The tallest true pygmy belongs on that list, see below for a comment on opera.

-----Original Message----- From: Guy Chapman aka JzG [mailto:guy.chapman@spamcop.net] Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 05:45 AM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: [WikiEN-l] Frustrated

I am very frustrated.

We have on Wikipedia a list with the following selection criteria:

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This is a list of notable tall men, starting at 198 cm (6 ft 6 in). In several cases these men were among the tallest in their profession, their province, or nation.

The concept of "what is tall" can vary by average height of any given population. In the United States the highest percentile of height given by the FAA is the 99th percentile, which is 75.2 inches or approximately 191 centimetres.[1] Pediatricians place tall stature at 2.5 to 3 standard deviations above the mean for age and gender.[2][3] In adult males this begins at around 192 cm. An additional 6 cm is added to this second figure due to height variation and to assure that comparative tallness is a part of the individuals notability or significance.

Note: Names placed in this list must have their height be a part of their fame or significance. As basketball players are noted as having above average height this means they will need to be taller than the cut-off point in order to be notable as tall. Exceptions to this is members of the Philippine Basketball Association, as heights above 213 cm are essentially unheard of in their league, and early twentieth century basketball players as they lived in an era where player height was much smaller.

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Tall is defined by agreement of editors, not by any externally verifiable definition. After five or six deletion debates, no consensus third-party definition of tall has been produced. Average height is increasing over time so the list naturally favours contemporary figures. Average height varies by country, so this list favours Western (and especially Dutch) figures. Average height varies by ethnicity, so this list works against Vietnamese and Japanese, to name but two. We don't have a place in here for Edward I ("Longshanks"), whose height is an integral part of his notability, because he's below the arbitrary criterion. The height has changed from 6'3" to 6'7" and up and down, based primarily on the size of the resulting list, not any objective definition of tall. We have to take special measures (i.e. additional arbitrary criteria) to stop it simply being a list of basketball players, which it more or less became.

To me this list exemplifies all that is worst about the worst Wikipedia lists. The definition of tall is original research, the selection of tall and men is indiscriminate anyway, the list has no evident utility, is systemically biased in numerous ways. We might as well have [[List of stuff I like]] and leave it at that.

Compare with another list:

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This list provides a guide to the most important opera composers, as determined by their presence on a majority of compiled lists of significant opera composers. (See the "Lists Consulted" section for full details.) The composers run from Jacopo Peri, who wrote the first ever opera in late 16th century Italy, to John Adams, one of the leading figures in the contemporary operatic world. The brief accompanying notes offer an explanation as to why each composer has been considered major. Also included is a section about major women opera composers, compiled from the same lists. For an introduction to operatic history, see Opera. The organisation of the list is by birthdate.

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Here we have a list explicitly based on external criteria. The list has objective validity, and evident utility in identifying the most significant composers in a particular genre. Sadly we also have the tacked-on section of "major women opera composers", of whom there are, according to the sources, none at all, which was added in order to appease a soapboxing editor who was absolutely determined to add a composer whose work is published by his company. It was asserted that the lack of women was "systemic bias". No, it's more that opera is ludicrously expensive to produce, and for most of its history women composers were vanishingly rare anyway.

Sadly, although we managed to delete the list of tall me once, that was sent back to AfD and there is no consensus to delete it. No consensus in this case means that there is no clear majority of !votes

• policy and guidelines (which reflect a much wider consensus) are

that we do not have original research, and there is no credible rebuttal of the assertion that the list of tall men is based on just that.

OK, now I'll get off my soapbox.

Guy (JzG)

The opera case was a hard fought arbitration case, mostly over the absence of women on the list. Sources were demanded and provided. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jean-Thierry Boisseau

Fred