Talk:James Miller (filmmaker)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Miller (filmmaker) is part of WikiProject Palestine - a team effort dedicated to building and maintaining comprehensive, informative, balanced articles related to Palestine on Wikipedia. Join us by visiting the project page where you can add your name to the list of members and contribute to the discussion. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Palestine articles.
NB: Assessment ratings and other indicators given below are used by the Project in prioritizing and managing its workload.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the Project's importance scale.
After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's ratings summary page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed biographical guide to actors and filmmakers on Wikipedia.

The bit about "James's family did not 'say' he was..." seems better suited for a talk page, or should at least be reworded to conform better to NPOV. I'm not familiar enough with the incident, whatever comment is being referenced, or the documentary to make the edit myself. Would one of the previous editors please take this on? Thanks. - Epimetreus —Preceding unsigned comment added by Epimetreus (talk • contribs) 15:40, 6 September 2005

[edit] film

Miller is the focus on the 40th minute: [1]. I "loved" the ending... --Striver 15:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Catholic?

I noticed the rather unedifying edit war on whether the category Welsh Roman Catholics should be included here. Can we discuss it here please? I'd hate to have to protect the article or block anyone. --John (talk) 19:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I've repeatedly asked for a cited source in the article to support the category, not once was one provided. It should be in the article first, not up to people preventing the abuse of cats to look at every single link in the article to be on the safe side. One Night In Hackney303 19:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, having investigated I agree with you. There is no evidence in the article that the category is accurate. We would need verifiable reference that it was to add it. --John (talk) 19:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Try again, John, the evidence is already there in the article (but, I concede, it's not obvious), and is also cited, albeit at the end of a paragraph. In addition, the Guardian obituary (among other sources listed in the article) attests that he was a Catholic. I have aleady said as much on ONIH's talk page (which he keeps deleting). As I also said on ONIH's talk page, I take extreme care to get my facts right, as you will see if you check my contribution history, and it would save a lot of time if others did the same. I will point it out if you ask me, but as it is ONIH who wants to delete the category, it is up to him to do his work properly first. I should also mention that ONIH has broken 3RR, unless he self-reverts, but I don't think he should be blocked for that. Please also check the responses I posted on ONIH's talk page and which he has deleted.
--NSH001 (talk) 20:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I will add a hint. Suppose you are searching a list of wiki biographical articles for evidence that the subject is a Catholic. What is one of the first things that you would check? (double hint: this also applies to other religions, but it applies to Catholics par excellence.)
--NSH001 (talk) 20:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
A further reflection on the application of policy here. No-one is, I hope, disputing the fact that he was a lifelong Catholic. This is well attested to in the sources listed in the article. The problem is that there is no direct mechanism for citing a category. It might be possible to include something in the article about his Catholicism (beyond the little that is already there), but it will not be of great significance as far as I am aware. Even supposing there were no evidence of his Catholicism within the article (which is not the case), it seems obvious to me that the category can validly remain, as a casual browse of the sources listed will soon confirm its validity. I've spent some time hunting around policy pages, and I can't find anything specifically relating to categories, merely a general requirement that material "likely to be challenged" needs to be cited. This seems an inadequate reason to delete a category whose validity is already well established by the general sources in the article, and when no-one familiar with the subject is going to dispute his Catholicism. However, if there is something on policy pages relating specifically to "citing" categories, I would be grateful if someone would point it out to me.
--NSH001 (talk) 22:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)There is an intersting central discussion on this at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#English_Roman_Catholics. I believe the relevant bit you are arguing about here is "living people should only be categorised by religion if the following criteria are met:

  • The subject publicly self-identifies with the belief or orientation in question;
  • The subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources." (from WP:BLP)

I hope that makes our position clearer. --John (talk) 23:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the trouble to find the reference. I do despair, though, when I see that someone has apparently not read the article, much of which is about how he was killed. Not exactly WP:BLP stuff, sadly.
--NSH001 (talk) 00:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I've now had time to look at the discussion link you provided. I note that it is a discussion, and not a policy statement or guideline. It seems to be a laudable effort to get rid of inappropriate categories, and I wish you both well in that endeavour, but anyone carrying out this sort of exercise needs to exercise a duty of care not to waste careful editors' time. I think ONIH can be forgiven for not looking carefully enough at this page to begin with, but when someone queries his action, he needs to take it seriously, and not just blindly revert, even deleting explanations from his talk page, and -- worse -- breaking 3RR in the process. I have already explained, at length, why this category should not be deleted on this article, and note that none of my points above have been addressed.
--NSH001 (talk) 01:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
(Slightly surprised not to have had a response yet.) I have restored the category, accompanied by a hidden comment indicating where it can be verified. I think that should meet the requirements for verification, and finally put an end to this extraordinary waste of time.
--NSH001 (talk) 16:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Or how about you do what you've been repeatedly asked to do to start with? PUT HIS RELIGION IN THE MAIN ARTICLE! Why can't you actually do that? It's not rocket science. And for the record, I didn't break 3RR and if you don't listen to what's obvious common sense, you can expect me to remove posts from my talk page without even reading them to begin with. One Night In Hackney303 16:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) To satisfy you, I have added a sentence about his Catholicism to the "Early life" section. However, for the record, I think it is necessary to state why I didn't do this earlier:

