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Release date

I have a concern about release dates. In most of these articles, the release date mentioned is the date of wide release in the United States, even though some films are released earlier in other countries. For example, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released on November 15, 2002 in the US, and that is reflected in the infobox and lead paragraph. But it actually had wide release in the Philippines two days earlier. [1] There's a similar situation with X-Men: The Last Stand. [2] What's the correct way to handle this? Coffee 15:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall this conversation coming up in the past, so I think the issue you brought up is new. In my own personal opinion, this is something that will have to be done on a case by case basis. (As you can probably already tell, the US release dates seem to have preference here.) But I'm sure if a majority of the countries released days earlier, then that should be noted somewhere, either in the Infobox or in the body of text. However, having a "list" of release dates is probably a bad idea, unless there is some clear encyclopedic value in that. --P-Chan 15:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I think that you should place the release dates of the major countries in the world. That includes the US, UK, Canada, etc. However, I would only focus on the release dates of English-speaking countries. After all, this is English Wikipedia. That way, the list wouldn't get out of hand.
About certain countries such as the Phillipines, the only reason it was realeased earlier there is because movies are realeased on Wednesdays there and Fridays here. --22:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
My vote would be for mentioning the earliest release, wherever it was, with the country in brackets beside it, then if necessary mention the release date in a major market such as the US in a separate line. Here's a good example of how to do it (look at how the release dates look in the infobox). I strongly believe that an article should mention the earliest release date of a film, even if it's in a non-English-speaking minor country. Isn't that the whole point? I'd like to think that most people who use the English-language wikipedia don't believe that the English-speaking world is the only one that's worth knowing about. Esn 04:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise proposal

I was wondering whether of not an article on the film series/theme ride would be in order? --SGCommand (talk • contribs) 14:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyone care to discuss this? --SGCommand (talk • contribs) 10:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a great idea to me! Since the films have basically the same cast, crew, characters, and story, it sounds like a great idea to include all that on one summary page. I suggest you just go for it (Be bold!), or post messages on the discussion boards of the specificially Pirates of the Caribbean-related pages (page for the ride, pages for the various movies, etc). See what people think, and go for it! --Gpollock 20:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

filmography

I was wondering if there is any consensus on how filmographies of actors are to be presented. Many are listed in reverse chronological order, while others are not. What is preferable? Personally, I like the reversed ones better... — riana_dzasta • t • c • 14:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as I remember, there is a policy which says that the reverse chronological order is preferred, but I'm too lazy too look for it. The reason why many filmographys are in chronological order is that some editors just copy/paste them from other sites (generally IMDb), sometimes wikify and then don't bother putting them in the right order AdamSmithee 07:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Should they be in a
wiki table
like this
or just a
  • bulletted
  • list
  • like this?
-- Cbrown1023 21:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Long time; No work

But I am back and ready to work! For my abtance and hasty departure, I am going to help create a cool new "project" homepage. I sorta did this with my own project that I started. So.. if anyone wants to help, I am going to be working on Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Sandbox Design. So any bit will help. Shane (talk/contrib) 23:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

If you know how to program or like grunt work it would be great for all film related stuff on wiki if each article was sorted by Stub, Start, B, etc. so we could see what work needs to be done. Andman8 02:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Program mostly and grunt work tagging. I also created a new design of the main template banner here: Template:FilmsWikiProject/Sandbox Design. This is based again off my {{Project FBI}} template. The only problem is I don't want to change the main page of the WikiProject Films page without most of the groups consensus. That's why I been working on the "Sandbox". -- Shane (talk/contrib) 03:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Template has been updated. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 17:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

What about ratings?

This project seems rather complete, but what about film ratings? IMDB gives ratings in various countries. It would also be nice to cross reference the reasons for a particular rating as well. Could a ratings section be added? Electronic.mayhem 00:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been discussed to death. See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Films/archive2#Ratings (but don't comment there, as it's an archive). The JPStalk to me 00:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I see the rather deep dicussion, but it appears that a straw poll favored inclusion of ratings. What gives? personally, I'm more concerned about reasons for ratings than the actual ratings themselves. Shall we begin adding ratings then?--Electronic.mayhem 22:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Infobox image - Help!

Hi there... I have just joined the WikiProject Films, I found about it while I was creating some articles. I'll be working on Argentine Films.

Im having a bit of a problem with the infobox images, my first article was Un Argentino en New York and the image works great... the problem is in La Fuga and El abrazo partido. Where the image is suposed to be, that transparent background with a red cross sign in the corner appears. It might be my computer that at the moment isn't getting the image; or might be a server problem? The thing is when I click on the image file, the image appears perfectly... it just doesn't works on the Infobox. Am I doing something wrong?

I would appreciate any help... Thanks! --CROWDUDE 09:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Oh well... it is now working fine for me too, it must of been some weird temporary thing that went on with my computer. Thanks for checking it out anyway! Cheers. CROWDUDE 10:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Cast Listings

A lot of the movies have all very different style "cast" sections. Now.. a lot for the FA movie pages have them in non-table format and just plain text.

  1. Should we standardize this with Tables
  2. Go with the look of Star_Wars_Episode_III:_Revenge_of_the_Sith#Cast.

I am really in conflict, but if I had to choose a style, I go with tables. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 06:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

We're going to have to change the current description to accomidate a wider variety of formats. The table format really wasn't that encyclopedic in the first place, as it was pretty much like a IMDB cast list. It was gradually replaced mainly because it was difficult to include character specific plot/production information into that section. This is not to say, that the new system is the only system to use, but that it is another option for articles, especially for articles that have detailed character info. That's my 2 cents.--P-Chan 06:35, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I would prefer we "standardize" on a simple list -- that's all that 90% of articles need (and even then, only the most notable characters or actors, we're not IMDB). In special cases, tables might be able to add something, but mostly they add visual clutter. Only in certain epic storytelling cases like Star Wars is the "character sketch" approach useful (sort of like sprawling novels that have a dramatis personae list). --Dhartung | Talk 19:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Willem Dafoe

Hi, could someone confirm that this picture [3] is indeed Willem Dafoe. If so, since this is a free image, I will photoshop and add it. I put this here since the Talk:Willem Dafoe is not used so much, better chance for a fast response here. Garion96 (talk) 15:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks like him to me, though only the photog knows for sure. Anyway, it's an attribution license, not a "free image", so be sure to tag it appropriately. I'm assuming you would crop out the other guy, but you'd get an odd picture that way, is the other issue -- not the best for a main article image. --Dhartung | Talk 19:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I meant 'free' as in Free content though. It's better to use this image, than a fair use image. See also Wikipedia:Fair use criteria #1. Thanks for checking. Garion96 (talk) 19:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Well..I replaced it. I think it looks ok. Considering the original... Garion96 (talk) 19:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

On spoiling the ending

Why have we decided that spoiling the end of a film is a bad thing? If, for example, I come to wikipedia and read the article for Mulholland Drive (film), I am going to do one of three things, for one of three reasons. 1. Read the cast and director information, and the brief summary, in order to decide if it is a movie I would like to see. 2. Read the entire article, because I have already seen the movie and hope to garner a greater understanding of it. 3. Look up a particular piece of information about the film because I want to know it before I watch or I missed it in the movie.

