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:Blacklist-related links [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2009 Archive Oct 1#MovieFan3121 and various sockpuppets|here]] and [[MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives/2009/11#www.moviereviewintelligence.com|here]]. It seems that a removal from the blacklist should be [[MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed removals|proposed here]]. Erik ([[User talk:Erik|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Erik|contribs]]) 20:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
:Blacklist-related links [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2009 Archive Oct 1#MovieFan3121 and various sockpuppets|here]] and [[MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives/2009/11#www.moviereviewintelligence.com|here]]. It seems that a removal from the blacklist should be [[MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Proposed removals|proposed here]]. Erik ([[User talk:Erik|talk]] | [[Special:Contributions/Erik|contribs]]) 20:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Eric, thank you for your note. Mistakes posting information by Movie Review Intelligence were made which resulted in the site being blacklisted. It will not happen again. If I knew how to request being white-listed, I would do so. Movie Review Intelligence is not looking to gain a foothold by including links in Wikipedia's film articles. We are an established professional website relied on within the movie industry. I would ask that the editors take a minute to understand each site's methodology and results. If the goal of Wikipedia is to include the two most popular movie review sites, that goal appears to have been met. However, if the goal is to present a film's reception as measured objectively according to what the body of U.S. film critics are saying, not what the aggregator is saying, then I hope the editors will consider including Movie Review Intelligence. The list of critics and publications covered by each website, the grading scales, the weighting, the analysis -- each site is very different in its approach, yielding significantly different results. Movie Review Intelligence is dedicated to an objective analysis of film criticism. I believe it has a place on Wikipedia. David A. Gross [[User:Dagrossla|Dagrossla]] ([[User talk:Dagrossla|talk]])

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Budget

Sorry if this is a completely stupid question, but does a film's "budget" mean the same as what it cost to make? Or does it refer to the amount that the film's supposed to cost, or the planned cost of the film, which could then theoretically be different from the final cost? To put it simply, I've found a reliable source mention that a film cost $x to make - can I use that as the "budget"?--BelovedFreak 22:08, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A film's budget could be different than the final cost. Cliff smith talk 22:51, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The film's "budget" refers to what it cost to make the film (i.e. filming, cast fees, crew fees, etc.). That does not include what it costs to market a film, which can be equal to what it cost to make it. As far as film articles are concerned, when we say "budget" we're talking about cost to make. It's hard to find the cost of marketing a film, at least a lot harder than the cost to make it.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:07, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the more detailed explanation. I couldn't really figure out how to best break it down. Cliff smith talk 23:21, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks both, that helps. I guess my confusion is really over the infobox (should have explained this better). Basically, I have found a source that says "the film cost $10 million to make". That's fine, I get what that means, I can incorporate it into prose, but can I enter that number into the infobox in the "budget" parameter? --BelovedFreak 23:38, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In short, yes that's correct. Just enter the source into prose rather than clutter the infobox with references and you should be good to go. :) Mike Allen 23:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) "Budget" normally means "the amount you plan to spend". In the film industry, a film's "budget" or "production budget" is usually a round number (like $10 million, $25 million, or $100 million) and the "actual cost of production" is almost never clearly defined. Therefore, the normal practice for the film industry is to equate a film's "budget" with its "actual cost". Sometimes films notably come in under budget or go over budget, and this is revealed; those occurrences are not all that common.  Chickenmonkey  23:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Budget is actually a misnomer - Titanic's budget was something like $90 million, but it ended up costing $200 million to make. The cost of the film really breaks down into "production costs" (the cost of making the film) and "marketing costs" (the cost of advertising, the prints etc), and it is the production costs that tend to be regarded as the "budget". It tends to be the production costs that get put into the infobox, because that's the amount of money put into the film before its release. Most budget sources only list the production costs because the marketing costs are usually unknown at the time of print. In Avatar's case, Fox stated that it spent $237 million on production costs and $150 million was going to be spent on marketing. When the cost of the film is given and not clarified more often than not that is just the production cost. Betty Logan (talk) 00:52, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all, this is interesting. I think I shall just report what my source says, and leave the infobox well alone as far as budget goes, unless I find a clearer source!--BelovedFreak 01:00, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the budget space is empty or has an unsourced figure just stick it in. If someone doesn't like it or finds a better source they can always remove or replace it. Betty Logan (talk) 01:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I rememer discussing this somewhere else, but wouldn't it make more logic to completely write out the infobox Budget (XX,XXX) rather than say XX million? If we want to "keep the infobox short and to the point" then my argument would be to shorten the gross to keep that short and to the point. In my opnion, we should come to a consensus and update Template:Infobox film to reflect it. ChaosMasterChat 01:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Budgets are almost always in whole numbers [may be the wrong mathematical term] ($100 million, $30 million, $65 million) whereas the gross is exact ($65,584,758). It doesn't make sense to write out $100,000,000 when $100 million gets the point across accurately. So should the gross be written as "$65.57 million"? Mike Allen 01:52, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the budget is $100 million, rather than $100,000,000, then yes, the gross should reflect how the budget is expressed. I personally do not think it makes sense to have two presentations of two similar numbers above and below each other. ChaosMasterChat 03:03, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It seems bizarre to reduce the accuracy of the gross to accommodate the presentation format of a different piece of information. If you take Box Office Mojo for example [1], they don't seem to have a problem with using the two different formats. Betty Logan (talk) 03:12, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But we also have to wonder how accurate tickets sales really are. I don't think it would take into account refunds, no-shows, people buying for a different film, etc. Cutting it down to $30.xx in the infobox should be sufficient in providing details about gross, while reducing the required updates as the film fades from the top of the box office. That way it would match up with the budget formatting and we wouldn't have to worry about the individual dollars. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OR we could just make the format of the budet a whole number (XXX,XXX,XXX) and eliminate the whole discussion. For me this issue is similar to listing 2 in a paragraph, and then three sentences later have two 2 times. ChaosMasterChat 02:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is this really an issue? Mike Allen 02:47, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What made me bring this up (for the umteenth time) is an edit war I was involved in over at Inception (2010 film)'s page. The budget should be presented in the same way the gross is presented, and the gross is going to be presented as a whole number, and therefore the budget should be presented in the same way. ChaosMasterChat 03:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What it boils down to is a personal preference. And since there is no consensus on it either way, I'll do it the way I've been doing it for months; though I won't edit war over something like that. Mike Allen 06:40, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which would mean that there technically is not a correct way to write it; or that its correct either way? ChaosMasterChat 13:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

