Talk:List of the verified oldest people

Martha Graham and Moses Hardy

I think Martha Graham should be removed from this list. We don't know exactly when she was born and I think in order to be included on this list each case must have an exact birth and death date. (I also understand that this is the reason she is no longer on the GRG lists)

In regards to Moses Hardy, I noticed that Louis Epstein changed his birthdate to 1894 recently on his list. GRG on the other hand is still sticking with the 1893 birthdate. So now we have two reliable sources saying two different things. I would recommend that we go with the 1894 birthdate because when a case is doubted such as this researchers usually go with the more conservative birthday. (Maggie Barnes, for example could have been either 115, 116, or 117 at death but researchers decided to go with the more conservative estimate of 115).Tim198 (talk) 13:02, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Then how do you handle Izumi? Go with 105? Canada Jack (talk) 16:58, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Izumi, while I think most agree that he was only 105 I don't think we can change his age on Wikipedia because none of the reliable sources has "officially" debunked his claim. As such, if we did change it on Wikipedia it would be considered original research (which is a violation of the rules).Tim198 (talk) 15:02, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Has Epstein specifically "debunked" Hardy? Or has he merely chosen to accept the younger age? This makes a difference as to how he should be treated for this article if the GRG still uses the older age. In any case, I think there should be consensus before any changes are made.DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 19:50, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Greetings, I disagree with the use of the term "debunked" here, which basically means:

de·bunk (d-bngk) tr.v. de·bunked, de·bunk·ing, de·bunks To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims of: debunk a supposed miracle drug.

If someone claims to be 114 but turns out to be only 92 (and their mother, if still living, would be only 113), then it's appropriate to use the term "debunked." When a case is only off by one year and there are multiple documents on both points, that is something else.

If Louis had "debunked" Moses Hardy, then why is he on Louis's "validated" list? Louis goes with "1894" but also notes 1893:

Moses Hardy 112 335 January 6,1894 December 7,2006 [some records say born 1893]

While this isn't the place for original research, the original claim to 1893 was backed up by an ID card, 1930 census, and 1910 census match (which qualified, under the 20-year-rule, as proxy proof of birth). Thus, the case was accepted by both Guinness and the GRG. Later, his WWI draft registration and the 1900 census emerged (which I found) listing him as born in 1894. That makes this case problematic, as both dates have some support. In reality, quite a few cases are problematic. Due to Wiki-pedi-holic-ism, some people are so obsessed that they forget the rule for significant digits. Mr. Hardy's social security record listed 1893 (and a second account listed 1892) and the 1920 census supported an even older age (1891).Ryoung122 22:15, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the real issue here is one of consistency. As I mentioned above, I liken the Hardy case to the Maggie Barnes case. Maggie Barnes could have been 116 (based on the 1900 census record) or 115 (based on family bible record). GRG chose to go the conservative route (as they seem to do with all cases that have conflicting evidence) and validated her at age 115. But with Moses Hardy you did the exact opposite and continue to go with 113 versus 112. Also, with the 1900 census being the record closest to Hardy's birth it's more likely to be correct. Based on these facts, I see little reason not to change his age at this point.Tim198 (talk) 13:03, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the point, you STILL don't get, is that the "tail shouldn't wag the dog." Wikipedia is supposed to be reflective of OUTSIDE sources, not ORIGINAL research. However, I can see that that mantra is failing due to the hypotism of the power of "anyone can edit". But the result is that Wikipedia becomes a LESS reliable place, not a more reliable place.

As for Martha Graham: there should at least be a footnote, as she is included in Louis's lists and was once in the Guinness Book (mid-1980s). I don't list her because there isn't an exact date of birth, and the "proof of age" is the 1900 census (which lists her was born Dec 1844), which is far outside the birth event.Ryoung122 05:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree about Moses Hardy. He is not confirmed to be 113, he may only be 112, but Martha Graham is for sure 114. She may be a few days younger or older than what is said but she should be on the list. We know she is supposed to be one of the top 100 oldest people. So why was she removed? Jdisnard

Re Martha Graham: If Beatrice Farve with even the birth month not known for sure is on the list, Martha Graham should be too. --Leob (talk) 06:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Slightly different. There is a recorded date for Farve, even though it is only one. This has been sufficient for GRG. There has never been an exact date for Graham, merely a month. We can only go by the source. If the GRG decides that there is insufficient evidence to list an exact date for Farve THEN she would either be listed as disputed or removed from the list. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 07:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

What is the source for the Farve's birthdate? If it's her ID with a fake year 1905 for the sake of the DMV computer, there is no way to trust the day of the month either. It is convenient to point to it as a recorded date, but it is as good as presuming that Graham was born on Dec. 31 1844 to compute her guaranteed minimum age.

Speaking of Graham, comparing http://www.grg.org/Adams/B.HTM and http://www.grg.org/Adams/BB200.HTM the only conclusion I can draw is that excluding her from the "public" table had been done for aesthetic reasons so that all age numbers look "exact", as there is no dispute note next to Graham in B.HTM. I don't see a convincing reason why Wikipedia should slavishly follow the "public" GRG table instead of listing all GRG-verified oldest people with or without known exact age by compiling the two tables.

Also, I think Hardy should get a footnote similar to Fujisawa's. Having a disputed case without an explanation looks strange. (It is curious that between B.HTM and BB200.HTM Kott (some records say 1 year younger) went down a year and became verified, and a Hardy (some records say 1 year older) went up a year and became disputed.) --Leob (talk) 07:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Extension

Should we extend this list (and the two related lists) to 125 people? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 02:55, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

No. 100 is a reasonable number to include in such a list. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 05:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I suggest not to limit the list by a number of people but rather by some age. On a long term one might get a kind of exponential distribution of the cases with a random cut-off (in this case 100). Many interesting features of the distribution might get lost and many interesting cases might also get lost. To give an example: The number of male people on the list will decrease dramatically in the future.I would suggest to set the cut off to 113 years or even lower, but not below 110. A way to avoid the mentioned complications and to maintain the list as it is, one might set up another list with a cut off of 113 or lower on which all the cases above a certain age are kept. 79.216.173.61 (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Title and/or list is misleading

The article is entitled 'verified' and then goes on to list a number of 'disputed' claimants. So which is it? Are the disputed names verified or not? If verified then they need to be listed as such and not as disputed. If they are indeed disputed then they need to be removed from the list - because they are not verified. The article should lose the 'verified' bit or the list should lose those people who have not in fact been 'verified'. As it stands the article is misleading. Wembwandt (talk) 18:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

It's both. Some cases were, and still are considered verified, but recent findings have cast some doubt on the authenticity of the validation. The article has to keep the "verified" part, or it opens the floodgates for all claims to be added. This page is only for cases of longevity that are accepted by reliable international sources dealing specifically with extreme longevity, such as Guinness World Records or the GRG. SiameseTurtle (talk) 18:17, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that ST. But shouldnt we remove the disputed claims? They are no longer verified - if once they were. Wembwandt (talk) 21:56, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

No, they are still verified until the source (ie GRG) removes them. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:07, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

New Spanish anonymous cases (M.A.C.C., and M.C.L.L.)

I really do think they should probably on this list. If they are in the article "List of Spanish supercentenarians", then they should be everywhere else on wikipedia. They have been validated with a valid source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.50.204.87 (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Not if they're anonymous. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:05, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

That shouldn't be an issue. They've been validated by an international organisation and the findings have been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Due to data privacy, they do not show names of their validated supercentenarians. [1] SiameseTurtle (talk) 22:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

If I recall correctly consensus has been against the inclusion of anonymous individuals on pages such as this one. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Why is that? Kama Chinen was about as anonymous as most people get. Anonymous or not, they have reached the Top 100 list, and they are validated. I don't know why there's an issue.

Perhaps you should look up the meaning of the word anonymous. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:59, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

These two cases are not anonymous, but rather "name not disclosed". Their names are presumably known to the authors of the paper as well as the name of Joan Riudavets Moll who was identified in table 4 (p. 166) as J.R.M. (Temporary) privacy of the name should not preclude Wikipedia from listing the fact. Leob (talk) 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

As far as wikipedia is concerned they are anonymous. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 02:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Says who? Where? Leob (talk) 03:22, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you see a name~on the list, or 2 groups of meaningless letters? DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 04:17, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Any name on the list without a wiki link is a group of meaningless letters, as far as I am concerned. I don't see how "Hide Ohira" or "Yasu Akino" is better than "M.A.C.C.", or "M.C.L.L." Let's see what GRG decides. 98.207.58.100 (talk) 03:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't see reason why anonimty would make someone be out of the list if it is validated by an inernational organisation. Can someone please point where this consensus was reached so that I can read the arguments? GMMarques (talk) 09:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Siamese. To me, the point of these lists is to identify individuals who have achieved the longest known life spans. If they are anonymous they can not, by definition, be identified. I think we can put a note under the main list saying several verified but unidentified people have been reported with the attendant details. Canada Jack (talk) 16:06, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry - I agree with DERBY, not with Siamese... d'oh! Canada Jack (talk) 16:08, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, looking over the situation, the first question I asked was "is this information" verifiable in a reliable source? Unless I'm mistaken (and please correct me if I am), the answer to that question is yes... even though their names are not listed, the information that they exist (and their initials) can be verified and the source in question is reliable. So I don't see any Wikipedia policy issues here. So then I asked, "What is the purpose of this list?" The purpose, I believe, would ideally to be list the 100 oldest people who ever lived... and in this case the standard we are using is verification by "an international body that specifically deals in longevity research". Does this source qualify? If so, then they should be included, if not, then they should be excluded. I don't think anonymity is an issue... it's difficult to think of a realistic analogy... but whether or not their names are made public is irrelevant to the fact that they have been verified as reaching a certain age (again, contingent on this source qualifying under the page's guidelines for verification). If Jeanne Calment's claim had all the same evidence it does now, but no research body or news agency had ever released her name, she would still be the oldest person verified to have ever lived, and her exclusion on the basis of us not knowing her name would only make the list inaccurate.

A compromise, however, might be to include a footnote, especially if there is disagreement to the validity of the verification source. Canadian Paul 04:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Canadian Paul: anonymity should not be an issue. There is plenty of anonymous music composers, anonymous writers, etc. and they all appear in Wikipedia. The real issue is if the source is reliable. And, I may be wrong, but I am not sure the decision whether a source is or is not reliable is entirely up to the page contributors. Indeed, there are several other pages dealing with supercentenarians, and I do not think different pages should use a different policy. Usually, Guinness and the Gerontology Research Group is considered the main reliable source. The so-called Epstein's list is also referred as a reliable one. I am happy to know there is more out there. But I would like to have a more "universal" consensus. In any case, I strongly suggest to mantain a constructive discussion. Keeping reverting and re-reverting changes is not going in the right direction. If I remember correctly, once a change has been reverted for the first time, one should bring the issue to the discussion page without re-reverting, until consensus is attained. In the meantime the new Spanish cases should not be included.Fbarioli (talk) 16:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

To me, this hinges on whether our various sources for this and similar pages choose to list the anonymous cases on their main lists. Or, if the different sources have similar standards for verification that are typically used by GRG Epstein etc. However, there is one aspect here which has not been touched upon. We ALREADY don't routinely list individuals whose cases are "incomplete," despite their name and birthdate being known and verified. For example, Utaro Tamura was known to have celebrated his 111th birthday in 2003, but his date of death is unknown. For me, since this is a list of individuals verified to have been one of the 100th oldest in the various categories, having someone here who is anonymous defeats the purpose of the page - which is to identify those individuals. Take the extreme case - what if EVERY person on the list was anonymous? The list would be meaningless in terms of knowing what made these people special other than the fact of their age. The point is not to encompass every individual who makes the cutoff, an impossibility as numerous individuals no doubt would be here is their birthdate was verifiable, it is to make a list of VERIFIED and IDENTIFIED individuals. Canada Jack (talk) 16:35, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Greetings,

I think these cases should be listed. If we think of credit ratings agencies (like Experian, Transunion, Equifax), the "big three" sometimes vary in their reports.

