Talk:Sing a Bit of Harmony

Do not add misleading box-office figures

Some editors have attempted to add box-office figures to this article, and derived the data from either Box Office Mojo or The Numbers. Both of these sites only have data from a small number of markets: at time of writing, Box Office Mojo has UK, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand; The Numbers additionally lists Germany and Spain.

None of these countries was a major market for the film; it was originally released in Japan (where Japanese films nearly always make the vast majority of their revenue), and anime movies' highest international box office figures tend to come from the US. (Note that both sites appear to assume all movies are American, so they mischaracterize US figures as "Domestic" even when a film was produced outside the US; neither lists a "Domestic" number for this film, nor any data from Japan).

Any sum of revenue numbers that excludes what can be assumed to have been a film's largest markets cannot be accurately described as the film's total box office returns. I can't find any actual well-sourced data on the film's domestic performance, but using data that we know to be incorrect does a disservice to readers, and is worse than saying nothing at all on the topic. The only estimate I can find comes from a Twitter post claiming it'd passed 200 million JPY, but it doesn't cite a source, so I have no idea if it's accurate. If you must re-add the BOM/TN figure, please at least note that it only includes a small number of markets (and excludes the film's home market), rather than implying that it's a global total by citing a source that makes no such claim. rcombs (talk) 04:57, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

@Rcombs: Okay, and are you familiar with any guideline, manual of style or prior discussions supporting your stance here or do you just want it removed because you feel it should not be placed here and that's it? What I'm asking for is something to back up that if sites like The Numbers or Box Office Mojo don't include US box office figures they can't be cited in the article. Because so far I only see what is your opinion of how things should be and nothing else. At WP:FILM/R I don't see anything suggesting what you're saying here. Xexerss (talk) 05:00, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

This isn't specific to film, your citation just fails verification in general. You claim in your edits that the film "grossed $89,718 at the box office", but even a brief glance at your cited source shows that number is derived from a sum of small markets, and doesn't include the film's home market. A source generally being reliable doesn't exempt you from needing to understand what it's saying before rephrasing its content in a misleading way.

This isn't about the sources excluding the US market; it's about them excluding the Japanese market. Surely you wouldn't take a box office number from a page that lists only non-US revenue for a Hollywood movie, and claim it was the film's total global revenue? Using figures on Japanese films that exclude Japanese revenue is equivalent: the source's insufficiency is patently obvious. If a source excluded Japanese revenue but included US, one could make the argument that it provided a reasonable "international box office" revenue (since the US was most likely the film's largest international market), but neither source does, so these numbers fall short of even that.

There's no guideline in the MOS for this specific case, presumably because it clearly follows from WP:SYNTH and WP:V: your cited source did not verify your claim. I'll go ahead and start a discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Resources to add an explicit note about this, though. rcombs (talk) 05:48, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

@Rcombs: In that case, I would be more in favor of rephrasing the sentence, naming the specific territories, rather than simply deleting it outright as you have been doing up to now. I also read MOS:FILMBOXOFFICE and I don't see any mention of what you indicated at the beginning. Xexerss (talk) 05:58, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Box Office Mojo and The Numbers are useful sources in general (which is why they're recommended sources!), but in this specific case it's missing data from outside a small number of minor markets. You need to actually read the full pages; scroll down on BOM or click through to "International" on The Numbers and you'll see they list the countries the data is from.

I've been removing the misleading figure instead of clarifying it because I don't believe it's notable enough to be worth including. See e.g. the MOS/F "Release" section noting "Do not include information on the release in every territory"; I think it's reasonable to apply the same guideline to box office numbers. Adding together a handful of non-notable markets doesn't result in notability.

Also, in the field of actual documentation concurring with my position, Template:Infobox_film does mention "If worldwide gross is not available, then indicate which region has grossed that amount.", though it'd be awkward to try to specify a region here, since the countries with available data aren't all from a single cohesive region.

Side-note; the only JP numbers I have been able to come up with for this movie are from this tweet; if anybody can track down an actual reliable source on that number, it'd be much appreciated. Apparently the author is a columnist on 映画.com, which is apparently at least moderately reputable, but without any clear sourcing I'm still hesitant to cite it in the article. rcombs (talk) 06:31, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

@Rcombs: Okay, it seems to me that what you are saying now, plus a guideline that specifies not to include all territories, sounds more reasonable than it was in the beginning. Considering this, I have no problem with removing it for the time being. Xexerss (talk) 07:07, 16 June 2024 (UTC)