Talk:List of the verified oldest people

Talk:List of the verified oldest people/Archives

Why not ranking them in total days?

Why are people on this list not ranked by their lifespan given in total days? It would make the list fairer, because you take away (un)fortunate (dis)advantages resulting through leap years. All people born after 28th February 1900 have to live one extra day to attain the same rank as people born before that date, if you leave it like it is now. At least one could put in another column showing the age in total days as it is in the german version of this list, so one can easily see and decide for oneself who should be in which spot. 62.46.196.0 (talk) 16:22, 3 January 2015 (UTC)Triple R

We had this discussion several years ago. We don't need to most basically because the main source lists ages by years/days rather than days, and people are more familiar with the former then the latter in terms of measuring age. Would the average person have a concept of how long 40,000 days is? No. But most people can understand how long 115 years is.

Further, and I was the one largely making this point, nit-picking over the "extra day" owing to the lack of a leap year in 1900 etc forgets that the margin of error for a person's life span is greater than the single day you speak of. In other words, someone born shortly after midnight, and dying shortly before midnight would be almost two full days older than a person born just before midnight and dying just after midnight, even if they both were born and died on the same days. And this doesn't take into account cultural practices such as considering the end of a day being at sundown in some places, and the differences in time zones if someone moved to from say Europe to America.

In the end, given the sources' use of year/day format and its universality, and the built-in margin of error, means changing to a day-only system implies a level of accuracy which is not present. Canada Jack (talk) 17:36, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Also the number of days

Today we have three people at 114 years and 67 days but actually Emma Tillman lived one days less than the other two. In my opinion, the best way is the German Wiki one, where there is a column with the count in days. What do you think? Paolotacchi (talk) 14:37, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

This has been discussed several times before and the consensus has been that age be determined in Years and Days only. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 16:55, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. See the discussion near the top of the page. Given that we only give a date of birth and a date of death, and not the specific time of each event, the margin of error is about 2 days. Since the day-count method is within that margin of error, there is no greater accuracy attained using that method over the year-day-count method. Canada Jack (talk) 20:13, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. I know that it has been discussed, but I couldn't read any specific reason not to use a more accurate method. Of course, the idea is not to remove the year-day count, which gives better the idea of the age, but only to complement with a new column, as per the German wiki. Paolotacchi (talk) 20:46, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

But it's not a more accurate method, given the margin of error. A person who is seemingly a day older than a person by the day method may in fact be as much as 24 hours younger than the other person. Canada Jack (talk) 00:29, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

• Worrying down to this level about which person was 36 hours older is strictly fancruft stuff. If we do that then we have to starting taking note of time zones, daylight time... If someone seemingly matched Jeanne Calment, but seemingly +/- 48 hours, then I guess there'd be some for-the-record value of working that all out. But otherwise, no. EEng (talk) 04:42, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. The margin of era is +/- a day given the absence of time of birth/death, so there is no point in pretending a day-count is more accurate. It simply isn't. This should only be an issue if the top two candidates were separated by a day, but we're not even close to that here. Canada Jack (talk)

Depends on what time of day they were born, plus time of day died, plus time zone born vs died in. Then there is the problem of calender changes. Too much detail - a few days or hours across a hundred and 10+ years is nothing. Legacypac (talk) 03:30, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Supercentenarians with lifespans shorter than 114 years 67 days

I was curious to know where people that have not made it to the top 100 list go, as I have not seen a separate list of 101-200 oldest living people. In other words, those verified who have lived a shorter lifespan than Maggie Renfro, the 100th oldest living person on this list, what are their names, and where can I find more info about them? Mzimmerle (talk) 02:56, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

• I meant 114 years 69 days, my mistake Mzimmerle (talk) 02:57, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Not on Wikipedia. There are fansites for this sort of thing, the only one I know of can't be named here as it is blocked. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:16, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

@Mzimmerle: There is List of oldest living people that lists people as young as 111 years old. I suppose another list could be made, but it would overlap this one we already have in place. If you know of any verified oldest people who are younger than 111 years, 255 days but older than 110 years (what defines a supercentenarian) I would add it to that list. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:15, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, what about ones who have died, but have reached the age of at least 110? Mzimmerle (talk) 21:44, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

We have List of supercentenarians who died in 2015, List of supercentenarians who died in 2014, all the way back to before 1980. It is not all on one list but to create another again would be too much overlap. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

@Knowledgekid87 it would take time and patience, but it could be done! Mzimmerle (talk) 02:32, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

There are too many lists here already, so it should not be done. Legacypac (talk) 02:45, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Agreed here. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:51, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Mzimmerle, we have List of centenarians and the associated subcategories for age 100 but those require that the person be independently notable and require real sourcing. Frankly, this project should be focused on working with that one but then we couldn't be a storehouse of alleged 115 year olds. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:18, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge with List of the verified oldest men and List of the verified oldest women

Separate articles for 100 oldest men, 100 oldest women, and 100 oldest people obviously have significant overlap. While arbitrary, the men vs women thing is fine, but best understood when placed in the sections of the same article. The men and women titles should become redirects to sections of the oldest people. This should also encourage editors to update both the man+people or women+people lists at the same time.

Even better, a single table of names with 3 Rank columns: Rank Overall, Rank as Male and Rank as Female would reduce the duplication and demonstrate whatever insight can be gained from separating men and women by rank. Legacypac (talk) 02:40, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support. I love the idea of a single 3 ranking table. I'd prefer we'd have the left column with the overall numbers and the men and women ranking on the right. The problem is do we want a top 100 total then? Else it won't make sense as the bottom of the top 100 women probably is in the middle of the men and to keep the overall accurate, you'd need more than 200. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:50, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

The 100th oldest man is 110 and some days and therefore nearly all the men on the over 110 list are on the Men's top 100. The 100th woman is 114 plus days. There are only 7 men in the top 100 combined. Therefore the combined list should equal the top 93 women. The top 100 is an arbitrary count, so we could eliminate the womens list conpletely it is so close to the combined 100 and no one should be worried about the distiction between being the 92nd oldest woman or the 100th overall person. Legacypac (talk) 08:16, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Keep: I think it's not a good idea to delete the women's list with this argument and integrate the male's list into the overall list. You can understand this as a discrimination of the females and I think this is more to doubt as a duplication of only 92 names... Think about that, please.--31.16.61.124 (talk) 11:57, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

What??? EEng (talk) 01:30, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support This makes eminently good sense, for the reasons stated. The encyclopedia we are building must be internally consistent. Otherwise, the reliability of the whole encyclopedia become questionable. As for the splitting of oldest men from oldest women, that is fully supported by the various sources. It is well-established science that male and female longevity diverge. Statistically, women live longer. The sources reflect that. So should our articles and lists. David in DC (talk) 16:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose This table is going to bloat past 100 people if we do things this way. I would rather discuss more about how this is going to be done before we continue the implement discussion here. Should we include for example everyone who is defined as a supercentenarian (110 years or older)? If so, then another overlapping list is List of oldest living people. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:37, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose It is not a good idea to merge these two lists together. It would be too big, and it is better and more comprehensive to hacve to separate lists for this big subject.--BabbaQ (talk) 16:46, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, what size would you consider acceptable? EEng (talk) 20:38, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I'm ok with having 3 (men, women, combined) of 100 each but at least the combined list should be consistent with the men and women lists and the three lists should be on a single page - List of the verified oldest people Legacypac (talk) 17:01, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support, with three comments:
  • Verified should be removed from the title. We don't have lists of verified tallest buildings and so on, and its use here is another relic of the bizarre history of this project as a vehicle for drawing attention to certain private organizations. EEng (talk) 20:38, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't bother with the three parallel rankings. If someone sorts the table straight on age, they can easily see for themselves who's the 1st, 2nd, 3rd... 5th oldest overall. If they sort by sex, then they can easily see for themselves who's the 1st, 2nd, 3rd... 5th oldest man or 1st, 2nd, 3rd... 5th oldest woman. Beyond that it's not important -- it's meaningless who's the 46th oldest man, or 86th oldest woman. That's fanboy stuff (and updating all the little ranking numbers as new people come into the table is a nightmare).
  • I'm still not convinced we shouldn't have one, giant list of everyone over the 110 cutoff, with columns for sex, country, continent, and whathaveyou, which can be sorted according to the reader's whims. Yes, it would be larger than most lists, but so what? It would replace scores of overlapping, redundant slices and dices.

EEng (talk) 20:38, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Except this IS a list of the oldest "verified" people... so the title makes sense. And if you want to list everyone over the age of 110, then you're going to have a list of about 2000 people. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 21:53, 18 December 2015 (UTC) This editor has made few or no other edits outside this topic. and topic banned.

"Verified" means WP:V, like everything else on WP, not GRG. EEng (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I just duplicated the list of 100 twenty times, and it loads, sorts, and searches no problem. (My quick look at the existing lists suggests the actual number is more like 1300.) EEng (talk) 22:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

No, in this context it is referring to age verification, a concept which exists because a large number of longevity claimants are actually younger than they say they are. Age verification is actually a standalone concept widely recognised by demographers, and not just a designation used by the GRG. Read this. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 12:22, 19 December 2015 (UTC) This editor has made few or no other edits outside this topic. and now topic banned.

Drop verified from titles is a good idea. Add the word Living. One big sortable list of Oldest Living People then? You got to be verified alive in the last year, not verified dead, and verified to be over 110 to go on or stay on the list. Ranking is dumb because no one cares beyond the top 10 anyway. Throw in a notes column where we can add 'Oldest Man' or 'Oldest Woman' or 'Oldest American' 'Oldest British' etc for the most obvious records. I've redirected most of the living lists by continent and country here already (they were messed up). No ranking number column makes adding and subtracting so much easier. Legacypac (talk) 20:59, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Except these aren't lists of the oldest living... they're lists of the oldest people EVER. And please avoid making statements like "Ranking is dumb because no one cares beyond the top 10 anyway..." Er, actually, people DO care. That's just your opinion. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 21:53, 18 December 2015 (UTC) This editor has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Hobbyists care about minute, precise rankings of obscure subsets of people. EEng (talk) 22:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

you forgot to say obscure people. Legacypac (talk) 23:36, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Agree with Knowledgekid87 and BabbaQ, one article would be too big. Given that there's a great disparity between males and females, it makes sense to just have three separate lists, rather than messing around having three rankings columns or whatever. This format has worked just fine for years. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 21:53, 18 December 2015 (UTC) This editor has made few or no other edits outside this topic. and now topic banned.

No, it hasn't worked. The entire project is a mess of overlapping, idiosyncratically arranged tables.

I agree with you that the three rankings is unnecessary, for reasons I gave earlier.

The difference between males and females is better presented in an integrated list, because the reader can immediately see it for himself without jumping back and forth (color might help there too). EEng (talk) 22:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Color is bad for blind people. M or F is better. We shuold be especially sensitive to this because people on the list who might want to check how they are doing in the super slow race to the super oldest title often have eyesight problems. Some of them might want to check weekly to see how many spots they moved up the rankings because other old people died, adjusted for newly discovered super old added to the list of course. Legacypac (talk) 23:31, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Color would always be in addition to M/F or other text representation. I think there was a Monk in which oldster A kills oldster B to prevent B from becoming the world's oldest man, or something. EEng (talk) 01:30, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

If it's in addition to text, that is fine. Blue for men, pink for ladies and orange for the rest? I think I saw that Monk episode - the guy got off light with life in prison (cheaper then a care home for him?) Legacypac (talk) 02:09, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I always thought this (from Jeanne Calment) was delightful:

In 1965, at age 90 and with no heirs, Calment signed a deal to sell her apartment to lawyer André-François Raffray, on a contingency contract. Raffray, then aged 47 years, agreed to pay her a monthly sum of 2,500 francs until she died. Raffray ended up paying Calment the equivalent of more than $180,000, which was more than double the apartment's value. After Raffray's death from cancer at the age of 77, in 1995, his widow continued the payments until Calment's death.

