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![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 7 |
I apologize for having not formally addressed the new coordinators yet - other affairs online and offline have prevented this. I hope to have time later today and rectify this with a proper introduction and comprehensive report on where we stand, as well as some proposals for future initiatives.
I also am somewhat sorry that the 0.7 contest was created without prior consultation, but the imminent deadline of the 0.7 release version's publication forced my hand; plans were already in the cards to apply something similar to the core department over time, so this will afford us a test-run. Nehrams had also laid the groundwork of a review table to identify individual article problems - the contest is merely a logical extension to this work. Please do not view the quick release as an attempt to prevent critique, however - I am happy to discuss any changes either here or on the contest's talk page. Adjustments made mid-stream are not ideal, but in this particular case, we'll have to make that sacrifice if need be. Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 11:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Question As one of the new coordinators, I should ask: what else should we be focusing on for our coordinator duties? Thanks. Ecoleetage ( talk) 21:12, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I've been working on a draft of the topic workshop I made for WP:ANIME and adapting it for WP:FILM, and am nearly done. Any commentary on the workshop itself before I finish it and set into motion? Basically, the general idea is that you have a centralized place to propose topics, and they can receive input from the community, as well as garner more visibility and help. — sephiroth bcr ( converse) 22:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Another question as I consider possible featured topics... what about James Dean and his three films? He has been on stage and in television as well. Can the actor and the three films make up a featured topic or not? Just trying to understand the extent of the topic boundaries. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 23:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
I apologize for not being able to make an introductory address to the new coordinators earlier - some unexpected offline commitments left me with too little time earlier to properly gather my thoughts and address you all with sufficient depth.
First of all - congratulations on being elected! I am deeply honored to be working with each of you, and I'm very pleased to see that we've yielded such a strong field of coordinators, all of whom I am familiar with as regular, thoughtful contributors to our endeavors. Perhaps the proof in the pudding is that you've already gotten off to a strong start, as the discussions already begun here clearly evidence! :) This is also, of course, something our expansion has helped facilitate, and I look forward to seeing the coordinator talk page truly becoming a place of collaboration, brainstorming, and initiative-taking.
Let me get a few of the sterner items of the agenda out of the way first:
This project has not yet undergone a Tag and Assess drive, which is quite unusual for a WikiProject of this size. Is this warranted at the moment? If so, how shall we proceed, and is anyone interested in organizing it? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Would it be advisable for task forces to be directly under the purview of one or two coordinators each? This would give the task forces direct points-of-contact for any issues they need assistance with, and also allow the coordinators to regularly evaluate their needs and suggest common solutions here as need be. I also think that this may be crucial for upcoming tasks that we really need to finally get around to, such as style guidelines for articles that aren't about individual films, as well as assessment standards for those articles, notability and naming guidelines, and specialized infoboxes. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
There we go. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 04:15, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to create a task force to cover articles on Organizations, Schools, Institutions, Companies, etc. Much of this is currently tagged under the Filmmaking task force (although not all are), and it seems to actually be more appropriate to group these together, as they will have a more common structure and content. This could also be a joint task force with other relevant WikiProjects such as WikiProject Companies and WikiProject Organizations. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
This is urgently looming, since we have a deadline of October 20th, IIRC. Anyone interested in helping out with this will be greatly appreciated. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
(Much of this is verbatim from the last time these were brought up.)
