Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Categorization/Archive 1

Procreative thoughts

I thought this for a start:

This is the WikiProject Films Categorization Department page, mostly famous for not existing yet. Many independent members have done their best to make categorization in films possible until now. The new department welcomes them all to populate it.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

... but maybe I should wait until we have more informative text to start the project page. Hoverfish|Talk 23:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions from past experience

(Copied here from user talk subpage)
Hi guys! I like the chart. A couple of suggestions, though: The films by actor categories are a sore spot throughout the categorization projects. Most editors prefer lists for works by people who appeared in them (films, plays, etc.), and categories for works where there's one definitive mind, as in director. So I would suggest you don't create a films by actor category. Secondly, I would leave off any category that mentions explicit sex, because it's difficult to define "explicit sex"; we already have a porn film category and a list of mainstream films with unsimulated sex. Just some thoughts. Cheers! Her Pegship (tis herself) 18:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, let's keep the films by director categories; it's browsable by a hierarchy, which a template isn't. Her Pegship (tis herself) 19:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Lists of films and categories

Is the main purpose of this project to duplicate the mega-list Lists of films in category form? I'm all for that, since categories are easier to justify and work with than mega-lists of lists. Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 17:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Categories and subcats have to be given correctly and comprehensively. Which lists have anything useful to add (by extra content) remains to be decided. It will certaily be high on the agenda. Hoverfish Talk 21:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions for project and/or page

To put on the to-do list: remove all references to categories of films by decade At some point, it'd be nice to have an example of what categories should be on each page; i.e. for the film The Wicker Man, give a list of the categories that would be appropriate. Also, question: would the "Lists of films about or featuring an issue" category be the same as the "films by topic" category? We should probably get a list together of all the current categories, and decide which are/aren't necessary; do we want more series categories (or less), more awards categories (or less), etc.? I think that's all I can think of for now...

-Elizabennet 20:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Aha, I was just looking at the films by decade sections and lists. There's a lot of redundency with these. There's the List of films by year, then there's lists of the films by decade as well as lists of them by year (in addition to the categories!). I'm not really sure where to start with all this business. I suggest deleting the 'decade in film' pages entirely, as well as the 'films by decade' category. We have the films by year categories, which automatically make lists, so the lists of films by year seem unnecessary. The List of years in film seems OK to me, though. I suppose I'm just not a fan of the lists in general, since they do the same thing as the category. -Elizabennet 21:01, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the List of years in film was created as a navigation. I use it often to move faster through years. Yet another navigation template can be given (arranged by decade too) with all the years at the bottom of each year. The only thing this list contains (apart from duplicating cats) is IMO some POV entries). Hoverfish Talk 21:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Films by year should not have three subcats (19th, 20th ,21st century) but should give a full navigation to all years. The intermediate stages are useless, if not frustrating. Also 19th century has only 2 decades and the 21st only one. Also the further breaking to decades (only for navigating) is not practical. It's named "by year", so the category should lead to all individual years. Hoverfish Talk 21:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't have what is, in effect, films by century. Having all of the years readily available in the Films by year category would aid speedy navigation. There are less than 200 years of film-making so this would all fit onto one page (I'm not a fan of categories so large they go over a page in length). Mallanox 00:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of that; having more than one page in a category can be frustrating, I see where the lists are useful there. -Elizabennet 17:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Mkay, as per the agreement above, I'm going to reroot all the year categories to films by year (so, the category:1889 films will be a subcategory of category:films by year and _not_films by decade or century), and put the other categories (by decade, by century) up for deletion. How do we feel about the template by decade and year ({{filmyr}})? I think it's kind of... ugly. But I'm ambivalent about the usefulness. It also seems to add the year category to the decade category; I looked at the code and can't tell how it's doing that, though. -Elizabennet 18:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

YAY! All done! I think I've given myself carpal tunnel in the process, but, still, done! I added the 'films by year' category to all the individual year pages, so the decade and century pages can now be deleted. If someone who knows the code could take a look at the {{filmyr}} template and make it stop adding categories to the films by decade categories, that'd be great. :) -Elizabennet 19:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I removed 2 categories from the template. Did it do the trick? Hoverfish Talk 19:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

No, the film years are still showing up as in the (decade)s films. It looks like it has to do with the greater template {{WorksYearHeader}}, which is what creates the silly groupings of decades. Would removing the WorksYearHeader part entirely be a good idea? We should certainly keep the contents box, and the sentence at the beginning, and just create a box that links to the preceding and following years (just the one before and the one after) to replace that whole silly row of decade info. Thoughts? -Elizabennet 20:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Template

Here's the template I worked up for putting at the top of film year categories; 1 stands for the year.

<< -1 - {{{1}}} - 1 >>

This is what the result would look like (for the year 1976):

<< 1975 - 1976 - 1977 >>

-Elizabennet 22:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that going a year at a time in navigationg is not practical. For a more general navigation we could fix a template like Template:FilmsInCentury to include all films to the present. A more presentable version is Template:Filmsbyyear. The later I have fixed to navigate directly in categories: User:Hoverfish/Sandbox and propose it as the general years navigation template. Hoverfish Talk 17:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I like that a lot, it looks very useful! Would it go at the top of the page? -User:Elizabennet | talk 19:42, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

All text and templates we give go over the listing of categorized articles. I take it you mean the one in my Sandbox? Hoverfish Talk 21:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Department page

I have done some work on the department's page and hope that is to everyone's liking. If not please tell me, and I will try to fix it. If everyone agrees that it is looking good, then I'll go ahead and remove the notice to help create the page as well as the stub template .--Supernumerary 22:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

American films by...

Category:American films Mr. Blofeld has proposed we split the American films category by decade, i.e. Category:American films of the 1930s, etc. I'm all for it. Any comments? Her Pegship (tis herself) 22:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Wouldn't Category:1930s American films be less cumbersome? Mallanox 02:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The main American films category shuld be subsplit like this. It is very important it is American films of the because this the category not the year of decade. It is only needed to split because the category will be so enormous!!!!

Category:1930s American films

The decade subcategories of American films is only needed because there could potentially be 1 million articles in it!! No I feel it very important that American films comes before decade e.g 1930s such as American films of the 1930s as this is supposed to be a country category. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 18:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

If a film belongs to Cat:American films and Cat:1975 films isn't it enough? If we do the Cat:1970s American films, we should take away completely Cat:American films. But if this becomes a precedent and we start making Cat:1970s Australian films, will this be practical too? It should become clear when by decade is to be adopted and when not. And what about Cat:1970s films? Hoverfish Talk 07:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed: Cat:American films has only 196 articles!! So it's best to decide before it has ALL articles, which would be several thousands. Hoverfish Talk 07:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I think subcategorising is desirable for any country with a prolific film industry including America, Britain, Australia, France and India. It wouldn't be appropriate for Category:Zimbabwean films. Mallanox 09:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course this is exactly what I mean. America and India have by far the hugest film industries so breaking down the main category by decade should only be done for the super film producer who will soon enough have tens of thousands of wikipedia articles. It is only to break down a category that would be ridiculously hugeErnst Stavro Blofeld 18:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually I just added the Huge categories section down below. It is like breaking down Mr. Blofeld's suggestion in smaller bits. Hoverfish Talk 20:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I have broken up the American films category as if categorized properly there will be hundreds of thousands films here. I have also created new categries to put the stray sub categories in e.g Category:American films by director Ernst Stavro Blofeld 21:24, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

PLease note that I don't think this process should be done to every country just the super film producers such as America and India Ernst Stavro Blofeld 21:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion of issue?

What does "Lists of films by inclusion of issue" mean, please? Her Pegship (tis herself) 17:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Well there are all these lists like List of films with a twist ending, List of films featuring independent body parts, List of films with single syllable titles, List of films featuring automobile racing. What general name could we classify them under? Hoverfish Talk 17:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

There are always going to be lists that just don't fit in anywhere else. From the trivial (single-syllable titles) to the truly unique (independent body parts!!), there' not really any common denominator among those examples. They're most appropriate under plain old lists of films, imho. Her Pegship (tis herself) 22:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

List of films by content? Girolamo Savonarola 05:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

This could take part of the mess and is certainly more meaningful. I agree with Pegship, but "Where do the children play?"(Cat Stevens). Hoverfish Talk 09:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that in the Lists of films, it has been grouped as "by subject matter". Hoverfish Talk 21:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, but "content" seems to imply something significant, whereas some of the lists are about features that are completely coincidental, like the one-syllable title. Lists of films with common features or with features in common maybe? Her Pegship (tis herself) 21:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Lists of films with features in common sounds about right. Hoverfish Talk 22:13, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

More new text

Added a fair amount of new text adapted from WP Military history's categorization section. I believe that it's mostly uncontroversial, although feel free to discuss. I'm also planning to cleanup the subcategories organization a bit - nothing too radical, mostly just collapsing some categories into subcats and the odd merging. Girolamo Savonarola 06:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Huge Categories

If Category:American films & Category:English-language films are applied to all films involved, we are going to have some huge categories. Wouldn't it be better to put in films some subcategories of these? I would suggest subcats by decade/genre so that a user can find relevant films in a category, rather than the a full aplphabetical list of ? thousands of films. Hoverfish Talk 20:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC) - If there is another use of such mega-categories, it is good to make it clear in the project page. Hoverfish Talk 20:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

