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Does BoxOfficeMojo figures include marketing costs?

Do their figures include marketing costs? Or is that extra? I'm asking because I see film articles that say films broke even because their worldwide revenue just about equaled their listed budget. Gary King (talk) 04:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

According to them, "Production Budget refers to the cost to make the movie and it does not include marketing or other expenditures." Any article making such a claim should be backed up by a source actually stating that. If they are just pointed to BoM, that would be WP:SYNTH and should be fixed. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:34, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Infobox....

What is the consensus of adding the year of a film next to the followed by/preceded by in the infobox for films. Like:

Thanks. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 06:35, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe its usually the norm to have them. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:41, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
It is? I looked at, for instance, the LotR films and didn't see release years. The infobox template doesn't say whether or not they should be included either. I'm not meaning to sound overly-skeptical, but I guess a few examples (or a policy statement) would be nice. Doniago (talk) 15:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
It would be good if it was clarified, I think. Looking at the MoS, it does not show a year on the followed by/preceded by, which would seem to indicate that while its commonly done, it should not. And looking at Category 6: Day of Destruction, one of my own GAs, I did not include the year either. Half awake still, so must have remembered wrong. Looks like the norm is to not have....-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 15:13, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I don't know that consensus on this exists, I've seen entries with and without the year of release. My personal opinion is that the year is not necessary. The infobox is meant to display the basic information about the film without going into too much detail. Prequels and sequels to a film are basic information but any additional information about them, including the year of release, is best left handled by the infobox and the article of the prequel or sequel in question. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 15:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

From what I recall, for film articles, the year is generally not included. I know that WP:ALBUM advocates the use of the year for succession in infoboxes, but I think that is a little different circumstances, as album succession are strictly chronological while films are in production order; there is some debate about the true order of films in the non-Wiki world while there isn't for albums. I personally prefer not to use the year in the infobox, though. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 15:21, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
And the grand finale question is: Will it prevent an article from reaching GA/FA? :-) --Mike Allen talk · contribs 18:32, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Since it is a subjective issue of personal opinion, probably not, although you're less likely to see a comment about it if the year is not listed. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 18:34, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
IMO, the followed by/preceded by info is completly pointless for the film infobox. Lugnuts (talk) 15:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Having the year in there is not the "norm". It's typically not added, because it's needless information. If you click the film link you'll see the year. All you need is the film's name.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:21, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Couldn't one theoretically argue that's what the infoboxes are for -- to show a quick snippet of the presiding information at hand without having to "click" to search for the information? --Mike Allen talk · contribs 06:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm no fan of including years in areas that are intended for navigation. Using a template I edited recently, it included the years next to the video games, and I argued that it acts as a slippery slope, and that no real reason was provided to explain the importance of years over genres, directors, etc. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 04:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Evan Almighty has this done and it's a GA. So in a nutshell it really just depends on who does the 'grading' of the particular article. :P --Mike Allen talk · contribs 05:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Capitalism: A Love Story

There is a discussion at Talk:Capitalism: A Love Story#'Accuracy' subsection on whether a religion-based critical review is appropriate to be included. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 20:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Adding US$ next to box office numbers

Is it the norm or required to add US$ and US$ next to box office and production numbers, even if the film was made in the US? --Mike Allen talk · contribs 05:31, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

No, it should just have $. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 05:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, I didn't think so... and changed it when I saw that almost EVERY present of $ has US in front of it, like this. However it was changed back and I brought it up on the the talk. Someone posted back quite snooty and insisted in using US$ because "44% percent of the films gross is in foreign currency". Then someone noted that "[per] WP:$ U.S. dollars are to be Wikipedia's standard for articles that are either about U.S. topics or without national ties because U.S. dollars are, at the moment, the world's reserve currency." So I don't know what to do. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 06:41, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
I only would include it if the $ is unclear which dollar is being referred to. Like if the film is a Canadian/American/Australian coproduction, it would be nice to indicate which dollar you are referring to: United States dollar, Canadian dollar, or Australian dollar. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 05:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Aren't most revenue figures used in infoboxes and articles gathered from American websites like Box Office Mojo, which quotes box office figures in US dollar amounts regardless of where the film was made? LargoLarry (talk) 18:44, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Personally I would always use US$ to avoid any potential confusion. $ by itself is ambiguous. PC78 (talk) 18:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't we follow "policy" though? --Mike Allen talk · contribs 03:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, yes (should have read the guideline first). As I read it, that would be a plain "$" for New Moon and other US-specific articles, and "US$" for non-country specific articles. PC78 (talk) 14:33, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Lemon Tree (film)/GA1

Hey guys. I have this GA on hold, but the main editor has retired. Since all that's needed is the plot section to be modified, would one of you be able to take a crack at it? Thanks, Wizardman 05:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

What qualifies as a financial failure?

I read somewhere here, and now can't find, a convincing statement that for a film to recoup all the costs it incurs it must earn twice as much as its budget. (This included the local theater costs, and other things that are apparently not generally included in the the budget or the gross.) Could people comment on how useful this concept is? Is the comparison between budget and gross meant to reflect how much the film's backers made or lost?

A related question is when are these budget and gross figures compiled? How long after a film is released before it can "truly" be said to be a financial failure? Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 22:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, I think you need to wait six months or so until after the DVD has been released, since sales/rentals can make the difference in whether or not a film was a financial success. LiteraryMaven (talk • contrib) 17:41, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

At the box office the budget x 3 is seen as a success, and takes into account the cost of prints and P&A. On his commentaries Kevin Smith has stated that a $10m needs to make $30m to be considered a success, the amount of DVDs made are then calculated off the box office (usually 1 million DVDs for each $10m), and horror films tend to rent better than indie films. If you mean at the box office the truth is most films are a success or failure by Sunday night of their first weekend, as the second weekend usually has a 50-70% drop. As an example Old Dogs has a budget of $35m, as of today it has made $25m, it needs to make $115m to be a success (as the P&A will be around $10m) It's first weekend was $16m, and so it may finish with a US domestic gross of around $60m (US dom is usually first weekend x 4). I would call Old Dogs a box office failure. Of course it could make $100m on DVD sales but I doubt it. To test this theory pick a film that did OK, look it up on BOM and check out its budget, its opening weekend and its final take. If the budget is B then the formula is Bx2 for the opening weekend and Bx4 for the final figure for it to be a success. Darrenhusted (talk) 19:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Source help

I'm putting the finishing touches on a WP:GAN on an actress, and am having trouble finding a reliable source covering soundtracks (on which the actress appeared) to finish it up. Any suggestions? Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:50, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking quickly, I found a 2009 article by The Press stating "Less well known is her singing prowess, which not only featured on the Heavenly Creatures soundtrack and in Romance and Cigarettes..." It doesn't state the song she sang specifically by name though. If this is sufficient, let me know. I'll try and take another look later unless somebody else beats me to it. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:23, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Geez, Nehrams, you're my hero. And I didn't even tell you what article it was! Thanks. If you come across anything else about the singing, please let me know! Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I guess I didn't say this. I can source the name of the song in Heavenly Creatures, I needed a source for the actual soundtrack, so that will do nicely. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Ok, then the source is: Croot, James. "C'mon Kate". The Press. February 17, 2009. Proquest Document ID: 1646622251. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Um, how does one include the Proquest Document ID in the cite news template? Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:56, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Maybe use "id=" or "format="? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I went with "format=" which yielded "Croot, James (2009-02-17). "C'mon Kate" (Proquest Document ID: 1646622251). The Press." I'm calling it ready and have nominated it - Kate Winslet for good article. Thanks for your help! Wildhartlivie (talk) 06:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Old Dogs

The film Old Dogs is not doing too well with film critics' reviews:

And yet, despite this, Shicoco (talk · contribs) has twice now added tags to the top of the article's page: [1] and [2]. I find it kind of odd that this account has no contributions to Wikipedia since August 2009 [3], but that is besides the point.

I worked very hard on researching and adding material to the Critical reception subsection of this article. It actually does include some positive reception in the article, despite the extremely low ratings at review aggregated sites. I would appreciate some input, at Talk:Old Dogs (film), especially on whether this tagging by Shicoco (talk · contribs) is appropriate or not. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 22:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Left a note there. Not surprising to see the low RT rank. CNN's critic was brutal in his review of it as well. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks very much! Cirt (talk) 23:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Apologies for my having responded resulted in Bambifan coming to mess with the article :-( -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 00:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Which one is Bambifan? Cirt (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Nevermind. Cirt (talk) 02:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Let me ask again. So there are no limit for the amount of reviews in an article and what makes those comments so notable to be in the intro section? Ricardoread (talk) 03:05, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

In a word, no. So long as the reviews are from reliable sources, which these appear to be. More importantly, they cover a wide area of the country, so it can't be said that they just reflect, for example, the views of large urban areas, etc. The "intro" is the lead and the responsibility of the lead to provide a summary of the main article. There is no guideline that outlines a choice of review over another. In other words, we don't distinguish something as more notable than something else. If it qualifies as notable in regard to the publication, meaning it has passed Wikipedia guidelines for notability, then it's fine. Perhaps we should choose some of the more cutting reviews? Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:54, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I mean, why not pick Roger Ebert to be in the intro? Can I put anyone in the intro? That's why I think it should be a simple, "a critical failure" instead of putting a select list without any guideline. Ricardoread (talk) 04:13, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Look, the purpose of any article is to give a reflection of the film's success or failure and what is right or wrong about it. Simply saying "a critical failure" does not meet the requirement that an article have full scope of the reception. I'm sorry that you want a number count for reception, but that varies so much depending on the films that it is impossible. Who said it was a "select list"? I said it gave broad enough coverage of areas of the country to ensure the article isn't accused of being urban-centric, for example. Picking Robert Ebert would be a bit POV, I'd think, because you're picking what might be the only film critic you, or someone else, happens to know. He's covered. There is not a flat out cookie cutter guide, which seems to be what you want. If that were the case, there would be no need to write article, we'd just plug in the links and let a computer do it. There is, however, a guideline for style in film articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines#Critical response. Look, I'm sorry if you liked this film and the majority of opinion is contrary to yours. However, if Old Dogs was a raging success, I don't think you'd be complaining because the reception section was full of positive reviews. Wildhartlivie (talk) 05:30, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
First of all, don't start assuming that I watched this movie, it is very irrelevant and insultive comment of yours. Just to let you know, I haven't watched this film and I have no interest on this film what so ever. My interesest, however, lies on the quality of this article and others related to this matter. Your just contradicting yourself by saying that if I pick Roger Ebert to be in the intro it'll be POV. What makes the other users who picked the reviews in the intro not POV? Ricardoread (talk) 19:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
First off, insultive isn't a word; insulting is. Second of all the lede says "Old Dogs received poor reception from film critics.", and this statement is correct. There then follows a short selection of the huge list of bad reviews the film got, to both illustrate and back up the statement in the first sentence of the second graf. If any editor were to pick the 1 out of 100 good reviews and put that in the lede then it would be false balance, and thus trying to push a POV. To be honest the selection of reviews is irrelevant, you could pick any five reviews and they would all say the same thing, the film is a piece of cinematic excrement, to cherry pick the single good review out of all the bad reviews and pull it to the lede would make me suspicious of your motives. To summarizificy; one good review out of 100 = POV, five bad reviews out of 99 = accurate reflection of current opinion. Darrenhusted (talk) 21:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the spelling lesson buddy. Insultive is a neologism though, my apologies if it means that much to you. But, oh my god! seriously I really don't care about the positive reviews!!!!!!!!! That's a different subject I don't want to get into right now. Let me see if you understand what I'm trying to say.....If I were to write an intro similar to this film on other film articles, would that be fine? Maybe I should start doing it on movies recently released to see what editors think about it. My point is that it is awkard how is witten. Ricardoread (talk) 23:43, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not that concerned about how it is "witten" but don't go doing it to prove a point. Most film articles that have had the input of more than one editor already have a sample of the critical opinion within the lede, but a lot of films with short ledes need a more accurate summary of the contents of the articles, so if what you are saying is "I want to help improve film articles" then go ahead, that's the point of the project. But if you are saying "I'm going to write bad intros to other film articles" then don't bother, you'll end up with a block. Otherwise switch to a browser with built in spell check, and watch out for easy typing errors that spell checks don't catch (like form and from). Darrenhusted (talk) 01:40, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, you're right I am getting a little worked up on this. I'll just do what I feel is right next time. Anyways, I do have a problem with critics classifying as reliable source, even though is not on my top concern right now. Greetings. Ricardoread (talk) 05:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