Many of our editors - and by extension, the project - seem to get active in fits and starts, and in some of our key areas, such as assessment and reviews, go from moribund to busy back to moribund again without much rhyme or reason. Others, like CotW or Translation just died outright. I've been considering creating some new departments such as Contests and perhaps even a rotating open task (see below), but maybe it would be worth polling our members first to find out more about what drives their participation. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Has the encyclopedia made it apparent enough that the IMDb is not a reliable source? It seems a common stumbling block for so many editors that they can't rely on the site, and yet there isn't much in the way of a formal declaration to the effect. Also, should this go into the style guidelines, be thrown to RS, or perhaps be elsewhere? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Do characters who only appear significantly in one work actually justify independent articles? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
It may be worth looking at AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains and identifying fictional characters who appear in only one film. A couple of examples include George Bailey and Mister Potter. Quite a few possibilities simply redirect to their respective films' articles. We could do a few search engine tests to see if any of the characters have significant coverage of themselves with the film only in the background. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 20:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
We've discussed adding additional parameters into the template to identify a Future-Class film's release date, so as to help automate re-assessment, especially for less-mainstream releases. This is also crucial since Future-class articles "go dark" on the assessment logs, which makes it difficult to track them otherwise. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
festival=
, limited=
, or wide=
. I have to admit, though, I am not clear on how they could be adequately tracked for reassessment. —
Erik (
talk •
contrib) -
05:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)year=
, month=
, day=
which would be used by the template to automatically categorize it as
Category:Future films releasing on October 12, 2008, for example, or
Category:Future films releasing in October 2008 or
Category:Future films releasing in 2008 if more specific dates aren't specified. Any Future-Class articles without at least a year filled in would go to
Category:Future films needing release date. Now, the point of all of these categories is so that as soon as a film is released, it goes to a normal assessment class. Additionally, films with somewhat unclear release dates can be re-checked closer to their release to ascertain their current status. To me, this means something public and openly accessible: ie, limited or wide, but not festival release.
Girolamo Savonarola (
talk)
05:59, 12 October 2008 (UTC)Would it be worth exploring the option of having a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly open task collaboration amongst the members? The regular shift in focus would break up the monotony, while only featured one at a time would also reduce the sense of being overwhelmed which members may otherwise feel if confronted with the full scope of remaining work. Additionally, we have recently overhauled the project banner to fully deprecate the separate "needs" banners into project banner parameters. Should this sort of task be split amongst members, or is it too admin-ish to spend their time on? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe that Erik had proposed adding some additional "needs-X" parameters to the project banner. Additionally, Nehrams and I discussed expanding the "how to get the article to the next class" sub-templates to include more than the Stub and Start classes. And as per above, non-film articles will require these to be re-written for their type of content. (This can probably be handled in conjunction with specific task force parameters, such as Festivals, Awards, or Filmmaking.) Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Relevant discussion can be found here. Looks like I need to get around to these concise messages. If anyone else wants to pitch in, feel free to do so. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 05:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
The contest department may be forthcoming, primarily in order to provide incentives for working on the Core articles. We could also provide general contests for general article improvement, as well as open task collaborations or other assessment drives. Thoughts on how to best run these are definitely wanted. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
The wiki-wide peer review overhaul seems to have optimized their reviews past what we can offer, and gives the benefit of more eyes on the PR. Is it worth us maintaining a wholly separate process, or should we just transclude the general PRs within the Review department PR section? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
The task forces which focus on film-related topics are in desperate need of their own style guidelines. Expansion of our MOS, infoboxes, templates, etc to standardize these articles is going to be a continuing concern and possible hindrance to their ability to create viable FAs without some guidance beyond the ad hoc. Identifying key members of these task forces also will help. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Please feel free to address them here.
