Commons:Categories for discussion/2024/05/Category:Actors by role

Category:Actors by role

Category spam, courtesy of the same IP user who made the categories in Space Jam, Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse, The Lego Movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Scooby-Doo and Scoob!

None of the subcategories herein contain any media, and rather than categorizing media they create abstract (and often circular) relationships between categories instead. Every single one of them should be deleted, as well as the main category.

-- ReneeWrites (talk) 19:19, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Trim to notable characters only There's nothing wrong with creating a category pertaining to those people closely associated with a fictional character -- I've actually done this with comics characters. Category:People associated with Spider-Man is one example, which is subdivided into writers and artists who have worked on the character, and actors who have portrayed them. But in each of those charcters, the character is a major one, which has its own Wikipedia article. I know that the Commons is a separate site, but there needs to be some type of standard, and notability seems like a good one. Right right now, the subcats in the Actors by role cat looks like it's filled with non-notable character, or characters who part of an ensemble show, movie, or book that's notable by itself, and who are not notable individually, and some of them look like they're empty of content. I say trim those who do not have their Wikipedia artice, or which have minimal or empty content that is subcategoried elsewhere. Nightscream (talk) 21:37, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

The standard is typically that works or characters created by a specific person get subcategorized under that person's name. That person doesn't become a subcategory of their own creations. So e.g. "Spider-Man" as a subcategory of "Characters created by Stan Lee" would be valid, and would not create a circular structure. "Stan Lee" as a subcategory of "People associated with Spider-Man" would. (Being associated with something is also a very fuzzy and ill-defined term, whereas being a writer, artist or actor is far less so).

To take another example, Category:Spider-Man actors is a category with 190 entries that contains everyone who has ever played any role in any Spider-Man film. If there is a lot of media of a specific actor playing a specific role, it can get subcategorized as "[Actor] as [character]" - the creation becomes a subcategory of the creator. The actor himself would not become, in his entirety, a subcategory of that role. ReneeWrites (talk) 16:16, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

•  Delete --Trade (talk) 22:02, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
•  Delete Per the nominator. Categories like these are just way to ambiguous and usually end being circular. Probably the sub-categories should be nominated for deletion at some point to. As they aren't much better. --Adamant1 (talk) 01:11, 1 June 2024 (UTC)