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. ---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 06:42, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was asked on my talk page to elaborate on why this was a keep. There are several reasons: First, the raw vote was more than 2:1 in favor of keeping, but numbers do not rule. Second, the trend in !voting was in favor of keeping, again numbers do not rule. But if you are going to go against a 2:1 majority, you need to be especially certain as to your rationale and be able to fully explain why the numbers do not matter. In this case, I wasn't willing to do so because I agree with the majority as their arguements were, IMO, more compelling.

There is nothing that says that we cannot have both a list and a category. There was some discussion as to renaming the category, which might be appropriate, but did not, IMO, have consensus to do so. The article clearly needs sources, but even with the new BLPProd category, being an unreferenced BLP is not grounds for deleting older BLPs. Being a large list, which is going to grow and grow is also not grounds for deletion. We have numerous lists that are larger. Heck, we have some lists that are broken down by starting letter of the alphabet. The reality of the situation is that voice actors are a recognized field within the film industry. In the end, I found the arguments to delete to simply focus around the notion that it was too long and likely to grow even longer. The arguments to keep were focused around the benefits such a list might provide.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:05, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of voice actors[edit]

List of voice actors (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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Delete - Ill conceived, incomplete, unwieldy list of people who have voiced roles in films, radio, etc. Much broader than the more useful selections found at Lists of actors. -- After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:22, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Although a list of voice actors is impossibly broad in scope (surprised nobody noticed it before), this list could be renamed something like List of American animation voice actors (since that's largely what it has come to resemble) which would make it more manageable. It could be further broken down by decade etc. Someoneanother 14:14, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I don't see any problem that can't be fixed. I agree with User:Someone that it would probably work better as a list of American voice actors. The scope of the article can (and should) be narrowed, and sources can easily be added. To keep it from getting out of hand, ideally, the description for most of the persons on the list should be limited to one cartoon character. One could go on and on about Mel Blanc, but one example would be fine for a list of this nature. Voice actors are notable, though some are more notable than others. There are some persons, such as Alan Reed, whose most memorable role was as the voice for a cartoon character. There are others who are well-known, but whose role as a cartoon character is less well-known, such as Ernest Borgnine. In some cases, the person has been seen as a memorable character and voiced another memorable character (one of the great surprises for me is that Hal Smith, who was Otis the drunk on Andy Griffith, was, during the same time, the voice of the evangelical dog Goliath on the Lutheran claymation show Davey and Goliath. It's an encyclopedic topic and a good, if not perfect, article on the subject. Mandsford 15:22, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Possibly Keep I'd suggest this be North American Animation Voice Actors, as opposed to just American. There's lots of animation made and voiced in Canada, and lots of Canadians who have worked or are working in the States. For example Leslie Neilson who narrated the cartoon serier "Katie and Orbie", or John Kricfalusi (Ren & Stimpy) or Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime in Transformers.) Too many people won't know the difference, and then the debates will start. Rootsie (talk) 17:21, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely, my grasp of geographical naming conventions = teh suck :/ Someoneanother 17:45, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. —Calathan (talk) 18:36, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Anime and manga-related deletion discussions. --Calathan (talk) 18:38, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. -- BelovedFreak 20:10, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete even if it were changed to American or North American Animation Voice Actors, the list would still be far too long to be manageable or encyclopedic. There are simply far too many notable people in the category for the list to be of any use. It's comparable to List of cities in the United States. Vectro (talk) 13:59, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Categorize' this. --Gwern (contribs) 00:36 25 May 2010 (GMT)

I'm sure that already have a category for voice actors, although a list can do some things that a category cannot do, and vice versa. WP:CLN ensures that it's not a matter of choosing to keep only one or the other. I'm working on making a less crowded list. Mandsford 18:01, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep A Wikipedia list that aids in navigation is perfectly valid. If all the links are blue, then it helps people find those articles. Adding in some sortable categories for everything would be nice, as well as adding in more information as to what everyone was most notable for. Dream Focus 01:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

---

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. An impressive piece of work. Carrite (talk) 05:13, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep perfectly fine list, with clear inclusion criteria. Lugnuts (talk) 06:58, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, strictly inferior to a self-maintaining category. Stifle (talk) 12:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, far superior to a category because it gives the works with which they are associated. Polarpanda (talk) 13:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• And gradually getting even better. There's not a whole lot that a category can do in this case other than to generate a list of names associated with voice acting. However, under WP:CLN, we can keep the category for people who prefer to search that way. I'm happy to see that this list is already tagged and will show up in a category search. Mandsford 13:58, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Narrow it Must not stay as it's now. In this current form any voice actor can be listed whatever they are French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, etc... --KrebMarkt 15:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete The list is a mess. Many of the famous actors on the list are not notable because they did cartoon voices, and some actors who did notable voice acting are missing. Also, there are no references. It might be best to do the whole thing over from scratch. The Pebble Dare (talk) 19:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The Pebble Dare has been blocked as a sockpuppet.[1] Edward321 (talk) 23:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and rewrite with sourcing. Lionelt (talk) 19:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I think it is an unreasonable and unnecessary requirement to impose referencing on each entry on such a list. Out of a fairly long list, only a dozen are red links--perhaps those would need sourcing or better yet articles. Everything else links to the actor's article. Anybody can read their contribution to voice acting, be it a large part of their career or a one off line delivered for a movie. If you have issues with a specific case, that is what editing is about. Go ahead, get in an edit war if you feel strongly about one entry. From my knowledge of the subject, I found most of the names I expect to see here--I added one. And I certainly don't see any need to delete this article.Trackinfo (talk) 00:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - consistent with other list articles. Deb (talk) 11:57, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and rename This list has potential but not as it is now as the title is way too broad, a list of voice actors in anime maybe can be a solution? Anyways deletion is not a solution to a cleanup job on wikipedia if consenses says clean up and tidy the list. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and Rename List meets WP:List and WP:CLN allows both categories and lists to cover the same ground. If this list is too broad, then break into more descrete lists as appropriate.--Mike Cline (talk) 13:56, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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.