Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/People aged over 85

:{{la|People aged over 85}} – (View AfDView log{{•}} {{plainlink|1=http://toolserver.org/~betacommand/cgi-bin/afdparser?afd={{urlencode:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/People aged over 85}}|2=AfD statistics}})

:({{findsources|People aged over 85}})

I feel the value of 85 years is arbitary, and that the topic is unmaintainably broad and redundant to the existing article Oldest people. Marasmusine (talk) 15:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• Delete. Way too arbitrary; there are literally thousands of possible links to pages that already exist in the project that could go on such a page. (Not everyone born in the 1920s is still alive, of course, but how does one decide who is placed on this list?)  Frank  {{!}}  talk  15:15, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
• Delete Arbitrary or not, there would be thousands of people with Wikipedia articles who would fall in this classification. While the contribution is appreciated, and (redacting comments that show my earlier ignorance on such matters) I recognize that a good deal of work has been put into calculating how many years and days the individuals have been alive, the list so far (50 names) is only the tip of the iceberg. At the moment, it's a minor chore, but a chore nonetheless, to change the information daily (i.e., if you're 93 years, 1 day today, then you'll be 93 years, 2 days tomorrow). If I were doing a list like this myself, I'd confine it to people who are still active in their profession at the age of 85, like Senator Byrd. Since 85 seems to be a hangup, maybe there should be a list of living octogenarians, list of living nonogenarians, etc. I'm surprised that, since we have a category for every other aspect of people, we don't simply have :Category: Living octogenarians (for some reason, we have moronic categories called "living persons", which takes into account about 7 billion people or so). The categories would be easy to maintain (when Richard Adams turns 90 next week, it would be "Duh, he's not in his 80s anymore"). I do like the format, but I don't see how one would keep it under control. At some point, you'd have to divide a list further, probably by age rather than alphabetically. Mandsford (talk) 15:38, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. I would note, however, that this article uses a template called {{tl|Age in years and days}}, and once a person is added to the article with their birthdate, their entry can stay as it is (without requiring further changes to their age) until the person dies. All the work in terms of calculating the individuals' ages in years and days is being done automatically via the template. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:18, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. --  -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 16:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. --  -- Lear's Fool (talk | contribs) 16:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
• Delete Much too general and arbitrary. And what about dead people? (To clarify: Should they be included?) --Cybercobra (talk) 16:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. Firstly, if such a grouping was necessary, it would be better suited to a category than an article. Secondly, as an article, it is meaningless and has the potential to become very long, cumbersome and meaningless. In theory, the article (going by its title) could list any individual, living or dead, who ever lived beyond 85 - as long as the information could be verified in a secondary source. In other words, as an article, the subject matter is assumed notable and therefore the content, as long as they agree with the subject and can be verified, is limitless. By extension, one could argue that the topic isn't notable and that the article should be deleted on the basis of lack of notability. Wikipeterproject (talk) 16:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
• Keep but raise the limit to 90, just because 85 is not all that old. Looking down the list of notable people who are really old, many names led to thoughts of "My God, is he/she still alive?" The article specifically is limited to "notable people", so your Great Uncle Reggie (unless he is notable) will not be cluttering it up, and eligibility for membership can be determined by a n automatic computation. Certainly dead people would not appear in the list. So it is a useful listing of notable people of a particular antiquity. Per WP:LIST, redundancy of lists and categories is beneficial. Edison (talk) 21:51, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

::Comment: In which case it would have to be renamed "Notable people aged over 90". Otherwise Uncle Reggie could be included if his age (over 90) could be verified by reliable secondary sources... Wikipeterproject (talk) 22:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

:::In previous AFDs when I have raised a similar issue about adding "Norable" to the ar5ticle title, I've been told that that is contrary to the acepted style for titling articles, since we do not have "nonnotable" article subjects. There is a presumption that only notable entries belong in a list. Like "Deaths in 2010" would not include random nonnotable people. Edison (talk) 01:35, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

::How do you propose we objectively determine how old is enough to be "all that old"? --Cybercobra (talk) 00:08, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

• Delete. We already have several lists, broken into subcategories, with the much more restrictive cutoff of 100 years, under :Category:Centenarians and Lists of centenarians. We don't need this one as well; it is redundant and unmaintainable. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:31, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
• Not disagreeing with the delete, but I'm curious about how any list or category about people aged 85 to 99 would be redundant to the list or category about centenarians. Mandsford (talk) 12:45, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
• It's not People aged between 85 and 99, it's People aged over 85. Everyone aged over 100 is also aged over 85, and there are already plenty of people listed who are over 100. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:03, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
• Delete, I have never seen 85 as a mile marker, like 100 is. Why not 84? 86? However, I could see a niche for a List of active state leaders aged over 80. Geschichte (talk) 16:20, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
• Delete as this list topic or a definition for this list appears to have not been published anywhere else other than Wikipedia, as it does not have a verifiable definition and contravenes the prohibition on original research as illustrated by WP:MADEUP. If it has not be been published anywhere except within Wikipedia, there is no evidence that it is verifiable, let alone notable. To demonstrate that this topic was not created based on editor's own whim, a verifiable definition is needed to provide external validation that this list complies with content policy. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
• Delete. I really cannot see the point of this article. As lists go it's far too arbitrary, will require constant maintenance and will never be anything like complete. It's also badly titled - even if kept (and I still don't think it should be) it should be List of notable people aged over 85 or something similar. All people over 85? I think not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

: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.