Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films/Archive 9

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What are the notability requirements for films?

There don't seem to be any. If the general guidelines are used, then even the most obscure low-budget film has probably been the subject of some trade paper story: is this "non-trivial"? Should Wikipedia be working towards an imdb-like database of all film? Or should there be a requirement of mention in non-trade publications? Dybryd 22:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia:Notability (films) has been branded as "inactive", so I guess we're officially without a guideline at the moment. If they were active, the main requirement would be being publicly released in a theatre or on home video and appearing in a notable publication (being reviewed, for example). Many low-budget films don't make it that far. Esn 22:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Do we want to try to put together another list of requirements for notability? I do agree that it's tough with films. If its been released in some format, then its sort of notable... -Elizabennet 16:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I definitely think we should update the notability requirements. I've already taken a stab at it and have suggestions on its talk page.--Supernumerary 03:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, the notability standards in that guideline are so loose as to be laughable. I estimate that there are at least 30,000 films that fit those standards, so it's silly to even suggest that we have standards at all. I guess I'll make a similar comment on the mostly inactive guideline page as well, though I wonder what good it could do.zadignose 12:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Requested infoboxes

We currently have a backlog of many articles that do not have film infoboxes. I am requesting that all members consider fulfilling a request here or visiting Category:Articles that need a film infobox if you want to take your pick. If you are willing, try and make a goal of fulfilling one request a day or week (each one takes less then 15 minutes to complete). This will help to further improve the quality of articles within our project. Thanks to all who already do include infoboxes and help to fulfill requests. Keep up the good work. --Nehrams2020 08:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

please help! If we can get all of our articles assessed in such a short time with your help, this should be easy! Cbrown1023 22:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I think we should consider doing what we did with the assessment. Break the articles up into sections (maybe alphabetically here) and have people volunteer to do a section (letter?).--Supernumerary 22:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I volunteer. Where's my section? Hoverfish Talk 22:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Declare whatever section you want, I also am constantly listing pages over at the Template:WikiProject Films tasks, and everytime that they are fulfilled I add new ones. If you want to cover films under a specific genre, actor, letter go ahead. I'm just hoping to whittle this down. --Nehrams2020 23:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone make a nifty meter to show just how were doing? Also are all films without infoboxes listed?--Supernumerary 04:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

From what I have tagged, among others, there are about 800 films that are tagged. There are obviously more out there that haven't been tagged yet (which was the same thing that happened during the assessment). There are a lot of stubs that I tagged (stubs that are only about three lines long with no images) and I have attempted to add images whenever I get a chance to the ones that don't have it. If you can add a picture along with the infobox, the page gets even better. --Nehrams2020 05:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Images are set to 200px in the infobox templ. How do I keep it down to a smaller size in case only a smaller image is available? Also is it ok to upload images from amg? I do it, I state source, but am never sure. Hoverfish Talk 09:18, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
You can use the image_size field in the template (eg. add "image_size = 100px |" as a field). And amg can't claim copyright to film posters, since they didn't have anything to do with making them. Movie posters are generally fair use, regardless of where you found them. - Bobet 13:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Does the same apply for posters which state "Duplication for use elsewhere is prohibited without express permission" (by The Nostalgia Factory)? IMDb has a 87x140 JPG version of the (unsavable) GIF poster. How do we go about this express permission? Or do I just put the small jpg version and forget about it? Hoverfish Talk 17:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm working on adding infoboxes to these articles as well, not by any particular section. -User:Elizabennet | talk 23:34, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Film Music WikiProject proposal

Hi; I thought some people here might be interested in a proposed WikiProject focusing on film scores. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Film_Music SUBWAYguy 18:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Who is Michael T Bannon? Notable reviewer?

External links to reviews by this gentleman have been added recently, to many articles. Example is here, for Click. Seem to be quite a few of these reviews added, and I'm wondering how notable the reviewer is, as the guidelines at WP:EL seem keen to keep the number of external links down. Appreciate any thoughts. --Oscarthecat 22:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I have serious doubts about using him as a source/link. The closest he gets to notability seems to be that he is an administrator on a film chat forum. A Google search for "Michael T Bannon -Wikipedia" yielded a massive 5 results. Mallanox 00:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I wonder, if he's not that notable, are his (rather brief at about 5-lines) reviews worth having? --Oscarthecat 06:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
We should not be linking to his reviews. Remove them and cite Wikipedia:Notability. - Peregrine Fisher 06:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I've done some tidying. Hope I get some support if it "kicks off". I would have liked to have engaged Michael via his user page, but seems to be an anon user, with varying IP addresses. --Oscarthecat 20:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

63.95.36.13 (contribs) is persisting on adding these reviews. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Film Advertising / Marketing

I was hoping to find a wikiproject to adopt the Category:Film advertising material category and related articles for a major overhaul, cleanup, reorganization, etc. For example, the movie poster category is (in my opinion) in need of a lot of work -- it seems like this category should be renamed/reorganized and it should be brought in line and categorized under film, filmmaking, etc.. The problem is that "Film Advertising" straddles two categories: Advertising and Film. I mentioned this on another wikiproject, but haven't heard any feedback -- I was curious if anyone thought it would be appropriate for all film marketing related articles could receive attention from this project? Any opinions, help, suggestions on this? -jca2112 15:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Is it screenshots we request?

