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Nomination of Spider-Man: Lotus for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Spider-Man: Lotus is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Spider-Man: Lotus until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Requested move at Talk:Temporaries#Requested move 28 August 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Temporaries#Requested move 28 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 11:33, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

All, this is a fairly interesting RM discussion. You're invited to review the discussion and weigh the policies and guidelines and related coverage. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 14:14, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

FILMCOUNTRY

There is a dispute at Talk:1917 (2019 film)#Nationality regarding the opening sentence of the lead. The infobox states that the film is an American-British co-production, but an editor claims that the lead should say British film per sources. Input is appreciated, thanks. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:28, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Ronald Reagan filmography

Template:Ronald Reagan filmography has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Mika1h (talk) 11:17, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Assistance with moving titles to new category

Category: Sundance Film Festival award-winning films was made to differentiate from Category: Sundance Film Festival award winners, which is supposed to be a list of persons only. There are still plenty of film titles in the latter category, so any help in moving these titles to the new category (and any titles not already listed) would be great. Spectrallights (talk) 02:57, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Time to rethink Rotten Tomatoes inclusion/centrality to film pages?

A recent article in Vulture describing both the manipulations of Rotten Tomatoes by film studies and the shifts in the review aggregation policies raises some serious questions about the site as a barometer of critical success. At the very least, the site that established itself widely on Wikipedia operates differently today and would have prompted very different conversations about its inclusion. Given how central these aggregators are to the "Critical Response" section of film wikipedia pages, is it time to rethink the idea that it is a reliable source? If so, what is an alternative? Infocidal (talk) 17:03, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

It's still widely used in reliable sources like Deadline Hollywood, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, etc. I don't think blacklisting Rotten Tomatoes is warranted based on a opinion piece by Vulture. Also, film articles include Metacritic. Mike Allen 17:53, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

@MikeAllen: That doesn't appear to be an opinion piece, it appears to be a feature piece of long form journalism. Can you offer some sort of explanation for this incongruence? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:38, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

It's more about how it's used than whether to use it. One possibility is to include RT scores in prose, but limit it to top critics and have a requirement for a minimum number of reviews (otherwise omit it from prose and just link to it in EL). I tend to agree with the Vulture piece that, effectively, there's too blurry a line between all of the critics they admit to RT and simply an audience score (for which there's already consensus that we should exclude). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:41, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this discredits Rotten Tomatoes as a whole. There are always entities trying to game the systems. Hopefully this will lead to scrutiny about critics' reviews. That said, we need to figure out who wrote the "Critical reception" section at Ophelia (2018 film) because the modus operandi appears similar. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:43, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

It's worth noting that Metacritic is based on mainstream critics, so it is a much smaller pool, perhaps up to 60-70 total (judging from the Barbie count). Plus Metacritic breaks down reviews as positive, mixed, or negative, which I think is more appropriate for encyclopedic articles than saying X positive and Y negative reviews. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:51, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I am no fan of aggregators, but part of the problem with omitting them is that they are pretty much all that is available in the weeks following release. My bugbear is when they are added to articles about older films and used an indicator of contemporary reception. This can be problematic when the critical reception has been revised over time e.g. Vertigo. Also, given the number of polls that Citizen Kane has topped, is its RT score really that helpful? I would be happy to see aggregator scores removed from film articles that pre-date the aggregator, because often they are not an indicator of contemporary reception. Betty Logan (talk) 19:33, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, I like the idea of removing the aggregator scores from articles that pre-date the aggregator, though I'll stop short of advocating for it without hearing additional viewpoints. DonIago (talk) 19:39, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

It wasn't really a proposal as such, and I don't want to detract from the issue being discussed which is very specific to Rotten Tomatoes. I was just making a very general point that the proliferation of aggregators scores across our articles has turned it into a bigger problem than it needs to be. Any survey that has a low number of participants is susceptible to manipulation. I don't think Metacritic is immune to those pressures either. We have discussed just using the "Top Critics" before, but apparently they vary from country to country i.e. the Top critic score will be different in the UK to what it is in the US. We could impose a minimum threshold for the number of votes, but we have conversely argued that the lower number of votes on Metacritic yields a superior metric to Rotten Tomatoes. I don't think there is a solution to voter manipulation that we could implement, the solution will have to come from the aggregators themselves, but I think we could limit the problem by using aggregators more judiciously. Betty Logan (talk) 19:53, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

