Talk:List of oldest living people: Difference between revisions

Talk:List of oldest living people/Archives

Not even a cententarian.

There is some weird evidence that Susannah Mushatt Jones, the currently claimed oldest people on the Earth is just an age cheater. See Microsoft's high profile analysis at http://kepfeltoltes.hu/150922/howold_www.kepfeltoltes.hu_.png I've used her picture from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/07/06/susannah-mushatt-jones-birthday-116-worlds-oldest-person-guinness-world-records/29758893/, when she turned to 113 on the picture. Here the difference of the ages is huge: 113-91=22 years. 94.247.94.237 (talk) 20:46, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

No comment. EEng (talk) 22:24, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Facial recognition software is not a reliable way to determine someones age, especially on a picture where said persons face is obscured greatly by giant sunglasses. 71.12.161.156 (talk) 00:27, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

That's right. The only scientifically accepted method is to cut the person open and count the rings. EEng (talk) 02:44, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Nothing? No one? Not even outrage from the humorless? EEng (talk) 02:02, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Nah, had the exact same offer made about me recently when I won my age group in a road race. 8| DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:20, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm often thought of as humourless because I don't usually "get" jokes and I dislike statements grounded in sexism/ageism/sizeism/other isms. In this case I thought the statement was funny (if perhaps a bit tasteless) given the absurdity of this whole section. However, if you want outrage I'm sure I can come up with some for you. Ca2james (talk) 14:50, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I just didn't find it very clever, considering that joke has been around for many many eons. Williamb (talk) 19:14, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

How do you know? Did you cut it open and count the rings? EEng (talk) 02:48, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

unverfied and Limbo cases

Where is it possible to find this cases since middle of Aug 2015? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.101.10.132 (talk) 15:48, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Can anybody give me an answer to that question? Who knows, where I can find all this cases? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.220.195.149 (talk) 10:46, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

oldest human

There is a man in Turkey who named Mehmet Esen. He is 130 years old currently. And also he is W-W-1 veteran. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.186.209.104 (talk) 16:41, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Please provide independent, reliable sources about his birth date. From there, there's a separate issue of whether it can go here or at Longevity claims or elsewhere. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:44, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Reported death

According to the 110 Club forum (blacklisted for links) "I'm so sad to announce you that Mrs. Maria (called Margitì) Crescini wid. Carrara passed away today (at the age of 111 years and 331 days) in Riva di Solto, province of Bergamo, Lombardy Region, Italy. She was born on 20th January 1904 in the same village. Margitì was the 27th Oldest Supercentenarian Ever in Italy. GRG correspondents for Italy, unfortunately, are waiting for this news because, one week ago, the daughter of Margitì told me (on the phone) that situation was suddenly precipitated. RIP cara Margitì" to which Coyote77 Posted: Dec 17 2015, 06:47 PM posted this bit of humor "Unexpected for me. She looked well in he pictures of the GRG gallery. Rest in peace."

I also just can't believe that someone nearly 112 years old died... they looked so old and still breathing in photos to be taken so young. Legacypac (talk) 00:27, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Global vs American - big discrepancies

Could someone please explain why these two lists are so far out of sync? Legacypac (talk) 12:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

From this page minus the non-Americans

Rank	Name	Sex	Birth date	Age as of 5 November 2024	Place of residence
1	Susannah Mushatt Jones	F	6 July 1899	125 years, 122 days	United States
14	Goldie Michelson	F	8 August 1902	122 years, 89 days	United States
16	Helen Wheat	F	16 September 1902	122 years, 50 days	United States
20	Adele Dunlap	F	12 December 1902	121 years, 329 days	United States
23	Irene Zito Ciuffoletti	F	19 January 1903	121 years, 291 days	United States
29	Sina Hayes	F	27 June 1903	121 years, 131 days	United States
32	Viola Jacobi	F	25 July 1903	121 years, 103 days	United States
34	Delphine Gibson	F	17 August 1903	121 years, 80 days	United States
35	Ila Jones	F	21 August 1903	121 years, 76 days	United States
42	Foy Ingram	F	28 November 1903	120 years, 343 days	United States
43	Ethel Boltz	F	2 December 1903	120 years, 339 days	United States
44	Tameko Shijo	F	1 January 1904	120 years, 309 days	United States
46	Edna Lawler	F	13 January 1904	120 years, 297 days	United States

Living American supercentenarians

Below is a list of supercentenarians living in the United States.

Name	Sex	Birthdate	Age as of 5 November 2024	Birthplace	Residence
Susannah Mushatt Jones	F	July 6, 1899	125 years, 122 days	Alabama	New York
Goldie Michelson	F	August 8, 1902	122 years, 89 days	Russia	Massachusetts
Helen Wheat	F	September 16, 1902	122 years, 50 days	Pennsylvania	Maryland
Adele Dunlap	F	December 12, 1902	121 years, 329 days	New Jersey	New Jersey
Irene Ciuffoletti	F	January 19, 1903	121 years, 291 days	Italy	Pennsylvania	Missing off global list
Sina Hayes	F	June 27, 1903	121 years, 131 days	North Carolina	North Carolina
Viola Jacobi	F	July 25, 1903	121 years, 103 days	Wisconsin	Wisconsin
Delphine Gibson	F	August 17, 1903	121 years, 80 days	South Carolina	Pennsylvania
Ila Jones	F	August 21, 1903	121 years, 76 days	Georgia	Georgia
Foy Ingram	F	November 28, 1903	120 years, 343 days	North Carolina	North Carolina
Ethel Boltz	F	December 2, 1903	120 years, 339 days	West Virginia	West Virginia
Tameko Shijo	F	January 1, 1904	120 years, 309 days	Japan	California
Edna Lawler	F	January 13, 1904	120 years, 297 days	Indiana	Illinois
Fanny Thornton	F	February 11, 1904	120 years, 268 days	Georgia	Georgia	From here on down are all missing
Vera Van Wagner	F	May 24, 1904	120 years, 165 days	New York	New York
Helma Graham	F	June 28, 1904	120 years, 130 days	New York	Florida
Alberta Lyles	F	August 20, 1904	120 years, 77 days	North Carolina	North Carolina
Lessie Brown	F	September 22, 1904	120 years, 44 days	Georgia	Ohio
Emma Hough	F	December 2, 1904	119 years, 339 days	Iowa	Iowa
Maggie Kidd	F	December 8, 1904	119 years, 333 days	Georgia	Georgia
Veta Walters	F	December 14, 1904	119 years, 327 days	Jamaica	New York
Ruth Adler	F	January 11, 1905	119 years, 299 days	Illinois	Illinois
Bessie Porter	F	January 31, 1905	119 years, 279 days	Alabama	Michigan
Leta Nolen	F	February 17, 1905	119 years, 262 days	Arkansas	Arkansas
Clarina Hudon	F	March 4, 1905	119 years, 246 days	Canada	New Hampshire
Mary Spingola	F	March 25, 1905	119 years, 225 days	New York	California
Tressa Bartholomew	F	March 30, 1905	119 years, 220 days	Iowa	Iowa
Sarah Raymond	F	April 16, 1905	119 years, 203 days	Maryland	New York
Katherine Bodenbender	F	April 19, 1905	119 years, 200 days	Germany	Illinois
Felix Simoneaux	M	May 24, 1905	119 years, 165 days	Louisiana	Louisiana
Mattie Cisrow	F	May 30, 1905	119 years, 159 days	Georgia	Florida
Chrystal Harper	F	June 28, 1905	119 years, 130 days	Idaho	Idaho
Clara Anderson	F	July 2, 1905	119 years, 126 days	Missouri	Alaska
Alelia Murphy	F	July 6, 1905	119 years, 122 days	North Carolina	New York
Roberta Farris	F	July 19, 1905	119 years, 109 days	Texas	Texas
Molly Schmidt	F	July 22, 1905	119 years, 106 days	Canada	Washington
Ruby Clodfelter	F	July 26, 1905	119 years, 102 days	North Carolina	North Carolina
Agnes Fenton	F	August 1, 1905	119 years, 96 days	Mississippi	New Jersey
Lena Dick	F	August 5, 1905	119 years, 92 days	Minnesota	Minnesota
Armida Sholar	F	August 9, 1905	119 years, 88 days	South Carolina	North Carolina
Hester Ford	F	August 15, 1905	119 years, 82 days	North Carolina	North Carolina
Iris Westman	F	August 28, 1905	119 years, 69 days	North Dakota	North Dakota
Carlos Valenzuela Castro	M	September 24, 1905	119 years, 42 days	Peru	New Jersey
Juliana Koo	F	September 26, 1905	119 years, 40 days	China	New York
Mary Marsh	F	October 8, 1905	119 years, 28 days	Virginia	Virginia
Frank Levingston	M	November 13, 1905	118 years, 358 days	North Carolina	Louisiana
Maggie DeVane	F	November 17, 1905	118 years, 354 days	North Carolina	North Carolina

Also missing here:

• Alicia Corveleyn (born 8 January 1905 in West Flanders) — aged 119 years, 302 days.

Living French supercentenarians

Below is a list of the oldest living people from France. Only 7 of the 14 are on the global list here.

Name	Sex	Birth date	Age as of 5 November 2024	Region or Country of birth	Region of residence
Eudoxie Baboul	F	1 October 1901	123 years, 35 days	French Guiana	French Guiana
Thérèse Ladigue	F	15 February 1903	121 years, 264 days	Rhône-Alpes	Rhône-Alpes
Elisabeth Collot	F	21 June 1903	121 years, 137 days	Champagne-Ardenne	Rhône-Alpes
Honorine Rondello	F	28 July 1903	121 years, 100 days	Brittany	Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Mélanie Leblais	F	4 September 1903	121 years, 62 days	Pays de la Loire	Pays de la Loire
Mathilde Dupray	F	31 October 1903	121 years, 5 days	Upper Normandy	Brittany
Henriette Bouef	F	4 November 1903	121 years, 1 day	Champagne-Ardenne	Champagne-Ardenne
Renée Boisseau	F	3 December 1904	119 years, 338 days	Centre	Centre
Marie-Antoinette Radix	F	7 December 1904	119 years, 334 days	?	Rhône-Alpes
Marie-Claire Brissaud	F	12 March 1905	119 years, 238 days	Poitou-Charentes	Poitou-Charentes
Mathilde Lartigue	F	24 March 1905	119 years, 226 days	Languedoc-Roussillon	Languedoc-Roussillon
Madeleine Ragon	F	27 March 1905	119 years, 223 days	Île-de-France	Picardy
Roger Gouzy	M	23 July 1905	119 years, 105 days	Languedoc-Roussillon	Languedoc-Roussillon
Léontine Rousselot	F	23 July 1905	119 years, 105 days	Brittany	Brittany

The GRG table updates are haphazard, screwy and inconsistent? It's rare that the As of template (if there is one) is correctly updated to reflect the reality. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:59, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

References

Big problems - whole list unverified and not allowed to add Zhou Youguang

Zhou Youguang passed 110 and he is very famous. He does not need to send documents to GRG to prove anything, and since they don't accept Chinese people, trying to get verified would be pointless anyway. His name was removed 2x [1] (Undid revision 700055553 by 192.254.104.217 unverified) and [2] (Undid revision 700058247 by Legacypac This was already thoroughly discussed with the case of Vera Van Wagner; sourced does not equal verified, nor does it justify the 54th rank, reverting .)