IMO Template:Reqscreenshot should either be edited to say "movie posters or screenshots", or we should be using a new template requesting primarily movie posters, as per guidelines. Hoverfish Talk 15:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, we definitely need a new one. I've been tagging articles only with Template:reqphoto as I didn't want to limit contributions as only screenshots. We need a title for it that is short, and easy to include (not something like Template:needs a movie poster/screenshot). Maybe something like Template:filmimage which says "This article needs a movie poster, a screenshot, or another film-related image." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nehrams2020 (talk • contribs) 17:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

Ok, the template exists now, but the category it sends to doesn't exist (see bottom of this page). Also I think we must submit it in Wikipedia:Template messages/Talk namespace. Hoverfish Talk 18:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

 It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality.
The Free Image Search Tool (FIST) may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.
{{Reqphoto}}
Good job, we'd probably have to include the {{needs film infobox}} on that page as well. Once we transfer all of the {{reqscreenshot}} to the new one, I'm sure we could put it up for deletion. I remember somebody fixed the category for the infobox template, perhaps we should seek their help. --Nehrams2020 18:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I've added the ability for people to use custom page names for alphabetizing purposes. --PhantomS 22:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks PhantomS. I saw you had sorted some films starting with an article, but couldn't figure it out till I noticed that you developed it. You are into programming, I see, so no wonder. Hoverfish Talk 00:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Cult film article reference and POV problems

Since the article Cult film is part of your project, I wanted to bring up that while the article is generally well written and worth keeping, it is generally unreferenced and has potential POV problems. In particular, the article has a large list of "cult films" at the end with no in-line references indicating that any of these films are considered to have cult status by the film industry at large. In fact, it seems quite possible that people are simply inserting films that they personally consider to be worthy of having cult status with no actual external published reference at all. And when you read the discussion pages, there are disagreements about some of the entries.

I tagged the film list section as unreferenced in December, but to date no references have been added, the list of films continues to grow and I've twice had someone remove the unreferenced tag without comment and without adding any additional citations.

At this point I'm at an impasse. I don't want to nominate the article for deletion, because the rest of the article is worth keeping. I don't want to entirely delete the section because it would simply lead to a revert war. But neither do I want to babysit the unreferenced tag while the situation remains unchanged.

So I'm turning to you guys and asking for you to decide which way to handle this section of the article. Would you like to keep the section and add references verifying that the films listed are indeed commonly referred to as "cult films" in the industry, or would you prefer to delete the section altogether as something that is unlikely to have such references and is also a subjective and debatable topic. Thoughts? Dugwiki 16:40, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

There is definitely a need for sourcing. It reads like an essay and is all original research. But it is a good essay. Quite a conundrum.--Silverscreen 16:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Another option, by the way, would be to move the questionable section(s) to an interested editor's user page until the problems are addressed. That way the list is still available in the user space, and could be edited or added to, but it isn't in the article itself. Dugwiki 17:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I was just looking at this article in trying to determine whether Tears of the Black Tiger qualifies for cult film status (I think it does), and noticed the lack of referencing. Many things make this difficult, though not impossible. What determines a cult film? Is it solely audience-based, or can it be based on the elements of the film - things that are so outlandish, or cheesy, or violent, or horrible - that it can only appeal to select audience, or cult, if you will. Finding sources that say definitively "this is a cult film," can be tricky, because many of the sources devoted to any said cult film probably wouldn't be considered reliable (i.e. fansites, forums, etc.). But there are books that describe the cult phenomenon, what makes a cult film and give examples of cult films. If I had access to a public library system, I'd be there tomorrow, making requests. — WiseKwai 18:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess you could say that all the films listed at Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time" are verifiably cult films. This may be reputable too, I don't know. - Peregrine Fisher 19:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to quickly follow up that it's now been two months and the article's references still have not improved. Meanwhile, a number of cult films and actors and directors have been added to the various lists with reference or verification. I am seriously considering simply putting the article up for deletion at afd as a primarilly unreferenced piece of original research if the situation isn't addressed soon. Then someone can recreate an article on the topic at a later date that actually has some inline published references for most of the info. I'll hold off on that, though, as I still think there is potential to fix the problem. Dugwiki 17:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Problem articles where deletion may not be needed, I don't think it's wise to put it up for AfD. The subject is valid; the way the article approaches the content is not. Just attach the necessary clean-up tags to the article and leave it be unless you can improve it. The tags will indicate that the article is not up to Wikipedia's quality standards, and hopefully someone will notice that and attempt to improve for the better. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
That step (putting clean up tags) was already done, as has asking for additional input from editors. But no changes have occured in two months. In such a case when an article is largely unreferenced for a lengthy period of time with suitable notice it is considered potentially deleteable. Dugwiki 18:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Where does it indicate that an article would be potentially deletable if the content cannot be improved, despite the sure existence of a topic? If tags have been added and there has been no improvement, then reduce the article to a stub so there is no unverifiable and misleading information on it. I think if you put it up for AfD, the most action you would get is a possible merge into Cult classic or Cult following. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
The lists were overtaking the article and have been moved to their own separate articles. As for the unreferenced tag, it was located all the way down in the 'list of cult films' section. Therefore, I moved the tag to the top, in order for people to know that the whole article is missing references. --PhantomS 19:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Phantom. Doing that also allows me to seperately nominate the list articles for deletion without having to nominate the descriptive part of the article that is more likely to be verifiable. This will hopefully delay having to deal with possibly merging or deleting the main article. As to Erik's question above, notice that under Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Problem articles where deletion may not be needed the key phrase there is "deletion may not be needed". It is not completely prohibiting the deletion of these articles, but is offering alternative suggestions to try before deleting the article. However, when those altneratives fail, it's possible deletion becomes the final option. Dugwiki 20:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Created the afd for List of cult films . In it I recommended this list article be deleted as an unverified original research compilation, and that the list not be remerged with the main article for that reason. Feel free to give input at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cult films. And, of course, if you think you have a way to fix this list article's issues, please feel free to implement it and I'll be happy to reconsider my recommendation. Dugwiki 21:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be willing to take on this entry and provide some references. I have several books on cult films including Peary's books and the excellent Midnight Movies by J. Hoberman and Jonathan Rosenbaum and whip this entry into better shape. J.D. 22:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Long synopsis breakthrough (hopefully)