My issues is a) editors single-mindedly add them to old films, as Betty Logan and Donlago describe, and b) editors single-mindedly try and use them as the barometer of critical consensus, quoting their critic consensus in full, essentially privileging an unbylined opinion above all else. None of this is even specified in FILM guidance, so I'd appreciate some caveats specifically added to dissuade this. Rotten Tomatoes being a little bit crooked wouldn't be so big a deal if we didn't have editors who wanted to write the reception articles of every single film ever the exact same, word for word, in their opening lines. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 20:08, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

This is exactly it. We over-rely on them and we elevate their standing within the articles. These metrics add an interesting perspective to newly released films when there isn't much else to go on, but ultimately they are just a perspective and not an arbiter of critical consensus. They aspire to be, but the different outcomes we get from Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes shows just how much impact the algorithm and the selection of reviews has on the final score and conclusions. And now now we have score tampering to add to that. We magnify the problem with our approach to these metrics. Betty Logan (talk) 20:18, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I see part of the problem being that editors want to make broad statements regarding a film's reception, which, to be verifiable, need to be based on a source of some kind, which then typically goes right back to the aggregators. It could be (and arguably already is) a challenge to make editors understand that making sweeping statements about a film's reception without a source that explicitly makes those statements is problematic. What we definitely don't want is such broad statements based solely on the reviews an individual editor finds versus what any source has said about the film's reception. DonIago (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I think it should either be downgraded or used very rarely. From my experience, people add it all the time as a shortcut rather than adding reviews from reputable reliable sources. It always seems like a bad way out, and I really detest it. Review bombing is a problem and the use of RT tends to act like that isn't an issue. Thanks for proposing this discussion. At minimum, I think there should be guidelines which limit its use. Historyday01 (talk) 21:27, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

This is something that I've complained about for a while. The difference between a professional critic review and a user review have become very blurry on Rotten Tomatoes. In some cases, a Tomatometer-approved review is just a user review that was posted on YouTube. It's still a useful metric, but it should be used with caution when there's a small sample size, and people should stop trying to use it as a barometer of critical opinion in unattributed wikivoice, like it's the word of God. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:07, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

We could add a threshold of a minimal amount of reviews required for inclusion. —El Millo (talk) 15:15, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

That isn't a bad idea. It is similar to my proposal that there be guidelines to limit the use of Rotten Tomatoes in articles. Historyday01 (talk) 19:40, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Like we did with CNET, I think we should wait at least a while to see how the situation progresses before deciding what to do. The exposé just came out today. At that time, WP:RSN should also be notified/consulted. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:52, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

• I think the article addresses a lot of what we already suspect about Rotten Tomatoes; the aggregator is not impervious to flaws in its rating system, and it is susceptible (to some extent) to manipulation. But despite its flaws, RT has taken steps to correct them and/or reduce their impact over the years. It's an entity that values providing what they feel is reliable data, even if there may be underlying issues with the way the rating is calculated and how it is interpreted and perceived by the general public. While we should continue to apply the appropriate weight to this metric on Wikipedia, I don't see it being abandoned anytime soon, and certainly not while it continues to receive significant coverage in reliable sources. Perfection is not a prerequisite or requirement to being relevant. --GoneIn60 (talk) 13:35, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
• Are we really in a situation where Rotten Tomatoes is central to our pages on movies? If so that raises competence questions as much as style/wiki ones, RT was never a high quality source... Ever. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:41, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  My understanding is that RT is a great first-stop for finding actual reviews of a film, and that our list of reviews cited may reflect them (less than ideal), but not that we present RT scores as particularly meaningful in themselves. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:44, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  That was my understanding of community practices, I don't think we've broadly made RT central to film pages. Sometimes they are meaningful, but in those cases we will have coverage of them in independent sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:05, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  It is one of several metrics cited, usually alongside MetaCritic and audience surveys from CinemaScore and PostTrak. No special attention is given, other than the fact they exist, though RT scores are typically listed first among them. Not sure I'd call that "central" to film articles, but its presence in critical reception sections is pretty consistent. --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:49, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Why are any of them due without a mention in an actual RS? Or is it that most of the time you can find them in the reliable coverage so people have gotten a bit complacent? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:05, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Likely, since it's not hard to find coverage, especially with tentpole films. An argument could be made that many smaller independent films receive less coverage, but I wouldn't doubt the coverage still exists to the level of warranting DUE. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 19:39, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Not sure if it is central, but it is cited a LOT. And surely it isn't a high-quality source. Historyday01 (talk) 19:42, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  A high-quality source isn't the bar for general inclusion; it's the bar for exceptional claims. And it shouldn't be a surprise that RT has a presence in film articles considering how often it is reported in reliable sources. --GoneIn60 (talk) 20:43, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