This should be taken very seriously and done asap. Every film on wikipedia should have categories by country, by date, by language at a minimum. Even silent films e.g American silent films should go in many categories e.g Category:American films (should be organized by decade) Category:SIlent films and Category:American silent films but also by year and language Category:English language films. Categoryt:American films and especially Category:English language films could potentially have 1 million films in it. If somebody wants a full list of American films I would imagine that if organized by decade they would know where to find it Ernst Stavro Blofeld 18:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I really hope you will wait to hear from all concerned if a move is ok before you put work on it. We all agree these are huge cats and need breaking, so we are trying to find out a way to do it all consitently. Hoverfish Talk 21:35, 31 December 2006 (UTC) - Does everyone agree that we rush through all categorized American films and put them in decades? Or should it be that we put subcats of say 1970s American films in the film articles (like 1970s American comedy films) which all join up to a parent category. It may save a lot of time to decide this before we start recategorizing. Hoverfish Talk 21:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Either way you look at it to begin sorting out that unkempt mega category is a start. I would rather keep country films as simple as possible by decade. Genre sub categories again I think will complicate things and alos many films can be categorized in a number of different genres. I would rather keep it e.g 1960s American films. These sub categories will never be half as bloated as that super main category is now. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 22:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I will go by consensus. Right now American films is not by a quarter (maybe not even by a tenth) as populated as it will get when thorough categorization is made in films. So, if anyone has an idea how big it might get, or what subcats would be the most practical for users to follow, please post opinions. Hoverfish Talk 22:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

For the rather huge categories, such as American films, this probably is a good place for intersection categories. Doing by year is possibly a way through it, such as Category:American 1973 films, which could then be a subcat of both Category:American films (or possibly Category:American films by year) as well as Category:1973 films. This should only be encouraged for national cinemas with unwieldy numbers of articles (greater than 1000?). The other thing worth noting is that this intersection categorization can only be done for films solely the product of one country. Otherwise you have the odd situation of putting a film into the categories Category:American 1973 films, Category:French films, and Category:1973 films, for example. Perhaps there can be categories for co-productions, like Category:American-French coproductions. To minimize naming conflicts, the convention would be naming them in alphabetical order. Girolamo Savonarola 23:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that makes sense as well for it to be something like Category:American 1973 films as it will help to merge the two most common categories of these films. I have always attempted to add categories to films concerning the year they were released, the country of production, the language, and the genres of the film. Whatever is decided here, we need to make sure there is a consensus first to ensure we don't have to recategorize later and duplicate a lot of unnecessary work. I will be willing to help add the subcategories when it is decided what should be done. --Nehrams2020 00:15, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your support, Nehrams. Hopefully the splitting off of categorization into this project department should make for a more centralized and efficient process. I've noticed that larger WikiProjects that contain departments like this and are sizeably staffed tend to do rather well at creating logical structures. Hopefully we'll be no different! :) Girolamo Savonarola 03:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, Category:Black and white films has already about 2200 films in it. We should also decide about breaking it down (by year?). Also if we add Category:Short film stubs to Category:Short films, we are well over 1000. Hoverfish Talk 08:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting case for several reasons. One, there isn't (to my knowledge) a category for color films. (Whether or not we need one is another story.) Two, I'm not certain how this will efficiently break down. For example, wouldn't virtually all films from, say, 1913, be black and white films? Should the major of Category:1913 films be placed under the subcat Category:Black and white 1913 films? Seems a bit ridiculous. On the other hand, I can't think of many other qualifiers. Country, language, studio, genre...it's all equally unappealing, I must say. I'm certainly open to suggestions, but unless someone has a clear and agreeable idea, perhaps it's best to work with the straight-forward material first. Lay down our foundations before we tackle the exceptional problems, right? :) Girolamo Savonarola 14:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

We can have a Category:Pre-1945 B&W films. Separately we can have a category for all the films taken B&W and then "tinted" or "hand"-colored. Then a category for the additive and substractive "pre-modern" color films. So from the appearance of modern color, we don't have to state category for color films. It can be taken that any film not categorized for color, IS a modern color film. So this leaves us with Category:Post-1945 B&W films. We could also break the Pre-1945 B&W in two periods.

About laying foundations: Categories are primarily meant to help users find related items. For this, drama, comedy, black-comedy, adventure, epic, war, sports, family, children, etc, play a major role, since they provide a useful listing of related items. A list of 4000 comedies A-Z is useless, but Category:1967 American comedies (easily connecting to other years of American comedy, or other countries' comedies) is a valuable category. The only thing with genre is that we may come to a lot of intersecting areas. In databases users find a film and get a fast idea by viewing keywords. This function could also work here, but categories should be given for user friendliness mostly. And we shouldn't make it too comlicated. If one loves actor Walter Matthau or director John Ford, a navigation box and/or a filmography link does the job in the best possible way. Yet we already have 200 categories by directors... However if we first give a standard set of categories, there can follow several lines of categories (like Category:Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award winning performance !). Hoverfish Talk 17:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea as well, but I will wait until we reach a consensus. FMAFan1990 05:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

New proposal for breaking up large categories to prduce more efficient more specific categories

I have come up with some musts for categorization. First of all the USA produces many many films every year so the decade cats should not be used to house the films year categories of AMerica should do this. The decades should be just located on the main Category:American films and each one e.g 1990s American films should contain Category:1990 American films Category:1991 Americans films etc.through to 1999 .

Second this process should alos involve a breaking down of the year categories. E.g Category:1999 films. Do you relaise how many films are produced each year. THis needs to be sub categorized by country of production e.g Category:1999 American films and Category:1999 Indian films. My category proposal would serve as a dual category. It would work in e.g American films and films by year would be divided by country. THis method of catergorization would be more precise.

I also very much agree with your idea of Category:1960s American drama films. However first all of the genre categories shuld be split up do you realise how many drama films there are. This should be split into two different categories. Drama films by year and Drama films by country. THe same should be done for all the other genres.

Then rather than films at present being categroized as just drama films this would be far more specific and would accomodate for growth in the future. For example 1961 drama films would inlcude all films produced in the drama genre in 1961 and if it is American then it would also be in the category 1960s American drama films.

This sounds quite complicated but it isn't.

I beleive each article should have categories like this: For instance

Category:1975 American films (single category shows year and country Category:1975 adventure films Category:1970s American adventure films

Having both "1975 American films" and "1970s American comedy films" is too much repetition. "1975 American films" can be a parent category (without lose articles) to sub-categories like "1975 American comedy films". Three birds with one shot, useful to browse through, and not huge. On the other hand, not a category, but an article (without a full list) "1970s American comedies" might be much more useful and enlightening. Some meaningful selections of films could be much more useful. We can have a separate list of all 1970s American comedies, where subdividing (and/or sorting variously) is easy and presentationally useful. But even just a big AZ list is more practical than a multi-page A-Z category. We could start from 1970s in film and link to new specific lists of the decade. Hoverfish Talk 18:45, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Please let's not make subcategories for the year categories. I've been looking into the matter in related fields such as albums and video games categories, and it seems that the common practice is to keep the year categories intact in full, without much in the way of subcat'ing. The number of films released per year is well manageable for a single category for each year. If you want to combine genres and nationality, that's fine. But the repetition of years in categories, as well as other equivalent areas' precedents leads me to strongly oppose any splitting of the year cats.

Furthermore, Ernst, I specifically was discussing this with you just hours ago - I even indicated that I wasn't finished talking - and yet you've gone off again and completely disregarded the community's firm requests to NOT take excessive actions before coming to a consensus. This behavior pattern is extremely distressing and, given its recapitulation, makes me wonder what exactly you think this talk page exists for. If you are going to be too impatient to allow any rational discussion because you think "we're too slow", I can't have much faith in your work. Very disappointed, Girolamo Savonarola 21:15, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I challenge this. In 2005 alone over 22,000 films were produced. Evne if only a quarter of these are valid for an article that means a potential five thousands articles in one category.- far worse than even American films category.Ernst Stavro Blofeld 22:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Then if you have no faith in my work you are a fool. Sorry I only want to sub category and seperate American films from the rest all other films released in a certain year can go in the year categories. Sorry mate but do you realise how many films we are talking about each year. You again think potnetially tens of thousands of films in one category is the solution. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 21:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Rather than a ridiculously huge A-Z list of all American films covering 112 years of cinema history why not restructure A-Z lists by year it was produced in America. The box simply presnets to you American films in proper order in front of you rather than being on 10 pages!! Beleive me if everything is categorized properly and most American films are covered then each of these years should have detailed A-Z lists of their own Ernst Stavro Blofeld 21:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The whole point of a Department for Categorization, where we get together, is to collaboratively decide how to do this. You have decided to just start creating categories willy-nilly and worry about this later, in the hope that your categories will be accepted by the virtue of their creation. Everyone else seems to have understood that when dealing with complex and labor-intensive issues of creating a categorization structure, we don't implement it until we've come to a decision, becuase it is a MASSIVE waste of time for both the over-eager editor and those who eventually agree on a system and have to clean up the last editor's work. At the moment, most of us have been discussing and not just acting on our impulses.

Therefore, to clarify the matter, I would like to ask all fellow editors not to make any changes to the original categorization scheme as it existed prior to discussions here until we've reach consensus through discussion. In the meantime, however, I'm going ot have to waste a lot of my own time rolling back your changes, Ernst. Girolamo Savonarola 22:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I very strongly object to your attempt to prevent people taking the initiative to improve categorisation. You have no right to tell people that they may not edit, indeed doing so breaches one of the most fundamental principles of Wikipedia. Chicheley 07:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

However, he does have the right to work in the best interest of the project in such a potentially large and intricate procedure. It is important for a consensus to be reached here then for all of the editors to go off and start their own forms of categorization that may conflict with each other. I'm sure Girolamo is all in favor of editors contributing, but wants to ensure that there is a consensus and that the edits will help contribute to the project. --Nehrams2020 08:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I may have a solution. ALthough I created those many categories I would prefer the film categories to be as simple as possible and according to Brion the wikipedia tech man it wouldn't be a server problem to list all American films in one category. So Category:Amercan films should remain untouched. However I do feel that my idea of the lists of American films by year serve some educational purpose that the categories cannot, and rather than delete the categories they could be moved to List of American films. A List of the more notable American films could be compiled in a film chronology see List of Argentine films. Organized by the navigation box above (replace the categories with the lists) we could provide a list of films produced in America by year which are not only lists but provide summary details of direcot actors and date of release and maybe studio of production. E.g List of American films:1975 would provide a detailed summary of all of the American films of that year, by providing these summary details on one page as with List of Argentine films. Obviosuly though the compiling of the lists would be a very long process but I beleive it could be a very important source eventually. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC

Returning to the discussion...

