Talk:List of Bulgarians

Needs further treatment?

This list should be revitalized. I've never seen so much red.

Never heard of any of them

Perhaps we can include a summary of the "super-famous" at the top? -syndicate 16:47, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

As I have never heard of any of the contemporary "famous" Americans that I find on Wikipedia

And that is the purpose of Wikipedia, to find things you've never heard of. All the people in this list are well known and have great importance for their country. Problem is that too few Bulgarians write here. Me, personally, I have no time for that :( A paradox here is that showmen and petty singers that are on the front wave with their ephemeral fame have already articles about them while people with great historical value have not.

-watertroll 18:47, 21 June 2006

Removal of names from the list

Hmm, having in mind that WP:LISTPEOPLE could hardly be called exhaustive, how do you gather that all these names should be removed? And o you seriously propose to add a reliable reference for every name on the list in the list itself? Cause most of the names have their own articles with the corresponding sources usually belonging there. I don't think there is a wiki policy of over-referencing mere lists. And I really wonder what a reliable source for, let's say, an Olympic Gold medallist should be provided. There are cases in which Common sense is more than welcome. --Laveol ^T 05:48, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I fully support the deletion of all names (including monarchs) that have neither a wp article, nor a ref. If the name has either a wp article or an appropriate (third party) ref, then I am fine with it remaining. WP:LISTPEOPLE states that "If a person in a list does not have an article in Wikipedia about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to establish their membership in the list's group and to establish their notability." To me, that supports the either/or construct. It is also in keeping with the state of play (I can say this, having edited a substantial percentage of such lists on wp).--Epeefleche (talk) 06:21, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it is ok to delete redlinks or unsourced articles, but an editor just wiped out practically the whole list. And some of the articles have third-party reliable sources on the origin of the respective persons.--Laveol ^T 07:05, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I concur that wp:listpeople only calls for the deletion of what I indicated; unless we have more editors voicing a different view, I would think the consensus on this page would support your adding back those names that have wp articles about them.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

At the same time, I do agree w/the other editor that the unreferenced redlinks should be deleted, per wp:listpeople.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:13, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I do also concur with that view. I'll go forth and remove the redlinks a tad later. Thanks for the input. --Laveol ^T 10:22, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

This is just one instance of a broader campaign by Selket (talk · contribs) against lists of people by nationality. To what end and purpose, I have no idea. But it's contrary to every policy discussion and AFD I've ever seen on the subject: we do not delete content just because it is unsourced at present if it is verifiable, and the way to fix a list that is unsourced is to migrate sources from the articles it lists, not to blank it. I've also never seen a discussion establishing that nationality is per se a contentious or negative fact such that BLP would require immediate blanking. I'm not familiar with Selket, so I will presume he will bow to consensus and not persist in blanking these. postdlf (talk) 14:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not my campaign. The campaign was started at WP:LISTPEOPLE and WP:NLIST and WP:BLP. I am just the first person to attempt to correct some of the lists to comply with those standards. And yes, I expect every entry to have a citation as has been done at other list articles such as List of Jewish American businesspeople. -- Selket ^Talk 14:43, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, if there are sources in the original articles, then they can be copied here quite easily. -- Selket ^Talk 14:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Then do that. Blanking them or listing them for deletion to provoke that editing strikes me as WP:POINTy. Can you point to a discussion at WP:LISTPEOPLE, WP:NLIST, or WP:BLP that expressly discusses and endorses what you've been doing here? Because any number of recent people-list AFDs and DRVs have run exactly contrary to those methods. postdlf (talk) 14:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not my job to find a reference for everyone on the list. The burden of proof is on the editor who wants something included, not the editor who wants something removed. I've been finding refernces where I can. Also, I've only AfD'ed where there was something else wrong with the list in addition to it being empty. Examples include: "associated" with Andorra, the British VI article that include people who just have a house there, etc. -- Selket ^Talk 15:07, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

"It's not my job"--that's really a crappy thing to say here. If you've chosen to edit something to fix a problem, you've taken the responsibility to fix it in the most constructive way, and in a way that reflects consensus. Not simply the quickest or easiest way. And consensus (not to mention policy) is against preemptive blanking of verifiable content unless it's a copyvio or a BLP violations. Re: burden of proof, I can't tell you how many times I've seen that as a justification for blanking such as yours, and the response is always (whether at AFD, or ANI if it comes to it) is that it is disruptive to indiscriminately blank content instead of trying to source it, when you have no good reason to believe that it is incorrect (see also WP:BEFORE). Have you started a discussion anywhere, whether on the lists' talk pages or on a policy or guideline page, aiming at identifying such lists that have unsourced entries and organizing an attempt to fix those by copying sources from articles or finding them elsewhere?

