Steglev

List of Academy Award-winning films

To: User talk:Steglev

From: User talk:Joseph A. Spadaro

Hello. I noticed that you have done a ton of work on the above-named article. Great job! You have done a lot of great work in this article. Thank you! I also noticed that you added a few questions and comments to the article's Talk Page. Your main concerns there seem to be whether or not to include Special and Honorary Academy Awards and, if so, how to include them in the article / list. I just wanted to let you know that I am actually in the process of revamping this article completely. By revamping, I should really say "reformatting" it. What I am doing is taking all of that same information --- but I am formatting it into a Chart / Table design layout. Within the Chart, I have included a column for "Special and Honorary Academy Awards". If you have a moment, can you please take a look at my new, reformatted Chart for this Wikipedia article? It is located here ---> User:Joseph A. Spadaro/Sandbox/Page34. Thank you. Please remember that this is one of my current projects and, thus, it is a work in progress. It is nowhere near being complete. Please let me know what you think of my new format and if you have any comments, suggestions, feedback, input, criticisms, ideas, etc. I'd really like to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to reply at my Talk Page ---> User talk:Joseph A. Spadaro. Thanks in advance for your feedback ... and thanks again for all of your efforts in improving this article! Thank you. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 13:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC))

Thanks! And the sandbox looks really good! Couple of notes... if you don't have the Alternate name (or even if you do), there probably should be some consistency deciding which title to use. The ones I posted were the ones that the official acadamy page listed, which were different than, say, imdb. Good idea on including which awards ceremony, too! The year, i assume, is the year of release? And finally, do you only have winners because the size of the list? I have a pretty complete list of all nominees, I think. Either way, if you would like, I can programatically use my db/lists to create the a starting point in your format that you can cut and paste into the wiki edit box. That's how i was able to add my changes so quickly, and it actually took longer because I inserted only what was missing instead. Let me know if I can help! Steglev (talk) 00:45, 25 August 2008 (UTC) I did think of one more source of confusion. Some nominations are "not official", so it is unclear whether or not these are included. For instance, I noticed you changed the Wizard of Oz from 5 to 6 nominations. One of those was an unofficial nomination, and whoever put it there in the first place may have been unsure if it should be included Steglev (talk) 16:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello again. Sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you. Thanks for your messages and for your feedback … much appreciated. Thank you. Let me offer the following thoughts, comments, and questions in reply to your messages.

1. My Sandbox – Do you have any other suggestions regarding the new format that I am working on for the List of Academy Award-winning films page? Anything in particular that you like? Dislike? Please feel free to let me know. Thanks. As a reminder, the link to my work in progress (my sandbox) on this article is here: User:Joseph A. Spadaro/Sandbox/Page34.

2. Alternate names and "aka" names of films – I agree with what you say. There needs to be some consistency. And I agree that we should probably stick with whatever the Academy "officially" calls a film. As I was doing some work, however, I realized that a LOT of films have alternative titles and "aka" titles. A great majority of films have these alternative titles that a lot of people probably don't even know about. For example, even Ben Hur has an "aka" of Ben Hur: The Story of Jesus Christ or something to that effect. I was actually thinking of this. Since there are so many films that have an "aka" --- and since we want to be consistent throughout the entire article --- perhaps we should leave out the "aka" information altogether? And, people can simply see the "aka" when they read the film's main page. I don't know – what do you think? Of course, that still leaves the problem ... what if a reader only "knows" / recognizes the film by one "aka" name and not the other? Then, the reader would never know the title to look under, right? What are your thoughts on the whole "aka" issue? As I said, as I was editing entries, I was somewhat shocked by how common and prevalent "aka" titles are ... and I would like to see them all handled consistently throughout the article.