My current proposal is that, in accordance with other media categories such as Category:2002 albums and Category:2002 computer and video games, we retain the year categories as whole undivided categories - ie, no subcats. This is reasonable and falls within a manageable size for each of the years. If any of these individual year cats start to become populated with well beyond the proposed 1000 article limit, then the issue for subcats for the years can be raised again. In other words, if those 22,000 films all get articles, then it will be an issue. At the moment, it isn't.

As for films by nationality/language/studio/genre issues, I agree that they are getting unwieldy in certain cases, but at the moment there is nothing so large as to break the database. Therefore, we have the luxury to be able to carefully think about the best way to combine these. I would say that this should not be by year, since it creates unnecessary redundancy in an article having multiple categories which all state the year of the film. Keep in mind that the nationality and language issues are major as well, since these are potentially huge categories, some of which have huge overlaps. Intersecting the nationality and language may help in some countries (India is a good candidate, due to the different languages popular there), but not as much in others, such as the American/English or French/French. Therefore this approach may need to be supplemented by different methods. Decade is another possible way to split some of these, although it still creates a redundancy with multiple categories sorted this way.

The important thing here is for us to discuss this fully first, so that all of the hard work of implementation can be done in one fell swoop with the full weight of consensus behind it. Girolamo Savonarola 22:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Summarizing a point: [[Category:(Year) films]] will be one steady and most important cat given in ALL films. It should not be broken down in subcategories. I agree (to the limit of 1000 notable articles) and add the suggestion that this be given before all other categories in film articles. Hoverfish Talk 23:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

(Sorry to modify the archive: I just want to note that I changed my limit of 1000 articles. I agree with NO LIMIT because of all that has been said since). Hoverfish Talk 14:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Second point (slight dissagreement and further suggestion): American films and English-language films will become huge the moment we decide to apply them, so we should already start planning how to break them down, yet definitely not by year. The mention of year should be limited to the forementioned cat. I suggest that in American, British and Austalian films we do NOT add separately English language. Why not Australian english-language films, British english-language films, American english-language films, and then American Spanish-language films, etc? This would split down the mega cat English-language films to a size smaller than American films, although it wouldn't reduce the later very much. Hoverfish Talk 23:52, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a bit of an out-there suggestion but there's no harm in suggesting it...

Someone commented that it's stange that we only have a category for black and white films, not for colour. The simple answer is, if it's not black and white then we assume it's colour. Similarly, do we need a category for English-language films? This is an english-language encyclopaedia so if there is no other-language category we assume it's English. Apart from anything, the language should be given in the infobox eliminating doubt. It would save a lot of articles all carrying the same information and eliminate the sub-categorisation problem. Mallanox 01:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

An idea regarding the subcats for American films - perhaps the easiest and most practical way is that their subcats would be the categories for the studio which produced it. Independents of course have their own subcat as well. Just a suggestion. Girolamo Savonarola 06:32, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I find both previous statements very rational and acceptable. I feel there is unnecessary concern for not leaving blank categorizing areas (like if we give B&W we should also give Color). As Malanox writes, some areas can be taken as "default" and not given. I think our main concern should be practicality and user friendliness. There have already been some opinions that while we give distributor (in the infobox) we don't give producing company, but the matter stopped there. If we combine nationality with studio, this solves very nicely the missing link problem. Hoverfish Talk 07:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that if there is an international co-production, there should be a category for it, subcat'd to each national cinema's category. For instance, 2001: A Space Odyssey would be cat'd to Category:MGM films (which would be a subcat of American films) as well as Category:American-British co-productions, which would be subcat'd to American films and British films each. Country names for co-production cats would be in alphabetical order, so as to be impartial. Girolamo Savonarola 07:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but what of Dancer in the Dark, coproduced by Denmark / Germany / Netherlands / U.S.A. / U.K. / France / Sweden / Finland / Iceland / Norway ? Multinational co-productions? Hoverfish Talk 18:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Wait!

I hope we can all take a step back and think about what we're doing here. There is an unquestioned assumption that many people are making that big categories are bad. BIG CATEGORIES ARE NOT BAD. I've specifically asked Brion (the tech guru who manages the WIkipedia servers) about this and he says there is no technical reason that we have to break up big categories into small ones. We have category table of contents that can help us navigate through big categories {{CategoryTOC}} and huge categories {{LargeCategoryTOC}}. So categories do not necessarily have to be be broken up when they get large.

I ask everyone to go and look at a guide to films in book form. They all have INDEXES which list all films in alphabetical order. That is what our categories mimick. There is no need to break up Category:English-language films into smaller subcategories. I am suggesting that each sub-categorization of films, by year, by nationality, by language, etc... be complete indexes, so that EVERY film in the subcategory is together. This makes it much easier to browse because everything is in one subcategory. I'm going to make one other somewhat radical suggestion. I think most of Category:Films should be merged into Category:Films by type, and a new Category:Films should be populated with EVERY FILM IN WIKIPEDIA. It would also have only ONE subcategory a few subcategories (which would be Films by type, Films by year, Lists of films...)

There is absolutely nothing in the Categorization guidelines that says it can't be done this way. I'm sure of this because I wrote the most recent overhaul of the guidelines. The idea that every has to be broken down into tiny subcategories is archaic. It is a hold-over from Wikipedia culture from two years ago that has to be put to rest. There is no reason that a category cannot be ANY size. If the topic is big, you can break it down to smaller pieces if those are useful and help people browse through similar articles. However, we should make the decisions about category groupings based solely on utility. The question is What films will people be looking for? Most of what we have now is just fine and does not need to be broken down any smaller. Smaller intersections are not necessary. Eventually, the software will add the capability of adding category intersections on the fly.

Thanks for reading this. -- Samuel Wantman 10:06, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• I concur with Samuel. >Radiant< 13:01, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Samuel Wantman's suggestion, if I got it right, is to turn all existing subcategories of Category:Films (except for "Films by type") into subcategories of Category:Films by type. My two objections to this are Category:Lists of films and Category:Films by year (both of which are not really "by type") should be left as subcategories of Films, along with Films by Type. I also take it that "Category:Films should be populated with EVERY FILM IN WIKIPEDIA" means that every film article gets primarily Category:Films. So, here we would find an A-Z of all available film articles. I find this a good idea, if not for other reasons, at least for the purpose of seeing if a film article exists under any possible spelling of a (known) title or even under another (relevant or suspected) title. However, under the same logic, Apple should be primarily "Fruits" and Rose primarily "Flowers" or "Plants", but they aren't. Why? Tiny subcategories will also have to be there, under their mighty parents. They are formed for usability mainly, although many may be silly or useless or even POV. "What films will people be looking for?" Suppose I want to find a selection of war parodies similar to M*A*S*H. I can'f possibly find it under Films. So at the bottom of MASH it would be nice to find a specific category for similar films. Most of what we now have is partly fine, but it's not thoroughly applied and it does have gaps here and overgrowth there. Additionally to the above, I would like to copy here a sentence of wisdom, delivered lately from one of our most experienced film categorizers: "Let's clean up what we have before we start creating more stuff which might need cleaning up itself". (by Her Pegship) Hoverfish Talk 17:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I've added he categories you suggested. And yes, tiny categories WILL have to be there under mighty parents, but they should not be so tiny that they become irrelevant and not useful. -- Samuel Wantman 01:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
  • My question is, how does the all-encompassing Films category help a user to find a film? The film industry is genre-driven, and most users look for films by their favorite genre, director, or maybe decade or style. If we have a comprehensive Films category, will it actually help anyone except our department? As a librarian, my main concern is to make information more accessible to the user. I have no, repeat, no opinion as to whether we should have a comprehensive Films category, but I think it should be a low priority. My 2¢. Cheers, Her Pegship (tis herself) 18:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be far easier to create a comprehensive films category simply by adding Category:WikiProject Films articles to the includes section of the project banner template? One edit would be able to populate the entire category like that. Girolamo Savonarola 18:59, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

It would be easier for us, but it takes some navigating for the average user to get to the film articles (via Talk page too). I think we all agree on user friendliness. If the end categories, given in film articles are to be useful, they should point to significantly limited groups of artiles. Gernre is the most useful for films. It just needs a lot of good planing and work to be effective. Hoverfish Talk 19:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

And do people really look for decades? Is there a significant difference between a 1989 and a 1990 film? Hoverfish Talk 19:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

And a group of people will look by director, but a larger group will look for actor, and there Her Pegship indicated troubled waters ahead, which I can easily imagine. Hoverfish Talk 19:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

My experience has been that the reason people look for films or music by decade is a fondness for a certain era, i.e. "the golden age of Hollywood", the '60's, film noir, etc. As for films by actor, I think that is better served by lists than by categories, but...that's another can of worms! <g> Her Pegship (tis herself) 21:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Films by year does this in an NPOV fashion. You do not have to decide the boundaries. As films can already be found by year, and there is little information added by having them grouped by decade. --Samuel Wantman 01:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

What I meant was that per-decade was as small a chronological sub-cat as I would recommend, not that we actually name a category "Golden age of Hollywood", which would indeed be POV. Her Pegship (tis herself) 01:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you proposing putting a film in a decade category and remove the by year categories?

No, not really proposing anything, just pointing out search behavior and clarifying that I didn't mean anything pov by it. Her Pegship (tis herself) 04:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I am all in favor of having the small categories to break up the vast number of films into collections that might be useful for users. For each distinction made, whether it be genre, origin, language, etc... there should be a single level of subcategorization. What I mean is this... If we subcategorize films by language, let's not go any further and subcategorize by dialect. If it is by genre, we don't need to do subgenres. If it is by nationality, we don't have to do by city or state. Every time you diffuse a category into smaller subgroupings you make the larger subgrouping hard to use. If I want to see all the westerns, but they are further divided into groups that are irrelevant to me, it makes it hard to see westerns. On the other hand, if a subgenre is significant for some reason, you can always make a list that explains the subgenre, and lists the films the films that are important to the subgenre. There may be exceptions to this, but I hope they are few. So I'm proposing that we have three levels:

• Top level: Films -- This is an index of all films in Wikipedia
• Middle levels: -- These are navigation categories that mostly have subcategories and lists. Proposed categories: Films by type, Films by year, Lists of films. There will coninue to be additional navigation categories for genres, directors, etc.
• Bottom level: -- These are specific subcategories like Westerns, Science fiction, Films directed by Stanley Kubrick, Documentaries, 1945 films, etc...