Cagey gal. EEng (talk) 03:10, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Is there a good reason to seperate Living from Living+Dead from Just Died? If we have one big list with no ranking numbers you go on it when you turn 110 and you never leave the list. When you die we add your death date. The death date column can say Living until there is a death date. That solves the color coding or italics problem too. Let the sort function deal with country, sex, living or dead so anyone can sort whatever trivia they want. No one should care if someone is the 5th oldest person born in present day Poland to have immigrated somewhere else, espacially since GNG admits that they only track a slice of the actual universe of super old. Legacypac (talk) 22:09, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. One huge list and... done! EEng (talk) 22:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

If Ollie or others think that one list of the oldest people we know about is too long, the easy answer is to raise the cutoff age. 110 is purely a round number and a full 12 years shorter then the record. We can make it the top 1000 or top 500 or everyone above 115 - tell us what the maximum list size is and we can set a threshold. Wikipedia would not make a list of the 1300 tallest buildings or 2000 fattest people or 1500 fastest runners. Legacypac (talk) 23:31, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a great point. Once all the splinter lists are up-aggregated to continents and/or death year (another set of fan lists of zero significance) we can make a global evaluation. EEng (talk) 01:30, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I;m really curious to know how many is too many according to the "too many" voters. Hopefully they will weigh in with a number or age. Legacypac (talk) 02:09, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going to answer that question because I think it's a terrible idea. You just said that "no one cares beyond the top ten" and now you are suggesting a list of 1000 people? How is such an enormous list helpful? That's a lot of work and maintenance. It's far more significant if someone is one of the oldest people ever from their country than it is if they are the 947th oldest person ever worldwide. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 12:01, 19 December 2015 (UTC) This editor has made few or no other edits outside this topic. and now topic banned.

Well, elsewhere you objected because "then you're going to have a list of about 2000 people", so presumably size was your objection, but that's of little use you can't give some idea of what's an OK size. What I (and others) have said is that precise rankings beyond the top handful are of extremely dubious value, not that there isn't some value to trends and patterns that might be visible in a giant list, sortable and searchable according to the reader's whim. In such a giant list, the oldest one (or few) in a given country can be immediately found by sorting the list. EEng (talk) 15:47, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose The merged list would be far too long (1000+ entries) to be usable if it was to include 100 oldest men. You can solve it by "from now below only men" kind of table but it would be quite confusing. Three separate tables bring the most clarity (which is the aim of this encyclopedia I believe) despite two of the lists (people, female) are quite similar. Koristka (talk) 09:34, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment if a person famous/notable only for being really old does not fit on a masterlist, they should not be qualified to be in WP on any page. Once there is a good verified superold list being properly maintained we can talk about possible daughter lists. The only possible correct way to assemble a subset list of the oldest x in y is out of a masterlist. Legacypac (talk) 18:38, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Dropping the word "Verified" from the title is an extremely terrible idea. Because then we would be straying further and further towards including completely unverified claims that lack documentation. So no to that. And the idea of combining these lists into one is not really proper either. It is easier to have separate articles for men and women here so that people can see that there is a significant difference between the amount and maximal ages of the men and women that have lived to 110 and beyond. One huge list would also be to long in my own opinion. 930310 (talk) 19:10, 19 December 2015 (UTC) This editor has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

If we put the lists of men and women and combined on one page, it will be easier to compare. So surely you support that move at least? Legacypac (talk) 19:21, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I think this should be closed as no consensus and as I have said a new discussion be spun off. You need to work out some proposals first. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:31, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose I say we keep things the way they are. The page would just be too big and I personally believe it should be separate. Bbonds775 (talk) 20:52, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

What size would not be too big? EEng (talk) 21:03, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support For the reasons I nominated List of the verified oldest women way back in 2009; there do not need to be separate pages for these. Man, re-reading that deletion discussion reminds how much this got under my skin back in the day... glad I haven't let that happen again - re-reading my comments was quite uncomfortable. Canadian Paul 20:03, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with other users. I don't understand why user:Legacypac and user:EEng insistently to be erased so much longevity article.--Inception2010 (talk) 09:23, 25 December 2015 (UTC) This editor has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

I don't think merging is the greatest idea, since there has not been a majority of editors that consent to these changes. The result of all these drastic and unnecessary changes has led a user to lock the editing ability on this page, to where an editor can not even fix spelling errors or chronological order errors. Why change though? If it's not broke, don't fix it @user:Legacypac Mzimmerle (talk) 05:49, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Excessive anti-GRG fan club backlash

The wholesale scything of longevity fanclub listcruft, brought upon themselves despite ignored attempts by some of us to minimise their acticvities, is now getting as bad as the listcruft itself. The repeated proposal to have a single list of supercentenarians is CLEARLY ridiculous. Do you people actually think about what you are proposing??? It is agreed, certainly by the anti-longevity fanclub group, and possibly by even some longevity fans themselves, that merely being a supercentenarian is not notable. So how is a list of over 2000 such people encyclopedic/notable/worthy of an article? And 2000 is only those verified (i.e. validated) by the GRG, and it has been repeatedly asserted that there should be no differentiation between GRG-validated super-cs and any other reliably sourced super-c. Such a move will just create one big, messy list with no actual encyclopedic merit (i.e. violating WP:LISTN). And this list will grow ad nauseum becoming increasingly meaningless as time goes on. This is a cunning plan of which Baldrick would have been proud!

How about this as an alternative plan:
Each region lists the 100 oldest people, this can either be those validated by the GRG, or any other such body (it's on my Xmas wish list), or those with a suitable RS and those validated identified as such. The oldest people in each country can also be identified and those who have been identified as the oldest their country but are not in the top 100 can be listed separately. I see no useful purpose in deleting Oldest people, List of oldest people by country or List of oldest living people. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 05:10, 19 December 2015 (UTC) Supported. One comprehensive listing. But I do miss the list of pending entrants...Crispin Hemson (talk) 06:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Can you clarify what you mean by "region"? It's also going to cause WP:OR and WP:NPOV issues if Wikipedia itself decides who the top 100 oldest people from a region is by mish-mashing verified supercentenarians and claims from other sources together. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 11:55, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

every wikipedia list of substance brings together different sources, so I disagree about the supposed mismash. There are not even 100 super old people in Africa, South America or Oceania and not even one in China, India, and a bunch of other countries so there is a big hole in the regions idea.

What is the encyclopic value of the oldest person ever in Poland with it's shifting borders or China (where GRG rejects all government and private records?). Legacypac (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Clarifying (and rethinking): Each continent (as currently used, Europe, North America, South America, Oceania and Africa) lists the oldest people from that continent, not exceeding 100 individuals. If the table is sortable then there is no need to identify the oldest in each country as the sort function will do that. Retaining Oldest people, List of oldest people by country and List of oldest living people covers all the other appropriate encyclopedic information and excludes the remaining fanfluff and OR. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:57, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Why would we need the by-country list, since the oldest in each country is/are in the corresponding continent lists? EEng (talk) 23:54, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Not if the continent list has a cut-off at 100 persons and the oldest in a country is younger than the cut-off. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 06:11, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

So don't cut off the continent list at 100. EEng (talk) 06:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

we already have lists of oldest by country where the oldest man and women known are listed for each country. Of course those lists don't match all the country pages so who knows what is correct? Legacypac (talk) 01:26, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Aside from their accuracy, can we just get clear what function the oldest-by-country list serves when you could get the same info from the appropriate continent list? EEng (talk) 01:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Currently the continent lists are awful but we can fix that easy enough. Legacypac (talk) 07:27, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

• If there exists reliable sources, then the claims can be included. We also have Longevity claims which is where all the junk claims to die so to speak while the old Project's storehouse of junk claims was at least deleted. The problem is setting limits on the number of claims that matter. I think a top 100 is ridiculous, we wouldn't care about the top 100 people who accompanished any feat, (the 100 tallest people in the world would be idiotic for example), why longevity? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:16, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Step by Step - First Merge the three articles into one with three lists

The merge proposal has been sidetracked. Please vote on merging the three articles into one article. We start with three lists (women, men, combined) included in the merged article. This will make it easier to keep them in sync. Stick to that proposal in this section. Other proposals can be made in new sections.

• support combining the three pages as proposer. Legacypac (talk) 19:39, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support Sure, as a start. EEng (talk) 20:35, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose They are separate topics, so worthy of separate articles. Concerned with them being poorly maintained? Then update them yourself! I would actually be able to spend more time helping maintain these articles if I weren't spending all my time arguing in AfD's and all sorts of various discussions. The purpose of the lists are 1. to give the reader an idea of how long humans live 2. To show the differences in between genders, and 3. For general interest. That's why we should have three lists. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 00:13, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

As usual this vague reasoning of what the subject is "worthy" of, instead of what would best serve the reader's understanding, obtrudes itself. Overall longevity, differences by gender, and any other thing the reader would be interested in would be most easily seen in a single integrated lists. There was almost a decade to bring this mess into coherence, and it never happened. It's time to sweep it clean. EEng (talk) 00:43, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Ollie stop being against every change regardless of how logical. These are part of the exact same topic, with men and women being subtopics. Putting the three lists of 100 men, 100 women, and an integrated list of 93 women and 7 men off the first two lists on a single page actually meets your points 1 and 2 better then seperate pages. And don't tell us its too long because the combined article only covers 200 names and is far smaller then many wikipedia articles. Legacypac (talk) 01:33, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Do not speak to me like that. You do not WP:OWN these articles and other users are perfectly entitled to disagree with you. Your suggestions are far from logical. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 01:37, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Im sorry but I do not like the idea of three lists cluttered on one page. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:11, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

It wouldn't be three lists. It would be one list.. EEng (talk) 18:25, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

my proposal as a first step of three list on one page. I don't agree three lists covering 200 total names is clutter. We have many pages on wikipedia, including many within this project, that include multiple lists on a page. Legacypac (talk) 19:27, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

The three lists are already on this one page up to 100, yes you could extend the list but if not 200 then how far? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:40, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we are talking about different things. I propose to merge in the lists found at List of the verified oldest men and List of the verified oldest women so there would be three sections on this page - oldest people, oldest men, oldest women. The oldest people and oldest women lists are 93% the same - or should be. Legacypac (talk) 02:57, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I've completed a merge so everyone can see what it can look like. Please don't immediately reverse. I've not redirected the men and women articles yet. Legacypac (talk) 07:31, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how merging the articles before this discussion has been closed is appropriate. It seems as though you are trying to jump the gun with regards to merging these pages. Bodgey5 (talk) 04:41, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Confusion above in another discussion about what was being proposed is clear, but there is a lot of support for bringing all the info onto one page. No info has been lost but now the article can be evaluated properly. Men and women are all people afterall, so putting the lists together is logical - there were not even interlinked in the articles before. Legacypac (talk) 04:46, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

• Create a formal RFC not these straw polls. The group watching these pages are largely going to be split so there's no consensus that you'll get. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:50, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with other users. I don't understand why user:Legacypac and user:EEng insistently to be erased so much longevity article.--Inception2010 (talk) 09:23, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Verified vs Verified by GRG

I've got an IP editor reversing my efforts to consolidate all the living people together into one list. The interesting thing is the IP says there is a difference between the country lists which are not verified and the verified world list. Silly me thinking everything on Wikipedia should be verified or verifiable, but I think the IP is drawing a distinction between GRG verified (on the global list) and verified via normal wikipedia process on the country lists. Can someone explain this? i'll try an get the IP here to discuss as well. Legacypac (talk) 17:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Obviously everything on WP needs to be verified according to normal WP processes, not "GRG verification", and you've put your finger on the core of why this project is such a mess. Where is this discussion happening? EEng (talk) 17:46, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

the edits in question see edit summaries [1] and on the German talk page similar point [2] by User:GreatGreen being made. I accept that GRG is verifying the age of some people. I reject the idea that someone needs to verify with GRG to be considered super old. Lots of people are widely accepted to be 110+ without being subjected to interaction with GRG. Legacypac (talk) 19:48, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

The problem with accepting non-GRG claims as "verified," is that we typically have no idea what "verification" has taken place, if any. Most often, claims are taken at face value and reported, so the only "verification" is that indeed someone has made the claim, not that the claim itself is accurate. While there seems to be an anti-GRG campaign here, they are one of the very few organizations who systematically investigate claims of those older than 110 years, and with specific criteria needed to be met for verification. And, as anyone who has studied the subject knows, claims of great age are prone to exaggeration and fraud, more so than most other endeavours. Census research shows, for example, that many elderly people tend to add years to their life in successive censuses, and that for personal reasons or reasons of vanity, years of birth are changed. Many male claims, for example, added years to their age to avoid military service - or to enlist even though they were under-aged. In a famous recent case from Poland, research shows that the person who was one of the last WWI veterans and claimed to be the world's oldest man, had in fact added several years to his year of birth to enlist under-aged. His relatives staunchly refused to allow researchers to see the documentation they said they had, and his is an example of why we need a verification process via a specialist organization.

