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Status report for December 10

A quick sounding off of thoughts, issues, notices, and problems. Your opinions are sought and valued. Please follow-up with discussion below in separate sections for each topic. (I hope to make this a regular biweekly report starting next year.)

Project relations
I've been looking at our project structure, and we may want to work on liaising with certain projects. I don't think there are any left that warrant complete merging, with one exception below.

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers - this is actually not a WikiProject, but a workgroup of WP Bio. As we've expanded the scope of WP Films, I think that it is only natural and appropriate that we also include individuals, and this would essentially amount to our this workgroup into being jointly part of Films and Bio. This would involve little to no changes on the part of the group - mainly it would mean adding the necessary task force parameter to our banner, and placing the banner in the relevant talk pages. General article guidelines and administration would be handled by the group and the larger WP Bio project, which are more equipped to deal with those matters effectively.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject American Animation and Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and Manga - we may at some point have task forces for American cinema, Japanese cinema, and animation. It's not inconceivable that anime could be another taskforce that has both the Japanese cinema and animation task forces as its parents.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Comedy and Wikipedia:WikiProject Horror - overall genre projects that would be good collaborating projects for genre task forces. This is probably ideal, since we would be providing the style guidelines, while they could provide editors with content knowledge.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional sound production - may be able to provide more expertise for Filmmaking task force; possibly even create a child task force? Depends on their growth.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Saw, et al. - I originally figured this would be an easy project to integrate with WP Films and Horror, since I assumed it was only movies. Of course, it has expanded into other licensed media, and is no longer solely within our domain. Nonetheless, it would be good for us to start discussing how to deal with mini-projects for franchises, because it seems that the interest in such projects is unlikely to die. Many of these projects have small scopes, however, which makes their existence as projects questionable, according to some editors on WP:COUNCIL who are trying to reform the WikiProject system. I understand the concern, but it is unclear how to proceed when our project does not have full scope over all of the smaller project's articles. Personally, I am content to leave these projects alone, but if reform work does start to go after smaller projects, especially with a smaller membership, it would be better to at least keep the group and its work intact as a subunit rather than deleting them. I am particularly keen to hear The Giant Puffin's thoughts, as I know that he is active in WP James Bond.

Project relations discussion:

  • Although several of these projects have related articles that fall under our scope, I don't some of them should be merged with ours. The main one I don't think would be beneficial in merging with would be WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers as this focuses on people. I think for tagging, our project's guidelines, and the sheer number of articles would make it difficult to control this project within ours. However, if there is general consensus by several other editors to include the project with ours, then I wouldn't object. I believe the other projects look like they should have no problem being merged into or becoming special task forces for our project. Also, a new task force was created that focuses on Korean films, do you think that should remain within their project or be merged into ours as a task force? --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


Plans and Initiatives

  • I will be adding the Future films department to the sidebar immediately. The page has been up and running for some time now and several of the leading editors involved with these articles are aware of its existence and had opportunity to prepare it beforehand. As there's been no objections or edits to the page since I left it, it will be made public to the rest of the project now.
  • Do the assistant coordinators want to have specific areas under their responsibility? I am aware of Nehram's work in Assessment, Outreach, and Spotlight - and I'm particularly grateful, especially as I don't spend much time in those parts! Perhaps it would be a good idea so as to keep the work less overwhelming. On the other hand, having a general pool of work that all of the coordinators are collectively responsible for makes it easier for everyone to handle individual coordinators who may be on short breaks, or even coordinators who are not doing any coordinating work. Plus, it prevents excessive OWN and bureaucracy issues. But if assignments makes it more efficient... In any case, please offer your thoughts.
  • Scrapping the Importance parameter - this has been sporadically discussed on the project talk page over the past year, with mild support but no strong objection. Given the subjective nature of the project topics, it is difficult if not impossible to effectively rate the importance of most articles. More objective subjects, such as science and math, usually have a clear hierarchy of important-to-specialized topics, but with artistic endeavors, it is probably not worth the edit warring and subjectivity of trying to assess the "most important" films, filmmakers, or studios.
    • This being said, there may be something to be said for making a single "Core" level (a la WP Bio) for a select group of articles (between 200-500), which might be considered our "Most Wanted FAs" list. This could also work as a successor to the now-dormant Collaboration department, with the advantage of less time wasted in continual voting, and maybe with an incentive system of a new series of awards, based on the number of FAs created from the list. Additionally, the list itself could be replenished when it grows too small. Selection of which articles could also be made slightly more objective by deriving them from a conglomeration of previously existing lists such as Sight and Sound polls, AFI lists, top-grossing lists, award winners, and perhaps more localized lists to allow for a sufficiently diverse and international grouping with a good spread of time periods. Task forces which don't cover individual films, such as Awards, Festivals, and Filmmaking, might also be allotted a small number of slots for their topics.