In the case of 1, it is unrealistic and counter-intuitive to think that I would read the spoiler information and HOPE that it only reveals the parts I want to know and not the parts that would spoil the movie. In the case of 2, the parts I need a greater understanding of could very well be in the ending, especially for psychological films like Mulholland Drive, as this is often the most convoluted portion. And in the case of 3, if we are truly to be an encyclopedia, we need to include as much information as is reasonably possible. How does it reflect upon us if a reader missed the last five minutes of a film because he had to go to work or some other distraction, and tries to use wikipedia because the movie is not accessable to him. Not well. In addition to these three points, leaving out the ending of a film effectively prohibits any interpretation or analysis, even those that are well established and ARE NOT original research.

An encyclopedia must be thorough. We must have as much information availble as reasonably possible. Why are we ommitting whole sections of a film?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Vaergoth (talk • contribs)

I believe that, as long as there is a spoiler warning, it is standard to include the ending. Wikipedia:WikiProject Films even says in its guidelines, "After [the spoiler warning], start a new paragraph going into more detail about the plot of the film, including the ending." I think this is generally followed. For example, the page you cited (Mulholland Drive) does include the ending in its 'Synopsis' section. If you find any films where any important plot details, including the ending, are not mentionned, you are more than welcome to add them in. Thanks! --Gpollock 20:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
If this is true, then why does Template:Plotnote exist? Have I misread the suggested use of the template? --Vaergoth 20:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, that is odd. My guess is it's not in common usage at all. Some quick research reveals that the twist endings are revealed in (spoiler warning) Fight Club (which includes a whole section called 'Clues about Durden's identity '), The Usual Suspects (which includes a whole section called 'Plot Twists'), The Sixth Sense, and The Crying Game. I think the basic advice is to help create the best possible discussion of a topic, and that includes how a movie ends. --Gpollock 20:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Thought you guys might be interested in weighing in on this debate-- someone is requesting the removal of spoiler tags. -plange 22:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

About plot summarys

Hi who ever is reading this!. Im having a trouble with the plot of a movie that im doing, it is a 3D animated spanish movie that it have just been realesed this July. Because it is now showing on cinemas, not many websites have the plot of it, or complete. And the best synopsis that I could find is in the movie's official website, which also happens to have it translated into English. My question is... is it ok to use official synopsis found on the film's website and copy them into the article? I might be able to re-make it a bit - But is it alright? CROWDUDE 08:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It's usually frowned upon to lift text directly from another site, but in the interests of having complete information, it might be the best thing to do. My advice would be to quote the official site's synopsis word-for-word, and then (and this is so incredibly important) cite your source. A general guide on how to do this is at Wikipedia:Citing sources. The alternative method would be to read the official site's synopsis, and then, based on that, try and reconstruct from memory the plot of the film. However, this can get dicey, as there's a good chance you'll end up quoting directly from the site anyway. And of course, you'd have to cite your source with this method too. So I'd suggest, unless you can write a synopsis without using any source other than your memory, probably just quote the source directly. But that's just my advice. --Gpollock 23:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:FilmsWikiProject "comments"

Grading System

Forgive me if this has been discussed already, but: Is this "Please rate the article and then leave comments here" stuff really necessary on the WikiProject-template? Leaving comments about the quality of the article is the whole point of the articles talk page, I don't see the point in creating a subpage for this. I'd really love to see that part go, so people don't create kinda useless subpages. It would also make the quite big template a bit smaller, which is a good thing, too! --Conti|✉ 20:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I kept the new design up for a couple of days. A few people like it because it centrilizes discussion. I could make the comments go under "Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/PAGE NAME Comments" or "Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment/FILM NAME". -- Shane (talk/contrib) 20:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I honestly fail to see the point here. How does it centralize discussion more than the actual talk page does? It rather seems to distribute discussion about the same topic over different pages. --Conti|✉ 20:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Well... in a talk page that might be long and complicated, it might be missed or looked over especially if it got into an archive. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 20:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
Or it might be ignored because no one looks at the special comment page. I'd still see no convincing reason to keep this part of the template. Big talk pages aren't easier to read when there are two talk pages. --Conti|✉ 20:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
The comments gets displayed on the template itself if there are any posted. It's not like you have to view a new page. It shows right up on the template. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 20:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
That's my point. It's as if someone writes his comment at the top of the talk page, which he should not do according to our guidelines. This is simply unneeded and I still can't see any benefit from this. --Conti|✉ 20:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and removed that section from the template, I hope that's ok. --Conti|✉ 23:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

