Should the lists of "People born in Year of the [Sign]" be removed from Chinese zodiac articles? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes as nominator. (This is a reprise from above.) Currently all 12 of the Chinese zodiacal sign articles (Rat,Ox,Tiger,Rabbit,Dragon,Snake,Horse,Goat,Monkey,Rooster,Dog,Pig) contain lists with a random assortment of people who happen to have been born in a qualifying year. There was a consensus ages ago that these lists constitute cruft, do not serve a useful purpose, are functionally random in content, and are unmaintainable. That discussion is above on this same talk page: Talk:Rat_(zodiac)#Let's_remove_all_the_celebrities_lists.

Those points still stand. Nothing has changed since then, except that apparently people stopped keeping an eye out for the return of these lists. I propose to reaffirm the above consensus and then to remove the lists from all of the articles. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes - Such lists have long since been expunged from the articles in Category:Western astrological signs. William Avery (talk) 15:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes - The lists don't add to knowledge of the subject in a meaningful way. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 03:11, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• No. I think that the most important principle here is that unreferenced material can be challenged and deleted; however, referenced material should remain. That said, I can see arguments for keeping or deleting the lists, both pro and con the RfC nomination. There is also a third option: allow the lists, but with a qualifying protocol. I think the lists should be allowed, but with strict limits.
  • Pro. The lists may seem a bit silly and unnecessary to many editors (especially for editors who are somewhat removed from popculture, and haven't a clue as to who most of these personalities are). They are tedious to verify, since the birth dates must be determined and the relevant zodiacal year must be consulted for that date based on the relevant lunar calendar. We might fear that if every person with a birthdate given in a Wikipedia article becomes included in the lists, then they would go beyond a little crufty to being monstrous!
  • Con. Many people seem to be quite enthusiastic about these lists. In fact, consulting a few books on Chinese astrology, they seem rather ubiquitous. Reflecting this in the Chinese zodiac articles is of encyclopedic value, at least done in an exemplary and not exhaustive way: classifying people according to their animal signs is an essential part of the Chinese zodiac tradition. It is possible that some of the people that add names to this list may be making initial forays as editors, and encouraging them would be a way of recruiting people who would go on to make more substantial contributions. It is possible to ignore the lists, and they do not do any great harm. The lists also seem popular for the readers, our end-users, and that is what the encyclopedia is all about, not the editors. They may be difficult to maintain, but maybe not: I checked some of them, and the entries were all accurate, in a small sample. Notability can be assumed by linkage to a Wikipedia article. The argument that western astrology articles lack these lists is irrelevant, it simply begs the question and creates the potential for circular arguments. Another thing is that you can delete the lists, but others may and probably will recreate them.
  • Third way. It would be possible to retain the lists, but not in their currant format. I don't think spinning them off into separate list articles would work. However, a protocol requiring somewhat of a higher standard for including persons in the lists, such as requiring the birthdates alongside the name, would make most of the entries obvious at a glance whether persons were correctly listed or not (December, January, and February don't have the highest birthrates, anyway). Also, a limit to the length of the lists could be implemented, so that once the list reaches its maximum number of entries, if someone wants to add to the list they would have to remove a previous entry, keeping the lists within reasonable bounds. Dcattell (talk) 15:35, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes. See WP:FRINGE. There is no reason why Wikipedia should support silly beliefs such as astrology by spreading meaningless information about who has been put into which pigeonhole by superstitious people. It should inform the reader about the principles those superstitous people believe in but not go into unnecessary detail. Those who want such lists can start their own astrologypedia. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:56, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes per WP:NON-DEFINING. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:39, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes per nom. Sdkb (talk) 05:35, 24 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes Seems like trivial information to me. Some1 (talk) 01:32, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, as there is a humongous number of people (8.33% of all people) to list in each sign article. Useless.--Hippeus (talk) 10:39, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]