Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Categorization

I don't know whether you agree or not butI have always beleived that actors and directors and cinema characters are tied to our Film Project. Nobody can dispute the fact that they are part of cinema and films and I beleive we have at least some responsibility to upkeep them if they are directly linked from our film articles. However rather than setting up a seperate project what about Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Actors and Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Filmmakers. THis way they are a part (or at least tied) to our film project. Each page would highlight the articles that require most attention, missing articles etc for better project coordination. WikiProject Biography is so enormoous and I see hundreds of actor and director articles in very poor shape and neglect -Biogrpahy cannot work to effectively concentrate on hundreds of thousands of articles at once!!. The cinema characters would be a part of both projects. Ther is no obligation but it would certianly help to organize it all better, However if nobody wants it as part of films then of course they can be set up independently. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 18:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

WikiProject Biography needs to separate actors and directors from the arts and entertainment workgroup and place them into their own separate workgroup. --PhantomS 00:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Articles can be within the scope of several WikiProjects. I would suggest perhaps creating a Filmmakers work group to this project, which would focus solely on biography articles for those in the film industry. Girolamo Savonarola 11:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I agree fully with Girolamo -WikiProject:Filmmakers would incorporate direcotrs, cinematographers and editors and producers etc. But do mean include Actors into this? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 19:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I also agree with Wikipedia:WikiProject Filmmakers (there is already Wikipedia:WikiProject Screenwriters) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Actors, but as PhantomS says, these projects have to be dealt with starting from WPBiopgraphies. If such in-between projects are started, they have to align with both projects. I don't think they should be created as Film sub-projects (WP Films/Actors). My guess is they will grow fast and should stand in their own project namespace. Hoverfish Talk 20:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

My idea would be to unify Screenwriters into the Filmmakers project ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 11:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is a user going around hitting many film articles and categorically removing the year in film links from the articles, stating the MOD on dates disallows it when it says no such thing, and causing much disruption to the work of hundreds. The user in question is User:82.3.252.147 and they appear to have a real grudge and point to make with these edits due to the fact they are the only edits made from this IP address. Ben W Bell talk 15:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ok, let's see what we say as project to this (from discussions I have followed). The film infobox has it in its guidelines to link "year in film". The year in the lead, does not need to be linked as "year" or as "year in film". Any subsequent mention of year should be linked to "year in film" only if this link is in context and somehow helpful to the sentence (which is usually not the case). As for the fact that this user comes as IP with no account and states that there are "thousands of editors who don't want it" is another problem. However his/her edits cannot be considered disruptive, unless there are other cases beyond the year link. Hoverfish Talk 17:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Personally I'm against the delinking. If the lead describes it as a 19xx film, then a link to a summary article about film in that year is appropriate. The JPS^{talk to me} 17:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well now that I checked, I see even the instructrions in the infobox have been changed and in a way not as per our above discussion (see section A film's 'year'). So someone has removed the instruction to link to year-in-film. Hmm... Hoverfish Talk 17:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I went into several archives but can't find the last discussion. As per JPS and Ben W Bell, there is a wish to link year-in-film in the lead and probably further into the article. Please, offer further opinions, including if we should have a poll about it. Hoverfish Talk 17:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

These were the instructions from the old Infobox Film Syntax Guide:

• Release date (Variable: released)

When was the film released? Or when will the film be released?

Use: if possible, the exact release date. ("May 18, 2008") Use the first public non-festival release in any country. This means any limited releases or openings before opening wide should go by the limited release date. If multi-country entries are necessary, you can put the flag icon before the release date for each country (see the 2nd Wiki).

Wiki: [[May 18]], [[2008]]

Wiki: {{Flagicon|United Kingdom}} [[May 18]], [[2008]]

--PhantomS 20:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

As far as I know, there was discussion on this, but never anything conclusive (one place for the discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Films/archive#Intro_format, that's the first archive of this talk page). However, the discussion was always whether to link to 'year in film' or just 'year' in the opening paragraph, not having a link at all wasn't ever really an option, so there really is a consensus to link to something. I always put a link to a 'year in film' in the opening paragraph, full date for the release date in the infobox (and a link to a plain year if I can't find a full date), and don't link random years mentioned at other places in the article. You can't use 'year in film' for full dates (ie. the release date), since as far as I know, it breaks the date formatting from user preferences. - Bobet 17:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

That's how I do it too and how I see it done most often in film (and otherwise) articles. Doctor Sunshine talk 18:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

That's also the same method I've been using for the last year when I went through tagging articles or adding infoboxes/images. --Nehrams2020 20:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think it needs to be added in the Style guidelines to avoid further confusion.

• A [[2008 in film|2008]] film released on [[May 18]], [[2008]]. --Crzycheetah 22:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yes, but stating it in that form would be redundant, plus I don't think the release date is usually relevant enough to be included in the opening sentences. How about you say "Use a link to 'year in film' for the first instance of the release year. Any further years should be left unlinked, full dates should be linked normally according to WP:MOSDATE". - Bobet 21:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

That was just an example. I wanted to show how to wikify. --Crzycheetah 17:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've been doing some work on Will Hay movies today, creating articles for those without any and tidying up existing ones - particularly Oh, Mr Porter!. This is currently listed as a stub, and I wondered what the procedure was to get this changed to Start class or even get some feedback on what is needed to get the article to a position where a move to Start class would be possible? StuartDouglas 15:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

When to change an article from stub to start is up to whoever wants to make the change. You can read about the criteria at Category:Film articles by quality. I would say the Mr Porter article is start class, myself. - Peregrine Fisher 17:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

The simplest way to determine if it is a start class is to look at the Stub to Start template on the talk page. It lists all of the criteria the article needs to reach start class (infobox, image, cast, plot, good intro, proper cats, and two other sections). If the article meets the criteria, you can reassess the article yourself to start class and the template automatically goes away. We added the template to help improve the quality of the articles, and have achieved some success so far, even though it is at a slow rate due to the large number of articles that are added each day. If you also don't agree with a particular assessment you can ask for a proper review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment#Requesting an assessment. The article mentioned above is definitely a start, so I'll change it right now. Good job and keep up the good work. --Nehrams2020 20:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

For reasons of keeping conversation threads in one place and relieving this page of the extra load, I suggest starting Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/List and navigation management. Like this we could also decide on some guidelines and coordinate better the activities of several members working in film lists, and associated navigation templates. Please offer opinions. If there are no objections, the subproject will start on the 20th of March. Hoverfish Talk 07:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think this is a good idea to help set some parameters and clear guidelines for creating and modifying our film lists and prevent the continuous cycles of editors outside of WP:Films who like to remove them (although at times, they do remove some really bad lists). This will help to organize the lists and determine if there are any we should get rid of based on approved guidelines. Who knows, maybe we can get a list or two featured. --Nehrams2020 08:29, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Strong support THis is a very good idea -wise words again! It would help very much to have such a page to involve other members of the project rather than conversations dominated by Hoverfish and myself. WHilst I do like personal discussion from time to time the majority of film list talk should approprirately be done here. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 11:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Sounds good. Some recent discussion and deletion review of the film country templates resulted in talk being spread out over many talk pages. A project like this would hopefully consolidate that and provide a reference for editors outside WP:FILM. — WiseKwai 12:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