Again, I look forward to seeing everyone work together here, and I have very good feeling that we'll get a great deal accomplished! :) Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
While I'm glad to see all the topics laid out for the coordinators on this talk page, I was wondering if there was any chance that we could prioritize discussions. There are a lot of topics we can discuss at any given time, but I think we could sort them by importance. For example, the V0.7 revisions selection topic seems to need immediate response, though I have to wonder just what could realistically be accomplished in six days (with the deadline being Oct. 20th). — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 19:56, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Okay, here they are. I've kept this simple - each of us gets 29 entries more or less, divided alphabetically by both coordinator and article title. I hope that's not a problem. Please also be advised to check all articles - even the FAs - to ensure that nothing inappropriate has snuck in. Many of these articles are not sufficiently developed to make us proud (yet), but as these articles will be representing us, finding the best extant revision is just as important. And if a few minor edits will go a long way, please don't be shy. :) Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
It's been made known to me by Walkerma that we actually misapplied the "scope points". For the most part, this is negligible bc the formula I used accorded extra scope points to a very limited number of articles, usually in small quantities, and to articles already well within the 1250-pt window. However, apparently all of our importance-assessed articles (ie the core articles) should get an extra 99 points. The following articles therefore should be added:
So that's an additional 65 films, for a grand total of 266, which makes for 38 per coordinator (including those already on your lists). I'll add these accordingly in a bit. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 15:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
The selected revisions, as of now, have been incorporated into the SelectionBot subpage located here. Although today is technically the deadline, I imagine that it may still be some time before all of the revisions are checked, so if you haven't finished your list yet, please do hurry up and submit your article revisons on that page. Many thanks to those of you who already did most or all of your lists. Editors who completed theirs will receive the Silver Reel (Service Award, 2nd Class), while editors who had accomplished most of their list before the deadline will receive the Bronze Reel (Service Award, 3rd Class). Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 03:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Question: does anyone feel there is a need for a new task force on Race films, the independently-produced productions made exclusively in the first half of the 20th century for African Americans? I've notice a great many well-known films from this genre are absent from Wikipedia, hence my asking. Thanks! Ecoleetage ( talk) 18:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
As I've now announced on the future films department, we're very close to having the banner able to categorize our future films by release month and year, and to identify any articles lacking the parameters needed to accomplish this. Despite some last-minute hiccups, I anticipate that this will go functional within the next day or two at the latest. Much like assessment, although this will be somewhat burdensome at the start for the department, once all the current films have been appropriately tagged, regular maintenance will become vastly easier. In particular, new and untagged Future-class articles can be found immediately, and films about to be released or already released will be accessible through special categories created for this purpose. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
I've basically finished my topic workshop draft, and it can be started whenever the coordinators give their approval. For a sample of a functioning topic workshop, you can see the topic workshop for WP:ANIME, which I made about a month ago. Given that the film project has a good deal more members making quality content, I can see the film project's topic workshop being more productive, but it's a good comparison. Feel free to propose a few topics to fill up the page; the whole purpose of the workshop is to give visibility to possible topics, no matter how impossible you may think they are. Cheers, — sephiroth bcr ( converse) 06:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Coming back to this, I've been extremely busy as of late, so I haven't had the time to promote the topic workshop. Anyways, if you have an idea, even a remote idea of a topic, please propose it. If you know people that are working on a group of related articles, tell them about this. The whole point of the workshop is to encourage the creation of quality content. The GTs and FTs are gravy on top of this. — sephiroth bcr ( converse) 08:37, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
As per prior conversation, I'd like to propose devolving peer review back into the main PR. Our review department will continue to transclude film-related PRs from the general PR location at WP:PR, but we will no longer offer a segregated service. I personally feel that this is for the best, since it allows the PRs to have to full benefit of the new automated tools of the general PR process, gives them site-wide coverage in the main pool, and also eliminates a sizeable amount of bureaucracy from our end - and unnecessarily redundant bureaucracy at that. Please let me know your thoughts either way, Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 01:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
