Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of actors who have played Elvis Presley


 * 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 Merge with Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley. utcursch | talk 13:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

List of actors who have played Elvis Presley

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Delete - actors play dozens or hundreds of parts in the course of a career. There is nothing so significant about playing Elvis Presley that warrants an article. Otto4711 02:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge to Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley. I agree there's nothing significant about this list of actors, but Elvis is an icon. If Elvis becomes the focus, rather than the actors, then it could be improved.


 * As it stands the current Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley doesn't seem to know what it is, and the first five sections don't even belong. (I was actually going to suggest renaming to Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley, before I realised an article with that name already existed) Croxley 03:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete listcruft. WP:NOT a collection of lists.  Categorize the notable ones if you must.  /Blaxthos 05:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep As per List of actors who played President of the United States, this has nothing to do with importance of the role within listed actors' careers. Like the U.S. President, Elvis is a cultural icon and it is notable which actors have seriously portrayed him in notable films and television series. --Canley 07:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * See, this is exactly why the rationale given for keeping the POTUS article is bogus. There is nothing culturally significant about playing either Elvis or a president. People advocating to keep the POTUS article did so on the basis of the POTUS being such a special case. Now here's another such article and the arguments about this being a special case start up. If every case is a special case, then there doesn't appear to be anything all that special about any of them. Otto4711 11:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Two cases in which a rationale may apply does not make "every case a special case". As I've said before, I believe in judging each case on its merits, and accepting the consensus of the community. I do not see one or two AFD keeps as setting a precedent, or violating policy. --Canley 13:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * All well and good to say, except that you cited the POTUS article being kept in your opinion to keep this article. You know as well as I do that people look to similar closed AFDs in evaluating new ones, and should another of these lists come up for deletion then just as sure as God made little green apples this AFD will be pointed to just like you pointed to the POTUS one. Otto4711 18:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair point, I was actually citing the POTUS example because I believe that your deletion rationale there was equally as questionable - that playing the President is not an important acting role out of many - not because it was kept. As you've correctly pointed out though, it looks like I'm citing a precedent and saying it's not a precedent! --Canley 21:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Which points out yet another problem with these sorts of lists being kept under the premise of "the person being played is a cultural icon" or "the person is a special case." It requires editors to make POV judgments as to what historical characters are "icon" or "special" enough to warrant articles. There can be no objective definition of what historical personages have achieved that status so looking to such alleged status is problematic to say the least.
 * Nor, I have to say again, does keeping the article under the theory that people will use it as a research tool on how actors approach the role make any sense. These lists tell us nothing about how actors approach the role, only that they did. The same argument could be made for any role or character type and unless we want bloated lists of every actor who ever played a cop or a bank teller the argument should be put down as well. Otto4711 21:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, but Wikipedia pretty much requires editors to make POV judgements on "cultural icons" and "specialness" every single day, especially on AfD, due to a little thing called "notability". Once again, you're conflating something notable with non-notable slippery slope portents like "unless we want lists of every actor who ever played a cop or a bank teller" - I would agree that such lists should probably be deleted (including last week's Nazi one): anyone, actors or otherwise can play many such roles - so I definitely see your point, but I don't agree that it applies in a small number of cases. --Canley 00:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Merge to Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley per first unsigned "Merge" comment. Old american century 08:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I did sign my "merge" comment. Croxley 02:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Merge as per above. Unnecessary fork of an already existing topic. 23skidoo 13:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge to Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley, redundant, fork. Terence 15:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Note that in my opinion this probably passes the relevant section of WP:NOT, "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics", since the list's entries are directly associated with a specific topic (Elvis). As an example of how this could be useful, consider if someone is researching or writing about Elvis and wants to look at how various people have portrayed him.  The first obvious course is to find a list of either movies and shows that have included Elvis as a character or to find a list of actors who have portrayed Elvis.  Both lists would produce the same general list of entries for further study.
 * However, all that being said, I am concerned that the list appears to be original research as it is relying on an original collection of inclusion criteria not apparently found in previously published sources. So I'd only be willing to keep or merge the list if the consensus is that this list isn't a form of original research. Dugwiki 17:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Merge per everyone. JuJube 17:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge to Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley per everyone else in favor of merging. This needs rewriting once merged. — Pious7Talk Contribs 21:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Listcruft. --kingboyk 21:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge to Cultural depictions of Elvis Presley, neither article is so large that the page would be overlong. And you do NOT mess with The King. Don't you know that? Noroton 17:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge to Cultural despictions of Elvis Presley Captain panda   In   vino   veritas  00:28, 25 March 2007 (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.