Talk:Writers Guild of America

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[edit] Grammar

Number one reason why the WGA should be abolished: the grammar that is used is atrocious. Does nobody proofread anymore? For example: "laying down for a nap" or "her and me gone to the store" are things that the WGA writers use. Therefore, they should all be fired and kicked out of the guild when they suck this badly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.176.136 (talk) 12:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Writers Guild of America vs Writers Guild Association (of America)

Are those 2 unions different ? If not, I read at several places that John Wells was the director of it. The article doesn't mention him.

  • John Wells was formerly the president of the Writers Guild of America, West. The union was previously known as the Screen Writers Guild and a reference to the Writers Guild Association is erroneous. PedanticallySpeaking 21:38, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

PedanticallySpeaking, pedantically speaking, shouldn't there be an apostrophe after the 's' in Writers? ;-) func(talk) 6 July 2005 04:18 (UTC)

If I were doing it, yes. But, alas, laws governing corporate organization allow all sorts of horrid constructions, such as the capital letter in the middle of the name, e.g. PricewaterhouseCoopers. If only they'd listen to me. Sigh. PedanticallySpeaking July 6, 2005 17:35 (UTC)

[edit] Manditory ?

Is membership in the Guild Manditory to work in screenwriting ? I have been researching a television writer who began a career writing radio in the 1940's and continues in television to this day, but according to both the East & West branches that person has never been a member of the WGA ? I find this a little confusing. Anyone have any knowledge ? Dowew 22:38, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

First, you don't have to join the WGA as soon as you start working as a screenwriter. There's a point system, where you get a certain number of points for (say) writing a single episode of a TV show, and a different number for doing a rewrite on a feature film, and so on. You don't qualify to join the WGA until you get (I think) a total of 24 points.

Once you get those points, you do have to join the WGA... but only if you want to work for a "Guild signatory" (which means "a company that has signed an agreement with the WGA.) This agreement includes (in addition to many other terms) a legally binding promise to hire only WGA members (or people who aren't yet WGA members but will agree to join once they become eligible.) So, if you want to work for a Guild signatory, it is indeed mandatory to be a WGA member (or to join as soon as you're eligible.)

The major studios and networks are all Guild signatories, but many smaller or less prestigious studios and networks aren't. I'm pretty sure Roger Corman and the Troma folks aren't signatories, for example. I believe a lot of the smaller cable channels aren't, either. So, you could spend a lifetime writing for Roger Corman without ever joining the WGA. (In fact, if you DID join the WGA, you would then not be permitted to write for Roger Corman at all, unless he agreed to become a Guild signatory.)

Also--just to make things a little more confusing--there are some fields that have historically not been covered by the WGA. For example, animated shows and animated films have traditionally not been covered, although that's slowly changing.

And, finally, don't forget that the A in WGA stands for "America." A writer who has only worked for companies outside the US would probably not be a WGA member.

Hope that clears things up!

Best wishes,Jacobw 09:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Writers Guilds East and west

Though affiliated the WGAE and WGAw are two separate organizations and should have separate pages. Syndicalista 03:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)Syndicalista

[edit] Stubbed

There have been several WP:OTRS complaints about this article and I have stubbed it based on a lack of references and a good deal of speculative content. Please rebuild it with due attention to references for each assertion and particular care in coverage of any controversial materal. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] new articles

I created very basic pages for Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, west. I hope that others will assist in filling in additional information about the two guilds, using verifiable sources. This original page "WGA" had a lot of NPOV problems, which hopefully we can avoid moving forward. I think this page should serve more as a disambiguation-type page. Syndicalista 19:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conversion to Disambiguation Page?

I'm wondering if this article should exist at all and here's why:

  • These are actually two separate unions: the WGA west and WGA East.
  • Syndacalista has created separate entries for each union already.
  • There is no such organization as the "Writers Guild of America".
  • There never has been any "Writers Guild of America".
  • There are no plans for a "Writers Guild of America" as East and west have no plans of merging.
  • The 2 unions (WGA East & WGA west) have real differences: different founding dates, different leaders, different policies on capitalizing compass directions, and different affiliations. (I just removed the AFL-CIO category from this article because only WGA East is in the AFL-CIO.)

There are some similarities that could cause some Wiki readers confusion though:

  • They both negotiate a single contract with TV and movie producers.
  • They co-host the Writers Guild Awards.