MacGuffin list of examples and terminology articles generally

Could use some input on how to handle the list of examples in MacGuffin, which tends to grow and become populated with non-notable or unsourced examples. Just keep eliminating the unsourced ones, or add citation neededs, prosify, get rid of the section? As I noted on the talk page, a MacGuffin can be just about anything, so examples aren't that instructive IMO, and it's problematic perhaps when there's competing contradictory definitions (Hitchcock's versus Spielberg's).

Possibly all the articles in the category Film and video terminology could use some attention. Some seem to be just dicdefs and might be better handled in a glossary here or moved to Wiktionary (e.g. Quote whore, Blackout gag). Some possibly aren't widely used terminology at all, like Spinning newspaper, which is maybe more of a cliched device than terminology anyway. Шизомби (Sz) (talk) 18:02, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For reference: Category:Film and video terminology. I commented at Talk:MacGuffin. I think terminology articles suffer because of lack of interest and lack of familiarity with research. For Quote Whore, I redirected it to film criticism like quote whore was already redirected. The spinning newspaper effect is noteworthy (according to Google Books Search) but may benefit from a transwiki to Wiktionary. Erik (talk | contribs) 18:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Format for box office charts on List of highest-grossing films

I've made some suggestions to streamline the charts on the List of highest-grossing films at Talk:List_of_highest-grossing_films#Superfluous_information. The changes would radically alter the article and we've only had two opinions so far. I would welcome a few more to provide a clearer picture of what we want in the charts and what we don't. I would prefer it if the charts were consistent because at the moment it looks ad hoc, so either we need to add data to some charts or remove it from others. If we could agree a standard box office chart for all the articles that would be great. Betty Logan (talk) 19:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FAR November (film)

I have nominated November (film) 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. JJ98 (talk) 04:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Potential changes to WAF

There is currently a discussion over at WP:BIO with regard to how we present fictional characters' names in the lead paragraph of their articles (i.e. whether they should be listing commonly used names, or any full variation that is reliably sourced as they do for real people). It would be good for the WAF guideline to be an accurate reflection of the community consensus on this issue so that we can identify it as such in the actual guideline.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It would be really good of more people came over to the discussion. Right now it has become largely stagnent, and only about 20 people have provided their opinions. We'd really appreciate a wider sample size. Thanks.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Screenplay and story