  Just a note that the bar for exceptional claims is *multiple* high-quality sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:27, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

• One other consideration that I think might be worth setting in stone alongside other issues with pre-wide release films is that if the RT score is only based on a few outlets, we might not want to include it, the same way we don't allow plot summaries until the film hits wide release. At the very least then Wikipedia isn't helping perpetuate the problem of skewing early reviews for buzz. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:03, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
  • That similar to something I said above, which I'll clarify in case it was misinterpreted: if Rotten Tomatoes has only like 15 reviews logged, then we shouldn't include it. We could start by setting the threshold at the same amount Rotten Tomatoes itself sets it for their Certified Fresh status, which is at 40 reviews for limited-release films and at 80 reviews for widely released films. Of course this should be applied in context, so mostly for contemporary films, as older films tend to have fewer reviews and RT is not considered as important for them. —El Millo (talk) 20:01, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
    • Per MOS:FILMCRITICS, we have cautionary language regarding review aggregators for older films. We can add similar language if the sample is too low. To avoid us coming up with some arbitrary cutoff, we could discourage RT until there is a critics' consensus published (which usually happens after 30 reviews or so, I think). I think this discussion is kind of all over the place, though. What exactly do we want to accomplish? Generally speaking, RT and MC are usually the "best" overview for most films. Certain famous films that have been studied closely could do without these, but many simply don't get that attention. Ideas from me include prioritizing Metacritic over Rotten Tomatoes, having the Rotten Tomatoes average score instead of the simplistic percent, deleting the cookie-cutter {{Rotten Tomatoes prose}} that prevents any nuanced approaches. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 23:21, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

      I like some of Erik’s ideas; in particular the very repetitive early citing of RT or MC in every film article together with their formulaic review summaries can become tiresome, often not actually adding much useful information to the article. Also regarding RT, including terms like “certified fresh” in articles ought IMHO to be a clear no-no; what this means is very familiar to film enthusiasts, but WP serves English speakers all around the world, and for a general reader coming to an article who has no idea what RT is, I don’t see that tomato-related jargon is helpful, clear or appropriate? Just saying “follow the link”, to understand something often given such weight so early in a lead or review section, simply isn’t good enough. Some editors like the aggregators because they offer an apparent shortcut to the hard work of editing - weighing up and balancing often conflicting sources (i.e. reviews) and an easy way to resolve disputes without really having to discuss them. But that’s just laziness, gives these sites undue weight, and can lose a lot of nuance from an article particularly if a controversial film with both very positive and very critical reviews merely gets summarised into some sort of middle-of-the-road averaged description. MapReader (talk) 04:33, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

  These are some good talking points worth further discussion, but it might be best continued in a separate thread. The primary focus here is how revelations exposed by Vulture impact the reliability and acceptance of RT data on Wikipedia. --GoneIn60 (talk) 15:39, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

• I continue to believe we shouldn't be arriving at a hasty conclusion after one article "exposing" a source that has hitherto been widely held as reliable. It's too soon to make an informed decision. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:11, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

References

Requested move at Talk:The River Wild (1994 film)#Requested move 29 August 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:The River Wild (1994 film)#Requested move 29 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —usernamekiran (talk) 07:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Undue weight in opening sentences

I'd like to get other editors' thoughts on this. It seems to me that there is a consistent rigidity to many film articles' opening sentences, that they always name the director and the writer before any other contexts, which can be undue weight when other contexts are more appropriate, like with directors and writers who simply aren't household names or headline-makers. This rigidity is self-perpetuating because any attempt to change the opening is overridden with the claim that this approach is done everywhere (despite no guideline supporting that it has to be this way). I cover this in an essay here: User:Erik/Best practices#First sentences about films, identifying policies and guidelines that allow flexibility in how to "open" the given topic. Curious what editors' impressions are, as readers, and their interpretations of the policies and guidelines. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:14, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Funny thing is I was one of those you corrected many moons ago (not ringing a bell which article it was or how long ago). But ever since, I've taken the importance of other aspects into consideration when working on film leads, and remain open to other opinions when there is disagreement. Despite best efforts among veteran editors of the project, however, you still have the drive-bys that expect consistency and are oblivious to why things are ordered the way they are at a particular article. I don't think there's any guidance in the MOS that's black/white about doing things a certain way, so as always it would default to local consensus. However, giving something more prominence in the lead because it has more weight per WP:DUE is a strong argument to make in talk page discussions. --GoneIn60 (talk) 17:59, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I know you feel strongly about this, but I disagree. The first sentence of the lead should logically identify the principal author of the work, which in most cases (though not always) is the director. If another element is as important as the director, they can both be in the first sentence. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:07, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

