Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mayors of Ramsey, New Jersey

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 no consensus. There doesn't seem to be any agreement whether or not list articles such as these are suitable. An RfC might be suitable moving forward. Some of the arguments from both sides are somewhat weak and making it difficult to determine consensus. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:53, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mayors of Ramsey, New Jersey

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List of small-town mayors. Not otherwise notable and poorly sourced. Fails WP:NLIST Rusf10 (talk) 01:49, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politicians, Lists of people, and New Jersey. Rusf10 (talk) 01:49, 24 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep "Not otherwise notable" notable is subjective. Useful for people researching nation, state and town history as well as new references. "poorly sourced" History books and news articles reflect the basic facts of the start of end dates of their terms as well as names.

jjrj24 (talk) 11:19, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Wikipedia is not meant to be an indiscriminate collecton of all knowledge. A detailed listing of every mayor of a place with under 20,000 people within the New York City Metro Area is clearly a case of a detailed indiscrminate listing of everything.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:04, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How could such a list be indiscriminate when its parameters are very clear and very specific? Djflem (talk) 03:58, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. and John Pack Lambert. Fails WP:NLIST and WP:GNG. Sal2100 (talk) 21:54, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per (bold mine) plus fact that city size is not a Wikipedia policy-based criteria and that Wikipedia lists do not require persons, places, things on lists to be individually notable. Per cited WP:NLIST, "There is no present consensus for how to assess the notability of more complex and cross-categorization lists (such as "Lists of X of Y")", such as this one which is well-organised.
- Wikipedia:SALAT: This list fulfills objective as it is limited in size and topic and is not trivial and is encyclopedic and related to human knowledge
- Wikipedia:LISTPURP #1: This list fulfills requirement because the list structured around a theme and is annotated.
- Wikipedia:LISTCRITERIA: This list fits this criteria because listed items fit its narrow scope and are topically relevant making it encyclopedic, comprehensive (and possibly) complete.
- Wikipedia:NOTDIR#1: This list does not contravene this policy as it is not a loosely associated topic and its entries are relevant because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic.
- Wikipedia:CSC: This list fulfills this criteria explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles. There is parent article in which it can be embedded for a merge, but would overwhelm that article. Djflem (talk) 03:54, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Djflem Patapsco913 (talk) 03:09, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I was about to relist the discussion, but felt it would be better to comment here. I think an RfC is in order because there is a wide variety of views about the notability of these lists. On one hand is the argument made by Djflem (above) suggesting that the topic does meet the criteria set up in WP:NLIST and there are other editors who believe that lists of mayors need to show "some evidence of reliable source coverage about the people, not just to content self-published by the place's own municipal council," and other editors point to the size of the municipality as justification to reject the list article. These are underlying policy questions that cannot be fully resolved in deletion discussions. --Enos733 (talk) 16:11, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nominator....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 14:01, 1 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I totally agree that Wikipedia should not contain indiscriminate lists - and this list is decidedly not indiscriminate. Looking at the list criteria, all known mayors of not only a specific city, but part of that city, means this list is actually very selective. A list of every mayor in the U.S would be indiscriminate. There is no good reason why this list should be deleted. MaxnaCarter (talk) 01:01, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment@Such-change47:, @Djflem:, @Patapsco913: Here are one[1], two[2] AFDs, both closed just one month ago for List of Mayors from. None had one single notable person listed. Both ended in deletion. One of those towns was population 15 thousand something, the other 41 thousand something. What makes Ramsey New Jersey, population under 15,000, so special?...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 19:26, 2 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  Past AFD closures can be indicative, but they are not binding on future AFDs. MaxnaCarter (talk) 00:37, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  
  Population/municipality size is not a policy-based criteria and is simply a Wikipedia:I just don't like it, which is Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. Djflem (talk) 03:27, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, that's actually a valid point. The mayor of a large city can be presumed notable, the mayor of a little town cannot be, you're going to have to find a lot of sources to prove this is a list of notable people. WP:NLIST states the eithier the group as a whole or the individual people must be notable, I don't see either here.--Rusf10 (talk) 13:05, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pointing to Wikipedia:OTHERSTUFF as above is not a valid AfD argument.Djflem (talk) 19:21, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:NOTPAPER. I'm pretty skeptical of Wikipedia editors doing original-research-by-synthesis with complicated list criteria, but a list of mayors is the kind of thing that's acceptable. Yes, it's a small town - so what? As long as valid sources exist, it's fine. SnowFire (talk) 02:05, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - these type of lists, as long as they are sourced, form a valuable, if tiny, resource for researchers.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:34, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not a policy-based reason, see WP:VALUABLE--Rusf10 (talk) 20:14, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:LISTPURP: The list may be a valuable information source. This is particularly the case for a structured list. Examples would include lists organized chronologically, grouped by theme, or annotated lists Djflem (talk) 05:08, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Similar to Enos733, I came here to close, but felt better to contribute. While often true across AfD more than we would like, I get the sense that particularly with this topic, depending on who turns up to these AfDs will determine the outcome. IMHO, Djflem's points are very persuasive on the basis of policy and I see nothing here that has successfully refuted that contribution, yet, I'm certainly aware that there are community tendencies that see these lists as not notable as WilliamJE's citing of other AfDs shows. I would support Enos733's call for a more general RFC. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 22:35, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Week keep Could possibly be merged into Ramsey,_New_Jersey#Local_government, but it also seems reasonable that WP:LISTPURP is met. MrsSnoozyTurtle 23:23, 4 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The idea that we would have lists - complete with WP:BLP implications - of mayors of towns of less than 15,000 people seems wildly out of line with our current practices and standards around lists or how we handle politicians. I would not be opposed to MrsSnoozy's suggestion of a merge, but this doesn't meet our current handling of this topic area as demonstrated by the AfDs noted above. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:23, 7 June 2022 (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.