Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of prisoners of war

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 11:18, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

List of prisoners of war

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In accordance with WP:LSC, don't believe that this list is encyclopedically useful, it is an incomplete, potentially enormous and rather subjective list that adds no value to the articles it lists Mztourist (talk) 09:07, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Mztourist (talk) 09:11, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Mztourist (talk) 09:12, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:14, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

'Delete' this is not an article but is much justified list of POW's but it has no refrences Author Sanju (talk) 09:32, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The nomination does not provide a reason to delete, being a list of arguments to avoid such as WP:NOTENCYCLOPEDIC and WP:NOTUSEFUL. The list topic easily passes WP:LISTN and a selection of substantial sources follows. Citations are only required for controversial cases and I've not noticed any. Addition of such citations is done by improvement per WP:ATD, not by deletion. Note also that we have an equivalent main article and category, which further demonstrate the validity of the topic.

Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815
Prisoners in War
Prisoners of War in the Hundred Years War
Prisoners of War at Dartmoor
American Ex-prisoners of War
Japanese Prisoners of War
Stark Decency: German Prisoners of War in a New England Village
Captured: The Forgotten Men of Guam
The Enemy in Our Hands
Colditz: The Definitive History

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:47, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Response this list would require that everyone in history who has ever been captured in war should be listed, what is the point of such a list? Of course we have an article for prisoners of war, we don't try to list all of them. I really don't understand the point of your 1-10 above.Mztourist (talk) 09:57, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's a straw man fallacy per slippery slope. There is no such requirement and the list currently contains a modest number of notable cases. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:24, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The slippery slope is that every single person ever captured could be listed. Having a "modest number of notable cases" is as pointless as listing everyone. Mztourist (talk) 10:34, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Such repetition is tiresome so it's time for a daring escape and rescue... Andrew🐉(talk) 11:14, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I checked LISTN today for another article. This claims it is a list of notable Prisoners of War, and, reading down the list, names were recognised and there were a few surprises I did not know of. This is indeed a notable list, and should be retained. --Whiteguru (talk) 12:00, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for reasons cited by user:Andrew Davidson and User:Whiteguru. WP:Not paper and WP:Preserve. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:04, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- You do realise that thousands of people can be added to the list? Mztourist (talk) 12:30, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - The OP doesn't seem realise that we have lists with hundreds of thousands of entries such as list of minor planets or list of species or list of sportsmen. Of course, if one page isn't ample then we just split and subdivide it into several pages. This is fine and not a problem per our policy, WP:NOTPAPER. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:41, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - We don't have thousands of articles in Category:Prisoners of war. postdlf (talk) 18:03, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - any list has the potential for lots of cruft, but the fact that it's notable POW's limits who can appear on the list. However, anyone on the list without a WP article should be removed. The lack of references, as per WP:LISTN is not an issue, since the underlying concept, POW's, is clearly notable. LISTN also states, "Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable, although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles."Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:46, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep WP:SKCRIT no policy based reason for nominating. This is clearly a list of notable POWs which is not indiscriminate and provides information for the readers per WP:LISTN. Lightburst (talk) 15:44, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, list is contained to notable examples, it would be nice if sourcing were included but that is not a requirement. The rest is regular clean-up. Gleeanon409 (talk) 16:26, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:LISTPURP as informational and navigational list, complementary to Category:Prisoners of war per WP:CLN. The nom seems unfamiliar with the fact that we routinely limit lists of people (and other things) only to those entries that have articles. postdlf (talk) 18:03, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Valid navigation list, all but four of the links are blue, and those are for articles that have been deleted. Dream Focus 18:32, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: This is a list of notable entries, useful for navigation. — Toughpigs (talk) 20:34, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Response this list isn't useful in any sense and certainly not for navigation. Given the comments above, this page should list every prisoner who has a wikipage from Vercingetorix to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I would also note the inherent bias of the existing list being largely Americans/Europeans. Mztourist (talk) 03:12, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The articles and subcategories in Category:Prisoners of war provide guidance as to how this could be developed further and subdivided by header, or split into sublists. Did you list this for deletion without looking at its corresponding category? postdlf (talk) 12:44, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I did. As there are already numerous subcategories of prisoners of war by conflict etc. it shows that this list is too broad to be useful in any way. Mztourist (talk) 14:45, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

”The articles and subcategories in Category:Prisoners of war provide guidance as to how this could be developed further and subdivided by header, or split into sublists.” postdlf (talk) 15:47, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Prisoners of war is a valid category, its not a valid list. As I have said above, a comprehensive list of prisoners of war would run to thousands of people who have pages and so would be of no value. We have lists of prisoners of war by conflict, country, nationality etc, which is acceptable and of value, but having a list of everyone who has ever been a prisoner of war is pointless. Mztourist (talk) 06:09, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Moral support for deletion: although this list is going to be kept, there's absolutely no way it could ever become encyclopedically useful, because it is far too indiscriminate by its very nature. For WP:LSC, on of the criteria is "If this person/thing/etc. weren't X, would it reduce their fame or significance?" In the vast majority of cases, the answer is "no". (t · c) buidhe 08:26, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep although this list should be strictly notable prisoners of war, i.e. those with Wikipedia articles. Anyone without an article should be removed. They should also all be sourced, although that is cleanup and not relevant for a deletion discussion. Rhino131 (talk) 20:38, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This really ought to be a Lists of prisoners of war, containing sub-lists like List of American prisoners of war, List of British prisoners of war, etc. As Buidhe says, a single list is unlikely to ever be encyclopedically useful. – SD0001 (talk) 06:06, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes but that's what we have Categories for.Mztourist (talk) 06:15, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  That doesn't mean we can't have lists too in addition. See WP:NOTDUPE. – SD0001 (talk) 06:18, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.