Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of James Bond film cast lists


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

List of James Bond film cast lists

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There is nothing encyclopaedic about this article and it and seemingly violates WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The individual cast lists can be found on the film articles. SchroCat (talk) 04:04, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Question - This apparently started out as a list of cast members, which seems fine... however its been moved around a bunch, and because it goes back so far and involves so many other overlaps (e.g., List of James Bond characters), I really haven't fully explored all those interactions. So can someone familiar, like Schrodinger, tell me if this was spun off into indvidual movie lists, or those merged here, or just developed in parallel together? Similarly, why the change of heart since you've been editing this article for a while? Also, what was going on in March with the various moves. That's where it makes it kind of hard to track. If those could be explained a bit in the nom it might make things clearer. Because at first glance it looks like a fine article with a ridiculous title, but I suspect there's substantial overlap in content, so can you please explore that a bit more. Shadowjams (talk) 06:11, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Shadowjams, To be honest I am not sure about some of the history of the article (which pre-dates me by a couple of years), but it has always broadly been a list of cast lists. I undertook some work on it earlier in the year to see if anything could be done to try and improve the (from this version to the current form), but it's really not worth the candle: it's still just a repeated list of cast lists. In March moved titles from "List of James Bond films cast members" to "List of James Bond film cast lists", which was more appropriate given the content the article had always had. A drive by editor changed it to "List of characters and cast members in the individual James Bond films", which was inappropriate (and just too horrible for words) so it was changed back. Either way the article as it stands—indeed as it has always stood—is an incomplete list of cast lists of those who appear in the films. These lists only replicate what is in the individual film articles themselves and because of that it is utterly redundant. Comparisons between the roles and the actors within the films can better be done through the two articles List of recurring characters in the James Bond film series and List of recurring actors and actresses in the James Bond film series‎. - SchroCat (talk) 06:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, those are the two lists I was thinking of... I'd seen them not long ago, maybe run across this one too at the same time. Thank you, that helped me a lot. Shadowjams (talk) 06:54, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete - There are a lot of lists relating to James Bond, which is fine given the breadth of the franchise, but a cast list is in all of those individual articles (as Schrodinger says) and beyond that they are utterly redundant. If we want a good way to find cast listings we have List of James Bond films, List of recurring characters in the James Bond film series and List of recurring actors and actresses in the James Bond film series. Or the category for all of those too. The problem with this much overlap is that it makes vandalism harder to deal with, especially the subtle variety, it makes updates and improvements more difficult to coordinate, and even more difficult to sync up, and provides little to no benefit to the reader, and that's before you factor in the risk of misinformation. Shadowjams (talk) 06:54, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete These are simply lists that can be found in the main film articles. If you want to see the cast list for Dr. No then you can simply look it up at the article about the film. James Bond cast lists are just not an encyclopedic topic in their bare form. James Bond characters already exists to aid navigation between the various articles about the characters, and then you have lists that do cover James Bond casting in an encyclopedic manner with List of recurring actors and actresses in the James Bond film series, List of recurring characters in the James Bond film series, List of James Bond allies, List of Bond girls, List of James Bond villains and List of James Bond henchmen. These latter lists structure the information around a particular James Bond topic, but the cast lists article doesn't do that, it just compiles the cast lists from each article, basically making it redundnant. In terms of looking at this, does it offer an encylopedic topic to a reader that is not more comprehensively covered by one of the other aforementioned articles? Betty Logan (talk) 09:20, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE....William 11:16, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - I don't see redundancy as a problem for navigational aids -afterr all, we maintain both lists and categories, for example. If the concern is maintainance (a proper concern to have), we can use templates to have a single point which has the content. Calls to WP:INDISCRIMINATE, as often is, seem unjustified: there is no notability or inappropriateness concern here. -- Cycl o pia talk  13:09, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * James Bond characters already exists to navigate between the character articles, and navboxes are much more effective than standalone articles in providing this type of functionality. Besides, a list article must be notable as a topic for inclusion on Wikipedia as per WP:LISTN, which states a list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. Now, you can make that argument for Bond girls or Bond villains since there is secondary coverage of them as a subject, but there is nothing in the article that makes the case that the James Bond film casts are themselves a notable topic that justify their own article. Betty Logan (talk) 13:25, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * We have tons of lists of lists, and even a List of lists of lists: -they're thought as navigational aids for related topics. It's not a couple of other stuff, it's a long standing practice. If our guidelines do not reflect the long standing consensus on them, perhaps they ought to. That a navbox is better is entirely subjective, and the more aids to our readers, the better. While "it's useful" is not a rationale for normal articles, it is for lists, because they're things meant to help. Moreover, there is discussion of Bond film casts as a topic:,  , . -- Cycl o pia  talk  13:42, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Cyclopia, I think I may be being a bit dense here, but can you explain the connection between the three Google books and an article which consists of a list of film casts which exist without much supporting text—and certainly without anything that discusses thebackground to the choices of the actors for those roles? Thanks - SchroCat (talk) 14:43, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Betty asked for evidence of James Bond film casts as a topic per se. -- Cycl o pia talk  14:44, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * These sources do not discuss James Bond cast lists as a subject, they specifically discuss the casting of the James Bond character, and an article for this subject already exists at James Bond in film. I don't dispute that other "lists of lists" exist on Wikipedia, but the guidelines on this are very clear: each and every one is still subject to our notability criteria; some may satisfy notability, some may not, but either way their existence has no bearing on establishing the specific notability of James Bond cast lists, which so far hasn't been done. Betty Logan (talk) 14:55, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:27, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:27, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Armbrust The Homonculus 13:26, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete, I'm failing to see the point of bunching these all up together. As noted, there is already a list for recurring characters so you can see in one place which actors appeared in more than one film, and every individual film article of course has its own cast list. Listing all actors together who have appeared in any of the films seems like trivia at best. We're talking about 25 films produced over a 50 year period, most of which have no real narrative continuity between them outside of the recurring characters. postdlf (talk) 17:06, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete we don't need such kind of articles. The informations are already included in multiple articles. Cavarrone (talk) 00:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.