Wikipedia talk:WikiProject World's Oldest People

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Portal and question

Hi,

I have a request and a question :

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

Cdlt, VIGNERON * ^discut.

Shivakumara Swamiji

Hi,

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

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

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So how do we proceed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where do we go from here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great, we should just strip out everything not verified. If someone brings up a reliable source for it, then we can discuss it. And we include it if/when the GRG has verified it. There is no deadline here. We aren't saying that information is the same as the stuff they have verified and I don't know of a single other source where we play this game of "they aren't confident in stating this but we're going to list that they don't have confidence in this for whatever reason." We don't quote unverified scientific data from NASA or unverified unpublished journal articles or anything like that so why this insistence here? It's either the GRG is a serious source and we take what they verified seriously or we treat them like some of the nonsense where we don't really care whether or not they have verified something. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:50, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Members of this project also need to recognize that this is not the GRG; it's Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia community has determined that Table EE is not reliable. We now have two options with respect to entries supported by Table EE: remove them entirely or reference them to news articles. If referencing them to news articles is not an acceptable solution, then the entries must be removed. I'm totally fine with that. Ca2james (talk) 00:58, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

• Suggest we start with List of oldest living people. I've already attempted to remove the GRG verification from the headers, and remove the pending listings with the expect reverts without discussion. We then need to merge the non-verified GRG listing with other reliable sources into the main table so that it's properly a table with either a GRG verification or other reliable sources. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:38, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Sadly, it appears that this change is not going to be made without a fight. It's been reverted by TFBCT1 and Special:Contributions/45.73.24.113 and I've re-instated the change. Like it or not, these pages are currently being used by the GRG as a WP:WEBHOST and that is not allowed. I appreciate that the GRG does a lot of research but Wikipedia pages are not just an extension of the GRG and they must conform to Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Ca2james (talk) 00:58, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Not just those pages. Some editors here I believe are part of the project itself. The entire WikiProject subpages are just a way for the GRG to use Wikipedia's resources to host their notes. At least the personal userpages tables have been deleted from what I can tell. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh yes, I think several of this project's members are members of the GRG or do research for them. Many of the pages associated with this project appear to be just regurgitations of the GRG tables, which isn't the way Wikipedia is supposed to be used. The GRG would be better off setting up their own wiki (I think two have actually been started) where they could make articles and tables and use colour as much as they want. Ca2james (talk) 02:01, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Can someone PLEASE explain how the GRG are using Wikipedia as a web host? Just sourcing all longevity-related list articles to the GRG doesn't mean it's being used as a we host, it means that it's the biggest and only major organisation that verifies longevity claimants and members of the WOP project want to ensure that information in these articles is reliable. The reason I spend my time frustratedly editing these articles is because I want to help to educate the wider public on this subject. Remember, many people (unfortunately) will turn to Wikipedia to find out about longevity, not a specialised scientific source. I don't work for the GRG, and even if I did, it's a nonprofit organisation. So, in short, I want to make sure that these articles are as accurate and educational as possible. Ollie231213 (talk) 14:56, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Including verified and pending designations, which are internal to the GRG and are useful only for them, is using Wikipedia as a web host. Applying colours to tables against MOS:COLOUR is using Wikipedia as a web host. Writing the articles to refer only to the GRG and its processes in the List of articles (like List of the verified oldest men and List of the verified oldest women is using Wikipedia as a web host. Writing several articles to display GRG table data in different ways is using Wikipedia as a web host. Ca2james (talk) 15:18, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

No, they are NOT internal!! How on Earth did you come to that conclusion? If they were internal, they would not be available publicly. The GRG is a nonprofit, scientific organisation, which has a database of the oldest living people in the world and the oldest people ever. The media regularly refers to the GRG as an authority. Guinness World Records uses the GRG as authority. This is how science works, James: it's about determining what is fact and what is fiction. There is a reason for insisting on only including verified entries when compiling a list of the oldest people because THEIR AGES ARE KNOWN TO BE TRUE. If a load of claims with no evidence to support them are thrown in it makes the list pointless, because you have no idea what is true and what is not.

Now, Wikipedia may not be the GRG but answer me this: why should Wikipedia be different? Why should Wikipedia's list of oldest people contain some cases which "might or might not" be true? What's the point? Yes, Wikipedia is not a scientific organisation but it's an encyclopedia, and it should have a certain standards when it comes to the accuracy of the information it contains. That is why the GRG has, for so long, been cited as a reliable source in these articles. And as no other major body like it exists, Wikipedia articles have been reliant on it. But so what? Isn't that better than a mish-mash of good information and rubbish? Let me point you to the article List of earthquakes in 2015. Earthquakes this year have been listed chronologically and the ONLY source used in this article is the United States Geological Survey. Does that mean that the USGS are using Wikipedia as a web host? No it doesn't, it means that it's the most reliable source and it allows for an informative article that is factually accurate. But tell me: if some dodgy newspaper in Tibet claims there was an earthquake caused by the mountain gods, but the USGS detected nothing, should that be added in to the article too? Ollie231213 (talk) 23:33, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

"Verified", "pending" and "unverified" aren't scientific terms. Those a GRG designations. They aren't providing a confidence level and standard of error. They could call it "Larry, Moe and Curly" for all it matters. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:02, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

It's about time. The reason not to refer to the website as a reliable source is the same reason we don't refer to the Internet Movie Database as a source. Crowd-sourced websites without editorial oversight are not reliable sources for Wikipedia, period. The external website could reorganize in a way that makes it comparable to a peer-reviewed journal, if it became clear who the editors are and where the buck stops in deciding what is posted there and what is not. (Some scientific journal publish only online, after all.) But I've been to the website to look for the indicia of actual editorial oversight of the website, and I have to agree with the decision that the website (currently) doesn't meet the criteria for Wikipedia reliable sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 23:49, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

• I reverted the attempts by User:Waenceslaus to ignore the RSN discussion. I'd suggest those who support more usage of the GRG to work more collaboratively and not to simply ignore all discussions in favor of their personal views. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:03, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

• And already we are seeing issues caused by the exact thing I descibed above. See List of oldest living people. Verified and unverified cases are being merged in to one list, with absolutely no acknowledgement that not all cases are verified. This need to be changed right now. Mixing true and potentially false information is unscientific, unencyclopedic, and misleading to the general public. Ollie231213 (talk) 14:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

"Verified" is a GRG designation and has nothing to do with Wikipedia. The general public doesn't care whether the GRG has verified someone's age or not; this is something that is useful only for the GRG. Ca2james (talk) 15:18, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Ca2james: Stop. Right. There. That's an unbelievably ignorant thing to say. You think the public shouldn't care about WP:Verifiability? People might want to know who the oldest people in the world are. If so, they might turn to Wikipedia. And if so, they should be able to see a list of the oldest people in the world whose ages are proven to be true. What the hell is the point in creating a list of the oldest people if some people included might be younger than claimed?

Ok, so the GRG's Table EE is not considered a reliable source by Wikipedia. Fine. But if that's the case, then neither are any news reports, because there is at least some documentation supporting pending cases. But some cases reported on by newspapers may have absolutely no evidence supporting their claim. Why are you concerned about the level of "fact-checking" of Table EE but not news reports? If you want to include unverified cases, you had better take every single source to RSN. And please read my post here. Ollie231213 (talk) 23:18, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Funny. These same newspapers will conveniently be reliable sources when someone wants to create an article about said supercentarian but heaven forbid we trust the paper for their birth and death date. I don't know why this seems like a foreign concept to you but the GRG isn't the be-all-end-all of birth and death dates for old people. Anonymous claims from editors here about the work the GRG does in the shadows does not help its cause. Someone could create a single page at the GRG that provides detail about their methods but since no one has, people aren't going to trust anonymous users who yell and scream about what the GRG is doing behind the scenes. It has a website, it can just post something if it wanted to. As people have noted, it's very unusual behavior for scientific organizations to not post something specific about how they made their determinations but that's the GRG's issue, not ours. I wouldn't trust the results from a medical organization that refused to provide specifics on how it conducted its tests but it's not like the GRG couldn't post something vague and benign ("this listing is based on a review of X") if it was actually serious here. If you want to argue about a particular news report as a reliable source, we can do that. If you want to argue that all newspapers should be ignored (and only for birth and death dates), there's currently an RSN discussion about that but people will ignore you there as it's quite disruptive and counter to the real goal here which is an encyclopedia with a breadth of a knowledge not just tables of who the oldest people in the world are. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:41, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

You still don't get it, do you? I'm saying that newspapers generally do NOT attempt to verify the age of the person they are reporting on. I've literally just demonstrated that. But if we're talking about biographical details - such as who the person married, for example - we should be able to trust that information because there's no reason to believe it might be dubious. Now tell me, why is the idea of distinguishing between verifiable and unverifiable information a foreign concept TO YOU? Ollie231213 (talk) 00:27, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Are you seriously on this still? What is your point here? Do you really want to argue that all newspapers do not verify ages and therefore no newspaper is a reliable source for ages? Fine, go ahead and argue that, no one will take you seriously. I doubt you even seriously believe that. I suspect you'll have no issues with the newspaper when they agree with the GRG verification or when a million other times but knock it off with the same tired argument we have had for close to a decade here. If you want to discuss a particular newspaper for a particular citation to a particular person, fine, we'll discuss that but otherwise your WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT routine is getting old. So the issue is, going forward, what do you plan on doing? Are you going to edit war whenever someone suggests a name that's based on newspaper but the GRG hasn't verified? Fine, we'll deal with it as is but if you haven't been able to tell, there are very, very little sympathy for that viewpoint and the more you continue this bizarre stance, the more absurd you look and the more likely you're find yourself topic banned from the whole thing. Else, what is the point of your argument here? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:31, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• Are you in agreement with me? No. So of course I'm still on this, because I see this as a very important issue.
• "Do you really want to argue that all newspapers do not verify ages and therefore no newspaper is a reliable source for ages? Fine, go ahead and argue that, no one will take you seriously." ---> I beg to differ. I think we need to do an RFC on this or something like that.
• What am I going to do? Take this issue to RFC. I don't think there will be "very, very little sympathy" for my viewpoint that entries in this table should be verified. Ollie231213 (talk) 09:43, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• Good for you. I suspect it will backfire but that's just me. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:02, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I have remained respectful in my interactions with you and everyone else associated with this project and I ask that you behave the same way with me. Telling me I've said something ignorant is disrespectful and inappropriate. Of course I care about verifiability and reliable sourcing. I did read your post saying that everything the GRG does is reliable and newspaper articles on supercentenarians aren't. It also sounds like you're threatening to engage on WP:POINTy behaviour if you don't get your way.