The IDL/Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research really is the most-respected age verification group in the field (however, their goal is to generate demographic data, not public records). The issue is "anonymity." The GRG/Guinness World Records focus on publicly validated cases, not anonymity.

Nonetheless, the GRG has listed "verified anonymous cases" in the past:

456 37 Japan NA Nov. 23, 1886 Dec. 19, 1996 110 26 O ? Japan

Thus, I see no reason why these cases cannot be listed. Wikipedia has a policy of "placeholder" for its list of most edits.

The point of including these cases is that it provides the best demographic data available. We know, for example, that Eugenie Blanchard has not yet surpassed Spain's oldest woman of all time.

Also, there is the possibility that the case was not anonymous but simply not reported in the media. Media report is definitely NOT the standard to determine verification.

The best choice is to include the information that is publicly available. We know the dates of birth and death, age in years and days, nation of death, and initials. We know the case was verified by arguably the most-authoritative source in the field. To me, the issue of sources should focus on whether the Epstein list counts or not. The IDL and GRG are well-established, as is Guinness World Records.Ryoung122 17:55, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

A case like Utaro Tamura isn't really verified. We had a "report" that he was alive as of January 15, but no documentary confirmation of death. With these two cases, the age is unlikely to change, as we have validated dates of birth and death.

I think the real issue here is that, for some, a case with no name is like reducing us to a number; the human aspect is lost.

But I disagree. Serena Williams is #1 in the world even though she is not participating in the US Open 2010.

People can choose to be in the media spotlight, or not. There's been no news report on Lucy Hannah; the ONLY reason we know her name is the laws in the U.S. allow public access to the records. Whether a family's wish to be anonymous or not is not the legal issue. Kama Chinen's family desired anonymity, but the government of Japan had already publicly released the name. It therefore became public record. However, we don't see any photos of Kama at age 114, do we?Ryoung122 18:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

We don't we add a list of incomplete and anonymous cases then? If we can't agree to add these cases to the main lists (maybe we will in the end), I can't see a reason to exclude an incomplete/anonymous list. Canada Jack (talk) 18:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anonymous and incomplete cases are the same. We can add a list of incomplete cases, but I think the anonymous cases should be on the main list. GMMarques (talk) 07:45, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Three points/questions.

1. Whether or not the GRG accepts unidentified/ananoymous cases is irrelevant to wikipedia. The GRG are concerned with longevity/gerontology, wikipedia is a moderated encyclopedia. The two have different purposes and requirements. I don't recall (I'm happy to be corrected) that any other person has been included in this article while still "unidentified".
2. What is the status of the International Database of Longevity? Is it equivalent to GRG, or are the standards somewhat less? It's hard to tell (at least without registering as a user), but it looks like a collection of people interested in gerontology who occasionally publish papers.
3. The 2 unidentified Spanish cases died in 1996 and 1997. Why did they not get identified/verified by the GRG, especially as they would have been the 2 oldest people ever in Spain and around the top 10 all-time when they died? Spanish cases are regularly identified by the GRG, how did these get missed for 13/14 years? DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 08:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Greetings,

In response to the above:

1. Yes, the GRG accepts anonymous validated cases, I already mentioned that.

2. The GRG did not begin tracking supercentenarians until 1999. Additionally, cases come from public records including news reports which are then verified through a documentation process (for example, finding birth, marriage, and ID records). The above anonymous cases were never reported in the media, thus the GRG did not know about them.

3. The International Database on Longevity uses the same document standards as the GRG, but the list is more complete because the records they gather come direct from government registries. The problem for Wikipedia is that the IDL values "anonymity" and for them, their main focus is demographic data (the complete statistical picture), not individual cases. The IDL allows information to be released for nations that allow public records access (such as the USA and the UK).

Ryoung122 03:29, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

As IDL can be considered equivalent to GRG in terms of reliability, the issue seems to me to be down to if we want the list to include or not to include anonymous cases. We may decide to rename the page as "List of the verified and identified oldest people", and maybe insert a note about the existence of the two anonymous Spanish cases, or we may include the anonynous cases, and maybe insert a note that explains to first-time readers the meaning of M.A.C.C. and M.C.L.L.

In my opinion, as long as there are only 2 anonymous cases out of 100, I think that including them will enhance the completeness of the table. However, I do not think we want the table to look just like a mere list of acronyms: to my eyes, the current List of Spanish supercentenarians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_supercentenarians looks somehow ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fbarioli (talk • contribs) 17:16, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Seeing as M.A.C.C. appears nearly everywhere else she can possibly appear on Wikipedia, we really should add her and M.C.L.L. We could:

• insert a footnote about them (as has been suggested above)
• or colour their rows differently to indicate incompleteness (as is done with disputed cases and living cases)

What say you? Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 16:05, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Right now, theses cases are in the Spanish list and the European list, why not the world list?Ryoung122 21:50, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

It should be included in the world list. We all agree that these people exist, are real and verified. Just the label (name) is not known; this should be a list of people, not names. Alan Davidson (talk) 04:12, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that the majority believes these two cases should be included in the list. I would add them myself but I'm not an expert user of Wikipedia and I don't know if I would be going against any rule of the discussion. So I ask what is the procedure so that these cases can be "rightly" added to the list? GMMarques (talk) 9:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think they should be added to the list. The addition of M.A.C.C. and M.C.L.L. might detract from the appearance of the list for some, but they ought to be added. Unlike Utaro Tamura, the duo have complete birthdates and deathdates. M.A.C.C. has appeared on the national longevity recordholders section, of Oldest people, and no one has complained. So why shouldn't she appear here too? Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 09:49, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I now state that there MUST be a definite consensus on this matter. As IDL is GRG's equivalent, the additions of M.A.C.C. and M.C.L.L. will greatly impact the whole list. This discussion is probably a landmark in the history of this page and it MUST not be left unclosed. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 02:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

As the consensus is to add these entries to the list at the very list there should be an explanation and citation for them. There should also be citations for the other entries as well so that users know which source each one comes from. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 04:36, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Then here it goes. GMMarques (talk) 19:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I suggest rephrasing the footnote along the lines of "These Spanish cases have been verified by the International Database on Longevity, but names are not disclosed (according to IDL policy/due to Spanish privacy laws/etc.)". Leob (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:38, 16 October 2010 (UTC).

The only problem I have with these new cases is that they move living people down a few places and people who were in the top 100 or the addendum are moved off the list. Has it been decided that the "anonymous" cases are staying on the list because I find it annoying when people put cases on, then take them off, then put them on again, and so on. Also, are their real names being looked into or can they be looked into? I apologize if I am only making this situation worse, I just don't like leaving anything unsolved. Jdisnard (talk) 20:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they should be on the list, as they're on neither the GRG list nor the Louis Epstein list. jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 10:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

What happed to to 43.

This list currently jumps from 42 to 44 skipping 43. And no there is no tie for position number 42 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.36.14 (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Tie for 100

This article in the past has, when 2 or more people tie for 100 left them in. This means that the article will temporally have 101 persons until someone bumps them off. I think its fine and a lot better than only having 99 people on the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.36.14 (talk) 21:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Skewed view

Isn't this list very obviously skewed? Fifty ones of the names on it belong to US citizens. This cannot be because birth certificates or other documentation authenticating longevity claims are less available in other countries. Or can it? It seems rather more plausible that the majority of the Gerontology Research Group members are from the US themselves, and thus US claims are easier to verify. If this is the case, very few analytical conclusions may be drawn from the list... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.50.170.14 (talk) 06:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes... And this is relevant because??? Even so, it is still a fact that it is easier to verify Americans because there is more available data. There are simply not very many countries with sufficient census data from more than 100 years ago, and the US, while far from having the best census data, is definitely the biggest country with easily available such data. Even if the relevant data could be found in quite a few countries, in one as big as the US, it would involve traveling around quite substantially to rural country churches with ancient books of births and deaths. And of course, in many countries, not even such data is available. When brazilian census data is available on the web, there will be more brazilian SC:s, completely regardless of where the correspondents are based... Yubiquitoyama (talk) 11:07, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

America is also by far the biggest of the western industrialized countries, the only larger countries population-wise are only now emerging from third-world status. Further, many of the western countries from where candidates might emerge are in Europe which experienced two catastrophic wars which killed far millions of civilians and troops, let alone destroyed many records which would corroborate claims. While the United States was not left unscathed by those wars, the demographic consequences were far less severe. Canada Jack (talk) 14:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Survival rate is another very important factor in determining the percentage of supercentenarians within a given population. Just think that, if, say, in country A the average age at death is 5 years less than that in country B, roughly speaking you can expect the number of supercentenarians in A to be something like 1/30 of those in B. That's indeed the reason for which male supercentenarians are a very small minority, even if males are just about half of the whole population.Fbarioli (talk) 17:47, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Longevity claims article

As there is occasionally some cross-over between the above article and this one regular editors may like to provide some input into the former as this has, again, been edited in a somewhat POV fashion which may not be consistent with that of the vast majority of users. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 19:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC).

Verified and Disputed????

I have been thinking about this for a while now, but every time I comer to this article, I can't help but notice the "Disputed" names on the list. If this article's title claims that the names on the list are "verified", then why are there disputed names on the list? Are these claims verified, and by what criteria are they still being disputed as to mark these names separate from the others?--Jojhutton (talk) 01:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

"Disputed" are claims which were verfied at the time but have since been called into question. As there is nothing conclusive to disprove the original verification they have been allowed to stand. If/when there is sufficient evidence that the verification should be disallowed then they will be removed (from the source ie GRG). Wiki can only go by the source, even evidence to the contrary that has no citation cannot be used as that would be OR. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:47, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

perhaps a clarification would help alleviate the confusion.Jojhutton (talk) 00:35, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Shigechiyo Izumi

I think that Shigechiyo Izumi should be removed. This year's Guinness book has already removed him. I thought that the only reason that he was kept on because Guinness still accepted his claim. DHanson317 (talk) 00:54, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

No, he's still there becuase he's still listed by GRG. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 01:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Derby, so what you're saying is that both sources need to doubt him? --Nick Ornstein (talk) 23:16, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

And GRG already doubts him anyways. It seems like GRG only kept him on because Guinness had him on. It only makes sense to remove him now. Why should we have to wait until GRG updates their list?DHanson317 (talk) 00:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Complete list

DHanson and an IP do not like my attempt to make this a true "list of the verified oldest people" rather than a top-100-plus-addendum arbitrary cutoff. Fact is, in 18 months on and off with this topic, I never until last month could even tell how to find a complete list of verified supercentenarians, and that's a problem. Hanson's suggestion that it appears in the overblown template did not help me to find it there all these months, because it doesn't advert itself as a complete list, but a giant set of overlapping lists. The idea of making a list of lists (by deathdate in this case) is very old and is well-used at list of centenarians and other articles following WP:SUMMARY style.

