Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film/Archive 3

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Linking years to films by year articles

I noticed that in the lead paragraphs of some articles and particularly filmographies, there is often a piped link on the year of release to the relevant "films by year" article. For example 1991 may be linked as follows: [[1991 in film|1991]]. Alternatively, foreign films may be linked as follows: [[Hong Kong films of 1991|1991]]. Is there are any sort of agreed standard on these? I imagine the latter is preferable, but then what happens to films that are produced in more than one country (e.g. Three... Extremes)? Gram123 (talk) 14:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Films "based upon a true story"

Many films are based (usually only in part) on a true story, such as The Bank Job, purport to be an essentially accurate retelling of events (though with cinematic elements added), such as Charlie Wilson's War, or are fictional retellings of hisorical events, such as The Other Boleyn Girl. In such cases, I think there is considerable interest in the accuracy of the story presented, and I think it would be helpful if the style guide for such films included a section on their historical accuracy. I've added a "Historicity" section for The Bank Job that shows what I have in mind. (Someone has suggested on the talk page for that article that "historicity" is a poor word choice, which I don't necessarily disagree with. Perhaps "Historical accuracy" or some other term would be better.) Thoughts? This is obviously related to the issue of the accuracy of documentaries, but in the kind of movies I am talking about it normally should be possible to give a reasonable assessment without any original research. John M Baker (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that we could expand the scope to include films that take place in a historical setting. A recent example of this is 300, which has a "Historical accuracy" subsection. I think the key to such sections is to indicate that there must be direct commentary on these films by authoritative sources. We can't read a history book and point out that the film fails to address this. From what I can tell, the more prominent a film is, the more likely that it will attract criticisms about its historical accuracy. (There are many period pieces, but not all of them achieve notoriety like 300 to attract historians.) Any specific details to mention in addition? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem with "Historicity" is that not enough people know what it means. :) I agree that this is a relevant subject for Wikipedia articles, and The Bank Job's example is generally a good one. The guidelines should also allow the freedom of pointing out known inaccuracies, if they are properly documented. I wouldn't want to see them overinflated into nitpicking, but that can be handled the same as the amount of detail in any other area: editors making judgments of what's notable and what isn't. - JasonAQuest (talk) 18:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

When you say "properly documented", Jason, do you mean by secondary sources? I'm just wondering how "obvious" historical inaccuracies like the ones found in 10,000 BC (mammoths building pyramids, heh) should be pointed out. I would support limiting the scope of such accuracies or inaccuracies to what is mentioned by secondary sources, but I don't know if this limitation is favored by everyone. (See Talk:10,000 BC (film) for some dissenting discussion.) Of course, 10,000 BC isn't a "based on a true story" film, but I think that these genres go hand in hand. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that any special standards of documentation or notability are needed. For a film like The Bank Job, any relevant sources are likely to discuss the movie, and of course the kind of discussion that is in the "Historical accuracy" section of the 300 article can only be made by citing to authorities discussing the film. But for something like The Other Boleyn Girl, I would think that a comparison of the film's story to reliable historical accounts would be just fine. I doubt if too many people see 10,000 BC and wonder if it's historically accurate, but a discussion of its historical accuracy would be appropriate in the context of the critical reaction to the movie. John M Baker (talk) 20:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

My issue with permitting a comparison of fiction and reliable historical accounts on one's own can qualify as synthesis. By permitting that kind of comparison, it would be a very subjective discussion to say what should be included and what should not be included. Fiction can take many, many liberties with historical accounts, and I'm not comfortable with the idea of an editor purposely venturing to nitpick all the inaccuracies of a fictional work. I believe that if we are going to look at sources outside of the primary source (the film itself), these secondary sources should be directly relevant to the topic of the film in every regard. An obscure film about a true story may not get that kind of coverage, but I don't think it's our job to compensate that to be on par with films like Braveheart, which definitely should have criticism about its historical accuracy. I would rather that secondary sources speak for themselves instead of trying to determine without any previous comparison what is important for an encyclopedic article. In the instance of 10,000 BC, I placed numerous citations on its talk page that could address the nature of the prehistoric depiction. Most people would probably acknowledge that most of the film is fantastical, but others may be curious about what elements are real. (The film isn't totally apart from prehistory -- just heavily embellished.) —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I can see that that's a slippery slope. I'm just worried that a flat rule could be applied in an unduly restrictive way. Using The Other Boleyn Girl as my example (sorry, I didn't see Braveheart), I just don't see the harm in citing to a conventional historical source to say that Mary Boleyn is believed to have been a mistress of Henry VIII (as shown in the film), but that historians believe that Mary made no contact with Henry after Anne was sentenced to death (contra what was shown in the film). On the other hand, any sort of assessment of the accuracy or inaccuracy of the film's depiction of Anne's character clearly would be inappropriate, unless cited to a specific discussion of the film. As for the risk of nitpicking, I would be content to let the normal notability standard handle it. John M Baker (talk) 00:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that editorial consensus can handle the question of nitpicking vs. notable. There's probably some critic who minored in Historical Fashion out there who'll go on at length about the inaccuracy of Anne's dress in her third scene in The Other Boleyn Girl, making such analysis WP:V via WP:RS... but if someone cites that, other editors can step in and say "that's trivia". - JasonAQuest (talk) 03:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's not forget that these films are fictional works of art, not documentaries. Unless it's produced by Oliver Stone, then the work is usually expected to stand on its own. If a secondary source feels compelled to comment on the historicity of the story's events and its effects on the reception or success of the work, then that's appropriate fodder for an article. However, I agree with Erik that for an editor to compare historical events with story events is synthesis, and shouldn't be done. Many producers deem some value in tagging a film with "Based (or inspired) by true events), or, in the case of TV episodes, "Not based on actual events" to the same effect. Their reasons for doing so vary, but rarely invite us to actually compare reality with fantasy.

If the film is a documentary, then a focus on historicity is important. If the film is fiction, then it is usually a minor focus. For Braveheart, I'm not even sure there was much brouhaha about how much compression of real event chronology occurred, so how much attention to differences and similarities would be required? Probably not as much as some of the recent minor controversy 10,000 BC has generated. I'm sure Oliver Stone's JFK would require quite a bit of attention, given Stone's reputation and the resulting controversy. This issue is very similar to that of differences between fictional source and adaptations: "Differences between a film adaptation and its source work(s) (actual History, in this case) can be addressed by including text detailing the reasons for a change, its effect upon the production, and the reaction to it. This material should be placed within a relevant section of the article (e.g., Production, Themes, or Reception)" and cited.
Jim Dunning | talk 02:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There's a huge gray area between "documentary" and "fiction", which is not always obvious to the casual viewer, so I think it's a little simplistic to say that a film is fiction and that no one expects it to reflect historical fact, nor that they don't accept it as such. To many moviegoers, J. M. Barrie was the charming man who wrote Peter Pan for a dying widow and her four sons (especially Peter) in Finding Neverland. Er... no he wasn't. To say that a moviemaker claiming historical basis for his story doesn't invite comparison on that point seems rather surprising. I'm not saying we should invent the commentary ourselves, but I disagree with the assumption of absolute artistic license you seem to be arguing from. (By the way, a "not based on actual events" tag is applied by a movie's legal counsel, not its auteur; they're two completely different types of claims.) - JasonAQuest (talk) 03:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm only saying that just because a film opens with a "Inspired/Based on actual events" announcement the article shouldn't automatically include a Historicity section. If credible sources take note of similarities/differences between those actual events and the fictional events, then the comments should be included in the Reception section of the article. If a significant number of sources generate enough noteworthy commentary to justify a separate section about the similarities/differences, then that's fine. A consensus of editors should be able to decide which way to go on an article-by-article basis without a Guideline. I would think, however, that most of the "relationship to true events" material would end up in Production (story development) and Reception (critics' and public's reaction to accuracy) sections (unless it's a Stone revisionist flick). By the way, I was just joking about my belief that Law & Order just adds those caveats so people think the story is actually true — I know marketing has nothing to do with it!
Jim Dunning | talk 05:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Please start including ratings

Why doesn't Wikipedia tell me if a film was rated G, PG, PG-13, or R? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.153.131.102 (talk) 03:39, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

A couple of reasons: 1) This is not the American Wikipedia, so American-centric ratings would not be appropriate, and 2) film articles on Wikipedia are meant to provide encyclopedic content, not to instruct viewers about seeing a film. Most, if not all, official websites provide the rating, and websites like Fandango.com on which you can buy tickets would definitely provide the rating information that is desired. I don't think the ratings have a place in film articles unless there is relevant context about the ratings -- for instance, Live Free or Die Hard having a PG-13 rating instead of an R rating like its predecessors. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 03:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

1) is a total non-sequitor. American ratings on American films are very appropriate. And last I checked, despite the fact that this was "not the American Wikipedia," there's not a lot of non-American films listed. 2) is also a complete non-sequitor. Ratings are encyclopedic content. It's a piece of the history about a film. As for the official websites, those don't sit around forever and generally speaking aren't available for the movies I'm trying to look up. Fandango? Please be serious. Why do you think I'm looking for information about seeing a current movie? I want historical information about historical movies, and the information I want is the rating. It's at least as encyclopedic as running time, and most of the rest of what is in the infobox. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.153.131.102 (talk) 04:20, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Not a lot of "non-American films listed"? You just need to know where to look. You'd be surprised how many films you've probably watched and had no idea that they weren't "American films". Here's a list of New Zealand films, Here's a list of British films. The list goes on, I'm just not going to list every country's film listing. Ratings are not "historical information". Historical information denotes some kind of prose content. Saying a film was rated R isn't historical, it's just a simple trivial statement about the film. Now, discussing how an animated film became the first X-rated animated film in history would be an historical statement. As for running time, I'd be happy to see that go. It doesn't help me understand any movie any more than if it wasn't there at all. If you want to know what a movie is rated there are plenty of other websites that are designed for that type of information.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

In addition, the MPAA has what seems to be a decent search engine. I tried a few titles from various eras, and it seems pretty well-informed. If you're doing research about American ratings of films, that seems like a better place. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

"Film name is an X-Award winning film..."

I would like to propose a change to the "lede section" section of this guideline: articles on films should in general refrain from mentioning in the opening sentence that the film has won or was nominated for particular awards. Saying "Titanic is an Academy Award-winning romantic drama directed by X and starring Y" lends the article an unsavoury promotional tone. The awards the film has won or been nominated for may be mentioned elsewhere in the lede (to establish notability, or summarize the article, for example). Thoughts? Skomorokh 17:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree; this discussion has taken place before, see here. Where could a mention go? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, it's already mentioned. Just have to hit editors over the head with it more often. Skomorokh 17:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Themes or Style / Genre

I'm a little surprised that the guidelines here have nothing to say about sections on either themes or style/genre. One would certainly find it hard to imagine an article about a novel that doesn't include this information. Why would the same not be the case for a film article? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 11:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, though I think it should be noted that not every single film is going to have this section fulfilled. It doesn't make the film less notable, or less comprehensive than any other film that does have such a thing. Obviously, searching for such things is a given, as you cannot simply say "it doesn't have it" when you never actually looked.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Grand. I was just bold and added "Major themes." I'd have thought that there was room for such a section in most film articles, if not all of them. It would also be nice to encourage editors to discuss style and genre if that is relevant (and I agree that it will not always be so). --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Hang on, we need to work out a consensus on the manner it should be written. For reference, a link to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines/Archive 1#Themes, influences and interpretations. Themes are great and all, but inclusion in the guidelines would make it sound common. Alientraveller (talk) 21:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, it's grand if a discussion gets going. Your link doesn't take me anywhere, however. (Perhaps you were trying to link to this, though there's no discussion there, just a single plea for discussion.) And yes, as I said, I think that a "Major themes" section should be common. Common enough, at least, that editors should be prompted to consider including it by looking at MOS:FILM. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Themes aren't that common in articles though, partly because editors tend to divide intent and analysis in the production and reception sections. Maybe this would work: "As well as content on development to release timelines, how they created the sets and special effects, editors should consider what the filmmaker intended the film to represent or evoke, and critics' analysis or own interpretations of it." Alientraveller (talk) 08:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

That would be a step forward, I think, though it is a little auteurish, eh? NB that more featured film articles than not do have a "Major themes" section, or something equivalent. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:19, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

jbmurray makes a number of important points: for instance, if indeed the majority of FA Film articles have some form of a theme section, it is likely a significant factor in why those articles are considered a worthwhile read. Not surprisingly, WikiProject Novels states that a Major themes section should be the most important content of the article. WikiProject Films should take a similar stance: instead of presenting Themes as a minor or optional section (or not mentioned at all), its importance to a good/excellent article should instead be emphasized. I agree with Bignole that not every film is going to have sufficient source material for editors to mine and include, but this project should make it a goal to develop a Themes section, whether the content is placed in Production, Reception, or Themes. Take a look at the Themes section in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (which, admittedly does benefit from a "substantial body of criticism"), or Criticism in Halloween which has interesting observations on feminism, misogyny, and even politics. Content such as this raises the quality of the article and augments the subject's connection to the real-world. Not even this project's Reception guideline hints at the possibility of treating a film's themes in an article. We should turn this around 180°.