I realize that the GRG doesn't want to use any source other than their own tables but that's not how things work here. Without fact-checking, Table EE is just a bunch of names on a website. I know the GRG sees that table as more than that, but from a reliable source perspective, that's what it is. Generally, there's a presumption that fact-checking happens in newspapers whereas with the Table EE we know that fact-checking has not occurred. Some of the entries in the deaths in 2015 article were also cited to obituaries. I'm not sure whether or not those are reliable and that's something that should be brought up at RSN. Ca2james (talk) 00:01, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• ignorant (adjective): lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated. ---> Your comment that "The general public doesn't care whether the GRG has verified someone's age or not" was just that. How do you know what the general cares about? I would like to think that people care about the accuracy of the Wikipedia articles that they are reading.
• How am I threatening to "engage on WP:POINTy behaviour"?
• Well DON'T presume anything! Firstly, I just demonstrated that newspapers often don't fact-check. Secondly, Table EE isn't just a few random names on a list - it's a list of cases for which there is at least some evidence to support their claim. Many do have enough documentation to be verified but need to be looked over. Even if "fact checking is not complete" it's far closer to complete than with many newspapers. Ollie231213 (talk) 00:36, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Ollie231213, I understand that you're frustrated. From your perspective, it must seem that we're not getting what you see as obvious and that it seems like your project is being taken over by outsiders. I know it's hard to have people come in and tell you what you can and can't do. Even so, there's no call for rudeness or condescension. The thing is, this project has been working on its own for ages, and it was quite insular from the start and set up its own rules that didn't conform to Wikipedia policies and guidelines - operating in the darkness, as it were - and it's time to shine the Wikipedia light on this project. The light is harsh, I know. I'm doing what I can to see your point of view and to work with you.

When I said that it seemed that you were threatening to engage in WP:POINTy behaviour, I was referring to your statement about taking every single newspaper reference for supercentenarian birth/death dates to RSN. I think the status of newspaper-written obituaries and articles for supercentenarian birth/death dates can be covered in one RSN post and family-written obituaries for them in another. Ca2james (talk) 02:09, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• I'm sorry if you felt I was being rude. But I was not making a personal attack.
• What I'm frustrated by is that you can't seem to understand my point of view. Ok, your point of view is this: newspapers are considered a reliable source in general, so why shouldn't they be reliable in this instance? And why should the GRG have to verify every entry, when this is Wikipedia, not the GRG? But my point is this: journalists writing news reports often don't ask questions. A lot of longevity claims turn out to be false, as I've demonstrated. There's really no way of telling whether or not a claim is genuine just from reading a news report. So, what's the value of a list full of some people whose ages are true and some whose ages might be true. This is a simple WP:Verifiability issue: readers should be able to know whether or not the age of any given entry is known to be true or if there is some doubt. Do you agree or not?
• "I think the status of newspaper-written obituaries and articles for supercentenarian birth/death dates can be covered in one RSN post and family-written obituaries for them in another." ---> My point here was that if Table EE is unreliable, then there's no way that newspaper reports are. This is what you and Ricky don't seem to be getting. Ollie231213 (talk) 10:07, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• File the RFC if you want (sounds more like a discussion for WP:RSN). If not, drop the issue as it's only been argued for probably close to a decade here. To me, you're being intentionally disruptive to make some point here but that's my take. I don't think you're being rude. I think the WOP crowd has gotten so used to just speaking to themselves that Waenceslaus has this version of events that completely run counter to what everyone else sees. User:Waenceslaus is already threatening to take his views to ARBCOM and I suspect ARBCOM may just ban him as a result but there's no one to blame but Waenceslaus then. The truth is, 99.999% of the editors here don't care to waste time in any argument about whether we should dismiss newspaper articles as a source because people aren't going to let some Excel spreadsheet from some webpage of some organization be treated as gospel (especially when it's an argument about some subpart of the the GRG's results anyways) and to them, this line of thinking is purely disruptive to the vast, vast majority of what's done here. In the course of this entire time wastage, has anything you've argued for greatly affected a single article in the millions that are here? I see that you ignored the colors discussion once I asked you for an actual solution that solves the MOS problem. A real resolution would be helpful there but the crowd here doesn't care about listening to anyone else, they just want their colorized tables all to themselves. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:23, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• Please tell me exactly 1. What I am doing that is disruptive 2. What basis you have for thinking that I'm not acting in WP:GOODFAITH. I've explained my reasoning for continuing this discussion. Just because I'm not agreeing with you and doing what you say doesn't mean I'm being disruptive.
• The GRG is NOT just a "Excel spreadsheet from some webpage". It's a scientific organisation and it's quite clear to see from looking at media reports on (verified) supercentenarians that they are considered an authority on the subject of age verification. See This, this, and this for just a few examples.
• Your total lack of consideration for age verification is what is disruptive. It is not beneficial to the encyclopedia to have a mish-mash of cases thrown in to one list with no mention of whether or not their age has been proven to be true.
• I can't speak for the "crowd" and I apologise on their behalf for any disruptive edit-warring. Ollie231213 (talk) 10:45, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Break

Apologies for the long post. I'm trying to address the points that have been brought up above.

First: newspapers and obituaries. Let's set aside family-written obituaries (the kind that appear on funeral home websites) and look at newspaper-written obituaries and articles on supercentenarians. You're saying that the reason that table EE is not a reliable source is because it is not fact-checked, and since newspaper articles may not be fact-checked, either both are reliable sources or neither are. However, this logic is flawed because the other reason that Table EE is not a reliable source is that it starts off as an anonymous, crowd-sourced table. In contrast, a newspaper article is not anonymous and it may (or may not) be fact-checked. Because Table EE and these newspaper articles are constructed differently, they are not equivalent.

That said, it may very well be that newspaper-written obituaries and articles about supercentenarians are not considered reliable sources; that's for the community to decide. Instead of an RfC, I suggest bringing this up at WP:RSN because that's the function of that noticeboard. Family-written obituaries should also be brought up at RSN, along with Oldest in Britain.

Next: verifiability. When you say So, what's the value of a list full of some people whose ages are true and some whose ages might be true. This is a simple WP:Verifiability issue: readers should be able to know whether or not the age of any given entry is known to be true or if there is some doubt, you are using two definitions of Verifiability: the GRG's and Wikipedia's. On Wikipedia, verifiability means that anyone using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. It specifically doesn't mean that the information is correct or true (or that the GRG has checked documents); it only means that the information exists, appears in a reliable source, and readers can go to that source and see that the information is there.

Finally, when I said that verified/validated and pending designations were internal GRG designations, I misspoke because, as you point out, they're used elsewhere. What I meant to say that these designations have been assigned this specific meaning and criteria by the GRG and that these terms are not used in the same way elsewhere. Using these designations in Wikipedia articles is using the articles as a webhost for the GRG. Is that clearer? Ca2james (talk) 16:55, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• What do you mean Table EE is "an anonymous, crowd-sourced table"? Why is it any different to Table E in that regard?
• I've already started a discussion at RSN on this issue.
• "On Wikipedia, verifiability means that anyone using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." ---> The whole point of this is so that readers can check if the information they are reading is true. This is why I've brought the issue up at RSN.
• Any definition of "verified" is ultimately arbitrary and dependent upon context, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. If the GRG lists a person as "verified", then why on earth can't Wikipedia say as much (i.e. these cases are considered verified by an international body such as the GRG). Just citing information to a source doesn't mean the source is using it as a web host. If NASA discover an exoplanet, and have verified that it exists, do we not mentioned that it is verified to exist on Wikipedia (as opposed to "unconfirmed")? Ollie231213 (talk) 18:56, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Table E is also an anonymous, crowd-sourced table - and that could have been a reason for the community to find that it's not a reliable source. However, since the entries on that table have apparently been fact-checked by the GRG, the community decided that this fact-checking makes the table a reliable source.

For clarification, the RSN discussion you started is here. Thank you for starting that discussion.

You're still trying to say that verifiability on Wikipedia is the same thing as GRG's "verified" and they are not. Verifiability here means that the information is not original research, not that information is true.

I don't know if you noticed the changes I made to List of supercentenarians who died in 2015, but I did in fact note which entries had been verified by the GRG via a note. Referencing them to Table E would serve just as well for that purpose. As I've said elsewhere, I do see why verified entries should be noted, but the use of colour (which is against MOS:COLOUR and a table column seems UNDUE and WEBHOST to me... especially when members of this project won't include entries not from the GRG tables, and also want to include notations about which claims are pending. These articles are not just for the GRG to use to display only their data in their way; if the GRG wants to do that, they'd be better off doing that on a private wiki. Ca2james (talk) 19:27, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Adding: what you wrote at RSN didn't ask the question about whether these news articles were reliable sources for the List of articles but instead attempts to answer that question. I've added a tl;dr comment asking the question we need answered and giving the necessary background because many editors will not read such long posts. It is to everyone's benefit for as many uninvolved editors to weigh in on this issue as possible. Ca2james (talk) 19:44, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

break

Admins have protected the oldest people from you people. You people are in the wrong, Wikipedia is going to include all the pending cases regardless of the nonsense you people want. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.171.120.167 (talk) 18:19, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

User:Ca2james, I am very sorry, however, before you edit any of the WOP group guidelines, you have to be accepted as member of the World's Oldest People group of Wikipedia. Before that happens, I can't acknowledge any of the edits done by you. Please, apply for the membership in the first place. Kind regards, Waenceslaus (talk) 07:49, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

No you don't. That kind of nonsense was what got WOP taken to ARBCOM in the first place. This project is a part of Wikipedia not the other way around. It's an accurate reflection of what the RSN discussion concluded. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:05, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Glad to see we're finally getting some long and overdue results in fixing up this mess of a project. That's a very bizarre attitude, Waenceslaus. Did you know that this Wikiproject nearly got shut down on day one because of it? CommanderLinx (talk) 16:13, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

It seems like the best course of action would be to remove this project entirely. It is not helping Wikipedia to have a mouthpiece for an off-Wikipedia organisation. The amount of fanfluff and OR in pages started and edited almost entirely by members of this group is execrable. The attitude of most of its active members is typified by recent postings, they have either no intention or no ability to edit co-operativley and/or abide by many of Wiki's core policies and guidelines. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 23:18, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

We also need to better track these pages. We shouldn't be having GRG correspondents "maintaining" our pages as disclosed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Oldest_people_in_Britain. That kind of COI needs to be dealt with more seriously than ARBCOM did in the past. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:23, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I said nothing about GRG correspondents maintaining pages on Wikipedia, only that particular website. Ollie231213 (talk) 00:29, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Colour in tables

• The use of colour in tables goes against MOS:COLOUR. Currently many of the tables use colour to denote verified/pending/other cases and this must be changed. Since pending will no longer be a designation, colours really aren't necessary. However, I do think it's valuable to note which of the entries in a table have been verified by the GRG; it just can't be done by colour. I can think of two solutions: split up the tables into verified and other cases, or denote verified cases with an asterisk instead of another column. Which do the members of this project prefer? Thanks! Ca2james (talk) 01:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Ollie231213, per [6], I've removed all pending entries from List of supercentenarians who died in 2014 and List of supercentenarians who died in 2015 - even those sourced to newspapers and obituaries.