As a seperate point about the template, is there some reason why the wording has been changed so dramatically? Almost every Wikiproject's text seems to take the form:
''This article is part of XXXXX, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to XXXXX on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion."
or some such thing. That specific example was taken from the way Template:FilmsWikiProject used to look, but almost all other equivalent templates on other Wikiprojects are worded the same (especially the first sentence). Also, why has the name of the Wikiproject been changed for the template to WikiProject on the Films? One final thing, why has the picture been changed? I kind of liked the older one. I think I'll be bold and make some of the changes myself. It can all be reverted anyway. --Gpollock 23:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I had the "design" up for a few days I never got any comments back and no one objected. We can certainly revert everything back to the old text, but I do hold objection to removing the comments section for article grading. Because there is so many films, 10391 of them, and these are "Unassessed", are you or me really going to be looking through all these pages to see what we should rate them? I like to check Category:Film articles with comments, in which the article would go if someone did comment on the article that is not part of the project, if someone did leave a comment. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 23:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
You are actually supposed to read the article before you rate it, yes. It's alot of work, but people will do it. I don't think that such comments would help anyone in rating the article. --Conti|✉ 00:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I was looking at the old version of the template to double check its wording, and to be honest, I think I have to recommend a full revert to the old template. I'm just not really sure how this new template is better than the old one. This isn't a saying I often use (or often agree with), but in this case, it seems to be true: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Especially since the old form of template has worked, and continues to work, for almost every other Wikiproject out there. Simply look at Category:WikiProject banners and you'll see that they all look pretty similar. I see no real reason to change a popular and effective standard. (At the very least, I agree with Conti that the second talk page should be removed.) --Gpollock 00:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I know that. I read very quickly, but if someone was commented on someone's rating or rating them them selfs, and then left a comment, and all of a sudden we saw a different count on the stats, we wonder why something changed. We could check to see if someone left a comment, and that's why it's there. What is a movie you never saw or even read on Wikipedia? If someone read the article and they thought it was really well written, and they marked it {{B-Class}}, and then they left a reason why, and then you were wondering why it was marked "B" class, you wouldn't know unless you contacted the author. That could be 100+ edits later and then on archive 5 if it's a long talk page already. We can change it to "Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment/FILM NAME" and then on the "Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment" page translucent in so there is a long listing of all the comments, or keep it on the talk page of the movie page. Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment should be kept for moving articles to A-Class anyway according to the Editorial Project. (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Sandbox Design) On a side note, I have to fix a few pages because I just noticed there is already another place where Collaboration is done so that will be changed. the new design was to give some color to the project which needed some. we are big project, and this was designed to "bring" the group together. No one was grading them, so why not give some encouragement? -- Shane (talk/contrib) 00:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I mainly oppose that there will be a subpage to every single article. Why don't you just link to Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Film articles by quality, where people can discuss things if they agree or disagree on the rating of an article? --Conti|✉ 02:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
The main reason I can see for keeping the new template is that the text box in the middle tells any joe shmo ip address/user things they can do to help the article. The default banner currently in use on most pages requires going to the project page and reading a long article thats looks to a lay person like jargon. With the new layout a few bullets (which I think need to be reworded or changed) quickly state the most important information. Also, if the text box told how to add |class=X and |important=X the sorting of articles would get done lightyears quicker instead of a few dedicated people (me) having to do all the films by hand. The more I write the more I think the new template should stay and maybe this template should become the new default banner. Andman8 01:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, actually, to me this isn't very informative. The text in the middle basically just retells the general rules of Wikipedia, NPOV, infoboxes, etc. I'm not sure why this should be mentioned in that template. And I'd really like to see smaller rather than bigger templates, imagine an article with 4 wikiproject-templates, every single one telling you that NPOV is an important thing. --Conti|✉ 02:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
You can change it. I added a link on the template page. I would love to put the comments thing back in just to see if it works. If it doesn't we can remove it, but stupid to remove something without trying it. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 02:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I can understand Andman8's sentiments, but it feels like, unless we make the template so large as to make it unwieldlily, it isn't going to contain much useful information. I would agree with Conti that the general guidelines that are currently there are not terribly useful. They tell people how to name a new article (which isn't useful, since an article with a template at the top of its talk page logically has already been created), a general point about NPOV, and a suggestion about following "the Infobox guidelines," which just links back to the main Wikiproject article (which is already linked to in the main section of the Infobox). If people are interested enough as to want to make sure the article conforms to the WikiProject Films guidelines, they will likely have no issue with having to click on the banner and go to the WikiProject Films page - if not, why even include a banner?
I also understand Andman's point about getting people involved in the categorization of articles. So I have a suggestion: Since the new template includes a 'WikiProject Film "To Do"' (which I think is actually a very good idea from the new template, and should be kept, even if we go back to the old template format), why not include a line about the categorization project on there? It is one of the big projects Wikiproject Films is currently undertaking, and so probably should be included on that list. This would advertise the project more, and maybe get more people involved - even people who don't visit the main Wikiproject Films article. --Gpollock 02:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Like a "notice board"? -- Shane (talk/contrib) 03:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
How about we keep the new template for a week and put our collective heads together to put better information into the textbox in the middle. Even if its bigger I think for the average ip or user having a few bullets telling them what they can do helps more than hinders.
That said I think we can all agree even if we revert the to do tab at the bottom should stay and we should incorporate an easy to read sentence or two telling people how to rate the 10931 and growing film articles by quality and importance. Andman8 03:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Shane, are you talking about the 'To-do list' as a notice board? Because, if so, I don't really mean a noticeboard. The todo list is just that: a todo list. If there is something that needs doing - like categorizing articles based on the assesment scale, or adding an infobox to Weekend at Bernie's (though that one may stretch the definition of 'needs doing') - then it belongs on the to-do list.
Andman, I think I might agree that we should not instantly delete this template and banish it to the forbidden zone, but I would suggest that we revert to the non-controversial old template for now, and keep the new exciting template in something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Proposed new template, where we can monkey with it to our various hearts' content. I know this is kind of the state Shane had it in until today, but clearly many of us (including me) didn't have a chance to take a look and discuss it. Now that the word is out, we should get a fairly healthy amount of input before it becomes the standard respresentative for Wikiproject Films in Wikipediaworld. I think this is needed, since as we can probably all agree, at least for now, the template is not something that represents the collective will of Wikiproject Films. I would move it right away, but I'm not really sure about the process of moving a template (especially if we want to keep its history, which would be nice). Can we agree to this, at least for a little bit? --Gpollock 03:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me, but we probably need to put something at the top of the project page or the film portal to getting the rest of the wiki film people to discuss what should happen with the template. Andman8 03:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I hate to say this, but if you check the history and the section above I had posted design ideas on both the talk pages of the template and on this page and I request that it not be reverted or changed. There was plenty of time from now from the 12th to get involved with a design process. (Still no comments on the possible new design page also...). It bugs me that after I gave plenty of notice that you now question changes after they are done. I think it's completely unfair to me that a notice was placed and after I changed it I was questioned. Also I blanked the template talk page because it had no useful data regrading to the template, other than my previous messages which we are now discussing.
Back to the subject, with the larger template, we don't have to use as many templates to "label" a film. Good Work, Class, Importance, etc. (Anything you can think of), it helps gets the word out and get the articles upgraded. If you show quality work, people say.. "hey this group got the idea of doing some good. Lets see what we can do." I see that a lot with templates that are not worked on because they are not inspire. Excellent brings out the best.
In conclustion, lets stop bickering, and get down to work. we should have 10k + FAs by 2010.... we could be that good. :) -- Shane (talk/contrib) 04:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Work today: WOW! -- Shane (talk/contrib) 04:19, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I decided to go ahead with it. Shane's proposed project banner is now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Proposed new project banner, along with a notice describing the situation, and asking people to make changes and to come here to discuss it. I have restored the old version of the banner as the template until we can somewhat agree on what we want to do with the new one. I will also put a notice at the top of the WikiProject Films mainpage asking people to join the discussion. For now, until this is all sorted out, I would ask that no one be bold and make any changes to the current project banner without consensus from the group. --Gpollock 05:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I like it. ....(Complain)(Let us to it pell-mell) 07:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I like it better than the old one. One minor thing: shouldn't it be "We are always looking for new memebers"? AdamSmithee 07:39, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I like the new banner design. I feel that the links to the assessment pages are helpful, in that it might attract people to look at those pages and help contribute to that end of the project. Wisekwai 11:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I'd like a mix of the new and old template. Or rather, the new templat without the help-the-newbie-message. Maybe some genereal guidelines on writing film-articles could be created (maybe it already is, I dunno), and a link to it could be put on the upper part of the template. This would reduce the size of the template by half and basically keep all the information. --Conti|✉ 14:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Personally I liked the original new template with the assessments to either side. Anyways, Id like to write my own pro and con list and see if anyone agrees with me.