Such a section of the Guidelines could read:

Themes are unifying or dominant ideas and motifs in a film's elements (such as plot, dialogue, photography, and sound) conveying a position or message about life, society, and human nature. Most themes are implied rather than explicitly stated, regardless of whether their presence is the conscious intent of the producer, writer, or director. Inclusion of a treatment of a film's themes – well-sourced and cited to avoid original research – is encouraged since an article's value to a reader and its real-world context will be enhanced. A separate section is not required if it is more appropriate to place the material in the Production or Reception sections.

We should be encouraging the inclusion of such a section rather than just mentioning its possibility.
Jim Dunning | talk 13:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

That seems pretty well written, understandable, as well as keeps from pushing editors to develop entire sections on just "themes". A film might have some scholarly works written about it, but they could provide only a paragraph of information, which may be best suited for another section. Then again, you could have films like Fight Club (though, I will note that I don't believe Erik, the primary editor for the article, has moved all of the thematic elements from his sandbox into the article yet. You can see what he's found already) that have huge amounts of scholarly works written about them, and in which case a separate section devoted to just that would be more appropriate.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:58, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

That looks grand. I'll add it. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Plot and real-world context / Guidelines clean-up

Wikipedia:Plot summaries recommends that real-world context be included in Plot descriptions. Should this be added to Films/Style guidelines?

Also, is anyone in support of cleaning up the Guidelines to ensure consistent tone and conciseness? The incremental nature of revision and guidelines evolution has left us with a variety of styles and inconsistent tone (and a few non-sequiturs). It might be worthwhile to do a complete page copy-edit without addressing intent/content.
Jim Dunning | talk 18:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There'd be no harm in someone's going through it (though right now that's something I'll be unable to help with). As for your first question, I'd wait until the relevant discussions have concluded over there before making any changes to this guideline. Steve ^{T • C} 19:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

New MOS for TV

The television community currently has an MOS guideline under proposal, and would appreciate all comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Style guidelines#MOS proposal in order to have the best possible guide for television related articles.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Things that should generally not be in film articles

After seeing some film articles which include a lot of trivia and cruft (some of it in long lists), I'm moved to ask whether it might not be appropriate to include in Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines a specific section of "Recommendations of things that we should not include or do in film articles". -- Writtenonsand (talk) 12:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I did the same thing for WP:MOSTV.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please and fix up the wording regarding taglines so people realize that no, they shouldn't be in every last article nor should every last tagline possibly used for two seconds be listed! *grumble grumble* -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 12:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know why taglines permeate film articles so much? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I suppose it's because we encourage people to add information to articles, and their brevity and exposure means that taglines are things which people generally remember. That and its rating. I can well imagine the feeling that an enthusiastic contributor might get were he/she to see something "missing" from an article that is otherwise comprehensive. Steve ^{T • C} 13:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Lots of newer editors just copy/paste various bits from IMDB, including taglines. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 13:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Templates

Going off Writtenonsand's idea above, I would like to propose a "Templates" section to outline what templates would be appropriate for the end of the article. The first one that comes to mind is keeping out actor templates. I bring this up since {{Jim Carrey}} was added en masse, and I messaged the editor about undoing the template additions. I think that there has been repeated consensus in opposition of actor templates, and the consensus is in support of actor templates. We may need to discuss other template items like those of broader categories, franchises, box office performances, and awards. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

That particular template has been deleted before. See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 April 11#Template:Matthew McConaughey. IMO, it should stay deleted. Garion96 (talk) 17:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing it up. I will show the editor who has been re-adding it. Do you have any thoughts on adding other kinds of templates -- director, studio, franchise? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with studio templates is the same as for actor templates -- they would go onto too many articles, including those which are not terribly relevant. Studios as a factor in style or content is almost strictly a "golden age" thing, and became almost entirely irrelevant once the studio system broke up, and yet the studios as corporations lived on, releasing thousands of films which would be (irrelevantly) templated. For actors, there would be a lot of films made at the beginning and end of careers in which their participation isn't particularly crucial.

Directors, however, and writers (generally speaking) do less films than actors or studios, and (again, generally speaking) their participation is a significant factor in the films they are involved in. Given that, I support director (and screenwriter) templates. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 18:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

When I mentioned studio templates, I was thinking of possible placement in articles that were not about individual films. There are similar templates about broader categories (especially nationality and decade), but it seems excessive to put these kinds of templates in individual film articles. I agree with you about the inclusion of director templates (though what of films like Paris, je t'aime? Is it acceptable to have a number of them?). For screenwriters, I am not so sure. Writing credits seem a little tricky (at least for recent films), with rewrites, specific story credits, and assistance from the outside (like Edward Norton for The Incredible Hulk). I think screenwriter templates may be more akin to actor templates than director templates since there is less likely to be some kind of central figure. What do you think? After all, we have links to everyone's names. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Concerning screenwriters - I guess I'm most concerned about those unusual situations where the writer really is the auteur of the film, the essential creative force, but is not the director. I think that's fairly unusual, though it does occur - George Lucas, for instance, is clearly the ultimate creator of even those SW films he didn't direct himself. (Not that there's a chance of Lucas being in any way overlooked - just using it as an example.)

I guess it's the "personal film" where the screenwriter template might be justified, rather than corporate films, where the writer is basically a cog, and no more deserves a template than the person who creates the hair styles.

Perhaps we should be thinking in terms of (for want of a better word) "auteurs" and "creators" who deserve being recognized, rather than in terms of all credited directors and screenwriters. As I said in a recent discussion, there are plenty of directors, both back in the old studio system and now, who don't stamp a film with any kind of distinctive look or feel, and for those people a template seems rather silly. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 23:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I see what you mean about the difference. Determining the appropriateness of a template seems subjective. Is there any kind of objective criteria we can ascribe to? I work a lot with recent films, and I can't really recall any screenwriters that were headlined. There are directors whose names are not at the forefront (like the director for WALL-E -- it's more seen as a Pixar film than anything). —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Admittedly it's going to be a fairly small group, because a screenwriter will usually either become reconciled to getting paid big bucks to be a cog in the machine, or will move themselves into directing so they get control of how their scripts are made into films -- there probably aren't that many non-"hyphenate" (i.e. writer/director) screenwriters who are strong enough to be considered the prime creator of a film. Right now Joe Esterhas is one name I can think of, and maybe there's a few more. There's also the situation where the producer is the primary force, such as Howard Hughes on the film Vendetta (1950 film), the article for which I just finished working on, or Darryl F. Zanuck on The Longest Day (film).

The opposite situation is also true, that directors are, in the current atmosphere, automatically considerd the auteurs of the films they direct, when in large percentage of the time they don't really deserve that credit -- it's just that auteur theory has so seeped into the general consciousness that director as author is the default position. Especially back during the old studio system, pace Capra, Ford, Sturges, Wellman et al., many of the directors were "hacks". in the sense that they came to work and did their job without being especially creative or personal about it. By making director templates the only accepted option, those guys (they were mostly all guys, once the women directors had been forced out of the biz early on) get sucked up and lionized along with the truly creative directors. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 01:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

So, just to answer your question, I'm not sure there can be a hard-and-fast objective criteria by which to determine who is deserving of a template in any particular situation. Because films are a creative endeavor as well as a business, the evaluation is necessarily going to have to be somewhat subjective -- or else be so complex as to be unusable. Possibly a reasonable working scenario is to allow, let's say, studio templates only for the Golden Age, when a Warners film really was very different from an MGM film which was different from a Paramount film etc.; allow director templates in general but keep the option open for editors to object to them if they're not justified; don't generally allow writer templates unless a strong case can be made for creative continuity between projects (i.e. some kind of personal vision or style) and so on. That's still rather complex, but allows for the important people who would otherwise be disallowed to be templated. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) ^{(talk / cont)} 01:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding studio templates, are studio/format templates a problem or not? I'm thinking of the serial templates I've created, such as {{Republic serials}}, as well as {{Pathé serials}} created by Lugnuts. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a good question, since I really only had contemporary films in mind. {{Republic serials}} strikes me as a little long. Is there not a chance of listing all the serials at List of Republic serials and having separate templates for each time period? Or are the articles too unified to do that? I'm trying to think of how studio templates would apply to today's studios; while there aren't that many, I don't know if there is a desire for such a navigational tool ("I only watch 20th Century Fox films" kind of thinking). What do you think? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a list, at List of film serials by studio#Republic Pictures, but I've condensed the serial templates a little so they don't seem too large at first. Hopefully that works. As for modern studios, I find animated films are referred to by their studio but this isn't really the case for live action films any more. Disney and Pixar, for example, already have templates for this: {{Disney theatrical animated features}} and {{Pixar Animation Studios}}. In these cases, the studio seems to be considered the 'author' (or at least the main identifier) rather than the director or any other one person (eg. Toy Story is "a Pixar film" rather than "a John Lasseter film"). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Expanded "Categories" section

I wanted to leave a note saying that I expanded this particular section, and I don't think that the expansion is disputable. I provided more access to generic categories and explained the application of {{DEFAULTSORT}}. If there are any issues, feel free to revert or discuss here. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, should be helpful for new editors. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 22:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I just created Woodstock Film Festival

What are the procedures for making the article a part of this project? S. Dean Jameson 04:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been categorized in the article and on the talk page. I think that's pretty much the extent of it. It may be a matter of focusing on content now; unfortunately, the style guidelines are not of much use since they are intended for articles on individual films. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Non-free images

Hard to believe that we don't have this already, but I propose a component for "Non-free images" under "Other article components". First of all, I think that WP:MOSFILM#Image serves too much of a catch-all when it is supposed to focus on the non-free image in {{Infobox Film}}. My idea is to shift most of the content under WP:MOSFILM#Image to a "Non-free images" subsection under the "Other article components" section. We can make the infobox image's subsection brief and point to the new subsection for directions, which can also serve to help add non-free images to the article body.

The component should include WP:NFC and mention the 10 criteria for including a non-free image. We should discuss which criteria is most relevant to WP:FILM; I think "No free equivalent", "Minimal usage", and "Significance" qualify. Since there are varying degrees of stringency in enforcing WP:NFC, we should identify the proper application of a non-free image and present examples (some exist already at WP:MOSFILM#Image). I think "Significance" needs to be defined within the context of film articles; the criteria says, "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic." Basically, not just any non-free image will do. I personally think that "readers' understanding" is more suitable for the real-world context of a topic. Many non-free images could be used to represent any part of the primary source (the film) as described in the Plot section. I think that it may not be neutral to assume that a particular non-free image of the film is significant in increasing the "readers' understanding" of any part of the plot.

I think a better application of non-free images is to provide real-world context through secondary sources, then add the non-free image if it increases the understanding of that context. In my experience, there are two possible applications: 1) displaying the technique of a particular shot in the film, and 2) displaying an element of the film within the shot that illustrates the context. For #1, such images can illustrate (with support of secondary sources) the director's or the cinematographer's style. For #2, elements can include production design, costume design, or lighting. I think that non-free images that are usually perceived as inappropriate by NFC enforcers are images of the characters that are not clearly signifying the readers' understanding. I think that wording this particular component may be tricky, since I'm sure that there are Featured Articles and Good Articles alike that may not implement non-free images in the best way. I think, though, that it would be important to have such a section to point to for future contributions. Before drafting anything, obviously, I would like to get others' thoughts on such a section. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea to me; the current section is a little bit of a mishmash of information, easily passed over by lazy eyes like mine. The only thing I would counsel for now is to maybe resist the temptation to include guidance on every aspect of WP:NFC as it relates to film. Such as, is it really necessary include all 10 criteria? And would it be a good ideas to focus more on the sorts of things that shouldn't be included, rather than the larger list of the sorts of things that can? Saying that, most of your post here could be easily adapted into a rough outline of the wording. Examples of each good use might be a good idea, but could significantly bloat the section. Perhaps permalinks to the article in question instead. Steve ^{T • C} 19:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to identify all 10 criteria in the component, just that the various criteria exists to be met. I think that most of them will not be a problem (like making sure you use it in an article). Hence why I highlighted specific criteria like "Significance", which I think has been repeatedly cited by NFC enforcers in the removal of non-free images. For examples of inclusion or exclusion, I think it might be better to lean toward inclusion since it can direct an editor. We could also cite a few examples of what to avoid, but that may call into question some of the Good and Featured Articles that don't implement non-free images with solid rationales. I suppose I perceive the section as a "soft" recommendation to avoid writing language that contradicts WP:NFC. We would cite examples that seem fairly indisputable for inclusion. We don't have to overwhelm the reader with examples -- just one for #1 and one for #2 would do. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, so you'd go for something like:

Non-free images should only be used in circumstances compliant with the 10 criteria of the non-free content policy. All criteria must be observed, but the most relevant of these in relation to film are...

followed by those you mention and some ways in which they could be applied? Follow that up with a couple of descriptions of the most incorrect uses we see, followed by descriptions of—and specific examples of—those indisputable good uses, and you're away. Steve ^{T • C} 19:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

OK then, so you're basically proposing an addendum to WP:NFC that better explains the policy in the context of film articles? I would certainly welcome such an addition to WP:MOSFILM, though of course it shouldn't be so "soft" that it fails to achieve its purpose. IMO it needs to have well defined examples of both what is and what is not acceptable use. And I agree with what Erik says about the wording of "Significance", which seems to be wide open to interpretation.