A Serious Man

Some additional eyes and views could be helpful here. I was called to the attention of this article by a relatively newer editor tried to change WP:MOSFILM's guidelines to allow the article's originally 1000+ word plot summary. This was reverted and he started a discussion questioning the guidelines of 400-700 words (which could also use additional views). In responding to the discussion, I looked at the article and applied some MoS fixes and rewrote the plot summary from its then just over 700 word length to a more compact sub-500 word length, almost entirely by just cleaning up the prose. There is a discussion on the talk page over whether the first paragraph[4] should be restored at Talk:A Serious Man#Remove Notice?, and a second discussion over the apparent dispute with my removing the long cast section as the cast was already listed in the plot at Talk:A Serious Man#Cast section. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I welcome as many eyeballs on this as possible. Diegoboten (talk) 00:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, you're making it sound like the MOC was changed to specifically suit the article. Actually the allusion to 900-1000 words came from earlier MOC language that was recently changed after digging through the history. Personally don't care at this point how people want to edit this particular movie as I've already given my input as best as I can....however I do think the MOC guidelines are overly narrow, overly didactic and less "guideliney" and hence are pretty much leading people to create low quality summaries that have little practical value to the article reader. Worst of all, they're just being ignored -- by lots and lots of other more high profile articles. Diegoboten (talk) 00:19, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
The length should suit the need. If that's 1000 words, so be it. But what *is* the need? As a reader, I would use a brief film review to figure out whether I wanted to watch the movie. A para or two will suffice for that. But these summaries are long and largely original research.
I've written a number of Wiki book articles; after awhile I had the uneasy feeling that even though nobody was complaining, what I was doing was quite major original research. I keep the plot summary as short and dry as "possible". But I also know that if I'm too brief, someone will hit the article with "stub". But does my compromise meet my own requirement that a summary is useful deciding whether to read the book? Not in the least. We're in a weird situation where editors are writing by "feel", by "example". If we agree that's what's should be done, then hard-and-fast rules about length are not appropriate. Cheers, Piano non troppo (talk) 00:46, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
THe need is to keep the plot description from becoming asinine, especially for films that just simply defy brief explanations. Look, I am all for economy and being concise and keeping flabby edits from proliferating. But we're talking about a figure that's being casually thrown out there that equates two to five text messages or twitter updates. If people feel the need to put out some kind of arbitrary range, OK fine. But I think then the language should be modified to treat this figure as suggestive and aspirational. This would at least give people a principled standard to abide by WITHOUT giving wikilawyers easy bait. Finally, does anybody actually read these things after they're so tightly edited? If you were to critically examine most plot descriptions that are actually abiding to the 400-700 word rule....frankly most of them kinda suck. Pick your favorite movie and give it a whirl. You'll see what I am talking about. It's an overused measure that's actually making people deliberately biased towards trivial and uninformative writing out of the concern they'll be judged ignorant of the guidelines and be summarily reverted. Diegoboten (talk) 02:32, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Yep. I was looking at RV (movie) — hardly my favorite movie, but I'd just before watched it with commentary on. Apropos this discussion, I read the Plot, and was put off by the bloat (including a couple factual errors). Someone added a tag on the plot recently, but it was removed.[5] I *was* interested in the critical reception and gross. Number of readers last month? 116.[6] Number who read the Plot? Umm. 10? Number who would have cared it was sloppy? 3? None? Piano non troppo (talk) 05:12, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
I think 400 words is still too many words. I think most film summaries can be boiled down to three sentences, and I think that lazy editors keep adding sentence after sentence until they turn into blow-by-blow accounts. Diegoboten's cries of Wikilawyering are overblown. It's not lawyering to point out the guidelines call for a summary to summarize the contents of fiction. If you want to see good summarizing then look at the summaries for Twilight books; thousands of pages down into a few hundred words. Darrenhusted (talk) 12:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
It does depend to a certain extent on the amount of information required to give context to surrounding article. For example, Changeling is a long article, chock-full of real-world production information, with a plot summary of about 650 words (the film is nearly 2.5 hours). I don't think 400 would be quite enough to provide that context; what we'd have to do instead is expand elsewhere, including plot tidbits in production/effects/analysis etc. to help explain that information. I'm not sure this approach would read particularly well. That said, I have yet to come across a film that I couldn't summarise in 700-odd words, and I agree that this should remain the upper limit for all but the most complex/long works. Steve T • C 12:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Angelina Jolie's son goes missing, the police return a child who is not hers. They lock her up for trying to tell the truth, a reverend gets her released. Her son may or may not have been the victim of a serial killer. The case remains unsolved. There's the basics, that's 47 words, that still leaves 353 to add subtleties. Cut out subplots and most films can be reduced to less than 400 words, some people just don't try hard enough. Darrenhusted (talk) 13:12, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
As requested, Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a featured article. 75 minute television film, word count of the plot is 239 words, and it covers every major moment completely. And to further show that yes, 700 is more than enough, another featured article, Tokyo Mew Mew which is a seven volume book series with a two volume sequel. The entire series is summed up in 617 words. So yes, 400-700 is more than enough for the large majority of films, with good writing and cutting the excessive stuff. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Christmas horror movie?

There does seem to be some sort of fairly clear sub-genre of horror movies set at Christmas time. Given that Christmas is approaching soon, and it might be nice to have a few topical DYKs for the main page on that day, this might be an interesting one to have available. Is there any sort of real notability to the "genre"? John Carter (talk) 17:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Black Christmas and Gremlins come to mind, but after that? I'm not sure what the minimum for a genre is. Darrenhusted (talk) 18:22, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Silent Night, Deadly Night and its sequels, The Children (2008 film), Christmas Evil, Silent Night, Bloody Night, Santa Claws, and probably at least a few others exist as well. John Carter (talk) 18:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Jack Frost (1996 film) (but not its sequel, I don't think). And there's a list here to start with. Even so, I don't know that it constitutes enough for a genre. -Krasnoludek (talk) 18:36, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Probably right, but I wasn't thinking so much of a "genre" per se as just an article. If there are any reliable sources about the phenomenon, whether as genre, marketing gimmick, exploitation of depression of people alone over Christmas, or whatever, it might be an interesting addition. John Carter (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Although not truly horror movies, the Die Hard series were set at Christmas. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Is there even a Christmas genre on Wikipedia? Like just "Christmas films"? --Mike Allen talk · contribs 19:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
You mean like Category:Christmas films? Personally, I see a few possible problems there, as I think I see one or two that were relased at Christmas but not necessarily about Christmas, but it exists. John Carter (talk) 20:02, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Ah thanks will have to go through there one day. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 05:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm going through it now, which is how this idea came to me, If you do have any desire to maybe split up movies in release over Christmas from movies with Christmas themes, let me know how to categorize the former and I can try to do so. If they are both, I would assume they would be included in both categories. John Carter (talk) 18:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Films released at Christmas? or is that too long? Films with Christmas themes Is that what you had in mind? Also, how does Batman Returns relate to Christmas? --Mike Allen talk · contribs 19:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the latter, I asked that question on the article's talk page. Later, I noticed the movie more or less ends with Bruce wishing Alfred a Merry Christmas, and the movie I guess had some Christmas imagery in it prior to then as well. This is a fairly weak justification for inclusion though. I think Fischer says "Merry Christmas" to Ann at the end of at least the TV version of The Legend of Hell House, also set in, well, December, but it isn't called a Christmas movie. John Carter (talk) 19:39, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Batman Returns is set at Christmas, there's a whole scene when they turn on the Christmas lights on the Christmas tree. Catwoman is killed and falls into the snow, 'cause it's Christmas in Gotham city. Tim Burton has a thing for Christmas films. Darrenhusted (talk) 21:15, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Christmas at Maxwell's

I have serious questions about this article. The username of the editor and primary contributor, as well as that editor's history, indicates a direct connection to the people who made the film, and I don't find any references to the film in google news or any other quickly obvious RS's. John Carter (talk) 17:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Take it to AfD, for what it is worth the PROD in January was removed by a sockpuppet. Add William C. Laufer and Laufer Film in there. Darrenhusted (talk) 18:25, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Agree on taking to AfD if the CSD I just added is declined. Tagged the other two for CSD and reported both user names as promotional, and left COI warnings on both. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 18:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
The CSD was removed without reason so I reinstated it. LargoLarry (talk) 19:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Jennifer's Body article

Some assistance is needed at this article about its Plot and Casting sections: Talk:Jennifer's Body#Plot and Casting sections. Flyer22 (talk) 11:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Second opinion needed on possible WP:LINKSPAM

Foluwaso (talk · contribs) is adding en-masse in the external links section of several films a link to the films' reviews on a website called bestforfilm.com. I've never heard of this website so I hold no opinion as far as its usefulness but the amount of links that are being added, coupled with the fact that most of them are not inserted as references but rather as external links (non-conforming per WP:ELNO), makes me think this is a case of WP:LINKSPAM. Before I do anything with these links, can someone else take a look at this and let me know what you think?

Thanks! Big Bird (talk • contribs) 18:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah...that be spam. Revert, report, and wait for blockage....-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 18:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
The site doesn't even state who the owner is (the footer, by Copyright). Nothing. Looks like someone's personal website. I concur with Collectionian. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 18:36, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

BOM and The-Numbers

What is the right thing to do when you're updating box office tables on films; and Box Office Mojo and The-Numbers have different numbers for that film. As it stands now, it seems that The-Numbers has the most accurate figures for Foreign markets, but is mostly the same for domestic compared to BOM. So on the tables I cite(ed) both the sites in the Reference cell. Just recently I removed Harry Potter (film series) and Saw (franchise) source for the The-Numbers and just left it one source (BOM) after someone (and I'll admit really doesn't seem to understand WP policy himself) said something about the "accuracy". So after thinking about it I just removed The-Numbers so it wouldn't cause any confusion/problems in the future. What is your take on this? Did I have it right the first time? Thanks per usual --Mike Allen talk · contribs 18:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

BOM's lower numbers are more accurate and more widely quoted by imdb and others. I would err on the side of BOM, unless another source using The Numbers figures can be quoted. Darrenhusted (talk) 18:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Darrenhusted. The project advocates the use of either, but each article (and I would argue for each franchise) should use only one. I tend to use BOM because imdb uses it and they tend not to report the inflated weekend grosses that are often reported on Sundays. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 18:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes but BOM usually has it ending with "000,000", that doesn't seem accurate to me. The reason IMDb uses it, is because they own BOM. lol --Mike Allen talk · contribs 18:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
A clean number like 16,500,000 means that it's an estimate. It is usually updated in time. If it's not, then say something like "grossed an estimated $16,500,000" or "grossed an estimated $16.5 million". Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 19:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi Erik. I'm talking about figures within the tables, not written in the articles. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 21:11, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
In tables use which ever one uses the most amount of exact figures. So if BOM has three of four films with $4,786,231 then use those rather than those which put everything in 0's. And though imdb use BOM it is also used by other film sites. The rules should be use whichever seems to be the most accurate. This is easy to do with older films, harder to do with films just released as the weekend figures tend to be inflated (see the whole opening weekend with Up and The Hangover where Up was 1, then number 2). Darrenhusted (talk) 12:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
While it's true that large numbers with trailing zeros indicate somebody has been rounding, we should go with the sources that have been found most accurate. There are also situations (see "How to Lie with Statistics" for related techniques) where non-zero digits are used to imply statistical accuracy — accuracy that doesn't actually exist. It's not necessarily deception; people who collect numbers often aren't aware underlying mathematical principles. Piano non troppo (talk) 13:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The reality is, both are reliable. Unless there is a huge difference in the figures, use whichever one you want. Chances are, it's just a matter of one updating before the other.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(comment that didn;t get posted from 3 days ago) BOm calculate their figures by multiplying the ticket numbers (where they get these I don't know) by an average ticket price. Clearly since the gross is split among hundreds of organisations the only way to get accurate figures would be as part of the distribution deal. Even then, I have no idea if cinemas are honest about this stuff. But be that as it may, where sources differ we should be a little careful about choosing one. We can give a range which is what we do with other figures. $986 - $988 Million ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rich Farmbrough (talk • contribs) 17:22, December 11, 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes 14 December

Dear colleagues

This is a reminder that voting is open until 23:59 UTC next Monday 14 December to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee. It is an opportunity for all editors with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 to shape the composition of the peak judicial body on the English Wikipedia.

On behalf of the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 09:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Distribution number of Dusha

There is a dispute going on about the viewing numbers of the film. The http://www.kinokultura.com/plus/prokat2.html site claims 33.3 million viewers while the number gets deleted by a fan of Sofia Rotaru and replaced by a greater number based on an oral statement by Alexander Stefanovich, the director of the film. The latter has later admitted starting rumours on Alla Pugacheva selling 100 million records which he had invented himself. Therefore Stefanovich is a highly unreliable source for such figures. See Talk:Dusha for details. --Jaan Pärn (talk) 12:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Infobox data

I'd like to confirm that the "Preceded by" and "Followed by" entries in the infobox are for titles of films in a related series, such as The Godfather, The Godfather I, and The Godfather II. Someone edited an article I created and add the unrelated films the director made before and after the film discussed in the article, which I think is incorrect. LargoLarry (talk) 15:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Quite correct. The other user is clearly misusing those parameters and should be advised to read the template documentation. PC78 (talk) 16:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Twilight Film article name discussions

There are currently two discussions going on regarding the naming of the Twilight film articles that could use some further views from more neutral voices. The first, looking at renaming New Moon (2009 film) to The Twilight Saga: New Moon is at Talk:New Moon (2009 film)#Requested move. The second at Talk:Eclipse (2010 film) proposes a similar move of that article to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you brought this up. I've about had it with one person over there (see canvassing comments on talk:New Moon). If he keeps it up and when I figure out how to report him (lol), I am. For what it's worth I'm not even fan of Twilight (never seen any of it) either... But onto THIS discussion, if the consensus is to rename, will there still be a link to the films on the "New Moon" and "Eclipse" disambiguation pages? --Mike Allen talk · contribs 22:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I see no reason there wouldn't be. They are the common name for the actual novel versions, and short names of the films. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I left my neutral opinion on the "New Moon" talk page, hope it helps....Ricardoread (talk) 02:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Further views could also be used regarding the formatting of the cast list of this and the other articles, which I tagged for clean up. Talk:The Twilight Saga: New Moon#Cast Section (s). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Italicized article titles

The title of the article The Messenger is in italics. I seem to recall a discussion a while back in which the consensus was article titles should not be italicized. Is this format now acceptable? LiteraryMaven (talk • contrib) 19:31, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

No, we do not have a consensus to use it, so it should be without the {{italic title}} template. I removed it. Judging from what links to the template, it should be used for science articles. Any easy way to cross-reference pages using this template with pages using the {{Infobox film}} template to make sure there aren't any stragglers? Erik (talk) 19:41, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

This won't be all of them, but I've found the following using AWB if someone wants to sort them out:

  1. Casino (film)
  2. Duck, You Sucker!
  3. In Which We Serve
  4. No Country for Old Men (film)
  5. Pan's Labyrinth
  6. Persona (1966 film)
  7. Ran (film)
  8. Suck My Dick
  9. Winged Migration
  10. Feel 100%
  11. Old Master Q
  12. Maple Palm
  13. Red Velvet
  14. Detective Dee

PC78 (talk) 00:46, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed I didn't fix them (credit goes to Garion96). --Mike Allen talk · contribs 01:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to all! Erik (talk) 13:25, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Intro for Inchon (film)

I have worked very hard on this article and I nominated it for consideration for WP:GA. Concerns have been raised at the talk page for the article Inchon (film), about the size of the lede. I directly implemented the suggested wording changes to the lede given by the editor who posted to the talk page [7]. I then worked to significantly trim down the overall size of the lede, from this [8], to this [9]. I'd love to get some more input on my quality improvement efforts, at the article's talk page. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 10:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Besides the fact that the lead is still too long, I'm wondering why there are so many references cited in the plot. Since when is a film's plot referenced? I've never seen that before. 209.247.21.77 (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
It's not available on home video, so the plot summary cannot be verified by a mere watching. That's why the summary relies on secondary sourcing. Erik (talk) 14:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Just on cursory reading, a great deal of the lede is actually part of the production and background of the film. I would suggest making a sub-section on the development of the film project if you want to ensure that the information stays "close to the top." Otherwise, the lede could be substantially altered with details shifted to the production of the film. FWiW. the plot is an author's precis of the salient points in the film narrative and rarely requires referencing although that is not a hard-and-fast rule. Bzuk (talk) 14:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC).