3. The Year Column – this indicates the "year in film" which the particular Award ceremony is honoring. And, in 99.9% of cases, yes – that is the year of the film's release. There are some minor odd-ball exceptions that occur here and there. And foreign films tend to have different years of release in their own country than they might have in the USA --- and the latter dictates which Academy Award "year" the film becomes eligible for. (A lot of foreign films seem to be "off" by a year.) But, for 99.9% of films, the year of release is the same as the year in film being honored by the Academy ... and that is what I recorded in that YEAR column. So, for example, the 80th Academy Awards were held in 2008 and they honored films from 2007 ... so I would include 2007 as the Year column for a 2007 film that won awards at the 80th ceremony held in 2008. Make sense?

4. You asked about only having winners (as opposed to mere nominees) in the list. I did not start the article way back when. I assume that it started small and began to grow / evolve over time. So, yes – I assume that it started with simply the winners of Oscars – and not merely the nominees. The title of the article, of course, reflects winners and not nominees. To me, that seems to be how and why the article today stands as it does. I am not quite sure about adding all of the nominated films that never won. I assume, of course, that they would increase the list size. I guess that I would wonder by how much? You said that you have a pretty complete list of all nominees. (Where did you get that, by the way?) Can you tell me – how big is the list of nominees? And how big is the list of winners? I would be curious about the change in size of adding all nominees to the current winners. Can you tell me the data / numbers for this? In any event, I think we should clean up and fix all of the winners in an acceptable format. Then, possibly, worry about adding in the extra nominees that never won. And also, we need to consider the size of both lists. Thanks.

5. You said to me in your reply: "Either way, if you would like, I can programmatically use my db/lists to create a starting point in your format that you can cut and paste into the wiki edit box. That's how I was able to add my changes so quickly, and it actually took longer because I inserted only what was missing instead. Let me know if I can help!" I really did not understand what this sentence meant? Can you please explain or give an example? (I am not a very computer tech / program savvy type.) Thanks. But, let me know what you mean. Certainly anything that can help and make a job easier is welcome. So, thanks very much for your offer of help. Please clarify what help this "programmed list" can offer to me?

6. Nominations – yes, there seemed to be some confusion about nominations. The Academy lists different types of nominations along with each film. Most of them are what they call official nominations. And a handful of them – for whatever reason – they refer to as unofficial nominations. There are a variety of reasons for this. Some candidates have write-in nominations which are not considered official, only unofficial. Some of the logistics and mechanics of the award process also dictate the nominations process. In one year (I think it was in 1928 / 1929), there were no "official" nominations at all – just winners. But the Academy considered the names under consideration as unofficial nominations. Some specific awards have this logistical quirk as well. The Academy Board considered a few films (i.e., they are unofficial nominations), then narrowed it down to the official nominations, and then selected a final winner. This is, I believe, what happened with that "extra" (sixth) nomination for The Wizard of Oz. In any event, I think that there are far too many quirks to deal with this issue in a list format. So perhaps somewhere on the page, we can add a generic note that overall explains the situation generally and comprehensively -– as opposed to explaining it for each individual occurrence for each film. Overall, I think that if the Academy considers it a nomination (official or unofficial), we should include it. That is, if it's on the Academy web site page, it's good enough to include. Then, we can add some general asterisk or note to explain that some nominations are considered official and some unofficial … but nonetheless, they are all nominations. Your thoughts?

Thanks again for your help. Please reply at my Talk Page whenever you have a moment. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, ideas, input, suggestions, and feedback about the article ... and about the points that I raised above. Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:10, 30 August 2008 (UTC))

I'm in a bit of a hurry, but here are some quick answers:

1. I'll let you know as I think of them

2. Yes, I've thought about this, too. I have a list of the english aka's for each film, but of course, they often have other languages, too. Also, many of the aka's are alternative spellings. Leaving them off is probably the best, as you suggest, and maybe add in one or two that are confusing because they are known (at least in the US) by a different name.

3. Yes, it makes sense. Though this seems to be redundant with the Awards Ceremony, which defines a year. And, there are some notable exceptions. Limelight won 20 years after it was made, and The Gold Rush was nominated (didn't win) in 1942, but was released in 1925. Though that technically was a re-release, I think.

