About This Site

Purpose

The Dead or Alive Data Base, or DOADB, is a resource for keeping track of whether the well-known people of our time are dead or alive. The DOADB contains records for approximately 3,000 famous people, including actors, musicians, athletes, politicians, and many others. The subjects can be looked up not just on their name, date of birth, and other vital statistics, but also according to their field and accomplishments. Visitors can browse the category listings to see, for example, which former U.S. presidents, heavyweight champion boxers, or members of the cast of "Star Trek" are alive, and which ones have died.

Data Base Criteria

The DOADB does not attempt to include as many people as possible. We are not interested in people who died fifty years ago. Neither do we try to keep up with people who have risen to superstardom during the last six months. Instead, we try to focus on those people who were most famous a decade or more ago - folks who the average person might not immediately remember whether they are dead or alive. Our criteria for inclusion are as follows:

  1. Subjects may be from anywhere in the world, but they should be widely known to most Americans.
  2. Living subjects should have been famous or notable since at least ten years ago. We place more emphasis on living people who are retired, or who have less exposure to the public than they did years ago. People who are current stars may need to wait a few years before we are ready to include them.
  3. Deceased subjects should have been dead for less than forty years. The chief exception to this rule is when the subject is a member of a specific included group that has other members that fit the criteria. For example, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer of the Little Rascals is included, even though he died in 1959, because the data base has a list for the Little Rascals, and it has members who are still alive.
  4. Subjects should be well-known to the general public for their own actions or accomplishments, or for historic events in which they held a memorable role. This excludes:
    • People who are notable only for being old.
    • People who are known principally for who they are related to.
    • Most royalty, except for iconic figures (e.g. Queen Elizabeth) and monarchs with executive power (e.g. King Fahd).
    • People who may have done something notable, but are nevertheless not at all well known (e.g. the world record hot dog eater).

Our Standards

Our aim at DOADB is to provide a resource that is informative, accurate, easy to use, and interesting, while adhering to the highest standards of web publishing performance and integrity. Doadb.com is written in HTML5 and is coded entirely by hand. Hand-coding ensures the code is lean and will load quickly, no matter what kind of connection or device you have. The site was co-developed for desktop and mobile platforms so that mobile users can enjoy a site made just for them, not a squeezed-down desktop adaptation. We use pure HTML wherever possible and save Javascript for the places where it's the only way to do the job. While this may all sound like gibberish to non-technical readers, hopefully everyone will at least take away the point that having a well-built platform to present the DOADB is every bit as important to us as the data base itself is.

We also want your time on doadb.com to be relaxing and enjoyable, where you don't have to be bothered by distracting and annoying advertisements. It sometimes seems like the entire web consists of ads that pop up, pop under, obscure the content, make noise, move around, etc. We are very selective in our choice of ad formats, so that the time you spend browsing our site can be pleasant. We cannot promise that you will like every ad you see, but we do promise to maintain a high standard of quality.

Our History