There's a proposed policy, Wikipedia:WikiProject reform, that may or may not have some impact on this. Doctor Sunshine talk 20:44, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Very interesting proposal. In this case all our activities will be completely within the WP Films scope. If you understand better than me the notion of tiers and task forces, how do you think we should organize this best? As for extra tags, we don't need any. Basically, we will be taking care of all WP Films Class=List articles. And by the way of Nehram's comment, it seems to me a list is destined to remain class List (no chance for GA's or FA's here). Hoverfish Talk 19:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I probably don't understand it any better than you—I just skimmed it. The gist I got is that it's to reduce the amount of time people spend setting up project pages and replace project banners with tags such as WPBiography's work-group tags (as well as streamlining efficiency). I just didn't want to see people pour too much work into this or the filmmakers projects mentioned above only to see them gutted or overhauled should the policy become official. I think making it a subsection of this project, such as .../List and navigation management, is fine and what they're getting at. Doctor Sunshine talk 20:37, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Generally, task forces and work groups are set up to cover specific articles by content. Maintenance and style groups would be considered departments. Girolamo Savonarola 21:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks Girolamo for putting things where they belong. So, that will be a department, just like the categorization one. And by the way, I just discovered I am wrong about lists: there ARE featured lists !!! Hoverfish Talk 22:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals I am proposing a new wikiproject which if it was allowed to develop would become a major project. I have noticed that as a member also of WP Films that articles on actrors, film directors, producers, cinematogrpahers, etc are often to much for Biogrpahy to deal with and are often neglected with no real focus for improvement. I strongly beleive we need an institution on wikipedia to take care of all Film people. I propose Wikipedia:WikiProject:Film biographies. If I created the tag for this project each time you would mark it as WPFilmmakers it would automatically put it is Biography articles and maybe film people as well . Please let me know what you all think. THanks ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"I've been expecting you"} 14:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's an interesting idea, and I see that you've already posted it on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals. However, IMHO, it should probably be setup like WP Musicians. --PhantomS 14:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Just a heads up, so people don't panic if they notice the changes. I'm in the process of standardizing the format and expanding and cleaning up the subcategories for Category:Years in film. I noticed that while Category:Films by year is pretty well organized, Category:Years in film seems to use a slightly different set up, was missing a number of subcats and didn't use templates for boiler plate syntax.

What I've done is create a new template Template:infilmyr which is similar to Template:filmyr for the Category:Films by year subcategories. I am changing or creating each subcategory of Category:Years in film using the standarized format in Template:infilmyr, and am also moving each Year in film list article (eg 2003 in film) to the corresponding category (eg Category:2003 in film). When my work is completed, you'll have a subcategory of Category:Years in film for every year for which a film related article exists. Individual films will still appear within the corresponding subcategories of Category:Films by year. Finally, as a minor note, I'm removing some of the redundant categories from articles to make sure an article doesn't appear simultaneously in both a category and one of its subcategories (eg an article shouldn't appear in both Category:Years in film and Category:2003 in film since "2003 in film" is a subcategory of "Years in film").

What I'm doing is fairly straightforward, but will take a little time to complete. Any feedback or questions, please feel free to let me know, but in the end this should make "Years in film" better organized and more consistent in style to "Films by year". It will also make it easier to change the format of these categories across the board by allowing an editor to simply edit the template. Dugwiki 16:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Each film is categorized primarily by year. Which means it's Category:19xx films. Is this an additional chronological categorization, or it simply shifts subcategories? Hoverfish Talk 17:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I see what you are doing, but there is a negative effect to it. All individual articles of the years in film series, appeared in category years in film. Now they become subcategories instead, which means that to access each article you have to go to its subcategory to find it. I really don't see the point of this. Can you explain, please the usability of your changes? Hoverfish Talk 18:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

The subcategories of "Years in film" (some of which already existed prior to my working on it) are meant to house the film-related subcategories and articles for specific years. So all articles directly related to film events or specific film releases in a given year will appear in the same category. For example, the Category:2006 in film currently contains subcategories Category:2006 films and Category:2006 film awards as well as some articles about various film festivals and other events that occured in 2006. Its main associated article is the list article 2006 in film. Note, by the way, that this category actually already existed; I didn't create it. All I'm doing is completing the scheme and standardizing the structure using a template.

As far as the individual articles, note that articles are not normally supposed to appear in both a category and its subcategories. For example, an article that appears in Category:2006 in film should not normally also appear in Category:Years in film. However, there is sometimes an exception made for when an article has a category named after it, so as you say it might be worthwhile to also keep the "in film" list articles within Category:Years in film as well as the corresponding subcategory.

What I'll do for now then is to complete the categorization scheme, but also retag the list articles so they appear in Category:Years in film. That should address your concern about keeping all those articles in the same category index and also allow for all film-related articles to be categorized by year under a standardized format. Dugwiki 19:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Done. You should now see all the list articles under Category:Years in film again. They also each appear individually in their corresponding subcategory. Dugwiki 19:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ok, the structure is basically set up now for all years in the 20th and 21st. Once everything is finished automatically propograting the subcategories Category:20th century in film and Category:21st century in film will replace the individual yearly subcategories in Category:Years in film. Then to find the subcategory for a specific year, just click the plus on the century and then decade. It adds a couple of clicks but makes the page much more readable, and is also consistent with how Category:Films by year is created. The list articles will still appear individually. Dugwiki 22:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is a Category:French animation, which contained most of the animations and a Category:French animated films, which contained only 2 films, which I recategorized with the rest. I am not sure, however, if they belong there rather than in the now empty category (or if the category should be renamed). Please, help solve the problem before the empty cat if CfD'd. Hoverfish Talk 16:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think they should all go into the French animated films category. Same as Category:Canadian animated films. Doctor Sunshine talk 22:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I did it, but it's only French and Canadian which have such a category. Some other countries have "animation", some (including Belgium and UK!) none. I will have to go through cat:Animated films and see if it's worth creating some. Also this parent category must be depopulated in favor of subcategories. Needs some premeditation. Hoverfish Talk 00:46, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

