Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of celebrity and notable guest appearances in Doctor Who (3rd nomination)

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. As consensus rather strongly suggests, AfD is not to be used as a substitute for cleanup. Indeed, most of the nominator's concerns, while entirely valid, can be addressed through standard editing. Deletion should generally be used as a last resort. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:29, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of celebrity and notable guest appearances in Doctor Who

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The AfD list to your right is wrong. Due to an intervening name change, it's difficult to get the template to link to the previous AfDs. Correct links follow:

On reviewing the previous two rounds of voting the consensus isn't to keep or delete so much as it is to reference the article. And this has not been done over the years that this article has been undergoing continuous rounds of scrutiny. As of today, there are a piddling three references for the entire article, and two of these references are the end credits of "Journey's End" — hardly a source independent of the subject.

"Fame" can't be referenced

I suspect the reason that it's not been referenced is that it cannot be referenced. Just look at the way the list is set up. The meat of the list is the "fame" column. How can you reference "fame"? When I think of, say, Tom Hanks, I know, anecdotally, that he's famous. But what's he famous for? That rather depends on who's answering. For some people his fame derives from Bosom Buddies, for others it's Saving Private Ryan, for still others it's Apollo 13. And that's a genuinely well-known actor. Trying to assign a few titles to an actor's career is, of necessity, a subjective thing, dependent entirely upon the writer's memory.

And let's face it, this list really just tries too damn hard. I mean, seriously: George Coulouris is hardly famous — today — for Citizen Kane, nor can his "prominence" as a stage actor in the middle of the 20th century be today reliably referenced or assessed. Hell, he wasn't even "famous" for Kane when he appeared, some 23 years after the fact, in The Keys of Marinus. Not one person out of a hundred knew who he was then, and the figure's probably less now.

So that's one problem: "fame" is a matter of subjectivity. Or, to put it in Wiki terms: this is an article which can never be reliably sourced.

The dreadful title

But another is the title. We're led to believe, by the title, that we'll be given a list of appearances in Doctor Who. But the article goes on to give us people from even the darkest corners of the Whoniverse. It can't make up its mind as to what its focus is, but the fact that it's been trying for years leads me to believe it never will. Moreover, there are real problems with the words "celebrity" and "notable". This directly offends WP:LISTNAME, which says, quite clearly that lists should be about one thing (a list of Xs, not a list of Xs and Ys). WP:LISTNAME also specifically warns against the words "famous", "noted', or "prominent". In other words, we've got a list here which basically offends every part of the WP:LISTNAME guideline. That should be a pretty red flag that our list isn't worth pursuing.

The topic

Note that I'm not saying that we should try to find a better name. I'm saying it's not worth doing. But so does WP:SALAT and WP:NOT. WP:SALAT says that you could create a "list of shades of colors of apple sauce", but that you should be prepared to defend why such a list "contributed to the state of human knowledge". It strikes me "list of celebrity and notable appearances on Doctor Who" isn't much different. In the whole of the arguments in the previous two AfDs, I saw nothing which really justified how this list gives us anything useful. The vast majority of the KEEP votes were either marked weak keep or possessed of a lot of other qualifying language. Most of the people arguing for "keep" were really saying, "Keep, if you can reference it or edit it heavily". No one has really said why we need this list.

Indeed, WP:NOTDIRECTORY speaks directly against this list. To quote:

Wikipedia articles are not non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, such as "People from ethnic/cultural/religious group X employed by organization Y".

I dunno about you, but that sounds exactly like what our list is trying to be: People who are from a cultural group (celebrity) employed by Doctor Who (and TW, and SJA, and BF) producers.

