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Narrated by

Why is the Narrated by parameter put above Starring in the infobox? I've seen many articles where this is obviously out-of-place, such as Spartacus (film). On many films like this the narrator is only heard from once, at the beginning for less than a minute. On some, like Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the narrator is only heard once at the end for a quarter minute. I see no instance where the narrator should be positioned this way. Perhaps someone thought the narrator was linked to the Writing credits currently positioned directly above, but that's not valid. Actors work from a script as well.

I propose Narrated by be moved below Starring in the infobox. - Gothicfilm (talk) 21:33, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Well the Narrator field is not meant for people who provide a disembodied voice at all in a film. Morgan Freeman is not the narrator of the Shawshank Redemption, he providers internal dialogue as he is essentially the main character providing an external perspective of Andy Dufresne. Morgan Freeman is however the narrator of March of the Penguins. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:36, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

That's true, but we already fixed that problem earlier, as seen in the archive Template talk:Infobox film/Archive 23#Narrator. The guideline now says Note: do not include actors with a role in the film; this is not a place for in-character voiceovers. I've used that a number of times since to take out twice-billed actors. This is a different issue that shows up on every page with a Narrator credit. - Gothicfilm (talk) 21:53, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but in your particular example you can just remove the narrator anyway, providing an introduction doesn't merit a narrator credit. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:55, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I think people would contest that. They thought it was legit to put it in to begin with. The guideline needs to address this. I'm not advocating removing narrators from the infobox if they only provided an introduction. I doubt a consensus could be found for that. But let's move Narrated by down below the Starring field. - Gothicfilm (talk) 22:00, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Do we have access to the original reasoning for placing the Narrator field at its current location within the infobox? DonIago (talk) 13:47, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, my guess is someone thought the narrator was linked to the Writing credits currently positioned directly above, but that's not valid.

Can we get some action/further comment on this? Or do people agree with the suggestion to just delete a narrator who was only heard briefly in the film, as in the examples given at the top here? I'd rather move the Narrated by field down below Starring, but something should be done. - Gothicfilm (talk) 08:10, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we should clarify that "Narrator" is just for documentaries in the guideline, and not voiceovers in feature films. If an actor narrates a story as a fictional character then that is voiceover rather than narration since they are still playing a part, and does not belong in the narrator field IMO. Betty Logan (talk) 10:31, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Such as Goodfellas, for example. What do you mean I'm a funny guy...? Back on topic - yes, agree with Gothicfilm that the field should be placed below the starring field in the infobox. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 10:39, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Betty. My impression was that "Narrated by" was for documentaries. I would support a more explicit definition of that. Erik (talk | contribs) 17:47, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I would support that as well. But we still have the many fiction film pages with a Narrator entry. Unless someone removes them all - which I don't support, since some are legit, such as at Barry Lyndon - the Narrated by field still should be moved down. This would do no harm to documentaries. - Gothicfilm (talk) 21:09, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Can we do whatever is necessary to implement this change? No one is against it, it would do no harm to documentaries, and the issue of whether to include brief narration can be addressed later, as it stands regardless of where the narrator is listed. But in the meantime, more than four months after this was proposed, "Narrated by Vic Perrin" is still listed above "Starring Kirk Douglas" at Spartacus (film), even though the narration is only heard once, at the beginning for less than a minute. Even legit, proper use of the Narrated by parameter, such as at Barry Lyndon, should be listed below the Starring field. - Gothicfilm (talk) 21:21, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it needs moving, a narrated by credit shouldn't really be being used if there are stars should it? Who are the stars in March of the Penguins? Though I confess I am struggling to think of a film with both a narrator and a star cast, so I might be missing the obvious. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 23:34, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, Barry Lyndon is an example. Used extensive narration. There are a number of other films where a not-on-camera actor was legitimately given the credit Narrated by. And all of them position the narrator below the cast. WP infoboxes should do the same. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:25, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

This has been dormant long enough to be archived. I'm reviving it as a last chance for some action. I've given good examples above as to why this should be implemented. No one's opposed to Narrated by being moved below Starring in the infobox. Can we ask an admin to make the change? - Gothicfilm (talk) 14:32, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

If you want to request an edit by an admin you need to to add the {{Edit protected}} template to this page (full instructions at the template) with a brief request of what you would like changed. Betty Logan (talk) 14:39, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Is that the best course to change the order of fields in the infobox? - Gothicfilm (talk) 14:43, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

It's the only way on a fully protected article as far as I know. Betty Logan (talk) 15:25, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I'm posting the

request here, specifically that Narrated by be moved below Starring in the film infobox. As discussed above, this change in the order of the infobox fields is uncontroversial and sensible. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:29, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Done. You may want to update the documentation to reflect the change. Cheers, LittleMountain5 02:10, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Who says it's sensible and uncontroversial? There was inconclusive discussion, right? --Ring Cinema (talk) 06:16, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I undid my edit for the time being for further discussion, per your request on my talk page. I do believe a consensus was achieved here; the discussion began over five months ago and involved six editors, two of whom supported the change and none of whom opposed it. The rationale for change seems logical: in the few film infoboxes that list both stars and narrators, the stars almost always play a more significant role than the narrators, as can be seen in the examples above and elsewhere. Also, the vast majority of infoboxes list one or the other, and therefore are unaffected. Thus, narrators should be listed after stars as proposed. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be happy to see it.

For reference, the "narrator" parameter was originally added with this edit following this discussion, which provides little insight on the issue. LittleMountain5 07:50, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Darkwarriorblake seemed to take exception to the proposal and his objections weren't answered. Then it was dropped for a month and someone says it's "dormant". Nine days later Gothic says it's uncontroversial. For those of us who watch these discussions, the assumption is that objections stand unless more is said. Saying nothing for a month and then claiming you had a consensus back then leaves something to be desired. I'm not speaking to the merits of the proposal at all. --Ring Cinema (talk) 17:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

My only claim was that this change in the order of the infobox fields is uncontroversial and sensible. As Little Mountain 5 said, the discussion began over five months ago and involved six editors, two of whom supported the change and none of whom opposed it. That includes DWB, who talked about other uses or misuses of the field. And now you have raised no actual objection to the change either. Yet you go to LM5's Talk page telling him to undo the change he implemented. You're demanding more discussion yet you admit in your edit summary Perhaps it isn't controversial. Why should even more time be spent on this? I have given clear reasons above why this should be implemented, and LM5 agrees as well. I have other things to do and suspect others on this page do as well. As there are no actual objections, I propose the change be reinstated. - Gothicfilm (talk) 20:54, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I would suggest you argue the merits of your case instead of offering a tendentious summary of DWB's non-support. I'm pretty sure that inaccurately summarizing another editor's words is frowned upon. Little Mountain reversed himself so we can't really rely on his earlier reasons. We are discussing this because there is clearly no consensus to make the change, the same as six weeks ago when you gave up on it. I give you credit for knowing that consensus doesn't spontaneously germinate after six weeks. Your statement that it is uncontroversial seems like wishful thinking. Maybe DWB wants to weigh in, as you should have invited him to do absent an effort to respond to his simple objection. As an alternative, I'd like to suggest that we eliminate the Narrator field and change the Starring guidelines to include the narrator when there are no actors. Would that work? --Ring Cinema (talk) 00:06, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

No. How is that better than something that is clear as is? Films don't Star narrators. As I said before, Barry Lyndon is an example of a film that used extensive narration. There are a number of others where a not-on-camera actor was legitimately given the credit Narrated by. And all of them position the narrator below the cast. WP infoboxes should do the same. Why do you write I would suggest you argue the merits of your case when I clearly laid it out above? Did you bother to read the opening paragraph? I do not want to rewrite all the points I have already made. You are demanding that others spend more time on this, including DWB, when they are obviously not inclined to do so. If there's no more comments on this, I will be requesting the admin edit again in due course. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm concerned with your attempt to circumvent the WP policy on consensus. Repeating that mistake would not be a confidence building measure. In the case of Barry Lyndon, the narrator could be left out of the infobox under my proposal, if not listed in the credit block of the poster. Would that be a bad outcome? --Ring Cinema (talk) 02:15, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I never gave up on this, I was giving people a chance to weigh in. I gave as much time as could possibly be expected. Anyone reading the above discussion can see I answered everybody who posted. No one objected to my actual proposal, including DWB or yourself. You never posted anything until the change was made. Then you proposed an alternative that had already been answered. Removing the Narrated by field is a different issue that would be controversial and would require support it hasn't gotten here. That is in contrast to switching the order as I proposed, which does no harm to documentaries or anything else, so it is uncontroversial. - Gothicfilm (talk) 02:47, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be sensible to ping @Darkwarriorblake: to get his direct opinion on the matter rather than attempting to interpret his perspective. Oh, I just did that... DonIago (talk) 15:30, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

This was dormant long enough to be archived. I'm reviving it now. I gave good examples above as to why this should be implemented. Then it was implemented by an admin, only to reverse it because of one editor who did not actually object to it. The admin, User:Little Mountain 5 said at the time:

I undid my edit for the time being for further discussion, per your request on my talk page. I do believe a consensus was achieved here; the discussion began over five months ago and involved six editors, two of whom supported the change and none of whom opposed it. The rationale for change seems logical: in the few film infoboxes that list both stars and narrators, the stars almost always play a more significant role than the narrators, as can be seen in the examples above and elsewhere. Also, the vast majority of infoboxes list one or the other, and therefore are unaffected. Thus, narrators should be listed after stars as proposed. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be happy to see it.

