Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Archive 15

message: In a discussion over whether Sicko (film) is the "fourth-highest grossing documentary film" another editor raised the point that the Jackass films are documentaries.  I disagree.  The editor is currently edit-warring on both of these films' articles to put the documentary category on them.  Other opinions would be helpful.  --David Shankbone 04:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:KETTLE:It takes two to edit war, and Mr. Shankbone has at least as many reverts on these articles (two) as I do.  Wikipedia defines documentary film as "a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality."  The Onion, Blockbuster.com, Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo, and the New York Times have all called one or more Jackass films documentaries at one time or another.  DS hasn't explained why he doesn't think the Jackass movies are documentaries.  Nothing requires a documentary to be highbrow.  THF 04:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Mr. Shankbone. Stunts and pranks fit the definition of "reality" implied about as well as Punk'd or any reality TV show does. Which is to say it doesn't. In terms of reviews and such it's fine to use words loosely but for categorization and encyclopedic writing we have to be a little more strict otherwise every film with end up 4 or 5 different genre categories. I laughed, I cried, I was on the edge of my seat; it was an action-comedy-drama-thriller. It's best to keep it simple. Doctor Sunshine talk 06:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Curious, then: why is "Sicko" or "Bowling for Columbine", which also consists of staged stunts and pranks, albeit ones aimed at conveying a political message, a documentary?  What's the definitional distinction?  (It's not interviews: the Jackass movies have people speaking to the camera.)  (This isn't WP:POINT; I do believe that all of these movies are documentaries.) THF 11:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can't tell the difference between Sicko and the Jackass movies, then I'm not sure what to tell you.  You are seemingly intelligent Ted, that to make such a comparison is very pointy.  For one, Moore explores contemporary issues as a social critic; Knoxville et. al. stage a series of puerile and dangerous stunts (e.g. cattle-prodding their testicles) for a laugh.  Jackass and those who create it don't set out to "document", explore or say anything about anything.  --David Shankbone 12:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please WP:AGF.  I'm not the only person who calls Jackass a documentary, as I document quite extensively on the Talk:Jackass Number Two page.  And I wish you'd stop falsely accusing me of WP:POINT: I'm arguing a consistent point on two different talk pages.  WP:POINT is where someone loses argument X, and then tries to disruptively argue not-X on other pages where it doesn't apply out of spite.  If I were to go to the Sicko page and complain that that is not a documentary because Jackass is not a documentary, then you could accuse me of Point, but I'm not going to do that: both movies are documentaries. Again, I see nothing about the definition of documentary that requires it to be about a serious subject: there are documentaries that do nothing but show pretty pictures of nature while soaring music plays; there are documentaries about comedians performing their craft; thirty years ago, there were documentaries about Evel Knievel.  So the fact that Jackass is documenting puerile and dangerous stunts instead of social problems appears to be an irrelevant distinction.  THF 12:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I appreciate David Shankbone's request for additional comments, and I disagree with his point of view.  As TedFrank points out, a documentary movie merely needs to document events that occurred in real life in front of the camera, as opposed to an enactment of a storyline known to be imaginary fiction.  Whether or not a film is documentary has to do with the intent and practice to capture real events, not with whether or not those events were noteworthy.  Unless the stunts were dramatized in a fictionalized way, e.g. with special effects and stunt doubles, Jackass is a documentary.  It might well document trivial, stupid, ill-advised behavior of bad role models (I suspect even many fans would agree), but the poverty of the subject doesn't prevent the nonfiction cinematography from being a documentary. VisitorTalk 21:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

text: More sources:
*Philadelphia Weekly, 3 January 2007: Jackass Number Two (2006) (Shown on DVD): It might not have inspired the flurry of think pieces Borat did, but the year's best, most twisted cross-over documentary-and don't forget it is, in every definition of the word, a documentary-offers more of the versatile tomfoolery found in previous incarnations. (no link available)
*Village Voice, Nathan Lee (best of year list), 3 January 2007: 5. Jackass Number Two [Jeff Tremaine, U.S.A.] Braver than Borat, funnier than Talladega Nights, more cathartic than United 93, crazier than Apocalypto, and gayer than Another Gay Movie, the studio film of the year is also the best documentary and features the best ensemble performance.
*Columbus Dispatch, Frank Gabrenya, 31 December 2006: Twenty documentaries had commercial runs in central Ohio, presenting a range of subjects as disparate as Dave Chappelle's Block Party, Who Killed the Electric Car? and The War Tapes to The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Jesus Camp and, yes, Jackass: Number Two. That's a wealth of choices.splog scrape
*Deseret Morning News, Jeff Vice (worst of year list), 31 December 2006: JACKASS: NUMBER TWO. Like the first film, this "extreme-prank" documentary exploited human and animal cruelty. Shame on anyone who paid money to see it. (Note that "extreme-prank" gets scare-quotes, but documentary does not.) 
*Village Voice, Armond White 1 Jan. 2003, Best Documentary: Jackass, far and away. It makes the self-important, pseudo-political quests of this year's trust-fund and grant-hound filmmakers irrelevant. Fuck Bowling for Columbine. Ass Kicked by Girl, Roller Disco Truck, Paper Cuts, and other Jackass routines show what's really going on in the frustrated hearts and minds of America's misdirected white youth.
*Andrew Sullivan's blog, 30 June 2004: F9/11 wasn't the biggest grossing documentary. Jackass was. It was non-fiction, and about as informative as Mr Moore. And a lot more to look at.
I can find many more (including a piece I've had tentatively accepted for publication in a reliable source).  How many do we need for a consensus?  How about the objectors find one reliably-sourced film critic who says it is not a documentary? THF 12:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: See Documentary film and Reality television. The Jackass films are considered reality films, not documentaries.  "These films differ from conventional documentaries in that they create new, and sometimes artificial, situations instead of simply trying to document life as it is." —Viriditas | Talk 13:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To the extent that definition is exclusive from "documentary" I disagree; moreover, it fails to create the necessary distinction because it is broad enough to include the contrived and artificial situations in the documentaries Sicko, Roger and Me, and Fahrenheit 9/11.  It also appears to be an unsourced neologism. In contrast, I have multiple reliable sources describing the Jackass movies as documentaries.  THF 13:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Worth noting: the neologism reality film did not exist as a separate entry on Wikipedia until a couple of hours ago. THF 13:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't be deceitful.  The "Reality films" subsection at reality television exists as far back as July (probably goes further back).  Viriditas merely created a redirect to that specific section. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A little further backtracking; the subsection existed back in February.  Feel free to see how much further back it goes. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fascinatingly, the editor who authored the phrase Viriditas relies upon states that reality films are a subset of documentaries.  THF 19:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Again, this is a distinction that doesn't distinguish reality films from documentaries.  In fact, the article treats the two terms as synonyms: the first example in the article of a "reality film" is Fahrenheit 9/11.  Shankbone's cited article is support for my claim. THF 14:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm surprised you misread the article (and so quickly) - the article discusses both genres, and then distinguishes.  The lead paragraph specifically calls Fahrenheit 9/11 a documentary.  --David Shankbone 14:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just reread it a third time.  The only place "reality film" appears is in the title, and the entire article is about the ethics of making documentaries. THF 14:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly, Ted.  The title is used to launch into what documentaries are not - which are reality films.  Which is what Jackass is.  --David Shankbone 14:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a really strained reading of the article for two reasons.  First, there's no discussion of reality television at all in the article, other than a brief mention as a possible explanation for the new popularity of documentaries.  Second, the distinction you single out--the filmmakers' choice of editing--doesn't distinguish between the so-called "reality films" and documentaries.  (It doesn't even distinguish between documentaries and heavily edited faux documentaries like Borat.)  Reality films choose what to edit, how to combine the shots, what to leave out, etc.  Think, for example, of The Real Cancun.  And the Jackass articles discuss decisions to cut material from the movie.  Indeed, everyone will tell you that the whole methodology of reality television is to have hours and hours of tape for every 22 minutes actually broadcast.  THF 14:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Split the baby - cat it as a Reality film and subcat the Reality films cat to Documentary films. If you want to get into Film theory arguments, there are magazines for that. ;) Girolamo Savonarola 21:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: How is your list of highest-grossing documentaries that is unadjusted for inflation "more accurate" than a list that accounts for ticket price inflation?  Also, how can your article be taken seriously when it admits its bias in the lead sentence?  And, your comparison with the Transformers film is beyond bizarre.  Health care reform is one of the top domestic issues for Americans; Transformers aren't even real.  You have recommended the inclusion of this artilce in relevant articles -- for what reason may I ask? —Viriditas | Talk 12:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The BoxOfficeMojo list is not adjusted for inflation. I fail to see your point. Do you think I have undercounted a Michael Moore movie? THF 12:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your list is unadjusted for inflation and mixes and matches IMAX, large format, concert, compilation, and reality films to skew the data.  Can you show me a popular, reliable film, entertainment, or trade secondary source that lists documentaries in this manner or relies upon an industry listing to make a similar point? No, you can't, because this list is based on your own cross-categorization which you wrote and published.  Unless your original criteria for documentary films is embraced by the industry and popular secondary sources like USA Today, The New York Times and other heavy hitters, we can't use it.  You're not an expert in the field of entertainment research, like  ERC Box Office,; neither do popular reliable secondary sources rely on your unique research and reports, nor can reliable secondary sources be found to corroborate your unique perspective, therefore we can't use your data in any film-related article.  Wikipedia tends to use the most reliable reporting methods available. —Viriditas | Talk 13:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The BoxOfficeMojo list is not adjusted for inflation either, and omits several documentary films; my list is more accurate and internally consistent. Wikipedia characterizes most of the films I have identified as documentaries as documentaries long before I wrote the article; the others are considered documentaries by reliable sources, as well as several Wikipedia editors. THF 13:15, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your list is unadjusted for inflation, is US-centric, and mixes and matches unique categories; Your "method" is not being used to track box office reports by anyone but you, and you are a political commentator, not an expert in entertainment research.  Why isn't the industry rushing to embrace your method? —Viriditas | Talk 13:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This would be more productive if you didn't keep changing your argument.  Can you delete 12:31, 13:06, and 13:32, and make one complete case in 300 words or less? THF 15:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You must not be paying attention.  You offered an argument for inclusion.  I responded to and questioned your argument on several levels, receiving no answers in the process. —Viriditas | Talk 05:22, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Jackass: The Movie]] and [[Jackass Number Two]] as documentary films? 