Unverified means Unverified by GRG. That is not right. I don't see a discussion for Vera Van Wagner.

The GRG table this list is all sourced to [3] lists 3 people older then the oldest here, with WP#2 being #6 at GRG, our #3 is their #7, our #4 is their #10. I can't see our #5 on the GRG list at all, and the problems continue. Table E says "As of December 15, 2014" which explains somethings - like that some people likely died and have been removed from WP, but not how Chiyo Miyako got on our list sourced to Table E in the first place? It seems to actually be sourced to [4] where 53 people are listed same as here.

Suggestions? Legacypac (talk) 05:31, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I see no problem with adding Zhou if there is an RS which confirms that he was alive on his 110th birthday. As someone whose notability is independent of his age he does not need to be "verified" by any organisation such as the GRG. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 07:27, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Photo with his 110 b-cake. 111 by Chinese count (bday 1 is day you are born in China)[5] Legacypac (talk) 07:38, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

How does a media report on someone turning 110 establish that that person is in fact 110? This same logic was cited for the Didlake case, the oldest American veteran, despite the fact that GRG research indicates she was likely not born the year claimed. Why is this case different? Canada Jack (talk) 22:10, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedia's job to determine if reliable sources are perfectly accurate. We simply report what they say. clpo13_(talk) 22:45, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

But the "reliable sources" do not say they verified the age of the claimant! This page is for verified claims. The fact a claim was published doesn't establish its veracity. Canada Jack (talk) 23:49, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Do we need sources verifying his birth place? His name? What school he went to? clpo13_(talk) 23:50, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

No, don't you see? We have to defer to the GRG and the GRG alone on its verification the moment he became 110 years old. Before that, we can use our basic sourcing policies when a person crosses into that supercentenarian zone, the only people in the world who can say his birth date is accurate is the GRG. And in case this isn't obvious, I'm joking. The hubris of the GRG's proponents knows no bounds. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:54, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure I can follow your logic here Ricky81682; other famous people - such as Anastacia and Jennifer Lopez - have turned out to be not the age they were claiming initially, so it makes sense to me that the older someone becomes, the more closely a reputable, respected, and utterly reliable encyclopedia such as Wikipedia would want to scrutinise his age. In this case, 110 was chosen as the cut-off age for supercentenarian validation, and as Wikipedian editors must adhere to WP:NOR and WP:NPOV I suggest you send in documents verifying his age to any of the globally recognised authorities verifying supercentenarian claims as, remember,many 110+ claimants have turned out to be not true; take this article in a scientific journal as an example, which proved that out of 421 claimants only 81 - about 25% - were true [6]. Should you be interested, please note that the GRG is only ONE of the respected authorities in the field, so I am not sure why you are ridiculing them for something you could initiate action in. Fiskje88 (talk) 15:43, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support Inclusion. The ranking though is probably incorrect. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:50, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Definition of verified from oldest people page: "This is a list of tables of the verified oldest people in the world in ordinal ranks. In these tables, a supercentenarian is considered 'verified' if his or her claim has been validated by an international body that specifically deals in longevity research, such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or Guinness World Records (GWR)." The fact that someone is famous or has gained some degree of notoriety does not verify their age. Zhou Youguang is an unverified Asian supercentenarian and does not belong on this list. TFBCT1 00:28, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

So you redefined the terminology while ignoring the discussion section below to specifically exclude the claim? Seems like a lowball way to get a win to me. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:52, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

In fact there is no support for his birth date at all. It hasn't been verified by the GRG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.72.97.94 (talk) 00:31, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

So his birthdate was fine until 3 days ago, sourced to normal stuff like books and newspaper accounts but now he needs to check in with GRG or we can't believe his age. Of course since GRG does not accept Chinese documentation that will never work. So now we have IPs removing his unverified B-date over and over. Change the criteria description if it conflicts with how we normally do things at Wikipedia. Legacypac (talk) 00:47, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Please note that the GRG has a Chinese correspondent [7], so I am not sure why you would state that "of course [the] GRG does not accept Chinese documentation". Seems to me that if documents exist, it will (eventually?) verify the claim.Fiskje88 (talk) 15:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

The point is, is the IP editor right that, regardless of whatever other sources exist in the world and that we have, since the GRG has yet to verify Zhou Youguang's birth date, we should try all that out of the window because he turned age 110 and only they know how to figure out birthdates for people who happened to be age 110 and older? If not, then why it is ok for his biography page to state that he is 110 years old right now but not this page? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I trust the 'renowned scholars' at China's first western style university who celebrated his 110th birthday and wrote about it on their official website over some self appointed researchers of old age any day. [8]

Since GRG has yet to 'verify' a single Chinese 110 year old, even with a person in China, it's pretty safe to say they don't (yet) accept Chinese applicants. And I do mean applicants because you have to submit your documents to GRG to get verified so everyone who does not want or care to send their personal info over to some self appointed researcher will NEVER be verified. This is clear from how GRG describes their process and the reluctance to send documents is addressed on their website were they talk about how they keep personal info with two people and don't disclose it. 'Legacypac (talk) 18:16, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure where you have your information from, Legacypac. The GRG was appointed by the GWR to become its consultant in 1999 or 2000 - even before Wikipedia existed. I do find it interesting that Wikipedia is now on its way to become self-appointed experts in determining people's ages. Fiskje88 (talk) 19:19, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Directly off the correspondents page here http://www.grg.org Site does not allow deep linking making it extremely hard to use as a reference. Legacypac (talk) 16:29, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I think a problem here may be that most supercentenarians are notable only for their age. Zhou Youguang, on the other hand, is a famous linguist, and it probably doesn't matter to him at all whether some "Gerontology Research Group" verifies his age. I don't know how they work, but if it's as Legacypac describes it here, i.e. you have to submit your documents to this GRG for verification, I strongly suspect that this wouldn't seem to be something this linguist would bother to do. But still, his age is widely known, seems undisputed, and is supported by other dates of his career. So isn't it rather strange not to include him here? Gestumblindi (talk) 22:23, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

That's why TFBCT1 redefined the criteria for this page, deleted his name and ran off. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:31, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Removal of GRG from the lede

I've removed the GRG language from the lede. If someone wants to make this into List of oldest living people according to the GRG, so be it but that's not here. If that's what this is supposed to be, then all other references should be removed as irrelevant. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:10, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to ask all the people editing the page to discuss this here so let's @Canada Jack, Legacypac, BjörnBergman, and TFBCT1:. Again, it doesn't make sense to include any other references if this is only going to be a GRG list. There's no evidence that the GRG list is itself notable in the same way that Time 100 or Billboard Hot 100 are. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:47, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not GRGopedeia. Nothing wrong, and everything correct about including Zhou Youguang as he is indisputably over 110 and other then 1 Japanese guy identified by GRG, the 2nd oldest man we know about. Legacypac (talk) 22:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

There's some more at Talk:Zhou Youguang, including the nonsensical comment "Verifiable does not mean it was verified". As if the GRG is the sole authority on age in the world. clpo13_(talk) 23:20, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Can we just focus on the lede here? The Zhou issue is above. I'm trying to figure out the logic of the lede being "a list of all GRG verified claims". -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:25, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Until recently - like in November - the lead did not have all the GRG stuff. Will need to dig to see where it got stuck back in. Legacypac (talk) 23:38, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm.... -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:44, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

OMG opps! Please fix that up. Legacypac (talk) 23:56, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I've restored it back to reliable source which was the language prior to a certain individual changing it to focus on the GRG for some reason. ;) I don't understand what "validated" is supposed to mean since (a) that term isn't used anywhere here and (b) it's already stated to be a partial list for whatever that's worth. It seems extraneous to call this a partial list of "validated" claims. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:09, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I try to be conciliatory and give the masses what they want somedays when all logic fails :) the new old wording looks good. Legacypac (talk) 00:18, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

TFBCT1, would you mind taking part in this discussion instead of continuing to revert? clpo13_(talk) 00:57, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

That's TFBCT1's first talk page comment in almost three and a half years and it's just to redefine the criteria here so that the claim can still be excluded. We may need an RFC -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:55, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I tried adding "...or is a notable person with a well sourced birthdate." as a way to keep this within WP policy, but that was quickly reverted. Evidently Queen Elizabeth will need to submit her 3 documents to GRG when she turns 110 or we will have to remove her birthday and keep her off these lists. Can someone please explain exactly how famous or well documented an age needs to be to get on the list without submitting documents to GRG? Legacypac (talk) 01:13, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Don't you all realize that this article is more or less run by GRG shills and they will never allow anything other than their research on it? Williamb (talk) 05:53, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Things have changed a lot recently. You'd be welcome to watchlist Wikipedia:WikiProject_World's_Oldest_People/Article_alerts and lend a hand. EEng (talk) 06:36, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Not sure what your comment is meant to imply, Williamb. The GRG is not the only body verifying supercentenarians. If there are more living supercentenarians alive which have been verified by other authorities on the matter, I wouldn't mind including them. For other supercentenarians - those who have not been proven their age (yet) - I am not so sure about adding them; seems to me it's more of a lottery if only 25% of them will turn out to be true... Fiskje88 (talk) 15:50, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, come to think of it... I was intrigued by Legacypac's comment that Youguang was "other then (sic.) 1 Japanese guy identified by GRG, the 2nd oldest man we know about" and have done some research; it turns out that other websites are reporting more men older than 110, such as [9]. On that list, there are fifteen men older than Youguang, so why should we potentially spread false information by (independently) reporting that he's the second-oldest man in the world if he might not be so? Fiskje88 (talk) 19:25, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

I've started an RFC below. As to Williamb's comment, there are still a number of GRG proponents around here who do not communicate or negotiate or work with anyone else. They get taken to WP:ARE and topic bans enacted. Fiskje88, the point is that our sourcing policy doesn't say "RS except when dealing with birth dates for people over age 110 and then we need a second round of sourcing from these 'bodies verifying supercentenarians'", it says we go by reliable sources on the matter. As to the bodies, only three have ever been identified: the GRG, Guiness which just posts an annual list and looks like it follows the GRG and a European organization which does not post the names of the people it has identified for privacy reasons. So then we're playing the game of ignoring all sourced information about someone when they turn age 110 because the GRG hasn't "verified" it which we can see taken to its idiotic extreme at Talk:Zhou Youguang. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:35, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikia list

Thanks to Fiskje88 for pointing out http://gerontology.wikia.com/wiki/Oldest_living_men where we can see Anonymous (Tokyo) born in 1904 is the 2nd oldest man. (An unsourced claim so how can we verify that?) Incredibly down in the comments we find the GRG leader and topic banned Wikipedia editor User:Ryoung122 posting "Zhou turned 110. Please update color code." at 19:28, January 17, 2016 (UTC). With Mr Young's blessing of Zhou Youguang's birthday (though unverified by GRG) perhaps we can update the articles now? Legacypac (talk) 00:45, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The wikia is not a reliable source. Besides, I think there's another issue with the rankings here as I suspect there may be others in between Zhou and the bottom of this list. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed wikia is not a RS, and since GRG lists 15 unverified men between the top and Zhou, I agree there are likely more men that belong on the list. This is a big problem with long lists of oldest people. It's fairly easy to source claims that X is the oldest man, but I've seen no claims that Zhou is the second oldest man alive, even though that is were he falls below the GRG crowned oldest man (excluding the 15 unverified men, and any others that exist we don't know about). This shows a big flaw in other lists where we assert we know the top 100 oldest subset of people ranked. An interesting point seen in the comments [10] is GRG is removing the rankings at Wikia (a great idea) which helps to reduce the idea that any of these people are the nth oldest. Even Young was quoted "...Talley is one of only three people left in the world who Young has verified to have been born before 1900, he believes there are perhaps five others scattered across China, India and Brazil." [11] Legacypac (talk) 08:03, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