As anyone who has been following much of the conversation on the project talk page and the infobox talk page may know by now, the IMDb/RS question has again become very prominent in the weeks after I first raised this here. I believe that this reinforces ever more strongly the high-priority to thoroughly and unambiguously clarify the place that the IMDb does and does not have here. Since this debate keeps on being aroused in multiple locations (individual talk pages, the RS noticeboard, template talk pages, the project), this requires a centralized discussion. However, it probably would be advisable at this juncture not to simply impose this at a coordinator level, but rather to have a comprehensive, open, and transparent RfC on the matter. Many of our coordinators have had considerable experience in these discussions and have some striking insight and strong arguments on this issue, and it would be excellent if a clear, cogent, and penetrating case could be drafted up by them either collectively or individually. Having a healthy amount of input from both within and without the project certainly would offer an excellent mix of fresh perspective with experienced insight. Thoughts? (Not on the IMDb itself, but rather the idea of an RfC.) Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 01:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I have been thinking about how to motivate and expand this community since there is not much collaboration in the structure that WikiProject Films provides with article assessments and task forces. We have a good setup, but what value does it have if nobody uses it? We should survey members of the community to understand how they feel about WikiProject Films, as was brought up in a discussion above. We can ask questions like those of involvement at WT:FILM: (i) "Do you have Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films on your watchlist? Why or why not?" (ii) "Do you feel comfortable participating in topics at the talk page?" and (iii) "What do you think would make you feel more part of the community?" With a limited set of questions like these, we can assess the outside perspective and make changes to be more accommodating. This leads to my second thought, outreach. We can use the feedback to conduct a more active outreach campaign. For example, we can formalize the process and contact editors who have contributed significantly to film articles. It may be more useful to have a lighter template than the current one... design one that is lighter in color and more welcoming in tone. ("If you want to ask anything about writing film articles, please come by our talk page and do so!") We will not get everyone into the fold, but if we contact more potential community members, the chances of expanding our membership will improve. The questionnaire and outreach could encourage more involvement, which I think would help shape any bureaucratic tasks we have in mind. — Erik ( talk • contrib) 18:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Another factor that needs to be considered, I think, is that film is a topic that is more likely to attract "dabblers". When someone signs up to work on WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, for instance, I would expect that they usually have considerable experience with the subject, including at least several years of post-college education specializing in the topic (or something close to it). My assumption is that this simply isn't the case with our project - if anything, we are more likely to have a lower average age of participants. Additionally, many of them may simply have signed up because they consider themselves film buffs, but may not actually do substantial editing work. This isn't a judgement on any of our members, but I think that the topic itself by its nature simply is going to have a lower average commitment. (I would imagine that this is also the case with similar topics, such as other large-scale pop culture projects.) If this is the case, then we have two (potentially divergent) goals: to foster new members towards more activity as well as to identify our most productive and valuable members and continue to help facilitating their work and make them appreciated. Both are a matter of nurturing, of course. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 02:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
A. Strongly disagree | B. Disagree | C. Somewhat disagree | D. Neutral | E. Somewhat agree | F. Agree | G. Strongly agree |
I have started Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Questionnaire 1. We can hold discussion on the questionnaire's talk page instead of here to prepare the questionnaire. If those interested in participating could please watchlist the questionnaire, we can focus on structuring, wording, and distribution. I was also thinking that once we have a rough layout, we can invite other editors through the community talk page to take a look at it. Perhaps there is some insight to be had that could be incorporated. — Erik ( talk • contrib) 16:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I've revised the set to have 11 questions, and I've set up a sub-page. Please let me know if there are any other questions that could be asked, and if the sub-page adequately guides an editor in filling out a questionnaire. — Erik ( talk • contrib) 21:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
So what's the status on this now? Are we about ready to launch? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 09:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to leave a comment on Cbrown1023's talk page, asking if his bot can send out the notice. The message will say:
Does that look like it will work? Feel free to tinker with it. Once I've got one or two approvals, I'll send it off for BrownBot to take over. -- Nehrams2020 ( talk) 01:55, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I've been a bit concerned about some of the task forces for a while now, it also seems like the main project talk page gets very cluttered with small items which are not necessarily project-wide concerns. I was looking over MilHist again, as they have a similar structure, and I noticed that the top of WT:MILHIST has this:
At the moment, I've been copying some of our recent sections which are more announcement-like and less discussion-based into the relevant task forces' talk pages, but it seems logical that if we actually move these threads instead of mirroring them, then they are more likely to both give the task forces a more obvious purpose as well as making it easier for editors who are only interested in certain topics to monitor the germane issues without a forest of other sections they may have no curiosity about. The project talk page would then serve for project-wide discussions.