message: :More sources:
*Philadelphia Weekly, 3 January 2007: Jackass Number Two (2006) (Shown on DVD): It might not have inspired the flurry of think pieces Borat did, but the year's best, most twisted cross-over documentary-and don't forget it is, in every definition of the word, a documentary-offers more of the versatile tomfoolery found in previous incarnations. (no link available)
*Village Voice, Nathan Lee (best of year list), 3 January 2007: 5. Jackass Number Two [Jeff Tremaine, U.S.A.] Braver than Borat, funnier than Talladega Nights, more cathartic than United 93, crazier than Apocalypto, and gayer than Another Gay Movie, the studio film of the year is also the best documentary and features the best ensemble performance.
*Columbus Dispatch, Frank Gabrenya, 31 December 2006: Twenty documentaries had commercial runs in central Ohio, presenting a range of subjects as disparate as Dave Chappelle's Block Party, Who Killed the Electric Car? and The War Tapes to The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Jesus Camp and, yes, Jackass: Number Two. That's a wealth of choices.splog scrape
*Deseret Morning News, Jeff Vice (worst of year list), 31 December 2006: JACKASS: NUMBER TWO. Like the first film, this "extreme-prank" documentary exploited human and animal cruelty. Shame on anyone who paid money to see it. (Note that "extreme-prank" gets scare-quotes, but documentary does not.) 
*Village Voice, Armond White 1 Jan. 2003, Best Documentary: Jackass, far and away. It makes the self-important, pseudo-political quests of this year's trust-fund and grant-hound filmmakers irrelevant. Fuck Bowling for Columbine. Ass Kicked by Girl, Roller Disco Truck, Paper Cuts, and other Jackass routines show what's really going on in the frustrated hearts and minds of America's misdirected white youth.
*Andrew Sullivan's blog, 30 June 2004: F9/11 wasn't the biggest grossing documentary. Jackass was. It was non-fiction, and about as informative as Mr Moore. And a lot more to look at.
I can find many more (including a piece I've had tentatively accepted for publication in a reliable source).  How many do we need for a consensus?  How about the objectors find one reliably-sourced film critic who says it is not a documentary? THF 12:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: convenience break with sources

message: :See Documentary film and Reality television. The Jackass films are considered reality films, not documentaries.  "These films differ from conventional documentaries in that they create new, and sometimes artificial, situations instead of simply trying to document life as it is." —Viriditas | Talk 13:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To the extent that definition is exclusive from "documentary" I disagree; moreover, it fails to create the necessary distinction because it is broad enough to include the contrived and artificial situations in the documentaries Sicko, Roger and Me, and Fahrenheit 9/11.  It also appears to be an unsourced neologism. In contrast, I have multiple reliable sources describing the Jackass movies as documentaries.  THF 13:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Worth noting: the neologism reality film did not exist as a separate entry on Wikipedia until a couple of hours ago. THF 13:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't be deceitful.  The "Reality films" subsection at reality television exists as far back as July (probably goes further back).  Viriditas merely created a redirect to that specific section. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:54, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A little further backtracking; the subsection existed back in February.  Feel free to see how much further back it goes. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fascinatingly, the editor who authored the phrase Viriditas relies upon states that reality films are a subset of documentaries.  THF 19:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Again, this is a distinction that doesn't distinguish reality films from documentaries.  In fact, the article treats the two terms as synonyms: the first example in the article of a "reality film" is Fahrenheit 9/11.  Shankbone's cited article is support for my claim. THF 14:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm surprised you misread the article (and so quickly) - the article discusses both genres, and then distinguishes.  The lead paragraph specifically calls Fahrenheit 9/11 a documentary.  --David Shankbone 14:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just reread it a third time.  The only place "reality film" appears is in the title, and the entire article is about the ethics of making documentaries. THF 14:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly, Ted.  The title is used to launch into what documentaries are not - which are reality films.  Which is what Jackass is.  --David Shankbone 14:39, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a really strained reading of the article for two reasons.  First, there's no discussion of reality television at all in the article, other than a brief mention as a possible explanation for the new popularity of documentaries.  Second, the distinction you single out--the filmmakers' choice of editing--doesn't distinguish between the so-called "reality films" and documentaries.  (It doesn't even distinguish between documentaries and heavily edited faux documentaries like Borat.)  Reality films choose what to edit, how to combine the shots, what to leave out, etc.  Think, for example, of The Real Cancun.  And the Jackass articles discuss decisions to cut material from the movie.  Indeed, everyone will tell you that the whole methodology of reality television is to have hours and hours of tape for every 22 minutes actually broadcast.  THF 14:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Split the baby - cat it as a Reality film and subcat the Reality films cat to Documentary films. If you want to get into Film theory arguments, there are magazines for that. ;) Girolamo Savonarola 21:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: convenience break for discussion

