Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Janetta Thomas

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 merge to List of British supercentenarians. Spartaz ^Humbug! 03:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Janetta Thomas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) • Afd statistics

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Nonnotable supercentenarian without reliable sources. See WT:WOP#Common deletion outcomes. More as needed. JJB 23:49, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 17:52, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep provided record as oldest living person in the UK is verified. WT:WOP#Common deletion outcomes is still a discussion rather than policy or even an essay, so in the meantime we have to make a decision based on our own opinions. My view is passing a set number of years' age doesn't confer notability, but holding a national record as oldest person does. The other option might be to put all the verifiable information about all the record holders in an article such as Oldest person in the United Kingdom, but someone will have to create that article first. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 21:36, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • List of British supercentenarians is what you are looking for. It's linked-to at the bottom of this article, in fact. Twice. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 23:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did you notice that the two other "oldest in UK" folks in the succession box didn't have articles? Did you notice there was only one reliable source (GRG webpages have been ruled at WP:RSN as data-dump primary sources)? If you really want to merge that one source into the British list article, I wouldn't argue, but these are not keep arguments. JJB 03:23, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Did you notice she was the oldest person ever born in Wales? Longevitydude (talk) 20:51, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • And how would I know that, since it's unsourced in article, the unreliable source does not say it, and the reliable source is not linked? JJB 21:30, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Incidentally, "verified" has two meanings here, first WP:V, then three-document GWR-style verification. But this article appears to have neither, because (thanks to MelanieN's legwork below) we are talking about a one-story one-event bio, and the story only says "believed to be Britain's oldest". (I would also like to take the opportunity to be snarky about such naked WP:SYN as "Had Thomas lived another six days ....") JJB 00:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
• Merge to the list of British supercentenarians, or Keep and give the other titleholders their own articles. Longevitydude (talk) 19:41, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge is plausible, although I do not favor it as a result. "Keep' and give the other titleholders their own articles..." is further than an AfD closure can go. Considerably futher. Mind-bogglingly further. David in DC (talk) 22:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• The problem with List of British supercentenarians is that it's not the obvious place to look for the oldest living person in the UK. A redirect from, say, Oldest living person in the UK (to the section on oldest living person) would help, but if we go back far enough we'll eventually reach a time when the oldest living person was less than 110. I think I'd prefer this as a stand-alone article rather than as a section of another article. As for whether individual oldest people should have individual articles, I can see arguments either way, but I think it would make sense in this case to be consistent. Those that do have articles don't seem to be any more notable than those who don't - the only real difference seems to be whether someone in a national newspaper happened to get round to writing an obituary. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 20:58, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chris, these are good issues, but do not relate to deletion of this article. Creating new redirects for the British list, including making Janetta a redirect, may help with finding the oldest living person in the UK among the topic morass, but this article doesn't. I don't have a problem with old-age succession lists also including centenarians, and the title "supercentenarians" may be changed in general if we can reliably source such succession lists, but those and other observations are more appropriate for the link appearing in the nom. This nom is in fact an attempt at consistency in the sprawling bio mass, by starting with deleting the most-unsourced articles and stopping all remaining bios meet a notability bar as consensus develops at that "common outcomes" link. In short, none of these issues overcome the basic WP:GNG, WP:RS, WP:V failure already referred to. JJB 21:30, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
• Delete There are, sort of, three "sources" here. One is from Gerontology Research Group web pages. There's some controversy about whether GRG pages are simply not reliable, whether they are biased against non-western centenarians or whether they are primary sources, prohibited for citation by WP:NOR. Whichever way one goes, they cannot be the sole source for an article. The second is a footnote referencing the Guardian, a reliable source. But it sources practically no facts and cannot be verified because no link is provided. The final "source" is described in the text as a photo that ran in the Times on the subject's birthday. The Times is a fine newspaper and a reliable source. But there's no link here either. Information might be from an accompanying article, but it could also be from a cut line or extended caption. Such captioning is much less reliable than an article. Without more, this slender reed is not enough to serve as foundation for an article on Wikipedia. David in DC (talk) 22:13, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep/Comment Since the GRG is an internationally reknowned source that is accepted by Guinness World Records, and the fact that their information is published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Rejuvenation Research, any controversy surrounding the GRG's reliability as a source is completely non-founded. Secondly, it does not matter whether a source is available to view on the internet or not. If it did then all Wikipedia's articles would be subject to recentist bias. Since this lady died in the early 1980s, it stands to reason that few/any articles about her will be available online, but since notability is not temporary, it is an irrelevance. Wikipedia relies on a variety of sources, including books, journal articles and newspaper articles. The nominator postulates that there are no reliable sources, yet this article has multiple. SiameseTurtle (talk) 13:34, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete It would seem to me that age itself is not enough to pass WP:NOTE and with nothing else to support it, when she passes she would no longer be the longest living. Agree with a merge in the List of British supercentenarians. Wolfstorm000 (talk) 15:22, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notice all of the undisputed 114 + supercentenarians have an article, proof that 114 stands out even among supercentenarians, well at least somewhere, so merge sounds reasonable in this case if its not keep, the info is notable enough to at least go somewhere. Longevitydude (talk) 15:53, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Very notable, though perhaps more sources could be added? 41.133.47.252 (talk) 18:08, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I could find only a single article about her, namely a Reuters report about her death in 1982 [1] which was reprinted in a few papers. To me that is WP:ONEEVENT. As I have argued above, simply being the oldest person in a given country does not grant automatic notability. The usual Wikipedia guidelines for sourcing must be met, on a case-by-case basis, and they are not met for this person based on what I found. --MelanieN (talk) 21:51, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to List of British supercentenarians. Nicely written and certainly worth a mention somewhere, but a separate article seems not be justified under WP:BIO. Alzarian16 (talk) 15:03, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, no significant coverage in reliable sources, does not meet GNG. I can't find any sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 16:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Since she was reported in the press as "Jeanetta Thomas", you won't. In addition, as the internet wasn't available in the 1980s, articles available online will be sparse. However there are sources from some digitised national newspapers. SiameseTurtle (talk) 23:19, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Searching under that variant yields a couple of passing mentions, but no significant coverage. If you have good source, please add them to the article. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:32, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Multple? I suppose 2 is multiple, but it's kinda slick phrasing. One of the two is used only as a source for the subject's name and birth/death dates. It may not even be a legitimate reliable source, as that term is defined on en.wikipedia. But for the moment, let's treat it as wholy permissable. The second is the Guardian article. It's used to source two facts:

"At the age of around 40, she returned to Wales to open a drapery shop, which she ran until the age of 98.", and

"From the age of 107, Thomas resided at a nursing home at Cowbridge, Wales."

The article also tells us that the subject's picture appeared in the Times on the day before her 112th birthday.

Let's see:

J(e)anetta Jane Thomas (2 December 1869 – 5 January 1982)

From age 40 to age 98, she ran a drapery shop,

From age 107 to age 112, she lived in a Welsh nursing home.

Her picture was in the Times just before her 112th birthday.

Call me crazy, but I don't see sourced facts that even pretend to assert notablity. David in DC (talk) 00:06, 6 December 2010 (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.