So what exactly are we saying is "acceptable" use? I tend to take it as a given (and I may well be wrong on this) that a plot summary will be accompanied by one or two screenshots of the actual film. Obviously a generic close up of the lead actor won't do, so I would try and use an image that illustrated a salient aspect of the plot that was specifically referred to in the text. Is this enough, or should we be looking for more? PC78 (talk) 22:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This is purely speculation on my part; I've only ever uploaded one non-free image to Wikipedia, but I think the problem with the use you describe is that it lacks any critical commentary from a source other than you. As the plot section in an article is commonly derived from a primary source (the film), an illustration of a moment in the film, significant to the plot alone, would lack the type of significance we're after. It's essentially an indiscriminate recreation of a portion of the film based upon your own observation. The image should be used hand-in-hand with discussion from a secondary source and be an indisputable aid the reader's understanding of this commentary. Steve ^{T • C} 22:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Steve covered it. WP:FILM has been pretty comfortable with using screenshots in the Plot section in the past, which was why I was considering a "soft" approach. As Steve explained, the screenshots are technically not appropriate without the critical commentary (per WP:NFC#Images). I imagine that such screenshots' inclusion have been overlooked in the past or their rationales fudged to sound authentic because it's nice to have visuals in the Wikipedia article. Critical commentary obviously cannot be personally provided by editors, and I don't think it's disputable to say that the critical commentary should be stemmed in secondary sources (instead of primary sources like the films themselves). Since the Plot section basically describes the primary source, the only real way an image could belong in it is if some aspect of the image has been covered by critical commentary and is cited accordingly. For example, the film Dirty Dancing has an appropriate non-free image for the Plot section, but the non-free image in the "Legacy" section does not increase the readers' understanding of the film's famous line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." There are a lot of non-free images from the film itself that we could subjectively argue is important ("The kiss is the climax of the film", "It's important to show the main character", "This scene is pivotal for the film"), but it's not truly supported by critical commentary. I've tried to implement non-free images in Fight Club (film) that are backed by secondary sources, and I think I've succeeded. If others agree, it could be used as an example. Ultimately, if we do go ahead and put in this component about non-free images, we may need to review the Featured and Good Articles to make sure they satisfy the style guidelines with their images. Articles like 300 may need revising. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks, that makes a fair bit of sense and the Fight Club examples are good. But something else that caught my eye in criteria #1 of WP:NFC was this: "Could the subject be adequately conveyed by text without using the image at all?" Take Mulholland Drive (film) for exmple, as a recently passed FA. In the third image, Image:Mulholland Drive Mr Roque.jpg, it is virtually impossible to identify anything being described in either the caption or article text. And what do Image:BettyMulholland.jpg and Image:Rita Poster Mulholland.jpg tell us that cannot be expressed in a simple sentence? PC78 (talk) 23:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that's the approach that the most stringent of NFC enforcers take. That kind of question requires a judgment call, and I've seen pessimistic calls made. You could technically argue for the exclusion of most, if not all, images with a decent textual description. My example images at Fight Club may not be so invincible; Steve's example could be converted to text as, "The film's shot of the soldier falling on his knees with his arms thrown up is reminiscent of a similar pose of an Art Greenspon photograph from 1968." There is not a definite answer about whether a non-free image could be included or not; a possible suggestion to make is to encourage peer review of the image implementation like bringing it up at WT:FILM. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 00:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

OK. But I think a less stringent approach would be essentially what I said above, i.e. that an acceptable fair use image should directly reference what is being said in the accompanying text (or at least, that's sort of what I meant if it wasn't clear). There is an implication that the plot section is in some way different to the rest of the article. In what way? PC78 (talk) 15:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The Plot section is basically a description of the primary source, which is the film. It may be relevant to read WP:PSTS:

"Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should... only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and... make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source."

The Plot section makes only descriptive claims about the film, so we can surmise that the Plot section does not contain critical commentary as required at WP:NFC#Images. The rest of the article uses various kinds of critical commentary, either related to production, reception, or cultural impact, so they serve as better locations. We're used to the idea of sprucing up the Plot section with images, but we may need to move away from that approach. It's not something I want to do lightly since I don't blame editors for wanting to illustrate articles with images. It may be better to emphasize what can be done and hopefully have other editors realize, "Oh, so the image I put in like this doesn't work for that purpose." If we say at this point that an editor can't, that might be a little too hostile. I've seen a few banters (been embroiled in a couple of myself) about image placement. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you did mention "critical commentary" before. (I've been asleep since this discussion began!) Right, so basically what I said in my previous comment would be OK for the rest of the article, but not the plot section? Regarding image placement, the Dirty Dancing example given above is another good example for acceptable fair use, though I would contend that since the plot summary offers no real world commentary of the scene, the image should be moved elsewhere. On an unrelated note, I think it might be worthwhile to offer some guidance with regards to image size, esp. for film posters. There are a few other comments I would like to make, but as I'm about to go out it shall have to wait until later. :) PC78 (talk) 17:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that images could be placed elsewhere. It's just the notion that the Plot section needs to be visually spruced up. Not sure if we can actively discourage that, though... it depends on if the consensus is that a cited caption is enough "critical commentary" to support an image. I try to put images alongside a substantial passage instead of a single relevant sentence. If you look at my draft, I've been fine-tuning details about image sizes and poster images. A fair use requirement is to have one of the dimensions be only a maximum of 300 pixels. For poster images, I've tried to revise the instructions in the draft compared to what exists. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

A couple more questions, then I'm done:

1. In your draft you've put: "Since this is the English Wikipedia, images with English print are preferable." Would an image from the film's county of origin not be preferable?
2. Boilerplate rationales such as {{Filmr}}, {{Film cover fur}}, and {{Filmrationale}}. I assume from their prolifteration that their usage is acceptable? Is such a generic rationale good enough, particuarly in relation to criteria #8 (Significance) of WP:FUR, as discussed above?

Thanks for all of your comments as well. I have found them most insightful. :) PC78 (talk) 23:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I wrote that sentence to parallel the guidelines that say to title an article with the English translation of a foreign film. For example, The Lives of Others and Pan's Labyrinth. It depends on how the film is marketed in English-speaking territories, though... a film like La Vie en rose kept its French title. It was a personal deduction based on what I've seen with articles on foreign-language films, but we can discuss it further to ensure consensus.

These boilerplate rationales, I believe, are namely for the infobox images. I'm not crazy about {{Filmr}} or {{Film cover fur}} because they seem a little too formatted for my tastes. On the other hand, I find {{Filmrationale}} (which I have revised before) to be fairly straightforward. I think for poster images, a boilerplate rationale is sufficient, but if we use images in the article body, we would definitely need to explain the significance more explicitly. Maybe we could design a template (a simple one, though) to this effect, so a rationale could be typed out in a rationale= field. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Section break

At User:Erik/Images, I am drafting the "Image" subsection under the "Infobox" section and the new "Non-free images" subsection under the "Other article components" section. I plan to import it to this discussion when it is more fleshed out, so feel free to bring up any ideas for improvement. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 00:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The issue of non-free images is one in which I am particularly interested. There seems to be a travelling troupe of enforcers that are routinely removing images based on their own interpretations of the non-free guidelines. For some examples, there are some general guidelines that have been established in other project groups. For example, the infobox image is limited to the 200 px image size and typically, the number of images is decided by the depth or range of information. A large article, for example, has usually had as many as 10 images. In order to limit the size taken up by the images, "hard-coding" of image sizes has been generally accepted as "thumb" size only. Due to the format of films, especially in finding appropriate illustrations, the film project group will have more non-free images used (especially screenshots). FWiW Bzuk (talk) 22:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC).

I agree with your assessment. Have you found any implementation of non-free images that have been accepted by these editors? It would be nice to figure out some guidelines that pertain to WP:FILM. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 23:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, they do seem to operate in a tag-team fashion, first identifying an article that has too many non-free images. If any resistance is made, the next thing that seems to happen is that the image(s) are listed for deletion and the original poster of the image is then forced to defend their inclusion. I have already found that the images were deleted despite the lack of consensus but as long as the almighty MoS guide is brought into the argument, the image is summarily dispatched on the basis of one complaint. I have already brought one of the miscreants up at the ANI level and found numerous other instances of the same MO, but everyone rings their hands because at least one admin supports this campaign. FWiW, it's a very discouraging trend to see strict interpretation used as the rationale for subjective decisions such as this. Bzuk (talk) 03:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC).

(outdent) A few more thoughts I've had...

1. Regarding foreign language film posters: What you say makes sense in the context of those examples. However, for a film like The Host, where the significance of the film lies much more with its domestic release rather than the limited showings it got in the UK or US, I think I would reasonably expect the article to use a domestic film poster. I don't have a strong enough opinion on the matter to go into it at length, though. Having said that, I certainly wouldn't agree with a foreign-language film poster being replaced with an English-language dvd cover.
2. Regarding the placement of images (and the Dirty Dancing example): To be honest, I think that's the first time I've ever seen a citation in an image caption. I would expect anything worthwhile to said about a film (along with any citations) to be given a proper context within the article text, not isolated like that in a caption.
3. Regarding "critical commentary": I suppose this might be an overcautious interpretation of WP:NFC, but does an article like My Teacher, Mr. Kim provide enough critical commentary to justify the use of a fair use image (i.e. the film poster)? Of course, the obvious solution would be to simply add a few more details to the article.
4. This is really just for my own peace of mind: Fair use images require the copyright hoder to be named in the image description, and with regards to film posters (I'm less sure about screenshots) I work on the basis that this is the film's distributor. Is this accurate?

In light of this discussion, I think I'll need to tighten up the cut & paste rationale I've been using for film posters. If it turns out well I'll post it here and see if it's fit for more general use. Cheers! PC78 (talk) 16:08, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

In response:

1. If necessary, we can remove the sentence and leave the issue ambiguous. I still think that the parallelism is appropriate because on other Wikipedias, an article like The Host would have a film poster in their own languages. While a film poster in its original non-English language may be visually interesting, it would not be as relevant to English readers as any existing poster in English print. If you look at this, The Host has English-print posters (although it's always tricky to determine what poster image is most appropriate to select). For films like La vie en rose, it appears to have been marketed to English territories with its original foreign title -- no film poster saying "Life in Pink" (the rough translation).
2. If we can form a consensus about it, we can see if non-free images can be placed directly alongside critical commentary instead of being disjointed from it with only a caption as an anchor.
3. I think that an article needs to have substance to warrant the inclusion of a non-free image. It may warrant open discussion to determine how to handle such stubs -- remove poster images from stubs en masse, or be bold and add a plot summary and cast (if that is deemed enough). I would prefer the latter for most films since I imagine that a lot of stubs may be obscure films whose poster images may be difficult to retrieve again in the future. Feel free to start discussion at WT:FILM regarding this topic! :)
4. I've identified the distributor as the copyright holder, and I'm pretty sure that's who to identify. I like having a simple layout like at Image:Blindness poster.jpg.

I will try to provide some content to identify how non-free images could be implemented, and you and other editors can review the draft. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:30, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Quick reply...

1. Hmmm... I guess my biggest gripe in this regard (more so in the past, I don't see it so much now) is an abundance of dvd covers from companies such as Tartan Films being used in the infobox. Places far too much importance on a single dvd distributor, IMO, with regard to the subject as a whole. AFAIK, most other Wikipedias don't allow fair use images at all.

3. Well I wouldn't want to instigate any mass removal of images; I'm really more interested in covering my own back with some of the images I've uploaded in the past. It does, however, pose an interesting question with regard to minimum content requirements.

4. That's pretty much what I go for as well. Some of those boilerplates seem a little verbose and over the top to me. PC78 (talk) 17:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Draft

Hello, below is my draft based on the discussion above. The goal is to revise the "Image" subsection of the "Infobox" section to be more specific to the infobox and to move general information about non-free images to a "Non-free images" subsection under the "Other article components" section. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:18, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments on draft

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them here. Once there is feedback, we can see what specific examples to provide that will be in line with this. The revision will hopefully clarify how to use non-free images in film articles. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:18, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts about the infobox section:

• "Since this is the English Wikipedia, images with English print are preferable if they exist." — We commented on this above, and while I don't dispute it as such, I do think the wording is problematical for a couple of reasons:
  1. It contradicts (to a degree) the opening sentence, i.e "Ideally, an image of the film's original theatrical release poster should be uploaded..."
  2. It implies that an English-language DVD cover would be preferable to a foreign-language film poster, which is something I don't agree with.
• Screenshots — The current guideline says: "A screenshot of the film's title card is also acceptable." Are we now saying that this is not acceptable? (Though in truth, I seldom see it done.) To be honest, I have in the past misinterpreted the guideline and used a generic screenshot in the infobox in the absence of any other suitable images (as in Pilnyeo). I assume this would not be OK?

I'll take a look at the rest when I have more time. :) Regards. PC78 (talk) 21:15, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I struck out the "English print" sentence. It was really more my idea in the first place (from seeing foreign-language films that come to America, I suppose), so it's out until we can have a worthwhile discussion about it.

I work with mostly mainstream films, so I'm not familiar with the films that may warrant title cards in their articles. I can add it back in, slightly re-worded: "In absence of a poster image or a cover image, a screenshot of the film's title card can be used." Would that sound OK? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 21:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks OK, though you may want to stress title card for the sake of noobs like me! A few more things (sticking with the infobox bit):

• Sentence beginning "If possible, upload the new poster image..." — I think this statement needs a bit more context, i.e. "When replacing an existing image..." or something.
• Sentence beginning "In the infobox..." — Could perhaps be worded better.

