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What kind of article is this

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what kind of article is this? it is barely written in encycolpedic format, and is filled with opinions. additionally, the article is completely about the works of the person, not his past, or anything actually about him.

The IMDB synposis for Salerno's drug documentary says exactly the same thing as this page, which probably means this was written by Salerno himself or someone close to him for marketing purposes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.223.43.245 (talk) 20:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To answer your OLD question, it's not a very good article, and I agree with you about the striking similarity between the IMDB entry and this page. My bet is that Salerno himself is doing the editing of this page, judging by the self-aggrandizing and excessive use of headers. According to WP policy, opinions aren't welcomed in BOL articles, yet they abound here.

Jim Steele (talk) 21:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is a bit promotioonal, why not stub it back to a cited introduction and allow it to be written with citations? Off2riorob (talk) 12:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a good idea to me (and a long-time coming). Can you do that? I am still learning the hows of things...

Jim Steele (talk) 15:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jim...I have begun the process of inserting proper inline citations. The information is accurate. It just wasn't sourced properly. Thank you for pointing this out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JAWW123 (talk • contribs) 18:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To all interested parties--

I have now added comprehensive inline citations for most of the major paragraphs and will finish the remaining ones over the next few days. Additionally, I spent several hours verifying the information from reliable web sources and the information is 100% accurate. The sources were actually contained at the bottom of the page in "external links" instead of throughout the page - a minor problem as Wiki issues go. As for the different headings, a number of writers on Wiki use this format when they have many different projects. Finally, I am concerned that another editor removed entire paragraphs from this article simply because it was sourced at the bottom of the page. In the future, simply add the citation rather than deleting content. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JAWW123 (talk • contribs) 21:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please consider taking your time and reading a few poicy pages, just ask me and I wll direct you, reliable citations and perhaps conflict of interest would be good places to start. Off2riorob (talk) 21:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

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Fair use rationale for Image:Shanesalerno.jpg

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Image:Shanesalerno.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 03:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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These are not correct externals WP:ELNO but I have put them here as they may be helpful to add and content or to add as citations to support any uncited content that is already in the article. Off2riorob (talk) 22:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Comments

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I agree with the reasons for the maintenance template and with many of the comments made here years ago. I'm a beginner to Wikipedia, but the problems with this entry and how to fix them aren't all that complicated.

There's a lot of cheerleading, of a kind I might read in advertising, a press release, a news or magazine article, or a résumé, all quite different from the flat and formal tone and subject matter of an encyclopedia. There's a lot of inflated rhetoric: "in the history of" "for the first time" "the only" "millions of dollars" "worldwide blockbuster." Even if the facts are true, and most or all of them seem to be, that doesn't mean every detail belongs in an encyclopedia, which should presents facts quickly, briefly, without fanfare.

Fixing this article requires deleting large amounts of text, in some cases permanently, in other cases for the purpose of paraphrase. For example, there's no need to know the day, month, and year of every event. Specificity over relative trivialities contributes to the stentorian, magisterial, congratulatory tone. The same facts can be presented in a more neutral way.

It's odd to see opinions in an encyclopedia, any opinion, particularly opinions about subjective matters: movie, TV, and music reviews, and conclusions about a subject's worth and impact. Editors tend to get around this by using quotations from sources they consider authoritative, or by making statements so obvious and ubiquitous that they are unlikely to be challenged. Whatever my opinion about the inclusion of subjectivity, I find that most or all of the quotations here can be deleted, in some cases because their point can be conveyed by simple statement of fact. The older I get, the more convinced I am that quotations rarely contribute something positive. Repetition, moreover, becomes monotonous and counterproductive, no matter what the point is.

I've struggled with what place story has in an encyclopedia entry. On one hand, we naturally want to give information chronologically. It's what we're used to and how our minds work. On the other hand, even an entry which is considered biographical can look incongruous in an encyclopedia, particularly if it is one-sided and excessively detailed. Although every life is important, that doesn't mean every life, and every detail of every life, needs to be recounted in an encyclopedia. Quantity of facts, moreover, might suggest a different organization than chronological. For example, in this entry, there could be sections on movies, TV, and critics' comments, rather than a section for each TV show, each movie, with a detailed story for each, from the announcement, to money, to the actors, to reviews, to influence on the next project, and so on ad detailum (I made that up).

I have in mind documentation entries on notability. While I'm at it, I might as well include others already mentioned or that could apply: neutrality, formal tone, biographies of living persons, encyclopedia style, section titles, organization of material, selection of material, article size, overlinking, choice of links, use of sources, use of quotation, brevity, quality of prose, concentration on facts, and the Manual of Style on various matters.