We also see numerous other Japanese males (and females) whose exact birth dates are stated (all of whom have been verified by their prefectures and the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare as being 110 or older as a part of the yearly Respect for the Aged Day) and Frank Levingston (whose age is verified by the United States Veterans Administration) on that list. I'd imagine they'd be far more acceptable to include on this list - more so than Zhou Youguang, at least - since their claimed ages have been verified by governments with no clear reason to lie (see Carmelo Flores Laura for an example where a government lied about a man's age and research by outsiders debunked the claim). And I have to question had Bill Del Monte lived to turn 110, would it have been acceptable to immediately place him on this list, as his birth date was researched and verified when research was done about the last survivors of 1906 San Francisco earthquake. 66.168.191.92 (talk) 07:00, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Right on - if the Japanese or US govt says they are 110+ (Plus generally we can find a news acct) we need to list them. No one needs self appointed GRG to 'verify' them. If GRG does verify that is good enough to list them, but lack of GRG verification is not a reason to exclude someone if other good evidence exists for their age. This is Wikipedia not GRGopedia. Legacypac (talk) 18:28, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Right on - using your criteria, let's include Ciclia Laurent's claim, the 119-year-old turns 120 later this month! The Toronto Star is Canada's largest-circulation newspaper, a reliable source, and they cite the "verification" of both the Canadian and Haitian governments. In explaining why Guinness considers that youngster Susannah Mushatt Jones as the world's eldest, it states that Guinness does not consider her claim verified. But that no longer matters as we have: 1) Canada's biggest newspaper; 2) the Canadian government; and 3) the Haitian government, all confirming her claim.[12] Canada Jack (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Are you just here to be disruptive at this point? There's no one arguing for Laurent other than you just arguing it to disrupt every discussion going on here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:01, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Not quite, though she has documents the paper says the claim is not strong enough. However if her daughter died a few years ago at 96 this woman is definitely very old. The fair thing to do would be to dispense with the lists, merge together these various articles and give short bios that include whatever proof or doubts are out there. A GRG endorsed person would say 'listed by GRG' while another would say 'Japanese Govt endorsed person' and a guy like Zhou we just say his life is well documented going back many years and there is no known questions over his age. If we dispense with the top 100 lists and put a paragraph (linked to an article where applicable) about the oldest 5-10 women and 5 or so men reported by RS we would have something far more interesting then a table of names dates and locations. Legacypac (talk) 05:46, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

RfC: How should we word the lede?

How should we word the lede? From that follows, what should the criteria be for inclusion into this table? Let's try to have a single discussion section.

Only validated claims

This version which is "This is a partial list of the oldest living people in the world in ordinal ranks. In this table, a supercentenarian is considered 'verified' if his or her claim has been validated by an international body that specifically deals in longevity research, such as the Gerontology Research Group (GRG) or Guinness World Records (GWR)."

• Support This version reflects the scientific consensus on the subject - that claims are subject to error and exaggeration and therefore a competent body is needed to assess claims. Most major news organizations routinely defer to the expertise of GRG or GWR in claims of extreme age, and wikipedia should reflect that general consensus in the need for longevity arbiters. Though, I would slightly amend the "partial list" phrase as though there are likely more unverified or unverifiable super-c's out there, we, by definition, don't know that for a fact. Reinstating the "unverified" lists would allow us to have a greater idea of other claims which may be true. Canada Jack (talk) 15:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Reliable sources

This version which is "This is a partial list of the oldest living people in the world, according to reliable sources."

• Support - Ricky81682 (talk) 19:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support The rest of Wikipedia relies solely on reliable sources (with stricter requirements in cases such as WP:MEDRS). There's no policy stating Wikipedia should doubt the sources because some self-important group hasn't had their say. clpo13_(talk) 20:42, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support because anything else leads to absurdity like Talk:Zhou_Youguang and the edit war [13] on that article to remove his birthdate as "unverified" by GRG. Legacypac (talk) 00:53, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support Clpo13 (above) put it very, very well. EEng 05:45, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support - Concise and to the point. We are to report what is verified in reliable sources, which is exactly what this alternative notes. Anything more specific would be narrowing what can be used as an RS. Meatsgains (talk) 23:15, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support On Wikipedia we combine one or more RS into a readable article. We should use and cite GRG just as we do with other RS. Given the many questionable reports, we should have a high standard for what is a RS in this topic. I'm not sure if "according to reliable sources" needs to be mentioned explicitly though, since that applies to all Wikipedia content. Gap9551 (talk) 20:57, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support I have not been involved in this area, but I have seen GRG associated with a long string of abuses, sanctions, and blocks on Wikipedia. We really don't need a move here to enshrine GRG with special status in this lede. Per the above comments we apply RS policy in general. Alsee (talk) 17:40, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Other wordings

Please create other headings and suggest other wording or criteria in them.

• Support I would like to propose a wording along the lines of "This is a partial list of the oldest living people in the world. In this table, a supercentenarian is considered 'verified' if his or her claim has been validated by an international body that specifically deals in longevity research", leaving out examples of such bodies.

The reason I am advocating for differentiating between validated and unvalidated claims is simple: the issue isn't whether someone like Zhou Youguang, who - with all due respect - probably wouldn't even be in the top 100 of oldest living people, whereas the name of the article clearly includes the word 'OLDEST' - were incorporated into the list, but what should we make of claimants such as the following person, [14], who at age "131" would be fifteen years older than the oldest ever validated man as well as a staggering nine years older than the oldest verified person ever, who died at the "mere" age of 122? According to Wikipedia's logic, this claimant would be accepted on the now proposed list as it would unequivocally fall within your category of 'Oldest Living People Original Research List as validated by Wikipedia and "reliable sources" '. What to do with an age limit, therefore? Should claimants at least be younger than people accepted by GWR? Wouldn't that be discrimination towards older claimants as reliable sources seem to have confirmed their ages?

The real question is of course this: Wikipedia's policy on WP:NPOV requires that major, mainstream viewpoints must be adhered to (whether of scientific or general public interest). With reliable sources having established that, long before the existence of online encyclopedia such as Wikipedia or any of the bodies validating supercentenarians, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, why would Wikipedia try to steer away from that notion by starting to suggest that these newspaper-reported cases do not need as much scrutiny as those who have passed internationally established validation criteria? As we all know, reporters "report" an age claim, whereas authorities "validate" the age claim. If someone said "I ran the fastest 100 meters ever, I have it on tape" without it being a sanctioned event, then it would never be official. I don't understand why accepting internationally established standards is so much of an issue over here.

As a result, I would also propose that, next to a list of validated supercentenarians (unranked, as there might be more people out there whose ages will still need to be validated), there is a list of unvalidated supercentenarians who have been reported in WP:RS. Even Legacypac has referred to Robert Young ([15]), who (probably as a GRG representative?) has acknowledged that there is no problem in reporting someone's claim to old age. Problem is, should you report all of them, the list will be endless - so it might be an idea to limit this list to ages 110-114, as research has shown that only 2% of supercentenarians aged 115+ has turned out to be true. In fact, Mr. Young's comment over on the Gerontology Wikia even suggests that Wikipedia's and the GRG's views (as the GRG seems to be the problem on Wikipedia) are closer than we all think, but that polarisation as well as disrupt continue to be created for whatever reason.

Another reason I am also proposing for two lists is that the Gerontology Wikia differs between validated and unvalidated cases by numbering them, whereas over at Wikipedia numbering seems to be another issue. Therefore, I think having two lists - one validated, the other unvalidated - would take care of that problem. After all, age validation was a concept created in the 1800s - long before any age validation institution, nor Wikipedia, had come into existence. Why suddenly try to alter history? Fiskje88 (talk) 18:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

To add some sources to my story: This [16] shows that age validation has been around for a long time, whereas this source [17] provides background information on the history of age validation and is instrumental in proving how important it is to have ages validated (by exemplifying numerous false age claims). Fiskje88 (talk) 19:08, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, then what are the bodies? How do we identify them? Where are the reliable sources about tell us what bodies to include or not to include? If I say that Organization X is "an international body that specifically deals in longevity research", and you disagree, should we take that to RSN? Isn't the only issue there whether or not the organization as a source is reliable not whether (a) the organization as a source is reliable and then (b) the organization specifically deals with longevity research? Also, we've already tried the validation argument before on the tables and it was rejected so it seems odd to restart it again so we can identify and distinguish these "bodies that specifically deal in longevity research". -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:34, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, then what are the bodies? How do we identify them? Dead simple, Ricky. We observe what news sources use when they seek verification of these sort of claims. I did a search and quickly discovered there are two sources most commonly cited - Guinness and GRG. Shall I supply several hundred sources from around the world - or does this not suffice? 22:10, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

News sources? But I thought news sources weren't reliable sources? Oh so they are reliable sources when they agree with Guinness or GRG but not when they don't? The news sources themselves aren't reliable sources when they make assertions about a person's birthdate but they are when they make assertions about that someone else has made an assertion about the birthdate? Do you see how ridiculous this gets? Also, as noted below, the Japanese ministry of health isn't either an "international body" (why international? who knows?) and doesn't "specifically deals in longevity research" (it's a health ministry not a specialist in anything) so of course that while that would be a considered a reliable source under all reasoning and logic here, on these pages and on these pages alone, it would be excluded because (a) it's not international for whatever reason that matters and (b) because it isn't biased and solely focused on longevity alone but the information it reports about old people is just incidental to its actual work. Same as I'd imagine any medical article in a journal on geriatrics or other things like that although I presume people here would advocate that Rejuvenation Research (the only journal that the GRG authors publish to seemingly) would somehow count so again that the GRG is included another way. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Your logic doesn't fly, Ricky. They are indeed "reliable sources," I never claimed otherwise (so many strawman arguments!) but that's not sufficient for considering claims to be verified, IMHO. Saying they aren't an appropriate source for a particular narrow subject doesn't disqualify them for being RS on other subjects. And when literally hundreds of media sources use these two authorities most commonly for verification purposes, then that establishes the recognized authority of those two. As for your Japanese ministry of health, the problem here is of your own making. If you open the doors to "reliable sources" in general, then we arr faced with potentially hundreds of different "verification" criteria - from the most common of "we take your word for it" to "let's see 50 contemporary documents with your birthdate." And how are we to decide what is RS and what is not? You've already been tripped up by this when it comes to the Emma Laurent case, the woman in Quebec who claims to be 119 - and whose claim is backed by three "RS" - Canada's largest circulatin newspaper, the Toronto Star, the Canadian government, and the Haitian government. Your objections to this - which are unfounded (claiming a "passport" issued by Canada, for example, simply copied information fed by Haiti - is not found in the article referenced, etc.), shows the can of worms your approach will take. You have dismissed the Haiti government in that case... so you are ALREADY applying a moving criteria to who is reliable and who is not. And you dismiss Canada's authority on this while accepting the Chinese government's authority in the Zhou case.