For reference, the "narrator" parameter was originally added with this edit following this discussion, which provides little insight on the issue. LittleMountain5 07:50, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

The links LM5 supplied show there was no reason given at all for placing the Narrated by parameter above Starring - it was just suggested by one user in November 2006 and no one objected. Only three people took part in the discussion. There was never any consensus for the placement, only that Narrated by be added to the infobox.

LM5 seemed to fully agree that it should be moved below Starring. I would like to get this implemented. To anyone who wants to propose eliminating the Narrator parameter or changing its rules, may I suggest they start a new proposal to do that, as that is another issue. This is about placement of parameters that are already in use, and it should not be hung up by discussions of possible changes to one of those parameters. No one's opposed to Narrated by being moved below Starring in the infobox. I would like to once again ask an admin to make the change. Thanks. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:20, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Gothicfilm, the narrator should be listed after the starring. For example (some films that come to mind with significant "non-character" narration), in The Magnificent Ambersons (film) and in The Age of Innocence (1993 film) has the narrator listed near the end of the credits but the infobox has them before the stars. AbramTerger (talk) 18:07, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

That is a good point. In fact, every film I can think of that actually has a Narrated by credit as well as a cast listing gives that credit after the stars. And they usually do not include that narrator credit on the film's poster, even when he or she is given single-card credit in the film itself, such as with Barry Lyndon and The Age of Innocence. So the current presentation of those credits in their films' infoboxes is contrary to how they appear in their sources. - Gothicfilm (talk) 21:24, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is an interesting example – the theatrical release poster bills the narrator straight after the starring cast. Maybe this is a more recent convention? —Flax5 22:14, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Adding the narrator on the poster would be related to the notability of the narrator. But even in Flax5's example the point remains, stars than narrator. AbramTerger (talk) 22:20, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

No further comment in over 24 hours. I'm posting the

request here again, specifically that Narrated by be moved below Starring in the film infobox. As discussed above, this change in the order of the infobox fields is uncontroversial and sensible. Including User:Little Mountain 5, who said narrators should be listed after stars as proposed, four editors support this specific change and no one has opposed it. - Gothicfilm (talk) 02:28, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Done Jackmcbarn (talk) 02:36, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Image size parameter

Why isn't this working? Something like the newspaper ad at Soeara Berbisa needs more than a hardcoded 220px. 250, 300 at least, for the text to be legible. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:58, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know about that particular situation, but I do know that it works on other pages -- but the default size is preferred, and because it's a thumbnail, it can be clicked on to see the full-size version. --Musdan77 (talk) 19:46, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

• At Soeara Berbisa that's not quite the image size parameter, that's a workaround... three months ago the image_size parameter actually did something. Now it doesn't. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:31, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it just me or did this greatly reduced the size of the displayed image. Its at the point now where the contents of the image are barely recognizable. Perhaps its the forced border but something needs to be correct this situation.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 19:51, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not just you. I'm seeing the same thing. The images are greatly reduced. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 21:23, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I just saw the same thing on Safe in Hell. I believe that the image size was recently capped at 220px (IIRC) - not a very good decision, in my opinion - but now the poster there is displaying at something like 125px. BMK (talk) 21:56, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what has happened here. The default is still set to 220 pixels as you can see here. This has only started today and the only recent edit to {{Infobox film}} is [1] by User:Jackmcbarn earlier today. He didn't alter the image parameter though, but maybe we could temporarily revert the change to see if it inadvertently affected it. Betty Logan (talk) 22:16, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I see a problem too. Not sure what general threads to check, but there is one here (with no answers yet): Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 127#Infobox Image. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:19, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

As an aside I notice some editors have reservations about hardcoding the poster size. Maybe after this issue is addressed we should resurrect that discussion, since the hardcoding was essentially backed by just two editors: Template_talk:Infobox_film/Archive_25#Image size/border not needed (of which I was one!). I still oppose editors over-riding browser defaults with hard sizes, but perhaps we can meet halfway on this and add a scaling parameter instead. Betty Logan (talk) 23:05, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I've looked at 23 different infoboxes, and with the exception of some flakiness with INfobox person, which I haven't actually seen myself, but which has been reported, Infobox film is the only one of the 23 to have this problem. If the film infobox is picking up something from a module somewhere (here I'll show my deep ignorance about infobox coding), perhaps the problems lies there? If not, can the film infobox be reverted to an earlier version that didn't have this problem to see if it goes away? BMK (talk) 00:28, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Whew, I thought I was the only one first noticing the smaller images, then going back to check and then confirming it starting today. I did notice that vertical images were reduced, but I noticed no change in horizontal images. Aspects (talk) 01:10, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• So let me get this straight. The image size parameter was removed by MSGJ with this edit citing this thread, which had one explicit support and a very compelling reason not to remove the parameter (I can name several other articles where a larger-than-standard image is necessary if need be, and did at the beginning of this thread). Then, we have another edit to the template today which may have affected image size as well (I don't think it did, because even after reverting the image sizes are still wonky). Now we have images which are fairly legible at thumbnail size looking like DYK images, and images of lobby cards looking like kids' toys. If this keeps happening I'm just going to stop using infoboxes altogether. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

It was pushed through on very weak support, but usually this is par for the course on this template: no-one responds to these discussions until they notice physical changes. What we are dealing with now though is a glitch which I don't think anyone has intended. We can revisit hardcoding discussion once we get this glitch sorted out. Betty Logan (talk) 02:18, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• Yep, posted at WP:VP/T... get the smart people on this. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:28, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Temporary revert request

The images in the infobox have suddenly shrunk over the last 24 hours. As you can see at Safe in Hell the image is now 148 pixels, whereas it should look like this (220 pixels). There was an edit earlier today, and we were wondering if an admin could perhaps temporarily revert that edit to see if it restores the image size. If it doesn't fix the image size problem then try reverting to the February 2014 version and see if that fixes the size. If neither of those work, then please restore the infobox to its most recent version and we will report the issue at Bugzilla. Betty Logan (talk) 01:01, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

•  Done - Here's hoping it works. This was very disconcerting. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:13, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm not getting any changes at Ruma Maida, but Siti Noerbaja seems to have the image at the right size. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:21, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
  • (ec) Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have worked. I checked a handful of film articles I hadn't looked at recently, and they've still got the reduced images. BMK (talk) 01:23, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I think we can rule out the infobox. The lede image has shrunk at List of highest-grossing films in the United Kingdom and that doesn't have any kind of infobox. Betty Logan (talk) 02:07, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• Someone's been screwing with the thumbnail size then... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:11, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

If you check the image dimensions you will see that it is now the vertical dimension that is now set to 220 pixels rather than the horizontal dimension. Something is aplying the default to the wrong dimension. Betty Logan (talk) 02:14, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• Sigh. I've reverted my revert on the infobox. Time to hunt down whatever happened (and that explains why Siti Noerbaia looks decent). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:15, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Looking at Siti Noerbaia the horizontal dimension is at 220 pixels, so it seems to be applying the default to both dimensions, rather than just the horizontal dimension: the longest dimension is capped at 220 pixels and the shorter dimension is set relative to that. Betty Logan (talk) 02:25, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks... this is just getting weirder and weirder. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:28, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I think Betty Logan's suggestion of adding a scaling parameter is good. we could get rid of the |image_size= and replace it with an as-needed |image_scale= which would set the value of |upright= in the image code to something other than 1. Frietjes (talk) 14:43, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I would certainly support that. We are already using the "upright" parameter as it is so we may as well provide direct access to it for editors who want to have larger images; it's certainly less intrusive than setting a hard pixel size. Betty Logan (talk) 00:28, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Another temporary revert request

I still think that this is something that's happening upstream of the infobox, but it seems that forcing the image size may have something to with it (per the VP/T thread). Could this edit which removed the image_size parameter be reverted temporarily, so that we can see if this change is in some way implicated? Not that it itself caused the problem, but the interaction between it and whatever has gone blooey upstream may be the cause. Thanks. BMK (talk) 03:07, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• Infobox person has the same issues even with the parameter still supported (Red Skelton, among others). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:16, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, I've seen that, but I have no idea if the two templates are written in similar fashions, so I thought checking this out would be worthwhile. BMK (talk) 03:19, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:30, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• Done. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:40, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, here's another data point, and, I think, a step forward. With that edit removed, if the infobox doesn't specify the image size -- that it, is used the default -- we get the mini-images we've been seing today. But if you specify the image size, it will display properly at that size. I've verified this with three semi-randomly selected film articles. BMK (talk) 03:57, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

• So exactly like the biography infobox. Definitely something outside of this infobox. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:10, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
• (ec)I've now verified what I saw with a couple of dozen film articles: any film article that I opened which had a normal size image in the infobox, when I went in to edit, I saw that it has a specified "image_size =" parameter. Any infobox which did not have a normal size image, which had the "mini-images" we've been talking about, when I looked inside, there was no "image_size=" parameter. When I entered a specified size, the image appeared at that size.

