Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/No longer identified (2nd nomination)

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. Far stronger arguments were made for deletion of this article than those to keep it- including that the criteria for inclusion is unclear, that the list is problematic to source to the high standard that would be necessary, and that it raises serious

List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/No longer identified

List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/No longer identified (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Article had an AFD at

• Strong keep and suggest moving to List of ex-gay people. Otto4711 14:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, vague definition, currently almost barren once I'd removed all the unsourced/badly sourced entries, but still a magnet for further ones once attention has moved on. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 15:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also note that if the list was renamed to list of ex-gay people, the list would go down to one entry, since Tatu don't count as ex-gay as they claim never to have been gay in the first place. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 15:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have restored your cuts, added sources for the ones without sources and removed the only living person who is unsourced. If you don't like the name List of ex-gay people then move it to List of people who formerly identified as LGBT. I remain at a loss to understand how "For people who were once identified as LGBT but no longer are" is in any way vague. It requires editor to be able to answer and source two questions: Was the person at one time identified as LGBT? If no, then don't add. If yes, then go to question two Does the person now identify as heterosexual? If no, then don't add. If yes, then add and source. Not that complicated really. Otto4711 15:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per the fact that this violates
  speak ○ see ○ 16:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Comment - If a person makes a public statement that they are gay and then later makes a public statement that they are not, there is no implication of their privacy. And with all due respect, your ignorance about who is or isn't gay or who has or hasn't made an "issue" of their sexuality has no bearing on this discussion. The fact that you characterize the list as containing "actors and actresses" indicates to me that you didn't even bother to fully read the list before commenting. The list as it now stands consists of one actor/singer, two musicians, a professional "reparative therapist," an evangelical minister, a journalist, a writer and a retail heir. If you bother to read some of the linked articles, you would realize that their identification as formerly gay is notable, verifiable and important. Some of the people on the list made their careers denouncing homosexuality. Others make their living performing therapy designed to turn gay men straight and writing books and delivering lectures on the topic. Otto4711 16:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cheerful Reply Hey, have you read

speak ○ see ○ 19:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

1. In most cases, the main pages for the individuals do not mention the past homosexuality. This should be a prerequisite to appearing on the list.

2. The title of the article (and proposed titles) imply that the individuals self identified (ie. came out) as an alternative sexuality. As noted below, this is not the case for most people on the list (at least according to the sources provided).

-Robert Graves is only mentioned (and it is not sourced) for having "homosexual experiences in his youth". In my mind, this does not immediately make him gay, especially since no elaboration is given as to these experiences.

-Ted Haggard has never to the best of my knowledge identified as anything other than heterosexual. While it might be tempting to infer from his recent claims to be "completely heterosexual" that he once was something else, I don't believe we can make this leap.

-Russell Miller's "flirt[ing] with bisexuality" does not make him a bisexual anymore than my flirting with pot makes me a pothead.

-Lou Reed's supposed bisexuality is based around claims made by another, and was denied by Reed himself (based on what I can infer from the notes on the article in question and a bit of googling).

-t.A.T.u. "were never lesbians in the first place". This comes directly from the source given supporting their transformation.

-Worsthorne's article (when read carefully) does not state that the journalist ever identified as homosexual. It instead references how he and many of his peers preferred the simplicity of same sex company during the course of their education. Given the very abstract tone of the article, I don't feel comftorable labeling Worsthorne as any sexuality without corresponding accounts.

3. None of the sources (aside from the t.A.T.u. article and Cohen's webpage) put me at ease about the claims they support. I mentioned me concerns with the vaugeness of Worsthorne's piece. I don't have information regarding the specifice passages in the Aldrich book or New Idea article which support the claims about Bowie and Miller (respectively). I don't fully understand the reference supporting the claim about Reed. Graves has no citation at all. Finally, news articles about Haggard that I have read do nothing more than print speculation regarding Haggard's previous orientation.

4. My final concern regards the "hot" nature of this topic. Without multiple reliable references for each claim, we put ourselves in serious risk of seriously offending and damaging the images of the individuals named. While I don't think we face any libel issues (so long as we are merely repeating what others have said) I certainly do not want to ruin any lives (or, in the case of Graves, memories) by giving rise to false sensationalism.

