (talk) 11:45, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• @Ca2james - Three of those discussions you linked are over four years old. As for the recent one about Violet Brown, read the discussion on the talk page. I will repeat what I said above: I don't see how any other source could be more reliable than one that actually verifies the ages of supercentenarians. Derby is right in the sense that if you give other "reliable" sources as much weight as the GRG, you will end up with tables including both Jeanne Calment and the "160" year old man I mentioned above. Furthermore, the media very often quotes the GRG, and they have many publications in scientific journals. How could they not be considered reliable? -- Ollie231213 (talk) 11:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

The fact that the discussions are so old is a good reason to take this to RSN again. It is true that if GRG tables are found not to be reliable by the larger community, many of the pages associated with this project will be decimated unless other sources can be found. However, that's not a reason not to find out what the community thinks. This discussion has been ongoing for years and some closure on it would be welcome, I would think.

"Reliability" on Wikipedia is a term of art, with a specific meaning that may not correspond to the meaning used elsewhere. On Wikipedia, WP:SOURCE says to [b]ase articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and that [t]he appropriateness of any source depends on the context. This means that a source may be reliable for some things but not others (ie context matters) and is why I would think that the "verified" table is reliable to support information regarding its entries (because the information in it is fact-checked) but the other tables wouldn't be reliable (because fact-checking is not complete). Ca2james (talk) 16:00, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

• @Ca2james - Once more, I have to repeat it here, it is the great majority of the community, that consider the Gerontology Research Group as a reliable source in respect of extreme longevity tracking and supercentenarian study. The GRG is accepted as a reliable source by many, many organizations outside Wikipedia. The most prominent outside sources such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Smithsonian also do consider the GRG as the reliable source. The number of citations of the GRG is growing rapidly. Also in the foreign press, as the GRG is an international scientific organization, that has a considerable number of international correspondents and conducts its research worldwide.

The GRG has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Its work is very well organized. The international correspondents and other researchers perform the primary research. Then, each evidence and/or discovery in carefully reviewed by the GRG headship, which consists of professionals; people, whose names appear as authors of publications in scientific peer-reviewed journals, which are listed [[5]]. After final acceptance of each case of extreme longevity (which is a complex process), the GRG publishes information on its website. That is the secondary source, for which the Wikipedia seeks. Wikipedia itself is a tertiary source. So, the hierarchy of sources and its reliability are not an issue in the case of the GRG.

The world news system accepts the GRG as a reliable source. Thus the massive amount of citations in world's press in many different languages. Also, the Guinness World Records accepts the GRG as a reliable source. It is proven by the fact, that the world news system looks to GWR and the GRG for stories regarding age-verified supercentenarian claims.

The extreme longevity tracking and supercentenarian study might be considered as a young branch of science. However, is it really so? I am reminded, that the first man, who has verified a supercentenarian case was Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the phone, among other. Mr. Bell has verified the authenticity of age of Mrs. Ann Pouder, who lived between 1807-1917. The Gerontology Research Group itself, has been founded in 1990. This predates Wikipedia by more than a decade.

Finally, as long as the GRG publishes and updates the GRG Table EE for pending supercentenarian cases, the table cannot be considered as internal GRG designation, for the reason, that it is available publicly. What is more, it is not true, that the pending supercentenarian cases are not verified. In fact, they are already pending-validated. For every supercentenarian, who appears in the GRG table EE, there is a source of validation provided. The primary source. The existence of the GRG table EE is one of the elements of the very careful inspection of the GRG in the presented data and into each individual case. All that is done for the sake of the perfect reliability of the presented data. In fact, 99% of pending cases are eventually accepted. However, such such measures are taken for the sake of the 1%. This is another proof, that the Gerontology Research Group works very professional and its reliability in respect of longevity and verified supercentenarians' population is unquestionable.

Therefore, instead of looking for opportunities to undermine the authority of the GRG (which is indisputable), I would suggest to appreciate, that such source exists, because hence the greater public education on about how long can people truly live, is achieved. Moreover, GRG's work allows the further improvement of the the state of our knowledge on the subject.

Sincerely,Waenceslaus (talk) 20:33, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the GRG tables aren't used in other places or that they're not considered an authority; I'm saying that they may not meet Wikipedia's definition of a reliable source and that the community's input is needed. I have brought this up at RSN so hopefully we'll get an answer from the community. Ca2james (talk) 16:31, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Inconsistent presentation of living people at List of oldest people by nation

I left a note yesterday at talk:List of oldest people by nation#Inconsistent presentation of living people about the inconsistent presentation of the highlighting for living people on that article. However, it seems that talk page is dead (that was the first comment since September, and the first edit by a human since last August), so I'm leaving this note as a pointer. Thryduulf (talk) 13:15, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Where do we go from here

The discussion I opened at WP:RSN has been closed with a finding that GRG's Table E (the verified/validated table) is a reliable source according to Wikipedia's definition but Table EE (unverified listings) is not considered reliable according to that definition. I have updated WP:WOP with this new information.

To bring this suite of articles into alignment with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, we need to at least:

• assess everything sourced to Table EE; if no independent source exists, it must be removed
• remove the "pending verification" mention and designation from all of this project's Wikipedia articles. Sentences like All of the known supercentenarians who died in 2004 have now been verified treat Wikipedia as an extension of the GRG and need to be reworked or removed.
• remove the use of colour and flags in articles
• assess whether any articles should be nominated for AfD
• .... anything else?

Per CommanderLinx's suggestions, I propose that we start with the "List of" by country articles. I'm thinking of creating a checklist table subpage with the articles and things that need to be checked, once that list of things to assess is finalized.

Pinging User:Waenceslaus, User:Ollie231213, User:930310, User:Inception2010, User:DerbyCountyinNZ, User:Randykitty, User:The Blade of the Northern Lights, User:EEng, and User:Ricky81682 for input. Ca2james (talk) 15:38, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

"Assess everything sourced to Table EE; if no independent source exists, it must be removed" ---> The utter ridiculousness of this is that you're saying that media reports are reliable enough for inclusion but a scientific organisation is not. Ollie231213 (talk) 15:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Ollie231213. The GRG is a scientific research group and certainly not just some kind of amateur group that lists various names just for fun. While all cases on Table EE do not go on to be verified the utter majority of them does. Table EE also is mentioned to list cases as "Pending Verified", which means that there is documentation supporting their ages, but that the GRG hasn't had the time to verify their ages completely yet. 930310 (talk) 19:32, 13 August 2015 (UTC)