And if there's a problem with a list's criteria, then fix it yourself (e.g., change "associated" to "citizen or resident of") and/or discuss it on the talk page. AFD is not for cleanup. postdlf (talk) 15:23, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Here's the problem with that. It takes a lot less time for someone to drop a name onto a list than it takes to find a reference for it. That is why the person who puts the name on the list must include the reference -- not the person who wants it removed. This is outlined quite clearly at [[WP:RS], WP:BLP, and WP:BURDEN. -- Selket ^Talk 16:40, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

That's not good enough. From WP:BURDEN: "How quickly [removal of material] should happen depends on the material and the overall state of the article. Editors might object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references. It has always been good practice to make reasonable efforts to find supporting sources yourself and cite them." And the only exception given is damaging statements contra BLP. You're not just removing names when they are added but rather long after the fact, so it isn't like you're engaging with specific editors in an actual content dispute when the list addition is made; you're not just removing names of living people; and you're not just removing names based on good faith belief that they don't actually belong on the list. As the text I quoted states, and as consensus has repeatedly established, WP:BURDEN does not entitle you to indiscriminately remove content for no other reason than it being presently unsourced (see comments re: WP:BURDEN in this recent ANI thread beginning with Franamax's post). Do you think consensus would support a bot being unleashed on Wikipedia that blanked or deleted all articles without references, or that removed all sentences that did not have inline citations? Obviously the answer is no, and nor is it tolerated for an editor to act like a bot would. WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM is also policy; WP:DOWHATISFASTESTFORME is not. postdlf (talk) 17:13, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• I come back to my earlier point. I fully support the deletion of all names (including monarchs) that have neither a wp article, nor a ref. If the name has either a wp article or an appropriate (third party) ref, it is fine to leave it in as-is. WP:LISTPEOPLE states that "If a person in a list does not have an article in Wikipedia about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to establish their membership in the list's group and to establish their notability." To me, that supports the either/or construct. It is also in keeping with the state of play on wp (I can say this, having edited a substantial percentage of such lists on wp). Deleting blue-linked names because they do not have citations is not in keeping with how the vast majority of people lists on wp are maintained, and I would not support that approach. I saying this, having probably deleted more names from lists than anyone in this discussion, if not on wp.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

PEr all the comments left here and especially Epeefleche's experience in the field, I have added back all the blue links. If an editor has any doubts about someone being Bulgarian (although common sense, as I put it earlier, makes it quite impossible to call something the duck a possum) could be raised in the respective article. Moreover, I have removed what I deem unnecessary refs, since they hardly serve any purpose here. Why have the same sources which could be in the article itself? This way they only burden readers and stack up on the bottom of the list. --Laveol ^T 06:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Please see:

• List of Jewish American businesspeople
• Line of succession to the British throne
• List of Hutus