We should no more consider "verified" claims which appear in newspapers or other non-expert sources than, say, world records set in track and field which are subject to the ratification process of that sport's governing body. While there is no "official" ratifying organization for claims of the extremely elderly per se, it is ludicrous, given the routine nature of exaggerated or inaccurate claims, to include non-specialist sources to verify claims. Canada Jack (talk) 20:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

• There's no anti-GRG campaign, only an anti–GRG-is-the-only-source campaign.
• For many years the logic seems to have gone like this: GRG has the "highest standards for validation" (or whatever), so (obviously) only GRG-listed claims should be accepted. The problem with this (accepting, for the sake of discussion, the "highest standards" premise) is that it reflects a blinkered preoccupation with avoiding Type II error (mistaken acceptance of invalid cases) with complete disregard for the extent to which that promotes Type I error (mistaken rejection of valid cases). But that's an arbitrary and extreme position not taken in any other WP topic area AFAIK.

If NYT says that someone's 110, in a context that implies they've applied their usual factchecking standards, WP should report that even if this person hasn't submitted themselves to GRG scrutiny, or his documents don't meed GRG's particular standards, or GRG hasn't gotten around to him, or whatever. Though if GRG has evidence apparently falsifying that claim, then I suppose we should report that too.

EEng (talk) 09:27, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The problem, EEng, is not that GRG has the "highest" standard for validation, it is that virtually ALL news sources have NO standard for validation - they simply report the claim. As stated previously, gerontology in particular has empirical issues with validation, in that routinely claims are exaggerated or incorrect. As someone who has a background in news, to state that if the NYT has applied their usual fact-checking to a claim then that should be good enough, is completely ludicrous. The only "fact" likely ever to be checked is that the person is indeed claiming to be that age and whether an institution or relations can attest to that. NOT that they can prove the claim with documentary evidence which is at very least contemporary to the birth. Given the complexities in verifying a claim which by definition no one is around to attest to (i.e. a claimed birth in, say, 1899), it's beyond inadequate to rely on news organizational fact-checking as they don't have the wherewithal let alone the interest in actually properly validating these sorts of claims. No more, to use another example, when newspapers report someone has broken a track record but simply report that that is what has been claimed, not that they have used their own resources to do the multiple tests and confirming the specifications in validating the record.

But we had a page set up to handle this sort of stuff in the past - we had separate validated and unvalidated lists. In that way, we had a more complete idea of what is out there, with a list of pretty-certain valid claims followed by the numerous others who may later have their claims confirmed or at least made the claim. Seems that in the anti-GRG tack this page has taken, an attempt is being made to pretend that we can mingle validated and unvalidated claims and make this page "better." Why some would see this is improving the page in any way is beyond me. We might as well include Creation Science as a serious area of endeavour on biology pages. Canada Jack (talk) 15:28, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Spot on. Having two separate lists is the best way to present the information with a neutral point of view. What are the purpose of news organisations? To write news stories and make profit. Do you really think any journalist, even one from the most respectable newspaper, is going to go through the effort of trying to validate a claim? No, they're not. In fact, do you think they even care if the person is as old as they claim? No, all they care about is writing a good story. This is exactly the point I have been making for months: the GRG and news sources are not equally reliable and have different purposes. The idea that "all reliable sources are equally reliable" is nonsense, and this is made very clear in Wikipedia guidelines (see WP:UNDUE). The discussion about whether or not Wikipedia should recognise whether or not claims are validated needs to take place again or the original decision challenged, because it violates one of Wikipedia's core policies. The way to present all views on this subject is to have a separate validated and unvalidated table, so that we can say "this is the list of oldest people who are definitely as old as they claim they are according to the world authority on the matter, and this is a list of other claimants who may or may not be as old as they claim to be". That gives a neutral point of view and reflects academic consensus that age validation is a necessary concept in the field of gerontology. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 18:28, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

EEng makes an interesting comment: If NYT says that someone's 110, in a context that implies they've applied their usual factchecking standards, WP should report that even if this person hasn't submitted themselves to GRG scrutiny, or his documents don't meed GRG's particular standards, or GRG hasn't gotten around to him, or whatever. So, what is the New York Time's "usual fact-checking standards," one might ask? Well, fortunately for the members here, I happen to have an on-line subscription and I can readily call up articles they have written on super-c's or soon-to-be super-c's.

Here is an article from 2007: SHORTLY after Mary Cavaliere tried blowing out the 108 birthday candles lighted Saturday in her honor, she was reminded that in two years, she will need to show identification to prove that she is eligible to join the supercentenarian club, whose 75 members from around the world range in age from 110 to 114. Interesting. the premise of the piece as that to be officially recognized as a member of the super-c club, she'd need to prove it... but to whom? If Father Time permits, Ms. Cavaliere will register in two years with the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks supercentenarians, the name given to those 110 and older. So, even locally, the New York Times sees the GRG as the arbiter of claims. Yes, the New York Times did their rigorous fact-checking... by contacting none other than the GRG.

Well, maybe that was a one-off? How about a 2013 article about another American, who was then the oldest in NYC... and is now the world's oldest verified person. What was the New York Time's "usual fact-checking standards" in assessing Susannah Mushatt Jones' claim? At 114, Ms. Jones is the oldest resident of the state, the second-oldest American and the third-oldest person in the world, out of all the people whose ages have been verified by the Gerontology Research Group. Ms. Jones was born on July 6, 1899, in Lowndes County in Alabama, and is one of the world’s 61 living supercentenarians whose ages the research group has verified through documents like birth records and census counts. A supercentenarian is someone 110 or older. Gee whiz! It seems that part of the paper's scrupulous fact-checking entails contacting an organization they deem a reliable authority on this particular subject. And that organization is, again, GRG!

And, yet another. This one in 2014. Alexander Imich, a Polish-born psychic researcher who was certified the oldest man on earth, died Sunday morning at a senior residence in Manhattan. He had turned 111 on Feb. 4.... Mr. Imich became the world’s oldest validated male supercentenarian (those over 110), according to the Gerontology Research Group of Torrance, Calif., when the previous record-holder, Arturo Licata of Italy, died on April 24 at 111 years and 357 days. At the time, 66 women were officially older than Mr. Imich, with the oldest being 116. So, one of the newspapers with the best reputation as being one of the greatest fact-checking organization on the planet ROUTINELY contact the GRG when it comes to claims of those over 110, even with those who are not yet there yet! And these are all local reports, likely coming from junior reporters who nevertheless know that when it comes to fact-checking, consult the experts. As any good reporter knows. Which, in this case, is the GRG, despite the efforts on this page to elevate newspaper reports EVEN WHEN THE TOP PAPER ACCESSES GRG ROUTINELY as equal to GRG in terms of fact-checking claims. Canada Jack (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

• CJ's examples show only that NYT believes that if GRG endorses someone's age claim as valid, then that's worth reporting (as an attributed assertion, at least). That's quite different from the idea that only GRG is in a position to make such endorsements, for which we'd need (at the very least) something like "X claims to be 112 years old, but that claim has not been verified by the GRG."
• "Do you really think any journalist, even one from the most respectable newspaper, is going to go through the effort of trying to validate a claim?" Yes. If NYT said, "As part of its investigation, NYT obtained certified birth records showing P was born on January 1, 1902", you can't seriously argue that we would not list this right along with GRG-verified people, despite GRG having nothing to say about P. That's a particularly strong example, but somewhere between that and the small-town headline "Council proclaims Miss Elly May Day! She's 110!" in its Social Happenings section, there's a range of implied fact-checking, some of which will be completely acceptable. The only way to develop useful guidelines on the subject will be to consider actual situations as they arise, and hope that useful patterns emerge that can be written up.

EEng (talk) 04:03, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

You are utterly missing the point, Eeng, and that seems to be the source of a lot of the recent disruption on this page (not limited to you, of course). In many fields of endeavours, there are recognized authorities. Yet you seem to think that a news source as opposed to one of these recognized authorities suffices. It doesn't, and your own example - citing the New York Times as a "reliable source" when they, as you put it, "appl[y] their usual factchecking standards," and do what? consult the GRG - proves my point. They consider GRG to be a reliable and chief authority on the subject and they - the GRG - should be a primary source, not the NYT.

The bottom line is the study and verification of super-c claims is a specialized scientific endeavour, not something which novices and certainly not small town reporters have any expertise in assessing. Which is something your own example underlines - the New York Times recognizes this about super-c claims and consults the experts in the field!

Secondly, you and others seem to have a rather bizarre fixation on GRG. It's not that GRG per se should be the only source, it's that a RECOGNIZED authority with expertise ON THE SUBJECT, as others are on perhaps a million other subjects here at Wikipedia, should be the chief arbiter, NOT what we loosely describe as a "reliable" source, which could be any news organization reporting on any number of subjects with no particular expertise. Which is PRECISELY why good news sources, like the New York Times, consult the recognized authorities on particular subjects, particularly one like gerontology which has specialized scientific and investigative aspects not associated with everyday news sources. It should be instructive that one of the greatest news organizations on the planet, with more resources than just about any newspaper anywhere (maybe THE most resources) nevertheless CONSULT THE EXPERTS. Just as they do on any number of subjects. There are other scientifically based gerontology organizations out there, you are right, there is no need to limit our sources here to GRG - but we definitely SHOULD be using sources of comparable authority and reliability and not simply sources, like news publications, which are considered "reliable sources" in the broader sense of the term. You seem to think by dismissing the GRG we can also dismiss their scientific approach and open the door to anyone who is deemed a "reliable" source.

You raise a straw man argument: If NYT said, "As part of its investigation, NYT obtained certified birth records showing P was born on January 1, 1902", you can't seriously argue that we would not list this right along with GRG-verified people, despite GRG having nothing to say about P. The problem with that assertion is that the New York Times DOESN'T do that - why? Because they contact the experts that do - like GRG. Article after article that I saw on super-c's in the NYT's search engine said that for verification of these people, the GRG are the experts. And this is the approach they and other good news sources have - on a technical, scientific issue, say on a possible new elemental particle, do their specialized science writers go off and say what THEY'VE found in investigating whether a claim is bona fide, what experiments or theories they might have? No. They consult the recognized authorities, like at Fermilab or the Max Plank Institute, whatever.