The assumption that the director is essentially the film's author is auteur-based and is wrong to apply universally. The more auteur the director, the more likely they will be household names and be in the headlines. Nobody's arguing to take Spielberg's name out of the opening sentences. But there is a whole world of films where auteurship is much less of a thing. A lot of franchise films are far more noteworthy for the underlying franchise, yet there are articles where the opening sentence unduly prioritizes the director. I don't really understand the resistance to following how reliable sources cover a film. The context does vary by film, and Wikipedia's presentation to reflect that. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:35, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't oppose naming the franchise in the first sentence of franchise films, but I oppose removing the director (or equivalent) at the same time. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:46, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Another thing we should consider for franchise films is repetitiveness. Does the sentence Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a 2015 film in the Star Wars franchise or King Kong is a 2005 film featuring King Kong sound right to you? In these cases, the lead would flow better if the franchise was named in the second sentence or later. InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:15, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Can you please explain why you think this? I had long assumed the director should be upfront, but my thinking changed when I learned that prominent placement of text can indicate undue weight. My essay quotes the reasons from policies and guidelines to be flexible with noteworthy contexts for films. Are there any policies or guidelines that support the near-universality of naming the director in every film article's opening sentence? As for your examples, these sound like they fit the policies/guidelines I highlighted, to define the topic (though I'd polish the wording). For movie buffs like us, we can be very knowledgeable that such definitions seem too obvious. But imagine someone who has never seen either film, they could come to the article and start learning. If the director is not famous, then the film doesn't really get defined until a sentence or two later. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 23:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Undue weight is about opinions and viewpoints, not this. I don't know if there is a guideline that explicitly states the author of a work must be in the first sentence, but this — to me, at least — is common sense and good writing. After all, books and artwork have traditionally been identified by author for centuries, and that is how we open virtually every article about a book of artwork. MOS:FIRST also permits spread[ing] the relevant information out over the entire lead, so there isn't a hard rule to put the "most" notable element of something in the first sentence anyway. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:11, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

The point of contention is about identifying the director of a film as equivalent to the author of a book, which IS a bit of an opinion in the context of film studies. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 14:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with this in principle. Obvious examples are franchise movies and star vehicles. One example that springs to mind is Goldfinger (film). The director is named in the opening paragraph, but it's not necessary to name him in the first sentence as directors are not part of the film's principle identity or authorship. Betty Logan (talk) 21:36, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I have to agree with Erik and Betty Logan here. Equating a film's director with a book's author is a generalization that just doesn't hold water. There are certainly cases where directors are essentially "guns for hire" for ongoing franchises, book adaptations, star vehicles, and so on. There are also (non-anthology) films with multiple directors for one reason or another, such as The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and more recently Justice League. TompaDompa (talk) 13:54, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Films like Justice League already don't follow standard wording, they follow the ridiculous MCU approach of naming every studio and distributor involved instead, which has even less merit than naming the director first.Darkwarriorblake (talk) 14:45, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

For the record, the current first sentence in the WP:LEAD of the Justice League article is Justice League is a 2017 American superhero film based on the DC Comics superhero team of the same name. I do agree that a list of production companies has no business appearing in the first sentence, but that isn't the case here and subsequent sentences is a separate issue from the one under discussion. Justice League was only intended as an example of a film where the director (or in this case, directors) is not the equivalent of a book's author . TompaDompa (talk) 15:01, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