  • Pros
  • . Textbox allows for the most important info. to be quickly read by any ip address or user.
  • . When an article is not assessed instead of displaying nothing it shows "unknown" which would prompt someone to assess the article (if the textbox told them how).
  • Cons
Hmm, what important info should the textbox contain? There's already the main "This article is part of..."-textbox, so why don't just add the text there? --Conti|✉ 14:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I added a sentence explaining the basic structure with wiki links for each to the text box. It explains alot in a very concise way. Andman8 14:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Again, imagine 4 WikiProject templates on a talk page, all telling you the same thing. This is just not very useful in my opinion, we have links to help pages on the left of every page, why do we need to tell everyone the basic stuff on every talk page again? Why not just link to the respective guidelines in the main textbox? --Conti|✉ 14:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
As movies or even articles go through official Wikipedia channels, they are already going to have lots of "banners" at the top of pages. "GA" headers, "FA" headers, AFD, DYK, etc, etc. Headers are added to the talk page because they are out of view. As far as I can tell, this is where headers go and none really cares about their size. So size should not be an issue if we adopt a header in any case. Now on to a "design" issue: The sign on the left is Holloywood with Hollywood Sign lettering. And tot he right is the Oscar. Reason for these: Every movie is usually produced out of Hollywood so I thought the sign would give the impression of our "base of operations". Every movie tries to get an Oscar. It would even be cool to have just the Oscar change with it's "award" on the bottom. Image:Oscar_FA_Top.png... yeah... that be a lot of images. Sometimes K.I.S.S. is the way to go, but we should be better than that. Again, I also state the fact that there is over 10k articles marked with this template, and right now, all it says for someone to visit the project page. The more "info" given out to the world, is better than none at all. Our main page is getting to long anyway with the list of members (should be on a subpage now..) -- Shane (talk/contrib) 17:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't mind the images, and I think the template should show the grading stuff. But you should remember that a talk page is for discussing the article, not for advertising WikiProjects. So, in my opinion, these templates should be as small as possible while containing all needed information. A small image is fine, lots of text that tells any user how to write an article is not. Again, this is just my opinion. We should keep talk pages as pages to talk about the article, and not add as much trivia as we can imagine to them. --Conti|✉ 17:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I do mind the images, actually. One of Wikipedia's gravest problems is systematic bias, the tendency of a system to over-represent the demographics of its contributors. So, in this case, because a large percentage of the contributors to English Wikipedia are American, film is viewed as a) made in Hollywood, and b) based on the pursuit of an Oscar. How do the great Bollywood classics fit with either image? Was Mon oncle Antoine, one of Canada's greatest films, really trying to get an Oscar? Wasn't Trainspotting more likely seeking a BAFTA award? Even within America, do films like Pi and Waking Life really fit within the Hollywood system? These are not inconsequential questions. An image like a film reel (as is in the old template) is iconic of film. (I think we don't have to worry about bias against digital film.) If you're looking for other images that could be considered cross-culturally iconic, what about the moon from Le Voyage dans la Lune? We can find better images. --Gpollock 19:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Quick note: Several people seem to be praising the new banner for including the assessment scales. The old one did this too; it was just designed so the assessment scale doesn't show up if the film hasn't been assessed. For example, see Talk:Citizen Kane as compared to Talk:Spider-Man 2. I believe its a pretty simple fix in the template code so that it could give some message like "This article has not yet been assessed on the assessment scale" if that's the case. In terms of assessment scales, the other advantage of the new one is that it includes the importance assessment scale. I'm not sure why it wasn't included in the old template, but it's also a pretty simple fix to it add in (and it probably should be added in). --Gpollock 19:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
A new "Switch" subpage would allow use to define some sub-categories of the movies for project related at least. Some movies both have the Horror Project and Indiaian Project template tags. We could "auto-include" those with our template so it wouldn't have to be added also. Double up the "work", because it could use the same "class scale" and "importance" scale as us. The Oscar can always be removed with a muliaward image. Maybe group of all of "top" awards in film. Still liking the skyline of Hollywood though. Gives it that magical look. I am a coder and designer, so I always have ideas on how to make it better so these are good comments. Keep them up! -- Shane (talk/contrib) 19:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about a "Switch" subpage. Also, if I understand what you're saying, I'm not sure that other projects would appreciate their banners being absorbed by ours. I think all projects are created equal, and to act like ours is more important and should 'include' other projects might seem arrogant. As for the Hollywood image, I really do feel its a terribly America-centric (and major American studio-centric) image. I feel this especially as a Canadian, where we don't have a Hollywood sign, but we do watch and make a lot of movies. I would be interested to hear what others (especially non-Americans) have to say about this issue. --Gpollock 20:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
I found a really good reason for the "comments" subpage. Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/The_Beatles_articles_by_quality/1. Look @ The Beatles article. When and if pages need to get released onto a Wikipedia CD this will give them reasons for including them onto a CD. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 00:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
You're definately on to something. This template bears a striking resemblance to the new proposed one and it works very well. Check it out {{WPBeatles}} Andman8 02:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the original intention of adding the comments link was to take advantage of mathbot automatically putting them on your worklist. We use them on our project and can see the comments here though our project is so new, no one's taken advantage of it yet really. But it's a way to look at the worklist of all articles and see what specific things prevented say a B-class for being rated A-class. -plange 02:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Hence the section below... -- Shane (talk/contrib) 04:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Images

Back to the image issue: I do mind too the images. I'm restarting the discussion as it seems to have got burried in the overlong discussion above. Needless to say, I do this because I agree that having Hollywood and Oscars in there is exagerately US centered. As already suggested, not all films target an Oscar; arguably only SOME American films do. Moreover, the Academy Awards are not necessarily the most important film awards; one could argue that Cannes is more important for instance.AdamSmithee 07:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Any ideas are welcomed. :) I wonder if a group of film posters making up the words "WikiProject Films" would look cool or have that as the background. 100 movie posters that make up a 75x75 pixel image. :) -- Shane (talk/contrib) 08:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

IMO keeping the film reel image would be nice AdamSmithee 07:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

If we use a film real, it should look like {{future film}} icon. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 20:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally prefer the original film reel logo, and I am opposed to both the proposed images. As the above commentator says, both are American-film-industry biased and, without wishing to cause offence to the creator, quite ugly images as well - surely a Hollywood sign spoof should be on a mountainside? The film poster idea sounds quite good though - would it be a kind of photomontage? Bob 13:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The film poster idea was probably a joke :-). In a small image in a template you couldn't really see that it is made up of posters. Besides, it probably wouldn't be fair use either AdamSmithee 15:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Aha, I hadn't actually read all of the details! :) I think what I imagined you meant was a logo with a font evocative of film posters - i.e. really tall and thin. That said, something that encompasses all cinema would be appropriate - maybe something based on a film cell might look quite impressive, with "Wikiproject film" inside. Alternatively, we could just stick with the current film reel, which is a great picture and illustrates the subject excellently. Bob 20:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

yea! A film cell would look really cool. --Shane (talk/contrib) 22:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the look of the Oscar icon and would prefer the original film reel be used there instead. If we go with one image, use the film reel and retain the Hollywood spoof for a banner atop the project page. Wisekwai 11:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I got an idea in the drawing board. The Film real is still going to be ont he left, and the WikiFilms Films spoof is going to be on the right, but a different background. More to come later tomorrow. --Shane (talk/contrib) 07:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

If we're going to have a film reel as our logo, it should at least be 35mm film, the format that 99% of theatrical playdates run movies from. The current picture is of a 16mm reel. Sheesh! The Photoplayer 23:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Custom Javascript

I realized that going through 11k "edit" pages for adding the class var is going to take a while... so I created a javascript that helps: User:Bugs5382/monobook.js/film.js. I am still working out all the bugs. So... that's about it. Once I figure out how distribute it I will get those instructions out. Peace! :) -- Shane (talk/contrib) 22:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Should get this done...