In the end this boils down to: Do we rely on the experts on the subject as a source for those confirmed cases of super-c's, especially given the myriad issues in confirming person A is indeed as old as they claim and is indeed that person mentioned in some old vital statistic document... or do we fling open the doors and treat as equal sources which may be reliable in the Wikipedia sense but have no expertise in assessing, let alone knowing the issues, claims of these people? Frankly, I find it astonishing we are even having this discussion. What's next? Are we to add Methusulah to this page? Canada Jack (talk) 17:05, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Do you know what's even more astonishing, Canada Jack? It's being proposed that I am topic-banned for trying to make exactly the same points that you are making, because apparently, I am supposedly "advocating for the GRG" and not following Wiki policy because I am suggesting that the GRG should not be treated as an equal source to newspapers - when actually, I am following Wiki policy, namely WP:NPOV. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 03:15, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

This shows exactly why you should be topic banned - you don't understand the range of problems you are causing within this topic area. This discussion is not the extent of your advocacy but in it you problematically suggest that ONLY GNG counts and all news sources should be relegated to an unverified list. Legacypac (talk) 03:56, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

• The proposal on the table is that reports of extreme age, by any source other than GRG, be categorically deprecated -- segregated in a separate list or whatever -- in accordance with an advance decision that no other source can possibly be considered as reliable. To support that you need to show that not being listed by GRG means something -- and something very strong at that. But you haven't shown that; all you've shown is that being listed means something. This is an excellent case of "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence".
• You say: 'You raise a straw man argument: If NYT said, "As part of its investigation, NYT obtained certified birth records showing P was born on January 1, 1902", you can't seriously argue that we would not list this right along with GRG-verified people, despite GRG having nothing to say about P. The problem with that assertion is that the New York Times DOESN'T do that - why?' My response: (a) You need to look up straw man, and (b) yeah, actually, they do (though of course there are always questions about whether to treat older journalism a primary or secondary source). [3] [4] [5] [6]

EEng (talk) 05:24, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

No, EEng you seem to be willfully avoiding the point here. The issue is not whether GRG and only GRG can stand as being a source which can "verify" claims; it is whether a scientific approach such as that used by GRG should be the standard for verification, or not. This "Type 1" error etc stuff is complete nonsense and none of our concern. Either claims can be verified, or they can't. OBVIOUSLY some claimants who were actually born when they said won't be able to prove it, but we are only concerned, in a field highly prone to false claims, with those which can be demonstrated to be true. Which is why the lede says, (or said before all these merges) above the list of "verified" claims which number 60 or so, that there are likely 150-600 super-c's living currently in the world. And also which is why I saw no reason to eliminate the list of unverified claims which at least listed many who likely were indeed that age but couldn't be proven.

Let's be clear here: What EEng says is on the table is an approach NO reputable news organization would agree to - effectively eliminate the scientific approach, as done by GRG, and allow a list showing both GRG-verified claims AND claims which may have only rudimentary "verification" - such as the existence of a birth certificate. Very soon, we`d have the world`s oldest person dying and being reported by media everywhere - except that on wikipedia, we might have an older "verified" person verified by.... the Springfield Gleaner. Which would render this page irrelevant. This is an approach which has been demonstrated to be wholly inadequate owing to the nature of the field AND is an approach most leading news organizations (who chiefly inform the public on such matters) now AVOID, leaving verification to whom they deem to be expert, usually the GRG itself.

The whole POINT of organizations like GRG, given the wild claims of extreme human longevity over the years, is to find out what can we scientifically establish are bona fide cases of super-c's. And news organizations, like the New York Times, recognize that a scientific and documentary approach (not just finding a birth certificate) is required to verify these claims, and people like the GRG are the ones equipped to carry out these sort of investigations. THAT is why the NYT consults the GRG on these claims and does NOT do the research itself. It is as if EEng and others are attempting to turn the clock back three or four decades to the sort of verification which was long ago realized to be wholly inadequate chiefly, it seems, to avoid missing those cases which may be bona fide. But we have NEVER pretended here that we have - or could have - ALL cases of super-c`s on the planet. That`s a virtual impossibility. Re-instating the unverified list partly addresses this, mingling the lists instead destroys the utility of the list.

Further, since the GRG itself seems to be a favourite target of some here, the standard of verification is that which is practiced by GRG, NOT necessarily that done BY GRG and only the GRG. There are in fact others who practice scientific approaches. How can we say that GRG's approach is the "standard"? Because reputable news organizations and others consider them to be the standard, that's why. You differ, but even the New York Times - which you pretend could verify claims on their own and we could have those "verifications" stand along with GRG's - DOES NOT AGREE WITH YOU. As I have demonstrated, they, one of the leading news organizations on the planet, with massive resources, nevertheless consider the issue of extreme age verification as within the realm of expert investigation. Their experts? GRG. THAT is why your argument about them is a strawman argument because they'd wouldn't do the research! To suggest a scenario which would never happen and then draw conclusions from that false scenario is a strawman argument.

I invite others here to click on the links EEng provided which he believes demonstrate the New York Times does the research. First, the most recent citation in nearly 60 years old, and seems to be limited to uncovering a birth certificate for a 48-year-old man (Joseph McCarthy?) Second, and more to the point, NONE have anything to do with establishing the claim of a super-c, the only sort of claims we are concerned with here. Third, the scientific approach carried out by GRG and which is the sort of approach we are discussing which should be the gold standard in verification has only been the product of approaches developed in recent decades, since the 90s, really, yet, as noted, nothing posted by EEng post-dates 1957! If this was track and field and I made some argument that only electronically timed marks can considered for world records, and my adversary posted articles from the 1950s showing that hand-timed marks can be records.... well, do I really have to spell this out?

The posts are very telling, as they seem to have one common feature - the New York Times looked up old birth certificates to establish a claim (none regarding a 110+-year old) - as if this is all that is needed to verify a super-c claim. However, EEng, in attempting to make a case, in fact buttresses MY case. Several of the articles mentioned by myself earlier were of people who the New York Times, with their vast resources and research departments, could likely have found birth certificates for. EEng's posts clearly demonstrate the paper readily does this sort of research. Yet they didn't. Why? Because they leave the verification in these cases - super-c's - to the experts, who don't limit themselves to simply finding a birth certificate, which is often just step one on a long journey of verification.

WHY does the GRG insist on a more rigorous process? Because so often cases which seem to be slam-dunks aren't - as people move, change their names, obfuscate their past, get confused about basic personal details like when they were born and, often, assume identities of relatives and strangers. The list of once-thought "verified" super-c's which were later shown not to be that old is long. If the New York Times knows that finding a birth certificate does not suffice in establishing a claim for a super-c, why should accept such an inadequate form of verification? And why should EEng pretend that they DO when they clearly do not?

BTW, treating the GRG as the arbiter in verifying super-c claims is not limited to the New York Times. They are ROUTINELY cited in articles about the world's oldest people as having verified their claims. I did a quick search and found so many articles which reference GRG as the verification entity from numerous news agencies that I quickly filled several pages here - and it didn't go back further than this year. Canada Jack (talk) 16:17, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

The different is when the NY Times retracts something, it's published and everyone is aware of it. When the GRG retracts a claim, it's buried in a footnote of a spreadsheet hidden on their website. You'd think there would be a scientific paper from them about retractions, errors and problems with sourcing but that doesn't exist. Kind of makes it easy to claim to be an absolute authority when you're retro-actively batting 1.000. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:13, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

TLDR. (Actually, I did read it, but there's nothing new in it.) For the nth time, all you've shown is us that sources think that if GRG does lists a person, then that means the person's claim is worth reporting. That's completely different from your insistence that if GRG doesn't list a person, then that means the person's claim should be deprecated, no matter what other sources or evidence may exist.

I didn't include anything recent because my access to the full NYT database is available only from certain IPs. There may well be nothing more recent, but still doesn't matter -- again, we're not going to decide, in advance, that only GRG can be the source for valid statements of extreme age.

You reject the concepts of Type I and Type II error (there's a joke in there for those who know statistics), but they are nonetheless central to handling this appropriately. Leaving someone out who in fact belongs, is an error no less than including someone who doesn't. An obsessive focus on avoiding either error, with a blind eye to the other, is inappropriate. EEng (talk) 02:03, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Not surprisingly, you failed to address my demolition of your premise that the New York Times could be used as a separate source for verifying super-c claims and you ignored the fact that they and Reuters, Associated Press and others routinely cite GRG when discussing super-c cases. Nor did you explain how locating a birth certificate in 1957 - or in 2015, for that matter - is equivalent to verifying a super-c claim.

Type I and Type II errors. Here is what you say: "they are nonetheless central to handling this appropriately. Leaving someone out who in fact belongs, is an error no less than including someone who doesn't." This is perhaps your biggest strawman argument, EEng, and I am surprised you've gotten this far with it for so long. Simply put, since super-c claims don't get "falsified" and later turn out to be verified your entire premise collapses - there are no such thing as "Type I errors" when it comes to verifying super-c's! Not verifying a claim is NOT the same as falsifying a claim, but you knew that, didn't you, EEng?

So, what is a "Type II error" and how does it apply to verified super-c's? It's a "false positive" error, most frequently, in statistical sampling. What we might call "Type II errors" happened frequently in the past where too many people who were not in fact super-c's (or at least the age they claimed) were "verified" to be super-c's. Perhaps the most famous example of that was Shig Izumi who was hailed as the oldest person ever for many years, having died at, supposedly, 120 until it was later revealed he was in fact about 105 having adopted his elder dead brother's persona when still a child as per a Japanese tradition. So, what has the reaction to "Type II errors," as it applies to super-c's? In general, verification standards were tightened. So, as in that case, which relied chiefly on an 1870 census which showed Shig (but not him, his elder brother) in it, linked to the man we knew, future verifications required much more documentation, particularly contemporary documentation. Indeed, the earlier years of super-c verifications are littered with these so-called "Type II errors," many of the "oldest people ever" shown not to in fact be that age.

This is the scientific self-correcting approach which, bizarrely, gets snide remarks above, from Ricky. "When the GRG retracts a claim, it's buried in a footnote of a spreadsheet hidden on their website. You'd think there would be a scientific paper from them about retractions, errors and problems with sourcing but that doesn't exist. Kind of makes it easy to claim to be an absolute authority when you're retro-actively batting 1.000." ??? First off, there ARE scientific papers about empirical issues in regards to verifying claims. And, yes, all non-retracted verified claims are considered to be verified... that's kinda how it works! So, it's trivially true that all verified claims suggests they are batting 1.000 as all verified claims are... verified.(!) And it's rather odd, when arguing for EXPANDING "verified" claims to cite GRG when it RETRACTS a verified claim - doesn't that suggest we should exercise more caution instead of the reverse? Seems to be an argument FOR sticking with GRG, just saying... Yet another strawman argument (the third one I've addressed in recent days), suggesting GRG declares itself perfect (news to me), and then shows it not to be perfect (not news to me).

So, what is a "Type I error" and how does it apply to super-c cases, at least according to EEng? Here is what he says: "The problem with this (accepting, for the sake of discussion, the "highest standards" premise) is that it reflects a blinkered preoccupation with avoiding Type II error (mistaken acceptance of invalid cases) with complete disregard for the extent to which that promotes Type I error (mistaken rejection of valid cases). But that's an arbitrary and extreme position not taken in any other WP topic area AFAIK." So, what are we talking about? It would seem that he means that valid cases are being falsified. So, some true claimants out there are being told their cases are false, that the person in question is NOT a super-c (or whatever the claimed age) and that in fact the person IS the age claimed. To avoid these "Type I errors," presumably, we need to loosen the rules - not require so much documentation, presumably - so as not to falsely negate these bona fide claims.

But there are some obvious empirical problems with claiming there are "Type I errors" occurring within the verification process of super-c's. Perhaps you can help me out on this, EEng: Please name a single instance of a "true" super-c being told he/she is NOT a super-c. I am aware of cases, such as Shig Izumi, where he was "debunked," but that has now been accepted - I am not aware of a single case of a super-c being "falsified" and later discovered to in fact be a super-c.