The idea that people only want to know about the top 107 cases is completely arbitrary. The complete list (as of 2007) appears at the GRG site on one page. Since WP doesn't fit it in one page, it should be laid out as a list of lists in standard summary style. To limit this title to 107 cases rather than to include (by reference) all cases over age 110.0, the long-established cutoff, is undue WP:WEIGHT and thus WP:POV. I don't see any reason for these reverts other than preserving a status quo thoughtlessly. JJB 04:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

A complete list of supercentenarians is totally impractical. It would greatly exceed the recommended article size and would just keep getting bigger. Users who are interested in lists of known verified supercentenarians can go to the Epstein or GRG sites for that information. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 09:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Derby, it seems you didn't look at my edit, because I agreed with you that WP doesn't fit it in one page. I believe the correct solution is a list of lists, not a 1000-member list as you suggest, nor a template. This is standard practice for many giant lists, like notable centenarians, Eagle Scouts, asteroids, and the like. If WP contains a set of articles that constitute a list of known verified supercentenarians, it is WP:AD and WP:COI to require them to use one or two POV sites for that list. Since your concern does not actually address my proposal, and since the reversions are contrary to NPOV, I am likely to try the balancing insertion again differently. Or perhaps you can review the edit and reinstate it yourself, thanks. JJB 16:24, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Exactly what would the point be of creating multiple pages just to stretch out the list of oldest people to all those 110 and over? Even given the penchant for some users to add extremely trivial longevity related articles that would hardly qualify as notable. Using every excuse to justify such articvles is not constructive editing. I repeat, anyone wanting to find all those 110+ has a choice of links to use. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 07:33, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I said nothing about creating multiple pages, perhaps you're thinking I meant they would be sorted by age rather than, as my edits made clear, by deathdate. But if those people already have a choice of links to use, then you too should agree with my next edits that created a "see-also" for those links. JJB 07:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Not sure the point here. If a list of 100 (not "107" - as the addendum extends the list of non-disputed claims to exactly 100) is "arbitrary," then so is a list which cuts off by age, i.e., 110. The former makes a lot more sense as it limits the achievement - in this case, one of extreme age - to a round number which is not constrained by what in one era was an almost unheard-of achievement - celebrating a 110th birthday - to one which takes no position on what age is "notable," simply listing the oldest 100. There was a similar argument on the "oldest people" page over the length of the "over 115" list. Originally, this was small, but grew to 25 or so - so it became a "10 oldest" list, taking no position on if or whether reaching the arbitrary 115 boundary was in itself of specific note. In terms of demographics, the true "achievement" is in determining where the trend is leading - rather than reaching the arbitrary notable age of 110. Canada Jack (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Too many subtle flaws in these arguments to address now, Jack, but I appreciate your not indulging in unsubtle flaws as I've seen elsewhere. JJB 18:02, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem isn't subtlety or lack thereof, JJB, the problem is your argument is inane. Just saying in a less-subtle fashion fer ya. Canada Jack (talk) 18:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Jack, that was uncalled for, but I will state the subtle flaws anyway for those listening. First, yes, technically 110 is arbitrary also, but it's a longstanding consensus among gerontologists as to what point should be used at which we should take note (just like 65 is arbitrary for Social Security but notable anyway); also, technically even a top-107 list including disputeds (like the top-10 lists) being presented separately from the complete list is not completely arbitrary; but your exclusion of the complete "list of lists" is undue weight and contrary to the title, which should then be "the 100 undisputed verified oldest", or "oldest people at least as old as the 100th undisputed". Second, your statement about limiting the (recognition of the) "achievement" to the top-100 list places top-100 promoters (i.e., GRG) as the judge of who is recognized rather than source consensus that recognizes all supercentenarians. Third, your belief that 110th birthdays were unheard-of in certain eras is contradicted by the evidence, and if you wish to modify it to "verified" 110ths, it's only unheard-of because there was no formal definition of "verified" prior to GWR standards (that, or else it's not unheard-of because many reporters in prior centuries found these cases "verified" well enough for their own standars). Fourth, your position that the top-107 list takes no position on what age is notable is false, in that of course it sets an age, just like any list must, the age being whatever age the 100th undisputed case is today; but 110 is much simpler and better sourced and so a complete list should be included alongside, and the unthinking opposition to such an alternate list is strikingly protective of a single-POV take on this title. (On a side point, I'm glad there was at least some healthy hesitancy about the arbitrariness of 115 in that other list, but it has not spread to other arbitrary uses of 115 yet.) Finally, your last statement in combination with your prior seems to say that a list cutoff should be determined by achieving something, and that achievement should be as defined by demographers calculating trends: well, that would be fine if you could source it, but even if you did, NPOV would compel you to show all data presentations that different demographers have proposed as appropriate, and over-110 is the best and oldest presentation of this data. I may decline to reply to further subtle flaws. I was sincere about your not indulging in unsubtle flaws.

Anyway, to other editors, if you have some ideas for accommodating my concern that there is no summary list of all verified supercentenarians and no way for a reader to quickly establish how many there are, please tell me. Without a summary list, we have the problem that new editors might add a case (verified or not) in a death list, a country list, a war list, an occupation list, a claims/traditions list, or several of the above, without any agreed scope that there should be one base article for insertion and then additional insertions would be gravy. With agreed scopes, such as that the death lists plus the living list constitute the complete list of supercentenarians, people know where to look. JJB 21:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, JJB, but I was addressing your points with respect, while you chose to address me instead of my points, and that address seemed to me to be little more than a sneering aside. Canada Jack (talk) 21:46, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

There are a lot of problems with the above argument. First, yes, technically 110 is arbitrary also, but it's a longstanding consensus among gerontologists as to what point should be used at which we should take note. It may indeed be when gerontologists now take note, but I don't believe this is as "long-standing" as you seem to think. Only a dozen cases have been more or less accepted from people who died before 1960. By 1980, that list had expanded, but to only about 45 or so new cases. Now, gerontologists can correct me if I am wrong here, but it is really only since the explosion of cases - and we are up to something in the area of 1,500 confirmed cases - that the field started focusing on the 110-year cut-off.

I would not be surprised, given the explosion of cases, if a new cut-off emerges in the next decade or so of, say, 111, 112. Because with some 77 confirmed LIVING cases (compared to the historical 77th confirmed case, ALL-TIME, having only emerged in 1983), and the possibility of greatly expanded numbers of new cases, verifying everyone becomes unwieldy and, by definition, less notable.

Why underline this point? Because it is less important WHAT the arbitrary age is that someone reaches, it matters HOW MANY people reach that age and, therefore, how notable that milestone truly is. Running the mile in 3:57 in 1958 was an extremely notable achievement, not because it was a magical number, but because only a small handful of people had done it. Today? Since that time has been run hundreds, if not more than a thousand times, it is no longer notable, but being among the fastest 10 or 100 or what have you times IS. IOW, there is nothing intrinsic about the time run or the years lived, outside of how this compares to others who ran the distance or lived long.

Your comments seem odd and misplaced about "undue weight," etc., given to a list of 100 cases. First, you presuppose that by not including a complete list or "list of lists" (which exists on the bottom of the page, so is therefore not excluded) we are "excluding" some universally accepted "true" list of oldest people. But such a list does not exist. The GRG have DEFINED lists, for example, all supercentenarians, top 20 Japanese cases, living superc's etc. But they DON'T simply list 100-this, 100-that. ...your statement about limiting the (recognition of the) "achievement" to the top-100 list places top-100 promoters (i.e., GRG) as the judge of who is recognized rather than source consensus that recognizes all supercentenarians. This is odd - I am not aware that GRG has that particular list, or a series of 100-deep list. If I am not mistaken, they have a 200-deep list, at least on all people.

Further, the lists are not limited to simply what GRG has. As noted, several sources are consulted, GRG is not the sole source, and the manner in which THEY do the lists are not simply replicated here.

Third, your belief that 110th birthdays were unheard-of in certain eras is contradicted by the evidence... To me, this betrays your lack of time spent reading the various attendant articles. Only about a dozen cases of 110+ are verified from before 1960. And this is not simply because the "rules" for verification only came later. Much research has been done on earlier cases, many have been verified from the 60s, very few from before. Further, much research has been done on the general subject which confirms that many claims were exaggerated, some wildly, and once reliable records allowed verification and debunking, those claims were often shown to be false. But there are many pages dedicated to those older claims, and the claims which can not be readily verified or debunked. Which is why the lists here are limited to verified claims.

The practical problem, given the proven propensity of wild claims regarding age to be made, and the ability to verify those claims only emerging as record-keeping was vastly improved, mostly in the 19th century in some countries, is that including non-verified claims, or even claims which MIGHT be true, renders these lists meaningless as they don't record the actual proven lengths of human longevity. Longevity claims and longevity myths cover those areas. It is no mere coincidence, gerontologists argue, that the claims for the longest-lived people emerge from countries with poor record-keeping and a lack of an ability to verify those claims.

Fourth, your position that the top-107 list takes no position on what age is notable is false, in that of course it sets an age, just like any list must, the age being whatever age the 100th undisputed case is today; but 110 is much simpler and better sourced and so a complete list should be included alongside, and the unthinking opposition to such an alternate list is strikingly protective of a single-POV take on this title. Wrong. In 2000, reaching the age of 111 or so was "notable" in terms of the list. Now, you need to be 113 1/2 to hit the list. This reflects a shift in demographics which, some argue, is the true value of the 100-style list (comparing the woman-only to men-only lists bears this out). Sure, 110 is "simpler," save for the fact that it'd be 1,500 claims long. But, again, what is so special about hitting 110? It was special in, say, 1970. Even 1980. It no longer is very notable.

Finally, your last statement in combination with your prior seems to say that a list cutoff should be determined by achieving something, and that achievement should be as defined by demographers calculating trends... You have it backwards. There is no "definition" per se of what age one needs to be "notable," and it is not defined by the particular age on the list, it is defined by how old are the oldest people. Saying "110 cutoff" says nothing as, conceivably, there may be 1,000 people who reach that age at a given point of time, or there could be NO people at that age (as was the case in recent memory). What IS more significant is ranking the oldest people and picking a specific number of them to identify a demographic trend. 100 is a round number, arbitrary for sure, but that number could just as easily be 50, or 200, or a 1,000. For the purposes of wikipedia, I'd argue that 100 is probably the maximum. Therefore, if and when the list of living super-c's reaches 100, I'd argue we'd make it the "100 oldest living people" and not add more. Why? Because reaching 110 would no longer be notable.

Canada Jack (talk) 22:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'll treat that as withdrawing the insult and thank you for responding in kind. The short answer is, if you believe this is covered by the template, you would presumably accept a considered template rearrangement to make clear that it is covered, because, it does not appear covered to a reasonable template reader, and, after all, templates are for navigation (that might also work for the list of notable centenarians); this might permit a transitional sentence to be added to this article.

Offhand as an inclusionist I'd have no theoretical trouble with a list-of-lists approach to cover 1000 runners of the 4-minute mile, assuming objective inclusion criteria and secondary-source notability, but it's a good illustration of how the situation must appear to outsiders. The point there is that since listing all supercentenarians is a sourceable data presentation method, it should be represented; and that top-107 should not be considered the only way of presenting the data, notwithstanding your statements about GRG vs. other sources. As to unverified cases, I'd need to respond to your suggestion, because I've spent a whole lot of time on them (ask my wife!): there are only about three WP pages on them, but dozens of verified pages; there are many many unverifieds over 110 (what you meant was perhaps that verified 110 was unheard-of); hardly any are verified to modern standards because the standards don't retrofit well; the ideas of Thoms or Haller or Lucian about "verification" were state-of-the-art for their day but don't upscale well; and there are simply too many unknowns to speak significantly about true supercentenarians before the 20th century (Gavrilov) other than to treat all claims with the same respect as the modern ones. Finally, notability is not temporary as to articles, and your statements are problematic in implying that notability for listing IS temporary. As long as the complete list consists of the death lists plus the living list, then you haven't crossed that threshold of creating temporary notability, but the threshold is being challenged in the unverifieds (such as with the POV that they become nonnotable if unverifieds die before 115), and also challenged by your proposal of sticking to 100 total living (if news reported a 110th birthday and there were already 100 living, there would be no place on WP to put it and thus a determination that in this case supercentenarianism is no longer notable in itself, which would be bizarre after it's been notable in itself for so long). I'll grant that mass influx to some things dilutes them significantly (everybody has an iPhone now), but I'm not convinced this is true of notability. But as long as your objection is not based on maintaining a single POV on this article, I trust you can get behind a softer version of addressing my concerns that I will now try. JJB 00:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

...if news reported a 110th birthday and there were already 100 living, there would be no place on WP to put it and thus a determination that in this case supercentenarianism is no longer notable in itself, which would be bizarre after it's been notable in itself for so long.

This isn't "bizarre," it reflects the fact that sticking to an arbitrary age means that at one time you may have the case where few or no people are at that age and another time potentially hundreds. (GRG estimates some 450 or so super-c's alive, 77 currently verified.) Therefore "notability" should not be defined by living to a particular age, it should be defined as being one of a small number of individuals, that small number being the arbitrary element.