All, the film infobox has two new parameters available to use: screenplay= and story=. This is the result of discussion at Template talk:Infobox film and allows a more aesthetic breakdown of writing credits. The writer= parameter is still available for use, but I encourage everyone to instead use the two new parameters where they apply. For example, Black Swan (film) identifies one person for the story and three people for the screenplay. In addition, there is discussion at the template talk page about additional parameters related to writing and source material. You can see the discussion here. Erik (talk | contribs) 01:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Variety of production company nationality

Last I heard, we were determining a film's nationality by the nationality of the production companies. What do we do if there are several from different countries, or several with a majority of them from one company? Simply list the nationalities? Reason I ask is this edit. Removal of Fox Atomic looks legit, as they were the distributors (according to some googling), and the addition of Spain also seem fine as there is a Spanish production company listed, with the rest of them being British (couldn't hunt down Koan). Geoff B (talk) 17:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The issue should be primacy. Whenever possible, the film's nationality should be identified by its main studio, not every one of the production companies involved. In the case of 28 Weeks Later, it is misleading to label the film as a Spanish production. It is primarily a British production that got some help internationally. There are some cases where this is less clear, like for the film Blindness. It's ideal to look at reliable sources that discuss a film in prose; they usually indicate the key nationality. A database like IMDb is indiscriminate about identifying countries related to a film; the degree of a production company's involvement does not matter. This does not mean 28 Weeks Later should forego any mention of Spanish involvement; it would depend on the degree of its involvement and should be discussed in the article body itself. The label should not be propped up as significant in the lead sentence and the infobox. Erik (talk | contribs) 17:32, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia editors making arbitrary decisions about a film's nationality can sometimes border on original research, and this looks like a case of that. The film's nationality if mentioned in the main text should be sourced. It is not the place of editors to be allocating nationalities to films - it is a factual claim and should be sourced like all other factual claims on Wikipedia. The Wiki FilmProject cannot override general Wikipedia policy in this respect by conceiving their own nationality policy, so any unsourced claims about nationality can be challenged and removed if not sourced.
As for the infobox, the "country" field doesn't denote the nationality of the film, it denotes the nationality of the "main production companies", which in most cases would be the copyright holder of the film at the time of production (since copyright can be sold on down the years). In the case of films where the copyright-holder is unknown, the nationalities of all the production companies should be recorded to again avoid original research.
In the case of 28 Weeks Later, if the nationality in the main text is disputed it should be removed unless it can be sourced. In the infobox, nationalities of all the production companies should be recorded unless it is determined which production company holds the copyright. Betty Logan (talk) 18:29, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What's the best way to check for a film's copyright? Erik (talk | contribs) 18:33, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's usually recorded on the film's credits with the copyright notice at the end. Some film information sites list it though. The BFI list it for 28 Weeks Later: http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/823461?view=credit. In this case the copyright is jointly held by a British company (Newco Films) and a US company (Fox). Since we can demonstrate which countries are the copyright holders (UK and US) then the infobox countries should be limited to this. However if we couldn't have found this information I would have advocated including Spain to avoid the arbitrary decision. Betty Logan (talk) 18:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at Avatar (2009 film), that was subject to some very protracted nationality discussion. Dr Negative and I ultimately settled on using a source for the nationality claim in the lede, and using the copyright country in the infobox is a compromise I can live with if we aren't going to list all countries. Nationality is one of the hottest disputed points on film articles (especially for European productions which is dominated by small production outfits since there is only really France with a studio system). I think that's a pretty good solution on the Avatar article and maybe could serve as a precedent like in this case. Betty Logan (talk) 19:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scope creep in director templates

