Talk:The Tashkent Files

User-reviews

We don't provide user-reviews from random sites, for they are heavily manipulable. See WP:USERGENERATED which states:- Although review aggregator sites such as Rotten Tomatoes are used across the site, audience ratings based on the reviews of site members from the public are not. Accordingly, reverted. ∯WBG^converse 14:15, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The Shawshank Redemption mentions it being in the peak of IMDB list; since the occassion was covered by other independent reliable secondary sources. If Vivek manage to render some masterpiece, (drifting apart from these piss pathetic political hit-jobs) and make it to the IMDB top 200, he too will be covered by enough media-units to incorporate that achievement. But, with this film, that chance has evaporated. ∯WBG^converse 14:45, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

IMDb ratings are used everywhere. It's standard practice to check the IMDb rating. But you seem to have a problem with all of these. Perhaps that why you deleted IMDb rating too. GUNJAN037 (talk) 15:39, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't have a problem; our guidelines, which have the consensus of the community, have a problem. Feel free to propose changes to those guidelines, if you are confident enough. And, finally, if you continue with this unnecessary straw-man personalization of the dispute, you will get blocked. ∯WBG^converse 15:43, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Paraphrasing

Our rules on copyright and close-paraphrasing are religiously followed and thus such a long quote ain't permitted. Summarize the review, in a few words and mention it. You might have seen that, not a single review has been afforded such a long quote and the longest quote is about a line. Accordingly, reverted.∯WBG^converse 14:20, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

CineBlitz

fails WP:RS courtesy a near-blank About Us page which mentions precise nothing about editorial policy, contributors et al. Seems like a gossip-zine. Also, neither the reviewer is a famed critic to be worthy of a mention per WP:SPS. Accordingly, reverted. ∯WBG^converse 14:26, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

As if film companion has very famed critics. That is also a newly started channel. If they can be given a place then why not CineBlitz GUNJAN037 (talk) 16:56, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Desai is a Rotten Tomatoes approved critic and had worked for The Hindu and Mumbai Mirror in the past. He passes WP:SPS very easily. ∯WBG^converse 17:47, 22 April

Okay, thanks. So, a reviewer/critic should be approved by Rotten Tomatoes otherwise his reviews can't be included. Is that the point? GUNJAN037 (talk) 06:26, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

He/She either needs to review for a publication that passes the strict standards of WP:RS or needs to be a well-established critic. Being a RT-approved critic is one indicator of being well-established. There might be other parameters, apart from that. ∯WBG^converse 07:26, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

OpIndia.com

is unreliable per this RSN thread. If you wish to change the existing consensus, (participated by numerous INB-pedians), feel free to start a new thread but that consensus exists unless you get it vacated. Best, ∯WBG^converse 15:12, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, mainstream critics is a misnomer. If I run a blog from tomorrow and start reviewing movies, I don't become a film critic. ∯WBG^converse 15:16, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Additionally, almost each and every of Jim's mainstream critic (and even foreign critics) mentioned that the motivations of the film were extremely dubious (an underhanded reference) or straightway deemed the film to be a politically motivated propaganda.

Not mentioning the sole common locus of all prominent critics is in contravention of WP:FALSEBALANCE. Another acronym, huh. ∯WBG^converse 15:19, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

You are welcome to run a blog and to do a movie review. That how things start from small towards big. But if small enterprises are not allowed to grow just because they are new and are not as popular as big ones then will never grow. Everything starts from small and builds slowly but you are only comparing based on popularity and how big firm is. This is really bad. Also, you don't appreciate different views because you keep on deleting others view that doesn't satisfy you. That is why you deleted mine and gave vague reasoning for your doings. By the way, OpIndia is really doing well.GUNJAN037 (talk) 15:49, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Let them grow big and gain a respectable status, we will surely deem them to be reliable enough to serve as an encyclopedic reference. Read WP:NEWSORG for more understanding of the issue.

I can't care less about how a fake news peddler does in the market. And, if you continue with your continued personal attacks, I will ask for sanctions. ∯WBG^converse 15:55, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I am not attacking you. I am just mentioning the facts. I am new to this. I just contributed to a few science articles and there nobody deleted my writing. But here even with proper references, it is been deleted. GUNJAN037 (talk) 16:53, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The more are the eyes, the more scrutiny you will incur. If you read and follow our policies, no-body will delete your writing. ∯WBG^converse 17:43, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Seriously, I do not see GUNJAN037 attacking you, but you are definitely trying to bully him instead of having an impersonal discussion. --Jaydayal (talk) 05:45, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

NPOV

I am opening this thread as a way to discuss and reach a consensus about the article's overwhelmingly non-proportional way of writing. As per the common Bold, revert and discuss cycle, I rewrote the Lead section of the article to conform it with WP:MOS/LEAD, according to WP:BEGIN, "The first paragraph should define or identify the topic with a neutral point of view" which it does not as of now. And as already mentioned it does not involve all the balancing aspects of the subject. Now, the next issue raised was about Opindia.com not being a RS. Now I don't see this thread on RS has a very clear consensus, I will open the dispute resolution again. But meanwhile I will use this as a reference to back up the fact that "it was positively received by audience".

almost each and every of Jim's mainstream critic (and even foreign critics) mentioned that the motivations of the film were extremely dubious, now since we are discussing about the review (or opinions) of critics we cannot take it as a fact and write "and widely deemed as politically motivated in light of the concurrent 2019 general elections." in the lead of the article as per the first principle of WP:WIKIVOICE, we have to rephrase the sentence such that it includes public reception in the lead (source available).