Your narrowly focused campaign to lessen the authority of GRG has already shown cracks in the facade - and the mess which this approach will entail. The answer? Use GRG/Guinness on a "verified" list, use others on a separate "unverified" list. But, apparently, we can't do that anymore. So we are stuck with a GRG-only list. Wasn't my idea.

The bottom line here, Ricky, is news organizations routinely rely on experts in fields when reporting stories. It's not that news organizations are "unreliable" per se, it's that they REPORT news, lacking expertise in the often technical stories they report on, hence good reporters make sure they have their facts correct and contact the relevant experts. Canada Jack (talk) 21:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• I'm not going to argue in circles anymore. Fiskje88, under this verbage, the Japanese health ministry would be excluded. Same with any singular governmental agency and any medical journal article that isn't explicitly in a journal that's exclusively focused on longevity. Do you think that's right? Do you find those sources unreliable per WP:RS? Do you think dates issued from those organizations should be ignored? Further, if you think they should (or think anything should), why are you allowing for the same "claims" to be elsewhere in the encyclopedia? Do you think different articles here should have different criteria for sources? If so, isn't that against having a single WP:NPOV in favor of separate articles with different POVs? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:05, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Interestingly, a "reliable source" such as the Japanese health ministry still lists a case such as Izumi as verified, even though it has been proven Mr. Izumi was not the age he claimed to be. Similarly, the Japanese health ministry also hasn't confirmed the DOB yet of Japan's new oldest man. As such, how could it be used as a reliable source? The GRG notes that two-thirds of claims to age 110+ are false, and only two percent of claims to age 115+ are true [18]... so I'd want to be sure that a claim is true. If you ask me, relying on newspaper articles which only report an age is an interesting instrument to determine one's age... but if that's what the majority would like to see, so be it. I'm here to show the other side of the argument. Fiskje88 (talk) 20:15, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I'll ask but how was it "proven" that Izumi was not the age he claimed? What is the actual source? If you keep arguing that things are reliably sourced or not based on how the GRG determines it, it's not surprising that you see only the GRG as a reliable source, only having a hammer and a world of nails and all. As to Yoshida, the argument is to reliable sources and we can discuss if there's enough to put down his age and that's he's the oldest living person. That's why I say use "reliable sources" which is vague enough that someone can say "Source A says X, source B says nothing" and we discuss it. The lazy approach to me is to say "only source A, everything else for this article doesn't matter, debate this elsewhere". -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:37, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Fiskje88, this just demonstrates, once again, how mixed up is your understanding both of the facts and of how WP policy applies to them. It has not been "proven Mr. Izumi was not the age he claimed". What happened is that in 1987 a report [19] appeared as follows: "A Japanese expert on aging says reports that the oldest Japanese man died earlier last year at the age of 120 are false -- he was only 105. The true age of Shigechiyo Izumi, who died in February 1986, was discovered through research in his family's registration records, says Toshihisa Matsuzaki, director of the Department of Epidemiology at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology." That's not proof -- that's just someone with a different opinion who does not, apparently, give details on the research that led to that opinion. Nothing's been "proven".

WP's article on Izumi [20] correctly reports this as a controversy. "He was one of only two people verified to have lived past their 120th birthday, although subsequent research has discounted the verification. [etc etc] research into Izumi's family registration records indicated Izumi might have been 105 when he died." (Note the word might.) GRG agrees [21] that the question is an open -- not settled -- one.

So your statement that "the Japanese health ministry still lists a case such as Izumi as verified, even though it has been proven Mr. Izumi was not the age he claimed to be" -- casting doubt on the Ministry's reliability -- is nonsense. As far as the evidence goes, the Ministry might be perfectly correct.

I'll repeat what I said elsewhere months ago. There are indeed topic areas in which a particular source (or class of sources) is acknowledged as authoritative and overriding of other sources, for example in an area of historical research in which all the facts are in, the dust has settled, and careful scholarly analysis has refuted or corrected earlier low-quality treatments. A dynamic database of living (or recently deceased) people, with new evidence coming in all the time from a variety of sources, is the polar opposite of such a situation, and it's impossible in this case to fix on any one source as superior to the others, because no source can possibly be in possession of all the facts about all oldsters everywhere.

EEng 04:49, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

• Our policy is for WP:RS so it should be reliable sources. There is no logic to this "verified" if it is "validated" (whatever validated means) by a "international body specifically dealing with longevity research" as all that does is create a "super source" that we need approval of before we can claim a person's birth date about. This is all just typical gamesmanship because the only "international body specifically dealing with longevity research" is of course the GRG so the only people listed here are the GRG. This is just another round of language playing so that people like Vera Wagner can't be included until and unless the GRG and the GRG alone has approved of her claim. See also Talk:Zhou Youguang for how ridiculous taking this to its logical conclusion gets us. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
• This should apply to related pages too. Legacypac (talk) 04:16, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I just want to settle this page, but people can create RFCs elsewhere if they want. I think it'd be preferable to organize one criteria here and then see if it's applicable elsewhere. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:20, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

• I was invited here by the RfC, I admit to not knowing a whole lot about lists, but pulling on my experience throughout the project, here is a couple of thoughts... If we're simply (and exclusively) relying upon the GRG, this list is effectively duplicate, plus it must be manually updated to keep it up to date with something that could/should be replaced with simply an External Link. If the bulk of the entries are to people not otherwise notable, or known, outside of the GRG list, then how much value is it really providing? As it appears there is some concern over the difficulties or qualifications be listed by GRG. On the flip side, if we reduce it to just WP:RS, as others have stated it might get out of control with dubious claims of age. These types of lists tend to be filled with many people wanting to add "me too" status to the list, or probably better put... "my great great grandfather was..."... I'm wondering if the threshold should be based on WP:NOTABLE people instead? That is, let GRG handing the "everybody" list for those that fit their criteria, and lets keep WP a place for notable people, who extend beyond BIO1E. Admittedly that would be a much short list and might qualify to be merged back into Supercentenarian. This also opens up the possibility for people notable beyond GRG, which have reliable (but perhaps not official) recognition as supercentenarian to be included. To a certain degree, if we have someone who is independently notable outside of their age, and they have passable reliable sources that they're 112, I believe we'd be doing less harm by including them, versus the alternatives. Tiggerjay (talk) 18:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

@Tiggerjay: People have been giving a parade of horribles for a decade if we just use reliable sources but we aren't idiots here and thus they have always argued to just use the GRG no matter what. Removing pending and unverified claims was said to cause the same insane chaos but that didn't happen. The various tables all over the place do include some claims that aren't verified but it's not lunacy here. No one is going to put the Sumerian Kings on the tables here and I'm certain we can find reliable source academic sources that will explicitly call them out as myths (same with Methuselah). The opposition argument always go into absurdities including going to RSN to argue that all newspapers are inherently unreliable but only when it comes to the birthdates for very old people (otherwise, they're fine for separate articles about them). The issue is more like cases like Vera Wagner, where two newspapers stated her birthdate and stated that her claim hasn't been verified by the GRG. The problem is that the GRG requires that the person give the GRG copies of their personal identification information so it's a self-selecting list of people who actively want to be included so it's going to be necessarily underreporting people and the second issue is that most of these people aren't notable other than the fact that they lived for a very, very long time. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:30, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

EEng recently brought up an example of a claim which he said should be considered "verified" as it was published both in the New York Times and its information came from the American military: Emma Didlake, at 110, America's oldest veteran. (She was honoured last year, and died later in 2015.) While her specific age was incidental to the story - she was honoured by the White House for being the oldest veteran, not for reaching the age of 110 - he nevertheless said this was a prime example of why we need not rely on GRG for verification purposes. The problem is, preliminary research on the Didlake case suggests that both the New York Times and the military had her date of birth wrong. The New York Times, and, as I have shown elsewhere, media outlets around the world, routinely defer to the expertise of GRG and Guinness (I could supply literally hundreds of example from every part of the world). EENg pulls out a rare case where the NYT did not defer to the expertise of the GRG... and they got the information wrong. Which is precisely why for the purposes of what we consider "verified" claims, an organization specializing in longevity claims is needed. In the past, we had separate sections for unverified claims, but those are gone, but the solution would be to bring those sections back rather than destroy the credibility of what are considered "verified" claims.

The opposition argument always go into absurdities including going to RSN to argue that all newspapers are inherently unreliable but only when it comes to the birthdates for very old people That is a strawman argument. The point is not that "newspapers are inherently unreliable": the point is that longevity claims are uniquely subject to exaggeration, error and fraud. As Guinness World Records often stated: No single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood, and deliberate fraud than the extremes of human longevity. And, despite what Ricky and others here like to pretend, it is NOT a simple business to verify these claims! The Didlake case is a classic example. Surely, the American military had her date of birth correct? It seems they did not. Likely because she supplied a wrong birthdate when she enlisted in the 1930s, and that birthdate was never verified. Why would they even bother? This is the everyday sort of issue to deal with in assessing claims, yet many editors here think this is wresting control from the GRG gatekeepers of information that others can readily and routinely verify. Nothing could be further from the truth. Canada Jack (talk) 15:47, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

What the Didlake case actually demonstrates is discussed below -- see #Didlake again. EEng 06:03, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Here is (for me) a local example of a "reliable source" publishing a claim of a soon-to-be 120-year-old woman here in Canada. [22] The Toronto Star is Canada's largest circulation newspaper, published since 1892. Certainly a "reliable source" by Wikipedia's criteria. The article, published yesterday, describes Laval PQ resident Cicilia Laurent's desire to meet our dashing new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and describes the proof she has for her age (proof which would not pass muster by Guinness' or GRG's criteria), and mentions who Guinness considers to be the world's verified elder. Now, going by what Ricky says, the onus here would be on GRG or Guinness to publish information specifically debunking this claim for it to be removed, presumably down the road or when she dies. An absurd requirement for it is often almost impossible to prove a negative - that she wasn't born Jan 31, 1896 as she claims - especially since so many births went unrecorded. So, Ricky, EEng, since the Toronto Star, being one of Canada's major newspapers, is a "reliable source," what shall we do with this claim? Put her at the top of the list on this page? Sure, the article mentions that the claim has not been verified by Guinness, but isn't that what we are saying here? We no longer need verification from a recognized authority on the subject, a "reliable source" would be sufficient? Or are we to rely on the psychic ability of you guys to know which claims are bona fide and which are false? Canada Jack (talk) 16:36, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

So the parade of horribles all over again. Care to point out an actual example of a problem here rather than hypothetical ones? Even your source admits it's not verified so the Star isn't going out on a huge limb about her age. We've had idiotic RSN arguments where someone tried to argue that all newspapers are unreliable sources but only for the explicit fact of the birth dates of people over age 110 and for nothing else and that was resoundingly rejected. Yes, yes, let's hear about again about how if we don't bow down and do nothing but listen to the GRG, we may as well put 12000 year old Sumerian kings on top because that's exactly the same. We'll do what we always do here: debate the actual source and see if it makes an ounce of sense when the stupid issue actually comes rather than when people want to shelve the entire RS policy in favor of "the GRG alone" or "the longevity body specialists" (who just happen to be the GRG alone) or whatever the next attempt is. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:32, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Please look at the blantant double-standard here, folks. Even your source admits it's not verified so the Star isn't going out on a huge limb about her age.