As a somewhat heavy contributor to the animation side of film coverage, I favour creating the subcategories of "Country animated films". The reason is that there is already a category called "animated films", and in practice most of the articles in the "Country animation" categories are actually about animated films. It makes sense to create those subcategories, because then we can create a more sensible category hierarchy - so that instead of being in both "Country animation" and "animated films" categories, an article will be in just one category. This will mean that many or most of the articles in the "Country animation" categories will have to be moved, but I think that there will still be a few articles left in most cases - for example, the "History of Country animation" article(s), famous actors, studios, festivals, etc. Esn 01:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I observe a questionable categorization by language. We seem to follow closely the languages that IMDb gives. For quite some time I had the feeling that they state language even if it concerns a few lines only. For example in Green Card (film), imdb gives English and French. From what I remeber there were only a few instances in the film when Depardieu spoke French. I think it's wrong to give many languages for a film, although there could be exceptions to this. I know it's hard to decide if one is not familiar with the film, but it looks necessary we limit categorization to the most predominant language. Hoverfish Talk 20:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. I had that feeling too. I'd say most films have one main language with only rare bi- or multilingual films exceptions like Bon Cop, Bad Cop and the original cut of Lola Montes. And then there's films for which two separate language versions were shot simultaneously such as Nosferatu the Vampyre and a lot of early sound films. And notable dubs, like Godzilla and Howl's Moving Castle. I was never happy with how I did The Green Slime, too many flags. Doctor Sunshine talk 22:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I also agree, I've had some disagreements with a relatively new editor who insists on adding language categories for every language used in a film. Titanic had, until recently, 5 language categories and the Pirates of the Carribean films had Turkish as a language category! Films such as Cronos where there are significant portions spoken in different languages should be the only ones with more than one language category. Unsigned comment by User:Mallanox 13:13, 25 March 2007

Ok, let's formulate it clearly in this project page, and let us also repeat this instruction for the language given in the film infobox, and maybe also in the film style guidelines. It has to become clearly displayed and well understood, as the mess it creates in some of the categories :Films by X-language makes them almost unusable. Hoverfish Talk 13:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to revisit this issue. There should be some way to indicate secondary languages, esp. endangered or threatened languages, if for no other than to help readers locate films in those languages. For example, Madeinusa is mainly in Spanish but it also contains several episodes of Quechua. --DieWeisseRose 04:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

P.S. I haven't changed the instructions for the infobox. --DieWeisseRose 06:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

What did you have in mind? I'd prefer to keep the categories to a minimum but the language information could be mentioned in the article text. In the case of dead or dying languages, they could maybe be listed in the language's article or in their own separate list article as well. Even the way it's done in your example, Madeinusa, as long as it states "some" or the like, that should be fine. I don't think we'd have to change the instructions for that. Doctor Sunshine talk 07:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

If I had strictly followed the instructions then I wouldn't have mentioned Quechua in the infobox--I was BOLD. I'd like to change the instructions so that other editors know that there is an option to mention languages other than the primary one. I'm not sure how to do it, though. --DieWeisseRose 09:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm not all that active lately, but since my opinion was asked, I am still for keeping it simple in infoboxes and in categories. Again, if a particular film contains notable use of some second language (like if an episode of it is in this other language), then stating it in the infobox and assigning a category should be acceptable. But this shouldn't give a green light to assign as many languages as possible to films. I agree with Doctor Sunshine that creating a separate list for films where a rare language is used secondarily is best. And surely the article's text should mention it. Hoverfish Talk 11:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I wondered where you got off to, Hoverfish. This sounds good to me. So, basically, DieWeisseRose, if you feel it's important to add a language, even if it's not strictly speaking the primary language, go ahead. If someone removes it you can discuss it with them and go from there. Ideally, if it's notable it should be mentioned in the article prose. Does this seem reasonable? Doctor Sunshine talk 18:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

First draft. How about this for the language parameter instruction:

Insert the language primarily used in the film. It is usually unhelpful to list every language used in a film. However, when a film is clearly bi- or multilingual or if it contains significant portions of minority language or endangered language usage then you may enter the secondary languages separated with a line break (<br />). In addition, the language should link to its appropriate article. Ex: For a film primarily in the English language, insert English.

--DieWeisseRose 03:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like the way it should be formulated. But you are referring to the Film Infobox instructions, which has to be mentioned in Template talk:Infobox Film#Stating language, so I'll copy your suggestion there with a link to the discussion here and we can take it from there. As for Categorization, we should make a similar draft, edit the guidelines and see how others react. Hoverfish Talk 07:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think we should leave genre in the proposed categorization, as it is the most practiced and applied way. The vast majority of films are categorized (or stub-categorized) by genre. It's not a question of objectivity rather than one of how we are used to relate to films. Hoverfish Talk 08:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

You can use any of the categories to relate a quality of the film. That's not the point. The idea is to have a few specific markers which should be easily definable and non-contentious in and of themselves. (How we choose to define the category standards may be well-debated, but whatever standards emerge should not be subjective itself.) My point is that there is no verifiable way of choosing a genre category. It's not that it's not a useful category, but for the purposes of essential categories which should exist with no excuse, the other listed cat types are fairly easy for anyone to lookup and assign for a given article. Girolamo Savonarola 01:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

There are about 50 articles marked simply as film-stub that are not films, or fit into any of the existing categories. They are generally related to 2 areas: film terminology (not really "filming") and "Cinema of (country)" that doesn't have it's own stub category. Would it be beneficial to begin a [[Category:Film terminology]] category? I'm sure that the country stubs will appear some day, but don't know about the other. SkierRMH 06:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Under Category:Film there is a Category:Film and video terminology and also there are several other categories where some of these articles may be categorized, like Category:Cinema by location. But for new film-stub categories, you have to propose them in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. Hoverfish Talk 07:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the heads-up on that category, I've made a proposal for a parallel stub at the Stub sorting proposal page. My guess is that not only the 'orphans' on the current {film-stub} page belong that, but also some of the ones that are currently in {filming}. SkierRMH 22:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Unfortunately somebody is messing up the Category:Canadian films by creating all sorts of sub categories. If we made the decision to only have one American film category then we should definately only have one for this. Do you think we should propose the categories for deletion? THe category is supossed to list all Canadian films A-Z not be split into many ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"Expecting you" Contribs} 21:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Very unfortunately these categories are not acceptable. Country-genre crossings is something we have decided against. Hoverfish Talk 21:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Before CfD, I wish we discuss this with Bearcat here. I posted in his page about it. Hoverfish Talk 21:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Canadian comedy films have to be cross-referenceable from Category:Canadian comedy and humour, Canadian LGBT-related films have to be cross-referenceable from Category:LGBT culture in Canada, Canadian animated films have to be cross-referencable from Category:Canadian animation, Canadian science fiction films have to be cross-referenceable from Category:Canadian science fiction, etc. If you want the categories deleted, then you can propose a way to meet the cross-referencing need without the subcategories, because some kind of cross-referencing to those categories must be present. This need is not negotiable, as the other categories are not properly served if they can't include films. So you tell me: if the subcategories are to be deleted, then how do you propose to meet the need for cross-referencing to non-film parent categories? The film category is not the only valid consideration here. Bearcat 21:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

As I said in your talk page, it is beyond me alone to decide the fate of categorization of 22.000 articles. So it will have to be discusswed here from the beginning. In the meanwhile, it would help if you take a look at the huge archived discussion we had about all this earlier. Hoverfish Talk 21:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

It would also help if you updated the front page of this project, because as written it explicitly says that country-genre categories are permissible. So if you've changed that, then there's a contradiction between the policy you've stated on the public consultation page and the policy you're applying in practice. Bearcat 21:49, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Also, the only archived discussion I've been able to find on anything even remotely related to this comes down against country/decade crosscats, not country/genre ones. Bearcat 21:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

