Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anthony Numkena

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. This is one of those cases where the keep argument makes the delete argument about poor sources explicit Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:58, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Anthony Numkena

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Anthony Numkena (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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WP:BLP of an actor, not properly sourced as clearing WP:NACTOR. As always, the notability test for an actor is not simply the ability to list roles that he played -- having roles is the job description, so every actor who exists would always get a guaranteed Wikipedia inclusion freebie if all you had to do was list the roles. Rather, the notability test requires some evidence that he received some reliable source coverage in media about his having of roles -- but the only sources present here at all are his IMDb profile and a NetDetective search being used to dox his private personal life post-retirement, neither of which are reliable or notability-supporting sources at all. And no, an actor isn't automatically notable just because you make an unsourced claim about one of his roles representing a historic first, either — lots of people in history have been claimed as historic firsts when they actually weren't, just because the source making the claim didn't research hard enough to be aware of the predecessor(s), so there still has to be proper reliable source verification that their "historic first" status is actually true. Bearcat (talk) 18:38, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 18:41, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 18:41, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 18:41, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

• Delete There are way too many unfounded first claims to make such in an article without widespread sourcing worth while. Basically extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing, and if being the first Native American child to appear in a film was a notable thing we could source it to multiple reliable sources.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:10, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
• Undelete. Anthony Numkena was not the first native American child to appear on the screen (see Michael Hilger, Native Americans in the Movies: Portrayals from Silent Films to the Present, Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). But in the 1950s he became the first native American credited with the professional role of "child actor" in a long series of films in cinema and television (see Anthony Numkena, in boyactors.org.uk). Before him leading roles of native American children featured "white" actors, as in the case of Little Beaver, the "saddle pal" of Red Ryder, who appeared in numerous films in the 1940s, played by "white" child actors Tommy Cook, Robert Blake and Don Reynolds.Ghinozzi-nissim (talk) 13:06, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

"Boyactors.org.uk" is not a reliable source. IMDb isn't a notability-supporting source, and other people's IMDb profiles are even less relevant to Numkena's notability or lack thereof than his own is; the way you added the Hilger book to the article indicates that it doesn't contain any content about Numkena, but just tangentially verifies stray facts about other people; and Racism, Sexism and the Media just mentions his name a single time while containing no other content about him whatsoever. This is not the kind of sourcing it takes to make an actor notable. Bearcat (talk) 14:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I understand the point (this is what we got). It remains the fact that this actor was credited in the fifties in at least 5 movies and more than 30 episodes of TV shows. He was not an extra but had leading roles. At least, we can say that his activities are well attested in reliable sources (his name is reported in several publications, even though his biography to my knowledge is never discussed in details). There are actors that have done much less and have an entry in wikipedia. He is certainly not the first native American child to appear on the screen, but the claim that he was the first Native American to have a (credited) career as a child actor seems to be likely. I have not seen any other case mentioned in academic sources. I am not the one who created the entry, but if possible, I would rather like to see the article improved than deleted.Ghinozzi-nissim (talk) 00:38, 6 April 2019 (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.