Enough said. -- Samuel Wantman 01:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd support that structure, more or less. Still undecided about populating the top level with all films, but I can see it both ways. Girolamo Savonarola 02:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's list the pros and cons of having the top category:

• Pro
  • People most likely to put a film in a category called "films"
  • Provides a complete alphabetical index of all film articles
  • Helps determine if a film is missing, and alternate spellings
  • Adds an additional way to browse, but doesn't force anyone to use the category for browsing if they don't want to.
• Con
  • Adds one additional category to every film
  • A little harder to find films that are missing subcategories when doing category maintenance

Did I miss anything? One additional category is not going to clutter up any film article, and since there are so many film categories already, it is not that much more difficult to maintain. Adding utility is more important that making it easy for us to categorize. If this weren't the case we'd get rid of all these subcategories. -- Samuel Wantman 03:00, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

(the following response was moved to keep the original comments in one piece)

• • People most likely to put a film in a category called "films"

• • That is actually a con. If articles are supposed to be in such a category they are far less likely to be added to the appropriate subcategories by someone else than with the present system. Also it is less and less true, as users are adapting to more detailed categorisation schemes. Chicheley 07:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

This structure makes sense and sounds like it would work well. Most films don't have that many categories anyway, so one more definitely shouldn't be a problem. --Nehrams2020 04:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Very strong oppose I am sorry that I am not going to write reams as I am not the wikipolitician that Samuel is, but he has tried to impose this idea elsewhere and it is a very bad one. A vast category that contains thousands upon thousands of articles that one has never heard of is no use to anyone. It will be category clutter on the articles, it will waste time that could be spent on better things, and it will make it a lot harder to keep all the subcategories well presented and easily presentable. Wikipedia does not need an index because it has half a dozen superior navigation tools. I have seen categories that have had the Samuel treatment and far from being the neat paragons he wants they are a mess. People may put things in a high level category (though over time they are less and less likely to as they understand how the system is developing) but it is easy enough to see which articles need diffusing. If Samuel's system is adopted the reality is that many articles will sit in one main menu only. The greatest single advantage of cross-categorisation is that it ensures that by filtering articles to a detailed category we indirectly put them into all the appropriate top level categories. Eg a town in Montana gets classified as a town, and as a place in Montana, rather than just one or the other - a flaw of categorisation that happens time after time after time, and which Samuel's proposal would make far worse. Chicheley 07:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I may have a solution. ALthough I created those many categories I would prefer the film categories to be as simple as possible and according to Brion the wikipedia tech man it wouldn't be a server problem to list all American films in one category. So Category:Amercan films should remain untouched. However I do feel that my idea of the lists of American films by year serve some educational purpose that the categories cannot, and rather than delete the categories they could be moved to List of American films. A List of the more notable American films could be compiled in a film chronology see List of Argentine films. Organized by the navigation box above (replace the categories with the lists) we could provide a list of films produced in America by year which are not only lists but provide summary details of direcot actors and date of release and maybe studio of production. E.g List of American films:1975 would provide a detailed summary of all of the American films of that year, by providing these summary details on one page as with List of Argentine films. Obviosuly though the compiling of the lists would be a very long process but I beleive it could be a very important source eventually. Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC

• I think that's an excellent idea. Lists have the added advantage of being automaticall sortable by any column (see m:Help:Sorting). Of course it takes time to build a good list, but since this is a wiki you can simply start a list and people will drop by to help. >Radiant< 13:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Lists, definitely, set up as Blofeld suggests, would be easy to navigate and have the added feature of being browable "at a glance". I like it. Her Pegship (tis herself) 15:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose The nominator's assumption that a specific category can be designated as the one and only topic category for large classes of articles is false. What is the topic category for a Bangladeshi test cricketer? Bangladeshi cricketers? Test cricketers? Cricketers? Bangladeshi sportspeople? Cricket in Bangladesh? Sportspeople? Or something else? If we start adding articles to parent categories we will need to add them to multiple parent categories to meet different priorities in a fair manner, and that will lead to chaos and chronic category clutter. Choalbaton 14:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Sub-summarizing: Samuel Wantman has given us a very useful view of categorizing and further members have combined the issue of lists (and still, for specifics there also exist the navigation boxes). The opposition and doubts are mostly on the issue of giving cat:Films to all films and on the issue of cross-categorization. I share doubts on both, but 1) Cat:Films is a smallest word that is the least possible to clutter up the categories of an article 2) A mess can be prevented, as we will sweep through all film articles with the categories we decide on and where in doubt we can take project decisions and combine the lists and nav-box alternatives in a rather consistent way 3) The last "oppose" comment by Choalbaton has to be given extra thought. In film context we have lots of elements that produce very funny and unpractical crossings. Somewhere we have to cross to lists rather than give a variety of complex cat-crossings. Hoverfish Talk 17:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the lists would work. To answer Choalbaton, the topic categories would be "Bangladeshis" and "Cricketers". I think Sportspeople is too broad. Bangladeshis would have subcategories Bangladeshis by profession, etc... I don't know anything about cricketers, but they would also have their subcategories. The problem is when you try to have intersections below these two levels. You have the problem of having a geometrical increase in the number of intersection categories. We should avoid making categories out of these third level intersections. This is in line with Wikipedia:Overcategorization. These lower level intersections can be lists until the software (at some point) can generate this information automatically. So for most categories we would be identifying the primary index, and sub-indexes. Below that level there will be far too many intersections or microscopic sub-groupings. If there is just one or two of these important sub-sub-categories they could possibly be added, but not at the sake of depopulating everything else. If we let things continue the way they are now, we risk turning our categorization system into just a classification system. Things will only be able to be found in their most specific classification. This would make it extremely difficult to browse. I don't want to end up with Category:1927 American comedy films at the sake of having 1927 films, American films, and Comedy films depopulated. -- Samuel Wantman 21:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is any indication that one day, not too far in the future, the software can produce a selected (sub?)category group (for example we check Cat:1927 films + Cat:American films + Cat:Comedy films and we get a display of the common articles), we should take it under consideration from now. This would solve most of our problems in the best possible way. Hoverfish Talk 22:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Such a feature is being worked upon, yes. >Radiant< 09:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose If this sort of thing is allowed to happen articles will end up in many more categories, not just one more, causing complete chaos. This will happen because each hierarchy to which they belong has multiple tiers of parent categories (have you ever seen one of those spider diagrams showing the location of invidual categories in the system? They are incredibly complex). For more reasons why abandoning the general principal that articles should not be in a parent category and a subcategory is a bad idea see the discussion produced by Samuel Wantman's failed attempt to get the category diffusion template deleted. Cloachland 06:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

We already know you are opposed. This isn't a vote, it is a discussion.

There are already established reasons why categories can be in a parent and a child. Also, in this case the category would be in a category and its grandchild which has been an acceptable practice at Wikipedia in the three years I've been here. This proposal would not lead to many more categories it would add a single four letter category to all films. I imagine someone interested in film might want to scan this category and see if all his/her favorite films are there. Perhaps they are just looking for one to read, perhaps they are wondering if one hasn't been written. I do this sort of browsing all the time. Currently, you'd have to visit several categories to see all the films. You can look for a list, but who knows if that is being maintained. -- Samuel Wantman 07:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Category intersect

I thought it was time to start a new heading...Anyway, I don't know about the future, but right now there is a tool called CatScan that can do a basic kind of Boolean search such as described above, i.e. "search Category:American films for articles that also have Category:1975 films". It's been having some trouble the last few months, but it's working now in a limited fashion (the problem was with the enwiki database copy it uses). See CatScan for more. HTH, Her Pegship (tis herself) 23:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, pegship you beet me! Cbrown1023 23:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

My cold medication must be working...<g> Her Pegship (tis herself) 23:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

As a reader, a tool that one has to actively use (and to know about it before one can even try to use it (if it is working)) is no substitute for having accurate subcategorization done for us. Cloachland 06:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that cat scan is not easily available to anyone. "Accurate subcategorization" is a good thing. The problem we have is inaccurate or unsystematic subcategorization. We should start coming up with a Films subcategorizing scheme soon. Hoverfish Talk 07:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply it was a substitute, only a tool, and it is accessible to everyone, btw. Her Pegship (tis herself) 15:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Category labels

I've been working on a set of category labels to help people understand the different way we use categories, to help navigate around, and to help people understand what belongs in each category. I'm making templates for these labels now, and I'm using film categories as an example. I'm setting it up the way I proposed, but the labels could be used however the final consensus turns out. I'd appreciate feedback (and help). Please take a look. Thanks. -- Samuel Wantman 01:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

They look nice and helpful. However, they're a bit big, but I don't know what you could do about that (or if it even really matters since it's just going on a cat page). Also the star for the subject category is a bit random.--Supernumerary 23:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Samuel should be writing any such thing because he has eccentric and unpopular views on how categories should be used. His belief that categories perform specific fixed purposes is naive and inaccurate. I think it is his understanding that is wrong. Cloachland 06:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

So you don't think Category:Films by type lists subcategories that help you navigate to the category you are looking for? You also don't think that Category:Comedy films contains all the articles which are Comedy films? You don't think Category:Film has articles and subcategories about the topic of film? These are not the categories purpose? Do you think that when articles are put in these categories that are contrary to these purposes they should remain? These category labels have nothing to do with whether or not Category:Films gets repopulated or not. If it remains as it is, it will be a navigation category. If it gets repopulated it will be an index of all films. Is this inaccurate? If so show me how my understanding is incorrect. I'm happy to discuss this. -- Samuel Wantman 07:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why Samuel shouldn't be writing "such things". If we could see a good example of an alternative system, it would be more enlightening. I have specific doubts, but I find the general way of ordering categories (as suggested by the lables) a good one. I also see that important project members, who have spent much time thinking of a good categorizing system, find Samuel's general suggestions helpful. The all-film index idea should be decided by a straw poll in the main film project, so we could get wider participation. It seems to contradict the guideline(?) that when an article is categorized in a subcategory it shouldn't also be in the parent category. Also presentationally, the lables could become somewhat smaller and more relevant icons should be created for them. The icons do look somewhat random.