Unless you can illustrate these numerous cases which you no doubt are aware of, your entire premise falls down. Indeed, if there are NO "false negative" "Type I errors," then what you have presented is... a strawman argument, just as you did with the New York Time citations above. But just a second - what about those cases which have not been verified by GRG and which are in fact super-c's? There are two problems with that - mainly, the GRG doesn't "falsify" those claims - at least I am not aware of any falsified claims which were later verified - it does not verify claims without their threshold of documentation and proof, AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THING, which, it seems to me has been conflated by EEng and others. And secondly, even if we accept that, okay, GRG didn't "falsify" the claim, but it didn't verify a bona fide claim... well, how can we know that? Given the past history of "Type II errors," how can we be certain that a return to the old lower standards won't bring about those same errors? IOW, how can we claim ANY claim "verified" by a non-GRG source (which lacks the same stringency) is in fact a "real" claim?

In the end, this exercise is clearly aimed at removing GRG - or any equivilant group applying rigirous verification methods - from the process despite their acceptance by the mainstream media as an authoritative organization. To be replaced by... what? Your discretion, EEng, on what is or isn't "verified"? How is that better? This seems to boil down to a case of some saying there should be, say, 4 pieces of proof instead of 5 pieces as demanded by the GRG, a rather esoteric debate more properly to be had with GRG than within the pages of Wikipedia - IOW, if change is desired with GRG's approach, go to them, don't remove them here as an authority.

As with the New York Times debate above, EEng's argument collapses as it is a strawman argument, applying statistical analysis to cases where it simply does not apply. Why? Because there are no cases we've seen which have been falsely negated, no "Type I errors" apply here. That's because the GRG doesn't falsify claims, it confirms them. ANY claim could, given sufficient documentation, be confirmed, if true. Only the clearly false ones - someone who is 101 claiming to be 111 - are actually debunked, and I am not aware of any of THOSE cases which subsequently were shown to be verified. There were serious doubts about Matthew Beard, for example. But he was never "debunked" and in the end his claim was verified.

The "Type I/Type II error" argument is a strawman argument and it is time to stop misleading people here in using it, EEng. Canada Jack (talk) 05:04, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

The main point is that Wikipedia works on reliable sources and not reliable sources. There is no reliable sources, non-reliable sources and "super reliable" sources. There is literally no mechanism to determine this, no mechanism to determine whether another source would fall into this category and no mechanism to dispute the GRG being there. Finally, this logic has been discussed extensively and rejected thoroughly at not in line with policies here and claims that the GRG trumps all newspapers as a reliable source as so patently against all sourcing criteria here that it's approaching being considered sufficient for a topic ban just because of how absurd it is. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:44, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

For continuing to push this point, I'd support that topic ban on Canada Jack. The latest editor topic banned cited Canada Jack as being in complete agreement with the stuff he was banned for so there is precedence. It's getting tiresome and disruptive. Legacypac (talk) 05:50, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Ricky, I'd be less than honest if I didn't point out that, in fact, we do weigh the relative reliability and weight of conflicting sources, for given assertions in given contexts. But we don't (as CJ proposes we do) make a blanket, forever conclusion that one source is the source, overriding all others regardless; we take each situation as it comes.

CJ, you really do need to look up straw man. Anyway, thanks for mentioning Mathew Beard. According to his article [7]

Mathew Beard (July 9, 1870 – February 16, 1985) was a supercentenarian who has been verified as the world's oldest living person between 1983 and 1985 and the oldest living man between 1980 and 1985. In August 2013 the Gerontology Research Group included him as a verified case.

My concern is whether poor Mr. Beard was expected to wait thirty years for GRG to give him his due.

The article history (showing a succession of versions calling him the oldest person, allegedly the oldest, mistakenly called oldest, etc.) is illuminating, particularly the version [8] saying he was "erroneously verified as the World's oldest living person" -- that version cited to GRG's "Table B2" ("created and based on: Mar. 21, 2012") which, as of this writing, no longer mentions Beard, thus very nicely illustrating Ricky's concern, expressed above, re GRG "retro-actively batting 1.000".

Also interesting is that the current statement, that he really was the oldest, is cited to GRG's current "Table B3" ("As of August 11, 2013"). Now, Beard's entry in that table is annotated "Validated by: United States (SSA)" and "Validated by2: Kestenbaum study" (apparently this [9] 2002 study). In other words, despite the article's statement that in 2013 GRG "included him as a verified case", it doesn't look like GRG actually did anything to "validate" him. Oh, wait! Look at the wording again: in 2013 GRG "included him". From the circumstances and events noted above, that seems to mean GRG dropped some doubt or objection they'd had before, deciding -- finally -- to "include" him. But we'll never know, since (as already noted) GRG's tables seem to be wiped clean of any record of what their (erroneous) objections were.

EEng (talk) 07:51, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Your assertions are classic strawman arguments, EEng. You made a false assertion - GRG makes Type I errors. Then, you asserted that we must avoid Type I errors, and you made proposals to do so, all based on the initial assertion. The problem is the GRG doesn't falsify claims, therefore it CAN'T make Type I errors! Therefore, you have made a strawman argument as your entire premise is without merit!

Note folks that EEng avoided the simple question: If we must avoid "Type I errors," then what "Type I errors" have been made? Read his comments about Matthew Beard's claim - yes, it took forever to be validated, but the salient point is it WAS NEVER FALSIFIED, therefore it was not a "Type I error." Recall, not verifying - or in the case of Beard - taking many years to verify - is NOT a "falsified claim" subsequently shown to be true!

And also, please note, for discussing these issues, these clearly misleading arguments made by EEng, I've now been threatened with a topic ban! By the person who started the thread 4 days ago called Verified vs Verified by GRG, which, gee whiz, is what we are discussing, is it not? What, EEng is free to make his "Type I/II error" argument and I am NOT free to rebut it? What is going on here? EEng brought up the issue, not me, and said I rejected the premise. I explained why, and, obviously, the explanation was too good so now I am being threatened with a topic ban!Canada Jack (talk) 15:52, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

GRG is not infallible. Instead of publishing a paper or even a block post names simply appear or disappear on an online table. That makes things hard to follow. Legacypac (talk) 17:05, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Why this fixation with GRG? Who ever claimed they were infallible? And where is the logic in pointing out where they were wrong - when claims they validated were subsequently invalidated - as a reason to loosen requirements for validation? Wouldn't that mean potentially more, not fewer, false validations?

Seems to me that, logically, the issue of the stringency of validating claims should be taken up with GRG itself rather than scrapping the everyday deference to their expertise, a deference that the New York Times, Associated Press and Reuters seem to have no issue with, but that several assertive editors here do. Why not, Legacy, contact them and suggest they make more public their corrections to past validations, since you seem to have such an issue with that? Seems a reasonable thing to do, IMHO, to request a separate page readily available which details past erroneous validations. At the least, it would give an insight to the issues encountered with claims which seem to be valid but aren't. It would also likely detail just why it is more prudent to be more stringent with validation than the reverse, which is on the table here. Canada Jack (talk) 18:21, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Such a course of action would be WP:OR, attempting to manipulate a source, and obviously the GRG people are well aware of the concerns for many of them are here on Wikipedia or were until banned. They just don't care about the concerns it seems. Legacypac (talk) 18:54, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, they are self-correcting, which is the main thing, even if they aren't as transparent on their corrections as you wish. Still, I don't understand how if they have validated false claims in the past that this is something to use against them when you want to lower, not raise, validation thresholds. Seems you have a penchant for criticizing this specific group - any particular reason why? Canada Jack (talk) 19:48, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

There you go again "to lower, not raise, validation thresholds" is arguing that GRG is a superior source to every other RS. Your question misses the entire point that other editors are focused on - WP policy on RS - while you see it as criticism of GRG. Legacypac (talk) 20:07, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

To suggest that Type I errors are occurring too much means that the criteria from GRG is too stringent, notwithstanding the fact that these errors are not occurring in the first place. So, yeah, we are talking about lowering thresholds, not raising them. Perhaps I missed something? Fill me in. And, superior to any other RS? I am aware of Guinness, I am aware of the IDL, but so far no others which apply that sort of rigour to this arena. If you have other candidates, let's hear about them, but we've already dispensed with the NYT, Associated Press and Reuters as they all defer to the expertise of GRG. Of course, being an RS doesn't mean you are an authority on the subject. Canada Jack (talk) 00:54, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

• As mentioned above, GRG failed to "verify" Mathew Beard until some 30 years after his death. Whether temporary or permanent, that's Type I ("false negative") error. And GRG's Table B shows routine delays of months or years between an oldster's "application" to GRG and his or her "acceptance". If other sources come to an evidence-supported conclusion before GRG gets around to it, WP isn't going to wait for GRG to wave its magic wand.
• For the n+2nd time, the examples you've given show only that sources believe that GRG listing someone means that person's claim is probably valid. Your proposal that someone not listed by GRG be considered invalid would be supported only by quite different examples which (despite many requests) you've failed to provide.
• The focus on GRG is yours, in that you want to give it blanket status as omniscient -- so that its very silence is considered significant -- in a topic area on which new information arises, from all over the world, daily. Others are responding to that.

And you really, really need to look up straw man, which you seem to think means any kind of invalid argument. EEng (talk) 06:32, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Insisting that GRG NOT listing someone means the person is not super old is complete garbage. GRG refuses to recognize anyone in China or India or anywhere else in Asia outside Japan (3% of Asians). Given 60% of the world lives in Asia - statistically there is a really good chance the oldest person lives in Asia and is not known to GRG. This invalidates all strong claims that "X is the oldest, second oldest, 15th oldest etc claims in the world. All we can actually say about the GRG listed people is that X is the nth oldest identified by GRG and nothing more about ranking. Legacypac (talk) 07:54, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

While we agree (obviously) on the conclusion, I'm not sure your reasoning is completely sound, in that it may very well be that there are no super-old, with appropriate documentation, in Asia outside Japan, because of differences in recordkeeping and so on. I think the right reasoning is simply that WP can't designate one source as permanently and exclusively authoritative in an area where new information is always arriving. EEng (talk) 08:19, 26 December 2015 (UTC) And really, dial it back a little. The anger doesn't help.

I'm not angry, just analytical. Your point is valid, as is mine. For various (somewhat valid) reasons GRG's pool of tracked people is stronger in North America, parts of Europe, Australia/NZ and Japan. In these areas they don't capture all the cases by their own estimation. Outside these areas they have basically nothing. Given statistically there are so many untracked super old people and the existence of unverified but possibly correct cases that may not be confirmed for 30 years, all unqualified claims that x is the nth oldest are inappropriate.

We can be 100% confident that the top 10 tallest buildings and 10 longest bridges are correctly identified because these are easily checked. There are no super tall buildings or super long bridges in China with inadequate info. We can be reasonably sure that the tallest man has been found and checked because only a tape measure is needed to verify. A list of the richest people is going to get pretty close to the truth. We can't even begin to make emphatic claims about even the top 10 oldest Americans - we need to qualify statements with "according to GNG records which are incomplete, the oldest known... but when I try to qualify it gets reverted like GRG is the all knowing, infallible and exclusive authority on the topic. Even dumber is the WP:RECENTISM of making claims about who is the oldest "ever" in a category.

Tracking the super old is such a new field that they know of fewer cases of pre 1980 death then deaths in 2015 and they are only capturing maybe 20% of even current cases. Obviously "ever" means pretty close to nothing. Legacypac (talk) 19:20, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

You keep repeating the same strawman argument, EEng. And before you suggest I look up the definition - I know what it means and, obviously, if you are making the argument clearly YOU don't believe it is a strawman argument even though it is - I suggest YOU look up the definition of what a "Type I error" is as you have YET to cite even a single one. Simply put, a delay in verification is NOT a falsification! A Type I error is an incorrectly falsified claim. Waiting 30 years in Beard's case, even though this is one of the most extreme delays in verifying a claim, was NOT a falsified claim later verified! The claim was never said to have been debunked! The same applies to these other delayed cases. Delayed verifications are NOT falsifications, despite your obvious confusion on this point! They are therefore not Type I errors, this is therefore a strawman argument as the course of action rests on the false premise.