I'll try and have a proper look at the whole thing later. Regards. PC78 (talk) 08:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've fianlly got around to having a proper look at this. I've made a few chages to the draft, which I have highlighted in brown text (making the whole thing look like a Christmas tree!); these are mostly cosmetic changes, but do feel free to change any of them. It's mostly good, but I do have a few comments:

• The current MOS refers to multiple film posters. Obviously multiple posters should only be used in the body of an article if they are in some way significant, i.e. are suppoted by critical commentary directly relating to the posters. Do you think this is something that requires a seperate mention, or do you think that the general usage guideline has this covered?
• The biggest problem I see now is with regards to the non free content criteria in the "Usage" section. I'm fine with the three criteria you have singled out, but they are just cut & paste copies from WP:NFCC, they are not "summarized in the context of WikiProject Films" as suggested in the passage above. PC78 (talk) 16:42, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• We can mention that any secondary poster images (like Drew Struzan's work that may have garnered praise) would need to fall under "Usage". As for summarizing, this was more meant for the passages following the requirements. I wanted to import the relevant requirements word-for-word to more explicitly demonstrate the need to meet them (so no one turns a blind eye to them). Perhaps we can revise it to say that the relevant requirements are identified, and compliance with them in the context of WP:FILM is offered after that. Appreciate your copy-editing! I think that once we get this change, I'm going to re-copy the draft with the changes directly implemented so we can see how it looks. I really wish we could have more feedback about this; I put in mention of the discussion in the newsletter, but apparently, it hasn't gotten any attention. I'm just worried that editors will come here belatedly and protest about this. I'm actually thinking about requesting input from WT:NFC since it would be nice to have our current wording supposed by editors familiar with NFC over there. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:52, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

• When you say "the passages following the requirements", do you refer to the section that begins, "Critical commentary and discussion of the film must come from..."? PC78 (talk) 12:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, that was my intent. It was to explain the numbered items in the context of film articles. Feel free to rewrite it to be clearer. Let me know when the changes are done so I can make them directly. I'll create a new subsection for the revised draft and a new subsection for new comments. I'd like to keep discussion going on a little longer since this is going to be a big deal. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 12:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Draft 2

Revised draft below, based on #Draft. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments on draft 2

The current draft is an excellent expansion on the current information that delves into the required elements needed for a usable non-free image. I think it would be a good idea to add another subsection (or incorporate into the current instructions) listing a few example images. I believe that for newer editors, in seeing examples of images that meet the guidelines, will be more likely to comply with the instructions. Also, for the minimal usage line, would it be better to expand on this with an example, stating something like multiple screenshots of a film shouldn't be used when one will suffice? Lastly, I think the 300px should be bolded so it stands out more (maybe I should have been bold and done it?). Anyway, good job, the draft looks ready to implement. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 19:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I actually did have the examples at the bottom of my subpage. I suppose I wanted to tackle the examples after getting the general wording down pat. I think that some of them could be revised to have more descriptive filenames, such as having the film name in it and keywords (like I did with Image:Doomsday soldier and knight.jpg). Also, Image:FromRealToReal.jpg should use the template for production stills and not screenshot. Do you want to see about bringing the examples back in or save for another discussion? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Some of the images definitely should be renamed. If you can think of better examples, feel free to implement those. I don't think it needs another discussion (unless other editors don't want to include them), but it can wait until after the general wording of the draft is completed. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 19:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Awards

I'm a little surprised that there isn't anything about awards in the style guideline, given that many film articles have a dedicated "Awards" section. From my own experience, I've seen this information presented in a wide variety of ways, and from a quick inspection of the FA-Class articles, I found the following: Sunset Boulevard (list & prose), Blade Runner (table and list), Mulholland Drive (a fairly elaborate table), and Borat (prose only). Is there a prefered style that we should be using, or is it something that should be left flexible to the needs of the article? So far as I can tell, it appears to depend solely on the preferences of individual editors. PC78 (talk) 19:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It does depend on the preferences of individual editors as far as I can tell. I would imagine that prose is more suitable for a limited number of awards, where a very acclaimed film may warrant some kind of awards table. I don't know if it's really necessary to standardize this component of a film article... it's kind of like how editors set a pattern with their citing methods. Some use templates, some don't. Do you think there needs to be consistency? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This has recently become an issue with the current Little Miss Sunshine A-class review, as well. My personal contention is that articles should only discuss the most notable of its awards and noms, and split off a list for a comprehensive table, especially as the number of awards and noms get considerably large. This is already accepted practice with film bios, and there's no reason why we can't have featured lists split off from featured articles. Thoughts? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I would think it desirable to have some degree of consistancy, though I wouldn't insist on a single standard for all articles. I agree with what some of Erik says, i.e. that prose should be fine for a small number of awards, but no so much for a substantial list. I do have a few issues with what Giro says. I've only looked at the current version of Little Miss Sunshine, and don't see any problem with the awards section as it is. I would think that only a tiny minority of films have a list of awards and nominations substantial enough to warrant a seperate article; it's not the same as an actor who might amass a significant number of awards or nominations over a number of decades. AFAIK, there is no accepted practise with film bios, not so far as I can see at WP:FILMBIO, anyway. With regards to which awards are notable and which are not, I have discussed this at length at Template:Infobox Actor, and believe it to be wholly subjective; we should be inclusive, not pick and choose based on personal opinion. PC78 (talk) 01:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I see it's been changed; you'd have to see this diff to get a sense of what I was talking about. As for award notability, I really meant more in the context of the total awards haul - a film which only won an award at a smaller film fest should definitely mention it; a film that gets hundreds of noms and awards, including Oscars, Golden Globes, or larger festival awards probably would not need to discuss an award from a smaller fest. My point is that the most notable awards among those the film received are what should be mentioned in the prose. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

(checks diff) That is quite a lengthy list, but if that's how many there are, then that's how many there are. I don't see anything wrong with it as such; on the contrary, I think I would expect a comprehensive encyclopedia article to include such a complete list. On the other hand, it doesn't actually offer any real discussion, it's just a list. This is why I would find it useful (essential, even?) to have some sort of a guideline to refer to, particuarly for the purposes of peer review, etc. With regard to notability, yes, you can point to the Oscars et al. as being the most important, but go further down the list and where is your cut off point? At what point do you decide that one award or nomination is more "notable" than another? That is where I feel that subjectivity starts to creep in. PC78 (talk) 10:11, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I was going to mention this, actually. It's tough to decide what awards are appropriate to use. A plausible rule of thumb is to see if a Wikipedia article exists about an award, though it's still not quite accurate. Another way is to do a search engine test and see how often an award is mentioned, especially in Google News Search. (IMDb tends to list awards pretty indiscriminately, I think, so tread lightly with its list.) Somewhat contrary to Wikipedia's policy of being neutral, subjectivity can creep in when editors discuss what seems important and what doesn't seem important for an article in general. For film articles, we only cherry-pick a select number of critics' reviews. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Critical case commentary

What's up with this? It's long been established that a movie poster or scan of the cover of the case of a home video release can be used to identify the film in an article about the film is acceptable fair use. Having a line excluding the use of a case scan unless critically commenting on the case itself is absurd. No one ever comments on the case design. I propose that the final sentence of this section be struck. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:NFC#Images: Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary). —Erik (talk • contrib) - 00:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you are being too literal in your translation. Covers of books, video releases, albums, video games, and any number of other such items are used in tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of articles, and their fair use has been upheld multiple times. What that section of NFC is saying is that the item pictured must be critically discussed in the article, not that the cover of the item must be discussed. What that is trying to avoid is use of fair use album covers in articles about the artist, or use of fair use book covers in articles about the author, etc. Does that make sense? ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:40, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I should also note my disappointment in your edit warring by reverting my removal of your unilateral addition of that sentence I mentioned. We should be discussing it here and coming to a consensus before you go adding such a blatantly restrictive and controversial bit to the guideline. You were out of line adding it in the first place, and you are out of line adding it back without allowing for the discussion to come to a conclusion first. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

If the cover is in the infobox of the page, then there generally (and I say that with the idea that rarely do we have cases where the infobox image is challenged...though it has happened) is not a problem. Now, if you just have a picture of the DVD in the home video section, then you MUST have critical commentary on that image. You have ventured away from merely identifying and into meaningless eye candy. The "identifying" criteria is limited to the infobox in most cases, but if when we say that critical commentary is needed for DVD covers, it's for those instances where people are including them in the article body.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 05:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Then that sentence needs to be more explicit. It currently states that they can not be used AT ALL, which is incorrect. This is one of my main reasons for objecting to this sentence: because Erik added it without any discussion, and therefore didn't get it right. This is why there needs to be discussion before something like this is changed. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 05:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Erik had it right. What he added was to the Home Media Release section. You don't have an infobox in that section, so you wouldn't have free reign to put any ol' image there. The statement, "Include an image of the medium's display case only if it is accompanied by critical commentary about the case itself." is about including images like the DVD cover here, which has critical commentary discussing the box itself. You can't have a DVD cover all willy nilly on the page. If it's not in the infobox then it must have critical commentary. The section Erik added his statement to was for those instances when you would add an image to the body of the article, not to the infobox. That is a different section of this MOS page.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 05:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, and I don't see what the problem is here. This has nothing to do with images used in the infobox, nor does it prohibit the use of DVD/video covers. It merely underlines the fact that copyrighted images need critical commentary, they can't just be used as eye candy. The wording seems perfectly clear, and I don't see any need to discuss the point further. PC78 (talk) 07:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Nihonjoe, first of all, I apologize for being brusque in my revert. In retrospect, we could have engaged in discussion first. Looking at the acceptable use for cover art in the article body, it's asking for critical commentary of that specific item. The large majority of sections covering home media will talk about its special features and its regional differences. If you look at WP:NFCC#Policy, it does not fall under "no free equivalent" because we can convey the contents of the DVD without needing to show its cover. It's also not considered "significant", because it does not significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic. I specified the sentence because I wanted to iron out the accidental loophole in not mentioning that it had to be about the cover itself, even though the link to WP:NFCC says so. The unfortunate issue is that WikiProject Films has not always been in compliance with WP:NFC. There have been some situations in which two parties butted heads, mostly because WP:FILM cited the tradition of always having non-free images in a specific area without anyone addressing them. When it comes to DVD covers, it will unfortunately limit the cover images that can go into a "Home media" section. Wikipedia is supposed to be a free encyclopedia, so non-free images are discouraged unless they are truly beneficial to articles. As Bignole showed above, there can be a DVD cover with critical commentary about it. If it was this DVD cover, then I couldn't use it at all. I don't think it's impossible to find DVD elements that are actively discussed; for example, Memento uses a screenshot of the unique psychological test. There's also the Evil Dead DVD cover with the mutated "Book of the Dead" wrap (I think) or even the Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs (which are designed to look like ancient books). There could be more, but I get my DVDs from Netflix and don't handle covers too much. :) —Erik (talk • contrib) - 10:55, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Bignole, Erik and PC78's reading of this. Erik's amendment to the wording merely clarifies the original intent (merely based upon the wording at WP:NFC#Images), in order to prevent future disagreements such as these. All the best, Steve ^{T • C} 12:08, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the cover for Evil Dead has critical commentary at DVD Talk:

The coolest extra feature on this release is the packaging itself. The disc sits housed in a replica of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis used in the film. Sculpted by Tom Sullivan and containing a few pages inside of his artwork which replicates the art in the prop book itself, this is a very cool and very unique way to package the movie, even if it smells like gasoline. As an added bonus, the eyeball on the right hand side of the book has a sound chip underneath so if you press on it, the book lets out a scream – a very nice touch.

There is also more mention of this cover with Google News Archive Search. It's covers like these that would warrant images. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 12:21, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

May I propose a change in the wording regarding non-free images of home media? I think we should include "or packaging" because in my searching of what exists out there, "packaging" seems to be a more popular term. See Google search results. What do other editors think? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:28, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks ok, if you make it very clear that in only refers to the home video section. One cover image in the infobox for identification is allowed. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:16, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this. It needs to be made clear that this is not disallowing cover scans in the infobox. I think this would address my concern completely. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 22:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

How about this:

Include an image of the medium's display case in the "Home media" section only if it is accompanied by critical commentary about the case itself.

I've added "or packaging" as a possibility since in my brief research, I found coverage for items like this, which is more than just a "cover". [Nevermind, I was thinking it said "cover" -- "case" should be an appropriate catch-all.] Would this work? FYI, if you look at #Draft, it revises the "Image" subsection of the "Infobox" section and adds a new section about non-free images for the future. You're welcome to weigh in there as well. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Dead link in see also

The link to the meta essay "Ideas on how to write about--and how not to write about--film" appears to be dead. What happened to this?--Filll (talk | wpc) 12:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it was deleted. I'll remove the link. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 12:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Giro has a copy of it in his user space, apparently. Best ask him about it. PC78 (talk) 12:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Never mind: see User:Girolamo Savonarola/essay. PC78 (talk) 13:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's check if we can move the essay to the project space and perhaps add {{WPFILMS Archive}} to the top. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

No plot information in LEAD?

