Talk:List of films about the American Revolution

complaints

We have an anonymous editor who specializes in deletions--he rarely adds new information or citations. Instead he invents artificial negative criteria not supported anywhere in Wikipedia-- such as "Removing extraneous plug for a historian's book." -- Wiki depends on published historical books and articles and Wiki rules call for in-line attribution of authorship when we paraphrase findings. The article deals with a dozen of the key films on the American Revolution, 1939-2002. It compares the strengths and weaknesses of fictional Hollywood films and professional scholarship. That is exactly what readers want to know about. It is not "extraneous" and is not a "plug". Ridiculing historians and their publications based on ignorance is very poor quality editing in my opinion as an historian. In this article the associate professor (PhD Princeton) summarizes not only the films but the critical analysis by numerous leading scholars and journals of film and history--(including Tomy Barta, Ron Briley, Mark C. Carnes, Natalie Zemon Davis, Thomas Fleming, David Herlihy, John E O'Connor, Robert A. Rosenstone, and Robert Brent Toplin.) the Wiki rule is "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects." The 65 scholarly citations of this article clearly deal with more widely held views or widely supported aspects. The 35-page footnoted paper was vetted by seven named scholars and several anonymous experts selected by the journal. --it is a review and synthesis of the scholarly literature and gains weight from all that scholarship. Academic scholarship is a community enterprise that depends on pulling together the best ideas of the active community of scholars --it not a lone-wolf game of the sort that produces off-beat items that can have "undue weight". Rjensen (talk) 09:50, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi. Yes, I'm anonymous like 99% of users, and there is nothing wrong with that. But thanks for bashing my contributions to Wikipedia. What bugs me about the aforementioned edits is that they don't add any new information aside from a vague description of her scholarly article. It's great that her article is in the Further Reading section, but why put it in the lede if there is no actual content — what are her findings? What is her viewpoint? Also, it reads like it's introducing the following list, but this list isn't the twelve films she wrote about, so I think that could be confusing to readers. Anyway, if it makes sense to other editors then great, I just find it bizarre (which it why it comes off to me like a plug even if that's not how it's intended). Thanks and happy 2018! — Henry chianski (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

she provided the conceptual framework for comparing fiction & actual history in historical films, showing how numerous established scholars have approached this problem. I think it's a must read for anyone who wants to study historical films (it's not needed for folks who just want to sit back and enjoy the show.) Her 12 films are all on the list so it's highly relevant. You never read her work and you mischaracterized it badly as UNDUE, when it is just the opposite. Scholars summarize the state of research --that's very useful indeed for encyclopedia editors! Ridiculing editors (me) for including scholarship as a "plug" is petty harassment. Ridiculing scholars =- belittling the RS on whom Wikipedia history articles depend. The solution is to be more respectful of the community of scholars who provide the material for Wiki editors to summarize. Rjensen (talk) 03:22, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Nice edits, although...

...removing the masterpiece Liberty's Kids ruins the effect (I haven't checked what else was removed). Can you please go back and see if anything else was taken out which should be included, thanks. Aside from this example and missing items the page looks very good, nice work Unknown4321unknown. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:07, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

and would have been nice if the title was in the first section after the year and not the country of production. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:31, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@ 5.125.140.87 (talk) 13:48, 27 September 2023 (UTC)