I suppose there are a ton of other objections, but that's enough for now, surely. Vote to delete this article which fails multiple Wikipedia guidelines. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 04:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. -- Cybercobra (talk) 04:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. -- Cybercobra (talk) 04:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. -- Cybercobra (talk) 04:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. I admit that as a non-British person, I may not be able to gauge exactly how famous most of these people are, but most of their names mean absolutely nothing to me. The most famous people on the list, The Beatles, are there only because a film clip of their appearance on Top of the Pops was shown in "The Chase" after their manager Brian Epstein refused to have the band appear on the show. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - AfD is not for cleanup, no matter how much clean up is needed. Someone should remove the fame column right now. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:50, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Whether you personally know who they are or not is not relevant. They seem notable enough to have their own wikipedia articles, and thus their notability has been established elsewhere. This list of blue links that all have something relevant in common, is fine by Wikipedia standards. Dream Focus 04:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep While some of these people may not seem particularly well-known (though doubtless many are better known in Britain), they all seem to have been deemed Notable enough to have their own articles here. I'm not sure we really needed this List, but since its been written, I don't see sufficient justification to warrant its Deletion. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 09:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per KevinOKeeffe McMarcoP (talk) 09:36, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - How you define 'celebrity' is dubious and in this case not encyclopedic. I also find little reason for this overlong article, lists should be factual - this is largely POV.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 11:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I think my !vote from the second AFD still is as valid as it was back then. Most of the reasons listed for deletion are reasons for cleanup and we all know that AFD is not cleanup, per Peregrine Fisher above. Furthermore, WP:NOTDIRECTORY does not apply in this case. The policy is against indiscriminate lists of loosely or non-connected topics. This is a list with a clear focus that just is in bad need of cleanup and maybe a rename. We have others such lists, like List of guest stars on The Simpsons, which are perfectly acceptable and as such, even arguing a bit of WP:OSE is allowed here. This is a nomination that indicates a certain dissatisfaction by the cleanup that was not done after the last AFD (that being somebody else's problem in many !voters' eyes) but nevertheless, the reasons put forward are not reasons that allow deletion, nor should they. The nominator should be advised to use their time instead in trying to rectify those problems - per WP:BEFORE. Regards So Why 11:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: As the nominator, I do feel compelled to jump in here and state that I know "AfD is not cleanup". As stated in the nominating text, I don't believe the article can be cleaned up. It has little focus, as is admitted by the call to give it "maybe a rename" and to "remove the fame column right now". Doing these two things would transform it into a mere "List of guest stars on Doctor Who" — a different list altogether. Would a list of guest stars actually be notable? If so, how would "guest star" be defined? All the way down to the people who got one line? What would be the point/notability of that list?

