Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Archive 3

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Video Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Archive 3

Steven Spielberg needs cleanup

Anybody interested in doing some cleanup on Steven Spielberg? Article has a number of un-cited statements that appear to be opinion of the contributor. (Note, some of these are already tagged and some aren't).
(I will not be doing any substantial work on this article myself.)
-- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 22:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Maps Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Archive 3

Photos

Does anybody know of any good sources for actor/director/etc photos that can be used in articles without copyright issues? Jay-W (talk) 14:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Outside of what is on the Commons and perhaps free-use licensed content on Flickr, not really. It depends on the era. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Howard Koch (screenwriter)

Assistance on this article is needed. This is one of the most prominent screenwriters of his generation. IP edits turned it into an attack on his politics and screenplay to Mission to Moscow. Surely not his best work, but he is mainly notable for his work on Casablanca and for Orson Welles. There's virtually nothing on that, and the article on this very prominent screenwriter needs expansion by knowledgeable editors.

The same IP has been at work on Bosley Crowther (NY Times film critic), in one article referring to him as "Stalinist." I've rolled back the damage in Crowther but it would help if that article can be watched. Stetsonharry (talk) 23:07, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Deletion sorting

It is currently the case that AfD discussions for the biography articles of filmmakers and such are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Film; I believe it would be prudent to relocate such discussions to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Actors and actresses and rename that page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Actors and filmmakers. This would be of benefit to both WP:FILM, as such articles do not fall within this project's scope, and WP:BIOGRAPHY, who do not currently include such discussions on their Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Deletion sorting page.

Since I am posting this same comment at WT:FILM, WT:BIOGRAPHY and WT:FILMBIO, can any comments please be left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion sorting#Proposed refocus of Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Actors and actresses where I have already raised the issue, so it isn't being discussed in four different places. PC78 (talk) 13:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

This change has now been made. PC78 (talk) 14:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

Samuel Fuller

Crossposted from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Samuel Fuller

I'm currently doing a massive expansion of the article for White Dog, the last American film directed by noted B-movie director Samuel Fuller. In my work on the article, I've found a ton of sources about Fuller himself. I'm not fond of doing Biography articles myself, I looked to see if there was an active editor who might have use for the sources and found none. I was wondering if anyone from the Biography project might want to take on expanding and cleaning up his article? If so, I'd be happy to forward all of the sources I've pulled from various paper archives to assist in the work. I have eight in PDF form, including several multi page spread, all WP:RS, and there are also quite a bit in the Criterion Collection site for the film. Can also provide any info on the DVD's many special features about its controversial history once I get it, and have access to quite a few additional paper sources that didn't mention the film. With the sourcing, I'd imagine an experienced editor here could get the Fuller article to GA level relatively quickly. Any takers? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm interested, as I said on the bio noticeboard, but I'm not really an experienced editor. You can send the materials to me and I can do my best with them, and then if anyone else wants them I or you can forward them. What do you think? Stetsonharry (talk) 01:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me. While you may not be experienced, sounds like you have enthusiasm which is great :) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

GAR on Christian Bale

Christian Bale has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Cirt (talk) 08:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I was wondering what the specific concern was regarding the citations. I'm not familiar with the article, and reading through it no concerns jumped off the page. Stetsonharry (talk) 21:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

There are huge chunks of unsourced content. That's unacceptable in any GA, much less a BLP one. Several that are there seem a bit questionable/shaky. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 21:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Help with fradulent info on Laszlo Kovacs' wiki page

Hello, My name is Nadia, the daughter of Laszlo Kovacs. Lately there has been some edits to my father's page that are PURE fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Kov%C3%A1cs_(cinematographer)&oldid=269631740) is the edit that I keep trying to take down, it is stated in the early life section. It's all lies and my family and myself are very upset. I keep watching he page and changing it whenever it gets changed incorrectly. How can I put a stop to this? Anyone that reads a film history book on my father can clearly see that this information is incorrect. Thank you! -Nadia Kovacs --Preceding unsigned comment added by Nadiakovacs (talk o contribs) 02:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe that your first step is to establish who you are. See WP:OTRS for information about how to contact the Foundation to establish your identity. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 04:58, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Naming of actor's award lists

See this discussion. --JD554 (talk) 20:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. -- Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 04:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Copyedit?

Raise your hand if you'd like to help copyedit the James Nesbitt article. If enough people join in, it could be listed at FAC as a Wikiproject nomination. Bradley0110 (talk) 13:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about how much I can help, but I must say, that is an overpowering lead. I'll try to read it more in-depth later. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. -- Headbomb {^????_???????? - WP Physics} 08:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Link to filmography (if separated) in infoboxes?

Should we add a field to {{Infobox Actor}} that links to an actor or director's filmography if it is separate from the main article? Maybe it could be placed to appear next to the "years active" line? Bradley0110 (talk) 19:28, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary. There should already be a link to the filmography article in the filmography section. PC78 (talk) 20:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The link to the separate filmographies are generally easy to find. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:08, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Very well. I'll get me coat. ;) Bradley0110 (talk) 09:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it cold outside? Wildhartlivie (talk) 10:16, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Infobox actor changes proposal

1. I would like to propose that some parameters be removed from the awards section of {{Infobox Actor}}. As time goes on, this section has become overburdened with excessive listings of minor, film festival and critics awards in the "Other awards" section, especially as filmography tables are beginning to carry these awards as well, and more information is added to the main body of the article. Examples might be noted on pages such as Meryl Streep and Heath Ledger. They make the infobox listing excessively long enough to sometimes interfere with the layout of the rest of the article when opened, as happens on Al Pacino. I propose that the "Other awards" section be removed from the template completely to avoid these long lists from accumulating.

2. I also propose that the individual awards sections in the infobox be limited to the major film and stage awards for each country, for example, Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Emmy Awards, BAFTA Awards, Australian Film Institute Awards, Ariel Awards, César Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Filmfare Awards, Gemini Awards, Golden Calf Awards, Goya Awards, Grammy Awards, Laurence Olivier Awards, Irish Film and Television Awards, National Film Awards and the Tony Awards. I would propose that the Independent Spirit Awards be added to the list. If there are any other primary acting awards, please make a note.

3. I would also propose that the Golden Raspberry Awards be removed from the list of major awards for several reasons, most notably because they aren't awards in the sense that the others are. The Golden Raspberry Awards are not an industry standard or prestige award. They aren't honors or accolades for outstanding work. They are at best a user-voted spoof award, or slur award, if you will and do not belong in the same lists as genuine honor awards. Membership and voting is open for anyone who wants to pay the $25 fee to join. For the same reason, People's Choice Awards should not, and currently are not, listed. Anyone can vote, multiple times and represents more of a popularity contest than an award.

4. It has been suggested that the awards section be completely removed from the infobox, which would make the previous three proposals moot. I think that is a viable option as well. The awards are mentioned all over actor articles already, including filmographies, article body and those increasingly excessive succession boxes. Perhaps they shouldn't be included in yet another place.

Please comment if you will, note support or objection for each of the three four proposals. Thanks! Wildhartlivie (talk) 10:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Not everything has to be in an infobox. Personally I wouldn't mind the awards section being completely removed from the infobox. Garion96 (talk) 10:28, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought that might be too extreme to suggest all at once. However... now that you mention it, maybe a 4th option ought to be offered. Wildhartlivie (talk) 10:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal support/objection

• Proposal 1.: Remove the "Other awards" section of infobox.

1 - Support. Although I feel that the problem could be resolved by removing excessively long award lists where needed. But as long as the awards are already listed somewhere else in the article, which is usually the case, the information is redundant anyway. decltype (talk) 10:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• Proposal 2.: Restriction of the list of awards.

2 - Comment: I was under the impression that this section was already restricted to the awards you mention. This means that there's actually no place to insert the major awards for most countries. Except of course, "Other Awards". decltype (talk) 10:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Response - Actually it mostly is, but I'm aware there may be other major film awards by country that I've overlooked. This isn't intended to prevent any addition to what is carried in the infobox with respect to something that I overlooked that fall into the general categories of a country's major film/acting awards. It's probably as much to prevent the plethora of critic and film festival awards from being added to the awards that are individually listed, or to prevent someone from re-adding Golden Raspberry-type awards. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• Proposal 3.: Remove Golden Raspberry Awards from infobox.

3 - Support. I agree with regards to the Golden Raspberry. But isn't it the case that any film award is, at some level, a popularity contest? decltype (talk) 10:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• Proposal 4.: Remove awards section of infobox completely.

4 - Support. Perhaps this is the best solution. decltype (talk) 10:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Support per WP:IBX: Infoboxes are "commonly used in articles to present certain summary or overview information about the subject." Considering how varied and extensive awards can be, this does not fit the goal of the infobox to summarize an actor's background. It seems that awards are already covered in the article body or at least on a sub-article. I would be fine with the proposed restriction as well, but if possible, I favor the removal of the section from the infobox. --Erik (talk o contrib) 13:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Support The "limited" list of major film and stage awards numbers seventeen, and there are actors who have not only won several of them but also have won some of them multiple times, Meryl Streep being a prime example. Removing "Other awards" would still leave her with an overly long infobox. There is too much repetition of information in Wikipedia articles. In the opening of Streep's article, for example, we are told her work has earned her two Academy Awards, a Cannes award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, three New York Film Critics Circle Awards, four Grammy Award nominations, two Emmy Awards, a BAFTA award, and a Tony Award nomination. As you continue reading, many of these awards are cited yet again in the chronological order in which they were received. Then there's a separate article listing all of them! Do we really need them in the infobox as well? LiteraryMaven (talk o contrib) 15:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Support. I have long been in favour of removing the awards entirely from the infobox. It isn't something that can be adequately summarised, and the information is better presented in a table or list within the actual article. There are dozens of major awards that aren't included in the infobox, and to continue adding them as we are doing now just makes the infobox more and more cumbersome. The present situation has carried on for far too long; it's time to stop and have a rethink about what we really want to include in the infobox. PC78 (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Support. I agree with the proposal to simply ditch the awards section of the infobox. I wanted to add that, for more obscure filmmakers and actors, it will now be more important to indicate major awards or nominations in the lead paragraph of the article by way of establishing notability. The infobox currently serves that role to some degree, but I've found it clumsy in practice.Easchiff (talk) 21:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Support. I've often said that I think the infobox should contain only the most basic information to establish identity (as opposed to notability). The awards are almost always mentioned in the lead section, then again in the article body, then again at the end of the article. It's overkill and doesn't need to be further summarized in the infobox. Rossrs (talk) 11:02, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Support per above comments. It doesn't really do much good that we hide the awards in the ibox anyway. Bradley0110 (talk) 12:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Support - Wildhartlivie (talk) 13:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Okay, at this point, we have across the board support to remove the awards from the infoboxes completely. I will give this two more days for any other comments or feedback then put in a request to act upon the final consensus. Wildhartlivie (talk) 05:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion: Editors replying here supported the removal of the awards portion of Infobox actor, 8 support, 0 object. A request will be made to remove awards from the infobox. Wildhartlivie (talk) 13:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't you think this ought to have been advertised a little more widely? Skomorokh 16:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It was posted to projects and pages that are concerned with film and filmmakers, including here, on WT:FILM and on the template talk page. It was given over a week for comments and an announcement was added above about giving it two more days for input. It isn't possible to post an announcement on every user's talk page. The rationales given in the poll above are fairly clear about why people supported it: Awards are mentioned multiple times in these biographies, including the main body of the article, in filmographies, in templates and succession boxes at the bottom of the page and anywhere else where people can put them; meanwhile they are becoming overburdened with lists and lists of awards. Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I second Skomorokh's concern. This shouldn't have been done this way. I personally disagree to removing the awards section (and I didn't know about this discussion; I'm sure many didn't) because they give a great way to take a quick glance at an actor's achievements. I think it should have been done in a different way, with more editors being involved and more time being given. 7 days are nothing really compared to the two years this section was included in the infobox, just as 8 editors of the total 73 participants of this Wikiproject, and all those who have worked hard to add awards to infoboxes and make it complete. Shahid o ^Talk2me 12:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

If editors who put their names on the participant list don't bother to track changes to the project pages on their watchlists, are you suggesting that someone needed to go to each user talk page and ask their opinions or drag them in to read a proposal? The majority of users who list themselves as project members have never posted to this page and take little interest in the daily changes here. I notice you were on Wikipedia each day since the proposals were posted. Do you have the project page on your watchlist? What process would you propose regarding a change be made? Personally, I work just as hard as anyone to add awards in appropriate places in articles and make an effort to see that they are as complete as possible, they just aren't stuck away in a hidden parameter of the infobox.

This was done completely according to Hoyle, so to speak. Proposals were posted, interested editors who happen to pay attention to what goes on here responded. This was initially done because of concerns regarding Golden Raspberry Awards and their place amidst actual awards and honors of merit. More parameters for the proposal were suggested. The fact is, the awards section on the infobox were becoming overburdened. The extent of the listings defeated the concept of a brief and concise synopsis of an actor's career. The infoboxes on many articles overwhelmed other formatting when it was opened. Infobox information shouldn't be expected to take the place of actual prose and context and the listings in them are redundant to what is present in the rest of the article, from filmography listings, succession boxes and templates at the bottom of the pages, to actual discussion covering awards in the main body of the article. If the article doesn't include it in the main body, it should. There was no standardization to how the awards were posted in infoboxes and eventually, the listings were becoming too lengthy. Another point regarding this change would be that of the 73 people who posted themselves as participants here, only two have voiced concern. Wildhartlivie (talk) 13:08, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello Wildhartlivie!

"are you suggesting that someone needed to go to each user talk page and ask their opinions or drag them in to read a proposal?" - why not? Those who want to take part will, and those who don't, won't. And if not, a longer period of time should have been given. It was a part of the infobox, correct me if I'm wrong, for over two years.

I repeat - 7 days are nothing really compared to the two years this section was included in the infobox, just as 8 editors of the total 73 participants of this Wikiproject, and all those who have worked hard to add awards to infoboxes and make it complete.

Clearly no consensus was done here. The discussion as you can see is much active. So many editors were involved with this section, so many were adding the awards, it was here for some two-three years. It was not the right way to do that. Shahid o ^Talk2me 16:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion could probably have been left to run longer than what it did, but expecting that each project member be personally notified of the discussion is absurd. And I don't see much of a problem with a decision being made on the basis of comments by eight users - whole articles are reguarly deleted for less. Do you have a reasoned argument against the removal of this section? PC78 (talk) 16:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe notifying every editor is absurd, but as you said it could've been left to run longer. Fine, 8 editors, even great editors, came to give their opinions. But much more editors were involved with this section in the past. Please don't compare this to AFDs. You are talking about a section of over two years, which was all of a dudden removed after a voting of 7 days?

I'm (and as I see, Blofeld) an example of someone who does care for this and would eventually come to opine, but didn't know of this discussion. It's not consensus. You yourself see this discussion is still active. Shahid o ^Talk2me 17:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not adverse to a bit more discussion, but I would like to see some solid reasoning as to why the section should remain. How long the section has been there is highly irrelevant. PC78 (talk) 17:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I on the other hand think how long the section's been there is highly relevant. The fact that nobody raised any concerns regarding its inclusion during these two years only strengthens my claim that it was not the right way to reach consensus. As to your question. I think this section gives a great way to take a quick glance at an actor's achievements without having to go through the entire article or roll to the bottom of the article. As you see Blofeld also thinks so in his message. Shahid o ^Talk2me 17:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Then I would advise you to have a look through the template's talk page archive, as there has been plenty of discussion regarding the awards section over the years. I would be open to the idea of keeping the awards section in a revised format, but the current format is problematical for all sorts of reasons. PC78 (talk) 17:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

How it will be formatted eventually is not what I try to discuss here. I'm here because I think it was not the right way to reach consensus for all the reasons I cited above. 18:02, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I'm not clear on what you're mostly concerned about - is it that you worked hard to add awards to the infobox? If so, please bear in mind that many editors, including the ones who supported the removal, have worked just as hard on these articles, including adding awards to infoboxes. Other options were offered and none were supported in favor of complete removal. The infobox had parameters for 20 named awards and the generic space for "other awards", which encompass somewhere between 20 and 30 other awards from critics groups, film festivals and similar entities. On some articles, that can run to some 40 or more awards and that borders on excessiveness - most of the ones added to the "other awards" section were difficult to determine without clicking through to see what they actually were, not to mention that they weren't very user friendly in terms of adding or expanding them.

Meanwhile, those awards haven't disappeared from mention in the articles - again, they are contained in filmographies, succession boxes, templates and in the main body of the article (or if they aren't, they should be). I have to repeat PC78's question, do you have a reasoned argument against the removal that addresses specifically why it should be retained? How do you suggest the right way to reach consensus is then? A notice was posted. It was posted here, it was posted at WT:FILM and it was posted on the infobox talk page. Outside of the ones who answered prior to April 1, no one bothered to check this page. Eleven days later, you're saying we did something incorrectly because no one came to your talk page and personally invited you? As I asked before, do you have the project page on your watchlist? How long do you think a proposal offered for consensus should be run? Since you were on Wikipedia every day since the proposal was posted, how long would it taken to be noticed if someone hadn't removed the awards parameters from some actor biography that you do watch? These are all fair questions since you're suggesting impropriety. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:17, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not the case. I'll repeat, I'm here because I think it was not the right way to reach consensus (if it can be called this way) for all the reasons I cited above. The time given was too short and relatively very few editors took part in the discussion. Notifying every editor is not that bad. It may sound absurd, but the same can be said about closing this voting after 7 days with only 8 editors being involved, when a section of over two years and a lot of hard work is concerned here. It should have been left to run longer. As you can see, three editors have already raised concerns about either the removal of the section or the way it was removed. So it was definitely an incomplete discussion, which many editors have been unaware of. Shahid o ^Talk2me 18:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

What he/she said. Seriously, eight editors give their opinion, and it gets axed with virtually no notification outside of WT:FILM? Good grief, I've seen trivial changes get a broader advertisement and more votes than this. Scarletsmith (talk) 00:55, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

All nine (!) editors who commented in the seven-day discussion agreed to remove it. There was no opposition at the time, and the discussion happened at WT:ACTORS where you'd expect a good and broad representation of editors interested in actor biographies watching. Consensus could not have been clearer. --Amalthea 07:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

So you've said. What is it that you expect to see happen? Of the three who said something, one said it should have been wider advertised but gave no other opinion regarding the proposal. You've said it should have run longer, but have given no reasons why the section should be retained. It is unreasonable to expect someone who makes a proposal to go to each person who put their name on a project list and personally invite them to come to the talk page and respond. Actually, that's completely unreasonable. I asked you some specific questions. Do you have the project page on your watchlist so that when something is discussed here, you will know? That's how members become aware of ongoing issues. I asked how long you think a proposal offered for consensus should run. And since you have said that it wasn't the right way to reach consensus, exactly how do you propose that consensus be determined? Make a proposal, post it to relevant project talk pages and invite comment. Is there another way? This has been on the page here for 11 days now. As was said, it is not relevant how long something has been in an infobox to bring a proposal to change it. And to be more clear, kindly don't discount the hard work that the rest of us have put into articles because you have put in work as well. That's not a fair or accurate comparison. Rather than repeating yet again that you think it was the wrong way to determine consensus, I will ask you once more for valid reasoning why the section should be retained in light of the reasons the others and myself have given for deleting it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:00, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

"have given no reasons why the section should be retained." - it is not right. I have given reasons, Blofeld has given a reason. I just think I have to give them when this discussion is restarted, when I know that I don't do that in vain. What I do now is discussing the way this discussion was carried out, which is IMO wrong. If I knew that this decision was taken out of a heavily discussed thread and enough time was given for its coverage, I would never oppose to it. Many editors are busy, for many of them it takes time to catch this or another discussion which is very important to them. You can't expect them all to be present on here within 7 days.