So I think this article should go (leaving the WGA East, WGA west and IAWG articles to cover) and a disambiguation page is needed. Indeed, I think this "article" is basically a link to the 2 unions now.

What do the rest of you think? DirectRevelation 02:03, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello All, I've been trying to clean up this page since pre-strike but it's difficult to reach a consensus when so many people are editing the article and undoing edits but (other than Girolamo Savonarola, Criedieki, and myself) no one has been contributing to the discussion. If other people would like to join the discussion, I would appreciate it. Especially with so many media outlets getting sloppy with their reporting, I think it's iportant for an encyclopedia to disambiguate (a real word?) the page. I've added the disambig tag based on the the Nov 2nd posting and the lack of objections. I have NOT deleted any of the content already on the article, even the baffling 1933 Category. If you have an opinion, please join this discussion rather than starting an undo war. DirectRevelation 13:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

{{disambig}}

Invited Fang Aili to this Discussion. DirectRevelation 18:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

Hi Erica/Fang Aili

Thank you for cleaning up some of the items in the WGA article. This article has experienced a lot of deletions and undos without much explanation in the Discussion tab and I've also been guilty of that at times.

The addition of the Disambiguation flag didn't fall into that trap though as a lengthy post is in the Discussion tab from 11/2 without objections. While the article is certainly not FORMATTED as a Disambig page, the SUBSTANCE is exactly that (in my opinion).

Do you agree or disagree? Either way I would welcome your thoughts in the WGA discussion tab.

Thanks! DirectRevelation 18:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

Hello! Dab pages are for pages that are not encyclopedic articles. They're a navigation tool. I can see where you're coming from though -- the WGA is really two entities. But I think that more could be written about WGA, so we should keep it an encyclopedia article rather than a dab page. Does that make sense? Also, people clicking on WGA are looking for information about WGA, not necessarily WGA east or west.
Regarding the talk page--people don't usually post to the talk page unless there's really something to hash out. Minor stuff is usually just fixed without comment. --Fang Aili talk 18:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the superfast reply! A good point of contrast might be the Painters union which has a national structure with locals in New York, LA and other cities. Readers are indeed looking for information on the WGA generally but there's no such organization; just two small stand-alone groups with similar names. People are either using it as a Dab page or incorrectly generalizing as a result. That's what makes me wonder if the topic is inherantly flawed (rather than just one of many articles needing work) but I guess time will tell. Thanks again for your thoughts.DirectRevelation 19:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

[edit] Percentage of writers in WGA?

Hi,

The article doesn't mention whether it's common for Hollywood writers to be in one of the WGA branches. Are a high percentage of the writers of popular shows in these organizations? A percentage or other statistics would help put the article in perspective. -- Creidieki 07:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

How would you define the set of writers not in the WGA? Girolamo Savonarola 23:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Criedieki, the short answer is ALL of them are in the Guilds. Because neither NY or California are right to work states, writers in the companies on Strike are REQUIRED to either be in one of the guilds or be aspiring to do so. (You can't just sign up to be a member of the guilds, you have to have some experience first. See the WGA screenwriting credit system article for background.) Both Guilds have networks of approved agents that Guild signatories are required to choose among when hiring writers to enforce the union shop.
So all writers at the big movie studies (Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros, etc) and at the major TV networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, CW) are WGAE or WGAw. While most cable networks are not union a few are Guild signatories like Comedy Central, Showtime and HBO. Independant Films are a mix.
Here are a few exceptions though: There are some union jurisdictional issues at play. AFTRA represents a lot of news writers but gets along well with the both Guilds. WGAw and IATSE have had one fight after another over writers of animation and do not get along. Also, what constitutes a "writer" is one of the issues in this strike. WGAw maintains that the "Assistant Producers" on reality shows are really writers who design the contests and confrontations on the show but the studios maintain these shows are unscripted. DirectRevelation 01:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
I've added a short sentence about this to the article. I don't really know enough about the topic to add more, particularly in knowing which things are related to both guilds as a whole (and should go in this article) versus which things might be different between the two. But I think that it helps establish context. -- Creidieki 23:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Creidieki (talk • contribs)
Creidieki, your comment was overwritten in one of the many undos people have been using on this page. I'm not sure why, as I didn't remove the line. I do think it is more productive to update the individual WGAw and WGAE sites though. DirectRevelation 05:02, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
Now it's back. This article is the best! DirectRevelation 06:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
I'm looking at other labor union pages, and a lot of them have "major employers" section which can be easily sourced. I'm thinking of adding that to the WGAE and WGAw articles (since they have separate contracts) and removing your line here. What do you think, Creidieki?DirectRevelation 08:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

