Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictitious Academy Award nominees

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 (non-admin closure). And the award goes to...those who came out in unanimous favourable consensus. Ecoleetage (talk) 00:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of fictitious Academy Award nominees[edit]

Interesting trivia, but doesn't merit its own (short) article. SeizureDog (talk) 20:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Definitely needs a change of title, and no excuse for not sourcing this. Stated briefly, the article is about actual nominees, whose nominations were made under a cover name not their own. Thus "Robert Rich", 1957 winner, was actually Dalton Trumbo; "Roderick James" was an alias for the Cohen brothers, Joel and Ethan; "P.H. Vazak" was actually Robert Towne; Pierre Boulle and Ian McLellan Hunter received awards in place of other people; etc. Neutral on this one, because it might have potential but it needs a lot of work. Mandsford (talk) 21:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – I strongly oppose deletion of this article. I will offer my responses to the above comments.
- I would not categorize the information in this article as "trivia" at all. At best, that classification is a matter of opinion, about which reasonable minds may differ.
- Academy Awards are among the most prestigious (if not, the most prestigious) awards given within the film industry. And, certainly, having fictitious people and/or fictitious names as either winners or nominees is indeed a rare, yet notable, event. It is certainly encyclopedic. (For what it's worth, I have seen far worse pass for "encyclopedic" on Wikipedia.) This is by no means trivial or "trivia". In fact, there is clearly encyclopedic historical information and encyclopedic historical reasons underlying some of these fictitious nominees (Hollywood blacklisting during the McCarthy Era, for example). This is exactly the type of information that belongs in, and one would expect to find in, an encyclopedia.
- I agree with Mandsford that this material needs to be sourced. Sources will be – and are – quite easily found and readily available. All of the information contained in this article is certainly not in dispute. It is rather well-known and generally accepted. Sources are not going to be difficult to find to verify the information herein contained. And, just because sources are not included, does not mean that they do not exist. As such, the article should be improved … not deleted. Such improvement would include the addition of sources. Furthermore, as Mandsford states, "it needs a lot of work". I can agree with that. And, by policy, working to improve an article (as opposed to deleting the article) is the preferred means to addressing poorly-written or poorly-sourced articles.
- As far as a rename, that may be slightly tricky, but not impossible. In many cases, there was an actual nominee (a real person) who, for whatever reason, used another name (in some cases, a fictitious name and, in some cases, the name of an actual person). Mandsford has delineated several such instances above. However, there has been at least one case in which a completely fictitious person was nominated for an Academy Award: Donald Kaufman was nominated for Best Writing for Adaptation. in 2002 at the 75th Academy Awards. To that extent, Mandsford's post above is not fully accurate. And, to that extent, renaming of the article must consider instances such as Donald Kaufman in which the nominee is indeed fictitious. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC))[reply]
Keep based on Mandsford's info. While the article is badly named and badly in need of sourcing, it is a notable subject. Edward321 (talk) 23:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and rename I thought this was a list of movie characters who had been nominated for Oscars, but it's actually a list of occasions when an award or nomination has been granted to person working under an an alias. That's a pretty notable topic, not trivia, and as Mandsford says, there should be no excuse for not sourcing this. --Canley (talk) 01:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: for all the above reasons. It needs renaming, citing and possibly a restructure. I agree that ficitious nominees isn't completely correct, but I'm not sure what name covers fictious nominees (Donald Kaufman), "one off" pseudonyms (Robert Rich, Roderick Jaynes, P.H. Vazak) and covers (Pierre Boulle, Ian McLellan Hunter) without covering any name that isn't the nominee's real name. Duggy 1138 (talk) 02:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Seems notable enough, but needs sources/refs! Lugnuts (talk) 07:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, of course, but it does need better sourcing and it must be renamed. You would expect an article with this title to reference Diana Barrie. AndyJones (talk) 07:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as an interesting encyclopedic list. But it does need sourcing and a rename. Vickser (talk) 13:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Someone's reordered the page, I've added a few cn's and started a discussion about what it should be renamed on the talk page. Duggy 1138 (talk) 08:19, 9 July 2008 (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.