Another question - why do people keep spelling it lede when it's correctly spelled lead at [10]? 209.247.21.77 (talk) 14:55, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Why would I ask why people keep spelling it lede when it's correctly spelled lead at [11] on a film's talk page when it's a general question that could be answered here? 209.247.21.77 (talk) 14:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Good point. The fact is, both are appropriate spellings. :P Cirt (talk) 14:59, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
It's an anachronism from editors (in the real world of publishing), more insider jargon, and cuteness than not, but it served to differentiate the meaning from the standard definition of "lead." Meanwhile, "back on the ranch," the terms, "lead" and "lede" are interchangeable. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:01, 12 December 2009 (UTC).

Thanks for the explanation. I can't find lede in any dictionary, so it just looks like people don't know how to spell it. Isn't an encyclopedia supposed to use standard English instead of "insider jargon"? 209.247.21.77 (talk) 15:05, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

You can't find "lede" in any dictionary? How about Webster's? [12] Cirt (talk) 15:07, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
"Lede" is still found in dictionaries: From WordWeb Dictionary: "Noun: lede, 1. The introductory section of a story. e.g. "It was an amusing lede-in to a very serious matter"; also - lead, lead-in, Type of: section, subdivision, Part of: news article, news story, newspaper article The term is also found in TheFreeDictionary as "Obsolete spelling of lead, revived in modern journalism to distinguish the word from lead, strip of metal separating lines of type." Merriam-Websters, Random House and Wiktionary also have definitions. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
FWiW, thanks. :P Cirt (talk) 15:54, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
If "lede" is "part of news article, news story, or newspaper article" and an "obsolete spelling of lead, revived in modern journalism", why is it used in what's supposed to be an encyclopedia? It doesn't seem like it belongs here if it's a spelling used in journalism but nowhere else. 67.78.143.227 (talk) 18:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Category:A Christmas Story

Just really noticed the above named category today, which was created on December 12 by User:TMC1982. Just curious, to most films get this degree of attention? John Carter (talk) 19:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a perfect example of dumb categories! 67.78.143.227 (talk) 18:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Do you think there would be much objection to proposing it for deletion? John Carter (talk) 18:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
I would say to remove the category from articles that are not sub-topics of the film, particularly the musical pieces. It should reduce the number of entries further, and it can be put up for CFD because it cannot be significantly populated. Erik (talk) 18:32, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Assistance is needed at Avatar (2009 film)

An editor there is going against WP:Consensus regarding Rotten Tomatoes being a reliable and acceptable source here at Wikipedia. Some assistance in explaining to this editor that this source is perfectly fine for relaying the reception of films is needed: Talk:Avatar (2009 film)#Rotten Tomatoes. Flyer22 (talk) 03:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

GAN backlog

The backlog at GAN is starting to get out of hand, with 50+ pending noms in the film, music, and theatre section. I doubt the ordinary reviewer body could handle such a huge backload speedily so I'm wondering if some of you guys could help bring it under control. Cheers, Mm40 (talk) 12:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

New Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee article

Could a more experienced movie article editor run their eye over this for me please? Particularly the plot section, which I found quite hard to write. I'd be most appreciative, as I want to nominate it for DYK later in the week. Stu ’Bout ye! 21:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The quality of an article is not taken into consideration for DYK. The only thing that matters is the length (it must be at least 1500 characters long) and whether or not the hook you select is interesting and referenced properly. LiteraryMaven (talk • contrib) 15:12, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually, DYK does also require it to be fairly complete (in terms of having at least most major expected elements there and not looking like its "in progress") and that every paragraph (except the plot) have at least one RS. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 15:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I think it's just about good enough for DYK as stands, apart from the production section needing expasion. But if someone could read the plot section and give me an opinion on whether it makes sense to someone who hasn't seen the film, I'd be grateful. Stu ’Bout ye! 15:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I have vetoed DYK nominations for articles that were barely stubs and have been overruled by other editors. The guidelines at [13] specify 1) a nominated article must be new or expanded fivefold or more within the last five days; 2) articles must have a minimum of 1,500 characters of prose; 3) the nomination's hook must contain a fact with an inline citation; and 4) articles and hooks which focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals should be avoided. The guidelines further state, "Many submissions are made which fail to satisfy one or more of these points. Nominators should ensure that their submissions meet all these criteria or their submissions will fail DYK eligibility." Note there sadly is no mention of quality being a requirement. LiteraryMaven (talk • contrib) 16:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the input to the article, it reads better now. Stu ’Bout ye! 16:45, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

There is a discussion occurring here about the use of cast/crew members in navigation boxes, including film navboxes. Comments would be greatly appreciated. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 17:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

List of public information films at AfD

Discussion can be found here. Lugnuts (talk) 07:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Neutral eyes on Yesterday Was a Lie

Could someone please take a look at what's happening with the addition of the Variety review to the article on the recently-opened film Yesterday Was a Lie? An editor added the review here, with what was perhaps a slightly POV description ("otherwise positive" for what was, in fact, a mixed review). I expanded the section by adding more quotes from the review, provided the full text of the bolded lede paragraph of the review in a footnote for support, and moved it up in the "Response" section as the most important review the film has received. I also altered what I had added when I thought it was a bit unbalanced on the negative side by inverting the section so that the review's positive remarks came first. The other editor, after a brief talk page "conversation" with an IP editing from a mobile device (the 166.x range), removed some of the quotes and addding a positive qualifier, and then moved the review back down into the middle of the "Response" section, thus giving pride of place to periodicals such as Film Threat magazine over Variety, the newspaper of record for the film industry. Rather than "avoiding bias" these changes served to introduce bias by misrepresenting the Variety review and attempting to bury it in the article.

I'd appreciate it if someone uninvolved could take a look and do whatever is necessary to present the judgment of the Variety article in a NPOV fashion. Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Copy-editing guide

Inspired by the fine example set by the MilHist folks, I've thrown together a brief guide on copy-editing and good prose in film articles. The guide can be found here; any comments and suggestions are of course welcome on its talk page. I realise that it might be a little presumptuous of me to include it right away as a subpage of the project's Manual of Style, but there isn't anything in the guide that conflicts with or adds to the MoS. Feel free to disagree. :-) All the best, Steve T • C 14:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Question about flags

Hello, I have a small question regarding the use of flags in film infoboxes. A while ago, I noticed a lot of film articles have flags in the infobox, but they almost always used the present flag, even on old films before that flag was used, something I found a bit confusing and annoying. I started editing several film articles to add the flag used when the film was made instead. After doing this on quite a few, however, I was told by User:Lugnuts that flags should not be used in infoboxes and referred me to this and this. Although after reading both of them, I haven´t found anything written there that says anything against the use of flags in the described way in particular. The Film Manual of Style says that flags should not be used instead of country names, nothing about using them together with the country name (which I did). The Icon Manual of Style is very unclear about the question too; also saying that they should not be used instead of country names (but nothing about using them together) and not be used to indicate a person’s place of birth.

Am I missing something here? I would really like to get a definite answer as this issue has made me a bit confused. Lugnuts seems to be a respected editor of Wikipedia and I trust his/her word, but the manual of style seems to have no definite answer on this and there are a lot of film articles at present that use flags, so it does not seem to be a prioritized issue. It may be a trivial matter, but I would really like to get this question resolved, and perhaps it can be put in the Manual of Style more clearly. I don´t want any other users to repeat my mistake, and I also would like to see it resolved so we can have consistent film articles instead of some having flags, some haven´t. Either way is fine by me. Hope to hear from you! Ding Chavez (talk) 23:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that guideline not very specific (well, a lot of guidelines aren't). But my understanding was it is currently discouraged to use those flags in the film infobox, period. So when I see them I promptly remove them. They are also very unappealing. Very. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 00:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Template:Infobox film itself specifies "Do not use flag icons, as this places an unnecessary emphasis on nationality; see MOS:FLAG for a detailed rationale." I try to clear out flags whenever I see them. --Intractable (talk) 01:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The problem with flags is that is isn't always clean what is meant with the flag, (some flags are regional) and also the flag is thought to be too nationalistic. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 01:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for your replies! Yes, the Film infobox template does specify they should not be used at all. Perhaps that can be put on the Film Manual of Style as well (right now, it only says they should not be used instead of country names)? Thank you again for clearing that up to me, I guess I should have understood it from the way the guidelines are written, but I just wanted to make sure. I didn´t really care whether they are used or not, but having no flags is definitely the best way to handle it for a lot of reasons.
While we are at it, I have another question: Should the country of origin be listed as the current definition of the country or as it was at the time the film was made? For example; let´s say there is a film made in 1955 in what is today Azerbaijan, should it be listed as a film from Azerbaijan or the Soviet Union? Ding Chavez (talk) 09:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I think you should credit the original country, but link it to the appropriate article so readers can understand what that means. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 12:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me of the debate we had about flag usage on the Snooker Project. We came to the conclusion that flags shouldn't be used unless you can demonstrate the real-life usage of the flag in that particular context. Most of the problems derived from the Ulster banner, and I'm sure there are many inflammatory flags - for instance, do you use the Nazi Swastika on films made by Germany under the Nazi regime? A real life context that would justify flag usage in this context would be if a production company regularly used its national flag on distribution literature about the film, because then you could demonstrate a real-life usage. As for the country of origin, I imagine this runs along similar lines to people's nationalities, and historic geography is always used. Betty Logan (talk) 21:36, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem with flags is that they are not so much helpful, as ornamental. Nearly anybody who can read English can read "New Zealand", "Philippines", or "Hong Kong". But the majority of readers will not recognize the flags for all three, or perhaps any of them. For the majority of readers, then, they are simply graphic noise, imparting no meaning to the topic of the article. Piano non troppo (talk) 06:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Mainstream critics in association with Metacritic

Additional input is requested at Talk:Avatar (2009 film)#Mainstream critics in association with Metacritic about if the word "mainstream" should be used in the passage about the consensus as report by Metacritic. Erik (talk) 20:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

V for Vendetta (film) FAR

I have nominated V for Vendetta (film) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Can the article just be restored to the version that passed the original criteria? Lugnuts (talk) 09:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
Highly likely not; it passed three-and-a-half years ago. Articles coming to WP:FAC today are—for the most part—held to a higher standard than they were back then. (That's not intended as a slight against anyone who crafted a now-old featured article, btw, just as an honest reflection of current practice.) Steve T • C 09:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
I'd say no. I looked at the old version and it really isn't much better, as it had even more non-free images, used spoiler tags, and still has some of the same issues with organization and what not. Also, as Steve notes, the FAC are must tougher than they were back when it passed, so the old version wouldn't pass today's standards either. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Need an administrator

...to move Sideways (movie) back to Sideways after it was erroneously moved. See User_talk:Entertainer91#Problems with your page moves for a full rationale. Viriditas (talk) 06:39, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

For now, I've restored the redirect to Sideways (movie) and put on a CSD which may get a faster result at this time of night. :) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
But, it's only 8:44 PM...here! :) Viriditas (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
LOL, its almost 1 am here ;-) But looks like its all done -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

The article was moved back to Sideways, but the talk page was never fixed; It's still over at Talk:Sideways (film). Could someone move it back to Talk:Sideways? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 09:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. Garion96 (talk) 10:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Lion King character list round 3 or 4?

Yet again, a discussion has started at Talk:The Lion King#Merge proposal to discuss merging the character articles into a recreation of the already removed character list (removed by consensus from a not too old discussion about the same thing). Additional views would be useful -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 00:24, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Story works not directly related to a film but presented as such

I am not sure what to do regarding The Strugatsky Brothers' original 1960-s novel matter at the Avatar (2009 film) article. The brothers' stories are not related to the film in any way, other than as similarities/comparisons, since James Cameron has not commented on using any of them as themes or inspirations for his film Avatar. Despite that, mention of them is currently in the Themes and inspirations section of this article...as if Cameron did use them as themes or inspirations. I ask should this stuff really be in that section? I say no, as did other editors in their removals of this information from that section, but additional opinions are needed about this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 01:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

There is also another issue at Avatar (2009 film) being discussed about if Avatar is an American film or an American-British film. Discussion is here. Erik (talk) 14:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
And yet another Avatar issue over the creation of Characters and wildlife in Avatar‎, which has been redirected back to the main by multiple editors. The discussion at Talk:Characters and wildlife in Avatar#Need for this page? already clearly supports the redirect, but a certain ARS member has found it and is now likely to edit war over it if he follows his usual MO. So additional views would be useful. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
The article Characters and wildlife in Avatar is now at AFD. Discussion can be found here. Erik (talk) 23:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Julie & Julia

Could we receive some opinions here about some fishy reviews supporting a biased review? BOVINEBOY2008 :) 20:02, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

New Member

I'm new to the project, and just thought I would introduce myself. Sean (talk || contribs) 04:40, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Sean! Welcome aboard. Feel free to check out the WikiProject's various pages. If you have any questions about the WikiProject, film articles, or editing in general, feel free to contact me on my talk page. There are other editors here at this WikiProject that you can probably contact as well. Again, welcome! :) Erik (talk) 04:50, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I echo what Erik said. All contributions to the film project are grately welcomed. Have a merry Christmas! Lugnuts (talk) 10:01, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Are there standards for describing aggregate review scores?

Merry Christmas! And sorry if I'm treading the ground of old arguments, not being a member of the project. I noticed there's a argument over whether the critical reception for The Twilight Saga: New Moon should be called "mostly negative" or "mixed." The film's scored a 28% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a "weighted average score" of 4.7/10. The argument has been going on for about a week, with lots of reverting, but has happily been civil. So, are there some sort of practices or do members of the project just wing it? If it's the latter, could you please bring enough manpower on that article to bring the matter to a conclusion? Thanks, Kizor 19:42, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

From a glance, the mistake both sides seem to be making is attempting to interpret those 28% and 4.7/10 scores for themselves; this borders on original research. Why not simply find reliable sources that say "negative" or "mixed" or whatever, and include the Rotten Tomatoes score as a supplement to that? Here's a version based on how we've done it at Hancock, Changeling and a bunch of others, where we've used more than just one source to determine the consensus:

New Moon received mixed reviews from film critics.[1] Rotten Tomatoes reported that 28% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on a sample of 199, with an average score of 4.7 out of 10.[2] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 44 based on 32 reviews.[1]

All of the above is cited; none is editor interpretation. Of course, the problem you might have is that seemingly equally reliable sources might label the reception everything from "negative" to "mixed" to "alright" :-) But at least that narrows the focus of the dispute down to what the sources say, rather than what we think they imply. All the best, Steve T • C 21:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
Why don't we just stop citing Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic data and simply quote the reviews and allow the critics to speak for themselves? LiteraryMaven (talk • contrib) 16:26, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
We use RT as a means to provide a sample of critics that can be generalized back to all critics. It's called statistics. We cannot list every critic, and we cannot simply list 12 of them and interpret ourselves what the overall consensus is. That is why we use RT, because they take a much large sample than we can and provide the statistical data we need to be able to say that "in general", critics liked, disliked, or were ambivalent to a film. We also don't include things like "universal acclaim", "rotten", etc., because it's not neutral. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral, so we use neutral terminology, even if RT or Metacritic do not.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:41, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Yahoo! Movies Aggregate Scores?