What Darkwarriorblake is referring to is something like what is at Black Panther, "Black Panther is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the 18th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)." The first sentence is fine, though the second sentence violates WP:PROMO. It sounds like a friggin' press release, and this happens across many similar articles because of like-minded editors engaging in groupthink. It's weird that these editors want to give a shoutout to Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and also give the film's number in the series in absence of any context. Chadwick Boseman, the actor for the titular character, isn't even mentioned for about 40 words. There are much better ways to go about it. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:37, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I know that and agree with it, but how to write the first paragraph is really a different question than how to write the first sentence. I think we should stay on topic. TompaDompa (talk) 15:40, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

That's fair, though it's still interconnected. Like a very long first sentence could be broken up into two, depending on compound-sentence best practices. Talking about the first sentence as well as the rest of the first paragraph can take into consideration the overall goal of serving readers. Like can we discern the proper order of noteworthy elements from reliable sources (and put the topmost one in the opening sentence) or not? Or is it something in the spirit of primary topic and secondary topics where we identify the "primary topic" noteworthy context for the opening sentence, and the remaining contexts can be considered relativley interchangeable? Maybe the first-sentence outcome is the same either way, but it can segue into how we deal with runner-up noteworthy contexts. In essence, the first sentence can't really be discussed in pure isolation. Anyway, for something like Black Panther, considering the retrospective coverage, it seems to me that Chadwick Boseman could potentially be in the first sentence, because from what I can tell from coverage, he is indelibly tied to that titular role. But it's hard to at least propose that change if the preexisting assumptions are too rigid. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Ew. Superman (1978 film) doesn't even establish Christopher Reeve as Superman until about 95 words after the title. (I was trying to think of other "indelible" actor-character relationships, and this one came to point and proves the point of undue weight well.) Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:56, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

With all due respect, Erik, instead of trashing MCU article leads in a discussion that isn't about MCU article leads, it would seem more constructive if you raised your concerns at WT:MCU instead. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:19, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I already have. That's why I bring it up here, as something that hasn't been changed. They are very locked in with the promotional tone. It needs to be overridden by wider community consensus. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:59, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

• WP:WBA goes into depth about how to write better lead sections, which are typically written with an inverted pyramid structure, meaning the most important aspects and details about a topic are given first. WBA also states, "The first few sentences should mention the most notable features of the article's subject – the essential facts that every reader should know." So this would support moving less relevant details out of the opening sentence or opening paragraph, but despite the guidance, it's not an absolute requirement. It also doesn't mandate that the most important details be given in any particular order, just as long as they are front and center near the top. --GoneIn60 (talk) 15:17, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

  *It should be noted that WP:WBA is an explanatory essay, more relevant than a standard essay but not held to the same level as a policy or guideline. --GoneIn60 (talk) 15:25, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

RT reliability at RSN

Dropping a notice that a recent discussion was started at WP:RSN#Rotten Tomatoes revisited. Thanks. --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:01, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

We should centralize the discussion either here or there. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:08, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

True. I had glossed over that earlier, not realizing the same article was being discussed above. Oh well, the duplication may spark additional feedback from non-project members. --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

B-class checklist

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Proposal to change B-class checklist behaviour — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:58, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Comments appreciated at Kareena Kapoor

Comments are appreciated at this move request. Krimuk2.0 (talk) 09:07, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Looking for 1900 silent film: "Above the Speedway"

Above the Speedway is apparently a short silent film made by Frederick S. Armitage in 1900. All I've been able to find out about is a placeholder entry at Turner Classic Movies and an equally stubby IMDB entry. Any ideas on where I might find a copy of the film? It would make an outstanding addition to Fleetwood Park Racetrack (which I'm currently trying to push through as an FA). I drew a blank at https://www.loc.gov/film-and-videos. RoySmith (talk) 14:19, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Roy. If you search LOC for Frederick Armitage here, there seem to be other results labeled, "Contributor: Armitage, F. S. - American Mutoscope and Biograph Company - Paper Print Collection (Library of Congress)". Perhaps worth reaching out to one of these entities directly to see if the film can be made available? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:38, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Could also try contacting people and organizations that have papers mentioning the film since it sounds like they had/have access, like this and this. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:42, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I found the other LOC material, but didn't see anything for this film (I guess "drew a blank" was a poor way to describe that). I also emailed the research group at https://movingimage.us/; haven't heard anything back yet.

What's interesting is that I've since figured out that "the speedway" refers to Harlem River Speedway, which is nearby Fleetwood Park, but not the same. Oh well. Not a loss, however, that opened up a whole new fascinating historical rabbit hole to explore, which is after all what I love about Wikipedia. RoySmith (talk) 17:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

PR

Hey everyone, comments are appreciated at Wikipedia:Peer review/To Fly!/archive3. GeraldWL 08:46, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Mass move/translation of foreign-language titles to English.

