Talk:Longevity claims/Archive 1

TABLES

Can someone table-ize the lists on longevity claims?131.96.70.158 19:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Done -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 20:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Oldest modern man and woman claims

There are numerous, widely known in the region, claims of the oldest living modern man (at about 160+) and woman (140+) in the country of Azerbaijan. These claims have a long history in the various sources of media and, I believe, they have even been recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records for a while. There is a region in the southern most mountains of the country, where the microclimate has been said to be one of the most life-prolonging in the world, allegedly scientificly concluded. I think this claim should at least be mentioned in the Wikipedia, seeing how it is a much higher age than the majority of other "semi-credible" ones. Someone should look into this and compile a good little summary. Here is an example of the mention of this claim in the media:

http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/62_folder/62_articles/62_centenarianslerik.html —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.80.59.47 (talk) 03:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC).

There's nothing scientific about these claims, and contrary to belief, the ages claimed are not appreciably higher than elsewhere (we've seen age 167 claimed in Nepal, for example). See longevity myths for more.→ R Young {^yakł_talk} 04:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Anna Borysiewicz

Dead => look here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.30.194.180 (talk) 06:59, 28 February 2007 (UTC).

Thanks for letting us know, but when exactly did she die then, please? Extremely sexy 12:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone else said February 23rd, according to this report, hence. Extremely sexy 15:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Alberta Davis

Alberta Davis noted in the article as a person still alive has already died on Jan 27, 2007 (look her own wiki-article). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.240.220.40 (talk) 08:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

Good point, and so I corrected this. Extremely sexy 14:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Hrory Nestor

The BBC transliterate Mr Nestor's name as "Hryhoriy". Could a scholar of Ukranian decide which is best? Tevildo 20:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Tagging claimants

Does anyone want to start tagging the claimants, like I did with Ruperto Hernandez? R Young {^yakł_talk} 08:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Purpose

One of the purposes of this article is to document that longevity claims can be found from any region of the world where accurate records are not kept...including European nations prior to birth registration.R Young {^yakł_talk} 23:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Tougher criteria needed

Should not each person have a reference to a news article? Right now this is just a list of empty names, but there is not even a reference to the claim in most cases. As far as I am concerned 80% of the names in the table should be removed straight away, and I think many of the remaining 20% are subject to removal if one checks the sources. For example Habib Miyan has no references at all in the corresponding article. Mlewan 09:59, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

If you check link #9--"World's Oldest People"--you can search for each case in the search box and find a link.

Happy reference-linking!Ryoung122 19:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If you are talking about the world's oldest people, are you seriously suggesting we use a yahoo discussion group as reference? Mlewan 09:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely so: this is a serious group. Extremely sexy 17:47, 9 July 2007 (UTC)#

But in no way can a discussion group be regarded as a Reliable Source. - fchd 19:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

WRONG. The group was the number# search hit on Yahoo, and was featured on the Yahoo front page in June 2007 for the Tomoji Tanabe story (60+ million users). It has existed for 5+ years and the messages are all archived by date.Ryoung122 04:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

You clearly do not understand the concept of reference very well. Nothing you say in the previous paragraph makes it more likely that the group postings would be reliable. (I fixed the formatting of your entry above. Hope you do not mind.) Mlewan 05:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

WRONG. From the page you cite: "This page is a guideline, not a policy". This is a GUIDELINE, NOT A POLICY. Claiming that others 'do not understand' is simply an insult. Check out the 2008 Guinness Book, page 2...is that my name there? Yes it is.Ryoung122 07:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Not even if several reliable sources are mentioned and used in it, dear Richard? Extremely sexy 20:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

No. If that is the case, the reliable sources said to be quoted on the discussion group should be the ones referenced here. They can be written or electronic, but must be Verifiable. And cite them inline, against each case. - fchd 21:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I will just delegate this task to Robert. Extremely sexy 21:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

From the 'verifiability' page:

[edit] Self-published sources (online and paper) Policy shortcut: WP:SPS Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.[5]

Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications

Thus, I stand by the assertion that using 'world's oldest people' meets the definition. I understand it is generally better to cite the 'original' source. However, ironically original newspaper articles are often not available, excepte to paid customers, after two weeks. The Yahoo webgroup has been up for 5+ years and the links there still work, with the sourced information. Therefore, I submit it would be a better idea to link to sources that will remain accessible/free rather than to articles which can be only accessed by paid subscription (Yahoo requires you to register but not to pay). Note that the linked message always includes the source of the message...that is what the group is there for, to document/cite sources and make sure a case is not forgotten/overlooked.Ryoung122 07:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

To Ryoung122, I do not care even if you had been the "world's leading expert". Wikipedia facts should be based on sources, not people who claim they are "experts". Besides, if you really are an expert of some kind, you should have no problem providing sources. Mlewan 16:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Which, by the way, I happen to be. I decide who the world's person is for Guinness World Records.

If you pass the ball in a basketball game and your teammate fails to catch it, is the passer or the receiver at fault?

This is a team effort and I find it a bit condescending for you to expect me to do all the work. I have laid out the foundations, and provided a few citations. The remaining cases can all be located on the web or my 'world's oldest people' webgroup (which, aside from being a source in itself, lists the sources of each claim in the message). Since this is already listed at the bottom of the page, I'm sure you'll be able to find it. Happy hunting.Ryoung122 03:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

No one has to fix all the references. There are plenty of articles in Wikipedia without references. However, it should be made clear to the reader that the references are weak - hence the Not Verified banner on top of the article. Mlewan 05:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with expecting an article to be referenced. In fact, I created a system of referencing and added the first references. Unfortunately no one else has been willing to do any share of the workload. I do plan to add tags at the appropriate time (i.e. when someone dies and is moved from the 'living' to the 'deceased' list). A tag at the top identifies that the article can be improved.Ryoung122 07:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Eleanor Micklebuckle, 129, of Elkhart, Illinois added

Here is the source: http://www.avantnews.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=345 —Preceding unsigned comment added by KevinC2125 (talk • contribs)

That is a joke news story. Note the headline date: Barkhaven, Missouri, November 7, 2018

Last I checked, this is 2007.Ryoung122 02:21, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Opps.... Sorry Mr. Young I didn't see that. My mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KevinC2125 (talk • contribs)

New info found on LaJean Smith

Note: this may or may not be her.

Here's a link: http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=people&so=2&rank=0&=%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c%2c&gsfn=LaJean&gsln=Smith&sx=&gs1co=2%2cUSA&gs1pl=6%2cArkansas&year=&yearend=&sbo=0&sbor=&ufr=0&wp=4%3b_80000002%3b_80000003&srchb=r&prox=1&db=&ti=0&ti.si=0&gss=angs-b —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plyjacks (talk • contribs)

This is probably her, but only provides proof that she claims to be 118...not proof of birth.Ryoung122 08:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much Mr. Young. That was my mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plyjacks (talk • contribs)

But isn't "Ancestry" a reliable source for Census searches? Extremely sexy 11:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

That wasn't a census listing, it was an address listing...in other words, it shows where she lives and that she is identified as '118' years old (proof of current ID). That meets only one of the three requirements for age validation. The other two remain unanswered: proof of birth and proof that the person living today is the same person that is listed in the birth document. Ryoung122 07:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay: thanks for clearing that up then. Extremely sexy 12:30, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Longevity myths

Greetings, debunked cases and those 130+ should be listed elsewhere. In fact, perhaps a table at the end of the longevity myths page could be made, for such famous instances as Thomas Parr, Christian Drakenberg or Charlie Smith. Likewise, Noah Raby and Mary Ramsey Wood should probably be there. Note the 1850 census suggests he was 'only' 81 years old. Ryoung122 07:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, who on earth was Christian Drakenberg, Robert: enlighten us? Extremely sexy 17:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The most famous Danish longevity myth of all time!

http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-170951/Christian-Jacobsen-Drakenberg Ryoung122 06:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks: so maybe you could also write an article about him. Extremely sexy 13:00, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Verification

Do the people of Wikipedia honestly expect us to provide verification on an article specifically covering the topic of unverified claims? I request that that particular banner be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.152.209.72 (talk • contribs)

This misses the point. You need to verify that there is a CLAIM that has been widely reported in the media and/or historical texts, such as Elizabeth Israel. No one said you had to prove the age claimed. In fact, the point is, these cases are those whose ages haven't been proven. Ryoung122 06:27, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Urgent question for Robert Young

Why exactly did you delete the following entry, huh?

|Maxima Cabrera-Alfaro |November 18, 1893 |130 years, 173 days |Uruguay

Extremely sexy 18:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The last report on her was a 110th birthday report in 2003. That means she should have been moved to the 'limbo' list...except there's no proof she even claimed to have reached age 113. Hence the deletion.Ryoung122 16:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

95% figure, Another question for Ryoung122

The 95% figure that I removed has returned to the article. I understood at the time that it probably referred to a confidence interval.

"Hence, since the 1900 census is a proximate record (not written in 1890), it can be said that there is a near-95%-certainty that Susie was at least 115, but it's still possible that she was in fact 116."