  So, there's something flaky about the default size, even now. I thought I saw that the infobox took the default size from a module upstream, but I can't recall where I read that, or what it might mean. I would suggest that the template should stay in its current state until the problem is ironed out.

  BMK (talk) 04:12, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: - Please can you sum all this up in a few words? Some system wide change that's broke the parameter? Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:30, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, bearing in mind that this is not my area of expertise: It seems that a change in the MediaWiki software interacted with the Infobox film template in some way to force all images to display at around 150px. BMK (talk) 13:44, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I changed the default to use |upright=1, which appears to fix the problem. as always, revert if this doesn't fix it. Frietjes (talk) 13:30, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Could you please revert that edit, because we've once again lost the ability to set specific sizes, such as for tall banner poster which need to be set below the default size. (I can't revert, I'm not a template editor.) BMK (talk) 13:38, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Do you want me to revert the edit just made on Hit the Deck, Ken? Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:41, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I think so, because I don't think Frietkes' edit is the answer to the problem. BMK (talk) 13:46, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Nevermind, I did it. BMK (talk) 13:53, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Try clearing your browser cache. In my browser the infobox images are back to their proper size now. Betty Logan (talk) 13:49, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

They're back to the default size, but the problem that images which are proportioned differently than normal film posters - such as small horizontal window cards, and tall vertical poster (see Metropolis (1927 film) for example, could not be set to an image size which displays them well - was not fixed with F's edit. BMK (talk) 13:53, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

The problem is nothing to do with infoboxes, modules, templates or anything else that we have control over. See my post of 14:24, 30 May 2014 to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 127#Infobox Image. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:26, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

License

Can someone please add "license" as parameter? Some films are distributed under CC licenses for example. --David Hedlund (talk) 04:50, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know that that would qualify as an essential detail; I have my doubts that it's particularly important to most readers. If the license is significant in some manner it might be better to add prose with appropriate sources that discuss the matter. DonIago (talk) 06:16, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

On which articles would the parameter even be used on? We don't tend to include parameters unless they are applicable to most film articles. Betty Logan (talk) 09:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

[[2]] lists some. --David Hedlund (talk) 11:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Most movies are proprietary and licenses are always applicable to movies. --David Hedlund (talk) 12:08, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Looking through that list there are literally five articles that use the infobox. The parameter simply isn't applicable to the overwhelming majority of films. Betty Logan (talk) 12:36, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The few times where a film is under a CC license it should be put in the article body, as is seen in the search results linked above. - Gothicfilm (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Country parameter and citations

I think we need to be careful about using the BFI site as a reliable indication of the order of the Production countries as they are not consistent. I think that this unreliability should be noted in the information for the template. For example, the Nolan's film The Prestige is listed as Great Britain / USA on their explore page but it lists it as USA / Great Britain on their Film and TV Database. Should we ignore the BFI for country order, do we know if which one is more likely to be accurate (the explore may just be alphabetical, but I haven't looked deeply to compare the differences in the explore vs their database. Does anyone know if they are looking at different criteria? If we know one is accurate and the other is not, we could indicated in the template information to ignore the one and only use the other as a reliable source. This could prevent some editing wars when editors find inconsistent citations and we try to resolve which are more accurate. AbramTerger (talk) 18:29, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Explore has replaced the database, which was discontinued around 2009/2010. There could be a number of valid reasons why the countries are in a different order. Explore may have opted for a simple alphabetic approach or if they actually order the countries according to some criteria then it may have been revised at some point. Either way, if there is an inconsistency between Explore and the database you should probably go with Explore since it will represent the BFI's latest viewpoint. In the case of The Prestige the AFI Catalog goes with Great Britain/USA too which backs up the Explore order. Betty Logan (talk) 19:11, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Does AFI list ANY films as "United States and Great Britain"? BFI seems to be doing it alphabetically in explore (and it makes me wonder if AFI is doing it as well), but ranked them in their database when they were doing it. But lumiere lists it as a "US / GB [Co-production]". We have had problems with editing wars when the facts are consistent, with inconsistency in reliable data, it becomes very difficult to be consistent.AbramTerger (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

The BFI certainly do NOT do it alphabetically: they have a formula they work to which will give what they consider to be a lead and a secondary (and tertiary, etc) production country. The thumbnail rules are available in their annual reports, I seem to remember. - SchroCat (talk) 11:46, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

If BFI has rules they do not seem to have consistently followed them, as demonstrated in the example I posted above for the Prestige, which lists it differently in 2 places on their website [It seems to me from some cursory examination that the Film and TV database has entries that change the order: some are US/GB, others are GB/US, but the explore.bfi seems to only display the order with Great Britain before the US, though admittedly I did not look at all examples in their database]. But the real issue is larger than which citation to use from BFI: there can be inconsistencies among several reliable sources for film information. A good example is The Dark Knight (which is another example of inconsistent BFI data). If we cite AFI or TCM we would indicate a single country, the United States (USA). We would have Great Britain / USA if we cited explore.bfi, but if we would have USA / Great Britain when we cite BFI's Film and TV database, or lumiere. So with 5 citations we have 2x USA/GB, 1x GB/USA, and 2x USA. Should we as editors, check and cite all 5 sources [or are there more to check, eg is country in IMDB reliable?], and average them to set the order, or do we come to a consensus of the order we should be checking the sources and cite the first one? Many do not have citations, but when a citation is added, that changes the order, editing wars have started. AbramTerger (talk) 15:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

If sources are inconsistent on this then there are two other potential approaches: if the film was co-produced under an international agreement it will sometimes say at the end of the end-credits when the copyright notice comes up. If the film itself doesn't say we should try to track down a scholarly source which takes precedence over ordinary sources. Betty Logan (talk) 21:46, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

So the crux of the problem remains: What should be the order for citing. If reliability is not an absolute (which seems to be demonstrated by the data or that the criteria being used are not all the same), WP needs to set an order for their reliability. If the primary source has some indication that "trumps" any or all the references, or some alternate source that we are not currently using that can trump any of the other reliable citations, I think that should be explicitly mentioned in here so editors don't fight over their own opinions on which site is more reliable than another.AbramTerger (talk) 08:59, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Image border

I noticed recently that a thin border has appeared around the infobox image at Transformers (film series). Is this due to a change to this template? And, if so, can it be fixed? nagualdesign 14:09, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Templates change all the time. I don't understand the reasoning for a default border either, but luckily it can be disabled by |border=0. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 14:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply. I've been searching for other examples that use transparent images. The Hobbit (film series) and Scream (film series) both have the same problem but Indiana Jones (franchise), which uses an SVG, looks fine. I guess it's supposed to look like small drop shadow. Oh well, I'll just fix the 3 pages I found. nagualdesign 14:29, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

The Indiana Jones article uses a different template ({{Infobox media franchise}}), which does not set a border. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 15:07, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Production company

I think that there needs to be a "Production company" field because the "Studio" and "Distributed by" fields have been misused. There have been cases where for a film produced by a major studio, the production companies that were used by the studio are actually inserted into the "Studio" field where the studio itself is only inserted in the "Distributed by" field. This is misleading because that makes it seem like a film is an independent production whose distribution rights were acquired by a studio. A studio can either be a producer/distributor or just a distributor (acquiring rights after the fact). I think that the inclusion of a "Production company" field will help clarify matters. Here is how it can work:

• For films produced by major studios, the "Studio" field should identify that major studio. The "Production company" field can optionally name the production companies that were used by the studio. The "Distributed by" field does not have to be used if the distributor is the studio itself.
• For films produced independently, the "Studio" field should not be used. The production companies would be identified in the "Production company" field, and the studio-as-distributor would be identified in the "Distributed by" field.