I do not accept that WP:OSE applies in the affirmative here at all, especially when giving List of guest stars on The Simpsons as an example. That list is a totally different kettle of fish. That celebrities appear on The Simpsons is a part of the show's gestalt, and their copious appearance has in itself been made notable by the existence of a Guinness World Record for that very fact. There is no such notability attached to the fact that jobbing actors won a role on Doctor Who. No one could reasonably assert that DW trades on the fact that it has celebrity guests. The highest-rating "celebrities" have generally been returning regulars (Daleks, Cybermen, former Doctors and companions). Sure, it's cool that Jeremy Bulloch played two roles on DW. But he didn't get either role because of his fame as Boba Fett. Indeed, until JNT, few actors were chosen for their celebrity. If you whittled this list down to people who were chosen for their celebrity, it might have 20 names on it. Tops. Most guest starring actors were chosen because they were, in fact: a) whom the director thought would be "right" for the role; and b) contractually available for the role. In fact, there are virtually no such general "guest star" lists on Wikipedia, at least according to Category:Lists of celebrities. The only one comparable is one with comparatively few edits and nary a scrap of discussion: List of The Andy Griffith Show guest stars. So I'm not really sure that "other stuff exists" to such a degree that it could be positively argued here. WP:OSE actually applies in the negative here, in the sense that just because other crap exists (TAGS guest star list) doesn't mean we should emulate it. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 13:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I agree that many entries need to be removed, especially those who were not cast because of their fame. But there are quite a few on that list that were cast exactly for being famous before, like Kylie Minogue, Anthony Stewart Head, Simon Pegg or Richard Dawkins. Such names are quite eligible to populate a list of guest stars on DW and thus this list itself should exist. That it's full of other entries does not make the list deletable. Regards So Why 13:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let's assume you can prove it with reliable sources. I don't think you could, mind, but let's say you could find sources which directly and neutrally said, "X actor was exclusively cast because they were famous." Is that the consensus for what people want the article to be? The evidence of the static nature of this problem-filled list is to the contrary. See, I don't believe, as you've asserted, that people believe it's "not their problem". I think it's that there's no agreement on what the list should be. I think the majority of editors seem to want it to be a list of everybody in Doctor Who who was, or who became, even marginally famous. And that list simply can't be referenced. The tension between what you think the list is (people cast because they were already famous) and what the list has been from the start (a list of everyone with a marginal stake in celebrity) is exactly why I say it's unfocused and therefore unsalvageable. User:MickMacNee has just moved the title to a simple "List of guest appearances", which only further proves the point that people are not in agreement with your idea of what the article is. Now, by sort of "cementing" this idea of a general "guest star" list with a title change, the article's even less notable than would be your "celebrity/stunt casting" idea. Indeed, the list has a year-and-a-half-old problem tag — and a discussion page full of objections dating back to 2005 — cause no one knows how to make it better. When an article can't be improved, and it falls well short of Wiki guidelines, it's time to delete. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 13:47, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Fame is hard to define, "notable guest appearances" doubly so. Almost every actor in the series appeared in other things, and most have their own article as a result. There are a handful of times when the series did cast an existing big name, but most of the entries are based on subsequent careers and it's very hard to say just how famous someone has been, especially when the show in question is long gone. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:48, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The list is fairly well-focused, even if the name is iffy, and it's not all that hard to define celebrity in terms of WP:Notability. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 12:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete There was a spate of celebrity guests in DW in the 80s (ie they were cast for "being famous" rather than for being an actor just right for a particular role - usually light entertainment stars like Beryl Reid or Ken Dodd. These are fairly reffable. Same might go for eg Kylie Minogue, but this list can't stand if there's no clear boundary between "cast for being famous" and "cast for being an actor"- where do Simon Pegg fit? This list cannot be maintained as a distinct group (fame, as stated above, is not quantifiable). I tried cropping this list back ages ago but I've given up. move it to tardiswiki and they can play with it. Totnesmartin (talk) 13:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Lack of references for appearances are not grounds for deletion, and are self-referencing (anybody with a copy of the show can satisfactorally verify an entry). References for the general topic at hand, that guest appearances on DW get third party notice are easy to find. I have renamed the list, because although the nominator is correct that 'celebrity' is POV, notable isn't, therefore, now that issue is removed, there is no reason for deletion. MickMacNee (talk) 13:22, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I don't see what the problem is. The criteria for inclusion should be that the person is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article about them. I also don't see any particular problem with the "Fame" column, although it should probably be renamed. Does anyone really dispute that Anthony Stewart Head is famous for being Giles in Buffy, or that Kylie Minogue is a "popstar and actress"? john k (talk) 13:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Just because you can create a list with blue-linked articles doesn't mean that you should. The point is absolutely not that the person is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article about them, but whether the list is notable. I could make a list of "colors of applesauce", as the example above says. All those colors would have articles about them. Bt the list, overall, isn't notable. Worse, this list is actually charting two variables, which offends WP:LISTNAME. Changing the name of the list, as has just been done, causes less offense to WP:LISTNAME, but it doesn't in itself magically make the content of the list valuable. As stated above, the article will now have to define how it chooses what a "guest star" is. How many lines does it take to be a "guest star"? As it stands, the new title of the list would seem to indicate that we list all guest starts who ever appeared on the program Doctor Who. Do we want to do that? Is that really notable? And what about all the DW spin-off stuff? Is it important to note who's guest starred in BF, SJA, TW? The parameters of the list must be simple, straightforward, and universally understood by all users. They aren't, and they can't be. Hence the list is a matter of the POV of its editors. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 14:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep- As has been stated previously, by people more eloquent than I, the problems presented in the AFD are that of cleanup, not matters for deletion. Umbralcorax (talk) 14:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep My gut feeling is that the list will be useful to a number of people and will probably be used to resolve endless numbers of drunken arguments. Can't see that it actually does any harm. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:38, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
keep Many of these are easily sourceable. For example, Richard Dawkins appearance received international news coverage [1]. The lack of sourcing present in the article is not an argument for deletion but an argument for clean up. The list also is not indiscriminate since one can use sourcing directly for who has been reported as guests on the show. Moreover, the topic is notable given that Doctor Who is one of the longest running television shows ever. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:05, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
keep Needs clean-up and sourcing - which is editorial and not administrative work... --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:04, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Whole article is a waste of time and space (sorry). Bar for inclusion is ludicrously low, making it effectively a very incomplete list of every actor or actress ever to appear in Dr Who. Even if trimed out it would be total fancruft. If a celebrity appearance was notable then the correct place to note it is in the article about the relevent episode, as that is where the majority of people would go to look for it. By itself there is no purpose for this article to exist, not even for resolving druken arguments after the pub.--ThePaintedOne (talk) 18:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Cameron Scott. As for "waste of time and space" - it will only be a waste of time for the previous editors if the article is deleted (I really dislike AfD nominations for long-standing, much-edited articles such as this, rather than going through a more reasonable, less destructive route first), and as for waste of space... Stephenb (Talk) 19:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - "notable" has no third party reliable definition, and therefore the list should be deleted, this article fails WP:V and I can see no method by which it can meet the standard for inclusion Fasach Nua (talk) 21:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notable is no longer in the title of the article. MickMacNee (talk) 01:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is the current criteria for inclusion, someone who isn't a regular character? Fasach Nua (talk) 19:30, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

