Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of male action heroes

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. causa sui (talk) 17:21, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of male action heroes[edit]

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List fails WP:LSC. The list has no defineable criteria for inclusion, save the claim that each is an "action hero". The list is largely unsourced and simply a listing of names in many sections. The whole designation of someone as an "action hero" is fairly POV and opinion anyway, but without reliable sources, it's OR. The list goes even further by breaking entries down to subjective POV classifications like "old school action hero". In the end, little more than a random list of characters editors decided to put on the list. See the related WP:Articles for deletion/List of female action heroes Niteshift36 (talk) 18:23, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:57, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom and per WP:IINFO. Ipsign (talk) 08:58, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Sb617 (Talk) 10:09, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

*Keep – Per Wikipedia is not a directory, the article's inclusion on Wikipedia is appropriate, as the article has an organized focus and is not, per Wikipedia directory guidelines, like "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics". The article completely passes all eight points of WP:NOTDIRECTORY guidelines. Furthermore, the article can also serve to promote the creation of new articles, and is functional and appropriate as a Wikipedia article in list format. Northamerica1000 (talk) 09:09, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - The topic appears to qualify for inclusion per WP:LISTN. Per these guidelines, the topic appears to have been discussed as a group, by reliable sources. One reliable source, in the external links section of the article is: *The Lost Action Hero - The Washington Post. Another, in the further reading section of the article appears to be a reliable source: Osgerby, Bill, Anna Gough-Yates, and Marianne Wells. Action TV : Tough-Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks. London: Routledge, 2001. Northamerica1000 (talk) 22:49, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The list has no criteria for inclusion, very little sourcing and appears to consist largely of opinions from editors. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The criteria for inclusion is obviously whether or not a character has been described as an action hero in a reliable source. This article is likely doomed to be a mess of original research, but that's not to say an article with this topic and scope should not exist. ButOnMethItIs (talk) 19:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I mentioned in the related AfD that it didn't appear that anything short of gutting this article and starting from scratch would really solve it. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, v/r - T P 23:39, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisting Comment Note that Northamerica1000's rediculous assertion that WP:NOT is somehow notability criteria had nothing to do with my decision to relist. I feel a list such as this needs more discussion before being deleted.--v/r - T P 23:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. As synthesis. Completely arbitrary and subjective inclusion criteria. Fails both WP:LSC and WP:NLIST in every respect, since RS hasn't been applied or even asserted. I also don't understand how User:Northamerica1000 can so completely misread WP:NOT as WP:NOTE. BusterD (talk) 11:59, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The topic is notable being covered in books such as:

The action hero in popular Hollywood and Hong Kong movies
Man-of-action heroes: how the American ideology of manhood structures men's consumption
Cartooning action heroes
The Action Hero Handbook
The Real Action Hero Manual
Television in Transition: The Life and Afterlife of the Narrative Action Hero