Where a director has filmed multiple works, the films typically share a director template. Lately, I've noticed that director templates have gone beyond listing a director's works. There are director templates that also list that person's credits as producer and screenwriter. An example is Template:Matthew Vaughn. These templates are then proliferated to these films' articles. For example, the Matt Vaughn template appears in The Debt and Swept Away (2002 film) right below these films' own director templates. This is scope creep in director templates, where we are supposed to keep use of such templates limited per WP:CLN. This is why we avoid actor templates across all actors' films, but the same argument ought to apply to crew members beyond the director himself. I ask for a review of director templates to ensure that the proper scope is maintained. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These navigation templates of lesser roles may need to be vetted to avoid a slow growth of too many templates in a film article's footer: Category:Film producer templates and Category:Film writer templates. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You can supress multiple templates with a hide/show box. I've seen them on actor and sports bio pages, say for the latter "awards and achievements for x person" - clicking show expands and shows dozens of footer templates. Much better solution that removing them. Lugnuts (talk) 12:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That happens automatically for me, and that's not the point. The point is that this scope creep has no real cut-off. In addition to templates for producers and screenwriters, I've seen a couple for composers. This means a film article could have navigation templates for the director, the screenwriter, one to four producers, and the composer. Shall we have them for the editor and the cinematographer, too? We're not even factoring in film series/franchise templates nor succession boxes. We cannot accommodate multiple major crew members' career contributions in the footer of a film article. We were comfortable with director templates since directors are "heads" of film, but other crew members will vary more in relevance. We already link to crew members' articles that list their contributions; it is excessive to cluster them in a film article's footer. Erik (talk | contribs) 13:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll bite: "We cannot accommodate multiple major crew members' career contributions in the footer of a film article." - Why not? For the record, I agree that it should be directorial work only, but what's actually stopping, say twenty template footers on an article? Lugnuts (talk) 18:09, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. There's little-to-no need for glomming navigation templates onto articles they're tangentially related to. Navigation templates are supposed to be for articles a reader is likely to be interested in moving on to from the article they are currently viewing.  Chickenmonkey  13:50, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CLN#Disadvantages of templates says:
  • ...that a large number of templates can be a disadvantage
  • ...that information that is only tangentially related takes up too much space
  • ...that many links in a full list are not useful in some of the articles
  • ...that there are not enough clues which links are the most relevant or important
I am suggesting that we temper the use of navigation templates. We avoid actor templates since actors' roles will vary in significance. The main crew members are key assistants to production, but they are not "linchpins" like the director. If a director has also been a producer or a screenwriter with other films, then the person's contribution will vary in importance. If we have a template titled "Matthew Vaughn" instead of "Films directed by Matthew Vaughn" because of an attempt to encompass all contributions, it is less clear what is the most relevant and important. By and large, we're in agreement to have director templates when the director has a decent number of films. I just think that beyond the director, there's a slippery slope of including other crew members' tangential contributions. I'm totally fine with blue-linking the major cast members whenever possible, as I suggested a "production credits" infobox a few discussions above, but I'm wary about the grayer approach of non-director person templates in the film article's footer. Erik (talk | contribs) 18:28, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments needed on the Howard Hughes template. Should all the productions be removed, and if so, should the template exist at all, with only two films being linked? Lugnuts (talk) 19:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actor infobox merger

There was an ongoing discussion here Template talk:Infobox actor#Merge with Infobox person that has been moved here Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 August 20#Template:Infobox actor. I feel that there should be more input before a final decision is made. Please feel free to add your thoughts and thanks for your time. MarnetteD | Talk 11:58, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

False company information in film articles

Pricer1980 (talk · contribs) is a just-blocked prolific editor who adds false company information to film articles. For example, he did this and this where there is no evidence whatsoever of the relationship. The editor typically adds company information to film articles indiscriminately, like here, making Unstoppable seem like a Spanish production. I reported the editor at WP:ANI as seen here (permalink), and the editor has been blocked for one week. Regardless, I ask other editors to keep an eye out for sockpuppets that edit in this pattern. Thanks, Erik (talk | contribs) 19:59, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I thought this was ridiculous. But I didn't catch it until a couple of days later and didn't even bother looking at their contributions. I'll be on the lookout for socks. Thanks. Mike Allen 23:42, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is this Pricer again? Looks like the same kind of info. I just reverted on Unstoppable (2010 Film) but I'm kind of not sure where to go from there. Sockpuppet investigations? Block evasion ARV report? Help? Millahnna (mouse)talk 00:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's him. Same edit as before. I'll notify the person who blocked his user account. Thanks for the heads-up! We kick butt. :) Erik (talk | contribs) 00:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to clean up some of it but on some pages the edits were different than the Pricer edits. And on some pages Pricer had never edited at all. For that matter while I was looking on some of the Films of year pages, it looked like we maybe didn't get all of the Pricer edits cleaned up. Then my eyes glazed over and I went back to researching stuff for a TV project. Millahnna (mouse)talk 00:58, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So the IP possible sock has made another round of edits and, frankly, I'm way out of my depth in checking what needs fixing. Personally, and I know this sounds overwhelming and stupid, I'm of a mind that every page this IP or Pricer has touched should be double checked. I'm just not comfortable confirming the country and production company info on these. The Oxford Murders is one that sticks in my memory as being recently confusing for me (it wasn't the only one just the one I can remember); there were companies listed that I'm not positive of that had nothing to do with either Pricer edits or those of the IP, and it's currently called a France/UK/Spain co-production. Even with the advise in the earlier thread about this sort of thing, I really would feel better if someone else checked it all out. Millahnna (mouse)talk 08:52, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The ANI discussion that led to Pricer1980 being blocked (seen here) strongly advised undoing all the editor's contributions. I've done that so far. The person who blocked his user account has not responded yet, so I started a new ANI discussion here. Erik (talk | contribs) 10:52, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
IP is blocked for a week, but I suspect that the WP:ANI discussion will lead to a longer-term preventative block. Hard to fathom any helpful contributions from this editor. Erik (talk | contribs) 11:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Editor is now indefinitely blocked. Keep an eye out for the editor's pattern under other user accounts or IP addresses on Wikipedia's film articles. Erik (talk | contribs) 13:31, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Possible collaboration idea

