Critical reception

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Regarding the use of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, the cookie-cutter wording that some editors have perpetuated around film articles is not acceptable because it assumes specialist knowledge of its readers. We need to write for an encyclopedia, and when we say a film has X% on Rotten Tomatoes, what does that even mean to someone who is unfamiliar with RT? What did RT do with the reviews to determine that score? Is it clear that RT only looks at reviews as positive or negative? It's information that is often left out because editors are assuming specialist knowledge of the readers when they should not assume that. It's extreme flattening, and context needs to be given about how Rotten Tomatoes works, every time. Same with Metacritic, which breaks it down by positive, mixed, and negative. These data points are relevant to report in an encyclopedic article to reflect the distribution of individual critics' reviews. To only throw out the overall scores is a gross oversimplification. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 20:26, 15 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

Use of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic in our film articles has become the norm and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. However, you are correct that their use must exist independently of specialist knowledge of what they do. Unfortunately, the current wording wording does not do that; "[Rotten Tomatoes] reports an approval rating of 24% and an average rating of 4.33/10" doesn't really explain what either of those scores mean. How about something along the lines of (but not necessarily exactly like), "As of May 15, 2019, 24% of 19 critics listed by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes had given the film a positive review, with an average score of 4.4/10. Similarly, Metacritic listed 3 reviews as negative and 1 as positive, scoring the film 25/100—reflecting a "generally unfavourable" consensus." Steve T • C 21:01, 15 May 2019 (UTC) EDIT: (Also, is it wise to list Metacritic yet? A sample size of 4 is usually considered too small isn't it?) Steve T • C 21:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)Reply
Thank you Steve for your comment. I don't think that deep explanation for both aggregators are necessary (even the featured/good articles don't use them) and I don't think your suggestion above doesn't change much from what is already written, but I think that if Metacritic approves 4 reviews for a metascore, then we should do it as well. Sebastian James what's the T? 22:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)Reply

The Silence (upcoming film) listed at Redirects for discussion

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An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect The Silence (upcoming film). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 13:39, 14 June 2019 (UTC)Reply