All I am doing is trying to organize a discussion to review the whole issue from the point of view you are presenting. I reassure you there is no policy against what you are suggesting. It's just a matter of precedent. If you do it to the Canadian films it has to be done all over. So, as soon as my peers are here, we will decide if we can go by it. It may take us some days to get everyone here. User:Pegship is on a break till the 8th and I am sure she understands the value of genre better than most. In the meanwhile you may do as you deem right. If you wish to continue cross categorizing I will not stop you or revert or CfD your work. As I said, if a decision is taken that we follow what you suggest, I will be helping along. Hoverfish Talk 22:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm finding this to be a very interesting and important thread. We have contradictory guidelines and practices. The problem in a nutshell is that if multiple category intersections proliferate unchecked there will end up being dozens of categories added to every article and useful categories get chopped up into microscopic pieces. For this reason, multiple intersections are routinely deleted at CFD, and a guideline against multiple intersections is now a part of Wikipedia:Overcategorization. Yet, as Bearcat says, it makes sense to have these intersections to complete other taxonomies. I don't think there is going to be a solution that satisfies everyone due to the limitations of our current software. There has to be a stopping point, beyond which categories do not get further divided as an intersection. Hopefully, at some point soon, dynamically created category intersections will become part of of the software, but who knows if and when it will happen. Until then, my preference would be to make lists instead of categories for significant intersections. Perhaps this conversation should be moved to Wikipedia talk:Overcategorization -- Samuel Wantman 23:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Comment I don't have a problem with genre categories they can be useful providing all Canadian films also go in the main cateogry Category:Canadian films - it is intended to A-Z list them all. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"Expecting you" Contribs} 00:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yes, we link to Category:(Country) films for a complete alphabetical film index of each country. If this gets broken, then we have to create an additional list of films for each country. Usually the problem we face with such an attempt is that they get AfD'd with the argument that we are "duplicating the category", or that "this is what categories are for". Hoverfish Talk 04:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

No, Samuel, this discussion should stay here, as we may refer to it more often in the future, but parts of it can be copied there and we can discuss there additionally. I also don't think it's so much of a software problem (for example to ask for Canadian film & Comedy films and get Canadian comedies), as it is a problem of server load. And yes, I do see Bearcat's point of category usability: it is convenient (period). But genre faces the additional problem of being a very subjective factor and a very diverse one. There will be arguments over why a film was categorized so and not so and we will end up having to give multiple cross categories by genre. A film will then appear under Category:Canadian drama films, Category:Canadian crime films, Category:Canadian thriller films and so on. Hoverfish Talk 04:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I am pretty much in full agreement with this, but many, many, many people feel the way Bearcat does. The issue for me with categories is that there should be discussion about the "optimum" index level in any taxonomy. As you say, for this taxaonomy it should be "Canadian films". An "optimum" level means that there might be an article that corresponds with the category, and once created, the category should not be broken up. This implies that smaller groupings would either be a list, or if a category, there would be duplicate entries. This is not the norm, (though I've been advocating this for several years now, and I support your efforts here.) -- Samuel Wantman 06:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Hmm, interesting thoughts all around. Just for historical reference, I wrote most of this department's front section with liberal borrowing from WPMilHist. The discussions came afterwards, and regrettably, the current department page seems to have not reflected some of these changes. It seems to me that the simplest way to take care of the issue non-controversially at the moment is to proceed with categorization at an "atomized" level - that is, single properties of the article - country cat, year cat, etc. Having intersection categories seems like somewhat of a bad thing unless in proper moderation. Category:Canadian comedy and humour and Category:LGBT culture in Canada could simply be tagged to all of the films that cover these areas. I know that seems like a problem and on the surface it is - today. But if the MediaWiki software is currently developing cross-referenced categorization imminently, then this would be the forward-thinking approach to the problem, no? The other problem is that if we allow this intersection, then the question becomes what other ones are permissible and not? And why should be disallow the ones we already decided on, but allow other ones? Where do we draw the line as far as intersections and category size? (Do we even need to?)
• My interest in the question therefore is more from the department-level implications, and less from the perspective of this particular instance. I would encourage others to keep this in mind as well, otherwise we will simply be creating manifold problems for ourselves in the future, as well as perhaps discrediting our own influence through inconsistency. Girolamo Savonarola 09:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

As Blofeld said above, I am in favor of having each article falling under Category:Canadian films which will help to provide a better A-Z list. If we decide to keep these new subcategories, would we then have to modify Category:American films, Category:Italian films, etc. to do the same? If I am understanding this correctly are we talking about adding subcategories such as Canadian comedy films? If so, I think it would be best to keep them separate with Category:Canadian films and Category:Comedy films, since we already have subcategories for the comedy category itself (plus any other categories besides comedy). What would be the main incentive/reason of adding the new subcategories? I would just like a better understanding of why we would want to change this if we would then have to do it for all other country films as well. --Nehrams2020 10:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

The incentive, for starters, is that Category:Canadian comedy and humour requires a dedicated subcategory for comedy films, or else it's missing a big chunk of what it's supposed to contain, and therefore isn't doing its job. Category:LGBT culture in Canada requires a dedicated subcategory for LGBT-related films, or else it's missing a big chunk of what it's supposed to contain, and therefore isn't doing its job. Film is not some standalone category tree that's exempt from any consideration of how categories intersect. Bearcat 02:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

For one thing, the LGBT and comedy and humour categories need to be organized as cleanly and effectively as any other; it simply isn't acceptable to just throw related films directly into those parent categories if other distinct subtopics (e.g. Category:Canadian comedy television series, Category:LGBT media in Canada, etc.) are permitted their own dedicated subcategories. For another, I simply don't see why film categories should somehow be uniquely exempt from the fact that what you propose here would be considered unnecessary duplication of categories in any other tree. It's not as though sorting them this way somehow makes any of the films inaccessible from the main category — as categorization goes, having a category that simultaneously functions as an A-Z master list is distinctly less necessary than having proper cross-referencing of topics to their related categories. Having a dedicated film subcategory of Category:Canadian comedy and humour is absolutely essential; I simply don't see why a single A-Z list of all Canadian films without genre differentiation is even remotely as important as the need for that dedicated subcategory is. The films are still accessible from the Category:Canadian films category, after all. Bearcat 02:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well, Bearcat, it's clear you don't see it necessary, but here there are people telling you that for some reasons you obvoulsy don't care about, it is necessary. Else we will have to create a full index of Canadian films A-Z and that's an extra task that we are not ready to do, especially knowing that we will be next attacked with an AfD (which is lately happening to our lists quite often) and the reason of the nominator will be (as it usually is) "This list is duplicating category Canadian films". So we will have to answer that someone has emptied the category in favor of the cross-categories he considers "absolutely essential". What I really care about, is that what you are up to, will put us in a lot of extra work. Hoverfish Talk 14:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

And I have to add here that, just suppose there is another user who by the same right as yours, finds it absolutely necessary to cross all Canadian films with another category. So instead of finding all the films in one place, he will have to go in each subcategory to fish them out. As for our film index, it's currently unusable. Hoverfish Talk 14:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