[edit] Potential Quality Problems with this Page (All Have Been Addressed)

I'm afraid we're getting into an undo war on this page and we should discuss some of the ongoing quality problems with this article to reach consensus. The WGAw and WGAE articles are pretty decent but this one stumbles usually because contributors try to make generalizations that only apply to 1 of 2 guilds. Here is my list of potential problems:DirectRevelation 06:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

  • Category:International Affiliation of Writers Guilds – Each guild is listed on the IAWG web site separately, there is no IAWG membership for a generic WGA since the joint organization exists only for the Awards show.
  • IAWG - OK, I'm going to take this REAL slow so no one freaks out and starts repeatedly hitting Undo without checking the discussion first. The WGA as such is not a member of the IAWG but, people stumbling on this page may also be interested in that topic. So I'm moving IAWG from the Category section and putting it in See Also section. No information has been removed, just moved to the right section. If you have a different veiwpoint, let's discuss. DirectRevelation 17:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
  • Category:1933 Establishments - Neither guild was founded in 1933, nor was the Awards show started then.
  • 1933 - I removed the the "1933 establishments" category. I did add a 1921 cat for WGAw, a 1951 cat for WGAE, and a 1949 cat for the Awards. I'm not sure how useful the year cats are, but they're out there now. See the discussion in WGAw for why 1933 is important, but not a founding date.DirectRevelation 23:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
  • Category:AFL-CIO - The WGAE is in the AFL-CIO but the WGAw distinctly is not. WGAw has ongoing jurisdictional disputes with IATSE (an AFL-CIO union) in animation and both have accused the other of raiding members.
  • AFL-CiO - Removed AFL-CIO Category as factually innacurate. WGAE is but WGAw competes against federation. This info mentioned in each separate article. See earlier posting above from 11/6. If you have other perspectives, let's discuss here.DirectRevelation 12:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
  • Category: Category: Entertainment industry unions – I’ll drop my objection to this for now since many people are reaching this site because of the strike. The combined WGA exists only for the Awards show though so this is worth reviewing later.
Corrected by another contributor. DirectRevelation 07:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
  • Current-Related|topic that flags article as a Current Event – The 2007 strike page is a current event, this is just an organization involved in a current event. The link to the strike is appropriate and that is the article that will change rapidly with the news.
  • External Link: 101 Greatest Screenplays – Project of only the WGA west, not a co-guild project like the Awards Ceremony. Appropriate for WGAw article though.
  • Removed by another contributor.DirectRevelation 07:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
  • See Also: WGA west article – Duplicated in text of article, not needed twice.
  • See Also: WGA East article – Duplicated in text of article, not needed twice.
  • Reference Section - Nothing is in it.
  • Since deleted by Fang Aili (Oops, now it's back again.) (Oh, it was gone and now it's back yet again!)DirectRevelation 07:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

DirectRevelation 06:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

[edit] Sections of Article

I made some not-so-bold changes to the Articles sections:

  • Changed 2007 Strike to Work Stoppages: This makes it more flexible for future strikes. Oh, a lot of people are interested in this issue because they want to know how their shows are impacted but, after this strike is over, we should probably remove the sub-link.
  • Changed See Also to Parallel Activities: Added some details so people would better know what these headings mean.
  • Removed the Blank References Section: Others have done this before me but it keeps coming back. If you want it there, please discuss here so we can come to a consensus.DirectRevelation 08:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation
    • Removed the two categories I added earlier because other disambig pages don't seem to use them.DirectRevelation 05:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)DirectRevelation

[edit] External Link Section, stay or go?

The Wikipedia policies encourage keeping external links out of the text and with a header indicating that they are, well, external links. Both of these web sites are good but they're also listed on articles included in the disambig listing.

Is it common to have external links with a disambig page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DirectRevelation (talk • contribs) 05:41, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't find any other disam pages with external links and all seem to include only itself as a cat. Standardized accordingly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DirectRevelation (talk • contribs) 20:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)