Not even one sentence? Come on. Surely that violates the general MOS.--Filll (talk | wpc) 12:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The section doesn't say that plot information should be left out; it just doesn't mention anything about it. If you notice, WP:FILMPLOT says, "Plot details and actor names already mentioned in the lead or cast sections are repeated here." It does make me think that we should clarify a specific location for identifying the premise. Like if the premise is identified in the lead section, do we really need to do it again for the Plot section? What do you think? We can hash out a draft. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 12:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I personally see no problem with a one or two sentence summary in the LEAD (or even a paragraph in complicated plot situations), and then a reprise of that same information in expanded form in the PLOT section, with more detail, and in different words. I do think that people should be discouraged from just cutting and pasting the text from the LEAD to the PLOT section, or vice versa.--Filll (talk | wpc) 12:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this line of thought. To be honest, I'm not sure if most of my peers, who have done significant work with film articles, really try to lead Plot sections with basic premises. We do identify the premise in the lead section. Perhaps a suggestion to make for writing the premise in the lead section is to look to the official synopsis of the film, if one exists. It doesn't give away a lot, and we can strip it clean of promotional wording ("heart-pounding", "most dangerous mission") to give a pretty neutral overview. Let's have others weigh in and see if we can make that kind of tweak. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Critical case commentary revisited

Based on recent discussion at WT:FILM and at WT:NFC, I would like to adjust the wording found at "Home media" to be a little more open-ended. Currently, the section says:

Include an image of the medium's display case in this section only if it is accompanied by critical commentary about the case's cover or packaging.

I think that this is in error, based on a misreading of #1 at WP:NFC#Images: "Cover art: Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary)" (emphasis theirs). Basically, this does not mean that there has to be critical commentary about the cover art, but of the item that the cover art represents. However, per #8 of WP:NFCC, there must be significance to the cover art: "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." My proposal is to mention this criteria and suggest direct commentary to lock in such cover art. Here is my suggested re-wording:

Include an image of the medium's cover art or packaging only if it meets the criteria at WP:NFCC, including #8 (significance). A significant example is providing the image to illustrate details about the cover art or packaging as reported by secondary sources.

I think that it is fair to say that if there are sources for a medium's cover art and packaging, it's a shoo-in for inclusion. However, solely this specific criteria seems more stringent for inclusion than the policy itself, so it seems best to leave it to editors to determine how #8 of WP:NFCC would apply. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I've no objection to this change, but it strikes me that, well, no-one knows what the actual law is on this kind of thing. Can a good précis of US fair use law be found anywhere? I'd be far happier consulting that than WT:NFC, which is often relying upon the interpretation of whichever editors happen to be around that day (with no disrespect intended to those editors). I find it so odd that something that has the potential to cause so much trouble for Wikipedia is outlined in such a vague fashion, rife with weasel wording that has no precedent of use in US law. Steve ^{T • C} 19:08, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:NFCC#Rationale says, "To minimize legal exposure by limiting the amount of non-free content, using more narrowly defined criteria than apply under United States fair use law." Does that help? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, so we're actually more restrictive than fair use laws allow. Excellent. In which case, I take most of that back. Cheers, Steve ^{T • C} 19:17, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, part of the reason for that is that since case law is always evolving, there is no real way to answer these questions definitively, so the site tends to err well within the established boundaries of precedent. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 19:29, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The potential problem here is that there is an ambiguity if multiple pieces of cover art for the same item are used in the item's article without critical commentary. In other words, while I can easily see that there's no problem with using the home video cover or the poster art (or even the poster art from another country or a different release), using more than one without any critical commentary starts to beg the question if they are all permissible in conjunction with one another. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 19:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that it's an ambiguity that the style guidelines can address past what's set in policy. The policy doesn't quite explain how to use images when it comes to whole articles, sections, or content-forking. I'm sure that if effort is made, there can be substantial coverage about home media apart from the fictional works they contain. The Criterion Collection is an example of this; we saw messy efforts at the DVD collections put through AFD, but I don't think it's impossible for a DVD article to stand alone. The best we can do is to suggest what seems to be the most solid way of signifying cover art, and if a discussion of perceiving significance in a way besides coverage about the art itself makes its way to WT:FILM, we can address that particular case. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite follow you. (I also made some re-edits to my above comment, so you might want to review that again, too.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 19:47, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

If I'm reading you right, I don't think there is any ambiguity: this would seem to be covered by WP:NFCC #3a ("Minimal usage"). In other words, you can't have five film posters in an article if four of them don't tell you anything that one alone wouldn't. PC78 (talk) 19:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was responding to when you mentioned "the question if they are all permissible in conjunction with one another". The film poster could address the background and reception of a film, while soundtrack and home media sections, which can theoretically be notable with enough independent coverage, can be reasonably spun off and have their own cover art as the visual aid in the new article. Does that make sense? :\ I don't know if we're thinking totally different things or not. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with multiple instances with critical commentary. My point is that the cover art exemption (from specific commentary so long as the item is critically covered) probably has considerably less weight if more than one piece of cover art is used in this manner (ie without any commentary). Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

← OK, I've conjured up different wording based on the discussion at WT:FILM and above. It is more based on recognizing that the infobox image (whatever it may be) asserts its significance in identifying the topic in question, and that secondary identifying images cannot be used under this criteria. The secondary images need to have their significance established in other ways, such as critical commentary:

The image in the film article's infobox serves as cover art and identifies the topic. With this significant identification already in place, the inclusion of additional cover art must rationalized with a non-identification purpose. Additions can be used to illustrate secondary sources' coverage of the appearance of cover art and packaging.

May need to tweak the wording, but this seems to be somewhere between the original wording and the initially proposed re-wording. Thoughts? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed change to "Distribution" and "Reception" sections of guideline

Several editors have expressed an interest in making alterations to the guideline to reflect what seems to be common practise when it comes to shaping the "Reception" and "Release" sections of film articles. The proposed revision below adds more detailed rationales for the recommendations many of us make on a day-to-day basis. If approved, this expansion would replace the existing "Distribution" and "Reception" sections in the guideline:

Release

Provide information on the film's release, expanding upon the information in the infobox where necessary. Do not include information on the film's release in every territory (see above). Include details of notable festival appearances, special screenings and setups (e.g. digital, IMAX), and significant release date changes, with sourced commentary where appropriate. Relevant marketing information can be included in this section, or in a subsection should the coverage warrant it. After the film's release, include the following information:

Theatrical

Provide a summary of the film's commercial performance. Report box office grosses in the film's national currency if possible. If sufficient coverage exists, it is recommended that this information is placed in a "Box office performance" or "Theatrical run" section. In addition to worldwide box office statistics, this section may detail specific results of opening weekends, results from different English-speaking territories, the number of theatres the film was released into, and audience demographics. Coverage of a notable opening in a country not of the film's origin may be included (e.g., an article on an American film set in China may include discussion of the film's performance in that country). Box office statistics can be sourced from dedicated tracking websites such as Box Office Mojo, The Numbers and Box Office Guru, or print publications such as Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. Determine a consensus from objective (retrospective if possible) sources about how a film performed and why.

Home media

If available, provide information on the film's release on home media, such as release dates, revenues, and other appropriate third-party coverage. The section may contain a summary of the extras included with the release, though excessive detail is to be avoided. If supported by filmmaker or third-party analysis, descriptions of deleted scenes included with the release should be placed in the "Production" section; the reason for the footage's removal is the relevant element, not the medium. Include an image of the medium's display case only if it is accompanied by critical commentary.

Critical reception

Reliable sources should be used to determine how the film was received. For films, sources that are regarded as reliable are professional film critics, though notable persons or experts connected to the topics covered by the film may also be quoted. The use of print reviews is encouraged. Commentary should also be sought from reliable sources for critics' general consensus of the film. These will be more reliable in retrospect; closer to the release, review aggregate websites such as Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic should be cited for statistics pertaining to the ratio of positive to negative reviews. (Caution: reliable review statistics may not be available for older films. Appraise the sample size in conjunction with other reliable sources, using best judgment to determine consensus.) In order to maintain a neutral point of view, it is recommended to quote a reasonable balance of these reviews. This may not always be possible or desirable (e.g. films that have been almost universally acclaimed or panned), and best judgment should again be used.

It is recommended that reviews are used from the film's country of origin (e.g., Canadian reviews for a Canadian film, Australian reviews for an Australian film), though evaluations from several English-speaking territories are desirable. In the case of films not in the English language, the section should contain quotes translated into English from non-English reviews. For older films, seek reviews both from the period of the film's release and the present in order to determine if a film's initial critical reception varies from the reputation it has today. Do not quote comments from members of the general public (e.g. user comments from Amazon.com, the Internet Movie Database or personal blogs), as they are self-published and have no proven expertise or credibility in the field. Polls of the public carried out by a reliable source in an accredited manner may be used. Do not include user ratings submitted to websites such as the Internet Movie Database or Rotten Tomatoes, as they are vulnerable to vote stacking and demographic skew.

Comments

Please leave your comments and suggestions below, or if you have none, then your indication of support or opposition will do. Thanks! Steve ^{T • C} 19:17, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support as one of the editors who worked on the draft. Any outside comments about the draft so far would be greatly appreciated. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support - I've watched Steve work this up and I think it's not only a good representation of common practice, but practice that sticks to the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support - much more coherent and considered than the current guidelines in effect, and all told, not a radical change either. Well done, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 04:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - I would like to see some recommendations for how to format the reception section. I find people have taken against it when I have blockquote tagged every different quote because they have argued the quotes are too short to qualify (see Wikipedia:MOSQUOTE). However I find doing the following a bit too dense:

The New York Times said "spirally with pink dots and a hedgehog used for batteries, the ending would be improved by a shard of glass detaching the viewer's retina" whilst the Washington Post said "almost too exotic to truly convey what it's like to be a crushed can of soda pop living in Rangoon on 2c a day" whereas The Ilkley Moor Gazetteer described it as "bah, reet swanny and nae bother" whilst... etc.

However, starting each as a new paragraph also can feel a bit robotic and listy.

Which style do people prefer? Are there any exemplary criticism sections people can be directed to as best practice? This is a matter close to my heart because I'm somewhat addicted to monitoring critics responses. --bodnotbod (talk) 16:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Steve has written a couple of sizable reception sections in the past couple of weeks at Hancock and Hellboy II: The Golden Army, so he may have some suggestions on the matter. However, I think we've avoided explaining how to format a reception section because there is not really a right answer. The reviews are opinion pieces, and each one can go into so much detail about different aspects of a film, so interweaving them is always difficult. (Is it more important to include a critic's commentary about the writing or the acting?) It really is a vague field, and I'm not sure if this field could be clarified any further. Maybe some kind of mention saying, "This film is good/bad/average because..."? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've now been to have a look at those. Hmm. This is a thornier issue than it first appears. I know Steve is keen to try to give the 'reception' areas flow by picking out 'direction', 'acting' and other aspects and grouping those together for flow. And whilst that's deeply admirable I can't help but feel it has problems. Two strike me.

One: I feel that those blocks are slightly difficult for other editors to get their fingers into if they wish to add something. But more importantly, two that style is open to abuse. I know Steve is beyond reproach :o) but that sort of broad interpretive style is, well, interpretive. It is ripe for fifteen editors to come along and say they disagree with your summation (and maybe they all disagree amongst themselves too). For that reason, in many ways, I feel a fondness for just slapping down blockquotes all over the place because no one can argue the facts. It's indelicate and clunky but I feel it is a clear cut method that creates no battle grounds. Thoughts? (Today I have added 'reception' sections to Yellow Dog (novel) and The Information (novel) any comments on those? --bodnotbod (talk) 18:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the various approaches are why a specific style can't be recommended. On one hand, summarizing quotes may lose something in translation, while emphasizing quotes may be problematic in terms of copyright infringement. We strive to be neutral, but whenever we summarize a reliable source into a Wikipedia article, we are writing in our own words. I don't think it's possible to be completely objective in writing a reception section; even quoting at length cannot achieve such objectivity. What if you quote a more positive aspect of a negative review, or vice versa? There is a hidden "degree" which we cannot objectively achieve. In my opinion, community consensus is key to reviewing such sections, with greater care applied to those in controversial films' articles. I think that there will always be a battleground, hence the draft's mention of WP:NPOV and striving to use your best judgment. Perhaps an expansion to do would be to request independent review from someone who can compare the reception section to the full reviews themselves and see what could be improved. Peer evaluation seems to be the best possible gauge with these sections. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(after EC)That's a perfectly fair thing to say, Bod, and it was one of the things I was going to bring up in reply to your first post. On the one hand I think the section both scans better and avoids any potential copyright violation by being extensively paraphrased; on the other, we have to watch out not to word it so it sounds as if these are Wikipedia's opinions. While I have paraphrased perhaps more than other editors like to for those sections, I hope you'll find it very carefully worded. It's all about choosing which words or phrases to put in quotes. For example, if we state that

P. Gordon of Kettering Magazine said the stunning music reminded him of Vivian Stanshall's Bonzo years.

...that makes it sound as if the phrase "stunning music" is Wikipedia's opinion of the music Mr Gordon is commenting upon. However, merely adding the quotes throws it back on Peter:

P. Gordon of Kettering Magazine said the "stunning" music reminded him of Vivian Stanshall's Bonzo years.

though I'd prefer to avoid even that level of ambiguity by wording it thus:

P. Gordon of Kettering Magazine called the music "stunning", and said it reminded him of Vivian Stanshall's Bonzo years.

Additionally, while others without your levels of trust might see the unquoted, paraphrased sections as potential areas for interpretation and POV-pushing, as long as the sections are well-cited and someone can actually check these things, that shouldn't be a problem. At the end of the day, we can say "no original research, no original research" until the cows come home, but the whole of Wikipedia is built upon it. Even the best-cited article still relies on editor interpretation of those cites, and on which cites to actually use. Reception sections are especially thorny areas, and none will be perfect. All you can do is try to reflect what the reviewer said the best way you know how. If that's by dropping blockquotes in, I wouldn't worry about it. Someone will eventually come along and either remove it, or (more likely) recast it in original language. Steve ^{T • C} 19:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

What you've said there has made me think "ah, I see: in some ways most sections suffer from precisely the problems that a 'reception' section does. We cite, but any citation can be coloured, whether that be about Citizen Kane or trousers or medieval history. I hadn't considered that.