I finshed all the "A" films today in Category:Unassessed film articles, and just checking up on it I noticed new movies without the "class". The editors could have easily addded the class to "stub". I don't think many editors realize that it's very simple to do. We need to get the template updated. I am sure people will intered to know how to grade articles once we tell them how. Another show is Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Film_articles_by_quality_log#July_19.2C_2006 @ the bottom of the date. They were added, but no graded. We will get no-where and we will still have 11k articles to grade if no one does it themselfs. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 06:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Why is there an extra step?

I am looking at the template and wondering why the variable was given a name. Wouldn't it be easier to type {{FilmsWikiProject|FA}} instead of {{FilmsWikiProject|class=FA}}? This just doesn't make sense to me. - LA @ 05:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but to many have been changed to class= --Shane (talk/contrib) 05:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
It has to be class= or else the Wikipedia page wouldn't know what the code wants it to do. -- Cbrown1023

Film Groups

I just got this idea while watching TV..... always seems to happen. We need "groups". Ok... what are the groups.

  • Cinematographers
    • tagging films!
  • Exec. Prouducers (Future-Class to Stub-Class)
    • keeping movies that are coming out up to date
  • Screenplay Writers (Stub-Class to Start-Class)
    • getting articles formated (Infobox Template, etc)
    • primarily tagging articles and getting them ready once the movie is released.
  • Producers (Start-Class to B-Class)
    • getting articles to a point to where all we need to do is a "copy-edit"
    • 2nd Largest Group (open)
  • Starting (B-Class to GA-Class)
    • doing the real gritty work to getting an article to GA class
    • Largest Group (open)
  • Editors (GA-Class to A-Class)
    • Polishing up articles so they are almost perfect; keeping articles up-to-high standards
    • If we setup a voted members of editors from the group, we can vote if articles make A class.
  • Directors (A-Class to FA-Class)
    • Only job would be getting articles to FA class; this includes all tasks required and following the recommendations from Peer Reviews and etc.
    • Everyone, but we need a few specialized people in this field

That's about it. :) -- Shane (talk/contrib) 04:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Splitting existing film types

The existing stub types {{drama-film-stub}} and {{comedy-film-stub}} are both very large, so I've proposed splitting both up, in various ways (mainly by decade/year). If anyone has any input on this, or wants to help perform the split, please feel free. Alai 22:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Could do {{drama-film-stub|1999}} with the year being optionial, and then they go into Drama Film Stubs, 1999, but I am against splitting these up. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 22:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler tag Request for comment

There is a dispute on whether or not spoiler tags are appropriate for Wikipedia. Some editors wish to remove spoiler tags while other editors wish to keep them and/or update their guidelines and appearance. A request for comment has been started at Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/RfC with a structured discussion page on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/RfC. All editors are invited to share their input on any or all of the issues being discussed. -- Ned Scott 03:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This project uses these tags like water. -- Shane (talk/contrib) 08:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Ned, yep-- I'd posted that up above under "Spoiling end" or something like that... -plange 15:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, heh, didn't see that :) -- Ned Scott 23:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Need help on an Infobox

Hi. I need help on an infobox on Angels in the Endzone. I am a member of this Wikiproject, and would appreciate it if the person who fixes my problem could tell me what I did wrong by sending me a message. (I need to know more how Wikiproject films work.)

--walkingencyclopedia 03:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Note:I will be adding a picture to the infobox shortly (if I even receive copyright). So don't worry about it. Thanks. --walkingencyclopedia 03:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Problem solved. No need to worry.--walkingencyclopedia 22:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Two new infobox fields

I would like to add two new optional fields to the infobox.

  • Based on book - if the film was based on a book, then the book would be listed on the right.
  • Book tie-in - if a book was written after the film, then the Book tie-in would be listed on the right.

There might even be the rare occurance of both happening. I think there are a few out there.

This is part of the child project Films based on books.
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 22:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Would for sure help. When I run across articles that are tagged with our Films template, but they are actual book articles, drives me nuts. We could do that. I am in support of this. --Shane (talk/contrib) 23:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I support it too- do you want me to take a stab at adding the params? -plange 01:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

For the first one, the heading should be Adapted from:. If there is enough support, I can do it, or someone else...it doesn't matter to me either way. - LA @ 18:40, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Support, This is definitely needed, especially for Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, and other films, too. --walkingencyclopedia 17:01, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Adapted from: seems the best. --Shane (talk/contrib) 00:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Ratingsbox for Ninja Scroll

Can someone put a ratings box on it?--D-Boy 23:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Worklist and thanks

Just checking in from Wikipedia 1.0, is the bot worklist working out OK for you? I realised too that I never got back to you here before, thank you very much for setting up the list. Walkerma 06:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

It's going.. there is 9k articles still to tag, but I have a javascript file that is tagging faster :) --Shane (talk/contrib) 06:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Thunderball

Thunderball is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 23:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Infobox IMDb rating

Hi, I was wondering if it'd be cool to change the standard, to incorperate the IMDb rating into infoboxes on all films? Just like in the The Matrix and/or the The Godfather articles. I've been adding it to a few films (not many, about 4), mostly those on the IMDb's top 250, as I thought that was very notable, much more informative than "promotional poster", or worse, a repeat of the title or nothing at all. Is this a good idea? - Jack (talk) 03:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I really dislike this because (a) the IMDB ratings are inherently in flux (not always by a lot, but still they go up and down, especially new movies), and so unless you want to constantly update them every day it's never going to be perfectly accurate (b) Why are the opinions of IMDB users so special? Why not Yahoo Movies, All Movie Guide, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Empire Magazine, etc. etc? Where does this end? (c) Quotes from reviewers and box office figures are much more informative and useful indicators of a movie's importance or popularity. The Singing Badger 03:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
If we're to have a rating, I'd rather use RT since it's more reputable and is based on reviewers not users. But I'd say it shouldn't be used for new movies, too variable. I think after a time, RT certifies a movie as fresh or rotten and so perhaps when that happens we just use that designation. It is a nice idea though to have something quickly seen in the infobox to give an indication quickly. -plange 03:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with having professional reviews actually. Good idea. Almost all articles concerning a product of the music industry have a rating, or many, from repretable sources (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has four); we have the star rating images for a reason. IMDb is usful, I find, as i have a lot of respect for their top 250 list. How about a professional review and (if applicable) a movies place in the top 250? Also, why is it that so many movies just have their budget listed, when very few state their gross? - Jack (talk) 04:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I am strongly against including the IMDb rating in the infobox. Besides, it was discussed and discussed and decided against. To give other reasons than the ones given above (which I agree with): 1. WP is an encyclopedia, not a film review site; if you want to and consider it notable, for a limited number of movies, comment on the rating in the text. 2. If people want to see the the IMDb rating, they can go to the IMDb site (they have the link right there). Moreover, by snatching their rating, one could argue that Wiki tries to steal traffic from IMDb. I really thin that we should really delete that field from the infobox AdamSmithee 08:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Strongly against for reasons above, and support deleting field. The JPStalk to me 08:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I also don't think it's a good idea for reasons mentioned. There's a link to IMDb in the infobox. And who is going to keep all the ratings for all movies updated? Entheta 08:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Again, this brought up servel months ago and I am still oppose to this idea. --Shane (talk/contrib) 07:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I oppose it for all films.--Cammoore 08:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Strong oppose, per above comments. Prolog 13:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Strong oppose, per The Singing Badger. -- Slowmover 17:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, a lot of film infoboxes have the imdb ratings already (on place of the 'caption' field), despite the fact that most people here have never wanted them there. See eg. Image:4of5.png and look at the list of file links. Would anyone mind if all of those infoboxes were cleaned up to remove the imdb rating from the infobox? - Bobet 17:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a crafty tip, using those star images to track the usage. There are a lot of deprecated and messed up film infoboxes around (like ones without the AMG link, for example; others that somehow have room for he MPAA ratings); whenever I come across one, I copy the latest version from the template page and replace it. -Wisekwai 18:37, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Return to Innocence (film)