I don't think removing the entries is the best thing to do but reverting the changes without an edit summary, as TFBCT1 has done, is not acceptable. Personally, I'd rather keep entries sourced to newspapers and obituaries because those are considered reliable sources whereas the GRG pending table is not. Newspapers are generally considered reliable because they usually engage in fact-checking whereas GRG table EE is a user-created list of entries that has not been fact-checked. Also, I think using primarily table E as a source for these articles is too much like the GRG using Wikipedia as a webhost. Therefore, I'm going to rework those pages to remove all entries sourced only to pending tables and the colours. Ca2james (talk) 16:46, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I have reworked List of supercentenarians who died in 2015 to remove colour, to remove anything sourced only to table ee, and to add a note showing which entries have been verified by the GRG. I'm not sure about the note being called GRG but I couldn't think of anything better; if someone wants to change its name or move it to a different place that's fine. However, please don't just revert the changes because you want things to be the way they were. The use of colour in that table and the use of table ee is not supported by the broader wikipedia community. Thanks. Ca2james (talk) 17:18, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

....and it's been reverted without discussion. Honestly, I thought my new version of deaths in 2015 was much better than my first try, where I took out half of the article: only one entry was removed because it had no other source (which, since table ee is not considered a reliable source, that's what has to happen), all the inappropriate colour was removed, and there was still a way to see which entries were verified by the GRG. So 166.171.121.17, why did you revert my changes? What is your objection? Ca2james (talk) 19:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the GRG should have a separate tag but at the very least the tag should link to the reference and include the date of the reference (see here). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:04, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, yes, I see your point. I like the reference to the footnote. An alternative would be to just refer all verified listings to Table E and skip the footnote altogether. However, I do see some value in differentiating verified from non-verified listings - it's just that the extra column and use of colour create an UNDUE weight problem, in my mind. Ca2james (talk) 00:04, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Table E is what they are doing right now. It's a bizarre way to do because they seem to post updated spreadsheets and no archives (rather than say actual like papers or something) but we don't want to ignore it in case they change it and we need to use archive.org for some reason (for example, the GRG in 2007 included Thomas Peters as a verified claim but removed him by the 2014 version). No one has offered any explanation for that. There's no reason to care about non-GRG verified listings. It's not like we're just listing nonsense if the GRG doesn't agree. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:15, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

And where exactly did you guys gain consensus to make all these changes? Ollie231213 (talk) 00:17, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

The fact that the current version violates the MOS doesn't matter? WP:BOLD then to fix these articles to fit in line with policy (actual policy not just what the WOP thinks of as policy). The consensus across all of Wikipedia is that color alone isn't a way to do things and local consensus here ignoring that doesn't change the matter. Are you just being argumentative now? Care to offer an opinion on how it should be done that does solve the MOS issues? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:27, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

No one cares that you think the GRG isn't reliable. The GRG is the world's leading expert in longevity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.171.121.17 (talk) 19:53, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Striking troll. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:04, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

• Please explain how any of these articles violate MOS:COLOUR. Let's actually quote the relevant guideline: "Do not use color alone to mark differences in text: they may be invisible to people with color blindness." It does NOT say that colour can't be used at all. Previously we've had articles like List of supercentenarians who died in 2015 colour-code verified and pending cases, but with a separate column stating whether cases are verified or pending. That doesn't violate MOS:COLOUR. Likewise, at List of the verified oldest people, living cases are colour-coded green, but the word "living" is included, so it's clear to everyone that they are still living. Using colour in these ways makes information more accessible to most users but does not prevent colour-blind users from accessing it.

So let me make it clear: it is a totally false assertion and misrepresentation of MOS:COLOUR to say colour can't be used in the way it currently is. Ollie231213 (talk) 20:15, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

MOS:COLOUR also says: Even for readers with unimpaired color vision, excessive background shading of table entries impedes readability and recognition of Wikilinks. Background color should be used only as a supplementary visual cue, and should be subtle (consider using lighter, less-dominant pastel hues) rather than a glaring spotlight. The use of colour in the tables is not at all subtle and is definitely a glaring spotlight - especially since the colours of the pending/verified/whatever cell are different than the background colour of the row. The fact that the colour didn't display properly when the table was sorted is also a problem. Finally, while I could see why colour might have been used when there were "verified", "pending", "not verified" entries, we will now only have to differentiate between "verified" and "not verified" so colour isn't needed for that.

The article List of the verified oldest people doesn't need colour, either (which again is not subtle, and which again does not display properly when the table is resorted), because the entry already says the person is living. Ca2james (talk) 22:18, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• What you consider "subtle" is a matter of opinion.
• I haven't noticed any issues when sorting tables but if there are I'm sure they can be fixed.
• Colour may not be "needed" (i.e. vital) but I find it helpful when reading the articles to see things colour-coded. Ollie231213 (talk) 22:38, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps. I can think of uglier colour combinations but honestly, the colouring used on the tables is not what most would call subtle. If the articles were for the GRG then I could see why you'd want to keep the colour as the colour makes it easier to see the which entries need action or need to be followed in the article. However, these articles aren't for the GRG, and encyclopaedia readers don't need to take action or keep track of who is living or validated or whatever. Ca2james (talk) 23:09, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

• May I suggest something? How about we italicize the names that are living? We can keep the color if people want but I think that's a better to distinguish the living from the dead names. See these edits. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Italics works for me as long as it's ok from an accessibility standpoint. Ca2james (talk) 16:41, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Note that all of the articles in Category:Lists of supercentenarians by country, Category:Lists of supercentenarians by continent, and lists by historical country and macroregion use colour only to define verified/pending/unverified as well as living/deceased. These articles need a significant amount of work to bring them up to WP standard. Ca2james (talk) 17:22, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The macro and historical ones are probably the worst offenders. Their "introductions" alone all need a massive re-write. CommanderLinx (talk) 17:56, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes there is plenty of work to do. It seems like each article has a bit of edit warring, then possible protection and then some silence. Let's see. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

List of oldest people by nation listed at Requested moves

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List of ... naming

I'm wondering if we should rename all the List of supercentenarians who died before 1980, List of supercentenarians who died in the 1980s, .... List of supercentenarians who died in 2015 to List of the oldest people who died before 1980 (that's problematic I admit), died in the 1980s, ... died in 2015, etc.. I think it's more natural as people aren't really interested in everyone who was over 110 years and died then, they want the oldest people to die then (with 110 as a normal cut-off). I think we could then incorporate notable Centenarians to flesh out the lists and make them more interesting. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:11, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

"I think it's more natural as people aren't really interested in everyone who was over 110 years and died then, they want the oldest people to die then (with 110 as a normal cut-off)." Ollie231213 (talk) 23:59, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Supercentarians gives approximately 90k results while Oldest people gives about 101 million. Can we move on to the actual point? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:06, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

And if I type in "oldest people who died before 1980", the very first search result is the article above. But the number of results you get on Google search shouldn't be a factor in defining the content of Wikipedia articles. Having a mish-mash of verified, unverified, and centenarian cases would be a horrible mess. The topic of these articles are the oldest people in the world, not notable centenarians, for which there are separate articles. What's more, if we do what you propose then why shouldn't we have "oldest people who died in the 1970s", "oldest people who died in the 1920s", "oldest people who died in the 1750s" and so on. Where does it stop? It's better to have the cut off of 110 so that the numbers on these lists converges to zero if you keep doing them by year or by decade. Ollie231213 (talk) 00:15, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't disagree on the cut-off, I'm asking about the title of the articles we currently have. You want to argue about whether we should include a guy who lived to 40 in a hypothetical "List of oldest people in 10000 BC" article, fine but let's start with 2015, I think a more natural title and more natural naming would be "List of the oldest people who died in 2015" than what it is. There's a reason we have "List of the oldest living persons" and not "List of the oldest living supercentarians", the second doesn't achieve anything more for the same point. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:24, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected

Hi all, I have semi-protected the project page and the talk page for a month after the 166.X.X.X IP (previously blocked) started re-editing the main page. Hopefully this will not prevent many useful edits here; it appears that most of the regular users are autoconfirmed. Thanks. Black Kite (talk) 22:54, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Bulleted list rather than tables

I wonder if we should re-organize these pages to remove some tables. If I were looking at say, List of Australian supercentenarians, I would prefer that we have a bulleted list on top of the living people (alphabetical order by last name as ranking it is nonsensical largely) with less details (just name and birth date is all that matters) and all footnotes at the end of each line. Then a possible table for all supercentenarians (or bulleted list) and then covert the chronological list into a series of paragraph biographies (like at List of Japanese supercentenarians but most of which are one line sentences at the moment). The biographies with more details can be fleshed out into separate articles down the line and referenced in other places. That allows for more working on the actual drafting of text and less on the movement of tables. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

See the idea for the biographies here. The overall list would need to be fleshed out further and then a shortened males list for the few that fit both. That'll provide some more coherent organization as discussions that go like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Koto Okubo and are just blatantly ignored is not a long term solution. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:55, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that some of the tables can be removed from the articles, especially for articles have are basically just a list of tables. Converting the table of living supercentenarians into an alphabetical bulleted list makes sense. Are you thinking that the living entries should also be removed from other tables on that page? I think they should be removed, since the person's rank in the list of supercentenarians won't be determined until their death.

Looking at List of Australian supercentenarians, I'm thinking that the Chronological list of the oldest living person in Australia since 2007 table should be merged into the Australian supercentenarians table - or at least, the Chronological list should be made a bulleted list since information on the entries should be in the supercentenarians table. Ca2james (talk) 16:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Validated and unvalidated data should not be mixed, if you remove the coloration and the rankings then the data will be just that. The coloration is not a violation of WP:COLOR which allows color to be used, so long the information is also presented another way. The rankings and the sourcing for every case already does that. 930310 (talk) 15:49, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Why are we going in circles again and again? WP:IDHT again I see. Whether or not the GRG has or hasn't "verified" or "validated" or whatever term you want to use a name is not a point that needs to be reflected here. If the GRG hasn't verified a source, then we look for other reliable sources. If another source has, then it gets listed. If we have a conflict on sources, then people can discuss the particular person and the conflicting sources and we can resolve the issue. However, for the upteenth time, we aren't just going to go with "the GRG hasn't verified it so literally no other source in the world matters." -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:08, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Assessments

I'm a little confused about Wikipedia:WikiProject_World's_Oldest_People#Assessment for the 370 or so articles at Category:WikiProject World's Oldest People articles. We have a Top/High/Mid/Low structure. I'm most curious about the individual biographies. There's no right or wrong answer here so I'm just throwing out a starting flag. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I've included the basic suggested assessments from the Wikiproject priority assessnents in each section below to help figure out which articles go where. These can be adapted specifically for this project, which is something other projects have done. Ca2james (talk) 23:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Top importance

I think this should be limited to Template:Longevity and the whole issues and records lines, along with Supercentenarian. Portal:Supercentenarians could use some work. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Subject is a must-have for a print encyclopedia.

