Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of recipients of Honorary Doctorates at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

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. Neil ╦ 12:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of recipients of Honorary Doctorates at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

There does not seem to be anything unique about the honorary doctorates granted by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Nearly every university provides honorary doctorates and degrees for various reasons. To my knowledge, no others have a comprehensive list here. While I recognize that is, by itself, inadequate a reason for deletion, I believe it speaks to the fundamentally trivial nature of this information. Serpent's Choice 05:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. I was able to find just one other matching article at List of University of Alberta honorary degree recipients, and was a bit surprised there weren't more to be honest. Seems like it could be useful information to somebody. —Moondyne 05:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- No doubts that its useful. I'm just not sure it belongs here. Could we be better served by an external link to these lists where they are hosted on the universities' sites? Serpent's Choice 05:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - You could say the same about thousands of List articles here. I'm not sure either by the way, which is why I said weak keep. —Moondyne 06:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Personally, I think the University of Alberta list should go. There's no way even a third of those people will ever have articles on wikipedia that don't just boil down to semi-notable professors. I think it should be nominated too. Bulldog123 21:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete absent a showing of some significance of this place's awarding of degrees. While covering the subject of honorary degrees is reasonable, as is listing the degrees a person has been honored with (to a certain extent anyway) and in the case of some universities, their process of awarding them might be notable enough to discuss in their article, I think this list is a problem as it is. It's just listing the names of people, and that's not a good reason to keep an article. Maybe a category, but even that I'm dubious about. Not to say this isn't bad information, but let the respective colleges have it on their website. Mister.Manticore 06:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: This is an old and prestigious university that appears to be reasonably selective in their awarding of honorary doctorates. An honorary degree from such an institution is an important indication of notability and, in the case the link is red, of an article that should be written. Pharamond 15:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Define reasonably selective, there's plenty of names on the list that aren't even described, so I can't tell if there's anything important about them at all, let alone whether they merit an article. Mister.Manticore 16:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There aren't more than a handful of people for each year in the list. I trust a well-known university to have the ability to make decisions like these for good reasons and in a way that does not put their reputation on the line, and find it unlikely that the people in the list would have been awarded honorary doctorates if there wasn't "anything important about them at all". There is more information on the people at the website from which the list is sourced, probably enough to identify the persons in order to look for better sources elsewhere. Wikipedia does have lists of recipients for many other awards, medals etc. I don't see how this is different. Pharamond 18:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All the lack of numbers means is there aren't large numbers of awards. It tells us nothing about the selectivity of the process, let alone the merit of actually having an honorary degree from this institution. It's not like they're the only college that does it. Therefore, I can't ascribe any actual value to this award to make it distinct from every other institution that does it. Should all of those institutions have articles listing their honorary degrees? I don't feel I can support that. Some line has to be drawn, and no, I don't believe your intuitive logic is enough of one. Mister.Manticore 20:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I at first thought not, but Mr. Manticore convinced me. Every university awards these. In most US institutions, there are about 6 to 15 each year. Depending on the university, it means a good deal. The major universities try for a mix: public figures in politics or business or international affairs or writers or media personalities -- even the academic world --sometime an effort at one otherwise unheralded figure; normally it recognizes established notability rather than makes for the notability of otherwise unimportant people--in this case, from the King of Spain to an eminent Belgian violinist; the list is more academic oriented than most US universities. Might be thought of as a checklist of whom we need articles on.

If kept, I will start a project to add the 100 or so universities of equivalent standing that I can find lists for. Assuming we agree on universities, that will be about 700 people a year. The practice increased sharply in 20th century, but was present earlier, though there were fewer universities then. Lets say we have 50 years of data: 35,000 people. Probably about 1/3 will have WP articles. I think its a good idea. DGG 02:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't, I think it's a sincerely bad idea. Why my words convinced you to do this, I don't know, but I strongly suggest you consider otherwise. This isn't going to be an easy process, and will likely lead to some major trouble. Cambridge and Oxford have been awarding these degrees for about 500 years. That's a long list, even if you assume that the numbers were fewer in earlier years. And I'm not even sure the limitation to roughly 100 universities is a valid limit. What criteria will you use to measure universities? Mister.Manticore 15:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- Pax:Vobiscum 17:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete I don't see any really good reason to duplicate the info on the university website. I'm also not sure if the list can be considered of encyclopedic interest even though I admit it's pretty close. Pax:Vobiscum 18:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete per a projection of the Overcategorization by awards onto lists. Really, the same points apply. Bulldog123 21:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
comment are you suggesting that because we have too many categories for awards, we should delete lists? The list is an important option in the cases where many of the clearly encyclopedia-worthy people on it--heads of state as well as scholars-- do not yet have articles. If we had similar lists here from other European universities, we could fill in many of our anglocentric gaps. DGG 03:41, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I suggest for that usage, it'd be best do it out of article-space. Mister.Manticore 16:05, 4 June 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.