Moved from Wikipedia:Teahouse § Translating foreign film/television titles to English

Hi there, I've recently noticed that User:Artemis Andromeda has been moving/translating numerous foreign-language television and film titles to English. Many of these are obscure, so it's not clear to me in what language they are more commonly known to English readers. The editor in question has been somewhat reticent on the subject, as can be seen here: Talk:07 Come In#Name change, so I thought I would try and find out whether these types of moves are approved/recommended, or if a stop should be put to the activity. Thanks! Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 03:56, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, it is indeed WP:COMMONNAME. The official name may be the same thing, but it is not necessarily. So, the assertion that the official name is automatically the best one is erroneous. It probably is the best name in many cases, but that doesn't make moving a great many articles automatically to those names a good idea? imo? ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 04:20, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ten, what do you suggest be done with this? Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 03:04, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia: Naming conventions (use English) Artemis Andromeda (talk) 15:20, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Also, WP:COMMONNAME. They're potentially competing, but MY general understanding of both conventions is that one is to use the most common name in English sources—which, as I stated above, is probably the English names but not automatically. The "use English" convention doesn't necessarily mean we translate every title into English. After all, we don't have the article at The Miserable Ones. Other examples are La Belle et la Bête (opera), Entre a Mi Mundo, Dil Se... My understanding is to use what the subject is called in English, which is sometimes a name that isn't in English. Personally, I'm confident the articles moved are most commonly known by the translated title in English sources, thus the move is appropriate, but the point I'm making is about more the Principle Of The Thing. I wouldn't move all of them back immediately but open quick sections on the talk pages to survey English sources for the most common name just for process reasons. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 16:16, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I would argue that Wikipedia: Naming conventions (use English) is entirely consistent with WP:COMMONNAME. WP:ENGLISH does not require that an article always uses an English-language version of the title, but rather the version that is most common in English-language sources. If sources stick with the non-English title, such as the case with Amour (2012 film) then so be it. Betty Logan (talk) 17:26, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

It is also my understanding. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 18:23, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Same. We go with the title that's actually seen in English-language sources. Foreign films often do have a different title in English than they do in their original language, but they don't always have a different title in English — the Canadian film Incendies, for example, never changed its title for English markets, and just stayed Incendies everywhere it screened. So we reflect what the sources are saying: we use an English-language title if that's what's reflected in English-language sources, but we leave it at the original title if the original title is what's reflected in English-language sources (and also if there are multiple titles seen in English-language sources so that there's a conflict over what is or isn't the "proper" English title). Bearcat (talk) 18:35, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Perfect, so now that we've established the point, I wonder, does there seem to be any incentive to review the moves performed by User:Artemis Andromeda? Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 21:09, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ten, @Betty Logan, @Bearcat? Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 02:53, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

To TIFF or not to TIFF

Bit of a situation that may require ongoing monitoring.

A few days ago, an editor tried to add an Indian-Bangladeshi film, Mujib: The Making of a Nation, to the Special Presentations lineup at 2023 Toronto International Film Festival — however, TIFF's own self-published calendar shows absolutely no trace of that film screening at TIFF at all. I searched for both the film's stated and "working" titles, and for the name of the director just in case it had a completely different title here, and there's just zip. I suppose there's a remote possibility that it was a late addition to Industry Selects, because those films aren't in that main calendar due to their "industry-only, no public ticket sales" status, but that's not promising because it isn't actually in the separate Industry Selects list either.

Meanwhile, there are Indian and Bangladeshi news sources claiming the film screened at TIFF, but absolutely none of the sources that covered any of TIFF's program lineup announcements in July and August name that film, or its director, as having been part of any program announcement either. (Not even the sources that covered Industry Selects, either.) These sources further claim that it screened at Lightbox 7, which is a pretty impressive trick given that the Lightbox only has 5 screens — you've gotta screen at the Scotiabank, not the Lightbox, if you want to get the word TIFF and the number 7 into the same sentence.