message: As I alluded to above, I have researched, generated, and sold for publication in a reliable source a list of the highest-grossing documentaries that is more accurate than the Box Office Mojo list commonly used on Wikipedia.  Per WP:COI, I should discuss on a talk page, rather than simply insert the material.  I recommend its inclusion in relevant articles: while the standard for Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth, it is still better to have verifiable accurate information than verifiable inaccurate information.  To the extent these figures disagree with the demonstrably inaccurate and internally inconsistent Box Office Mojo rankings, and one thinks the Box Office Mojo ranking statistics should be included at all, WP:NPOV would seem to suggest that both points of view be included.  One possible solution is a List-of-highest-grossing-documentaries article, like List of highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada, that can be created that includes the disparate rankings from The American, from Box Office Mojo, and from The Numbers.
I have raised the issue on a couple of talk pages; in each case, David Shankbone objected.  Rather than scatter identical debates on several different talk pages, it makes more sense to center the discussion here.  David Shankbone objects to the inclusion of the list in any article because the article criticizes Michael Moore, because he objects to the title of the article chosen by the publication's editors, because The American (magazine) is not a film publication (though it has published other articles about film), because the magazine has libertarian/conservative/pro-business affiliations, and because he contends the magazine is not notable.  If I've inadvertently inaccurately characterized his criticism, I'm sure he won't hesitate to let us know. 
What say the WikiProject? THF 04:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How is your list of highest-grossing documentaries that is unadjusted for inflation "more accurate" than a list that accounts for ticket price inflation?  Also, how can your article be taken seriously when it admits its bias in the lead sentence?  And, your comparison with the Transformers film is beyond bizarre.  Health care reform is one of the top domestic issues for Americans; Transformers aren't even real.  You have recommended the inclusion of this artilce in relevant articles -- for what reason may I ask? —Viriditas | Talk 12:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The BoxOfficeMojo list is not adjusted for inflation. I fail to see your point. Do you think I have undercounted a Michael Moore movie? THF 12:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your list is unadjusted for inflation and mixes and matches IMAX, large format, concert, compilation, and reality films to skew the data.  Can you show me a popular, reliable film, entertainment, or trade secondary source that lists documentaries in this manner or relies upon an industry listing to make a similar point? No, you can't, because this list is based on your own cross-categorization which you wrote and published.  Unless your original criteria for documentary films is embraced by the industry and popular secondary sources like USA Today, The New York Times and other heavy hitters, we can't use it.  You're not an expert in the field of entertainment research, like  ERC Box Office,; neither do popular reliable secondary sources rely on your unique research and reports, nor can reliable secondary sources be found to corroborate your unique perspective, therefore we can't use your data in any film-related article.  Wikipedia tends to use the most reliable reporting methods available. —Viriditas | Talk 13:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The BoxOfficeMojo list is not adjusted for inflation either, and omits several documentary films; my list is more accurate and internally consistent. Wikipedia characterizes most of the films I have identified as documentaries as documentaries long before I wrote the article; the others are considered documentaries by reliable sources, as well as several Wikipedia editors. THF 13:15, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your list is unadjusted for inflation, is US-centric, and mixes and matches unique categories; Your "method" is not being used to track box office reports by anyone but you, and you are a political commentator, not an expert in entertainment research.  Why isn't the industry rushing to embrace your method? —Viriditas | Talk 13:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This would be more productive if you didn't keep changing your argument.  Can you delete 12:31, 13:06, and 13:32, and make one complete case in 300 words or less? THF 15:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You must not be paying attention.  You offered an argument for inclusion.  I responded to and questioned your argument on several levels, receiving no answers in the process. —Viriditas | Talk 05:22, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: proposed edits: list of highest-grossing documentaries

message: #Ted Frank has no expertise in film, in charting films, or in compiling a list of this nature.
#The Internet article is not an article about ranking films, but an article that is a Michael Moore hit piece against his film Sicko
#This is a one-shot deal:  this is not an on-going list, but a list compiled with one objective: a one-point-in-time effort to criticize the generally-accepted method of ranking documentary films because they show Michael Moore's film Sicko is "fourth highest-grossing" (currently).  There is no "The American List of Highest Grossing Documentary Films"
#Inclusion of films such as Eddie Murphy Raw and Jackass The Movie, The Real Cancun and Jackass Number Two are not generally accepted as documentaries in the film industry.  Neither BoxOfficeMoJo.com nor the-numbers.com nor mainstream film critics review these films as or call these films documentaries.  Ted is unable to provide citations to any film theorists or mainstream film reviewers who have called these films documentaries, or reviewed them on such terms.  He only provides bit newspapers, a couple of alternative weeklies, or political commentators.  It would be undue weight to take a minor review or off-hand remark to create a list of documentaries when no other mainstream publication includes these as documentaries.  The only inclusion of these films is Ted Frank, who has no film expertise, who published a partisan hit piece on The American magazine's website, which has no standing in the film community.  
#IMAX film numbers until recently have never been audited.  IMAX films count busloads of school children who go to see their movies at no-cost or sharply reduced cost as having paid full price.  This is the reason IMAX films are typically not included on documentary lists for box office receipts.
#No other mainstream news source uses this list, nor its methodology and criteria.
#Wikipedia would be the sole source for using this list, and for the sake of consistency would need to amend over 25 articles to reflect this new ranking, unused by any other mainstream source.  We would thus be the sole source promoting this list.
--David Shankbone 16:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The problems with including Ted Frank's Documentary List

message: Based on arguments over this list on Talk:Sicko, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard, the consensus is that this list should in no way be used.  --David Shankbone 15:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Consensus: Not to use Ted Frank's list

message: The thing is - I see these sorts of arguments back and forth all of the time when it's regarding French titles. This is not to say that articles on films with different languages haven't sometimes started with the vernacular title, but it seems that usually when the Italian or Spanish titles, for example, are moved to the common English title, there's little if any complaint. Proportionally, however, I've seen a great deal more contention regarding the French titles. And it seems that the French films are proportionately more likely to start with a foreign title than most other languages' film articles - even when the starting editors are clearly familiar with WP:UE policy. Is there some reason why this is happening? (Or at least appears to be?) I'm not trying to attack anyone or anything, but perhaps if there's a central root of this problem, it would be good to identify and address it. Girolamo Savonarola 02:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel like it might be dangerous to answer this question but there's always been sort of a rivalry between the two languages. France and Britain were the two big colonial powers back in the day. Language is strongly tied to nationalism, which tends to get people fired up. And the French have a long history of revolution which is a source of pride to this day, meaning they're not afraid to speak their mind. I know language is a key issue in the Quebec separatist movement in Canada. One would think that having the French Wikipedia would alleviate these situations somewhat but I guess the best way to think about it is these help keep one's debating skills sharp. Doctor Sunshine talk 01:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, just to clarify, I'm not trying to offend anyone. But I do find these issues more prevalent with French titles, and rather than making sweeping character generalizations, I'm curious if there are perhaps particular cultural influences, standards, and precedents which would bring this about. Some of your answers seem like feasible explanations. Girolamo Savonarola 21:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: An interlude: why French?