currently: "This is a list of actors who have made guest appearances in Doctor Who."-- The Red Pen of Doom 20:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So what will be defining what is a guest appearance and what is an actor playing a part for a short time? Is it on the title/end credits? Fasach Nua (talk) 20:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - there's no real need for verifying that someone is famous now as I scrubbed the "fame" column to match the new title. There's nothing else to cite but the appearance of these actors/actresses in Doctor Who, which would be an easy if lengthy task. The article itself though seems rather unwieldy, which would be my main point of contention with it's structure. I just don't see what it provides other than a big list to trawl through. Alastairward (talk) 21:38, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted that, it was pretty extreme measure. I have instead simply renamed Fame to Other work. If we cut out all the info from the list, all you end up with is people saying 'replace it with a category', even though we have WP:CLN. MickMacNee (talk) 01:59, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what's so "extreme" about that edit. The information, under the renamed title, is not extraneous. Are you leaving it in so that the article can be padded and kept? Alastairward (talk) 08:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't make accusations. I reverted because the information is pertinent to the list, nothing more, nothing less. MickMacNee (talk) 14:30, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MickMac, right back at you, there was nothing extreme about removing extraneous information. What does it add to the subject of the article, which is about Doctor Who guest stars? The actors are blue linked, the information is there, why pad out the article so? Alastairward (talk) 15:24, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really not sure what you think an encylopoedia is for. Personally, I think it is for providing information. Maybe you have the ability to scan the names and instantly know the person behind each bluelink, or don't mind opening tab after tab to be able to read the list properly, I personally don't. Of course it was an extreme measure, removing 30% of pertinent information from an article is always extreme. If you are going to argue it's extraneous or trivial, in addition to your first reason, then we're done here. If you disagree, and nobody else chimes in here, please seek a third opinion before removing it again. MickMacNee (talk) 17:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the place for discussion, suffice to say that you do not own the article. Alastairward (talk) 18:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yopu are bang out of order. I've replied on the article talk page to your second revert and second accusation. MickMacNee (talk) 19:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reluctant delete under current title. When the article was trying to be a list of celebrity guests in Doctor Who, although the criterion was slightly nebulous, it did have some meaning and potential interest. It also would have been possible to verify that "celebrities who have appeared in Doctor Who" was a topic of interest in the culture at large (I seem to recall, when Kylie Minogue was in the programme, the British media having sidebars about other celebs and notable figures who'd appeared in the show). But a list of guest stars who have appeared in Doctor Who is simply too broad a topic, and heads towards being an indiscriminate directory. Doctor Who has been on television for 46 years, with over 30 seasons, over 750 episodes and over 200 stories. A list of all the guest stars in Doctor Who would contain thousands of entries. The subject is just too broad for Wikipedia's purposes. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- List of guest stars on The Simpsons manages it with a show that has 21 seasons and 441 episodes. It's not that big a step to DW's 30 seasons. I think the task can be manageable with sub-articles for each Doctor (except the 8th maybe). What do you think? Regards So Why 22:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - I don't really know for sure, but I would be very surprised if there ate 'thousands' of actors with WP articles that made guest appearances on DW. MickMacNee (talk) 01:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Perhaps not thousands, but around a thousand is probable. Look at Doctor Who story articles, starting with An Unearthly Child. Each story has an average of five blue-linked guest stars (not including the regular cast). At 200 stories, with ~5 guests per story, that's about 1000 guest stars.
      I'm neutral on the suggestion of splitting the list by Doctors, but I wonder about the value of such a list, whether it's one huge list or ten/eleven shorter ones. It still seems a bit directory-ish. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:30, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment Episodes of The Simpsons actually have explicit "guest star" credits and thus the article has a clear definition to work from. It doesn't list all the "before they achieved something that might have been called famous" voice actors. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:19, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment Continuing on this, there's also the fact that The Simpsons is animated and has an ensemble cast of regular voices. So the list is, for the most part, limited to guest stars, and those identified as "Special Guest Voice," not every guest *character*, since most of those were filled by the regulars. Even several "guest" voices in the sense of being non-regular are omitted, even when they have Wikipedia pages, since they weren't celebrities (credited in the "Also Starring" category). So it's not really comparable at all, as a glance at how few guest stars are listed for many seasons indicates. -- Aleal (talk) 19:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. People are too eager to delete articles from Wikipedia.Konczewski (talk) 05:52, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I get it, Wikipedia isn't paper, we can have an article on anything etc etc. But that just seems a lazy reason to keep the article. As it was, the "notable" issue of an actor in the article was problematic, not because of who was notable, but why their appearance was notable. Now that the previous purpose of the article is gone, this has turned into a simple list of actors that will continue to grow as the series continues, without doing anything more than being an unwieldly list. The Simpsons list of guest characters survives as their use guest stars and not just the stars themselves gained notability. Alastairward (talk) 09:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. WesleyDodds (talk) 11:44, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Alastairward. DJ 01:33, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a pointy and retaliatory vote, I doubt its sincerity. See this ANI post for background. MickMacNee (talk) 10:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I did see that ANI post, and when I searched for "DJ" or "Dale" or "jenkins" I got exactly 0 hits returned. Please stop using non-guidelines like WP:DICK to malign other users' votes. It doesn't even make any sense that a simple "delete" vote on this obscure topic would be retaliatory, anyway. "Oh, I know what I'll do to get back at that guy! I'll vote to delete the "List of guest stars on Doctor Who!" C'mon. Common sense, please. It's a legitimate vote to delete. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 23:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