To use an example, About Last Night (2014 film) was produced under the studio Screen Gems, which is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The production companies used for this film were Rainforest Films and Olive Bridge Entertainment. Screen Gems also distributed the film, so this means only the "Studio" field needs to be filled out with Screen Gems. If desired, Rainforest Films and Olive Bridge Entertainment can be added to the "Production company" field. I think this approach will help identify all the companies' proper roles. What do others think? (Jedi94, this approach would help address Interstellar too.) Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 20:38, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to thank you for addressing this subject. From my editorial experience, I wholeheartedly agree with you that there is some misuse of the "Studio" and "Distributed by" fields across Wikipedia. Creating a new field for smaller production companies (instead of the major studios that are backing the film) is interesting, and would definitely benefit some films that are released by major studios under one of their multiple film banners (Disney and Sony are examples of these). One of the biggest problems that I often see now and then, is the mentioning of a major studio twice (e.g. Godzilla (2014 film) and Interstellar (film)). Currently, I would preferably have the major studios only be mentioned in the distributor field, for the sake of not being redundant (such as the case in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy films). But on the other hand, it does give the impression of the major studio only being a distributor, which in most studio releases, is not always the case. Your suggestions would effectively eliminate these type of redundancies. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 20:59, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! Interstellar was what was driving me crazy. :) I think passerby editors want to identify Syncopy in some fashion, and we can identify that and Lynda Obst Productions in the "Production company" field. For this film, we'll have to use both "Studio" and "Distributed by" since we have to make a distinction in their distributor roles. (There will be many other cases where this is a lot more straightforward.) Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 21:26, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Certainly! Before I can officially give my full support, I want to make sure that I'm completely clear on this. Therefore, I'm going to try to illustrate your suggestions to another upcoming film article I've recently worked on. If we were to ahead with this idea, how would the revised infobox for a film like Million Dollar Arm look like? Would the revised infobox look like this?: Production Company: Roth Films, Mayhem Pictures Studio: Walt Disney Pictures Distributed by: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 21:51, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

That seems right, though I see what you mean about the redundancy with the Walt Disney labels. I would say the minimalist approach in this case would be to just have the "Studio" field. The "Production company" field is not essential (since this is, on a high level, a Disney film and not a Mandeville film), and the "Distributed by" field is just a variant of the Walt Disney companies. I guess it depends on how much corporate information an editor thinks is warranted in the infobox. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Whoops, I see you changed the example, but I think the same logic applies. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:05, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, my apologies about that! Originally, my mind was thinking one film, but my hands were typing another. Lol.

Anyway, so far you have my support on this endeavor for the reasons you've already stated, especially since one of the glories of this parameter addition is that it doesn't have to be utilized on very infobox for every film, only on a case-by case basis. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 22:11, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this. I agree somewhat that "studio" in the way we use it is a misnomer since a studio can serve as a producer and distributor, whereas on our articles we actually treat it as the "production company". I think the simplest solution would be to change the name of the field to "Production company", and if a studio produces and distributes the film it should probably be placed in both fields. I am against adding a third field since this would create the following complications:

1. It still wouldn't tell the reader exactly what function the studio served.
2. If we simply added a new field called "Production Company" that would leave us with thousands of articles to cleanup where the studio field has been used to record the production company.
3. Hollywood studio films are in the minority so we shouldn't be adding even more parameters to a bloated infobox for minority usage. On something like Interstellar IMDB just bungs all companies that produced the film under a single heading: [3].

Betty Logan (talk) 01:30, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure about losing the "Studio" label by renaming the field. While studio films are in the minority, they do get the majority of attention from readers. If we just have "Production company" and "Distributed by", then we still would not be able to tell a studio film from an independent one that finds a distributor. I think the "Studio" field is good to have, just that it has been misused because editors think it has to be something different from the "Distributed by" field. With the three fields, we can be flexible to the vast majority of arrangements. An editor could elect to just use the "Studio" field instead of the other two to indicate, this company produced and distributed the film. IMDb (and some other places, I've noticed) do a pretty sloppy job of categorizing companies, but I think we can do it better. And to throw out yet another idea, we could do a production-company box for "Production" sections and make sure the infobox's "Studio" field is actually a studio. Jedi94, what do you think of Betty's feedback? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 02:55, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

It's a double-edged sword. Betty's point about causing an infobox to appear even more bloated is justified, because no editor would ever want that. Conversely though, Erik's suggestion about flexibility with the incorporation of the three parameters on a case-by-case basis could work to neutralize that. In theory, not all the infoboxes would use all three parameters, only in special cases where there are enough distinct entities to fill in such fields. I also have to agree with Erik's generalized point about the majority of readers focusing their attention on major studios, as opposed to smaller production companies. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 03:42, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm in the same boat as Jedi94. Betty definitely has a point, but I'm more in favour of adding the parameter as it stands. While it would induce a pretty widespread, long-term cleanup, I think it would be worth it in the end. Corvoe (speak to me) 13:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

• Note: Since Jojhutton thanked me for reverting an IP's addition of Syncopy to the "Studio" field at Interstellar (film), I notified the editor of this discussion. To avoid canvassing, I won't petition any more editors directly. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:19, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Lot of good thoughts here. I definitely agree that the current "Studio" field should not be changed. I would only be in agreement to the additional category if we put some pretty specific instructions in the template for which company should be listed under each section. If we stay with two fields, we should edit the instructions to better guide editors where to place a studio/production company. I might disagree with Erik's point about interest in the studio. I think the vast majority of folks who look at a film could care less about the studio information. And the ones that do look at the studio field do care about the details, like smaller companies. I could be wrong, but that's my impression.Onel5969 (talk) 16:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in! Can you explain what you mean about the studio information? Like, do you think it is not needed to say that Warner Bros. is the studio for a given film? I think that the importance of production companies will depend on the film, and I think they are less important for blockbuster films, where their importance may be too inflated in the infobox for the amount of real-world coverage they actually don't get. What do you think? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

No problem. I think the issue stems from when a major studio acts in a solely (or mostly) executive producer capacity, providing the financing for the film, but leaving the actual production to smaller production companies - which your original example, About Last Night, is a perfect example of. I think the addition of a "Production Company" would allow you to succinctly break out the role those smaller companies play in a film, while keeping the "Studio" slot would allow us to continue to identify the overall guiding hand in the production. I agree wholeheartedly with the entire repetition concept, where if the studio is the distributor, it only needs be said once. But we need to be very specific in the infobox description about where each production company involved in a film should be placed.Onel5969 (talk) 17:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

In regards to avoiding studio repetition in the infobox, I suggest that if the major studio is also the distributor, we should still mention it only once, and then explain its dual production role in prose at some point in the article's lead. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 01:05, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

There are good reasons behind Erik's proposal, but eliminating redundancy is something that won't happen in practice. We all know from experience that if you add a parameter then invariably it will be used. Betty Logan (talk) 01:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to change "Studio" field to "Production company"

The moment I started reading this discussion I thought what I have long thought - the Studio field should be replaced by Production company. Far less films are studio productions anymore, but there is always a production company. "Studio" is not a proper credit. Neither films nor posters list a "Studio" parameter in their credits. Most secondary sources don't either. They list the production company and the distributor. If a major studio is also the production company, readers will recognize its name. They don't need to be told it's a "Studio". Erik writes If we just have "Production company" and "Distributed by", then we still would not be able to tell a studio film from an independent one that finds a distributor. But the infobox is not reliably fulfilling that function now, and that's not its purpose. It summarizes information about the film. Anyone interested enough in whether the film was a studio pickup (I'm one, but most readers won't care) would be well advised to look at the Production section for details on that.

For these reasons and others given by Betty Logan above, I propose Studio be changed to Production company, as is seen in the French, Spanish, German etc. WP film infoboxes. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:21, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Gothicfilm, I think it is false to say that there are no longer any studio productions. Just because the production companies are named doesn't mean that studios are suddenly all hands-off. A studio still runs the project and essentially uses contractors to produce the film. I don't think all studio productions should always have the underlying production companies identified, especially when the companies have little-to-no notability. It gives these companies way too much importance especially for studio productions; coverage from reliable sources rarely talk about these companies because it is the studios that produced the film. (Coverage about independent films, on the other hand, tend to explain the companies' roles in depth.) I don't think "Production company" should replace "Studio". I think both should exist and be used according to the corporate production of the film. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 19:13, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I can't believe the first sentence of your response here is a straw man argument. I said Far less films are studio productions anymore, but there is always a production company, which is not remotely false. Everything I said above is accurate, and you did not respond to several of my points. There is no need to elevate the importance of studios or call more attention to them. Everyone recognizes their name already, so a studio listed under "Production company" takes care of itself. "Studio" is unencyclopedic. I can't think of any RS that uses it. Certainly the overwhelming majority do not, and neither do the WP film pages for other countries. Whether or not a company is notable is subjective, and not the objective of the infobox. (I agree that too many companies are listed on some pages, but that is another subject and does not justify restricting the listing to only studios.) I see you are repeatedly removing Syncopy from the Interstellar (film) infobox (let me add you've done a very good job on that page for the most part), even though it is about as notable a production company as any and most likely has full control of the film through Christopher Nolan. Clearly it should be listed. Right now the "Studio" field is being used on nearly every WP film page as if it was "Production company". And that's how it should be - except it looks bad to have all these non-studios listed under "Studio". A simple name change for the field would acknowledge the reality of how the field is being used, and would not require re-editing on thousands of articles, as Betty Logan pointed out. There's no way we would be able to enforce a disciplined breakdown of listing under two different fields, and there's no real need for it either, or you would see "Studio" as a field at most secondary sources. - Gothicfilm (talk) 22:45, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