  • it's not necessary
  • you haven't provided any valid or sufficiently persuasive reason why I (or somebody else) should
  • in my view, deleting a valid category in the way you did is unacceptable (horrendous timewasting)

There are many obvious reasons why it is not necessary to do this:

  • The need for quality in articles drives housekeeping tasks (such as you are engaged in), not the other way around.
  • We write articles based on what the sources say, and although they are clear that Miller was a lifelong Catholic, it doesn't appear to be a major factor relating to the achievements and events for which he is notable (his films, and his murder by the IDF). Having said that, I don't think it precludes his religion being mentioned somehow, when appropriate. Believe me, I would quite like to do this (the efect of religion on people's lives interests me), but my style of editing is to spend a long time finding, reading and considering sources -- as many as possible -- and then summarise/paraphrase/quote them accurately, appropriately and with care, while keeping in line with wiki policies.
  • It follows that I am not going to respond immediately to a demand to put something in the article, especially a demand lacking a sound justification, and moreover, one couched in the most impolite of terms.
  • As I mentioned on your talk page (and which you deleted), I am planning in the near future (when I have time again) to bring this article up to at least Good Article status. That would have been the best time (for me, at any rate) to consider putting in something about his religion, though I have to say there are other, more important, aspects that need to be considered first.

Again, I note that you haven't provided any compelling or persuasive reason why I should do as you ask. I wasted maybe an hour of my time searching policy pages for guidance relating specifically to citing categories, and, as I mentioned above, found nothing specific. I asked above if anyone could point me to such guidance, and John helpfully directed me to the discussion page for the mini-project you are working on. But you have failed to show any specific official policy or guidance as to how categories should be cited. I have already explained, at length, why the category should not be removed. The source verifying the category is already listed in the article, I pointed you to it in an edit summary [2] which you ignored, continuing to delete my explanations on your talk page [3] [4] (the latter accompanied by an offensive edit summary). You even deleted a courtesy "heads up" message [5]. I remind you that the source verifying the category is present in the article, no-one is disputing that he was a Roman Catholic (see my earlier argument above), and to satisfy your requirements for verification, I provided a comment next to the category so that anyone in future who might want to delete the category can see that it has been verified, and can follow the link themselves if necessary. In my view, and in the absence of specific policy or guidance, that is more than sufficient for verification.

Finally, I have to apologise to readers of this page for the quite extraordinary length of this discussion. This is partly because you are deleting everything I post on your talk page, so I am compelled to post it here. I also have to say you badly need to consider modifying your editing style, which is both highly offensive and counter-productive. Think about it. If you want someone to do something for you, are they more likely to to so if you are offensive and ignore their comments (you admit above that you deleted without even reading them), or if you ask politely and give a reasoned explanation? Are they more likely to help you if you waste days of their time, or if you help them in turn? Do you expect anybody to listen to you if you refuse to listen to them? Are you aware of how offensive it is to be forced to waste so much time and energy arguing about such a trivial matter?

Of course, part of the problem was your initial edit summary, which created a very bad misunderstanding - helpfully cleared up by John's pointing me to the BLP discussion. It gave the impression that you were either lying (saying there was no evidence, when in fact there was) or couldn't be bothered to check the facts. Can you see that's how it looks to another editor, and how offensive that is to someone who takes great care to check his facts? To avoid this sort of misunderstanding, I suggest that in future you use an edit summary of the form "remove category per discussion at [link]" or something similar. I have also made another suggestion on the BLP discussion page which might help avoid similar problems in future.

PS. Contrary to your claim above, you did violate 3RR. You made 4 reverts, all on 19th February, the first at 07:23, then at 09:48, 18:42 and 19:14.
--NSH001 (talk) 21:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)