There is plenty of precedent for inline citations on lists. Per postdlf's request, the blue links that I deleted from this list were the ones that did not have sources in the articles stating they were Bulgarian. Several of the ones I removed were links to articles of people who were clearly not Bulgarian. "There might be a source somewhere else" is not grounds for inclusion. It is impossible for a reader to tell which are sourced and which are not in the current setup. -- Selket ^Talk 14:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Also, I feel it's important to note what WP:LISTPEOPLE says because of the "either or" argument made above. It clearly states "A person may be included in a list of people if all the following requirements are met:" (emphasis added). One of the three requirements that follows is "The person's membership in the list's group is established by reliable sources." "Established" links to the Verifiability policy, which has also been misrepresented above. Verifiability doesn't mean that it might be verifiable if there is a source on the internet somewhere. It says quite plainly "whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source" (emphasis added again). For something to be verifiable, there must be a way for the reader to check. Inline citations are by far the preferred method to allow readers to check facts. I can think of no other article on which citations were removed because they took up too much space. -- Selket ^Talk 14:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Selket is right. --John (talk) 14:39, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not too hung up on whether inline citations should or shouldn't be required for all lists when the linked articles support inclusion with citations. No one has pointed to a discussion establishing that it's a recognized, consensus-supported requirement, making competing interpretations of policy or guideline language no more than just that and at risk of descending into mere wikilawyering. That Selket is trying to implement this on his own, going roughly alphabetically through the nationality lists and without having a prior discussion to point to, makes me all the more convinced that it's not a recognized standard, but rather one Selket would like implemented. I think it should be required in lists that are per se BLP problems (such as lists of people who committed crimes), or for entries of unclear or conflicting inclusion (to annotate differing sources, or to note a caveat to the entry's inclusion). Beyond that, I don't need it for benign things such as nationality/occupation lists, but I probably wouldn't undo it if someone else adds a source. Ultimately there probably needs to be an RFC to resolve the matter, if this disagreement is representative of a larger dispute than just us handful of editors.

My prime concern here is instead regarding what the best process is to implement that, if it is to be implemented. Giving Selket every benefit of the doubt, it is still a change in practice, which means that we can't treat existing lists and list entries that have not yet implemented it the same as we would a new edit contrary to current standards. This list was started in 2003. Think of the uproar over recent attempts to mass delete all unsourced BLPs: it was roundly rejected that we would require immediate compliance with new policy for articles that had existed for years rather than taking the time to transition them (which is why WP:BLPPROD only applies to articles created after March 18, 2010). Neither should any list, or list entry, be automatically blanked for failure to currently comply with inline sourcing when there is not an urgent BLP issue (i.e., an unsourced negative statement).

Nor should that blanking occur unless verification has been attempted. Per WP:BLPDELETE: "Biographical material about a living individual that is not compliant with this policy should be improved and rectified; if this is not possible, then it should be removed." (emphasis added) I would say at a bare minimum to at least check the linked article and its references and do a quick Google search (if that doesn't turn anything up, then the article may have larger problems such as lack of notability, and needs more attention in any event). And given that everyone (with extremely few exceptions) has had at least one nationality during their lives, I would think you'd also need a good faith reason to believe that the one asserted is incorrect. As noted above, neither WP:BLP nor WP:BURDEN supports blanking without those conditions being met, and WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM expressly forbids it. If you can't take that time for each entry, then leave it alone or tag it and others will address it. postdlf (talk) 18:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I would certainly invite a broader discussion, but if we're going to do that, perhaps we should broaden the topic as well. What is the goal of a list like this? Certainly it's not to list the entire population of Bulgaria, or even every notable person from Bulgaria. I would love to expand the monarchs to something like List of English monarchs. That list is very well done. It is thoroughly referenced and adds something that a category wouldn't by creating a timeline and narrative. So, and I don't mean to be snarky, it's a real question, what do we see as the goal of this list? What would it look like if it were to be improved to featured-list status? -- Selket ^Talk 15:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't look like any lists of people by nationality have become featured lists. The formatting at List of HIV-positive people might provide a good example: subheaders divided by field/occupation, birth/death dates, notes on why they are notable, and a column for reference (if desired or needed). If there are enough notable Bulgarians, then it might become a list of lists (such as Lists of Americans), with such sublists as monarchs split off and just linked here.

But yes, I think the goal would be to index every notable person from Bulgaria, just as the category system does. They serve a browsing function for readers interested in people of a shared background and/or shared place of occupation, and help editors identify related articles.

Nationality lists roughly target citizenship, but sources don't always comment on that explicitly, and it can be complicated, both because of citizenship laws (see, again, statelessness) or because of countries forming or dissolving. You mentioned Rowe as being problematic, but given that she was born and raised in Bulgaria, that's actually a very easy case. She's lived in London for decades now, and that's where she became notable, where's she's married and had kids, but absent a source we don't know that she became a British citizen, so we can't just decide she's British just because of residence. Her place of origin remains relevant and defining (in her case, it looks like it is even commented on as an influence on her cooking), and it is common for it to be recognized that a country has produced people of certain careers even though they perform that career elsewhere (think of Major League Baseball players from the Dominican Republic). I've seen a few edit wars regarding the intros to articles that get hung up on similar issues: do you call an artist born in France who moved to the U.S. a French artist, an American artist, neither, both? (see Robert Frank, for one way it's been resolved; Swiss-born, became notable in the U.S. and is studied as part of American photography; now splits his time between NYC and Nova Scotia).