So, I will reiterate what I said above. The age 110 is an arbitrary boundary, one which, in verified terms, was in the not-too-distant past only exceeded very rarely, but which is now exceeded almost weekly, a relatively common occurrence. There are currently 77 living verified super-c's. The 77th all-time verified super-c died in 1983. Which underlines the arbitrary nature of the boundary. The value of a 100-deep list is that it reflects those who are at or near the pinnacle in question. Picking a particular age excludes those who may at one time be the oldest person (or whatever category) on the planet, and at another time the 1,000th. Using your criteria in the 60s, we'd have instances where there was no oldest person as there was no one over 110 alive! Indeed, with a mere three men verified over 110 currently alive, your approach implies that it is inconsequential to know who the oldest man is if that oldest man is not yet 110. Which makes no sense to me. People want to know who is oldest or among the oldest, not who is over some arbitrary boundary.

To underline, these pages are not supercentenarian lists per se, they are pages on extreme age.

Secondly, greatly expanding lists of those unverified claims renders meaningless the importance of verification. As is spelled out in other pages on the subjects, gerontologists don't consider most of those old claims to be valid for many good reasons - not simply because old records are considered not up to our standards. Once universal registration came into being in many countries, many claims of extreme age - MOST of them, I should add - were provably false. And the extreme claims started to dwindle in those countries. Which is why most claims NOW for great longevity come from countries with poor record-keeping, at least in the opinion of most gerontologists. But you seem to seek to reverse the onus here - from using evidence to prove a claim to demanding evidence on how we can dismiss unverified claims. That, simply put, will not wash with most of the editors on this site. Especially given that there are already pages on unverified claims. The field of gerontology is one where fraud, deception and simple error in terms of claimed ages was and is rampant, therefore verification criteria are by necessity more stringent.

Finally, expanding lists to be "complete" brings its own problems. For example, the list of women over 110 would be well over a thousand. The list of men would be something like 150. Is it of greater interest to know each and every of the 1,500 (or so) oldest women, but only a tenth of the men? Why not the same number for men, a list 1,500 deep? The answer is the particular age is arbitrary and this distorts the lists if applied. In contrast, an arbitrary NUMBER of claims NEVER distorts the data, never implies one list is more important than the other ("only" 150 men would be listed, 1,500 women implies that that list of far greater interest and importance) as long as that number is equally applied. I think it is appropriate to question what that number is, how deep the lists should be, but a list of 1,500 is way too long, and I believe most editors here would agree, and the lists would be of hugely differing lengths EVEN IF YOU ADDED UNVERIFIED CLAIMS.

In sum, the lists should stand at their current depth of 100; while super-c's are the ones most likely to be verified, that doesn't require us to exhaustively note each and every (or great numbers) of them; we should retain the sharp distinction made between verified and unverified claims and not seek to expand the current lists, nor mingle verified and unverified claims. Canada Jack (talk) 19:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You make a reasoned case (though marred by a couple strawmen) that 110 doesn't have the same focus 50 years ago, but that issue is not on-point for determining the current cutoff appropriate for line-item inclusion somewhere on WP, which is not the top-100 issue. I have no problem saying top-100-plus is one appropriate POV about presentation, but please don't assume it's the only one, as you seem to do repeatedly. Please don't assume the 10-men-10-women approach is the "only" way to deal with gender issues, or that gender issues and the other already-represented issues are the "only" data presentation issues, and so on.

You say these lists are not supercentenarian per se, which may be true of some, but it's not true of living supercentenarians, which by your logic should take the top 100 living people NOW instead of waiting until they're all 110 to make the switch. Just another inconsistency to address sometime.

You make side observations about the history, but are you asking me to draw a synthetic conclusion, from the results of the historical validation process and the dwindling in claims you allude to, without telling me what source draws the conclusion and what it is?

I don't know why you think I'm trying to reverse an onus; I'm just trying to follow basic WP:V and to burden all WP statements equally with secondary sources (not hidden GRG chat, e.g.) and inclusion criteria (not criteria that change when you die contrary to WP:NTEMP). It's all about source conformity and policy compliance. If you think my selection of things to edit is misweighted, I apologize, the topic is sprawling and I've only been concentrating on formalizing the unverifieds because the scope is so much more poorly set.

I'm not talking about mixing verifieds with unverifieds; I'm not talking about seeing 1000-1500 names on one WP page; I'm talking about a basic proposal, which is flying better now, to indicate that a list of lists of all verifieds is in fact composed of all death articles plus the living article. You don't seem to dispute that all supercentenarians do in fact appear in these articles. The points of recognizing them as a complete-list set include (1) having a base list of the data manipulated in the many other tables; (2) everyone being able to agree on directing editors with new yet-unlisted data to the same base page, without scope or turf wars or redundancy and forks about the claims, like some I discovered; (3) everyone being able to see WP's version of just which claims are verified and (tabulating them up manually or with coding assistance) how many there are and so on; (4) verifying that everyone over 110 in the country or war article appears in the appropriate base list and so on. There are subtle data presentation errors unbecoming of WP that standardization and scoping are good at rooting out.

Anyway, as to the main point, I trust the template is acceptable to you; and as to the side points, you've given me some useful data for how to argue the questions within policy the day that someone inevitably challenges the overall structure of this topic in a sizable way. So thanks for that. That person might not even be me. JJB 20:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I never suggested that 100-deep lists are somehow sacrosanct, just that lists should be of a certain length, not of a certain age criteria/on. Why 100? That is the number editors here seemed to feel was sufficient, there is no directive from the various sources on what is a "proper" length, so I'm not really sure where the argument that 100 is somehow POV. You seem to be arguing for an age cut-off list which I argue is POV - as the age in question is notable or not notable depending on the list in question. But while the specific number may be arbitrary, how does one come to a "NPOV" number? Is there such a thing? It's not a question you have answered adequately via the age-limit criterion as that makes for lists of wildly different lengths. And accusations of undue weight, etc/. To me, if a number is agreed-upon, that is fine. 100 is what that is now, 10 on some pages. But it could be any number/s as long as it is applied more or less consistently.

You say these lists are not supercentenarian per se, which may be true of some, but it's not true of living supercentenarians, which by your logic should take the top 100 living people NOW instead of waiting until they're all 110 to make the switch. Just another inconsistency to address sometime. Yes, this is true, though I'd argue for a 100-deep list if one could be compiled. In a practical sense, however, it can't be unless more than 100 living people are verified over 110. In several cases here, what would normally be a "100"-deep list or "10"-deep list is just the number of available candidates over the verified age - so there are only 3 men on the Oldest people page, though the list would max out at 10 if there were available candidates. There was a big debate over mixing unverified with verified candidates here a few years back, for national records as those under 110 might not be properly verified, so there'd be an odd situation of a 109-year-old on the national lists disappearing once they turned 110 until they were verified.

As for your overarching point of having complete data, I am not sure that is necessary here at wikipedia as long as we have links to those who compile such lists. It sounds to me like the page might simply copy Epstein, for example. It was for this reason a strong argument for removing the "living" list was made as it more or less copied GRG, that page has now expanded to include other claims. I know there are other pages on other subjects which were removed which mainly copied lists found on one or two sites.

So, I'd imagine you would get resistance to a proposal to have a "base" page of all claims from which the various pages draw their data, if that page is merely a copy of data from a single source like Epstein or GRG. And this is beside the size of this page. I personally don't see the need for this here, nor for the list links at the top of the page. So, my suggestion is to get enough editors on-side with your proposals before enacting them, not withstanding the possible pitfalls I have identified. Canada Jack (talk) 20:50, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Question about age calculations

Hello. I have never understood this ... and I am wondering if someone on this Talk Page can help me to understand this. Thanks in advance. On lists such as this (and the GRG list, etc.), I do not understand why ages are "calculated" according to "years and days" (as opposed to the more mathematically correct, "total number of days"). In other words, some "years" are 365 days; some "years" are 366 days. Since lists such as this rank people by how long they have been alive, why is it the industry standard, if you will, to ignore this basic fact that the word "year" has different meanings (365 days in some cases; 366 days in other cases)? In other words, why add in that additional margin of error in calculating ages? I have never understood this. I am wondering if someone at this Talk Page can help me understand why this is so. Why is it that people who study and document longevity (such as the GRG, etc.) turn a blind eye to this obvious (and easily corrected) method of calculating age? Thanks for any insights. This has always driven me crazy. Thank you! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC))

This has been recovered repeatedly on this talk page, the discussions are in the archives. If and when I get time I'll add the appropriate shortcuts. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 01:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please add the links, if possible. I would like to read the threads. Thanks so much! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:11, 14 October 2010 (UTC))

Talk:List of the verified oldest people/Archive 13#couting years + days vs. days?. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 08:28, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I will take a look. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 12:34, 14 October 2010 (UTC))

I questioned this when I arrived too. Basically it's the standardized measurement convention adopted by all the sources; second, the idea that age in days should trump it is handicapped by not being significantly more exact, in that both methods include error of up to 48 hours (birthdate 24, deathdate 24), plus more if the birth/death timezones are different; the fact that someone at 109y364d can be older in days and hours than someone at 110y1d is potentially frustrating, but the cultural fact is that the second person had the birthday and the first didn't. In short it's a Pirates of Penzance problem inherent in the cultural way ages are calculated and recorded. Maybe someday these will be recorded in days, hours and minutes based on better documentation. JJB 02:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but I am still in the dark. (1) Yes, I know that it is the "standard" method used. But, I am trying to understand why that is? What's the philosophy and rationale? (2) I do not disagree about the errors of 48 hours, etc. There will always be some measure of error present (just as the examples you cite: time zones; not recording the exact minute of birth and death; etc.). So, my basic question is this: with all of these other opportunities for error present, why introduce (allow, tolerate) yet another measure that absolutely adds to and compounds the error? I mean, we know that a leap year is 366 days, and that these days "add up" over the course of a person's 110+ year life span. With all of the other sources of unavoidable error present, why not remove this easily corrected error? I just don't understand. Maybe stated differently, what gain or benefit is there in "pretending" (for age calculation purposes) that a 365-day year is equal to a 366-day year? The whole point of these lists is to compare (and rank/order) the ages of the people. Why pretend that these additional "leap days" don't exist and accumulate? What's the point or rationale? Thank you! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:49, 14 October 2010 (UTC))

Well, that answer sufficed for me. The accumulation amounts to no more than 1 day difference between people of the same age due to different birthdates within a 4-year cycle, and no more than an additional 1 day difference due to the 100-year cycle, so it's not accumulative beyond 2 total days. Generally, annual occasions attempt to track the sun's position rather than have a constant number of days between them; some annual conventions and holidays always occur either 364 or 371 days apart, e.g. So from a math standpoint the error is real, but it doesn't affect much data (e.g., maybe 3 position swaps in a list of 100 people, last time I checked) and is handled with a standardized process, and so can be discounted as not having any real-world effect. But that birthday celebration according to the arbitrary Gregorian year has a whole lot of effect. Check the archives first; then from a WP inclusion standpoint, if you want to pursue this process, I think you'd first want to show that some reliable source presents a list sorted by total days only, to demonstrate that the POV of sorting that way has adherents; then, because it's presumably still a minority, you might tag only the entries where there is a real difference like this: "37. Firstname Lastname: 113 years, 10 days* [Footnote:] *Positioned one place higher if age counted only in days." Then you'd add a sentence or two explaining generally why the two calculations give different sort results. But all that is very hypothetical, you also need to get it to fly past the regulars at WP:WOP. JJB 04:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but I am afraid that you are missing my point. I am not interested in rehauling or revamping the article with some "minority viewpoint". I am trying to understand why this is the standard method. Let's say that Method A employs the "years and days" age calculation; Method B employs the "total number of days" age calculation. So, Method B has these errors: the 48 hours built-in error; the time zone error; etc. Method A has these errors: the 48 hours built-in error; the time zone error; etc. PLUS an additional built-in error of ignoring the 365/366 day counts. Why add one more error to an already error-filled mix? Particularly when it's 100% definite, concrete, and avoidable? There must be some logic/reason/rationale as to why Method A is the standard calculation. I am sure that the logic is not: "well, Method B has a lot of room for error, so, since error is unavoidable, let's just compound the error and add more error to it by using Method A ... since there is already built-in error no matter what method we use". Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC))

Basically, because people mark their ages by years, not by days. Saying someone lived 40,000 days usually will elicit a blank stare. Saying they lived 113 years will get a different reaction. Further, the leap year difference, is only a single day and is WITHIN the margin of error when one considers the day-count accuracy, which is more like 48 hours. It is not an additional margin of error, at least, not necessarily. Two people of the same age by year/day count may be out by one day on day count alone, but that is still within the margin of error - it is not possible to know who is truly "oldest" if we don't know the exact time of birth and death. Further, we can't assume that the recorded date of birth was the ACTUAL date of birth, as, for example, clerical errors often occur whereby say "Wednesday" is assigned the wrong day of the month, or cultural differences are not taken into account, for example sunset marking a new day, or the absence of clocks at night to be able to determine what day a person was actually born.