In this case, I'm thinking the template, Longevity, Gerontology, Supercentenarian, and Centenarian, the Terminology and Issues lines in the template, as well as the List of the verified oldest people, List of the verified oldest men, and List of the verified oldest women articles belong here. These form the core of the articles in this project, and I'd expect the descriptive articles in this category as well as these particular records and issues in a print encyclopaedia. Ca2james (talk) 23:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

High importance

I think we can put the birth and death and the births and deaths by year articles. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Subject contributes a depth of knowledge

I disagree that that the births and deaths by year articles belong here; I think they're more Low importance. In this category, I'd put the remainder of the Records line and the Non-human line from the Template. I'd also put biographies of any world's oldest person recordholders here. Ca2james (talk) 23:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Mid importance

I think we can put the continent and individual countries articles here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Subject fills in more minor details

Agree. Also the War-related lists and Centenarian lines from the template. I'd also put regional/country oldest person recordholder bios here, if there are any. Ca2james (talk) 23:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Low importance

I think we can put the historical country and macroregion ones here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Subject is mainly of specialist interest.

Agree, but I also think the Births in year and Deaths in year articles, as well as List of last survivors of historical events can go here. I think these articles tend to be more trivia than encyclopaedic, since the names are included in other articles. Any remaining bios would go here. Ca2james (talk) 23:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Assessments discussion

Let's try to have a single organized discussion place. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Does anyone at all care to discuss this? Is there any actual interest in improving these articles or just in having lists when possible? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:51, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed table structure

moved from User talk:Ca2james#Proposed table structure Ca2james (talk) 16:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

This is a proposed table structure for articles with tables to avoid the use of colour and to convey which organization has validated the entry. Ca2james (talk) 16:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that he validation of exceptional longevity is so much a scientific concept as a sociological one, but that's just me. According to the RSN discussion which refers to MOS, we have to note when the birth date is unconfirmed, which isn't the same thing as saying that an entry is unverified. So that's got to be inlcuded as well. So what about this:

Name	Sex	Birth date	Death date	Age	Place of death	Verified by
Gertrude Weaver	F	4 July 1898	6 April 2015	116 years, 276 days	United States	GWR
Anna De Guchtenaere	F	10 April 1904	6 April 2015	110 years, 361 days	Belgium	—
Orma Slack	F	19 February 1903	13 April 2015	112 years, 53 days	Canada	GRG
Made-up name	F	19 February 1900	11 April 2014	114 years, 51 days	New Zealand	My site
Another name	F	19 February 1903[n.c.]	13 April 2015	112 years, 53 days	Canada	—

• n.c.^ Birth date is unconfirmed

References

I don't know if the "n.c" note is sufficient or the best choice. This version of the table allows sorting based on who has verified the information and allows for the possibility that other groups may verify the information. I personally like leaving the entry blank if it's unverified (or just using an emdash as I've used above) so that it's clear that no one has verified it. What do you think? Ca2james (talk) 17:26, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

"According to the RSN discussion which refers to MOS, we have to note when the birth date is unconfirmed, which isn't the same thing as saying that an entry is unverified." ---> Why not, what's the difference? It's not a bad idea to have a "verified by" column, although if we have a potentially dodgy source (like "my site" or whatever) then it will need to be discussed further and/or taken to RSN to establish if it's a reliable enough source for age verification. Alternatively, we could separate verified and unverified cases in to two separate tables - one with a "verified by" column giving the verifying body, and another which says "the ages of all the people in this table have not been verified by an international body". -- Ollie231213 (talk) 17:45, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Because verifying an entry involves more than just the birth date. It is true that an unconfirmed person-given birth date implies that the person's age is unverified; however, the opposite is not necessarily true as the person's birth date may be confirmed but their age may not be verified due to, say, a marriage certificate not yet being verified. Also, saying that a birth date is unconfirmed relates to the reference giving that birth date while saying that the person's age is verified relates to an external check. Therefore, marking unconfirmed birth dates as unverified does not reflect the true nature of the situation and is a form of WP:OR.

I don't think splitting the tables into verified and unverified is the right thing to do. Moreover, I think it's WP:OR to say that en entry is unverified just because neither the GRG nor the GWR has verified it, because that situation excludes the possibility that another organization has verified it and we just don't know that they've verified the age. Moreover, if another organization does verify ages (and it looks like they're out there), we can't definitively say that it'll be necessary to discuss their reliability at RSN. For example, at one point Boston University had a list of current authenticated supercentenarians (under See also). If that pdf was still available, we could certainly use it as a reference. If there's a disagreement between the GRG and this other organization, then that can be noted. Ca2james (talk) 15:57, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• "It is true that an unconfirmed person-given birth date implies that the person's age is unverified; however, the opposite is not necessarily true as the person's birth date may be confirmed but their age may not be verified due to, say, a marriage certificate not yet being verified." ---> I don't understand what you mean here. When you say "confirmed", do you mean "true"? Because yes, it's fair to say that just because someone doesn't have the documents to verify their age, it doesn't necessarily mean that their claim is false. But, without evidence, there's no way of being sure.

• I also don't understand what you mean when you say "Therefore, marking unconfirmed birth dates as unverified does not reflect the true nature of the situation and is a form of WP:OR." But if the birth date is unconfirmed, then they aren't verified, and vice versa.

• "I think it's WP:OR to say that en entry is unverified just because neither the GRG nor the GWR has verified it..." ---> If we can't any source saying they're verified then I think we have to assume they aren't. I think it's a greater violation of WP:OR to speculate otherwise. And to be honest, I don't think there are many organisations other than the GRG, GWR, and the IDL that deal with supercentenarian verification. None that I know of certainly. The link you gave above was only a one-off study by the looks of it.

• To be honest, before we take this discussion any further, I'm wondering whether to nominate this article for deletion (along with all other "list of supercentenarians who died in year X" articles) and see if the wider community is in favour of keeping them. The reason for this is that I am questioning the value of such articles... they seem to be little more than directories of news reports and are quite trivial. I could see a little more value if only validated cases were included... you could discern data such as mortality rate, growth of numbers over time, etc. But including unvalidated cases changes that. Again, this kind of article seems something of greater interest to supercentenarian "fans" than the general public. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 16:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It isn't only the "Deaths in" articles that need restructuring: all of the tables in the List of articles need restructuring. The table I've proposed will work for all of them, including the country- and region-specific articles and the overall "oldest people" "oldest living people" etc tables. Therefore, I see no reason to pause this discussion.

I guess I didn't explain very well why "unverified" can't be used instead of noting that the birth date is unconfirmed. If there is an unconfirmed birth date, then the person's age is unverified. That's a true statement, right? A person's age can't be verified if the birth date is unconfirmed. So now let's represent the statement logically. Let A represent the statement "there is an unconfirmed birth date" and let B represent the statement "the person's age is unverified". We can now represent the words with If A, then B, or even more succinctly, A → B. When you say But if the birth date is unconfirmed, then they aren't verified, and vice versa, the "vice versa" part is represented by If B, then A, or B → A, which is a logical fallacy. A listing can be unverified for several reasons, not just the birth date, and so saying that the listing is unverified does not accurately show that the birth date is uncertain. If we know that the birth date is uncertain because the person said it themselves in their obit, then we need to say that instead of just saying that the listing is unverified.

And as I've said above, I prefer that entries not verified by the grg or gwr be left blank or with an emdash instead of saying they're unverified. Ca2james (talk) 18:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• But in this context, "unverifed" is only referring to the birth date/age, not any other aspect of the listing, and we could make it clear as such. Alternatively, we could use the term "validated" which is often used interchangeably with "verified" in this field, but has a different meaning on Wikipedia. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 20:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Just remember that the reliable sources discussion deemed obituaries as unreliable sources for birth dates/ages. And news reports should be the same. Therefore, if you're going to list someone who is not known to be verified by an internationally recognised body with only an obituary/news report as a citation, then you need to make it clear that their age is not confirmed (or they are not validated), and I think it's clearer to explicitly state "not validated" than to just put a dash. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 22:18, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Unverified means that the documents have not been checked. An unconfirmed birth date means that the person-supplied birth date may not be reliable. They are different things we cannot use "not verified" to mean "the birth date may not be reliable" as it's logically false and misleading to equate the two.

What RSN discussion are you reading? The discussion I opened regarding family- or person-written obituaries has deemed that these obituaries are reliable for death dates and may be used for birth dates provided that a note is made indicating that the birth date is unconfirmed or unattested. That's quite different than saying that obituaries are unreliable for birth and death dates. The same situation is probably true for newspaper-written obituaries but I'd rather see the uninvolved community make that decision.

The reason I think it's better to put a dash or leave a blank space is that there's no source for saying that a person's age has not been verified (or validated or whatever). Just because the GRG or GWR hasn't verified an age doesn't mean that the age hasn't been verified by another organization. Just remember that it's better to have no information in a table than incorrect or misleading information. Leaving it blank (or an emdash just to put something in the cell) makes it clear that the age has not been validated by an organization. Ca2james (talk) 23:25, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• If someone's age is "verified" (by definition, confirmed to be true) then their birth date is confirmed... and vice versa. So I'm failing to understand what your point is here.
• "...deemed that these obituaries are reliable for death dates and may be used for birth dates provided that a note is made indicating that the birth date is unconfirmed or unattested. That's quite different than saying that obituaries are unreliable for birth and death dates." ---> Again, I don't understand what your point is. I never said anything about death dates (there's no reason to think they would be wrong) but if a note needs to put next to a birth date taken from an obituary to say "this birth date is unconfirmed" then then how can that obituary be considered a reliable source for that birth date?
• Ok, I understand your third point...but again, this makes me wonder why we don't either keep validated and unvalidated cases separate, or not include any cases that aren't known to be validated by any major body. Because let me ask you this: what's the upper limit for unvalidated claims? Do we add in someone who dies at the claimed age of 170, even though they clearly aren't that old? Because even though their claim is clearly false, at the end of the day, there's no less evidence supporting a claim like that than an unvalidated claim to 110. How do you decide, arbitrarily, which claims to let through and which to reject, without engaging in WP:OR? -- Ollie231213 (talk) 17:40, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd suggest moving this discussion to the WOP talk page or at least making sure there's a link to the history here in case people need to refer to it later. Just a small suggestion but I would use "Sources" for the final column than "Verified". Verified has little meaning here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:12, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks; as you can see, I've moved this sub-section in its entirety to WT:WOP so that all members of this project and other interested editors are aware of the discussion and can comment.