Are Yahoo! Movies critics aggregate scores considered reliable and appropriate for inclusion, like RT's and MetaCritics? According to their site "Yahoo! Movies converts each critic's published rating into a letter grade. If the critic's review does not include a rating, Yahoo! Movies assigns a grade based on an assessment of the review." It then averages those grades into a Critics assessment. This generally seems to be from 10-15 critics that they link to. Some examples[14][15] Previously, consensus seemed to be that Yahoo! Movies should not be included. Thoughts? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I would think it appropriate for inclusion into an article, but I do see flaws. If the article Yahoo gets their rating from does not give a letter grade and the review is bad, the letter grade should be on par with this (meaning it should be a bad letter grade). But they could make it a good grade then. In which case, it should not be used. But what I've read on there so far, it seems to be acurate. I personally like seeing letter grades, rather then percentage grades. I know my sister who uses wikipedia, but does not edits it, likes the letter grades on here better than the percentage grades also. (Also, Collectonian thanks for handleing the situation in the right manner. And I'm sorry I misspelled your name ;P )ChaosMaster16 (talk) 01:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)ChaosMaster16
So if the initial review doesn't have a grade, Yahoo takes it on their own and assigns what they think the grade should be? Eeek. When doing film series/franchise article's reception tables, I have included the Yahoo! Movies scores (the critics), since it has been done on just about all articles and FA's. Would like to know if this is changed also. --Mike Allen 01:17, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
I dunno. Metacritic converts review ratings to a score in a similar way, assigning points. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
As does Rotten Tomatoes. The Yahoo Movies external link template was deleted because the site is not as comprehensive as IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, hence it was redundant. But is there a consensus that Yahoo! Movies aggregate scores should not be used in articles? - kollision (talk) 02:29, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
But MC and RT doesn't have a grading system like A, B , C , D etc? --Mike Allen 04:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Some film series articles use Yahoo! like at Batman in film#Critical reaction. For me, though, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are sufficient enough to reflect a film's reception. Adding the grade from Yahoo! feels like piling on, especially considering that its "grade" is not as common. Erik (talk) 23:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Then should we remove this from critical reception ables? including batman?ChaosMaster16 (talk) 13:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)ChaosMaster16
I wouldn't miss it that much. I may be guilty of including it in the first place in series' reception tables to try to make the table more detailed than just having RT and MC. In retrospect, I don't know if it's that common of a critical gauge and shouldn't be assumed to be one. Erik (talk) 18:11, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed rename A Christmas Carol → Disney's A Christmas Carol (official name)

I brought it up on the film's talk page, but not sure it'll get many responses. But shouldn't the article be renamed to the official title (what most notable sources call it and it's on the film poster) to Disney's A Christmas Carol? I don't believe that WP:COMMONNAME applies here, and this is the same thing that happened with The Twilight Saga: New Moon and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. How do we get this looked into? Thanks. --Mike Allen 06:33, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Good thought! Check out WP:RM, where you can follow steps to set up an officially requested move that will be automatically listed on that page. Erik (talk) 18:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Though the first thing I'd do if I were you (Mike) is make sure that is the official title. While it's by no means considered 100% reliable, the IMDb, for example, lists it under the regular title. Steve T • C 19:00, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
It seems that the title was revised. See the BBFC link here: [16]. The earlier trailers had it as "Disney's A Christmas Carol" and the later ones and ultimately the film as "A Christmas Carol". Betty Logan (talk) 19:06, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Aren't all Disney films titled as "Disney's X" or "Walt Disney's X"? Seems more of a marketing gimmick than an actual true title. Lugnuts (talk) 19:08, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

According to IMDB it has two titles for its US release. For its normal release it was released as "Disney's A Christmas Carol" but for the IMAX version it was released as "A Christmas Carol". Amazon on the otherhand has its theatrical release down just as "A Christmas Carol" [17].ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1261940911&sr=1-1]. I'd say both titles are legitimate, but if one is taken why not go with the other? Betty Logan (talk) 19:21, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Everyone, this is a discussion about a specific article, so let's take our comments to the film article's talk page where Mike already started a thread. I'll be commenting there. Erik (talk) 19:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Mike has made an official request to move A Christmas Carol (2009 film) to Disney's A Christmas Carol. Discussion can be found here. Erik (talk) 20:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Several problems about Blood: The Last Vampire (2009 film) and how infobox present a film's distributors

This film's wiki page has some errors. I fixed them, but then Collectonian would put those errors back in the page; I don't know why? Firstly, this film's UK release date is June 26 2009, but Collectonian keep stating that it is June 18, 2009 and put the date in this film's wiki page. Secondly, East Wing Holdings only produced this film, but didn't release it. But Collectonian keep stating this error info and put the error info in the infobox of this film's wiki page. On the other hand, Collectonian states that a infobox of a film's wiki page should only include the distributor in that film's original countries. It is ridiculous. United States is the most important film market in the world, especially for English-language films like Blood: The Last Vampire (2009 film). It is the reason why its United States theatrical distributor should be included in the infobox of this film's wiki page. (Of course, Collectonian keeps delete it) In fact, many infoboxs of many non-US films' wiki pages have listed their United States theatrical distributors. For instance, based on what Collectonian said, maybe we should delete Sony Pictures Classics from the infobox of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus wiki page? Maybe we should also delete 20th Century Fox from the infobox of Taken wiki page? - Marychan41 (talk • contrib) 18:14, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I've already attempted to explain my edits to Marychan and attempted discussion as she just kept making various changes without discussion despite pointing out that she was inappropriately adding systematic bias to the article. At the time Summit was added, it was mentioned in the sources listed. After rechecking them, the reference was removed so I have removed it from the article. The UK date in the lead has already been fixed as has the mention of East Wing Holdings (which again was from a source that has since removed the mentioned). I do know the difference between distributor and production company, thanks. The change to the infobox was fairly recent, which is why I encouraged Marychan to take a few minutes to actually read its documentation, rather than continuing to make incorrect edits, but instead she seems to prefer to think I was just making things up. The US is not the most important film market in the world, nor is this the American Wikipedia. Giving the US such extra attention is systematic bias hence the changes to the infobox. The English releases are properly noted in the article prose, they are just not overtly highlighted in the info box. Blood was filmed in English, but it is still a Japanese film. And yes, if those two films are not American films, then only their original distributors should be listed in the infobox, and the rest moved to the prose as is appropriate. And apologies to Marychan. Had I realized that English was not your first language I would have explained the reverts in greater detail on the first round, but I presumed it was your first language so didn't realize you just were not understanding my summaries. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 18:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
It isn't a bias, it is the fact. In fact, getting theatrical releases in the United States can helps the films to get sell to more international distributors. (For instance, many international distributors didn't buy The Lives of Others until Sony Pictures Classics paid $100,000 to buy it; but The Lives of Others is a German film, so we should delete Sony Pictures Classics from the infobox of The Lives of Others wiki page?) Getting theatrical releases in the United States can also help films to get much more money in worldwide non-theatrical market; it is the reason why many international companies chose to self-release their films in US theatrically when they couldn't get US theatrical distribution deals. (For instance, CJ Entertainment self-released Typhoon in the United States theatrically, with Paramount tapped to handle the logistics on the ground) They are some reason that can explains why United States is the most important film market in the world, and why many infoboxs of many non-US films' wiki pages have listed their United States theatrical distributors. So I think Samuel Goldwyn Films should be added on the infobox of Blood: The Last Vampire (2009 film) page. (And yes, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Taken are definitely not US films, but getting United States theatrical release are very important key to their success.) - Marychan41 (talk • contrib) 19:04, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The release dates should be limited to its earliest theatrical showing, and the release dates in the countries that produced the film: WP:FilmRelease. You can get a list of the relevant dates here: [18]. Neither UK nor US release dates are eligible for inclusion in the infobox.
As for the distributor, there is no guidelines for which distributors should be included or not included, so there is no rule that the US distributor can't be listed. If the list of distributors is unfeasibly long though then some common sense should apply, and a consensus would probably result in the listing restricted to distributors in the production countries. At the moment though I see no reason why a US distributor cannot be listed according to the rules as they currently are.
The US is the single biggest market in the film industry, but by using that as criteria for selecting information to present would violate WP:NPOV and WP:WORLDVIEW. The treatment of each film should be consistent i.e. Japanese films have domestic information presented in the same way US films have their domestic information presented. Treatment of international information for Korean films should be consistent with the the treatment of international information on articles about US films. Betty Logan (talk) 19:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Thank you a lot for your explainations, Betty Logan. So I guess Samuel Goldwyn Films can be added on the infobox of Blood: The Last Vampire (2009 film) page, but its US theatrical release date can't. (Many infoboxs of many non-US films' wiki pages have listed their United States theatrical dates, though, like the pages of The Lives of Others and Taken) - Marychan41 (talk • contrib) 19:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Also note the difference between making something successful (in the box office? critically? commercially?) and being notable. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 19:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Please note that IMDB is NOT a reliable source. Further, no, the US distributor should not be included in the infobox. And other pages that have not been updated to the new guidelines does not mean you should continue to push forth deprecated editing. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Please note that I didn't get those infos from IMDB; I gets its from other reliable sources. For instance, even the TV spot of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus states that the film is a UK-France co-production. - Marychan41 (talk • contrib) 19:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
That's just my interpretation of the guidelines here: Template:Infobox_Film. Restrictions are placed on the release dates you can list but there are no restrictions placed on the list of distributors. There clearly is no rule limiting the distributors section to distributors in the home countries, like there is with release dates. Betty Logan (talk) 19:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Common sense would seem to say that if it applies for one, it applies for all. There is no explicit restriction against adding dub voice actors, but those also do not belong in the infobox, only the original voices. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
If it were solely left to common sense then it wouldn't be listed for any. Typically the number of distributors is much smaller than release dates - a big Hollywood film for instance will usually have a domestic distributor and an international one, but there could be many release dates. In such a case it would be common sense to list both distributors. I don't know what the precise situation with this film is, but if there is only a handful of distributors I don't see a common sense reason for restricting the listing. Common sense would only need to prevail if the list became inordinately large. Betty Logan (talk) 19:39, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I would actually agree with Collectonian (its what I tend to do). Is it really notable who distributed Monsters, Inc. in Argentina or Tsotsi in China? I wouldn't think so. I think it would be good to say who distributed the film to the countries where it is notable, and leave the rest to prose, or imdb. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 19:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
It's a valid point, but if you consider Titanic (1997 film), the article lists both its domestic and its international distributors. Is it any more notable who distributed Titanic outside of its country than who distributed Monsters Inc or Tsotsi? I don't care either way, but there should be some consistency between how its covered on film articles. If this particular film has a couple of international distributors, isn't it peculiar that they can't be listed but Titanic's are? Betty Logan (talk) 19:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
So? WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Titanic isn't exactly the highest quality of articles and its well on its way to a GAR because of its many issues. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
That doesn't exactly address the point. If we apply the same rationale to the Titanic article then we should pull the international distributor. Would you agree with that? You can't decide with distributors are retained and which are not based on a whim. Betty Logan (talk) 20:01, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, yes, I would agree any non-US distributors should be removed from that article, as its a US film. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:03, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Your opinion is based on your 'common sense', which is not an objective and measurable standard.(Based on some people 'common sense', maybe infobox shouldn't list any distributor at all.) But as Betty Logan said, there is no official wiki rule that the US distributors for foreign films can't be listed in the infoboxs; the official wiki rule is more objective and measureable than different people's 'common sense'.
On the other hand, Titanic (1997 film) grossed most of its box office gross from international countries, and 20th Century Fox paid 60% of the film's budget to get the film's international rights. For me, it would be little ridiculous to not list 20th Century Fox in the infobox. (Again, there is no official wiki rule that the major international distributor for an US film can't be listed in the infobox) - Marychan41 (talk • contrib) 02:46, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

"Domestic" box office

Can I humbly suggest members of this WikiProject have a trawl through articles about films and fix usage of the term "domestic" box office to reflect which countries are actually meant by this? Thanks --Dweller (talk) 19:44, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are talking about Avatar (2009 film), we should avoid using the word "domestic" as much as possible. The meaning changes depending on the location of the reader. "Domestic", for Avatar, means the United States and Canada. It's best practice to write "grossed $x in the United States and Canada and $y in other territories". Erik (talk) 19:47, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I was talking about in all film articles. The thought was prompted by Avatar, as you say, but I've seen the term used widely in various entertainment articles in my years at WP and I'd anticipate it's fairly widely used in film articles. It's pretty much always inappropriate to use it. --Dweller (talk) 19:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, it is inappropriate to use, and it should be corrected as found. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:56, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

This ham-fisted search hit 388 uses on en:, but not all of them are film-related. --Dweller (talk) 19:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Adding "English-language films" (very common film article category) helps narrow it down, particularly because "domestic" is regularly found in American films due to systemic bias in favor of the US. Erik (talk) 20:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Guilty as charged. Have noted this, thanks. --Mike Allen 20:57, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
No worries! :) American publications frequently say "domestic" (especially Variety), so we have to take a moment and realize that the English-language Wikipedia has a global audience. Erik (talk) 21:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
These are all good points! I'm glad some one brought it up. I have used it before as the box office article defines Domestic box office as the United States/Canada gross, but I can see where the problem is. This should be written into the MOS some where, perhaps here. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 21:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Glad to have been of help! I was amused to see that in the first few Ghits, was a couple of usages of the term relating to the Dutch domestic box office, lol. --Dweller (talk) 21:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Toruk Makto!!! Cirt (talk) 21:27, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Motion pictures ratings

Additional discussion on Sherlock Holmes talk page on whether to include the Motion picture ratings into the article or not, would be appreciated. Thanks. —Mike Allen 00:48, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

