Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yassmin Alers

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 of the debate was no consensus to delete the article. Mailer Diablo 00:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yassmin Alers

• Delete: Non-notable stage actress. Has a few credits at ibdb.com but lots of others I've found with similar credentials don't have articles either. WP:BIO doesn't mention anything about stage-only actors and they don't register as notable in my mind anyway. The one list there is:
  • Multiple features in popular culture publications such as Vogue, GQ, Elle, FHM or national newspapers
  • A large fan base, fan listing or "cult" following
  • An independent biography
  • Name recognition
  • Commercial endorsements

I don't see where any of these apply for this actress. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. Royal Blue ^T/_C 03:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Despite the internet culture, theatre and Broadway still count for something. Furthermore, I'm offended by a blanket statement dismissing stage actors as non-notable. Ms. Alers has been in a number of major Broadway shows. This article needs some expansion and clean up- not removal and condescension. -- JJay 03:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: To me, actors who never get into imdb.com are like baseball players that never make the Major Leagues. WP:BIO seems to support that as well. Doesn't make them bad people - just unencyclopedic. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: I understood what you meant when you wrote "stage-only actors...don't register as notable in my mind". Let me be clear, in my opinion if the Bio page does not address the stage then it should be revised if not completely trashed. I would certainly not use it as any kind of yardstick for judging the achievements of Ms. Alers. That is my opinion. I would ask that you do not use the word unencyclopedic as an assertion of fact when you are really just stating your opinion. -- JJay 04:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
      • Commment: It's a given that everything here is opinion. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
        • It's also a given that we treat the subjects of these articles and their chosen profession with a certain amount of respect. -- JJay 04:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
          • Saying someone is unencyclopedic is a show of disrespect? I don't remember reading that in the Afd guidelines. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:36, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
          • Your nom dismissed an entire profession as "non notable". You then compounded it in your second comment. That is your opinion, but it would seem to make you poorly placed to judge a theatre person's accomplishments. -- JJay 04:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
            • So if there was an article here for a janitor and I brought it here for that reason, that means I have no respect for janitors?! Come on... If WP:BIO said "all stage-only actors are in", I wouldn't be typing this now. —Wknight94 (talk) 04:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
          • Wp:Bio is a set of extremely inadequate guidelines. It does not address the stage and it does not address janitors. Based on your own statements, you have very little regard for stage actors. Your nom has neither examined Ms. Alers' standing within the theatrical profession, nor explained why an actress who has appeared in a number of Broadway shows- the major leagues of her profession- should not have an article here. -- JJay 05:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
            • Again, you're equating my saying something is non-notable to me having little regard for that thing. My mother isn't sufficiently notable for Wikipedia - that doesn't mean I have little regard for her. You seem to have little regard for the WP:BIO guidelines which I think is more germaine to this argument. Here's a reason she shouldn't have an article. All these people have as many or more credits listed at IBDB.com and are red links: Stephen Lee Anderson, René Ceballos, Gilles Chiasson, Aiko Nakasone, Jarrod Emick. Every similar person I found who did have an article also had numerous television and/or movie credits. —Wknight94 (talk) 05:36, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

All that shows is that very few people write articles on stage actors. We have a similar lack of articles on child actors for which very few would argue their notability. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • • • • I'm going further and saying no one writes articles on stage-only actors. I didn't find a single counterexample except this one. I stopped after five examples out of boredom. With Wikipedia now having been around this long with this many contributors and this many articles, I think that shows a clear pattern. Even if someone starts writing articles about stage-only actors, it doesn't sound like they should start here. All but one of my examples above have IMDB credits so they're more deserving of articles first. There's more chance that the billions of people outside of New York City may have seen or heard of them - that's just a fact, not disrespect. —Wknight94 (talk) 11:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
          • I've been very clear about my opinion of the guidelines. The use of the qualifier seem is not required. In the same way you have been very clear in stating that you do not believe that stage actors deserve inclusion here. I have disagreed. Ms. Alers has been in the casts of a number of Broadway shows. I have confirmed Rent and Capeman. That is good enough for me. There is no point in debating this further. -- JJay 05:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
            • Being an understudy is good enough? --Calton | Talk 07:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