Gives no indication as to where the confidence interval came from, what is this based on? The fact that the 1900 census is proximate does not validate the figure, if the analysis exists, it should be included. BananaFiend 10:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, we don't have to have the '95%' figure. But I changed it to a non-verbal 'near-certainty'.Ryoung122 16:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

great! I removed the 95% text from it completely (though from your comment I thought that was done)BananaFiend 09:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Ruperto Hernandez

From the World's Oldest People webgroup:

I just learned that Ruperto Hermández from Nicaragua died on Aug. 10, 2007. His claimed birthdate was Jun. 13, 1887, as I posted a few months ago.

http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/2007/08/12/nacionales/56094

http://belkysmartinezenlaentrada.blogspot.com/2007/08/muere-el- hombre-mas-viejo-de-nicaragua.html

Someone please update by moving him to the 'died' section. Thanks!Ryoung122 16:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers, CP 17:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Taejo of Goguryeo

What about people like Taejo of Goguryeo, who supposedly lived from 47 AD to 165 AD? Should his name be added to this list? 131.111.24.187 15:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. A case like this seems to be more of a 'reign-era' claim; Japan and several other nations are noted for attempting to stretch their history further into the past than reality, and to do so required increasing the reign-dates. Perhaps you could add another section, 'historical longevity claims'. Note that in the above case we don't even have a claimed date of birth or claimed date of death, only a claimed age (circa 118). Also note the Asian tradition of counting the year of birth as year '1' instead of 'O' (so 118 becomes 119).Ryoung122 23:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Carmen Catrileo Hualla

Carmen Hualla has been removed from the list. Does anyone know if this was because she is now deceased or because her claimed age has been disproven?DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 02:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Hryhoriy Nestor

Nestor has died. http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,523677,00.html (German) No exact date is given. --217.87.137.17 (talk) 20:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Favorite source of vandalism

Why is this article such a FAVORITE source of vandalism? Childish immaturity. I know, the reasoning goes something like this: well, these people just make up fake ages, so why don't I just join in and do the same thing?

WRONG. Even if these ages are fake, they at least are cited in newspaper publications...something your vandalism clearly hasn't been in. Stop the vanity, and grow up and get a brain.→ R Young {^yakł_talk} 09:16, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Weekly World News-esque newspapers in third world countries don't count as legitimate press. Especially if the article is sayung "Oh, well her birth certificate was lost in a fire". Classic crock of sh*t. --Ragemanchoo (talk) 03:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Age 130 or above

It is meaningless to set the claimed age must be less than 130 years old. As discuss by other wikipedians on this page, there are some claims are 140+, and has reported by media. But why don't include this claim? If you think setting boundary for these claim is appropriate, why don't change the topic from Longevity claims to Longevity claims with partially evidence, or even change to Longevity claims that make sense (make sense because claims are less than 130), or mention the boundary setting on the top of the claim page.Joe3600 06:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think longevity claim would be appropriate (not a myth) for higher than 130 years old, if the person can provide sufficient evidence to support his claim, or the claimed birth is documented on the early year (say, the person is claimed born on 1870 and is already documented as 30 years old in 1900). But if the person is claimed his age after 100 years old, and failed to provide evidence to support, and is claimed for having 130 years old or higher, it is probably a false claim. (Example of evidences includes a primary school certificate issued before 1900, a high school transcript issued on early 1900's, a photos taken on early 1900's, a working certificate on early 1900's, etc.). 59.149.118.174 (talk) 09:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

This is out of the question, since no claim above 122 has ever been proven. Extremely sexy (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Mariam Amash

Hi, this isn't an area that I've done much work in so I'm not going to get into repeat reverts, but it seems to me that a birth certificate, recognised by a modern sovereign state (through the ID card in the story) counts as partial validity i.e. there are some documents to support the claim? --Pretty Green (talk) 07:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately a birth certificate is not enough even if it is "recognised" by a state authority. Most of the other claims listed here also have birth certificates but in most cases they have only been issued relatively recently and none are not backed up by any other data and cannot be considered reliable. As the next section says: "These cases have no publicly available early-life records to support them, but have been made in the press. At the very least, the person should have a claimed year, month and day of birth to be listed here. Claims that don't should be listed in the article about longevity myths." There is not even a published date of birth for Mrs Amash (though you would expect one given there is obviously a birth certificate) so she does not even meet the criteria for the "Recent claims" list let alone the "Partially-validated" list.DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 10:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Maria Strelnikova

According to this source (in Russian) Maria Strelnikova passed away on May 3, 2005. As she was younger than 116, I did not find a way to include her in the list of past longevity claims and just deleted her entry from the list of "Limbo" cases. I also feel the need to replace her as an example of "grey area" cases but I think it's better to be done by the author of that paragraph. --Vs1969 (talk) 20:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Goshada (Gosada) Tsallaeva

Several Russian news agencies published reports on her 120th birthday in 2006. She received congratulations from President Putin, accompanied by a car. Strangely, I found no English translations of this news item, only the French one (RIA Novosti - French). The Russian source is, for example, here (with a photo of her). I have updated her entry to keep it current.

I really believe she is alive now because the media in Russia is obviously monitoring this case and if anything happened, it found its way to the news (like in the case of Maria Strelnikova). And it seems to be correct to move her entry from the "Limbo" list to the "Current claims" list (as this celebration happened less than 2 years ago) but the problem is that it took place in July, so it is not possible, I think, list November 15 as her birthdate (as it was before), but I could not find the exact day of her birth in any of the sources (only 1886 as the year). And all entries in the "Current claims" list mention exact birth dates. So maybe somebody more experienced could take care of this.

Also it worth mentioning than all these news items listed her name as Gosada or Gosade whereas the original article from 2002 used Goshada. --Vs1969 (talk) 20:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Today I noticed the reversion of the birth date of Ms.Tsallaeva back to November 15 (and the explanation text now reads as "celebrated her birthday in November 2006). I agree with the reason for reversion (that we cannot extend the claim once it is published), but we still need to do something with the explanation text, because no actual celebration in November took place according to all the sources. Maybe change it to "celebrated her birthday in 2006?".

Also I will try to find the source for the original "November 15, 1886" claim (in all Internet sources available to me I was not able to find this date). The original 2002 story from major Russian newspaper "Argumenty i Fakty" http://gazeta.aif.ru/online/longliver/6/23_01 (Russian) did not include the date of birth as well. --Vs1969 (talk) 20:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be still alive as on June 26, 2008: the source--Vs1969 (talk) 20:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Swami Bua

Ran across Swami Bua at Earth Elders, born in 1889 and wasn't sure if he should be listed. A blog entry at [1] seems to say he was alive at 116. He seems to have numerous articles about him if you search Google. Jjaazz (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

US State and Country listed

Why is it that all of the entrants listed have a section for their country of Residence apart from ppl residing in the US who also have the state listed? It seems a bit strange to me. After all the column is headed as Country and last time I checked 'Illinois, United States' is not a country (although 'United States' is fine).
Even more ridiculously Richard Washington's entry even lists his city of Residence (followed by his state of course and finally his country when on the country is required).
I mean the current leading claim (with no documentation) is a South African from the Limpopo province (an area slightly smaller than Illinois) why do we not list her place of Residence as Limpopo, South Africa?
I really can't see an argument for this. No state in the US is more important than any other state (or region or province or county) in any other part of the world. Furthermore the claim of size or greater population cannot be made seeing as larger states (WA, Australia?) and larger populations per state can be found in other countries around the world.
So why is it listed like this?
I'm all for having as much information as possible but it should be equal if at all (and frankly its of little importance in this wiki to list the state - imo)
86.0.166.75 (talk) 01:04, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry didn't realise I wasn't signed in. That was me btw who made the above post. brob (talk) 01:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Tombstone photo out on the net?

Anybody else come across this? I saw it a couple years back. A photo of a tombstone, here in the states as I recall, listing a person who died in their late-120s. It was a legitimate tombstone, too, not a doctored photo. The dates, however, were probably incorrect. They may be on the list here on the site. Anybody else seen this? It was a relatively simple granite tombstone. --Ragemanchoo (talk) 03:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Partially validated cases

Forgive me if this has already been discused. Why are Richard Washington and Virginia Call on a list my themselves? First, they are already on the Unverified living supercentenarians list on the List of living supercentenarians page. I feel they should either be on the claims list with the others or the unverified list. --Npnunda (talk) 18:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

They were on this list first before the unverfied list was separated from the verified supercentenarians. It is probably time they, and this section, were removed from this page. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 00:28, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

agreed. I removed them. --Npnunda (talk) 23:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

state flags

Were removed per WP:FLAG. --Npnunda (talk) 18:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Citations needed

I can provide citations for every case tagged today, just give me a few days.

Thanks Ryoung122 01:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Greetings,

It might be COI for me to add this link, but someone else could do it:

http://www.grg.org/Adams/J.HTM

I note that often these cases come from obscure sources (news in Azerbaijan?) or sometimes a family member...for example a family member e-mailed me a picture of Clara MacLeash and claimed she was 116... Ryoung122 08:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Rengifo Cerquera: an article once existed,

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Worlds_Oldest_People/message/6284

Ryoung122 08:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

An email claim from a family member is not an independent published reliable source. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:15, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Do we really need a source for every case? Even if not, one "could" still use this link:

http://www.grg.org/Adams/J.HTM

the point here is to establish "verifiability," not "notability." Ryoung122 09:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

But "COI" = what exactly? Extremely sexy (talk) 15:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Conflict of interest! DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 22:33, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Strict cutoff versus overlap

Greetings,

Regarding the recent idea to delete the longevity claims that are also on the "list of living supercentenarians" article: there are actually a few issues to discuss here. One is whether anyone on one list shouldn't be on another (an either/or divide), or would some overlap be O.K.? The second issue is, what criteria should we use to etablish a cutoff point?

Some more issues:

If we use a cutoff of, say, 115, and the world's oldest person were 114 (as happened last year), it's possible to have a claimant that is said to be older than the world's oldest person but less than 115. Also, the Maria Cortes claim from Spain to age 116 would still be listed on both articles, if we put a 115+ minimum on this page.