"'Studio' is unencyclopedic. I can't think of any RS that uses it." What does this even mean? How are you defining "studio"? There are articles like this that talk about studios producing franchise films. There are numerous books about studio films. I don't understand the claim about elevating the importance of studios, either. Why would we hide the studio from the infobox when they are often the key corporate entity for a big-budget film? The production companies are what are being unnecessarily elevated. In the case of Interstellar, I would be fine with identifying the production companies, but there are going to be other films where we don't need to be identifying production companies. Are you suggesting that we put the studio and all its production companies under the same "Production company" field? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 23:12, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Anyone familiar with film scholarship and criticism would know what I meant. I was talking about film reviews and other articles on specific films in RS that usually use some form of an infobox. This Talk page is about the WP Film infobox, so Variety articles about what films studios are making is irrelevant. Once again you seem to claim I am trying to hide studios when I am not advocating any such thing. I said Everyone recognizes their name already, so a studio listed under "Production company" takes care of itself. If you don't understand that means the studio is still there - it's not hidden - I don't know what else to say. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:04, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, you're staying we should list all the companies, the studio and its production companies under the "Production company" field. I don't think we should rob the studio of its own field. I don't understand what you mean about film reviews not mentioning the studios. The reviews from The New York Times link to an overview page where under "Company Information" one can see "<studio> – Studio", like this says "Warner Bros. Pictures - Studio", for example. Reviews can't be the only set of reliable sources used to determine fields. This talks about "a winning studio formula", for example. What does film scholarship and criticism say? No film really has a studio? Reliable sources like what I've linked to can show what a film's studio is. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 00:17, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Seriously? For the third time you're still claiming I'm saying No film really has a studio? The Variety review does not seem to have an infobox. You managed to find one source that lists "Studio" - The NY Times. I have commented on here in the past on what a bad source the NY Times database is, and that is because it uses AllRovi for its data - and AllRovi's database is terribly disorganized and often wrong. I gave examples of this on a Film Talk page discussion that you were a part of, when we agreed to avoid using AllRovi, particularly as a template. (You wanted to delete that template.) But most other sources do not list a "Studio" field. They list "Production company", and that includes the studio if appropriate. I made a number of other points you have not responded to. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:40, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

You said that the word "studio" is unencyclopedic. That's what concerned me the most. It sounds like you are speaking from a database perspective, even though I'm not sure how film scholarship and criticism would then apply here. I don't care for the NYT database either, but not all databases are the same. Our "Release dates" field surely follows different rules than other databases. So what is the reason that we should not have a "Studio" field on its own? It's not because it's not verifiable—it is. You said it is sufficient to call it a production company in the same family as the production companies that work for it. I don't think we should group them that indiscriminately. Why don't you think we shouldn't have a hierarchy of having a studio identified as such with the production companies identified as such under it? Because it should be obvious that in the grouping which company is the studio among the production companies? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 01:27, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I meant that having a "Studio" field in the infobox is unencyclopedic. I gave my reasons several paragraphs above, as can be seen under the subheader for this discussion. - Gothicfilm (talk) 03:16, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

One of the problems is that "studio" is an inprecise term. For example, the Hollywood "studio" films are usually in-house productions i.e. during the golden era the studio produced the film, filmed it on its backlot or sound stage and distributed it. This was an entirely different paradigm to the British studio system where the studios just provided filming facilities. For example, Dr No was produced by Eon Productions, filmed at Pinewood Studios and distributed by United Artists. Some Hollywood studio films don't even use their own studios i.e. Fox used Elstree for Star Wars, so in that sense served as a production company and distributor but didn't provide the filming facilities. We all know what our parameters mean, but if someone British takes a look at the Star wars page they might be left under the impression it was filmed at the Fox studio. Similarly, someone American may be left under the impression that Eon Productions actually have their own studio where they film the Bond movies. Our labels really need to be as clear as possible. I think it's worth pointing out that the AFI catalog don't even identify the "studio"; for Batman Begins they simply identify Warner as the production company and distributor. Betty Logan (talk) 06:59, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Round 2

Pinging all editors from previous discussions: Betty Logan, Gothicfilm, Onel5969, Erik, Jedi94

This issue has reared its ugly head again, and I think it's actually the fault of the wording. I removed all but DreamWorks on the "Studio" parameter for The Fifth Estate, but I was reverted by Jedi94. As much as I want to disagree with his revert, I can't; the parameter description for studio says "Insert the companies that produced the film". That's not what "Studio" means. One of two things needs to happen, in my opinion. Either we:

1. Add a "Production company" parameter like Erik suggested, and specify the meaning of the "Studio" parameter. Or;
2. We neglect adding the new parameter, but still specify the "Studio" parameter to explain that it only means film studio.

I know that adding a parameter would make for a tonne of clean-up work over a long period of time, but it is very misleading the way our film infoboxes are presented now. The fact that this wasn't caught sooner is baffling, and in an odd way, impressive. We've got to do something about this. Obviously my two suggestions aren't the only two, they're just the only two that I think will be able to solve this problem (and possibly the only two I can think of. Just maybe). I should note that I'm partial to solution #1.

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but I think the horse is very much alive and just lost in the middle of Bodunk, New Mexico. We need to find it, reign it in, and put it back in one of a handful of pens. Let us help each other, fellow editors, decide which pen it belongs in. Corvoe (speak to me) 18:11, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Worth noting that another proposed option was to change "Studio" to "Production company". Since option #2 is our status quo, one approach I've tried to use is to mention production companies in the "Production" section. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I totally forgot about that idea, my bad. I think that could be efficient as well, and perhaps mention the studios in "Production" too. No matter what, though, I think we need a rewording for the "Studio" parameter. That's the most important thing out of this, so that it's specified and clear. Corvoe (speak to me) 18:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm in favor of solution #1, because it doesn't exclude anything and would surely satisfy any editors who want to leave no stone unturned. It may force us to have to change every single film article, but (speaking for myself) it's a task that I'm willing to work on. I also agree that the "Studio" parameter could use some rewording, regardless of whatever is agreed upon. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 19:07, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Very glad to hear it! I would also be willing to work on the task, despite how mundane it would be and how long it would take. The film articles on Wikipedia are amongst some of the best, and this parameter addition would help that. Corvoe (speak to me) 19:25, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Why are you not considering the easiest solution that is consistent with most secondary sources? The Studio field should be replaced by Production company. As I said before, far less films are studio productions anymore, but there is always a production company - and that company should be listed in the infobox. Right now the "Studio" field is being used on nearly every WP film page as if it was "Production company". And that's how it should be - except it looks bad to have all these non-studios listed under "Studio". A simple name change for the field would acknowledge the reality of how the field is being used, and would not require re-editing on thousands of articles. There's no way we would be able to enforce a disciplined breakdown of listing under two different fields ("Studio" and "Production company"), and there's no need for it either, or you would see "Studio" as a field at most secondary sources. "Studio" is not a proper credit. Neither films nor posters list a "Studio" parameter in their credits. Most secondary sources don't either. They list the production company and the distributor. If a major studio is also the production company, readers will recognize its name. They don't need to be told it's a "Studio". The infobox summarizes information about the film. Anyone interested enough in whether the film was a studio production or pickup (I'm one, but most readers won't care) would be well advised to look at the Production section for details on that.

For these reasons and others given by Betty Logan in the sub-sections above, I once again propose Studio be changed to Production company, as is seen in most secondary sources and the French, Spanish, German etc. WP film infoboxes. - Gothicfilm (talk) 21:19, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• I will just recap my views on this to consolidate my viewpoints into a single place. Our articles currently use the "Studio" parameter to record the production companies, regardless of whether these companies are studios or not. Some editors believe it is misleading to label production companies as studios when they are not (studios traditionally offer filming facilities if you are looking for distinction). This much everyone involved in this discussion seems to agree on. The question is what should we do to address this misnomer? One proposal is to limit the "studio" parameter to actual studios and possibly add another for production companies. The problem I have with that is that a studio can serve up to three functions: they can serve in the capacity of a production company, as a distributor or just offer filming facilities. British studios such as Pinewood for instance don't produce or distribute films, they just offer filming facilities, so having a parameter simply called "studio" doesn't tell us much about the function. An American studio can perform a radically different role to a British studio. My preferred solution (and Gothicfilm's) is to simply re-label the studio parameter to "production company", since this is essentially how this parameter is currently used. This may entail some redundancy i.e. a studio may be listed under both "production company" and "distributor", but at least the function of the studio on that particular film will be explicitly clear. One advantage of this approach is that it would save us a lot of time since we can simply alter the template and not have to physically correct every single film article. Another as Gothicfilm points out is that many secondary sources use the production company/distributor nomenclature including the American Film Institute which is a practical consideration for sourcing reasons. Betty Logan (talk) 22:03, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Let me add - we have had some discussion about good and less-good sources here. I have found the AFI film database to be the single best available online (with BFI second). What really won me over is the AFI usually goes to the trouble to list the producers in the order of their credits onscreen, even when that order is different on the poster. And I do believe the actual film's credits should be the primary source, though the poster is usually reliable. They also seem to try hard to get the production company listing correct. And as Betty has shown, they include the studio in the "Production company" parameter. They don't have a separate "Studio" parameter, nor do most other secondary sources. We should be consistent with that. - Gothicfilm (talk) 22:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I have not participated in this discussion before. My understanding (which may have been wrong) was that "Studio" was predominantly about the American film system in the classic era of Hollywood movies (from, say, 1920s - 1970s) when the "studios" were one-stop shopping places: the same company made the films, in facilities that they owned, with writers, directors, actors, designers, et al. they had under contract, and then distributed them as well, often to theaters that they also owned. That's what "Studio" means to me, a reference to a bygone era that is unlikely to ever return. However, like many other editors, given two fields,, "Studio" and "Distributor", I have utilized the "Studio" field for production companies, on the general theory that of the two major parts of the film industry, production is the front end, and distributing is the back end.