trans-wiki and delete 1) "It is unfortunate that editors put effort into writing or maintaining articles that do not meet Wikipedia policy or guidelines". 2) I dont see how the topic of the article itself would meet WP:N - yes we can verify that a guest star appeared on the show, through primary sources of show credits and occassionally secondary sources, but there is no third party sourcing to indicate that "guest appearances on DW" as an article topic is notable in the way we have third party sourcing that "guest appearances on The Simpsons" has been noted by third parties / the Guiness Book. 3) without notability of the article topic itself, we just have a directory.-- The Red Pen of Doom 03:12, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. For the simple reason that I think the article might be useful to some readers. Sometimes when you watch a TV show you see an actor you sort of recognize but you can't recall from where. Rusty Cashman (talk) 09:10, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment When that scenario occurs, I look at the article realting to the episode in question, which is the obvious place for the info to be. I wouldn't go hunting for a generic article categorising every non-regular actor/actress to ever appear in the show in question. I think this would be the normal behaviour for most wiki users hence I can't see the purpose of the article.--ThePaintedOne (talk) 09:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete- Please don't get me wrong, it's really interesting but useless. As ThePaintedOne said, each episode article already has the notable and celebrity appearances making this list a bit redundant.

Cheers! Λuα ^{(Operibus anteire)} 13:19, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The problem being, that argument gives no consideration for various uses of the list, for example, a reader suspects a certain actor was in an episode, but doesn't know which one. This extreme approach to not duplicating information requires them to look at a billion articles instead of one list, or to know complex search string techniques. This is not reasonable, and is not a good argument for deletion because we do not have a paper shortage. MickMacNee (talk) 10:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, I agree with ThePaintedOne above. Why would you need a complex search string? Can you give us an example of such a search? I tried for "Doctor Who Julian Glover" in the Wikipedia search box and it returned City of Death as the second result, which is where I recognised him from and another episode that I didn't even realise he had been in as the first result. This article was the tenth result, below the list of villians in the series. Its an extreme stretch to suggest that this article will trump a simple google or wikipedia search. Alastairward (talk) 15:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good job then that you didn't have to fuck around searching, and could have found the answer you wanted in this list. "I don't need it" is not a valid reason for deletion. MickMacNee (talk) 18:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