Any thoughts regarding this? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 22:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This WikiProject Film page is an archive, log collection, or currently inactive page; it is kept primarily for historical interest. | ![]() |
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 7 |
I apologize for having not formally addressed the new coordinators yet - other affairs online and offline have prevented this. I hope to have time later today and rectify this with a proper introduction and comprehensive report on where we stand, as well as some proposals for future initiatives.
I also am somewhat sorry that the 0.7 contest was created without prior consultation, but the imminent deadline of the 0.7 release version's publication forced my hand; plans were already in the cards to apply something similar to the core department over time, so this will afford us a test-run. Nehrams had also laid the groundwork of a review table to identify individual article problems - the contest is merely a logical extension to this work. Please do not view the quick release as an attempt to prevent critique, however - I am happy to discuss any changes either here or on the contest's talk page. Adjustments made mid-stream are not ideal, but in this particular case, we'll have to make that sacrifice if need be. Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 11:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Question As one of the new coordinators, I should ask: what else should we be focusing on for our coordinator duties? Thanks. Ecoleetage ( talk) 21:12, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I've been working on a draft of the topic workshop I made for WP:ANIME and adapting it for WP:FILM, and am nearly done. Any commentary on the workshop itself before I finish it and set into motion? Basically, the general idea is that you have a centralized place to propose topics, and they can receive input from the community, as well as garner more visibility and help. — sephiroth bcr ( converse) 22:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Another question as I consider possible featured topics... what about James Dean and his three films? He has been on stage and in television as well. Can the actor and the three films make up a featured topic or not? Just trying to understand the extent of the topic boundaries. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 23:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
I apologize for not being able to make an introductory address to the new coordinators earlier - some unexpected offline commitments left me with too little time earlier to properly gather my thoughts and address you all with sufficient depth.
First of all - congratulations on being elected! I am deeply honored to be working with each of you, and I'm very pleased to see that we've yielded such a strong field of coordinators, all of whom I am familiar with as regular, thoughtful contributors to our endeavors. Perhaps the proof in the pudding is that you've already gotten off to a strong start, as the discussions already begun here clearly evidence! :) This is also, of course, something our expansion has helped facilitate, and I look forward to seeing the coordinator talk page truly becoming a place of collaboration, brainstorming, and initiative-taking.
Let me get a few of the sterner items of the agenda out of the way first:
This project has not yet undergone a Tag and Assess drive, which is quite unusual for a WikiProject of this size. Is this warranted at the moment? If so, how shall we proceed, and is anyone interested in organizing it? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Would it be advisable for task forces to be directly under the purview of one or two coordinators each? This would give the task forces direct points-of-contact for any issues they need assistance with, and also allow the coordinators to regularly evaluate their needs and suggest common solutions here as need be. I also think that this may be crucial for upcoming tasks that we really need to finally get around to, such as style guidelines for articles that aren't about individual films, as well as assessment standards for those articles, notability and naming guidelines, and specialized infoboxes. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
There we go. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 04:15, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to create a task force to cover articles on Organizations, Schools, Institutions, Companies, etc. Much of this is currently tagged under the Filmmaking task force (although not all are), and it seems to actually be more appropriate to group these together, as they will have a more common structure and content. This could also be a joint task force with other relevant WikiProjects such as WikiProject Companies and WikiProject Organizations. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
This is urgently looming, since we have a deadline of October 20th, IIRC. Anyone interested in helping out with this will be greatly appreciated. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
(Much of this is verbatim from the last time these were brought up.)