You haven't given a reason for me to care about as to why it's necessary or not; you've just asserted that it is. I haven't seen a reason why it's such an onerous burden on the user to check five subcategories of films sorted by genre. I haven't seen a reason why having an A-Z index is so uniquely important for film categories that they should be exempt from being organized the same way as any other category tree on Wikipedia: writers, for instance, are generally organized by country and genre: we don't separately apply Category:American writers and Category:Novelists; we apply the intersected category Category:American novelists. Television shows are organized by country and genre. Albums are organized by country and genre. Books are organized by country and genre. Is there a valid reason why film needs to be organized under a different set of rules than any other category? Because so far, all I've seen from you guys is the "it's true because I say so" school of argument. Bearcat 19:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Comment Having an A-Z index of films by country is essential. Removing the majority of films from the main category by all sorts of categories actually makes browsing more compicated. I remember having this argument before when I had this idea that bearcat has come up with and many users convinced me to keep categories as simple as possible. What I would suggest Bearcat is that rather than mess up the category structure why not just create lists? e.g List of Canadian horror films or List of Canadian LGBT films. THis way users can access Canadian films by genre preference but also keep most importantly the main A-Z intact? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"Expecting you" Contribs} 22:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

It is possible to come up with a win/win solution to this. This situation is the exact same problem I had with Category:Toll bridges in New York City being split out of Category:Bridges in New York City, which was the impetus behind the creation or WP:SUBCAT. Since this is the intersection of two different hierarchies (eg LGBT and Canadian films), the subcategory intersection can be created and the entries duplicated. The problem with this solution is that if it proliferates, articles could be cluttered up with more and more intersections. To work effectively, the solution implies that there should be only one category per hierarchy. The Canadian films category would be the bottom of the film hierarchy, and the LGBT Canadian films category would be the bottom of the LGBT hierarchy. The pseudo-parent category (Canadian films), should be tagged with {{allincluded}}. -- Samuel Wantman 19:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I would be grateful to learn more about this last tag and understand better your suggestion. In all that has been said, there is no school of "I say so", plus there is no "truth" beyond the fact that this is how around 22.000 articles have been categorized. Even before I knew Wikipedia existed, others had been doing so and I followed in the way I found practiced. Are we forced by any rule to demolish it now? And what will happen when we learn that the software can do the task of providing intersection categories? Start putting it all back together? Hoverfish Talk 21:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I am also not sure that all films that have been placed in the category Candian comedy films are just comedy films. Many of them may very well be also dramas, so we need to place them additionally in Canadian drama films or maybe Canadian comedy-drama films. The same would be true for Canadian romantic comedies or Canadian horror comedies or Canadian war comedies. What is the suggested new order then? Hoverfish Talk 23:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Exactly - many films go in far more than one genre category -it just worsens the situation. The solution should be to create lists by genre rather than cluttering up the caegory by all sorts of sub categories. Also by removing films categorized as Canadian films you are directly affecting the List of Canadian films already which states for a comeplte A-Z of Caandian fdilms on wikipedia please see Category:Canadian films the option should be there for people to also access a complete A-Z listing which Bearcat you are taking away whether you are aware of it or not ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"Expecting you" Contribs} 14:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I made an alteration to WP:CAT some time ago that the DEFAULTSORT tag should not have articles (a, an, the etc) in them as it messes up order in the category view[1] . Case in point, if The Transporter is sorted as Transporter, The it then appears after Transporter 2 in any categories they share. If no-one objects I would propose that articles be disregarded as a general rule to prevent this kind of thing happening. There is no instance where their absence would cause any such problem. Mallanox 22:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I recently saw the same directive in the lists of films, and than saw that it was sometimes ignored. Case in point, Das Boot. -- Samuel Wantman 08:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I must admit, due to work load, I have not been trying to remove the article, so often I just move the whole sorting phrase as it is from the categories to defaultsort. Maybe I'm affraid to have it reverted by those who follow the rule. Sorry, I will remove it in the future. Wouldn't it be better to suggest modifying DEFAULTSORT itself? Hoverfish Talk 08:36, 12 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm not trying to have a go at anyone, I was just basically making sure no-one on this project has any huge problem with this. It wasn't particularly hotly debated at WP:CAT. I wasn't sure if it was because I had a point or no one felt it important enough to comment on! Mallanox 22:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

As far as I am concerned go ahead. I have also been skipping the article often and I haven't heard a word about it yet. The worse that could happen is that it might get reverted here and there. Hoverfish Talk 23:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC) - The reason for my suggestion is that if we remove the prompt for ", article" after "noun", others may follow suit. Hoverfish Talk 23:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hegria66 has been doing a very good job of splitting the category of period films into various portions of time. Initially WWII films were made a subcat of films set in the 40s. I moved it to Films set in the 20th century as the WWII period covers two decades from 1939-1945. It has now been placed in two cats, films set in the 30s and films set in the 40s. To me this seems inaccurate as not all films will be set in both decades, in fact few of them are. As such I feel 20th century is as accurate as we can be. Does anyone else have an opinion? Mallanox 01:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

It would seem to me a better job to have the category be subcat'd to a general category such as War films and also to both 1930s and 1940s. Then a film can also contain the decade cat (or several if applicable) in conjunction with the WWII cat. IMHO. Girolamo Savonarola 02:08, 28 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

These categories for country-specific films and country-specific-language films seem really redundant. For example, how many films in Category:Japanese films don't also fall under Category:Japanese-language films or vice versa? Granted, there are a handful that don't go into both categories, but not many. It seems like it would be better to have a category such as Category:Japanese-language films not from Japan and Category:Japanese films not in Japanese-language, with everything else falling into Category:Japanese films. Granted, the wording is a little awkward, but it's better than the repeat categories we have now. --SeizureDog 18:11, 5 August 2007 (UTC)OtherReply

Well, there are separate categorization schemes for national cinemas and for languages. Obviously most American films are also going to fall into English-language films as well, but that doesn't mean that the cats need to be merged. Girolamo Savonarola 18:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I don't agree that these categories are redundant. You admit yourself that the two things aren't entirely synonymous, and the likes of Category:English-language films and Category:Spanish-language films contain films from many different countries. The current categorization system is both uniform and straightforward, so I see no reason to change it. PC78 19:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Another factor that has been kept in mind for future development is that, IIRC, the devs have been discussing the software eventually allowing dynamic categories on demand. Therefore, categories would be kept as basic as possible and intersections could be generated by the user who wants to see all articles in both categories. That's still probably a ways off, but since the current system works fine on its own and will be compatible with the proposed system, I'd caution that radical changes shouldn't be done.

