Talk:Al Leong

message: The funny thing about the Fametracker web site is that I created the Photoshopped image they use for my (long since defunct) Golden Horde: The Al Leong Fan Club web site. I don't begrudge them using it, of course: I'm glad someone out there is paying Al the respect he deserves.
I have put all of the filmographic data I have online. Note: some of this is written tongue-in-cheek, and may need a bit of revision to be appropriate for an encyclopedia entry. There are a few gaps. Maybe someone can fill those in. My next step is to go through and Wiki-link the more interesting cross-references (e.g., Andy Sidaris, Rambo, Genghis Khan). Anyone who would like to help with that has my blessing. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 02:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Initial notes

message: Hi,
The GA tag was added to this article without going through the nomination process. It has now been removed, please don't re-add it without nominating the article at this page.
Thanks,
Cedars 13:07, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Good article

message: This article offends my eyes. I'm not good at sounding serious, so someone please fix this. To whoever wrote the article this way, fall in a well and stay forgotten. Ace ofspade 18:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because that is how it was originally written. Feel free to re-write some entries to make them cleaner and less informal. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 23:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article 

message: Okay, cute and clever and excellent for a blog sort of thing, but not for an encyclopedia. I dunno if User:Bblackmoor is still reading this at all, but perhaps I could move whatever scant dialogue he had in films to wikiquotes? I'll remove the synopsis of the films and instead make a filmography section. Basically I'm asking for a radical reduction. Sorry. Tamarkot 19:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to delete anything that is not verifiable. Feel free to rephrase anything that is not NPOV. Feel free to delete anything that isn't notable and relevant to this article. However, Leong's dialogue is notable, because it is one of the distinguishing characteristics of his roles -- his dialogue, or lack thereof, is part of what makes Leong himself notable. Removing Leong's dialogue from the article would be like removing the paintings from the article on Vincent van Gogh -- it would eliminate a major portion of what makes the article relevant to its subject. As for removing the synopses, that would be acceptable as long as the verifiable information contained in them is moved to another Wikipedia article (one for each film, presumably). However, be aware that since one of Leong's signature attributes is that he is a bit player, Leong's appearance in a film might not be notable in an article devoted to that film, while it is notable in an article devoted to Leong himself. Ergo, much of what is currently contained in the film synopses may be notable only within the context of this article -- and thus, should stay in this article. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 04:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Well...

message: Good work by user:ONUnicorn and user:Ace ofspade on the article. Thanks. Your efforts are greatly apppreciated. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 04:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Good work!