I just made this page and added the tag on the disscussion page and I think I followed all the guidelines.

Books about film

I'm about to create a sub-cat of Category:Non-fiction books, Category:Books about film, which would include reference works, history of film, Leonard Maltin, etc. Any thoughts? ♥ Her Pegship♥ 16:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The Anarchist Cookbook (film)

I just added an infobox and a general "film page look" to the page to follow the project's guidelines. Could someone rate it and add an assessment as per the assessment scale. Thanks! Caf3623 02:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I gave it a B-Class after I added the pics, finsihed the infobox, checked the plot, and fixed the spoiler. Caf3623 07:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Re-read the talk page. You don;t have to bring up every movie here for discussion and rating. Most of them can be found in the Category:Unassessed_film_articles area, if you do not mark them. --Shane (talk/contrib) 07:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

MPAA Ratings?

I was just wondering why it is that the infobox does not contain the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings in the box. For those of you who are wondering, the MPAA are the ones who give films a G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 ratings.

You could try this: {{Infobox movie certificates}} -- Ned Scott 03:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Also, what about the film's initial release. How many of you out there are old enough to remember the GP, M, or X ratings? Also "passed" by the MPAA or not? The Photoplayer 07:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it needs to be there. There's already a link to the IMDb page, so Wikipedia user can easily go there to check out the MPAA rating (or the rating for their appropriate country). --Classicaltorture 18:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
MPAA ratings don't belong there, as this is not the American Wikipedia. Prolog 13:29, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Seconded. IMDB includes many ratings from different countries for each entry. To only include the MPAA would be ethnocentric. --Cammoore 03:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler tag usage

I know you guys have already been informed of the spoiler tag RfC, noted above on this talk page, but I thought I'd give you guys an update.

I thought I'd let editors here know that revisions are being proposed and discussed for WP:SPOILER and its templates at Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/guidelines. This is a result of the (still open) RfC going on at Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/RfC. Any input and collaboration between fictional guidelines and WikiProjects is welcome and encouraged.

In addition, it was proposed on the RfC talk page that it might be a good idea to have some WikiProjects discuss this issue themselves and also present a "group answer". It might be a good way to get a fresh take on the issue and avoid groupthink. Basically, start a discussion on how your project uses spoiler tags and notices, and what you think could be improved about the process and the WP:SPOILER guidelines. Individuals are still free to comment with their own personal ideas and comments as well. -- Ned Scott 03:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Ned, there seems to be pretty clear oppose the the RFC on the discussion page. --Shane (talk/contrib) 07:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
This is not the conclusion of the RfC, rather, this is being done to see if updating the guidelines will address additional concerns. -- Ned Scott 07:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Then I state again, it looks like no one agrees that the policy needs updating. It's weird that this started as an RFC and just placed on a sub-page of WP:SPOILER page first... --Shane (talk/contrib) 07:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow what you are saying.. the idea is to see if there are any updates to the guidelines that might address some of the concerns towards the spoiler tags.. a proposed revision will hopefully come out of this, then shown on the RfA and the main talk page, Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning, and on the main talk page that is where it will be discussed if any or all of the updates are to be adopted. Consensus is not needed to make a proposal.
And I don't understand what you mean about the RfC being on a subpage.. the debate was on the main talk page for WP:SPOILER, but turned into a 400kb mess, and we went for a structured discussion. Are you.. mad about this? I'm not sure why you mentioned it.. Are you saing the RfC itself is being opposed? -- Ned Scott 02:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Category:Black and white films

I see this category has been created and is being poopulated. What do we think of it? Could be useful? The JPStalk to me 15:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Since when is The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) a black and white movie? It was Technicolor and sepia. Technically not the same thing. The Photoplayer 22:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I just realized how incredibly fucking stupid this category is when I added it to the article on Plan 9 from Outer Space. Since there are so many movies that have been filmed in or released in black and white since the beginning of film, why should there be a category for all of them? Why not only a category for black and white films made in the modern era? I really see no point to this category with its current state. (Ibaranoff24 17:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC))
It's up for deletion now... The JPStalk to me 01:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Liaison?

Anyone here willing to be a liason with WP Biography? We've reorganized and are re-energized and we'd like to collaborate more with related Projects. Thought it might be good to have some one from here a member with us too so that we can collaborate on film biographies... Also wanted to invite you guys over to where we are currently voting on implementation of task forces, one of which is Arts and Entertainment. If you'd like to see it get its own task force, vote now :-) plange 02:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Article, category for deletion

See discussion of actors-by-nationality categories at Articles for deletion/List of British Actors. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 22:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Category:English-language films

As we're talking about cats, what about Category:English-language films? It's been around for a while and is so underpopulated that it's not doing the job that its advocate (on its talk page) thinks it should. The JPStalk to me 01:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Ratings templates for deletion

I have nominated two rationgs templates for deletion: {{Infobox Film rating}} and {{Infobox movie certificates}}. I'm struggling to tag the latter correctly, though, so could someone please complete it? Cheers. The JPStalk to me 19:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It's been fixed. I'm not sure I understand the rational for deleting these templates. This seems more about the idea of not including ratings data at all rather than use of the templates? -- Ned Scott 02:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Went the Day Well/Valerie Taylor

The film Went the Day Well has a cast member, Valerie Taylor, whose name is now linking to the article about Valerie Taylor, lesbian romance novelist (b1913, d1997.) There's also a Valerie Taylor, Australian Shark Hunter and a Valerie Taylor, Romance Novelist (b.1959) to contend with.Valereee 18:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Style Guide Subpage

I realize I have probably done something bone header in breaking the style guide out, but on the project page it was getting buried under that huge list of participants. Glad people are into film, but I was finding it hard to get to the guide. Head over there to tell me how bad an idea it was. – Isogolem 06:52, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Participants