Btw, I'm going to copy this to the Categorization Dept, which is where this discussion really belongs. Girolamo Savonarola 02:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I am also for (strong-)keeping the language categories as they are, for the reasons given by Girolamo. If we destroy the vast work that has been done categorizing films by language, we may have to start from scratch and do it all over as soon as the software team is ready with the intesection technology. Please, look in the archives of this discussion about it. Hoverfish Talk 12:11, 11 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've been looking at the film categories and noticed that some cats/articles use the title/form "cinema", while others use "film". Is there already a discussion on this? SilkTork *** SilkyTalk 12:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Usually, the question isn't "whether" there was discussion, but "where and when" the discussion happened. There was quite a bit of discussion about this about two years ago. About that time, many of the categories were "movies", some were "cinema" and a few were "film". After discussion at WP:CFD most of them were renamed to "film", but several were left as "cinema". As I recall, the consensus was to keep "cinema" to describe the film culture of individual countries, and also the places where films are shown. With a little effort, you should be able to track down the discussions. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks Sam. So there has been no recent discussion? SilkTork *SilkyTalk 12:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's been a bit quiet here, but this is a relatively recent department, so what you see above is about all we've discussed. All prior categorization discussion (as well as some since this page's creation) are most likely to be found at WP:FILM on the talk page archives. Girolamo Savonarola 15:45, 17 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

It appears the Australian project film categories have been re-arranged without prior talk or discussion or any form of warning - it would be interesting to see why and how such a process occurred - this note will be sent to the re-arrangers to request a civil and full explanation as to how such a process is done without actually going through a noticeboard first - specially when the creator of the categories is unavailable for comment: - SatuSuro 14:04, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi see WikiPorject Films discussion and the notice at the top of the Category:Australian films. SPlitting films by genre for each country is highly confusing . Category:American films remains intact and so should every country especially Australia -this is a WikiProject Films convention and Australia shouldbn;t be any different. Every country for films has a simplified filing system e.g Category:Swedish films , Category:Spanish films etc. Categories such as comedy and comedy-drama etc already exist and it is important to keep the A-Z of all films by country intact by country. Many genres overlap and were caterogirzes in several e.g Cat:Australian comedy films Category:Australian drama films etc etc. This is over categorization and shuld go in just Category:Australian films and Category:Comedy drama films etc The Wild West guy 14:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Categorizing films as AUstralian films. Australian comedy films, Comedy films etc is over categorization and makes finding the films in the A-Z of Australian films very difficult. Often many categories overlap some films are both drama and comedy and it duplicates and confuses our filing system. There are only about 250 films from Australia currently on wikipedia that is only one page and a half . Its not as if we have twenty pages in this categoryThe Wild West guy 14:07, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well what shouldn't have been done was moving films out of Category:Australian films to begin with. This is a very important category that they are filed A-Z -all of them. There was a clear message not to do this per standard for each country -film categories should be kept as simplfied as possible. Please discuss if needs be with WikiProject Films and User:Lugnuts for instance The Wild West guy 14:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

But going into a project without actually saying anything - mass reversions and not even with adequate edit summaries? SatuSuro 14:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

But if the two editors who have come in and gutted and emptied the sub-categories - it would be obvious that there is an australian project - even just one message rather than what has happened - would show that there is recognition that maybe australian editors who work in the australian project could be alerted? The way it has been handled suggests a lack of respect and understanding of interproject communication - it actually requires an effort to leave message as to what another project or editor otherwise unknown may have decredd for an australian category system? It has all the hallmarks for the end of the earth in the style of the late Douglas Adams - in a basement in a filing cabinet marked do not feed the leopard - oh well the vogons have been and gone :( SatuSuro 14:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well no there doesn't appear to be any communication from User:Longhair for breaking up the film cateogries. If he also "showed respect" he would have let other Aussie project members know about it and certainly let WP Films know his intentions but he didn't he just went ahead and continued with his 1 million edits on wikipedia . Reverting this is no different. Longhair has done some great work for wikipedia for a long time but he should have contacted both projects before messing it up The Wild West guy 14:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

That does not justify the reversions with no notice here! If an editor at WP Films has a policy over Australian film cateories - whoever it is - general procedure or protocol would be to be clear enough in a forum like this - before mass reversions - to simply announce it here - regardless. The manner of the reversions suggests a general lack of understanding of good faith editing SatuSuro 14:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well my edits were also in good faith, there are no excuses for Longhair not telling anybody and this page about his major structural changes either. Category:Australian films was in order before The Wild West guy 14:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC) Now did User:Longhair address it here about his mass changes? The Wild West guy 14:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

His changes are within our project, and he's a project member and in fact one of our best. A quick check of WP:WBE reveals he's in fact one of Wikipedia's top 10 contributors and without him our rather large project would not be the success it is - WP Australia is actually looked upon by WikiProject Council and others as the model for how things should be done. For people to come in, mass revert without discussion and rampantly assume bad faith and make demands everywhere of a model editor is really not looking for a constructive outcome. Why do you say "so should every country especially Australia" - Wikipedia works by consensus, not by tyranny of the majority, and I would also suggest reading WP:CSB (and while you're at it, WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA which, unlike a WikiProject convention, are actually core policies). Orderinchaos 14:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Beleive me I would rather not have to waste time in reverting. Longhair should have addressed mass changes with not only WIkiProject Australia but WP Films also. If he had announced it then other people would have stated the conventions etc for films and it would have been up to both projects to decide whether to split not the action off one individual. The Wild West guy 14:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Reverting is disruptive - discussion is a far better and more productive process. Every change does not need to go through WikiProject Films - there is a mistaken assumption here that WikiProject consensus has the same status as a policy or guideline. Orderinchaos 14:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

OK thanks anyway. I beleive both edits by Longhair and myself were done in good faith but all I say is it definately should have been discussed first with the projects. I know Longhair is a good and respected editor but even he needs to discuss with the project of he makes large scale changes. Respect and regards The Wild West guy 15:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

No worries, as we would say in Australia, have a good one. Orderinchaos 15:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Seems a bit of a fuss here. I'm sure we can get this sorted out between both projects it involves. Definately discussion by consensus from my experience is the key before major changes are made by either Longhair or Wild West guy , but both editors clearly had a right to do what they thought was best and were most likely acting in good faith I don;t see any malicious intent. It should have been a joint decision with the Australia project and Films I believe. Saludos amigos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blofeld of SPECTRE (talk • contribs) 15:14, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

While it is alright to be bold, the guideline also states that Before editing templates or categories, consider proposing any changes on the associated talk pages and announcing the proposed change on pages of appropriate WikiProjects. The reasons for this are simple - reversions often are time consuming and sometime require admin help. WP Films even has a Categorization department that exists solely for consultation on large cat structuring. However, whatever's happened in the past is done - now that we're here, why not go to the department talk page and discuss how to amicably come to an agreement on what we will do, instead of stoking the ashes of what's already happened. Look forward to seeing you all there, Girolamo Savonarola 15:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

The thing is whilst the main Category:Australian films should remain intact I do see the idea of by genre which User:Longhair created also. Category:Comedy films and Category:Drama films in my view should indeed be split but I was thinking in terms of by decade and not by country. However if we did indeed split it like Category:Australian comedy films, Austrian comedy films etc it would kill two birds with one stone I think. The problem is that many films are often in several genres which makes the system more confusing and I really think they should be kept as simplified as possible learning from our past discussions ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 15:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC).Reply