In the end, these questions are somewhat irrelevant in terms of gerontology, as the main concern there is where the data is trending - how many people reach 110 now compared to 10 years ago, for example - not whether person A is in fact a day older than person B or not. Errors due to data mistakes or rounding are a given: it is assumed that these errors more or less cancel each other once you standardize what data is accepted or not.

The analogy I use is from track and field - there is no use fussing over whether a 100-metre race is accurately measured to within a single centimeter when your stopwatch can only determine times to the tenth of a second. The stopwatch's margin of error exceeds the distance margin of error. An error of a day in terms of leap years is within the margin of error due to time of day. Canada Jack (talk) 05:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

What Jack said, except that for leap days it's a 2-day error not a 1-day. To celebrate a 110th birthday in 2013, you must be two days older than to celebrate a 110th birthday in 2007. JJB 07:15, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

To be fair to Jack – for every single person on this list the discrepancy can only be one day. The two day discrepancy will only arise for certain people (not all) having their 110th birthday after 29 February 2012, so it is yet to happen. But whilst we are talking about possibilities, the hypothetical person having their 110th birthday in 2013 must be three days older than a person having their 110th birthday in 1907! Alan Davidson (talk) 08:07, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

OK. So the whole concept of "celebrating actual birthdays" (years lived) makes sense to me ... as people don't generally consider their age to be simply a total number of aggregated days. Agreed. But, when comparing (i.e., ranking these people by longevity), it is clearly a fiction to "pretend" that a leap year is equal to a regular non-leap year. And all this talk of error and margin of error is pointless. Ignoring the leap year's extra day is always (needlessly) interjecting one additional level of error, on top of all the other errors inherent in measuring age. Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 12:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC))

Well, no Joseph. As implied above, one has to have a three-day difference between ages (assuming the dates of birth and death are accurate) before we can more or less confidently say that someone in fact lived longer than another person, owing to the margin of error. So the single day error is still within that margin of error. It doesn't necessarily "add" to the error. Canada Jack (talk) 13:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

(un-indent) Hi. I just cannot wrap my mind around this. Can you please help me understand all this? Thanks. Let's say that Person A is born on December 31, 1995, and dies on January 1, 1997. Let's say that Person B is born on December 31, 1994, and dies on January 1, 1996. (The year 1996 was a leap year, while the year 1995 was a non-leap year.) Person A would have an age of 1 year and 1 day, and he lived for 367 days. Person B would have an age of 1 year and 1 day, and he lived for 366 days. So, on this type of longevity chart or ranking, they are "equal" (both being at 1 year and 1 day). But, in terms of "longevity" (that is, how long they have actually lived on this earth before dying), doesn't Person A with the 367 days of living have "more longevity" than Person B with the 366 days of living? (These charts are measuring longevity, correct? That is, how long a person has lived.) Now, for all cases, the actual date of birth – and the actual date of death – will always have a margin of error of 24 hours or so (technically, it is probably 23 hours and 59 minutes and 59 seconds). On the actual birth-day, a person might be born as early as 12:00:00 midnight or as late as 11:59:59 pm. And we just don't know. But, regardless of that 23:59:59 discrepancy, they get the "credit" for that "one day" of living. And, similarly, the same thing happens with the death-day. I understand all of that. So, basically, we all acknowledge that a person's first day and last day may (or may not) be "partial" fractions of a true 24-hour day. That whole concept is imbedded as an inherent error in the entire system, as we do not record the actual time of birth/death, but rather we round it off to one specific "day". Now, let's get back to my example above, with Person A and Person B. We know that Person A has lived through the entire year of 1996 (all 366 days, at a full 24-hours per day). Plus, he has lived whatever fractional portion of the days on either side of the year 1996 (that is, the day he was born and the day he died). We know that Person B has lived through the entire year of 1995 (all 365 days, at a full 24-hours per day). Plus, he has lived whatever fractional portion of the days on either side of the year 1995 (that is, the day he was born and the day he died). So, we all acknowledge that we can never pinpoint any specific time or longevity on the first and last day of life (the birth-day and the death-day). That is a given and is "built into" the system. And, therefore, it is an inherent "equalizer" among all people being tracked for longevity. But, can't we also acknowledge without controversy that Person A has lived longer than Person B (within the confines and margin of error of the age calculation system)? (That is, we acknowledge that we can never know the precise timing of the birth-day and death-day, so those two "endpoint" days may or may not be fractional portions of a full day.) But, we know for a fact that Person A definitely had a full 366 days in between the uncertain endpoints, and Person B only had 365 full days in between the uncertain endpoints. So, Person A has lived a full 366 days (at 24 hours each), plus some unknown fractional portion of the birth-day and some unknown fractional portion of the death-day. And, Person B has lived a full 365 days (at 24 hours each), plus some unknown fractional portion of the birth-day and some unknown fractional portion of the death-day. That is, the birth-day and the death-day will always have an imbedded margin of error. That "error" is simply assumed for all individuals. But, we can count with certainty the (known and definite) period of living (i.e., longevity) in between the two uncertain and imprecise endpoints. So, Person A has the inherent room for error in measuring the exact longevity (period of living) on his birth-day and on his death-day. Person B has this same exact inherent room for errors. So, why are we "adding to" these unavoidable errors by "pretending" that the 366-day year of Person A is exactly equal to the 365-day year of Person B? I am just confused, and I would like to try to wrap my mind around this concept. I assume that there must be some validity to the rationale, since it is the standard method that all the groups seem to use. But, I can't seem to grasp why they are ignoring such a basic fact (i.e., that leap years are not equal to non-leap years in terms of how long a person has lived on this earth). Can anyone explain this in a way that I can make sense of? Thanks! I'd really appreciate this! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:59, 16 October 2010 (UTC))

The basic underlying thing here is that when it comes down to a day or two of accuracy, it is not of any particular relevance to the field of gerontology. It only is relevant to list-makers.

But, can't we also acknowledge without controversy that Person A has lived longer than Person B (within the confines and margin of error of the age calculation system)? But we can't in fact declare that because of the margin of error! Which is why the leap year count isn't really that relevant. In your example, person A would have lived 366 + (rounding to the nearest hour) at least 1 more hour (if born shortly before midnight, and dying shortly after midnight) or as much as 47 hours. person B would have lived 365 days plus between 1 and 47 hours. So, on one extreme, person A lived 367 days, 23 hours, person B 365 days 1 hour, to the other extreme person A lived 366 days, 1 hour, person B 366 days 23 hours. So, even given the extra day via the leap year, we can't be certain person A in fact lived longer. Therefore, to suggest to go by year/day count is innaccurate owing to missing a leap day ignores the fact the margin of error means we can't be certain which individual in fact lived longer even given the extra day. Which is why, though your point about accuracy may be valid, it isn't relevant owing to the margin of error. Canada Jack (talk) 21:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, so here's a hypothetical question. Let's pick a random date (let's say, July 20th). Let's go through this list and minus out every fourth occurrence of July 20th (i.e., similar to February 29 in leap years). This would have no bearing on the age / longevity of these people? (The July 20th hypothetical example is just a parallel of the February 29th leap year day.) So, we can randomly ignore and disregard the February 29 dates that occur, with no effect on the margin of error (and, thus, any longevity claims). We can also randomly do this for any other selected random day of the year? And this random hypothetical would or would not affect the ages of these people? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:58, 16 October 2010 (UTC))

Not really sure what else to say, Joseph. You are correct - by not taking into account a leap year, year/day counts may be out by one day. But, as I have shown above, this is still within the margin of error. Someone, by day-count, may be apparently a day "older," but in fact have had a shorter lifespan than someone with one fewer day by day-count. Which is why this is a giant non-issue. Canada Jack (talk) 23:43, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I understand your points about the "one day" being within the margin of error. I just don't understand why we deliberately do not calculate that extra day, when we know that it in fact exists ... whether or not it is within the margin of error. Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC))

Bolding war

Can we please stop breaking WP:MOSBOLD that limits bolding only to certain items? How about a compromise to italics, which are permitted in this instance? JJB 18:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

NO. The bold words have already been there for eons. If there really was an issue with WP:MOSBOLD, it would have been reverted long ago.

The status quo should stay. The number of living supercentenarians is a significant part of the lede, and if it were not in bold, it would be hard to pick out, really.

I don't see your point at all about the italics. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 00:15, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Yea, I don't even see your point at all -_- DHanson317 (talk) 00:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

JJB is correct. Per the Wikipedia style guidelines, boldface is reserved for certain uses. If emphasis is needed, italics should be used. Cleaning up articles per Wikipedia MOS and other guidelines is an ongoing process. Long-standing non-conformance is not sufficient reason to justify its continued use. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 00:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I have no opinion on the "bolding war" as such, but I would like to point out that WP:CONSENSUS does not mean "it will always be this way". Remember that consensus can change...and it often does.  Frank  |  talk  00:54, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

What I meant here is, why is this appearing only now when it never was an issue in the past? This has already been discussed before. And despite the fact that consensus can change, no one found any issue regarding the matter and WP:MOS when it was discussed before.

I think I get your point about the italics now. Sorry, but that's NOT the kind of emphasis we want. The emphasis is more on the presence of X living supercentenarians on the list as a whole, not on the fact that these supercentenarians were living. You guys tried to compromise by italicising the word "living", that's not the kind of emphasis we want. We want to point out the phrase as a statement as a whole. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 01:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Brendan, all the longevity articles need to be brought into policy compliance. This hasn't happened yet because any one editor that comes in to work toward compliance can easily get batted away by a plurality of editors from WP:WOP or Yahoo WOP that believe their antipolicy consensus can stand indefinitely. I have been working on these fixes on and off for 18 months, and now suddenly there are additional interested editors who agree with policy. It is unwise to argue from what "we want" when the issue is what Wikipedians in general want as indicated by their policies. You won't want to get hung up on the little bolding issues when whole articles are at stake for nonverifiability and nonnotability, and I'm generally not going to be the one handing out WP:AFDs either. It is time for longevity editors to learn to roll with others. JJB 01:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Is the bolding issue "little"? It affects the tone and the lede as a whole (well, at least, mostly).

Please present your reasons for being against the bolding of these words in terms of how it affects the tone of the lede as a whole. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 01:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Did you read WP:MOSBOLD? It says:

Boldface (text like this) is common in Wikipedia articles, but only for certain usages.

The most common use of boldface is to highlight the article title, and often synonyms, in the lead section (first paragraph).

Use boldface in the remainder of the article only in a few special cases:

• Table headers
• Definition lists (example: Glossary of trucking industry terms in the United States)
• Volume numbers of journal articles, in some bibliographic formats

Use italics, not boldface, for emphasis in article text.

