Talk:List of the verified oldest people

Talk:List of the verified oldest people/Archives

Why not ranking them in total days?

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

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

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

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

Archives

Why does the Archive Box at the top right stop at March 2011 (Archive Number 14)? What if I want to see some archived discussions after that date? Where do I go? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:01, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Not sure how that Archive Box works so I've added a standard box as well. The archives are currently up to Archive 15. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 04:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:37, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sarah Knauss (2nd nomination)

You might be interested in this. Your views would help further the discussion. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 03:50, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Also the number of days

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Supercentenarians with lifespans shorter than 114 years 67 days

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except this IS a list of the oldest "verified" people... so the title makes sense. And if you want to list everyone over the age of 110, then you're going to have a list of about 2000 people. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 21:53, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Oppose Agree with Knowledgekid87 and BabbaQ, one article would be too big. Given that there's a great disparity between males and females, it makes sense to just have three separate lists, rather than messing around having three rankings columns or whatever. This format has worked just fine for years. -- Ollie231213 (talk) 21:53, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excessive anti-GRG fan club backlash

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

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

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

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

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