So, given this, I agree that if people are unhappy with "Studio" as being misleading in most contemporary cases, "Production company" would be a suitable replacement, and I would happily use the "Production company" field for classic films in place of the the studio, because, again, those are the two major things that studios did: produced and distributed. So I throw in with those advocating for "Production company", with the caveat that I hope all the information current in the "Studio" field can be mass-transferred to a new field.

BMK (talk) 23:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, if anyone was thinking that "Studio" should refer only to the physical facility where the film was shot, I think that is not a particularly interesting piece of information to have in the infobox, not when we're still missing fields for designers, who are much more integral to the film. The classic Hollywood studios (and their equivalent in Europe and elsewhere) were important and interesting primarily because of their horizontal and vertical integrations of many aspects of filmmaking, not so much because of the soundstages they built and owned (although these would later turn out to be an important source of revenue when the studio system broke down, and the Hollywood studios realized they owned many, many acres of prime real estate). BMK (talk) 23:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I endorse changing "Studio" to "Production company", then. The AFI model is a worthwhile one to follow. Should we add "prod_co" or something similar as an alternative to "studio"? That way, both labels can refer to "Production company", and some bot can replace "studio" with "prod_co" or whatever. Jedi94, Corvoe, what do you think of just renaming the field? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 00:01, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Based on my recent experience, it should be done with an edit protected request. I can do it if you want - that is, simply ask to change the name of the parameter Studio to Production company. That way nothing else will change in the thousands of WP film infoboxes. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:20, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The AFI argument is a very strong one. I'm all for changing the parameter name. It makes perfect sense to me. Let's do it. Woo! Corvoe (speak to me) 00:24, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I've been persuaded as well! I'm all for changing the parameter name. ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 03:19, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Edit request for: Studio -> Production company

Okay, we seem to have consensus. I'm posting the request here, specifically that the name of the parameter Studio be changed to Production company in the film infobox. As discussed above, this change is now uncontroversial and sensible.- Gothicfilm (talk) 00:43, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Not done for now: Carrying out this change as request will break all 87319 transclusion(s) found because they won't know what the new parameter name is. Due to the fact that there are 87 thousand tranclusions to this template, we need to be 100% sure that any such changes go off without a hitch. I've not yet read the entire discussions on this, but it will most certainly need to be accomplished in the sandbox (See TESTCASE) and there will likely need to be some kind of bot to go through and update all the existing uses. Due to the scale of this project, it would be much more logical to improve the documentation and fix the misuses than to completely change the parameter name. Adding it as an alternative parameter also wouldn't fix your issue (but would make it worse). Anyways, I've watchlisted this page (and the sandbox/testcases pages) and will help you fix this as best I can from the technical angle. Any resolution will likely be a process that will take a bit of time to complete, so patience will be required. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 01:15, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, but we cannot simply improve the documentation and fix the misuses. The issue is that calling the parameter Studio is incorrect in todays media. I expect that the only other solution to fix any misuses would be to create a new parameter, but I imagine that would create even more technical issues. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

• That appears to be what you are asking for here. Are you just asking for the display to show "Production company" instead of "Studio" as opposed to what your request here proposes to change {{{studio}}} to {{{production company}}} which would require every |studio= to be changed to |production company= on every call to the template? — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 01:41, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

There isn't any misuse of the parameter, it is a misnomer i.e. not all production companies are studios so we want to use the more general term. Basically this is what we need to do:

Replace this:

| label13      = Studio
| data13       = {{{studio|}}}

With this:

| label13      = Production company
| data13       = {{{production_company|{{{studio|}}}}}}

Or maybe with this to keep the parameter name short and uncomplicated:

| label13      = Production company
| data13       = {{{production|{{{studio|}}}}}}

Or perhaps Erik's abbreviated suggestion above:

| label13      = Production company
| data13       = {{{prod_co|{{{studio|}}}}}}

Even though everyone seems to be in agreement I think that we should at least leave this discussion open 24 hours before implementing the change. If we allow the full working day tomorrow anyone who cares will get a chance to comment. We also need to decide what to call the new parameter too. We need to keep "studio" as a parameter so we don't break thousands of articles so I have outlined some options above. Betty Logan (talk) 01:42, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Looks like that would avoid the technical issue. As to the name, I don't like Prod Co. Non-film buffs won't even be sure what that means. Many of the other language WPs spell out the whole thing. I'll go with Production if necessary, but I still prefer Production company. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:58, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

• That can be done, but is generally avoided (as it starts to create template bloat). I agree abbreviated is poor and have crossed it out. I have no issue changing the label13, that is nothing and easy to do... How about:

| label13      = Production compan{{#if:{{{production companies|}}}|ies|y}}
| data13       = {{{production companies|{{{studio|}}}}}}

Which will allow you to use |studio= for a single company, or |production companies= if there are more than one? I think this is a little less confusing and will resolve your issue. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 02:28, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Our main objective here is to have Studio stop showing up in the infobox and be replaced by some form of Production company. However, if we can have a different name show up when there's more than one, how about using Production when one company is listed, and Production companies when there is more than one? It's not perfect, but may be the best option.

I now realize you don't mean for Studio to show up either way, but to have Production company for the listing of a single company, and Production companies when there is more than one. I'm not sure exactly how an editor makes the appropriate |ies|y display (is it by default?), but if this is indeed the case, then I support that version. - Gothicfilm (talk) 04:56, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

There's no particular reason to deal with the niceties of "company" versus "companies" any more than we deal with multiple editors, producers or writers in the fields "editor", "producer" and "writer". Just change it to "Production company". BMK (talk) 14:12, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

• I disagree, and it seems to be becoming the standard for infoboxes if you look around at the source of some of the others. Either way, it offers a way to add the new parameter without it being frowned upon as simply template bloat. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

• That can be done as well if others agree. Would look like:

| label13      = Production{{#if:{{{production companies|}}}| companies}}
| data13       = {{{production companies|{{{studio|}}}}}}

Thoughts from others? Need a testcase mockup to visualize some of these options? I can do that after lunch (about 2 hours). — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 14:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

@Gothicfilm, Betty, BMK, Jedi94, Corvoe, Erik, and Onel5969: see /testcases. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 16:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I was fine with keeping this field singular since like BMK said, we have other singular fields that have multiple values. Does this mean it's recommended to pluralize these others as well? Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

• Possibly Erik. Which ones did you have in mind? I can add that to the sandbox too. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 18:15, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I deal mostly with older films, and have never wanted to lose the studio label, since that was the norm. However, the consensus seems to be to go to Production Company. I think the plural, however, is unnecessary. Onel5969 (talk) 20:08, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

A choice in the infobox between singular and plural is new to me. I would like to know exactly how it works. And if we're only going to use one, I don't think Production companies is going to look good across from only one company. It seems more acceptable to have Production company with more than one company listed, if those two are the only options. There is only one other parameter with the singular/plural display issue, and that is Release dates, though it's not as important because most films (even older ones) do have more than one date. I'm interested in having a choice, but editors have to know how to properly use it. Of course it wouldn't be a disaster if the wrong singular/plural is being displayed, and other editors could fix any mistakes. - Gothicfilm (talk) 21:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Gothicfilm and Erik, the singular is better than the plural, unless we're going to get into "Editor(s)" and so on, which seems both fussy and, frankly, bureaucratic. Multiple names in a field with a singular word is quite an expected occurance, whereas a single name in a field with a plural word looks like something is missing. BMK (talk) 22:03, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

• Then I don't think any of you are looking at the template. All of the other parameters are already singular or plural friendly. "Edited by", "Produced by"... This is the only parameter left that isn't. Let's get past the singular/plural thing. You want me to change it to what I am proposing to make it Production companies instead of Studios or do you want to open a new request and let someone else deal with it. I oppose adding template bloat in the form of two parameters that do exactly the same thing as it is confusing to new editors and redundant. So, if you want to be able to offer |studio= (for single) or |production companies= (for more than one), we can do it this way. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 22:09, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

If that gives us a choice to display either Production company for the listing of a single company, and Production companies when there is more than one, then yes, I'll support that. - Gothicfilm (talk) 22:44, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

• It does. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:20, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I am not all that concerned about the mechanics of the implementation but I think there are two things to take stock of here: i) the idea of introducing an extra parameter was simply to give editors an intuitive parameter to match the new name of the field; ii) the whole idea of implementing the change at template level is so we don't have to go through thousands of articles "fixing" the parameter. Even if you make "studio" a singular parameter there will be thousands of articles that continue to use it plurally (such as at Alexander (film)). In those cases I am not sure how the template could distinguish between existing singular and plural usage without manually fixing it at the article. Betty Logan (talk) 00:09, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't it just automatically keep using |studio=? If so, it would display Production company in all infoboxes unless someone changes it to |production companies=. Eventually editors will get around to fixing it, but until they do it will look like our original request - the singular Production company replacing the singular Studio. I'm okay with that. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:20, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Semi-related, I think "Editing by" should be changed to "Edited by" while we're at it. It just seems oddly phrased. And I think, if we can get the plurality to work, I'm fine with it. I'll pretty much go with the flow here, I'm neutral. Corvoe (speak to me) 00:15, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Edited by is a common credit. Editing by is not. I would support that change. I had long thought the same thing, but never brought it up. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:33, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• Betty, it probably could distinguish (by looking for things such as "]], [[" or "\n*"), but that would be a lot of extra work and I'm not convinced it would be a net gain. In those cases, until the article itself was adjusted, it would simply list all of the studios in the singular wording of "Production company" which would encourage random readers to want to fix it. Due to the fact that a lot of relatively "new" editors would want to fix the pluralization, it needs to be crystal clear in the documentation what they need to do to fix it properly to prevent people trying to "do it the hard way". — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:38, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• It would, and the result is just above in my response to Betty. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:38, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• I can do that as well. Hadn't noticed. I'll give the template a good once over for grammar (because I'm one of "those" people). The plurality will work as it does on many other infoboxes.  :) — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:38, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Implementation

Okay, I'll apply the fixes first thing in the morning tomorrow barring any complaints. Studio will now read as Production company when |studio= is used (as is what is in exclusive use now) and Studio will now read as Production companies when |production companies= is used. Editing by will read as Edited by and any other grammar fixes I can see will be implemented as well. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:38, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I just had a careful look at the template searching for grammatical issues. The only one is Cinematography, which does look odd when all the other personnel credits have a by after them. I assume this was done because of its length, and that is a valid consideration. We don't want to have a by hanging by itself on the next line down. This is probably why Editing by was used - it goes better with Cinematography. I would say leave Cinematography alone, change Editing by to Edited by (because perfect grammar cannot be achieved and is not needed), and definitely change Studio to Production company/ies as agreed above. Thanks for your time on this. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:10, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I just want to point out how great it is to see a multitude of editors address an issue and reach a consensus so civilly. Kudos to all involved! ~ Jedi94 (Want to tell me something?) 02:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Done Changes as indicated applied. There was some shuffling of parameters already in the sandbox, and I applied those as well. There was also a change to the image parameter that I did not apply. Thank you all for your collaboration and please feel free to ping me if there is a need for further adjustments. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 12:00, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Using a plural for the name of the parameter is a poor idea, in my opinion, and was not the solution that was requested here. It will lead to people trying to use |production company= which is not supported. Far better to keep all the parameters in the singular. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:45, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

But it was agreed to here. At this point we might as well give it a chance to work. However one change Technical 13 put in needs to be reverted. As can be seen on this page at [4], we went through a whole process to get Narrated by moved below Starring in the infobox. I would appreciate it if it were moved back. Thanks. - Gothicfilm (talk) 20:37, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• That was stuff that was in the sandbox, and I saw no harm in pushing it through... I've moved Narrated by back below starring in both the live template and the sandbox. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 21:48, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Production company parameter

Just like others above me have pointed out, what Americans mean by "Studio" vary with country. Studio in most countries refers to "the filming facility". The production studio for example in India is refered to as "banner/production banner" and in Nigeria, it is called "production house" ("major studio" of America meaning "mainstream production house" in Nigeria). So the renaming was perfect!

However, can we please have the parameter just as "Production"? The "production company" is too looooong! "production" is short and precise, without the need to bother about the singular and plural versions infact.--Jamie Tubers (talk) 23:34, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• Jamie, if you can achieve a consensus to change the new parameter name to |production= I will make the change. I suggest achieving that consensus quickly before there are too many uses of |production companies= to make this change technically logical. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Production company/ies was agreed to here. At this point we should give it a chance to work. Non-film people would find Production ambiguous, and it was only mentioned once above as a possibility. I've already put the plural Production companies in two articles. It worked. I'll hold off doing more changes to the plural form for a day or two. - Gothicfilm (talk) 23:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think having a "production" parameter with an obvious production company next to it will seem ambiguous to anyone. But it is just a suggestion anyway, I'm not really keen on it. I just find that "production company" occupying two rows a little bit off for an infobox. But if everyone else is cool with it, then I am :).--Jamie Tubers (talk) 00:29, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

The production company is not always obvious, if it's not a major studio. But if a number of people would rather use the ambiguous one word term, I'll go along with it, though I think it would look strange when there's multiple production companies listed and we have empty white space under Production. - Gothicfilm (talk) 23:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

In fact, for that reason, if we do change Production company to Production, then the plural form Production companies should be maintained as it would fill in that otherwise empty space. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:27, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• wouldn't look strange if you ask me. We are used to the empty space long before now :D.--Jamie Tubers (talk) 00:29, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Having Production hang by itself with empty white space under it and multiple production companies to the right of it is not something we've seen before in the WP film infobox. That would look quite odd, but is easily avoided by using the plural option. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:36, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean, isn't that what we get with "Starring" a lot of the time? BMK (talk) 01:01, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

It's not at all a problem with Starring. But it would look plain stupid to have multiple production companies to the right of Production with empty white space under it. It would be obvious there's plenty of room for
Production
companies
so why isn't it being used? - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Wait, are you just talking about what people see in bold letters, or do you want the actual parameter name to change again (the part hidden in the wikitext when editing the page)? If it is the former, we can do that anytime and it is no big deal, if it is the latter, the longer we wait, the worse of an idea it is. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 00:45, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm referring to the former, which we can do anytime. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:04, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I have to say that I'm not in love with the two line "Prodiction company", the only field name which displays on two lines. "Production" would be fine with me, as would "Prod. company" if that would fit on one line. (This is just about what displays on the infobox the reader sees, and is totally about the look of the box, nothing else - I'm not moving backwards otherwise.) BMK (talk) 00:59, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• NB: My opinion is on what appears to the readers, nothing more....--Jamie Tubers (talk) 01:39, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Change both the output and the parameter name. The parameter production companies is too long and, as I tried to explain above, the plural will cause confusion. It hasn't been documented yet, so probably could be changed without too much worry. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:30, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

If we lost the plural version we could fit it all on one line. As you can see at [5] (ignore the line gap above the field; that is only there because I hacked another parameter to get the effect of it on one line), it pushes the field entries over slightly (by about three letters) but it's not too detrimental. We do tend to have quite a lot of space down the right side. Betty Logan (talk) 12:26, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't like the look of such a gap between the by and the names this creates. Three letters is more than a slight push. And will this only be one line on all viewing screens - on laptops and mobile devices with different aspect ratios? Some of them will probably be continuing longer names down into the next line, and perhaps even company itself. And I don't see the case for the plural will cause confusion. Most people will just continue to use the "studio" parameter already placed in the editing space. You have to know about the plural form to use it, and then you can simply copy how it's done. If they're trying to create a new parameter they should follow the documentation. This is true of all the parameters. If you try to type Directed by into the infobox editing space it won't work. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Shall we do the following? If the plural parameter (production companies) is used, the current behaviour is followed with production company on two different lines and multiple companies on the right. If the singular parameter (studio or production company) is used then it will all be on one line. I think this will satisfy everyone? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:49, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• I really don't care MSGJ... It's a game of back and forth it seems because what you are now proposing is what I originally had that a bunch of people shot the idea down on. So, I think I am going to step back from watching this template and discussion and let you deal with it if they want to go back and forth... Good luck. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 11:54, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Add "choreographer" parameter?