"Films by type" has a specific use in films. For the purpose intended, a more precise name should be given. Yet, on the project page I have tried to group the present subcategories of films in significant groups. Here is what I came up with:

1) Chronological - "By year" is enough IMO, although informative articles on the decades, with a useful selection is a good idea, so if we give a category "by decade" it should contain only these articles which could lead us to lists rather. "By century" should kindly go, IMO.

2) Cultural /Geographic - includes by country, language, etc

3) Genre /Type /Content

4) Director /Producer /Studio /etc

5) Award /Critical & popular acclaim /Box office

6) Film technicalities - Ok, "film series" and relevant don't belong here. Maybe under "by type"?

7) Article technicalities - Mostly for project gnomes

I can't see them all fitting easily (or usefully) in one parent navigation category. Is this step really needed? Another related issue: can a navigation cat be a subcat of its parent along with other non-navigation subcats? Hoverfish Talk 09:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

An invitation to where you may churn ideas for reorganizing this project...

Regarding fallout from Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:CatDiffuse, I invite you all to review and participate in WP:∫, to bring order to your project and Wikipedia itself. Cwolfsheep 06:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need these?

Here are some "featuring" categories from the Academy Award project. I really hope we can avoid them. See Birdman of Alcatraz (film) for a mild example of their use. I've seen more lengthy uses. Category:Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award nominated performance! Category:Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominated performance! Category:Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominated performance! Hoverfish Talk 12:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Surely Category:Best Actor Oscar nomination is much more concise? Girolamo Savonarola 15:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

It is, but check the edit history of these category pages. They had such names but were moved. Hoverfish Talk 18:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd suspect that perhaps some were being used for both people and films, so the new titles make which is which clearer. However, they can do that and be concise if the cats were Best Actor Oscar nomination (for the film articles) and Best Actor Oscar nominee (for the people). Anyway, that's my quick - naive? - approach. Girolamo Savonarola 18:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Where should we propose it then? I volunteer to change the articles to the new categories if they are accepted. Hoverfish Talk 19:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

And by the way Wikipedia:WikiProject Academy Awards doesn't branch up to any WikiProject category. Hoverfish Talk 19:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks like WP Films is their stated parent project. However, they haven't placed the project page in any cat. Girolamo Savonarola 19:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Awards go to films and persons and since actors, etc, are under WP Biographies, they reach beyond Films. Normally they should be under WP Entertainment (currently inactive). Even better if they were part of a "WP Entertainment Awards" (wishful thinking, but worth it even so). As it is, I can suggest that they change these categories to something more concise and drop a question about parentage. Hoverfish Talk 14:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello, all. I'm the semi de facto leader of WikiProject Academy Awards. First off, I thoroughly agree that those categories are ridiculous. I would go so far as to cram them all into Category:Films with Oscar nominations, or something similar. Films who won in those awards can get their own category (Category: Best film Oscar winner, for example), but I don't think we need such long categories for nominees. As to your second question, the categorization, I started making articles on some of the ceremonies when I was looking for something to do. I didn't even realize there was an Academy Awards WikiProject for some time. When I found out about it, I put in an effort to clean it up and create standardized tables and whatnot. Then I asked Jengod, the initial force behind the project, to return. She either missed or ignored my request. So right now I'm doing my best to keep the project afloat while still keeping up on my other interests (The space program and video games). Needless to say, I was not aware that the project lacked categories. I will fix this problem post haste. --Miguel Cervantes 16:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

See a CfD discussion about eliminating the Oscar nominee categories here. Her Pegship (tis herself) 01:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to BetacommandBot, the categories were just removed from all the films. Hoverfish Talk 23:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

New stub type

Per Hoverfish's suggestion, we now have {{music-documentary-stub}} and Category:Music documentary film stubs, for your stub sorting pleasure. Cheers, Her Pegship (tis herself) 04:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Great! I started populating it. Are we having fun yet? (Zippy the Pinhead). Hoverfish Talk 16:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

New (Jan.01) undiscussed creations

Here are some recently created categories that if further applied in genre types, we will need a major cleanup. Suggestion speedy delete (IMO we have gone through enough discussion on the issue):

• Category:American action films
• Category:Action films by country
• Category:Action films by year
• Category:Adventure films by year
• Category:Adventure films by country

Please, comment here before I submit them for deletion. Hoverfish Talk 15:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Just as a point of process, they're not eligible for speedy deletion in the Wikipedia sense, only in the usual sense of "right away". Also, please note that the cats were once again created by Mr. Blofeld, who I thought was busy elsewhere. *sigh* Her Pegship (tis herself) 00:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

No, they were not created again. I just missed them when we tagged for deletion the American films by year cats. Since then (approx. Jan. 02) Mr. Blofeld has kept his promise and did not create any more categories in the Films infrastructure. Please notice that the above categories were all created on Jan.01 and they have not been populated since. At the same time Category:Action films by series and Category:Adventure films by series were created, which have some films, so I didn't mention them above. However, checking if the above statement is true, I did find some more Jan.01 creations (unpopulated):

• Category:2005 British films
• Category:2006 German films
• Category:1940s Indian films
• Category:1950s Indian films
• Category:1960s Indian films
• Category:1970s Indian films
• Category:1980s Indian films
• Category:1990s Indian films
• Category:2000s Indian films (7 subcats)

Subcategories of 2000s Indian films

• Category:2000 Indian films
• Category:2001 Indian films
• Category:2002 Indian films
• Category:2003 Indian films
• Category:2004 Indian films
• Category:2005 Indian films
• Category:2006 Indian films

I don't know if Indian films is for us to decide or the India Cinema project, but the British and German are IMO to be nominated for deletion. Hoverfish Talk 09:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply that they were re-created, only that ESB's habits were popping up again. In that case, if they've been empty for four days they can be nominated for speedy. I would go ahead and nominate the Indian cats too; their project seems more likely to create cats based on language rather than year. Her Pegship (tis herself) 14:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe as the parent project we have domain over the film articles at large, inclusive of the Indian cinema project. (In fact, we've discussed transitioning it to a work group in the past.) That being said, it would be common courtesy to notify them just so that it doesn't seem like we're being high-handed. But otherwise, don't be afraid to put your hand in on those categories - Indian films are still films nonetheless. Girolamo Savonarola 16:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I posted in Indian Cinema for comments on their deletion. Hoverfish Talk 17:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Delete away, as far as this editor of Indian film articles is concerned. I see no point in the cats. Zora 20:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

As you can see by the red links, I have deleted them all under C1 with the following edit summary: It is a category that has no items whatsoever in it and has been empty for at least four days. Cbrown1023 21:44, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Multinational co-productions and multilingual films

We should take some decision about how to categorize films that were co-produced by several countries and/or are multilingual. Here is an example of how I categorized one such, but I don't really find this to be the proper way: The Pedestrian (film). Hoverfish Talk 23:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

IIRC, my original suggestion was that co-productions should have their own cats (eg American-French co-productions), which would be subcat'd to each of the national cinema cats. Some of these may be small cats, but there are a good number of countries which commonly pair off for co-productions. Does that sound reasonable? Girolamo Savonarola 06:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's not lose sight of the fact that we need to make things user-friendly. If someone wants to see all German-produced films, chances are they want to have German co-production as well. I think we should add country categories for each country involved and not try to make crossover categories which may make categorising easier but research harder. Mallanox 00:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Let me try to organize the pros and cons of the various possibilities. I will avoid "co-production" simply for length. I will use the example I mentioned above:

1. Separate county categories: Cat:German films, Cat:Swiss films, Cat: Israeli films
   • + Simple to assign, simple to find films.
   • - May not always be so important to find the film in one minor-contributing country
   • - Very lengthy category section in cases of 4-5-6 country co-productions
2. Crossover categories: Cat:German-Swiss-Israeli films
   • + Simple to assign
   • + Makes it clearer as for why more than one country appear in a film
   • - One has to look in subcategories to get all films of a country
   • - May produce some very small subcategories
3. Primary country + "multinational": Cat:German films, Cat:Multinational co-productions
   • + Not so lengthy category section in the case of 4 and over counties
   • + A film doesn't appear in slightly-relevant country categories
   • - Doesn't name the co-producing countries, which may be equally important
   • - Due to mistake of judgement, wrong "primary" country could be given, or it may be POV as to which is "primary"

Feel free to add pros and cons and to state support for more than one system. Hoverfish Talk 08:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I support the first proposal. While it is true that you would end up with films in categories in which that country had a very small role, I think that this con is counterweighed with the con in proposal 2, where one would have to go looking through many small categories to find films in which some country had had a major role (and the other countries had minor roles). As I see it, these two cons cancel each other out. What we're left with, then, is to weigh the con of having numerous very small categories against the con of having a "lengthy category section in cases of 4-5-6 country co-productions". I think that since there are often lengthy category sections in articles anyway, it's not so much of a con. However, an alternate idea would be to have some kind of cut-off point for the creation of co-production articles; for example, go with proposal 2 if there are at least X wikipedia articles about films co-produced between these countries, and with proposal 1 otherwise. I don't think category 3 is worth considering, because it combines the cons of categories 1 and 2 (long category section in articles - "German co-productions", "French co-productions", etc) AND has its own flaws. It's by far the worst of the three. Esn 00:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that option three is the worst. I still support option 1 as it has the biggest pro of all, simple to find films. Mallanox 22:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Option 1 is the best because it's user friendly. How many people are seriously interested in 'German-Swiss-Israeli' films as a special category of their own? Cop 633 13:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion to improve category sorting

Hi, I've made a suggestion here [1] over on WP:CAT that I hope will improve the alphabetical listing in categories. As the inspiration for this came from sorting out film categories I would like to ask for opinions particularly from this project's members. Please make any comments there rather than here, thanks. Mallanox 23:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Category American films

First, is there a way to force all subcategories to display in the first page? It's a long way to look into all the pages to find all subcategories. Second, I do not find it practical to assign Category:American films to various American studios. The reason is that (as we shouldn't give parent category) if one is looking for a film he will have to go through all the studios. I suggest all studios have only main parent Category:Films by studio. Hoverfish Talk 14:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:Lists of films with features in common

I would like to call attention to the fact that Category:Lists of films with features in common and all 30 articles in that category are being proposed for deletion. --agr 04:13, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's a lot of important articles! Mermaid from the Baltic Sea 17:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed categorization for Soviet and Russian films

Moved here from the main WPFilms talk page.

