Talk:Alisha Boe

America, Somalia, Norway..

I'm getting tired of the endless reverts. Can't we just say she's an American actress of Norwegian-Somali descent and call it a day? She's been living in America since the age of 7, it's silly to keep calling her a Norwegian-Somali actress. Alexis Jazz (talk) 19:03, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I’m not sure if she’s an American citizen or permanent resident if she’s not a US citizen then she can’t be an American actress she was born in Norway to a Norwegian mother that makes her a Norwegian citizen MaliG28 (talk) 02:49, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Regardless of whether she's a US citizen or not, I think it is best to describe her as "Norwegian-born" but also "US-based." Calling her a "Norwegian actress" is technically accurate, but it also implies that she's based in Norway and is culturally Norwegian when that is not the case at all. Her entire acting career has been in the US. 71.204.175.254 (talk) 20:20, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Be sensible it's talking about her ethnicity and race. Neshavanstaaden (talk) 23:28, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

I didn't realize the revert link I just used wouldn't allow me to enter an edit summary. The IP changed "American" to "Norwegian-Somali" with the edit summary "Fixed typo". The edit summary is incredibly misleading, so I selected the rollback vandalism link. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:14, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Same User:46.15.119.116 just undid me with the edit summary "added content". If you don't want to leave an edit summary, just don't. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:58, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Joeyconnick, in this article from W (magazine) I found this: Boe was born and raised in Oslo, Norway, where she spent her first seven years before moving to L.A. when her mom remarried. “I completely denied my Norwegian culture and was like, ‘I don’t want to have an accent anymore,’” she said of the move. “My mom would speak to me in Norwegian and I would speak back in English. A year later, I tried Norwegian and I couldn’t. but also I don’t identify as an American. I read somewhere that Somali citizenship has to be applied for if you are born abroad, so it's fairly safe to assume she doesn't have that. As she doesn't speak Norwegian, it would also be safe to assume she has no plans to move back there. But this still doesn't prove she is actually an American citizen. How about "US-based actress of Norwegian-Somali descent"? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:42, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

46.15.119.116, Lomrjyo, Allninemice why does nobody ever visit the talk page to talk about stuff? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:34, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz I've left a message on their talk page so we can try to reach consensus LOMRJYO^{(talk•contrib)} 15:44, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Alexis Jazz, your proposed change sounds like a good compromise to me. 46.15.119.116 should also discuss here instead of reverting, but I don't think IP users get pings. ~ANM🐁 T·C 15:48, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Lomrjyo's left a note on their talk page, which they should get notified for. ~ANM🐁 T·C 15:50, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I protected the article and added the hidden note. Alexis Jazz is correct and all you can say is "US-based actress of Norwegian-Somali descent". All that can be sourced is that she was born in Norway to a Norwegian mother and Somalian father. She moved, with her mother, in 2004 to Los Angeles. There is nothing that can be said about her nationality. By the way I don't see a source saying her mother married an American man, or any man or even an American, just that her mother remarried and moved to the US. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 17:54, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I just looked at the source the IP gave, https://www.capitalfm.com/news/tv-film/13-reasons-why/alisha-boe-nationality-age-tv-movie-roles/. I don't know if capitalfm is a reliable source or not but they are drawing a conclusion based on place of birth. That's the equivalent of saying I'm British because I was born in the UK, I'm not as I have Canadian citizenship. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 18:03, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

While well-written and well-meaning, WP:ETHNICITY says this description is 100% not allowed. Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. Similarly, previous nationalities or the place of birth should not be mentioned in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. Her "descent" is not related to her notability... her notability stems from being an actress in America. She should therefore be described as an American actress, regardless of her actual nationality. Her entire career is American.