I agree that "Verified by" isn't the best column header but I'm not sure about "Sources", either, since to me, "sources" are references, and the purpose of that column is to indicate which organization has validated the person's age. However, I can't think of a better header. Something with "Validated" in it, maybe? Something like "Validating agency?" I'm all ears. Ca2james (talk) 16:29, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Ricky81682: I've already made it clear above that the validation of exceptional longevity is a scientific concept accepted for 140+ years, and that there are several organisations (not just the GRG) that validate longevity claims. You're failing to understand Wikipedia's core policies, which forbid original research and require Wikipedia to reflect the mainstream consensus outside Wikipedia. The mainstream consensus for both the scientific view and the "sociological" view (you could argue that GWR is a culturally accepted arbiter of human longevity) is that extraordinary age claims require age verification/validation. So, you can't continue to insist that age validation/verification doesn't mean much on Wikipedia. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 17:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

No, the problem is there are no "levels" of sources. There are reliable sources and there aren't. The fact that the GRG has verified them is expressed in that the GRG's sources are listed as a citation. I don't see what is gained by a separate "verified" column other than treating the GRG (and Guiness or whoever) as somehow a "better" level of sources than most sources. Let's just host a RFC on the formatting since it's probably something that could use some outside eyes. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

It's completely wrong to say that all sources carry equal weight. Read WP:QUESTIONABLE. "Reliable sources must be strong enough to support the claim. A lightweight source may sometimes be acceptable for a lightweight claim, but never for an extraordinary claim." ---> So, Wikipedia policy says that extraordinary claims require stronger sources. It's clear when it says "reliable sources must be strong enough" that, no, reliable sources are not all the same weight in value. And again, to completely disregard the need for age validation is to not show appreciation for scientific consensus outside of Wikipedia. Read this 1919 article by Alexander Graham Bell. What does this say? "Ann Pouder...the oldest human being of whose birth we have authentic record." ---> Even in 1919 - that is 96 years ago - experts in human longevity spoke of authentic proof of birth, and recognised the need for age validation. Wikipedia should reflect this. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 20:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Verified by column

I've been thinking that a "Verified by" table column isn't needed. My reasoning is this: the latest comment on the self- or family-written obituaries at RSN says that they're not reliable for birth dates. Previous comments indicated that if these obits were used for birth dates (and therefore ages) we'd have to note that the date is unconfirmed or unattested.. which is also an indication that they are not reliable for birth dates. Therefore, anything sourced to these obits should be removed from the tables, which means that very few entries that have not been verified by some agency (whether that's the GRG or some country- or study-specific agency, which is how things were done before the GRG was set up) will be in the tables. Anything that has been verified by an agency will be referenced to that agency's verified list and I think that'll be enough.It's possible that news-written obituaries or articles might end up in the tables but without a corresponding verification agency reference, it should be clear that these entries have not been verified by an agency. Thoughts? Ca2james (talk) 15:52, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with that proposal. But to clarify, only those sources such as a verification agency should be listed for ranked, validated data... an "other" list could be used for people who aren't validated by an agency, and for whom the only sources that exist are newspaper reports and/or obituaries. Otherwise there will be some issues. For example, 112 year old Yasutaro Koide is verified as being the world's oldest living man by Guinness World Records, but then there's a story about a man named Bernando LaPallo who claims to be 114. If he is ranked #1 above Yasutaro Koide, then Wikipedia is effectively deciding who the world's oldest man is and ignoring reputable sources like GWR, which is a blatant violation of WP:OR. (Note: my last comment is particularly directed at Ricky who still insists that "all reliable sources are equal"). -- Ollie231213 (talk) 18:07, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Not every article table should be a ranked list, as only validated entries can be ranked and we will be including non-validated entries, if they're reliably-sourced. For lists of ranked ages, we have the List of verified oldest people/men/women articles which includes only agency-validated entries. Just because the GRG's Table E includes a List of Validated Living Supercentenarians doesn't mean that Wikipedia can only include that information. Wikipedia is more than the GRG. Moreover, why would Wikipedia be ranking living supercentenarians? That's for the GRG and similar agencies to do so that when the oldest one dies, the next one in line should be named. Not everything included in a GRG table needs to be included in Wikipedia; if data isn't included at GWR and other, similar agencies, then that's an argument not to include it on Wikipedia as WP:UNDUE.

With respect to your example, we wouldn't use that article as a source; we'd use the the story it's referring to, which in turn links back to this story from 2011; the source stories do appear to be reliable and they are valid sources. And so what if his age appears to be older than someone else's? If the reliable sources say that's his age, then the entry is included. That's how WP:RS and WP:V works, and it means that sometimes, articles are incorrect. Wikipedia isn't deciding anything: the reliable sources are making the decisions, and in this article the GWR-validated entry will be referenced to the GWR. Ca2james (talk) 17:23, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

And what about this article, this article, and this article where experts state that documents show he was born in 1910, not 1901? Oh, now what do we do? Well obviously the documentary evidence and opinion of experts should take precedent, in accordance with WP:UNDUE.

And maybe you aren't understanding: my example shows why you can't rank a mixture of validated and unvalidated cases. If Guinness World Records says the world's oldest man is Yasutaro Koide and have validated his age, then Wikipedia should reflect this. But you can't have Wikipedia saying that Bernando LaPallo is the world's oldest man because a newspaper article says that he was born in 1901, because that's a violation of WP:UNDUE and WP:OR because Wikipedia is ignoring what GWR says. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 22:38, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

What about those sources? They don't support that he's a supercentenarian since they're reporting that some claim is false. Moreover, two of the sources - a blog on yahoo and the Daily Mail - are not considered reliable sources for anything related to BLPs, and certainly not for anything controversial.

On the region and country lists, the oldest verified supercentenarian is named in the lede. I don't see the problem in including someone whose age hasn't been verified by the GRG or GWR or another agency, even if that age is older than the oldest person, provided that the sources supporting that age are reliable according to Wikipedia's definition. Ca2james (talk) 15:22, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

• "Why would Wikipedia be ranking living supercentenarians?" --> Because it's of encyclopedic interest to know who the oldest people in the world are. As such, validated cases should be ranked if the rankings can be attributed to a reliable source. But it's WP:OR for Wikipedia to bundle together a load of unvalidated longevity claimants (sourced to individual newspaper articles), along with validated cases, and rank them. At the same time, we can't have tables like this one where validated and unvalidated cases are mixed with no mention of their validation status, for all of the reasons I've explained above. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 22:45, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

The tables are sortable and people can sort them according to longest life, which accomplishes the same goal as ranking. Not every site ranks the oldest people beyond stating who is the oldest and the country/region articles separately state that information in the lede. It is not WP:OR to not state something that appears on only one site and is not referenced anywhere.

You keep bringing up this "mixing of verified and unverified information". The tables previously mixed them - the difference now is that colour and the rank is removed, along with entries that insufficient sources - and the tables are going to go on mixing them. Ca2james (talk) 23:52, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

No, the tables DID NOT mix verified and unverified cases - they were separated by rank, colour, and a "verified" column. The point is that you CANNOT treat verified and unverified cases as equal in the same way that you can't treat evolution and creationism as equal. I thought we'd established this.

The tables may be sortable but what if people want to see the "top ten", "top twenty", or whatever? Not ranking them makes that difficult. If the entries are verified there's no reason not to rank them. It becomes original research if Wikipedia creates the ranking itself without sourcing it to anything. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 16:54, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I think you are actually saying that you want to differentiate verified entries from unverified entries included in the same table - ie you want it made obvious whether an entry is verified or not. This is quite different from not wanting to mix entries, as mixing entries means to include both verified and unverified entries in the same table. Previous versions of some tables, like this one, most definitely mixed entries in the table.

Verified entries are referenced to the agency that verified the entry. I'd thought about putting in an agency-named note instead of a reference, but that won't work when the GRG uses different tables with different update dates. I suppose we could instead include the GRG table reference as-is and also create an agency-specific note for all pages associated with that agency. So anything verified by the GRG on any of its verified tables would have a GRG note. Anything verified on any GWR page would receive a GWR note. Would that work?

The point is that only the actual Verified articles will contain only verified entries. In all of the other articles, we can and must include any entries for which there are reliable sources, whether they're verified or not. That's how Wikipedia works. Ca2james (talk) 20:50, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

The mainstream scientific view is that longevity claims require verification before being considered to be true. If not, then there are no limits to how great a person might exaggerate his/her age. These agencies that have validated the ages are internationally recognized and considered reliable. A newspaper report from a poorly developed country featuring a supposedly 160-year-old person without any proof of their age whatsoever is not reliable. 930310 (talk) 06:44, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

You mean the scientific community believes that things should be based on reliable sources? Well same here. Does anyone disagree with that? I sure wasn't arguing to keep the 170 year old random Nigerian man nonsense at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unverified longevity claims. The options are not "GRG only or all nonsense". There are plenty of newspapers (even the New York Times at times) that aren't considered reliable sources. Rather than repetitive circular arguing here, can you point to a particular person that someone is suggesting that should be kept that is disagreed upon? The only arguments and edit warring I see are rounds and rounds of "why can't we keep our list of pending and unverified claims by the GRG up anyways"? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:01, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

The only reason that repetitive circular arguments are going on is because you keep making straw man arguments.

1. The scientific community's definition of "reliable source" is a little more than just "it says so in a newspaper".

2. No one is saying "GRG only or all nonsense", I'm saying make the distinction between verified and unverified cases to reflect scientific consensus and make Wikipedia as informative as possible for readers. You either haven't bothered to pay attention to what I've said above or are deliberately misrepresenting my point of view.

3. We've already established that Table EE is not reliable and I'm not arguing in favour of keeping lists of pending cases.

Look at Typologies of Extreme Longevity Myths. Note this line in particular: "Invalid age claim rates increase with age from 65% at age 110-111 to 98% by age 115 to 100% for 120+ years." ---> This shows why Wikipedia articles need to make the distinction between people whose ages have been validated by a recognised body and those who have not. Someone being reported on by newspaper does not mean their ages have been validated. A newspaper report is proof of the claim, not that they are the age claimed (in the same way that the Bible is not proof of God's existence, only of the claim).

