This page is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
Glad this has come to life. I'm very sorry I will not be able to help that much (other than occasional article writing) as I already have an overload of work in several areas in Wikipedia and in real life. Good luck! —Anastalk?16:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Do we need to create a new banner with the class, importance, and other requirements or are we just staying with separate film and bio banners? With a new banner, we can keep better track of all of the related film people and make it easier in assessing. --Nehrams202018:32, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I think this has the potential to be huge Wikipedia project and quite important at that too. It is very difficult to get in and edit the main bio banner so I strongly suggest we create our own banner and all of the project categories for each medium e.g start-class film directro articles etc etc for each medium actors through to score composers. THe banner would naturally place aricles in the biography category too. But I would like this project to function more on its own rather than just a minor work group of biography much like WP Films does in WP Entertainment ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦"Expecting you"Contribs02:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Here is the new banner whihc needs the categories modifying:
{{Filmbio|hide-auto-cats=yes}}
If it is a new WikiProject, shouldn't it have its own banner such as the one made above? I didn't see the rest of the discussion at the proposal of the project, is it a standalone project or is it a work group/department combination for WP:Film and WP:Bio? If this is a new project, a new individual banner would probably be best to organize all of the articles under the project itself. --Nehrams202022:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
It is more of a biography project workgroup. By the way, this shows our work group in the WPBiography template:
Nehrams2020, talk page clutter and over-tagging is generating a lot of heat right now. This project sharing a template with either WPBio or WPFilm is unquestionably correct, the only question really was which one of those. --kingboyk11:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Priority ratings conflicting between workgroups
The shared template looks neater and tidier but is that going to cause the article priority to show the same for each project? One example I've seen is Britney Spears who is high priority on the musical artists (which is fine) but she also shows as a high priority on this project. Rossrs14:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
There is an alternative, which WP:INDIA use, and that's seperate priority parameters per workgroup. It would add an awful lot of code and complexity to the template though... --kingboyk14:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm all for keeping it simple. I guess most people don't overlap into other projects, and when they do they may still have the same level of importance in each project, but perhaps some exceptions should be made where someone is clearly important in one category and not important in another - such as Britney. Maybe in these few cases, it would be easier to use a seperate template for them. It make those few talk pages a little more cluttered, I guess, but I don't see that as a huge problem. I must say it was a bit of shock looking at the list of high priority articles for the very first time, and seeing her name there among the Hollywood legends ;-) Rossrs14:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Here's what could be done (I'll go do it myself for Britney). Change the priority tag to =NA (not applicable) in the template instance, and put the talk page into the priority categories manually. How's that grab you? The only change I might make from there is that Britney arguably should be Top priority for Musicians. --kingboyk15:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
That grabs me just fine. Thanks for doing that. I think it's a good solution, though I disagree that she should be top priority. I think she should be high. Rossrs09:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I see other examples - Clint Eastwood showing as mid priority for filmmakers (and he should be high priority) because he's listed as mid priority for Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government and Frank Zappa - same situation as Britney. I think there won't be too many of these that overlap, but it's good to be able to fix them relatively easily. I'll fix these two examples and if I see any other obvious ones...... Rossrs11:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
You seem to have very few articles tagged as Top priority. I'd have thought Clint Eastwood to be a contender for Top, and Orson Welles an almost dead cert? --kingboyk11:44, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with that, as well as a few others that come to mind, but as there should only be a very small number in that category, I think it might be a good idea to discuss further. I disagree with some that are shown as "top" so I guess it comes down to POV in a lot of cases. Rossrs01:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, if you could find an icon of a clipperboard it would suit the style of the template better too. I daresay there's something on Commons... --kingboyk23:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Here are some images on commons that might be suitable (all sized to the size they would be in the template):
Presumably it is mutually exclusive to a&e-work-group=yes, because it is subdivision of that project.
Is it also mutually exclusive to {{Film}}? i.e. are WPBiography|filmbio-work-group=yes and {{Film}} allowed to co-exist, or it the former exists should the latter be removed? --kingboyk11:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
It is mutually exclusive to a&e-work-group. However, I do not think it has to be made mutually exclusive to film, since biographical articles are not tagged with the film template. --PhantomS14:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Are TV actors, directors, or writers included in the project? This may be obvious as the project says filmmakers, but if you click on the screenwriter link (in the Goals section), the article says film or TV writers. If so, perhaps the link should be modified to say film screenwriters. --Nehrams202007:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
When I proposed this project my idea was for it to be film biography. related to cinema rather than tv. However it should definately include actors, directors and people who may have worked in both tv and film but not only tv I think ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦"Expecting you"Contribs13:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with your comment. Television is a very distinct medium. Obviously if someone works in cinema and television, or in cinema or theatre he/she should be included, but if they are limited to just television or just theatre or just... any medium other than cinema... they are best dealt with by other projects. Rossrs14:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I spotted two errors on the WikiProject page.