Many of our editors - and by extension, the project - seem to get active in fits and starts, and in some of our key areas, such as assessment and reviews, go from moribund to busy back to moribund again without much rhyme or reason. Others, like CotW or Translation just died outright. I've been considering creating some new departments such as Contests and perhaps even a rotating open task (see below), but maybe it would be worth polling our members first to find out more about what drives their participation. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Has the encyclopedia made it apparent enough that the IMDb is not a reliable source? It seems a common stumbling block for so many editors that they can't rely on the site, and yet there isn't much in the way of a formal declaration to the effect. Also, should this go into the style guidelines, be thrown to RS, or perhaps be elsewhere? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Do characters who only appear significantly in one work actually justify independent articles? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
It may be worth looking at AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains and identifying fictional characters who appear in only one film. A couple of examples include George Bailey and Mister Potter. Quite a few possibilities simply redirect to their respective films' articles. We could do a few search engine tests to see if any of the characters have significant coverage of themselves with the film only in the background. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 20:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
We've discussed adding additional parameters into the template to identify a Future-Class film's release date, so as to help automate re-assessment, especially for less-mainstream releases. This is also crucial since Future-class articles "go dark" on the assessment logs, which makes it difficult to track them otherwise. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
festival=
, limited=
, or wide=
. I have to admit, though, I am not clear on how they could be adequately tracked for reassessment. —
Erik (
talk •
contrib) -
05:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)year=
, month=
, day=
which would be used by the template to automatically categorize it as
Category:Future films releasing on October 12, 2008, for example, or
Category:Future films releasing in October 2008 or
Category:Future films releasing in 2008 if more specific dates aren't specified. Any Future-Class articles without at least a year filled in would go to
Category:Future films needing release date. Now, the point of all of these categories is so that as soon as a film is released, it goes to a normal assessment class. Additionally, films with somewhat unclear release dates can be re-checked closer to their release to ascertain their current status. To me, this means something public and openly accessible: ie, limited or wide, but not festival release.
Girolamo Savonarola (
talk)
05:59, 12 October 2008 (UTC)Would it be worth exploring the option of having a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly open task collaboration amongst the members? The regular shift in focus would break up the monotony, while only featured one at a time would also reduce the sense of being overwhelmed which members may otherwise feel if confronted with the full scope of remaining work. Additionally, we have recently overhauled the project banner to fully deprecate the separate "needs" banners into project banner parameters. Should this sort of task be split amongst members, or is it too admin-ish to spend their time on? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe that Erik had proposed adding some additional "needs-X" parameters to the project banner. Additionally, Nehrams and I discussed expanding the "how to get the article to the next class" sub-templates to include more than the Stub and Start classes. And as per above, non-film articles will require these to be re-written for their type of content. (This can probably be handled in conjunction with specific task force parameters, such as Festivals, Awards, or Filmmaking.) Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Relevant discussion can be found here. Looks like I need to get around to these concise messages. If anyone else wants to pitch in, feel free to do so. — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 05:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
The contest department may be forthcoming, primarily in order to provide incentives for working on the Core articles. We could also provide general contests for general article improvement, as well as open task collaborations or other assessment drives. Thoughts on how to best run these are definitely wanted. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
The wiki-wide peer review overhaul seems to have optimized their reviews past what we can offer, and gives the benefit of more eyes on the PR. Is it worth us maintaining a wholly separate process, or should we just transclude the general PRs within the Review department PR section? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
The task forces which focus on film-related topics are in desperate need of their own style guidelines. Expansion of our MOS, infoboxes, templates, etc to standardize these articles is going to be a continuing concern and possible hindrance to their ability to create viable FAs without some guidance beyond the ad hoc. Identifying key members of these task forces also will help. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Please feel free to address them here.