At most, if we want to give a lot of weight to one quote that she doesn't identify as an American (which is not wholly sensible given we wouldn't refuse to describe someone as American if they didn't identify as such but did hold the citizenship), she could be described as a "US-based actress". The "descent" stuff is completely not allowed per WP:ETHNICITY. —Joeyconnick (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Joeyconnick, we don't know if she is an American citizen. If an athlete with unknown citizenship is only notable for their performance at the 2008 Summer Olympics, do we call them Chinese? One might argue that her descent is somewhat relevant as it influences which roles she is cast for, but no hard feelings if we limit the lead to "US-based actress". — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:33, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if we know her citizenship or not: the national ties we list in the lead are not the national ties of citizenship, they're the national ties of notability. But "US-based" is I guess a good way to handle it for all. —Joeyconnick (talk) 23:46, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Joeyconnick, really? Wouldn't that mean Robert Jacob Gordon is African? Interestingly Natalie Portman actually is described as "an Israeli-born American actress", but she's also an American citizen according to her infobox. Bruce Willis is "an American actor and film producer. Born in Germany to a German mother and American father". Audrey Hepburn is "a British actress" with a note that the article calls her that because of her citizenship. Liam Neeson is a "Northern Irish actor who holds Irish, British, and American citizenship". Sammy Sosa is "a Dominican American former professional baseball right fielder of Haitian descent". Charlize Theron is "a South African and American actress and producer". Either the policy is wrong, or the rest of Wikipedia is. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:12, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes really. I would say in most of those cases, the "rest of Wikipedia" is wrong (I mean, I'm sure that's not hyperbole or anything 😉). The guideline is pretty clear. Where and to whom Bruce Willis was born is irrelevant to the lead of his article. Natalie Portman is clearly a (predominantly) American actress. If I remember my Theron background, she should probably be described as South African but maybe... oh wait, I'm wrong: nearly all her career is American. There's a distinct tendency for people from the country of birth of whatever famous person to want to claim them but that's not what the guideline indicates we should do. And likewise, especially in America, there's a tendency to claim anyone who has worked for X years in America (or "insert country of work") as one of their own, especially if that person has since taken out US citizenship... ignoring the common case where the famous person was born, raised, educated, AND had all their initial notability in another country *coughSandra Oh cough*... or the reverse case, Amy Jo Johnson, who is clearly an American actress even though she has done great work in Canada since her career began. The existence of cases that don't follow our guidelines doesn't make the guidelines wrong. Has Boe done any notable acting in Norway or Somalia? No. Is she notable solely because of acting work done in the US? Yes.

Apart from avoiding hyphenating because "someone lived for 2 whole years in this other country", another point of WP:ETHNICITY is to avoid labelling people by their race/"descent" unless it's somehow critical to their notability. That's why John Cho is properly described as an American actor even though he was born in South Korea... because we don't see the tendency to label white Americans or Canadians or other white folks from settler nations as "English-American" or "Scottish-Canadian" the way we do see the tendency to label Cho as "Korean-American" or Ross Butler as "Chinese-American". That doesn't mean we ignore ethnic heritage completely—it just means it doesn't belong in the lead in nearly all cases. —Joeyconnick (talk) 06:10, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Joeyconnick, The existence of cases that don't follow our guidelines doesn't make the guidelines wrong I just googled "celebrity immigrants", picked a clickbait result and checked their Wikipedia articles. Nearly all of them were "wrong". What's the point of policy if it's consistently not followed? John Cho probably (lived in the US for 40+ years, is married and has two children) has American citizenship. In this case American doesn't refer to his career, it refers to citizenship. If we could confirm that Boe has American citizenship, we could call her American. But we can't. What's the proper venue to discuss this? Either the policy is wrong, the interpretation of the policy is wrong, or a massive cleanup is needed. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:42, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Even for Cho many attempts were made (and reverted) to change the lead: Special:Diff/1017068509, Special:Diff/1010309570, Special:Diff/1006257414, Special:Diff/998942744, Special:Diff/985286179, Special:Diff/978526113, Special:Diff/975581095, Special:Diff/922996581 (your interpretation of WP:ETHNICITY has changed since then?), Special:Diff/835361666 and there's probably more if I went back further into the page history. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:59, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

You really don't need to tag me in every single comment... I am watching the page, clearly. Anyway, cheers: not really wanting to debate our guidelines anymore since we have a relatively reasonable compromise regarding this specific article. —Joeyconnick (talk) 16:23, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

User:Enterprisey/reply-link does that automatically. I prefer getting notified, some others don't, but I have little way to keep track of everyone's preferences. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Ah okay. It would be great if we all had a way to specify but oh well... guess the main thrust of the project is the articles, not threaded discussion.

Are we good with removing the descent stuff... from the lead only, obviously? —Joeyconnick (talk) 19:30, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

So the lead should read "Alisha Ilhaan Bø, known professionally as Alisha Boe, is a United States based actress" The birthdate is currently unsourced, the link above does have it so it might be OK, and should go and US should become United States as per the MOS. The second sentence in the early life section should be "She and her mother moved to Los Angeles when Alisha was seven years old because her mother remarried" CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 22:45, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• Somali-cadan3000.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 13:22, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Disruptive editing/edit warring against MOS:ETHNICITY (March 2024)

Have warned IP editor 84.209.88.169 here. They need to revert themselves. Joeyconnick (talk) 19:14, 21 March 2024 (UTC)