Speaking of the list of participants, I mean absolutely no disrespect, but I'm moving the list to here to the talk page. I don't know how most projects manage their member list, but this is obviously not the way to do it. I'm going for WP:BRD here, so if you disagree or have good way to do it, let's talk. Isogolem 07:05, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it might not be a bad idea to remove the participants list from the main page in order to reduce clutter, but I think the talk page is a bad place for it to be. Besides it being an odd place for a participants list, the list will likely be lost under the next 100 comments that are left below it on the talk page. It will also end up being archived (in the not-too-distant future, is my guess) and, shortly thereafter, it will be lost. I would strongly suggest doing what was done with the style guidelines: create a Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Participants subpage. I think I may in fact do that now (again, WP:BRD). --Gpollock 16:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I moved it here on the way to doing away with it altogether. Do we really have 187 members? Or has it become a place to drop your name even if you do no edits to film-related pages? Isogolem 17:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we want to remove it altogether. It seems almost 100% standard for Wikiprojects to have members lists (maybe not guestbooks, but I personally like the idea). Even if there are a few people who aren't hugely contributing to the project, they took the time to sign their name, so I think there's no harm in keeping the list of names somewhwere on the page. I think you are right that the list is too long for the main page, though. It seems like signing up for a Wikiproject is essentially a ceremonial gesture, but it's one people like doing, so why not let them? --Gpollock 17:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Cool, cool. Subpage is good and everyone is happy. Gpollock, nice formatting on the Participants section on the main page. Isogolem 05:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Man of La Mancha and Michael Barnhart

For some reason, somebody named Michael Barnhart has been credited by a contributor as starring in a major Broadway production of this show, as well as in several operas and other stage musicals. I was flabbergasted by this, since I am a major opera and musical fan, and have never heard of him. I have searched the web up and down, and can find no authentication of this, nor of the fact that Barnhart is a noted bass-baritone who has appeared in many stage musicals and operas. He has a biography on Wikipedia, where he is dubiously (IMHO) being touted as a major actor and singer. He is not even listed on the Internet Broadway Database, where he would logically be found, and a completely different Michael Barnhart is listed on the Internet Movie Database. There are other Michael Barnharts that I can find when I do a web search, but not the bass-baritone. I wonder if someone has their facts straight, or if this Barnhart even exists. AlbertSM

It could be a hoax AdamSmithee 08:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Hoax indeed. Quite funny though. Stu ’Bout ye! 10:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The infobox link featured here links to a non-existant anchor on the WikiProject Films. Can anyone fix this for others? --Thorpe | talk 12:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Sources

Dear friends: Recently I looked at Monkey Business (1931 film), and I notice that there are no sources for the facts there. Any of the facts. But let me choose just one and perhaps you can explain why this "fact" is allowed to be included within the article, considering the idea that all of the info in WikiP must be "verifiable." When Groucho and Chico hide under the table in the chart room (before their encounter with the Captain) Chico has a cigarette in his right hand. He didn't have it before diving under the table. Who said? Do we have a source?

Just trying to understand how this and similar material is handled within the WikiProject Films, yours sincerely, GeorgeLouis 16:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

There are lots of things in film articles that are only verifiable by watching the film itself, mostly for plot summaries and trivia sections. In them, quoting from secondary sources is almost never done, mostly because an eminently verifiable primary source exists (the film itself). Those sections are mostly fluff in an encyclopedic sense, the plot summary exists to provide context for further sections for people unfamiliar with the film, while the trivia section just exists because some people like adding or having them. In the specific case you mentioned, there actually is a source, it's cut and pasted from imdb. That also means that I had to remove it from the article. - Bobet 16:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

<<That also means that I had to remove it from the article.>> Not at all, Bobet. You could have left it there (in quote marks or as an indented quotation) and cited your source.

And understand I am not quarreling with the way the series of articles is developing; I am sure they are valuable to readers. I am only pointing our here (as in other discussion pages) that WikiP is rife with original research (as well it should be) and that it is folly to pretend otherwise.

Sincerely,

GeorgeLouis 20:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, no, it couldn't be left there, since it was a word for word copy of the trivia section of the film on imdb. Quoting it doesn't make it fair use. And your comments on the rest do belong at the talk page of WP:OR, forking the discussion here isn't productive. - Bobet 21:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

This project seems to be exclusively for articles on specific films. What project(s) do film-related articles (e.g., Sven Nykvist, Cinematography, Cinéma vérité, Italian neorealism, etc.) fall under, if any? Jun-Dai 19:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, I answered my own question. Italian neorealism is already listed in the project. I guess individual films just dominate the project. Jun-Dai 21:14, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
There also seems to be a Wikipedia:WikiProject Filmmaking, which would cover some of your examples. - Bobet 21:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

List of biggest opening weekends

Someone on the Wikipedia:Drawing board has come up with an article idea that might be of interest to this WikiProject. Please see the Wikipedia:Drawing board#List of biggest opening weekends section.

Project scope question

Hello all,

I'd like to ask what the scope of WikiProject Films specifically is. I was under the general impression from previous discussion that the project solely concerns itself with film titles, with the exception of a few umbrella articles which mainly encompass these titles - such as genres. Certainly this alone amounts to a gargantuan task already. A separate project was even proposed, with support, to cover the articles of cast and/or crew. I notice also from the discussion just above that this isn't entirely clearly defined, to the point that some confusion may occur.

The main reason I bring this all up is that, though a great supporter of this WikiProject, I happen to spend most of my energy now on WikiProject Filmmaking, which has a scope solely on the technology and concepts in the process of filmmaking. Clearly there are some articles which may overlap between the two projects, such as, well, film. In these instances, I believe that this is a good thing, as it brings in more editors to eyeball the articles and develop them fully to (hopefully) featured status, which is what every project aspires to. And certainly, in the case of film, for example, there is no way to get the article to featured status without in-depth discussion both of the art (the films) and the science (the filmmaking) of film. However, I'm not certain that it is appropriate, for example, for Talk:Cinematography to have a WikiProject Films template/assessment tag, as I just discovered. For one thing, it would appear (to me) to be clearly a topic for WP Filmmaking, not Films. Furthermore, if our overlap becomes too excessive, it has the potential to create article assessment conflicts en masse in numerical calculation. It would be nice to sort this out before WP Filmmaking begins the assessment phase in the near future.

Therefore, for the sake of making less work for everyone, I'd like to know where the scope of the project ends, and I'd like to request a formal definition on the project page which is less ambiguous than "film articles". (Understandably, most of the WP Films project page was written before the start of WP Filmmaking, and thus did not take the project into account.) Many thanks in advance! Girolamo Savonarola 22:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be nice to have an umbrella project for film (cinema) as a whole, something that would work well in conjunction with the film portal. But I'll stop adding the film project tag to things that are not specific films :-/ Jun-Dai 23:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, many WikiProjects have Parent or Descendent projects. (WikiProject Music is a good example.) The portal itself is designed to be an umbrella for all film-related articles (and WikiProject Filmmaking is connected to the portal too), while the projects are designed to coordinate work on particular types of articles. That's all. We've always been one big family, eh? :) Girolamo Savonarola 23:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it worthwhile to create notability standards for film articles?