Wikipedians have agreed for a long time that bold in the lead is reserved for the title and synonymous terms to the title. If you're really 15, take a word to the wise: pick your battles wisely. This is a nonstarter. I'm sorry that you've been hanging out with editors who have not followed policy, but now's the time to be a quick learner. JJB 02:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You yourself are not being very objective either. Are you trying to use my age as an weapon to underline my so-called nonstarter argument? Please stick to facts in this discussion. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 02:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You have failed to explain, exactly, how bolding those words violates WP:MOSBOLD. I don't know if this is covered, but the purpose of the words are to add VISUAL AIDS to the lede. Like I said before, the number of living supercentenarians in the list at any one time is significant to the page. Please justify if you can. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 07:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello Brendan. We use italics to emphasise words within articles. Please refer to the manual of style. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:35, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Itsmejudith, italicising gives a DIFFERENT impression from bolding words. You have, again, failed to specify exactly and right to the point WHY the bolding of these words violates WP:MOS. Please point out exactly what it is you have with these words. Don't just keep telling me to read the MOS. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 09:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Quite frankly I have to wonder at the motivation (though having seen there contributions elsewhere I have some idea) of editors who seem more concerned with following something as relatively trivial as MOS than in the content and overall quality of the article. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 09:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Valid point you've made there.

The page itself is affected by whether or not these words are bolded. Not bolding them will negatively affect the meaning and readability of the lede here. Shouldn't we consider WP:IAR in this case? Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 09:45, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

JJB quoted the relevant part of WP:MOSBOLD. It's not a big thing, it's minor, but it's the kind of minor thing I frequently correct. Some of us are picky about spelling, grammar and the rest. If you still don't agree, maybe we should seek a third opinion? Itsmejudith (talk) 11:15, 15 October 2010 (UTC) PS I struck the comment found offensive, which was only meant as my avuncular belief that teens are more apt to learn the skills of debate than others. JJB 16:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Folks its a pretty bad sign when a minor issue of style compliance gets this much push back from article regulars. Why is this even an issue?Griswaldo (talk) 12:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I wondered when the third of this particular trio would turn up in this article. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 20:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Hardly a trio. I disagree with just about as much that JJB is trying to accomplish as I disagree with the current state of many of these entries. It is true that IMJ and I both recently responded to a post at Fringe Theories noticeboard. If you need to lump people together and create warring teams of editors for your piece of mind then I feel bad for you. I'll keep trying to address some problems with these entries in the meantime.Griswaldo (talk) 20:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

G, they just have their ways at WP:WOP. If you stick with me in maintaining policy compliance on the bigger issues, the little issues will be solved more easily. JJB 16:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

If this is as clear-cut as JJB suggests it is, I don't see what the problem here is and why there needs to be a big argument on this relatively minor point. If it needs to change as per policy, then it should be changed. Any motivation editors may identify on his part is a moot point if the policy is as JJB suggests. Canada Jack (talk) 16:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Once again, we can see JJBulten making a mountain out of a molehill. First off, he's WRONG. The policy states:

Contraindications

Use italics, not boldface, for emphasis in article text.

But this isn't "article text," it's a name in a list.

Further, the policy says use common sense and occasional exceptions apply.

It's clear that JJBulten is here only to be a bully, not to find consensus. Look at this passage:

"It is unwise to argue from what "we want" when the issue is what Wikipedians in general want as indicated by their policies. You won't want to get hung up on the little bolding issues when whole articles are at stake for nonverifiability and nonnotability, and I'm generally not going to be the one handing out WP:AFDs either. It is time for longevity editors to learn to roll with others."

He also is the FIRST to use the phrase "bolding war," and indicates he is stirring up more problems and finding "allies" to do so.

All this is smoke and mirrors that distracts from the core truth: JJBulten's ideas represent fiction, not fact; the past, not the present or future. Ryoung122 20:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

In any case, what new consensus are you talking about here? There is NO new consensus. It appears to me that it is you, JJBulten, who has been trying to force one. The rules as dictated by MOS already existed long, long before the present lede even came into existence, and had there ever been any issue with MOS and the lede, it would have been settled long ago.

In other Wikipedia articles, the text and other information presented in the page is tailored to the subject itself in question. The information in it can change at any time, be it tomorrow or 200 years later. In contrast, the lede of this page is written based on irrefutable, solid facts, such as the fact that Jeanne Calment is currently the oldest validated person ever to walk the face of the earth. For other articles on Wikipedia, italics gives the emphasis needed most of the time. This is NOT the case with the lede here. The purpose of bolding those words is to highlight them and generally improve readability of the lede as a whole, among other reasons. In any case, the emphasis here is NOT on the fact that Eunice Sanborn, Walter Breuning, and others are verified, or that they are living, or that they have attained supercentenarian status. The highlight is on the phrase itself as a whole! If the rules of MOS really apply here, then let's go back and italicise the names of all living supercentenarians on the list, not bold them. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 01:00, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

JJBulten canvassing and stirring up problems

Greetings,

When we see comments like this:

If you stick with me in maintaining policy compliance on the bigger issues, the little issues will be solved more easily. JJB 16:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

1. It is clear that Bulten is CANVASSING for support, a violation of Wiki policy. 2. JJBulten falsely views himself as some sort of "police" man on Wikipedia. He is not. 3. JJBulten continually violates policy. He has started edit "wars," threatened kids by pointing out their age (ageism), canvassed for support, and a lot of other things. 4. JJBulten has threatened others by quickly threatening to report them for blocks, rather than attempt to first achieve consensus. 5. JJBulten has misused terms such as "compliance." Wikipedia is not a democracy, but neither it is a one-man dictatorship. Perhaps JJBulten needs to read up on WP:OWN.

All attempts at compromise have been met with him not giving up anything.

Ryoung122 20:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget the classic use of "consensus can be ignored if you're right and everyone else is wrong"! DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's not forget this line from him, addressed to me:

"... take a word to the wise: pick your battles wisely. This is a nonstarter. I'm sorry that you've been hanging out with editors who have not followed policy, but now's the time to be a quick learner." Excuse me, but whether or not I am following Wikipedia policies in your worldview, should not be used to comment on personality traits and the character of the editor in question. As I have warned JJB, this is very obviously a violation of WP:NPA. It's tantamount to saying that each and every single homosexual in the world is effeminate, basing your argument solely on their sexual orientation and nothing else. Is that fair? Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 01:10, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

"PS I struck the comment found offensive, which was only meant as my avuncular belief that teens are more apt to learn the skills of debate than others. JJB 16:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)"

JJB, that's just an excuse to threaten me and state that the age of the user in question dictates whether or not they should be taken seriously on Wikipedia. That is, as Ryoung122 pointed out, AGEISM. If that really applied, then why are there still 8 and 9 year olds working right here on Wikipedia? Also, what "avuncular" belief is there? The narrow-minded belief that teens are more apt to learn debating has led you to make this comment. That's sad. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 01:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Question

Can someone please explain what the dispute here is? It looks to me like there is some discussion of bold vs italic, so I presume it is for the current date and the wikilink to the list of living supercentarians. If that is the case, I think neither of them should be bold OR italic. The wikilink will show up as any other one does; if the reader wishes to click through, that is their decision. As for the date, I don't know what policy covers it, but bolding the date isn't commonly seen that I know of. (I am only one editor, I realize.)

I think a good model is List of United States Supreme Court Justices by time in office. Clean intro, devoid of bold OR italics except for the part which mirrors the title of the page.  Frank  |  talk  16:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

You have the small battle exactly correct. There is a larger battle between methods of maintaining longevity articles that this length of debate is symptomatic of. I invite you in if you like. JJB 16:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but I am not the WP:BATTLEing type. As for maintaining longevity articles, I don't see a problem at all; we have policies around here (WP:RS, WP:CITE, WP:N, for example) that apply to longevity articles the same as they apply to other articles.  Frank  |  talk  21:35, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Why is the text bold again? It is completely against MoS. Can someone please explain to me clearly what they see as the logic for this? Thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

It appears this issue is largely one of being pedantic vs being disruptive/constructive. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:21, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it's NOT against MOS. Read MOS again. Article text (as in a paragraph) is NOT the same thing as a name in a list.Ryoung122 22:16, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Have read and re-read it and cannot find justification for what you are saying. This is article text in a paragraph, not an item in a list. Italics should be used for emphasis, but these words don't need emphasis. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Ryoung122 is right, it's NOT against MOS. Wikipedia rules are written IN GENERAL, and this is one of the exceptions. The policy states to use common sense where needed. I am also unable to see where this is against MOS. This is a name in a list...not article text! I'm changing this back. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 07:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Please don't shout. It isn't an item in a list. It is text in a paragraph introducing a list. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

In any case, the paragraph is consisted of solid fact, and highlighting in the paragraph here is necessary to indicate the number of living supercentenarians in the list at any one time. Have read MOS again and again, like you, and can't see how it opposes MOS. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 08:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Shall we ask for WP:3O on this one? (No hurry, I'll be on wikibreak next week.) Itsmejudith (talk) 10:09, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Why not, let's waste even more time on immensely trivial issue? DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 10:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was first to call it a war, and now I'll be first to take it boldly to 3RR. 3O is only for a two-editor debate. To say this is a "common-sense" requirement and this is "not article text" is a complete declaration of victory of (small-group) personal preference over WP style. Thanks Derby for your support. JJB 13:28, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

If you read it properly, JJB, you would realise that Derby DOES NOT support you. AND STOP CANVASSING! Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 02:33, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Lives in vs. Living in

Greetings,

I'm not going to bother with reverting such a small issue, but "lives in" sounds better, and is shorter, than "living in the United States".

The whole point of the "living" designation is that it is PRESENT tense. One could easily say "she was living in Pennslyvania, but now lives in New York." Therefore, "living in" can be past tense, and is therefore less correct.Ryoung122 22:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if I missed a discussion on this, but -- why does the country column need to say "living in" anyway? It's redundant, as the Date of Death column already says "living", and frankly I think it makes the layout look so unattractive that I feel compelled to write about it. I get that the reasoning may be "the column header says country of _death_", but when a living person already has bold text, green background, and "living" explicitly specified, I really don't think there's any confusion (or supposed prognostication) left to be avoided in that last column. If anything, why not change the column name to "last living in" or something? Javhar (talk) 15:34, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Warning re bold text

See the result of the edit warring case here:

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#IP et al. reported by User:John J. Bulten (Result: Editors warned; article semiprotected).

Editors are advised not to do further reverts of bolding, in either direction, unless consensus is reached here on the formatting. If you cannot determine whether a talk page consensus exists, you could ask ask at WP:AN for an administrator to close the discussion. Admins may issue blocks with no further warning if the edit war continues. Even a single revert may be enough to lead to action. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 17:01, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I notice that this warning, and the semi-protection of the article, happened after the bolding had been removed. How..."convenient". But then this whole issue has little to do with good faith so it's really no surprise. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 17:55, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I am willing to undo whatever the last revert was if you can demonstrate that there was consensus for the previous version. EdJohnston (talk) 18:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As I have said before, the original form should be retained until consensus is reached to change it. I see no consensus for change, therefore we should get the old bolding back. Canada Jack (talk) 19:55, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. At present, as far as I can tell, the consensus is 5-3 (although it could be 5-2) in favour of retaining bold, as it has been for the last 2-3 years. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 20:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Ed, not sure if that is quite the right thing to do. I came past the article, saw the obvious bolding error and simply corrected it.Some people appear to have a weird OTT WP:OWN thing going on, but there's absolutely no need for this text to be in bold and they haven't got a reason why it should be apart from "that's how we do it on this article". If it goes to RfC all will immediately become clear but it does seem a bit stupid to take such a thing to RfC. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:41, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

• Here is my count of the opinions so far, from registered editors. I think the IPs are sockish so I'm not counting them (they never comment on Talk). Canvassing by JJB has been alleged; I did not look into that.

• DerbyCountyinNZ for bold
• Brendanology for bold
• Ryoung122 for bold
• Dhanson317 for bold (via revert, not talk page)

• Itsmejudith against
• JJB against
• Tcncv against
• Griswaldo against
• Canada Jack against

Frank states above that he has no opinion.