But now, you bugger, you've confronted me with another problem. With the two articles I worked on today I erred on the side of the long quote because I felt this was the best way not to misrepresent the content of what I was referring to. And now you've gorn and thrown in the idea of copyright infringement. Does anyone feel that there are concerns, on that basis, about the quotes in Yellow Dog (novel) and The Information (novel) or do they seem acceptable?

My brother once had a book, which I loved, which had hundreds of films listed and they were all followed almost exclusively by review quotes. It was a compendium of just that. But now I'm thinking perhaps the editor did keep his quotes shorter than mine. Certainly many of those I use (I think) are longer than you would find at Metacritic: but then I don't think Metacritic has the same aims I do. Gah! I don't suppose I'll ever find a cold unimpeachable answer to this question. One hopes for a WP policy that says "up to three sentences may be used". I don't want to swan about in my own merry way just to find, later on, that shitloads lots of my work has been removed for copyvio. --bodnotbod (talk) 19:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question, and based purely upon my almost complete lack of legal experience and expertise (despite having a ruddy A-level in law with which to embiggen my CV), I don't think you should worry about the size of the quotes you've used in either of those articles. They're barely a few % of the total text of the cited reviews, and it would take a monumentally strict reading of WP:COPYVIO to justify their removal. Steve ^{T • C} 00:18, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Jolly good. But please, anyone else advise if they fancy. In the meantime, I'll add my vote to the end. --bodnotbod (talk) 01:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support Looks good to me and makes sense. Gary King (talk) 18:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support as per Gary King. --bodnotbod (talk) 01:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I've now added this in, as it seems uncontroversial enough after six days. Any minor tweaks that may still be required can be done in the usual manner. Thanks, Steve ^{T • C} 15:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

• Opposition While RottenTomatoes is a reliable source, I am not sure Wikipedia should use it as a citing for EVERY film. Maybe less than 2% of film pages should include it, otherwise it looks like an endorsement of the site. Unless you want to make a box on every page to include different rankings from every site. I'm pretty sure if you researched it, it might be the most linked site on here. Also I'm not sure that it fits into an encyclopedia. 217.194.139.3 (talk) 20:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

• You're right, it shouldn't be on every film page. That's because not all films are recent enough for a Rotten Tomatoes' statistic to actually be representative of the view of the film. Those are instances when it shouldn't be used. But, for films released "today", it is one of the best sources to gain a wide view of what critics thought about a film. It, along with Metacritic, are one of the few places that compile an aggregate list of film reviews. There is no such thing as "promoting" a reliable source. If it's a reliable source, then it's a reliable source - end of discussion. You use reliable sources. You don't stop and go "wait, does this source appear on other film pages? well, I don't want to seem like I'm promoting this source so let's find a different one". No, if it's reliable that's all there needs to be. Of course it "fits into an encyclopedia". It's a website that compiles all of the critical reviews (I use "all" loosely, as obviously that would be highly improbable to compile them "all") for a film. We need to know how a film was viewed by the professionals (that's encyclopedic), and this source averages their opinions into a statistic. That being said, I don't think it's the most linked site on Wikipedia. That honor, unfortunately, goes to IMDb.com.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:16, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

• What do you mean unfortunately? Are you pro-RT and anti-IMDB? Do you work for RT? Your choice of words is VERY queer. Instead of putting 'This film is rated fresh on RT for having 63% of positive reviews [acepted by RT]', which sounds like either an endorsement of their site to be used as a benchmark or standard, use 'The movie opened to [Mostly, Some, Extremely] Positive reviews" and use a footnote to cite RT, MC, or IMDB? 217.194.139.3 (talk) 08:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry, I don't work for RT, and I don't structure sentences about RT that way. First, IMDb is user submitted (just like Wikipedia), hence why we don't use IMDb...but oddly still link to it in the external links section. When I use RT, it looks like this (this is one I wrote) - which uses both the general critical rating, the "cream of the crop" (which is the more well known and respected critics), as well as Metacritic to provide an alternative statistic. I also write pricisely as such, a statistic. I don't use words like "overwhelmingly positive" and "certified 'Fresh'"; it's POV, subjective, and completely unnecessary. I let the reader interpret how "positive" ("mostly", "some", and "extremely" are POV, which means we wouldn't be that neutral body we are trying to be) the reviews are based on the statistic that is being sourced. We acknowledge RT in the sentence so that the reader automatically knows where each statistic came from. There is nothing wrong, bias, or endorsing about acknowledging where you got the information. As a matter of fact, it's actually encouraged in research papers. The way you're fighting against RT, it makes me think you are either a disgruntled employee of theirs, or maybe we've blacklisted your own personal aggregate site because you were spamming it on Wikipedia pages. I don't know, I'm just doing a bit of assuming (like you are were with me). So, unless you have a real argument against RT, something that isn't just "by listing their name in the sentence we are endorsing them and that's bad"..because unless we say "Rotten Tomatoes is the best site ever, everyone should check it out", we're not really endorsing them...not even subliminally, then this argument is moot. Otherwise, we must be endorsing an actor when we use their name to cite a quote they gave about something. So, given that this inclusion has been in debate for over a month and the consensus seems to be "overwhelmingly" for support, I move that we go ahead and put it on the page.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 11:38, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• Partially support, but per my comments on the main project talk, I strongly oppose the addition of RT "freshness ratings" and Metacritic statistics as any kind of valuable addition to the critical reception section. Its fairly useless, IMHO, and no better than using IMDB user ratings or Amazon sales ranks. Reception/Reaction should emphasis sales, reviews, etc, not some arbitrary number that even supporters above note is only useful for "some films" with editors basically being left to determine if its accurate or not? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure where you're getting the opinion that the information isn't of use. Certainly, it can be used badly, but if worded appropriately, the information can be of genuine use to the reader. If I do say so myself, see Hancock_(film)#Reception for an example of their being used well. Now, if your contention is that they aren't reliable, that's a different matter, and one we should probably take back to WT:FILM. Steve ^{T • C} 22:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Its my own opinion from a reader stand point. As a film watcher, when I go to such sites to see information about a film, I find those items to be completely useless indicators of the quality of the film, its just an arbitrary number. Actually reviews noting what someone did or did not like about the plot, characters, etc gives me a real idea of how people reacted to the film. For the Hancock example, I'd have to disagree. I find both RT and MC sentences to adds no valuable information to that paragraph, nor does it really support the opening line that the film received mixed reviews. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 00:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm not entirely sure how they don't support the statement. By Rotten Tomatoes' count, 38% of critics gave the film a positive review. Metacritic's determination was that the average score of the critics it lists was 49. That sounds like "mixed reviews" to me, and it tallies with my own recollection of the film's critical reception (having read about two dozen reviews in order to construct the prose section below the statements). What the critical opinion of the film was is of genuine encyclopedic interest. Granted, should there be a story from the Los Angeles Times or the Washington Post or some other more traditional reliable source that says the same thing, then that should be cited too, but most films don't receive that kind of post-release retrospective analysis. So how else are we to judge how the film was received? We can come to our own determination, sure, but that will always be open to argument and accusations of interpretation. Far better to have something in black and white that says "Hancock received average to mixed reviews upon release." Therefore, the only real argument to be had here is whether Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes are reliable sources. While their scores can be subjective when an individual critic hasn't given a film a score at the end of his or her review, it isn't random users of the site that are making this determination, it's the site employees. Thus far, we have found their judgement sound, and therefore reliable. Steve ^{T • C} 07:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Discussion about WP:ENGVAR

Alientraveller and I have been discussing a spelling variation issue with respect to WP:ENGVAR and King Kong. The production was in New Zealand, but financed in the US. Some actors are of Australian (Naomi Watts) or British (Andy Serkis) and some are American (Jack Black, Adrian Brody). The director is form New Zealand. The film is set in the US with the exception of the scenes on the boat (German captain) and on the island (unknown islander language).

WP:ENGVAR states that "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation." Are the ties more to the production or to the setting and nationality of the characters?

I'd love to have some others weigh in. There are actually arguments on both side that are relevant, hence the confusion. --FilmFan69 (talk) 21:40, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that the cast and crew is relevant to determining the nationality of the topic. I also do not think that where it is filmed is relevant, either. For example, Valkyrie is about German history and is filmed in Germany, but it is essentially an American production. In the case of King Kong, as far as I know, it is best considered an American production. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 21:48, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

It was filmed and post-produced in New Zealand. The scenes in New York are a minority of the film, most is set on an imaginary island, and a small portion on a boat in presumably international waters. I can't see how this can reasonably be called an American film.-gadfium 21:52, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I concur with Erik. Good Morning Vietnam was shot in Thailand, but no reasonably-minded person would try and argue that it's a Thai film. Likewise, Top Gun was directed by a Brit (Tony Scott), but it isn't a British film. PC78 (talk) 21:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

To follow up, King Kong is considered either an American production or an American/New Zealand co-production: New York Times,Allmovie. British Film Institute lists these: USA, United Germany, New Zealand. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 21:59, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

King Kong was produced, I believe, by Universal. Universal is an American company; hence, the film is American. PC78 (talk) 22:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Spellings on the official site are American English. Here --FilmFan69 (talk) 22:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Given the situation, it's difficult to find a definitive answer. I'd advise to simply look to see what the original precedent on the article was and stick with it. It's as arbitrary as any other solution. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 22:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

That would seem to be British English [Edit: or the New Zealand variant] as I just looked quickly at 4 early versions, spread about 50 revisions apart each time). I did see in one wiki guideline that precedent can be set by how the article evolves though it seems that if it evolved incorrectly then why shouldn't we fix it? --FilmFan69 (talk) 22:15, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The answer seems self-evident - because the "fix" is causing a trivial edit war. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 22:21, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree because British English is not appropriate for what is essentially an American production. I poked around Variety and The Hollywood Reporter archives for coverage of the film in its development stage, and Universal, an American company, was the key financier and producer in this case. Contracted companies, filming locations (which can be established anywhere by anyone depending on the economic benefits), nationalities of the cast/crew, and nationality of the fictional work seem secondary. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Fixes should not be avoided just to avoid controversy. If we did that then we'd still have the Earth at the center (centre?) of the Universe. --FilmFan69 (talk) 00:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Geocentrism this ain't. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 00:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

That was an example. I'm sure you understood my point so the comment was somewhat unnecessary wasn't it? --FilmFan69 (talk) 00:41, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary - I was trying to emphasize what I thought you missed - that this is far too trivial to get seriously worked up about. But I omitted the most important part of my message, which I'll have to resign myself to leaving here - ;) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 00:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I don't see anyone getting worked up, it's a minor debate, but worth talking about. And the rest of us were having a civilized discussion until you came along and called it trivial. So, with all due respect, good riddance Girolamo. We shall omit your point of view from the consensus I suppose. --FilmFan69 (talk) 00:51, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

My view is King Kong is a film about Americans, even though it is a film made in New Zealand (it wasn't just shot there, everything about the film except its score was down in that country, just as everything about LOTR except its score and a few out of thousands of effects shots were done there too). So I've grown to not mind if someone wants to change it to American spelling for a multi-national film because it is about Americans. Likewise, the LOTR, Narnia, Potter and Bond articles preserve British spelling despite being funded or shot in other countries, and Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Superman and Batman preserve American spelling despite generally being shot in Commonwealth nations. Alientraveller (talk) 09:53, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

It's difficult to formulate a general rule on this one, but I think when defining the 'nationality' of a film we should prioritise the driving forces behind it - lead producer/production company (not those who only took a financial role), director, maybe screenwriter. Cast and shooting location are barely relevant. However, there are always going to be difficult borderline cases, particularly with modern film. Barnabypage (talk) 10:40, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that we should consider the nationality of the cast and crew. German director Oliver Hirschbiegel directed the American film The Invasion. Russian/Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov directed the American film Wanted. German director Roland Emmerich directed the American films Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 10,000 BC. And so forth. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 11:05, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Alternate Versions and Deleted Scenes

Many films have Director's Cuts and Extended Editions that contain extra scenes or altered scenes as compared to the original version. Some also contain additional visual effects. In essence the two versions are different products. And yet Wikipedia often downplays this significance. The infobox sometimes contains a different running time for an alternate version (but often doesn't) and somewhere at the bottom of the article there may be a brief mention of a longer version released on DVD (but there often isn't). If I want to buy a movie I would like to know about the existence of a version that is longer and superior to the one I'm considering to buy. I can only assume that other people want the same.