Again, I look forward to seeing everyone work together here, and I have very good feeling that we'll get a great deal accomplished! :) Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
While I'm glad to see all the topics laid out for the coordinators on this talk page, I was wondering if there was any chance that we could prioritize discussions. There are a lot of topics we can discuss at any given time, but I think we could sort them by importance. For example, the V0.7 revisions selection topic seems to need immediate response, though I have to wonder just what could realistically be accomplished in six days (with the deadline being Oct. 20th). — Erik ( talk • contrib) - 19:56, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Okay, here they are. I've kept this simple - each of us gets 29 entries more or less, divided alphabetically by both coordinator and article title. I hope that's not a problem. Please also be advised to check all articles - even the FAs - to ensure that nothing inappropriate has snuck in. Many of these articles are not sufficiently developed to make us proud (yet), but as these articles will be representing us, finding the best extant revision is just as important. And if a few minor edits will go a long way, please don't be shy. :) Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
It's been made known to me by Walkerma that we actually misapplied the "scope points". For the most part, this is negligible bc the formula I used accorded extra scope points to a very limited number of articles, usually in small quantities, and to articles already well within the 1250-pt window. However, apparently all of our importance-assessed articles (ie the core articles) should get an extra 99 points. The following articles therefore should be added:
So that's an additional 65 films, for a grand total of 266, which makes for 38 per coordinator (including those already on your lists). I'll add these accordingly in a bit. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 15:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
The selected revisions, as of now, have been incorporated into the SelectionBot subpage located here. Although today is technically the deadline, I imagine that it may still be some time before all of the revisions are checked, so if you haven't finished your list yet, please do hurry up and submit your article revisons on that page. Many thanks to those of you who already did most or all of your lists. Editors who completed theirs will receive the Silver Reel (Service Award, 2nd Class), while editors who had accomplished most of their list before the deadline will receive the Bronze Reel (Service Award, 3rd Class). Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 03:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Question: does anyone feel there is a need for a new task force on Race films, the independently-produced productions made exclusively in the first half of the 20th century for African Americans? I've notice a great many well-known films from this genre are absent from Wikipedia, hence my asking. Thanks! Ecoleetage ( talk) 18:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
As I've now announced on the future films department, we're very close to having the banner able to categorize our future films by release month and year, and to identify any articles lacking the parameters needed to accomplish this. Despite some last-minute hiccups, I anticipate that this will go functional within the next day or two at the latest. Much like assessment, although this will be somewhat burdensome at the start for the department, once all the current films have been appropriately tagged, regular maintenance will become vastly easier. In particular, new and untagged Future-class articles can be found immediately, and films about to be released or already released will be accessible through special categories created for this purpose. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 05:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
I've basically finished my topic workshop draft, and it can be started whenever the coordinators give their approval. For a sample of a functioning topic workshop, you can see the topic workshop for WP:ANIME, which I made about a month ago. Given that the film project has a good deal more members making quality content, I can see the film project's topic workshop being more productive, but it's a good comparison. Feel free to propose a few topics to fill up the page; the whole purpose of the workshop is to give visibility to possible topics, no matter how impossible you may think they are. Cheers, — sephiroth bcr ( converse) 06:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Coming back to this, I've been extremely busy as of late, so I haven't had the time to promote the topic workshop. Anyways, if you have an idea, even a remote idea of a topic, please propose it. If you know people that are working on a group of related articles, tell them about this. The whole point of the workshop is to encourage the creation of quality content. The GTs and FTs are gravy on top of this. — sephiroth bcr ( converse) 08:37, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
As per prior conversation, I'd like to propose devolving peer review back into the main PR. Our review department will continue to transclude film-related PRs from the general PR location at WP:PR, but we will no longer offer a segregated service. I personally feel that this is for the best, since it allows the PRs to have to full benefit of the new automated tools of the general PR process, gives them site-wide coverage in the main pool, and also eliminates a sizeable amount of bureaucracy from our end - and unnecessarily redundant bureaucracy at that. Please let me know your thoughts either way, Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 01:11, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