The extent to which this topic is divided between this and related articles such as action hero is a matter of ordinary editing per our editing policy. Deletion is therefore inappropriate. Warden (talk) 20:57, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep You can Google news archive search for the names of anyone on the list, and the word "action" and see what appears. ~~http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1558141/steve-austin-leaves-stone-cold-behind.jhtml mentions he doesn't want to just be an action star, having done 50 action films already all of them blockbusters.~~ Google news archive search shows 14,400 results for "action hero". Some of those mention actors who are "action heroes." Inclusion can be an actor who played in a film of the action genre having a part of the hero perhaps. Perhaps split the list into different articles. List of male action heroes and List of fictional male action heroes. Dream Focus 01:23, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't spend much time reading that article did you? It says "Now, if I made 50 action/adventure movies and they were all blockbusters, yeah, I'd love to do that. But I don't want to be called the action guy because that's not what I'm trying to be." He hasn't made 50 movies, let alone 4 years ago when that article was from. Regardless, nobody has disputed that the term "action hero" exists, so reporting how many Gnews hits you get is pointless. Kind of ironic that User:Northamerica1000 spammed hundreds of articles with rescue tags, bringing the "it's all saveable" brigade from ARS, while using a ridiculous rationale for his keep !vote. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:42, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Misread that. Still, coverage exist for these guys, for being action heroes. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2009/03/27/1AA_12_ROUNDS_FEAT.ART_ART_03-27-09_D4_RMDC5SQ.html Wrestler pins his future on playing action hero. Dream Focus 01:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the term "action hero" exits in RS's. Again, the problem here is that 1) The list has no criteria and 2) it is almost entirely unsourced. I know ARS wants to save it, but sometimes it's better to start with a clean slate. Niteshift36 (talk) 16:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ARS does not have a mind of its own, nor any leadership whatsoever. I have suggested a criteria. And its best to work with what you have, than to start over and hope someone takes the time to do it all over again. And you don't need a source for every single entry in a list, that just tedious pointless nonsense, since no one is going to be looking at all the newspaper links that use the words "action hero" by their names. If any item looks out of place, then do a quick search, and then remove it if necessary. Dream Focus 17:36, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of how ARS works and also the discussion about the numerous articles tagged recently by the editor that tagged this one (and gave one of the most ridiculous keep rationale's I've seen). But I disagree, you DO need a source for the entry. Either in the persons article or on the list. Otherwise, it is an editor opinion that they are an "action hero" belonging on the list. Every single one of them needs to be sourced. Anything not sourced is subject to immediate removal. And "suggesting" a criteria is different than having a discussion on the page and then creating one, isn't it? Niteshift36 (talk) 17:46, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The list is currently List of all actors who have been called action heroes by the media(come up with shorter name) and a List of all fictional male action heroes. Dream Focus 17:48, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I do not believe that the topic of the article is appropriate for Wikipedia per the criteria of appropriate topics for lists, since this list falls into what Wikipedia is not (Wikipedia is not a directory and Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information) which makes the list of fictional heroes/actors trivial, non-encyclopedic, and it is not related to human knowledge. I do not believe that the list has a selection criteria that is unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. All that this list has is entries of actors divided in an arbitrary way (e.g. Classic Action Heroes, Old School Action Heroes), combined with fictional characters (e.g. Television, Literature) without a single inline citation to support the content or justify the inclusion of real people with fictional characters. This list is created with original research by synthesis as no reliable secondary source appears to have such a division or to include real people with imaginary characters. I also do not believe that the the topic meets the general notability guideline and since notability guidelines apply to the inclusion of stand-alone lists, I believe that this article should be deleted, since the subject, as broad as presented in the article, has not been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources. There are only a few of sources about the action hero concept with some examples, but not a list of action heroes per se, which in my opinion further emphasizes that the article is original research by synthesis. Jfgslo (talk) 23:39, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As the List of female action heroes has been decimated and I expect the same editor, the proposer of deletion, will do the same here to this article the two articles might as well be remerged back to Action heroes. REVUpminster (talk) 09:37, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If "decimated" means removing unsourced info and OR, then yes, it was brought into compliance with Wikipedia policy. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:28, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or clean-up and merge: As synthesis. To loose a term to create a discriminate list. An article on action heroes is sensible. A list of every action hero is not. Sources apply this definition inconsistently and editors have shown themselves to apply this even more inconsistently. Dzlife (talk) 14:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Procedural relisting, as previously the article was not translcluded in the deletion log when it was previously relisted.

Delete the WP:LSC guideline shows that trying to select/exclude list members is going to be subjective and indiscriminate. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:28, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - There's now three books in the Further reading section of the article:

Osgerby, Bill, Anna Gough-Yates, and Marianne Wells (2001.) Action TV : Tough-Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415226201
Tasker, Yvonne (2004.) Action and Adventure Cinema. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0203645154
Tasker, Yvonne (1996.) Spectacular Bodies : Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 041509223X

Northamerica1000 ^(talk) 06:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

3 books in the further reading section (of which I'll bet you'd read 0) and still none in the reference section. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:46, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as per WP:LSC. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete without clear inclusion criteria this list is inherently indiscriminate, much better to list a few sourced examples at Action hero. Eluchil404 (talk) 22:35, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete because there is no clear criteria for inclusion, the list is OR. I could add Jim Parsons to this list seeing that inclusion is entirely arbitrary. Trusilver 23:47, 17 October 2011 (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.