message: user:AspiraDude deleted most of the article's content. I would not characterize this as vandalism, per se, but at the very least it was not the result of discussion and consensus, nor was any valid reason given for the deletion of the article's content. I have therefore reverted AspiraDude's changes. Feel free to delete anything that is not verifiable. Feel free to rephrase anything that is not NPOV. Feel free to delete anything that isn't notable and relevant to this article. Feel free to discuss anything else. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 04:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, but that is WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION. ITA with dfg in the Cleanup section. That depth of information simply does not belong on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Article_size. I'll "feel free" to delete what I think is inappropriate for Wikipedia, not the fans of Al Leong, thanks. If you think people care to know all that information about Al Leong, create a website and link to it from here. Don't shove his entire 20-year career down our collective throats. Vesperholly 08:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You do not think Wikipedia is an appropriate place for detailed, verifiable, NPOV information? I will respectfully agree to disagree. As for "shoving something down your throat", no one is forcing you to read an article in which you clearly have no interest. There are much longer articles on Wikipedia than this one, which do not interest me. Should I go and delete large portions of them for that reason? I think not. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 16:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have an interest in relevant information. Entire lists of dialogue and descriptions of characters which don't even have names are completely irrelevant and make this article very difficult to read. A minor character actor like Leong does not justify a page that is the same length as Steven Spielberg's article. I'm interested in why you think Leong's article should be as long as Spielberg's. Perhaps you can elucidate me. Vesperholly 21:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no need to defend this article's length in comparison to the length of any other Wikipedia article: that is not a relevant concern. However, if you would like work on Spielberg's article to make it longer, then of course you should feel free to do so. Incidentally, "elucidate" does not mean what you appear to think it means. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 15:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I disagree. Providing a comprehensive reference is an encyclopedia's raison d'etre. There is no precedent, as far as I know, for excluding verifiable information from Wikipedia simply because the topic is related to pop culture. I could be mistaken; if so, please provide a reference so that I may correct my error. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 00:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. That suggests to me that the inclusion of minutae is inappropriate, and best left to a fan site. Pruning, to the extent of just listing the filmography, and a section higlighting the bit part nature of his roles would seem to be a satisfactory resolution. -- Princess Tiswas 18:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" does not appear to apply to this article. Other than the "plot summary" example, the examples given in that section generally have to do with "how to" type subjects. And while this article does contain (very abbreviated) plot information, it is used here "as an aspect of a larger topic". -- BBlackmoor (talk) 17:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The list is indiscriminate, in that it makes no attempt to put the filmography into any context of notability. This goes against the letter of wikipedia, and perhaps, more importantly, against the spirit. The inclusion of a synopsis for each film is redundant - this is covered in the the entry for each film (where there is one). I've cleaned up the section inline with my previous suggestion :: Princess Tiswas 19:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Leong's filmography is not indiscriminate -- the discriminating factor is that it's a list of films in which he has appeared. Nor are the synopses of the films redundant with the listings for the films themselves: as has already been pointed out, one of the earmarks of Leong's appearances is that he plays minor characters who nearly always die, and who would ordinarily not even be mentioned in a film's conventional synopsis. The content you deleted is relevant to this article, the subject of the article is notable, and the content itself is written from a neutral point of view (although of course it can be improved), it is verifiable, and it is not original research. That you do not find the subject of the article interesting has absolutely no bearing, and that is not sufficient reason to go deleting half of it. I have reverted your ill-considered and wholly unnecessary deletions. -- -- BBlackmoor (talk) 05:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reverted the changes back to the previous version, for the very reasons given above. The inclusion of pedantic minutae to illustrate a point merely adds bloat. It's apparent that you have an issue with wikipedia in general, inasmuch as can be garnered from your user page, and this article has become your own private sandbox. I suggest this article be tagged for review by a wider audience. - Tiswas(t/c) 16:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "I've reverted the changes back to the previous version, for the very reasons given above." Reverted back. The arguments to which you refer have been addressed. If you have anything new to add to the discussion, please do so here before unilaterally deleting valid, verifiable, relevant neutral content. -- -- BBlackmoor (talk) 15:21, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wholesale deletion of article content by AspiraDude

message: Unlike the tag that Princess Tiswas kept adding to this article, the "unencyclopedic list" template that Tikiwont has applied is, at least, used correctly and appropriately. However, unlike the previous templates applied to this article (concerning its tone, primarily -- template tags which I wholeheartedly supported as being useful and constructive to the improvement of the article), I disagree with the goal of this tag and with the assumptions on which it is based. I disagree with the premise that lists are somehow "unexcyclopedic". I would posit that lists of relevant, verifiable information about notable subjects is precisely encyclopedic, and sometimes that is the most practical way of structuring such information. From reading the talk page devoted to that template, I can see that I am hardly alone in this opinion. Based on the precedents set by other articles on Wikipedia, I would go so far as to say that this "lists are bad" mentality is in the extreme minority. But I will let someone else remove the template. I have done enough cleanup on this article lately. -- BBlackmoor (talk)</small> • 2007-06-15 03:03Z</small>
:I don't have such a strong opinion on lists in general. It's the second time that I apply this particular tag and I wasn't so aware that it may be understood in the sense that lists in general are unecyclopedic nor would I want to say so. I think there is a problem with the template and have explained that further at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Laundromat. I added the tag to defuse somehat the dispute about the other tag and because the section certainly needs attention in my opinion. On further consideration, what we have at Al Leong#Filmography is actually an unformatted table with a lot of unreferenced text and I've removed the tag for both reasons. To move beyond taggging, I've summarized below a proposal for this section.--Tikiwont 09:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Unencyclopedic lists"?