We kind of have guidelines on this already: MOS:FILM#Ratings. :) I've reiterated this link there. Erik (talk) 03:18, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer Review Request

Hello to the films project! Im Mark, and a member of the WP:Musical Theatre/Theatre. Was wondering if anyone on this project would mine giving a look over Legally Blonde (musical) because im really at a loss who to ask and I really want to get working on the article. Its based on the movie Legally Blonde so thought this might be a good place to ask :). Hope you can help :) Mark E (talk) 11:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi Mark. The article has quite a lot of meat. The "C-Class" rating is probably a little harsh, at this point. Are you shooting to improve the rating, or ...? I'll leave a few comments on the article discussion page, but the article doesn't really need vast correction from many editors. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 13:17, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Cast images at The Lovely Bones (film)

Can we get an editor experienced with image policies to look at The Lovely Bones (film)? There is a string of individual photos of cast members in a row at the end of the cast section and I would like to know if it is acceptable. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 15:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

They all seem to be freely — or otherwise properly — licenced so there shouldn't be any image policy issues. The only concern would be if we find it aesthetically pleasing or beneficial to the reader. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 15:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Big Bird. I don't think I'm going to bring it up; although I don' like it, it isn't horrible looking. If it gets to an article review or if another editor brings it up, then it'll be worth discussing. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 15:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
It's not a question of image policies, as the images are all freely licensed images from Commons. The question is whether the images are appropriate. They seem disproportionate to the article, and I personally don't care for it very much. It's great to have images, and we don't have enough of them, but this is overkill. Stetsonharry (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Steve (talk · contribs) created a collage for American Beauty (film) using similar images. Perhaps this could be done instead? Ask Steve how he put them together. Erik (talk) 16:56, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
The fact that they are all freely licensed images doesn't mean they're appropriate for the article, since none of them show the actors in character. How does seeing a picture of Amanda Michalka strumming a guitar add to an understanding of the film? These pictures are window dressing and they don't belong here because they don't relate to the film in any way whatsoever. 209.247.22.164 (talk) 17:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Unless they look significantly different from the way they do in the film, then it is not an issue to add such images. Free images are encouraged to be used as visual aids to avoid a "wall" of text in the article body. It does not have to be to this extent, but such practice is with precedent. Erik (talk) 17:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Personally, I don't see how such a gallery adds anything to the article to increase the understanding to the reader. WP:IG says "The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject ... Images in a gallery should be carefully selected, avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made." I think the gallery in this case fails that. If the reader wants to know what Mark Wahlberg looks like, he or she need only click the name. The images are not of characters, but of actors. Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) According to the guidelines at [19], "the use of galleries may be appropriate in Wikipedia articles where a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The images in the gallery collectively must have encyclopedic value and add to the reader's understanding of the subject." The images in this article do not "add to the reader's understanding of the subject" in any way and they do not "collectively have encyclopedic value" because they don't represent the actors in their roles in this particular film. Using the same image of Susan Sarandon in every film she's in just because the image is free doesn't make any sense. 209.247.22.164 (talk) 18:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
It should not be a gallery. This does not mean that it is forbidden to use free images of the film's actors in the film article. We have the ability to click on the name to see a picture of the actor (if one exists), but this does not preclude including that picture in the article. The inclusion does not harm the article (except in excess as seen here) and serves as a visual aid in the article body. Wikipedia encourages free images to be used as often as possible. Perhaps we can trim it back. If any one image was to be included, it would be that of Saorise Ronan. Let's start a discussion at the film article's talk page to see what can be done with the article body and the images. Erik (talk) 18:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
OK, so we all seem to agree that the images should be taken out. Then somebody should step into the article and do some deleting. It's a shame that's necessary, but the photos are really pointless. Stetsonharry (talk) 20:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Their inclusion might not harm the article, but it doesn't enhance it in any way either, and it doesn't serve as a visual aid because it doesn't show the actors in character. I think Wikipedia encourages free images to be used as often as possible only if they're appropriate. For example, adding the image of Susan Sarandon that's in this article to the one about Thelma and Louise simply because it's free would be ludicrous. 209.247.22.164 (talk) 20:49, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
OK, we're sort of repeating ourselves. Nobody seems to what those images kept, so I'll be bold and take them out and leave a note on the talk page. The discussion should really continue there if anyone objects. Stetsonharry (talk) 20:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Sheesh, people! Why are you acting like free images are so icky? They can enhance the article by being visual aids. After all, they are people involved with the project. Even MOS:FILM#Free license images says, "Free licence images can include filming locations, on-set photos, and photos of the cast and crew. Some older films may be in the public domain, and screenshots can be used in articles without fair use constraints." Look at Barton Fink, a Featured Article that uses a lot of free license images. :P Anyway, I'm not invested in the film article, but the original contributor of the free images has the right idea if not the best implementation. Have a Happy New Year, everyone. Erik (talk) 21:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I was under the impression there was unanimity for removing the gallery. If not, it can be put back. I haven't even seen the film, and in fact I had to look at the article carefully so I wouldn't see any spoilers. --Stetsonharry (talk) 21:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Bolding information in the infobox

It's been in use for a while now and seems to be the adopted standard for films, regarding writing credits and more than one relevant country of release. It was even in the MOS for film, before Bovineboy2008 went and changed it by his own apparent "consnesus". I think it is necessary for the writing credits, because written by and screenplay by are different things according to the WGA, so you know encyclopedia and accuracy and all. Plus it's aesthetically better than crunched up little writing to the side, for release dates, I don't know whatever I can concede that, but I feel screenplay and story credits are important, so I don't see why having that information bold is so horrible.

Also feel free to chime in over in the Watchmen_(film) article about this, if I'm wrong about this then... hell, it'll be good/better getting more than one persons apparent personal "consensus" that he's right and I'm wrong. Thank you.173.88.129.35 (talk) 06:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It was not "his" consensus, but the actual consensus of the Film project as it has been discussed and implemented for quite awhile. He just updated the MoS to properly reflect that after noticing it hadn't been properly done so until now. Bolding should not be used unnecessarily, and certainly not for the story/screenplay marks (bolding those would not have been appropriate BEFORE his change either). His edits at Watchmen were fine. Only thing I'd change is removing the New Zealand date which I do not see sourced in the prose. First major release in the home country is what goes in the infobox. If it was released a few hours earlier in New Zealand, that doesn't require infobox highlighting, just a note in the prose. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 07:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I said "his" because I could not find any consensus other then his word. That's all I needed to know. Thank you.173.88.129.35 (talk) 08:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:Film reviews

I had suggested creating this previously - it is interestingly applied at the article Avatar (2009 film).

What do editors think of this new template? Cirt (talk) 09:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Sent to TfD. It was rejected already, and it is wholly inappropriate. It will do nothing but further degrade film articles. Also TFded two others he made, Template:Fandango movie and Template:AlloCiné movie.-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 09:36, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

cast boxes

One idea here, could the "cast" info include character/roles? Kind of annoying seeing names of actors but not who plays what part. I know the films do it that way, but seems like wiki could do better at getting info out there.

Richmondian (talk) 04:13, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

That is what the cast section is for. And are you talking about the infobox? BOVINEBOY2008 :) 05:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Cast lists should not be in tablular format, but list format. If they are nothing but the list of names and characters, they are easily merged into the plot. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 06:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm assuming that you are referring to the infobox, Richmondian. The infobox is just a summary of some of the film's details and certainly won't encompass them all. For example, if the film uses an adapted screenplay, the source material is not linked there. We have room to mention actors' roles in the lead section (briefly) and in the "Cast" section (at more length, but preferably with real-world context). Erik (talk) 15:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Firefox News

After a short discussion at WT:ANIME, which concluded that Firefox News is a WP:SPS and should not be used as a source, I have started a general discussion about the reliability of Firefox News at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Firefox.org/news/. I'm placing this notice here as a number of film articles also reference Firefox News for information. —Farix (t | c) 14:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Requested move for Avatar

There is a request to move Avatar (2009 film) to Avatar (film). Discussion can be found here. Erik (talk) 02:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Requested move for Independence Day (film)

On a similar note to the above. There is a request to move Independence Day (film) to Independence Day (1996 film). Discussion can be found here. kollision (talk) 06:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The difference in opinion with Avatar (2009 film) and Independence Day (film) seems to necessitate clarification in WP:NCF about films as primary topics when they are disambiguated. Following the outcome of these move requests, I'd like to start discussion about this. Erik (talk)

King Cobra (film) EL dispute

I prodded this film as non-notable, but one of the usual ARS members deprodded it and tried to expand it using non-reliable sources. After others in RSN confirmed what I'd already explained, that this random review on some random website is not a reliable source, he is continuing to try to shove a link to it in the external links section, claiming it meets WP:ELMAYBE, despite there being no evidence this random person who reviewed the article is any sort of film critic or professional. As he and I have butted heads multiple times over his "rescue" of articles using very dubious sourcing, it would be useful if some others could take a look and see if the link is appropriate for adding or not. The discussion is at Talk:King Cobra (film)#Apollo Movie Guide and another ARS member is engaging in tag-teaming to try to get around 3RR and force the addition of this and another invalid link to the article. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Not practicing diligent WP:BEFORE prior to deciding an article is non notable is no reason to be incivil to or about another editor. Smearing the ARS is incivil. Smearing editors who do not agree with you is incivil. That I have myself repeatedly been able to improve and save articles that you have either nominated or prodded for deletion is a sign that maybe one of is doing something right. But let's leave behaviorial issues at the door and stay on topic. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 22:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
What's an "ARS member"? Stetsonharry (talk) 22:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Editors who have joined Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
And that just as many are deleted, when ARS doesn't flock in and try to bulk keep with "votes" shows that just as much are properly deleted. And that most articles you have "improved" remain at best, Start class, with low quality sources is another. And I didn't "smear" ARS, I just noted you are one of the usual deprodding members. Nor was I uncivil. I noted the issue and that another ARS member had "jumped to the rescue" which everyone knows is part for the course for that "project". -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
You were quite insulting, offensive and incivil. Shall I offer the edit or summaries where you repeatedly expanded and shared intemperate assumptions of bad faith?
That articles you have prodded or nominated for deltion might be saved by myself or others is the result of hard work and practice of WP:BEFORE and consideration of WP:ATD, WP:WIP, WP:IMPERFECT and WP:POTENTIAL.
And again with yet another insult, you denigrate my contributions. So an article you wanted deleted becomes a START or B through my efforts or efforts of others??? Policy and guideline do not support that all must be GA or FA, or else merit deletion because it night only become START or B. And yes, in several places today alone you have made snide remarks about the ARS or impuned myself or certain of its members... as if we were some sort of pariahs because we are willing to attempt improving what you will not. As even above you assert that I am "one of the usual deprodding members", when in two years I have deprodded less than 10 articles. Another denigration not worthy of an editor with your experience. For shame. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
Is there an underlying issue here? That is, is this film a possible deletion candidate? There's no notability tag on the film. Stetsonharry (talk) 15:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
It was prodded and has since been deprodded, and some sources giving it enough marginal notability that there is no longer an issue at all, though some folks seem intent on trying to keep it as one.-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 15:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
OK, I was just curious where this discussion was leading. For what it's worth, I think the Apollo link doesn't belong in the EL. Stetsonharry (talk) 18:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Characters and wildlife in Avatar

The article Characters and wildlife in Avatar, a sub-article of Avatar (2009 film), underwent AFD as seen here; the outcome was to keep the article. I have worked on the article to ensure real-world context because its initial incarnation violated WP:WAF. I believe that the sub-article will benefit from a move to adjust the scope to be more encompassing; see my comments here, particularly my most recent comment. Erik (talk) 16:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Cheers, Cirt (talk) 18:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Fair enough! :P I thought that with all the activity the article went through, a bit more discussion was necessary to seal the deal. Erik (talk) 18:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Eh, no worries. Cirt (talk) 18:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

What currency to use on foreign films?

See where this begin on this page, this page, and this page.

Since the film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is not a US film (it's a UK film), should we add the GBP currency (with the appropriate USD after it) next to the budget/gross within the infobox and within the Box office section? That's the way I have it in the infobox now, but wondered if I should be consistent and use only GBP within the article or GBP along with USD? --Mike Allen 05:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

For now, you could put the US amount with a source and then the converted amount, i.e.
€20.8 million ($30 million[1])
And your reference would look like
^1 [url], converted to euros.
To list it without the US amount would need a separate source. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 13:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

If it's on the actual film's article the home currency should take precedence, after all the currency of the UK is GBP. Listing it in dollars is as diabolical as listing the grosses of US films in GBP - it violates NPOV. There is one exception I can think of: if the worldwide gross is not available in pounds but it is available in dollars, then the dollar currency should take precedence. I am against DIY dollar/pound conversions because the exchange rate fluctuates on a day-to-day basis so the conversion will always be inaccurate. Betty Logan (talk) 16:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, don't convert dollars/pounds. The advantage to using the currency of the country where a movie was produced is that it's likely most of the audience is there. And hence, most of the readers. What *is* useful, however, is to provide historical currency conversions as here [20]; many readers will have a vague idea of the worth of money in many historical periods. Piano non troppo (talk) 02:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
You can see how I did this on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. But shit, the money worth changes my the minute! That measuringworth.com only goes back to 2008, what I can can tell. —Mike Allen 20:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Genre in infobox

Unrelated to the above discussion, Chris Cunningham will make an editprotected request to include genre= in the {{Infobox film}} template based on a discussion from October 2009. If anyone has anything to add, please do so here. Erik (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

double bill

Many of the B movies of the 1950s and early 1960s were produced and released as part of a double bill or double feature; shouldn't the double bill "partner" be part of the history of such films? E.g. "Attack of the Puppet People was released as part of a double bill with War of the Colossal Beast." Naaman Brown (talk) 03:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC) (Before I posted this I did a search of the archive for "double bill" and "double feature" but suspect this question may have been raised and answered already. Still, am curious.)