The article Fann Wong, which is under the jurisdiction of this WikiProject, is currently a GA, but is not listed under the GA section.
Under "Directors", the link "Singapore" should point to the category "Singaporean directors", but it incorrectly points to the category "Singaporean actors".
Please fix these errors. (In case you were wondering - yes, I am from Singapore, and I'm a huge fan of Jack Neo movies. In future, I may consider joining this WikiProject and working on articles about Singaporean actors.) --J.L.W.S. The Special One14:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
For tagging articles, using List of actors is probably a good start. I have started with male movie actors A-K, so if anybody wants to join in or take another section, that'd be great. --Nehrams202018:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Could a bot do this automatically? Replace a&e workgroup with filmbio in talk pages? Maybe kingbotk's plugin? There must be thousands of easily taggable pages for this that would be tedious to do manually. MahangaTalk23:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
My plugin will shortly be getting support to do that automatically, yes. I also have a list prepared (it just needs some human checking to remove films and other non-biographical stuff). Unfortunately when I raised this on my talk page I got a less than cordial response, possibly due to the language barrier. --kingboyk15:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Tagging
I've built a list of articles from Category:Filmmakers and subcategories, ready for bot tagging. The list will need manual inspection first as the category tree isn't very clean so a certain amount of false positives will likely have crept in.
I'm also going to put support for your workgroup into my templating plugin for use with AWB.
So, rather than tagging manually I recommend that one of you take my list from me and use AWB with my plugin to do it. There's over 8000 articles in the list and you don't want to be doing that by hand, I'm sure!
If however you don't want my list and wish to coordinate your own efforts, please at least let me know what categories you are doing and with what parameters. Kingbotk (talk·contribs) is currently undertaking an extensive tagging run on behalf of WP:WPBIO and I don't want our efforts to clash or duplicate. --kingboyk15:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Uma Thurman has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
LuciferMorgan19:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Lindsay Lohan FAR
Lindsay Lohan has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
LuciferMorgan19:37, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Priority_ratings_conflicting_between_workgroups]] for more discussion on this topic and for advice about how to work around it. Cheers. --kingboyk 14:52, 24 April 200==Inconsistency with templates==
If I use the template embedded into the WPBio template and add a priority it feeds to a category such as "Low-priority biography (actors and filmmakers) articles" (example Talk:Gwili Andre), but if I use the template on its own it has to be added as "importance" rather than "priority" and it creates a category "Low-importance film actor articles" (example Prince (musician). Can the template be changed so that all pages are categorised into the same group? I think I know how to fix the template but I'm even more certain that I can utterly destroy it, so I'd rather someone who understands it a bit better that I do, have a look at it. I think breaking the project tags as I've done with Prince allows for a high priority in one project and a low priority in another with minimal effort, and a reasonably tidy and far more accurate result, so I'd like to pursue it further, but I've only done it on that one particular article until other people comment. Thanks Rossrs14:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
You can't be having 2 templates; it leads to confusion, excess talk page clutter, and possible double tagging if a bot visits. I deleted the other one. --kingboyk14:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
You've referred me back to a discussion I started. I don't think it was necessary to remove the "other" template, given that it is the same template but works different depending on whether it's used on its own or within the larger WPBio template. Rather than deleting it, I think it would have been better to fix it so that it worked correctly, or at least wait until the people who created it had a chance to comment. The excess talk clutter is reduced by the grouping of projects under one banner so that the multiple projects are hidden, as someone has done with Talk:Liam Neeson and various other articles. Manually categorising articles that overlap into different projects is easy enough if there are only a small number of such articles, but there are numerous articles overlapping between film/music/sports/politics. If this is the only solution, so be it, but are you sure it's the only solution? Rossrs00:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
It's not the same template or at least I hope it's not! {{WPBiography}} is still working isn't it?
I really don't think having 2 templates is a sensible outcome. The Prince page, for example, had WPBio and Filmbio, but the FilmBio project is "part of" WPBio so essentially WPBio was tagging the same page twice! You see the ridiculousness of that? :)
Perhaps we'll have to look at adding some complexity to the priority parameters as mooted in the thread I referred you to above (sorry about that, I didn't realise at the time that I was speaking to the same person :)) --kingboyk01:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
That's ok... I was thinking "yes, that sounds familiar.... hang on a minute!"... ;-) I see what you mean, and I assumed it was the same template because of a comment made earlier on this page by it's creator - "By the way, this shows our work group in the WPBiography template" which I've misinterpreted. Yes, I see the ridiculousness of WPBio tagging an article twice, which is why I only changed the Prince page. Maybe some complexity needs to be added, and that may in fact create some simplicity in the way articles are tagged and the way they display, but I'm getting out of my depth in that regard. I was mindful that you said the way the India project operates would be the way we could possibly deal with it, but that it would create a lot of extra work, so I expected that would be a last resort. I think it would be worth the effort though. If you look at any other category displays for either low, mid, high or top priority a significant proportion is incorrect for this project because they've been so categorised in another project. I think it would be desirable to try to find a solution before too many articles are tagged and in the meantime any others that need seperating, I will do as you've done with Britney Spears and Prince. I had recategorised some others using the same method, and that's fine as well. I had been thinking that method was more cumbersome and more likely to be lost in subsequent edits, but perhaps that's not the case. Rossrs01:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
OK. I'll come back and discuss this some time soon, or you can open discussion yourself at Template talk:WPBiography. In the meantime, I have 2 other, earlier, WPBio requests to answer and a Featured Article Candidacy to work on :( --kingboyk11:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like you have a lot on your plate right now. No problem, there is no real urgency with this. Cheers Rossrs14:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Terry Wogan
I've noticed that the page Terry Wogan now falls under your purview. For that reason, I thought I would let you know that after substantial editing over the past few days, I have nominated this article for "Good Article" status - any feedback on the page would also be appreciated. --Fritzpoll15:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
So, why for actors/actresses is the infobox color Silver? I would imagine Gold (most awards, etc.) would be the color of choice. Then again, I am all for coloring the infobox based on the individual. --Ozgod12:00, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Traditionally, silver indicates a deceased person, while a living person is the default colour. (taupe?) This is not written anywhere as a guideline but is the way it's been done. There has been criticism that it's in poor taste to distinguish living and dead people by colour, and I'm inclined to agree. I think the silver looks better with a black-and-white image but not so good with a colour image. I would not like to base it on the individual and would not like to see too many colours being introduced - ideally I'd like just one colour, whatever that may be, for consistency. Maybe it's time for the issue to be discussed again. Rossrs13:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the color (wikifairying here) should be relevant to the person (like pink for Anna Nicole Smith, green for Oscar Wilde, etc). Perhaps a favorite color known the person (Anna Nicole preferred pink) or a color associated with that person (green carnations where a Victorian symbol of homosexuality)[citation needed]. --Ozgod01:42, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it's important that Wikipedia articles have a similar look and the use of various colours would give the articles a random appearance. Most people are not going to be aware of a person's favourite colour, or what the colour green, for example, symbolizes. Rossrs02:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
(unindent) The color issue has been left open-ended for far too long. It has been brought up at various times on Template talk:Infobox actor with no resolution. The box has many parameters that are constantly being debated. It has made Template:Infobox actor quite unstable, actually, and frustrating to use.
Glad this has come to life. I'm very sorry I will not be able to help that much (other than occasional article writing) as I already have an overload of work in several areas in Wikipedia and in real life. Good luck! —Anastalk?16:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Do we need to create a new banner with the class, importance, and other requirements or are we just staying with separate film and bio banners? With a new banner, we can keep better track of all of the related film people and make it easier in assessing. --Nehrams202018:32, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I think this has the potential to be huge Wikipedia project and quite important at that too. It is very difficult to get in and edit the main bio banner so I strongly suggest we create our own banner and all of the project categories for each medium e.g start-class film directro articles etc etc for each medium actors through to score composers. THe banner would naturally place aricles in the biography category too. But I would like this project to function more on its own rather than just a minor work group of biography much like WP Films does in WP Entertainment ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦"Expecting you"Contribs02:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Here is the new banner whihc needs the categories modifying:
{{Filmbio}}
If it is a new WikiProject, shouldn't it have its own banner such as the one made above? I didn't see the rest of the discussion at the proposal of the project, is it a standalone project or is it a work group/department combination for WP:Film and WP:Bio? If this is a new project, a new individual banner would probably be best to organize all of the articles under the project itself. --Nehrams202022:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
It is more of a biography project workgroup. By the way, this shows our work group in the WPBiography template:
The box should have a default color, which this project ideally ought to decide. The parameter should be hard-wired in, so that it cannot be changed. I thought the default, even though it has to be manually set, was gold. It is the example cited, in the Helen Hunt box.
Then folks started using silver for dead people, which I thought was nonsense. I did not see it as a tradition, nor do I believe it was ever agreed upon as a style. Editors were just being bold. And now other editors are using silver on living actors, because they think it looks better. The idea of using an actor's favorite color (no offense to our good wikifairy) is just plain ridiculous.
Other projects, such as WP:ALBUM use different colors to denote the types of albums. The infobox for musical artists has different colors to denote what type of artist they are - solo singer, group, non-performing instrumentalist - and so on. The colors have a purpose, and the choice is systematic. Here, it's different. There is only one purpose - to summarize information about an actor. I see no need for having different colors, or leaving things open ended as they are.
I suppose the argument could be made that various other projects, such as a project devoted to a TV series, might desire to set their own colors on infoboxes for their actors. But then projects like that (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Stargate, for example) generally generate their own infoboxen. So again, there's no need to leave the color on Infobox actor open ended.
Per Kwai I thought it would be best if differentiate among actors (and filmmakers) colors for the infoboxes - for FilmTelevision and Theater. My first suggestions are the following colors:
full
The reason I chose these three colors were gold is primarily associated with the awards, red for the red carpet events, and purple is classically a royal, respected color. Comments & suggestion please. --Ozgod15:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Set up some infoboxes to show them in use. The only time I see this becoming an issue is where there is an actor who has a career across all mediums - like Angela Lansbury. She was a movie star, then became a four time Tony Award Winner, then moved to television star. Does this mean we need a Jack of All Trades infobox color? While Ms. Lansbury may well be known for her role on Murder She Wrote, she has had an equally impressive career on stage and film. --Ozgod17:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that there are numerous people like Angela Lansbury who have careers across more than one genre, and I wouldn't recommend a "jack of all trades" colour because this could be easily misapplied. I honestly don't mind what colour is chosen, but I'd like to see just one. If pushed I would select gold, mainly because it's fairly neutral and more likely to be accepted (or at least not rejected) by most people. Rossrs14:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I love the initiative Ozgod! The proposals are quite entertaining. I'm trying to picture Desi Luci Arnaz Gleason, and am a little freaked out by the vision.
However, I'm with Rossrs on this: I don't think it's feasible to denote actors by color, especially in today's multimedia world, with many actors crossing many boundaries. One infobox is enough - we just need to pick one color. Again, I go for the gold.— WiseKwai19:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I am just not a big fan of the silver infobox color - it makes Wikipedia too monochromatic. Do we have to separate the living from the dead with infobox colors? Won't that information already be immediately obvious in the birth and death dates. I can live with the gold (although red would be nice too, but it is distracting as well). --Ozgod01:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
A lot of people have made similar comments about the silver, and you make a very good point. On a side note, could we please keep this discussion within one section? We now have three sections discussing the same point. Cheers Rossrs11:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I have made pages that I've worked on silver, just to show I was using the infobox properly. I had wondered why the box was supposed to be silver, but hadn't before found this discussion. I agree that the gold/red/purple scheme, while appealing, is unfeasable. To me, red is the most appealing option. Gold, at least on the computer screen, is a little boring. Red, on the other hand, says red carpet and is more eye-catching. --Melty girl02:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Austin Nichols FAR
Austin Nichols has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Could someone familiar with articles on actors check Ben Whitehead to see if it meets Wikipedia's notability requirements? It seems like the actor is non-notable, but I am not familiar enough with actor articles to make a good judgment. (Also note that the article's creator also created Do Me ... London, which I nominated for deletion.) Dr. Submillimeter09:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it meets the requirement. His only IMDb credit is a voice role in one Wallace and Gromit feature film, and a fairly minor role at that. If it was a major role, it may be a different thing but he's way down the cast list. The only other thing he's done is the Do Me ... London thing, and the way it's written in the article, it looks more like a promotion for Do Me...., than a discussion of Whitehead's work. Rossrs13:02, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
This WikiProject had a redirect of the form WikiProject Foo. These are routinely deleted per the self reference policy. You should choose a redirect of the form WP:Foo instead. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:53, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
self reference policy states, "Such self-references are entirely acceptable on talk pages or in the Wikipedia namespace, but they are inappropriate in articles for two reasons. The first is that self-references are often considered disruptive in an encyclopedia because they distract from the topic at hand. A secondary concern is that self-references limit the use of Wikipedia as an open source encyclopedia suitable for forking, as permitted by our license. Put simply, this policy is about remembering that the goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, not merely to perpetuate itself, so the articles produced should be useful even outside the context of the project used to create them."
"Such self-references are entirely acceptable on talk pages or in the Wikipedia namespace."
This means it's allowed except for the mentioned reasons lower in the paragraph.
"The first is that self-references are often considered disruptive in an encyclopedia because they distract from the topic at hand."
How are these redirects disruptive? They certainly don't disrupt anything. My experience with these redirects have been in the context of WikiProjects and not any article related to the project.
"A secondary concern is that self-references limit the use of Wikipedia as an open source encyclopedia suitable for forking, as permitted by our license."
These redirects doesn't go against any kind of open source.
"Put simply, this policy is about remembering that the goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, not merely to perpetuate itself, so the articles produced should be useful even outside the context of the project used to create them."
The so called consensus here is put something up for deletion and call your good buddy to help you instead of having a ligitimate consensus debate. Kingjeff16:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
There is no requirement that Wikiprojects be informed in such circumstances - redirects to projects are not OWNed by those projects. Indeed having an impartial discussion (involving mainly those with experience of Wikipedia's policies on redirects) is beneficial. I understand you found these redirects beneficial, but the role of Wikiprojects is to support the addition of encyclopedic content to the mainspace, not to turn the mainspace into a series of signposts leading to Wikiprojects. Our readers (the people who wish to use the content) are not interested in the background administration of Wikipedia. That is why we separate namespaces in the firstplace. Apologies to this Wikiproject - your page seems to have been rather hijacked by a dispute you are presumably unaware of :-). WjBscribe17:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
The redirects were all marked with {{rfd}} per standard practice. It hardly speaks to the credit of any given WikiProject if a project redirect was marked for deletion and completely unnoticed. It certainly gives no indication the redirect was actually used, at the least.
There's a constant stream of copyvios, vandalism and non-free images without rationale. Common or widespread hardly provides an assessment of quality, usefulness or necessity.
WP:RFD specifically lists redirects from article namespace to Wikipedia namespace as a standard deletion rationale, even a full year before the nominations (so it's not like some new thing out of the blue).[1]Vassyana17:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
It was removed from the template some time ago after consensus was reached that it was not required. Some articles still have the height in them, but because the template has been changed, they don't "work". Probably best to delete those one when you see them. Rossrs02:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if anyone else shares the following concern. As the Actor page so succinctly notes, "actor" = one who acts, but "actress" = female actor. Oodles of gender neutral terms have taken hold in Western society in the past decades, yet somehow people are not comfortable calling both male and female actors by the perfectly accurate term "actor." Every time I refer to a female actor on her Wiki page as an "actor," someone quickly changes it to "actress," as if "actor" means male and is thus in error. It is not incorrect, however, to call a female an actor -- it is merely neutral.
I know that the industry still uses the term heavily, but must Wikipedia? Somehow people no longer feel the need to always specify gender with "poetess," "sculptress," "chairwoman," or "comedienne," but they hang on to "actress" for dear life. And the term is most certainly "actor/director," not "actress/director" -- or do people want to say "actress/directress"?!? "Poetess" and its ilk are gone because people insisted on the change; and "actor" is already in use to refer to female actors. Couldn't we include "actor" in our style guide as the proper and neutral term for both male and female actors? --Melty girl08:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
"Thespian" is a fine word, but I don't think it is the preferable word to describe male or female actors in the lead sentence of articles about them. The problem is that whenever a female is identified as an "actor," especially in the lead sentence, someone always quickly changes it to "actress," even though "actor" is neutral and correct. That doesn't happen when a female is a poet or sculptor. --Melty girl19:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I think "actress" is on the way out but it's still used commonly enough that we should accept its use. Even the Academy Awards have a 'Best Actress' category. I disagree that people are holding onto the word for dear life. Language is naturally and constantly evolving, and people sometimes demand a change because particular words evoke a powerful connotation whether positive or negative. "Actress" seems to be one of those words that don't bother or polarize people the way some other words do so it's being phased out more slowly than some other words that are more offensive. It's important that Wikipedia reflects changing social trends, but it should not try to lead them. "Poetess" and a lot of other gender specific words are no longer in common use and it's right that we recognise this, but "actress" has not yet been dropped from the lexicon. Rossrs07:40, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
You make very good points here. While many film industry folks (female and male) currently refer to women as "actors," so as long as the industry uses "actress" for ease of description in awards, usage of the term is going to continue to be widespread, so we're going to be stuck with people thinking they're correcting an error when they change "actor" to "actress" on Wiki. It still irks me that every time I use the correct term "actor" someone else is going to immediately change it, but you're right -- until the overriding social trend is to downgrade "actress" like we did "poetess," "sculptress," "aviatrix," and "stewardess," we're probably stuck with it. I will say though, while "actor" for females is in minority usage, it is already in usage, so I don't think it's wrong to try to use it some on Wikipedia. But it's true that we can't yet drop "actress." -- Melty girl08:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I do agree that it is already somewhat in usage. I guess it's just a matter of patience. One day people will see that word "actress" and ask "what on earth is an actress?" And you and I will be able to tell them. :-) I've also been thinking it's a bit of a generational thing. I tend to spend more time on older actor/actresses pages and "actress" seems more acceptable to me there, and while it seems ok to me to say ... I don't know.... Cate Blanchett is an actor, I have a bit of trouble with the older ones. To me, Jean Harlow was an actress.. etc. Odd. Rossrs10:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I was updating the template on the Cillian Murphy talk page to reflect this workgroup, and I noticed that the priority level for the article is "low." This seems off: Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers/Assessment#Priority_scale says Low means "Actors and filmmakers of little interest to non-film buffs and the film industry." I don't think an actor who's been nominated a best actor Golden Globe can really be considered of low priority. The definition of "Mid" (which, BTW, is curious for its use of the term "national level" -- which nation?) seems much more appropriate for the star of Red Eye, 28 Days Later, The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Sunshine, among others. Would someone please reassess the article's importance? (Note: I'll be requesting a quality reassessment of the article separately later; I'm in the midst of overhauling it.) --Melty girl21:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
You can switch it to mid priority if you like. Dicussions in the past have put more priority on the class of the article rather than the importance as this is seen as POV of what level of importance an article is. But after overlooking the article and the requirements of mid importance, there's no reason why it shouldn't be at that level. Keep up the good work, you're already on your way close to taking it to GAC. --Nehrams202021:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there an awards and nominations list format that editors prefer for Awards sections? I like the wins in bold, nominations not bold thing I cribbed from other articles, but the placement of the year in parentheses following the film/show/play title seems misleading (since it's supposed to be the year of the award, not the work). I've seen other formats too, and I'm wondering what other editors prefer. (I personally don't like tables, because I feel they're harder to edit and take up too much real estate.)
It seems like it might be nice to suggest a best awards list format here to unify the style of articles, but I don't know if other editors agree. I've had similar thoughts about roles lists, but it seems a little less important. --Melty girl22:05, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Filmography table: not always preferable
The project page now suggests that Filmography lists should be in tables. I just want to register my dissent. I feel that tables take up a lot of space on the page; lists are more compact. Additionally, not all actors appear only in films. Some appear in features, shorts, videos, TV shows and plays. Putting all of that in one table is rather unwieldy; I prefer separate, more compact lists in one Stage and Screen Roles section. I'm all for working toward consensus on a list format, but I'm not pro-table in all cases. Anyone with me? --Melty girl01:00, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm with you, but I'm not part of this wikiproject. Specifically, I feel that filmographies aren't always a good substitute for templates, whose purpose is not to be articles in and of themselves but to provide an easy and quick method to link together articles which have a strong connecting element. Esn (talk) 09:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I'm not pro-template. I'm pro-list, as in a simple text list, as opposed to a table. I'm absolutely pro-filmography. --Melty girl (talk) 16:57, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
"Tables," oh my God! I'm definately anti-tables and generally change a cast list in tables to a simple "character as" list! If I see an actor with a filmography in a table, I generally stay away from that article and don't add to it. Tables make the article look terrible. Luigibob (talk) 19:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Cameo Appearances
There are many, many articles that mention a cameo appearance for an actor or actress. It links to cameo. However, the right link should be for cameo appearance.
It seems very strange to bother assessing articles for priority/importance when it doesn't even show in the WPBiography template on talk pages. Does anyone else agree that, like many other projects' templates, our priority/importance assessment should show? --Melty girl05:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Grim-Gym02:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
There has been some attempt to clean up the article on Anna Wilding which has met some resistance from the original authors, including suggesting that one of the editors cleaning up knows nothing about filmmaking and acting. Given that members of this wikiproject clearly do know about that topic, I thought we could get some more input from here. Please. (But be warned, the original authors seem to think they WP:OWN the article, even though they've been told they don't). — TimotabTimothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)22:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm repeating my request - a number of things have happened since last time. Lots of cruft has been removed, a certain editor has been blocked, which means it's not nearly the battleground it once was. Now we have 3 or 4 facts that we need citations for. If anyone can help out with these citations, we'd really appreciate it (or maybe comment that no such citations can be found) — TimotabTimothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)01:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
If you find the sources, Melty, e-mail me information, and I will do the posting. No need for you to be drowned with the rest of us. KP Botany00:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Looking for Advice on adding a filmmaker to Wikipedia
Hello, I am looking for advice on how to get Mike Jonathan, a NZ filmmaker that has won awards for his short film, Hawaikii onto Wiki. He is currently at the Vladovostok Film Festival with Taika Waititi because it is being shown. Notable!!! How can he become notable enough for here. Thank you Temarie03:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
pre-FAC advice needed
I'm getting ready to nominate Cillian Murphy for FA, and there's just one thing I'd like to square away first, so I'm hoping the group can help me. I've noticed that even in FA articles, actor awards lists/tables don't tend to be footnoted. Do you know what the rationale for this practice is? I've been wondering if I should pull the citations together or not before braving FAC. Thanks, Melty girl04:15, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what the convention is regarding this, but personally I always tend to add references to awards sections. I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be referenced. PC7822:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, that's helpful. I thought maybe there was some assumption I didn't know about, because I've seen FA articles' Awards and Filmography sections with no citations. I guess I'd better pull those together. Thanks! --Melty girl22:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
The edit history for Death of Marilyn Monroe shows what seems to me to be a surprising enthusiasm for adding something that a gossip column says that somebody said that somebody said. However, I'm no connoisseur of celebrity sleaze or conspiracy theories (or unmade documentaries) and therefore can't be sure; maybe this really is "encyclopedic". Can somebody more knowledgable take a look? -- Hoary11:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
FAC reviewers needed
I've just nominated the current A-class Cillian Murphy article for FAC, but there just don't seem to be that many reviewers around. I'm hoping that editors here might take an interest in reviewing, since it is an article that falls under our WikiProject, and we want more FAs. I believe the article meets the WP:FACR, but of course constructive criticism is what I'm looking for -- all the previous assessments (FAC, A, GA and B) have helped improve the article greatly. The FAC page is Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cillian Murphy. Thanks! --Melty girl00:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Only two of the reviewers on this FAC have been from this WikiProject. The FA director has generously kept this FAC open for a long time. Would anyone else care to help another of our project's articles make it to FA by participating in the FAC process? It's almost there... --Melty girl07:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Alert: our fair use images are in potential jeopardy
A discussion of fair use images in actor articles is ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, and editors have begun removing images from actor articles. Please check out this discussion. In my opinion, it shows a basic misunderstanding of the difference between a photo of an actor as her/himself versus an image of a fictional role in a way which may seriously impact the work of our project. --Melty girl (talk) 18:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Length of filmography?
Out of interest, what is the Project's policy on the size of filmographies (if any) for actors? I tend to go on "selected credits" -- parts with major coverage and/or awards -- but should I be including all roles instead? Brad (talk) 13:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I feel a filmography list/table should be exhaustive. While not every project deserves mention in the prose, I think a filmography list should be as complete as is possible. I think the "selected credits" concept is more appropriate for magazine articles, whereas we should be encyclopedic, as in the definition of the word, comprehending a wide variety of information; comprehensive.--Melty girl (talk) 18:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you on this, Melty girl. As I've been working on filmography tables, I've expanded the ones that curiously omit some films - in some cases, rather important films at that. Wildhartlivie (talk) 19:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I suppose that's a good point about listing all roles and prosing the major ones. It's just size I'm worried about—the James Nesbitt article is close to 40kb and about 8kb of that is the lengthy credits section. Brad (talk) 14:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
If you'll check WP:Article size, you'll see that this isn't an issue. That page suggests that readers may tire of reading pages over 30 to 50 KB of readable prose, but doesn't specify a dead end page length. For stylistic purposes, readable prose excludes: External links, Further reading, References, Footnotes, See also, and similar sections; Table of contents, tables, list-like sections, and similar content; and markup, interwiki links, URLs and similar formatting. Since one of the goals of this project is to introduce a table format to filmographies, this makes it acceptable to include full filmographies. Wildhartlivie (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Filmography
I'm not sure which WikiProject to ask, this or television, but I'll ask here first. When listing an actor's filmography (and/or television shows) in a bulletted list, do we start with the oldest or the most recent? I(talk)23:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
James T. Aubrey, Jr. has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
Filmography query
Hi. I've been working slowly but diligently to format filmographies to the suggested table from the front page. I started working on the actors list by film awards and came across something I would like to have clarity about. If you will look at Gene Hackman, there's a different sort of listing of films, in a drop down box. Is this acceptable? Should it be changed over to the table? Thanks for your help. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:27, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
James T. Aubrey
James T. Aubrey, Jr. has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.
Filmography query
Hi. I've been working slowly but diligently to format filmographies to the suggested table from the front page. I started working on the actors list by film awards and came across something I would like to have clarity about. If you will look at Gene Hackman, there's a different sort of listing of films, in a drop down box. Is this acceptable? Should it be changed over to the table? Thanks for your help. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:27, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Opening discussion on Priority assessments
I've looked over the priority lists extensively the last 2 or 3 days and have been puzzled about some of the ratings there. I changed the priority level of some individuals, but that is certainly open to change. After bringing it up with another project member, I'd like to open discussion about how we assess the priority of people in this project and about where individual actors/filmmakers are placed.
The criteria for Top priority is: Core topics about actors and filmmakers. Generally, these are people who are extremely notable to the common person. This category should stay limited to approximately 100 members.
The criteria for High priority is: Actors and filmmakers who are well-known in the film industry, to film buffs, and others. These people can reasonably be expected to be included in any print encyclopedia.
The criteria for Mid priority is: Actors and filmmakers that are reasonably notable on a national level within the actors and filmmakers field without necessarily being famous or very notable elsewhere.
The criteria for Low priority is: Actors and filmmakers of little interest to non-film buffs and the film industry.
I'd like to start with discussion of the Top priority: who is there, who doesn't belong there and who should be there. The persons who are on the Top priority list at this time are:
Please jump in with your viewpoints on the Top priority list, both as is, and as it possibly should be, and also how we can better determine the difference between this and the next category down. Wildhartlivie (talk) 08:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Another issue I came across was discussed further up, regarding people who fall under more than one WP:Biography project. I noted some suggestions of how to separately address the priority assessments, but no one mentioned placing different templates for the work groups. My examples are Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, who arguably fall high on the musicians group, but don't merit much priority based on their film careers. My solution was to remove the filmbio group from the template and place a second one based on the filmbio alone. Thoughts? Wildhartlivie (talk) 08:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Looks like a good way of making it work. I know the Britney Spears article was "fixed" ages ago per the discussion above, but subsequent edits have ruined that. Mind you, Britney's right up there with Katharine Hepburn ;-) Rossrs (talk) 09:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
How to determine the difference between top priority and high priority is something I'm still thinking about. Perhaps the "top" list could be people who are known even by people who have never seen their work, who have made such an exceptional contribution that they are exalted within and without their community, and whose names have become part of the common language of films. Perhaps the "high" could be people who have made a significant contribution, have been acclaimed but who haven't quite reached the top or for past eras in filmmaking, who haven't been remembered as strongly as their contemporaries. Very difficult. Rossrs (talk) 09:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, I agree completely with your list of excludes as well, mostly, with your list of adds. I just didn't want to appear over eager. I pondered each and every actor in your first list, (except maybe Leonardo DiCaprio), but wasn't as sure about the other categories. I'm not too sure about George Sanders, he's fading from common knowledge, perhaps. I'd also add Johnny Depp. What is even more interesting is that some of the people I bumped up to high from mid or below include Busby Berkeley, Lauren Bacall and George Clooney. Edith Head was a hugely commonly known figure for a very long time and I'm not sure that she's slipped below the radar today. Go figure. Wildhartlivie (talk) 09:30, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I did go ahead and raise Gene Hackman from Mid to High priority, though I think he may be a candidate for Top as well. I'll have to think about the television actors, I'd actually not considered them yet. Wildhartlivie (talk) 03:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Hackman could quite easily be top priority. The TV actors are interesting; when I stopped to think about them, I realized that very few of them achieve/achieved the lasting recognition of their film counterparts, which is odd when you consider that they actually come into our homes on a regular basis in a way cinematic actors don't. I'd totally forgotten about them, until I started to question whether Lucille Ball belonged on the list. Then of course, I realized that there was no doubt that she should be there. Rossrs (talk) 08:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Well pooh. I wrote a detailed explanation and apparently didn't submit before my Firefox locked up. I'll try again. I suggested Sid Caesar because of television. At least in the US, Caesar is considered a television pioneer. His variety show paved the way for the genre, and introduced some of the most influential performers and writers to dominate entertainment for decades. He first appeared on Milton Berle's show (speaking of another candidate) and along with Berle and Bob Hope, were considered TV trailblazers. On Your Show of Shows, he worked with Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, and Imogene Coca, while some of the writers who got their start on the show included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart.
I suggested Andy Griffith for his constancy and longevity. The Andy Griffith Show was a very long running show and while I don't have the sources to prove it, I suspect that the show never left broadcast or syndication since it started in 1960. There are likely few Americans over 20 who doesn't look at Ron Howard and think "That's Opie Taylor!" and don't know what one means when referring to a law enforcement officer as a "Barney One-Bullet." Then he returned in Matlock, which is also still in syndication. I wish I could express better the iconic value of Andy Griffith.
Buddy Ebsen is similar. Besides a long film resume, including working with Shirley Temple and the unfortunate Wizard of Oz allergy, once The Beverly Hillbillies began broadcast, Buddy Ebsen became another TV icon. The show is still in syndication, and then he did another LONG stretch as Barnaby Jones. Of the suggestions I made, I'm weakest on him, but I'd include him based on his long television contributions before I would Elizabeth Montgomery, but I wouldn't disallow her either.
