Talk:Ouimetoscope

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A fact from Ouimetoscope appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 29 October 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Canada's first dedicated movie theater, the Ouimetoscope, was created in 1906 with an original investment of only seventy-five dollars?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/October.

Wikipedia

This article is written in Canadian English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, centre, travelled, realize, analyze) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

First theater in N.A. devoted solely to showing movies?

The references that are fully visible on the internet (outside a pay wall) don't back up such a strong claim. The Montreal Gazette says

Whether the Ouimetoscope was truly the continent's first cinema, as the plaque claims, is open to debate

People could start quoting Wikipedia on this, so shouldn't we find at least one paper or book making that claim, and attribute it to them explicitly?

If you Google for 'first movie theater' you find a rival claim with an earlier date:

The first theater in the world exclusively devoted to showing motion pictures was the Nickelodeon, which was opened on June 19, 1905 in Pittsburgh, Penn. (infoplease.com). EdJohnston 13:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Research time. I'll resurface in a bit with results. — Coren ^(talk) 13:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. http://cinematreasures.org/theater/6084/ makes the even stronger claim that the Ouimetoscope would have been the world's first; but seems to have drawn (at least partially) from the same dead tree sources I have. (Still digging) — Coren ^(talk) 13:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, the claim to the the very first is one many are fighting over because of some prestige issue. There is no doubt that the Ouimetoscope was the first in Canada, however, so I'm going to temper the claim accordingly. — Coren ^(talk) 14:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Edison Electric Theatre opened in Vancouver in 1902. https://scoutmagazine.ca/2019/03/11/you-should-know-that-gastown-was-home-to-canadas-first-movie-theatre/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.46.4.11 (talk) 22:04, 10 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm now looking for an online reference source for the seventy-five dollars claim used as a DYK hook. — Coren ^(talk) 14:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hm. Can't find it online; although the french wp's article on fr:Léo-Ernest Ouimet makes it also— I'm presuming the same paper source is ultimately responsible. The claim isn't especially controversial, mind you. — Coren ^(talk) 14:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I only see the French article clearly claiming that Ouimetoscope was the first cinema in Montreal. Also it says Son Ouimetoscope vient sept ans avant les premières grandes présentations sur Broadway which is a bit vague. One would hope to find a source that knows about *all* early cinemas in North America, to find the stronger claim being made reliably. EdJohnston 15:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I meant the claim of seventy-five dollars (which is not all that unreasonable, with a bit of luck). — Coren ^(talk) 16:46, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What's a DYK hook? EdJohnston 17:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Did You Know; a short one-liner summary of some point of the interest of the article. To "hook" a reader into reading it. :-) — Coren ^(talk) 17:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment

I have assessed this as Start Class, as it contains more detail and organization than would be expected of a Stub, and of low importance as it is a highly specialized topic within Canada. Cheers, CP 15:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]