As a result of the discussion in section #Extended plot sub articles, user PhantomS has created the possibility of having collapsible sections, which by default are hidden and when [show] is clicked, they display. The code in the text changes by very little and a simple template (Template:LongSynopsis) has been set up, using CSS properties which enables this possibility. A demonstration is available here. Please discuss to help determine if this is indeed an acceptable breakthrough. It is meant only for where both a short and a long synopsis are available. Hoverfish Talk 20:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I was waiting for you to post this after I saw it on your and Shane's talk pages. I love how it looks and think it's a great idea! Cbrown1023 22:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I also like this idea. - Peregrine Fisher 22:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not certain that using collapsable sections within actual articles is a good idea. It violates sections of Wikipedia:Accessibility, including Don't use techniques that require physical action to provide information, and furthermore may be completely inaccessible to different software or even real-world applications (such as paper printouts or simply cut-paste operations). It's a good, but flawed idea. Girolamo Savonarola 23:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I think that it's great that we were able to get it to work without having to resort to sub-pages of the article. However, we shouldn't start adding it to film articles yet until we are sure that it is allowed for the articles. I'm sure that this could be also used for novels and TV show summaries as well? Who would we have to confirm this with to ensure that we can keep using it? I wouldn't say to go as high as Jimbo but perhaps somebody here knows the proper path. It is probably important to explain the benefits of using it, how it would benefit readers of Wikipedia who are either looking for a summary or a full plot synopsis and also cite the above discussion of short vs. long summaries. Also, if it accepted, perhaps we could include a spoiler warning with the heading before someone who is viewing the page clicks on the section. Nehrams2020 00:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Accessibility and older browsers don't seem to have a problem, except that the disputed long version shows anyway. I've viewed the test page under several accessibility features and it doesn't mess up the page. We should wait for more comments here and then present the case, with all the disscusions involved (even archived ones), high up on policy level. Yes, the spoiler is a good idea and can be included in the template or before it. Hoverfish Talk 06:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Sample of a good article

Could the Project please put a link on the project page to what they feel exemplifies a model for other film pages to follow? User: FernandoK keeps reverting fully sourced edits at Cross of Iron for his own original research synopsis. Funny, especially, since English is apparently his second language. I would have thought sourced edits and quotes from bona fide sources would be more in keeping with the spirit of an encyclopedia. The Talk page discussion seems to indicate so. But, there is really no established standard to compare to. Perhaps a example cited on the project page here would be an excellent reference to see which approach is more in keeping with WP, and the Project's, community standards. 68.146.198.203 23:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Any of the featured articles on films are good models to follow. In relation to sourcing the Synopsis, it's usually not done. The film is so obviously a primary source for the plot, it's not even worth saying so. There may be issues of reliability, but the alternative is to create an awkwardly worded section based on bits of quotes in reviews (no reviews offer a proper summary of the plot, as it would ruin the ending). Trebor 00:05, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Oho maybe now our friend "68" stops reverting Cross of Iron to his collection of scattered quotes. How many times have I said to him to look upon Featured Articles such as Jaws or Summer of '42 or Forrest Gump when he complained about having more than one screenshot per article! These aforementioned movies have plenty of them. I do admire the amount of work he had to find all those quotes, but no other article I had seen is like this. And by the way, I do not think that there is any single thing in my version (featuring a new picture) that can be considered "original research" anymore. It looks that to Mr. 68.146.198.203 anything that was not copied word by word from someplace else is original research. Are schools teaching people to use only "CTRL+C" and "CTRL+V" when writing compositions nowadays? Fernando K 01:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Dear Mr. 68.146.198.203, take a look on the featured article Casablanca (film). I believe you will have lots of fun deleting the screenshots (oh, more than one?) and half the article as original research... and look: it tells the story scene by scene too... is the WP community wrong or is it possible that you are...? Fernando K 01:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Are there some guidelines about how much film criticism should go in a good article, and of what standard? Specifically, what's the deal with the "citation needed" tag? In La Grande Illusion this tag seems to be dropped in gratuitously, e.g. following the observation that two characters speak English for privacy from German troops who don't understand. This is simply obvious in the movie and the contributor has mentioned it to back up a claim about the theme of class and education — what sort of external reference could possibly be useful? BAPhilp 13:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they do speak English in the film, but the way the sentence is worded ("escape into English as if to hide these comments from their lower class counterparts") makes it sound like original research without a reference. I googled for a cheap ref and added it to the article, you can do it for the rest of the {{fact}} tags, or preferably go to the library and look for printed sources (if you want to). In most cases, the "citation needed" request is added to the article for the same reason: it doesn't do much good for a reader with minimal knowledge of the subject if something like that is in the article without a source, since they won't know if it's just something some random guy who saw the film thought about (since anyone can edit the articles). With a named source, it's easier to evaluate their credibility. - Bobet 14:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, winner of the 1988 BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film) is in need of some cleaning/copyediting. Could someone with better writing skills than mine take a look, please? Even some proper tags might pave the way. Hoverfish Talk 15:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I took a stab at it.--Supernumerary 23:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The Return of the Criterion Collestion Succession Boxes