I've noticed the remarkable effectiveness that WP:MUSIC has had at stabilizing and generally clarifying the notability criteria specifically for musicians. Might it be worth putting together a proposal for similar standards for film articles? I feel that this is only going to become a larger problem with the recent proliferation of prosumer cameras and no-budget cinema, to say nothing of YouTube, fan films, and the like. Obviously some films within those fields will be notable, but perhaps it's better to clearly define the standards before the problem becomes worse. While the general notability guidelines are okay, they also suffer from the problem of having to cover widely disparate fields without being too specific regarding the differences in these fields. Surely a finer-grained set of criteria for certain articles is a good thing. And surely this project is the best-positioned to assess what these criteria should be. Would this be of interest? Girolamo Savonarola 17:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

There already is a page called Wikipedia:Notability (films) (which is currently an essay). It probably wouldn't hurt to have a clear guideline, but I don't think it's ever been a large issue. I've never seen an article about a film with a theatrical release get deleted. The only pages that do get deleted are, as you mention, fan films, school projects, and other instances where the existing policies and guidelines have proven sufficient, namely WP:V, WP:OR and WP:AUTO. - Bobet 13:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Cast list for deletion

A discussion which might impact other films is going on at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cast of Saving Private Ryan. Basically, the question is whether an extended cast list belongs to Wikipedia or not. Follow the link to express your opinion. Thanks. olivier 16:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion regarding restructuring - please discuss

I noticed on the Community Portal that a new wikiproject council had been developed to help provide guidance and suggestions for the running of wikiprojects. Particularly among the first fruits of this labor is a guide which suggests that for certain WikiProjects, it may be more effective and beneficial to restructure as a task force within the central project (in this case, WikiProject Films). I think this may be germane to both the Iranian and Indian cinema projects, because the general goals between the projects are no different - merely their geographic scopes are differently limited. I'd like to also note that this was written by Kirill Lokshin, who is the Lead Coordinator of WikiProject Military history (one of Wikipedia's most successful WikiProjects). WikiProject Military history also is one of the most notable projects which features task forces, many of which focus on a particular time period or country within the large topic of military history.

The benefits of being a task force would include higher exposure as an explicit subunit of the central WikiProject Films page, as well as a high degree of autonomy to continue to use specific talk page banner tags, stub templates, and open tasks, and for the members of the task force to define the task force's priorities and structure. Furthermore, a highly productive task force would also likely be well-noted among the WikiProject Films community and thus be able to command considerable respect and weight in the setting of overall film project discussions and guidelines.

I'd like to also note that I'm not a member of the Films project, although I do follow its discussions; my main interest is in filmmaking, which is where I generally work (WikiProject Filmmaking) on Wikipedia. However, I would like to see all the film-related projects succeed, and it seems (from the success of Military history's work) that combining the two projects' editorial teams while maintaining each project's identity would only benefit both parties, and thus make everyone look good.

There is nothing more I'd like to see than a good discussion. Thank you, Girolamo Savonarola 21:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

PS - I've also brought this up in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian cinema and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iranian cinema, largely so that no one feels that the discussion is isolated to one project's "turf", given the issues.

English

I've been busy assessing tons of film articles, and it's not too uncommon to find that there is a wikilink to the English language in the film infobox. This strikes me as truly unnecessary seeing as this is the English Wikipedia. Would it be alright if I removed this link whenever I came across it? --Supernumerary 06:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Got an example? Shane (talk/contrib) 06:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually after posting this, I wondered why so many people would do so and discovered that it's this way in the style guidelines. For more examples try here, here, and here. --Supernumerary 01:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, you might bring this discussion to the style guide talk page... But that aside, you could have foreign films listed in the English wikipedia - Grand Illusion (film). -- Isogolem 06:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
There is precedent for just assuming English unless otherwise specified. For example, the citation templates ({{cite book}}, {{cite web}}, etc.) all include "language" parameters that are rarely (if ever) used to indicate English, which is an obvious assumption for sources for an English encyclopedia. It might be interesting to see if any professionally published film guides that include foreign films bother to mention "English" for the vast majority of their entries. Although Wikipedia is not paper, and so doesn't need to worry about extra tidbits like this taking up too much space, it might be considered a standard style practice for the film industry, thus being in line with readers' expectations that we omit the "English" link. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 07:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Isogolem, I'm not talking about "Language: English", I'm talking about "Language: English". I'm fine with telling the reader that it is in English. However, I think that it is unnecessary to tell them that it is in English and then link them to the English language as if they don't know what that is. Jeffq, I'll take a look at some guides and see how they handle it.--Supernumerary 21:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
While this point is rather pedantic, linking English could serve a number of purposes: most usefully to people who reguard English as a second, third or fourth language, but who may be reading the article on enwiki because their wikipedia doesn't have a sufficient entry on the film. Furthermore, its simply a link to click-- perhaps a reminder to somewhat that there is in fact a page about english. Perhaps they'll read it and pick something up or perhaps correct something. --The Photoplayer 13:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
In addition to what The Photoplayer said, other WikiProjects such as WikiProject Novels ask of you to add a link to the English language in the style guidelines. -- Cbrown1023 02:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm for keeping the link. It doesn't take up any unnecessary space and as Thephotoplayer said, it could be usefull to some. Basically, I don't think it incoveniences the reader in any way. Esn 04:34, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
I say keep it, just to be consistent in the way that infoboxes are formatted. A missing field shouldn't indicate a default in this case - if someone forgets to include a language link for a non English film, the reader shouldn't assume that the film is in English.
I rented a movie called Life Is Beautiful from a Thai video shop once. Original soundtrack, it said on the box, and Thai subtitles. Great. I didn't understand a bloody word.... TheMadBaron 17:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

The Long Day Closes

Wasn't sure how best to disambiguate this, so I've made it into a double stub for now, with both definitions attached. What should we do? Adam Cuerden 17:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Importance

I've done a number of atubby articles on 1920s films over the last couple of years, but am looking for some guidance on setting "importance" flag for the project in the project template. Can we assume that all Academy Award-nominated films merit (maybe only in certain categories?) at least a "Med" and a winning film merits a "High"? Or is that too artificial a way to do article importance? (That would make "Broadway Musical" a "High" for example, when perhaps it shouldn't be...) Thoughts? JRP 12:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like a decent guideline except that it might be too American focused. --Supernumerary 04:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Categorisation

I have been on a bit of a tidy-up mission recently which is ongoing. The mission being to ensure that articles do not appear in a category, and the sub-category, and the sub-sub-category and so on. Largely to make the cats manageable. I'm working on genres and have worked broadly on war, thriller and teen films. I did not realise until today that there is a wikiproject for films. I do not want to tread on anyone's toes so if anyone has any opinions about what I have been doing I would be happy to receive feedback. Thanks. Mallanox 21:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

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