Your proposal that someone not listed by GRG be considered invalid would be supported only by quite different examples which (despite many requests) you've failed to provide. Your confusion is on display here, EEng by your use of the term "invalid." In terms of what the GRG does, we have "validated" cases, and we have cases which have not yet been validated but which potentially could be (unless they aren't bona fide claims). By conflating "invalid" with "not yet validated" you continue your tendency to make strawman arguments. The statement right here "your proposal that someone not listed by GRG be considered invalid..." and your request to supply example based on this "proposal" of mine is yet another strawman argument as I NEVER SUGGESTED THAT, nor implied that. It's actually quite simple. Those cases considered "validated" are those confirmed by a recognized authority. How do we know who is a recognized authority? By what news agencies report. In recent years, along with Guinness, we have GRG, as noted, routinely cited as the arbiter in longevity cases by the New York Times, and by other reputable and major international media outlets. The other cases? They are not validated by one of these recognized authorities and therefore have not met the threshold for verification, though there is NOTHING to suggest they can't or won't, given further research.

The focus on GRG is yours, in that you want to give it blanket status as omniscient And here you contradict yourself within the same sentence, suggesting it is I who has a strange fixation on GRG, then in the next breath suggesting I want to give it "blanket status as omniscient," a laser-like focus from you on GRG and yet something else I NEVER suggested. The only one fixated on something is you, in your obsession to diminish the authority GRG has on this subject as recognized by multiple major sources on the planet. In the end, it is not a matter of granting anyone some sort of monopoly on who can verify claims (as you like to pretend), it is a matter of recognizing that decades of research on the subject of longevity has revealed that validating these sort of claims is a very tricky business, with numerous false verifications in the past guiding the current methodical approach. That's how science work. It doesn't have to be GRG - just a competent, recognized body. There is also Guinness, the IDL, etc. And what, exactly, would you allow as "verified"? Your posts from the New York Times implies that the presence of a birth certificate would suffice. More to the point, there is nothing more glaringly POV than to have an editor arbitrarily decide what non-GRG claims reach some threshold of verifibilty. Which is why at wikipedia, we leave these sort of determinations to a recognized authority, that authority happens to be the GRG, as well as Guinness World Records who are also frequently cited.

GRG refuses to recognize anyone in China or India or anywhere else in Asia outside Japan (3% of Asians). Given 60% of the world lives in Asia - statistically there is a really good chance the oldest person lives in Asia and is not known to GRG. They don't "refuse to recognize anyone in China or India" etc., they require a level of universal documentation that many third-world countries have not yet (or, more accurately, hadn't had 110 years ago) so that claims can be confidentially verified. Scientific investigations of these claims date back more than a century and GRG and others have built on that experience to know the problems when documentation is lacking. For example, claims of extreme age - 120, 130, even older - are found throughout history, yet virtually disappear once universal birth etc registration is introduced, suggesting a human tendency to exaggerate ages, a tendency confirmed by census research which shows people frequently moving birth years back in successive tabulations. Doesn't mean that person X isn't 110 - it means that verification is not a formality, (as you seem to imply) it is a necessity. This reality is EXPLICITLY discussed by GRG and others in this field who underline that "VERIFIED" does not mean someone who fails to meet the threshold is "INVALID," another thing you misleadingly repeat, and forms the basis of your "Type I error" strawman argument. It simply means we don't have enough evidence to confidently establish the veracity of the claim, a level of evidence established through decades of experience. Which is also why the GRG as an example says some 600 or so super-c's are likely alive in the world today, though only about 10-20 % have their claims verified.

I think the right reasoning is simply that WP can't designate one source as permanently and exclusively authoritative in an area where new information is always arriving. But it doesn't, which is my point. It goes by what is the recognized authority or authorities. And GRG, as frequently noted, is not the sole one. When news sources like the NYT start citing other authorities, (which they already do, such as Guinness) those authorities can also be used. That's how wikipedia works. We don't grant "equal time" to other potential validating sources to be "fair": We simply go by those who are recognized as authorities. You've failed to name any other authorities other than the NYT itself, and I've shown that they in fact consider GRG to be the authority on this subject. Canada Jack (talk) 20:38, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Tracking the super old is such a new field that they know of fewer cases of pre 1980 death then deaths in 2015 and they are only capturing maybe 20% of even current cases. Obviously "ever" means pretty close to nothing. That's not quite true - research into 100-plus and now 110-plus people dates back more than a century. But with universal registration and censuses becoming the norm in the west coming to the fore by the mid-19th century, we have been able for the first time to confidentally track these people and understand the various tendencies of extreme age. Here in Canada, for example, there is much registration dating back to the 1700s' including censuses, but the first useful censuses started in the 1850s (and has large areas missing)and universal registration really got going in most places only in the 1860s. So, by about 1980, we start to get here a pretty comprehensive look at fully documented lives of those over 110. Other locales are different, depending on circumstance. Sometimes war destroys a lot of what was recorded, such as in Europe.

Your frustration on this, Legacy, is understandable, but it really boils down to a matter of two conflicting things - the lack of universal documentation until relatively recently, and the innate human tendency to change or misremember facts, even of basic personal information like date of birth. Heights of buildings are one thing - someone can claim whatever about how tall something is, but we can readily measure for ourselves. When it comes to extreme age, we can't so easily check for ourselves, especially if documentation is lacking. We can't very well ask the attending pediatrician or midwife, or mother for that matter, in these cases, pretty well by definition. So, pretty well universally, someone's age is what someone else has told them. But what if others had a reason to lie? My own great grand-mother, born in Australia in the 1880s, had a story told to her by her mother that I discovered to be a fabrication so as to hide an extra-marital affair, complete with moved birth dates, something which I could only discover once much information came on-line over the last decade. Yet, who would I have been to have told my gg-mother that she was wrong? Let alone some stranger, some researcher? This is why the scientific approach is needed because we are all, alas, so human. Canada Jack (talk) 21:00, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

• CJ, you keep calling GRG "the arbiter". It pains me to draw in a dictionary definition, but needs must: a person who settles a dispute or has ultimate authority. You support this GRG-is-arbiter idea this way:

[GRG is] ROUTINELY cited in articles about the world's oldest people as having verified their claims.

But being cited as having verified the ages of persons X, Y, and Z is not being a settler of disputes or an ultimate authority; it's just being a source that seems to have useful information on those particular people. To be recognized as "the arbiter", we need sources explicitly saying that claims shouldn't be accepted until GRG passes on them.

• I'm interested in this statement of yours:

In terms of what the GRG does, we have "validated" cases, and we have cases which have not yet been validated but which potentially could be (unless they aren't bona fide claims).

Can you tell us more about this "we"?

EEng (talk) 21:55, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

When I say "arbiter," I am simply noting that GRG is considered as such by numerous sources, such as the New York Times. It's who THEY consider to be an "arbiter," not we at wikipedia, per se. And that is in the sense of being an authority. It's not meant in some technical legal sense, that they and only they have authority to make decisions, just that numerous sources consider them the ones to decide which claims are considered authentic, and which ones still need to be verified. And the fact that there is a recognized authority or two, and major media outlets routinely consult GRG (or Guinness) for the status of claims, means we should follow suit. To do otherwise would be to do a disservice to our readers as this distinction - claims verified by one of these recognized authorities as opposed to claims not verified - is now seen as routine by major media sources.

Whether GRG is too stringent, whether they take too long to verify claims, are questions worthy of exploration. But it is not our place here at wikipedia to apply essentially arbitrary objections (what is "too long" to verify? how many documents are needed to verify?) to our sources if they are considered authoritative. And in this case, obviously, GRG is considered authoritative by the New York Times and many others. Which really should be the end of the discussion. Objections to their methods are only valid if reliable sources have strong objections to the validity of their verification process and sources like the NYT start to note issues with the GRG (or whomever) as arbiters. That could entail a rival group which has a different verification methodology as well, who have a different conclusion on whether a claim is or isn't verified. We aren't there yet, despite some of the complaints you have listed, valid though some of your objections may be.

To be recognized as "the arbiter", we need sources explicitly saying that claims shouldn't be accepted until GRG passes on them. No we don't. What we need is a) the propensity of sources like the New York Times to consider them to be an arbiter and b) no objection from reliable sources to the arbiter's fitness as an arbiter. And given the propensity of reliable sources to see the need to use an arbiter (despite the demonstrated ability of sources like the NYT to carry out research themselves, but routinely deferring to the arbiter's authority), we should apply a similar standard. There are 100s, if not 1000s of examples of media outlets deferring to the expertise of GRG and Guinness. We'd need a very good reason not to follow suit, and I've not heard one yet from you, your strongest argument with the Type I errors shown not to apply here (even if that objection was one which we had to act upon in the first place - I'm not convinced you've made the case).

Can you tell us more about this "we"? "We" at wikipedia, "we" as the public in general. But in case you are wondering if I meant "we" at GRG, no, I am not part of them or any other similar organization, I am a Canadian promo producer at CBC. Canada Jack (talk) 23:33, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

A useful example

• I'm glad to hear about the "we".
• I've added Emma Didlake to List of supercentenarians from the United States. The AP, NYT, and other sources give her age, when she was honored at the White House this past summer as the oldest living American WW2 veteran, as 110 -- despite her not being listed by GRG as far as I can see, and no mention of GRG in any of the sources. So maybe they don't actually see GRG as "the arbiter" after all.

EEng (talk) 00:40, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

But without GRG's stamp of approval how do we know she is not an age fraud just trying to meet Obama? We follow RS. I appreciate that Canada Jack is engaging in more reasonable discussion. Let's move this cleanup forward together. Legacypac (talk) 04:26, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Interesting discussion going on here. :) Now - obviously my response here will be targeted as an SPA-response (as virtually ALL I do in life is defend the GRG/IDL/GWR, of course...), but so be. What I found interesting to read was the following:

1. The reference to Mathew Beard (who was verified in 2003, by the way -NOT 2013. See [10]). Apparently, part of the criticism towards his verification is the delay in it, as he was only verified eighteen years after his death. Yes, I can see that too. What I find surprising to see, however, is that this delay is taken out of its context - Mathew Beard's reign as the WOP was at a time when the aforementioned Shig Izumi, who died in 1986, was considered to be the WOP. Needless to say, at the time Mr. Beard was of minor interest as he was "only" the second-oldest person in the world, or - as there were more claimants back then - number 853 or something. Similarly, insitutions such as the GRG, the GWR, and the IDL have retroactively validated cases who were noted less in their time as they were not considered to be a world's oldest person (another example would be Augusta Holtz, dying in 1986 at the age of 115). What some people here fail to see is that there is a historical context; as there were so many false claims in the past, the real ones tended to be overlooked.

2. Some editors' obsession with recentism. I note that there is also the urge to verify the newest supercentenarian claims (such as Vera Van Wagner and Emma Didlake). However, what they fail to notice is that the newer a claim is, the more time it needs for recognised organisations to be verified. Notice that the GRG is often attacked here, yet that out of all the institutions referenced to when it comes to verifying supercentenarians, it contains the largest database (1800+ cases). The IDL crossed the 1,000 verified bench mark this year. The GWR only verified the world's oldest titleholders. If you look at the data for the largest database, note that the newest years are virutally incomplete; the latest additions for living cases stem from early 1904 (people aged almost 112), whereas for deceased cases, most possibly complete years predate 1900 - the latest deceased case to be added is from 1902, I believe. Although I, too, dislike the fact that most "young" living supercentenarians fail to be recognised for their age when alive, I do notice that eventually they ARE verified (note how a supercentenarian from my country, Jopie Boost-Dalloyaux (who died in 2009), was recognised as a supercentenarian only one or two months ago - yet it DID happen eventually). If people here are dissatisfied with the apparent delay in verification, I suggest they start a new, reputable organisation rivalling that of established ones.