"It is unreasonable to expect someone who makes a proposal to go to each person who put their name on a project list and personally invite them to come to the talk page and respond." - First off, let's not make it personal. I have not proposed such a thing. I said it could have been a way to go for from the beginning. Now the only thing I say is that this discussion is incomplete. Only 8 editors, only 7 days. It is definitely not enough for a section present for more than two years, when most of the editors who have worked on and supported it are unaware of this discussion. Yes I do have the project page on my watchlist, but I was too busy the last few days, and only today did I get to know about what you guys have so nicely discussed here.

"it is not relevant how long something has been in an infobox to bring a proposal to change it." - it actually is. The fact that nobody raised any concerns regarding its inclusion during these two years only strengthens its relevance.

"kindly don't discount the hard work that the rest of us have put into articles because you have put in work as well." - again, let's not make it personal. I did not say anything about myself nor did I discount your hard work (this is something I am aware of BTW). This is not relevant here. I talked about the general efforts put into this section by all those who put them.

I think you shouldn't have gone to request its removal so soon. You should have waited a bit more. As you see, the thread is still active. And if you want me to tell how long it should have been left to run, I'd say, at least two weeks more. At least. Shahid o ^Talk2me 20:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I was under the impression that discussion was occurring, otherwise, why has anyone responded to your post? You've certainly been asked enough today for your reasoning for retaining the section. "Because I worked hard to add awards to the infobox" isn't sufficient reasoning to me, no matter who said it. Keeping or deleting something is based on the merits of the reasoning given. For example, "Because it's there" isn't good reasoning to keep something while "I find it is the first thing I look at whenever I open a page and all I need to know about the person is there" might be, although I'd disagree with part of that.

I've made the point more than once that a lot of people have worked hard on many articles. I didn't use the word personally to "make it personal". How else would someone invite comment except to personally deliver a message to everyone in the project, since you've endorsed that should have been done more than once. It hasn't been 8 days, it's now well into the 11th day since the proposals were posted and as an aside point - the Wikipedia wide date format and linking poll is only open for 14 days, so why should a relatively small project poll be open two weeks longer than it was? We can't drag people onto the talk page and force them to see why the talk page pops up on their watchlist. As for no one having raised concerns over its inclusion in two years - I'd reiterated what PC78 said - look at the template talk page, it's had plenty of concerns and discussion.

I've given several reasons why the awards section is a problem. It has become overburdened with the whole scope of awards that are now being given, actors tend to win multiple awards for any given performance, so it grows exponentially when they win, there has been no discretion to what awards have been included (see Golden Raspberry Awards), and if there isn't a parameter for someone's favorite award of choice, it gets stuck into an ever-growing generic awards parameter. The sections are beginning to encroach on page layout and style and are difficult to work with and implement properly, especially in the generic field. Including the extensive awards listings in the infobox tends to go contradict the purpose of them as covered in the manual of style for infoboxes which notes that they are designed to present summary information about an article's subject, not detail the extensiveness of awards an actor has won. Finally, every editor who posted support above mentioned that the inclusion of awards is extremely redundant to all the other times they are covered in the article. Those are valid reasons against retaining the awards section. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

First off, you're taking it too personally. I'm not accusing you of anything. What discussion? You going to request the removal of the section means the real discussion (in this case, voting) has ended, and here its just conclusions. That's why I want it to be reopened. Only then will I give my opinion as to why I think it should remain.

You're not answering to any of my questions, you say the same about who has worked and who speculates about that, I didn't speculate. And it was not my concern, and you full know that. My concern is the way this was all done, within 7 days with only 8 votes. A section which has been here for over 2 years is not a joke, it's a serious thing. The fact that it was left without anyone removing it even once during these two plus years speaks for itself. This shouldn't have been removed after such a short period in the first place. It should have been left to run for much longer. Shahid o ^Talk2me 13:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

This is the third time you've told me not to take it personally, and I believe I've not indicated that I am taking your comments personally. Other comments below, perhaps. That started when I commented that a note shouldn't have to be left personally for every member of the project. You've stated your complaint about "how this was done" over and over and that has been addressed below by several other persons. The fact is, discussion is occurring here about this right now. I have no clue what questions you've asked that I am not answering. However, I don't think that reverting the change back before you are willing to state your reasons for retaining the section is productive in any way. Yes, I keep repeating the list of issues that I, and others, brought to the initial discussion and I have asked you repeatedly to participate by stating your objections, reasons, concerns. If you won't do that until some arbitrary line you're setting is met, then we're just wasting our breath. A request for comments can be opened, that would be fine, but as Amalthea noted, there are likely far more eyes watching the discussion that haven't offered a response, so it isn't as if this is being discussed in a vaccuum. You're going to have to state your reasons at some point. Meanwhile, I see no point in responding to each post you make saying "it wasn't done right." You've made that point. The discussion is ongoing. Discuss. Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Well you have my opinions of its inclusion in the next section. Shahid o ^Talk2me 19:38, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

arbitrary break

• Comment. I must say, this is a major oversight on User:Wildhartlivie's part. Your head was in the right place, but clearly this is an unopular move. I think the entire thing should have been left alone. Your rationale is that the box distorts the page when it is opened. Well..that's why it remains closed until the reader chooses to open it. The removal of the other awards section may have been a practical move. But we run the risk of bickering over the awards that are reputable, and the ones that aren't.

A similar misstep took place only a few months ago when the genre field was removed from the musicial artist template (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Archive 14) with only a week's discussion and 6 to 7 people agreeing to it. Ultimately, we (rightly) concluded, after weeks of heated discussion and melodrama, that the opinions of 6 or 7 do not constitute consensus (or, as you put it, "across the board support"), and the genre field was reinstated. I predict something similar hapening here, as people are already complaining. Orane (talk) 06:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

And that would be bad? We write the articles for people to read them, not to provide snippets in infoboxes. Besides, there usaully is or should be a "awards" section which people can click in the TOS. Garion96 (talk) 18:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Pardon me? A major oversight on my part? I made three proposals for consideration regarding the awards section of the infobox for consideration. Someone else responding also mentioned removing it altogether and that was added to the list of options for consideration. Everyone who bothered to actually open the talk page and read the posting and comment added their support to the option of removing it. The page had close to 100 views during the time period that it was open. I also put up a note saying "at this point, we have across the board support to remove the awards from the infoboxes completely." Why? Because at that point, we had across the board support from everyone who bothered to see why the project talk page lit up their watchlist. I also noted that I was giving it more time for responses. I put that up in hopes others would notice and comment. I gave it more than a precise two days. Still no comments. I found a comment on the WT:MUSIC page you linked above from Rodhullandemu, the first part of which was his thinking regarding the length of time given to the discussion on that page [here. I think his reasoning was quite sound. Be that as it may, I didn't do something unilaterally, and quite honestly, I find it a bit snarky that you turn around and make it something I did wrong and with no input. It would be interesting to know how long it would have stayed here before anyone else bothered to respond if it hadn't been changed.

I gave quite a long list of issues with that section in the box besides the length of it distorting the page in the posting directly above your "thump Wildhartlivie over this" posting. Not a person who has come in after fact was absent from Wikipedia during the time these proposals were put up and in fact, only one of them has ever posted to this page before. I'm not discounting their right to voice an opinion in any way, but I am saying it's a lot easier to complain about something after the fact than it is to help work on something. Perhaps it would be more helpful for those who never stop at this page to try to answer questions people bring in or address issues that come up. Stop in sometime and actually assist with this project instead of just jumping in to complain when someone didn't come take you by the hand and beg you to read the page and offer an opinion. Try being involved on a proactive basis for a while. That is certainly the spirit in which these proposals were raised. The actor articles are becoming so weighted in favor of plastering awards all over the page that it's hard to find the prose. This was an effort to try and direct that in a more positive direction - by shifting the emphasis back onto the art of the written word. Wildhartlivie (talk) 08:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I second Orane. This shouldn't have been proposed from the very beginning. Let alone closing it after a week, when so many editors had been unaware of it. As you see, a considerable number of editors has started coming to protest this action.

I therefore request that this section be readded and the discussion restarted. Shahid o ^Talk2me 13:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

A week is ample time for a change like this. I think it's fair to say that one would find a decent representation of the community interested in actor articles watching this page, so I find it aptly advertised for a change of this nature (and it was mentioned at the infobox's talk page, too). There were nine editors in agreement of the change and none in opposition, so consensus was pretty clear.
From what I'm reading here, I'd say it still is, even though there are now four people voicing disagreement (of process, mostly). Notifying all project members of a discussion on the project talk page is redundant, if you want further input on this issue I'd recommend starting an RfC.
Amalthea 13:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I don't think anyone should be looking to fault Wildhartlivie here. He simply noticed a problem and asked for a discussion. When the discussion petered out, he moved forward with a proposal. When no more action occurred on the proposal, he moved to close per consensus. Pretty much the proper way everything works around WP. The fact that he is finally getting some added discussion here suggests his motives and moves have been correct. After all, this section is titled "Discussion" and it was included to promote this very discussion happening now. Sometimes it takes the WP:BOLD move to prompt a response. From my reading here, I don't see this as being "clearly unpopular". I see several support votes and some against it in this discussion. Perhaps one easy thing do right now is to add a Proposal 5 which states "Leave the awards section in its current condition" to determine if there is some overwhelming support for that. -- CactusWriter | ^needles 14:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

These comments are getting a bit silly and are starting to look like an attack on Wildhartlivie. Nothing improper was done here; a week is ample time for discussion, and there was a clear concensus when the change was made. As I said above, whole articles are deleted for less, so I don't see why people should expect more for something of less importance. "I didn't know about it" does not justify a revert, and instead of whining I would like the naysayers to come up with some substantial arguments that don't boil down to "It's useful" or "I like it" and actually address the concerns that led to the removal. PC78 (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

No attacks on Wildhartlivie, who is a great editor and whose intentions were clearly to improve the infobox. It's just that it was not the right way to do it at the end of the day. Many editors have been unaware of the discussion/voting, and several have already come to protest the decision. I'll repeat my mantra that 7 days and 8 editors do not make consensus for something that existed over two years. Whole articles do not go to AFDs after two years, and if they do, which is a rare case, they have a longer period of discussion and community votes. Please don't make comparisons between two completely different and unrelated cases. As you can see, if this voting had been left to run longer, the situation wouldn't have been the same. The voting should have been left for other editors to see, not just for those who've had the random opportunity to spot it within these 7 days. More time should've been given.

And going to the point, I think this shouldn't have been proposed for removal. I find this section important because it gives readers a quick glance at awards an actor has won without having to roll the article to the bottom or look for awards. The lead cannot contain all the awards an actor has won, and to say "X-time award winning" is not a way to go either. This is a way to give readers info about important awards an actor has won without having to mention them all in the lead in a POV manner. I agree with both Skomorokh, Blofeld and Orane. And no, it's not at all Wildhartlivie's fault. It's clear to all of us (or at least to me) that his intention was to help and improve, it was just an incorrect way to do that. Shahid o ^Talk2me 18:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

AFD is always five days, and there have probably been thousands of articles older than two years being deleted through AFD. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way Wildhartlivie handled this. And yes, I do agree with the result. Regarding POV, it is more POV to have a select awards section in the infobox. And no, of course all the awards don't belong in the lead, for the same reason they don't belong in the infobox. They belong in the rest of the article. Garion96 (talk) 18:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

What I see here is you presenting your views as if they were facts. Well I disagree with that. I think more time should have been given also because many editors have been unaware of it. No, it's not POV to include major important awards, it's common sense. The lead is to summarise the article, that's why we can't mention all the awards. The infobox on the other hand gives a great look of the kind of appreciation an actor has received in just a quick glance.

And as you see, both Orane, Blofeld, Skomorokh and myself think differently as to how this should have been handled and if it has to remain, only that the voting was closed shortly after it started when all of us still did not know of this, and many others didn't. Shahid o ^Talk2me 19:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

• Clearly this was no attack on User:Wildhartlivie, and I apologize for my wording above (I did state that his "head was in the right place", as there was obviously no malicious intent on his part, and he was trying to improve Wikipedia). Again, my apologies. I just think that more time was needed, and more people needed to be involved for this move to take place. I understand the frustration over a lack of interest from others, but in such cases, it's better to wait a longer time (probably two weeks) than to go ahead on the encouragement of six editors. The argument provided by someone above that articles are deleted with less input is invalid-- the decisions only affect those articles. On the other hand, the deletion of the award section affects every page related to actors. Orane (talk) 01:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. Shahid o ^Talk2me 07:29, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

What now? It seems to me that Wildhartlivie (who would probably prefer being referred to as "she") could not have done more in terms of notifying projects, especially considering that active members should take their own responsibility for monitoring and participating in discussions. I can't think of anything else she could have or should have done. This project page is like a ghost town most of the time, as is Template talk:Infobox Actor, where not one editor commented during the time this was under discussion. The discussion could have run for 2 weeks, 2 months or 2 years, but would that have ensured a wider response? What I see now is another small group of editors, again with the best intentions and valid opinions, commenting here because they've noticed that the field is gone from articles that they monitor. Naturally, the people who have noticed and disapproved of the change have now commented, and this is absolutely understandable, but what about the editors who must have noticed the change by now, but either approve of the change, don't disapprove enough to comment, or don't care about it one way or another? If the first group of editors, who supported the removal of the field, is small and unrepresentative, the second group who oppose the change, is equally so. Considering the number of articles that use the infobox, and considering how many of those articles are fairly high-traffic articles about popular contemporary actors, we are still seeing only a small number of interested editors actively involved in discussion. We should be seeing a stream of editors joining in each as more articles are reviewed, and that hasn't happened either. There's no avoiding the fact that any change process is flawed and is managed by a relatively tiny number of editors. With this in mind, how do we now move forward, and how can we deal with this in a manner that everyone will accept as fair? Rossrs (talk) 09:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Further changes

With the removal of the awards fields there is nothing in terms of content to distinguish this infobox from {{Infobox Person}}. I think we could all do to put our heads together and come up with some new fields to add to the infobox that are relevant to acting and filmmaking. Wildhartlivie suggested a "medium" field, i.e. to say whether a person works in film, television, theatre or whatever. Any other suggstions? PC78 (talk) 09:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the "medium" is good field to include. A couple of others we might consider are: "Genre" and "Technique" (or "School of Acting"). Genre is great for people known for a predominant area - like comedy, action, horror, western, etc. However, I could also foresee some editing battles when someone wants to add every genre possible for more versatile actors and filmmakers. I think it is a category to be used only if the person is best known for one or two particular genres. Acting technique is interesting but somewhat limited to Stanislavski, Meisner and Method. So perhaps we could call it School of Acting which would open it up to Neighborhood Playhouse, Actors Studio, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, The Lee Strasburg Institute, etc. -- CactusWriter | ^needles 12:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of a school of acting field; I'd thought about suggesting this a few months ago but under the name of "training". I think CactusWriter's concern about people filling out every single field would need to be addressed--we would need to drill it into people that the genre field (for example) need only be filled out if that person is notable for that genre (John Wayne and westerns, for example). If we make sure people know how to use the infobox, we'll avoid another "notable roles" fiasco. Bradley0110 (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You're not obliged to participate in the discussion if you have more important things to focus on. ;) PC78 (talk) 12:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Content belongs in the article, not the infobox (and certainly not hidden in the infobox), and no-one is taking over anything. Changes are being made after discussion and concensus. Your opinions are certainly welcome, but they need to be constructive. Just moaning about things because you don't agree with them doesn't really help anyone, does it? PC78 (talk) 15:42, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe in making positive changes in the interests of progress. There is always plenty of room for improvement on Wikipedia, and that's exactly how I view this change. We may (often) disagree on the means, but surely we agree on the end goal? PC78 (talk) 20:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

As I had mentioned, I also could foresee the genre category being a problem for those with a large and varied body of work. As Bradley stated, the inclusion guidelines should stipulate filling out that field only if there is a predominant genre or two. This is something we would need to make clear. It also is possible we could use the term "various" or "varied" for those with more wide-ranging work. As I go through names in my mind, attaching genres, I find that the vast majority of profiles would actually include only one or two genres. Of course, I am also thinking, for example, if an actor is known for action films, but did a single comedy or romance, they should only be listed as action genre. Perhaps we could name the field "predominant genre" or "genre noted for" or some such thing. -- CactusWriter | ^needles 13:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