Finally, the MEDC countries issue means that someone could live in the U.S. and be "116" and be an "unverified supercentenarian" but that same person would be a longevity claim if living in, say, Pakistan.

For these reasons, I suggest two scenarios:

A. Each article can have its own criteria, with some overlap allowed.

B. Develop a cutoff system. When an "unverified supercentenarian" reaches a certain threshold (say, age 115, or perhaps "older than the current verified oldest living person"), and are still not verified, they are moved from the "unverified supercentenarian" list to the "longevity claims" list.

Other comments welcome. I personally favor "B" at this point...what if Rebecca Lanier is still around at "125"? How long can she go and still be on the "list of living supercentenarians"? (research suggests she was born in 1905 and so is age 103, not 116 as claimed, so nine more years is not outside the realm of possibility).Ryoung122 10:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I would favour B, the question really is: where to have the cutoff? Given that Jeanne Calment's age has been achieved once it is theoretically possible that it could be achieved again, so perhaps if someone is still alive at that claimed age but has not been verified then they are moved to claims. On the other hand one might expect that 10 years investigation into such a claim without indication that it will be verified might be enough so the cutoff could be 120. or 115 or "older than the current verified oldest person". I'd actually favour weither iof teh first 2.

On a different issue, when should someone get moved from limbo to "claims of the past"? e.g It has been over 9 years since the claim of Feime Hassanova. Isn't it time she was moved and her age given as 120 years 0+ days? Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 09:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment. If someone is 115, then they've had five years to be verified. Also, the likelihood of being true drops from 1 in 10 million chance at 110 to 1 in 2 billion at 115. Should we really give a 1 in 2 billion chance the benefit of the doubt here?

I'd like to get comments from anyone else first. The bottom line is that I'd prefer to move the 115+ unverified claims off the "list of living supercentenarians" and to this page. The main reason they are there is to provide a pool of potential cases that may need to be investigated. So far the oldest person ever verified while living was Maria Capovilla at 116, and we have had post-mortem validations for Lucy Hannah at 117 and Maggie Barnes at 115. But "longevity claims" doesn't mean "untrue"...it means "unvalidated" and actually should be thought of in a sort of neutral term (we tend to give age claims the benefit of the doubt...all "longevity claims" means is that we are not giving them the benefit of the doubt...some might be true, others might not be). But note also what would we do with Tanase Tanase of Romania? At "113" he is not from a MEDC nation (so no "unverified supercentenarian" by the present rules). So I'm not so sure a strict cutoff is warranted...an overlap from 113-115 may be reasonable. One reason we start the "longevity claims" at 113 is that if we don't require validation, the number of claims are far more numerous than the validated ones.

Finally, for Feime Hasanova, I suggest starting "limbo" if the person reaches age 130 or it's been 10 years with no update, whichever comes first. Note we had Du Pinhua in the news at 116, false rumors of her death at 117, and the claim re-surfaced at 120.Ryoung122 09:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

article claims

this makes no sense, since when was there such a high burden of proof for longevity claims, when innumerable amount of historical figures born decades and centuries before have such seemingly undisputed ages.And how did all those people even live their lives when their very existence is supposedly not supported by reliable records?, including anyone born pre-20th century in the us, etc, didn't their government recognize them?, surely the people verifying these claims just have an extremely high burden of proof....Rodrigue (talk) 08:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Please stop this uneducated rant, and do some reading on this.

http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Papers/Books/Monograph2/start.htm

Or, consider the facts: FACT: Japan has 127+ millions people, and the world's highest life expectancy...yet no one is alive in Japan currently older than 113. Or how about taking a nation such as the UK? Before records, claims ran as high as 207. Since records were mandatory, no one in the UK has reached 116 years of age, since 1837.

So, might I ask: which particular case are you partisan to here?Ryoung122 08:43, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Biblical claims

There are a lot of Biblical claims that I think should be on Wikipedia somewhere, I'm not looking properly or they're not there. Longevity claims or longevity myths? Well these claims haven't been disproven but there are only ages, no dates of course. Any 200+ categories? I don't know, you guys know what you're doing. --203.97.127.185 07:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Biblical claims would be longevity myths because there is a religious meaning attached to their age. A longevity claim is a claim made by or for a single individual that lacks sufficient documentation for verification but, if true, would place the person among the world's oldest people (113+). Hence, Oberia Coffin is a longevity claim. Methuselah is a longevity myth.→ R Young {^yakł_talk} 22:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no proof they are myths, if don't believe in the Bible, you still have no proof the people did not live that long.

Adam, 930. Seth, 920. Enosh, 905. Kenan, 910. Mahalalel, 890. Jared, 962. Enoch, 362. Lamech, 777. Methuselah, 969. Noah, 950. shem, 600. Ahraham, 175. ... Moses, 140. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.57.60.200 (talk) 00:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Amai Cering

Amai Cering -the "Oldest Tibetan", d.o.b is listed as 16 March 1891. I'm suspicious of this precision since traditionally Tibetans did not record the birthdates of children, though they usually do know the year of their birth - or rather the astrological animal corresponding to the birth year.

In Tibet it was ususal to give the age of a child as "one" (meaning "in their first year" at birth) and "two" at the next lunar new year. Each subsequent new year the person becomes a year older. In Tibetan language there was no concept of a child being "less than one year old".

Thus if a Tibetan child is born a few days before the Tibetan lunar new year - they will be called "two" within a few days - as soon as new year comes. It may be that 16 March 1891 is the date corresponding to the Tibetan Lunar New Year of the year in which Amai Cering (meaning "Mother Longlife") was born. The date of the Tibetan New Year generally falls within the first three months of the western calendar.

Chris Fynn (talk) 07:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Zeyneb Mammadova

What about this case - http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=88952. It gives no exact birthdate but it looks like the claim is that she lived from about 1886 to September 2008, died at the age of 122. --Audrey Knight (talk) 19:41, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Greetings,

If we start to include every claim ever made, this page will be very long indeed. But at least there is a news citation. I would suggest making a "list of incomplete cases" if you want to include incomplete cases...including some currently on the lists.Ryoung122 18:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Pearl Gartrell 1888?-2008

Greetings,

Whoever wanted to be a stickler and move Pearl Gartrell to "limbo" a second time after I moved her back to the living list (as I said, she was still alive):

http://thepinehillsnews.com/wp/2008/11/30/worlds-oldest-person-a-black-woman-dies-at-120/

Well, she's dead now, but I knew what I was talking about.Ryoung122 06:23, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Clara MacLeash

When is the last time this woman was confirmed alive? Was it 2006? It that case she should be in limbo right? --Audrey Knight (talk) 15:09, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was 2006, I think January 2006.Ryoung122 20:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a citation from the GRG:

http://www.grg.org/Adams/J.HTM

I also have a photo of this claim on the WOP:

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/AHBVSXtSSL5-7E-7kY-WTZW-9iEVSERSbwALF3zjzn31kjobOiU3DS5a3A1MlF7wRJA-ht8N18qS1wj1dKlS/Clara%20MacLeash%20claims%20birth%20Jan%201%201890.jpg

In January 2006, she celebrated what the family claimed was her 116th birthday.

Regards Ryoung122 00:06, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Virginia Call citation

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-old-ladynov29,0,863861.story

Nov 29 2008

Ryoung122 20:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Tombstone question

A couple years back I was researching longevity claims for an article, and I came across a photo of a tombstone, I don't remember the exact details other than the person was either 126 or 127 when they died, according to the dates. They died in the 20th century, too, as I recall. I know its a longshot but has anyone else here come across this? Thanks --208.65.188.23 (talk) 03:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Willie Coleman claim

http://www.al.com/press-register/stories/index.ssf?/base/community/123529775967800.xml&coll=3Ryoung122 11:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

? Mark

Use of the ? mark for a dubious birthdate claim should be standard use. Check out the Biography Index list of "centenarians" and longevity claims, you'll see when the ages are extreme, a ? mark is used.Ryoung122 08:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Adelina Dearce

Should this site be considered a claim for "claims of the past"?Japf (talk) 12:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Greetings

Greetings,

To ensure that this page follows a scientific discourse, I am listing below the criteria for inclusion to this article:

1. The case must have been cited in the news media. "I'm 156" or "my grandma is a 143-year-old witch-doctor" won't cut it (and is vandalism). This limitation does not prove the person's age, but proves that a claim exists. It also limits the list from "ghost" listings (for example, the Social Security Administration sometimes doesn't record a death, and on paper the person might be "121" years old, but in reality, no such claim was ever made). — Bart Versieck — continues after insertion below

Agreed! News media or other ordinarily reliable secondary source.