Nice try, Ricky. NONE of the sources outside of GRG / Guinness claim that these birthdates are "verified"... unless GRG/Guinness has verified them! The Star says that, according to the Haitian and Canadian government, her age is accurate, however that standard is not good enough for Guinness. So, it is quite rich for you to now admit that her case is not "verified".... because one of these very authorities you decry as being "gatekeepers" has not verified it! The Star acts as if it is, the two governments accept it... and her case has not been debunked as far as we know. Can't have it both ways, Ricky. The ONLY difference between this and the Didlake case is that the New York Times didn't mention these verification issues - and THAT seems to in your books fling open the doors to declare is "verified" by a "reliable source," despite there being no mention of "verification" at all. In my books, you have it completely backwards. A claim to be considered "verified" must be said to have been so verified and have it done by an organization specializing in this. NOT mentioning ANYTHING about how or if someone's age was verified is no basis for inclusion, yet that is what your approach entails. Canada Jack (talk) 20:37, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

NONE of the sources outside of GRG / Guinness claim that these birthdates are "verified"... unless GRG/Guinness has verified them!{{cite needed}} No one said what source they want to verify them. It's only you who are asserting that it's just the GRG and Guinness (which coincidentally uses the GRG). As discussed above, there's a discussion about a Japanese man based on the Japanese ministry of health. Does that count? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:27, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

No one said what source they want to verify them. It's only you who are asserting that it's just the GRG and Guinness (which coincidentally uses the GRG). ??? The only person here claiming that ONLY GRG/Guinness is to be used as a verifying source... is you, Ricky. I never said they were the sole authorities, but media around the world use those two almost exclusively, so we should as well, that's all. But you of course avoid the main thrust of what I was saying - suddenly, in the Laurent case, even though the Toronto Star, the Haitian and Canadian governments accept her claim, when it is mentioned that Guinness has not verified her claim (they consider a younger person to be the world's elder), then, suddenly, that suffices for you. I thought you said we need not rely on GRG/Guinness for verification - and yet, despite the THREE "reliable sources" vouching for her, and no debunking from anyone else... you don't accept her claim. That's a DOUBLE STANDARD. Canada Jack (talk) 23:08, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Media, which you claim isn't a reliable source when the media states a person's age, that is now a reliable source about the age when they claim that someone else has "validated"/"affirmed"/"verified"/"approved" their age? So what other authorities are there? The GRG proponents have repeated come up with extremely strained and unusual language that always coincidentally the GRG always seems to qualify under. Again, do you actually want to include her or not? WP:NOTFORUM applies there. This source is a newspaper that states that the Star itself doesn't believe her claim (saying that she doesn't have "solid proof"), states that the Canadian government has issued a passport with that date based on an Haitian passport for that date. I see the Star as a reliable source saying there's no proof of her claim and the Star reports two facts about what two governments did. Has anyone here argued for the Haitian government as a reliable source for a person's birthdate? They are a reliable source for the fact that she has a passport with that date. Same with the Canadian government. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:24, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Migod, Ricky, do I have to spell this out for you? If you pretend we can use media as "reliable sources" to confirm ages, then this claim passes muster, it's as simple as that. NO WHERE does it say in the article that the Toronto Star doubts the claim - they just say that Guinness hasn't verified the claim. The "solid proof" line is in terms of what Guinness requires for proof, not the Toronto Star itself.

But the proof of her extraordinary birth date is not solid enough for her to assume her title as the world’s oldest living person, a crown currently worn by New York’s Susannah Mushatt Jones, who has been verified by the Guinness World Records as being born on July 6, 1899, making her 116 years old. Are you seriously trying to claim that it is the Toronto Star which has determined that the proof is "not solid enough" instead of Guinness? That the Toronto Star, not Guinness, bestows the crown of "world's oldest person"? C'mon, Ricky, surely you can do better than that!

[The Star]...states that the Canadian government has issued a passport with that date based on an Haitian passport for that date. No it doesn't, Ricky. Nice try. It says this: The Haitian government accepted that Laurent is the age she says she is and so has the Canadian government, which issued her permanent residency in Canada stating that she was born in 1896. Bye, bye, strawman! Then, this: Has anyone here argued for the Haitian government as a reliable source for a person's birthdate? They are a reliable source for the fact that she has a passport with that date. Same with the Canadian government... This response brings up some interesting issues. 1) Are you suggesting that there are "reliable" and "unreliable" governments in terms of age verification? If so, what is the criteria here? And, is there a list of governments somewhere saying who we can rely on in terms of age verification, and another list of those we can't rely on? 2) Since Canada is, I would hope, on the list of "reliable" governments, and they accept the claim, and there is nothing in the article, despite your statement otherwise, which says they simply copied Haiti's birthdate for her, then why can't we accept this claim? 3) Who mentioned anything about a passport? Not the Star. The word isn't even in the article!

Bottom line, if we accept Zhou's claim (I guess the Chinese government is "reliable"?), then we have to accept Laurent's claim, as her age was cited by a reliable source - the Toronto Star - and accepted by not one, but two governments, one of which is a modern industrialized country, a country, I should note, which has something like 50 verified super-c's under its belt, by GRG's tough criteria compared to.... ZERO for China. And, mentioning Guinness in the Star but not with Zhou doesn't help you wiggle out of this one, as if Zhou is not on the verified list of GRG, then, obviously, the evidence for his birthdate is currently "not solid enough" either, as if we need to see a REPORT saying specifically that a person is not on the GRG/Guinness list instead of, you know, taking a look yourself? Hello? Canada Jack (talk) 01:54, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

So if you don't accept Zhou's birth date here then I'm certain you're supporting its removal at his page, correct? The project should be logically consistent, shouldn't it? Or else this page is meant to be just another example of the walled garden that are the longevity articles, which was the problem a decade ago and remain a problem today. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:21, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a separate issue, IMHO. I know others disagree, but I don't have a particular issue with stating a birthdate that is unconfirmed on a notable person's page, even if that age is 110+. There are several other examples already here at wikipedia. After all, an article describing a notable person's life should have the biographical information as reported, age being one of them. But in terms of verified claims - as on this page - he would need to have an organization which specializes in these claims verify that date so as to appear here. The one caveat - if the biographical page makes an age-related claim (say, "Zhou is the only Chinese scholar to reach 110...") then it should be noted that his age has not been verified by an organization which specializes in claims of longevity. If a person is noted ONLY for their unverified age, then the page should clearly state that that age has not been verified. Canada Jack (talk) 15:38, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I have no solution to propose. (1) The GRG is totally right in saying that "usual sources" cannot be trusted about the topic, due to an overflow of unverifiable claims. If we try to cook some article using our usual receipes, it will quickly turn into an intractable mess. (2) On the other hand, publishing a list of GRG-verified facts is not writing, i.e. editorializing, but only a robotic copy. (3) What do we do when A.HTM contradicts E.aspx ? Pldx1 (talk) 19:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Then the solution is to propose a WP:MEDRS for longevity claims and we can be consistent with treating the claim as true everywhere or nowhere. I don't think anyone would argue that reliable sources actually confirm many of the claims at longevity claims as the sources are basically either barely blog-type newspapers or reliable sources with this kind of hedging. Frankly, I'd support deleting the entire section and rebuilding it with more details on hoaxes and nonsense claims in prose form. MEDRS doesn't have articles with different criteria for inclusion; they just define the sourcing requirements across all of Wikipedia more strictly. Here, we don't have that other than rampant arguing that there could be terrible claims included, which everyone alleges but no one has ever argued for in a decade of these arguments. Canada Jack's ranting above about a claim that no one else supports is more distracting than productive. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:42, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Didlake again

Canada Jack says above [23]:

EEng recently brought up an example of a claim which he said should be considered "verified" as it was published both in the New York Times and its information came from the American military: Emma Didlake, at 110, America's oldest veteran. (She was honoured last year, and died later in 2015.) While her specific age was incidental to the story - she was honoured by the White House for being the oldest veteran, not for reaching the age of 110 - he nevertheless said this was a prime example of why we need not rely on GRG for verification purposes. The problem is, preliminary research on the Didlake case suggests that both the New York Times and the military had her date of birth wrong.

Canada Jack 's referring to this discussion [24], in which he takes it for granted that GRG is correct‍—‌that GRG has proven Didlake was born in 1904‍—‌and thereby NYT, the US military, and other sources are put to shame. But that's far from the case. Here's the "research" to which he refers:

The GRG "validation process" in action

From [25], which leads to [26], which leads to http://z3 DOT invisionfree.com/The_110_Club/ar/t12392.htm: Ecad - March 30, 2015 05:48 PM (GMT) ... Some information: - Emma Underwood claims to have been born on 13 March 1905 in Alabama - She was one of more than 10 siblings (around 15 siblings according to the article on her claimed 107th) - She married Oscar Didlake in Kentucky My findings: Possible 1940 US Census match: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K7T7-12W * Supports 1910 Possible 1930 US Census match: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XM6T-FFL*Supports 1907 1943 Army enlistment document: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K8LQ-7KN *Supports 1905 Marriage of a daughter: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2QQN-835 Birth of a daughter: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N9TF-7RL Birth of a son: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N9TF-W2J There were some possible 1910 and 1920 US Census matches, but at this point, without knowing her parents names, it'd be mere speculation. 930310 - March 30, 2015 05:58 PM (GMT) Since there is only one "Emma Underwood" residing in Greene county in 1910 and 1920 then this is probably our person. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKQ2-CNN 1910 US Census - Supports 1904 https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MXZY-WH1 1920 US Census - Supports 1905 Ecad - March 30, 2015 06:31 PM (GMT) I missed that part completely :D ... that surely narrows the potential matches down to the above you've posted! Those possible matches fit well with the fact that she had more than 10 siblings as well. 930310 - March 30, 2015 06:59 PM (GMT) And the earliest document suggests she was born in 1904. I checked the Census and it is a '6'. deblee1969 - April 5, 2015 11:46 PM (GMT) Inactive reserve is the same as the modern delayed entry program. It means you are waiting to go into the military. It does not mean your a veteran. Unless she went into the regular reserves or active duty she is not a Veteran of WW2. deblee1969 - April 16, 2015 06:16 PM (GMT) Actually Emma Underwood/ Didlake is a year older than she actually claims. The 1910 census says she was age 6 when the census was taken on 27 April 1910 . This would have been after her 6th birthday she would of celebrated on March 13 , 1910. If you look at the 1920 census it says on January 9, 1920 she was age 15 . She would turn age 16 on March 13, 1920. Therefore we have 2 matches out of the required 3 that prove she was born on MArch 13, 1904 and not March 13, 1905. So she celebrated birthday 111 on March 13, 2015. if we can find one more document that says 1904 she is a lock. deblee1969 - April 16, 2015 06:23 PM (GMT) The military document may support the 1904 birth but is out of the 20 year window time frame. If she claimed she was 38 when she enlisted that would show a birth year of 1905, even though she actually was born in 1904. She would turn 39 on march 13 the next month following enlistment of February 11,1943. 930310 - April 16, 2015 06:40 PM (GMT) I know, I said that two weeks ago. I'll see if I can find something more here... deblee1969 - April 16, 2015 09:18 PM (GMT) I believe we have more than enough for her to be listed as "pending" with two documents supporting a March 13, 1904 birth date. What do others think? 930310 - April 16, 2015 09:23 PM (GMT) I think she should be pending with 1905 since that's the "safer" option. Once everything has been gathered they can decide which one of 1904/1905 is likelier. Ecad - April 16, 2015 09:35 PM (GMT) Even though there was only one person named "Emma Underwood" in Mrs. Didlake's native county, we haven't located any articles reporting her parents' names and I am not sure whether this guess is enough to "upgrade" her claim... I will post our findings on WOP later. deblee1969 - April 17, 2015 12:59 AM (GMT) When you have a choice of one out of one possible. A pretty safe choice I believe. Ecad - April 17, 2015 06:40 AM (GMT) Personally, I believe the 1910 and 1920 Censuses are matches... It's not me you should convince ;) Waenceslaus - April 17, 2015 11:33 AM (GMT) In the light of the recent discoveries, I believe this thread should go to "Potential cases". ;) deblee1969 - April 17, 2015 12:17 PM (GMT) I agree with you this is definitely a potential case with 2/3 documents for a 1904 birth. One more document showing a 1904 birth in the 20 year window it will be totally valid according to GRG standards. 930310 - July 17, 2015 11:28 AM (GMT) http://news.delta.com/oldest-wwii-vet-gets...light-delta-jet Ale76 - July 17, 2015 05:53 PM (GMT) Topic moved to "Potential cases" section Ollie - August 17, 2015 09:37 PM (GMT) The 1920 census was enumerated in January so "age 15" supports March 1904. Personally, with two documents supporting 1904, I think there's enough evidence to say that she was actually 111 when she died. 930310 - August 17, 2015 09:47 PM (GMT) Yes, I know. I also find it plausible that she was born in 1904.