I've just had a little chat with Ernst and we came to the conclusion that the current categorization for Russian and Soviet films is very inadequate because of the following reasons:

• Categories "Soviet films" and "Russian films" feature significant overlap, which should really not be happening, I think. The only reason someone would look at one but not the other would be to find the few articles about non-Russian Soviet films or non-Soviet Russian films, which would be pretty hard to find anyway given that most of the articles in both are Soviet Russian films.
• Category:Russian-language films currently has a requirement that it be for "for films in Russian language created outside Russia". I know of no other X-language films category that has this requirement, and this has created a lot of confusion.

The proposed solution, which I'd like to put out for discussion here:

Three categories for the three major regimes of Russian history.

• 1917 and earlier - Category:Russian Empire films
• 1917-~1991 Soviet Union- Category:Soviet films
• ~1991-present Category:Russian films, Category:Armenian films, Category:Ukrainian films etc etc
• Category:Russian-language films for every film ever made in Russian language regardless of time. Perhaps there could also be a subcategory specifically for Russian-language films made outside of Russia/Russian Empire/Russian SSR.
  • This also includes Category:Ukrainian-language films, etc.

The category Russian Empire films was recently deleted (see here). However! The situation at the time was different than what I'm proposing now, and I'd like to put forth a few arguments for its inclusion. We have a Cinema of the Russian Empire article (along with a Cinema of the Soviet Union article... and no Cinema of the Russian Federation article!) and Category:Imperial Russia. If you look at the numbers of films released per year over here, you will see that the Russian film industry exploded in the time before the revolution - though there are currently only four or so English-language articles which would fit in the category, the Russian wiki has quite a few articles that could be translated by me (most of the films in the early years over here are Russian). Last but not least, it is a very different era, not just politically, but because most of the Imperial Russian film industry sided with the White Army and many of them fled to countries like France after the war - after the Russian Revolution, most of the major players in film were newcomers. It would be no different than Category:Films of Weimar Germany or Category:Films of the Third Reich, which were created for some similar reasons.

Anyway, please give your support or opposition to this proposal and discuss your reasons. I'd like to get this mess straightened out one way or the other. Esn 23:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support IMO Category:Russian Empire films should be created again. We need 10-20 films to justify it in terms of size (I think). The users that CfD'd it have nothing to do with Films and it's getting to be a problem lately with film related deletions with no one notifying us here. The language category is an independent one from the country categories, so it shouldn't substitute any period. Maybe we should put a request in the German category pages to notify us before CfDing any of them. After we straighten up the present mess, we must also clean up the overlap. Hoverfish Talk 00:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support Sounds like a good idea. It looks like we need a Cinema of Russia article and the Cinema of the Russian Empire and Cinema of the Soviet Union leads should be made clearer and defined with the dates you've provided here. If all three categories are provided with main article tags such as, {{main|Cinema of the Russian Empire}}, that should firmly establish credibility and avoid any further deletions. Doctor Sunshine talk 01:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: That's a very good idea. We should also do the same for the German cinema periods. Hoverfish Talk 08:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support I noted that there was no Cinema of Russia article quite awhile back, left a comment about it somewhere, then got sidetracked and never followed up on it, so I'm glad to see this getting some attention. — WiseKwai 04:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support od course but I think I'm too late!! ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 16:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Film

I want to add more elements to the Template:Infobox Film, like "style" and "time making". For example:

• Style: 2D animation
• Time-making: 2 years

Is it possible? Appleworm 16:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Those don't really seem necessary for the infobox. Instead, they would go under "Production," "Post-production," or the lead paragraph of the article. Volatile 23:54, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The infobox should have only a minimal amount of important data so it doesn't get too big. The first one has little variation across films which would mean a lot of redundancy in infoboxes. The second one would be very difficult to find and even if it were as useful as budget would probably go widely unused. gren グレン 05:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Films February Newsletter

The February 2007 issue of the Films WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. Cbrown1023 talk 00:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

French films

I was looking at the Category:French films, and I noticed that some film titles are in French and some are in English. It's inconsistent. Shouldn't we come to a consensus here? I suggest English titles since this is an English Wikipedia. --Crzycheetah 05:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The lack of replies is probably because this has been discussed several times in several different talk pages. Besides using English, there are other factors that need to be looked into, such as what is the most common title, if the English title is official or unofficial and/or if there are several well-known English titles. I suggest we continue case by case. Prolog 21:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Understood, thanks for the reply. --Crzycheetah 22:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Also see the foreign film bit at WP:NC(F), which basically just repeats the information at the two links already provided by Prolog. Doctor Sunshine talk 11:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Film directors

I see that screenwriters have their own project. Where do directors go ? If part of this project, shouldn't there be something on their talk pages that indicates that ? -- Beardo 15:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

If a sub-project for film crew (or a specific one for directors) is not created and adequately manned, our template wouldn't mean much. Note that the screenwriters sub-project is a one member effort (or was so when I last visited). Also please don't add the talk page film template to biographies, as in stubs it will expand to film article upgrading. Which is also true for all general film articles. Could we find a solution for this? Maybe a special film template for non-film articles? Hoverfish Talk 20:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to create WikiProject Filmmakers which incorporates all actors, direcotrs, cinematogrpahers, editors etc and also screenwriters unifying a two man project ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 11:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Whose fetus?

The article states that Homer performed an abortion on Rose, but it is unclear who the father was - it says (paraphrasing) that "Rose became pregnant by him" - apparently either Rose's father or Wally Worthington, but it is ambiguous as to which (I would edit it but I do not know who the father was).

Proposed categorization for Soviet and Russian films

Note: Discussion has been moved here. Esn 23:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually this issue should be posted in our categorization sub-project page, but I will answer here. IMO Category:Russian Empire films should be created again. We need 10-20 films to justify it in terms of size (I think). The users that CfD'd it have nothing to do with Films and it's getting to be a problem lately with film related deletions with no one notifying us here. I support your proposal. The language category is an independent one from the country categories, so it shouldn't substitute any period. Maybe we should put a request in the German category pages to notify us before CfDing any of them. After we straighten up the present mess, we must also clean up the overlap. Hoverfish Talk 00:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I've partially translated a fourth article for the category. Creating a total of 10 articles should be doable, but it'll take some time. Anyway, good point, I'll move the discussion there. Esn 00:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:Films and WP:Indian cinema infobox divide?

Due to our large influx of new infobox requests, I was wondering if there would be any objections to creating a new infobox request template just for Indian films and Persian films which WP:Indian and WP:Persian cinema could use, while WP:Films retains the {{needs film infobox}}. By doing this, each project could better focus on their individual infobox requests instead of having them all clustered into a large collection of requests. We have so far done a good job on fulfilling many infobox requests and I commend the efforts of the editors who have added so many requests to many of the films that do not have infoboxes. Perhaps we can add a programmable distinction in the {{needs film infobox}} template stating something like "project=Films", "project="Indian", "project=Persia", for example. This could then be divided into new categories for people to better edit articles pertaining to each project. I would prefer consensus on this first before we do anything that we may have to redo later. I'll post a message on both of the other projects to join in on the discussion here. --Nehrams2020 04:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong support. I think automation might have problems, but I'm not the best to judge this. We could add a field to the request infobox that simply assigns another request-category to it. For example {{needs film infobox|WP=India}} (if no WP= entered then proceeds as usual) would assign category [[Category:WPIndian cinema articles that need a film infobox]] or something more concise. Maybe this could be combined with automation, but we have to make sure no undesired side-effects happen. Hoverfish Talk 08:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with this. Really, even after tagging all of the country films categories I suspect there are still thousands of uncategorized, unbannered film articles out there. If someone's willing to do this, it could be done for all of this project's descendants, which would make it easier to enlist their help. Doctor Sunshine talk 00:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment, I kind of see this as a waste of time. It doesn't help further organize and clarify what needs to be done. I maybe see the argument that doing this will get the word out to members of the subj-projects but... I think they can easily browse the list and pick out films from their own cinema not to mention that I don't believe the editors on either of the subprojects have been very active in doing infoboxes (I may be wrong) so it won't even enlist more help. I fear that to an extent this is because users want to be done doing a huge backlog of infoboxes... and I don't think putting them in another category gets us any closer to that goal. If you don't want to do Indian films then don't, It's pretty easy to see which ones they are. So, if you really want to do this... go ahead but I don't see the good in it. It's just compartmentalizing work which is far removed from expertise (which is why stubs are split) since infoboxes are just copy and paste jobs with no expertise required, just some effort in tracking down cast and crew. gren グレン 05:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Doing it by hand would be crazy but bots, and I have no experience in using them, but it should be possible to have a bot do all the sorting. It's hard to say how much good it would do but if it's easily accomplished it's worth a shot. And it might come in handy if we attempt to tackle needed pictures and synopsis's at some point... Doctor Sunshine talk 19:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, I'm so busy doing infoboxes that I could wait and see how it all develops, before doing anything about it. It's just that every day I have to scan several columns to see if any non-India film was added to a cleared letter and it's not always as clear as you say. Often it's Cantonese, Albanian, or other titles that might or might not belong to WP India. But you are right (Gren): even this daily searching is faster than going into all Indian films and adding a field. As for bots, I don't run one, but I don't think they can tell by themselves if the film is Albanian or Indian. They improve speed but someone has to be there and do considerable semi-manual work using them. Hoverfish Talk 22:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Splitting off an article on production history

I am currently putting The Devil Wears Prada through peer review with the hope of eventually reaching featured status. The main problem has been how to shorten up an article that at one point reached 91K and is probably still (at 80K after the "differences between film and book" section was prosified) the longest article on a single film.