CommentThe point is not 'I don't need it', the point is 'nobody would think to look here, or even know it exists' as any reasonable search pattern someone uses would take you to your answer more directly than via this list. It's worth noting that the Doctor Who wiki doesn't bother with such a list, and neither do any of the other extensive dedicated fan sites that I'm aware of. If the topic specific sites and wikis don't see the need, why should wikipedia do it?--ThePaintedOne (talk) 07:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh come on, since when does Wikipedia take their content cues from other Wikis? If we are going to do away with lists because the search function is faster, and on the presumption people can't find lists (which all follow a standard naming format), then that has wider implications than just whether this list gets deleted or not. If you feel that strongly about such issues of redundancy, start an Rfc on the wider topic. And the search function works just as well for finding this list too see. MickMacNee (talk) 11:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't suggesting that wikipedia take its cues from other sites, but the case is usually that wikipedia covers these sorts of topics in less detail than a topic specific site, thanks to WP:FANCRUFT, WP:NOTDIRECTORY, etc. Whereas a topic specific site has no such restrictions and indeed usually revel in this sort of thing. The fact that it is possible to contruct a search string which brings back this page doesn't detract from the fact that most average users would primarily search for either the actor/actress or episode concerned by name and therefore get the info from those pages. --ThePaintedOne (talk) 12:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And on what basis do you claim to know what average users do or don't do? You are only a creditable authority on what you do, nobody else. MickMacNee (talk) 22:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't beleive I'm the one claiming how useful it would be to the average user. Not that being useful is the inclusion criteria anyway, it should be notabillity, per my last comment at the bottom.--ThePaintedOne (talk) 07:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would work both ways, on what basis do you claim to know that average users would search straight away for this list specifically? I know that I was basing my assumption on the way I see most people google for something. Alastairward (talk) 22:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Agreed with ThePaintedOne, it's more a case of "I was able to do it more quickly and effectively using another means". The search for "doctor who julian glover" is quicker than thinking of what this article might be called, then searching for it, then doing a ctrl-f search for julian glover. Alastairward (talk) 21:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - With the "celebrity" in the title, this at least had some bar (even if you can't reference it) - now it's just "guest appearances in Doctor Who" - which opens it up to absolutely every one who's ever appeared in Doctor Who, and so is now a list of inclusion with no indicator of how notable a person needs to be before being listed. 86.177.158.99 (talk) 16:35, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I don't have much of a stake in this myself, and looking through this, it may be another lack of consensus (though deletion is gaining ground). For myself, if it is to be handled on Wikipedia (and it is an interesting topic, but one that's harder to handle POV rather than editorially), I'd say delete the list but add a short section to the main Doctor Who article, if enough of the hardcore Whop fans were willing to work on it (mainly with sourcing). That's one reason many TV shows don't hve similar "LIst of guest star" pages, since for most, if it's notable enough or has attracted enough high profile guests, it can be worked into the general article. Even then, some have had to be fixed to avoid becoming cruft or including actors who appeared but weren't really celebrities. Get Smart had that problem for ages; it's generally better now but could still use some work (and that's a series where one could easily refine it further, based not just on general fame or notability but on the use of actual "Guest Star" and "Special Guest Star" billing, which was very rare in the 1960s and thus its use was always a denotation of status, rather than merely playing a prominent guest role).
I.e., such a section or paragraph would discuss the show's approach to guest casting in general, note shifts (which are either readily apparent or even better, now usually discussed in the DVD commentaries by those involved), and so on. Early serials mostly just used working actors, some of whom (like George Coulouris) had long careers and in fact *were* both familiar and quite prominent and whose faces and even (at least among critics and similar quarters) would would have been recognizable, but not precisely celebrities. Then one gets John Cleese and Eleanor Bron in "City of Death," in what are clearly cameo roles based on size and also clearly based on their celebrity (and for outside sourcing and references, there's the commentaries and TV publicity at the time and so on). This grew in the 80s, as said, with Reid, Ken Dodd, Stubby Kaye of all people, and Courtney Pine as himself in the 1988 anniversary thing. The new series has deliberately made use of celebrity stunt casting, with tons of articles about it, and if Internet Archive caches of the BBC website or press releases can be accesses, one gets direct statements from the BBC touting their use of celebrities, both in general and in promotion for specific episodes. Again, I'm not really a Whovian (Whoologist? Whatever) myself, but if enough people are interested in exploring that area in a suitable Non-POV format that can be sourced or made self-evident (it's generally hard to argue that any "So and so as himself" guest appearances in a fictional TV series, for example, weren't made on the basis