Talk:List of 19th-century religious leaders

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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 to merge. Only T. Anthony wanted another system, but he still did not want to retain the current system (by year). Further discussion (under a new heading) for a decade-system will be permitted.

Merger proposal[edit]

I propose that these lists be be merged.

All of the content in these can be (and already is) contained in the destination with much less total text. In fact the destination is barely any longer than the longest sub-page; yet the destination has all the years of the sub-page. This has already been done with the 20th- and 21st-century lists of religious leaders. There are three important reasons to do this.
1. This page can be better maintained with less work. Since religious leaders typically change infrequently (less often than political leaders) it is very difficult to maintain each sub-page, and they are not maintained. (At best) when a leader dies the death date is put in a succeeding leader is added. Editors should go back and change the 10 or 20 year pages since the leader came to office from "Pope Joe, Bishop of Klingon (1995–present)" to "1995–2013", but no one ever does this.
2. More content can be maintained with more completeness and with less or the same amount of work. Even in this last 12 year period (it is typically worse for 20th-century religious leaders) the list get longer over time as more religions and sub-groups are added from year to year. Again, no one wants to go back and add leaders for every year since the groups started. Groups are added to the current year and that is it. I personal might have done all the back creation that have ever been done for these 13 pages.
3 A system of religious leaders by century allows finding leaders even when only the century (but not the years) that the leader served. If I want to find the name of Pope John Paul I I can find it much faster on List of 20th-century religious leaders than on List of religious leaders in 1978. tahc chat 02:38, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I intend to be off for Advent, but I thank you for informing me this time.
Essentially I oppose as I would have with 20th c. Although I can understand the logic of it you might end up with lists that are overly huge or where space for religions with less US/UK interest might be sacrificed to avoid that. I can see how "by year" is maybe excessive and it would make sense to go by decade. (Although I'm not sure by-year is even that excessive as we have List of state leaders in 1950, List of colonial governors in 1950, and List of foreign ministers in 1950. We also have those for many 19th c years. List of colonial governors in 1898 and List of colonial governors in 1899 or List of state leaders in 1898 and List of state leaders in 1899)--T. Anthony (talk) 06:23, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I gave three or more reasons above for this change. It is true that there are many things listed by year (such as List of state leaders in 1899) but to say "other stuff is like this" is not by itself a reason to do it the same here. We could just as easily point out that the 18th-century religious leaders are arranged by century, and propose to is a reason to change the 18th-century state leaders over to a list by century. tahc chat 05:17, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see no serious problem in merging. I think it is more enlightening to view how things changed over a longer period of time, and that it is exaggerated to set forth similar, indeed largely identical lists, for each year. Up to 2013 and running? And how far back? Into BC? Esoglou (talk) 17:04, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Esoglou: Look at Religious leaders by year. tahc chat 08:28, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, I don't understand what I was expected to see there? Was it something to do with my rhetorical questions? Esoglou (talk) 15:58, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Didn't see they were rhetorical. tahc chat 21:29, 8 December 2013 (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.