message: If anyone could please step in at Talk:Children of the Century...it's getting kinda ugly. Girolamo Savonarola 21:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Back to the issue

message: Template:Alien is very bulky, and just seems to be cluttered with any content related to Aliens and Predator. While they have had some crossovers, I think it needs a split of some sort. A few crossovers shouldn't justify lumping them together. I've brought this issue up in the past, with only a few replies. Anyone an expert on either series, want to help clean the template up and help with a split? RobJ1981 09:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe have two separate Alien and Predator templates (each with the AvP stuff included), defaulted to "hide", and they can both be placed as appropriate (AvP). Girolamo Savonarola 22:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template issues 

message: Please see :Women in Indian film, :List of Indian film actresses,  :Category:Indian women film actors, and the discussion at  :Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_August_4#Category:Indian_women_film_actors. 
There is obviously some merging to be done, but I leave it to the experts here.  DGG (talk) 16:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  women in Indian Film 

message: I think this page is incorrectly tagged as a film:
Back Street.  Anybody like to comment.
Might be an idea to create a tag/category that we can add to pages to mark articles such as this for review and removal of tags if needed.
RWardy 20:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For that one, the case is clear-cut.  It's a romance novel of which several films have been made.  It should not have film-related templates placed on it, and the ones that were placed were done poorly.  Have you noticed this same issue with other articles?  It may be a one-time thing. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Seen a few like this now. Have started making a note here User:RWardy/None Film Pages. Another question, are characters supposed to be included in this project? If so what infobox should be used? RWardy 22:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked at what you found, and it seems that Hobson's Choice may warrant film-related templates because out of the four film-based adaptations there are, only one has an article.  The situation could perhaps be handled so that article stubs for each film can be created.  Same thing goes for Beau Brocade.  However, for Bratz (dolls), the templates should be removed.  For fictional characters, I think that those that have been in films can be part of WikiProject Films -- this is the case for Superman and Batman.  Not sure about the appropriate Infobox -- there is some discussion over that in terms of what kind of detail is appropriate to include for a fictional character, like you would not include when a character died because a fictional character isn't really real.  I'll nudge someone to respond about this, if you're interested. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 00:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Might be worth looking at creating a specific character infobox and maybe change the "need infobox" tag in the film template to have multiple allowed values, eg "Yes" for default film box, "Char" for character box etc. Would not know where to start in creating an infobox so maybe somebody else could pick up on this? RWardy 11:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I wasn't saying they would need both, but it would help the task force's adding infoboxes to artices. There could be a separate list of articles requiring a character infobox to the articles needing a film infobox. RWardy 11:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrectly tagged page 

message: * I have opened a request for comment at Talk:Film_noir#Request_for_Comment:Thirty-five_notable_American_film_noirs_of_the_classic_period. There is a dispute as to whether a large section of the article is an example of original research and, if so, whether its benefits outweigh the harm. --Dystopos 15:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  open request for comment 

message: None of us has enough time left in our lives to worry about this stuff.  How about this?  In the spirit (The Spirit) of compromise, can we agree that Executive Producers and Producers would be listed in the info box and the Associate Producers and CoProducers will only be mentioned if there is something somehow noteworthy about their particular contribution in the same way as a Costume Designer or Special Effects creator would in a particular film?  In The Spirit article, for example, one of the CoProducers is already mentioned in the text for having been on a panel about the movie. In that way, important people will not be left out merely because we can't agree on what basis to decide if they are important. 
This will also have the salutary effect of letting us clean up other films that have inaccurately recorded the credit of some producers without eliminating many of them.  If we can reach this agreement, then all we have to do is request a change to the info box template which shouldn't be hard to get if we are in agreement.  If they request the code for the fix, I'll try to supply it.  I think I saw a format for it somewhere.  Will this solution fly?  Dawgknot 00:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You want to include a Co-Producer on the infobox because he appeared on a panel about an as-of-yet unfilmed movie? I fail to see how that's important in the large view. As for this proposal, I suggest you go back and look at my first comment - my original idea was merely to confine this entire debate to the Producers and Executive Producers only so as to keep the discussion streamlined. I did this in the (naive!) hope that this was uncontroversial. Then we can actually have the discussion about whether and how to decide who should be included from these two jobs. Girolamo Savonarola 01:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I should have been more clear.  It is my proposal that we edit the infobox template to include Executive Producers so that they will be listed as well as Producers (and more accurately than is currently being done in many instances).  I do not propose to add CoProducers or Associate Producers.  Where I was unclear was that there is no reason why mention cannot be made of CoProducers or Associate Producers in the text if the reference is notable or of interest in Erik's real-world context test.  So it's a trade.  Toss the CoProds and the AProds over the side in favor of the considerably more important EProds.   Dawgknot 02:12, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, all of these proposals have nothing to do with the article text. Of course any information of note and sourced can be included in the articles. And just to be clear - this compromise is not going to settle whether or not we're gonna include EProd's (of which I have no opinion yet). It's just gonna clear the field so that we can discuss that issue more clearly in its own context. All good? Girolamo Savonarola 02:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's tough to bargain in a mirror.   As I have argued extensively, I think all producers are probably worthy of listing.  If it were entirely up to me, I would include them out of respect if for no other reason.  Those kinds of credits are not passed out in swag bags at the door (although sometimes it sure looks that way as in the case of 300 which is a clear outlier).  However, in the interest of not making  a career of discussing this, I thought I'd offer to abandon my view in favor of settlement on including Executive Producers in the infobox and elsewhere in the text where called for in the hope that other editors would then be free to move on to more interesting subjects.  Dawgknot 02:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Is there any further advance on this issue?  In the absence of a demur, I will make a request that the infobox be unlocked and modified to include Executive Producers.  If they want proposed code, I'll take a shot at providing it. Dawgknot 19:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't seen any editor agree with your stance.  I don't believe you'd be able to make a request without any support.  The discussion will need to be linked to, of course, and nothing here shows clear consensus to update. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:37, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that is a cramped and narrow view of the kind of important information that should be in these film articles.  Possibly, some of this could be due to some unsupported assumptions about who does what and their importance to the outcome.  I really can't imagine how anyone could reasonably conclude that EPs are not essential.  They aren't 'hired' for the job.  They work for no fee until such time as their film is made.  They are typically the first on the scene and guide it creatively until the rest of the above-the-line talent is hired.  Almost everyone gets paid for their services except the producers until the film is made.  And their credits in the main titles reflect their importance.  Surely we can agree to include them.Dawgknot 02:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Offer of settlement and compromise 

message: The article and category of the same name came from a disagreement, but one that I think fleshes out the issue well:  What are films such as Jackass The Movie and The Real World Cancun?  Are they documentaries, in the same category as Capturing the Friedmans, March of the Penguins and Ken Burns's work, or are they something different?  If they are documentaries, are they a sub-genre of documentary or their own entity (e.g., a Reality film)?  It's worthwhile to research and flesh out, which is the reason for my strong keep.  I think it strikes most people odd that Jackass Number Two is being called a documentary, whether it technically fits that definition or not.  Unfortunately, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences's definition is unhelpful (a recording of an unfiltered performance is excluded from documentary).  Anyway, whether this should or should not exist is up for discussion, and could use some voices:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Reality_film
--David Shankbone 13:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you find reliable sources referring to them as "documentaries" you can include quotes from those sources in their articles. If you find reliable sources referring to them as "reality films", you can include quotes from those sources in the articles. It's as simple as that. --Pixelface 09:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Reality film]] up for deletion 