It grew because, as I said introducing the article at peer review, there is just an unusual amount of information available about this film. I found a great deal of it to be relevant to the article, the sort of thing the project guidelines say we should include (i.e., actors and crew explaining the creative decisions they made, often in their own words) and much of it is in the production section, currently accounting for a third of the whole article.

When I was working on this, I realized how big it was getting and considered splitting off that section as a separate article, perhaps to be entitled Production history of The Devil Wears Prada. Essentially this would be a "making of" article and I could see how other films might benefit from having this possibility available (the Star Wars series, for instance).

Reading through the feedback I've gotten from two reviewers, both of whom seem to have read the article thoroughly, with one small exception no one seems to have found anything in that section to be unencylopedic. So I'm even more strongly in favor of doing so now. I've had the proposal on peer review and the talk page for a couple of days with no comment. If someone here has any reasons why they don't want to see this set as a precedent, or why this is a lousy idea, this is the place to say so. Daniel Case 17:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Very nice article. It was bound to happen that a production history of some film would become this large. Making a seperate page is a good idea. I would leave a condensed version of the prod hist in the page, with a link to the larger article. - Peregrine Fisher 19:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment (this article dominated my editing in December and January). Of course there'll be a link and summary, per standard practice. Daniel Case 01:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think production history articles are that useful. Wikipedia shouldn't be a guide to this type of content. If people want to learn the history of how the movie is made: they can go elsewhere. I would think there is some kind of guideline against this. RobJ1981 20:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't think these are useful? I don't know a single film where there isn't something from the production history that knowing doesn't enhance your appreciation of the finished film — that the screenwriters for Casablanca were a couple of scenes ahead of the actual filming for most of the shoot, that Dustin Hoffman ad-libbed that "Hey! I'm walking here!" line in Midnight Cowboy when that cab unexpectedly came into the shot, that The Blues Brothers cost as much as it did to make not only because of the car chases but because they lost whole shooting days waiting for Belushi to either come down or get coked up enough to shoot (actually, I just learned from the article that they really dropped a Ford Pinto from a plane at the end, and had to get a special certificate from the FAA to do it).

I think also of how, in the vein of productions shutting down because actors get sick, how Kubrick stopped Full Metal Jacket cold for a couple of months so Lee Ermey could recover from his car accident. We all know the story of what Lawrence Olivier said about Hoffman's staying up all night before a scene in Marathon Man The article on Heaven's Gate would be greatly enhanced if edited by someone who's read Final Cut (like how only midway through production, the studio learned Cimino was making money on the side off them by leasing land he owned to the studio for the production.

Film critics and historians spend lots of time trying to talk to actors and filmmakers and research this stuff for a reason. If it wasn't important we wouldn't have production sections at all. Since it is, if one gets too long, we split it off. Daniel Case 05:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Rubbish. Most people like to know about how a film was made. WikiNew 20:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I would be fine with splitting it off as long as independent opinions can verify that the subsidiary article doesn't go into unnecessary detail about the production history. From what I've seen, the content seems fairly acceptable and comprehensive. Lord of the Rings has its own split-off articles because of the mountain of information available in regard to its own production. There's nothing wrong with a split-off article if the information is notable to the film's production and not something like, "Filming was cancelled on so-and-so date because the main actor was sick." —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 20:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't a whole new article going into unnecesary detail? It seems to be the excuse on Wikipedia (sometimes at least): if the article gets too long, then it's split into seperate articles. While this is helpful sometimes, other times it just makes crufty articles. At times, condensing should be the key. Long sections can be condensed in correct ways, without ruining the section and/or article. RobJ1981 20:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Not really. Many articles on main subjects often have subsidiary articles. For example, a country would have a "history of", "people of", etc articles. Film articles shouldn't be any different as long as the information is encyclopedic and not just an indiscriminate collection of information. —Erik (talk • contrib • review) - 20:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Luckily this page is so well referenced, we can discuss this on the merits of splitting long articles, and not on what's cruft or not. It seems to me that Production history is the most encyclopedic info about a film that there is, beyond cast, dates, and maybe cultural influence. We're not talking about splitting off plot summary or something. If the resulting page attracts referenced editing, that's a good thing. - Peregrine Fisher 20:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to turn away such high-quality writing and references, but this just doesn't strike me as particularly encyclopedic at this level of detail. I feel like the section could be cut by a third or half without affecting the overall level of informativeness. There's a whole paragraph on the personal feelings of one screenwriter, for instance, which I see as review or interview fodder, not critical to the history of the movie. --Dhartung | Talk 21:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd be willing to cut once it was in a separate article, perhaps, to trim that down. Right now my priority is just to get this article to manageable length. It seems to me there's a consensus in favor here. I doubt the separate article would get much longer, other than discussing why a few scenes were cut (something helpfully cut from the main article by someone here.

I'll let this go a day or so longer before I split and condense, as long as the discussion continues its current path. Daniel Case 01:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Foreign language film title guidelines

I have attempted a rewrite of the naming conventions guidelines for foreign films in order to make them less vague. I would appreciate feedback; please offer opinions on the talk page here. Thanks. Cop 633 23:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you meant to give this link - yours doesn't work. Esn 00:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair use images...

Use of posters or DVD covers to illustrate the article on the film is legit, right? elvenscout742 13:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, yes.--NeilEvans 16:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Just make sure to include a descriptive fair use rationale, a proper movie poster or DVD cover license, and the source where you got it on the image's page. Otherwise, it may be deleted or removed from the article. --Nehrams2020 19:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The Swordsman image has the basics. Although this may not be absolutely necessary, you can also add to subsequent uploads "for use only in (name of article)". If you don't see any mention that copying/using a movie poster needs a special permission, it's all legit. Hoverfish Talk 20:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Film characters comment and question

I believe I posted something about this a while ago (and didn't get many replies). So I'll try again. Is it necessary for all major (and some minor) film characters to get articles? I can understand for long running series such as Star Wars, Nightmare on Elm Street, James Bond, etc... but what about animation? Example: Category:Cars characters. Cars was popular, but it's still a one time movie. It might get a sequel (one could be even confirmed now?), but either way: articles for each character seem like a bit much to me. A list page for the characters would work better. Cars was 116 minutes (and even counting extra things that weren't part of the movie and so on), it's not much material. I'll use the Lightning McQueen article as example. 3 paragraphs about the movie, a little over a paragraph about the game (which wasn't that notable: many movie games come out all the time and flop.} Then there is an international names section, and a huge trivia section. When you remove alot of the cruft: the article would be a couple of paragraphs at best. This doesn't just apply to one time films, it applies to things such as Ice Age as well. Ice Age had 2 films: and it has crufty articles that would be suited for a list better. What does everyone else think on this matter about character articles? RobJ1981 06:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

See WP:FICT. Characters should only have articles if they are recognized and notable outside of the fictional context. Most times, characters taken from a single fictional source have articles that regurgitate information already found in the main article, so they have little reason to exist. -- Dhartung | Talk 06:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well from the looks of the Cars character articles: they do regurgitate information from the movie. This will need to be looked into more, before a list page is made I believe. RobJ1981 07:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There already is a list of the Cars characters, found at List of Cars characters. I think in the past, the list was even longer than it is now (don't know how that's possible), and some people suggested splitting these characters off. Then later they had merge tags on them to bring it back. So either they merged and split again or never merged. --Nehrams2020 07:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

YIKES! That list page is a mess. Does it include all characters or what? In my opinion: list pages like that should be major characters and supporting characters only: NOT a massive guide to everyone/almost everyone. To reply to Nehrams: my guess is the merges didn't happen once the tags went on. I've seen plenty of times where people don't discuss merges, and then the tags just vanish due to lack of interest. The list page has had tags on it since July and November 2006...that's not a good sign either. RobJ1981 08:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

In a Cars related note: Cars Diecast Line is a listcruft of another matter. Is it that notable to list each car in the series? I somehow doubt collectors are using Wikipedia as a source to find out that information. As I looked at the talk page: it was in AFD (and basically got kept by default: everyone said keep except for one, if you don't count the person that nominated it). AFD isn't about votes: but in this case I think it was. RobJ1981 08:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Reviews

I cannot find an archive of Gene Siskel's reviews (been to his dot com, and chicago times where Ebert is), and I'm working on a film that was significantly panned by him, and it's subsequent sequels. I have two official books that discuss his review and quotes him on several things, but I don't have a source to the literal review. I was wondering if I can use the books as the source, or if I have to scrap him altogether because there doesn't seem to be an archive of his film reviews (at least not that I could find) since his death.  BIGNOLE   (Question?)  (What I do)  16:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with citing the books rather than the original review, as long as the books are reliable sources.Cop 633 17:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I just wasn't sure if that was going to be a problem. I'm still looking for Siskel's reviews, but it's good to know that I can fall back on the books.  BIGNOLE   (Question?)  (What I do)  17:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

William Monahan article under review at FAC

Hello. I recently self-nominated the article on the recent Academy Award winner for Best Adapted Screenplay, William Monahan at WP:FAC. Please read the article and comment, as well as copyedit if you wish. It's a fascinating read.-BillDeanCarter 20:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

One movie, five articles

In the process of adding infoboxes, I came across When Lincoln Paid and When Lincoln Was President, both marked as 1913 films. I merged them and redirected the latter. Now I've just found The Reprieve: An Episode in the Life of Abraham Lincoln, which is another almost identical article - with two changes, different year and imdb number. Now there's a fourth article Abraham Lincoln's Clemency with a different year and imdb article! I left requests there for clarification on which is the "real" date... any information from here on which is the right one?