I've been throwing around a collab idea in my head between you guys and the baseball project, and I thought I'd note it here to see if it's worth the time. I was thinking of having us combine to work on some of the baseball film articles. Upon looking at baseball's most popular pages, a lot of films show up, so they're definitely ones people read, so it would be beneficial. You guys could handle the format/structure aspects while we could handle the, well, baseball aspects. I figure this would be a November/December thing to do, since the baseball season will be over. It got some mild support when I asked over there, so it's tough to say how well it would work. If you guys are up for it, let me know; if you think this is a stupid idea, that's fine too. I only see a couple baseball films in your top 1k popular pages, so it's not all that pressing for you. Just a thought I'm throwing out there. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 02:59, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nifty idea. If I'm available when it rolls around, I'd be down to help where I can. Millahnna (mouse)talk 03:29, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is website "The Numbers" an appropriate source for film info?

Please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Is_website_.22The_Numbers.22_an_appropriate_source_for_film_info.3F. Would appreciate some input there. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 04:00, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added input, especially comparing The Numbers to Box Office Mojo. Others are welcome to weigh in. Could use some input in particular about DVD sales, which The Numbers has but not Box Office Mojo. Erik (talk | contribs) 14:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Subcategorization of films set in the <decade> to films set in <year>

Just wanted to see what you all thought of the subcategorization of categories such as Category:Films set in the 1980s to Category:Films set in 1985, Category:Films set in 1986, etc. The "by decade" seems sufficient to me so this seems a bit much, but I thought I'd bring it to the attention to the subject matter experts here before a possible CFD. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 23:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, support an upmerger for a set of un-needed subcats. Lugnuts (talk) 09:11, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fictional locations...

Today I've seen a couple of articles with sentences: "Fred (actor's name) starts attending the fictional university..." or "Detective Jones is sent to the fiction town of X to investigate..." now I get that the university and the town are fictional and we have to show that. And I get that we have to be clearly not in-universe. I don't quite get why Detective Jone or Fred are denoted as fictional, but that's not my problem. To me these sentences read like the stories are post modern... Someone entering a book and going to a inuniverse fiction university or the detective entering a film and investigating crimes in a fictional town... Is there better phrasing that can clarify what needs to be said (these places don't exist in the real world) without what I see as an ambiguous phrasing? 203.35.82.136 (talk) 09:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Does it actually make the article unclear, though? The English language suffers from imprecision, but I don't think it's likely that a reader is going to be confused into thinking that Fred leaps into a comic book to start his further education. Does putting the word "fictional" in parentheses help? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 09:45, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it can make it unclear. I was actually confused when reading about a character who worked on a fictitious television show. I didn't know if it was fictitious within the fictional universe or not. I don't think that there's any need to state that things within a fictional universe are fictional. Not within a plot section, anyway. It's perhaps more necessary in other sections, depending on the context.--BelovedFreak 09:51, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If there's any ambiguity it should be easy enough to word around it on an individual basis. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 10:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is having "fictional" come first. For instance you could say "Superman comes from the fictional planet Krypton, millions of light years from Earth" (which could imply Krypton is fictional relative to the reality of the film), so it would be better to say "Superman comes from the planet Krypton, a fictional world, millions of light years from Earth". Through the wonder of English grammar, the clarification that Krypton is fictional is removed from the actual description of Superman's origin. Similarly "Detective Jones is sent to X, a fictional town in California, to investigate...". Detective Jones doesn't need to be clarified as fiction because the basic assumption is that characters are. However many stories are set in real places so sometimes it is helpful to clarify that the location is made up. Betty Logan (talk) 01:52, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for making an honest effort and trying to help, but unfortunately that's sheer nonsense. There's not the slightest change in meaning when the adjective is moved. "the fictional planet Krypton" and "Krypton, a fictional planet" mean exactly the same thing, and writing both "planet" and "world", as in "the planet Krypton, a fictional world", is just pointless verbosity. The only practical suggestion so far is Chris Cunningham's idea of putting "fictional" in parentheses. Parens suggest that the text inside them is obvious or unremarkable, and it's only outside the story (in the real world) that most plot elements are fictional. It's not nearly as common for plot elements to be fictional inside the story, so if they are, that fact should be clearly emphasized, as in Last Action Hero. Unfortunately, there's just not enough space in plot summaries, and the English language just isn't precise enough, to come up with a perfect solution to this problem. I like the paren idea, but also I don't think the ambiguity is really all that big a problem. —Codrdan (talk) 02:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of Drizzle (film)