2. The claimed age must be at least 110 but less than 130 years old. Because the number of claims would be too large, claims to less than 110 are excluded. Because the odds of surviving beyond 130 are on the order of trillions to one, 130 is seen as a proper cutoff (and has been cited as such by noted demographers, such as Dr. Jay Olshansky of the University of Chicago). — Bart Versieck — continues after insertion below

When existing claims reach 130 years, do they get deleted? --Ragemanchoo (talk) 03:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

This seems contrary to the position of Olshansky and others as cited here and elsewhere (cf. Gavrilov). It appears that scientific consensus thinks no cutoff is proper. JJB 19:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

3. There must be at least a claimed year, month, and date of birth. Because if even the person themselves doesn't "claim" to have a birthdate, we can know that the person's age is more in line with a longevity myth. A longevity claim is presuming that the person's age is neither proven nor disproven. — Bart Versieck — continues after insertion below

One key is that there is no scientific proof that any claim above 130 is false, only highly unlikely; but science does not rule out the highly unlikely, and neither should WP on its minority POV articles such as this. Practice on this page has been to include partial-date claims in a separate list, if at least years of birth/death are available. IMHO if a living person does not have full date of birth, they should not be listed yet, but can be listed as an "incomplete" claim upon death. This last opinion is arbitrary and may be improvable. JJB 19:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

4. As above, disproven cases should be moved to longevity myths, together with a citation of how the case was disproven and why the age exaggeration occurred in the first place.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bart Verseick (talk • contribs) 22:51, 29 November 2005

NO NEED TO LOWER LONGEVITY CLAIMS TO AGE 110

Unless Wikipedia is set to list the 940+ verified supercentenarian cases, lowering the claims threshold to age 110 is simply unfair and ridiculous. → R Young {^yakł_talk} 22:40, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

AGREED. --Ragemanchoo (talk) 03:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It appears that disproven cases have been and should be listed here because they are individual claims and usually not tied to long-standing folklore other than the attention-getting tendency of humans. Occasionally claims and narratives overlap. "Disproven" means reliable competing evidence, including withdrawal of claim, autopsies, multiple birthdate evidence, etc. Also, looks like 113 is acceptable for now, with the proviso that as this page gets better, the GRG folks may be interested in lowering the bar gradually by adding new batches of cases, the first set lowering the minimum to 112.5 or 112 and so on, as their records permit. Based on other debates, it appears to me that all verified and newsworthy supercentenarians are inherently of sufficient notability to be listed here (perhaps with format changes), but not all are necessarily notable enough for article creation, because in some cases you'd have no usable sources whatsoever beyond one primary source (the birth cert). JJB 19:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Some rework

I neglected to include this talk while making proposals at Talk:Longevity myths and Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject World's Oldest People. Since my first batch was reverted straight out and I reverted back with an underconstruction tag, I'd like to refer to my request there that any reversions happen on an edit-by-edit basis rather than wholesale. I don't think my fixes are too extreme, given the poor standards for the article, but a couple need noting.

• First, the cutoff of 130 between "claims" and "myths" (both loaded words) is completely arbitrary. — John J. Bulten — continues after insertion below
  • Please stop the p.c. b.s. These words are not "loaded words." They are based on many, many years of scientific study and observation. Is "UFO" a loaded word?Ryoung122 05:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Of course 130 has trillions-to-one odds (since measurement began), but so do 129 and 131. It seems to me that the cutoff should not be numeric but whether the claim is independent, not tied solely to longevity narrative, and generally made for an individual rather than a group. This would only add cases like the disproven Barnum-Heth case, and 7 individual cases from "myths", and would make the division much clearer-cut. It is plainly silly to have a 130-year-old in this article and a 131-year-old in that, because no reliable source makes such an arbitrary distinction.
• I improved the abysmal section headings and their order, and removed much that is solely the POV of the gerontology community. WP presents all claims; and it can present GRG methodology for handling competing claims, if straightforward, which is what I attempted to show it to be. There is much that does not follow WP procedure here, and it would be silly for me to make a defense list before I know the concerns of the reverter.
• Obviously verified claims are also technically "longevity claims", and this is properly handled in WP by adding a brief section to that effect with a reference to the verified articles. See WP:SUMMARY.

Please wait until I complete my first pass, and then let me know of any concerns here so we can thrash them out. Thanks! JJB 05:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it is disappointing that the normal process for the reconstruction of a wiki article has not been followed in this case; viz. discussion on this talk page. This article may be part of Wikipedia:WikiProject World's Oldest People but to make extremely extensive changes to this page without even mentioning that they have been discussed elsewhere does not allow frequent editors of this article not aware of that discussion the opportunity for input. At the very least it should have been mentioned such a discussion was taking place and a link provided. As it stands now the changes, warranted or not, are so extensive as to be almost impossible to track. Very poor etiquette. DerbyCountyinNZ 04:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

No offense intended. Actually I meant to make more changes to "myths" than "claims", so didn't think to list it here before I got a little carried away with what looked like obvious improvements. I try to make the individual diffs easy to follow even if they look messy taken all at once. Just do what I do when there is a massive rework of one of "my" articles: go through the diff history one by one and take notes separately of what you think really needs addressing, then undo or redo it all, and we'll have a list of issues that will get us to equilibrium sooner or later. Sorry if that seems like I'm throwing the onus on you, but the same amount of changes would be just as messy on talk. Anyway, I tried to respect the methodology of the page, and I don't think I hurt anything significant with my scope fixes. JJB 11:03, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Please stop your ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Wikipedia should reflect outside sources, not your personal opinion. Also, WP need NOT "present all claims." This is an encyclopedia article. Claims need some degree of notability to be included. If Grandpa Joe lived to "120" according to family, that's not enough. If there's a newspaper article that gives a claimed date of birth and later a claimed date of death, that is a different case.Ryoung122 05:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts. I meant "present all sourced claims", and sorry for not spelling that out, as I agree with your points just above (except for your charges of OR). And please say hi to Ross Eckler for me, as I am very sorry I cannot keep up with him anymore. Looking at all your comments, the only specific change I can see that you don't like is that I added a couple claims that were sourced in exactly the same way but which passed a cutoff you regard as the plausibility range. You probably noted that I repeated in several places the fact that 130 has particular implausibility odds based on modern data; but so do 129 and 131, as there is no mathematical cutoff point on a gradual curve, and WP does not use arbitrary cutoffs (which themselves are regarded as OR, BTW). Now you could make the claim that some independent source regularly uses 130 as a cutoff for "plausible" claims, except that if GRG is that source and you are as closely tied to GRG and Guinness as it appears, then your status on WP is outside expert and you have a potential conflict of interest (surely you've read that policy?), and your POV must be regarded carefully by the WP community at large (biased as it is with its own POVs) as the group makes a consensus decision considering all points. Hope this calms things down. Thank you for noting that I did make some improvements, and please enumerate the changes you disagree with below. I will also keep an eye on the article edits. JJB 17:54, 27 April 2009 (UTC) P.S. Not to put a fine point on it, as I know you've been here awhile, but there are things you might want to do a bit differently as well, such as avoiding words like "p.c. b.s." per WP:NPA, learning to use the {{interrupted}} template, using an edit summary with every edit, observing the effect upon headings when moving text around and enfolding the text within the context when moved, and so on. These are the sort of things that tend to make a WP editor step in and think that some really poor editing is going on. Also if most of the article editors are GRG members, that is another problem and you might see WP editors rush in in waves to prevent what they see as bias. But the consensus process will usually resolve all this. Thanks for your understanding. JJB 18:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• As to particular changes, I just now re-removed the word "myths" 3 times per WP:WTA and my rationale and the developing consensus at Talk:Longevity myths to move that title; removed the colloquialism "limbo" which does not in general usage have the specialized (OR-bordering) meaning of "2 years old"; and removed an orphaned tag (please edit carefully). That leaves the only concerns on this article being the arbitrary 130 cutoff, and the 2-year versus set-date cutoff for the nonrecent claims. On the latter, if you think about the WP process, I think you'll prefer my version. It is almost wholly unnecessary, often inaccurate, and somewhat ridiculous for WP to include timebound statements that need to be updated every day or week. No offense, but there is a follower of Sun Myung Moon who edits a Unification article every 8 days to tell us when the next holy day is. The list of centenarians article has a similar problem, but I don't have the best solution worked out there yet, and if I do I'll post it on talk there. But on this article, it is a very simple thing to set a date approximately 2 years ago, and then to change it roughly once a month whenever anyone gets to it, rather than require people to be constantly watching for the next name to drop into "limbo" the same day that it does. If editors miss the drop date, the article is inaccurate until they catch it, while with a set date the article never need be inaccurate. If the maintenance of any article requires one to keep changing wholly automatic references to stay updated, then it is becoming too much. JJB 18:37, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Comments:

1. I believe the 130 upper limit has been agreed by consensus, as a round number it would seem the most appropriate figure to use. As a line of demarcation between "claim" and "myth" there is really no alternative, and surely there must be some clear differentiation. The only clarification I think is needed is whether a claim becomes a myth when the person, allegedly, passes their 130th birthday. My opinion is that if the initial claim is made before a 130th birthday then it remains a claim unless disproven.
2. The two-year limit for non-recent claims has not been difficult to update so far, there are sufficient editors visiting this page at present to keep this up to date. Again I believe the 2-year expiry of a citation has been agreed by consensus.
3. I don't actually see the point of changing Longevity myth to Longevity narratives as the latter merely redirects to the former. After it has been moved a bot could do all the necessary changes. Personally I think use of the word myth is far more appropriate anyway. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ 23:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, Derby, we are not seeing the same situation. (1) Reviewing the talk I see the 130 as defended by about 3 regulars and questioned by 3 or 4 occasionals. I also see that the regulars appear to be associated with the GRG talk group and that at least one of them may need a brush-up on WP:EXPERT as well as WP:SPS and WP:CON. This is not a consensus, it's a basic practice by the regulars that does not have cited support. Aside from the problem of maintaining claims over 130 (especially if one decides to distinguish arbitrarily whether or not the claim was also made before 130), you have the problem quoted above that the article would need to be retitled "Plausible longevity claims", or to avoid that weasel word, "Longevity claims under 131" or "Longevity claims at better than trillion-to-one odds", which is really a violation of Occam's razor. Would you mind if I did a request for comment? (2) 2-year expiry is fine, as that's essentially a stylistic and placement matter; but using "2 years" in article instead of a set date that can be updated at will is completely contrary to WP:DATED. Obviously if one method has risk of inaccuracy through becoming dated, and the other doesn't, you have a clear choice, unless there's another good reason for staying put that I don't see. The argument that lots of editors visit is irrelevant: they should have no need to! Not for an automatic math issue. (3) Please review words to avoid and the proposed move at Talk:Longevity myths. No harm in making it "narrative" now, but there is harm in retaining "myth". These articles give no (or else very little) background in sociology or mythology so as to support the technical use of the word "myth", and without that the popular use of the word "myth" is assumed by many readers, which (among other things) puts WP's treatment of sacred books in a bad light. Plus, developing consensus at that page from disinterested Wikipedians is also favoring the word "narrative". JJB 02:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's please centralize discussion of the open question of maintaining (or not) the 130-year (or 131-year) cutoff between these two articles at the other talk, Talk:Longevity narratives. JJB 01:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Conflict

I see this article is the subject of some conflict. I think that if the various parties are willing to work together with an unbiased mediator to achieve a balanced article that reflects all views appropriately, and in line with Wikipedia policies, a good result could be achieved that would make for a greatly enhanced article.