"Predominant genre" is likely to cause some confusion as some actors may be associated with some major films from different genres and may have acted in various film series. For sintance how would you class Harrison Ford. Purely action films? What about drama, thrillers, sci-fi even? It goes much deeper than that, it is more important to relay good information in the article or in the inttroduction of the articles. The infoboxe sshould be for figures and facts, awards won being one of them. Your decision to remove the award section now renders the infobox actor pretty redundant and you shouldn't have to invent something to cover this up. As I say I am not majorly opposed to your decision because as I said the content of the actual article is what counts but the significant number of changes we've made over the last few months to various aspects of films and actors which appeared to me to be quite unnecessary does make me wonder how secure any part of this project is in regards to our older customs on here. More concerning is how little discussion actually goes into the goods of the articles, the actual text content. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 15:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

On the one hand, I think that looking for changes and improvements is a healthy thing, and discussion of changes, even if it's just brainstorming, is also healthy because this can throw up other suggestions. I have to agree with Dr. Blofeld though on the specifics here. I could imagine "genre" being introduced with agreement to keep it under firm control, but I think it will lead to disagreements over what constitutes a "major" genre or a "minor" genre in the career of a particular person, whether sources supported the inclusion of a particular genre, and whether the source is reliable or not, and at the end of it, I don't know that it would necessarily add anything to the snapshot of the actor. I'd prefer to see it discussed in the article, where it can be given context, so that the rare comedic performances of someone like James Cagney can be discussed in context, or the dramatic performances of Fred Astaire or the non-singing performances of Doris Day or Meryl Streep's ventures into comedy. Without discussion and context it doesn't really have a lot of meaning. Doris would have three genres : "musical, comedy, drama", probably in that order. I don't think it's useful. I can see some merit in distinguishing between theatre, film and television, although there are so many actors that have excelled in more than one field, that again it may come down to POV as to what to include, and the sequence in which it is conveyed. School of acting/technique would also make more sense if it was discussed in the article in context. People have a range of influences, they dabble, some are more devoted to a technique or school of thought than others, and the inclusion in the infobox doesn't convey these ambiguities. I also feel that the infobox should be a simple snapshot of the most relevant points to establish identity, which is entirely different to establishing notability or individuality. I see it a bit like, "name, rank and serial number". Dry, informative and fairly standard. The article should contain the majority of information. Rossrs (talk) 09:55, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm a latecomeer to this discussion--sorry about that. I think adequate notice was given for this discussion. Some of us don't watch this page as often as we should, even when watchlisted. On the infobox: I agree that the number of awards should be pared down to the most major ones, with "Golden Raspberries" and minor awards removed. I don't much see the point of a genre listing. In general, infoboxes tend to be too long and should be kept within reasonable limits. Stetsonharry (talk) 14:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Here you have another one who thinks the awards should remain. Shahid o ^Talk2me 16:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there you have an editor who said it should be pared down from what it was. Don't put words in his mouth, Harry is quite clear in his comment. My feeling is that when the dust settles, this may be what happens. One of my original concerns was that the use of this section has run rampant and needs to be contained and that Golden Raspberry Awards have no place in a listing of accolade and honor awards. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Wildhartlivie, first off, please calm down.

By saying that he thinks the awards should remain, I don't put words in his mouth, that's what he actually said. I also agree with him that "the number of awards should be pared down to the most major ones". I never supported the inclusion of the Razzie awards, so here we have four editors who think the awards should be re-added. So the "consensus" about removing them all is clearly invalid. I think the awards should be re-added. But I'd like to know what way you guys want this to be done, with or without Razzie awards, with or without "other awards" - because that's something I'd prefer others to decide, not me, though I'm more than willing to give my opinion if necessary. Shahid o ^Talk2me 12:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, guys, I could live with the awards remaining or excluded entirely. My general feeling is that infoboxes tend to be too large. If you're going to have awards, they should be only the biggies (Academy Awards, Golden Globes). Stetsonharry (talk) 15:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that. I think most of us agree that the section should return but without all these "other awards" and "Razzies". So who is ready to add that now???? Shahid o ^Talk2me 09:28, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

But in reading the discussion above, the impression I get was that there was fairly overwhelming support for removing the award section entirely. Personally I see no harm in that. If a film has received awards, it can be placed in a separate section for that purpose. I view infoboxes as being basically decorative, an "art element" so to speak, that should not be allowed to get too long. Stetsonharry (talk) 13:42, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

We must not be reading the same discussion, because I only really see Shahid calling for the reinstatement of the awards section. Besides a few concerns over the length of the discussion, I'm still seeing a concensus for removing the awards. PC78 (talk) 15:04, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you. That's what I just said: "the impression I get was that there was fairly overwhelming support for removing the award section entirely." Stetsonharry (talk) 16:10, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sorry; my comment was really aimed at Shahid. PC78 (talk) 16:13, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes decorative?? If they were intended as decor I'm sure we could think of something far more attractive than that!! I doubt many would agree that this is what they are intended for. They are intended to provide basic details -facts and figures. Perhaps reeling off lists of awards in an infobox complicates things after all but providing it is summarised I don't see any harm. The problem though would be deciding what or what not should be included. Perhaps PC78 is right in that this is often too problematic and its better to just list them in the article. If you feel there is a consensus to remove these sections I expect you to do it professionally and remove all of the sections from existing articles and clean them up. Check out the SPielberg article for instance when you click edit. Its a mess. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:50, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. If the decision is unclear so we'll make another voting. And I talked to Wildhartlivie and she told she supports the two first options of her proposals. And I support it too. I think the awards should be re-added but only the major ones. The Razzie awards and the "other awards" section should be left out. It will be much a better way. What do you think? Shahid o ^Talk2me 08:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

? Shahid o ^Talk2me 21:21, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Guess Who??? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 00:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Well if no responce comes within one day, I'll start an RfC.

As of now, I'll begin with asking you guys who agrees to have the awards section back, without Razzie Awards and without "other awards". Shahid o ^Talk2me 09:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

It does appear that the dust has settled around here. Since the initial proposals above weren't specific enough that all of the editors here felt they could add their names to a particular one, I think a new vote would be in order. Perhaps you could just go ahead and open it up in a in a new section on this talk page. After reading through the comments above, I suggest starting over with the following five choices:

1. Remove none of the award fields in the Actor Infobox (including the Razzies and Other Awards fields)

2. Remove only the Razzies award field;

3. Remove only the Razzies and Other Awards fields

4. Remove the Razzies and Other Awards fields now, but would prefer restricting some of the remaining award fields on an individual basis;

5. Remove all of the award fields.

Ask each person to place their support vote in one of the five choices. (A vote for a higher choice would automatically be considered also a vote for the choices above it -- i.e. a vote for choice 5 could also be counted as a vote for 4,3 and 2). Have the vote run for a couple of weeks and then let's see where the consensus lies for these proposed changes. This is just an example. Would doing it in this way be a problem? -- CactusWriter | ^needles 10:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad someone is trying to bring this back to a discussion of the key point - ie keeping or not keeping the field, but I disagree with your proposal. You say that because "the initial proposals above weren't specific enough".... [not] "all of the editors here felt they could add their names to a particular one". The initial proposals were clear enough for several people to comment, and the objection was that not enough people knew about the proposal. I don't think anyone has said they "felt they couldn't add their names" either during or after the initial discussion. Rather than say that some people didn't understand the proposal, I think it's more accurate to say some people didn't agree with the implementation of a decision that, for whatever reason, they were not part of. Second, "A vote for a higher choice would automatically be considered also a vote for the choices above it -- i.e. a vote for choice 5 could also be counted as a vote for 4,3 and 2". I'm not casting a vote here, but if I was, for example, voting for option 5, I would not accept that it be counted as a vote for 4, 3, or 2. If I vote for 5, I would want it counted as 5 only, because the other options are different. Option 5 = no field. Every other option = field. If I vote for 4, I don't want it counted as a vote for 3. And so on. Finally, rather than 'voting', it would be more constructive to discuss the situation. I know that 'voting' happens all over Wikipedia, but discussion is more useful. What if the people in support of removing the field commented briefly on the perceived advantages of removing/disadvantages of keeping? And the people in support of restoring the field could comment on the perceived advantages of using the field/disadvantages of not using? Part of that comment could address which of the options that person supports, if they feel it necessary to choose one, but I think we need a stronger understanding of what we each consider important and why. Much of the comment here has been about the process, and the points that specifically relate to the usefulness of the field are somewhat obscured as a result. Rossrs (talk) 14:12, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

For the record, because I didn't make it clear in this comment, I feel that the original process was correct, and my preference is to let it stand. I agree that it appears that the "dust has settled" and yet, only a very few editors have chosen to comment, which suggests to me, that in the wider community, this has become a non-issue. I commented because I disagreed with the points of User:CactusWriter's suggestion. Rossrs (talk) 14:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe people are really busy? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate that people are busy, and no doubt people prioritise their activities on Wikipedia, regardless of their individual time constraints. Orane is busy, and he commented, so now we know his opinion. It needn't be time consuming. That's not exactly what I meant though. I said it more fully a bit further up. People have continued making edits to actor articles and if they're interested in the infobox they would more than likely have noticed the change, but when you look at the number of articles that use this field in its infobox, and the number of individual editors who have edited any of these articles since the field was removed, relatively few have stated their opinions either way. If they're not too busy to edit the article, maybe they're not too busy to comment here, but there are other possible reasons. One being that they approve of the change, another being that they don't care, which is what I was saying above and earlier, but another possibility is that they don't know about this discussion, or where they could comment. In any case, as more articles are noticed by editors, I would expect that at least a few editors would find their way here to comment, but over the last few days, there haven't been any late arrivals, except for StetsonHarry. That's what makes me believe that on the whole this thing hasn't aroused the attention of many editors, in the way that other issues have in the past. It may be due to acceptance, ignorance or even apathy, but if people have time to edit articles but no time to comment on this change, that suggests something to me about their priorities. Rossrs (talk) 07:10, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to have a new voting started. How you want this to be done is a bit complicated, because I can't understand how voting to remove the entire section could be counted as a vote to remove only Razzie awards and other awards. I think it should be presented in two choices:

A. Keeping the field.

B. Removing the field.

Only then can we think of removing/keeping the Razzies and the other awards.

We can also that in the way it was done originally, but give it a longer run, and include it on RfC.

What do you guys think? Shahid o ^Talk2me 16:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

As I commented on your talk page, I see no reason to open a request for comments. I believe the editors who are concerned with this have come to the page already to express their opinion. I think it would be a huge waste of time to open one when the discussion had been ongoing and it seems that no one has retracted their original opinion. Another poll is certainly fine and I don't object to that. I'd observe that since this has been on the table now for some time, if someone hasn't bothered to comment, I'm doubting they will now. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec)My thought on how a vote for one worked for the others below was that if someone votes to remove all the awards than they are obviously in favor of removing the razzies (choice #1), as well as the razzies and the other awards (choice #2), etc. After tallying the votes we could examine where the cut-off was for consensus. Of course, this was more of a clumping method of determining consensus so as to finish off the infobox discussion quickly. And as Rossrs suggests there are several problems with this method. -- CactusWriter | ^needles 19:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with Blofield that people are busy -- and probably tired of the lengthy procedural debate. I'm all in favor of just moving forward. If you are fine using Wildhartlivie's original method, than I am not sure there is any reason to set up a new vote -- simply reopen the old one and have other editors add their names. I would suggest Rfc is a poor idea because it would occur away from this page - the one place that most interested parties might watch. (Remember that this whole debate seemed to be noticed only after it had been posted on this page.) So... I'm fine with !vote for each field. Just start it up. If you build it, they will come - maybe. -- CactusWriter | ^needles 19:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I want to know if this would have been the same if more time had been given. I'll probably start a new section, something like "Should the awards have been removed?", in which I'll request editors to give their views if to keep or remove, and place it on RfC. I think it will attract a much broader number of editors. Whatever opinion they may have, I'll respect any. Shahid o ^Talk2me 20:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

That would be better, but it seems Garion has begun clean up by removing the awards altogether... Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 01:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Well..yes. Your comment a few sections above was the reason for it. You expected that editors started to clean these articles up, so I did. This discussion looked pretty finished anyway.Garion96 (talk) 01:44, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Yup I noticed you had started on that. How many exactly have you done? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 01:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Not that many, only a few on which I knew for sure there would be a huge awards list (therefore making it look messy). Like Steven Spielberg and Katharine Hepburn.

Yeah I noticed some of them took up a large amount of kb. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 01:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. Just like it was removed it can be re-added (obviously if the RfC says so). I'll start the RfC probably tomorrow or in two days I'm just too busy today. Shahid o ^Talk2me 14:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Filmmakers' infobox template

I understand the reasoning for removing the awards section due to lengthy lists on the page, but now directors' awards don't show up in the infobox either (unless there's an infobox template I'm not aware of that still shows awards). Since winning major awards, such as Academy, Golden Globe, etc. is a large part of a filmmaker's biography and standing in the film world, could we instill a "filmmaker infobox" with awards intact? --Utilizer (talk) 16:32, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

There are many other ways to show awards besides the infobox. Is there some reason that a filmography table can't be used that includes or is used for awards, such as:

• Coen brothers#Filmography (although I'm no fan of the format used there that shows only Academy Awards and Golden Globes]]
• Mel Gibson#Filmography and awards (scroll down past the actor table)
• Sam Mendes#Awards
• List of awards and nominations received by Clint Eastwood

I'm sure there are many more styles out there, these are just the ones I thought of quickly. There are also succession boxes used, or the (incessant) templates such as Template:AcademyAwardBestDirector 1981-2000? There are many directors who also are actors and my concern is that if we have a separate infobox for directors that there will controversy over which to use. Clint Eastwood is a good example of someone whose article could use either infobox. I note someone has put succession boxes in the middle of the Clint Eastwood article although that really isn't where they belong. My preference is the separate table for directing and/or producing that doesn't focus only on Academy Awards. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Ronald Reagan in Hollywood

Hey all, there's an interesting discussion underway at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ronald_Reagan#Kings_Row as to whether A) Kings Row is given sufficient weight in the main Reagan article and B) Whether the section on his films is properly composed in general. The former is the issue immediately at hand. Participation by editors with knowledge of that era in filmmaking would be most welcome. Stetsonharry (talk) 15:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Categorizing according to nationality

If a director was born in Belgium but has become a naturalized American citizen, would you categorize him as a Belgian or an American film director? FYI, all his work has been in the States. Thanks! LiteraryMaven (talk o contrib) 21:04, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll repost my greatest vacillating answer in the world from WT:FILM. Some people would classify him as Belgian-American, while some would say something ambiguous such as "born in Belgium, he became an American citizen in 195x" or "is a Belgian born American director". There is a constant shift in language on Daniel Day-Lewis, since he's English born, but gained Irish citizenship in more recent years. Sometimes it reads as "a British actor", while some seem to detest and remove the description of British. Personally, I'd lean toward "an American film director, born in Belgium and naturalized in 195x..." or "is a Belgian born American director". This is one of those gray areas where one form of wording is probably as valid as another. I certainly hope that sheds light on it. [insert ambiguity icon here]. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Belgian born American film director is correct. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 21:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I described him as a Belgian-born naturalized American in the opening of the article. My question concerns the categories that are listed below the article. It is there that I'm unsure as to whether Belian or American apply. Sorry if I wasn't clearer about this in the first place. LiteraryMaven (talk o contrib) 21:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I would categorize him as both and also as a Belgian American. Regards Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. LiteraryMaven (talk o contrib) 20:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Poll: autoformatting and date linking

This is to let people know that there is only a day or so left on a poll. The poll is an attempt to end years of argument about autoformatting which has also led to a dispute about date linking. Your votes are welcome at: Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 09:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Awards section in infobox actor

After a one-week voting with eight editors supporting the removal of the section, a decision was taken to remove the awards section from {{infobox actor}}. A number of editors considered the removal and the way it was handled incorrect. Requesting your opinion on whether the awards section should be kept out or come back. Please do read the section where this was initially discussed. Shahid o ^Talk2me 15:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

May I use the light bulb to light my volcano chamber? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 16:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that a presentation for a request for comments should state the situation neutrally. A proposal was made on March 25 that included several suggestions for changing the awards section of the infobox actor. Another editor suggested removing it altogether. That proposal was added. The four proposals made were: 1. Remove the "other awards" section. 2. Restrict the named awards to specific ones. 3. Both of those would be connected to removing the Golden Raspberry Awards. 4. Remove the awards section completely.Messages were left at WT:ACTOR, WT:FILM, and Template talk:Infobox Actor, inviting comment. A note was left on March 31 to remind any who watch the page that a couple more days would be allowed for comments. On April 2, the proposal garnering the most support was posted and the change requested. The change endorsed by the 8 editors who responded was to remove the awards section in the infobox completely. Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

If you could provide how this is not presented neutrally, I'd be grateful. Shahid o ^Talk2me 17:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I think Wildhartlivie meant that you did not disclose in the initial comment anything about the notifications that were issued to attract attention to the discussion about the template. --Erik (talk o contrib) 17:46, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Well so I'm happy she did that now. I had not omitted any details intentionally, if any of you got this impression. Shahid o ^Talk2me 18:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Erik, I was concerned that it include that notifications were posted on relevant project talk pages. I was also concerned about the request that commenters vote, be it to either keep the section or remove it, without knowing what options were initially proposed besides just get rid of it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I've closed the RfC for now. You can delete the entire section if you like if nobody opposes. I have to think about that. Both Rossrs and Wildhartlivie have presented valid arguments on my talk page which I have to think about. I'll take my time. Maybe I'll eventually make a new voting as suggested above. As of now, it's closed. Shahid o ^Talk2me 19:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Filmography table design

There is a discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Header color in wikitables about your filmography table design. Among other things we are discussing (and offering you) better technical solutions to building such tables.

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Non-free images for living actors unacceptable?

Sifting through some of the FA's and GA's for living actors, it seems to be a rather common practice to include stills or framegrabs from notable roles. See for instance File:Chopper-Bana.jpg, File:KaDee Strickland in Train Ride.jpg, File:Loveserenade-MirandaOtto.jpg, File:Piratessiliconvalley.jpg, or File:KHNHLS.jpg. In all of these, the actor's appearance is not very different from their "real-life" appearance. However, one of the non-free images that I uploaded, Image:Floberg Villmark.jpg, which has (in my opinion) a stronger fair-use rationale than all of these, was considered a violation of the non-free content criteria by at least two administrators working with images, in particular NFCC#1, the argument being that they are replaceable by a free equivalent that merely depicts the subject "out of character".