Lists are not mutually exclusive, so individuals can be listed on multiple lists if they have dual citizenship, or if they move or change citizenship, and we don't just list the most recent facts about people. Lists can also tolerate flexible inclusion criteria so that people like Pindoff can be included even though he may not have actually been a Bulgarian citizen; just note in an annotation that he was born in "Macedonia" (which as you can see is itself ambiguous), raised in Bulgaria, and then emigrated to Canada (where he may or may not have become a citizen; and a list of people from London could note that Rowe is Bulgarian-born). postdlf (talk) 16:55, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

• Just a couple of points, that address only some of the above. 1. These lists are of notable people that are "x". Not of all people that are "x". Having a wp article is one indicia of notability. But the guideline allows for people who do not have a wp article to be listed, when their appropriateness for inclusion in the list can be demonstrated by one or more refs. 2. As to the goal of the list, it is to satisfy reader interest. By checking views, you can see that some of these lists have a great number of views per day. Others, a smaller number, but we aim for parity, so if we cover country x, we will also cover country y, even if viewership is low. 3. Featured-list status lists may well have characteristics that other lists do not have, as they are not necessarily required to have them (e.g., refs for every entry, only blue-linked entries, images to enhance the list, etc.). But that does not mean that we should delete entries or list that lack these characteristics. 4. I do think, upon Selket having clarified it, that if there is no ref, and only a blue link, and the article fails to identify the person as being an "x", it is reasonable to delete that person from the category "x" list. 5. The lists that really need to be addressed, IMHO, are those replete with red-links that are un-ref'd. Such as [[1]]. I was hoping that a bot could address them, but that time has not yet come, and I have by hand been fixing a great number of such lists over time, by deleting such entries. (Help on that score would always be appreciated). Best.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:24, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Kroum Pindoff

This is a key example of how classifying someone as a "Bulgarian" businessperson is going to be hard. The source never calls him "Bulgarian". It says he was born in Macedonia and raised in Bulgaria. He didn't go into business until after moving to Canada. Seems like a Canadian businessman to me. -- Selket ^Talk 21:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

What is a Bulgarian?

Given the introduction of Silvena Rowe, I feel I'm forced to ask what the inclusion criteria of this list are. Is it born in Bulgaria? Is it became famous in Bulgaria? Is it have some part of Bulgarian ancestry? If so, how much is enough? The source for Silvena Rowe's inclusion on the list says she's lived in London for 25 years. Her restaurant is in London. Her TV show is on BBC. It seems to me like she's a British chef originally from Bulgaria. The criteria need to be tightened. -- Selket ^Talk 21:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The point of these lists is to index notable people, i.e., article subjects, and nationality is one of the most basic classifications used on Wikipedia and always has been. Occupation is another. People do move around, and people take up and drop professions, and these lists (nor the parallel categories) aren't limited only to where people end up or where they are currently. Speaking as a current expat (and my wife is an expat from yet another country), I know personally that answering "where are you from?" can get complicated. I can tell you my Canadian wife would object to being known anything as other than a Canadian professor, even though she has never actually taught in Canada. She went to school in the U.S. but was never an American student.

Is being raised in Bulgaria enough to merit inclusion in this list? Most editors would probably say so, and most editors would also say that including him thus is not the equivalent of asserting that he was a businessman in Bulgaria. That these matters can be complicated (most are not) is certainly not reason to run amok with your blanking stick, but to take the time to discuss and research them, and then decide how best to represent the information. Complications and caveats are what annotations are for.

But these questions are larger than just this list obviously. They come up regularly with all such lists and categories, and generally the consensus is for a broad inclusion so as to link relevant topics rather than draw a narrow classification. postdlf (talk) 22:05, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I have just added George Baker born in Bulgaria but growinging up and thought of as British. I think we have to settle on birth country as everything else is subjective and changeable. Mariegriffiths (talk) 12:52, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

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