If its sourcable to reliable source, I think including it as part of the sentence noting its theatrical release date would be relevant, particularly if was par for the course back then. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Let me try to be clear. If two movies were deliberately produced and released for a double bill, that fact should be notable as part of the history of both movies. I don't think it is notable that two movies merely appeared on a double bill: that list would be enormous, but not really part of the production and original release history of the films. The two films I cited were both produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon in 1958 and released by AIP; as best I can determine, they appeared in the theatres as a double feature on first run. So many films were paired up on second run at drive-in theatres and second-run movie houses, that a list of movies that merely appeared together would be massive, useless trivia. Naaman Brown (talk) 13:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
If there is something to say about a double bill as part of a first run, it is probably worth mentioning. If it's a footnote, then it may not have the same worth. For example, I added information about a double bill at My Neighbor Totoro: "Miyazaki's film was financed by executive producer Yasuyoshi Tokuma, and both My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies were released on the same bill in 1988. The dual billing was considered 'one of the most moving and remarkable double bills ever offered to a cinema audience'." A prominent pairing like that has staying power, I think. Erik (talk) 13:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Grave of the Fireflies 1988 directed by Isao Takahata, My Neighbor Totoro 1988 directed by Miyazaki released together in 1988: same genre, distributed by Toho in 1988 as a double bill or double feature on apparently the first theatrical run of both films, sounds to me the first release double bill is a notable part of both films' history. (Looks like double billing extends past the B-movie era. My myopia.)
Reliable source cite on the two films' production history and first run release history. Not just "I remember seeing them together at the Rialto on a Saturday in Spring of 1962" but as Collectonian posted, reliable source. I don't want to encourage trivia, but deliberate production and/or release of films as halves of first run double bills should be part of their history. (just a movie goer who likes movie history)Naaman Brown (talk) 14:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Distributor in Infobox

There was a recent discussion about how the list of distributors should be restricted to the countries that produced the film. Can I clarify if the list should just be restricted to theatrical distributors or if home video distributors should also be included? It doesn't specify in the infobox guidelines but since some films have separate distributors for cinema and video it would be useful to know. Betty Logan (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

For the sake of keeping the infobox simple, I would encourage limiting to theatrical distributors. Home video distributors can be identified in the article body if needed. Exceptions may be films that did not have much of a theatrical distribution and was more widespread in home video distribution. Slipstream (2007 film) may be such an example. Erik (talk) 19:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Tend to agree with Erik here. About the only time I can think of for having the home video distributor is if that was the only way it was distributed (i.e. direct to home video stuff), or if the theatrical distribution was very limited or only film festival stuff, as in the example above. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:37, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


Tend to agree as well (surprise!). However, for foreign films (and some US domestic), I have found that a studio may have limited in-country release, but then follow with major market distribution to several different countries through several different distributors simultaneously. Which has the priority? The first minor release? The bigger major release? Perhaps a better solution for keeping it simple is retain the studio in the infobox, and allow the distributors to be in the article in a release section or subsection, even if not an expansive. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 22:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Another discussion above tackles some of these issues: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Films#Several_problems_about_Blood:_The_Last_Vampire_.282009_film.29_and_how_infobox_present_a_film.27s_distributors. It was never satisfactorily resolved in my view since I have a problem with major international distributors being removed, but that seems to be the consensus. Betty Logan (talk) 22:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I am reminded of a certain film that was released and had wide distribution under its original foreign name for 5 years before having a minor release on video in English. Imagine my surprise when another editor insisted it be listed here under its later release name and that use of its original title was inappropriate... even though that's the name under which it had searchable notability. Has real common sense been replaced with POV? Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 01:08, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Reviews/quotes on biographical articles

I removed several quotes on my creation, Todd Field because I felt they violated WP:INDISCRIMINATE for an article like this. Today, Tellusmore (talk · contribs) (who I think is a sock) added three reviews (with sources), according to a hidden message I added about a year and a half ago, with the edit summary: (As requested by SchfiftyThree, have added back three reviews only to properly represent scope: Magazine (Newsweek), Newspaper (NY Times), Foreign Press (The Independent)). Are short film reviews acceptable for an article on a celebrity? I'm slowly trying to upgrade this page to a class B, but there are things that need to get settled first. Schfifty3 21:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

It would be better to find a statements that describe the collective reaction to his works. I think with quotes as used at Todd Field, it is easy to take on an overly promotional tone. This is particularly done with one of the quotes, prominently displaying it in a quote box. Erik (talk) 21:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The Thor film

Just thought that I would alert the members of the film project that User:Nicholsy2 has, once again, created a page for this upcoming film. The page is now entitled Thor (movie) which I know is not following the naming conventions for a film. Also, in looking at the editors talk page this seems to be an ongoing thing. I am not quite sure how to proceed so I thought that would let those of you who have dealt with this before do whatever is necessary. Thanks ahead of time for anything that you can do to clear this up. MarnetteD | Talk 20:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Tagged for speedy (recreation of deleted material) and reported to AIV as it is pretty clear he is a sock of User:Nicholsy which is already indef blocked. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Avatar (film)

Comments on a proper redirect are requested here. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 21:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Has Allmovie been banned?

I notice Allmovie is being mass-removed from film articles. Is this the result of "consensus" here? Or is this a case of individual zealotry which has not infected the group yet? In either case, just to soothe my own conscience, I'd like to remind the project: There are people who use Wikipedia as a reference source, rather than an online game in which one shoots down information instead of aliens. The removal of this external link in no way benefits them, and actually causes much harm. Not that the "less is more, nothing is perfect" crowd cares, of course... But maybe someone does. Dekkappai (talk) 03:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

From external links? From consensus quite awhile ago, I know it was agreed that articles should only link to Allmovie if it meets EL and adds some new usefulness versus IMDB, RT, and the others. Most of the time, it does not, unfortunately. Without seeing any examples, I'm inclined to AGF that this is what the removals are, the clean up of many that were added almost automatically without really checking them to see what value was added by having them. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Allmovie has long been accepted by consensus as suitable as a Reliable Source, with even in some circumstances its longer (if non-pocket) reviews acceptable in the reception section of articles, as they have been accepted as a Reliable Source. I am not aware of any new ruling that contravenes this consensus. Can you point out a few examples? If improper removal, they should be reverted. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 04:04, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
He isn't talking about removing it as a reference, but from the external links. If the Allmovie article has no review (which most do not, especially older films), then it adds nothing beyond what is already in the article being - plot summary, cast/short crew. So the links are extraneous and do not meet EL and should be removed. If it does have a review, it should be cited and then the EL is still redundant. Of course, it would probably help if he asked the editor in question. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:13, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Allmovie quite often provides additional, reliable information, that is not included, nor appropriate for inclusion in an film article... and is even more respected (here) than IMDB. There is repeated consensus for its inclusion, and no consensus for its removal. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 05:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, in researching the situation I found that User:Erik is doing the removal diff. He nominated the template for deletion last September and there was a consensus to keep it as an EL... specially since it can reliable provide information of production, crew, and extended cast that is imapproprite for an article. I have posted a question on User_talk:Erik#AllMovie, and am sure he will reply. I also strongly reccommed they be returned until such time as RFC is held to see if that long-held consensus has changed. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 04:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I've long wondered about this site. It's useless. But I added them since that's what's in the guidelines. So yes, I'm for doing away with this in the EL. —Mike Allen 04:41, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Ummm, no. External links should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis; they should never have been added en masse in the first place, and their existence is not "consensus to keep them". Where's the evidence that the material in question is "uniquely useful" but unsuitable for inclusion on Wikipedia itself? That's a criterion upon which every external link should be judged before it is included. We are fortunately not yet at the point where removing anything from an article requires permission in triplicate from the hive mind, though not through lack of trying from some quarters. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

External links are supposed to provide information that supplements the Wikipedia article about the film. Allmovie is acceptable as a reliable source, so it should be used in the article. I was not targeting Allmovie specifically; there were other websites that I was removing from the "External links" sections. I provide a breakdown of Allmovie at Template talk:Amg movie#Discussion for deprecation if anyone is interested. The problem is that Allmovie's proliferation has been taken for granted, and it proliferates because it has been proliferated. If you want, I can go back and put Allmovie on the film articles' talk pages as a reference to use. From what I can tell, though, people want to overlook WP:EL and treat the "External links" section as a repository for possible references (which it clearly should not be). People at TFD argued that each Allmovie EL should be assessed on its own, which is an insurmountable task, and I guarantee you that people blindly added Allmovie 99% of the time. I know because I did that, too. Please see my link above to see why Allmovie does not qualify as an EL. That's all I will say about Allmovie here; please let me know if you want these links placed on the talk pages instead. Erik (talk) 12:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, and that is what I was presuming was going on. I saw it removed from some articles in my watchlist, and agreed with the removals as for those films, Allmovie was completely useless. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Allmovie was discussed back in September and consensus was clear. That the same people are putting forth the same arguments for its indiscriminate removal changes nothing. This was a rather blatant and underhanded attempt to ignore consensus. There's nothing more to say about it. Dekkappai (talk) 14:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey, gang! Erik (talk) 14:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Very wrong. The removals are neither indiscriminate, nor against consensus. Consensus to keep the template does not mean it now must be put on every film article anymore than any other link. Box Office Mojo isn't put on every article either. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The template discussion was in regards to deleting the template so Erik's actions aren't against "consensus" so to speak. What I would like to know from Erik is what criteria he is using? If he's indiscriminately removing the template from every article then that is a backdoor way of deleting the template which is against consensus, but if there is a prevailing criteria for including the template and he's just removing it from articles where that criteria isn't met then he isn't doing anything wrong. Betty Logan (talk) 16:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

He isn't removing wholescale at all, just very selectively from articles where it does not meet WP:EL. The pair above are pointing out that it was removed from 100 articles - out of the what, 60k+ film articles we have and the more than 20k of which use this template? That isn't "mass removal" in any sense, IMHO. I randomly spot checked some of the ones removed, and saw no problems with any of them. Most were not even AMG removals, despite the notes above, but removal of random ELs, fansites, personal sites, and {{Filmsite}} which has no consensus for inclusion and is now at TfD as it fails WP:EL. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
for the ones where it was removed, why was it particularly irrelevant there--cab someone give an example. I know Icould sort thru them myself, but do you have any illustrative examples? (I note from the Deprecation discussion that Erik supported its use as a reference when it was possible. Normally if that can be done, its preferable to an EL. DGG ( talk ) 19:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I honest to God didn't know that we had to obtain consensus on every single thing that is done on Wikipedia. —Mike Allen 20:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
More often or not consensus is obtained implicitly - you make a change and if no-one reverts or objects you have consensus, but consensus still pertains to every single edit you make. The criteria for adding external links is that it provides supplementary information about the subject that isn't present in the article. Taking a look at the "Strangers on a Train" article then I don't see any call for an Allmovie external link so don't object to Erik's actions on that particular article. I haven't looked through the rest so I can't comment on those. But for that matter I don't see any call for an IMDB one either, so it begs the question why the IMDB link wasn't removed along with the Allmovie link? I don't see the criteria for including Allmovie and IMDB as mutually exclusive. Some people have a preference for one, and others prefer the other link so the view that Allmovie doesn't include anything the IMDB doesn't is an argument for not including it is weak in my opinion. They should be considered independently, and the criteria for their inclusion should be based solely on whether they provide supplementary information not present in the article. Betty Logan (talk) 20:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, silence is too often perceived as consensus. Erik and I did begin a conversation about the removal of one over at Talk:Strangers_on_a_Train_(film)#Allmovie... I supose only 100 more articles to go. Borrowed from that discussion, here's my take on it per WP:ELMAYBE, WP:RS and WP:RS:
  1. IMDB is considered by current consensus to be an unreliable source.
  2. Allmovie has been determined by current consensus to be a reliable source.
  3. Though duplicative of IMDB in major facts, Allmovie rarely has the same quantity of information as does IMDB
  4. By its usually having a great deal of additional information relevent to a film that is otherwise inappropriate to include IN an article, IMDB has been accepted by current consensus as acceptable as an EL.
  5. Even if duplicative of some of the major information the non-RS IMDB, Allmovie is the superior EL if providing access to information that might otherwise be inappropriate for use in the article as an citation.
  6. I see that both have strong and mutually supportive merits for use as an EL... IMDB for its quantity, and Allmovie for its quality.
It was commendable that Erik determined a way in Strangers on a Train to include Allmovie as a citation, and by doing so thus ensuring that readers could click the reflink and visit it themselves for further, non-included information on the film. But was this done for each as well? Was each removed Reliable Source external links studied to determine if it offered information not otherwise included or suitable for the article? I suppose now some of us have the self-assigned task of studying all 100+ to see if the removed reliable source link might have contained information about the various films that was not approproate for inclusion in those many articles, but which still shared knowledge for the reader. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 21:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
I fully agree with Erik here. The Allmovie links fail WP:ELNO point 1 which reads "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article." I notice the tendency for WikiProject films to include too many external links in their articles and I applaud Erik for trying to uphold our external links guidelines. ThemFromSpace 23:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
WP:ELMAYBE does not mandate that all articles must meet FA criteria, nor does it assert that all could ever be FA. You re-affirmed IMDB and Allmovie by your quote, as WP:ELNO allows them when they "provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article". Since FA's by their style and format do not contain every piece of information available through the RS Allmovie or the non-RS IMDB, they are allowed as ELs through ELMAYBE or ELNO when they provide unique information beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 00:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
I meant to say I didn't know that we had get permission to do something before we do it. Anyways, this may be unrelated, but sometimes I add the Yahoo! Movie link, because sometimes the newer films contain the trailers, interviews, etc. I noticed there used to be a Ymovie template, but it's dust. —Mike Allen 23:20, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
(So much for my previous comment being my last about Allmovie...) I do not think it is fair to compare IMDb directly to Allmovie. IMDb as an external link is a discussion for another time; it is too multi-faceted. For information like cast and crew, though, I do not believe IMDb's content is too questionable. In regard to Allmovie and Strangers on a Train, Allmovie did not have to be used there. I used it to make a point that it can be cited as a reliable source for the information within. If I was working on the article, though, I would cite the awards websites directly per my preferred approach. I provided a breakdown about the general structure of an Allmovie web page for a film. I concluded that the major aspects of the web page do not provide a unique resource to an article if it was Featured. Metadata is the only feature of value, but I have yet to see anyone defend it on these grounds. It is not realistic to individually check each Allmovie link to see if it is a unique resource; WP:EL says, "The burden of providing this justification [of inclusion] is on the person who wants to include an external link," and it is highly unlikely that the inclusion was done on a case-by-case basis. There was some kind of high-level approach behind it (assuming that it had value as an external link in general). We should also be able to take a high-level approach here to contest that proliferation, using my breakdown and statistics. I talked to Michael about how Allmovie could be a unique resource but did not find any compelling argument about its features. We acknowledge that Allmovie is a reliable source, and it can potentially be used in an article. This does not mean it will be or should be. We have a habit of putting references for potential use in the "External links" section, but that is not what the section is for. The better practice, in my opinion, is to put these references on the talk page. The issue here seems to be preservation, and this approach could apply to Allmovie as we go along, not to force an all-at-once exodus. My comment is getting too long in the tooth now, so I'll ask a few summary questions:
  1. Is IMDb tolerable as an external link for the extended lists of cast and crew? (Ignore its other aspects for now)
  2. What features of Allmovie make it a unique resource to include as an external link? (Can be dependent on reliability of cast/crew info vs. IMDb)
  3. How should an Allmovie link in "External links" be addressed? Incorporate it in the article body or preserve it on the talk page? Another option?
Have a good weekend, all. Erik (talk) 16:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
My objection to the removals was the indiscriminate nature of it. About 100 within a few minutes does not give indication that these links were investigated. I don't care if Allmovie is in External links section, or elsewhere in the article, I object to its indiscriminate removal since it is a reliable source. Literalistically interpreting a definition of the heading "External links" section to justify removal of a source works against the whole reason for these guidelines-- to improve and source articles. If you don't think it belongs there, then move it, cite it in the article, change the name of the section, but don't indiscriminately wipe it off 100 articles for no better reason than a home-made definition of a section heading. It's a reliable source which can be used to improve or source article content, as you yourself showed at Strangers on a Train. Dekkappai (talk) 17:44, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
Have you opened an investigation yourself to see if the Allmovie site was relevant to the article (as in added additional content, not found anywhere else). Or are you just assuming that they were all useful and removed in bad faith? —Mike Allen 21:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
I said nowhere that they were all useful, and please let's keep this about something real and relevant to the encyclopedia, instead of my "faith" good or bad. Between 22:12 and 22:25 on January 7, I see a removal of approximately 100 AMG links. That they were not all useless is shown by Erik's restoration of the only one that was reverted. Why was this indiscriminately removed when it was-- obviously-- potentially useful? Dekkappai (talk) 22:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
The links to Allmovie that I removed from the "External links" sections are now placed on the articles' talk page, such as with The Public Enemy. Allmovie was indiscriminately proliferated not as a potentially useful reference to cite. From what I recall in very old discussions, Allmovie was considered an alternative to IMDb, but this needs revisiting. While most of us take issue with citing IMDb, I do not believe that anyone really questions the majority of its information about films' cast and crew members. So the argument that Allmovie is a potentially useful reference is new -- we did not flood tens of thousands of film articles with links to Allmovie because they could all "potentially" be used. They were explicitly loaded into the "External links" sections as external links to stick around till the end of time. I would never touch Allmovie if it was used as a citation in the article body. I posed the question of preservation because I still have heard no compelling argument for Allmovie being a unique resource for a Featured version of a film article. It helps to understand the reason for the external links guidelines, to include links that cannot be used in the article body for some reason. Perhaps it is worth discussing on a WikiProject level what kind of links can or cannot be included as external links for articles about films. For example, film critics' reviews should not be dumped in the "External links" section; such reviews should be implemented. Erik (talk) 20:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
We seem to have two different concerns here, neither of which requires neglect of the other. You seem to be concerned with the sanctity of Wikipedia's unique definition of an "External links" section. Personally, I don't care about that. What concerns me is the indiscriminate removal from the mainpage of a potentially useful source/link. If Wikipedia asserts that Allmovie is not an appropriate site to put in a section with the heading "External links", there are other solutions than its indiscriminate removal from the mainspace. For example, just off the top of my head:
  1. redefine "External links"-- ours is an arbitrary definition, even if it is blessed by "consensus"
  2. change the section heading to one into which Wikipedia says Allmovie fits
  3. move the link to another part of the page with an appropriate heading
  4. take time to check the link, see if there's anything useful in it, and cite it in the article. If there is nothing useful, then remove it with an edit summary to that effect.
Personally, I prefer option #4. I'm not in favor of the site's indiscriminate additon to articles, but I'm much more opposed to its indiscriminate removal. Allmovie sometimes has unique information, such as reviews. Sometimes it has nothing but a title. Some evidence of looking at the site would make all the difference. Dekkappai (talk) 20:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Moviezen