A few months ago there was a discussion here at the film project about the Criterion Collection succession boxes where a consensus was reached that they should be removed. User:Belovedfreak has begun adding them to the films. I am bringing this to your attention to try and prevent to much extra work on both putting them in and taking them back out, however, as I am not a member of the project I realize that the consensus on these may have changed. If so, please let me know and I won't worry about it, if not, then lets let this editor know so we can begin removing them. Thanks for your time in this matter. MarnetteD | Talk 18:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

If it is of help the previous discussion is item number 45 in Archive 6 for this talk page. MarnetteD | Talk 18:33, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
My apologies, I saw the box on a film article and started puutting it on others. I was unaware of the previous discussion & decision. I'll start removing them now. Belovedfreak 20:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Clear instructions about which navigation templates and infoboxes are to be included and which not should be for all to see on the main Film Project page. I was not so active in that discussion and don't know all the particulars to do it. Can someone more involved, please, make a strat? I think right after section "Useful tags" could come "Footer Templates", or something like it. Hoverfish Talk 20:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Just a notice thaat they have returned again. this time they are being entered by User:Ted-m and the editor has entered then on about 20-30 films already. MarnetteD | Talk 00:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Just got a message about them. Did not know they were voted against. I saw them on a few films and decided to add them on the first 50 I nominate them to be restored--Ted-m 01:06, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I previously removed these from many articles. I was unaware of the discussion, but I do not think these have any business being added to the articles about films. They are essentially a random collection of films, and their order of realease is also meaningless. If people want this information they can go to the Criterion website. -- Samuel Wantman 02:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments that there's no good reason for them here. I found it interesting, though, that an FYE store created a Criterion section and I'm not quite sure why. Шизомби 14:10, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, as before. This was also on WP:AN, and the consensus there was the same; no boxes. The articles are about films, not DVD releases. The Criterion DVD release is a trivia bit and does not need a navigation box. List of Criterion Collection releases is enough. Prolog 20:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

List of since long inactive project pages

Not so easy to find without special tools, so here they are alphabetically:

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hoverfish (talk • contribs) 23:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC).

Hollywood North

The article Hollywood North is experiencing some NPOV issues with some new comers to Wikipedia. If you're interested, check the page out and perhaps contribute your input. Langara College 02:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Cross of Iron

I would like to get some help in talkin with user User_talk:68.146.198.203 (I believe that he goes for the names of User:Michael Dorosh, User:Calgary Tanks and other aliases as well) in convincing him to stop reverting the article about the Cross of Iron film to his version, which is basically a collage of excerpts from reviews made by published movie guides. It has already been discussed above (see Sample of a Good Article) whether his version or "mine" is the better, but he got only one answer against his version. We would need more opinions about this. He is also very stubborn regarding certain aspects - he insisted for a long time that Movie Articles should contain one screenshot only, even if Featured Article movies such as Casablanca have more than one, and tries to enforce WP:TRIVIA as if it was an official WP policy (it is described as an essay). Can someone help me to bring this guy back to the negociation table? Fernando K 13:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

One more alias he uses: User:139.48.81.98. Always the same behaviour, always the same subjects, always grumpy. Isn't this puppeting? Fernando K 21:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Fernando, sorry for the silence here. I hope someone will check the article and offer opinion. Screenshots are ok if they are relative to the size of an article. In the meanwhile you could check in WP:3O for third party help and WP:SUSPSOCK for suspected sock puppets. The 3 Revert Rule seems also to apply in this case. Hoverfish Talk 08:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
However, the screenshots do need fair use rationales or they'll risk being deleted. --Nehrams2020 08:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Film notability issue in Village Pump

The issue of film notability has been posted in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Film Notability, and Notability in general. Hoverfish Talk 17:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Color of the Cross

Please see my comment in the Discussion for this particular article, it appears an editor has introduced a fictitious person into the credits as a producer, dedicating an entire section to her with no references, and there is no record anywhere for this person on IMDB. MDonfield 20:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I looked it over and removed it. If you see something like that in the future, immediately remove it if a source can not be found and nothing turns up on google, imdb, etc. If you check the talk page of the user who added it, you'll see that he added fictitious information to multiple pages, which reinforced my decision to remove the information he put there. The crazy thing was that he put the information there over a month ago and it was still there.--Nehrams2020 20:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok thanks, I suspected it was all false, I'll keep an eye out for other situations since film & tv is a bit of a hobby. MDonfield 21:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleting the Academy Award nominee catagories

Hi, a CfD discussion is currently under way at [1]. People are discussing whether to delete all categories pretaining to Oscar nominees. I've cast my vote and thought that others in WikiFilms would like to weigh in. Shawn in Montreal 19:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Collapsible "Long synopsis" in Village pump

For anyone interested on the issue, I have brought up the proposal of the collapsible long synopsis (see above) in Village pump (proposals). Hoverfish Talk 21:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

So, on this issue we have agreed that we disagree. Without WP consensus this proposal has failed. Hoverfish Talk 07:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

CineVoter

Image:Film Reel Series by Bubbels.jpg You voted for the Cinema Collaboration of the week, and it has been chosen as
Film.
Please help improve it to match the quality of an ideal Wikipedia film article.