This "research" shows what stumblebums these "validators" are:

• The participants consider...

• the 1910 census (listing Didlake as 6 years old in 1910, implying she was born in 1903 or 1904), and
• the 1920 census (listing Didlake as 15 in 1920, implying she was born in 1904 or 1905),

from which they conclude she was born in 1904. Yet...

• the 1930 census lists her as 23 in 1930, which implies she was born in either 1906 or 1907, and
• the 1940 census lists her as 30 in 1940, which implies she was born in either 1909 or 1910.

The 1930 and 1940 census returns are linked right there in the discussion, but they simply ignore them, sticking with the 1904 conclusion, which is unfortunate because what they should have concluded is what real researchers already know i.e. that ages listed on census returns are highly unreliable. That GRG uses them for "validation" is amazing.

• One participant writes: "Therefore we have 2 matches out of the required 3 that prove she was born on March 13, 1904 and not March 13, 1905 ... If we can find one more document that says 1904 she is a lock." Another says, "One more document showing a 1904 birth in the 20 year window it will be totally valid according to GRG standards." Apparently the "validation" process consists of finding three documents on a checklist: "check!, check!, wait... wait... one more... check! OK, add her to the collection!" They're like birdwatchers totting up sightings. As seen in the previous bulletpoint there's apparently no understanding of how to weigh and judge historical evidence.
• Here [27] Canada Jack tells us that the Didlake case "underline[s] the contention I and others are making - regular media sources don't have the wherewithal to properly assess these claims." Really? From the above it appears that GRG's "scientific validation process" consists of internet searches of ancestry.com and familysearch.org, followed by a selective misinterpretation of the documents thereby found. I'm pretty sure the New York Times has at least that much "wherewithal" (and I'm pretty sure more, actually).

So what we have is major sources, including NYT, ABC News, and the US military, telling us Didlake was born in 1905, versus this chatroom of birdwatchers ignoring much of the evidence to conclude it's 1904. It may very well turn out that 1904 is right after all, and when reliable sources report that, Wikipedia will as well. In the meantime, Canada Jack might try to argue that WP should report that "sources conflict", but given the above glimpse into GRG, I doubt that will fly.

EEng 06:03, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

First, could we be more off topic here? Second, she's dead isn't she? Third, so the source isn't the GRG but the forum? The forum who's blacklisted here, right? Canada Jack, are you arguing that the wikia or the forum are reliable sources? Because the GRG, the actual reliable source, only has a line in an excel spreadsheet. The actual background is unknown. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:20, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Canada Jack isn't claiming the forum is an RS, rather he's trying to use the forum post to "prove" that NYT etc. aren't RS. But what it really proves, via the rare glimpse it gives into the workings of validation, is how haphazard and sloppy the "scientific validation" process is -- and as mentioned by one of the participants there, they're following GRG's "standards". EEng 08:59, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Canada Jack, is your proof that the NY Times isn't a reliable source the forum? Are you just here arguing WP:TRUTH with everyone? Again, I don't care about the forum, the forum isn't a reliable source but if that's Canada Jack's argument that the NY Times isn't reliable based on that, Canada Jack isn't particularly far off from this discussion above. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:08, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

EEng, it has been years since we last talked on Wikipedia. Hope all is good with you. While I'm here, of course, as a Wikipedia editor, to prevent confusion or clear COI (conflict of interest), I thought I had to comment to this particular section as a GRG "senior" member, if you will. Before I get to that, yes, I have not edited in quite ages so I have to brush up on my editing, grins, but as you or any administrator (are you one? Not sure if I recall that) would naturally check my diffs, pattern of my past contributions, *and* lack of one in the past year to see why I'm here after a while. Rest assured, there was no canvassing by any persons and that I simply have more time because I am both unemployed (unfortunately, and hope it's temporary) and not a current part-time graduate student anymore (I have also moved from Virginia to Arizona as an IP check will show). By now, a bit of sleuthing on any editor's part will identify my real name but I do not give permission for anyone to say it in any talk pages here on WP (so thanks in advance). Anyway, I have been busy with GRG stuff lately, and then I checked Wikipedia and saw all this controversy. You can feel honored that you have elicited a response from me first, ha. Now, onto the subject at hand, I have to advise you that you quoted The 110 Club forum (which is where longevity fans do flock to) as how it was "The GRG "validation process" in action". That is erroneous. That is not the GRG validation process, simply put. That longevity forum, while some members of that forum are/or later become GRG members, are not associated with GRG at all. I have seen quite a number of mis-characterizations of GRG here on Wikipedia, but I can't or don't have the luxury to clear up every single one of them (and there is that COI issue, of course). Of course, as a Wikipedia editor, I can only offer feedback on the current WP policies including WP:RS and WP:V. I thought I'd start with this one mis-characterization, at least. Can you make a correction or a retraction of some kind? I can't remember but I think you can strike through the erroneous comments? Thanks! CalvinTy 18:25, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Simple question

Who is the world's oldest ever person? Simple replies preferred, if you can manage it. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 04:52, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a question for Oldest people or List of the verified oldest people which exists just to have a longer table. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:19, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, if we are to rely on "reliable sources" instead of experts on the subject, I'd say that's an open question. The New York Times, without relying on the verification of some fan-boy hobbyist organization, mentions Methusalah's age on at least one occasion. [28] But I have no doubt there are other "reliable sources" which have reported the ages of even older people, like Guan Chen Czi from China who lived 1,200 years, or the Sumerian kings who lived even longer, without relying on some "gatekeeper" like GRG. Canada Jack (talk) 18:42, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The NYT piece (Sep 14, 1930, p.125) you linked reads, in its entirety:

METHUSELAH CITED AS HEALTH MODEL

In the course of his address before the British Medical Association, which met recently at Winnipeg, Dr. Robert Hutchinson quoted the following poem, which he attributed to "The Southern Planters, U.S.A.," in support of the health practices of Methusalah:

Methusaleh ate what he found on his plate / And never, as people do now,

Did he note the amount of the caloric count— / He ate it because it was chow.

He wasn't disturbed, as at dinner he sat, / Destroying a roast or a pie,

To think it was lacking in granular fat / Or a couple of vitamins shy.

He carefully chewed every species of food / Untroubled by worries or fears

Lest his health might be hurt by some fancy dessert, / And he lived over nine hundred years!

So either (a) you're being funny, (b) you have no idea how to interpret sources, or (c) you didn't actually look at the piece you linked. I can't tell which. EEng 22:06, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Ouch, EENg! Still smarting from that "Type Two Error" smackdown? Canada Jack (talk) 15:04, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

• The point remains. This is still about the oldest living people so I don't see where Methusalh matters. As to your strawman point about the mention of Methusalah, this similar discussion occurred over identifying the validated claims at all. We don't choose to identify which claims are "validated", so then why should we care about distinguishing between them for the purposes of this table? Also, there's nothing stopping the GRG from writing out a paper explicitly stating that certain claims are false (rather than "unverified") which would be a reliable source denying a claim explicitly. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

The point remains. This is still about the oldest living people so I don't see where Methusalh matters. This "simple question" in this section is on the world's oldest ever person. And the point is if we are to consider "reliable sources" for verification purposes, then we've effectively tossed out any notion of real verification. SO the moment we find published sources which treat Methusalah's age as accurate, we can include him. Going by EENg's logic in the past - like with the Didlake case - the incidental mention of someone's age means it has been "verified" by a "reliable source" - the New York Times in the Didlake case, even though the story wasn't about her age, it was about her being the oldest American veteran. EENg thinks my example is absurd, but I am applying his logic - Methusalah's age is only incidental to the story, but it would be considered "verified" by a "reliable source", the same New York Times. And your solution, Ricky, is to wait for the GRG to falsify specific claims? How could Methuslah's claim be falsified? Canada Jack (talk) 15:18, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that Methusaleh is not relevant here. No one has claimed that Methusaleh is a living person. Genesis states that he died at the age of 969. His father may be relevant here, depending on whether one interprets Genesis as literal truth or as myth. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:29, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Again, he's dead so why does that matter here? Second, three specific reliable sources at Methuselah#Fictional call the age fictional. It would be an issue of WP:UNDUE weight to state that he actually lived all those years. You weigh sources. The GRG or any reliable source can explicitly describe his age as a myth. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 18:50, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Again, the section is on "world's oldest ever person," so it's germane to the discussion. And, you said earlier that to warrant exclusion, we'd need PROOF the person wasn't the age claimed, impossible to do in this case. Sure, many consider it a myth, but the GRG would also state that none of these people living whoi have not passed the confirmation process can be considered "verified," but I guess that doesn't count. Sounds like to me you are making this up as you go along, Ricky. Canada Jack (talk) 20:20, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia does report Methusalah age using RS in context. He is also a notable individual (mythical or real depending on your religious inclinations). We don't need him mixed in with the modern people on these lists. Legacypac (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Methusaleh is relevant to oldest people ever if it includes mythical people. He is not relevant to oldest living people. One can interpret Genesis 1-11 in two ways, depending on religious beliefs. (You can also split the difference on Genesis 12-50 as protohistory, a literate writing down of a pre-literate oral tradition that is based partly on history.) Either it is literal truth, possibly dictated by God to Moses, but literal truth, or it is an origin myth, probably having much in common with other Mesopotamian and Mediterranean origin myths, possibly having profound non-literal symbolic meaning. In the first case, Methusaleh was the oldest living person immediately prior to the Flood, and the oldest living person ever, but is not a living person. (He presumably was buried very shortly before the Flood.)