But it seems to me, Ricky (based on your comment "I sure wasn't arguing to keep the 170 year old random Nigerian man nonsense at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unverified longevity claims" among others) that you seem to be arbitrarily deciding which cases you want to include and which not to. How do you decide if a claim is "nonsense" without engaging in WP:OR? Sure, it's obvious to everyone that that man isn't 170, but there's a 98% chance that a claim to 115 is complete nonsense also. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 00:33, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Ollie231213, quoting a paper by Robert Young that says that many supercentenarian cases are false does not actually imply that Wikipedia articles need to make the distinction between people whose ages have been validated by a recognised body and those who have not. The number of false claims has no bearing on how Wikipedia displays the data. Wikipedia articles already make the distinction between verified and unverified by the reference, and I've offered up a solution to differentiate verified and unverified cases, above. You've ignored that, and I'm starting to think that you're not actually interested in finding a way forward but only in trying to go back to the way things were. If that's the case, just tell me and I'll stop wasting my time trying to work with you to find a way forward. (Adding: To clarify, I'm not saying that this discussion is necessarily a waste of my time; I'm saying that if one of the parties isn't coming to the discussion with the goal of moving forward, then the discussion uses up time and energy that could be more productively spent elsewhere. Apologies for the confusion. Ca2james (talk) 15:38, 26 August 2015 (UTC))

You are also misunderstanding the way reliable sourcing and original research work when you accuse Ricky81682 of arbitrarily deciding which cases you want to include and which not to. WP:OR regards writing unsourced content, not evaluating reliable sources. You and other GRG-supporters seem to be operating on the assumption that if something appears in a newspaper, it's automatically a WP:RS and that is most definitely not the case: Wikipedia's definition of reliable source is not "it says so in a newspaper". In the 170 year old Nigerian man case, the source is not reliable for such an extraordinary claim and so would not be included. Ca2james (talk) 14:45, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

1. The Typologies of Extreme Longevity myths article had a lot of co-authors, not just Robert Young. Why no mention of them?

2. You've gone back to calling me a "GRG-supporter". Why's that?

3. "The number of false claims has no bearing on how Wikipedia displays the data." ---> Not true. It does have a bearing because the more extraordinary the claim is, the higher the standards for sourcing...as per WP:UNDUE.

4. I've tried to propose solutions, but you keep changing your mind. Yes, I want to differentiate verified entries from unverified entries included in the same table. But I'm still not totally sure how you are suggesting the tables are laid out. I'm then also having to respond to Ricky's comments which are straw man arguments, forcing me to have to repeat myself.

5. The pending cases issue has been dropped, so things won't be going back to the way things were. But that doesn't mean that further changes to the way things currently stand aren't needed. And the RSN discussion only decided that Tables E and I were reliable and Table EE was not...it said nothing about whether to list validated data with unvalidated data or whether Wikipedia should be ranking unvalidated cases, or listing unvalidated cases with validated cases. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 23:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I named Robert Young because his name was listed first in the author list; since in an alphabetical listing his name would go last, he's clearly the primary author. I included you with GRG-supporters because GRG supporters have had a tendency to consider Robert Young to be the first and last name in gerontology and that his word should go unchallenged. When you cited a paper whose primary author was Robert Young, it seemed to me that you felt the same way. I apologize if I erred.

The solutions you've proposed have been to return to the use of colour, which is going back to the way things were from a display perspective, or to separate validated from unvalidated entries. Neither solution will work: a) colour goes against MOS:COLOUR, and b) from Wikipedia's perspective, any entry that is reliably sourced can be included in the table. Separating the entries implies that some are more reliable than others when we're actually talking about requiring a high level of reliable sources because they're extraordinary claims.

Speaking of extraordinary claims, claiming to be 110+ is an extraordinary claim regardless of how many such claims are false. Moreover, an extraordinary claim is a reliable sourcing issue, not a display issue, which means that the extraordinary claim itself - let alone the number of false claims - has no bearing on how Wikipedia displays data. Ca2james (talk) 23:49, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

• WP:COLOR does NOT prohibit the use of colour. Ensure that color is not the only method used to convey important information. Especially, do not use colored text or background unless its status is also indicated using another method such as an accessible symbol matched to a legend, or footnote labels. ---> As long as the relevant information is displayed in the table, it can be colour coded. The advantages of colour coding is that it helps to communicate information more easily to most people.

As for your point b, I'm not totally sure what you mean. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 16:47, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• Second point: If you're saying that 110+ claims are extraordinary, then normal sourcing alone won't do for "extraordinary" claims. The issue now is how "extraordinary" is "extraordinary"? If you say 110+, then you could argue that newspaper citations alone may not be enough to support the "extraordinary" claim, especially if it is presented as if it were true. No one is saying that we can't report unbelievable/unrealistic longevity claims/myths - only that they need to be separated from real ones. Note, for example, the separation of zoology from cyptozoology. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 18:09, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Notes indicating Validation

I've made a change to List of North American supercentenarians to make a note (attached to the birth date) that the entry has been validated by the GRG. I'd already made a change to this article to combine all the notes, number them automatically, and keep the note with the text it's noting so the "Validated by GRG" note is going in the same place. What do you think? Ca2james (talk) 17:59, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Ollie231213 and Canadian Paul, what do you think of the GRG tag to indicate an entry validated by the GRG over at List of North American supercentenarians? Ca2james (talk) 01:43, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

This is not a bad version, as it does at least indicate validation status. However, a couple of things I would say:

1. The current "GRG tag" system isn't sortable, so doesn't allow users to sort the people in the list by validation status (thus seeing validated cases on their own). If validated cases are not ranked, then I think this should be an option. As per your previous suggestion, I don't think we unvalidated cases should be labelled as such - so the validated column would only positively identify validated cases.

2. With a more clearly identified "tag" for validation, the need for the use of colour becomes a moot point. Colour or no colour would be a matter of style, not substance, as the information is conveyed in the data list itself. Note that WP:COLOUR does not prohibit the use of colour in tables, and as long as the colour contrasts are not going to cause a problem for colour-blind readers, colour coding verified and unverified entries makes the table more accessible to the reader. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 16:33, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't see why the "GRG" needs to be treated as some "super source" that separately validates claims. It's a source and absent a dispute between reliable sources, it should be treated as any other source. The New England Journal of Medicine is one of the most well-respected medical journals. Our medical articles don't have "this claim was validated by the NEJM" to distinguish claims that refers to it as a source from claims that don't. We seem to be going in circles around this issue so I'm starting an RFC on the very topic itself. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:19, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I was actually thinking about this while I was walking my dog this afternoon. I realized that this wouldn't be an issue if we were dealing with secondary sources; although the GRG validated tables are reliable sources, they're reliable primary sources. If we had secondary sources for the verified data (note that the published tables are still primary sources) we could set things up the way they do and there would be no question. (As an aside, the fact that there's a lack of secondary sources for pretty much all of the tables suggests that many of the articles associated with this project might not meet WP:GNG, but that's something to consider later). Since we don't have secondary sources, we go with what Wikipedia does elsewhere. As Ricky81682 points out, Wikipedia doesn't state who validated claims in other areas beyond having a reference, which is a strong indicator for not explicitly stating that the data is validated and by which group in these articles. Ca2james (talk) 00:02, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

We can take it to the RFC where I see Ollie has already started. Remember that the 2010 Arbcom case that got Robert Young banned had already had maybe two to three years of antics of his prior to that including massive, massive sockpuppetry to get the GRG plastered everywhere (and purely for professional COI interests) so I've never been one to be a big believer in the whole "this is for science" bit here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:28, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I've made some comments there. I've been reading through the original arbitration case and some of the history to get a sense of how things have gone before and it's unfortunate that so little has changed. I also take the "but this is science!!!!" claim with a rather large grain of salt. It's clear to me that Robert Young and the GRG think very highly of themselves and that their supporters think the sun rises and sets on them. It's odd because their behaviour and unquestioning belief in the awesomeness of Robert Young and the GRG are more akin to religious than scientific beliefs.

There are organisations that are studying the very old, and they've published quite a lot of research, but they don't have much to do with the GRG. There's so much more to gerontology studies than the GRG - like social and financial impacts, actuarial interests, genome research, and so on - but the focus of all these articles is just displaying the record-keeping that the GRG has done. Record-keeping is important and has a place but I think that, absent independent external validation of the notability of that record-keeping, the articles could use a change in focus (or deletion). Ca2james (talk) 17:57, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

This is not the place for red-herring personal attacks on a long-blocked member unable to respond. And I will make this same point AGAIN: You are failing to understand the difference between the GRG's interests and those of "fans". There's no "GRG fan club" on the GRG website. Much of the issue here really isn't about the GRG, it's about "fancruft". The 166 IP is NOT a GRG member of even a WOP project member. This kind of "fan" behaviour is being stamped out. Most of the people from the 2010 ArbCom case have moved on. I wasn't even on Wikipedia until 2013. We should be discussing what is happening NOW, not on what happened five years ago. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 09:33, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

In my comment I think I made it quite clear that I was distinguishing between GRG supporters and the GRG. There is no GRG fan club on the GRG site but there are two other forums - the yahoo forum, which is still active, and the 110 club on invisionfree, which is also still active - where GRG members, supporters, and fans of the GRG/supercentenarians/longevity gather and talk amongst themselves.

During the original case, it came to light that there was extensive off-wiki coordination and meatpuppery (primarily on the yahoo group) with respect to these articles that was led by that long-blocked editor. Even though some of the editors from the original case are longer here, the fact that the current editors hold the same views and make the same arguments as the editors from that case suggests that the coordination may still be happening. I hope that no such off-wiki discussion and coordination is happening and that the similarity in argument and behaviour is the result of some other cause. Ca2james (talk) 16:29, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Personally I don't even think that this article should exist. It's a trivial intersection of information that is borderline original research since it hasn't been engaged in multiple, reliable third-party sources. I'd personally qualify this one as an indiscriminate collection of information and suggest deletion, but that's just me. Canadian Paul 18:37, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree, and think that the other "List of" region-specific and country-specific articles have the same issues, as do the "Deaths in" year articles. Ca2james (talk) 02:18, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Race column

Some articles, such as List of North American supercentenarians, include a race column with unlabelled abbreviations B, W, O, etc. I'm thinking we should remove the race column because reliable sources may not include it and guessing is WP:OR. Thoughts? Ca2james (talk) 17:33, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

No one said anything so I removed the race column from the above article to align it with the other region articles, which don't have a race column. Ca2james (talk) 01:27, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

This project has been mentioned at ANI

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruption at WOP AFDs. There is also a complaint at WP:ARCA asking Arbcom to restore the discretionary sanctions for Longevity. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 17:55, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

The ARCA page is not limited to the named parties there but I'd ask that anyone who wishes to comment there review Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Longevity in full first and understand that the request is related to the reinstatement of Remedy 4.3.1 from then. If someone thinks that the problems from then have been resolved (or that editors such as myself coming into the pictures are creating the problems), just say so there. Better to speak now than try to argue it later. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

List of African supercentenarians listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for List of African supercentenarians to be moved to List of oldest African people. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 21:01, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

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RFC: Should the world's oldest living people tables identify that their claim has been validated?