Cbrown1023 00:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Looney Tunes: Back in Action has big problems

Too much trivia and too many culture references as well. I would guess at least half (or more) of the article is trivia and culture references. Anyone care to clean it up a bit? Both sections should be condensed a bit. Not all the things listed are that notable. RobJ1981 01:07, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I took a stab at it.--Supernumerary 03:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
A good start, but culture references is huge still. I'm not sure which should stay or go, otherwise it would be fixed now. RobJ1981 06:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Please lend your voice to notability guideline discussions!

I would like to request all members of WikiProject Films to lend their voice about my recent proposition for the Film Notability guidelines (one of the most important sections of this wikiproject). It is opposed by some (primarily zadignose), but I feel that it is the best solution for several reasons:

  1. My proposal would not require the deletion of a large number of already-existing articles, as some of the others would, while clarifying the exact requirements and removing the redundancy of the old guideline (requirements #2 and #3 in the old guideline were redundant because in any conceivable situation, anything that satisfied #2 and #3 would satisfy #1 as well).
  2. Many home-made independent films don't get as far as fully fulfilling criterion #1, so that would provide some kind of bar, as well as allowing articles for films which only get festival releases, for example (or direct-to-video/made-for-tv films).
  3. Wikipedia is NOT a paper encyclopedia; therefore, there is no reason to apply very strict inclusion standards, to films or anything else. What I feel is needed are fairly generous but strict standards, which is what I have tried to create.
  4. Some (eg. Hoverfish) have proposed not including foreign films which have not had an English-language release. I feel that they must be included to counter systematic bias, a central tenet of wikipedia, and my proposal reflects this.

Esn 22:24, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

While I have yet to weigh in (recently) on the guideline talk page, let me quickly address these points in light of my thoughts.
2. My main concern is titles which play at one or two smaller festivals and then are quickly forgotten. It's not that difficult to get films into one or two if you bother to, and I've seen frighteningly amateurish, unquestionably non-notable films (some of which I've worked on in minor capacities...) land placement in some of these and then disappear off the face of the earth, save their un-updated promotional websites. My point is, especially given the proliferation of miniDV cameras and the capacity for low-budget production at all stages, that we not suddenly include all filmmaking ventures ever attempted or even completed and screened (albeit to a limited audience). I understand that the general notability requirements already prohibit this through the need for massive exposure or multiple reviews from recognized sources, but it would be good to make this all the more clear. This will be a continuing issue, especially as film and video hybridization increases in the coming years. I don't expect every film to be notable, just as I don't expect every book, comic, webpage, band, etc...
3. Wikipedia is a not a paper encyclopedia, but it is an encyclopedia. This is really more of a general wiki-philosophy discussion, but I really don't like it when this phrase is used to justify massively open inclusion. I don't think that's what you're proposing (in fact, I like the idea of "fairly generous, but strict"), but just to throw out some ideas - there has to be a consideration about the uses and functions of an encyclopedia - how do you define it? Because it isn't an almanac, a compilation, index, or bibliography, although it can contain some limited elements of those. I'd like to think that even had the founders of all of the paper encyclopedias had the resources of Wikipedia at their hands, they still would've opted to place limits upon the scope of the project, primarily extending to notability.
4. I would agree with this - notability should be somewhat uniform - i.e. assuming equal guidelines across the project, all articles should ideally have interwiki articles on all other languages' Wikipedias. Therefore anything notable in English should be notable in any other language's encyclopedia and vice versa. The truth is that most of these films will have either a healthy festival schedule or fair number of external published reviews, so it shouldn't really be an issue. The only problems, in all likelihood, are a) being able to read or translate information pertaining to the subject, and b) having access to a copy of the films. That's more of a verifiability/translation issue. See next topic as well. Girolamo Savonarola 01:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I've recently made significant edits to the guideline, and would like to solicit further discussion in the relevant talk page. I seem to have become the recent outspoken proponent of tougher guidelines, but I would like to seek reasonble compromise, and find some workable solutions. I think that my recent efforts at least demonstrate a sincere interest in drafting a sensible guideline that isn't "all inclusive," but might help improve the quality of our coverage of notable films. Thank you.zadignose 16:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that zadignose's recent edits are on the whole a very good thing and a big step forward. I agree with them in large part, though I did make a few suggestions on the talk page, which I hope will be considered. Get over there, people! This is an important issue for all of us, so please consider adding your voice. Esn 20:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Translation department

As per my discussion above, I'd like to suggest the proposal for a translation department. The function of the department would be to improve existing film articles or create new ones in the English Wikipedia through the use of information which is not in English. The main starting point for this should be the equivalent articles on other languages' Wikipedias which contain more comprehensive information than the English article does. This also has the advantage of automatically resolving any problems with copyright paranoia. Non-Wikipedia sources in foreign languages will still be essential, especially for referencing. While a basic amount of this work can be done by English-only speakers through the use of automatic translation tools, fluent readers are even more valuable (and likely more efficient in the long haul) in this task.