3. A failure to see the complete picture. As already mentioned by Canada Jack (whom I'd like to thank for his intellectual, understanding view), people from countries such as China and India (which has, mind you, actually produced verified supercentenarians) are usually not verified for their age as they cannot pass the standard raised by institutions such as the IDL, Max Planck, NESS, or even the GRG. As a result, not all supercentenarians who were so will be recognised as such. Even though this is a disappointment, it's the way things are. However, people should also recognise that if supercentenarians CAN prove their age, they are verified. Note how the GRG has verified more supercentenarians from South-America this year, as they have been able to prove their ages (Mohrs, Grubba Rudge, and Concoroni). Also note that the GRG, for instance, is aware of claimants from countries such as Syria (Rose Haddad) and Turkey/Armenia (Mabel Maloyan), which have appeared and continue to appear on GRG's Table EE, which clearly and unequivocally states that proof of documentation for their age HAS BEEN RECEIVED (see [11]). Only focusing on countries such as China - as that would benefit one's cause - is thus misinterpreting organisations such as the GRG.

Just my two cents. I'm here to have a reasonable discussion; I hope you are as well. Fiskje88 (talk) 11:07, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the example, EEng, but my question was what criteria are you suggesting we go by if we are to accept non-GRG-verified claims as "verified"? There was nothing in that article that indicated the military did anything more than search for the earliest birthdate in their veteran files. Simply accepting the claim at face value is no criteria at all.

Even given that, the Didlake example doesn't buttress your case as the GRG doesn't track who the oldest veterans are, and that was the achievement she was noted for, not for being 110 per se. So, the "arbiter" in this case was the American military which searched its records for the oldest person in their database, and the news reports noted her achievement as being the oldest veteran, as per the military determination, NOT for being 110, notable though that age is. The question here was "who is the oldest living veteran," not "is this person the age they are claiming." The GRG is not the authority for the former question. In contrast, when someone is noted specifically for their age at over 110, the GRG is most frequently cited. (Besides, as Fisk noted above, the GRG would likely not have been able to validate her claim for a year or so, the most recent validations are for those born in the Spring of 1904.)

Your example doesn't establish anything other than the US military considered her, at 110, to be the oldest known veteran. The fact of her age as a super-c was neither here nor there. If she was 109 as the oldest, the reporting would have been identical, with no issue of "validation" there either. The military didn't as a result "validate" her age.

But since you bring it up, when it comes to claims based on age, rather than claims based on who is the oldest of a certain group of people, here are examples of GRG (and, where noted, Guinness) being routinely cited as an arbiter.

From California: [[12]] From Pakistan: [[13]] From Canada: [[14]] From Ireland: [[15]] From Michigan: [[16]] From the Philippines, on Guinness being an authority: [[17]] From the UK, on Guinness being an authority: [[18]] From the UK, on Guinness and GRG being authorities: [[19]] From USA Today, on Guinness being an authority: [[20]] From Virginia: [[21]] From Nigeria on Guinness and GRG being authorities: [[22]]

I had simply typed "supercentenarian" into Google news and pulled articles from the first several pages of results. I could go on and on. All across the planet, GRG - and Guinness - are routinely cited as authorities on super-c's. Sure, you'll find reports of people turning 110, with no mention of any authentication, but these reports often mention the total numbers of super-c's and/or mention of other elders... which can only come from lists supplied by GRG/Guinness. And none of those claims gave any indication as to how the news outlet determined the accuracy of the claim being made - so... we are left with either having an authenticating body like GRG... or taking claims on face value, which history has been shown to produce frequent false claims. Unless you have some criteria... Haven't heard anything yet from you.

No reputable news organization would make a claim about "the oldest in America" or what have you without contacting the authorities on the subject - the authorities ALWAYS being GRG and/or Guinness. We should not do our readers a disservice my muddying the waters by intermingling unsubstantiated claims as if they have been "verified." Canada Jack (talk) 19:32, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm only aware of a single person born in India who moved to Australia as being an Asian outside Japan on the lists. Let's assume that China and India have crappy vital statistics record keeping. Applying that logic we can then say confidently that the United States has the biggest verified population in the world without mentioning the unverified populations of India and China. Interestingly, only 8 of the top 25 highest population countries in the world have any verified super old people - suggesting a serious case of inadequate data set and bring the whole idea that anyone knows who the oldest people really are. Legacypac (talk) 21:42, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm at my nephew's house (we're going to Legoland tomorrow!) but, reading this on my teensy phone, I gather CJ isn't contesting the addition of Didlake as a supercentenarian, despite no source apparently having cared what GRG thinks about her. I therefore conclude he understands that WP doesn't require GRG's imprimatur on longevity claims, and won't be maintaining separate lists for GRG-recognized claims. EEng (talk) 03:35, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

You didn't read the response very carefully then. The GRG wasn't mentioned because Didlake was noted for being the oldest veteran, not for being a super-c, per se. GRG wouldn't have been expected to have been consulted therefore. And, besides, I have established that the GRG is routinely cited internationally as a verifying authority, you have failed to make the counter-case, nor have you indicated what verification - if any - should be required for inclusion. The fact that most media outlets routinely cite GRG means a rather large difference between what most see as "verified" claims and what, potentially, WP would have, thus rendering our lists pretty useless and not credible. This is what we want? Canada Jack (talk) 19:22, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

• False. She was cited as a supercentenarian, per se (i.e. as being 110 years old) and without reference to GRG. (Or do you claim that because the word supercentenarian doesn't appear in the sources, it doesn't count? That would be really, really sad.)
• GRG is, as you say, often cited as "a verifying authority". You want it to be the authority, but nothing you've cited supports your jump from the former to the latter.

I tire of this merry-go-round. Please feel free to have the last word now, as it's clear to all what's going on here. EEng (talk) 22:25, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Uh, no, EEng. Besides the obvious point that a single example does not prove your point (I can supply literally hundreds to prove MY point), the article is NOT about her age - it is about the fact she is the oldest living veteran. You obviously see significance in that she was a super-c, as if you find an article with THAT word which lacks a reference to GRG, this establishes anything. But the article is about her being the oldest living veteran - or do you deny that? So, who would have the expertise in that regard? The American military, not GRG. If she was honored as being the oldest and was 108, there'd be no expectation the GRG would have been consulted as an authority either. You are elevating her age to the main issue - it aint.

You want it to be the authority, but nothing you've cited supports your jump from the former to the latter. You have this tendency to say I said things I never said, your tendency towards strawman arguments is quite remarkable. What I DID say is that multiple international news source routinely cite GRG - AND Guinness - therefore they are a recognized authority, therefore we should cite them. Why do they cite these authorities? Because the topic of human longevity is fraught with inaccuracies and deception, hence the need for an authority to parse the evidence. Citing Guinness is fine too as THEY are frequently cited by international news sources. Why have you ignored the fact that I posted multiple links to articles which cite THEIR authority?

I tire of this merry-go-round. Please feel free to have the last word now, as it's clear to all what's going on here. Sorry? What does that mean? You've failed to address many of my points, you've promoted arguments which are invalid and frequently strawman arguments... what is going on here is someone is pointing out the fundamental flaws in virtually all the points you have made. And for so doing, I've been a) threatened with a topic ban, b) it's been implied I have a conflict of interest, and now, darkly, you say c) "it's clear to all what's going on here." I've discussed in good faith - I expect the same from you. Canada Jack (talk) 01:28, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

To illustrate just how wrong EEng is on this point, imagine it's 2035 and Jimmy Carter is still alive, at 111. An article appears which discussed his reaction to some current event. The article describes the controversy over his remarks, and mentions that "Jimmy Carter, the oldest living ex-president at 111, has stirred controversy in the past..." By your logic, since GRG wasn't consulted to verify his age in that remark, GRG's "verification" is not needed to confirm Carter's age. Nonsense. The article isn't about his age, it's about his comments, just as the article you cited was about the oldest veteran, not the fact she was a super-c. Canada Jack (talk) 01:51, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

More presidential birth certificates

I really shouldn't, but like a moth to the flame I'm irresistibly drawn in. It's just too good.

By your logic, since GRG wasn't consulted to verify his age in that remark, GRG's "verification" is not needed to confirm Carter's age. Nonsense.

Seriously? You really think Wikipedia will need GRG to confirm the age of a retired supercentenarian president of the United States? EEng (talk) 04:33, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

EEng,

Although I admire your perseverance regarding this issue/topic, I am also amazed at your apparent inclination to willingly misapprehend the arguments you are being presented with; again, you seem to focus your argument solely on the GRG, whereas there are other scientific organisations which verify supercentenarians. Learn to look broader...

On top of that, if you look at the databases of these scientific organisations specialised in the field, you will find that even people who have gained notability apart from being very old will have to have gone through a (formal) verification process; note that some "famous" supercentenarians - such as Leila Denmark, Alphaeus Philemon Cole, and Herman Smith-Johannsen - have been verified, whereas others - such as Alice Herz-Sommer and Amelia Boynton Robinson - have not. Apparently, these organisations have not yet been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that these respectable people, who would of course not lie about their age as they had an exemplary role in society, were the age that they claimed to be. Thus, similarly, even a former president of the United States of America would have to go through a verification process. Why? That's an easy question to answer: because people lie about their age, even in "western", "modern" countries such as the United States, for a myriad of reasons ranging from pension fraud to trying to escape military draft. Just this month, for instance, a American man called Bernando Lapallo, claiming to be 113 or 114, died without having been verified as the world's oldest man. The reason for that is simple: his records showed him to be about 105, died - despite himself claiming to almost ten years older. Likewise, a couple of weeks ago another American man (John Hart) died at the apparent age of 111. This has also been proven false, as subsequent research showed him to be "only" 104: a respectable age nonetheless, but nowhere near his age claimed. As such, even former American presidents would have to be verified by adept organisations - not per se the GRG, for the umpteenth time - as we (laymen, that is) do not have the expertise to assess birth records at hand. Realise, for instance, that some people only have a birth record issued when they claim to be 90 - and who says they still remember their exact date of birth?

As such, you could even draw the absurdity of your reasoning wider: two or three months ago there was an Afghan refugee in the news who had made it to Germany safely at the apparent age of 110. As this remarkable achievement was noted not only by the German established press, but also by other internationally renowned news organisations, this would mean that according to your standard this man's age were undoubtedly true - in spite of numerous responses of people such as you and I, who have no knowledge of the age verification process, blatantly and crudely stating that this man was nowhere near the age claimed (see [23] as an example). Imagine how this would hurt the credibility of Wikipedia; nobody would take its list with the oldest people seriously anymore - in spite of it claiming to be an encyclopedia (which, in itself, would mean that it should be reliable). Is that really what we would all want over here? Fiskje88 (talk) 14:58, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Fiskje. Note how he completely misses the point of what I said - an article which incidentally mentions that someone is 110-plus is NOT an indication that GRG's verification is not routinely sought, which was the case with the military veteran whose precise age was incidental to the story. That was the point of the Carter example. Using his logic, because GRG wasn't consulted on the incidental mention of his age, GRG's verification is therefore not needed. It's specious reasoning. Canada Jack (talk) 16:10, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

To spare others reading the above wall of text:

• Fiskje88 has joined Canada Jack in asserting that, should Jimmy Carter live to 115 (and God bless him, if anyone deserves it he does) he will "have to go through a verification process." No, see, no one has to go through the verification process, and if Carter doesn't wish to submit himself to such absurdity, WP will nonetheless report his age as 115 because modern US Presidents have been subject to scrutiny well beyond anything a bunch of amateur fanboys could bring to bear.
• some "famous" supercentenarians... have been verified, whereas others... have not. Apparently, these organisations have not yet been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that these respectable people... were the age that they claimed to be Yeah, but see, this isn't Beyond-A-Reasonable-Doubt-ipedia, it's Wikipedia. This is yet more evidence that this "verification" preoccupation is an attempt to impose on Wikipedia a peculiar standard for this topic area.
• an article which incidentally mentions that someone is 110-plus is NOT an indication that GRG's verification is not routinely sought No one's questioning that GRG's verification is routinely sought (well, frequently sought, anyway). But you keep trying to turn that into the idea that GRG's imprimatur is universally sought, which it isn't.
• Imagine how this would hurt the credibility of Wikipedia; nobody would take its list with the oldest people seriously WP's credibility would be amply protected via the kind of disclaimer already found in List of oldest people by country:

Comprehensive birth registration is largely a 20th-century phenomenon [etc] [etc] [etc] [etc]

EEng (talk) 04:08, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

EEng: In my near 10 years here at wikipedia, I've never encountered someone who so frequently and willfully misrepresents my position. Obviously, you have no interest in any good-faith discussions as you so willfully refuse to address - hell, even acknowledge - the positions of others.