I suggest you discuss here whether you're interested in doing this and if you are, you drop a line to the mediation committee, who'll find you an experienced Wikipedian with no axe to grind, who's good at resolving conflicts.

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 12:34, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: It seems the conflict has died down a bit. However, I am interested in mediation if the problem resurfaces. My main goal is to make sure that major structural changes are thoroughly considered before being made. These articles have undergone several years of development and many discussions have already taken place and issues have been resolved, and some recent editors have not been aware of prior discussions or, in fact, of enough outside research on the subject to be editing this and similar articles credibly.Ryoung122 21:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Matilda Lewis

Matilda Lewis of Guyana celebrated her alleged 113th birthday on May 16, 2009:

http://www.kaieteurnews.com/2009/05/16/guyana%E2%80%99s-oldest-is-113-today/

Ryoung122 21:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Limbo Cases

When should we pu a case on the limbo section? In other lists it's about a year... sould we do that also? Btw.: Two years and more without a update is clearly limbo... but isn't this to long?
--Statistician (talk) 07:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I think 2 years is a reasonable length of time. 1 year is probably too short and anything other than an exact years wold be too messy. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 09:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

If they dont recieve an update in about a year or two, THEIR PROBABLY DEAD!!!!! Like Jozef Piotrowski. Signed: User:NickOrnstein

Spyros Theodoridis, AGED 120

This man was born in Pontus, Greece. But, he died in December of 2008. His kids claim that he is 117 years of age, and Spyros supports that he is 120 years old. The link gives a video about him, as well as a description below the video.[2] I believe that this man should be added on the longevity claims page, on the table titled: Past Claims Signed: User:NickOrnstein — Preceding unsigned comment added by NickOrnstein (talk) 15:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Sarhat Rashidova

Where does Sarhat Rashidova fit in? She was From Dagestan, Russia (ethnic Azerbaijani). According to her passport, issued by Dagestani authorities, she was 131 at the time of her death. See her article for more information. Neftchi (talk) 10:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I hated being stalked, but apparently its fine. So... I asked Neftchi to provide reliable sources... All he/she came up with was a yellowpress and some blog. Although somewhat relialbe rg.ru was fine, but that one doesn't say anything about her ethnicity. It's as if patriotic Neftchi wants to spread her name around, so it would be more difficult to handle her. But wouldn't one want to have the best possible article for his/her compatriot? Lida Vorig (talk) 20:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The criteria for this article is that the claim cannot exceed 130 years as this is the accepted limit of plausible credibility. Claims over 130 years belong in Longevity myths. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 00:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• • • Derby, there are a ton of people that dont have a citation. I feel that many are just making them up. We should research on google for some names, if they arent on google, take em off longevity claims list, and add em to the talk page. I would suggest making a list. I will assist, if we are allowed to take off some names. --Nick Ornstein (talk) 03:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for taking uncited claims off. Many were added by a user who was attempting to justify wholesale changes to this article which in turn were an attempt to validate even more extensive changes to Longevity myths. As that user has been inactive for several months it is probably time to tidy up this article. Removing uncited claims would be a start. However I suspect Robert Young may be able to provide citations in some cases. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 04:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Non supercentenarians

Here are 4 claims that were on the list that claimed to be over 113. But with some research, I have found from the Social Security Death Index that the 4 claims below are people who havent reached age 113.

Name	Claimed birth	Correct birth	Death	Alleged age	Correct age	Sex	Country (birth/death, if different from each other)
Mary Duckworth	4 June 1861	4 June 1877	19 April 1983	121 years, 319 days	105 years, 319 days	F	United States
Pearl Gartrell	1 April 1888	1 April 1900	23 November 2008	120 years, 236 days	108 years, 236 days	F	United States
Nellie Chee	15 September 1889	15 September 1895	14 November 2006	117 years, 30 days	111 years, 30 days	F	United States
Emma Bodie Begay	3 November 1887	3 November 1896	6 April 2007	119 years, 154 days	110 years, 154 days	F	United States

Comment: we can't be certain that the "social security age" is correct either. Social security ages are based upon self-reports, often done when the person was 50+ years old. Thus, we can say "believed actual" age, but even the lower number is still not certain.Ryoung122 03:25, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Shouldn't we create a "debunked claims" list for entries such as these? See for example:

http://www.grg.org/Adams/G.HTM

Ryoung122 05:10, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think there should be such a list. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 06:15, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It might be COI for me to create such a list. However, as we have seen from Nick Ornstein's research, if someone started the list based on the GRG list, they could also add other cases. I intend to incoporate the above suggested cases into the GRG list, but with the current backlog of work (I'm up to July 26, 2007), it may be 2-3 years before we see this on the GRG website.Ryoung122 06:41, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

References

Social Security Death Index

It would be nice if somebody else did the work. I want to take a break from it.--Nick Ornstein (talk) 03:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

150 year old man?

I know that this is a "junk" case, for there is no date nor month of birth. Only a year estimation. Here [3] this Egyptian male "claims" that he is 150 years old. I estimate that he is 95 years old, not necessarily true. It's only my guess.--Nick Ornstein (talk) 00:49, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

That would go better on the longevity myths article. Longevity claims is for those claims aged primarily 113-130, within a grey area (ranging from possible to very unlikely) but not in the realm of fantasy, such as this one.Ryoung122 11:06, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Baji Safaorva

Here's a citation:

http://www.grg.org/Adams/J.HTM

Ryoung122 11:04, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Sadiq Sawut

Here would be an another sitation in English for Sadiq Sawut age from China Daily. The article also points out a new name 'Maihefu Zihan' who at the time of writing the article has been said to be 118.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-10/08/content_7086173.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.77.128.32 (talk) 07:50, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

this person (Zhan) died in 2009, see the list from the past.Ryoung122 20:15, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Shukhrat Aliyeva

Her passport actually says only "1887" but the article states that she claimed birth January 1, 1887:

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091203/NEWS0103/312030068/Did+Louisville+woman+die+at+122

which would come to a claim of 122 years, 334 days.Ryoung122 20:16, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Shenouda the Archimandrite

Autochthony writes: Seems unlikely, but this Saint is said to have been 118. See the Wikipedia article. Autochthony wrote, 2210z 10 Dec 2009. 86.151.60.238 (talk) 22:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Moloko Temo

She is a S.African woman who lived from July 4 1874?--June 2 or 3, 2009 aged 134 years and 333 or 334 days. Perhaps her case should be put here as well? 218.186.12.226 (talk) 12:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC) EDIT: I'm sorry, she's actually 134? years and 336 or 337 days old. 218.186.12.237 (talk) 11:57, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

FYI, she is claiming an age above 130 years which does not match the criteria for any of the tables. The table with the highest age claim range is 115–130. It doesn't leave a place for her in the table, for she is outside the 'grey zone' of 130 years and below. Brendanology^TalK 12:48, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

There was a table at longevity myths. Perhaps it can be restored there.Ryoung122 12:50, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if the case is "false" or not

The purpose of this list is mainly to show that there are a great many claims to extreme age, worldwide, and to list cases that are within the realm of believability but are probably not true. As such, trying to "clean up" the list may be going too far. Yes, let's move cases where definite evidence of falsity (such as census matches) have arisen. But simply because I say a case is false, doesn't mean it shouldn't be here.

Again, the purpose of this list is to have a gray-area list of claims from around the world, age 115-130 (deceased) and 113-130 (living), that have "neither been proven true nor proven false."Ryoung122 08:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Nasir Al-Hajry

Nasir Al-Hajry, of the United Arab Emirates, claims to be 136 years old (as of March 2010). http://www.arabianbusiness.com/525102-135yrs-old-man-spotted-in-al-ain-?ln=en#continueArticle Where are the claimants above 130 years of age placed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.229.6.186 (talk) 02:15, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Try Longevity myths. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 08:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Watfa al-Ghanem

Why has Watfa al-Ghanem, of Syria, been removed arbitrarily from the Incomplete Claims list? Has the main criterion been that she is approaching 130 years of age? If so, then for consistency, Nelson Schneider, Maria Olívia da Silva and, soon, Tuti Yurupova will have to be deleted, even though these people may be (and are) still alive. What are the rules for deletion: reaching 130 years of age or not being heard of for a period of time, usually 10 years? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.229.6.186 (talk) 23:29, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Read the information above each table again. The criteria differ. Brendanology^ContriB 07:40, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why the Syrian case was removed. As for Nelson Scheider...technically, the claim was age 128; age "131" is an apparent age, not even a claimed age...that's why the case is in limbo.