Another main task of the department would be to identify articles which have a high number of interwiki links but no English one. (A general example of this can be found in WP:MEA under the Other Wikipedias section.) Would also be nice to target any film-related articles which are deemed FA-quality on another language's encyclopedia. Furthermore, requests can be made by users who would like sources translated in the course of their research on articles.

Thoughts? Girolamo Savonarola 01:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I can read French decently and would be willing to expand the many French film stubs we have. We should make a list of those who can translate, what languages they can translate, and what article(s) they are working on. Then a place for requests and lists of FA articles in different languages (Isn't there a WP:Echo for that? Perhaps we should contact them.)
Also machine translations are just terrible, especially for the Asian languages. While you can translate and clean it up, it's probably not much better than a user just doing it themselves. Also you risk mistranslating or misinterpreting the poorly translated material.--Supernumerary 03:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I would agree that relying on interpreting machine translations is not enough, but if the researcher has access to other sources as well and already has a decent understanding of the topic, I don't think that it precludes its use. WP:ECHO and WP:FAOL are also good places to start building off of (see Swedish section of the latter, particularly). Girolamo Savonarola 00:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
A films specific translation department would help a lot. I can try to help with translating from French, German and Greek, so long as someone checks on my English afterwards. I have added the proposal of a Translation Board in the upcoming newsletter. Hoverfish Talk 07:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I could help in French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish spoken films Fernando K 13:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
How about creating sub-pages for specific languages? In those sub-pages, there could be a section where willing participants add their name, and a section where users could request articles which they would like to see translated. There could also be a section where editors who're not sure if they translated things correctly could ask for a check by fluent speakers of the language. It doesn't have to be all organised by one person; it could be a collaborative effort. I myself can translate from Russian (I've done a few - this one, for example). Babelfish does a decent job at translating from Russian to English, by the way, and from French to English. In some languages, it really is quite terrible, though.Esn 20:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Question about spoiler tags

Is there already a consensus about spoiler tags. I'm new to the project, but I feel that spoiler tags aren't necessary on sections labeled "Plot" or "Story", and was wondering if this had been previously discussed DurinsBane87 10:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is any kind of consensus on whether {{spoiler}} should be used or not, although it is recommended on Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines and it has its own MoS page. Spoiler template is the exception to Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates, but using it is not compulsory so it's up to the editors to include one or not. Prolog 17:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Usually the tag is included for a long plot synopsis that reveals a lot of detail. But if there is a short paragraph about the film which doesn't reveal any main details, then it is not necessary to use the tag. The spoiler tags just serve as warnings to potential readers who may be interested in the history, cast, DVD release, etc. of the film, but don't want to know the plot. --Nehrams2020 17:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Plot poll

I want to gauge support for a change that would help combat the overly long plot problems that have been cropping up lately. I propose changing the text in the editing guidelines of the film template. The second point would be changed from "When writing an article about a particular film, the general format should be a concise lead section, followed by a plot overview, production details, a cast list, a reception section, and references." to "When writing an article about a particular film, the general format should be a concise lead section, followed by a plot summary of no more than 900 words, production details, a cast list, a reception section, and references."

I think this would be a simple and effective change. It will make it much harder to claim ignorance when it's on every film's talk page, and arguments would be averted. If an argument did happen, instead of referring the person elsewhere, you can just tell them to read the template. I admit this is no guarantee that they will heed the template, but it should at least give them pause. That said please add your name to either of the following using # ~~~~.

Since there seems to be 100% support for this, the message has been updated. --PhantomS 16:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Support

  1. Supernumerary 02:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  2. Hoverfish Talk 13:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC) /Note: You mention a 900 word limit. The arguments I've read lately are about 600 words...
    • I used 900 as that is the upper limit barring special circumstances. Summaries can obviously be shorter than that, and if people clicks through they will see that. The point of this is to make sure that people don't go on for a thousand or more words--Supernumerary 22:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  3. — WiseKwai 19:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC) Comment: 600 words is workable, but 900 words should be the limit.
  4. Doctor Sunshine 23:36, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  5. PhantomS 23:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC) /Note: The collapsed aspect of the guidelines should probably also be fixed so it doesn't take two clicks to show. In addition, show should be shown by default, not hide.
  6. 900 should be enough. Nehrams2020 04:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  7. Crzycheetah 04:16, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  8. AdamSmithee 08:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  9. Cbrown1023 20:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  10. Esn 22:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC). Conditional support - I agree with the proposal, as long as an exception is made for unusually long films (over five hours long). A film which is 27 hours long may well require more space to give the plot an adequate treatment. For most films, though, 900 words is a good limit. Esn 22:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Well naturally there are exceptions to each rule, and the full guidelines address this. However, for a brief text in a box this covers ~99.5% of films. (That list has at the most 100 films. 100 out of 18,356 = 0.5% .) I think anyone concerned enough would click through and read the full guidelines.--Supernumerary
      • Good point - and, in any case, there's a rule somewhere which says that all rules can be broken if the need is great enough. Alright, I'll just vote support, then. Esn 01:42, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  11. Belovedfreak 19:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

Tagging Cinema Awards talk pages

Is Template:Films the appropriate tagging for cinema awards, or should we make a more specific one? Hoverfish Talk 18:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. I raised this question awhile back and that was the gist of the replies. I further wondered if awards should be in a separate class, and the answer to that was no. Awards articles (and I guess film festivals, too) would be rated, stub, start, B, A, etc., just like films, genres and other topics that fall under this project. — WiseKwai 19:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
In that case, I'm going to start tagging all film festival articles that I come across. Esn 22:07, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Identification

Over at Category_talk:Articles_with_invalid_ISBN there is a discussion about how to identify DVDs. Books have ISBNs. It seems most DVDs don't. Some articles about DVDs list an invalid ISBN. The question arose as to the best way to identify these. Anyway if anyone is interested, please join the discussion. We could use more input. --Droll 01:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

User inflating importance ratings

what to do about a user who keeps artifically "boosting" the importance rating on all articles that they "own". the user aggressiviely tags all his little-known and forgotten animated feature film articles as "high" importance, when at best they should be mid or low. any attempt to change the importance rating is met with aggression, abuse, personal attacks etc. the user in question is User:Ibaranoff24‎, not the most pleasant individual so not somebody who is amenable to friendly discussion. is there a standard procedure in these cases?

Previous unsigned comment by IP User:86.27.141.208 - / - Hoverfish Talk 14:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
What you should do is ignore the importance field, since it's completely pointless and prone to POV judgements. If someone wants to tag all of his articles as top importance, let him, arguing about it would be a waste of everyone's time. - Bobet 14:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I must concur - the tag is meaningless and quite frankly, an archaic holdover. In projects which are about hierarchical matter, such as Physics or Chemistry, certain conceptsa are unquestionably higher priority than others. But films? Everyone has their own take on which ones matter. Unlike class tags, which can serve to help get an idea of the overall state of the project articles, the importance tags serve no real purpose. Girolamo Savonarola 18:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
If the tags are pointless and are improperly added, why don't we just do away with them? I know a lot of other projects have importance classes as well, but I don't think that it is necessary for our project. We have had discussions in the past where we argued over the guidelines for importance with little success, mainly determining that it was POV that determined it. We have already assessed all of our articles and that is a pretty good representation of the quality of our articles. If the importance is only going to be inflated and we're not devoting time to giving the importance to all of our articles, do we need it? Perhaps instead we should have one page within the project space that lists our top priority films which are considered notable for all of their awards, notable sources, cast, box office, etc. That way we can just use the importance on focusing on the priority films that should reach GA or FA. --Nehrams2020 19:09, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
They're still a useful tool in that if someone's looking for a film article to work on they can browse through the importance categories to perhaps get some ideas. If they go to the high category first, which is likely, and something like one of the above mentioned cartoons catches their eye that person will make their own judgment as to whether it's worth their time, or, failing that, they'd discover that maybe it's not so important in their own preliminary research. It's subjective but it's still got it's usefulness. Doctor Sunshine 19:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Doctor Sunshine; I often do exactly that when searching for articles to edit and/or just watch for future reference. Films that are deemed as high or top importance, and have been that way for some time, are often the ones that I like to surf through not only as an editor, but also as a reader. So, I for one find them highly useful. Besides, most people can agree on certain guidelines and beliefs as far as the importance or influence of a film goes. It's not as if everyone is biased or bonkers. After all, Citizen Kane (top importance) is not Gigli (unknown, heh). María: (habla ~ cosas) 20:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
It's a bit funny to say that I agree with both opinions, but let's not remove it. It is a matter of how it is used. There may be a time when some group of editors does a round and sets things on some criteria we ignore. Where Top and High importance, one should indeed find Oscar awards, some top-top grossing films, masterpieces of cinema, important films of well known directors, etc. Where Mid and Low it's chaos indeed. As for people who want to overrate, let them overrate. Is the editorial team going to blindly take in all High and Top? I guess they should also use some caution with what they include and what not. Hoverfish Talk 21:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Infobox in Zazel?

Do films like Zazel really need an infobox? Would anyone benefit from it? Hoverfish Talk 19:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it will slightly lengthen the article enabling the editor to add 5 or 6 more images, thus making him or her... him very happy. Doctor Sunshine 21:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why not. Even if it only has the bare information, it be what people are coming to the article to see (which I actually doubt due to the genre of the film). But you could also include the budget which is described in the first paragraph in the article. --Nehrams2020 21:47, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with it having an infobox. I put infoboxes on all film articles I work on. Infoboxes are part of what gives Wikipedia a uniform feel, in my opinion. Mallanox 00:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Other infoboxes

As part of the Great Infobox Project going on right now (you can help!), it's possible that editors might come across film articles that need a different infobox than the standard {{Infobox film}}. For example, for animated shorts there is {{Infobox Hollywood cartoon}}, which also comes under Wikipedia:WikiProject American Animation. In the case of Devil May Hare, I had to do some digging to find the correct infobox, and in doing so I uncovered some other shorts that need infoboxes, however I've left them untagged for now while we're concentrating on film films. — WiseKwai 03:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Film "clean-up"

Can someone, please, take a look at this "clean-up": [2] ? I may be wrong but to me this looks plain "downgrading". Hoverfish Talk 19:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

From a quick look it seems that lot of info has been removed.--NeilEvans 20:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

From the same editor, removing links and info from infoboxes (could it be they were not right?): [3] and [4]. Please note that this editor does very good work in musicals, plays, books and biographies. Maybe he is following guidelines from other projects? Hoverfish Talk 20:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I find it concerning that info such as IMDB ref no has been removed. Mallanox 00:10, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Help needed in determining the category of some films

The films in the following categories must be divided in films that were either shot or set in the locations named. Here is the page where assistence was requested: [5] From previous discussion it was voted to split these categories. I am not sure about the difference beteen shot in and set in, but since the decision was taken, we will somehow have to pull the rabbits out of the hat. Category:Wisconsin films, Category:Idaho films, Category:Montana films, Category:Chicago films and Category:Films featuring Brighton, UK. Hoverfish Talk 22:51, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

"Shot in" and "set in" do make a difference. For example, a film might be shot in Vancouver, but the story could be set in New York, as is in case of Rumble in the Bronx. Or Ontario might be standing in Chicago, like Blues Brothers 2000. Vietnam war-era films like Casualties of War and The Killing Fields have been shot in Thailand. The categories as they are set up seem to be doing the intended job, though, and seem to be principally concerned with movies that are both shot and set in the various locales. Hope this helps. Also, if it helps, you can shoot me now that I've made this reply. — WiseKwai 06:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
You might want to try the categorization department. Girolamo Savonarola 07:03, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, here or there, whoever knows about where the films of these categories were shot or set, is encouraged to readjust the categories before they are deleted. Hoverfish Talk 23:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Protection for POTC 3

The article of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End has an unusually high amount of vandalism and crystal balling, so I think it'd be good for the article to be semi-protected until further notice. Thank you. Wiki-newbie 16:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Now CC is back as a category

Just a note to make the members of the wikiproject films aware that editor Labelephant has added the Criterion Collection as a category. This category was removed on Jan 29th and Sept 28th of 2006 due to all of the arguments previously discussed. MarnetteD | Talk 22:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It would probably be a good idea to post a message for him to read the past discussion about the category. --PhantomS 23:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I've left a message on Labelephant's talk page and I've just googled the previous deletion discussions. They're here and here. Doctor Sunshine 23:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I just read through the discussions and, really, if Oprah's Book Club has a category I'm thinking maybe The Criterion Collection should too. The CC regularly does revive films from obscurity and the award winning supplements are encyclopedic. No one's fighting to give Koch Lorber or Facets a category but CC comes up again and again. It's a can o' worms rightly enough but perhaps it should be opened... Doctor Sunshine 23:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
It has already failed two CfD's. If tagged as a CfD again, it would definitely be deleted. There appears to be a consensus that the category is not wanted. --PhantomS 03:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I tagged it with {{db-g4}}, as it's the third recreation within a year. Looking at the previous Cfd's, and discussions here, it does not seem like consensus has changed. Prolog 10:38, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems that it has now been deleted and protected from recreation. --PhantomS 11:58, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

CAT:UNASSESSED BACKLOGGED

Cat:Unassessed film articles has well over a 120 pages in it. It's time for us to brush up on our Assessment skills and get grading! Thanks, Cbrown1023 talk 02:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Where the heck did these just come from? It was about 20 the other day, and I brought it down to 4. Why must we have so many people so well dedicated to our project, constantly seeking to improve it? Just kidding, 120 is child's play, compared to the thousands from before. --Nehrams2020 02:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, finished. There were 2 Start classes, 2 Future, 1 List, and 124 Stub classes.--Nehrams2020 03:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Whew! Way to contribute! —Erik (talk • contrib) - 03:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

A film or not a film?

According to the article War (film) it's supposed to be a Stanley Kubrick film. However I don't find it in his filmography or in IMDB. Allegedly it circulated in Europe under the name Roses for Stalin, which I find only as a painting. Could this be a prank or something so controversial that it's nowhere to be found? Hoverfish Talk 17:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

It's pure hock. "During post production, Jack Nicholson tried to convince Kubrick to remove a montage in which Nicholson sodomizes various animals, but Kubrick refused, calling the montage 'the film's emotional climax'." Put it up for AfD, or speedy deletion if possible. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the editing history and the fact that nothing links to it, it is definitely a practical joke and should be deleted. By the way, the supposed image from War is the image 'Auto Racing Green.svg'. --PhantomS 18:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, and since we are at it, does Did you hear the news qualify as a WP film article? It's a 10 minute student film. Hoverfish Talk 18:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

War is a hoax (although a well written one). Did You Hear the News is a youtube video. Delete both. - Peregrine Fisher 18:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added {{db-web}} to Did you hear the news and a {{subst:prod|Reason}} to War (film), as WP:HOAX says, "Note that hoaxes are not speedy deletion candidates. It is not enough for just one or two editors to investigate a hoax. There have been cases in the past where something has been thought to have been a hoax by several editors, but has turned out to be true, and merely obscure." —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

There's no question that the "War" article is a hoax.--Silverscreen 19:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)