Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of living silent film actors


 * 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. The argument that there is no treatment of this group of people as a group, particularly because it is an everchanging group, is a persuasive one, and those arguing to keep have not addressed it. A radical reworking of the topic of the list is outside the scope of the AfD, but if someone wants to work on such, they may request a draftspace copy. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:18, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

List of living silent film actors

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Fails WP:NOTTEMPORARY. There are only three actors on the list and the youngest included actor is 92 so in a few years this list will be empty. If a topic won't be notable 20 years from now then it's not notable today. pburka (talk) 13:22, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. pburka (talk) 13:22, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. pburka (talk) 13:22, 1 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep According to this argument any "list of living people" article should be deleted because eventually they will all die. A discussion on whether or not these kinds of lists should exist can happen elsewhere but not here. I don't think the nominator has given a valid reason to delete this article. Rhino131 (talk) 13:36, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The valid reason is that the topic is not notable. If we agree that the list will eventually become empty and be deleted, then we are saying that in a few years it will not be notable. Since notability is not temporary, the topic was never notable and should be deleted immediately. pburka (talk) 18:53, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Notability is determined by existing sources, so I would argue the topic could be notable even if the list is empty. If the community decides the topic is not notable based on sources, that's fine, but I'm not swayed by the NOTTEMPORY argument. Rhino131 (talk) 20:57, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, but what sources discuss the group of toddlers who were in a movie in 1929 that are still alive???? All sources here are about their appearances, nothing about this group or the importance of a 92-year old former extra! This is entirely arbitary, one could select any sort of occupation or event and give the oldest remaining unrelated individuals, but that's not a notable list. Your !vote contests the nom but is not a valid reason to keep the page. Reywas92Talk 22:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per Rhino. As a side note, this list should be re-worked to the longest living list of actors from the silent era, to avoid it becoming empty in the near future.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 13:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Is it really interesting how long they lived, when they are known for something else? Seems somewhat trivial... Geschichte (talk) 14:09, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree that that's utterly trivial. There are some other "Longest lived..." lists, but we shouldn't have that for any arbitrary subset of any occupation. Moreover, that's a totally different concept, since this were child actors to be alive now, but that would include then-adult actors who died long ago. Looking forward to wasting time on another AFD when this is soon empty! Reywas92Talk 04:56, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Delete on the grounds that notability is not temporary and this could easily be empty by the end of next year since there’s only three people in their 90s on it. Whichever one survives longest could potentially be given credit on their individual page after they die. Dronebogus (talk) 16:22, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. None of the keep !voters have argued that the topic meets our notability guidelines. Furthermore, I suspect that this list may be WP:OR. These are all child actors who fell out of the spotlight many decades ago so their deaths might not be widely publicized. Only one of the three actors has her own Wikipedia page. The Watson family page indicates that Billy and Garry are both "living as of 2021" but provides no citation for that claim. pburka (talk) 14:08, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Not sure what the point of this page was in the first place, no indication they are discussed as a group per LISTN. Two were child actors not even notable enough for their own articles, and the third is also a coincidentally long-lived person who was just a baby in these films as an extra and wouldn't have had speaking roles at this point even if they weren't silent! I fail to see the usefulness or encyclopedicness of this. Reywas92Talk 14:26, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep No reason to delete, and sadly, time will take care of this article in a few years. Bkatcher (talk) 15:00, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete because time will not take care of this article. Sadly, it is quite likely that the deaths of at least two people on this list will go unnoticed, and we'll simply have an unreferenced, inaccurate list, which some day someone will have to bring back to AfD with the comment 'these people, if they're still alive, must be 150 by now...' Any list of living people must be maintainable; i.e. there must be a good chance of someone actually being aware the people are alive and curating the list; otherwise it's just a list of people who were alive at some arbitrary and ill-defined point in the past. Elemimele (talk) 17:03, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:LISTN. These thespians aren't discussed as a group. At best, there are occasional articles about individuals, e.g. The Last Living Silent Star: Child Actress Baby Peggy Made the Equivalent of $14M a Movie and Lost It All. Also delete List of living actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood for the same reason. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:07, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, but rework towards the last surving silent film actors from a historical perspective (who was the last living silent film star?, for example). --Clibenfoart (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The answer to the question is Lassie Lou Ahern and Diana Serra Cary, the last two were were subjectively child stars. The rest of the 2015 list were for the most part just extras. Not really sure what sort of an encyclopedic article that would be just due to being centenarians, something that occurs with people of most any occupation. But that's not this list, and this !vote should be discounted in closing. Reywas92Talk 04:56, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per Clibenfoart's comments. Yes, the last ones will die, but the subject of who the last surviving ones are has clearly been a notable topic of significant press coverage.--Milowent • hasspoken  16:15, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Interesting article, but not relevant whatsoever to this article. You could revert the page to 2015 which includes Baby Peggy, but I would still say this is an unencyclopedic cross-categorization of child actors – performed in the 1920s – had unusual longevity. Good source for Diana Serra Cary though. Reywas92Talk 04:56, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, this article is whatever we make it into! I'll perhaps remake a better one if this one gets deleted, along the lines I suggested.  Articles in this genre like List of last survivors of historical events intrigue me a bit.--Milowent • hasspoken  16:29, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment This is either very incomplete or at the wrong title. There have been a number of silent films made way more recently than the 1920s, such as Blancanieves in 2012. TompaDompa (talk) 04:46, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. Utterly trivial and not defining of the subjects, nor does it define a segment of any consequence in the film industry. Geschichte (talk) 06:58, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. I'd support a List of silent film actors, not a separate sub-article with just three members grouped together just because they are living. Ajf773 (talk) 07:55, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Trivial cross-categorisation of no encyclopedic interest. No reliable source which discusses this as a notable grouping, either, so fails WP:LISTN. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:54, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. To meet WP:LISTN we need reliable sources which discuss the list as a group; as far as I can tell, there are no such sources. I will note that I disagree with the argument that because this list will eventually become obsolete it fails notability due to a lack of enduring notability; its obsolescence wouldn't be due to its notability vanishing, but because the condition for membership stopped being true. The point is academic for this discussion, given that other reasons for deletion exist, but I mention it to avoid providing precedence for the deletion of articles such as List of notable surviving veterans of World War II BilledMammal (talk) 06:54, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I would also support deleting that page. Both WP:NOTNEWS and WP:EVENTCRIT make it clear that a topic must have enduring significance to be notable. While "last living" lists maintain significance longer than a typical event or news item, I think they fail reasonable tests of endurance. I presume nobody would argue in favor of lists of living English Renaissance theatre actors or surviving Boer War veterans, nor would they support lists of living 3D film actors or surviving veterans of the War on Terror. These topics are only interesting for a few decades: admittedly much longer than the kind of flash-in-the-pan topics we usually think of, but they're still ephemeral and lack lasting significance. pburka (talk) 16:35, 5 September 2021 (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.