Let's be honest: almost all real supercentenarians die between age 110 and 115, with a very small elite outlier group (such as Calment, Knauss) that can survive a few years beyond that. Most age inflators, especially those with an ID document, only add about 15-30 years to their age. That means if someone is claiming to be 130, they are probably around 100-115. This means that the number of claimants begins to drop rapidly beyond age 130. Even so, we still see a few in the 130-134 range. Right now, we are adding claims above 130 to the longevity myths page.Ryoung122 10:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Very well. Since age 130 itself is within the realm of possibility, I'm going to restore Watfa al-Ghanem to the list. If she is still alive next year, that's the final show. Brendanology^ContriB 06:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

If she manages to reach 131, there is no reason for dispute in removing her. Brendanology^ContriB 07:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Feride Hyka

Greetings,

Here is a new longevity claim:

http://www.vanguardia.com/mundo/america/56024-una-abuela-albanesa-de-114-anos-consigue-en-italia-el-permiso-de-residencia

 Una abuela albanesa de 114 años consigue en Italia el permiso de residencia

Viernes, 12 de Marzo de 2010 09:28 EFE, Roma E-mail Imprimir PDF Usar puntuación: / 0 MaloBueno

Una abuela albanesa de 114 años, Feride Hyka, ha logrado a su edad que le concedieran el permiso de residencia en Italia donde vive desde 1992, junto a sus hijos y nietos, informan hoy los medios italianos. La abuela podrá disfrutar ahora de los servicios de asistencia del Ayuntamiento de Giano en Umbria, situada en el centro del país.

Hyka ha aguardado dos años la concesión del permiso de residencia, según los diarios locales de Umbria, porque los ordenadores de la comisaría que lo tramitaba no estaban programados para trabajar con personas nacidas antes de 1900.

Feride Hyka, nacida el 7 de agosto de 1896 en Luzi Vogel en la costa oeste de Albania, es la cuarta anciana más vieja del mundo.

Tiene nueve hijos, ochenta nietos, treinta de los cuales viven en Bastardo en Umbria, donde ella vive y se toca con el velo "hijab" ya que profesa la religión musulmana.

Note the age given, "114", does NOT correspond to the birthdate. Someone born August 7, 1896 would be 113.

Ryoung122 03:03, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Hasta ahora Hyka estaba en manos de una cuidadora pagada por sus hijos, sin que pudiera disfrutar de los servicios para la tercera edad dispuestos por el Ayuntamiento de Giano, el que le corresponde al vivir en la pedanía de Bastardo

Katalina Nakalema

The person (a woman according to the citation) has no stated gender and her birth date, age, death date, and country are all merged with that of the woman above her. Can anyone explain or fix this? Brendanology^ContriB 07:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Junas Kursonis

Its says he's Lithuania's oldest man. He claimed to be 118 years of age when he died. His youngest child was 10, and his oldest was 92. It had to have been posted in the 1930s/1940s. --Nick Ornstein (talk) 23:27, 21 March 2010 (UTC) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5RMDJ-gi1o&feature=related

Limbo cases

What should we do with these cases? I guarantee that all but maybe one will get another update. They will just rot for another decade (I'm talking about the cases)!

I suggest splitting this into 2 articles, one for living and one for deceased claims. The limbo claims should go in a separate section in the deceased article listed with their age at the last known update. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 22:35, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

157 Year Old Woman

I found this article online tonight and didnt see it mentioned anywhere on the page. Im not the best Wikipedia editor so i figured i would just link the information and let you all do the dirty work.

http://www.eitb.com/news/detail/438838/157-year-old-women-discovered-indonesia/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.185.60.237 (talk) 07:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Send that to longevity myths.Ryoung122 00:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

130+ Divide

Comment: I generally use "130" to be inclusive. This in, in part, due to this:

Wanna Bet? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences Olshansky bets that "130 is possible, but 150 [Austad's bet] is so far beyond the reach of current or anticipated medical advances" that it is impossible. ... www.the-scientist.com/article/display/12262/

One of the world's most-eminent demographers, and extreme skeptics, Olshansky believes that "130 is possible" "but 150...is impossible". I would generally start moving cases to the longevity myths page when they get to 131. Outside sources say that "130 is possible" but "150 is impossible." What about 131-149? Hmn. Personally, I think it's best to start moving claims to 131+ to longevity myths.Ryoung122 10:35, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

This is in danger of being original research. While I'm also skeptical of specific unverified claims above 130, we're not in a position of judging them more or less likely than claims of say 124 years.

This is a page of "claims" so I don't think we have to stress too much about the scientific acceptability of specific age claims (especially as science is a work in progress and many claims made in the name of science turn out to be wrong down the track).

I've just added a line (with references): "In May 2010 the Indonesian census found citizens claiming to be as old as 145 and 165. The Indonesian statistics body (Badan Pusat Statistik or BPS) is reported to be planning to probe these claims." Although I'm extremely skeptical of the claims, the fact that they came from a census and are being investigated by an official body means they're not ready to be categorized as myths just yet, IIUC. I saw in an Indonesian report a photo of the identity card of the alleged 145-year-old woman, d.o.b. 1865. (I suspect that's their mother's or grandmother's d.o.b. and they started using that identity for some reason many years ago.) --Chriswaterguy talk 04:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Robert Young is an acknowledged expert in this area so his statements don't qualify as OR. Also, the 130 year limit has been agreed by consensus. Unless that changes then claims over 130 should not be included here but in the Longevity myths article. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 05:16, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Greetings, Only on Wikipedia! Does "130" mean 130.000, or 130.49, or 130.99?

I would prefer NOT moving someone to "longevity myths" unless they are 131 or older. As I mentioned, ultra-skeptic Jay Olshansky wasn't willing to bet billions that age 130 was impossible, but he was willing to bet that age 150 was. There's a sliding scale between 130 and 150, but I think age 131 years 0 days is a good cutoff point.Ryoung122 00:24, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Perhaps some rewording is required in the article. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 07:27, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Statistically, there are about 1 out of 300 elderly people can reach 100, but 1 out of 1000 centenarian can reach 110 years old, and only 1 out of 50 super-centenarian can reach 115. Assume 1 out of 50 people who reach 115 can reach 120, and 1 out of 50 people who reach 120 can reach 125 and so on. The probability of reaching 115 years old is 1 / 15 million, but the probability of reaching 130 is 1 / 2 trillion. So I agree 130 is a cut-off point. 203.186.38.208 (talk) 05:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Disagree, see below. JJB 03:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Mythical age: 130 years old

I suggest that all persons listed on this page have 130 years old are moved to longevity myths. Thus, the maximum age of this page will be 129 years and 364 days. 130 years can be a "starting point" of the mythical age. I've already made changes in longevity myths page. - Eduardo Sellan III (talk, contributions), Sunday, July 18, 6:30 (UTC−03)

As per the discussion at the top of this page the agreed consensus, up to now, is that a 130th birthday is considered possible, though highly unlikely, 131st birthday is considered so far beyond realistic possibility that such an assertion is more of a myth than a claim. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 21:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that a table in longevity myths and a table in longevity claims have identical definitions except for having this cutoff of 131.0 or 130.0 to determine which table to use. The "agreed consensus" of 131.0 has been, I observe, not much more than the agreement of DerbyCountyinNZ and Ryoung122 to continue using what Ryoung122 "generally use"s. To divine "131 is impossible" from "130 is possible" is classic WP:OR; the distinction between "claims" and "myths/traditions" is not 131.0 or 130.0 in any secondary source (rather, Olshansky leaves it properly vague, estimating it between 130 and 150). However, I proposed last year a much clearer demarcation between the quality (not quantity) in claims vs. traditions: that claims have a minimum of both exact age in years and exact death year, and that traditions lack one or both. This would allow the table at "myths" to be partly restored here and partly broken out into inline text back in the "myths" article. Otherwise, the existence of 2 tables and the ferrying of names from one to the other whenever they hit a magic age of 131.0 is very poor form.

As to the math, even the Olshansky quote above is glossed as "impossible" when that is not likely what he said; the scientific definition of "impossible" is on the order of one in googols. The correct science-based math, as I provided last year in longevity myths, is that people eventually reach a plateau where the odds of death per year are and remain 44% per year for females and 54% for males. That is, 1 out of 18 (=.56^5) living women after the plateau are expected to live 5 years, not 1 out of 50. However, this only applies to the present observable state of life on earth, not the nearly prehistoric era in which the "myths"/traditions originate. Perhaps if the IP provided sources and we could estimate the population of all humans ever on earth (under any origin assumption), we'd have a closer approximation of possibility for any given age, but there would then be the same problem of cutoff compounded by OR: should we cut off "myths" when the probability (given the whole human population) drops below 5%, or below 1%?