Should the table identifying the world's oldest living people separately identify which claims have been validated by particular sources? There are various suggestions but we should have a single discussion section here with all views expressed. One suggestion is for a Separate "verified by" column so that we can separately identify "regular" reliable sources from sources that have "verified" the claim. Alternatively, claims that have been verified can be given a separate note. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:54, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the inconsistency but it's been called "validated" and "verified" in so many formats so that may be a separate discussion. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:04, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Separate verified by column

• Support If the longevity claimant's age has been validated (i.e. proven to be true) by an internationally recognised body - such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), Guinness World Records, the International Database on Longevity (IDL), etc., then it should be indicated as such in the "verified by" column, with the citation to the relevant organisation in this column. Verified entries in the tables can still be sourced to other reliable sources such as newspapers. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 23:40, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support A distinction should be made between scientific organisations specialised in the field of gerontology and "any other reliable sources" such as, say, The New York Times, which do not trace legal documents to verify claims; there is a difference between claiming to be a certain age and having been verified by an external, scientific source - not per se the GRG, as Ollie231213 has also noted - to be of that age. In doing so, Wikipedia - an encyclopedic organisation - would educate its readers about the true maximum human life span. Fiskje88 (talk) 18:22, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Does this also apply to biography articles and everywhere else? Should there be categories for "verified by the GRG" biography articles? Or are we again at the "the birth and death dates of very old people is just a special, special kind of information that newspapers just can't get"? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:35, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Striking it. Not going to go there with this reasoning. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:49, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

No separation

• Support. If the GRG or any other reliable sources have listed a person's birth and death dates that would qualify them for our tables, they should be included with all sources treated exactly the same. My personal preference is that for living people, all sources follow the birth date (I'd prefer no tables there as ranking them is odd) and for dead people, follow the age. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:47, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support. There are two issues here: reliable sourcing and validation status. From a reliable sourcing standpoint, every source used in these articles should be of equal strength as they're all being used to support the extraordinary claim that a person is a supercentenarian. Highlighting the GRG source does make it appear to be a "super-source" or "extra-reliable" but it should be no more reliable than any other source used to support information in the tables. Regarding validation status, I don't see that including it adds encyclopaedic information to the articles. Anything referenced to the GRG or similar agency has to have been validated, and all other sources must be at least as strong as the verified GRG tables (ie equivalent to being validated) since any claim of supercentenarian status is an exceptional claim requiring exceptional sourcing. Therefore, indicating the validation status is moot. Ca2james (talk) 00:25, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support. A source is reliable or it isn't. There should be no distinction among reliable sources used to verify a statement. To separate between the GRG and "other reliable sources" would be to give undue weight to the GRG's tables. ~ Rob^Talk 15:30, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Reliable sources policy says that we have reliable sources. We don't have reliable sources and "super reliable" sources. I haven't seen an actual real debate here in months (years really) over any particular individual regarding a discrepancy in sources. In theory, we could be arguing maybe Guinness Book of World Records or another source but the only source used is the Gerontology Research Group (GRG). The GRG is not some "super reliable" source that should get some most favored source status. The argument would be when the Gerontology Research Group has not verified a source but we have other reliable sources that support adding the person to our tables here. (A) I say that is entirely WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS of using making this list up but that horse has long left the barn but this whole debate is particularly frustrating because (B) no one has yet to provide a single example of this scenario. This looks entirely like another way for the GRG to inflate its credibility which has been a severe problem here for close to a decade. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:47, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment In the past, color was used to identify "pending" and "unverified" GRG claims (and still remains on a number of pages due to the extended edit warring). Along with the MOS:COLOR problems with that, an RSN discussion concluded that pending claims (table EE) is not considered a reliable source and so I see zero reason for including them. A claim that is entirely unverified by the GRG similarly has zero reason to be included (let alone distinguished). I can't even think of an equivalent here but people can suggest re-introducing it if they wish. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:53, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I am in favour of a "verified by" (or "validated by") column. Let me explain my reasoning as clearly as possible: News media sources (generally considered to be reliable sources for most things) often run stories like this one: 110-year-old Valley man says 5 foods helped him live long life. Now if we followed Ricky's suggestion, this man, Bernando LaPallo, would be listed in articles such as List of North American supercentenarians in the same table as Susannah Mushatt Jones, the person recognised by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person. The main difference between these two cases is this: Susannah Mushatt Jones's age has been independently validated by the Gerontology Research Group and Guinness World Records, two internationally recognised bodies who deal with the validation of extreme longevity claims. We know that she is 116 years old as claimed. On the other hand, investigations in to Bernando LaPallo's claim have suggested that he is several years younger than claimed - see here, here, and here for more. Under Ricky's proposal, both of these people would be listed in the same table, with absolutely no mention of the fact that one person's age is known to be true, while the other person's age is in doubt. What is the point in having a list like that?

Now ok, you may say "but there are reliable sources that cast doubt over his claim, so he wouldn't be included". Well yes, but the same principle applies for any longevity claimant: if their age has not been validated by an independent organisation, there always has to be some doubt about their claim. Please have a read of Typologies of Extreme Longevity Myths. Let me pick out this important quote: "Invalid age claim rates increase with age from 65% at age 110-111 to 98% by age 115 to 100% for 120+ years." ---> What this shows is that many supercentenarian claims (age 110+) are false. And what the first article on Bernando LaPallo shows is that newspaper reports alone aren't a reliable enough source to state a longevity claimant's age without any doubt.

So really, this boils down to giving the correct weight to reliable sources. Ricky's assertion that we don't have reliable sources and "super reliable" sources isn't true (although I wouldn't word it like that). Extraordinary claims require a stronger level of sourcing. When so many claims to 110+ are false, it's not really good enough to say "a newspaper says person X is 113, so it must be true". See Giving "equal validity" can create a false balance. Note this particular quote from this guideline: While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. ---> If you create a table with validated and unvalidated claims mixed together, with no distinction made between the two, then you are not following this policy.

My suggestion is for tables like that List of North American supercentenarians to have a "validated by" column - which states whether or not the person has been validated by an international body - and if so, a reference to the appropriate organisation(s). It could be done so that people are only positively identified as validated (so for those not known to be validated, this column could just be left blank or with a dash). I am also in favour of colour-coding entries based on validation status so that A) The table is sortable (so users can separate validated and unvalidated cases should they wish) and B) It makes it easier for the user to access this information.

Please note that my suggestion does NOT violate WP:COLOUR: Ensure that color is not the only method used to convey important information. Especially, do not use colored text or background unless its status is also indicated using another method such as an accessible symbol matched to a legend, or footnote labels. ---> As long as the relevant information is displayed in the table (in this case, the validation status) it is perfectly acceptable to colour-code entries. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 00:15, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

You've brought all this up before. All supercentenarian claims are extraordinary and require extraordinary sourcing. The fact that so many of them are false is not a reason to display validation status but is a reason to ensure that all reliable sources are of the highest quality. The links you give for LaPollo, which include the Daily Mail and a yahoo sports blog, are not high quality reliable sources and would not be included in articles here. Only some news agencies would be considered reliable sources for supercentenarian birth date claims; the New York Times, maybe, but each has to be examined individually, and many news articles won't be reliable enough. Just because something appears in a newspaper does not mean it'll automatically be used as a source. Ca2james (talk) 00:35, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Let's be clear here: a newspaper citation is enough for the claim (i.e. it's enough to say "this person claims to be age X) but it's not good enough to say "this person is age X". That's pretty clear from the fact that such a high number of claims to 110+ are false. Appearing in the New York Times and having your age validated by a specialist body are NOT the same thing. The fact that someone appears in the NYT isn't enough to assume their claimed age is true, and likewise, if someone appears in a blog it doesn't mean their claimed age is false. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 08:48, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Except Wikipedia is not about truth but verifiability - and not in the "this entry had been checked and validated by an agency" sense but in the "is reliably-sourced according to wikipedia's own definitions" sense. Ca2james (talk) 17:25, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

• Let's not forget that the GRG also just removes names after the fact without explanation. This isn't just a random resource we're talking about here. We're talking about a resource run by someone sockpuppetting here for years before he got himself taken to Arbcom, brought along an entire Yahoo! group of people who started this project, got himself personally banned due entirely to this being a professional COI issue and who still has legions of supporters in the woodwook (including various "correspondents" here protecting particular pages), who's work product consists entirely of anonymous print-outs of Excel spreadsheets on his website with no actual peer-reviewed secondary journals confirming his work, who is the great "Super Duper Source" that needs a separate column/color/note here. So LaPallo may have been listed here for about a year (even that is questionable) and removed because when someone brought up the credibility issues and at the same time Thomas Peters would have been listed for about seven years even though we have nothing else resembling a source about him, but the difference being the newspaper sources we can still find their old versions and there are other sources fact-checking them while we just have that the GRG deleted Peters and maybe someone would have noticed that line from the Excel spreadsheet removed. Point being, there are no "levels" of reliable sources and ignoring all the prior discussions doesn't change the fact that Wikipedia doesn't exist so that the GRG can WP:WEBHOST lists of possibly 108 year old people on its servers. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:57, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going there right now. I'm just going to remind myself that it took months to get rid of the 107 years olds. This will take patience. However, this comment naming those three bodies again leads to the same question: why those three bodies? Is there a source that says those three bodies (and while I have heard of Guinness, the IDL is never actually used here). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:21, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