Here you go, again: Fiskje88 has joined Canada Jack in asserting that, should Jimmy Carter live to 115 he will "have to go through a verification process." Pray tell, EEng, when did I ever say that? You have AGAIN misrepresented what I was saying with the Carter example. For the THIRD time, it is an imagined example of an INCIDENTAL mention of his age for which there'd be no reason to get GRG's verification - just like your "oldest veteran" example. Your tendency towards strawman arguments is far beyond anything I've seen since I've been here - and I debate a lot of kooks over on the Kennedy assassination pages!

But - did you catch it? - he let go a glimpse of where his mind is here: modern US Presidents have been subject to scrutiny well beyond anything a bunch of amateur fanboys could bring to bear. Wow. Is that what this is about? "Fanboys" at GRG, presumably, should have no authority! They are a bunch of "amateurs"! While there certainly has been a bunch of list-crazy people on this topic, few who I doubt are actually part of GRG, the GRG itself is an internationally respected authority on the subject of claims of extreme age, and on the subject in general, despite EEng's imperial wave of his hand.

this isn't Beyond-A-Reasonable-Doubt-ipedia, it's Wikipedia. This is yet more evidence that this "verification" preoccupation is an attempt to impose on Wikipedia a peculiar standard for this topic area. What "peculiar" standard are we talking about? In an area of controversy it is the normal course of events to rely on a recognized authority. The only way that EEng's complaints would stand is if there was no particular controversy on this subject. But he's not made that case. Hell, he CAN'T make that case as the field is littered with once-"proven" claims found later to be false, hence the increased standards over time. Which is why these specious arguments of his simply don't hold water - he acts as if this is the only topic area which relies on recognized authorities to be an arbiter. It most certainly is not.

No one's questioning that GRG's verification is routinely sought Well, then, if you concede that, then your other arguments are moot. The topic is an area where verification of claims has been seen by most reputable media outlets as a necessity given the high level of false and uncertain claims. GRG and Guinness are two frequently cited authorities on the subject and papers like the New York Times routinely defer to their expertise. Your further argument that their authorization is not universally sought has been shown to be specious. We need only demonstrate that GRG/Guinness is seen frequently to be the arbiter, especially given the nature of uncertain evidence. That need doesn't vanish because several sources don't seek GRG's verification. I can show literally hundreds of sources internationally which rely on their expertise, and THAT establishes their authority, end of discussion. Many people not familiar with the complexities of the subject assume that the presence of a birth certificate settles any doubt. But that is simply not the case, yet EEng wants us to defer to that level folk-awareness in this topic area, instead of those experts who caution there is much uncertainty. My guess is EEng has had some sort of run-in or was shot down by someone in a position of authority on the subject and this is his way to "get back."

WP's credibility would be amply protected via the kind of disclaimer.... No it wouldn't. Given the controversial nature of the subject, the need to have a or several recognized authorities weigh in should be underlined. Further, and I think we should do this, there should be separate "verified" and "unverified" lists to further draw that distinction about the uncertainty of these claims.

The "harm done" is the clear impression that EEng wants to impose on this subject the impression that it isn't very controversial, it's pretty straightforward, that people claiming to be 110+ are rarely if ever found to be inaccurate or misleading, and that a bunch of "gate-keepers" have imposed themselves as largely useless arbiters in an area they are not needed. The precise reverse is in fact true. As Guinness said in many editions: "No single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood, and deliberate fraud than the extremes of human longevity." Canada Jack (talk) 20:08, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• Pray tell, EEng, when did I ever say that? Answer: When did you say that, should Jimmy Carter live to 115, he will have to be verified? When you said,

By your logic, since GRG wasn't consulted to verify his age in that remark, GRG's "verification" is not needed to confirm Carter's age. Nonsense.

• What "peculiar" standard are we talking about? Answer: The peculiar standard being imposed on the longevity topic area is that of "beyond a reasonable doubt", as in Fiskje's statement,

Apparently, these organisations have not yet been able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that these respectable people... were the age that they claimed to be.

Controversial topic area or not (and I question whether a factual mess constitutes "controversy"), Wikipedia doesn't restrict itself to reporting what's been established "beyond a reasonable doubt".

• My guess is EEng has had some sort of run-in or was shot down by someone in a position of authority on the subject and this is his way to "get back." Maybe on the Planet of the Longevity Fans that's not a laughable conjecture, but this is earth.

I repeat the bottom line: "CJ [and now Fiskje] isn't contesting the addition of Didlake as a supercentenarian, despite no source apparently having cared what GRG thinks about her. I therefore conclude he understands that WP doesn't require GRG's imprimatur on longevity claims, and won't be maintaining separate lists for GRG-recognized claims." Your attempt to distinguish sources that are primarily about someone's age, versus those that simply mention the subject's age, might charitably be called strained.

I reopened this thread to highlight the presidential nonsense, but the "beyond a reasonable doubt" nonsense was a great bonus‍—‌thanks! I renew my determination to remain silent while you post another 3-6K. (Your record so far: 7.5K!) Be my guest. EEng (talk) 04:18, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year to the both of you (as well as to people reading); I hope you've had a lovely evening to celebrate the start of 2016. :)

To quote EEng, he states that [he] repeat[s] the bottom line: 'CJ [and now Fiskje] isn't contesting the addition of Didlake as a supercentenarian, despite no source apparently having cared what GRG thinks about her. [He] therefore conclude[s] [CJ] understands that WP doesn't require GRG's imprimatur on longevity claims, and won't be maintaining separate lists for GRG-recognized claims[,]' which is indeed not the problem. The problem is that a distinction should be made between those verified and those not verified, as every John Doe (including myself) could claim to be 110+; it is for that reason that scientific organisations such as GWR, IDL, MPI, NESS, the SSA-Study, and the GRG (whom, last time I checked, were not a bunch of "amateur fanboys" if one looks at the amount of research published in scientific journals by respected doctors and professors affiliated with that organisation) exist, trying to establish which cases are true as opposed to which are not. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia representing the SCIENTIFIC approach, it thus seems no more than obvious to me that the public should know there is a difference in claiming to be of a certain age and having been proven to be of that certain age. As only those scientific organisations I have just mentioned (and possibly one or two more that I have forgotten about) have consistently and continually published research on the world's true oldest people, how could it be too much of a burden to indicate that difference on Wikipedia either via separate lists or via an extra column indicating 'yes' or 'no' for the status 'verified'?

Whatever the result of this repetitive discussion might be, the example of Mrs. Didlake is futile anyway as she died a couple of months ago [24] and therefore could not be included in neither an "oldest people" list nor an "oldest living people" list, regardless of the fact whether her age were true or not. Fiskje88 (talk) 13:43, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

No point in responding to the usual slew of strawman arguments, especially the contention that we somehow "agreed" that the Didlake reports meant she could be included here.(!)

The supreme irony here is that GRG has in fact done some investigation on her case and it seems from census research that she WAS NOT born in 1905! She was likely born in 1904, meaning those "reliable sources," the New York Times and the American military, got her date of birth wrong! (She was still the oldest veteran, which is the main claim made.) So, in the end the Didlake case proves our point, Fiske, that extraordinary age claims require careful research and verification. It's not the simple, straight-forward process which some here like to portray, which is why when a claim of extreme age is made, media sources routinely consult GRG and other age-verification groups. Canada Jack (talk) 22:08, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

More Didlake

As almost always happens, the conclusion you've drawn is precisely the opposite of the correct one. Since neither the NYT nor any of the other sources cited in the Didlake article has revised their statement of Didlake's age, apparently they don't care what GRG says about her. EEng (talk) 02:38, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

When has the GRG ever said anything about Emma Didlake? I cannot find her name anywhere on its website; as such, how can "the NYT [or] any of the other sources cited" ever "[not] care what GRG says about her"? Fiskje88 (talk) 16:54, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Your pal Canada Jack says that "GRG has done some investigation". Presumably he knows this other than by telepathy. Or does he have access to inside information? EEng 17:18, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Won't address the main point, eh EEng? It seems the NYT and the US military got Didlake's age WRONG - and yet you still cite this as something coming from a "reliable source" and therefore worthy of inclusion - even though their information IS LIKELY WRONG. Which is PRECISELY why the approach used by GRG is needed when we declare a claim "verified," and why a "reliable source" is insufficient.

Your red herring argument that the NYT doesn't care is rather... amazing. Let's see if I have the logic right from your end. If the NYT doesn't correct the age, even after the GRG publishes different information on the case, we should STILL go with the NYT as it is a "reliable source"? Isn't this one of your "Type One" errors which should be avoided? Suddenly you don't give a crap that we'd have likely incorrect information on our "verified" super-c list? In trying to prove a point, you prove MY point.

As for how I knew, it seems the GRG is interested in this debate, as, unsolicited, someone from there (at least, I presume he knows of what he speaks), says their research so far indicates she may have been born in 1904, not 1905. Canada Jack (talk) 19:26, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Who is the "someone from there" who "says [GRG's] research so far indicates she mmay have been born in 1904"? Where has "GRG publishe[d] different information on the case"? EEng 21:14, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I said research MAY indicate Didlake was born in 1904, not 1905 as in the New York Times and you changed my quote - to make it sound as if I said the GRG has already published this information - According to Fiskje, they have not. It's one thing to misrepresent what I said, EEng, I'm getting used to that from you. It's quite another to actually CHANGE my quote to make it mean something else! Canada Jack (talk) 00:33, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Wait, so you're saying it's not even conclusive that Didlake's birthdate as reported by the NYT was wrong? clpo13_(talk) 00:37, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

You guys have me on one point here - I thought this came from the GRG - it didn't (the person who mentioned this to me didn't say this came from GRG, I reread the message, and I don't know if he is with GRG). I misspoke earlier, relying on my faulty memory. (I'm 110 years old, you see...) It came from various forums discussing her case, and there are now apparently enough records to have her as "pending" and the records indicate that she was likely born in 1904. I tried to link to a forum on her case, but that forum is blacklisted. Two census records, 1920 and 1930, suggest she was born in 1904, not 1905. No doubt, GRG will soon assess the case. What this information does is underline the contention I and others are making - regular media sources don't have the wherewithal to properly assess these claims. Not only did the New York Times apparently get her date of birth wrong, so did the US military who obviously never did a check on her age when she enlisted. Which is something they'd likely never bother to do, especially back then, unless a person was clearly too young or too old than what they were claiming. WHICH IS A COMMON ISSUE WHEN ASSESSING THESE CLAIMS. Claims are often made on an identification or a record based on information supplied decades after the fact - and this is cited as "proof," when actual birth/census records indicate otherwise.

I gotta say, EEng, thanks a lot for supplying us with a case which proves my point! Even if we ignore the fact that her actual age was not the story here and therefore was not something we could cite as a "verification" by a "reliable source" - the fact she was the oldest veteran was the story- the so-called "reliable sources" got this one WRONG, in all likelihood.

I will say, however, that the loss of the "unverified" claims section on the "living" page means we have no place to put these sort of claims, and that should be re-instated. We should have a place for people like Didlake, even if there is uncertainty over their claim. Mixing verified-by-GRG (or whomever) with "verified" by so-called "reliable" sources means we can't trust the accuracy of the list, as this case demonstrates. Canada Jack (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)