4. The numbers are: There have been 8685 nominations and special awards in the 80 awards. This does not count 17 really un-official nominations in 1943 and a withdrawn nomination in 1963. This covers 4248 films, of which slightly more than 1100 have won (haven't done a recount counting wins AND special awards, so it may be a few films higher).

5. as an example, I made this sandbox based on your table in an hour or so this morning. User:Steglev/Sandbox/Page01. I shamelessly "borrowed" your sandbox format, hope you don't mind. All the data comes from oscars.org and was crosschecked against imdb.com and wikipedia. Because I do the checking of the data with a program I wrote, it's fairly fast to do. And since I have it in a database, I can output whatever format I want pretty easily.

6. That sounds reasonable. I did leave off the nominations I mentioned mainly because imdb decided to leave them off, too. But they can easily be added back in.

Got to run. Steglev (talk) 16:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the quick reply! Wow! I checked out your Sandbox! I am very impressed! I have about a million questions, comments, etc., for you ... but I do not have time to get to them right now. I shall email you back more comprehensively in a day or so. But, for now, I just wanted to get back to you quickly to let you know that I received your reply, appreciate it, and am impressed! Thank you. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:38, 31 August 2008 (UTC))

Hello again. Sorry it took me a while to get back to you. Let me address the 6 points you made above. (Bullet 1) Yes, please offer any suggestions. I really appreciate feedback and ideas, etc. (Bullet 2) We both agree that leaving off nearly all "aka" titles works best ... except in the rare odd circumstances. (Bullet 3) As far as the years / ceremonies. I agree that it is redundant. But to most people, who are not necessarily familiar with the ins and outs of the Oscars, a ceremony number is meaningless. They need to have the context that a film was in the 1950's or 1990's or whatever. That is my opinion. Also, the rare exceptions like Limelight or The Gold Rush, etc., can be addressed in a footnote in the "Notes" column. (Bullet 4) I am not sure that I follow your numbers / data. This is my interpretation of your Bullet Point #4 above. Please tell me if I am correct. You are saying that there are 8685 nominations in total ... meaning not only films, but also when you add in actors, directors, cinematography, etc. Correct? Every single category, combined, yields that 8685 figure. (Essentially, then, that 8685 figure is largely irrelevant for us right now – correct?) Of that 8685 total, 4248 of the nominations are in Film categories (Best Picture, Documentary, etc.) ... and, of that, 1100 are actually Film winners. Do I understand the numbers correctly? So, the article that you and I are working on at the moment would contain 1100 films if we only included winners, but it would expand to 4248 if we included all nominees (regardless of wins). Is this the case? I am not sure where I stand on that, at this moment. I think this article now, with 1100 entries, is long. A list of 4000+ would seem excessively long. At the same time, there would be great value in having a list of all Oscar-nominated films, winners and non-winners. What do you think? For now, I’d like to clean up the current article – and revisit the addition of the remaining 3000+ films later on. You? (Bullet 5) I looked at your sand box ... it is great! I have a million questions about Bullet Point #5. So, I will address those separately, after I hear back from you on these other minor issues. For now, though ... in a nutshell, where do you get all that data and how do you "program it" so quickly? (Remember, that you are speaking to a non computer / tech type here!) When I looked at your sandbox, I was shocked that you did all of that in an hour. I would have taken months and hundreds of hours of typing all that data over! That is exactly what I have been doing all along! Is there some easier way that I don't know about ... that saves all of those hundreds of hours of typing? (Bullet 6) We are in agreement about listing all nominations that the Academy lists, whether official or unofficial. Thanks. Please reply at my Talk Page. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC))

(Unindent) Hello. I have not forgotten about you and/or this project. I have been ill and not spending much time here in Wikipedia. Just wanted to touch base and let you know. Thank you. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC))

No problem! Hope you are feeling better. Steglev (talk) 18:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have just started feeling a little better ... and I have just started to do some more work on this article. So, I just wanted to let you know. I will keep you posted on its progress, as it gets closer to being completed. Thanks for your help. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC))