Talk:America: Imagine the World Without Her/Archive 5

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Reviews - starting from scratch

Per WP:RTMC: "The "Top Critics" at Rotten Tomatoes and the critics at Metacritic are generally considered reliable and authoritative sources and are ideal for sampling." I took the lists of the RT "Top Critics" and the Metacritic critics for this film and found six critics who were cited in both places. I selected four of the six and used only the pull quotes that were used by RT and Metacritic (in some cases, by both) and excerpted no other material from their reviews. I thought six was too many, and all six were unfavorable reviews anyway. I can't think of a way to make the selection process any more objective than this. It leaves out Christian Toto, but it also leaves out that evil liberal plotter Peter Sobczynski that Victor has such a seething hatred for, so it's a wash. Gamaliel (talk) 06:10, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Quotemining makes terrible articles. POV quotemining makes bad articles worse. Section was cut down to simple facts without quotes or ideological POVs. Every quote you chose seemed to be based on the critics ideological review rather than a critical assessment of the film itself. Are critics "fact-checkers" such that they can make sweeping statements about truthiness and be considered a reliable source? --DHeyward (talk) 07:36, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
It would be better if you can summarize critical assessment of the film itself. "Reliance on dramatizations over interviews" was a criticism of the style and is valid film critic area of expertise. It's harder to make them into content experts, though, so facile and strawman are harder to stick. As an example, whether a film critic believed "Life of Pi" was true or not based on his personal experience with tigers might be in his review but it's not ripe for the WP article on the film. --DHeyward (talk) 07:59, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
"Cherry picked"? "POV quotemining"? These accusations make no sense given the methodology I used to include the quotes, which removed almost all human intervention and made the most representative selection possible of the "critical assessment". Your objections lie with the selections and decisions made by RT and Metacritic. When we had eight quotes, I can understand the objection of "quotesoup", but half that number is reasonable to include, which is why I only used four instead the six I could have. None is unreasonable. Including review excerpts is standard in film articles, and of all the editors who have discussed the matter here, so far you are the only editor to favor the opposite approach. Gamaliel (talk) 15:08, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Overkill in quotes to show just how horrid the fake-umentary is is not really needed, and when people engage in making absolutely sure every reader knows how evil the film is simply negates the primary rules of Wikipedia - including the non-negotiable principle of "neutral point of view." At this point, we have the neat position where the only remotely positive review suggested for inclusion, which was specifically found to be reliably sourced in the RfC above, is not mentioned at all. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

NPOV requires fair and proportional representation. The overall critical assessment is poor, and the article should reflect that. Claiming that quotes which reflect the critical assessment violate NPOV turns NPOV on its head. Gamaliel (talk) 15:57, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
Um -- since I edited without a single favourable review in the edit, that would seem a reasonable percentage. Might you tell me how I could get to over 100% negative with a straight face? I would rather think 100% is an upper bound mathematically - can you get higher? Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. I could just as easily say you violated NPOV by reducing the negative representation by 50%. Gamaliel (talk) 16:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
I trust you will read the Joseph Widney article which I reduced in size by 160,000 bytes, or about 80%, thus making it a "Good Article". Having a hundred negative reviews against zero positive reviews is not "more neutral" than having two negative major reviews and zero positive reviews. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:16, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
In hopes of finding common ground regarding your concerns while keeping this article in line with other film articles, I'm going to try to reduce the length of the quotes instead of their number. Gamaliel (talk) 04:19, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
Given the unusual circumstances surrounding this film and the politicized reception, it's clear that linking directly to any review will be a poison pill inviting further expansion. If you add negative quotes I will restore a positive one, probably the Breitbart review, since among all reviews it has by far the most endorsement on this page. There is no policy mandating a certain ratio of positive to negative quotes. That most pro critics panned the film (not to be confused with the total reception, which was more positive than negative) is made clear by the section leading off with the aggregation scores, avoiding any danger of a false equivalence. The purpose of the quotes would not be to precisely represent weight in character space, but provide coverage of the salient, differing points of view. We don't need several quotes essentially repeating themselves.
Your op here links to a non binding essay someone wrote, and even it says "Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, are considered reliable sources, but information from them should be used in proper context and have some limitations"....and "critical reception should also benefit from other reliable sources". The actual film guidelines only really mention Top Critics to say "There is a consensus against using the "Top Critics" scores at Rotten Tomatoes based on several concerns:". By contrast, total RT and MC aggregations are listed as "citable", but there's nothing mandating we use them, much less restrict ourselves to the sample of critics they happen to choose for a particular movie. Guidelines do say that "Sources that are regarded as reliable are professional film critics, though notable persons or experts connected to the topics covered by the film may also be cited." Nothing about them having to come from RT, much less RT's "Top Critics". We're also instructed to provide a "reasonable balance" of quotes, but we aren't required to provide quotes at all, especially given the unusual issues at play here. Guidelines call on us to use "best judgment", flexible instruction implying adaptability to differing circumstances. Any honest editor will admit that critical reception to this movie has at least largely broken down along political lines, so best judgment cautions us to be wary about only quoting from one side. VictorD7 (talk) 19:55, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
Gamaliel. Again with the Daily Kos source? really? You know better than that. Arzel (talk) 20:31, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
What is the problem with this source? If this is a political documentary, it makes sense to include and attribute political commentary. The key is to structure that commentary per WP:STRUCTURE. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 20:34, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
The RFC established that fringe political websites like Brietbart and Daily Kos are allowable sources to reference their own reviews. Gamaliel (talk) 20:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
No, actually the RFC established that the news/opinion site Breitbart and its pro film reviewer Christian Toto are RS here. It said nothing about non pro film critics on truly fringe liberal group blogs. That said, I agree with Erik that expanded political commentary is appropriate for an explicitly political film, including commentary about the reception itself (which is common, as I've shown before), as long as we fully cover both sides, and you don't try to engage in one sided censorship. VictorD7 (talk) 21:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
One-sided censorship? Like when you deleted only the liberal reviews? I do so enjoy patient reasoned argumentation like this from you, it reminds me of visiting the monkey cage. Gamaliel (talk) 21:09, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
Except that never happened, lol. You seem particularly upset today, Gamaliel. What's the matter? VictorD7 (talk) 21:22, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
I guess we have always been at war with Eastasia. Gamaliel (talk) 21:32, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
I only deleted the quotes from non-critics; all such quotes from non-liberals had already been dropped down the memory hole (deleted), so there were only liberal ones left to delete (you left out what a late great radio host might call the rest of the story). Now that there's sentiment for expanding the Reception section beyond pro film critics, both perspectives are represented. VictorD7 (talk) 01:00, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
Can we all please focus on the content? I agree with the conclusion of the RFC because we are dealing with statements of opinion here (see WP:RSOPINION), and the conclusion should extend to similar sources on the other end of the political spectrum. If sources are notable (Wikipedia's notability standards can be one rule of thumb), then opinions published by them can be noteworthy. I am fine with including and attributing both conservative and liberal statements in this article, though I would prefer to paraphrase where possible to get away from any slang that may be used. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 21:20, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
Sounds acceptable to me, Erik, but you see with this revert by Gamaliel the kind of intractable, one sided, POV censorship I'm talking about having to deal with. He deleted almost all the conservative commentary while leaving the liberal pundit attacks. Gamaliel even violated 3RR to do it, his edit summary containing nothing but what I surmise is his family photo album (set to some touching audio). Maybe he miscounted his reverts, so I politely notified him on his talk page. Regardless, clearly the current page grossly violates NPOV. I'll add that the two commentators he completely deleted, John Fund and Ben Shapiro, are both notable (along with their publications, of course), while none of the leftist pundits he put into the article are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles, and it looks like only one pro film critic is. VictorD7 (talk) 03:01, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
After all that you've put up with, and yet you still manage to engage in patient reasoned argumentation. Your talents are wasted on Wikipedia, truly. Have you considered bringing your brand of patient reasoned argumentation to a struggling inner city school? Within six months they will all be getting 5s on the AP Calculus exam. Gamaliel (talk) 04:17, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
I know, sometimes my patience astonishes even me. I don't spend that much time on Wikipedia though.VictorD7 (talk) 18:40, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

New tags

One is supposed to post talk page rationales when they add things like NPOV tags, as I did. For the record, since there seems to be some confusion, the conservative perspective is not a "minority political view" as it was erroneously called in a recent edit summary. RT style aggregations are only meaningful from a weight standpoint when assessing pro film critics' views. When the scope of coverage is expanded beyond that narrow set, as it appropriately has been here given the film's political nature, the negative skew goes out the window. There is a lot of positive material about this movie, especially from conservative commentators.VictorD7 (talk) 18:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I do not find the tags necessary. I think that there could be more copy-editing, especially not to quote directly so much, but otherwise, the grouping of content is fine. However, I think at least in the "Political commentary" section, we should attribute the political stances of the sources attributed. If these sources' Wikipedia articles open with the political slant, we should state them here so readers unfamiliar with the sources don't have to go to the articles to find that out. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 18:54, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
I don't necessarily oppose tagging the pundits "conservative" and "liberal", as long as we're even handed, though I'm not sure how necessary it is. Regarding the quotes, I think allowing full coverage of a thought is more important than worrying too much about character length. Sometimes that can be done easily with a sentence fragment, especially when one is essentially just name calling, but other times it might require a sentence or a sentence and a half. I think right now the combined negative quotes sufficiently cover that perspective, which is given more space, number of reviews, and emphasis (especially leading off with the aggregations) in the pro critic section, with the positive quote being slightly longer than the average negative quote (much smaller than the combined liberal quote paragraph) but needing more space to fully cover that view since it's the only positive quote used. VictorD7 (talk) 19:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
You've been taking here about this for months, you are well aware of the rationale. The section gives the longest quote to a conservative review, included solely because of its political viewpoint, because it would obviously be excluded by any objective methodology for selecting quotes based on the critical consensus. All the reviews from liberal publications were removed to another section. This is a biased presentation which gives undue weight to Toto's minority viewpoint. Gamaliel (talk) 20:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
I think that's a good point. The Daily Kos and Salon passages both state that the pieces are film reviews. These should be in the same camp as Breitbart. Media Matters for America, on the other hand, is not labeled a review and can stay in the "Political commentary" section. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 20:49, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
No, being an established pro film critic is more than having one piece labeled "review" on a group blog. Toto's extensive credentials are laid out all over this page. So far I've seen no evidence that the Kos and Salon bloggers are critics. They don't even seem like major members of those blogs, much less people who have had reviews published by various outlets, have had their reviews cited and quoted by mainstream media, are members of professional critics organizations, etc., like Toto. If there's evidence to the contrary I'd be happy to see it. VictorD7 (talk) 03:07, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with your premises. The Toto quote is only slightly the longest, because it's making a more complex point than tossing out a bunch of invective, and far shorter than the combined negative quotes. The pro critic weight skews negative, and our coverage clearly reflects that, especially with the extended RT/MC segment. There's no false equivalence. But, ideology aside, the positive view merits some coverage to achieve reasonable balance. Toto happens to be conservative, but all of the other publications and negative critics in the pro critic section are liberal. Everyone has their political views. What makes the liberal and conservative pundits in the other section different is that they aren't pro film critics. VictorD7 (talk) 03:07, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
The Wrap, Variety, and The A.V. Club are all entertainment publications, not political ones. Brietbart is an explicitly political publication so it should be coupled with reviews from explicitly political publications of different perspectives per NPOV. Gamaliel (talk) 03:53, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
There's no policy, guideline, or good reason to disregard the writers and only categorize by publication. Toto is an established pro film critic who used to write reviews for the Washington Times, and he'd be RS as a film critic even if we were using his personal blog as a source. Besides, Breitbart is a major news/opinion site and not the equivalent of group blogs like Kos and Salon. It happens to be conservative. So? The NY Times, The Wrap, and CNN all happen to be liberal. Policy explicitly states that bias doesn't disqualify sources from being used, and Breitbart's political leanings don't change the fact that Toto is a pro film critic who usually reviews non political movies. If you want to group all the critics and pundits together that would be one thing, but if we're making a distinction then Toto belongs with the pro critics. VictorD7 (talk) 04:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
You are singling out Toto because of his political orientation and the political orientation of his publication. You can't do that without presenting other political viewpoints, and you can't claim that every single one of dozens of non-political entertainment and general news publications and critics mentioned on this page as meeting the criteria for inclusion in that section are all "liberal". The reception section should be representative of the non-political consensus of film critics. if you want to introduce politics into that through Toto, then NPOV requires representing all political points of view. Gamaliel (talk) 04:46, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
No I'm not. I pushed for Toto's inclusion (assuming that's what you meant by "singling out") because it was a positive review, and that side needed at least some coverage for reasonable balance, per an earlier talk page agreement. First I supported other editors' attempts to include the RT cited positive review of Offer, who may be a liberal for all I know, but you rejected him because you didn't like the way his blog looked, saying you'd accept a positive review but that it should be from an "established critic" (I believe those were your exact words). Toto is a very established pro critic. Sure, having at least one conservative perspective when all the other pro critics quoted are attacking D'Souza's politics and conservatism in general (of course they're liberal, like most of the entertainment industry) is especially important in an article covering a political film, but that just strengthens the case. I'd support a positive quote anyway. Of course the liberal perspective, both critic and pundit, is well represented, and the mostly negative state of pro critic opinion has been covered all along. VictorD7 (talk) 05:06, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Months ago, I stated that I was willing to consider including Avi Offer if any editor could substantiate that he or his publication had any sort of audience or positive reputation or anything at all besides being on RT. You keep mentioning him, but you are unwilling to provide any of that evidence. I'm not singlehandedly keeping Offer out, I just raised my concerns on the talk page, and for that you've been sniping at me for months. You want Offer in? Provide evidence or develop a consensus for inclusion, otherwise WP:DROPTHESTICK. In regards to critics in general, "of course they're liberal, like most of the entertainment industry" is your personal opinion, not substantiated by policy or evidence or supported by consensus (and irrelevant anyway since they are writing for non-political general entertainment and news publications), so that personal opinion should not be guiding article content. Gamaliel (talk) 05:18, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm not trying to get Offer in now. I only mentioned him to refute the notion that I'm only supporting Toto because he leans conservative. I support Toto's inclusion because he's the most prominent pro critic to positively review the film, and therefore the best choice to represent the positive critic sentiment. That he represents an ideological perspective otherwise lacking in the section is just a bonus. Those other outlets may be narrower in focus, but they're no more "non-political" than Breitbart is. Regardless, our respective assessments of their politics is secondary. The bottom line is that they could all be conservative, liberal, or non-political, and it wouldn't change the fact that Toto is an "established", well credentialed, pro film critic, so if we're creating a pro critic section he belongs in it. Speaking of WP:DROPTHESTICK, we just had months of debate culminating in an RFC that didn't go your way. At some point maybe you should step back and let this Toto/Breitbart thing go. Including that one quote can't possibly cause you this much pain. VictorD7 (talk) 05:43, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Here I was thinking you were finally trying to be mature about this, but you just couldn't stop yourself from including more of that patient reasoned argumentation that we all enjoy. Gamaliel (talk) 05:54, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
I really hope you're not complaining about me commenting on the WP:DROPTHESTICK concept you raised.VictorD7 (talk) 05:58, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Honestly, do you think your parting shot is really an example of patient reasoned argumentation? Do you think that it furthers this discussion and gets us towards resolution? Have you considered that this discussion has gone on for months not because of everyone else's behavior, but because of yours? Gamaliel (talk) 06:05, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm just trying to understand why this is such a big deal to you. It's a big deal to me because it represents the section's only positive quote, and because the sourcing rationale used to exclude it just because it came from Breitbart was, as another editor put it, "odious". It was important to establish a consensus that Breitbart is RS in situations like this; perfectly fine to use. That consensus being established, I'm obviously not going to walk away if that means the quote gets purged from a section still filled with negative quotes. But why is this so important to you? The quote itself is fairly innocuous, and all the section's other quotes are still negative. That said, you're obviously under no obligation to answer a personal question; you can tell me to screw off or just ignore it if you want to. But you can't ignore the fact that Toto is an established professional critic, while Kos's Falcone and Salon's Bruenig aren't.VictorD7 (talk) 06:14, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
"I'm just trying to understand why this is such a big deal to you." is not a response to the guestion of "Why are you acting like a jackass?" Gamaliel (talk) 17:47, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
I rejected your premise. VictorD7 (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
The film has an 8% rating on RT amongst professional critics. That is an almost universally panned film. It would be inaccurate that a "well-balanced" article would include positive and negative review of the film, you would have to deliberately cherry pick good reviews because there appear to be so few of them. -Xcuref1endx (talk) 01:49, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
Maybe we could expand on quoting the negative reviews? We could quote The Washington Post since it is a very well-known periodical, as well as The Hollywood Reporter, which with Variety makes up the major film-related trade journals. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 13:13, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
No, there are enough positive reviews that even an article that only focused on pro film critics should include at least one to cover that perspective. But, of course, this being a political documentary, the set of views has been expanded beyond pro film critics, and the broader reception was far more positive.VictorD7 (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

(od) Four negative reviews along with the RT and MetaCritic cites stating that the reviews were overwhelmingly negative would appear to be quite sufficient. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:00, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Most well-developed film articles have a good number of reviews. I understand that we don't want to repeat "it's bad" over and over, but the point of referencing individual critics is to expand on the particulars of the consensus. Basically answering the question of what elements worked or didn't work for the critic. I find it very shotgun-editing to just have a quoted sentence from each critic (and I admit I do that sometimes). Something like American Beauty (1999 film)#Critical reception weaves the critics appropriately. I don't know if we'd get to that FA level, but we should strive for it. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 14:08, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
That is the ideal, but we can't even get to the point where we can agree what critics to include, much less figure out how to weave them together without accusations of cherry picking. Hell, all I did was cut and paste only the quotes used by both Metacritic and RT and I was accused of cherrypicking. I think first we have to get a stable article. Gamaliel (talk) 17:47, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
Four seems like a reasonable number if we limit the section to non-political reviews. Gamaliel (talk) 17:47, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Edit request: Category addition

Could someone add Category:Lions Gate Entertainment films? Trivialist (talk) 23:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree with adding this category. Uncontroversial edit to make. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 19:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Done --Redrose64 (talk) 21:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

References

References to consider using. I am thinking about how we could cover different sub-topics under "Political commentary" in a way that folds debates into the narrative, such as what different commentators have to say about the treatment of Zinn. This may mean the same source would be repeated across sub-topics, depending on what they cover. Thanks, Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 20:31, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't oppose adding more political commentary, but for the record (in case anyone doesn't know), Nicole Hemmer is a professional conservative basher who thinks the notion of a liberal media was a myth invented by the right, and Tamny is a Libertarian with a perceived interest in relentlessly pushing a "a pox on both parties" theme, just so we're clear on where they're coming from politically. Both those columns are filled with straw man arguments and claims about the movie that simply aren't true, and they both dramatically understate what's going on at modern universities (Tamny in particular sounds totally out of touch), including how widespread Zinn's book is used as a textbook, not that D'Souza ever claimed Zinn was the only leftist historian, but rather one of the prominent ones meriting special focus. The movie isn't about praising Republicans, D'Souza explicitly rejects the "conspiracy theory" label in interviews, and nowhere does he say anything remotely approaching the "slavery wasn't that bad" characterization found in some liberal columns about the film (quite the opposite). If specifics from these pieces are added, as opposed to quotes describing the movie generally, then we'd probably need to add counterpoints on those topics from other sources, particularly if D'Souza is explicitly denying something (like the "conspiracy theory" angle). VictorD7 (talk) 21:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
The notion of a liberal media was in fact a myth invented by the right. --NE2 03:26, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
<INSERT>No, that's your opinion, and not a well founded one. VictorD7 (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
Watch out, he's going to argue about this with you for the next six months. Gamaliel (talk) 15:59, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
At this point you're just trolling. VictorD7 (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
I have no idea who Nicole Hemmer is, but US News and World Report is a reliable source by Wikpedia standards and I don't see why we should exclude it. Gamaliel (talk) 15:58, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
<INSERT>Since this was a reply to me, I'll point out that I didn't say we should exclude it or say anything about RS standards. VictorD7 (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I listed that and Forbes as major publications. We need to be careful about involving our personal perspectives. We need to focus on commentary as it relates to the film. Any further, what we can do is provide the necessary links so readers can read about certain political topics in a wider scope. For example, we do not link to A People's History of the United States, though it is mentioned. There are a lot of good links in the "Synopsis" section, but they may be worth repeating in the "Political commentary" section in the context of independent scrutiny (in the sense of being apart from the filmmakers) from various political stances. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me) 16:18, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
I was clarifying those authors' political perspectives, which is relevant for us to do on a Talk Page. I believe you were the one who went so far as to suggest that we add labels like "conservative" and "liberal" to commentators in the article. I'm not sure going that far is necessary, though I wouldn't oppose it either. Explicitly stated or not, I do think editors should have a handle on commentators' ideologies.VictorD7 (talk) 18:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
Please stick to the issue under discussion here. It's a BLP violation in itself for you to compare Breitbart to others whom you denigrate. Moreover as I stated above, such comparisons are entirely irrelevant to the current issue. SPECIFICO talk 23:29, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
I think you posted in the wrong section. No one but you mentioned "Breitbart" here, and my comments were on point. It's also hard to tell if you're serious, but, for the record, it is certainly not a "BLP violation in itself" to compare sources with each other in talk page discussions on policy. VictorD7 (talk) 20:05, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
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