The real problem is no so much the categories themselves as it is the articles - a genre bending film co-produced by two or three countries could have enough categories to choke a donkey. I agree with you that by date is probably the least controversial method, though. The category intersection project is taking longer than I thought, unfortunately... Girolamo Savonarola 15:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I certainly see the uses of by genre which as Giro said be achieved by the category intersection technology where you can browse as you wish and it not clutter up the article categories -what happened to that?. My main concern would be that all films from Australia regardless of sub categories should go in the primary category. It might get a bit awkward though if a film is categorized as Category:Australian films. Category:Australian comedy films. Category:Australian drama films, Category:Comedy films Category:Drama films etc etc. particularly if the film is produced by several countries together -it would begin to look silly. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 16:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Fair enough guys - but none of this makes it any clearer at the Australian projectlevel where the operation was performed - being a visitor to a category or two I do not see adequate explanation of why the sub categories offended your system at this end so much - please lead me to a talk item/policy/whatever that might possibly explain - and which we might forward to the australian noticeboard to less informed australian editors who might want to understand what you guys are indeed up to? SatuSuro 17:08, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I guess the short answer is that we're trying to keep all of our categorization consistent, regardless of which country made the film. Is there some different Australia categorization structure that contradicts ours? Girolamo Savonarola 18:14, 7 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps I could have raised this matter with the relevant groups prior to such edits, however what's done is done. I still don't agree with the current format of categorising but if the consensus is against what I'm doing I'm not going to push for change. Nobody blinked an eyelid when a similar format of (over)categorisation was created for Australian people, television shows, bands and albums. -- Longhair\^talk 01:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

OK. The thing is Longhair nobody was doubting your credibility as a wikipedian and your good intentions -it was wrong of some of your project members to bring your edit count into the equation. I am not pleased with some of their responses to this but whats done is done. With films though it happened to come into conflict with the category system by country where I guess we are trying to keep some consistency. There are as I see only some 250 -300 films from Australia on wikipedia which means only a page and a half for the category -as yet I think it is easier to file them A-Z in one category -it makes browsing more simplified. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 07:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I had a simple idea: link all actor articles that have died while filming. My solution: [Category:Actors with posthumous work]. Result: 15 minutes to create, 1 day to defend and ultimately probably see deleted. So, have a read of this if you like, Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_January_23#Category:Actresses_with_posthumous_work and post your comments, suggestions or abuse here or there. I am going out on a limb and assuming at least film project members think dying on set (i.e. having a posthumous release) is a notable event, or maybe not? Also, pre-empting the result, if anyone knows how they would link these articles without a category, I'm all ears. Nearest I can think of is a See also entry for List of posthumous works. I'm obviously well aware Bearcat and Ottos views. MickMacNee (talk) 01:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

It's not a crazy idea, but it probably was one that would've been better off at least being proposed to the community prior to creation. (Creating consensus also would have insulated you against deletion.) I'm not certain how I feel about the category, since it is not uncommon for many actors with a long career to continue filming until it becomes physically impossible - and due to the long turnaround between production and release, the opportunity for this to occur remains prevalent. What might be more relevant is a category for the specific films, themselves. The only question that needs to be raised is how far down the cast list are we willing to cover? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 02:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

I raised this discussion a while ago on the main Films talk page (here) and I wanted to be bold and create a policy that mirrors the structure on WP Albums. Basically the creation of categories for all notable film directors in Category:Films by director, even if they've only directed one film. The notability criteria would be that the director would have his/her article already on WP before the sub-cat is created. What are other people's thoughts on this? Lugnuts (talk) 13:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Category:Films based on actual events has been nominated for deletion here, and I'm not sure I'm being articulate enough in my effort to explain why it might be needed. If anyone would like to contribute, have at it. Cheers, Her Pegship (tis herself) 23:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Every time I work on adding appropriate categories to a documentary film the same issue comes up: I have to remind myself not to add a category for "X-year documentary films", because we don't have such categories. I understand that we don't want to fragment Category:Films by year unnecessarily. But it seems to me that it would be eminently sensible to establish the category tree Category:Documentary films by year, since the most fundamental division in film is between documentaries on one hand, and all other films on the other hand. I'd like to know if there would be support for implementing this. Cgingold (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Well, it actually isn't needed anymore, based on the new MediaWiki search feature which allows for category intersection. For instance this link is for all 2005 documentary films. See the search form to see the proper syntax. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Whoa. I seem to have missed a major development here. When did this happen? And what all does this category intersection feature cover? I tried it on some non-film category-pairings and got zero results. Cgingold (talk) 08:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

It should work for any categories which have intersecting articles. Might want to double check your syntax. See Wikipedia:Category intersection. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 09:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Turns out it was working just fine. I really can't imagine why I thought there were no results... just because it said, "No article title matches // No page with that title exists" in big bold letters. I can't believe I fell for such an obvious ruse and naively assumed that meant there were no results. In fact, there were two results down below, waiting quietly for someone to come along and rescue them. Well, I won't be falling for that one again any time soon! :) Cgingold (talk) 20:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

I just added a new category, Category:Best Picture Academy Award Nominees, for films that were nominated for Academy Awards (winners and films that did not win). I went from 2007 back to 1997. Anyone else wanna work their way backward? It's five films every year, and I think when the category is done, it will be a great survey of the best of American films (mostly American anyway) of the last 80 years. Bill shannon (talk) 05:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

• Thanks for your hardwork, but sadly this cat has existed before and has been deleted due to overcategorization and is likely to be deleted again. See this discussion for more. Lugnuts (talk) 10:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

I propose this category. I couldn't find any other place to propose categories so... --Atlantima (talk) 02:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 June 1

• Propose renaming Category:Quebec cinema to Category:Cinema of Quebec
• Propose renaming Category:African American cinema to Category:African American film
• Propose renaming Category:Black Canadian cinema to Category:Black Canadian film
• Propose renaming Category:Indigenous cinema to Category:Indigenous film
• Propose renaming Category:Inuit cinema to Category:Inuit film
• Propose renaming Category:Mexican American cinema to Category:Mexican American film
• Propose renaming Category:Native American cinema to Category:Native American film

--William Allen Simpson (talk) 14:25, 2 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

There's currently a discussion over at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Inclusion of articles in (distinguished) ancestor categories about distinguished subcategories. User:Codrdan undid my deletion of the category:romantic comedy films from the film Get Over It. The article already contained the more specific category:2000s romantic comedy films subcategory, and in my opinion, and understanding of the breaking down the genres into decades, it was not supposed to have the parent category listed as well. Now he's telling me that the decade-specific romantic comedy films subcategories are distinguished just because they were not under some sort of "Romantic Comedy films by decade" intermediate category, in addition to claiming that they are distinguished because (for example, 2000s romantic comedy films) "The interesting (distinguishing) characteristic of 2000s romantic comedies is that they are released in the 2000s." I don't believe that's true. The main genre categories are simply broken down into decades to prevent them from containing thousands of films. Is one intermediate category containing the decades subcategories really necessary?

