Talk:Film Sack

Episode list

There is an episode list of discussions about a movie or television show per episode. The list is getting longer, especially with numbers of episodes growing over to one hundred. Is episode list necessary or unnecessary? --George Ho (talk) 06:18, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

• You can split the episode list into its own article, using WP:SPLIT and WP:SS as a guide. However, you may run into issues of notability. Neither this article nor the episode list seem very notable to me. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 14:37, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
• I'd say go ahead and split based on length considerations. I can't think of a case where a notable serial work wouldn't have a standalone episode list on notability grounds. It may still be inappropriate for a standalone episode list if, say, there just weren't that many episodes. But it can depend on the situation. We have a List of Freaks and Geeks episodes, for example. Be bold, and the episode list can be merged back in if it comes to that. --BDD (talk) 18:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

What's the justification for including the cast list and director for each film being discussed? Surely these should be removed, unless of course they appear in the episode. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

My two cents, for what it's worth:

• I agree with BDD to keep the article and episode information in WP.
• And I agree with putting the episode information, including stars and directors, in it's own article. The star and director information is interesting for context and to figure out what episodes might be of most interest.--CaroleHenson (talk) 17:16, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

• The directors and actors are topics discussed in the episodes, and sound clips are played of their performances. If it's absolutely necessary, limiting those listed to just those mentioned might be sensible - but in my listening so far, all listed are mentioned/discussed/played. IMHO the article's measured prose size (excluding wikitext) is not really near the size mandating splitting. --Lexein (talk) 18:05, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Episode list format

As it stands at the moment, it looks like the episodes are directed by the person in question, and that the actors are starring in the episodes. This should be changed to plain text in the summary section and their involvement explained. "Featuring soundbites by..." or something. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Or maybe something like this: --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

No.	Title	Podcast Air Date
01	"The one about Krull"	October 30, 2009
Film discussed: Krull (Marc Daniels, 1983) Featured actors: Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones

I can see bad and good features of the above: visually, it doesn't use the cells well, but semantically, it does separate the episode from the film/director/actors under discussion. How about this:

ALT 1

No.	Title	Podcast Air Date	Featured Film/Director
01	"The one about Krull"	October 30, 2009	Krull (Marc Daniels, 1983)
Featured actors: Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones

Or, better, IMHO:

ALT 2

No.	Title	Podcast Air Date	Featured Film/Director/Actors
01	"The one about Krull"	October 30, 2009	Krull (Marc Daniels, 1983); Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones

ALT 3

No.	Title	Podcast Air Date	Featured Director; Actors
01	"The one about Krull"	October 30, 2009	Marc Daniels; Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones

--Lexein (talk) 11:17, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, any of them will do to take away the ambiguity regarding the "director" field. Although clarification as to what "featured actors" means (were they interviewed, or just sound clips, etc) might be useful. Although now I can see a potential WP:OR issue. Hmm. We shouldn't just be listing them purely because they acted in the film - that's what the film articles are for. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Luckily, so far, all the stars end up being mentioned or played&mentioned in the many episodes I've auditioned. --Lexein (talk) 14:40, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I've reformatted Film Sack#2009 as ALT 3, which duplicates nothing. How to force Aux4 column cells styled text-align:left; ? --Lexein (talk) 22:46, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

That looks really nice, Lexein! I've had a problem formatting just a column of values, but I'll play around with it. If I cannot figure it out, what would you link of having the entire talbe left justified?--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:55, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

That would be fine: the date column should be left-aligned anyways. Em-sized would help there, I think. --Lexein (talk) 23:01, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I just barged ahead and did the easy stuff which goes far to reduce confusion, first: changed all "DirectedBy" to "Aux4" and retitled Film Director. Also retitled "starring" to "Featured actors" for the time being. --Lexein (talk) 23:30, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I've been tinkering with everything I knew and it wasn't working. I'm online right now with #wikpedia-en-help... will be back.--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:45, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Ross Hill at the online help was able to work it out straight away. It is done on the cell basis by setting "|Aux4= <div style="text-align:left">" and then after the end of the actor's names add "</div>".--CaroleHenson (talk) 23:59, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I saw that. 1) In these 3 edits [1] [2] [3] I fixed column widths for consistent column widths while scrolling down. 2) So after all that, in my opinion, for least work, we should just let it all soak for a while, while I (we) sort out what is meant by the actor list: 2011: all discussed or not? "Appearance" really means "sound bite", I know that. But some of those loooong actor lists: I suspect many of those aren't mentioned or discussed. 3) Plus, they'll force linebreaks Alt 3. 4) And another question, after adding div blocks, is this any easier than just raw table editing? (try not to break your keyboards typing your angry responses). --Lexein (talk) 00:14, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