message: Henry Fonda has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Grim-Gym 02:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Henry Fonda 

message: Got a question for which I can't seem to find a direct answer. Some film articles contain images in them, particularly in the synopsis/plot section. I was thinking about illustrating some of my articles with stills from movie trailers. 1) Is it okay to add images in an article for a lesser known film? (Therefore going to have less content... and not going to be an FA...) 2) Is it okay to use still images taken from movie trailers? 3) If it IS okay, is it advisable? Thank you for your help! Nihao48 04:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether the film is well known or not doesn't come into it, if an image is beneficial to understanding the topic it should be fine. I believe trailer images qualify as film screen shots in terms of fair use rationale. However, as you seem to be interested in older American films, according to this link, American trailers from before 1964 are in the public domain and may be used freely. In other words, go right ahead. Doctor Sunshine talk 08:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Movie Trailers 

message: IMDB.com has a "user rating" for each movie so visitors can see how other visitors have graded the movie.
Can someone write and implement such a plugin into Wikipedias movie articles?
Digg.com grades its articles and lets its visitors sort the articles by popularity. It would be nice to be able to click on the Wikipedia "sci-fi-movies"-section, and then on "sort by voted article quality" or "sort by voted movie quality". And come to think of it; every article on Wikipedia could have a 0-10 quality grade, that comes from visitors/members votes.
Is this the right place to discuss such a plugin? Has this been discussed/proposed earlier? A voting plugin could be used for any purpose. Not just the quality of articles/movies. So it would be time well invested writing such a plugin. We could also make the plugin take up small screen space and make it easily embeddable. Oftentimes someone asks for consensus on a particular matter on these talk pages. I think it would be great if someone would be able to write a question or proposal, add a <vote> tag and get: "Am I beautiful? (Y)(N)(Results)". It would be compact and useful.
When I find a movie title that sounds interesting, I prefer to come to Wikipedia instead of going to IMDB to see what the movie is all about. But there is always this question: "Ok, now I know what the movie is about. But is it good enough to bother watching?". Tommy 14:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm confused. Are you asking for user ratings on the film articles themselves? User ratings are discourage, usually removed outright on site. There is an issue with vote stacking and the bigger issue of "not being a representative sample" of the viewing public. The ratings are regulated to people that view IMDb.com, and not an accurate poll of viewers at a theater.   BIGNOLE   (Contact me) 14:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia articles are not specifically written to tell you if a film is worth seeing or not.  These articles, if they have well-conveyed critical reaction sections, can provide a pretty balanced impression of the film.  Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia, so the focus should be on real-world context.  User ratings of a film at its Wikipedia article would most likely not be verifiable -- as Bignole said about IMDb, there is the issue of votestacking, which happens in every poll that isn't bona fide.  There are other places to check to gauge viewer impressions of the film, though they may not be the most accurate -- many films with fan bases, I've noticed, tend to wind up in the Top 250 at IMDb (300, Transformers are examples) and later taper off.  That kind of imbalance is just another reason why a user rating about films on Wikipedia would not suffice. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:55, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: No user rating is a reliable source. Why do you need another IMDb? The existing one is more than enough. Colchicum 15:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Your "voting idea" violates NPOV like a big dog. Ain't gonna happen in a reference work like WP. Sorry to be a dick, but this is a very basic principle of WP.  David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 15:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that a single individuals opinion about the quality of a movie should be considered a "personal POV". But a consensus opinion about the quality of a movie would not be a personal POV. I still think it would be interesting to see a voted 1-10 grade for a movie I read about on Wikipedia. Or any encyklopaedia for that matter. If we let only registered wikipedians vote, we could mention that the votes are not representative of the general population, but that of registered wikipedians. Tommy 01:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So you are asking that Wikipedians vote and we establish our own user rating. I didn't get that from the beginning. Again, that seems irrelevant to the article as a whole.   BIGNOLE   (Contact me) 01:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Even forgetting NPOV, it fundamentally violates WP:RS and WP:NOR. We are an encyclopedia, not an indiscriminate collection of information. Girolamo Savonarola 01:17, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Listing staff-authored reviews from respected topical magazines meets WP:RS and is a type of reference. Soliciting opinions from the community en masse is the definition of research. Girolamo Savonarola 13:07, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

text: But it's still someone's opinion on the score.  I don't see the difference of say, Dark Side of the Moon getting good ratings from a site I've mentioned, and a film like Pulp Fiction having it's rating from IMDB. Lugnuts 13:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, luckily you don't have you. Please read all the guidelines linked above. Girolamo Savonarola 13:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voting plugin for Wikipedia like IMDBs "user rating"? 

message: The Jason Voorhees article is up for featured article status. Please bring your opinions/criticisms to its FAC page. Thank you.   BIGNOLE   (Contact me) 02:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was promoted.   BIGNOLE   (Contact me) 12:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Congrats! Girolamo Savonarola 12:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Jason Voorhees]] 

message: I've seen several WikiProjects that have been taking roll calls to determine who are active and inactive members of the their projects. Are we willing to do the same thing? I would like to know in the next couple of days so I can include a notice in the monthly newsletter. If approved, we can then send it to all current members. This will help to cut down on delivery lists by not having to deliver to inactive members. We could set up a period of a few weeks to a month for members to include their names before we move inactive members to another section. An example message (based off of another roll call message): 
"Hey fellow Wikipedian! Your username is listed on the WikiProject Films participants list, but we are unsure as to which editors are still active on the project. If you still consider yourself an active WP:FILM editor, please move your name from the current members list to the Active Members list. You may also wish to add  to your userpage, if you haven't done so already. Conversely, if you do not wish to be considered a member of the WikiProject, leave your name where it is and it will be moved to the Inactive Members section. If you wish to make a clean break with the Project you may move your name to the "Known to have left" section. Thanks and happy editing!" 
If somebody knows how to make this more decorative with a background color to the text that would probably be more eye-catching for talk pages and more likely to be responded to. Anyway, what do you guys think? --Nehrams2020 03:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know that some WP's just do a quick check to see if their users have recent activity (~3 months or less). I think it's safe to assume that someone who's using the wiki in the recent past would say something if they didn't want continued newsletter delivery. It also will avoid presumptions on our part regarding unsubscriptions because someone didn't/forgot to/wasn't able to reply, but still wanted to stay in the thick of things. Girolamo Savonarola 04:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not saying that it's just for the newsletter, even though it is part of it. Our project numbers over 400 members (good job by organizing the members list by the way), and some have been part of the project since it's beginning a few years ago. It is likely that a portion of our members have either moved on to other focuses on Wikipedia or have even left Wikipedia completely. There can still be an option for members who aren't active but who still want to receive the newsletter. We're not completely excluding members who are inactive, we can still keep them on an inactive list and they can always update themselves down the line when they see the notice. --Nehrams2020 06:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