I am thus asking for your opinion on whether such use should be discouraged in actor BLP's. Thanks. decltype (talk) 02:43, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Overuse should be discouraged (i.e. going over the recommended number of three non-free images per article). However, as this is an encyclopedia, having no non-free images in an article about actors whose work is contained in copyrighted films and television episodes is a futile endeavour. I don't know what the circumstances of the image were in Bjørn Floberg so I can't offer any more advice. Bradley0110 (talk) 09:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Although from the articles you've listed, we might need a project-wide review at some point (the caption on File:KaDee Strickland in Train Ride.jpg could easily say "KaDee Strickland looking like KaDee Strickland is what could be any film"). Bradley0110 (talk) 09:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

From my own experience, the rules tend to be pretty tight with such framegrabs as they are frequently of living people and are thus replaceable by free content. Of the examples above I would say that none of them constitute an acceptable use of non-free images, with the exception of the Chopper-Bana image. In general I would say that if the image merely shows the actor looking pretty much as they do in real life, then it's no good, it needs to be something more. But again, I can't comment on the deleted image without knowing what it was or how it was used in the article. PC78 (talk) 10:36, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for your input. For reference, the image and the FUR can be found here. I am curious why you would except Bana. At the very least, the FUR needs improvement. "The screenshot is intended to present the appearance of the subject", is an example of inappropriate use. decltype (talk) 12:55, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the Bana image, because he doesn't ordinarily look like Chopper, and because the article makes explicit mention of his physical appearance in the film. I actually think it's a good example of when a non-free image should be used. As for the Floberg image, FWIW I agree with the deletion. It wasn't really illustrating anything specific in the article, and I don't think it "adds significantly to the reader's understanding of the subject". Regards. PC78 (talk) 18:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I've re-written the rationale for File:Piratessiliconvalley.jpg but someone may wish to give it a second pass. Bradley0110 (talk) 19:58, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is pretty clear from the number of experienced admins endorsing the deletion in one way or another. But I do think it's a shame, because I feel that non-free images do improve the quality of actor BLP's, especially in the eyes of casual readers who are oblivious to fair-use and NFCC. decltype (talk) 20:25, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT

Apologies for the notice, but this is being posted to every WikiProject to avoid accusations of systemic bias. Hiding T 13:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

List awards for Actors

This probably was discussed, so please bear with me on this, but I need to know. How should lists of awards and nominations received by an actor/actress look like? I only ask this, due to the fact that I have Heath Ledger's list up at FLC and User:Matthewedwards brought up a good point that WP:ACTOR and WP:FILM don't have their lists set-up like WP:MUSIC. If there's a certain format, please let me know. Again, if this was brought up, I'm sorry. --  ThinkBlue  (Hit BLUE) 15:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I think a similar hoo-hah came up over the format of the List of awards and nominations received by No Country for Old Men page. FWIW, I prefer that format and the one taken for the Heath Ledger list; I fail to see the wisdom of dividing up every single award into a separate table (especially when only one or two have been awarded by some societies) and don't like the lengthy descriptions of each award padding out the page (if I want to know what the Golden Globes are, I'll read that article). Bradley0110 (talk) 19:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you're certainly getting a variety of opinions, aren't you? Since I did the List of awards and nominations received by No Country for Old Men, my opinion may not be totally unbiased. There are a couple of points to make on this. If I recall, there were questions asked at the WP:FLC review about why it was presented in one table. Basically, my answer was that the No Country list essentially reflects awards from a fairly rooted time frame. It came out and received a slew of awards in a given year, so there wasn't the potential for ongoing accumulations. Ledger's awards are cumulative. There is a potential for more with the last film (although that is probably not as likely as were the awards for Dark Knight). Then again, that is a film awards list, not an individual and list style preferences certainly are subjective. Each style gives a different perspective and context for the awards. Personally, I don't find the filmography style listings of awards ugly, as someone in the FLC review said. It gives an at a glance scope of the awards received for a given film. Either format for Ledger's gives the perspective of all the awards from a specific organization. There hasn't a proscribed format for lists for actors/filmmakers and I believe points could be made for either style. I think the overwhelming argument would be that this is not WP:MUSIC and there is no mandate that lists follow that format, nor is this WP:FILM and the same argument applies. However, I agree with Bradley. I see no benefit whatsoever to breaking down a list into each award and giving an overview of it. Personally, I don't read them and think they are superfluous. I also agree that a separate table for one or two awards from one organization is overkill. That seems unnecessary. All in all, I actually do prefer the list as it exists here. My only comment would be that the reviewers wanted the individual award titles bolded - such as Academy Awards, and I think that's a good recommendation.

As a side comment, personally, I do not like any of the FL filmographies. I think they are plain and unattractive and lack style. The use of colors in them makes me cringe and I'm absolutely not a fan of the pink/green nominated/won style. In the discussions that were noted on the FLC page, the preference that was stated in WP:FILM (although there was not a guideline written) was that they should not be used. That's why I didn't put those colors in the No Country list. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Believe me, I understand this, a whole lot. The list was created by a user who did not know what he was doing. I was opposed to having the list, but the way it was formatted looked awful. So, I wound up "fixing it". Yeah, I had the list formatted to the way that No Country for Old Men used. When I nominated the list, I was told why the list didn't follow the same format as Michael Jackson's list. So, I changed it, but then changed it back to the version of No Country for Old Men. I agree with you Bradley, those descriptions are totally unnecessary and don't warrant to be there. Oh, that comment; at first, I thought that comment was negative, towards the list, but when I re-read it, I saw that it was meant at the filmography. Also, I have no intentions to do anything with Heath Ledger's filmography, unless its discussed to do something about it. Before the nomination, I had set it up like Christopher Walken's, but apparently it was "discouraged" during the peer review. Alright, if we are agreeing, then I'd say that I went with the agreed format. Also, I will remove the pink (nominated) and green (won), per the suggestion. Thanks, you guys are lifesavers. :) --  ThinkBlue  (Hit BLUE) 15:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

That page's creation is a symptom of things that seem to happen around here that aren't particularly productive or helpful. There are some who go around, spinning off the filmography tables from articles without discussing it first, whether or not the article size would indicate so. I've undone a couple. The Ledger awards seems to be one of those cases where someone just copy and pasted the listing of awards from an early version of the article and called it good. I don't agree. I didn't think you were indicating you were going to do anything with the article filmography, just wanted to make that clear in case it sounded that way. I do think there are aspects of it that are helpful, as I said - it gives a context of awards to each film. My comment was only that I don't find it ugly. I think you're making the right choice in using the one table for the awards and I support your removing the pink and green colors. You didn't comment on it, but I still think you should bold each awards section title, I'm suprised no one has brought it up yet. Good luck and good work! Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The coloured results

So, if I understand correctly, there's consensus that colors should not be used? I agree that it looked awkward in Ledger's table, but for some reason I think they look good in the table format used in e.g Emma Watson#Awards, especially in Firefox. decltype (talk) 22:06, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say there is currently consensus not to use the colors, however, I would say the trend is that they shouldn't be used and that at some point, there will likely be consensus. There are a lot of reasons for that, including the issue of persons who are color-blind/challenged and how that ultimately makes it appear to them. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Directors

I've been working on articles and have recently looked at a great number of director articles, working from the Academy Award for Best Director list. I'm a little concerned about the bias shown in most of these articles regarding Academy Awards vs. any other. What I'm seeing in multiple articles is typically what is in Mike Nichols#Filmography. Someone, or multiple someones, have made an effort to create a table listing Academy Award wins and nominations and basically ignores the others, which to me seems to give undue weight to the Oscars. Some have listings of awards and nominations for other awards, but the focus is on Oscar. I thought perhaps this should be brought up here for discussion. I support the use of tables for filmographies, but this simply seems too selective. Thoughts? Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there should not be so much focus on Academy Awards. Any tables listing the filmography and the number of Oscars should be stripped of the Oscars columns. --Erik (talk o contrib) 20:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I always just remove them whenever I see them. Like you said, it's undue weight to a single award. Bradley0110 (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you remove the awards columns or the tabling? I think too, that it should be at least stripped of those columns- they don't even bother to distinguish what award was won. I will start doing so as I see them (as I've begun removing the cringe-worthy "Academy Award-winning" from the lead sentence. I've left a note for a couple editors who have done this recently, encouraging them to not put undue weight on Oscars and suggesting that perhaps the other awards be be added. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

What about "award-winning" in general? That's something we discourage for film articles... am actually drafting this at WT:MOSFILM#Proposed rewrite of "Lead section". --Erik (talk o contrib) 21:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, those too, although I didn't state that. I added a note to WP:ACTOR#On going projects/to do lists about that: "Remove lead sentence mention of "______ Award-winning" and/or "______ Award-nominated". This can and should be included in lead sections, but not in lead sentences." It's an ongoing battle, but I think in some cases, we've made headway. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with all of these comments. There seems to be a bias towards Academy Awards over other awards, but also a bias towards awards in general. I find the "award winning" description to be too vague to be of any value as it gives no context. Rossrs (talk) 22:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll have to respectfully dissent. While I agree that "award-winning" is a WP:PEACOCK expression, and should be avoided, the Academy Awards are widely considered the most significant and most commercially valuable award for English language or at least American movies. Stetsonharry (talk) 22:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I'm not sure from what it is you're dissenting. Removing table columns that only outline Academy Awards, calling someone any type of award-winning or award-nominated, or not using the term Academy Award-winning/nominated in a lead sentence? Because each has its own rationale. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

First and third. Sorry for the imprecision. I don't feel too strongly about the third point you mention (mention in lead) though I see no harm in it. I do think that table columns that only outline Academy Awards are useful, given their significance in the industry. No disrespect intended to BFA, Golden Globes and Cannes, but they just don't carry the same weight.Stetsonharry (talk) 13:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Shorter point first. It's been discussed in many places what a lead sentence should contain. WP:LEAD#First sentence says the lead sentence should answer two questions: "What (or who) is the subject?" and "Why is this subject notable?" Saying "Joe Schmoe is an American schmoo maker" answers the first question and "who invented reusable schmoo molds" answers the second. Saying Joe Schmoe won a myriad of awards for inventing reusable schmoo molds doesn't tell us why he is notable, even one of the awards was the Nobel Prize. He was notable for inventing them, he would have remained notable for that even if he had not won the Nobel Prize. That's what the rest of the lead is for - to summarize the rest of Joe Schmoe's life as it reflects in the main article. Certainly the lead paragraph should contain the major awards good old Joe has won - in context. I ran across one article wherein the director had been nominated for both Academy Awards and for Golden Raspberry Awards. Was he notable for filmmaking? Yes. Would he have remained notable without Academy Awards? Yes. (Would he have been notable for being nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award? Eh... maybe, but that's not particularly a good thing. See Paris Hilton.) But to jam all of that into the lead sentence doesn't tell us why he became notable, it tells us what accolades/kudos/thumbs-ups he received in the course of the already notable career. I should probably note that Rossrs can and has elaborated on this in a much clearer and orderly manner than I can.

Second point regarding filmography tables only covering Academy Awards. You said I do think that table columns that only outline Academy Awards are useful, given their significance in the industry. No disrespect intended to BFA, Golden Globes and Cannes, but they just don't carry the same weight. And my response is... ah, but see, that is POV. It's not clear to me that Academy Awards are so much more significant than the major awards given elsewhere that they should be singled out. I grant that they are probably the pinnacle of accolades. However, I don't think that we, as neutral editors, can state that or use it as rationale for ignoring major awards such as the BAFTA, Cannes Awards, Cesar Awards, AFI Awards, Filmfare Awards, or any other major country based award. It's not our distinction to make. Does it mean more financially? I don't know, probably, not always. I've more read that it might guarantee a certain period of better offers, but does it lead to more accolades? I don't think so. There are too many one-shot wonders for that to be stated unequivocably. Was an Academy Award more important in the career of François Truffaut than it was for Martin Scorsese? Perhaps, but does not winning one negate the relevance of the BAFTA, Golden Bears, César Awards, or a myriad of others. I think not. I don't know, but I am certain that when we look at the awards for any actor or filmmaker, we need to look at them wholly and globally. It's not that the Academy Awards are not important, obviously they are, but it isn't neutral and NPOV to only mention those in a filmography that contains any awards. Sure, a separate section could be constructed that looks at Oscars, but I think what is being said here is that we can't designate them as solely a point of focus. And I loves me some Oscar viewing, I never miss it. Having said that, I'd also make one more tangential comment. Can we possibly get rid of language that says Joe Schmoe lost the award to Frank Beans? It might sound cliche, but that is such a deceptive wording... So that's my 2 cents, which probably ain't much in today's economy. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to be looking at creating a balance between comprehensiveness, neutrality and context. One of the aims throughout Wikipedia is to provide coverage of any topic that is comprehensive. Focussing on one aspect to the exclusion of others can not be comprehensive, so to create a filmography table that only mentions Academy Awards is not comprehensive. A list or table can only be neutral if it is designed as such, and a design that selectively focusses only on what we consider to be the most important, regardless of the validity of that assumption, will not be neutral. Context can be given in prose, and discussion of the awards within the article can be given context, weight, balance... whatever. The awards are obviously relevant and important, and they can and should be given due emphasis in the article. In my opinion, the way in which the awards are dealt with in numerous actor articles, by showing wins first in alphabetical order, and nominations second in alphabetical order, allows us to be both comprehensive and neutral. It also gives a kind of context that would not be possible if Academy Awards were the only ones mentioned, because it gives the bigger picture. Some actor examples that use this type of tabling are Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep (and there are many more.) So far, of all the filmography/awardiology table variations I've seen, I think these are the most effective. Rossrs (talk) 23:37, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Template for deletion: Template:Sellers movies

I've nominated Template:Sellers movies for deletion here, based on the previous deletion of the other actor-only templates in the past as being redundant and consensus against them. Please post any comments you might have regarding this. Thanks! Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:53, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Template deletion discussion

There is currently a discussion regarding the possible deletion of a template listing selected film scores by a given conductor at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 May 9#Template:Rahul Dev Burman. Anyone interested is more than welcome to take part. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 15:42, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Of course the convention is to not have templates for actors or cinema personel, directors and award winning films only right? Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:12, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk o contrib) 05:20, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move for Shirley Temple

There's a request here to move "Shirley Temple" to "Shirley Temple Black". Folks might like to weigh in with their opinions. Ed Fitzgerald _{t / c} 18:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Notability of Stephen McCole

Hi folks. I've recently come across Stephen McCole while tagging for the Scotland Project. I've not prodded him, but he looks like he's on the very fringes of notability - could someone have a look? TIA FlagSteward (talk) 13:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you said it very correctly, he's on the very fringe of notability, but I think we could err on the side of standing on the fringe line. The article could be kept for the time being, since he does continue to work and his roles seem to be growing. I'm not certain there would be a clean consensus to delete if it were nominated for deletion, and I'm not certain that a prod would stand. It's really up to you, if you think it should go, then certainly you can. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I won't do anything myself - I feel strongly that it's up to you guys to make that call, you're the ones that are dealing with this kind of article day-to-day and have a much better idea of where the notability boundary is - or where you want it to be. I suspect that a music project would probably delete, along the lines of "Come back to us when he's actually DONE something" - and surely "he might do something in future" is just a recipe for every student out of drama college to have an article? Going back to first principles, I can't find any major mention of him (beyond brief reviews etc) in a quick search of the mainstream media to establish WP:NOTE, I thought people here might have access to specialist publications that might have profiled him. But like I say - up to you guys. FlagSteward (talk) 09:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

One problem that became immediately apparent was that the article failed to mention this guy's most notable part -- he plays the lead in an award-winning television series, High Times (TV series). A quick google search for refs revealed he is well-known in Scotland (and, oddly enough, on re-runs in South America). It appears this is definitely not some "student out of drama college" who hasn't done something. It's appreciated that you sought advice first. That is always a good idea. -- CactusWriter | ^needles 14:29, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh sure, I wasn't saying that he was some student, just that one of Wildhartlivie's arguments could be applied to any student. Without High Times he looked borderline, with it he's definitely in so I'm glad you've been able to fix the article - it's bizarre that High Times is so famous in South America and not in England. I'd guess they'd have to dub it for English viewers as well, so you might as well dub into Spanish whilst you're about it. <g> FlagSteward (talk) 10:12, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Stage archive

I'm going to get a 24-hour pass to The Stage archive this Friday, so if anybody wants any articles accessing for creating/expanding wiki articles, please list the author and title here and I'll email them to you (in a personal and non-commercial way). Bradley0110 (talk) 13:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

James Stewart or Jimmy Stewart?

Discussion going on here. Yworo (talk) 17:07, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Do film director navbox templates fall under the scope of this project?