In my wanderings as a gnome I am finding this added in several places. Would it be a good addition? -- LilHelpa (talk) 16:15, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

This has been discussed before, more than once I believe. It's not a position found on most films, while the Production Designer is. Neither are likely to be added to the infobox, but they can be mentioned in film articles. - Gothicfilm (talk) 16:24, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Warning

Recently, Die-ner (Get It?), which uses a {{displaytitle}} to force the italicization of its title, got a big, red WARNING that it was overriding the original italicization. Well, yes. That was the intent. I got rid of the warning by inhibiting the italicization through the infobox. Is this a new feature of the infobox? If so, I'm not sure that I like it. Everything was fine beforehand, and the warning only caused someone to mess up the infobox in an attempt to remove the warning. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:20, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

You might want to post your question here Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) NRP. I have seen this one a time or two and there seem to be other things (like references showing up at the bottom of talk pages) that recent programming have effected. I will be interested to see what the answer to this is. MarnetteD|Talk 21:34, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

MOS:FILM#Article italics may need to be updated with whatever the consensus is. I've fixed a similar issue at I Am Curious (Yellow). Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 21:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 128#Tech News: 2014-29 and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 129#DISPLAYTITLE warning. MediaWiki now complains if a page has more than one {{DISPLAYTITLE:}} even if one (or both) of them is tucked inside a template. As advised in the box at the top: This infobox should italicize the article title automatically. If this is not required, add |italic title=no to the list of parameters. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:52, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

OK. Not sure why we need a big red warning over the matter, but I guess it was my fault that it complained. It's not a big deal, but maybe we should make a note of MediaWiki's behavior here. It might cut back on the number of people who, like me, thought that they could override the italicization without inhibiting it. The current wording makes it look optional rather than required. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:48, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

add "website" parameter?

Many Infoboxes have a "website" parameter, which adds the URL at the bottom of the Infobox, usually centered. Could this parameter be added to this Infobox? — Lentower (talk) 01:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

It once was part of this infobox but was removed through many discussions. I believe the consensus was that the infobox should be a snapshot of the article and including an external link (including IMDb in this discussion) would encourage readers to leave Wikipedia before reading the article. Besides, the website is not "vital info" about the film, which is what the goal of the infobox should be. You can scan the archives of this talk page for more opinions. BOVINEBOY2008 01:53, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

This was discussed about four months ago as a RFC. The thread is here Template talk:Infobox film/Archive 25#RfC:Should an .22Official website.22 parameter be enabled in the Infobox film template.3F MarnetteD|Talk 02:34, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Lentower Most of the infoboxes that sill use external links to their code should move them to the external links section. It's the other way round. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:57, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Magioladitis: Thanks for your perspective on this. I believe that having the websight at the end of WP's Infoboxes is best for our readers. And that the efforts to remove it might be a bad case of Wikipedia boosterism ("might" because this is the first time I've seen anyone think it's a bad idea). But this talk page isn't a place to try and change that. — Lentower (talk)

Did you not read the link provided. There were plenty of editors that saw it as a bad idea and that is why the WP:RFC was closed the way it was. One other thing, this talk page is the place to try and change that. MarnetteD|Talk 15:55, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

MarnetteD is right on all counts. This has been widely discussed a few times, and all of the discussions have ended with "we don't really need it". The focal point for a lot of people is that the links are promotional and most only stay online for a little while. The "external links" section of an article is a perfectly adequate place for this information. Sock (pka Corvoe) ^{(be heard)}_{(my stuff)} 16:04, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I think Len may have been referring to the overarching question of having websites in infoboxes when they said this isn't the place to discuss it, FWIW. DonIago (talk) 16:06, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks,DonIago. Yes, I was speaking of all of WP's Infoboxes (I just boldfaced the es above), not just this one. Which is why I discouraged discussion on this talk page about the wider issue.

If you're aware of a discussion about the WP wide issue of official websites at the bottom of Infoboxes, please link to it here. — Lentower (talk) 18:23, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

MPAA Rating?

Hello! Does this infobox include MPAA rating in it? And if not, Could it be added?

Thank you!Wikitranser (talk) 15:50, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I think WP:FILMRATING adequately covers this. DonIago (talk) 15:59, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

If MPAA were included, there would be a strong case for BBFC, and then where would it stop? So, no and no; also, it's in the template's documentation, at Template:Infobox film#Ratings. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Second Redrose64's nonos -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:27, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

There needs to be a template you can add to the top of talk pages where you can add frequently asked/already answered questions. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:29, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't oppose a WP:FREQUENT equivalent for this project. DonIago (talk) 20:43, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Create Template talk:Infobox film/FAQ using this link, and then add {{FAQ}} to the top of this page. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:11, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Box office and Gross values

Hi, had this exchange today: I condensed box office gross from $93,682,634 to $93.7 million to make it parallel with the budget of $50 million (not $50,000,000). My edit was reverted, though the user's rationale was absent. What's the preference from the community? The docs should indicate whether the short or long forms are preferred. These numbers are estimates anyway, aren't they? BoxOfficeMojo, for example, doesn't always agree with BoxOffice.com. It seems to me that the infobox, which is intended to summarize content found elsewhere, should condense these numbers. I could go either way, though, as long as there is some obvious consistency between articles. That preference should be indicated here in the template docs, as well as at MOS:FILM if it were to affect the article body. Danke, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:03, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

This was discussed recently. I think MOS:LARGENUM covers it. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 18:19, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Lugnuts, it seemed as though the consensus is to summarize the long-form values? Am I misreading that? If that is the consensus, can we add this to the template so as to avert future confusion? I'm happy to make the change, but I just want to be sure I'm understanding it correctly. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:29, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the consensus - happy for you to change the template. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 11:51, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I get paranoid when I edit templates and anything related MOS. :) Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:09, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that this template is protected to the point that we have to ask an admin to make any changes. At the moment I can't remember which template to use - do you Lugnuts? Admins usually respond fairly quickly once you place the request Cyphoidbomb. Sorry for the faulty memory. MarnetteD|Talk 18:58, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi MarnetteD, I made the changes. The template is protected, but the docs are editable. I encourage everybody to poke holes in my addition, though I do think we should keep links to the MOS and the consensus discussion so future generations can understand the rationale behind the guideline. :) Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. I missed the point. Things go over my head so often that the hair as been removed by the friction ( :-). Good work on your part then. Cheers. MarnetteD|Talk 19:04, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that we should add that the gross should be written in shortform per MOS:LARGENUM. STATic message me! 17:01, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I also agree that rounding is the better option. Sock (tock talk) 17:05, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

It's officially in the docs. I couldn't understand the prose at MOS:LARGENUM at all. Actually, I've asked the MOS regulars to consider clarifying the text. That "Where explicit uncertainty information is available" shit is mind-boggling... Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:33, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't pretend you don't understand that! Haha, mind-boggling indeed. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:45, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It was finally explained to my feeble brain that "explicit uncertainty information" means (among other things) a "margin of error". "Where 'a margin of error is available'" makes more sense. The prose has been clarified a little. In the words of Cathy, "Ack!" Cyphoidbomb (talk) 14:53, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Running time - Proposal to round up to the next full minute

While otherwise being very reliable, I've noticed the British Board of Film Classification often does not include the opening company logo in its runtime database. This is very surprising, as it's a part of the film, technically speaking. Perhaps they do this as it can vary in different territories if a film has different distributors. Because of this I propose we amend the documentation to say every film's runtime should be rounded up. I believe this would be good policy even without the BBFC issue, since if you cut off a 123 min 05 second film at 123 minutes, you've lost the last five seconds. Not a big deal, but that five seconds is technically part of the film. I noticed this because I saw that the runtime for a film was a full minute longer than what the BBFC listed. The only cause I could guess at were the opening company logos. There were three or four of them in succession, and they took up nearly a minute. Then I checked other films and saw it again. This may be original research, but there's no reason not to make it a guideline to always round up the runtime to the next full minute. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:56, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Does this occur on every film? The BBFC will only measure what they classify, so if they have cut the film that may explain the shorter length. It would help if you could give us some examples so we can get to the bottom of it. Betty Logan (talk) 03:58, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I first noticed this a few weeks ago. If you really want I can look at the articles I've edited in the last month and try to track them down, but I can assure you they were all listed as being passed uncut by the BBFC. I routinely check the credits, runtimes and other issues as I see films and correct them as necessary on WP. It's easy to check runtimes since DVDs and DVRs give them to the second (just make sure you have the correct start/end point). Like I said, I was quite surprised when one was a minute off (until then, with rounding there was no problem. I believe it was Bullet to the Head, which was listed as This work was passed uncut, and is what sparked me to post this now. Someone reverted my rounding up the BBFC runtime.) Usually company logos don't take up quite that much screen time. If it's possible to track down the BBFC policy on including/not including logos I'd be all for it, but the issue is resolved in simplest fashion if we just agree to always round up the BBFC's listed minute/second to the next full minute. We should be doing that anyway for films listed at X minutes/30(+) seconds. - Gothicfilm (talk) 04:53, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

If this is one of those little details that changes between prints or countries, wouldn't we most commonly use the original theatrical print as the basis? (And rounding up seems like a good idea.) --Ring Cinema (talk) 15:49, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

The Internship is the latest example I've found of a film with a longer runtime than indicated by the BBFC. This case is more minor, but it is still illustrative of the issue: BBFC lists 119:15, but that is about 15 seconds short. As said above, anything 30 seconds or more should be rounded up to the next full minute, so The Internship should be listed as 120 minutes. - Gothicfilm (talk) 19:25, 30 August 2014 (UTC)