Taking the above into stock, the only individual who I feel comftorable leaving on the list is Cohen. Since his

page already contains the information, I don't see any need to duplicate it here. Given that, I offer my suggestion of delete, as given above. →Bobby← 16:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply

]

• Delete. Too many potential
  WP:BLP issues here, plus it's very difficult to really verify what is truth and what is rumor, or whether certain individuals were ever actually gay to begin with (as noted above, TATU being a good example). 23skidoo 17:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• comment I know I'm rowing against the tide here, but I feel I have to say something. ALL biographical information is "prone to BLP issues," even the least contentious claims you could think of. That alone is not a reason to delete, being 'prone' to problems violates no wikipedia policy. IF this list satisfies
  WP:V then there is no choice other to keep. I agree it's a mess in current form, so I won't vote keep, but if it is deleted, I would please ask that it be done without prejudice so that a fully-sourced version comporting to BLP and verifiability guidelines would not be simply speedied out of existance. This list is not POV, not OR and not unallowable so long as it relies on published information and reliable sources. The fact that, as 23skidoo noted "[...]difficult to really verify what is truth[...]" is not a real problem, Wikipedia is not concerned with empirical truth, only what can be verified through reliable sources. Wintermut3 19:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Comment If this article is kept, it has to be re-titled to something that's not a subpage. I have no other opinion on this matter. JuJube 20:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - The
  policy page
  states:

"Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space."

In my mind, the article's content cleary constitutes unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material. As a result, it seems to me like the offending material should be deleted (as Samuel Blanning attempted to do earlier). I propose we set a time period by which time sources must be provided for any currently questionable claims. If community consensus is that the article does not meet BLP standards by the end of that time, I further suggest removing any questionable material, and continuing the AfD discussion based on a page history snapshot. If nobody objects, I'd like to set the deadline for 16:00 (UTC) tomorrow (Friday, 3-30). →Bobby← 20:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per Jimbo's oft-repeated opinion that we can do without random "I'm sure I heard it somewhere" crap about living individuals. This is inadequately cited, and even if cited fails to answer the question of why we would care. Guy (Help!) 22:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, this is just too much people. The diversity of people and issues listed (e.g. Tatu, oh please..) and possible BLP issues make this article simply to vague and problematic. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 22:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong keep, it needs sourcing: remove unsourced living people, and after you've done that, go to all the various lists of people belonging to (or formerly belonging to) various religious and political groups and do the same. If you think sexual orientation is "crap", others think that religion and politics are too, and membership in or adherance to certain religious or political groups is illegal in some places, and may not be very nice, so it could be defamatory as well. Carlossuarez46 03:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• exactly we are very careful about changed political or religious identification as a classification for living people who did not specifically so identify themselves. As pointed out by the many examples above, this list is not unambiguous. DGG 04:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete. This list looks like little more than an attempt to force people to participate in a socio-political conflict. —SlamDiego 05:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy delete I think the wikipedia is an encyclopedia and we shouldn't make articles like the list of divorced or married people, gays, etc. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 05:57, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• delete As Bobby pointed out, this list is a mish-mash of people who have publicly denied they were gay, not renounced they were gay. I originally nominated this list because it is a nightmare to source, because it isn't really notable, and because of the BLP concerns brought up above. (btw, thankyou very much for not bothering to tell me it was at DRV) I'd like to comment on the subtitle of the article though - the list of actual LGB people is split by alphabet because of size, and whoever created this article must just have been following precedent. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 06:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Having found sources for a number of the items through a simple Google search, I contend that your claim that sourcing is a nightmare is a bit on the hyperbolic side. Given the amount of ink that's regularly spilled when someone comes out or when they go back in, contending that the topic isn't notable is ludicrous. Otto4711 16:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I added a source to the last unsourced item, but rename to
  List of LGBT people over and over, this is the place to clear such misconceptions. --FateClub 21:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Delete because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a collection of trivia about the suspected sexuality of a semi-random sampling of celebrities. While the individual bullets on this page might be theoretically sourcable, this is not a topic about which others have written independent scholarly works. We have no sources on which to base this page. Rossami (talk) 08:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Yeah, no sources at all, except of course for the sources that are in the article for example. Otto4711 16:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Or possible rename to 'People cured of teh ghey' Cloveoil 16:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• strong keep - encyclopaedic article, clearly hot potato topic: care needed of course re
  WP:BLP. Natural link to List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people. I agree that title needs changing to something more suitable. Springnuts 11:26, 2 April 2007 (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.