Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eric

Eric was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was KEEP

• Delete - creating a disambig for "Eric" is like making one for "The" - Tεxτurε 17:02, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep the monarchs and the novel. Delete the first name folks, real and fictional. -R. fiend 17:11, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Perhaps keep the monarchs and novel, but, you know, a dab page is for when something will be searched for that way. Is anyone going to search for Eric Rudoph by typing in "Eric?" Geogre 17:12, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• What if you can't remember a person's exact surname? Who's that explorer... Erik the... Eric the... dammit I'll just try "Eric".... Seems useful to me. — Chameleon 17:15, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Have you considered using the "search" feature when you are... well... "searching"? - Tεxτurε 17:36, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

    Wikipedia search is disabled for performance reasons.

    You can search via Google or Yahoo! in the meantime.

    Note that their indexes of Wikipedia content may be out of date.

    Chameleon 17:42, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

    • So, Google isn't good enough to find an "Eric"? Yeah, right... - Tεxτurε 18:58, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • Why should our readers have to filter through thousands of Erics, sorted by Google's page rank, when they could have an alphabetized list of Erics with non-notables removed by Wikipedians? • Benc • 04:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Delete. This list is likely to always be out of date. Same goes for all other silly disambiguations by just first names and last names. Jallan 18:54, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep the monarchs and the novel, maybe add Erik the Red if it exists, delete the rest but keep the page. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 19:31, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep - it's not harming anyone and may be useful on occasion. violet/riga (t) 19:57, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep - interesting and useful list that's not harming anyone. Where else on the web can you find a list of people named "Eric"? A little bit of history on the name "Eric" would make this page even better. User:Cow 21:34, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, without doubt. At the least, the page needs to disambiguate between the monarchs, the book, and (though it doesn't yet) ERIC, the major educational research database. And frankly, I don't see why the other Erics can't stay. Certainly it could get ridiculous. On the other hand, they do no harm. I might put them on the bottom of the article instead of the top, but I think deleting them serves no useful purpose. Jwrosenzweig 21:41, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think we can use the John page as an example of what a good Eric page can look like. However, there is also a John (name) page with another pretty ridculous list of people named John (and where's Johnny Cash on the list, to name but one?). Obviously such a list could never approach anything resembling completion, so we have to ask if it really serves any purpose at all. I can sort of see mentioning first names when they're particularly rare (I believe Errol Flynn was added to the Errol disambiguation page, for example, though I'm still not sure its useful), but John and Eric just seem silly to me. I admit they do no harm, but VfD is filled with pages that clearly harm no one. -R. fiend 02:11, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with R. fiend....the John page is much cleaner. I still oppose deleting the whole page, though -- it seems like at this point we're simply debating how to edit the page, which belongs at Talk:Eric. Jwrosenzweig 22:22, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Keep, it's not hurting anyone. Maybe rearrange the information so the monarchs and novel are at the top and the first-namers at the bottom. Livajo 03:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, after removing the famous people with "Eric" as their first names as suggested by R. fiend. There's just too many Erics out there, and it's too bothersome to update because we already have List of people by name. (Side note: there may be a place in the Wikipedia namespace for an index of people by first names, to be generated by a bot from List of people by name.) • Benc • 04:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, but prune to monarchs and other folk better known by their first than last name. Shimmin 17:47, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
• Delete and club the author. Not at all encyclopedic. --Improv 19:10, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Useful, if a bit OTT. James F. (talk) 22:59, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, hope someone will add some more info on the name too. bbx 10:00, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, going straight to the novel here doesn't follow the Principle of Least Surprise. ;-) --Kundor 20:20, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
• Keep, I think that the list of people named Eric must go away, but must keep the name origins and meaning (and expand it). Almost every name has a meaning or root: what if someone is not looking for people named Eric, but for the origin of his name ? BTW, if someone is looking for people named Eric, use google. --EricRoss 19:37, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.