Plans and initiatives discussion:

  • I mentioned the future films department in the newsletter so more members will be introduced to if they haven't noticed it already in the side bar. Hopefully, more editors can continue to help Erik improve our future films. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Concerning areas falling under the assistant coordinators' responsibility, nobody can take my departments, they are mine, and I OWN them! Just kidding, if anybody else is interested in helping with these, I always welcome the extra help. I enjoy working on these departments, and mainly took over them since it appeared they had been abandoned or there just a few editors working on them. I'll keep working on them and if you believe there should be other assigned responsibility, I'll be open to assisting elsewhere. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • The importance parameter definitely needs to go, and I remember several of the conversations that have arisen over including a core list of film articles. I could attempt to start creating a list if this is accepted, and mention in the newsletter/WP:FILMS talk page that editors could help contribute to the list. It would a great idea for each task force to also each have a list as well. Once this list is created, we can start awarding the film barnstar (or create a new one) and award it to each member that brings the article up to GA/FA level. This would hopefully provide an incentive to help improve the articles that are important to our project. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


Housekeeping

  • Question for Nehrams: how has Outreach been doing recently and do you have any new suggestions?
  • Phasing out {{WikiProject Films tasks}} in favor of {{WPFILMS Announcements}} - it would be good to see this fully implemented shortly, if possible.
  • Will be integrating the talk page "needs" tags (needs synopis, needs cast list, needs screenshot) into the banner shortly; this will require some retagging tasks when ready.
  • We need to edit the "Editing Guidelines" and "Upgrading Needed" (Stub-only) boxes in the banner so as to reflect the larger scope of the project - not all articles are film titles now.
  • Therefore, we also need to work on larger style guidelines for these articles as well. All with an eye towards the future goal of a larger MOS for all film articles.
  • Banner redesign to more prominently mention and feature task forces - maybe not hidden at all?
  • We need to start a tag drive amongst the membership to tag all B-Class articles according to their criteria. These parameters already exist within the banner but have not been implemented yet. Doing so will auto-categorize all B-Class articles by their problem areas, which makes targeted editing and improvement easier.
  • Speaking of which, we need help with a few task force tag drives listed above in our One-time tasks section!

Housekeeping discussion:

  • Concerning the outreach department, we did the roll call a few months ago, and now have about 150 active members. We should probably do one of these as least once a year to remove editors who are no longer active. Each member (and new ones that join each month) receives the newsletter about the new departments/task forces, GA/FAs, and other happenings within the project. I haven't really received too much feedback from other editors about other topics to cover in the newsletter or any mention of things that need improvement. I would prefer to see if there is any interest for other information, as I'm the main contributor to the newsletter but don't know if there are other things that members want to see. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Getting rid of the "need" tags will be beneficial for the talk pages by merging them into the banner. However, if possible, would the banner be able to display the needed elements without having to click on the [show] button? Right now, the needed infobox is hidden within the banner, and if it was edited to always be on top, it would be easier to see for new editors or those unfamiliar with our banner. Additionally, I don't think it should be a problem if the task forces weren't hidden as each article usually falls under just one or two task forces anyway. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Concerning the "Upgrading needed" template, when I created it, I didn't really realize at the time that it wouldn't pertain to film characters and now our newly added festivals, awards, etc. Is there any way that we can develop a similar banner for each type of article (festival, award, character, filming technique, etc.)? However, if we do that, would the banner be modified to properly show each one based on the task force parameter that is included in the banner? Or would it be best to remove the template, and instead list in the banner "If you want to improve the film article, see here" which will link to the same information that was in the template? The same could go for "if you want to improve the character to start class, see here" with similar information on what the article should include. The editing guidelines should definitely be modified as well. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • The new announcements template looks a lot better then current task one, and it appears it would be easier than continually adding the current GANs, and needed infoboxes/images, etc. I would definitely be in favor of getting rid of the prior one. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussions of note

Discussions of note discussion:

Miscellany

  • Due to travel demands, I will have minimal - if any - online time between December 12th and January 1st.
  • Have a look at this Content Review workshop - the entire peer review process is likely to be considerably revamped, and may have implications at the WikiProject level.

Miscellany discussion:

Any and all comments will be much appreciated! - although I may not see them until January. (Which should give you plenty of time to think about all of them individually, too.) Have a good holiday season, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 03:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts for February

Project relations

1. I am still interested in pursuing the Actors and Filmmakers group for joint inclusion between WP Films and WP Bio. However, in light of other housekeeping tasks that I'd like to finish cleaning up, I think it's probably worth saving for a slower time in the project.