Do navbox templates for film directors (i.e. those categorised here) fall under the scope of this project, and should they be tagged with the {{WPBiography|filmbio-work-group=yes}} project banner? I personally would say yes, as the templates are directly related to the filmmaker. Another editor contends that these should be exclusively tagged for WP:FILM as the templates mainly contain film links, but I don't see why they shouldn't be tagged for both projects. Thoughts? PC78 (talk) 11:29, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your view; it's a filmmaker template so comes under our scope as well as theirs. Bradley0110 (talk) 17:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. There's no harm in tagging the navboxes, and they do relate to this subject as well, so there's no real reason to object to their presence, although it might be useful to ensure that the Film project banner is there as well. John Carter (talk) 17:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Succession boxes

What are people's opinion on those, to me excessive, succession boxes about awards. Previous winner, next winner etc. Previous Q (James Bond), next Q etc etc. Compare this with this. Which one is better? Garion96 (talk) 18:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I never use any of this crap that's supposed to facilitate navigation. Who would? It's overwhelming. Plus it's buried under a whole column of unnecessary detail: even now there's approximately ten screenfuls of crap separating the logical end of Streep's article from the bottom of the page. Re the succession boxes, you realise that if we outlaw those there's going to be a load more navboxes created in their stead, right? Unfortunately it's a lot easier to create a navbox than it is to get rid of one. Personally I don't see why a navbox grouping all best actress oscars between 1961 and 1980, say, is better than a simple link to a complete list of winners, but such is the obstinacy of the editor set on pushing his particular interests into every conceivably related topic, and he's adopted the navbox as his polluter of choice. It's not even as if this practice is confined to the more vulgar areas of interest, just look how we treat Winston Churchill or Julius Caesar. You sometimes come across pages where all the navigation cruft is nested into a single show/hide box. I'd like to see that happen more often. Flowerparty^? 19:17, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of those inane succession boxes at all. My distaste for the excessive use of those only is seconded by the nav templates. These awards are linked in the article, they are linked in the filmographies of the majority of articles now and these just seem to me like overkill. Then again, I have no idea why anyone would want to use more than one nav template for one award. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why the awards use the succession boxes. After all, next years winners don't succeed this years winners, they just get next years award. As for the "Next Q" business, I tend to agree with having navboxes for television or film roles that are notable for having many different actors (e.g. James Bond, The Doctor) but don't see the point of doubling up the info with a succession box as well. Bradley0110 (talk) 20:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Good point, and one which I've overlooked. I actually did see one not long ago that indicated in the next year's space "incumbent". Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:56, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Bleurgh! Bradley0110 (talk) 21:45, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Even for Q I don't see much point. It already is/should be mentioned in article text, in the filmography section, (probably a category as well) and then also a succession box? Garion96 (talk) 21:57, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, I mean Q shouldn't have an s-box or n-box (only two actors have played him for goodness sake). Bradley0110 (talk) 07:33, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

No, it was clear enough, I just misread your comment. Garion96 (talk) 08:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I think Meryl Streep was a good example to choose, and I greatly prefer it without the succession boxes. I detest the succession boxes. I feel that they look untidy (as they are various sizes and take up a lot of space) and the clutter looks tacky and unprofessional. I don't see how they are useful. If you want to follow the succession of winners you have to load articles one by one. On the other hand if you go to the Academy Award for Best Actress page you can immediately go to any of the winners or nominees and you can avoid any you don't want to look at it. I'm all for making things easier, but the list page is about the easiest thing I can imagine, even easier than the navigation box because you can also click on the film if you wish. Rossrs (talk) 08:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

And why don't those navtemplates have the films?? That's precisely the reason I've never clicked on names in them, I click on the award page link. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:38, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree. They should be fired. Why should we care who won the award the previous years.

But I must confess I often feel filmographies look too loaded with so many awards. Look at Meryl Streep, it's huge and confusing. I just don't get what films she got nominations for from, say, the BAFTA. You loose it in between. Isn't it better to organise awards per groups in separate tables, like it's done so nicely on the Angelina Jolie article? Shahid o ^Talk2me 09:50, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Can't stand them and I see absolutely no value in them at all. Neither the ones for people, nor the ones for "top box office" often shoved on films. As Rossrs noted, they look unprofessional and tacky, and they just are not useful (and often remove them when I come across them). Frequently, especially for the film ones, the claim isn't even sourced in the article. I'd favor their firing across the board. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 13:33, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I never have understood the need for these boxes and wouldn't miss them if they were eliminated. LiteraryMaven (talk o contrib) 15:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I find that they really clutter the articles. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 17:52, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Julianne Moore is another good bad example. Much prefer a collapsable nav-box! Lugnuts (talk) 18:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow, complete agreement. What a novel thing!! Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am as amazed as you are. :) Is there any specific MoS for this project to add this to? Or perhaps in Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines? Since usually, if you can't point to a specific page in an edit summary, you get reverted. Garion96 (talk) 20:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Not in specific, although it has been discussed a bit off project. I don't know if WP:FILM has a stance on this, but we could add it to the "to-do" list on the main page and link to this discussion as a reference, That's what was done with awards in the infobox. which I thought I had done, but have done now. That's also where we put the note about removing "_______ Award-winning" in the lead sentence. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:32, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) SOOOooo, folks. Should we go ahead and implement this decision? Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:32, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Would it have to be done manually? Bradley0110 (talk) 13:07, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm less than bot savvy, so I don't know if one could do that. They don't have a template. However, it's certainly something that can be put on a to-do list and be worked on in the same way that we've gone about removing awards from the infoboxes. I do that routinely while working on filmographies and awards in them. It's just one more step in my process, at any rate. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Implementing works for me. A link at the project page to this discussion then? Garion96 (talk) 20:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

That in an addition to the to-do list, I think. This time, I would prefer if someone else changed that! Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Gee, can't imagine why. :) Done, feel free to improve. Garion96 (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

So glad you agreed. I added the clarifier of "awards" to your change. We don't really have power over other succession boxes, such as political office holders who sometimes are, or used to be, actors, etc. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Could we maybe reword it again? Awards is a bit limiting. I just removed the succession boxes from Megan Mullally and one of the succession boxes was "Host of TV Land Awards". I can understand non-performing succession boxes don't come under this project, but the "Q" boxes mentioned above, do come under this project, and I think there are several actor/presenter type boxes that are not specifically awards. I think the intention is to remove them all, but it's not worded that way. Any thoughts on how it could be worded? Rossrs (talk) 01:10, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a specific suggestion, but that's fine with me. I had worked on the list from Academy Award for Best Actor, which quickly yielded some "Sexiest Man Alive" boxes. I did leave those. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Jane Curtin is another example "Media office" - that's cryptic, and it links to SNL. The "Sexiest Man" thing is just clutter of a different variety. Maybe "Remove succession boxes, where the succession box relates to the subject's work or notability as an actor. Non-performing succession boxes should be discussed at the appropriate project page." That wording would cover "Sexy Actors" although it this doesn't cover the fact that the "Sexiest Man" may be a singer or the "Media office" person might be a comedian. I'm not trying to complicate matters, just mindful that we cover everything we want to cover. Although the discussion here was almost entirely directed to award boxes, many comments related to clutter and appearance rather than the actual content. Rossrs (talk) 01:24, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Yes, that SNL "Media office" thing has always chafed my chaps. They were the anchors on the news segment of a comedy show. WHAT media office??? You know, they can always make "Sexy men" templates. I'm open to removing all of them that we can. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:37, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I changed the wording to Rossrs suggestion. I think the sexiest men ones should go as well, to have a template for "sexy men" would be equally bad. Garion96 (talk) 07:36, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted you to know that your recent editing with the link to the project discussion seems to work well. I was not familiar with this discussion and have been keeping an eye on some of the performer articles. I saw your deletions and at first went, "Oh nuts, another v-word/work." But I followed your discussion/project link and am happy that I don't have to spend the next few hours reverting a vandal! <g>  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine Ellsworth<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  09:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposal for a widespread removal of succession boxes. Just because some people don't use them is not sufficient reason to prevent other people from having the option for using them.RJ4 (talk) 01:13, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

It's perfectly acceptable for you to express your opposition to the removal, however, the consensus was overwhelmingly to discontinue use of them in actor related articles. It isn't acceptable to just go around undoing the removal that was firmly supported. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why your project should have absolute control on all articles that you choose to include in your project. Articles can be included in more than one project. Did you consult with other projects that overlap with yours ? RJ4 (talk) 06:55, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

This project has a specific group of articles under it, it absolutely is not an issue of including "all articles that [we] choose to include". WikiProjects regularly help set some of the basic styles for articles under them, including how some content is displayed. This project "overlaps" with WP:FILM and in fact, there are many members of this project who also belong to that project, and who gave on opinion on this proposal. However, there is no requirement that one project consult with another project on the acceptability of proposals regarding styling issues. Many of the WP:MOSFILM style guidelines apply to articles under this project as well. If you would read back over the discussion, the primary reason for deprecating the use of succession boxes is because on the majority of articles, there has been considerable overlap between filmographies, succession boxes, navboxes and actual article content. Wildhartlivie (talk) 08:04, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

If the person is primarily notable as an actor, this is the main project that their article falls under. The succession boxes that we are concerned with here, relate to either their achievements as an actor, their work as an actor, or their notability as an actor. Again, this is the main project that those issues would fall under. If they were also, for example, a politician and there were succession boxes relating to their political career, we would have no business removing them because politics and acting are distinctly different fields. Likewise if they were an actor and a singer - different fields again. We don't choose which articles to include in this project. All biographical articles automatically fall into WP:BIOG as a main project, and this one is a subproject. If someone is a professional actor or a professional filmmaker, this article covers them and it's not a question of choice. They either fit or they don't. You say "I don't see why your project should have absolute control on all articles that you choose to include in your project" but when you revert and restore the succession boxes to articles of your choosing, you are doing exactly what you are saying we can't do. ie trying to exert "control on all articles that you choose to include in your project". I'm not trying to discourage discussion, but so far you've disagreed with the removal of the succession boxes, without presenting an argument, so if the articles that you care about are somehow different to the majority, nobody is likely to see this unless you explain. Rossrs (talk) 07:45, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Ian McKellen

As part of the GA Sweeps project I have reviewed this article and reluctantly concluded that it should be delisted until concerns over referencing and the lack of broad scope are addressed. Comments have been left at Talk:Ian McKellen/GA1 suggesting ways in which the article can be improved. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Warren Beatty#Rank insignia

There is a discussion on the Warren Beatty talk page regarding the insertion of a rank insignia in the Military service section. I removed it when it was added because the article itself already discusses that the insignia's design has changed over the years and I believe the insignia image is merely decorative. The poster returned it and when I removed it a second time, I added my rational for removing. He's returned it again and wants input from other editors regarding. Personally, I cannot see how seeing a picture of an insignia contributes anything to the understanding of the article about Beatty, especially since the design change was mentioned already. I'm not even sure that the routine reader would care so much about a design change. I'd appreciate anyone's input on this. I'm sure there is probably policy addressing the use of decorative images, but I'm not sure where to find it. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 01:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Betsy King Ross

I'd like to ask whether somebody with a copy of the following book:

• Rainey, Buck. (2005) Serial film stars: a biographical dictionary, 1912-1956.

could use it as a reference to fill out the child actress Betsy King Ross's article? I believe the following to be true, but I can't access a suitable source to confirm this:

• Apparently her father was an expert horse trainer. She was educated at Northwestern University as an anthropologist and later became a writer. I think she married an engineer and moved to a large ranch in Columbia, until her husband died during an accident whereupon she returned to the states.

Thank you!--RJH (talk) 18:36, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Samuel L. Jackson merge discussion

There is currently a discussion on whether or not to merge Samuel L. Jackson filmography back into the main article on the actor. Since the actor fall under the project, I thought I'd mention this here. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk o contrib) 22:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

James Stewart the actor

Previous discussion on the proposal to move James Stewart (actor) to Jimmy Stewart was not to make that move. Further discussion to make James Stewart the American actor (with no disamiguation in the article title) the primary use of James Stewart continues. This proposal would make a James Stewart (disambiguation) page the home to the listing of all uses of the name. Please post your opinion regarding this proposal at Talk:James Stewart. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:13, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Expanding Hunt Stromberg stub - need additional sources...

In trying to expand the Hunt Stromberg article I can find only four reliable - and sometimes conflicting - sources: IMDB, Allmovie, filmreference.com and cobbles.com. In addition there is almost no biographical information on the web; he is supposed to have founded Santa Anita and Hollywood racetracks, to have been a major investor in both, and to have been married to a Katherine Kerwin who died in 1951 - the year he retired from the movie business. He also had one known son, Hunt Stromberg Jr., who became a producer/director in his own right. Any ideas would be highly appreciated! Thank you, Shir-El too 00:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The primary problem first is that IMDB and Allmovie aren't considered reliable sources. Film reference can be for some things. I don't know about cobbles.com. The problem in expanding from only web sources for someone who lived when Stromberg did is that, as you've discovered, there is little out there. For articles like this, you can always check google books and see what is there and failing that, libraries might be helpful. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Benefit of Allmovie

I started a discussion at WT:FILM about the benefit of Allmovie as an external link, though this was more for film articles. I noticed that Allmovie is included as an external link in actor articles (though I am not sure how widespread its inclusion is). I wanted to mention the discussion (which currently applies to film articles only) to see if there are any arguments for or against Allmovie's inclusion in a general capacity. Thoughts are appreciated at the discussion. --Erik (talk o contrib) 06:13, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to add a comment at WT:FILM, if that's what you're suggesting, but it's currently all about film. I don't that Allmovie offers much value for a biographical article. Assuming that each biographical article on Wikipedia is eventually written to its full potential, the Allmovie link doesn't offer anything extra. It contains similar information to that contained in our infoboxes and the biographical material is not well written. If it offered something that we can't do ourselves, I'd be more likely to support it, but I don't think it does. In fairness, if we are going to ask this question about Allmovie, we should also ask it about IMDb and TCM, and whatever others may exist. Rossrs (talk) 08:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think IMDb is as disputable as Allmovie, for reasons explained at that discussion. Based on my experience here, a lot of readers have a love affair with IMDb. Nobody blinks an eye toward Allmovie, though! :) I figured I'd poke around and see what kind of consensus there was. As for TCM, I will have to look at that again. I think that we were persuaded to include it for older films, but TCM also covers newer films, for which it does not have as much content. Let these particular discussions come later, though! --Erik (talk o contrib) 13:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Scarlett Johansson GAR notification

Scarlett Johansson has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 20:48, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Utility of outlines to wikiprojects

Here's a discussion about subject development you might find interesting.

The Transhumanist 22:14, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Criterion Collection

I'm new to editing within this project. If a film maker has multiple films in the Criterion Collection would it be reasonable to list them as such in a lede for a director's article? --or-- rather would that usually be more pertinent in the body, or merely in the individual film's article? - Steve3849 ^talk 02:02, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It probably wouldn't be appropriate content for a lead section, especially so to simply list them, since leads should only be summaries of the article contents. I'm not even certain that a film being included in what is essentially a re-release form would be relevant for the filmmaker's article. It might be relevant for the film's article, depending on the circumstances of the release, for instance, if a restored version of a film is released. I wouldn't include a great deal of content devoted to such releases, though, beyond the mention of re-release. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:50, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Ilaiyaraaja

I have done a GA Reassessment of Ilaiyaraaja as part of the GA Sweeps project. I have found the article to not meet the current GA Criteria. My assessment can be found here. I am notifying all interested projects and editors that I have placed the article on hold pending work to return it to GA standards. If you have any questions or concerns please contact me on my talk page. H1nkles (talk) 16:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Ongoing Project / To Do lists

I'm not a member of this Wikiproject but those that are may want to consider a huge batch of edits being made by user 75.5.239.210. A large number of those edits relate to the following section in the Ongoing Project / To Do lists.

Remove lead sentence mention of "______ Award-winning" and/or "______ Award-nominated". This can and should be included in lead sections, but not in lead sentences. Please change leads to include mention of major awards, but do so in context.

My reading of this is that information about Awards / Nominations should be included in the lead, but not in the lead sentence. If it is currently in the lead sentence, it should be changed but mention of the major awards etc. should be kept.

User 75.5.239.210 has relentlessly been editing out ALL mention of awards etc. from the leads. David T Tokyo (talk) 07:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing a filmology

If this is an old question, please excuse me.... but I recently came across an article about a an individual who is a playwright/actor/author/screenwriter/producer/journalist/novelist that was in sad need of cleanup and sourcing [1], so I did so... removing the "citation needed" tags and "unreferenced" tags as I added the requested citations as I cleaned the darn thing.[2] However the editor who had done all the tagging, came back and replaced a "unreferenced" tag on the filmography section [3] with a caution that I not remove his tag unless I source the section. So I added some [4] and simply tagged the section for "more sources". In my noticing that actor articles do not have their filmography sections specifcally sourced, I am wondering is this something that we need do now for all actor articles? If so, there are a few thousand actor articles that now need to be so tagged. If such is not required, might I have a link to the guideline or decision that states it, so I might forward that on to the tagging editor? Thank you, MichaelQSchmidt (talk) 02:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I've never seen anyone require sourcing for appearances in mainstream television or in films. WP:GA nor WP:FA require sourcing for these either, even in smaller roles where the actor's appearance is minimal or non-significant. I don't know that there is a particular place that delineates this, but the product itself has always been sufficient proof. Have you asked the other editor why he believes these appearances require sourcing beyond what is expected or required everywhere else, or why he has grounds to doubt the lists? Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this seems excessive. By the same logic that a plot can be sourced to the work itself (a novel or a film), the actor's appearance in a work would be documented by the work itself (credits). For a citation, see WP:NOR: "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." Clearly, verifying whether the actor is in the film or not meets these criteria. decltype (talk) 03:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected; apologies; having checked several FA filmographies, I see that, apparently, it is current "custom and practice" to not require citations. No problems. All I would mention in my defence is, the core policy of WP:V - "All quotations and any material challenged [...] must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation". I challenged it, thus, a source would be nice. However, I accept that convention currently seems to inditacate this is not necessary in the case of wikilinked artist performances. I thus drop the WP:STICK. Thank You.  Chzz  ?  05:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Traffic count stats

I became aware of a traffic count stat tool on toolserver [5] that gives a nice count of page views. I've put in a request to get such stats for this project, at least as a test, in order to see what articles we have that get the highest views. I'm thinking this might give us a better way to gauge what articles might need attention. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 08:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks great, and seems useful. While Henrik's tool does a great job of compiling the page views for a single article, this is, like you say, an excellent way to decide which articles could use a brush-up. decltype (talk) 08:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

New film director page: Joseph Kosinski

Hi, I just started a new page on the director Joseph Kosinski, but I wanted to let whomever know, who might be able to clean it up, add something, or whatnot. Thanks. Rhetth (talk) 21:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

IP editor changing many biographies

IP editor, 69.209.113.108, is making numerous edits [6] Many edits remove a fact from the text because it is in the infobox or a list. They may all be fine but it would be nice if someone familiar with WP:Actor would review these edits. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 17:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I've scanned through a sample of his/her edits and they look fine to me. They seem to be removing POV-yet-true statements from the lead sentence ("So and so is an Oscar-winning actor", etc), which is an ongoing concern of this project. Bradley0110 (talk) 17:35, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Although I did leave a message last night asking him to at least try and include a sentence in the lead to replace the "award-winning" with contextual content that does just eliminate the mention. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Filmographies - neccesary?