        • In some ways I would argue it is better. She was an understudy with the original cast of Rent, which means she played almost all the female roles at one time or another in front of a live audience. She then had a marquee role with the first touring company. She was also in the original cast of the Paul Simon show Capeman. Those are the only two I tried to confirm but there may be more based on the list on her website. -- JJay 08:00, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as nn. Blnguyen 04:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Of course stage-only actors can be suitible Wikipedia topics! But I'm not sure that this lady is well-known enough because I don't have enough of an interest in the genre to really judge. If she had a major part in the original production of Rent rather than being an understudy, perhaps-- but then she did have what I assume was a major part ("Mimi") in the touring production. And she is verifiable. Crypticfirefly 05:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as nn. --Terence Ong 05:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Of course stage actors, lack of film/TV credits notwithstanding, are well-suited to have articles. Being an UNDERSTUDY on a Broadway show: not so much. --Calton | Talk 07:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Calton. Of course stage actors don't appear in the IMDB, they don't have tv and movie credits. That doesn't mean they are inherently non-notable, though. On the other hand, being an understudy/ensemble member without any major roles is a good reason to delete. Mgm|^(talk) 11:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Crypticfirefly Siva1979^{Talk to me} 12:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Weak delete She has Stage, TV, and Band credits. Yassmin Alers Not famous in any area, though. FloNight 12:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Keep somewhat notable. There is an under-representation of theater on Wikipedia. I wouldn't want to compound the problem. Bobby1011 15:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Just having a job (actress) does not make one encyclopedic. If she starts getting major roles and attracting lots of attention as an actress, that's another story, but I don't see that this happened yet. Friday (talk) 15:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. This AfD is just a display of aggressive ignorance; asserting that stage performances alone cannot provide notability is astonishingly foolish. Alers' Broadway credits are certainly substantive, if not stellar, as shown in the IBDB; a comparable entry in the IMDB would with next to no dispute satisfy the Wikipedia notability requirement. (A "swing" performer is not an understudy, as several of the comments here dismissively suggest, but one who is prepared for most if not all of the relevant non-lead roles in the program, and appears fairly regularly as a substitute performer.) Wikipedia has scores of entries for women who perform on stages with poles [1], particularly women who have had attention-grabbing (if not outright deforming) cosmetic surgery and perform on stages with poles [2]. There is something creepy about the way so many editors believe that being an open participant in the commercial sex trade is inherently notable, while being an above-average working artist is not. (The average New York City actor never appears in original cast of a major Broadway production in any capacity, as Alers did in The Capeman.) Monicasdude 16:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Monicasdude, while I agree with you that many of the women notorious for their plastic surgery and complete disregard for the use of various undergarments should not have articles either, that is no excuse for having this one. Why don't you nominate those other "dancers" for deletion as well? -- Avi 18:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Because that's an exercise in futility; the community seems to have a settled position on this point. [3], [4], [5], and, on the male side, [6]. With the notability bar set that low, there shouldn't be any question here. Monicasdude 19:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• • Comment: "Astonishingly foolish". Let's try to be civil please. Wikipedia has a million articles or so and almost none of them are stage-only actors so I guess that's a lot of astonishingly foolish people. —Wknight94 (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Wknight94's peculiar standards notwithstanding, the answer to the lack representation of notable stage-only or mainly theater actors (not an oxymoron -- the TV/film industry isn't the end-all and be-all of acting notability) is NOT to lower the bar to pad out Wikipedia's coverage, but find and include the headliners who aren't represented, the likes of, off the top of my head, Kristin Chenoweth, Cherry Jones, Sara Ramirez, and Sarah Jones (who all, checking the "Show preview" button, have articles). Lots of red links, though, on the various Tony Awards pages -- actors and actresses whose names actually appear on the marquee and not in the back of the Playbill. Wikipedia's coverage of porn "stars" is ridiculous, but two wrongs don't make a right. --Calton | Talk 01:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• Good points, but can we please lose the "stage-only" bit from the discussion? The proper term is stage actor, theatre actor, or thespian. "Stage-only" is a further slur against an art that not too long ago was the only game in town.-- JJay 02:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • No, I don't see how we can. It's 2006 and whether a person has television/movie experience is a totally relevant criteria. Calton seems to have found in Sarah Jones the only other person with IBDB credits and no IMDB credits that has an article on Wikipedia. If that standard is so peculiar, then why isn't anyone here adding similar articles? If I can somehow drag this discussion back to the original article here, there appears to be dozens or hundreds of actors that are in IBDB and not in IMDB that would be more notable than Yassmin Alers but don't have articles here. How can that not be relevant? It's like making a list of all notable American cities and starting with Palisade, Nebraska --- and then giving up after that one. If I saw that, I'd guess the list wasn't too impressive to begin with. (Okay, now many people from Palisade have I offended?) —Wknight94 (talk) 03:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You don't give up, do you? I said above there was no point in debating this anymore. I merely mentioned a point of semantics. "Stage-only" does not exist. It is a term that you have invented. -- JJay 03:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• Call the phenomenon whatever you want. Until I see all the thespian fans here adding dozens of articles that fit the same criteria, I'll call it "un-notable". —Wknight94 (talk) 03:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'm dubious about the accuracy of this article. It says that she has "appeared in many commercials nationwide, and can be found in many movies and television shows." I only see one TV credit and she has no IMDB entry. But she did do a national tour and does get a lot of google hits. However she doesn't appear to have the bona fides of a notable broadway actress just yet. So I'm stuck in neutral on this one. :) — RJH 16:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Verifiable Broadway actress and roles make her notable enough for me. It seems we have work to do on our coverage of theatre as opposed to other forms of entertainment. Capitalistroadster 17:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete While stage actors are no less notable than film actors, a perusal of her resume on her own site demonstrates that she has always been an understudy, in the ensemble, or had some other unnamed part. She may be a wonderful actress in that role, but that is not inherently notable. Avi 18:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• keep' please a notable and verified broadway actress Yuckfoo 19:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: I've never so many people complain about the coverage of an entire subject - but do nothing to actually increase the coverage of that subject! If there were a hundred other similar articles, I'd think it was a standard and leave it alone - but no. Instead, we just leave this one article drifting out on its own and then call me "astonishingly foolish" when I start playing "one of these things is not like the others..." No one knows how to create new articles on this vaunted genre? —Wknight94 (talk) 19:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
  • So let's make this the first of the hundred. A single article is how all genres start. Turnstep 14:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep HasNoClue 19:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• keepJcuk 23:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Verifiable, has had important roles. Also, recommend that JJay bring the discussion of criteria for inclusion of stage actors to Wikipedia talk:Notability (people). - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 06:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Very good suggestion. Then we can avoid the serious wounding that has apparently occurred here. —Wknight94 (talk) 14:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Not a strong public notability, but certainly notable in her field, which is as always the important criteria. Turnstep 14:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Others here seem to disagree even with her notability within the field... —Wknight94 (talk) 14:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep: subject is weakly notable but is minimally notable. Mangojuice 22:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. I absolutely agree that a stage career can make you notable. "Swing/Understudy" in "Rent" though? Check her out here and you find a professional jobbing actress, no doubt talented and hardworking, but not yet doing anything that justifies an entry in an encyclopedia. While I'm here, though, I endorse AdelaMae and Wkinght94's suggetion, above, to bring this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Notability (people). AndyJones 11:42, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, we should discuss this on Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Stage actors: I'm going to start the discussion there with a proposal: I don't think we need "votes" to start a discussion. Mangojuice 13:30, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, though barely. The arguement we should exclude stage-only actors is utterly absurd. The nominator has confused bias with policy. We don't have articles on many communities in certain parts of the world, that doesn't mean its policy to exclude them. It means we lack Wikipedians with an interest to do so. Wikipedia should strive to cover more then just pop culture. One should never confuse "notable" with "stuff I care about" or "stuff everybody already knows". --Rob 14:23, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: "Utterly absurd" is awfully strong considering this many die-hard stage fans have been around Wikipedia for this long and almost zero such articles have been added. That sounds a lot more like "stuff no one cares about". We have teenage college debate competition runner-up's covered like a thick blanket but these "thespians" have been ignored here for years. For about the fourth time, I'll say put your money where your mouth is - spend less time attacking me and more time pumping out some articles on people whose notability is apparently obvious to everyone but me. And BTW, don't say "stage-only" for Godsake or someone here will blow a gasket! They choose to never get widespread media coverage or fame. —Wknight94 (talk) 16:47, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Why should I spend "...more time pumping out some articles on people whose notability is apparently obvious to everyone...", when you wish to delete those very articles. The fact we've undercovered stage-only actors is all the more reason to have more articles on stage-only actors. Also, I'm going to call your bluff here. Please cite some examples of people who's sole claim to fame is being a "college debate competition runner-up", that have articles. I suspect every such article has been speedy deleted a long time ago. --Rob 17:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
      • I wouldn't delete those articles if there were more of them. I'm going by precedent here - and by the fact that WP:BIO's guidelines seem to come nowhere near including this person - so I don't understand why everyone else is saying it's so obvious that this career choice is notable. The college debating comment was in reference to Erik Eastaugh whose Afd also has a lot of people saying he should obviously be kept. (I voted delete there on a different precedent that more notable competitions - like Speeling Bees that I've even seen on TV - get nowhere near as much coverage here). He's linked from at least one article that seems to link to a bunch of other college-level debaters. Regardless, my point is when you start adding a new category of info, you start at the top ---- otherwise it looks like cheesy vanity to the outside world. —Wknight94 (talk) 17:48, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. per Crypticfirefly. --Aude (talk | contribs) 02:14, 20 February 2006 (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.