You are either misunderstanding or deliberately ignoring WP:UNDUE. A widely-recognised organisation that deals with longevity validation is more reliable than newspaper reports when it comes to stating a longevity claimant's age. I've mentioned those three because they are three main ones in this field. The IDL is referenced at List of Spanish supercentenarians. The GRG's "verified" tables have been found to be reliable as per this RSN discussion, and it's pretty clear that GWR is a reliable authority when it comes to world records. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 09:00, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Somewhat. But I'd say a peer-reviewed medical journal including information from a longitudinal study would better. It would. Just because no one has searched for the source (I can search Pacer for federal cases and probably find some judges who have to make rulings related to people birth and death dates) but that doesn't mean the source can't or won't exist. The issue is the why the need for a separate column? So we can argue about whether something is a reliable source at all and then if they are the "really" reliable source after that? That's not what we're doing here. If one or more of the three of those sources are there, then we're arguing about the formatting and placing of the citations themselves (especially if you want them still separated from "other" sources). The issue comes if there is a name not based on any of those three organizations. My view is it is a case-by-case basis with the possibility of newspaper (or medical journals) or something else and rather than us making up or changing the sources that could or could not be those greater sources. Why? Because arguing over levels of sources is navel gazing here essentially and isn't a long-term solution that can be resolved. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:19, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Ricky81682, there are other organisations out there that do research on supercentenarians, including the Okinawa Centenarian Study and the New England Centenarian Study. However, with the exception of the GRG and Guinness, no agency publishes the names of their participants. The only names that get acknowledged outside the GRG and Guinness are the world's oldest person. Therefore, I think the only articles that satisfy GNG are the lists of the world's verified oldest person/man/woman articles. Oldest person and oldest living person might survive but the general idea of, let alone the names in, the country- and region-specific oldest people articles, along with the supercentenarian "deaths in year" articles, haven't received any independent mention outside of the GRG and so I'm not sure they're notable subjects. (After all, verifiability doesn't guarantee inclusion.) In that case, would it be better to figure out which articles to keep and then to determine their format? Or am I interpreting GNG too strictly? Ca2james (talk) 17:41, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

The entire argument here is that we, the editors at this project, are deciding which authorities are the real authorities on gerontology and which aren't. My view is that, I don't care to because that information will change and other than people just spouting names out, ok, point out how the consensus will form about which ones belong where. This isn't something you can bring to WP:RSN, it's not something that's anywhere else precisely because it's complete nonsense. For the editors here, why these tables alone? Does every biography articles need to separate the "super" reliable source versus the newspapers? I know the answer: no they do but we must do it for their birth and death dates when we're talking about very old people, because for very old people, only certain sources really matter. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:33, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Right now I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything, so forgive me if this commentary is a bit nonsensical. I think I genuinely see both sides of the argument here; on one hand, I see the GRG perspective that Wikipedia should not be treating every claim the same regardless of how likely it may be, because newspapers are in the business of reporting stories that will draw attention to their reporting, not (necessarily) verifying accuracy. For an argument ad ridiculum, if The New York Times were to write a story about someone claiming to be 200 years old, I don't think anyone would want to include them on the list of the oldest people as being older than Susannah Mushatt Jones. But where and how could we draw the line objectively? Everyone younger than Jeanne Calment? I think separating credible claims from others is a good application of WP:IAR. An analogous article might be cancer research: lots of "reliable" sources discuss potential cures or treatments that lack any scientific basis, but including those claims would give undue weight to them in that article, since they are not as valid as the scientifically-backed ones.

On the other hand, obviously much of what I mentioned above straddles or even crosses the line of how material is dealt with through Wikipedia guidelines and policies, because it is making a subjective value judgment on sources that may be true, but not necessarily verifiable. I also agree that privileging the GRG is problematic, because that organization (like all others) has its limitations and biases and it does bother me that the implication is that if you are not "validated" (or in the process of such) you must be false (not that the GRG claims this, but it's definitely an interpretation that people get), when in reality they just might not have the documents or the language accessibility. As much as I don't like the List of North American supercentenarians, I do like what has been done with it... all claims are included, but there is a distinction made between those that have scientific backing. This kind of contradicts with my comparison to cancer research above, although I think that one could include the most prominent dubious research and treatment in that article and label it as such (through, for example, reliable sources that discredit them) without giving them undue weight. A mention rather than an emphasis, which seems to be the way List of North American supercentenarians is dealt with currently. So I'm not sure where my !vote should go, given all of that. Canadian Paul 16:53, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Canadian Paul, I hope it's ok if I reply. I apologize for being a bit long-winded here. As I said above, I see two related but separate issues: the reliable sourcing issue that Ricky81682 brings up; and the desire to ensure that readers know which claims are true (or validated) brought up by Ollie231213. The issue is complicated by the fact that members of this project have been misunderstanding WP:RS by thinking that anything that appears in a newspaper is a reliable source (which isn't the case). If reliable sourcing actually worked that way, then I can sort of see why they would feel some concern about the entries in the tables because practically anything could go in there and how would anyone know what's true or not?

I think one option for dealing with the reliable sourcing issue is to develop a project guideline, in partnership with the broader community, stating what constitutes a reliable source for supercentenarian birth/death dates and age, much like WP:MEDRS extends WP:RS by describing which sources are best for medical articles and where to find them. MEDRS is the reason is why potential cures and treatments for cancer research require better sourcing than just a newspaper.

The validation issue is trickier to deal with because it's a philosophy issue, and I think it would be to everyone's benefit to know what the broader community thinks about that. It seems to me that members of this project are looking to include only true and accurate information in the tables but Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth so it's most important that everything be reliably-sourced. I personally don't agree that it is necessary to separately indicate which entries have been validated if all entries have been reliably-sourced.

One option for the crazy-high 122+ age claims, if they were well-sourced, would be to include the entry along with a footnote saying something about how the oldest person ever has been verified to be 122. I don't think such a note would be necessary for age claims less than 122 because although there's a chance that the information is incorrect, at least those claims are plausible. Ca2james (talk) 19:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

@Ca2james: There are some things which I would like to clarify with you, and points which I would like you to respond to:

• 1. Do you accept/understand that, just because a claim to 110+ is reported on by a newspaper, it doesn't necessarily mean the claim is true? I gave you the Typologies of Extreme Longevity Myths journal which says that over two-thirds of such claims are false, and gave you the example of Bernando LaPallo to prove this point. Also read this article about a woman who claimed to be "127" - note this quote: "She has however lost her birth certificate and so is not officially recognised as the world’s oldest person, who is Misao Okawa, aged 116 from Japan." There is a difference between "reporting" the news and saying that the claim is valid. Hence, the idea to have a "validated" status.
• 2. Do you accept/understand why age validation is considered important in this context, and that it's a concept that far predates the GRG? If scientists or demographers want to use supercentenarian data to discover mortality rates at extreme ages, the change in the 110+ population, etc., they need to know that the data they are dealing with is accurate. Even if you're just an average person interested in the record-breaking side of things, and want to know who the oldest living people/oldest people ever are, then you want to know that the 122 year old Jeanne Calment was actually 122 and not much younger.
• 3. Do you accept/understand the need in science for evidence and verification? And do you accept that verified and unverified information should not be presented as if they both "equal" (e.g. evolution and creationism should not be presented as equally plausible theories)? Wikipedia policy is that Wikipedia should reflect scientific consensus, and that different sources do not have to be given the same weight, as per WP:UNDUE.
• 4. Do you accept/understand that I'm not "pro-GRG", I'm pro-age validation and pro-science? And do you also realise that there is a difference between members of the GRG who are interested in the scientific and demographic aspect of longevity, and those amateur "fans", many of whom are on Wikipedia, who are more interested in the trivial aspects. The GRG currently has less than 50 living validated supercentenarians listed... none of whom are under 111. Clearly it's not of interest to them who the 247th oldest person in the world is or whatever... that's something the "fans" care about. Likewise, a lot of the trouble caused around this project has not been caused by people associated with the GRG, but by "fans" like that 166 IP user, who didn't like it when the GRG's Table EE was found to be unreliable.

I don't understand why my suggestion to recognise "validated" status has been met with such vehement opposition. Above anything else, it just seems like common sense for Wikipedia to either only list validated cases (and hence only those whose ages are known to be true) or to make the clear distinction between validated and unvalidated cases (so that it's clear to the reader which are known to be true and which are not). What's the purpose of the list otherwise? You say "Wikipedia is not about truth but verifiability" but that just isn't right. There's a difference between saying "Source A says X" if we have no reason to question the validity of this information, and saying "Source B claims Y" if we do have a reason to question it. Are you seriously saying Wikipedia doesn't care about distinguishing fact from fiction? -- Ollie231213 (talk) 21:45, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Haven't we been over this before? Of course newspapers aren't reliable for everything, let alone supercentenarian ages. I accept that age validation is important and required when conducting studies on supercentenarians, when determining who is the oldest in a region, and for insurance/payment purposes. I think the use of "science" in age validation is a misnomer, as the process requires an exacting approach but that's not "science". I don't care whether or not you're affiliated with the GRG or what you call your interest; your endless, repetitive discussions and WP:IDHT when it comes to Wikipedia policies and guidelines are becoming disruptive no matter what your affiliation.

I'm also saying that the point of Wikipedia is to publish verifiable, reliably-sourced, neutrally stated and weighted content. The point is not to publish the WP:TRUTH on any subject. Instead of implying that I don't understand how important all this is (not to mention how science-y it is), please carefully read WP:V and WP:RS and try to understand why others have objected to recognizing validated status. Ca2james (talk) 22:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Apologies if I sounded patronising or disrespectful but part of the reason why I'm sounding repetitive is because I keep getting faced with straw man arguments, and I want to make sure we understand where we are both coming from here. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 23:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the apology. Please do take note of my second paragraph above. Ca2james (talk) 01:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

The point of WP:TRUTH is that you can't just put something on Wikipedia because you know it's true, it needs to be attributed to a reliable source. It doesn't give you an opening to just to whatever you want as long as there's a so-called reliable source to back it up. To quote: "Verifiability is a necessary condition (a minimum requirement) for the inclusion of material, though it is not a sufficient condition (it may not be enough)." And also note this one: "Sources must also be appropriate, and must be used carefully, and must be balanced relative to other sources per Wikipedia's policy on due and undue weight." ---> The question here is: are newspaper reports and obituaries appropriate sources for the kind of content in these articles? Are we just going to create tables of the oldest living people in location X by finding news reports and shoving them in a table, even when we know that some claims might not be true? Or, are we going to set a minimum standard of inclusion which is that entries have to have been validated by a recognised body, which reflects scientific consensus? Or, do we compromise these two positions by distinguishing those who have been validated and those who have not?

Statements like "a source is reliable or it isn't" (from Rob) are not taking WP:NPOV and more specifically WP:UNDUE in to account. If an organisation that validates supercentenarians says that Person X is 115 years old, then you can be 99% sure that the person is indeed 115. But if a newspaper reports that Person Y is 115 years old (and their age has not been validated by any organisation) then you can be 99% sure the claim is false. How can you say that both sources are equally valid? -- Ollie231213 (talk) 23:56, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions

Please note that discretionary sanctions now apply to all longevity-related pages per this motion. Editors of such pages can be informed of the sanctions by placing {{subst:alert|old}} on their talk page. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 14:53, 31 August 2015 (UTC)