In the second case, he is a mythical person who is the oldest person ever in a particular mythology. There is no source, reliable or otherwise, that lists him as an oldest living person. Either is a historical dead person of exceptional longevity, or he is a mythical dead person of exceptional longevity. Methusaleh's father is a different issue. He, like Elijah, is said to have been taken up into Heaven. Do you count people who have been taken up into Heaven as living people? I say no, but that is outside the scope. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:05, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

That's the logical consequence of what you guys are suggesting, Legacy. Sure, it may be an extreme example, but I can see a strong argument to include him based on what you guys are proposing. A better example is the near-120-year-old mentioned above - reported yesterday by Canada's biggest-circulation newspaper. She should be included by your criteria even though her claim rests on shaky documentation and she would be only the second person in history (if true) to reach 120. Canada Jack (talk) 18:58, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not an extreme example, it's a stupid one that proves nothing. When the sources provided don't even confirm her age (see the Huffington Post as well which notes that it wasn't verified), a simple balancing of sources tells us not to include her (or to put her at longevity claims). If this is so impossible to be done without depending on the GRG, why is there even longevity claims at all? Shouldn't those all be deleted as well? Or is the only concern that these tables aren't "sullied" with non-GRG sources? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:37, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Oh, it's a "stupid" example, is it? Actually, this is precisely the can of worms your approach will open. Not sure what the link proves - the oldest man (as per Guinness) dies and... ? The link to her on the Huffington page links to the article I mention above. And that page specifies her age. Or do you mean when you say "the sources provided don't even confirm her age" well, isn't that we have been talking about all along? Did the New York Times "confirm her age" in the Didlake case? or the military? I saw nothing in those articles which specified some confirmation process as per GRG/Guinness! Or do you admit that a "confirmation" must come from a source which specializes in this - like Guinness and GRG. Your casual dismissal of Laurent's case indicates to me you have some POV criteria of what should or shouldn't be included, and a standard of "verification" which clearly differs from EEng.

But, this is just as I suspected. You guys have NO criteria - if you rely on "reliable sources," then the near-120-year-old warrants inclusion, as did Emma Didlake. Canada Jack (talk) 20:15, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Since you bring up Emma Didlake, doesn't said preliminary research suggest she was actually a year older than claimed? In either case, she was at least 110 (possibly 111). I don't understand why it would've been wrong to list her here when she was living, even if she had been included at the deflated claimed age. 66.168.191.92 (talk) 22:54, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

The issue is the wording of the text here. The point is your criteria is nonsense. Are you actually advocating for the silliness of this 120-year-old woman? Is anyone here advocating for it? This whole nonsense started about Zhou Youguang. Do you think his birthdate on that page should be listed as 1906? Even the GRG hasn't verified it? Should he be categorized as a Category:Chinese supercentenarians even though the GRG hasn't verified it? Would you include on this table (he wouldn't be too me because it's too big as is) if he were to fit in the right place even though the GRG hasn't verified it? Where does your logic go? If he shouldn't be on the table, shouldn't you demand that he be removed from the category? Shouldn't you also then demand that his birth year be removed until the GRG has verified? Of course none of this mattered a week ago when he was age 109 but when he hit the magical age of 110, the entire world changed. Do you think this page should be remotely consistent with the rest of the encyclopedia or this all about keeping this warred garden of GRG control here? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:33, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

No, the issue is "verification." What "wording of the text" are you referring to? The Toronto Star says they have seen the documents, that the Canadian and Haitian governments accept the claim on face value, therefore the criteria - YOUR criteria - for acceptance has been met. We have a "reliable source," the Toronto Star, reporting the claim, we have TWO national government, one of which is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, accepting the claim. In discussing why she is not accepted as the world's oldest person, Guinness is mentioned as not having verified her claim. So how is this different from the Zhou claim? His claim is accepted on its face by the media. But... there is no mention of Guinness and/or GRG as having verified the claim. We know they haven't, but are you now suggesting we need a media source to SPECIFICALLY say that the claim has not been verified by one of these bodies? Isn't that redundant from our end? Because that's the only difference I detect.

Or are you simply applying your POV on this case and simply dismissing it out of hand? Because unless you can cite GRG and or Guinness SPECIFICALLY debunking Laurent's case, then, I submit, you are applying a double-standard.

In terms of where this would go, where Zhou would go, we had a place for all these claims, verified, not verified, and too old to be likely, before all you Sorcerer's Apprentices decided you knew better. Seems to me your illogical and inconsistent approach is collapsing like the house of cards it is. Canada Jack (talk) 22:59, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

No, the issue is you are bringing up a non-issue while ignoring the fact that your proposal requires an entire re-write of the whole encyclopedia. So if you propose that only claims supported by international bodies that are engaged in longevity research or whatever you want is the current way for claims to be listed on this page, is that the same result you want for the category on Category:Supercentenarians? Should a person who's "claim" isn't listed here because it's not "verified" still have that same birthdate listed on their biography pages? If you want to propose a re-interpretation of reliable source policy like WP:MEDRS but for biographies involving very old people, go ahead and see if that'll fly but until then the logical way to handle this is to state that if the birth date is good enough for their biography page, good enough for them to be included in the category, and good enough to include at List of supercentenarians from Asia and thus good enough to include here. MEDRS works because it's a consistent, complete logic on whether or not the source is reliable or not, not this nonsense of "reliable but verified" and "reliable but unverified" or "unverified = reliable for some places but not reliable for other places". -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:29, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Jack sorry to say that you appear to be advocating that Zhou should go in "not verified" which is absurdly crazy just because some self appointed group any of us can join and start validating people in has not managed to do what renowned scholars in China's top universities obviously accept.[29]. Please get with the Wikipedia program and off the "GRG is the only people in the world that can figure out someone's age." Age verification is not that hard. Legacypac (talk) 09:22, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

"Age verification is not that hard"! By "verification" do you mean WP:V or the dictionary definition? 10:16, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

real world dictionary meaning. Assuming the person was born and lived in a place with decent documentation, it's pretty easy. My grandpa was born in 1903 and it remains easy to prove that today, even though he would be 113 now. An "international body specializing in longevity" is not required to check his US birth certificate, old age security docs, drivers license, tax records, land transfer records, homesteading, marriage record/. No one ever doubted he was 93 when he died and if he was alive today no one around him would question his age today. Since the govt recognized his age, and any RS newspaper could easily verify it, GRG would not be required to do thier magic. Legacypac (talk) 10:39, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Notable vs non-notable and how many super old people are notable?

The oldest person/man/women has clear encyclopedic value. Anyone that reaches "oldest" alive generally passes GNG by virtue of the various RS that cover them even if they never did anything notable before that.

There is a reasonably good possibility that person X is not really the oldest because of poor documentation in much of the world, but not a big deal. We just report what the RS say.

The actual 45th oldest living person in the world may get local media human interest coverage about getting really old, but I've never seen media assert that anyone is the 45th oldest or 27th oldest living person. It is 100% certain every list of old people will rank the true 45th or 27th oldest much higher then #45 or #27 because every list is very incomplete. GRG estimates they only have about 1/3rd of the existent superold on their lists.

Only a superold hobbiest and some of the family of the superold care about rankings. Every superold person interviewed, from the many I've read about, thought rankings were not a big deal.

So why should Wikipedia bother listing beyond the first few people? The rankings are obviously incorrect. The lists are known to be incomplete. The positions on the lists beyond the first few confer zero notability. Look how this website limits itself to the top 10 oldest on record and the oldest living http://www.supercentenarian.com/records.html as a good guide. Legacypac (talk) 01:30, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The oldest today may pass GNG if the coverage shows that but that doesn't mean being the oldest alive passes GNG by definition. Are you again proposing to merge this with the world's oldest people list? I'd rather expand this beyond the table or at least introduce some other sources here. Are you suggesting just the top person and then a merger? If anything more, the problem is you need at least 22 to get to including the oldest male (unless you want a separate list) and still the only source in reality is the GRG minus the lede. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:47, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Let's call the oldest man/woman/American/Japanese/European at a point in time #1

For us to confidently list a person as the oldest person alive (at any point in recent history) we really should have multiple RS which are also by default enough to pass GNG. GRG does not even need to be consulted as a source to establish notability or status as #1, though topping their list is nice confirmation of the other sources. The RS on #1 sometimes name #2 and maybe #3 oldest - at least on a trailing basis. When the new number #1 oldest (who was the old #2) is declared the RS nearly always say which #1 just died.

Beyond #1 to maybe #3 Ricky correctly notes we are exclusively relying on GRG tables for the rank, which are a single WP:PRIMARY source known to be 2/3rds incomplete. We can often source the names and birthdates on the list to other RS but never the ranks. So get out of the ranking business. Just provide a link to the GRG table if someone wants to see beyond the #1 to #3 ranked oldest person in category X.

With this idea, I'm envisioning turning this article into a table of "oldest x" with one name per X (man, woman, Japanese etc) We can have a succession list of oldest man and oldest women and oldest Japanese or American for topics that are notable, which each name referenced to multiple RS and linked to their article if there is one.

It is possible, but tough to maintain a ranked list of the oldest among a small defined group like US Senators. It gets pretty tough when you go to oldest living world leaders. Expand it too oldest living among 7 Billion people and ranking beyond the first couple names is impossible to do accurately. Legacypac (talk) 04:05, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Just remove the number column entirely. Simple as that and write it as a list of the 50 oldest people or whatever. As the lede notes, there's hundreds more that aren't identified which is explanatory. Frankly, I would support a merger of this page, the oldest people page and the longevity claims into a single article on the topic of longevity and claims about longevity (without the nonsense of daily updated tables per WP:RECENT concerns) but until the claims content is merged around, I support keeping them separate for now. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:35, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the number column is useful though. It provides for an easy count of the number of people on the page, plus it makes it easy to see who all shares a birth date. From the perspective of a casual reader, I'd imagine it'd be pretty cool to see that two people of such advanced age share the exact date of birth (such as Viola Jacobi and Shizue Nagata or Nugi Ikeda and Yoshiyo Bessho do). They probably wouldn't notice that if the number column wasn't there. I think it'd be better to improve the language in the introduction so it is more apparent that, outside of say the number one and two spots, the "ranking" someone has on this list doesn't necessary show their actual "ranking" in terms of the total population. 66.168.191.92 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:55, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Place of residence

Does the place of residence actually matter here? It's largely sourced to the GRG alone (like the rest of this) and seems irrelevant to these people. The only thing here is their birth date that actually matters and I'd be concerned about the privacy for people who are relatively unknown. It would also eliminate the oddball footnote about where these people were born and what the countries were then (which aren't sourced and for some this is complicated). -- 02:53, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Update following death of Yasutaro Koide on 19 January 2016