The article Drizzle (film) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references failed to find significant coverage in reliable sources to comply with notability requirements. This included web searches for news coverage, books, and journals, which can be seen from the following links:
Drizzle (film) – news, books, scholar
Consequently, this article is about a subject that appears to lack sufficient notability.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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Movie Review Intelligence

I edit and publish the website Movie Review Intelligence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_Review_Intelligence). Throughout Wikipedia, in articles that cover individual movies, there is a section called "Reception," which has information about movie reviews. Usually there are citations from several movie review aggregators. Movie Review Intelligence is a professional movie review aggregator that is regularly quoted in the press and relied on by movie industry professionals because it is based on objective, statistical methodologies that minimize biases (http://iurl.us/bcj) Is it possible for Movie Review Intelligence to be considered as a source of movie review information on the movie pages on Wikipedia? If you require additional information or explanation, I can provide it. Thank you. David A. Gross, Editor & Publisher, Movie Review Intelligence Dagrossla (talk) 19:21, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

David, thank you for your request. When you mention several movie review aggregators, you are probably referring to Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic in general, right? I think there is a large drop-off after these are cited because the pairing of different scoring systems works well. We've used Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic in articles because they tend to be very well-established in mainstream media. For example, where Movie Review Intelligence on Google News Search has 13 hits, Metacritic (as a site) has 3,150 hits, and Rotten Tomatoes has 1,420 hits. There is also an essay (not a policy nor guideline) about Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic here that detail the websites' use. My experience is that the pairing of the two well-known websites is sufficient to reflect statistical summaries of critical reviews. What can Movie Review Intelligence contribute to that pairing or how could it replace one of them, despite its lesser fame? There are a few other movie review aggregator websites out there, like MRQE, but I think that editors have gone with Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic due to their greater notoriety. Erik (talk | contribs) 19:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a follow-up, I came across this discussion where an editor reported, "Apparently www.moviereviewintelligence.com is blacklisted due to excessive spamlinking." David, you said in that discussion, "Two websites have a monopoly on Wikipedia when it comes to posting authoritative movie review information... When we posted review information, it was reported as spam and I was blocked. I would like to know what it takes to have a page on this site and what qualifies a site to be the recognized authority when it comes to movie reviews." You later say, "Movie Review Intelligence believes its information is more accurate and deserves to be included in the discussion." The reason Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have been used is because they were well-known outside Wikipedia, though they have their limitations and should not be used everywhere. There have been numerous movie websites, not just movie review aggregator websites, that seek a reputation-building foothold by including links in Wikipedia's film articles. It's hard to acknowledge Movie Review Intelligence as a potential reference if it has attempted that foothold and got blacklisted. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Blacklist-related links here and here. It seems that a removal from the blacklist should be proposed here. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:41, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Eric, thank you for your note. Mistakes posting information by Movie Review Intelligence were made which resulted in the site being blacklisted. It will not happen again. If I knew how to request being white-listed, I would do so. Movie Review Intelligence is not looking to gain a foothold by including links in Wikipedia's film articles. We are an established professional website relied on within the movie industry. I would ask that the editors take a minute to understand each site's methodology and results. If the goal of Wikipedia is to include the two most popular movie review sites, that goal appears to have been met. However, if the goal is to present a film's reception as measured objectively according to what the body of U.S. film critics are saying, not what the aggregator is saying, then I hope the editors will consider including Movie Review Intelligence. The list of critics and publications covered by each website, the grading scales, the weighting, the analysis -- each site is very different in its approach, yielding significantly different results. Movie Review Intelligence is dedicated to an objective analysis of film criticism. I believe it has a place on Wikipedia. David A. Gross Dagrossla (talk)

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