Now, the "mainstream critic" is a very self explanatory word to define critics that are reviewing films from a mainstream media outlet when the response from public is different from the mainstream media outlets, I don't see how it is a "misnomer".

Again, false balance does not work in this case because it is not an established fact but an opinion that the movie is bad or good, so I would suggest removal of the word "grossly". It depends on the perspective of the person observing it, so I don't believe WP:FALSEBALANCE is effective. Thanks and excuse the jargons. Jim Carter 16:34, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Deem is defined as regard or consider in a specified way. I am not writing that the movie is politically motivated but rather that it has been considered to be politically motivated.

Shawshank Redemption, a featured article states in the lead:--While The Shawshank Redemption received positive reviews on its release, particularly for its story and the performances of Robbins and Freeman, it was a box office disappointment, earning only $16 million during its initial theatrical run. Note that it does not even mention the word critics anywhere; much less mainstream critics, (which by the way, seems to be straight-away copied from Vivek's Twitter-timeline). And, that FA is not some exception; that's how we do things, always. See Suicide Squad (film), Sex and the City (film) for exactly similar situations.

The lead needs to include the film's box office collection and once, the figure becomes stable, I will (obviously) incorporate that, which will also serve as an indicator of public-reception. I don't see that we have much of any additional information, to add.

TOI's entertainment coverage is spam, mostly paid for and we don't use it in making such significant claims. (As GSS might remember, we have seen live-examples of pay-for-articles cropping up during AfDs on actresses) FWIW, The film received positive reviews from both the audience and the critics alike is blatant rubbish and only proves my point. Even, an article from ZeeNews (which has a blatant conflict-of-interest) writes:-The movie has received a mixed response from the audiences and critics alike.

You are free to open another discussion over RSN and once it gets over, we will rejudge Op-India's status. Still, I ask you to not waste time. (A right wing propaganda machine that has not been relied upon as a fact checker by a single organisation of repute. Instead got branded by BBC as a fake-news purveyor (Pg. 87 and 88). Responded by noting that BBC is left-leaning shit. Sought for certification by IFCN, which declined and nailed the points in it's rejection letter. Obviously, [https://www.opindia.com/2019/03/opindia-response-to-ifcn-international-fact-checking-networks-rejection-of-its-application-for-accreditation/ IFCN was a left-leaning organisation]. Altnews, which is increasingly and frequently relied upon as a fact-checking source by numerous foreign media of repute has published bunches of stories exposing them. It is my sincere opinion, that anybody who despite being enough aware of the Indian-news eco-system, deems them to be a RS ought not come within a bargepole or so of encyclopedic editing.)

Grossly can be replaced by mostly. Agree. ∯WBG^converse 16:58, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi Winged, can you give some direct reasoning here instead of simply reverting and digging up my past edits. Not that I disapprove of it but it is a weird way to respond in a content dispute. I am sure you have no regard for BRD, yet I ask once. Thank you. --Jaydayal (talk) 01:41, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding "Politically motivated" in lead

Why are you concerned about critics featured over RT (per your edit-sum); because it's the citation that follows? FWIW, lead does not need any sourcing. Even if I grant that error, you seem to have an apparent inability to read (or understand) sources. Let me clear that out by quoting the relevant lines:--