of that person's celebrity, at least at the time of airing), this strikes me as the best bet. *Then*, if that section has grown substantially enough, with substance and quotes and sources and what have you, beyond just a general list of guest stars (and if anybody wants that, that's what IMDB is for, really), pulling out into its own article would make sense. That's my take, anyway. -- Aleal (talk) 19:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep These lists are rarely notable. This particular show is an exception, because of tis particualarly distinctive and widespread use of them DGG ( talk ) 05:59, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, can that notability be cited? The list of guest characters on the Simpsons is cited for the number of guest stars, is there a similar record for this show? Alastairward (talk) 21:41, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. What's the fuss about, really? The show is unique in longevity if not also in cultural impact. If someone is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article about them and verifiably made a guest appearance on the show, that seems to be pretty clear criteria for inclusion. Such lists are of interest and attempting to suppress such a list goes squarely against what Wikipedia does best. older ≠ wiser 21:27, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Qualified keep. Title ambiguous and the article could do with referencing. Yes, it is a list, but it does actually aggregate a lot of information that would be difficult and time-consuming to find elsewhere. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 21:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, as above, it's easier to find a guest star/episode directly via the search function than try to find this list then scrolling through to find a star. Alastairward (talk) 22:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's presuming the reader knows who to look for. I didn't. I learned quite a bit. Rather the thing I am looking for in an encyclopedia myself. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 23:16, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So you approached the list not knowing an actor, not knowing an episode, simply browsing and finding out who was in what? Alastairward (talk) 23:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I read the list, having watched a huge amount of Doctor Who episodes myself in the past, discovering which actor had played a part in which episode, and learning more about their background. I knew about some of them, but not about others. I agree that the level of notability varies and the definition of appearance ranges of from pure cameo to actual parts. I might be biased in that I have dual British citizenship and spent a lot of my formative years in England when Tom Baker played the Doctor, and have pretty much all of the available videos up to and including the fourth Doctor. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 23:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which raises a goood point, a more appropriate place for all this information would be the episode articles, where we can add more about the background that you can't squeeze in here. Alastairward (talk) 09:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment per WP:NOTDIRECTORY Cross-categories like these are not considered sufficient basis to create an article, unless the intersection of those categories is in some way a culturally significant phenomenon. What citations can people provide that guests appearing on the show is culturally significant? The only one I can recall being discussed in any widespread way was Kylie Minogue. If you take wider notabillity as being the bar for entry, I suspect the list would become so short that it would make more sense to just fold it into an existing article on the show. Alternatively, if you accept that any actor or actress who has appeared in the show can be included, regardless of fame or notabillity how does this article differ from List of Doctor Who cast members?--ThePaintedOne (talk) 12:44, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response What you can recall is neither here nor there to the discussion. I can recall (in recent years) John Simm and Derek Jacobi being widely discussed in the media, and going much further back, Peter Butterworth's appearance was covered in the Radio Times, I think. And there will be many other instances of casting being noted in the media over the years (Kate O'Mara etc.), and which should almost certainly be used in this article to provide the required element of notability to the list that distinguishes it from the other list you point at, which I've just seen. Stephenb (Talk) 15:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stephenb, the list no longer concerns notability, it is now merely the List of guest appearances in Doctor Who. Notability doesn't matter, simply appearing in the credits as a guest star. Alastairward (talk) 15:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I was responding to the point Alternatively, if you accept that any actor or actress who has appeared in the show can be included, regardless of fame or notabillity how does this article differ from List of Doctor Who cast members? i.e. I think that it can be distinguished, because notability could actually be established via media discussion. AFAIK, "Doctor Who" has never has a "guest star" credit - such credits are usually on American TV series, but not British TV series, and so that discussion goes nowhere. I wasn't aware of the article renaming since the nomination, though! Stephenb (Talk) 17:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: given that the article has changed name and consequently scope, surely a lot of the discussion on both sides of the debate is now rendered inappplicable (i.e. questions/comments about defining the notability of people included)? -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 19:53, 20 August 2009 (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.