As anyone who has been following much of the conversation on the project talk page and the infobox talk page may know by now, the IMDb/RS question has again become very prominent in the weeks after I first raised this here. I believe that this reinforces ever more strongly the high-priority to thoroughly and unambiguously clarify the place that the IMDb does and does not have here. Since this debate keeps on being aroused in multiple locations (individual talk pages, the RS noticeboard, template talk pages, the project), this requires a centralized discussion. However, it probably would be advisable at this juncture not to simply impose this at a coordinator level, but rather to have a comprehensive, open, and transparent RfC on the matter. Many of our coordinators have had considerable experience in these discussions and have some striking insight and strong arguments on this issue, and it would be excellent if a clear, cogent, and penetrating case could be drafted up by them either collectively or individually. Having a healthy amount of input from both within and without the project certainly would offer an excellent mix of fresh perspective with experienced insight. Thoughts? (Not on the IMDb itself, but rather the idea of an RfC.) Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 01:21, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
I have been thinking about how to motivate and expand this community since there is not much collaboration in the structure that WikiProject Films provides with article assessments and task forces. We have a good setup, but what value does it have if nobody uses it? We should survey members of the community to understand how they feel about WikiProject Films, as was brought up in a discussion above. We can ask questions like those of involvement at WT:FILM: (i) "Do you have Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Films on your watchlist? Why or why not?" (ii) "Do you feel comfortable participating in topics at the talk page?" and (iii) "What do you think would make you feel more part of the community?" With a limited set of questions like these, we can assess the outside perspective and make changes to be more accommodating. This leads to my second thought, outreach. We can use the feedback to conduct a more active outreach campaign. For example, we can formalize the process and contact editors who have contributed significantly to film articles. It may be more useful to have a lighter template than the current one... design one that is lighter in color and more welcoming in tone. ("If you want to ask anything about writing film articles, please come by our talk page and do so!") We will not get everyone into the fold, but if we contact more potential community members, the chances of expanding our membership will improve. The questionnaire and outreach could encourage more involvement, which I think would help shape any bureaucratic tasks we have in mind. — Erik ( talk • contrib) 18:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Another factor that needs to be considered, I think, is that film is a topic that is more likely to attract "dabblers". When someone signs up to work on WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, for instance, I would expect that they usually have considerable experience with the subject, including at least several years of post-college education specializing in the topic (or something close to it). My assumption is that this simply isn't the case with our project - if anything, we are more likely to have a lower average age of participants. Additionally, many of them may simply have signed up because they consider themselves film buffs, but may not actually do substantial editing work. This isn't a judgement on any of our members, but I think that the topic itself by its nature simply is going to have a lower average commitment. (I would imagine that this is also the case with similar topics, such as other large-scale pop culture projects.) If this is the case, then we have two (potentially divergent) goals: to foster new members towards more activity as well as to identify our most productive and valuable members and continue to help facilitating their work and make them appreciated. Both are a matter of nurturing, of course. Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 02:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
A. Strongly disagree | B. Disagree | C. Somewhat disagree | D. Neutral | E. Somewhat agree | F. Agree | G. Strongly agree |
I have started Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Questionnaire 1. We can hold discussion on the questionnaire's talk page instead of here to prepare the questionnaire. If those interested in participating could please watchlist the questionnaire, we can focus on structuring, wording, and distribution. I was also thinking that once we have a rough layout, we can invite other editors through the community talk page to take a look at it. Perhaps there is some insight to be had that could be incorporated. — Erik ( talk • contrib) 16:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I've revised the set to have 11 questions, and I've set up a sub-page. Please let me know if there are any other questions that could be asked, and if the sub-page adequately guides an editor in filling out a questionnaire. — Erik ( talk • contrib) 21:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
So what's the status on this now? Are we about ready to launch? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 09:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to leave a comment on Cbrown1023's talk page, asking if his bot can send out the notice. The message will say:
Does that look like it will work? Feel free to tinker with it. Once I've got one or two approvals, I'll send it off for BrownBot to take over. -- Nehrams2020 ( talk) 01:55, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I've been a bit concerned about some of the task forces for a while now, it also seems like the main project talk page gets very cluttered with small items which are not necessarily project-wide concerns. I was looking over MilHist again, as they have a similar structure, and I noticed that the top of WT:MILHIST has this:
At the moment, I've been copying some of our recent sections which are more announcement-like and less discussion-based into the relevant task forces' talk pages, but it seems logical that if we actually move these threads instead of mirroring them, then they are more likely to both give the task forces a more obvious purpose as well as making it easier for editors who are only interested in certain topics to monitor the germane issues without a forest of other sections they may have no curiosity about. The project talk page would then serve for project-wide discussions.
Any thoughts regarding this? Girolamo Savonarola ( talk) 22:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)