The world's oldest man, Yasutaro Koide, died on 19 January 2016. A Japanese news source can be found here, and no doubt English-language news reports will start appearing shortly. --DAJF (talk) 06:52, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I went ahead and included the man whom the Japanese government announced as his successor as the oldest man in Japan on this list. I believe the MHLW is a reliable source for advanced age cases, save for past cases such as Shigechiyo Izumi where subsequent research revealed fraud. If the reliability of the MHLW is in question, please put it to a vote rather than simply reverting my edit. 66.168.191.92 (talk) 07:34, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm good with the Japanese Govt as the RS. No need to wait for GRG to verify (presumably they have not as they only had one living man on their lists). Legacypac (talk) 19:02, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Note that it's problematic since the Japanese government by definition isn't an "international body" and in no way "specifically deals in longevity research" so it would be disqualified under the phrasing and criterion expressed above. Under those definitions, these claims wouldn't be included here, which is further evidence that that language is problematic. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:37, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the "international body" part was problematic for the intro and it appears to have been removed, though I do understand the other side of the argument that just using traditional reliable sources such as a news report can't alone count for this article. Clearly the GRG, GWR, IDL, and other dedicated human longetivity research groups kind of have the "ultimate" say about a persons verifiable age, so if they cast doubt or say a claim is falsified, Wikipedia should follow their reporting moreso than a newspaper or something. There's got to be a good middle-ground somewhere because as has been stated repeatedly "Wikipedia can't just be GRGpedia." The real focus of the conversation I think should shift to "what other sources, besides the GRG and GWR, can be considered reliable in terms of advanced age claims?" 66.168.191.92 (talk) 21:46, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Other than Canada Jack and his 120-year-old random one-off story, has anyone actually argued for a claim that way? The issue I object to is the blatant playing with language here when the parties are directly admitting that they only have a single source in mind. Do people consider the Japanese health ministry's claims as reliable or not? If so, then they should reword it so that it's not explicitly excluded. If not, then say it. Otherwise it seems like they want to have their cake and eat it too by demanding "international bodies" wordage while explicitly ignoring it so they don't look ridiculous. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:58, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree. In fact, our own longevity claims article has a section about what he was saying. Neither the Canadian nor Haitian governments have come out and stated that woman was their oldest or that she was the age on her ID like he seemed to imply. I think Japan's MHWL and the United States' VA can be considered RS for this list as well as the Social Security Administration's Kestenbaum Study (odd there isn't an article on it). But my question is mostly "who else?" Bolivia's government tried to claim a few years ago that one of its citizens was 123. The GRG debunked that. Then there was a man in Poland who claimed to be 113. As far as I know, research by the GRG and GWR debunked that. So clearly we can't say all government or government bodies can be considered RS in terms of age verification. 66.168.191.92 (talk) 22:37, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

This is simple. Like everything else on Wikipedia we follow RS. If RS#1 says Mrs Smith is 110 we report it. If RS#2 says Mrs Jones is 130 that is an extraordinary claim and we should treat it like an extraordinary claim. If RS#3 says Mr Smith is not as old as reported we should report that too. Wikipedia does not decide who is how old it just reports what RS say with appropriate weight to various sources. We do not need to designate a Super Source that must verify something everything Wikipedia reports on topic.

And who decides who/what is an extraordinary claim? Did I miss a Wiki policy/guideline somewhere? DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 03:10, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Which logged out editor is the IP here? Legacypac (talk) 02:41, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

'An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof. Marcello Truzzi, On the Extraordinary: An Attempt at Clarification, Zetetic Scholar, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 11, 1978'. Wikipedia has a policy for that. WP:REDFLAG. It is not extraordinary that the govt of Japan knows who the next oldest man in the country is when the oldest guy dies. It is guarantied there is a next oldest guy and he is going to be a little younger then the one who died so when AP reports his name and age, so can we without considering it extraordinary. A Red Flag would be some guy in Bolivia claims to be 130 but we know the oldest age recognized was 122. Bolivia Guy's claim is a REDFLAG and if we choose to report the claim we better report any objections to it. Legacypac (talk) 03:26, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Are you asking about me? I don't have an account. 66.168.191.92 (talk) 22:39, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

RfC: "List of Verified Oldest Living People" as title instead of "List of Oldest Living People"

The GRG adds the word "validated" in their list of oldest people, so we should follow the GRG's example. That's what Wikipedia's list is. A list of the verified oldest living people. Does anyone else agree with me that the title of the article should be "Oldest Verified Living People" instead of "Oldest Living People"? Ebaillargeon82 (talk) 11:56, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose If the GRG wants to host a list of verified blessed GRG confirmed oldsters they can call it whatever they want. At Wikipedia we follow RS across the project, and everything follows WP:V so adding GRG's preferred term is inappropriate and redundant to Wikipedia policy. Legacypac (talk) 17:02, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia goes off of reliable sources to the best of its ability 'verified' can be and should be assumed. Wiki is littered with pages for which "verified" could be an appropriate adjective. It's an unnecessary addition. aremisasling (talk) 19:14, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

But Wikipedia's source for it's list comes from the GRG list, and the GRG states that the number of supercentenarians has been frequently misconstrued as the number of every single supercentenarian in the world. So the word "verified" should be added to the title of Wikipedia's list, because just "List of Oldest Living People" seems a bit misleading since there are probably other people who deserve to be on the list but are not verified. Wikipedia also has "List of Verified Oldest Men" and "List of Verified Oldest Women". And nobody has changed this to just "List of Oldest Men" and "List of Oldest Women". Ebaillargeon82 (talk) 22:29, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The GRG list is but one source for this page. The word verified should be stripped from the other titles, and now that some of the GRG control agents are topic banned someone should try that. Legacypac (talk) 05:31, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• This isn't the Time 100 or Billboard 100; no one actually about the GRG list as a notable list on its own. They care about what the list claims to represent. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

And it claims to represent the oldest VERIFIED (or as GRG puts it, "validated") living people. Ebaillargeon82 (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

That's being argued above. That wasn't my wording and it doesn't seem like the one that reflect the consensus of the people here. Please comment in the RFC if you can. Just because one person put that there without any further explanation doesn't mean it's likely to stay. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:16, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose The implication is that there exists a List of unverified oldest living people. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:25, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

See Longevity claims.Japf (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I'd question whether those are actually based on reliable sources at all. Looking at the first name here, it is based on a Chinese article which translated hedges the claim and a BBC article which explicitly states that no one outside China will believe it. Then I'd argue it's a classic WP:FRINGE theory that she's actually 129 years old since the sources barely assert that. Perhaps there's one or two with some level of dispute but I'd rather we actually work through these sources as we are supposed to rather than just separate GRG-approved claims from GRG-unapproved claims into separate lists. This is nothing compared to more complicated issues but it's just laziness to me the way it's done here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:48, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment We should let the earlier RfC on the lead wording finish before suggesting a rename, since that RfC may remove the wording requiring verification by the GRG. clpo13_(talk) 05:29, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed but there isn't a single push-back discussion about longevity that doesn't result in absolute chaos like this page has become. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:13, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Ricky I thought you said I caused the chaos in Longevity... I think we are making serious progress now with the annual death deletions, mergers to mini bios and now getting a couple non-GRG blessed names on the lists. Legacypac (talk) 06:21, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Chaotic good and chaotic evil are different things entirely. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:11, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment "Verified" and "not verified" is very important in this subject. The oldest verified person living today is Susannah Mushatt Jones with 116 years old. In opposition, there are dozens of people who claim to be much more than 120 and even more than 130 years old! Not surpringly, no one has means to prove their claims. They are just liers, and mixing everithing is a mistake.Japf (talk) 20:36, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose I prefer to keep the title simple and it should be obvious that 'verified' is implied. But I understand User:Ebaillargeon82's argument of "List of Oldest Living People" seems a bit misleading since there are probably other people who deserve to be on the list but are not verified., as technically it is more correct to include 'verified'. Therefore the lede should clarify that the list is almost certainly incomplete. The term 'verified' is not the best choice though, as it appears to refer to a certain method or standard of verification. I'd prefer the more general 'known' IF such a word would be used (see also Largest known prime number for example). There was a recent discussion in WP:Astronomy on this issue for those interested. Gap9551 (talk) 21:19, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Everything on WP is supposed to be WP:V anyway, according to WP's standards (not GRG's etc). This would substitute GRG's standard for WP's. EEng 21:59, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Possibly rename to GRG's list of oldest living people, as that seems to be the appropriate name for a proposed content criterion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:02, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - It would be clumsily unnecessary. STSC (talk) 07:56, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• Request for clarification: as a Wikipedia editor, not as a GRG member, I wanted to clarify on what "verifiability" means in which context: a.) "The claim is verifiable because it was published by a reliable source" as in the editor did not make up the story, or b.) that "the reliable source cites another body and/or independently verifies the age claim"? Clearly, since we editors cannot do original research, we clearly have to rely on WP:RS. I can see the confusion about whether "verified" in the title would be necessary or not. All I can suggest is that if we treat (major?) news media as reliable sources (see: WP:NEWSORG), due to their fact-checking procedures, without the word "verified" in the title, we may still face the issue of having a lot of age 115+ living claims be found online and then placed on the "The Oldest Living People" list here. After a while, it would have a Top 50 or 100 list of living claims over 117+. Then Guinness World Records (GWR) and/or GRG announces that the oldest verified living person is only 116. What is next then? I don't know the answer to that, but perhaps two different lists are needed here? CalvinTy 19:35, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

The GRG uses the term "verified" to refer to a claim that it supports as true (although it has been known to retract those years if not decades later without explanation). Some claims are considered "pending" and others "unverified". I think there's (perhaps intentional) mix-up of phrasing between the GRG's term "verified" and our use at WP:V. According to those supporters, anything that isn't directly a copy of the GRG must be listed as "unverified" claims (because of course, if the GRG hasn't verified it, we need that advertised here). My view is that we have some random newspaper says that a person is actually age 120 or older (see Longevity claims or the Star article that Canada Jack mentions above for examples), and in contrast we have the GRG and/or GWR explicitly states that the oldest is 117, I say we can treat those properly as WP:FRINGE theories, not put that as a fact for them and not include them here. I'd rather this page expand and distinguish fringe living people right now to give a proper representation of the fact that this isn't so clear-cut as we pretend it is. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:12, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Wow, I'm rusty as I forgot to sign my previous request for clarification! Sorry about that. Ricky81682, as you can imagine, I cannot talk about GRG matters here so forgive me for not responding to those (i.e. retractions, why this claim is verified or not, and etcetera). I also see that I still have a lot of reading to do in previous discussions above. While I need to do that, I can only say, to clarify for everyone here, that GRG is not the only authority in longevity research and/or age validation process, nor do we pretend to be. It's just that I can understand some editors wanting to separate the chaff from the wheat (did I say that right?) in seeing which age claims have been verified or not in order to put them on the correct list here, whatever it may be named. If this "verified" sense means #a above in where a reliable source says a man is claimed to be 114 years old, then yes, that claim would be placed here per the intent of the "Living Oldest People" article. If that's the desired effect, then I agree that adding "verified" wouldn't be necessary since it is already covered in WP:V. However, would Wikipedia readers see this list as the de facto "list of oldest people" but still understanding that they are not verified (in the sense where an entity, no matter who, did validate the claimed age by reviewing the necessary documentation)? Just wondering. Cheers, CalvinTy 19:35, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

You are arguing about a WP:TRUTH problem. The RFC above is about the wording for the lede and some people there advocate expressly that the GRG is only "reliable" authority that should be referred to. We should just report what reliable sources say (and the GRG is one) and if there's a discrepancy, it's worth noting. The fact that there are unknown unknowns is never going to be resolved. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:23, 22 January 2016 (UTC)