Again, if you still desire to do that, and everyone else agrees, then I'll support. I've been really busy the last week, as school has become more demanding. I've only been reverting vandalism on my watchlist pages recently, so a slow time for me won't be until later this summer, if ever. Hopefully I won't be as busy as this last week though. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Just rehashing some of the old business... It's a long-term initiative, so don't expect any barrelling out of the gate yet. It's gonna be a monster to tag if it goes thru! Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

2. Some of the other WikiProjects which run joint task forces with us, such as WP Australia and WP India, have coded their templates so as to tag for the task force in their banners too. This has created some interesting circumstances. For instance, WP India tags many of the film bios with the "cinema=yes" parameter in their banner. This adds them to the assessment categories, but omits them from the general Category:Indian cinema task force articles category that our banner will also add (when using our Indian task force parameter), while it will add them to Category:WikiProject Indian cinema articles, which we do not. While this no longer exists as an independent WikiProject, my guess is that no one at WP India has bothered to go back and change the code to reflect this.

However, there is an advantage in that separate general category pools for each banner (the assessment ones are identical) allow us to see if one banner has activated the parameter while the other hasn't. On the other hand, having a common pool would make more sense, which seems to be what WP Australia has recently encoded into their banner, but conversely makes it difficult for us to identify articles which WP Australia has tagged for the task force, but which don't have a Film banner.

Additionally, it is worth remembering that most of the national groups will tag the bios as well as the films as task force members, and this seems a natural extension of editorial interests within a given task force. Therefore, there is no difference in potential article overlap if we also integrate the bios into the project, whereas not doing so will create situations where only one WikiProject will be tagging for the task force, which seems odd.

Therefore, the two questions are: how do we deal with a shared task force which has different scope depending on which project is tagging?, and is it in our interest to keep our category structure perfectly aligned for less redundancy, or is it better to keep separate trees to more easily monitor articles which are tagged for the task force only by the other project's banner?

Lastly, is there a way of creating a meta-template that would allow for instant double-tagging of the same task force for two project banners? Would save everyone a lot of effort and make it tremendously easier to avoid one project not getting the tag (and therefore not having the article added to their overall project assessment stats).

The meta-template idea sounds appealing, but I would have no idea on how to do that. I'm sure there's somebody though that knows how to do it. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll consult with other editors who are template saavy, I suppose. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Plans and initiatives

1. The Core has run into some protracted debate regarding the qualifying criteria, mainly for the task forces, but also generally. We need to solicit additional thoughts in order to keep the department on track and conclude the list-making both quickly and with a general consensus. Any ideas on how to do so are welcome.

I'm surprised there wasn't that much feedback on the core list, especially with the mention on the project's talk page and in the newsletter (maybe nobody reads it!). I'm sure once the contest department is created and people hear more about possible awards, that might light up their eyes. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm a bit stumped about how to proceed at this point on the core discussion. Any ideas? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

2. Might it make sense to have a rotating "Open task collaboration" of the week or fortnight? It might allow us to move forward on stalled things such as both tagging and also cleanup in order to clear tags.

That would be helpful for the various backlogs, but I'm curious to see if we can get enough members to contribute. Recently it seems that many of our members haven't been involved with the major discussions, core list, elections, etc. But then again maybe they'll be interested in working on this. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
It's a tough one - we want to keep their energies at the articles, obviously, so perhaps tagging is something best left to coordinators and those interested in random maintenance tasks, but definitely it could be good for articles requiring specific attention (such as infoboxes, references, etc.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

3. The contest department could be used not only for the Core department, but also for the open task collaborations - perhaps the top finisher receives a Film barnstar?

Good idea, if we get it up and running. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

4. Speaking of barnstars, what about a "medal of honor"-level award akin to the MilHist's Chevrons with Oak Clusters? Would be for editors with exceptional contributions to the project within the article-space, and would only be open to previous regular Film barnstar winners. One would have to be nominated for it, and it would only be conferred upon coordinator consensus. (Additionally, no coordinator would be eligible to receive one while in office.) I already have a few ideas for the graphic design, too, involving the Hollywood Walk of Fame stars and a film reel...

Then I guess I can no longer be a coordinator...just kidding. That sounds like a great idea, and there are many who deserve it. If you or someone is interested in making it, the Hollywood idea sounds appealing. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll try to get this running shortly. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

5. Elections - the next election cycle is schedule to commence around March/April. Are there any preferences or prejudices with regard to dates? I wanted it to be post Spring Break but pre-finals for those still in school. Also, are there any changes we'd like to make in any respect? I personally think that we need more coordinators, so that there can be more hands at work, less individual work load, more redundancy, and more people here to discuss matters.

