Forum:CT:Actors by role categories

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The result of the debate was Support main proposal and addendum, selected 2 for NUMBER plurality. —spookywillowwtalk 19:20, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi,

This is a followup to Forum:SH:Categories for actors by role? -- the SH did die out, though the categories began to be made, in line with the currently-informal or soft consensus reached there. I figured, worth towing forward; if it needs more time on the SH that's fine, but the former SH seemed to have sat quite awhile, so no way better to test the waters than to tow it.

Per Forum:CT:Category "shell" policy, we now have a category policy, which was intended to slowly hold some rules as we come across them, hopefully this being the first.

I think it's important to codify this mainly because I personally don't think these should be made if it's only one actor sitting in a category alone. And I agree with the audiobook acting restriction proposed in the initial SH. And, the naming structure too, having it all be one way rather than the categories being named all differently.—spookywillowwtalk 04:30, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Main proposal

Add a "Actors by role" subsection on the category policy in the "Out-of-universe" section that's currently commented out, reading:

"Categories for actors by role may be created if there is a minimum of [NUMBER] articles to be placed in it. These should be named as [[Category:Actors who have portrayed CHARACTER NAME]], in which CHARACTER NAME should reflect the page name of the corresponding character."
→See Forum:SH:Categories for actors by role?, CT LINK HERE

And accept outcome of plurality votes to determine two or three minimum. If it's a tie, to avoid the main proposal/vote being useless, noting that this accept outcome would be to default to two with a note that a revote would be held in the near future. But just to avoid the entire thing being thrown out as unusable.

Support

  1. —spookywillowwtalk 04:30, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  2. Lewisr (talk) 04:33, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  3. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 04:35, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  4. ThePedantry (talk) 05:17, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  5. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 07:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  6. OOM 224 08:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  7. Heck yeah. - Brandon Rhea(talk)(he/him/his) 11:09, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  8. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 13:46, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  9. あざした (talk) 09:22, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
  10. Wok142 (talk) 18:34, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Addendum for audiobook acting

This vote isn't plurality just to be clear; only the number selection one below is. But this vote is on whether to add this addendum to the end of the "Main proposal" clause:

"However, if an audiobook narrator does not provide unique voice acting for character dialogue, they should not be included in the respective portrayal category for that character."

And if the Main proposal vote fails, this is moot, since there's nothing to add it to.

Support

  1. —spookywillowwtalk 04:30, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  2. Lewisr (talk) 04:33, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  3. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 04:35, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  4. ThePedantry (talk) 05:17, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  5. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 07:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  6. OOM 224 08:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  7. Brandon Rhea(talk)(he/him/his) 11:09, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  8. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 13:46, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  9. あざした (talk) 09:22, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
  10. Wok142 (talk) 18:34, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Plurality for "Main proposal" about NUMBER

And this third vote, is indeed plurality, and it's for NUMBER in:

"Categories for actors by role may be created if there is a minimum of [NUMBER] articles to be placed in it."

If the Main proposal fails, the outcome is also moot.

Two

  1. —spookywillowwtalk 04:30, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  2. Lewisr (talk) 04:33, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  3. Tommy-Macaroni (he/they) 07:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  4. OOM 224 08:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  5. People like knowing who portrayed characters, so even if there are only two actors then this is a useful category. - Brandon Rhea(talk)(he/him/his) 11:09, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  6. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 13:46, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  7. あざした (talk) 09:22, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
  8. Wok142 (talk) 18:34, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Three

  1. Two feels... too small, to be honest. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 04:35, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  2. ThePedantry (talk) 05:17, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

  • I would like some clarification on the audiobook clause and what constituents "unique voice acting." Because I could see this bloating categories for Yoda. ThePedantry (talk) 04:42, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
    • If there's a better way to phrase the clause, open to it, but per the SH it's basically just that a lot of audiobooks are read extremely monotone and non-acting at-all for the vast majority of characters. So while a VA may have "portrayed" them by reading those lines, its not as true of a portrayal as someone who was perhaps putting more oomph into the performance. Whether all VAs make Yoda's lines sound a lot more like Yoda for him isn't something I'm aware of, but if they do voice acting for him and then no one else in the book, that may just be the way they recorded it.—spookywillowwtalk 04:51, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
      • It's more subjective with some narrators but if that passes it will mean that pretty much everyone who talks in an audiobook read by Marc Thompson will qualify. I'm not necessary against that, given that his Thrawn voice is fantastic. Just wanted to be clear about the implications of it and Marc having potentially hundreds of actor portrayed categories. ThePedantry (talk) 05:01, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
        • Yeah, I do see that. Though notedly, if the main proposal passes and the addendum doesn't, then all audiobook narrators regardless of if they do any acting or not will be added to every character in their books. The addendum simply restricts some of it so that that's not automatically the case.—spookywillowwtalk 05:08, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
  • How do non English dubs factor in to this? ThePedantry (talk) 04:42, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
    • Sort of a separate issue, kinda, as that would fall under notability policy and not necessarily a category policy. There's no notability guidelines for restricting creation of pages for dubs in other languages; therefore, if those pages get made (even if they rarely do), they're eligible for any category that'd fit them (there are a few Czech VAs, for instance, that are status and have their relevant categories). People have briefly talked about doing some policy for this (as in, making some sort of CT) but until that happens its just like anything else.—spookywillowwtalk 04:51, 13 May 2025 (UTC)