Talk:List of active drive-in theaters

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[edit] Drive-In vs. Drive In: Regarding the Hyphen

Regarding the Hyphen in location names, I have been following the practice of including the hyphen or not in regards to a prticular location based upon whether or not they include it in their own title. If they identify themselves as the "ABC Drive In", no hyphen.. but for the "XYZ Drive-In", hyphen. In the case of a location that can't seem to make up it's mind.. well, punt. I'm assuming that the hyphenated version is the "default". Correct me if I'm wrong. --Reverend Loki 14:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I took the same view when I cleaned up the format and alphabetized. More drive-ins have hyphens in their names (and, contrary to common use in English, a capitalized "In") than not. If I couldn't tell whether it's the case for a particular establishment I used it as a default in the hope that the people who are most familiar with it would modify the listing if necessary. If I've crossed a line by doing that, I apologize. B.Wind 00:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Just as a note, Burkie's Drive Inn is a restaurant, not a drive in of Muncie. Removed the reference. They serve moldy hot dogs there, by the by. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.226.211.58 (talk) 18:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unofficial Style Guide for the list

As the list has evolved, we've collectively come up with a working standard style for entries into this list. However, this list relies on updates from lots of new editors, who may not catch the pattern. For that, I present this pseudo style guide.

  1. Make the title of the theater bold.
  2. Insert your new entry alphabetically for that state.
  3. Most drive-in theaters seem to use the word "The" to preface the title. Include in before the title in the list, but do not make it bold, or consider it in alphabetization.
  4. If you know of an official web site for the theater, go ahead and link it via the theater's name. If a wikipedia article exists for that theater, you should probably link to that article instead.
  5. State which city the theater is in, with a link to the article for that city. Since these theaters are listed by state, the link text does not need to specify which state it is in.
  6. If you have more info, such as number of screens, capacity, or an interesting fact about the theater, you can include it in the line below the theater listing. This should be double indented and italicized. This info should be restricted to just a few sentences at most. If you have a ton of info to share, consider starting an article for that theater.

As an example, here's an entry I made some time ago under Kansas:

1 screen, serving 600 cars. Became the world's first "digital drive-in" in 1999 with the addition of a DTS system.

Now, for comment by the regulars: Does this little guide strike you as suitable? Any comments/suggestions/criticisms?

Grrr... Went and added all that, and forgot to sign it. --Reverend Loki 21:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I tried to enter " Operates two screens; both screens show double-features (four movies total)" for the Garden Drive in in the Pennsylvania section in the proper format, but every time I try to fix it I get it wrong Davidac18643 03:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

  • No problem - I fixed it. In order for the formatting to work, you need to use a carriage return to start a new line for the additional text - the problem was that you had just used extra whitespace to force the text to a new line in the edit window. Wikipedia just ignores that extra whitespace. --Reverend Loki 11:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

How do we handle alternate unofficial URLs as well as an official and an unofficial URL for the same drive-in theater? There are at least two examples in Michigan. Steelbeard1 (talk) 17:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Defunct Drive-Ins

I assume that this list is primarily for Drive-Ins that are open and operating during a regular season (or at least have plans to be open in the foreseeable future). Should we be listing ones that have closed, and now operating as swap meets (which seems to be the primary fate for all defunct drive-ins...)? Does anyone want to create a list of shuttered drive-ins? Is there any call for such a list, and would it be within Wikipedia's realm to make such a list? --Reverend Loki 00:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I would think this would be fine as long as it didn't interfere with the flow of this list. It should be a seperate list, perhaps on a seperate page linked from this page. -Armaced 22:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iowa

We have a bit of a discrepancy here. We have listed only one existing drive-in in Iowa, yet the caption on one of the pictures states that three are left in the Hawkeye state. Is the caption obsolete or are we missing two Iowan drive-ins? B.Wind 23:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I fixed caption and added 3 other drive-ins in Iowa. --Mjrmtg 14:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Georgia

I found the Wilderness Outdoor Movie Theater while doing a search for open drive-ins in Georgia. According to their pictures on the website, they have a huge screen like any other drive-in, but this place isn't called a drive-in in its name but I still added it. Any thoughts on this type of establishment? I'd love to personally check it out next year when its back open (closed for the winter season) but its literally on the opposite end of the state from me. --Mjrmtg 14:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck... Sometimes a regular indoor movie theater will call itself a theater, sometimes a cinema. Really, what they call it isn't necessarily important. I am positive that particular theater belongs on this list. Just because it isn't named the "Such-and-such Drive-In" or even refers to itself as a drive-in, that shouldn't deter us. I mean, look at the Canadian entries... plenty of those don't even mention drive-in, they just use a bunch of made-up French sounding words! (And yes, for the humor impaired, this IS a joke ;) --Reverend Loki 22:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)