Realistically, my best theory at this point is that maybe some Indian or Bangladeshi film PR flack sent out a press release claiming that the film screened at TIFF as a publicity stunt, and some Indian/Bangladeshi media bit without verifying. At least, that's much likelier than TIFF screening a film while somehow completely forgetting to name it in any programming announcements or list it on the ticket-buyers calendar at all, and yet the film somehow sold out anyway, as the Indian-Bangladeshi sources claim. But I just can't find a shred of evidence that this was actually screened at TIFF at all, so the film's and the festival's articles may require monitoring to ensure that the claim doesn't get readded without better verification. Bearcat (talk) 17:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

There does appear to be something called a Cinema 7 at Lightbox, at least according to this page, but I'm not familiar enough with the venue to understand what that means specifically. And, really, that is not helping verify that this showed at TIFF. I AM incredibly baffled to find at The Business Standard: "The film will be screened at 6:30 PM (Canadian local time) at the Bell Lightbox Cinema 7, as per the High Commission of Canada to Bangladesh's post on X," which I can't find anything from that Commission's Twitter, but it DID lead me to a tweet from Khalilur Rahman—who is of the High Commission of Bangladesh to Canada? Which, just makes me really confused? ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 18:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Probably a market screening. Nardog (talk) 19:13, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay, there's definitely no regular Cinema 7 at the Lightbox, but upon investigation it looks like a couple of the much smaller 60 to 70 seat studio rooms get temporarily designated as "6" and "7" during the festival as extra venues for Industry Selects titles that only need to accommodate a few dozen people rather than several hundred, but never for public screenings of any official selection films (which I wouldn't have known since I'm not eligible to attend Industry Selects screenings.) So yeah, a private industry screening is still in the mix of possibilities here, but there's still the problem that we need a proper source — and the problem that even if a private industry screening does turn out to be the truth, private industry screenings don't even count as premieres anyway. Bearcat (talk) 19:18, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Expend4bles

Regarding Expend4bles, an editor has unilaterally moved it to The Expendables 4, and now there is an RM discussion to move it back. This seems inappropriate and flipped around; the editor should have started a RM discussion to make the move. There's no reason for it to be the other way around. Can an admin (or someone better with page-moving) undo this mess? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 14:32, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

FWIW Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests#Requests to revert undiscussed moves is thataway. Nardog (talk) 16:06, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I was trying to find that, but I overlooked it since it's not in the TOC. Not sure if it's too late since flipping the current RM discussion would make opposes and supports confusing. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:05, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Oppenheimer

Regarding Oppenheimer (film), there is an ongoing issue with the lead section and how it covers the overall critical reception. See discussion here: Talk:Oppenheimer (film)#Critical reception in lead section. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:38, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Can anyone help locate older French sources?

Today I made some changes to Queer Palm, a sidebar award at the Cannes Film Festival, both formatting changes to improve its readability and adding missing sourcing to improve its verifiability — however, I'm having trouble locating adequate sourcing for a couple of the very oldest years where archival sourcing might very well exist that just doesn't google anymore.

• 2011 - Cannot find any viable source to support the nominees that were listed in the article; the source they were originally added with back in 2015 is now an unrecoverable deadlink, which has left me entirely unable to verify that that year's nominee list is complete and fully accurate.
• 2012 - While a source was already present in the article to support this year's nominees, it isn't ideal, as it only names six of them rather than all of them. And it's not a case of "there were actually only six nominees and the rest were made up by wikigoofballs", because its headline says there are 17 films in the Queer Palm competition before proceeding to name only six of them, and one of the films it fails to name was the fully verifiable winner (and thus was obviously in competition). And despite that source's headline saying 17 films, even our article only lists 11, so there might even be some nominees still missing.
• 2010 - Our article does not list any nominees at all this year. Given that this was the first year that the award was presented, it's possible that there just wasn't a list of nominees released at all prior to the winner announcement, but it's also possible that there was and we just missed it.

(The source for 2013's nominees is also not ideal, as it's a blog rather than real media, but unlike the 2012 source it fully matches the nominees that were sourced to it — so it could also stand to be replaced if possible, but isn't as much of an issue as the other three.)

The interlangs weren't much help, either: they all either don't list nominees at all, do list nominees but don't cite any sources for them, or list nominees sourced only to IMDb (which is not a reliable source).

So I wanted to ask if there's a project member with better access to archived French media coverage than I've got, who can do a quick search to see if they can locate improved sourcing for the nominees in those years. This only pertains to the nominees, as the winners in all three of those years have been fully sourceable. Bearcat (talk) 23:33, 27 September 2023 (UTC)