I just (perhaps incautiously) deleted the filmography for Stig Eldred, but I thought I should bring the question here. If an actor is, by real world non-wikipedia standards, not really notable, and his article is and probably will remain a stub, does it make sense to have a very detailed filmography? Can't you just click through to IMDB and get the same info? For more prominent actors of course we want their articles to be one-stop shopping, but why should Stig get a one sentence article and then a 40 line filmography? Any thoughts on this? -Surfer83 (talk) 23:34, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You are asking a couple of things. First the notability. If you believe an article is about a non-notable actor, then tag it as such, nominate it for deletion, perhaps make a note to the article rescue project. That will do a lot to determine whether or not the article remains. Having said that, don't particularly decide that an article will always remain a stub. Personally, I would not delete the filmography, it does help establish that a person has a history of film/tv appearances and will give anyone who comes along and is interested a place from where to work to build a better article. The filmography is part of the biography. Maybe it is the lazy way around writing a better article, but it is content and shouldn't just be deleted. In some cases, usually in articles about lesser known actors, it may be all that is available. Clicking through to IMDB isn't really an acceptable alternative to presenting what we do know about an actor's body of work, and in this case, there is no link to IMDB. IMDB isn't a reliable source, it's an alternate site. I would say yes, the filmography is relevant and should remain (though from what I see of it on the Eldred article, it needs to be cleaned up for style). Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Billy and Bobby Mauch

There is a factual error on the page for Billy and Bobby Mauch

Actual year of birth is 1924, not 1921.

65.39.92.228 (talk) 11:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure? Multiple reliable sources (obituaries, etc) confirm a 1921 birth date. Bradley0110 (talk) 13:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Awards and acclaim bias

I suggest that this sentence ....  : "Remove lead sentence mention of "______ Award-winning" and/or "______ Award-nominated". This can and should be included in lead sections, but not in lead sentences. Please change leads to include mention of major awards, but do so in context."

.... could be expanded to include polls, surveys, box-office drawing power, salaries and general acclaim. Basically anything beyond the basic definition described at WP:LEAD. I'm thinking about the "one of the greatest actors ever" tag that keeps appearing on the end of the lead sentences of people like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, and this kind of statement is even more vague than "Academy Award winning" which can at least be nailed down to a straight-forward fact. Obviously De Niro and Pacino are among the most acclaimed actors of all time, but the claim is made without context and usually sourced to a poll that doesn't necessarily demonstrate how widely the viewpoint is held. I think it should stay in the lead, where applicable, but as part of the overall summary. The lead sections for De Niro and Pacino need to be expanded before this could be achieved. Any thoughts on the wording? Rossrs (talk) 13:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

We can say to keep the lead sentence basic to introduce the subject and to identify any claim to fame in the process of delving into an actor's or a filmmaker's background in the lead section. Erik (talk | contribs) 13:49, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we can, and we should. That's what it says at WP:LEAD and it should be enough to refer back to WP:LEAD, which I do in edit summaries, but I check the article a week later and the phrase is back. I've noticed that the "Award winning" phrase is being removed from a lot of articles, and the edit summaries have referred back to this project. I may be wrong, but it looks to be more effective, because we can say that the specific issue has been discussed rather than a more general policy such as LEAD. I prefer to keep things simple and avoid instruction creep, but it doesn't seem to be working and I thought this might be a good way of making it less open to interpretation. Rossrs (talk) 14:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I support excluding the other items you mentioned from the lead sentence, and we can reword the to-do sentence to be more encompassing. My suggestion: "Remove from the lead sentence phrases that make a claim to fame, such as being an award winner, one of the greatest actors/filmmakers ever, or other such highlights. Such phrase can be used later in the lead section in better context, such as summarizing the kinds of awards won or the kind of polls that recognize a person's greatness in the film industry." Very, very rough draft there! :) Feel free to amend or discard in its entirety. Erik (talk | contribs) 14:51, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

What about: "Exclude from the lead sentence phrases that bolster a person's status beyond basic descriptions covering career that support notability. Examples include phrases that inflate standing such as being an award winner, award nominee, one of the greatest actors/filmmakers ever, or other such highlights. Such phrases can be used later in the lead section in better context, such as summarizing the kinds of awards won or the kind of polls that rank a person's greatness in the film industry. Lead sentences should only include name, birth/death dates, occupation and nationality. Example: William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer." Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Rossrs (talk) 20:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree with one caveat: "that support notability" seems too tied to WP:N and may not necessarily tie to the actual careers. For example, someone who becomes notable as an actor may go on to become a director. So perhaps alternate wording like what that person is best known for, but without actually using the words "best known for" in the lead sentence? ('Cause I hate that. :P) Erik (talk | contribs) 20:48, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I hate "best known for" too. It could be reduced to "Exclude from the lead sentence phrases that bolster a person's status beyond basic descriptions of the subject's main career/profession." I guess anything is open to interpretation, but that would allow for whatever professions the person is "best known for" without encouraging a list. Oh, and here we go, just as expected  : this edit and this edit Rossrs (talk) 20:55, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

"Exclude from the lead sentence phrases that bolster a person's status beyond basic descriptions covering career that designate the person's occupation. Examples include phrases that inflate standing such as being an award winner, award nominee, one of the greatest actors/filmmakers ever, or other such highlights. Such phrases can be used later in the lead section in better context, such as summarizing the kinds of awards won or the kind of polls that rank a person's greatness in the film industry. Lead sentences should only include name, birth/death dates, occupation and nationality. Example: William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer."

I hate "best known for" as well. It reminds me of the sign the town board put at the edge of town, saying "Home of 2000 happy people". I went to the board meeting and asked when they took the poll that established that, because no one asked me and I'm not particularly happy.

And for the record, I think Robert DeNiro is a good actor, but I'd stop short of calling Al Pacino one of the greatest actors of all time. Too much "over-acting" for my taste. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:47, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Added to project front page. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Most popular pages for September 1

The list of most popular pages for the last month has been posted here. If you have time, please take a minute to visit some of those pages and make any changes/improvements that you might note are required. This is a great tool for the project to address highly visible pages. Thanks! Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:31, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Spencer Tracy filmography

I have opened a discussion at Talk:Spencer Tracy#Filmography regarding the removal of the filmography from the main article and discussion regarding no need for spinning the filmography into a separate article. Please comment there. Thank you. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Charlie Sheen

This article has issues, and a GA reassessment is under way. Stetsonharry (talk) 15:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Greta Garbo and ALT text

There is a current discussion at Talk:Greta Garbo#Was Garbo beautiful? regarding wording in ALT text that could use some other comments. Thanks! Wildhartlivie (talk) 07:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Thomas Ince

Hope I'm putting this in the right place, and I apologize if I haven't.

The dates in the Thomas Ince article don't add up, particularly regarding his death. The article states that the Oneida set sail on Saturday the 15th, and that Ince died on Tuesday the 19th. But if the 15th was a Saturday, Tuesday would have been the 18th. Unless he actually died very late Tuesday night, after midnight? If so, that needs clarification. --Preceding unsigned comment added by LorelieLong (talk o contribs) 12:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Category for deletion

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 September 21#Category:Actors to portray superheroes regarding this category as well as discussion regarding further categorization. Please take a look and add any comments you might have. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

a&e/filmbio tagging with Template:WPBiography

{{WPBiography}} is coded so that an article can be tagged for the arts and entertainment work group or WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, but not both at the same time. The reason for this appears to be the overlapping scope of the two: WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers is regarded as a child project of the arts and entertainment work group. So for example, an actor biography tagged with {{WPBiography|a&e=yes|filmbio=yes}} will only actually be tagged for WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers, because inclusion in the more generic work group is redundant. (With me so far?)

This is less straightforward for some articles though. Mikhail Baryshnikov is known primarily as a ballet dancer, but has also done some acting, and there is an unusual (and absurd) situation on his talk page where there are two instances of {{WPBiography}}, one tagging the article for the arts and entertainment work group with a Top-priority rating, the other tagging it for WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers with a Mid-priority rating. There should only be one transclusion of the {{WPBiography}} banner on that page, so (and irrespective of the priority rating) should it be:

1. Tagged for the arts and entertainment work group on the basis that he is primarily a ballet dancer rather than an actor?
2. Tagged for WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers on the basis that this falls under the arts and entertainment work group anyway?
3. Tagged for both with changes made to {{WPBiography}} to make this possible?

Note: I've also posted this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, so please reply there to keep discussion in one place. Thanks! PC78 (talk) 17:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Responded at WT:BIOG. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Eugene Khumbanyiwa

I've proposed a merger of Eugene Khumbanyiwa into the movie District 9 and one of the editors suggested soliciting viewpoints here. So, I am! Merger discussion can be found here: Talk:District_9#Merger_proposal. Thanks for any input. JohnInDC (talk) 17:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Responded. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Afd

I have nominated the article List of overweight actors in United States cinema for deletion. Discussion may be found here. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:02, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

C. Gardner Sullivan

Am I wrong to think a filmography with 201 titles, most of them redlinked, is excessive? LargoLarry (talk) 18:07, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

If you mean that a filmography with 201 titles is excessive, then no, I don't think so. Although it might be prudent to spin off the filmography onto its own page, or divide the list into columns. If a person was involved in 201 films, then that is the body of work. There are several persons under this project with exceedingly large filmographies. Mary Pickford filmography comes to mind with 246 films in which she appeared. John Wayne's filmography comprises 3 pages and includes 185 acting roles alone. As for the redlinks, I don't know. There certainly are articles with many redlinks in the filmography. Since the Sullivan article expansion is relatively new, some time could be given it for creation of some of these articles. That is a judgment call. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:38, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Templates for discussion

Three actor filmography templates have been listed for deletion. Please read and comment here, here, and here. A director template containing two films has been listed for deletion here. Thank you. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:12, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Articles needing filmographies?

In a forthcoming update to {{WPBiography}}, a |needs-discography= parameter is to be added for the benefit of WP:MUSICIAN. Would a |needs-filmography= parameter be of benefit to this project or not? PC78 (talk) 22:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. It never occurred to me, thanks for suggesting it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:21, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Guidelines directive

At the templates for deletion discussions noted above, it was noted that perhaps it would be beneficial to include a guideline here reflecting the wide consensus that actor filmography templates are not helpful additions. After being asked, I compiled links to the wide number of previous deletion discussions to delete these templates and I am posting them here for convenience and consultation.

• covers 18 such templates, covers 15 such templates, starting with this one, covers 15 such templates, covers one template with discussion about general usage, covers 9 such templates and as an aside, I note that the Jim Carrey template had been previously deleted, so it could have been put up as a speedy deletion, covers 4 such templates, covers 1 template, covers 3 such templates, covers 3 such templates, covers 3 such templates, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template, covers 2 such templates, covers 1 such template, covers 1 such template.

What we have is from about a 3 year period, covering 18 separate template deletion decisions for 86 separate templates, all of which were deleted. I'd like to move forward with incorporating this consensus on our main page under guidelines. I think the overriding opinions include that they are redundant to the filmography and that if such templates were used routinely, we'd have a tremendous overabundance of such templates on film pages, which do not help anyone. Take for example the following films and the number of templates for prominent stars only.

Basically, I propose that WP:ACTOR develop a guideline stating that filmographies for actors should not be summarized into templates due to the problems of over-proliferation of templates and crowding. Or something to that effect. We can also note that there is no consensus against using templates for directors' work. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd say go ahead an create a guideline on this, since these templates seem to keep being created. Including an example such as one of the above would be helpful for pointing out to editors why the templates should not be created. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk o contrib) 00:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The point is well made -- especially by presenting those examples of what could occur on a specific film page. The lengthy discussions at Tfd will only recur until a guideline is set. The same guideline should also be included at WP:FILM. -- CactusWriter | ^needles 07:43, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I also agree. It seems to me that each time this point has been raised in relation to a specific use of one of these templates, they have attracted comments in support of their removal. I think it's become one of those things that is generally accepted as inappropriate, demonstrated by the examples given, but which has never been recorded anywhere as a part of a guideline. There are relatively few instances of these templates and it's clear that tabled filmographies have wide support. I'd support including a comment about this as part of the guideline or project aims. Rossrs (talk) 14:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the rest. Permitting actor filmography templates is template overload because there are typically multiple roles in a film of varying significance. Director templates are more appropriate since directors exert extensive creative control, where this is not so much the case with actors on a film-to-film basis. Best to focus on providing tabled filmography wherever possible. Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 14:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

What is template over-load. Is there any policy wikipedia can't have more than x amount of templates.

Filmography tables are for actor article only, they have no link or use in separate films, also case get complicated where more than 1 important actor is involved.

You can evaulate, get informed [with actor's filmography: number of films, their names, link to their articles and number of his films] and navigate through all of a certain leading actor's films by a single line collapsed template. Wikipedia does not have space or bandwidth issue that requires any actor template ban. Kasaalan (talk) 15:25, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

"case get complicated where more than 1 important actor is involved." Exactly. That is what the examples above prove. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers would have 15 separate templates. Almost none of the actors involved in that project would likely not widely be described as "important" actors or "leading" actors. Then again, determining who is "important" or "leading" is chock full of subjectiveness and POV. So glad you see the point. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Since we both know LOTR or Star Wars is in different league than regular movies, sticking out extremes has nothing to do with rest of the majority of the movies. Only scarcity of movies may afford to have much number of leading actors anyway, though you cannot compare none with Jim Carrey anyway. Also if you really need a solution for LOTR, you may always collapse multiples templates within a single one. Moreover for most of the movie articles, there isn't enough info anyway, that a template would hold so much valuable info and templates and navboxes hold much importance. Yet, having actor template in actor article itself or in his films is also another discussion here. Tables does not constitute for templates or navboxes, they have different purposes. Kasaalan (talk) 00:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Lord of the Rings is only one of four examples used. Star Wars was not used, although it certainly could be. Three other films are given, which are basically reflective of major films these days and they reflect nothing different regarding overuse of actor filmography templates. Complete actor filmographies simply are not relevant to any individual film. It isn't just a Jim Carrey template, it is any of them that end up overwhelming a film article with information unrelated to the specific film. We aren't looking for the solution to how such templates would be contained, we are discussing why such templates are inappropriate for some given film article. I'd have to observe, though, that if some given film article doesn't have enough content, then that is what an editor should concentrate on, and not on how to bring in the complete body of work that one actor in a film has done. It's extraneous and not relevant to the specific article or topic. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:23, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Again as I said, main arguments to delete templates are they clog the footnote of film templates etc., which can easily be solved by collapsing multi-templates into a single one. Which only takes a line. And instead clicking every actor in the film [which user has interest since he is reading film] to learn their filmography, they may just click the actor templates he like. That is easy navigation and informative. Again what you claim as a sideeffect for multiple-leadding-actors in a film, is actually a benefit for the user. So I am proving an easy solution for your arguments in space, layout, clogging footnote, multiple templates collapsed into a single template is way to go for all that arguments. Kasaalan (talk) 09:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Counter arguments

I do not agree the case however you put it.
First of all it is nice, you gathered to add and improve content here. Though WP:ACTOR is no god, no admin, no policy maker, and strictly obliged to subject general WikiGuidelines as a Project like rest of us. So as a project, it cannot create or perform a ban against actor templates in practice wikiwide, as it has no right to do so.
Also as a Project, you have no right to dictate non-members what they cannot create in the most basic level, where wikiguidelines takes over "consensus" dictation. You need to establish a solid WikiGuideline [which you can't], such as no actor template allowed in wikipedia, just because we build a consensus in a Project "about a 3 year period" and accomplished "18 separate template deletion decisions for 86 separate templates", therefore wasting all other [maybe more than 86] wiki editor's time and effort, ignoring each template creator's accumulative consensus, which resulted like a snowball after we got a consensus for first cases, though it is just a Project consensus and we have no wiki-wide ban against actor templates at hand. That seriously fails in logic.
What we all try to do is improving content for ourselves and other readers
*Actor templates are compact, results easy navigation and informative. It only costs 1 line in article, though it leads even 50 separate films of the leading actors of the film. You don't have to click actor's name then go to filmography section then click another movie then hit back button in browser and than click another link than hit back button again ...
You can't dictate your project-wide decision to wikipedia users internationally, then brag about getting 86 templates deleted, again which only stands by your own-project-wide-consensus which has nothing to do with other 86 template creator's [you should also tell it is dozens of non-members consensus to create such templates] will or time-effort they put into their templates.
I will try taking this debate a higher process, where it should result in undeletion of all other leading actor's template. Your project-wide consensus is none of my concern when it comes to deletion of other user's efforts, and I can assume all other 86 template creator's consensus in creating such templates as a ground for having such templates.
As a Project, weighting in template deletion discussions, singling out template creator's in every case does not establish any strict rule as we can't have any actor templates because you say so.
I will also bring the case in WikiProject Inclusion board. [edit conflict] Kasaalan (talk) 14:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't talk nonsense. It wasn't this wikiproject which caused these templates to be deleted. There were multiple deletion debates by multiple editors which attracted quite a lot of input (outside of this project) and eventually resulted in the templates to be deleted. Plus, if this wikiproject decided to create a manual of style it would need to be widely advertised (outside of this wikiproject) with a lot of input before it could become a guideline. Garion96 (talk) 14:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I have been informed by creator of title, that the deletions were by consensus in WP:ACTOR. Also however you put it, there is at least 86 established cases for creating actor templates, by dozens of other wikipedia users. Again your "consensus" is equal to "a template creating ban wiki-wide" which near no Template or user consensus can accomplish. Kasaalan (talk) 14:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Creating a template is easy, one person is enough. To have it deleted however is much harder since you need strong consensus. That there was consensus with every debate to delete the template in question does say something. Garion96 (talk) 14:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Creating a template is not easy. Creating a wiki account is easy. Anyone who have an e-mail can register to wikipedia, then delete other's work anyway. It takes someone who can put effort in researching info and gathering them together with layout, which most users avoid in general. Deletion is much more easier. There are numerous users who would vote for deletion without fully reading an article, contributing to the article. That also goes for templates. Kasaalan (talk) 15:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You can have such a "consensus" every single case, suggesting you have a "consensus" in WP:ACTOR over x years for y+1 case, and with the same-old members, you can weight in any deletion debate against the singled-out template creator. As I say, your "consensus" is very similar to a snowball effect. And there is a strict pattern in creating actor templates, by dozens of independent wiki-users all possibly non-members of WP:ACTOR, which indicates all of their accumulative consensus to create actor templates against your consensus in deleting them. Noone asked me what is my vote over having actor templates or not before, since there have never been any actor-template-creation ban in wikipedia I have known, which you don't have authority to create therefore can't practice it anyway. Kasaalan (talk) 15:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You are warping the meaning of consensus. The creations of actor filmography templates by separate editors does not mean consensus; it means a trend. Trends are either good or bad. For example, editors separately starting "Trivia" sections is not a good trend. In this case, the presence of such a template does not hold up to critique by multiple editors as evidenced by the deletion discussions. This is where the true consensus lies. Creation has no discussion involved; assessment does, and the assessment shows that such templates are not appropriate. We're better off developing solid filmographies on the actors' articles. Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 15:24, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