Accordingly, as a first step I am flagging the three claims here that "130 is a cutoff" as unsourced opinion. Please provide sources or drop the claims. JJB 03:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Further, as I pointed out last year, I came here because interested in the wholly-policy question, when should WP excuse a person from WP:BLP when death records are lacking? E.g., should it be age 131 or 130 or 123 or 115 or the like? No answer has arisen from the longevity pages; instead, there is a second arbitrary cutoff, that limbo means 2 years. (A third arbitrary cutoff is to start the reporting only at 113 years, but this is at least theoretically sourceable with a claim that GRG has attempted for years to locate all claims above this cutoff and has not yet lowered it to 112.5 or such.) The whole set of assumptions, as to who goes in what table, is unsustainable here on several counts: the risk of the GRG research being original and conflicted, drawing inferences not only from WP:RS reporting but also from its silence, and the arbitrary cutoffs not being sourced. See below for continuation. JJB 19:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed principles

1. Complete claims verified by birth or proximate records are "sufficiently verified" according to GWR/GRG standards, which can thus be adopted as WP standards because there is very little gray area (except for "how proximate"). This has generally been undisputed but needs to be stated first to separate the good claims out.
2. For "insufficiently verified" claims (usually called "unverified" claims here), when multiple birth or death dates exist in reliable sources, the shortest pair is chosen according to the natural "at-least" methodology in the article. If the shortest pair is below 110, we have generally held the claim is still notable for list inclusion, but it naturally segregates out into the withdrawn category, which might be better titled controverted. (In a few of the most promoted cases, like Izumi, the "at-least" methodology is unusable because the sourcing for the longer claim is a significant POV, and it is eminently proper to count the cases as "disputed" and to list them in each place the claim would appear under all significant POVs.)
3. For remaining claims over 110, a natural distinction occurs between complete, incomplete, and traditional, i.e., complete claims have two exact dates to establish age in days; incomplete claims have at least a death year and a birth year or age, to establish age in years (with up to about one-year error); and traditional claims do not even have these two timepoints.
4. There is also a natural distinction between reports of living and dead people, although this cuts across all five of the prior categories (controverted, traditional, incomplete, complete, verified). In the traditional case, it is natural to mix living and dead, but in all the others, there is the risk of discounting a person not reported to have died. Right now the other categories also remain mixed, except for the complete claims (living, limbo, dead); the verified claims also have a living breakout article. This implies the complete claims should not be segregated into three groups, and it appears the primary reason for doing so is to remove living claims that happened 10-20 years ago without death reports. But this reason does not hold up because:
5. Being reported as alive today is not being reported as alive tomorrow. The assumption that a reported living person is still alive is as invalid as assuming they are dead, as both are a WP:SYNTHESIS of various (unsourced) demographic assumptions. My experience with Guinness has been that living claims were reported as of report date ("fl.") rather than as of publication date (which would be very arbitrary). The wiki ability to keep dates current as of page-read time is not an excuse to change this procedure and engage in OR, especially when fl. is used for very old records! This indicates all these claims should be sorted by "last reported age", not "age today". This also solves the problem of the continuing need to leapfrog living people past dead people when their counters change their position sorted by "age today".
6. Thus the indication is that the living-limbo-dead tables should be combined and sorted originally by last reported age. The living and limbo individuals would then be given an "age if living" date for optional user sorting by the standard table-heading sort icon. Yes, this gives greater exposure to the claims (e.g.) of being alive at 115, 20 years ago, and less to the claims of being alive at 130 today. But then, why should the most WP:RECENT claims have greater exposure?! A claim of 20 years ago should have some secondary source comment on it in the interim as to the likelihood of continuing alive, and, if not, then we can dig up those obscure demographic tables and make a purely nonoriginal mathematical calculation. But the favoring of recent claims and the implied assumptions of individuals being living or dead need to stop.
7. The 131 cutoff between the traditions and claims articles is also improper. First, without any validation on a 131 cutoff (besides an original interpretation of Olshansky), the over-131 complete and incomplete claims should be restored here, as I said last year: they are within this article's scope as titled, and there is no valid reason for assuming the cutoff bars them from inclusion here. Second, as always agreed, if there are traditional or narrative aspects to the claims, they can also be listed in the traditions article because within that scope as well; but they would be treated by narrative category rather than by list category as here.
8. The tables should also be open to claims in the 110-113 range, with the stated proviso that claims under 113 are not listed as completely as those over, based on (sourced) GRG practices.

These appear to be a minimum necessary to bring the articles into policy compliance. I am aware of the views of the regulars to this article, but I am speaking of the overall WP community's policies. JJB 19:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Your policies have NOTHING to do with Wikipedia compliance. You continually violate the policies of "No Original Research" and "Neutral Point of View." You also tend to go against consensus.

Aside from that, you seem to lack common sense: the very large number of cases already on this article show why there's no need to list cases aged 110-112.

Also, you can't even spell "proximate," you are not nearly the mind you think you are.Ryoung122 09:48, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Ryoung has welcomed me back to these articles with the edit summary "please stop the lies, don't claim there are no sources when you remove them", although I don't remove sources and he does as per the archives. Accordingly, I am reverting his deletion of a citation request for a point that has been lacking for 7 years and challenged for most of them, namely, that sociologists or mythologists have studied these traditions as formal myths. Robert, please cite such a source. Also, please cite specific violations of nonoriginality, neutrality, and consensus so that they can be discussed. Also, please cite an independent source demonstrating that age 113 confers notability on a centenarian rather than age 110. Failure to cite sources will be understood as acknowledgment that the uncited beliefs need not affect this article. JJB 17:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Removal of 131 cutoff

Having had no objections to my point that 131.0 is arbitrary, capricious, and thus anti-policy, I will try removing the related text as another step. The evidence in favor of 131.0 is (a) Ryoung122 uses it because Olshansky thinks 130 is possible but 150 is not, but this is two counts of classic math abuse, i.e., taking a round number and treating it as an exact number (first, adding 1 year to 130 when the range is an order of magnitude less specific; then, assuming that year to be 1 year 0 days when the previously assumed range is two orders of magnitude less specific). In short, WP:OR and WP:SYN. Round-off error kills. (b) DerbyCountyinNZ uses it because Ryoung122 is an "expert"; but experts do not get to inject knowledge (WP:SELFCITING) without citing reliable sources. (c) An IP calculates the odds of living to 130 as 1 in 2 trillion without citation; but there is no more magic to the number 2 trillion than there is to 130 (or 131, or 4 trillion), i.e., not a reason. None of this establishes any validity for having such a cutoff number.

The unusability of cutoff is also supported by Joe3600, 59.149.118.174, Ragemanchoo, and Chriswaterguy, and probably a few other comments I saw. Most people who come to the article with a case over 131 wonder why it does not appear. The cutoff is maintained essentially by editors from GRG who have collected a WP:WALLEDGARDEN in accord with the 131.0 idea and who refuse to cite any sources for using such a number.

The real issue, of course, is the insistence on treating certain claims as longevity myths and others as "possible". Neither one is a valid judgment, the first because no source calls them longevity myths, and the second because no source sets a possibility cutoff. In fact, none of the secondary sources I've seen sets a cutoff, presumably due to this very arbitrariness; they filter only by objective factors, namely, the data present in the claim and the types of documentation used. But the idea that such a distinction can be maintained, contrary to WP:RNPOV, will need to fall sooner or later, however long the policies have been violated. I'm open to alternate policy views, of course. JJB 02:56, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Since this was vehemently reverted by two editors, it has been left undone as an issue in mediation. There are 9 cn tags where this cutoff or its associated assumptions remain questioned. With both Ryoung122 and the mediator gone for nearly a week, I would appreciate input as to how to satisfy WP:NOR on this point. JJB forgot to date this graf

With mediation on hold and new editors eyeing the articles for scope problems, I deleted the cn-tagged text from last month that caused the problematic scope, and that move, along with the scope definitions I put in later as requested by PeRshGo, has been surprisingly well-accepted so far. Discussion is moving on to settling further scope questions at "New bold changes" below. JJB 06:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Update date

The next logical step would then be to ensure full date of last update in each living case. I have just supplied 2 of these, even though they are older than other articles without exact dates (unless they're in the Chinese text, in which case a translator would be good). The remaining cases are several from that one Chinese page (dated 2010 here though that is not apparent on the page), and Baji Safaorva, dated July 2006 based only on a GRG page. There are no primary/secondary sources for this person in Google, only wikis, a few of which have the update as 17 July 2006. I propose that these cases all be moved to "incomplete" unless or until a Chinese translator can be located to supply the individual update dates, as they may differ by article, and/or the original Baji Safaorva source appears. This is in accord with WP:V in that there is no verifiable data on the person's age in years and days, unless we supply an arbitrary rule such as first day of month, which is an unnecessary extra. JJB 22:46, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Since this proposal has been advertised here sufficiently long, has had no objections, and has not come up in the mediation between myself and Ryoung122 as a significant issue, I am proceeding with it now. JJB 04:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Rounding down

Another mathematical point that is ready to present itself: when either date is partial, I have observed a tendency not to take the minimum possible age, but instead to assume a full completion of a year. Naturally, hypothetical life dates of 1800–1920 represent a minimum of 119 years 1 day by the established counting methods, not 120 years; months work similarly. My following of Guinness editions indicates they always have taken the minimum, i.e., rounded down to 119 years in this hypothetical, without mentioning days. Accordingly I think it necessary, in due course, to ensure these are all rounded down identically. Further, I would style this consistently as "119+" to indicate the rounding, and to distinguish from the case where a reliable source specifially also says age is 120 (which in that case would be used without the plus sign). If the source merely says age 120 in 1920 (no birth year), I suggest we use "~1800" to indicate that form of rounding. I'll start this in the Longevity traditions article and continue here with it later. JJB 01:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I started doing this piecemeal also, but now it looks like it's all done. JJB 20:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Breather

Being left to my own devices while Ryoung122 and the mediator are both gone for a week, and with discussion ramping up among new editors at fringe theories, I have now taken the liberty of moving through quite a few presumably noncontroversial changes. These are prepatory to a few other previously controverted changes I find necessary, which I would not jump to without discussion or continuous radio silence from other interested parties. I would only ask that other editors, mindful of the topic histories, not perform cold reversions when there is a significant amount of value added. Please discuss any objections on talk so that they can be separated out at this point if they need discussion prior to moving forward further. Thank you as always! JJB 21:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