text: While we're at it, can the roll call include two other things: first, are there particular areas which they'd like to see task forces for? (These could be national cinemas, time periods, genres, etc.) Second, if we're gonna get everyone's attention, I'd like to bring up the idea of creating one or several "Coordinator" position(s) similar to WP:MILHIST. (Yes, I steal a lot from that WikiProject, but it happens to be a good one! :) ) I think with the number of editors and articles under the project's purview, it would help organize the project better and, well, coordinate the administrative end. (The position would have no executive powers, just to head off any concerns in that direction.) In any case, I'd like to bring this up as a proposal in the near future and it would be nice to add this to the roll call - if nothing else, this (and the task forces poll) will actually provide a secondary "lure" to at least visit here again. Girolamo Savonarola 22:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be reasonable to include if other members are interested in having coordinators for our ever-expanding project. We could include a section of potential task forces and ask members to also include their name in the section if they're interested. Information about the roll call isn't necessary to include in the newsletter this month, as we should have enough time to plan out what we want members to include in their "check-in" and allow us time to set up possible coordinator positions if other members agree. Plus, if the roll call lasts for a month or so, they can get a second notice in next month's newsletter (if members are reading it). I'm open to whatever we think we want to include in the roll call, but don't want to include too many options as it may be a bit overwhelming. --Nehrams2020 08:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm busy during the week with school, but I'll work on this further this weekend. We need to modify the members page to reflect on active/inactive members and if people are still interested in several coordinators for the project, that needs to be set up as well. Ideally, I'll see if I can find a bot to send out the roll call to all of the members to save some time. --Nehrams2020 04:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I modified the members page to prepare for when the message is sent out to all members. Before I send out the bold text message above, I want to see if there is anything else we should include in the roll call. Have we decided on the possiblity of having members express interest in task forces and coordinators? If so, do we want them to state their interest on the members' page or somewhere else? Also, is there anything else that we should be mentioning to members during the roll call before we do it (votes on style guidelines, merging of the task forces/WPs, ask them what areas they are focused on within the project, etc.)? --Nehrams2020 23:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should mention information about task forces and coordinators as a separate item in the newsletter.  Also, I don't think we should require members to put anything on their user pages about their involvement with the project; we can ask, but it should be up to them how they want to format their userspace.  Also, mentioning votes may be perceived as canvassing, so I think it would be best to keep mentions to the WikiProject mainspace.  Finally, for the roll call mention, it can be asked if they can explain what area of film they plan to work on in a brief manner. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, we can deal with task forces/coordinators down the line. For the userbox, it only suggests you can add it if you want, so it's not required, but I can remove it. I'll modify the message to have members state their areas of interest within the project. Anybody else? --Nehrams2020 23:40, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree - if you read the WP:CANVASS guideline, it specifically allows (and encourages) "Friendly notices" and even mentions projects as a good example of where they are permissible. If we were selecting particular users by ourselves for the discussion, or if we were to put a slant on the discussion topics in the roll call, then that would be unacceptable. But in this case, we're simply notifying people with a self-identified interest on the topic of several major project discussions. In particular, mentioning the task force interests are crucial since many users do declare their subinterests on the members page. Many may not know yet that there are now also task forces that they can join. (This might also be linked from the main members page.) As for Coordinators - it's a crucial community position. Were these each just content discussions, then I'd agree that they should only remain on the normal monthly announcements. (Which is why I'm not mentioning the Scope question here.) Girolamo Savonarola 00:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, but do we have any information about the coordinator positions, and anywhere where members can express their interest in the creation of the positions or task force interest? If not, we can just send the roll call out exclusively for the active status, and then send another message later about the coordinator/task force/anything else we want input on. --Nehrams2020 02:09, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roll call? 

message: TakuyaMurata (contribs) has been adding American to the lead sentence of a few film articles lately.  I was not sure of this approach, as it seems nonstandard.  What do others think? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 11:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would agree. Although for most of the articles on wikipedia, I think nationality should be stated because the fact that something is American (or British or whatever) shouldn't be assumed, as far as films are concerned, surely the vast majority of films that have articles on wikipedia are American and English-language and should only be differentiated if otherwise. --BelovedFreak 11:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes sense to me.  There seemed to be justification for it, which is why I didn't challenge the editor.  It's something that I've rarely seen in the majority of film articles, though.  Maybe this editor can update all of them for us. :) —Erik (talk • contrib) - 12:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

text: But why make a strong rule? If he wants to do the updates, let him, as there is nothing wrong with that. It should be neither mandatory nor forbidden to mention "American" film AdamSmithee 13:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  American films 

message: I've just been tidying up 20th Century Fox. The predecessor companies that merged to form this company are Fox Film Corporation and 20th Century Pictures. Fox Film Corporation used to have its own article (the history is at Fox Film) and got merged. 20th Century Pictures also used to have its own article (the history is at Twentieth Century Pictures), and was similarly merged. I'm not 100% convinced these early film companies are well-served by being merged into 20th Century Fox, but I reorganised the page to make things a little clearer, and spun out the list of Fox Film Corporation films to List of Fox Film films. I also created List of 20th Century Pictures films. I'm not sure how this sort of thing is best handled, so I'm now offering this all up for review here. Thanks. Carcharoth 15:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks great. Splitting off the lists of the 20th Century Pictures and Fox Films was a good solution. It keeps the focus on the history of the company, and makes things absolutely clear. — WiseKwai 19:12, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Film lists and 20th Century Fox 

message: Just an "FYI" for those that attend to the categorization of film stubs, specifically those dated-by-year - comedy, drama, horror:  For those films that do not have a specific "by decade" stub template, it is now possible to "force" the categorization out of the top category into the "by decade" category by adding: 
|category=Category:XXXXX
For example in an 1890 horror film the stub will look like this:
:
This does not effect any stub templates that do not add  the piped "force" category.  SkierRMH 00:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This could actually be a problem, as that approach currently goes against our current categorization scheme (which avoids intersection categories for the most part). Girolamo Savonarola 02:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As it stands now, it actually only has effect on less than 15 films, so I really don't see it going against the overall categorization scheme. It's an attempt to keep in line with the concept behind  categories that are marked as  (as it "empties" these categories), as well as keeping in line with the folks over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals and not creating bunches of categories for one or two films. SkierRMH 05:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "As it stands now" has no guarantee of remaining that way. An 1890 horror film at the moment should normally be categorized as an 1890 film, a horror film, a silent film, and a [country] film. Having the bot automatically create faulty categories will force us to hunt these variants down as a regular task. I thought the bots were supposed to minimize manual work? Girolamo Savonarola 05:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Lots of problems with that last statement: First, bots aren't doing this, this is manually done - don't know a bot that's adding the "forced"/piped categories to any existing stub templates (in fact, I did all of these manually).  Second, we're not talking about standard category:xyz films categories, we're talking about the stub templates that automatically transclude into a category - huge difference.  Third, it's not putting in any "faulty" categories - you forgot the prime one that is in question - the Category:Pre-1960's horror films.  In the cases at hand the standard  transcludes into the category:Horror films, which is incorrect, but is the default for this template.  What the option does is to remove the incorrect default category with the correct category without having to create a pleathora of worthless stub templates.  Fourth, realistically, looking at the categories mentioned, are there really that many films that will be added into them?  Looking at most film histories, comedy & drama won't reach the number of films to warrant a stub template.  The only one that possibly will be broadened is horror films.  Fifth, if and when these categories are broadened downwards chronologically, it's not going to be an inexperienced editor/admin that's adding/dividing the category.  If they're savvy enough to be able to do this, they're well aware of the work that needs to be done to populate the new categories.SkierRMH 23:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't really have anything to say technically. It appears that :Category:Horror films currently is subdivided into by-decade categories, which is something that Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Categorization has for the moment recommended specifically against. But that's really a separate issue. Girolamo Savonarola 15:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dated Film stub updates 