message: I will repeat what I said almost precisely a year ago: Leong's dialogue is notable, because it is one of the distinguishing characteristics of his roles -- his dialogue, or lack thereof, is part of what makes Leong himself notable. This is not original research -- it is referenced in every significant mention of him in external sources (the number of which is diminishing, sadly, as his heydey recedes into the past). As for removing the synopses, that would be acceptable as long as the verifiable information contained in them is moved to another Wikipedia article (one for each film, presumably). However, be aware that since one of Leong's signature attributes is that he is a bit player, Leong's appearance in a film might not be notable in an article devoted to that film, while it is notable in an article devoted to Leong himself. Ergo, much of what is currently contained in the film synopses may be notable only within the context of this article -- and thus, should stay in this article. Again, this is not original research -- it is merely the placement of verifiable information in articles where that information is relevant and notable, all of which is directly supported by Wikipedia's core principles.
You make a valid comparison to articles devoted to other actors. However, the observation that other actor's filmographies are incomplete is certainly not a reason to remove verifiable information where it currently exists. Under that rationale, every article on Wikipedia would be reduced to a stub. It is my opinion that neutral, verifiable, notable information should never be removed from Wikipedia unless there is some truly extraordinary justification for it. I find it quite odd that any editor would disagree.
As for the article having been criticized, this is so. On the hand, it has received nonconstructive criticism from a small number of people who have neither provided a coherent basis for that criticism nor contributed anything to the article themselves. (Suggestions that the editors of the article should "fall in a well and stay forgotten" and observations that the article is a "train wreck" are typical of such editors' comments.) However, the article has also received constructive criticism from editors who have cleaned up, clarified, expanded, and just generally improved the article. It is my opinion that the latter form of criticism should be given the most weight.  -- BBlackmoor (talk)</small> • 2007-06-17 14:33Z</small>
:Well, I am certainly having a hard time finding in above discussion actual endorsements of the current format of the filmography. With respect to mentioned filmographies of other actors, I actually checked some featured articles and they all feature the mentioned format. So having a Wikipedia standard representation already counts for quite a bit as does the underlying consensus about the level of detail we're aiming at. But why would many think that something that looks incomplete to you is good quality? IMO, mostly because the plots, the dialogues and the deaths belong to the characters and the films, i.e. to fictional worlds. And it is here in linking all the details form the differtn films to the real person that the original aspect comes into place. Having little dialogue does not imply that the plot few lines are notable when put into the actors article or that there is something Al Cheongish about them or the plot parts, nor are there currently sources for that. And of course Al Leong himself is not dying at all in the films as the current table implies. Not to mention that I would not knwo how to verify most content if not by whatching the scene. 
:So there was a year of time to go through the plots and will be afteards, Wikiquotes is the place for quotes and if I look e.g. at the quotes of Jeff Goldblum, it might be acceptable to enter content by characters there. For the rest, it has to talk about the film from the actor and not the character perspective, e.g if Leong also did stunts.--Tikiwont 09:47, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So, you're set on taking the amply-documented information (it's practically all on DVD) that makes Leong notable, and removing it from the article, for no other reason that what makes Leong notable is not what makes other actors notable, and therefore should be removed. And once that is gone, of course, Leong himself will cease to be notable enough to warrant an article (it will be labeled fancruft or some such thing), and the article will be nominated for deletion. And why not? What made the article worthwhile will have long since been removed. Whatever. I tire of fighting the endless battle to keep Wikipedia sane. This was my last battleground; I surrender to the barbarians.  -- BBlackmoor (talk)</small> • 2007-06-26 19:03Z</small>
It saddens me to see this - the article in its previous format was a wonder, and contained all the information I required when I looked into Al Leong a few months ago.  To see it deteriorate to its current level is upsetting.
Hopefully, someone can do something to improve it to at least a fraction of its former glory.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.65.15.8 (talk • contribs) 
Am I the only one who thinks it's HILARIOUS that someone who kept calling the guy "Al Cheong" is the one who seemed hell-bent on cutting this Wiki post down to nothing?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.104.46.56 (talk) 06:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: What happened to this article? It used to have buckets of information about Al Leong, and now it's like a stub. What the heck?!? This is pitiful. 67.62.201.69 (talk) 15:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What the heck happened? 

message: Substituted at 06:59, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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