New bold changes

Hearing silence here (plus some normal edit cycle) and silence at mediation, I have now completed the additional changes necessary for basic policy compliance, namely: removal of reference to the unsourced 131 cutoff data (revealing diff); acceptance here of the minimum number of 131+ claimants necessary to invoke objective criteria (since limbo cases already go way over 131), namely Andersson, Francisco, Olcay, Rashidova, Temo, all in 130s, plus Turinah 157 as the sole outlier; and removal of 9 incomplete cases (updated before 1955) back to traditions. Also, the cases of Jimmu, Muslimov, Pereira are still listed in traditions, but the links cited as debunking did not actually verify a debunking, so they would be in line for inclusion here as complete or modern claims, unless a regular editor can provide a reliable source for each "debunking". So please limit discussion below to the questions: the sourcing of the numbers 113 or 131 or alternates; the difference in scope between these two articles without reference to subjective criteria like claim environment; and any sources controverting the last three claims mentioned. Thank you. JJB 00:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

• For instance: While I was preparing this, Nick deleted the two incomplete Swedish cases on the grounds "Under 113 not permitted". I am restoring the two cases just so that a good baseline appears in the history, without prejudice to Nick reverting once more along with anything else he may care to challenge. On this point, of course, I must ask by what source "under 113" is not permitted, because if there is no such source, the omission of under-113's would be WP:OR and WP:UNDUE. Besides, this table had previously been on a 115 base (equally arbitrary) and my edit, expanding the table to include advisedly nonthorough claims under 115, has been accepted silently since 23 Sep (except for large unrelated reverts), so I don't see a justification for this denial of permission. Like any other objections, this can be cheerfully discussed toward scope consensus. JJB 00:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC) Nick reverted as "Agreement made by everyone that 113 year olds living can be put here. If they die under 115, they are removed. dead cases under 115 don't belong here. See discussions on L.S.". Nick further deleted Chee and Begay with summary "HELLO, READ THE DESCRIPTION. HASN'T CHANGED HAS IT." I don't know what description diff he refers to, but this is a similar under-113 situation. I appreciate Nick's consideration. I suspect that after I review Talk:List of living supercentenarians I will still be at a loss for consensus based on reliable secondary sources, because it still seems that this 113/115 distinction is an arbitrary cutoff selected by GRG for manageableness and that the best we could do would be to discover a GRG policy guide that states this, perhaps with a rationale. OTOH, 110 is a longtime standard and can be sourced easily as such. I believe the other concern of the GRG types is that 110 on everything would open the door "too far" in unwieldiness or undue weight or such. But this is not GRG's problem, and it's not a problem on WP. GRG can keep its methods the same, while WP gradualists slowly accumulate the 110-113 cases as well, and undue weight is handled by the "not thoroughly represented" note. (And if GRG and WP lists are completely identical, one is redundant and that would be a great AFD argument for deletionists!) In short, I don't suspect I will be able to reconcile this argument with policy, without further explanation, and I would need to revert unless we can thrash that out. JJB 02:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC) Also included in this category with Begay and Chee are 19 claims in List of disputed supercentenarian claimants where the minimum age is 110-113 (i.e., supercentenarianism is not disputed, just actual age); these cases would be anticipated to move here if "permitted". JJB 07:00, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I reviewed the whole archive and, sure enough, I had it pretty much right, although this is not a GRG arbitrariness but a WP arbitrariness. The editors justify 113 ad-hoc using various subjective ideas of whether a claim is likely to be true or not based on its character. If the "unverified" portion of list of living supercentenarians is a complete overlap with this article except for the 113.000 cutoff, that is a mistake: there should not be a sudden leap into bad faith (about the claimant) at that point, but rather there should be two identically styled articles different only in the number ranges. But, in fact, if you're 112y364d that article says you're a supercentenarian, and if you're 113y0d this article says you're a claim, which is a classic violation, WP:CLAIM, based on editors' POVs about trustworthiness ("if they can't verify in 3 years, they're lying" is too often echoed). There's also the argument that, "We start listing longevity claims at 113, because at age 110, they would be too numerous" (Ryoung122 03:19, 31 January 2009). That was said when the living-unverified list also had dramatically-POV income restrictions, but it seems that, even with those removed, they are not more numerous than the claims already in this article (60+ unverified living 110-112, and 90+ unverified living 113+).

I didn't even see any justification for the 115 cutoff for dead claims, just bald assertions of its validity. I understand that unverified dead claims 110-114 would be a larger chunk, currently unrepresented, but under Nick's proposals I don't see where they would go even though they don't differ significantly from other claims. Nick seems to say I'm notable living at 110 or 113 but I lose notability if I die before 115? Surely that can't be the proposal. Nick's only argument is from perceived consensus, but consensus is trumped by NPOV, "verifiability-not-truth", NOR, N, balance, anti-recentism, and the like. So how can it be said that verified cases start at 110, unverified living cases at 110 or 113, and unverified dead at 115, and that this is not extreme imbalance? JJB 09:44, 10 October 2010 (UTC) Nick has now also deleted 10 cases I moved from disputed, apparently based on the idea that supercentenarians dying before 115 is a removal of their notability (he also deleted Wanjau, on whom I misread the tabular data: per source it should be "c. 1889" and "115 years" and so would not offend Nick's rule and may be readded). Like with the other edits, he is not yet generating discussion on the talk page, which is troubling. I still don't understand how the cutoffs can be considered to comport with policy and the summaries are not adding new information that would rebut my points; so this is only lengthening the list of items that would need reversion if discussion does not ensue. His description change is fine but he implies he is reading "not thoroughly represented" as "not represented at all" when instead I intend it as a gradualist permission to start including. JJB 17:21, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• He [Nick] also changed Abbe from "113" to "113+", but I'm recommending "+" be used only when there is proof of days beyond a birthday [I meant: when age might be one year older due to source ambiguity, which also entails the former], and that proof [ambiguity] was not present in the article or DHanson's edit, and source was a dead link, so I trust "113" is acceptable. JJB 00:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC) Nick readded the "+" on Abbe and added it on Turinah Sehat and Rashidova also. I'm still for consistent use of "+", but I must strike a sentence above because I committed a definition slippage: in "withdrawn" I had meant "+" to indicate "either this age or one year older, based on source". Similarly, "c." or "~" should be limited to mean "either this year or one year before, based on source" (I will accept Nick's substitution of "c." for "~" if it keeps this limited meaning). To correct this slip in "incomplete" I should drop "+" from Andrews, the 7 Chinese cases, Safaorva, Padilla-Romero (although by age-at-update some would still be "+"), in addition to Abbe and Turinah, who are not sourced as having an indeterminate age in this sense; I am also dropping the misleading "+" I put in "proximate records". (Rashidova source (translation) actually was not correctly quoted, and I will accordingly change that line to "c. 1875", "17 January 2007", "132 years". Someone should check all incomplete/withdrawn sources to ensure that what they say has not been misrelated due to echo-chambering.) I don't think Nick's point with "+" is that all cases in table should have "+"; and if his point is to indicate simply that a person is definitely older than x years 0 days, I think this signification is equal to drawing an inference from absence of birthday mention: even though people would infer "x years >=1 day" from this absence in ordinary speech, I think due to WP:SYN and WP:V requiring explicitness we should not use "+" because it entails that unnecessary inference. To sum up: if "+" does not have a consistent meaning it should be dropped; but I think "+" is needed due to WP:NOR/WP:V because in some cases there is a one-year possible error and in others there isn't, and using a bare year in both cases can make one think the year (or age) appears in the source when it sometimes doesn't. This is a hard-to-describe but easy-to-implement math side effect of tabulating data that arrives in many varying formats, as I'm sure GRG appreciates. If Nick does not object here I will make this change also. I'm glad Nick has taken my edits well and not had any unanticipated concerns. JJB 02:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Nick, thanks for discussing this here, I believe your proposal of dual dating (I'll use "/") will work to close out this segment of BRD and will see how it flies. JJB 20:50, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
• Nick has now also deleted Bua Maharaj, Santacruz, and Magee, who appear on the disputeds list. Since they are over 110 by every source, I believe they should be categorized as claims, because there is no objective way to distinguish them from other supercentenarians who have a couple years' difference among their sourced ages. Also, the fact that disputeds is 40% redundant with claims creates content forking, and it's not resolved by moving a few supercentenarians there and leaving others in two articles. Unless Nick can provide a rationale for distinguishing among disputes where all ages are over 110, and thereby resolve the two contradiction tags, this deletion would need reversion. JJB 03:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
• Nick has now deleted Olcay, Andersson, Temo, Francisco, Parniak, Turinah, and moved Hassanova back. I'm not taking time to analyze this one yet, although it appears Parniak is based on an inaccessible source that would be a legitimate move if Nick provided it. In short it is a continuing defense of status quo that does not rely on objective standards but on standards that are often stated in terms contrary to WP:NPOV. Nick's failure to engage at multiple article talks is necessary to address in due time, as no other editor has objected directly to the necessary scope definitions I've laid out here and at the disputeds article. JJB 16:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
• Nick has now deleted Safaorva, Sylvester, Vilsaint, and 6 of the Chinese cases sourced to "OPIC" (but not all of them, he left Sawut and Uygur), deleting Fangji Sur Zhangshi Tzu Zhen Wood (by last name although it may be a personal name). This is without explanation and we are now getting past the issue of not engaging at talk and getting into not making sense at all. JJB 17:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Further to the bold changes, since other editors insisted on a Talk:Longevity myths#Merge discussion apparently contrary to the interests of WP:WOP, I made a Talk:Longevity myths#Merge counterproposal that enfolds other bold changes necessary for scope definition. Please comment on that issue at either link. JJB 00:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Scope solution needed

Since Itsmejudith disagrees on how to distinguish the scope between this article and "longevity traditions", I would ask her and others to comment at Talk:Longevity myths#Questions to Griswaldo on that very question. The implementation of this scope in 3 other articles has not been challenged and I believe it breaks the logjam between WP:WOP and less involved editors. JJB 18:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)