message: Hi folks. A user is changing the lead of articles about the third films in a series. Rather than them being described as the 'second sequel', the term 'threequel' seems to be cropping up. It's not an expression I've come across before, but it Googles relatively well in relation to recent films. How do we feel about this? I'm not entirely comfortable with it. The JPStalk to me 21:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Last I looked, we didn't use slang in articles, unless it was about the slang itself. Alientraveller 22:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not "slang," it has become a common term in movie-making parlance. I'm curious - why was this article removed before there was a proper discussion about it? I don't appreciate all my work disappearing without having a chance to explain/defend it. Thank you. ConoscoTutto 22:13, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Given that both the previous Threequel (film term) article and its current version within the Sequel article are completely unreferenced, and since I'd never heard the term before, I assumed it was slang. That's why I reverted an insertion of the term "threequel" into an article. Sounds like a silly marketing slang term to me, and most likely not notable enough for Wikipedia. In any case, it's certainly not a term that most readers are likely to be familiar with, and so it probably shouldn't be plugged into opening paragraphs of film articles. I think that simpler wording like "second sequel" or "third film in the ____ series" sounds much more professional than "threequel." --IllaZilla 01:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article was not unreferenced - please see . May I ask if the word prequel also sounded like "a silly marketing slang term" to you when it was introduced? Thank you. ConoscoTutto 15:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is generally accepted that articles should avoid neologisms. Girolamo Savonarola 01:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While the definition of "neologism" is somewhat fuzzy, I'd think this probably doesn't qualify. It could be considered a jargon word or a term of art - something in between would probably be most accurate. It generally isn't, as far as I can tell, attributed to a specific author as the coiner of the term. And the term does seem to have found its way into common usage. — xDanielx T/C 02:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Neologism has nothing to do with traceable creators or uncommon usage. It's simply words which are not commonly found in established dictionaries and are probably of recent origin. Google tests have no bearing on the matter. Girolamo Savonarola 04:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Neologism" is generally defined as "a newly invented word or phrase." Words which become terms of art not because they are inventively coined but because numerous individuals simultaneously find utility in the use of some borderline jargon are generally not considered neologisms. An example is determinism - the etymology progressed naturally from "determinaire" to "determine" to "determinism." The neologism Wikipedia article even defines "neologism" as "a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created ('coined')" and notes that they "are often directly attributable to a specific individual, publication, period or event," which "treequel" is not. I'm not saying it is strictly incorrect to call "treequel" a neologism, but I would think that it's somewhat different from what the writers of WP:NEO had in mind. — xDanielx T/C 05:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Anyone can revert the redirection, since nothing was deleted. You don't need an admin for it. However, that doesn't mean that you necessarily should do that, since there's not much useful to say about 'threequels' in particular that wouldn't be better covered in the sequel article, where the term currently redirects. It's just a term for an additional sequel, and there's nothing particularly special about being the third part of any installment. Listing the third parts of some film series really doesn't seem like an interesting or useful endeavour. - Bobet 15:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to revert the redirection and got the response that only an administrator could do so. I'm curious, as far as your opinion is concerned, would you apply it to the prequel article, too? Thank you. ConoscoTutto 15:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, looking further into it, there already were two afd discussion for the term, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Threquel and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Threequel, both which resulted in a redirect decision, so I guess that's why someone would tell you to seek an admin to revert a decision (if you put the article up for deletion review again, please mention those discussions, so people will know there's actually something to overturn, thanks). As to my opinion on the prequel article, yes, it seems there's something to say about prequels that is better covered there than in the sequel article, although I don't really see the usefulness of listing every prequel people can think of. In the case of threequels, you can say that it's the second sequel to something, and that pretty much covers what you need to know. Like I said, there's probably nothing particularly in common among third installments of a series. If you can show otherwise using reliable sources, you would have a case for a deletion review, however. - Bobet 15:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Bobet, for uncovering those AFDs. I was unaware of the history. You are correct, also, in your comments about prequels. It reminds me of amateur college bands who insist that their article should be kept because they might become famous. The JPStalk to me 16:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's another one: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Threquel 2007. The JPStalk to me 16:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Threequel (film term)]] 

message: I've just been browsing and cleaning up the telugu list a bit and in seeing some of the articles they are shockingly terrible!!! It amazes me how many contemporary Bollywood articles on actors and films have the golden seal!! yet most of the tamil. telugu and malayalam articles are diabolical!!!!!! I know Bollywood is the main and most popular industry but the Indian cinema work group shouldn't neglect the other articles. They are either polished articles or completely unclear stubs which aren't even written in proper english!!! I really think the Indian cinema work group or some of us should try to start developing the other articles. The film articles on Tamil. Telugu, Malayalam films are the worst on wikipedia. They are a shambles  ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦      "Talk"?  18:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gross uneveness in INdian films 

message: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Greg Jones II 20:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace]] 

message: Two of this WikiProject's Good Articles, Silent Film and Facing the Giants, have been nominated for Good Article review.  Everyone is invited to contribute to the discussions concerning these article's GA status there. Drewcifer 03:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good Article Reviews 