I propose that the lead section of an film article be required to mention that there is an alternate version, how many minutes longer (or shorter) it is than the original version and whether or not the alternate version has new visual effects. This has already been done in the article The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I also propose that release dates in the infobox be required to include release dates of alternate versions. This has already been done in the article Alien.

Deleted Scenes are not obscure production trivia. They are valuable and interesting extensions of the movie that often contain new insights into the characters and world of the movie. I propose that we include how many minutes of Deleted Scenes there are, either in the lead section or the infobox.

Do I have any support? Observatorr (talk) 01:45, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that any deleted scene or "director's cut" information needs to have context to it. If you want information to be presented in an article that discusses deleted scenes or a "director's cut", then that information needs to be accompanied by reasons why the scenes were deleted, and reasons for why the director chose to cut the film this particular way. Without context, it is simply indiscriminate trivia.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:33, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a stretch to say that the lead section should require the mention of such alternate versions. The significance of such alternate versions should be determined in the article first. For example, I think that there is plentiful coverage for director's cuts like Kingdom of Heaven, but not as much for deleted scenes or an "unrated" version. The release date field in the infobox is for the theatrical release, and it seems unnecessary to add even more dates unless it was a theatrical re-release. Deleted scenes are "obscure production trivia" until signified otherwise. Your opinion that they are "valuable and interesting extensions of the movie" exaggerates their importance. Scenes end up on the cutting room floor for various reasons. Some scenes may have been cut due to time constraints, some scenes may have been cut because they were not seen as important. Like Bignole said, there needs to be context. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 04:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not asking for a discussion of the content of director's cuts and deleted scenes. All I'm asking for is that the article clearly mentions that they exist and how long they are and whether anything was removed and whether they have new visual effects in the leading section or the infobox.

For example "A Special Edition of Alien 3 was released in 2003. It is 30 minutes longer than the theatrical version but some of the original scenes have been removed".

Or "Star Trek Insurrection has 13 minutes of deleted scenes including an alternate ending."

Just the basics really. I want this to become part of the style so people will include this information in every relevant article. It's for people who may have seen the movie but aren't aware that there are parts of the movie they haven't seen. There are very few places on the internet where one can find such information Observatorr (talk) 04:40, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Director's cuts seem fine. If you see articles that could mention these cuts in the lead sections, be bold and add them. Other major cuts would work, too. When you talk about deleted scenes, are you talking about those that are restored to the film or those that are sitting around in bonus features? If it's the latter, I'm not sure if it's realistic to count up the minutes of these deleted scenes and act like these were the only scenes left out (they most likely aren't) and tally up the minutes for the "actual" total. I don't think this is really a specification to have for MOS:FILM because the large, large majority of films do not have this kind of treatment. It seems best to use editorial discretion in these cases. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 04:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes I am talking about the deleted scenes in DVD bonus features. The website www.dvdcompare.net often shows how long the total deleted scenes are; also, most DVDs have a Play All Deleted Scenes option so no one will have to do any tallying. Observatorr (talk) 04:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree about the importance of compiling these deleted scenes' times and factoring them into the original runtime. It seems like you are assuming that the studio exhaustively compiled all the existing scenes that were cut out. They could have very well cherry-picked the most interesting scenes for the DVD viewers' leisure. Thus, such a tally would hardly be representative of whatever "true" cut is purported to exist. A director's cut, from what I've seen, is pretty explicitly detailed in its additional length and additional scenes. For mere bonus features, though, I seriously contest the importance of such scenes unless each one of them is signified otherwise. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 05:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I never said anything about factoring them into the original runtime. And I'm not assuming that the ones on the DVD are the only ones that exist. There are sure to be others gathering dust in some film studio's archive. But the ones on the DVD are the only ones available to watch. I don't know what you mean by "hardly be respresentative of whatever true cut is purported to exist". Could you rephrase that? Would this example be okay now that made it clear that the deleted scenes are the ones on the DVD?

"Star Trek Insurrection has 13 minutes of deleted scenes including an alternate ending in the DVD bonus features."

Even if none my suggestions makes it into the Style Guidelines, would it be okay for me to include this information in film articles without fear of deletion? Observatorr (talk) 06:04, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it's fine to include in the "Home media" section a summary of the extras included with the release, which would include that information, though excessive detail is to be avoided (such as a blow-by-blow account of each deleted scene without any context, such as why they were excluded—though that might perhaps sit better in the "Production" section). The sentence you propose for the Trek article seems fine, though I would make sure you include a relevant citation and perhaps a summary of the other significant DVD extras. All the best, Steve ^{T • C} 06:52, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

First, I disagree with the lead bit. The lead summarizes the entire article, it doesn't introduce information that isn't found elsewhere. It also should not be a duplication of the information found elsewhere. My fear is that this will cause a degenerate list of things "different" (and we already have a section discussing the problem with "differences" on this MOS page). A reliable source saying the Director's Cut has inserted scenes and taken out scenes is fine. When you start getting into listing every scene added and removed, you need some form of commentary explaining the changes. I only agree with it if it's part of a new release, because I also see this as reason to just list out the DVD special features (i.e. Just like what Observatorr just did with Star Trek). What purposs does it really serve for the article. Amazon.com probably says the same thing, as well as the back of the box. Without the context, it all just seems like we're promoting the special features of a DVD.

I also see this as an issue when the DVD is released multiple times. Should we not make note that being released with a new box art, but the same printed film, does not constitute being noteworthy enough for inclusion in the article. If we're allowing articles to just say, "This DVD had an alternate ending with 13 minutes of deleted footage", then you're going to have to allow every DVD release that adds some new deleted scene to the mix, regardless of how miniscule.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:54, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't intend to make a list of all special features for every movie DVD. Just deleted scenes. Production documentaries and featurettes are not as significant as deleted scenes in my opinion although I understand that some people don't believe there's a difference. Observatorr (talk) 00:04, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think deleted scenes are all that important. For the majority of movies, scenes that are deleted are typically for time reasons and not creative reasons (e.g. ratings board, producing company's opinion), and when they are that's when they should be noted in the article with context provided.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:22, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Film years

When it comes to film years, the current practice is to use a piped link as follows: Snatch is a 2000 film. How necessary is it to link 2000 to 2000 in film? I think it's redundant. For music pages, WP:MUSTARD#Internal links recommends against it, but this guideline mentions nothing of it. I'm in favor of standardising articles, so I think this should be mentioned in the guideline. Spellcast (talk) 15:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

If this was done, would it make sense to then put a link to 2000 in film in the See Also section instead? Deamon138 (talk) 17:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a good idea, I would support that. --Closedmouth (talk) 03:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Why should every film page have a "See also" section, most of the time will only contain that "2000 in film" type link? We have links at the bottom of the page to categories that say the same thing. Category:2000 in film.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:44, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I'm not so certain - isn't putting a See Also year link into all 45,000+ articles far more intrusive and impractical? It would seem to me that linking the year within the article is more elegant and less in-your-face. Additionally, a link of that kind probably is too peripheral - even for See also. I wasn't aware of the music page guidelines, but I fail to see why their usage should be setting our style guidelines or vice versa. Standardization within a set of articles makes sense, but across unrelated ones, I'm not as keen on. (At least not for its own sake.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Girolamo Savonarola (talk • contribs)

Actually, yeah, when you put it like that it's not such a good idea, haha. I was thinking it might be a nice compromise, but...yeah, it doesn't make much sense :P --Closedmouth (talk) 04:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Well I was just suggesting putting it into the see also section if it was decided to take it out of the main article. I think a link to "2000 in film" is fine somewhere in an article about a film from 2000. It can be interesting to read about what else happened in the movies that year. Deamon138 (talk) 11:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to respond to the original comment, I agree that the guideline at WP:MUSTARD#Internal links would be good for film articles, or anything else on Wikipedia. Hiding/piping/camouflaging/easter-egging a link is a way of suppressing access rather than enabling it. Lightmouse (talk) 18:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe that I should jump in on this since I have added these links to the intros of hundreds of film articles since starting with the project two years ago. I believe the link for the intro in film articles is not a misleading link, but provides a link to information about other films released at the same time as the film including the year's box office figures. It seems relative to include it to direct readers how the film was released in relation to other films and its performance relative to other films. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 18:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Speaking from a personal perspective (as I know that easter egg links such as [[2001 in film|2001]] are tolerated/allowed), I'm not a particular fan of this way of doing it either. My preference is to phrase the sentence in such a way that the the link is included, but explicit in which article it points to. For example: "Foo is an American political thriller that was released in 2001 and starred..." Steve ^{T • C} 18:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

That example by Steve seems fine to me. It certainly avoids making it look like a date fragment. Perhaps it can be used as a good example. Lightmouse (talk) 18:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Come to think of it, the example in the first post of this subject is entirely suitable too; merely extend the link to cover "film", thus: "Snatch is a 2000 film..." Steve ^{T • C} 19:10, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

That's how I've written film articles. Gimmetrow 19:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Even better! Lightmouse (talk) 19:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

This is fine with me. Out of interest, what is it that they do in the music articles? Do they link to 2000 in music at all? Deamon138 (talk) 03:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The deprecation of such "year in blah" links in music-related articles is at MUSTARD, as mentioned above. This is part of an ongoing debate about how to stress the importance of smart linking to WPians. The original "scattergun" approach of the undisciplined and profiglate blueing of text when wikis appeared on the Internet has been a hard habit to shake, but we've made considerable progress. The suggestions above on winding the "year in blah" link into wording in which it is explicit rather than hidden behind what appears to be a useless year-link is excellent. May I add to this the observation that a single such link will take the reader to any year in blah link, via that first link. Our readers are more likely to access that set of articles by a single link in the lead, rather than hitting them with a forest of choices throughout an article. This applies particularly to lists, where it has been de rigeur to blue entire columns of single years, the real link concealed within all and the vertical streak of bright blue an undesirable highlighting. Tony (talk) 04:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

ELs

The metacritic template is only useful for series that have been filed under the film section. Some made for television movies and miniseries have a different URL structure. As those articles still generally use the Film MoS, I've created a second template {{tl:Metacritic television}} to handle those specific links. Should the MoS be updated to include this? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:10, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Listing of cast members.

There was some dispute (apparently now resolved) about the listing of cast members in The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. One editor insisted on listing the cast in order of the length of the line of text, as opposed to some more logical order, such as alphabetical, by importance in the film, or chronological by order of appearance. Although this now appears to be resolved, I thought I'd mention it here in the event that project members wish to set a policy on this. Cheers! bd2412 T 06:21, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I had noticed that when I looked at the article earlier today and just thought it was a coincidence. I'm sure it happens so rarely that it wouldn't be necessary to mention in the guidelines. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 06:35, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Non-free images revisited

This past July and August, I initiated discussion to revise the style guidelines' coverage of non-free images in accordance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. I was distracted by real life for a little while, and now I'd like to revisit implementing this coverage. The draft is below, and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:18, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Draft comments

I'm not seeing anything glaring off to me at the moment, but a little tired so will reread it later. Something I did think of recently while working on some articles, though, is should the guideline emphasis a preference with regards to the covers? I.E. do we prefer the first release cover where there are multiple releases or format releases, or is any VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray cover acceptable? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:23, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Hope you can reread it with fresher eyes! I think I tried to establish that the original cover was "ideal", but if it was not available, home media covers could be used. If there are a number of choices with either theatrical posters or home media covers, I don't really know a good answer to making the choice. My preference has been to choose the most engaging image, showing as much of the film (characters and whatnot) as possible. A lot of teaser posters don't show much (obviously), so they wouldn't be good ones to choose. Is this something you think should be suggested in the guidelines? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