Is moviezen.com a reliable source for information on cast and producers lists (or anything else for that matter)? And is it appropriate for external links? Freikorp (talk) 01:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Shaking the Magic 8 Ball yields "All signs point to no". My guess is it rates up there with IMDb, maybe useful but no indication of vetting. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Since it is unhelpful to readers to have multiple external links providing unique information otherwise inappropriate for inclusion in a film's article, better to default to IMDB for that unique information. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 18:10, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks guys, will do. Freikorp (talk) 03:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Fictional universe in Avatar

Can someone please semi-protect Fictional universe in Avatar? There are IPs trying to copy information directly from the James Cameron's Avatar Wikia. I've had to undo this four times so far. Erik (talk) 15:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The proper place to request page protection is at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. You can try requesting for it there but it looks to me like there is not enough recent disruptive activity to justify protection at this time anyway. I would recommend you just continuing reverting. - kollision (talk) 16:04, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Copyright violations are pretty serious, especially the amount of material that was being added to this article. I was hoping one of the admins that frequents WT:FILM would take care of it. Erik (talk) 16:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I just felt asking for page protection from admins who are Wikiproject Film members or admins who watch this talk page is a little COI/canvas-y. I think it's just better to ask at WP:RPP, so that page protection can be decided by neutral third party admins. Plus, you'll probably get a faster response if you ask there. - kollision (talk) 16:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
And probably a day of protection. :P —Mike Allen 18:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Aren't Wikia wikis licensed under a free license (GFDL and/or CC)? If so, it should be perfectly acceptable to copy their content over here, with the proper attribution, of course. --Conti|✉ 18:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
That's true. But 9 times out of 10, the information on Wikia is not suitable for Wikipedia. —Mike Allen 18:45, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
That's true, too. But then this wouldn't be a copyright issue and, therefore, not nearly as urgent. --Conti|✉ 19:02, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Use of Ebert NPOV or Undue?

Someone has raised the question at the Village Pump as to whether the use of Ebert's reviews in many film articles is an overuse, and if his opinion is being given undue weight. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 18:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a hard one to call, but from the perspective of any particular film article that includes opinions of revered reviewers then he's going to be high up the list. If every article takes that approach though then it could look like he's over-represented on the film articles. I personally think that when it comes to subjective criticism it's better to take it on film-by-film basis, I wouldn't like a situation where the possible integrity of an article is diluted to fit with a collective agenda. Betty Logan (talk) 20:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
He really shouldn't always be the first mentioned. Generally, the reviews in reception should be arranged in chronological order, unless there is a compelling reason not to. As such, he may be first, in the middle, or last. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Chronological order is the best way to go. That should solve all potential issues. —Mike Allen 22:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
Let's direct our comments to the discussion at the Village Pump. We need to avoid having split discussions about this. Erik (talk) 22:08, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Naming conventions discussion

BilCat (talk · contribs) has started a discussion about primary topics in relation to titling film articles. Discussion can be found here. Erik (talk) 22:48, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

More viewpoints are needed for BilCat's discussion. I have also started a related discussion in a subsection of the same section. Erik (talk) 19:24, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

RFC at article Dalek

Please see Talk:Dalek#RfC:_Free-use_image_for_infobox_picture.3F. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 02:04, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

List of awards and honors

I propose an update to the guidelines to standardize the naming of sub-articles that list various recognitions received by a film. In the past, we have used the title "List of awards and nominations received by <film>". The problem with this title is that nominations fall under the class of awards, for which a film can be nominated or can win. Effort has been made to instead name these lists "List of awards and honors received by <film>". The "awards" part encompasses nominations and wins, where the "honors" part encompasses critical recognition, such as AFI's Top 100. It appears that this renaming effort was undone by an admin because he perceived "List of awards and nominations..." as the standard naming. Thus, I would like to make it clear in the guidelines to give lists a more accurate title. There is a similar pattern with articles under WP:ACTOR where "awards and honors" have been pushed back to "awards and nominations", so I have notified editors there as well. What does everyone think of standardizing this titling for such lists? Erik (talk) 15:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"Awards & honors" sounds fine to me... though isn't there a bit of redundancy in it-- aren't awards honors? Not to be nit-picky, but how do we deal with the "honor"/"honour" issue? Particularly in regards to non-English language films? Dekkappai (talk) 17:04, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) We can use "honours" for films not of American origin. Slumdog Millionaire has a list to which List of Slumdog Millionaire awards and honours redirects; if we standardize here, we can write "honours" for that list title. I think that an "honor" is different from an "award". "Honor" in our context seems synonymous with "ranking", which is not like an "award", though they share a sense of prestige. We could do "List of awards and other honors" or "List of honors" as well. Depends on if others think that there is a difference between awards and honors or not. Erik (talk) 17:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I would like to say that, assuming the admin comment relates to me, that I peronally didn't "percieve" anything. Any moves I made were on the basis of prior discussion, and there was a fair bit of it which I believe originated from a desire for consistency at the WP:FL process. Relevent discussions are:
Personally, before any change is made, and recommend bringing this up with people at FL because currently the "List of awards by musician/film/television series" are all consistent and any change should retain this. I guess the point about not lumping nominations in with awards are to distunguish those that don't List of awards received by Yolanda Adams. Also your heading for an honors/honours discrepancy between American and non-American lists which will be a pain. Rambo's Revenge (talk) 17:13, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, this is not as straightforward as I thought. I suppose my main issue with "awards and nominations" is that "nominations" sounds too distinct. "Award wins and nominations" would be more accurate. However, it still leaves out other kinds of honors, like being listed in many critics' Top 10 lists of the year. Is there anything that could encompass it all? "List of recognitions" or "List of honors"? Do others think we should start discussion about this at WT:FL? Erik (talk) 17:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Right. I'd think keeping the title as succinct as possible is the best way to go, though I'm not strongly in favour of any of the suggestions so far... This is probably not the place for the honors/honours discussion, but I find the suggested solution a bit POV-ish: Certainly US/British/Canadian/other English-speaking countries would follow their own spellings. But to default to the British spelling for all non-English films? Personally, I don't object, but I anticipate a lot of controversy on that one. Dekkappai (talk) 17:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Not strongly endorsing, just a (somewhat weak in my own head, admittedly) suggestion - "Critical recognition received by <film>"? Doniago (talk) 19:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
On the right track, but wordy, I think... "Recognition for <film>"? Dekkappai (talk) 19:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that we're looking for a one-size-fits-all title. If that's not possible, why try to fudge it when we can perhaps put together some baggier recommendations based on the circumstances? For a straight list of awards wins, List of awards received by xxxx should be perfectly acceptable, as should something more specific if editors want to include nominations or other accolades, such as appearances on AFI lists. I dunno, List of awards and accolades received by xxxx or something (maybe even just List of accolades received by xxxx). I don't think it's necessary to be too prescriptive, as long as the title gives an adequate description of the content; sensible editors can work it out on a case-by-case basis. Steve T • C 21:12, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Now there's a suggestion with which I can wholeheartedly agree. Fit the title to the data as needed. Otherwise we wind up trying to mold the information into a pre-defined title... chopping off toes to fit the shoe... sort of like an "External links" heading problem I recall... Dekkappai (talk) 22:00, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Now, now... :P Erik (talk) 22:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
I think "List of accolades received by" is great to standardize; "accolade" is defined as "any award, honor, or laudatory notice". I do not think we will find a lot of variation with the approach of fitting the title to the data as needed. The sub-articles that list the accolades tend to be extensive, so there is little chance that just "awards" or "award wins and nominations" will suffice; critically acclaimed films tend to get all kinds of recognition. That is why I was asking about a catch-all term that can be applied to most sub-articles. I originally proposed "awards and honors" but I really like "accolades". Would others want to adopt it as a standard, with the caveat of a different title per common sense? Erik (talk) 13:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I do like the idea of the least-prescriptive, broadest, yet accurate term... but I don't know, "Accolades for <film>" just doesn't "sound" right to me... too "flowery" for an encyclopedia article heading. I still prefer "recognition". Isn't "accolade" always positive? Couldn't some of the "recognition" also be something like a "Golden Turkey" or "Worst film" list? (Films do polarize critics sometimes, and I'd think mentioning the negative as well as the positive is in order.) "Recognition" is more neutral, isn't it? Not strongly opposed or for either one of those though. Still open to a better suggestion... Dekkappai (talk) 14:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
"Accolades" on its own probably borders on flowery, but I think when one sees it in the "List of accolades received by <film>" context, the meaning is clearer. I think "Recognitions" might be a little too open-ended or even too limiting in sounding more like nominations than wins. As for negative awards, I think that if a film has a list sub-article of all the accolades or recognitions, there is very little chance of it having negative awards listed. For example, Rotten Tomatoes gave the Moldy Tomato Award to Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, and that article certainly will not be getting a list sub-article for accolades. "Accolade" covers awards and honors, anyway, so if negative awards were to be listed perchance, they are a kind of "mocking" award or honor. Erik (talk) 15:49, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, you don't sway me to "accolades", so let's wait for input from others. I think just "Recognition" might be too open-ended, allowing just run-of-the-mill criticism, but "Recognitions" (at least to me), implies more an award of some sort of distinction... (A bit off-topic, but possible Best/Worsts is a potentially very interesting subject, so permit me a little digression: Not only between individual critics, but cultural judgments can vary pretty extremely even within one country through time. Something like The Birth of a Nation comes to mind immediately, but also weren't there some Academy Award-winners in the "Golden Turkey Awards?" Films popular at the time, but now seen as bloated, dull epics? And then when we look at cross-cultural judgments, and films in less-popular genres, the potential for Best/Worse increases. For a long time the original Godzilla was considered one of the best Japanese films in Japan, and B-grade drivel in the West. (I think the view of the West has improved in recent years.) In my own area of specialization, Japanese erotic cinema, I've come across several soft-porn films which have won major awards and recognition. Several of Tatsumi Kumashiro's films made Kinema Jumpo's yearly Best-10 lists, and a few were even named among the 100 best Japanese films of the 20th century. Yet when the comparable Wife to Be Sacrificed (1974) was shown in the US in 1998 LA Times critics walked out in disgust-- so there's a potential Best/Worst. More recently, on their list of 200 best Japanese films, right there with Tokyo Story, Kurosawa, and the rest, I see Rape! 13th Hour (レイプ25時　暴姦), a film so extreme even I have hesitated to start the article on it... so far... This film made "Best" lists even at the time of its release, yet it was so controversial it forced the studio to stop producing films in this sub-genre for a couple years. So it's entirely likely to have made some "worst" lists in Japan at the time, and its potential for a US-based "worst" list is pretty good. There's also an Angel Guts film on that list. Further, on the list, and a constant presence at the Japanese Academy Awards, and similar ceremonies, is the Otoko wa Tsurai yo series. Yet, in researching the films, I find contemporary US comments labeling the films "inexplicably popular", saccharine, treacle, etc.) Anyway, neutral language, besides abiding by NPOV will allow for these potential Best/Worst recognition, even if they are rare. Dekkappai (talk) 19:34, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Accolades sounds like the best alternative. Recognition seems to me like the list would include critical reception and/or box office achievements as well. Accolades is more clear and does bring to mind awards or other honors. Although both alternatives help to eliminate the American/British spelling issue of some of the other options, I believe that "List of accolades for film" is the best option. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Recognition (singular) might include critical reception, but I think RecognitionS (plural) implies more specific award-like things. Might just be my interpretation though. Dekkappai (talk) 05:17, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Right, it's also how I interpret the word (as others will be as well for any alternative). Accolades appears clearer for these two options. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Incubator notification

Hi. I'm here from a new project that you may have heard of: Wikipedia:Article incubator. It's kind of a centralized and monitored version of userfication, for articles that have been or are about to be deleted or userfied. When someone expresses an interest in "saving" such an article, but needs more time, the incubator is a place where it can receive patient attention without the threat of imminent deletion. You can read all about it at the link.

