Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of actors who played President of the United States


 * 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 keep.-- Wizardman 20:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

List of actors who played President of the United States

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Delete - actors can play dozens or hundreds of different roles in the course of their careers. Listing actors by the parts they play is rather trivial. See for precedent Articles for deletion/Actors who have played Hamlet. Otto4711 03:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - Per nom. I would suggest it for a Category, but even then it would still be too trivial. --Ozgod 03:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete outright, NO categories. WAy too trivial even as a categorization scheme. --Calton | Talk 04:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Too trivial & hard to keep on top of. Alex43223Talk 04:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep, as part of the POTUS trivia series. --Vsion 06:48, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of obscure trivia. In response to Vsion, note that inclusion is not always an indicator of notability.-- TBC Φ  talk?  07:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Despite precedence, this list does not seem way too trivial. It's not every other actor who gets to play the role of the President of US. Well, the list is virtually unsourced. If there is some doubtful entry, that may be questioned. But the list apparently seems to be well researched. Yes, Wikipedia is not a collection of obscure trivia. But this is not exactly obscure. --Dwaipayan (talk) 17:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not every actor who gets to play the role of Hamlet either, and in fact there are numerous sources that name Hamlet as the definitive role that an actor can play. They were cited in the Hamlet AFD and were not considered persuasive enough to save it. Otto4711 21:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. There are significant differences between portrayal of fictional characters and that of historical figures. More suitable comparisons are List of artistic depictions of Mahatma Gandhi, Cultural depictions of Jesus and the section in Mao Zedong. --Vsion 02:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is also not a particularly persuasive argument. One could justify a list of any sort of actor by role by saying "it's not any actor who gets to play..." whoever, including "it's not every actor who gets to play a guy named Bob" and "it's not every actor who gets to play a government employee" and both are every bit as objectively true as saying it about "the President." There's nothing inherently special or notable about playing the President. Otto4711 03:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Taking cue from your own opinion this list seems even more significant. You have told "it's not every actor who gets to play a guy named Bob". Correct. And bye the way, who is Bob? On the other hand, US President is someone. That's why this list is significant. Also, as Noroton has stated below, anyone who wants to study how various actors have approached the role of presidents, real and fictional, would find this list .... not insignificant at all. As JayHenry has stated below, this list would be a sound candidate for a featured list, provided some more works are put into it, necessary references provided and lead is adequately expanded. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep per Dwaipayan. You certainly wouldn't want a list of "Actors who have played people named Bob" or "Actors who played government employees," but President of the U.S. is obviously more remarkable than that.  Someone has put a tremendous amount of work into organizing this list.  It's well done per WP:LIST, good for information, navigation.  It's also discriminate, verifiable.  Not a lot of movies actually have the president as a character, so it's not impossible to keep on top of.  Frankly, this list would be a sound candidate for a featured list.  And, although it's not a criteria for deletion, I'd propose that in the absence of sound criteria, editors should take into mind whether or not they're destroying the hard, well-intentioned work of other editors.  There's just no good reason to do that here. --JayHenry 20:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * "Take into the account the hard work of other editors" is, as you rightly point out, an appeal to emotion with no basis in policy or guideline. I would go so far as to say that it should be considered an argument to avoid in AFDs. Otto4711 21:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I mean it as a gentle reminder toward WP:CIVIL. AfD is a really hostile, nasty place and it shouldn't have to be that way. --JayHenry 21:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep per Dwaipayan and JayHenry--Golden Wattle talk 23:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep when someone calls an article up for deletion as "useful" Otto cites WP:USEFUL (not a policy or guideline), but simultaneously we get this comment at the top of this discussion: "actors can play dozens or hundreds of different roles in the course of their careers. Listing actors by the parts they play is rather trivial" So we can't argue usefulness but we can argue what is essentially the opposite, because that's what "trivial" actually means here. Anyone who wants to study how actors have played presidents, real and fictional, would find this list .... nontrivial. 01:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Fine, strike "trivial" and substitute "completely insignificant." It is completely insignificant in the career of an actor who has played hundreds of different parts that one of the parts he played was the POTUS. Otto4711 03:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that the significance to an actor's career of playing the POTUS isn't the only reason somebody might want to read the article. Anyone who wants to study how various actors have approached the role of presidents, real and fictional, would find this list .... not insignificant at all. Noroton 06:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep I don't think this is listcruft at all. JuJube 03:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No one said anything about "listcruft" except you. Otto4711 03:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * So? JuJube 05:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- Noroton 21:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep well-laid out list (with more than just names) with finite membership criteria (so long as high school plays and class assignment movies are excluded). I expect that playing POTUS is a significant step in the life of an actor that is not taken lightly, therefore this is not pointless trivia. Anyone who qualifies for this list meets the notability requirements to have a Wikipedia article about them. --Scott Davis Talk 23:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Otto4711 appears to be objecting to this list on the basis that playing the President is a trivial completely insignificant aspect of an actor's career, not as a list of portrayals of U.S. Presidents in notable films and TV shows (which it is). If this article was renamed and contained an inclusion criterion, would he still object? The nomination cites no policy or guideline and one AfD discussion as a precedent - not enough to convince me that this well-structured and easily manageable list should be deleted. --Canley 23:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Anyone interested in this discussion may also be interested in the similar Articles for deletion/List of actors who played Nazis in movies. Noroton 03:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. --Peta 08:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Useful index to information in Wikipedia. Someone who wonders "who was the actor who played FDR in that film, I think it was called Camp David or something like that" can browse this list. Categories don't do that. Fg2 11:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep I agree with all the keep comments above. The office of US President is a specific and special case in fiction and film. Mdiamante 06:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per JayHenry. List is notable and comprehensive. —scarecroe 17:11, 18 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.