You are warping a consensus with wiki wide ban. Consensus might be tolerable for limited and separate cases. Consensus can't be upgraded into a wiki-wide-actor-template ban. You can't upgrade a projectpage as a policy maker either. Trivia case is another debate matter. Some users' trend is widening the scope of "trivia" with whatever they like for example. Kasaalan (talk) 15:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I used the proliferation of "Trivia" sections as an example of an inappropriate trend. You are the only one throwing around the word "ban", where this is a discussion to establish guidelines based on numerous discussions. It will be displayed as such, so in these so-called rare cases, it can be overridden, perhaps in templates where it is reflected that directors were also actors in their films. Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 15:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

As I say, there is an inappropriate consensus-trend in deletion of actor templates by consensus within wiki projects. There is other consensus-trend over having them by non-members. Yet however you put it you put deletion consensus in action, while most of the wikipedia not aware of such consensus, because upgraded your consensus into a policy. No user but debate participants aware of such a policy, since it is not exist. As a project, you people have no right to ban actor-projects, yet actor-projects are banned in practice. Kasaalan (talk) 18:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

That the multiple discussions were weighed in on by close to 100 different editors, the majority of which are not members of WP:ACTOR speaks for itself. Very, very few editors have not understood what including actor templates on film articles implies. Deciding what actor is a lead, or important, or "starring" is far too subjective a criteria for determining what template would be acceptable and what would not. It's basically either allow them on film articles, which is an entirely different project than this one (WP:FILM), which introduces myriad extraneous and non-relevant content on the film article, or not include them. If they aren't included, which is precisely what WP:FILM would say, then they are rendered moot. WikiProjects routinely make style and content guidelines which are applied throughout Wikipedia and that isn't questioned. "You people" are the entire project. Consensus is not inappropriate just because you disagree with it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly if you deleted 86 templates, all 86 [or a few less] different template creators are putting their effort, time and will to have such templates, independent from each other. So, again your own project wide decisions is not a concern for what they put their effort on. Interestingly you try to single out each template creator one by one against a "100", which is hardly the case here. So again I remind you, if you weight in deletion reviews you may always seem "right", though if you accumulate all template creators, and other keep voters, you may easily tell the votes are not 1:100 but around 1:1. Your "consensus" creates a snowball effect, which deletes any actor template it comes by, though it has no authority to do so. Kasaalan (talk) 00:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) For the sake of transparency, it should be noted that I have been in a long running dispute with the above editor on another, completely unrelated article, and the Jim Carrey template, which has been nominated for deletion, was made by the above editor. As is typical with using the software to nominate pages for deletion, I nominated the Carrey template for deletion without knowing who had created it until the software had finished posting the nomination and notification to the creator. It is not a personal issue, here, Kasaalan, so please do not "remind" me of anything here.

Having said that, outside of this project, WP:FILM doesn't support including individual templates on film articles and in consideration of that, there is no purpose for actor filmography templates beyond the actor article, which makes it redundant to the filmography table. WikiProjects create style guidelines all of the time, which is the basic backbone of article styles and it is absolutely acceptable that they do so. You've made your points, there is no benefit to continuing to post the "last word". However, I can't currently see that your opinion outweighs all of the other opinions simply because you snow the discussion with long posts that are bolded or underlined. Thanks for your opinion. Wildhartlivie (talk) 04:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"For the sake of transparency, it should be noted that I have been in a long running dispute with the above editor on another, completely unrelated article, and the Jim Carrey template, which has been nominated for deletion, was made by the above editor. As is typical with using the software to nominate pages for deletion, I nominated the Carrey template for deletion without knowing who had created it until the software had finished posting the nomination and notification to the creator." It is only natural if you use software, I believed you first time you said it and it is a matter only you can tell, anyway. As long as you answer my question I prefer to believe you. So no need to worry both cases are different.

"It is not a personal issue, here, Kasaalan, so please do not "remind" me of anything here." That word was only limited to our current discussion with template deletions. As I said after you reply first time I believed you. Only thing worth mention about our previous discussions is that, it is hard we may agree, this case is no exception.

"Having said that, outside of this project, WP:FILM doesn't support including individual templates on film articles and in consideration of that, there is no purpose for actor filmography templates beyond the actor article, which makes it redundant to the filmography table. WikiProjects create style guidelines all of the time, which is the basic backbone of article styles and it is absolutely acceptable that they do so." Again that doesn't justify overrating their limited-and-self-centered guidelines to delete hard work of other users. Deleting a template from an article, and getting it deleted is 2 different issues. Backbone of wikipedia is independent users, projects may only decide for its own actions, cannot order non-members around. Again I stress dozens of other independent users put their will, time, effort and consensus over having actor templates. That is a general consensus over wikipedia may have actor templates. So if you accumulate cases you can easily tell. And again now a user tries to delete golden globe award templates, which is like a joke to me.

"You've made your points, there is no benefit to continuing to post the "last word"." did just you made an advise for yourself.

"However, I can't currently see that your opinion outweighs all of the other opinions simply because you snow the discussion with long posts that are bolded or underlined." I make a summary of my post, I prefer underlines instead bold lately. Thanks for opening subject. I answer if I feel anyone comes with wrong arguments. Deletion review is possibly the place to discuss these matters. Kasaalan (talk) 09:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Navboxes

Could someone with more expertise than I asses the appropriateness of these Blair Witch navboxes (designed to look like templates), such as [7], on actor pages. See Special:Contributions/Sottolacqua @ 16:54, 14 October 2009 for others. The JPS^{talk to me} 17:16, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Argh. At present, there's not a a consensus on using actual film templates on actor articles, although I suspect we'll make a decision on that at some point. As it is, the content should be made into a template and not just be sticking in hard coding that looks like templates. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Update to Template:WPBiography

Please note that priority assessments for this project are now added by using the |filmbio-priority= parameter in the {{WPBiography}} project banner. In addition, and for this project only, it can be requested that a filmography be added to an article by adding |needs-filmography= to the banner. For example, {{WPBiography|filmbio-work-group=yes|needs-filmography}} will display:

Untitled

and add articles to Category:Actors and filmmakers work group articles needing filmographies. Please refer to Template:WikiProject Biography/doc for full instructions on how to use the banner, or feel free to ask any questions on the banner's talk page. PC78 (talk) 02:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Anne Hathaway (actress) GAR notice

Anne Hathaway (actress) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Removed bit Golden Raspberry Awards

[8] = removed bit of text relating to not including Golden Raspberry Awards. Actually oftentimes this is quite noteworthy. Also, previous discussion came to a consensus this was not to be included in Template:Infobox actor, but did not pertain to inclusion elsewhere in the article. Cirt (talk) 08:14, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the template removal, I considered the entire discussion re: infoboxes parameters and various comments of support not to include Razzies regardless of the outcome of all the rest of the discussion, coupled with a consistent effort by members not to include them in filmographies, coupled with the fact that despite the existence of the templates (of which I was not aware), they were not being used, as consensus that we aren't using them. There are templates for at least four categories, none of which were on biography articles until a new editor added them to articles yesterday. "Bad faith parody" - yes, parody may be governed by free speech, but these awards aren't given by an organized group that is acknowledged as legitimate in bestowing industry or film awards. It seems to me that there was general agreement that they are more of a slur than any legitimate critical commentary. The Razzie awards are basically run by one individual and anyone who is willing to pay $25 to join the site is eligible to vote. There is no known vetting process for how the awards or nominations are determined and no oversighting of the nominations or voting process. These aren't film awards in the general sense of the term. The Wikipedia page for the awards fairly sums up the rationale that such shouldn't be listed with legitimate awards:

"The Golden Raspberry Awards, frequently called the Razzies, were created by John Wilson in 1980 (and first awarded in 1981), intended to counterpoint the Academy Awards by dishonoring (or honoring) the worst acting, screenwriting, songwriting, directing, and films that the film industry had to offer. The term raspberry is used in its irreverent sense, as in "blowing a raspberry."

I had already begun to nominate the templates for deletion and will continue on that path as soon as the deletion discussion page bug is worked out so that I can use the script to add them. If you don't think there has been general consensus for using these templates, I would be completely happy to open a discussion regarding them. Doesn't it seem odd that these would sit unused if they were accepted by the community as valid? This is no way says that specific mentions of Raspberry Awards in some context isn't valid, and there are mentions of them in some articles. One would be whoever (I want to say it was Halle Berry) who showed up to accept the award. I believe it was the only time it ever occurred. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to respectfully disagree. These are noteworthy awards, and parody, and not a form of "bad faith". Also, it is not really the greatest source of info to quote another poorly sourced Wikipedia article... :P Cirt (talk) 09:43, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

What exactly are you respectfully disagreeing about? Again, no one anywhere has said that content regarding Razzies is unacceptable. Treating them in the same manner as general industry and critical awards is really what is at issue. The Wikipedia article lead actually is kinder regarding the intent of these awards than the actual Razzie page, but I could quote that if needed. Wildhartlivie (talk) 10:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not think it is constructive in this discussion to quote other Wikipedia articles that are not really up to standards yet. Cirt (talk) 10:19, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

<=Here is the archived discussion about the Razzie awards relative to their inclusion in the actor infobox: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Actors_and_Filmmakers/Archive_3#Infobox_actor_changes_proposal. There is no other archived talk about Razzies or the Golden Raspberry Awards. I think it premature to conclude from a wide sample of editors' past actions that there was a consensus not to use the Razzie template. The question itself should be posed so that a formal consensus can be established. Binksternet (talk) 15:50, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure how many times I should have to repeat the same statement. I said it could most certainly be brought up here. Wildhartlivie (talk) 17:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Gaining consensus: Razzie award templates at the bottom of articles

Isn't an actor's appearance in a film enough to show he was IN the film?

It is my understanding that the film or television project itself is acceptable as sourcing an actor's appearance in that project. Has this changed, or are we somehow supposed to post copies of the films for readers to themselves watch... as it seems to me that THAT would cause all sorts of probems with copyright infringement. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 03:44, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

In general, I would say yes. Exceptions would be in an upcoming film that is recently announced, cast or hasn't started filming. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:52, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Uncredited appearances ought to have a secondary source too. Bradley0110 (talk) 16:34, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Yep. We should remember that sometimes people mistake one actor for another, so if the person's name isn't in the credits, it might not be who you think it is. If the actor is very recognizable due to their fame, it is likely that some secondary source will mention their appearance. --RL0919 (talk) 16:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sensible. With uncredited being harder to source, when editing an actor's BLP, I do not include them unless they are covered in a reliable source elsewhere. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Notice

Please see Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2009_November_8#Template:Golden_Raspberry_Award_for_Worst_Actress. Thanks, Cirt (talk) 21:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Broadway

Should actor's credits of being in Broadway plays be listed under their filmography? Thanks. --Mike Allen ^{talk · contribs} 18:44, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Basically, in the same general subsection. The section title is frequently called filmography, but it can also be titled "Body of work" or something similar. In most cases, the order is film work, television work, theater work, etc. So long as it isn't mixed in with the other types of work. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I place stage roles underneath screen work in a similar table; see Robert Bathurst#Stage roles for an example. Bradley0110 (talk) 10:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it really depends on what it for which the person is most known. In some cases, stage work would come first. The problem is, we don't proscribe the order or how it is displayed. It is mostly dependent on the body of work. Although I have a personal dislike of including voice work on video games in the same class as other work. Wildhartlivie (talk) 11:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Wildharlive -- about the video games -- when I started doing tables and such I included Video games in its own table. However, I came across actors that only had one video game in the their credits, so I just included it in the Filmography table. I didn't think it was worth putting it under its own table (waste of space?). I can't remember who it was though. I did put Jim Varney's VG credits in its own table. B.D. Wong comes to mind about the Broadway, TV, and Film credits (I included all but the Stage credits). --Mike Allen ^{talk · contribs} 22:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's useful to group works under one broad heading, although the title "filmography" should be amended to make it more inclusive. Robert Bathurst#Stage roles is a good example (as given above), although you'll notice his film work is minor compared to his stage and television work, so I'd be inclined to put the films last. If you look under Category:Filmographies and check some of the articles, you'll see a range of formats. Although these are individual articles, they may give you some ideas for setting out lists of works within articles. Rossrs (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Filmography at Kim Ok-bin

Another user has repeatedly replaced the filmography table in this article with an inferior list, even after I have pointed out the filmbio guideline, on the basis that "such short film section doesn't require a table". I've just been editing the article and have restored the table, but it would be helpful if someone else could keep an eye on it or weigh in with an opinion at the talk page. PC78 (talk) 02:21, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

CFD:Parks and Recreation actors

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 November 22#Category:Parks and Recreation actors Bradley0110 (talk) 20:39, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Actors padding TV and film navboxes

After scanning through a lot of TV navboxes over the last couple of days, I've found a large number of them include links to actors. These navboxes are then placed at the bottom of the actor articles (sometimes several of them depending how prolific the actor is in primetime television) resulting in very messy looking articles that define an actor solely on which show or film they've been in. Many of these navboxes are created by fans of TV shows because they've seen others do it. Concerned about how few articles that are directly related to their show, these editors seek to legitimise the creation of the template by padding it out with people related to the show, sometimes tangentally (those editors who have been to TFD over the last couple of days will have seen some examples).

Since the deletion of "[Television series] actors" categories, these templates have been on the rise. They serve exactly the same purpose: to categorise a performer by their work. As was discussed at those CFDs, actors, writers, directors and producers can work on many TV shows and films in their careers, and having a category or template for each show will just clutter pages (as an example, I cleaned up the Scrubs template ({{Scrubs}}) yesterday to remove this people padding[13]).

I think we need to work with the Film and TV Wikiprojects to nip this getaround in the bud once and for all, and create a proper reason for why people should be linked from these navboxes (using the Scrubs example again, the only person I have left linked in that navbox is Bill Lawrence, the creator of the show). Bradley0110 (talk) 11:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If you mean why people should not be linked, I agree wholeheartedly. This tends to put undue weight on a project for which an editor has an interest, and does not properly represent the entirety of an actor's career. This is applicable to not just TV roles but film roles as well. I have removed actors from templates and/or removed the templates from the bios. This is just too much emphasis. I think I may have nominated a template or two before. Wildhartlivie (talk) 12:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was including film roles too. My point is that we need to include the TV and Film WPs in this too, since the templates themselves probably come under their jurisdiction, and the faster our members remove actors and filmmakers, the faster theirs add them. Bradley0110 (talk) 12:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this is problematic, but I am curious as to whether you are arguing for blanket removal from bios, considering cases where the actor is in fact known for one role, and where this could be backed by RSs, who describe the person as being "primarily known for playing XX in YY", or somesuch. decltype (talk) 13:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

That would be a different matter; if a publication says "X is best known for Y", we have to consider--even if it is from an RS--how they reached that conclusion. What I'm just concerned about here is the articles of actors and filmmakers being overcrowded with navboxes for productions they have had roles in. Bradley0110 (talk) 14:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Actors being described as "best known for" is actually one of those persistent little POV phrases that I wish was banned from use here. There are very few actors who can really be defined by one role. If that were actually the case, such a template would still be redundant to the article content that would support that, IMO. Wildhartlivie (talk) 15:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Even if there was a genuine case for an actor being defined mainly by one role, the template would still most likely bring in other actors who are not necessarily defined by their participation in that project. The problem, I think, would be more noticeable in the article for the other actors, as an issue of undue wieght being given to a project that is of lesser significance to other actors listed in the template. The way around that is to make the list selective, but that wouldn't work either, because that would be introduce POV. It seems like a messy and difficult issue, to me. Rossrs (talk) 20:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts and cleanup listing...

...are now available for this project!

• Article alerts
• Cleanup listing

Hopefully people will find these of use. Regards. PC78 (talk) 07:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC) (Please keep for the time being. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:52, 2 November 2009 (UTC))

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 00:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Just a question

Does anyone else happen to find the sudden flux of additions to articles of a navbox for MTV Movie Awards at all annoying? [14] Don't we have enough meritorious awards to contend with to have to check/render opinion on awards that are open to multiple voting and excessive fan bias? This might just be my own personal rant, but we don't particularly need a navbox for every single award, regardless of its stature or commonality. I've been fine with these boxes for major awards, but I'm concerned, perturbed, and yes, annoyed, at the proliferation of them. Even tucked away in a nice {{Template group}} covering, this is becoming the new generation of undue weight given to a passing editor's award of choice. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:12, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Such navigation templates should be removed because such details do not belong in actors' articles. The focus is on the actor, so who else won the award is not relevant in that actor's article. The better approach is to ensure that there is a direct link to the award article, and in the case of Johnny Depp, MTV Movie Award for Best Performance. That way, readers can go to the article where such details are warranted. (In any case, MTV Movie Awards is useless -- look what won the MTV Movie Award for Best Movie in 2009.) Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 19:28, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree--MTV Movie Awards should be treated like the Razzie Awards, IMO. --Mike Allen ^{talk · contribs} 20:30, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Couple of question...

Looking at the consensus above not to have navboxes padded, I'm curious of your thoughts on

1. Secession boxes for actors to have played a specific character; and
2. Navboxes like {{Superman actors}}

Thanks

- J Greb (talk) 22:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Succession boxes were determined to be inappropriate by prior consensus (see front page for that and consensus page). I believe that the use of navboxes like the one you suggested are also redundant to article content. Wildhartlivie (talk) 00:18, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

So... IIUC, succession boxes for roles is out, but succession boxes for directors as still good?

And the type of navbox I'm pointing to is a bit of a "sidestep" - since the "Actors portraying..." cats are no-gos, the 'box is a replacement for that. And it is, essentially, as "Cast & Crew" 'box.

Last thought... I'm making an assumption here that these cover all actors, not just those pertaining to film.