...It should be stated that the film looks biased against a certain political party. Given the fact that elections are at hand, the film ideally should have been released post the voting...
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That propaganda is the flavour of the season is a given....Their bickering accounts for more than half the film; it’s like watching Twitter bots come to life on election day.....This is when it becomes apparent that the rest were merely background noise meant to amplify the only thing the director wanted us to hear all along: Congress sucks.
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.....Agnihotri’s film, which appears to have completely bypassed the attentions of the Election Commission of India, makes vague claims about the alleged conspirators before closing in on its intended target: the Congress party and its leader, Indira Gandhi. It won’t be a spoiler to say that for Agnihotri, the real villains of the story are Gandhi....This will guarantee a renewed interest in such publications as Bharatiya Janata Party ideologue KR Malkani’s Political Mysteries.....The observation can, of course, also holds true for the 144-minute movie, whose targets are far-reaching – the Congress party, that reliable punching bag called “Lutyen’s Delhi”,.......the biliousness of his selective targeting robs The Tashkent Files of its attempt to being an effective conspiracy thriller.
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In the end, it places the only card that it is genuinely interested in on the table - its love for a 'strong' leader who can inflict military defeat on Pakistan. You don't have to be a genius to figure out the 'philosophy' The Tashkent Files is driving at......All it manages to put together is a painfully overlong, abysmally ham-fisted filmed political pamphlet......interested more in slandering Shastri's successor.....The point that they are trying to make is that in the untimely death of Lal Bahadur Shastri India lost a strong 'nationalist' leader.....is aimed at propagating the theory that the Congress leader was eliminated by inimical forces out to - and allowed to - overrun India.....
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Ironically, The Tashkent Files is most insightful when it does not intend to be. One character asks another what he achieved by raking up Shastri's death. The answer? "Agle Lok Sabha chunaav ke liye ek zabardast mudda." (A great issue for the next Parliamentary elections)
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.....The filmmaker uses this opportunity to take down left, secular and socialist ideologies and institutions, in a fashion that is unintentionally comical. It’s quite amusing how the film appropriates terms like “anti-national”, “presstitutes” and “fake news”, which have famously been the armour of the current regime and its followers.....Releasing during election time, if one were concerned about the film being propaganda, you need not worry too much. With no conviction and utter confusion, the film is evidently more drama than reality. But the concern here is one of possibility: what if this was a potent, well-crafted propaganda film that released a day after India went to polls, slipping under the Election Commission radar?
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.... it quite evidently aims to open a can of worms during election season.....The Tashkent Files in an inept bid to make a case for state-sponsored murder (under Congress rule) lets the golden opportunity slip away......
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More than 50 years after his death, a film following this premise releases right at the onset of the Lok Sabha Elections, far from the scrutiny of the Election Commission. Director Vivek Agnihotri’s purpose behind The Tashkent Files is as clear as day, but he spends 144 minutes trying to beat around the bush, appearing to examine varied points of view, lest someone calls this a partisan narrative. But, thanks to the shrieking tone of the film and needlessly dramatic performances, it’s easy to see through the director’s design......Had this film not piggy-packed on India’s most important election in history and contained its frenzied storytelling, its arguments perhaps would have held water.....
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We don’t really have to wait for the big reveal to see the purpose of the film : to tell us how the country was `up for sale in the 60s and 70s’, how ‘socialism’ ruined it, how the KGB had infiltrated it thoroughly, how bags of cash were delivered to ‘her’ and ‘her’ minions in ‘Lutyens’ Delhi’: similar lines fly thick and fast.
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....Setting aside the filmmaker’s ideologies and beliefs, the film in itself is a mish-mash of unformed characters and incomplete plotlines, which lead you to wonder why the filmmakers did such a shoddy job. But then again, that would be another conspiracy theory that nobody wants to solve.....
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The Tashkent Files is a propaganda film primarily and makes no bones to hide the fact......the choicest of shots are saved for the Congress and Indira Gandhi......Emergency is alluded to repeatedly and claims made by KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin about the agency paying bribes to an unnamed senior leader and her cohorts run as a scroll. The director claims India was colonised again in the 70s and it would have never happened if Shastri was still at the helm. While Indira Gandhi is never mentioned by name, the references are too blunt to be ignored. Political propaganda is not the worst of its sins, alas......
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XYZ
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....Agnihotri, who has been known more for his divisive political views than his substandard craft....The Congress, the Left, liberals, journalists and even historians are all villainous, exemplified through incidents in the films rather than as obvious characters.....Perhaps Agnihotri has forgotten that the Congress has not been in power at the Centre for five years....
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5 of the 6 RT-approved critics are in the above list.

I hate incompetency in basic areas and if you persist in edit-warring, I will ask your editing privileges to be restricted or revoked. ∯WBG^converse 14:54, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

You are so incompetent in basic human interaction that I won't even bother to respond to you further. Live in your hate-filled life. --Jaydayal (talk) 04:35, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

That's so cute to hear. ∯WBG^converse 08:26, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 May 2019

Please correct the spelling of Anuya Chauahan Kudecha to Anuya Chauhan Kudecha 123.252.230.149 (talk) 07:05, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

 Done Tolly4bolly 09:33, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 June 2019

Please link actor "Ankur Rathee" to his appropriate Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankur_Rathee Filmtvmonkey (talk) 11:54, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

 Done Tolly4bolly 11:58, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 March 2022

Change "Mostly negative reviews" to "mixed" reviews. IMDB ratings of the movie are sitting at 8.7/10 stars, a far cry from the purported "mostly negative reviews" listed in this page's article.

Here is the source. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8108268/ Ariazaia123 (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: See Wikipedia:IMDB and WP:USERG. Note that "reviews" are reviews from typically professional critics. Cannolis (talk) 18:26, 19 March 2022 (UTC)