In "Usage", it occurs to me that the criteria listed seem to be overbearing. What would happen if we "small" coded them? To me, doing that makes it known that there is other relevant information after the criteria, and not just a rehash of what's at WP:FUC.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "small" coding? I suppose I imported the wording from these links to make it explicitly clear what the criteria was, so people don't feign ignorance within the boundaries of the style guidelines. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 01:42, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I mean, Putting the policy criteria in text like this, so that the other text (basically, this MOS's position on images) will stand out and the section will not look like it was all copied from WP:FUC. My fear is that if it looks like it came from the policy page on fair use criteria, then people will say, "I know what they are" and ignore the rest of the section that happens to deal with image use in the body of the article. Then again, I just previewed that myself and it looks like crap. Maybe, blockquote that information???  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I added blockquotes. Thoughts? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 02:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I got that theatrical posters are preferred first, I just wondered if there was a preference between say, the VHS, DVD, etc if there is no poster. Or, for the film I had thought of, with Category 6: Day of Destruction where there are two different DVD covers. I think agree with you, that it should be the "most engaging" or one that best shows aspects of the film, and that something to that effect should be added. For example, if the poster is basically a stylized title, while the DVD cover has the primary characters, go with the DVD cover. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 00:43, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that the latest iteration of the cover would be best as that would be the one a reader would find in a store. Though this may not be ideal when talking about classic films... --FilmFan69 (talk) 01:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I would advocate a preference order of original poster, followed by most common media release cover. However, I would also probably advocate an ENGVAR-like solution as well, which is to say that no cover is "more" correct than any other, and therefore edit wars of which cover to use should generally be avoided in favor of maintaining the status quo, unless there is greatly compelling advantage. (For example a Portuguese-release VHS cover versus a new English-release DVD cover.) Thoughts? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 02:04, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I was not sure about adding explicit wording because it seems to control discussion too much to do so. The way it is written in the draft now, theatrical posters are preferred, if not, then home media would work. Further specification seems to increase the complexity since I think that there are going to be a lot of weird situations out there with whatever exists for a film. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 02:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess my point is to try to head off silly edit wars by simply emphasizing that one cover image is not "better" than another. Anyway, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 02:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought this had already been added when it was first set up a few months ago. I think I brought this up last time and don't remember the answer, but should we include some example images that meet all of the criteria/instructions for new editors? I've seen the quality of the images and compliance with non-free criteria increasing, and I think with examples, we can continue to expand on this. Anyway, it looks fine to me, good work. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:13, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Examples are a good idea, but I think we need to brush up on the existing examples. For examples of theatrical posters, we should try to find ones that match the criteria in the draft, for example, "Little Miss Sunshine poster.jpg". Screen shots could be more descriptive, such as having at least part of the film title and some element of the shot identified (like Image:Doomsday Bentley.jpg. Maybe we could further detail how to write a rationale, such as using {{Non-free use rationale}} (for one use of an image) or {{Non-free image rationale}} (multiple uses of one image). Any preference about that? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 12:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I included mention of the template. The template and the relevant licensing template seem to be all that's necessary for the image description page... I don't think we need {{filmrationale}} these days, since it's overly detailed. I also put in an "Examples" subsection where I've uploaded images to have proper filenames. I think that we could have three examples of each category and perhaps try to vary them. Images related to foreign-language films would be good to throw into the mix. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 15:47, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me, as it did before. The only thing I would strike is the stipulation that critical commentary should come from third-party sources; why exclude perfectly good content from other sources?. Also, I think it might be beneficial to add a bit to the "Usage" section, expanding on what we mean by "minimal usage" and "minimal extent of use", and showing how a free image can be used effectively in place of a non-free image (the camper van photo in Little Miss Sunshine is a good example of this, I think). PC78 (talk) 18:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I used the wording "reliable, third-party, published sources" from WP:RS, so I think it's somewhat a blanket statement, including sources that are acceptably used in Wikipedia articles. Are you thinking that it reads like it's excluding something? Also, you confirm my thoughts about "Usage" because I had been thinking about explaining how free images could work in articles. The way it's structured now, though, makes it focus on non-free images. Should we completely revise the draft to encompass both, or should we just attach another subsection that focuses on free alternatives? I'm kind of leaning toward a general "Images" section, though it'll be yet another draft for me... :) —Erik (talk • contrib) - 19:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking of anything quite so drastic; I think an additional paragraph in the "usage" section should be sufficient.

As for the other, I think you're misapplying the quote from WP:RS. Articles require sources independent of the subject because this is how we establish notability, but reliable sources are not defined as being "third party", and indeed primary sources can be used to support "critical commentary and discussion". As it stands, I believe the draft excludes the use of a non-free image to illustrate something that is referenced solely by a primary source. PC78 (talk) 19:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

That's what I don't understand. WP:PSTS permits descriptions of primary sources to complement information in the article; WP:PLOT mentions how plot information should be included: "A concise plot summary is appropriate as part of the larger coverage of a fictional work." Primary sources, when it comes to fiction, are purely in-universe... it cannot make an out-of-universe claim about an aspect of it being important for critical commentary and discussion. These descriptions complement independent coverage of the topic, so I'm not understanding why we are complementing complementary information. Are there situations in which we can invoke the primary source to include a non-free image? I can't seem to envision one. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... what exactly constitutes a primary source for a film? Is it just the film itself, or related material such as official websites & such? PC78 (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Hah, that's actually a good question. We know that the film itself is a primary source, and WP:PSTS does not really help define what else could be categorized as such in that realm. My thinking, though, is that if information is reported by a reliable source (could be the cast/crew or film critics) from an out-of-universe perspective, it's not "close" to the primary source. What may qualify as close to the primary source, from what I've seen, is the little fictional extensions of some films. For example, websites will have the "extended" adventures of some fictional characters to add to their backgrounds. So for example, if the new Star Wars film has some new vehicle whose fictional background is detailed in a supplementary role-playing guide, that would be close to the primary source and not truly fall under "critical commentary and discussion". I don't think that it is too large of a constraint to mention third-party sources, but we can work on the wording if I didn't import it so well from WP:RS. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 15:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, a primary source could be the director detailing a scene, and that could easily be used to support a non-free image under "critical commentary". Critical commentary is not regulated to commentary made by people not involved with the project, it simply any commentary that isn't trivial in nature. E.g. Obi-Wan's lightsaber was made blue because it represented his demeanor - I made that up so don't attack it for being wrong, but the point is that a basic statement like that would be trivial in regards to needing an image to illustrate it. The average reader knows what the color blue is, what a light saber is (if they're reading Star Wars given that we have an article on it), and what Obi-Wan looks like (given that we have an article on him as well). Would they need an image to really better understand why Obi-Wan has a blue lightsaber? Probably not. On the other hand, This image, of the concept design for UberJason in Jason X is easily justifiable given the amount of commentary detailing what went into designing the upgrade for the character. Even with the parts clarified, an illustration is certainly helpful in better understanding how all of these words translate to an image on the screen.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess I'm trying to understand the use of primary sources and secondary sources when it comes to film. On one hand, people like directors can be "sources very close to the origin of a particular topic or event", yet secondary sources are "one step removed" and can draw on primary sources. It just seems to me that there is a gap between the fictional universe of the film and the real-world context of constructing that universe. Is this a misinterpretation? Obviously, we're always citing something other than the film itself (secondary sources?) to back real-world context. Thoughts? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 16:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that has been a major issue with the "Primary, secondary and tertiary" sources, as described by WP:NOR. I think they've had a lot of debates about what constitutes what. To me, "primary source" has always been the source material, and by source material I include all people that work directly on it as well as the final outcome (i.e. the plot of a film). If it's an interview with the director (literally a Q&A), I've always seen that as a primary source, because you're getting directly from the horse's mouth. Then again, I can understand (and would accept such) how if the interview is published by a source independent of the subject (not DVD commentary or some blog) how it could actually be considered a "secondary" source. Regardless, as far as critical commentary goes, it's about what is being said and not where it is being published from.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I reworded to just say "reliable sources" in both instances. I suppose the waters are muddy here, and it's probably best for the guidelines not to get so specific about how to handle sourcing. I imagine, though, that it would be preferable to review the statements of people close to the film if opinion is involved ("this is the most important scene I've ever done") as opposed to a fairly objective assessment of an aspect of film (makeup, lighting, etc). Does this slight revision satisfy? I don't think anyone has an issue that critical commentary and discussion should come from reliable sources, full stop. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 17:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with the new wording. We don't need to establish what a "reliable source" is in this guideline; we have WP:RS for that. PC78 (talk) 17:37, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:39, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

See component draft below for free alternatives. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 04:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Image hierarchy

I understand why posters are the first choice for an infobox image, but I don't quite get why a CD or DVD cover is the preferred second choice. The poster represents the efforts of the studio and/or producers to sell the movie to the public at the time of release, and therefore generally has something to day about the film, or how it was perceived or wished to be perceived. On the other hand, a CD or DVD represents the efforts of another company, sometimes years later and with no connection to the film, to sell the film to the contemporary public. These covers sometimes skew the importance of the actors in the film in order to make it seem that an actor who is well-known now is more important in the film than they actually are. Not only that, the graphics (especially for older or cheaper VHS tapes) are often awful.

I'm not saying that a VHS/DVD cover can't well represent the film -- often they're based on posters, for instance, and serve as a substitute when they're not available -- but I don't think that they're so much better than, say, a screenshot from the film for being generally representative. A media cover is just as copyrighted as a screenshot, so there's no reason to prefer one over the other, except in terms of quality or representativeness -- they're both (like the poster) going to be used thanks to the fair-use idea in American law.

I suppose what I suggesting is a re-write so that after posters, the second choice if a cover if it well represents the film or is visually interesting, otherwise a screenshot or other image should be used.

Thoughts? Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 06:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The difficulty with including a screenshot to represent the film is that it does not quite serve as cover art. WP:NFC#Images identifies cover art: "Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary)." We discussed in the past that posters and home media covers fall under "cover art" rather than "promotional material" because they're the closest tangible representations of films (like books with their covers and CDs with their album covers). I don't disagree with your assessment of a different kind of representation -- I recall renting The Prisoner when I was younger because Jackie Chan was on the VHS cover, and I found out that he was barely in the movie. Still, though, it does not seem easy to set criteria for choosing representative images. If a cover is regarded a poor representative, perhaps we can include a statement to replace it whenever possible. I just don't know what kind of wording would work best, if any is necessary -- selecting these images has not been a critical issue for WP:FILM as far as I can tell. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree that it's not been a critical issue - but would it become one with the new proposed wording? Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 17:57, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it would become an issue. It says that a cover image "may be used", and I just inserted "appropriate" for if someone is not able to find either kind of image. I just don't think that the screenshot route is available for other than the title card. Does the wording sound light enough? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 22:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The general problem is that there is a tendency among editors to put much too much authority on all the MoS guidelines. No matter how lightly and carefully one tries to say the equivalent of "In most cases X is better than Y", almost certainly there will be editors not long in the future breathing fire and smoke, reverting edits left and right and leaving messages that say You can't do Y, it says so in the MoS, as if they all just finished reading Authoritarianism As a Way of Life and can't wait to put it to practical use. (Geez, whatever happened to Question Authority? Yeah, yeah, I know, it got perverted into a New Age philosophy, where everything is relative and there are no facts.)

Don't mind me, I'm just rocking in my wheelchair, watching life pass me by. Ed Fitzgerald ^{t / c} 03:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Free licence images: Added component

In addition to the "Usage", "Instructions", and "Examples" subsections under "Non-free images", below is a draft for "Free alternatives" to specify how editors can use free images in film articles:

== Free licence images ==

Free images can include filming locations, on-set photos, and photos of the cast and crew. Some older films may be in the public domain, and screenshots can be used in articles without fair use constraints. Older films still in copyright may have trailers in the public domain, and screenshots from these trailers can be freely used.

For filming locations, free images of a specific and mostly unchanged location in the film can illustrate the places used in a film's production. On-set photos showing production in process may be used if they are evidenced to have been released under an appropriate licence. The cast and crew can be photographed at the various premieres of the resulting film as well as any components of production on display (such as costumes or vehicles). If marketing materials are captured in freely released photos, caution must be exercised to ensure that they are not derivative works.

This is a pretty rough draft, and I invite others to iron out some items. Can we clarify the stance when it comes to films or their trailers being in the public domain? What is the situation with the appropriateness of on-set photos? How about derivative works, especially when it comes to certain marketing materials being photographed in public or at premieres? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 04:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Photos may not be intrusive (i.e., not "spy" photos). - Hmm...I know what you're trying to say, but I don't feel that it's clearly defined. As for the derivative-question, presumably it would only be derivative if it were exceptionally prominent, in which case we're back to the fair-use/critical commentary requirements anyway. I wouldn't expect that we'd allow articles to have images of marketing materials unless this was directly commented on. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 05:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I kind of hashed out that spy-photo sentence due to lack of a clear understanding. From what I can tell with recent films, though, most spy photos are not going to be in the public domain. So what does this mean for those that are? Maybe we don't have to clarify it too much, but perhaps point to Flickr and other sources as possibilities (seems to have helped Changeling...). For derivative works, I agree with what you said about prominence. I guess it seems tricky to clarify this, especially for recent films. If the cast and crew pose in front of some marketing materials at a film's premiere, how do we look at that? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 05:56, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't really think that would be a derivative work - it needs to be a subject of the photo to qualify - otherwise it just happens to unintentionally be a part of it. As for "spy photos", the real questions for the encyclopedia are not whether it was "proper" to take the photo, but rather (as always): is it free/fair use? Is it relevant to the article? Is it appropriate for what's being discussed? Is it decent quality? Most of those photos are either not free, or of such low quality that their fair use is arguable. (And even if they pass the fair-use test, the quality often is still bad enough to hinder GA or FA status.) In principle, though, I don't see any reason why "spy" photos are inadmissible by virtue of how they were obtained. We're not talking about stolen crime-scene photos, after all; these are legal, albeit unauthorized by production. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 06:08, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I've skirted the issue for on-set photos, just saying that they need to be evidenced to be released into the public domain, since I imagine a situation may be someone uploading a photo from Flickr and pretending that it's free. For derivative works, does the wording need any further improvement? I feel ready to bring this into the guidelines... should I ask for a final go-around? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:53, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me, save for the section title. "Alternatives" gives the impression that non-free images are preferred, with free ones used only when they're not available, when it should be the other way around. Just "Free licence images" would do it, IMO. "...into the public domain" should read "...under the appropriate licence" too, as PD != CC-BY != CC-BY-SA. :) Steve ^{T • C} 21:00, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

So... what are we missing? An explanation would bloat the section and it wouldn't be read. I've been looking for a good internal link to pipe to "appropriate licence", but I can't decide which one would be best. Steve ^{T • C} 21:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)