• When Lincoln Paid
• When Lincoln Was President
• The Reprieve: An Episode in the Life of Abraham Lincoln
• Abraham Lincoln's Clemency
• The Sleeping Sentinel

SkierRMH 03:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I've also gone through the IMDb search when I came across Whem Linkoln Was President. They have also different directors. My impression is they are different short films shot at various times. The info we could give in various infoboxes would be minimal and I doubt the articles would ever grow beyond a few lines. Maybe it would be best to forget the infobox and merge them all in an article (Abraham Lincoln in film?) Hoverfish Talk 08:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems they're all listed in the Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln article. Perhaps that could just be expanded upon to include what little information there is? Chickenmonkey 12:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

My first inclination was to do a merge, but looking at Cultural depictions of Abraham Lincoln, it appears that this already does this, albeit in a more generic manner. As they seem to have minor differences (although the 1914 doesn't have an imdb listing), I'm just marking them as such and doing redirects if there's identical articles for the same year. SkierRMH 23:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Children of Men

Can an senior-type editor or admin mosey on over to the film article? Seems a couple groups of editors are bickering about the inclusion of a statement that one wants included in the article, while the other doesn't think it belongs in the article at all. The two editors are faced off against each other, and little else is getting done. Maybe some impartial help could step in and lend a judging hand? (although, not a hanging judge, coz' that would be a bit on the severe side).Arcayne 04:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to add that the need is somewhat urgent, as an editor who is not really impartial is weighing in on the matter. Please come and lend a hand.Arcayne 01:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Arcayne has gotten his impartial admin and is unhappy with the result. I invite review. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

A film's 'year'

My recollection is that somewhere we have a guideline saying that a film's 'year of release' refers to its first screening, not to its first wide release, so that a film screened at festivals in 1996 but not widely released until 1997 would still be called a 1996 film (following IMDB's policy). Am I right? and if so, where is this guideline and can we make it easier to find?! Cop 633 17:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines for release year slightly differ between Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films), {{Infobox Film}}, and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Films/Style_guidelines#Release_dates. --PhantomS 17:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

For all practical purposes, it's best to state first screening. We should fix the guidelines accordingly. In some cases where a cut version was released and later the film was re-released uncut (like in some Soviet Union cases), it's best give both dates (see Andrei Rublev (film)). Hoverfish Talk 21:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I would go along with Hoverfish, but would lean more toward first public screening, rather than say at a film festival, as sometimes there is a long period between screening at a film festival and a film going on general release.--NeilEvans 21:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't a film festival a public screening? Hoverfish Talk 21:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well yes a film festival is a public screening, but what I meant was general release, as I said sometimes the time between film festival screening and general release can be few years, so I would go for the date when it was distributed on general release.--NeilEvans 21:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I hope we get more opinions on this soon. For one, we will not be in line with film databases (imdb and amg tend to give earliest screening). For another, more important reason, keep in mind that in our major film lists (by letter, years in film, by country) we have been meticulously giving first release in all ambiguous cases. We can clear this out in the article, even in the lead section, we can enter both dates in the infobox, but as far as naming, categorizing and listing, I would keep it by first release. I have also seen in the years in film a few double entries with mention of type of release in each year entry. Hoverfish Talk 00:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's better to stick with earliest screening, as per Hoverfish. It's a bad idea to get out of sync with IMDB and All Movie Guide on this, it would cause endless confusion. Also, as far as I can tell, there aren't any film articles using the 'general release' year, so if we settled on that we'd have to go and fix them all. Nightmare. Cop 633 01:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to rewrite the style guides listed above to make them consistent with the 'first public screening' approach since that seems to be the normal state of affairs in articles. Feel free to stop me if you disagree! Cop 633 19:52, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

OK never mind, it turns out the infobox styleguide is protected ... hopefully it can get updated soon.Cop 633 19:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Sandy Olsson

Does anybody else think that Sandy Olsson should be deleted? Kris Classic 21:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure Danny Zuko redirects to the Grease musucal article. But Betty Rizzo has the start of what could be a good article with a bit more expansion. If someone was interested enough one could discuss the different interpretation between the musical and the film versions of characters. So really it could go either way.--NeilEvans 21:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

CineVoter (March 10, 2007)

File:Film Reel Series by Bubbels.jpg

You voted for the Cinema Collaboration of the week, and it has been chosen as Un chien andalou.Please help improve it to match the quality of an ideal Wikipedia film article.

--PhantomS 02:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Add professional reviews to {{Infobox film}}?

Someone asked about this at Wikipedia:Requested templates. I looked through the talk archives here and all I could find was a consensus against linking to community-created reviews like IMDB and RottenTomatoes, but nothing about professional reviews. These are often linked in {{Infobox album}}. I will relay the proposal and let you guys comment. —dgies^t_c 06:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Why isn't there a "Reviews" option for the film infobox? The album infobox has one, and when viewed, it appears as "Professional Reviews," where you can place the name of the reviewer/review site and the number of stars. This is how the "Reviews" option looks on the template in the edit pane for AC/DC's Back in Black: | Reviews = * [[All Music Guide]] {{rating-5|5}} [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wzaxqjkboj6a link] Now, let's say we added this to the template for the film infobox. The box for the movie Halloween would look like this: | Reviews = * [[Roger Ebert]] {{rating-4|4}} [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19791031/REVIEWS/40823003/1023 link]

Sounds like a great idea to me. It's actually one of the most important out-of-universe types of information that we could include in a film article. Make it optional, of course, so that we can slowly add it as we feel like. Imdb numbers will still be a no-no. - Peregrine Fisher 06:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean Imdb ratings will be no-no, to which we have agreed over and over again. Rotten Tomatoes does offer a rich variety of professional review links mainly (including Eberts as "Cream of the Crop", see [2]), but it was voted to stay in external links instead of the infobox. Imdb and Amg are given instead, mostly because of the data (cast, crew, tech) they provide on the film. Hoverfish Talk 07:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, the proposal is to add a new variable to the template for the purpose of listing only those reviews which satisfy WP:RS. —dgies^t_c 07:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, but the infobox may become overly tall. See below. - Peregrine Fisher 08:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It sound good to me too, but is this for Robert Ebert in particular, or for ANY link that could satisfy RS? And a question: does Ebert provide reviews for MOST films (even most foreign ones) or will this remain a field for few films? Hoverfish Talk 09:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Ebert was just an example. Most newspaper or TV film critics meet WP:RS. This would be an optional variable to be used when a professional film review is available online. —dgies^t_c 09:40, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

No way. The film infobox is already drastically long. Reviews belong in prose, not a list. I also need to add one man like Ebert or Travers et al is undue weight to one opinion, especially if they may not represent a consensus. Ebert is known for hating the original Godzilla and Gladiator. WikiNew 09:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes is a site that offers plenty of links to such reviews and it has been decided that it stays out of the infobox and into section "External links", where also any other acceptable reviews can be given. But surely prose benefits the article (and Wikipedia) much more than listing external link. The value of seeking films in Wikipedia rather than Rotten Tomatoes, is that we have (or should have) our own presentation of each film, with references to professional reviewers where necessary. Now, some may think of the infobox as the big highlights, but actually the article is the main bit. The infobox is given only as a quick reference to identify the film. Even the very disputed links to imdb and amg serve merely as a cross checking accommodation. Any further data in the infobox (even budget IMO) is beyond its purpose. Hoverfish Talk 14:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It would seem that this should not go into the infobox, but should be in it's own section within the article as an "external link". I've removed several of these that were in infoboxes as "website" and put them into the external link section. And as others have said, the infoboxes can get a bit overly long at times! SkierRMH 00:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox can get really tall

I've seen a number of infoboxes that are longer than the accompanying article, which doesn't look right. Alice in Wonderland (1903 film) is one example. Have we had a discussion about how to deal with this? Template talk:Infobox actor has a bit about it, but I think we should really start thinking outside the box. Off the top of my head, maybe a template that goes at the bottom of the page? I know we can just add this stuff in prose, but I'd like to hear ideas other than that. You can say "just add a reviews section" but I don't see it happening that often, or being done that well. Another idea; a template that would go into a reviews section. How about a cast template that would go under a "Cast" section header. Something that would look like { {cast|actor1|actor2|...}} and expand into something that doesn't look like a table, but looks like prose. I think templates that people can just fill out, without having to think about complete sentences, would be good. - Peregrine Fisher 08:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It has been firmly established that an infobox should not replace the article. What is given in the infobox, should be in the article. In the case of Alice the article should normally grow to include all the info. As soon as a cast section is created, the cast should be moved there, and only 2-3-max.4 top actors should remain in the infobox. A review section would have to be created too, if we add the field in the infobox. Much better if we add a separate template for it (IMO), as the infobox template is obviously getting to be quite lengthy. As for this template for cast, don't forget the format should be *[[Actor]] as Role and this seems easier done without a template. Cast given in prose is also acceptable, but it happens mostly in more developed articles. Hoverfish Talk 09:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:Film

There is an important updated regrading this template. Please read the talk page and comment on it. Thank you. Shane ^{(talk/contrib)} 18:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

What is being discussed, is to reduce the box to a one line box with a hide/show, which also applies to the stub upgrading info. We need to get all concerned members on this, please take a look at the model that has been worked out and give opinion. Hoverfish Talk 23:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Dukes Of Hazzard The Beginning

Under Trivia, the user adds in a useful fact along with his opinion. Should this be edited or kept? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Daboss94 (talk • contribs) 04:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

I fixed it. --Nehrams2020 07:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Screenwriter/editor stubs

After consensus I closed the case on the long awaited stub categories and set them up Category:Screenwriter stubs and Category:Film editor stubs now exists. Sceen-writer-stub and film-editor-stub is the mode. If you could spread the word I would be grateful. I'll categorize the American-screenwriter tubs in the main cat above now ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 11:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)