If I'm wrong about the parent category exclusion, then the 2-year-old example in the Film:MOS is wrong, in addition to thousands of articles I've never touched, not to mention the featured articles I looked at to ensure I was on the right path. If the intermediate category "Romantic films by decade" gets created, then every other genre will need to be altered. Wool Mintons (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

The specific genres such as action films, horror films, and romantic comedies were intentionally split up into decades to keep them from being over-populated. This has been discussed here previously. MOS:Film should be updated then I suppose. Andrzejbanas (talk) 21:24, 3 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the link! And the MOS doesn't need to be changed, it would have had the splitting up of the categories been wrong :) Wool Mintons (talk) 21:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

What is the policy on categorizing films that come out later the same year? For example, The A-Team (film) is coming out in June 2010, and it had categories Upcoming films and 2010 films. Then, a user removed Cat:2010 films with the reasoning that it hasn't been released yet. I disagree, but I don't mind what he did, especially if consensus agrees with him. I appreciate your thoughts. ~EdGl ★ 00:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

The user was me. :-) I regularly prune the cats 2010 films and Upcoming films. I usually remove 2010 cat films with a projected release date months away. Things can change and until it's release it's not a 2010 film. Instead I add the appropriate cat Upcoming films. I mean a week or so before it's release is fine because obviously the release date is not going to change. I don't think there is any policy/guideline.. maybe WP:CRYSTAL would apply to cats? I'm just trying to categorize the correct things. PS. I have notified user User:Bovineboy2008 who also updates the 2010/Upcoming cats to see what his reason is and also WP:FILM to see what their input is. —Mike Allen 00:55, 18 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

While I don't typically work on the film side, I see a parallel between this and common practice in television articles. Generally speaking, we avoid using the year categories until a series actually airs, and in a similar fashion we avoid updating episode counts until new ones air. There are just too many variables that can affect the actual release or air date. Given that you have the handy "upcoming" category, I'd suggest that it is best to remove the "20xx" category for as-yet-unreleased projects. --Ckatz^chat_spy 01:17, 18 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

• They should have both categories until it's released, then the upcoming one is dropped. Lugnuts (talk) 09:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

How can it be classified as a 2010 film if it hasn't been released yet? Isn't this why we don't write in the lead "Blah is an upcoming 2011 film"? We simply say upcoming. —Mike Allen 19:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Well here's a counterexample (and I'm sure most upcoming films follow this formula): The A-Team is an upcoming action-adventure film ... planned for release on June 11, 2010. It seems more logical—and more importantly, more useful for navigation purposes—to have both Cat:Upcoming and Cat:20xx films than to only have Cat:Upcoming. ~EdGl ★ 02:53, 19 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Yes, it's scheduled to be a 2010 film. It's not, yet. —Mike Allen 03:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

It all depends on what users navigating Cat:2010 films wants to see. Do they want to see all films that have been and will be released this year, or do they want to only see films that already have been released? I can picture examples where both would be useful. In other words, I see your side of things, Mike, and have moved to neutral :) ~EdGl ★ 12:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

Reading through these guides I'm noticing a point of conflict, at least where film series are involved.

IIUC, if the individual film articless are contained in a Foo film series category, they would not need to be placed into the cpmmon categories applied to Foo film series. Essentially these are "parent categories" at that point. This seems standard practice with categories.

Now, in the case of X-Men (film)‎ the base nationality and language categories have been asigned to the film series categoriy since they are common for the other related articles. When these two were removed as parent categories of the series cat, they are returned with "do not remove the three main cats per WP:FILMCAT". At this point it is a little moot since the same editor applied templates that automatically add the year, nationality, and language categories, but it seems at odds with the pratice of not categorizing an article in both a parent and sub-category.

Am I missing something here?

- J Greb (talk) 14:19, 2 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

Category:Films by country or language has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. 068129201223129O9598127 (talk) 19:12, 19 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

The section Wikipedia:WikiProject_Film/Categorization#Most_specific_categories is not sufficiently clear. I thought it meant that film articles should be placed only in the lowest applicable intersection categories. However, Lugnuts advised on my talk page that All films should have the top-level country category, per WP:FILMCAT, and confirmed in other words that All the top-level country categories are meant to be non-diffusing.

If that is a correct understanding of a consensus at this project, it needs to be made a lot clearer in the guideline, by referring to WP:DIFFUSE. National film categories should also all be tagged with {{Non-diffusing parent category}}.

However, I am at a loss to understand why national categories would be non-diffusing, and not others at that level (see Films) e.g. genre, language or date. Why should a film be in Ukrainian films and Ukrainian comedy films, but not Comedy films or 2010s films? This is not useful for category intersection. – Fayenatic London 08:48, 22 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

It's a long-standing project consensus to include the parent country categories. Here are a couple of previous discussions (there are plenty more in the archives). Basically, the Ukrainian comedy film cat is not a sub-category of Ukrainian films, it's a sub of Ukrainian films by genre. If you look at the cats for American or British films, for example, they have the non-diffusing tag on them. Some of the smaller ones have been overlooked. I'll fix those. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:05, 22 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

But (1) why? Betty Logan said the only justification she knows is that it's always been done it that way. (2) It was also pointed out in the 2014 discussion that the guideline does not say what you think it means, and still no-one has changed it. Betty Logan referred to the guideline which says films must always be categorised by country, language, date and studio, but it does not specify that any of these are non-diffusing. Rather, the guideline seems to me to permit/encourage use of sub-categories instead of the top national categories. – Fayenatic London 09:55, 22 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

Someone mentions it making it easier to watch recent changes. So for example, if I was interested in seeing the changes to British films, I could watch one category, instead of a dozen or more sub-categories. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 10:03, 22 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

I'm trying to create a page for the movie It Had to Be You by Sasha Gordon (Title 4414438 on IMDb.) The title has been used by (at least) three other films over the years, so it needs a DAB appendix at the end of the name. IMDb lists the film as 2015, but the copyright at the end of the film which I've just watched says 2016. I'm trying to find out release information to reconcile the dates, or if the version I watched is a "Director's Cut" or something. But for now my big question is whether to name the article It Had to Be You (2015 film) or It Had to Be You (2016 film) and get the stub in there. Thanks. --Eliyahu S ^Talk 07:37, 21 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

It seemes that the 2015 date comes from the screening at the Austin Film Festival ([2]), but the general release was in 2016. Gonnym (talk) 08:58, 21 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I think it makes sense then to defy IMDb and name it as a 2016 film, rather than 2015. It's still in my Sandbox while I write the Plot summary, and then I'll move it into Wikispace. May I ping you for a review when I do? --Eliyahu S ^Talk 11:33, 21 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

You can but I'm sure there are better people at reviewing than I am at the film project :) I'm more on the tech side of things. Gonnym (talk) 12:06, 21 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm looking at I Heart Huckabees, which is categorized as a British comedy film, presumably by merit of a single British production partner. Other than that, the cast, crew, director, setting, and so on are entirely American. I didn't see any relevant discussion on this page, and only a small discussion here from 17 years ago. Have I missed some other guidance? Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:39, 30 July 2023 (UTC)Reply