message: As an example of the new capabilities of the revised project banner, I've just added the |Persian-task-force=yes parameter to as many relevant films as I could find. This then allowed me to set up the appropriate category structure to create another assessment table just for the task force, which you can see at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Persian cinema articles by quality statistics. Note that this exists in parallel with our project-wide assessment, allowing both the whole project and the task forces to each see where they stand, all implemented under one project banner. There's a slight gap in that the importance for the task forces is not yet ready (I simply forgot to include it in the code; shouldn't be too difficult to correct), but this only affects the task force assessments, not the project-wide assessment.
With this now ready and available, there are some much larger questions that I think need to be considered. The first and most obvious one for me is integrating Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian cinema within WP Films as a task force, under a shared task force arrangement with WP India in which the task force address will be located here, but the task force will also be jointly operated with WP India in the same way as some of our current task forces such as Chinese and French cinema are. This needs to be mentioned simply because of two reasons: one, the Indian cinema group is by far the largest and most functional of all national/regional cinema editing groups, and secondly because historically there was a disagreement over moving the project to WP Films as a task force. It is my hope that with the integrated project banner code which will allow the project some assessment autonomy, we will be able to integrate them more easily into our group and also reduce banner clutter/redundancy so that Indian films no longer will need to have both a Film banner and an Indian cinema banner; the Indian task force identification is now encoded within the Film banner.
Second, the current task forces are all national cinema-based, and their interest - justifiably - extends not only to national films, but national filmmakers. I don't believe that it makes sense to delimit their scopes purely to the films, and a perusal of some of the task force article request lists (all transcluded into Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Requests) corroborates this. Therefore, I believe that we should allow the task forces - and the whole WP Films project at large - to expand our scope. It is true that we already do have an Actors and Filmmakers project, but this project is more rightly a workgroup of WP Bio, and there is no reason why the biographical articles can't be tagged both as a WP Bio article and a WP Films article. (Indeed, this is current practice at projects like Military history.)
Which brings me to another point. I believe that with the interest, participation, and scope that we already have, it makes sense to centralize the topic, much as several other successful WikiProjects have already done. What I mean is that the idea of subdividing the entire topic of Film into several WikiProjects such as Films, national cinemas, Filmmaking, etc is probably hurting each of these projects in the long run because it divides up common effort and common forums for discussion. I believe that the task force model is ideal for integrating different clusters of interest and type, with the added benefit of a larger overall membership and centralized coordination of common needs such as style guidelines, assessment, etc. so that each task force does not need to re-invent the wheel. Instead, all of the boring administrative overhead is left to the project at large so that the task forces can remain focused on work on the articles. It also avoids confusion for new or unfamiliar editors by having a central project that has scope over all film-related articles, instead of wondering which of several projects one should join/ask questions of/request help/point out issues, and resolves problems with certain areas of film-based articles which currently do not fall within any project scope.  I, for one, am interested in merging WP Filmmaking into either one or several task forces, to start. 
My final point, which I've already discussed in the Roll Call thread above, is that I believe that given the large number of members and articles, we could really benefit from one or several Project Coordinators. This job already exists at WP:MILHIST and is purely an administrative role involved with project housekeeping and...coordinating! The position would have absolutely no executive powers or special privileges with regards to content disputes or anything of that sort. It's merely a behind-the-scenes position to keep the project running smoothly and efficiently. (Just to clarify.) 
Anyway, I know that's a lot of proposal up there, so I'd appreciate any and all comments. Thanks! Girolamo Savonarola 07:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems like a good idea. Ultimately people are only going to work on the articles they want to work on but it may encourage more interaction between the projects and taskforces. I can't foresee any negatives. Have you brought this up with anyone from the India, Indian Cinema or Filmmaking projects? Doctor Sunshine talk 15:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Haven't yet bc I wanted to bring it up here first, being as it's a major change in scope for the project. I don't think Filmmaking should be difficult; there are only a few of us who are regulars, and I'll bring it up later today when I have more time. As for WP India, the last discussion ended in a stalemate (see archives from...January? October), but I think that if there is clear consensus (and now that we have independent assessment table capability), it should proceed without too much acrimony. It should also be noted wrt that previous stalemate, the WP:COUNCIL had overwhelmingly supported the group's location being placed here at WP Films, with WP India allowed to jointly claim it as a task force. I support that. Since there was a lot of shouting between the WikiProjects at the time, we decided to leave it on neutral ground for the time being; I decided that there was little use to force the issue again without first creating more a conducive and prepared project infrastructure. Girolamo Savonarola 16:57, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the proposal.  I've always considered the foreign cinema projects to be disjointed, and this task force setup seems to help place everything under one roof so there can better focus and collaboration on film-related articles.  I'd like to hear what the other film-related WikiProjects have to say about this; there don't seem to be any drawbacks, from what I can see. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP Filmmaking seems to be supportive of the merge so far. It's still early, of course, and needs ample time to remain open for comments, but based on prior history, I don't think more than 1 or 2 will be made. How long should the question be left open before we decide to merge/not merge? Girolamo Savonarola 01:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  BIG ISSUES for discussion 

message: Can someone help fix the article on this screenwriter?  Her notability seems borderline at the moment.  Did she get a credit for Map of the World for example?  Nick mallory 12:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Janet Dulin Jones]] 

message: I don't know if anyone's noticed, but your unassessed films category now seems to contain every article tagged with your banner, which I know it didn't only yesterday.  Something wrong with the banner, maybe? Katharineamy 23:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Very possible. I'll have a look. Thanks! Girolamo Savonarola 23:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like it's including articles which have received a non-standard class (anything other than FA, A, GA, B, Start, or Stub). I'll try to get that fixed as soon as I can find an admin to implement several fixes. Thanks! Girolamo Savonarola 22:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem!  Katharineamy 11:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unassessed films 

message: It seems that the NA (na) in the importance scale has disappeared, leaving every film that was in these categories - Dab, template, category, NA, and list - categorized as such now showing as "???". There's thousands of these now showing as non-rated on the importance scale - which isn't correct.  SkierRMH 03:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm...will have to look into that. Does it really matter much, though, if Dabs and templates lose importance? That's not really what the parameter exists for. Girolamo Savonarola 04:42, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it keeps them from getting evaluated as film articles (sort of parallel to the NA = non-article class.  All of the aforementioned categories are ones that aren't "no" importance; they remain in the  family, but shouldn't be evaluated on the importance scale. It keeps them from getting put into lots of list where they don't belong. SkierRMH 04:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me see about making the template do a generic evaluation of all NA articles to NA-importance class or something similar. Actually, why not "No" importance? Presumably all article subjects should have some importance, even if it's Low. Girolamo Savonarola 05:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

text: This hearkens back to Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team (and prior evaluations) and their use of the importance scale (as well as other groups that look to the evaluation schemes).  The reason that the aforementioned categories were "na" is because while they're essential to running the project, but they're not articles on films themselves and the rating is for articles on films.  The exemption with "NA" is to keep them off the evaluation scales while keeping them connected to the project. You seem to hit the misconception here right on the head when you said "all article subjects" - and we're not dealing with articles about films, we're dealing with the other templates, categories, lists, etc. that operate with and for the project.  SkierRMH 01:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I understand that, but my point is that all articles would have some level of importance, while all non-articles could be given No importance. But whatever works best is fine. Girolamo Savonarola 01:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "NA" importance has disappeared? 

message: Template: has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Girolamo Savonarola 19:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of [[:Template:{{ucfirst:needs film infobox}}]] 

message: From my point of view the article has fulfilled the start requirements, it can be reassessed.--Nemissimo 00:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For reassessments of articles, see the Assessment department. Make sure that the article meets all of the requirements of the banner on the talk page of the article ("Article upgrading needed: You can help."). The article needs a cast section, a fair use rationale for the image, and could probably use some more expansion. --Nehrams2020 01:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Preaching to the Perverted]] 

message: There is a debate at Talk: Superman Returns#Fair use over the inclusion of a screencapture in the plot section. We would like a lot of opinions so that this debate isn't just between two people.   BIGNOLE   (Contact me) 23:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made my comment, based on my arguments above at #Images in Plot section.  These things really seem too subjective and subject to whoever perseveres the longest. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 00:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fair use images 

message: WP:MILHIST is currently moving towards creating a "War films task force" (relevant discussion here).  Since WP:FILMS is the natural partner for running this task force jointly, I have been asked to bring the matter before the Films project for discussion.  Comments would be welcome! Kirill 02:41, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  War films task force? 

message: As per previous discussions (see "Roll call" above), it appears that there is community interest in the creation of Coordinator positions. A /Coordinators page has been created to explain the position, and a separate election subpage is also now set-up to begin the election process.
Effective immediately, there will be a two-week signup period during which project members may self-nominate for a Coordinator position and begin to take questions and comments. Then from September 28-October 11, the voting will commence. The voting system will be approval voting. Most of the procedure and protocol for the position and the election is cribbed directly from WP:MILHIST, but if people have any questions or comments regarding the process itself, please feel free to offer them either here or on the article talk pages! Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola 05:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There will also probably be a banner announcing this and the roll call on both the main project page and members' talk pages in the next day or two. Girolamo Savonarola 05:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coordinator Elections Beginning