I would prefer to get more coordinators, since I envision I'll be limited in contributions as my school work and a future job begin to become more demanding. Hopefully we get more people to contribute to the elections this time, and I'd hope to see more people run for positions. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking maybe bringing it up to either five or seven positions. My other thoughts are to rewrite the position description to emphasize more of the advisory and think-tank roles and less on the housekeeping work. While we still will need to maintain the administrative side of things, I think the whole point of the coordinators is also to advise on and conceive of ideas for improving the project. I'm guessing the housekeeeping side - the "work" - is probably what may be keeping some of our more active members from running. The truth is, though, that I'm happy to continue doing most of the task force tagging myself, just as I'm guessing you're fine with handling the newsletter and outreach work yourself. (And frankly, that's what I'm think we need the most - more people to keep these discussions flowing and coming up with more ideas. We'll sort out the work one way or another, I'm sure.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

6. The review department has been created, but we have had problems getting editors involved. Furthermore, the newer automated advice and sorting offered at general PR offers a better incentive for articles to go there. Is our independent peer review process worth spending more time reviving, or should it be rolled up? (Note that this will not abolish peer reviews at the Review deparment - it will just mean that we'd continue by transcluding the film-related PRs from the general page.)

Peer review is somewhere I rarely visit, and if other editors are not significantly contributing, it may be best to send it off. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
This is something that may require some open discussions to iron out. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

7. Extensive overhaul and expansion of our style guidelines to reflect our expanded scope will be a major focus in future months - any thoughts with regard to how to proceed will be valuable.

We would just need to get as much feedback as possible, so a mention on the main talk page and the newsletter would hopefully drive some interested members there. We definitely have a lot of changes to make with so many new articles that fall under our scope. Perhaps we should set up subpages of the guidelines for specific topics such as films, characters, and film-related topics separately. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that definitely would be a good idea. Also some of the task forces (Awards, Festivals, Filmmaking) might be consulted as well, since it's their bread and butter. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Housekeeping

1. It would be nice to see the Future films department doing several additional things, including monitoring additions to the future categories thru the recent changes to both the article template and the Future-Class banner tagging. Another important task would be scrubbing the Future Class to reassess films that no longer meet the rating, and lastly, going over the future articles to create a true, international, comprehensive list of future films articles sorted by release date (so that we would know when to reassess to the normal scale).

That sounds great, and the future class at times can be problematic, especially when nobody changes it to a proper class once the film is released. This usually happens with the lesser known films, but a large list would definitely be more helpful on focusing on the list of films. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll talk to Erik and co in more detail, then. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

2. The "needs" tags have now been added to the template. Now we just need to re-tag the old articles to deprecate against the old stand-alone tags.

I'm assuming this may take some time, is there a possible bot that can do this for us? --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Not a bad idea, actually. I'm not familiar at all with the bots, though. Any particular ones worth looking at? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

3. Several factors require a redesign of the project banner - the pending loss of the importance parameter, a desire to more openly show off the task forces, and a necessity to have the "needs" tags more visible for editors to see problems. Perhaps all of the banner should be unhidden with the exception of the longer editing advice sections?

Yeah, I don't think that the banner needs to be hidden at all, except for the editing instructions for naming conventions. Showing the task forces/needed tags will hopefully drive more editors to addressing the issues or viewing other related task force articles. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Once the Core goes through, then I'll be ready to pull the plug on the importance parameter, so we can have a go at it then. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

4. Perhaps the banner could also be revised to offer class-specific advice on how to improve the article in order to reach the next assessment class? (ie, if the article is a Stub, it tells you what Stubs need to reach Start; if it is a Start, what Starts need to reach B, etc..)

I always wanted to create the next level suggestions after the stub to start one that Hoverfish and I created, but never got around to it. I'm sure it would be helpful for peer review considerations and hopefully interest more people in moving articles on to GA/FA. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussions of note

1. Core department, as mentioned above

2. The massive discussions involving TV episode article notability are also closely tied to WP:FICT and therefore may impact upon WP Films.

3. Speaking of FICT, might it be worth proposing that characters (or lists of characters) who only make an appearance in a single work of fiction should not have their own articles?

4. Do we need an explicit guideline to make clear that the IMDb is a non-reliable source? This occasionally is the source of some debate, and aside from showing editors WP:RS and expecting them to make the deduction, we don't really have a clear location where it is stated explicitly that IMDb is not an acceptable source. (Unless you count WT:CIMDB, where consensus was found against a proposal to use the IMDb.)

A guideline would be great since so many people may not be aware of the discussion/guideline. I prefer to use it only for the news section that it has, but will usually defer to other more reliable sources if possible. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The other question is do we need an independent guideline, or should it just be added to the existing style guidelines? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Miscellany

1. Would a member questionnaire to probe for project deficiencies and desired processes be advisable?

That would be great, we can get Cbrown1023's bot to send it out if necessary or just mention it on the talk page for interested members to contribute. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Any particular questions we should ask? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, those are all of the big issues on my head for now! Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 08:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Do we want to delete the WikiProject Films tasks template since it has been replaced with the announcement template? --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
It's been redirected, so I don't really think it's necessary at the moment. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
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