1 and 4. Yep, the widths look good, and you're right - whenever you can set formatting at the top of the table, either to apply to the entire table or a specific field, it's a good thing. Regarding the left justification, I could not get the "align=" or "style=" left parameters to get to work for the entire table or the last column. So, I think that it's got to be at the cell level. I was able to insert the

entries, though, by doing a find and replace for |Aux= to get the first part - and then drop in the

at the end of the actor names. I know it's clumsy, but that seems to be the best we can do at the moment.

2 and 3 Actor list 2011 - Hmmm, good question. Some options could be:

• Focus on featured actors
• Change the table format to have a column for featured actors and those appearing in the podcast and have the names wrap in the column cells.
• Other?

I personally don't have a preference... and it sounds like you're in the industry. What do you think would be best.--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:04, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

@CaroleHenson:@Robsinden: Ok, I updated the Krull entry while listening to the podcast. The featured list unexpectedly got longer. What do y'all think of the 2009 table style now? --Lexein (talk) 15:10, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it looks fine. I, personally, never had a problem calling out the director (e.g., own column, other). The heading above the last column says director and actor... how do we know which is which?--CaroleHenson (talk) 17:34, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I thought director-semicolon-actors would be enough. Perhaps not. --Lexein (talk) 14:57, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Here's a couple of options to think about: 1) break director and actors into their own columns or 2) in the one column: Director: << name >>: Actors: <<names>>.

Do either of those sound good?--CaroleHenson (talk) 16:52, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for splitting! The (1) option is like 2011, which will drag divs into Aux2 for left-margin neatness, so I'm not really liking it. The (2) option adds repetitive extra text - meh. Next, the problems with 2011 are a) the splitting of "Featured actors" from those who have sound clips - they're all featured, really, b) missing ShortSummary lines screw up the 2-line look. I'm willing to go with the consistent two-line look overall, for the least extra work and best overall uniformity. So I boldly made 2009 look mostly like 2010 to get rid of divs and give maximum space to the featured actor list, changing to "Sound clips:", and putting on the same line with the featured actors. It's an easy revert if you don't like it. Shall I convert 2010 and 2011 to the 'new' 2009 format ? --Lexein (talk) 00:20, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Splitting episodes into own page

When I had just started writing and editing articles someone gave me some great insight into page length: where possible it's best to keep articles concise and not require numerous page-downs to get through the page. Many readers get turned off by large pages and will leave. That's what I was told anyway.

The article is long enough in a couple of ways to warrant splitting in two: 1) it has more than 50,000 bytes and 2) it takes many page-downs to navigate through the page.

Any votes one way or the other from other editors, though?--CaroleHenson (talk) 08:14, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Since we have agreement between several editors about the length of this article, are we in WP:Consensus about splitting this into two articles?

If so, I'm happy to do the split.--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:10, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I initially opposed splitting, and I'm still apprehensive about it, but what the hey, go for it. --Lexein (talk) 15:13, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Ok,  Done.--CaroleHenson (talk) 17:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

It even looks better on its own page, without all that messy prose - a nice surprise. --Lexein (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Timeline

If anyone wonders, this article had been PRODed for notability, unanswered, then deleted. I requested userfication, and plopped the award and reviews in. After approval from GiantSnowman (who had deleted it) I moved it back to mainspace. --Lexein (talk) 18:21, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Links about the show

• "Good Podcasts Guide To…Podcast Awards 2013". Good Podcasts blog. Recommends Film Sack over 9 others. Not N or RS as of 2013. Anonymous WP:SPS, not cited by others yet.

--Lexein (talk) 04:41, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

BLAR

I've WP:BLARed the List of Film Sack episodes because I don't think it passes WP:NLIST. If you disagree with my assessment feel free to revert my edit. TipsyElephant (talk) 16:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)