Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of American firefighters killed in the line of duty

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 delete. Sandstein 20:57, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

List of American firefighters killed in the line of duty

List of American firefighters killed in the line of duty (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Only one source, poorly defined list with small amounts of content. RF23 (talk) 12:27, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 13:24, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 13:25, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 13:25, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

• Delete- to broad of a category for a list. A complete list would include thousands of entries. The current entries don't meet notability guidelines.--Rusf10 (talk) 17:44, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE also most of the names do not pass WP:BLP and Wikipedia is not a memorial site. Ajf773 (talk) 22:50, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
• Comment [was "Keep", obviously.] It can/should be developed, but that is not for AFD. Per wp:CLT it is appropriate to have a list corresponding to a category, and here the relevant categories could be Category:American firefighters and Category:Deaths from fire in the United States. The list version allows for redlinks and using sources to suggest where individual firefighter articles are needed and the corresponding categories to be developed. There's nothing wrong with a category or list being potentially huge, we just proceed and split along geography or other lines. I happen to do a lot of editing related to List of RHPs, a list of 90,000 historic sites, no problemo. There are List of artists, List of scientists, and on and on. List-item notability can be an issue, but is not for AFD, and one simple solution can be to limit items to ones having separate Wikipedia articles. As a topic, firemen killed in the line of duty is a hugely well recognized topic, for centuries, c.f. memorials to fallen fire fighters in most U.S. cities. --Doncram (talk) 05:08, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Sentiment seems against my view. Fallen fire fighters are an obvious-to-me important topic, so I don't like this. But there was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Cal Fire firefighters killed in the line of duty which led to the removal from Wikipedia of an explicit list of California firefighters, although the deletion-nominated article was converted to California Firefighters Memorial, which survives. It seems that others' taste is not to have a list of persons who are not themselves obviously individually notable (i.e. they don't have separate Wikipedia articles).

Perhaps, development-wise, it would be better to develop first a List of firefighting memorials (currently a redlink), corresponding to Category:Firefighting memorials. This would surely be accepted as there are numerous Wikipedia-notable examples (which have articles). Also, towards developing a list of individual fallen firefighters, it would help to create an explicit category for them, and to include examples such as James J. Kenney. Then later it would be feasible to create a list-article which would survive deletion pressure.

For the record, the current article states "This is a list of American firefighters killed in the line of duty. The list includes individuals whose deaths received either significant local, national, or international attention" and its significant content is the following table, which lists just nine persons, none having articles yet. There is no indication these are more significant than any others.

Vorname	Nachname	Incident Date	Cause Of Death	Nature Of Death	Standort
Robert	Pollard	December 31, 1999	Stress/Overexertion	Cerebrovascular Accident	New York City
Lee	Purdy	January 8, 2000	Stress/Overexertion	Heart Attack	New York City
Ronald	Osadacz	January 11, 2000	Stress/Overexertion	Heart Attack	New York City
Allen	Streeter	January 11, 2000	Stress/Overexertion	Heart Attack	New York City
John	Bellew	January 23, 2005	Fall	Blunt Force Trauma (Black Sunday (2005))	The Bronx, NY
Curtis	Meyran	January 23, 2005	Fall	Blunt Force Trauma (Black Sunday (2005))	The Bronx, NY
Richard	Scalfani	January 23, 2005	House Fire	Asphyxiation (Black Sunday (2005))	Brooklyn, NY
Larry	Leggio	October 12, 2015	Building Collapse	Blunt Force Trauma	Kansas City, MO
John	Mesh	October 12, 2015	Building Collapse	Blunt Force Trauma	Kansas City, MO

To reiterate, fallen firefighters are obviously (to me) significant, and having a list-article of at least the more prominent/notable ones (at least all the ones having separate Wikipedia articles about them) is obviously acceptable in the long term in Wikipedia. Arguments that it will be "too many" are just misguided, IMHO. But there does need to be some prioritization, some clarity in presentation about why the ones presented in a given list are chosen. The current version could/should be modified to do that, IMHO, but that is not yet happening. I hope my suggestions on a way forward are helpful for future editors. --Doncram (talk) 02:06, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Delete per NOTINDISCRIMINATE. National Fire Protection Association stats show about 125 firefighters per year lately, more in earlier years, so we're talking about a couple of thousand entries just for this millenium. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:07, 16 January 2018 (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.