In terms of pure numbers that is 5:4 *against* bold. I'm not calling that a consensus in either direction. If anyone feels strongly they might do some research:

1. Are there other old-people pages that also use this bolding convention?
2. Are there some pages where there is local consensus for a different style than WP:MOS? (A real consensus, not a slow-moving war).
3. Is there a WikiProject where this question could be raised?

If people are taking this very seriously, maybe they are willing to do research. EdJohnston (talk) 03:31, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I would say that Canadajack is indifferent rather than against. I wouldn't know about any canvassing by JJB but I do have to wonder that the 3 others aginst this issue all appeared after JJB and as far as I know have made no previous contributions to this article. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:54, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

To supply a couple additional facts, (1) After Frank had no opinion he then said more decisively, "I think neither of them should be bold", so I got 6-4. (2) I've seen a couple canvassing accusations by Ryoung122 and Brendanology, but every time they seemed to refer to ordinary discussions of mine that they just weren't aware of in a timely manner (as opposed to (say) telling a large, motivated Yahoo group all to vote on a merge proposal), so they appeared to rely on such a misguided understanding of WP:POV that it did not seem worthy of refutal in place. (3) To Ed, I believe other articles do use this kind of bolding, there probably has been group consensus but this first battle indicates it is in question now, and the WikiProject is WP:WOP, at which editors (when you can rouse them) generally are the same types as the current bolding camp, Canada Jack being one independent-thinking exception. (4) I have previously diffed how Itsmejudith and Griswaldo arrived at this topic set via an FTN discussion started by Dougweller. Doug perhaps noticed it in my edit history after involvement in another ongoing discussion, but that is the closest I am to instigating anything. I have agreed with them in the need to do much pruning and uprooting, though we disagree in the degree (they favor more). (5) This war started with my simple MOS-induced debold that was met by surprising resistance; I just didn't happen to debold any of the others I've seen in the past 2 years, or the same issue might've developed elsewhere. Someday I may make a list of such ingrained style issues for central discussion. I've agreed with some of the WOP styles that at first seemed very bizarre to me, but it's on the ones where I've disagreed that wagons become entrenched, to mix a phrase. JJB 05:57, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

JJB, in reference to your comment, "I've seen a couple canvassing accusations by Ryoung122 and Brendanology, but every time they seemed to refer to ordinary discussions of mine that they just weren't aware of in a timely manner" -No, JJB, they DID NOT. You said at one point, " If you stick with me in maintaining policy compliance on the bigger issues, the little issues will be solved more easily". That was COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE AND IS A VIOLATION OF WP:CANVASSING. Warning people left and right and threatening them with Wikipedia policies, dissing longevity editors to make your point, and warning others to collaborate with other editors and then refusing to do so yourself. These are just a few of the problems you have that you really need to work out on your own time. Let's not forget your aggressive use of the phrase "bolding war" and your arrogant self-declaration that you were the first to call it a "war". Add that to your declaration that you were met with surprising resistance over a "minor" bolding issue and we have people thinking you are attempting to be some kind of God or policeman on Wikipedia. That, again, is 100% unacceptable. Don't go around barking at others to collaborate when you have refused to do so yourself. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 06:13, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Derby is correct - I am indifferent rather than against. I said that if the policy is as iron-clad as JJB suggested, then remove the bolding. But subsequent discussion indicates this is not as clear-cut an issue as JJB suggested. It seems to me, that until an actual decision on what we should do here is arrived at, the page should be in its original form, i.e. with the bolds. Canada Jack (talk) 14:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I know I'm a fine one to talk here, but I also agree that it ought to be retained in its original form. That's the practice with most, if not all, other disputed Wikipedia articles. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 14:26, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't find any provocation for Ed Johnston's warning. This article doesn't appear to be on any edit probation, nor has he linked a discussion that says anything about "one revert and your blocked". This seems to be his own way of maintaining order, but as many of us veteren editors have seen, this is the type of admin behavior that always seems to end up at ANI. Ed Johnston may have good intentions, but I must remind him to take each instance of 3RR on a case by case basis, rather than giving everyone a blanket warning without consensus. That being said, is there a reason why there shouldn't be bolding in the lead? Seems pretty standard across all projects. Didn't see anything in WP:MOSBOLD that would lead me to believe otherwise.--Jojhutton (talk) 15:31, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Stale

Take a long hard look at the list, guys. Protecting it has helped it very little. You notice that Chiyono Hasegawa is NOT tied with Daisey Bailey anymore, but still is because of the protection. Similar thing with Florrie Baldwin and Walter Breuning. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 14:29, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed Feel free to ping me for more updates if the list gets stale.  Frank  |  talk  14:41, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) This problem has nothing to do with semiprotection but with the IP user's refusal to use an account and with the article's violation of WP:DATED and WP:V (as I said one thing leads to another). How do you know Hasegawa or Breuning are living or dead today to qualify for the higher rank? I don't think GWR ever listed living persons with an "as-of-publication" age, only with a "last-update" or "fl." age. If the IP is the only one keeping this table from being dated by checking almost every day (and also by renumbering all entrants listed after any insertion), and the table becomes more dated due indirectly to semiprotection, more power to it. It'll clear the way for bringing verifiable and stable GWR style to the article. JJB 14:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

This list has been updated daily as necessary for a long time. The living members tend to have their own articles which are kept updated as well. Whether one is an IP or not is only relevant in terms of semi-protection. As an admin, I don't have the protection issue and I'm willing to help. The rest I'm staying out of, since this is an article I participate in updating and I have no real stake in any formatting issue.  Frank  |  talk  14:49, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

And Frank, you're telling me that you never realized this was a violation of WP:DATED, which was obvious to me as soon as I saw the article over 18 months ago? I also realized later it fails V because of the higher risk of death at this age and cases going into indefinite limbo for decades, and realized the sorting by "age-if-living" was total OR. I don't mind your saying this, but it sure is a lot of busywork on a lot of articles! The paradigm should shift from "assumed living indefinitely (or for an arbitrary 2 years)" to "verified as of update date (with nothing said about afterward)". Let the old people issue press releases if they want it known they just moved from 73th to 72nd. JJB 15:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I never read WP:DATED until clicking your link above, and I don't agree that this page is a violation. When one of the living members dies, this page is updated as quickly thereafter as any famous person's page on Wikipedia. However macabre some of us may think that is, that is nevertheless how it goes, and the more users we get, the more quickly updates will happen. As for busywork, this is a volunteer project; if folks don't want to update it, that's fine. There is no WP:DEADLINE. As to the exact nature of the edits here, I agree there is a bit of an WP:OR nature to it, but press releases wouldn't solve the problem, and these supercentenarians seem wholly uninterested in such things anyway. We seem to have agreed as a community that GRG is generally sufficient; I've kind of thought there is a bit of a COI but we accept our user as the expert and allow a "guiding hand" to the right sources (at least, that's how I look at it). But yes, there's some amount of OR. The List of United States Supreme Court Justices by time in office is similar but completely manageable, as I think this page is. It's a judgment call.  Frank  |  talk  16:01, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Let's take that argument further, JJB. Why not go to ANY article on a living person, say Mick Jagger for example. Therein it states that he was born in 1943 and is now 67. But I've not heard him saying something in the press for a few weeks - how can we know he is still in fact living? I say it's time to apply your logic, viz: The paradigm should shift from "assumed living indefinitely (or for an arbitrary 2 years)" to "verified as of update date (with nothing said about afterward)" and forthwith indicate the last time a "living" person - ANY person - was reported to be alive. In the cases of very public people like the president of the United States, we can add nearly daily updates as he is constantly in the news. So "alive as of today/yesterday." But we can't be so confident with others. So Mick Jagger might be "reported alive as of September xx." Canada Jack (talk) 16:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I grant it's a new argument, and it's a general exception to WP:BLP, but it is a minor well-defined exception that does not relate to most articles, and it neatly solves both the datedness problem and simultaneously a standing problem that BLP has never solved. Ordinarily it is appropriate to assume that a person reported as living is still alive, because notable people's deaths are reported promptly, and we do it out of good faith to living people. But when death has not been reported for persons born 110 or more years ago, either because of disappearance or because of obscure longevity, we should not assume that the person is either living today or dead today, due to V and NOR. I have decided to post a first draft of a policy change in userspace to ensure it has some consensus prior to proposing it at BLP talk. Generally, the Jagger articles don't actually assume the subject is alive today (other than having a blank deathdate and being written in present tense), it's only this longevity set where it's important. Please comment at the talk page of my proposal if interested. JJB 20:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Then you agree it is compliant to assume notable people on wikipedia are living unless their death has been reported. In the case of Super-C's we have a slightly different situation. For one, our sources are frequently updated and THEY list people as "living" even if they may not have had an update. So while you may have a somewhat strained argument in saying that it is "OR" or what have you to suggest that, day-to-day, we can't be sure that person "x" is indeed alive, sources like GRG update their list about five times a month. But, in a practical sense, THEY can't be sure if any of the people have not died, unreported, in the past few days, indeed since their last reported time, within the year, of being alive.

Which brings up another point. People are taken off the GRG list if there is no confirmation a year after the last confirmation that they are indeed still living. So, not sure where this "two year" business comes from which you mentioned.

Further, the Wikipedia list is frequently more up-to-date than the GRG list. Almost invariably, when someone dies, they are removed from the WP list before GRG or Epstein.

So, while we can never be certain day-to-day whether a particular individual has died: a) this is of no particular concern on pages of notable living persons, otherwise we'd say "alive as of September 30th" or what have you, if that was the last "confirmed" report that, say, Mick Jagger was alive; b) if this is of no particular concern there, it should be of no particular concern here; c) our sources, like GRG, list people as being "alive" even though, day-to-day, they can't know that unless on that particular day (updates are issued for a particular day) a report has been received that some or all those people are in fact living; d) it is stretch to presume that it is OR or what have you to continue the assumption from GRG etc that the next day those people are alive, especially given that GRG frequently updates their lists (most recently six days ago); e) since we are concerned chiefly on whether people are listed as living when in fact dead, it must be pointed out that almost invariably people who die are taken off the "living" list BEFORE GRG etc updates THEIR lists, so it is ludicrous to insist in sticking to the last update from a source like GRG when here at wikipedia we are in fact ahead of GRG most of the time in removing those people who have been reported to have died. Canada Jack (talk) 21:31, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Basically, no harm is done by assuming the default position that folks on the list who were alive yesterday remain alive today.  Frank  |  talk  21:35, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

The list is updated assuming that every single one of the supercentenarians is still alive, UNLESS other reports suggest otherwise. Then that is changed.

And the list is getting stale again. Brendan (^TalK|_ContriB) 00:53, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Brendan, the frequent datedness is contrary to policy and is the first and most glaring problem. Frank, there is harm done, in that making the same assumption for thousands of days in a row tends to unweightedness, as the "limbo" Band-Aid structure already admits; so the fact that the value of "alive reports" for supercentenarians has a tiny daily depreciation value is a second accumulative problem. Jack, I appreciate your thoughts as well, and I think we can solve these problems.

