Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force

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I've been saying that I would do this for ages. Here it is, all rough and ready. We need a template, and some discussion of guidelines/conventions. Have at! Zora 22:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

To do list

If you are planning to create a 'to do' list, remember to add V.Shantaram. Tintin Talk 01:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

External Link

Should the actors page have external links to his/her latest movies(official or unofficial) or to review pages of the movies?--Raghu 14:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

My first thought is YES, it's useful to readers. My second thought is that it involves us in lots of housekeeping. If it's only the latest films that get this treatment, then we're going to have to keep fussing with the article to remove the old links and add new ones. So my second thought is NO. I could be swayed either way by a good argument. Or bribes. Preferably chocolate. Zora 06:44, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

There's the chocolate for you Zora :D --Raghu 07:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not that greedy. A barnstar would do ;) (or even two) :-D --Gurubrahma 06:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess if the movie is important enough, it should have an article. The individual movie and review links should go there. Tintin Talk 06:14, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Good point! I'm swayed. I enjoyed the chocolate, but I don't stay bribed. So we just make sure that the filmography is kept up to date. Zora 07:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Pictures, external links and template - random thoughts

• Pictures - Among fair-use images, the earliest one stays unless it has not been tagged properly or the picture is not of a great quality. Other fairimages can be added if and only if they add substantial value to the article. Hypothetical example - A Time magazine cover can be added if it ranks Aishwarya Rai as #1 in Asia's Heroes of 2006 in that cover story etc. Even in such cases, it may be a good idea to retain the previous image.

• External links - IMDB and official website should suffice. Some of the South Indian stars seem to have given up on their official websites. In such a scenario, links to fan sites may be encouraged but limited to a maximum of 5. If it crosses that number, the links that add nothing or very little to facts stated on the article must be chopped.

• Template - I find that the link is red. Are we waiting for some inputs? --Gurubrahma 14:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yup. I copied that from code for another project. I spoze we need a template. What should it be? A reel of film superimposed on the dharma wheel from the Indian flag? The Yash Raj symbol? <grin> Zora 18:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Have rendered a fresh fresh moniker (svg) for the template. Hope that helps. --ΜιĿːtalk 10:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Once the article size of an Indian actor/actress becomes near Featured Article length, more pictures (with proper licences) have to be allowed than one. DaGizza ^Chat 00:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps some guideline about column inches of prose versus column inches of picture? Prose to be at least twice as long as pictures added together? Any other way to do this? Zora 03:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• A minor point. From the experience in WP:Cricket, we should make sure at a very early stage that the categories that we have are sufficient and correct, so that three or four recent changes list like the actors and movies cover everything. Tintin Talk 19:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Why not just look at recent changes in Category:WikiProject Indian cinema? --Gurubrahma 20:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Should do - they will have to be added to the article pages as well. Currently only talk pages are included in this cat. Tintin Talk 21:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
• that's 'coz they aren't supposed to be added to article pages. Though only talkpages are included in the cat, changes to the article would also get reflected, check it out...Gurubrahma 22:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • No, see this. I made a minor change to Roja but that is not reflected. Tintin Talk 22:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
    • My bad, you're right. btw, that link shows at least 4 ppl who deserve working man's barnstar for populating those pages with the template, good show guys. Zora, are u listening ;) --Gurubrahma 08:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Links to fan sites

I disagree with not allowing fan sites. Official sites are often not updated and some stars do not even have official websites thus one or two fan sites in external link IMO are helpful for fans looking for more than just a biography and filmography.--Faizan 18:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Why can't they just google on the name if they want more info? Letting a fansite link means giving it a Wikipedia stamp of approval. "Wikipedia thinks this site has useful info." There are many many fan sites out there and we can't vet them all. IMDB is an established source of info, and an official site is notable for having the artiste's imprimatur.

I'm a Browncoat and a slavering Nathan Fillion fan, but I found the FOUR Nathan Fillion sites that I've bookmarked through googling, following links, etc. I don't expect the Nathan Fillion article to point me to the right ones (and I just went there and deleted one link that said it was "official" but wasn't -- it was one of the worst of the Nathan Fillion sites).

If your sites are good, fans will find them. You can't expect Wikipedia to funnel fans your way. Zora 22:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Allowing fan sites will lead to an overflow of links in the External link section. We can't say this site can be allowed and not that, criterion of allowing a fan site becomes difficult.--Raghu 04:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

External links - IMDB and official website should suffice. Some of the South Indian stars seem to have given up on their official websites. In such a scenario, links to fan sites may be encouraged but limited to a maximum of 5. If it crosses that number, the links that add nothing or very little to facts stated on the article must be chopped. (copied from the section above). Abt googling, I can say the same for any article; why have an article on Wikipedia? Why not just google for the info? <g> --Gurubrahma 06:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Film music directors, playback singers et al.

Are we keeping these within the scope of this project? IMO, we should cover these, considering the importance of music in Indian cinema. deeptrivia (talk) 02:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. Our coverage here is very spotty. More would be nice. Zora 02:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Actor names in different scripts

Can we make a guideline for this? I saw the names of some actors like Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amir Khan ,etc. in Persian script. Some of these actors might not even know how to write their names in that script! Do we need this? We should have some degree of uniformity. Probably a guideline on this will remove such problem. deeptrivia (talk) 03:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It should be allowed absolutely as it is Urdu - most of the bollywood movies have titles in English, Hindi and Urdu. Even if some of these actors might not even know how to write their names in that script, it doesn't matter; some of the older day actors can't write even in the Roman (English) script, we still hv articles on them, right? ;) You may want to look at Talk:Bollywood and its archives to see relevant discussions. Zora was one of the discussants there, if I'm not mistaken, and shd be able to add to the discussion here. btw, nice idea to list the project on WP:INWNB. --Gurubrahma 10:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I mean, what's the criteria for choosing when to write the name in Urdu? I hope it's not religion. Whatever we have, it should be uniform. The purpose of adding a name in another script is to avoid ambiguity (like Indian names in Roman script can be ambiguous because they can be pronounced in different ways.) deeptrivia (talk) 13:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Spelling conventions

Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai is how it is spelt on Wikipedia. How many people searching for the movie would get the exact spacing and the no. of ...'s right? <g> Redirects are an option (am just back after creating one each for this one and Koi Mil Gaya), but I'd welcome suggestions to standardise. I remember coming across instances where the IMDB title is different from that of the official website, different from the actual title etc. And do we include the taglines in the article title. e.g. Shakti - the Power etc.? --Gurubrahma 11:20, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The first fruit??

I can't be sure but I guess L. V. Prasad is the first newly created article as a result of the "to-do" list on the project. It got on to the Main Page as well through the DYK. This leaves 13 articles to be created yet under the first action point of "to-do" list; I plan to tackle one every week to keep the momentum going on a continuous basis. My next targets are B. N. Reddy and B. Nagi Reddy (both of them are different people, mind you!). If any one else is interested, please tackle the remaining 11 missing articles, if you can't wait for 3 months!! --Gurubrahma 05:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Dadasaheb Phalke awards - ImpuMozhi's comment removed and other comments

Before I got around to creating the above articles, ImpuMozhi created one liner stubs for all the missing articles. However, as that would mean that these would not get featured on DYK or that they may remain as single line stubs, I requested him to get them deleted under "author requests deletion" clause and he has complied. I request all of you to please create articles that can be more developed than stubs so that we can feature them on DYK before making them FAs. Also wondering if we should start a COTW or something similar? btw, the second fruit on DYK was Chemmeen by User:Pournami. I guess he (or she?) would be formally joining the project any time now. btw, check out User:Cookie90's edits - he seems to have single handedly created several articles on National Film awards by the Government of India; I've invited him to join the project. Next DYK stop: Durga Khote, most probably. --Gurubrahma 18:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention

Is there a naming convention for the actors/actresses? I thought about this after seeing L.V.Prasad. Comments? - Ganeshk (talk) 19:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Most actresses are known by first name, or first name plus last. Use of initials is rare. I associate that more with males. Have never seen it for females.

Could be that this is some cultural matter that we don't usually look at closely. Necessary to mark females as females, by use of female first name, but males can be unmarked (default) with just initials? If I saw L.V. Prasad without any other info, I'd assume male. Is this REALLY the name that's used in movie credits, etc? We should go with the most commonly used form of the name, I guess. Zora 20:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is any pattern there. South Indian singers, P. Suseela, S. Janaki, P. Leela, and actresses like K.R. Vijaya are some names that I can quickly think of who are known with their initials. But most of the modern day actors and actresses don't use initials. Tintin Talk 20:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Problem is North Indian actors have pages like Aamir Khan, Sharukh Khan, whereas South Indian ones have initials. I am just trying to see if we can have one consistent naming for all Indian actors. Why can't we list the full name for everyone and have commonly called version in the intro? This is what they do in the Cricket project. Cricketer Srikanth is commonly called as "K. Srikanth", but the article is Krishnamachari Srikanth. - Ganeshk (talk) 21:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I must add this convention must be for anyone assosiated with the Indian cinema industry, not just the actors. - Ganeshk (talk) 21:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, you've convinced me, Ganesh. Zora 21:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Why can't we list the full name for everyone and have commonly called version in the intro? - IMHO, the title should have the better known name. It doesn't help to have articles with titles like Kattassery Joseph Yesudas or Krishnan nair Chitra Tintin Talk 21:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd vote for full name in the title (as that removes all ambiguity) but having a redirect for the most commonly used form of the name. Zora 22:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed this. Srikanth should have been Krishnamachari Srikanth (actor). The braces since the cricketer already took the article name. - Ganeshk (talk) 21:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Just moved Srikanth's page to Krishnamachari Srikanth (actor) and added a disambig. - Ganeshk (talk) 21:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

See if you can reclaim Krishnamachari Srikanth for the actor. The cricketer's surname has an extra K :-) Tintin Talk 21:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Is that a typo? Or is it his true name (the extra k)? I did not notice it. - Ganeshk (talk) 21:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The cricketer has two Ks. His name was originally Srikanth, but early in his career added the second K for numerological reasons. Tintin Talk 22:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

re-indenting Common name is what is followed. It doesn't make sense to have full name; It is Winston Churchill, not Winston Spencer Churchill. It is Mahatma Gandhi, not Mohandas.... It is Rajneesh, not Rajneesh Mohan Chandra jain etc. Also, as Tintin hinted above, we'd have lot of double redirects to fix. No one in his right mind would search for Konidela Siva Sankara Vara Prasad when he is looking for Chiranjeevi or Sivaji Rao Gaekwad when looking for Rajnikanth. Or "Marshall Bruce Mathers III" when looking for Eminem. While I understand that we have a project to thrash out precisely issues such as these, please remember that we should not be reinventing the wheel - we are a sub-project of project WP and WP policies would/should be paramount. Most accepted way is to have an article named by the common name with the full name or real name in the intro. --Gurubrahma 06:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer applying the common names guideline too, unless there's a precision or disambiguation issue, for the reasons stated abouve by Gurubrahma. Sometimes, actors want to be known by names that are not their real names, like Mahima Chaudhry, etc. Also, for example, I am not sure if the official name of Dilip Kumar is not Yusuf Khan. deeptrivia (talk) 06:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)