Anyway, someone suggested adding the incubator to Wikipedia:Article alerts, but their feature requests page seems inactive. So, I'm doing this manually.

We've got a few film articles, and I'm notifying this project of their existence, so you can have a look. If they are brought up to standards, then you flip a switch in a template, and a seconder will copy it to the mainspace. Alternatively, if it seems after research that an article there can't be brought up to standards, we'll kill it humanely.

There may be more, and as soon as someone makes a way, we can standardize this kind of notification. Thanks for listening. -GTBacchus(talk) 02:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


RS Reviews

A discussion has started at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources#What makes a review site a reliable source? in which an editor, User:Dream Focus, has proposed that WP:RS be changed to state that if a review site receives a stated number of hits, it should be considered automatically reliable and usable for both a reliable source and establishing notability. As Films is one of the main projects that uses reviews for its articles, it seemed relevant for notification. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Subzin.com - film quotes

Is a website that searches film scripts for phrases, such as subzin.com, a reliable source that something was mentioned in a film (for a popular culture section) or would a secondary source be required? Freikorp (talk) 18:09, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

You'd need a secondary source, especially if it isn't obvious that another film (or pop culture topic) is being mentioned.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 18:42, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Lead sentence

I wanted to gauge other editors' thoughts about linking in the lead sentence. There are three items that tend to be linked in the lead sentence for film articles:

  1. <year> in film
  2. Nationality (either to country or "Cinema of...")
  3. Genre

We link to these three items, depending on the film, pretty intensely. I've been reconsidering the value of these links. First, per WP:OVERLINK, we want to add links that aid navigation and understanding of the article or its context. My impression is that we tend to avoid linking to countries because they are too general to add understanding to the article. The "Cinema of..." links are an effort to be more specific, but I am not sure if they still help. For example, what does Cinema of the United States really say about most American films of 2009? The point of including nationality is to tell the reader where the film came from, if it is not complicated to tell. I think that "<year> in film" has more credibility but possibly not enough for the lead sentence. What value is there in showing films of the same year, especially at that point? I think it may be a distracting link and could be better used in deeper context. For example, linking to it as you call a film one of the best of <year>. The value of the link would be to show readers what other film came out that year.

Lastly, overlinking is also an issue with genres in the lead sentence. I've been trying a different approach with some articles, which is to only link to sub-genres or genres that are not so common. For example, if we identify a film as a 2010 American comedy film, what value is there to point to comedy film? The key is in the general definition. We know what comedy means and what film means, and we know that it is a film with comedic elements. Sub-genres that have better value, in my opinion, are black comedy or screwball comedy film. I do not have a problem with links to specific people because names are more specialized than the other words we use in the lead sentence. Just my thoughts on the matter since our lead sentences have always been so blue. What do others think? Erik (talk) 18:09, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree the year and nationality are overlinks and really are not necessary to link. More up in the air on the genres. I suspect if we're going to link more obscure ones, we'll end up with all linked for consistency. Will be interested in hearing others thoughts as well. As an interesting additional note on the issue, in peer reviews and FACs its been noted that the lead sentence should not have more than four wikilinks in general. If three are wasted on year, nation, genre, that could mean our having to cut what should be once sentence into two. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 18:14, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
I did not know that about peer reviews and FACs; thanks for sharing. Why do you think that all genres would have to be linked for consistency? It is easy to identify the primary genres, such as comedy, drama, or horror. Does not mean de-linking should be enforced, but maybe at least discourage such links for reasons like mine and yours. Erik (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
(ec)I've been increasingly more favourable towards placing the "Cinema of (country)" and "(year) in film" in the "See also" section of the article and I would agree that the level of helpfulness of those two items being linked in the lead sentence is minimal. As far as genre is concerned, I tend to still link that item because I find that there isn't always a place further down in the article to provide such a link and I don't think that we should do away completely with linking to genre articles. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 18:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
I think that specific interest in a genre article would be more academic in nature. You would go to the article about comedy films to learn about their history and the different kinds. Unless a film was a highly influential comedy film, it does not have a lot of value in the article body. I agree that the "See also" section is a good place for links. If genres are de-linked, though, why not add a "List of <genre> films" to the section? For example, List of United States comedy films is a pretty specific list that could be included. Erik (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Maybe we should wiki-link every single word to either an article on Wikipedia or to its Wiktionary definition, and then it won't look cluttered with links because they will all be the same colour. Betty Logan (talk) 19:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
It's the kind of thing I really don't care about, and don't know why we need to prescribe one way or the other. I have linked, and not linked, according to what seems to be the norm at the time. I've seen other editors come later and reverse (either link or de-link), and just thought, "What a waste of time..." That said, I think we should make an effort to keep linking within the text of the lead of the article less intrusive. Links to individual persons are a given, I think. But links to a national cinema or year in film would be more appropriate in the infobox, I think. The infobox-- like "Films directed by so&so" and other such templates-- serves more as straight summary of info, more likely to be used by the reader as a jumping-off point for placing the film in context-- nationally or temporally. If there is any one exception I might make, it would be to "Cinema of the US", because it's so broad, and broadly covered, that we probably have more specific/appropriate articles to link to-- US comedy/drama/sci-fi, etc... Dekkappai (talk) 19:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Also: Including "Cinema of <nation>" in a "See also" section seems just wrong to me-- unless we're talking about one of the films that defines the cinema of a certain country-- a Citizen Kane or a Seven Samurai. For other films, we're going to mention the nation in the infobox, and somewhere in the text, and that's where it should be linked-- that's what links are for. Intentionally de-linking, and then intentionally creating a heading for that link seems to be even more intrusive in the name of being less intrusive. Dekkappai (talk) 19:49, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
We do not have to prescribe either way; I wanted to ask because I de-link as part of clean-up like I just did at The Black Hole. I think Collectonian is right about the trend of such blue links in lead sentences of reviewed articles. I wanted to mention this passing clean-up effort of mine and wondered if there were any serious issues with it or any way to compensate for the de-linking if there are issues. I do not think "See also" sections are blights, although "Cinema of" links lack more value than others. WP:SEEALSO says the section can be for links that could not really be placed in the article. For example, there is such a section at American Beauty (film)#See also. Do you think any of the links are appropriate, or the section itself? Erik (talk) 20:03, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Oh no, I have nothing against "See also" sections. I just think a "Cinema of <nation>" in the "See also" section every film article would be unnecessarily intrusive... The "See also" section in American Beauty?-- no, I see nothing there I personally would have added to a "See also" section of a film article... And, even more to the point, I see nothing there that could not have been linked in the article. "Cinema of US" and "Year in film" are better (less intrusively) linked in the infobox, and the text of the article. Dekkappai (talk) 20:21, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Lead sections, as I understand them, are summaries of the article to come, and links within them should be kept to a minimum. However when those topics come up in the body of the article, linking them-- once in a section, at first mention-- should be fine. So-- except for the "See also" section-- I think we may be in agreement for a change... Dekkappai (talk) 20:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I wouldn't mind using the infobox to link to the items that we usually link in the lead sentence. The problem I've seen with doing that is that we haven't been able to fit them in comfortably. For example, people put either United States or piped Cinema of the United States in the "Country" field, which goes against WP:EGG. We need a better field to accommodate, maybe "Cinema of..."? Same problem with release year, you can't tell from the date if the year links to the year article or the year in film article. We've also discussed adding a "genre" field, so maybe linking could be done there instead of the lead section. Erik (talk) 20:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't know... is it really counter-intuitive to link to the article on a nation's cinema when the country's name first appears in a film article? (Same with year.) Seems the logical link to me personally, but that's a judgment call... I'm iffy about a "Genre" field for various reasons. Categories seem to take care of that just fine. Dekkappai (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

(←) I thought I've read that the lead (or lede) sentence should be the most 'wikilinked' part of the article? —Mike Allen 19:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Italian movie titles chaos

Catgut (talk · contribs) has expressed concern about inconsistencies in titling articles about Italian films. Discussion can be found here. Erik (talk) 13:43, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Possible creation of American film stubs by year

Please see the discussion for more. Lugnuts (talk) 19:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Category glut

A new batch of overly narrow and some ORy film related categories are up for CfD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 January 8 that were created by User:Lg16spears. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

And another one, for the two-film Tekken "series" Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 January 9#Category:Tekken films -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
And two more: Category:Wire fu films and Category:Eskrima films at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 January 20. If the former is kept, some serious project attention is needed as Lg16spears (talk · contribs) is randomly adding it to a huge number of articles, most of which are not "wire fu" films, nor do I think its a good idea to start categorizing films by "techniques" that may have been used for even one scene in it. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

IMDb link - different title

Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I couldn't find anything on it. For IMDb links in the External links section of film articles, which title should we put if the article title differs from the IMDb page? For example, we have an article called A Police Inspector Accuses which is known on IMDb by it's original title Un comisar acuză. Should the external link say "Un comisar acuza at the Internet Movie Database" or "A Police Inspector Accuses" at the Internet Movie Database? I have been doing it one way, but recently seen other people doing it the other way and wondered if there was any consensus about this. Cheers, --BelovedFreak 14:39, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I do not think there is any precedent either way. It's the first time I've heard this! :) I think it depends on which title is being used primarily throughout the article body. (We need a better example than A Police Inspector Accuses.) However, it depends on if people are confused if the title in the EL does not match the web page that is opened. I'm not really sure if people would be thrown off or not, especially since the web page does not mention the English-language title above the "fold". What do others think? Erik (talk) 14:57, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I'd go with the English title, WP:UE and WP:NCF, to match the article title, unless their is no English title. Otherwise it looks a bit confusing to have the article as English Title and the link as Le French Title (IMO). Better example for Erik - The Seventh Seal. Ta! Lugnuts (talk) 14:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Another example is Precious (film), (which is not a case of a different language title), which is listed at IMDb as Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. --BelovedFreak 15:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Working in Japanese cinema, I run into this constantly. As with all page links, I use the title of the page-- the IMDb title in this case. We're giving the name of the page linked to, not what we have decided it should be called. Dekkappai (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
I would agree with Lugnuts as far as UE and NCF are concerned and I'd take it a bit further to say that the IMDb link should read exactly the same as the title of the article minus any disambuguating terms contained within the title. E.g., the article Drifting Clouds (film) should have an IMDb link titled "Drifting Clouds", not "Drifting Clouds (film)" or "Kauas pilvet karkaavat". Similarily, the article title should also be used in the IMDB link if the article title is not in English. This is for those cases where the foreign language title is better known in the English speaking world or not traslateable for some reason; e.g., the IMDb link of Les Misérables (1998 film) should be "Les Misérables" and for Das Boot simply "Das Boot". Big Bird (talk • contribs) 14:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

:This gets in deep territory (that can be avoided). The "deep territory" is: What is the purpose of the title? Historically, say 50 years ago, an article or book title was primarily a "hook" to get the appropriate readers interested. Now, in the age of redirects and search engines, of Wikipedia guidelines, the title is still a hook, but isn't all-important. A choice of title that is in some way weak may be insignificant; if search engines simply search the whole text, then what's important is to mention the alternate titles in the article. What *is* to be avoided is debate about what title is marginally more correct; essentially those arguments are endless. Few English readers know "Das Boot" by its English name? Well, maybe. But how many English readers won't figure out the problem in a few moments? I.e. it doesn't make much difference whether the article is "Das Boot" or "The Boat", the reader's going to figure it out pretty quickly. And, for the few that don't? It's only a few extra seconds to use Wiki search ... get directed to The Boat (film), see that it's wrong, click the disambiguation link, hunt down the right version. (In some ways, that process is *more* useful, because it alerts readers to related subjects.) Don't sweat the titles, just make them unambiguous in Wiki. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 19:27, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you discussing WP:UE and WP:NCF in general or the specific issue of the IMDb link within an article? Big Bird (talk • contribs) 19:46, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, particularly IMDb. Wiki shouldn't go through hoops to make titles match theirs. WP:UE, another situation, as you might point out, does have a criterion "Easy to find", but it's not clear there's a recognition that what is easy to find is associated with what is "easy to search" (Quote: "Using names and terms that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article (and to which editors will most naturally link from other articles).)" That's hardly surprising, since most readers are search engine users, but not search engine administrators (as I have been). Knowing what the search engine tools can do, and how readers use them is an understandably overlooked part of the equation. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 20:51, 18 January 2010 (UTC) Strikes my comment
Maybe I'm still not clear on what you're trying to say since you keep bringing up search engines and ease of finding something but I think you're arguing a different point. Once it's established that a title of an article on Wikipedia is Das Boot or The Boat, the question is whether to use the same title on the external IMDb link if the IMDb link is different. Basically, does Wikipedia's title trump IMDb's because we're linking from Wikipedia or does IMDb's title trump Wikipedia's because the page being linked to is on IMDB.com? I say Wikipedia's title, in this case, trumps IMDb. Discussion of the merits of the Wikipedia article title in general is a separate issue. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 23:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for rephrasing the question. Yes, Wikipedia's title trumps IMDb. Piano non troppo (talk) 14:56, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ a b "Twilight Saga: New Moon". Metacritic. CNET Networks, Inc. Retrieved December 25, 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  2. ^ "New Moon Movie Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. IGN Entertainment, Inc. Retrieved December 25, 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
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