I still don't see the harm. There is no credible claim that Wikipedia is a valid source by itself or that it claims it will always be up-to-date. If it takes a day, a week, a month to update a person's status on this list, then where is the harm?  Frank  |  talk  19:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

a) We don't actually assume notable people are still living either, for the most part. All we do is continue using present-tense and the form "(1900– )" for their lives; and if those two style methods be regarded as neutral toward statements about presently living/dead, then we don't make the assumption at all. It is only for old people (and some other record-holders, like The Mousetrap) that datedness applies because the status and assumptions as of today are significant. Look, when Reagan's rumored death made the rounds prematurely, he was in the same boat: no news source could speak authoritatively of his being alive or dead until it verified the rumor was false. So I don't think we actually do assume that: I think what we do is assume they have "BLP" status for legal reasons, i.e., we make the reasonable assumption that they are still candidates for initiating litigation, and we continue that assumption even a short time after death is confirmed.

b) As to the differences with supercentenarians, the idea that it's no more of a concern for them fails on two points, first, that it is technically a minor concern even for other living persons as above; second, that the true concern is limbo status, which is a problem whether the person is 110 or not. Amelia Earhart and Ambrose Bierce are famous people with limbo status, it's only a more aggravated and recurring problem when we talk about supercentenarians. My proposal for dealing with limbo status is that whenever a person is born 110 or more years ago (whatever their notability), we make it official and formal that we make no statement, living or dead, about them.

c-d) The fact that we have sources that work very presumptuously is an important point, and the fact that they update roughly weekly (GRG) or monthly (Epstein) as well, but they might be answered either by following the sources, or by dismissing the sources as unreliable (and, frankly, nobody has ever inserted into WP a thorough description of GRG methodology: it appears to me no more notable nor reliable an e-group than any large subset of Wikipedians on a given day, but that's incidental). If it's obvious that GRG is performing what at WP would be OR, I think WP has the option of rejecting their methodology on certain points and going with (ahem) GWR methodology instead, which only credits people as being alive for sorting purposes as of last update.

e) The fact that WP deaths update faster is not relevant, except as an argument that "we don't need to stop assuming 'living' status, because death reports propagate so quickly". The problem is not those cases where death reports propagate, but those where they don't, so this is off point. You speak of "people who die" when you mean "people who die and are quickly reported". When a supercentenarian dies and it is not news-reported, especially in countries without sufficient public records, it doesn't matter that WP would otherwise update faster, because our current solution, a "limbo" cutoff, takes over with all its assumptiveness and subjectiveness.

f) The 2-year limbo status appears as a WP practice at longevity claims and is just as arbitrary as the 1-year limbo status. Again I would argue that it's more accurate to treat a claim as depreciating in value daily and increasing in value only with new reports; but GRG and the claims article treat a claim as suddenly decreasing in value at arbitrary cutoff points, and not increasing in value with new timely reports.

In short, it is possible an alternative path to compliance would be to adopt the source-based rule "GRG assumes living therefore we should". I am, however, questioning this rule due to inherent unreliability of GRG as an expert source for making such an assumption, and because GWR is a more reliable print source that does not make such an assumption. This might be a question for WP:RSN, but I think finding a consensus among ourselves between my WP-policy-based views and WOP's GRG-practice-based views should be done first. JJB 03:48, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

JJBulten, to make it clear, is trying yet another unfounded divide-and-conquer attack. Let's look at the FACTS. Open your Guinness World Records 2011 book, page 82, and it lists the GRG as the source of the top-ten oldest-living person list. Not only that, but the list was updated "as of May 11, 2010." So the claim that the GRG list is less reliable than Guinness is unfounded. Since books go to print, they cannot be as up-to-date as websites or Wikipedia. Thus, you can use the GRG list as a more-recent update than May 11, 2010.

As to "alive as of" updates, as Canada Jack has pointed out, there is often an assumption of famous persons being alive, whether they are or not. Usually this "alive" assumption runs out if someone is missing or hasn't been heard from for a long time...for example, the inventor of the 4-way traffic signal was last confirmed alive in 1947, so we don't assume he is still living.

The question, then, is WHEN do we administratively apply updates? You are correct in that there is a sliding-scale depreciation the longer it's been since an update, but you misunderstand cutoffs. Suppose someone hits a fly ball in a baseball game. If it goes 390 feet and the wall is 400 feet, it's an out. If it goes 396 feet, it's closer to making it, but it's still an out. If it goes 402 feet, it's a home run.

Likewise, there may be a sliding scale of value, but death or the assumption of death is an either/or binary. For supercentenarians on the GRG list, the general cutoff point is one year without an update. With a mortality rate of close to 50% at age 110, the chance of an unupdated 110-year-old being alive after one year is 50%. After that, the chance is less than 50%. Since the GRG list is basically an "endorsement"-type list, the burden of proof is upon the claimant; thus, the case may be booted from the 'club' if it gets stale. But for the unvalidated list, the point of the list is to serve as a "what if" addenda of cases that might be validatable, that might be still living, even if the burden of proof is less. How long does one wait on these cases? Generally, we have a 3-year system where if the claim reaches age 113, it goes to longevity claims, so that's not relevant. When you consider that more than 95% of claims that are validated are done so within 3 years of turning 110, it makes sense to make the switch at this point.

The greater issue is WHY you continue to cause trouble on issues that others already ironed out. I'll leave that for others to discuss.Ryoung122 04:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

John Bulten, If you knew a little more about the workings of supercentenarian age updates, you wouldn't be commenting the way you did. In case you haven't noticed yet, this has been discussed before. Living supercentenarians are updated and move accordingly up the list on an "if-still-alive" basis. This is continually done UNLESS there is OTHER EVIDENCE that the supercentenarian in question is NOT ALIVE. This is a rather unavoidable scenario; it even happens with the GRG. Stanley Lucas was listed on Table E at 110 years 159 days old on 23 June 2010 even though he had died two days earlier. If you really think the updating of supercentenarian ages is OR, that effectively means that the order and presence of supercentenarians on the list is also OR. Is it? Have a think. Stop barking at people like this. Quit talking and begin on the doing. Brendan (TalK|ContriB) 14:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the order is OR. Ryoung122, please source your statement that the general cutoff point is one year without an update. JJB 23:34, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It's taken from the GRG, but I'll let Ryoung122 answer that question properly. Brendan (TalK|ContriB) 01:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

JJ, if you bothered to check the source, you would see this on Table E:

Limbo (No confirmation alive for more than one year; may actually be dead)

Ryoung122 02:30, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

JJB, please stop finding faults with the longevity pages before you have the full picture. We are so tired of constantly explaining to you what you refuse to check by yourself. Brendan (TalK|ContriB) 02:53, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

JJB, check out this source before you start nitpicking: [2] It's where the bulk of deceased supercentenarian cases come from, with the differences having been updated manually since the last update of that table (17 February 2007). Brendan (talk, contribs) 03:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Fannie Thomas

No need to color in the Fannie Thomas case...there's no doubt she was in the top 100, regardless of the ten-day difference.131.96.91.18 (talk) 22:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Disputed is disputed, and at number 98, the 10 days would make a difference. Soon enough she'll be off the top 100 even assuming the current claim is correct, which will bring up an interesting dilemma; if a case is disputed, does it get to be listed in the addendum as a replacement case for other disputed ones?  Frank  |  talk  00:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I would think that when she moves out of the top 100 her lower age would be used in the addendum, if that still qualifies her to be included (remembering that the addendum gets reduced by one anyway when Fujisawa drops out of the top 100). That's still nearly 3 months away at the earliest. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 00:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Think of it this way: Once two people pass over Fujisawa and Thomas, they'll both hang from the bottom of the list at 100th place, with 6 in the addendum. Once another person overtakes them and enters the list, both cases, owing to their dispute, will disappear completely from the list without entering the addendum. Then there will be an even 100 in the main list and six in the addendum. With Fujisawa and Thomas at 100th place, we'll have Tsuneyo Toyonaga at 102nd place at the top of the addendum and Mary Parr at 107th place at the bottom of the addendum. Another person passes over Parr and she drops out of the list... The person moves up to the top of the addendum, leaving Toyonaga at 103rd place... The person finally passes over the two disputed cases, and sticks at 100th. Tsuneyo Toyonaga gets upped to 101st place (yes, hard to believe, but I worked it out). Everyone else moves back up two places and Mary Parr reenters the six-strong addendum at 106th place. Confused? Think about it very slowly and carefully. It works, at least if you're not planning to put in Fannie Thomas. Brendan (talk, contribs) 03:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

This occurred to me as well. But the solution I think is simple - rephrase the text so that the addendum reflects additional cases which would include a total of 100 cases with no disputes. So, the disputed cases would still appear - they could be valid claims after all - and the list would be 107 deep - until such time as the first disputed cases go to #107, at which time the list shortens to 106 and 107 is now omitted. Canada Jack (talk) 17:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal

From Wikipedia talk:WikiProject World's Oldest People#Merge of Oldest people and List of oldest people:

Proposing merge of these two - an urgent task I think if readers aren't going to be utterly confused. Oldest people begins by saying "this is a list". Itsmejudith (talk) 09:05, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

It depends on what the meaning of "is" is. :) David in DC (talk) 11:26, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, couldn't resist. In case anyone does't like jokes here, I agree with IMJ. David in DC (talk) 11:26, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

To me this is a delete rather than a merge. But (IMJ please see Help:Merging) please continue discussion at Talk:List of the verified oldest people#Merge proposal, to which this is copied, and where my reasons appear. JJB 17:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Technically it's a redirect rather than a delete (those two are easy to confuse), but my meaning is that the oldest people article is so redundant already as to not need anything really merged. Section by section, it is almost wholly redundant with the following articles:

• List of the verified oldest people
• List of living supercentenarians
• List of the verified oldest men
• List of living supercentenarians (again)
• Template:Oldest people
• none, see below (successive oldest living man)
• List of verified supercentenarians who died before 1980
• National longevity recordholders
• two sections I deleted as unreferenced for two years, agreed by User:Matchups

The list of successive oldest living man since 1961 (it should begin with Brett as the other list begins with Baker) could be made into a template "Oldest men", or could be a second table within "list of the verified oldest men", or could be deleted outright. That's really the only serious question prior to creating the redirect. JJB 17:19, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

There is no point to merging this article with any other. It's purpose is clearly defined. The problem is solely with the Oldest people article which does not have a clear purpose, is internally inconistent and contains too much irrelevant/unnecessary information for what is essentially a summary article. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 18:02, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

That's what I'm saying. Merge Oldest people to here, i.e. bring in here any content from that article that isn't already in here. If all the content there is already here, then a simple redirect is called for, a merge in a technical sense only. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:05, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

That contradicts what I just wrote! This article does not need any additional material. Oldest people needs to be cleared up/redefined/retitled. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 18:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

What would it cover then? It couldn't be a list. What would it have that isn't in Longevity, for example? Itsmejudith (talk) 18:16, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

It's also ridiculous to have a whole article whose reason for existence is "top-ten subsets, with addenda for disputed cases, taken from various other lists on WP, with a list of successively oldest living men thrown in for affirmative action". Top-ten lists of other lists are redudnant, like this sentence. JJB 18:53, 9 November 2010 (UTC) (Oh, BTW, another ridiculous idea is that idea perpetuated in this article and in Derby's subtext, namely, that a top-100 subset of all verifieds, plus addendum, should remain as is and should not be added to, not even by telling people where to find names that didn't make the arbitrary subset cutoff as I attempted earlier and was repeatedly slapped down about.) This article can use other sections, otherwise it too becomes redundant with GRG's lists. JJB 18:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Why are Top Ten lists redundant? An article consisting largely of lists may become too large to include complete lists. In this case Top Ten lists convey the most important information and links to the full/longer lists in their own article are available for users who wish to read further. It's a trade-off between completeness and usefulness...unless you're time-wastingly pedantic. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 00:42, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I suggest the articles stay. Oldest people is like a general overview of lists related to supercentenarians and other stuff, with most of the lists being cut to the top ten only In other words, it's condensed. Pages like these are more extensive and are an option for those who want to read further. Think before you type. Brendan (talk, contribs) 02:41, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Another BAD idea from the Itsmejudith/JJBulten cabal. Where's Grismaldo?

Do you people NOT KNOW the difference between "top ten" and "top 100"? The article "list of the verified oldest people" is an extension of this page, not the other way around.

Consider, for example, this article lists the World's Oldest Person (regardless of all-time rank) but the "list of the verified oldest people" does NOT.

Also, Itsmejudith begins by attacking a straw-man position. This article did NOT begin as a list, and just because someone said "it's a list" doesn't mean it is.

76.17.118.157 (talk) 20:41, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The anonymous Spaniards again

MACC and MCLL aren't on the GRG list or the Louis Epstein list. jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 00:11, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

But they are on the IDL database. Any problem? Brendan (talk, contribs) 15:24, 10 November 2010 (UTC)