- J Greb (talk) 01:00, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Relevant AFD

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Junko Sakurada. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 12:20, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments needed

An issue has arisen at Russell Crowe regarding addition of a large section of content on Firepower International which another editor and myself have gone on record as stating it is given undue weight, leans toward convicting Russell of complicity in a con activity and is inappropriately lengthy with no evidence against him save an appearance on The Tonight Show with a jersey. More opinions are needed on this possible WP:BLP violation. Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 13:58, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed the contentious section and commented on the talk page. I encourage others to review the situation because the other entities involved are contesting our good faith in the matter. Erik (talk) 16:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Opinions needed

Please see Talk:Nicole Kidman#Kidman's humanitarian status for a disagreement over referring to Kidman as a humanitarian. Eyes and comments are needed. Wildhartlivie (talk) 05:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Some TfDs that may be of interest here

They are:

• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 December 14#Template:X-Men film series cast and crew
• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 December 14#Template:Spider-Man film series cast and crew
• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 December 14#Template:1966-1968 Batman television series cast and crew
• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 December 14#Template:1978-1987 Superman film series cast and crew
• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 December 14#Template:Batman actors
• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 December 14#Template:Superman actors

Thanks

- J Greb (talk) 23:11, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Cast/Crew in navigation boxes

Since I have run into some friction on this issue, I came here for some clarification. I believe the consensus is for navigation boxes to not contain cast and crew members in Television and Film navigation boxes. Do I understand that correctly? BOVINEBOY2008 :) 17:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Archive 3#Actors padding TV and film navboxes. Erik (talk) 18:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I've read it but just to be clear, it is consensus not to include them? BOVINEBOY2008 :) 18:22, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

That's my impression, not just from that discussion, but from the general approach. I agree with the sentiment that names don't belong in navigation boxes. (This same issue was raised at WT:MOSFILM#Film navbox consensus, oh where did it go?. Erik (talk) 18:40, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm with you two on this. Flyer22 (talk) 21:08, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

It does seem logical not to clutter the navboxes up with that unnecessary information. I just wanted to be sure and wanted a solid consensus before I went hacking away.  :) --Mike Allen ^{talk · contribs} 00:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

There is a relevant TfD going on here. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 11:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you hit a fan nerve lol. Will put my 2 cents in soon. --Mike Allen ^{talk · contribs} 18:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm missing the point, but personally I think that the navboxes should include at least principal cast and crew - I would not call this unnecessary information - It is quite a useful tool. However, I do agree that a multitude of navboxes should not be on each individual actor's page. Has a consensus been reached? Is there a central discussion? Rob Sinden (talk) 13:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The consensus for this action is born out of the consensus established in 2007 that categories like "[TV series] actors", "[TV series] writers" and "[TV series] directors" should not exist per WP:OCAT. People then added cast and crew to these navboxes as a way of getting around the category rules. I can't disagree that having cast in the navboxes--but excluding the navboxes from the actors articles--is a good system for navigation BUT a) you then have to deal with well-meaning users who "helpfully" add the navboxes to the articles they have been deliberately left off of, and b) you get people adding as many names as they possibly can to the navboxes as a way of trying to legitimise its very existence, which just becomes irrelevant padding. Bradley0110 (talk) 13:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

If you add cast/crew members to every navbox, then actors pages will be filled with links that have little to do with the person. It doesn't make sense. We need to draw the line solidly, not just "its okay for the main characters"; that will lead to issues of POV, OR, and UNDUE. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 14:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Other than through people adding them, there is no reason to suppose that "actors pages will be filled with links that have little to do with the person", surely? As far as Navboxes go, it seems to me that (and I'm picking an example out of my head here) it would be strange for a The Matrix navbox not to include Keanu Reeves or The Wachowski Brothers, or a Star Trek navbox not to have William Shatner or Leanord Nimoy, but I'm not suggesting that these navboxes should be on the individual actor or crewmember page, as the links would be in the filmography. Rob Sinden (talk) 14:50, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

As an aside, I can't find a consensus anywhere on this - isn't it a case where common sense and discretion should prevail? i.e. if the navboxes get ridiculous and include complete cast lists then they should be pared down, but no need as a matter of course? Rob Sinden (talk) 14:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

An actor/crew member is not defined by the roles he plays. Also, navigation boxes belong on every page contained in the box, otherwise the usefulness of the navigation is lost. I couldn't find the consensus either, but I know it is; the idea has been used before for TfDs. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 15:07, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what is meant by your statement "An actor/crew member is not defined by the roles he plays" and how it is relevant to this discussion. You also mention that "navigation boxes belong on every page contained in the box, otherwise the usefulness of the navigation is lost", but surely more usefulness is lost if the information is removed completely from the navigation is lost. If you see what I mean. I'm not saying that navigation boxes should have exhaustive cast lists, but I can't see the harm in having (and this is the one that turned me on to this discussion in the first place) Wes Craven, Kevin Williamson, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette in the Scream template. In fact the template is much worse (nearly useless) without them. In my opinion, these at least, should be on this template. You are also claiming "consensus", but as mentioned, there doesn't seem to be any, and no guidelines seem to exist. Perhaps some discretion should have been used when decimating these templates, or they should have been discussed on relevant pages individually. Rob Sinden (talk) 16:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from. But the point of navigation boxes is to link similar articles together by placing the template on the those pages. If cast/crew are navigation boxes, every show that the person was in would have a navigation box on their page. That is overlinking and unnecessary. Also, we can't simply say important cast members are okay; what does it mean that a cast member is "important"? And what makes one person more important than another. This leads to POV and OR. As I understood it, this is the consensus; when I removed the cast, ie before Robsinden and Bradley, everyone agree: a consensus. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 16:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with removal of people from navboxes in general, and I'm not convinced there's anything like a consensus for it. I am certainly against cluttered navboxes, but to pick a show I don't watch so nobody calls me biased, it would be weird for the 30 Rock navbox not to have Tina Fey. The beauty of navboxes is that they provide an easy way to navigate through an unfamiliar topic and see the bigger picture. The guideline at WP:CLN states "They are particularly useful for small and more or less complete sets" which I would argue applies in the case of above-the-line people on a TV show/movie. I also agree with the essay WP:NAV when states "While the main [...] article already contains inline links to the subsidiary articles, the subsidiary articles themselves are smaller and their prose may not place them into the overall context with each other. Editors who work on the subsidiary articles in isolation may be unaware of this context. The navigation template provides an easy way for the subsidiary articles, even when they begin as stubs, to instantly inherit the conceptual structure of the main article." I think this supports including the principal cast&crew. --Intractable (talk) 22:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Cast & crew are independent of the show, though. It not only gives unnecessary clutter to the navigation box, but also on the persons article. I've explained this five million times; allowing them on navboxes will involve a candy-cane striping on the bottom of every actor/crew member article and would connect them to potentially completely unrelated articles. Now for me, it makes sense to include the creator(s), like Tina Fey and 30 Rock, as they have a strong connection with all subsequent articles; they created them. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 22:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I see maybe five people in the discussion linked to as "consensus" and I don't think that is enough for such a blanket change. If you are going to address all of these series, you really need to post links on the talk pages of those templates to notify interested editors about the discussion. Personally, the cast and crew are the people who make a series possible and I think it's ridiculous to remove them from the navboxes. --Zoeydahling (talk) 22:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I left links on the Television and Film project talk pages, as that encompasses all of the templates. Also, please realize that if a cast/crew member weren't in a show, there would probably just be another to come along and play the part; the content of the work of fiction defines it, not who portrays/creates it. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 22:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:MOSFICT says that we should describe works of fiction from a real-world POV and the people who create the work of fiction are a large part of that. I don't think it matters who else might hypothetically be playing a role if someone left, what matters is who is playing it now and is known to the audience as that character. Also, about your above comment about "candy cane striping" on pages, I really don't think that matters. If an individual was in a number of projects, why is it harmful to have links with more information about the projects and other members of the projects? I don't think an aesthetic reason is strong enough to negate the fundamental loss to the usefulness of templates by removing the people from them. --Zoeydahling (talk) 23:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The characters are linked in the navboxes, so if a reader wants to know who played that character it would take all but a second to click and find out (and read more). 9 times out of 10 the characters are only on that show (unless they do rare crossovers). Also the director and writers not only directs or writes the show at hand, but most likely OTHER shows; so why add them to that particular show, and then add them to the another show, and then another, etc? Speaking of Tina Fey, uh why does she have her own navbox? Seriously? --Mike Allen ^{talk · contribs} 23:22, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Good point about the characters being linked in the navboxes, MikeAllen. For that reason, I am not seeing why their portrayers also have to be there. And the crew names? That information can often be found in the article; if people are too lazy to read, that is not our problem. I feel that Bovineboy has tackled this topic well enough. I do clearly see why both sides feel the way they do, though. Flyer22 (talk) 23:52, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)

2-ish¢... (covers a couple of things here)

• Inclusion criteria - To include actors, writers, creators, produces, production companies, gaffers, musicians, etc, some sort of criteria would be needed. the most neutral, and what has been the default to this point, is anyone in the show/film credits that has a Wikipedia article. That does generate long lists, very long ones when you start looking at long running shows or shows with large ensemble casts. And keeping in mind "They are particularly useful for small and more or less complete sets" (from CLN), long lists seem counter to the guidance. "Major" and "Main" are loaded words since it requires a judgement call as to the value of a person's contribution to the show or film.
• "Candy caning" - As an example of what could happen to an actor's article see Stan Lee or Jack Kirby. And those are related to a project with an extremely limited inclusion for "real people". Also, the "hide the foot long collection of navboxes" just covers one issue, the mass is still hard to work through for items. An with relation to the WG such a "hide it" would also include "Works by" and awards 'boxes.
• Proliferation - Two parts actually. A side from the inclusion criteria, there is also the issue of "If there is an infobox for one, there can be one for any". Most show or film 'boxes get removed because there is to few items for them - main article + episode list + character list = no 'box. Once those can add cast & crew, they become valid even if the bios barely touch the topic, if at all.
• And with {{Tina Fey}}... that just moves the issue to the other articles. (shuddering at what SNL and Second City would look like...)

- J Greb (talk) 23:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Having seen a bunch of these come through the Templates for Discussion (formerly "Templates for Deletion") process, my take is this: The big problem with cast and crew in film/tv navboxes is the potential for clutter on articles. This has been discussed multiple times in multiple places. If you put actor/crew templates at the bottom of movie/show articles, then articles about many productions would be loaded with cast/crew templates. Examples where there are double-digit numbers of notable cast/crew can be provided easily. On the flip side, if navboxes for movies/shows are placed on cast/crew articles, then articles on prolific artists would be drowned in navboxes. Look at the filmography for Betty White, just for one example. So it is clear that any such placement can only be one-way. If there is a movie/show template that includes actors, it should not be placed on the articles for those actors.

Personally, I have no problem if the actors are listed in the navbox, with the understanding that they "don't count" in terms of the box's use for two-way navigation. There are quite a few other cases where links are included in a navigation box for articles that don't include that template, so there is precedent for it. However, in many cases the result is that a navbox that might look robust doesn't actually have enough "two-way" links to be useful. For example, if the navbox for a tv show contains links to the main article, an episodes list article and a bunch of cast articles, then there might be a dozen links in the box, but only two of them provide two-way navigation. So when that template comes to TFD, I'm going to !vote to delete it on the grounds that it only usefully links two articles. --RL0919 (talk) 23:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe the actors, directors, etc should be included in the film navbox or any other media box. They are not specific to the work, and are already well linked. Navigation boxes should be primarily about the media work itself. Most films don't even need navigation boxes. Characters are linked because they are specific to the work, and the articles are primarily about the work. Same with episode lists, chapter lists (for other media works), and sequels. Even the based on works. However cast/crew are very peripheral and unnecessary in the boxes. For the very first question, yes, consensus has been that they don't belong. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 20:16, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Actors are defined by the roles they play in the sense that those roles are what they are notable for, and without them, an article on Wikipedia would not be merited. Additionally, not every series has character pages, so sometimes it is more work than "just one extra click." Besides, having links to character pages doesn't take away from the actor's major contribution to the series. --Zoeydahling (talk) 00:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree. Actors are not defined solely by the roles they play, a lot of them are known for several other things, not even related to the cinema or the small screen. And every film/series article should have the main actors names on it already, so I don't see your second point. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 02:33, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

It is a reality that many actors are associated with other actors and shows, if not "defined" by their role. Re, the "Bewitched" navbox, if someone is on Dick York 's page, is likely they will want to navigate to Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery, or Dick Sargent. Similarly, if someone is on the page for a lesser known actor from that show, let's say Casey Rogers, it is highly unlikely they will NOT want to link to those other actors, and having to go to the show page first defeats the whole reason for nav boxes. Assuming the section in the navbox is kept to relevant people, I really don't see the problem. In any case, I really don't see consensus here. Njsustain (talk) 12:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Surely they associate, but it isn't strong enough to warrant being connected at the hip to every other actor that appeared in the sereis/film in navbox. And are you saying that Montgomery's 40 other roles shown in her filmography aren't as important, and that every reader is going to want to see every actor in all of those other series/films? No, I don't think so. Actors rarely work exclusively with a select cast, which is the only strong connection I can think that would warrant a navbox, for example see {{Monty Python}}. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 14:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

99.9% of the interest in Montgomery is associated with Bewitched, and yes, I am saying that the other Bewitched actors should indeed be joined to her at the hip. Yes, I do think so! These actors do warrant being associated with each other. Agnes Moorehead said she didn't want to be remembered as the witch, but she is. Njsustain (talk) 15:42, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see you giving any good reason for them being connected other than you remembering them for one role. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 15:59, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

And I fail to see you being able to accept that other people have a different opinon than you. I do not see logical reasons behind your point of view and certainly do not see any attempt at building a consensus.Njsustain (talk) 16:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This kind of disagreement makes it too subjective to claim that a person is famous for so-and-so role in film or TV. This is why there is a consensus against actor templates -- actors play roles ranging from minor to major, and it would take reliable sourcing to straighten out the most prominent role. Templates don't have room for that. A media-related template is a roof that tops a house of related elements, like films in a series and a list of characters. Such elements perpetually remain under this roof, where cast and crew are not tethered to being under this roof. Use the articles themselves to outline persons' roles; a navigation template permits straightforward navigation within a specific boundary. There are enough links to cast and crew and other elements such as locations and themes and other topics dispersed throughout the article that templates do not need to be over-populated with such elements. Erik (talk) 16:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I see the potential for undue emphasis creeping in. Using Agnes Moorehead as the example from the comment above, she may be best known to some people for her work in Bewitched (and her disdain for that is irrelevant) but considering that Wikipedia is supposed to be written comprehensively for all readers, focussing on Bewitched diminishes the significance of her 40+ year career, her multiple Academy Award nominations, and her extensive work in theatre, film and radio. Endora may be a notable role for Moorehead, but she was involved in several notable productions where her own participation was less notable. If a nav box was created for each of these notable productions, Moorehead would be included in each one, and presumably each nav box would be added to her article. So, regardless of whether she was listed first in the credits or 25th in the credits, each nav box would be presented in her article with equal emphasis. The determination of what is notable enough for a nav box is so subjective that any popular film or television series could inspire someone to create a nav box for it. If someone wants to know who else was in Bewitched or to link to the articles for the other actors, it can be done via the Bewitched article. It's not crucial that a nav box be provided to serve the purpose. Rossrs (talk) 16:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

People keep claiming consensus has been reached despite this very long discussion. Can someone please point out exactly where there is evidence for the alleged consensus? People are making some rather aggressive changes and using this as an excuse. To me it is clear there is no consensus, so than shouldn't be used as an excuse for slash and burn and self-admitted "trigger happy" changes.Njsustain (talk) 16:22, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Actors and crew should stay out of nav boxes. It's obvious that Joss Whedon is important when you talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but given that his name appears on every Buffy related page there isn't a need to include him in the nav box. In addition, when an actor's only connection to another actor is one show, that's not that significant at all...not even if the show itself was a hit. If someone is on that actor's page, they're more than likely going to want to go to the show or film page before going over to another actor's page from the nav box. As such, they'd already be included on the main page anyway. In addition, if you did this for one show/film, you'd have to do it for all of them that these actors/crews appear on. Given that, you'd begin to clutter up actor and crew pages with dozens of nav boxes that do nothing but attribute insignificant connections to other people based solely on one topic.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the Joss Whedon example. The whole point of navboxes is to give a high-level picture of a subject. Is Joss not a central part of the real-world big picture of Buffy? His name won't necessarily be on all pages, for instance it's not on Buffy the Vampire Slayer filming locations except for its appearance in the navbox. -- Intractable (talk) 00:25, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

It should be there, given that the lead of every Buffy related page should at least acknolwedge that the article topic is a secondary topic to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series), which was created by Joss Whedon. So, the fact that it's not there is irrelevant to the fact that it should be there. Regardless, you still create a clutter for actor and crew pages. You cannot pick and choose favorites. If you do it for one, you have to do it for all and that would just create utter chaos on article pages where people have a dozen or more nav boxes because they're being listed simply because they worked on the project. The purpose of the nav box should be to link similar topics that are all part of a single foundation. An actor is, typically, not defined by one single entry of work but by the entire body of work. If an actor appears in some show or film and that's their only credit worth mentioning then maybe their page should be revisited by the WP:BLP to see if they actually warrant having one. If not, then you'd have to include them in any nav box for any film or TV show - which brings us back to the fact that it would create unnecessary clutter and bulk at the bottom of every page simply because someone felt the need to point out that Actor Y worked with Actor X on Show/Film B.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Karen Dotrice FAR

I have nominated Karen Dotrice for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 15:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Request for comments

There is a current request for comments at Talk:Jennifer Garner#Fashion/Style Section regarding content in the article. Comments are sought and welcome. Thank you. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

New Member

I'm new to the project, and just thought I would introduce myself. Sean (talk || contribs) 14:35, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Greetings. Get stuck in! Bradley0110 (talk) 12:04, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

GAR Notification: Stephen Colbert

Letting everyone know that a good article under the scope of this project, Stephen Colbert, is underoing an individual good article reassessment. You can see my concerns at Talk:Stephen Colbert/GA1. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 15:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Source of the article : Wikipedia