That should be enough. I'm going to do some deleting and rewriting unless someone objects. I'm going to check sources. As always, reasoned objections can be given here on the Talk page. Please note: it is not my intention to hurt anyone's feelings, to wreck anyone's work, or to denigrate the subject. My motive is to improve the article to make it more in line with Wikipedia documentation and suggestions. I am not going to change facts.
–Vmavanti (talk) 15:26, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edit conflict

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A ton of work just got deleted. What happened? I'm not sure how to get back the changes, particularly the large amount of material under the section Honors and recognition which I was working on when someone else edited it. I checked the version history but didn't see any username but mine.
–Vmavanti (talk) 19:05, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Vmavanti: I disambiguated a link to Director and removed a couple duplicate words. In the three edits before that, you removed a large amount of text. I don't see anything else from the history. -Niceguyedc Go Huskies! 19:21, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I was publishing a large amount of text at the time. I think I have some of it cut and pasted onto a word processing document that I was using. I'll dig into it later. I guess I have to be more careful. I didn't realize an edit conflict could clobber that much text.
–Vmavanti (talk) 19:28, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Would you put disambiguation links on Salinger (book) and Salinger (film)? Thanks.
–Vmavanti (talk) 19:32, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A few notes

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A few things here.

  • IMDB isn't a reliable source on this site.
  • Saying that the documentary Salinger was one of the highest-grossing documentaries of the year isn't saying very much. According to the indiewire source, it was 10 on a list of 15. It had a short run in a few big cities. The "highest grossing" statement is correct but misleading and probably not Notable. I saw the PBS version and really enjoyed it. But let's not pretend it was a blockbuster.
  • "He has moved between mediums and genres, from films and television series, to books and documentaries"

Again, this sounds like cheerleading. To say "mediums and genres" lumps everything together, which is what the next words do. It's exaggeration almost to the point of dishonesty. It takes a few items and uses generalizations to make the items seem like they are part of a larger list when they aren't. Books? He co-wrote one book. Documentaries? Two. TV series? He co-created a TV show that lasted one season and he wrote three episodes of Hawaii-Five O. Mediums and genres? More or less true, but the lead is awkward and hyperbolic. Genres: Biography, crime, fantasy. Mediums: TV/movie, print.

  • I'm not trying to diminish his accomplishments. I'm saying the lead is overblown to make the accomplishments seem more numerous and significant than they really are. It's worth looking at which of these projects he alone is responsible for. So if the sentence says "best known for his work on Armageddon," what does that mean? Lead actor? Director? Writer? He shares screenwriting credits with three other people. So which part of Armageddon is he responsible for? I don't know. That's why I stick to the facts. Moreover, I'm not sure he is best known for his work on Armageddon. How would one make a judgment like that?
  • I'm not convinced the citations are done properly here, as in the second paragraph where each director's name has a citation by it. There's no need for that. As it is now, the lead is covered in blue links, the page is messy and hard to read. Why have multiple citations for multiple directors when you can find one source that mentions some or all of them?

Thank you for your notes

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I came to this after working on a few related pages and was trying to contribute and build on the work you and others had done. No offense intended - the page is under construction and changes are being made. Everything I added is properly sourced so I don't understand the problem. This is a pretty dry statement of facts and consistent with other screenwriters and documentary filmmakers pages I've viewed. "Best known" is a widely used term and collaborations are often listed. I listed different citations because the filmmakers in question are associated with different projects and in some cases Salerno worked with the filmmaker multiple times. The information about The Story Factory is new, relevant and sourced and I listed their projects. The Avatar films are in pre-production and it's appropriate that they be listed.

I checked, and the Salinger documentary ran in over 150 theaters nationwide (not a few big cities) and I stated and sourced how it performed. I will remove mediums and genres but he has worked in film, TV and publishing in two different capacities, etc so it seemed appropriate.

Let's work together constructively to make the article accurate, balanced, and properly sourced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Docunado (talk • contribs) 04:37, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Responses and analysis

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Thank you for responding. Why don't you have an account? That might be a good first step. Wikipedia:Request an account

Tone

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Here's a link to how Britannica wrote the entry for Michael Mann: "Michael Mann, in full Michael Kenneth Mann (born February 5, 1943, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.) American director and screenwriter known for both his film and television work."[1]

There's no cheerleading. Just the facts.

Citations: Formatting and style

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The Wikipedia:Manual of Style, among other places in the documentation, says that titles of books, newspaper, magazines, movies, and TV shows need to be italicized.

When I edit and I write a citation, I use the drop-down menu under "Cite" above the edit box. For any material on the web, I use "Cite Web" even if it is a newspaper online, the point being that it's on the web, can be found on the web, and uses web credits as sources. Format is in Template:Cite web. Some of the sources previously used in this article were not necessarily incorrect as incomplete and inconsistent with the format of other citations. For example, I always like to have the author and date of the article when possible. That includes Variety, Billboard, and so on. I like to see consistency in the formatting of footnotes at the bottom of the screen after the article (reflist). The names of the writers are very important and ought to come first.

I think there must be better way to cite those directors' names than to have each one have a number by it. If I find a source that said, "he was worked with James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, etc." then I would used that source rather than one source for every director. It's not a very controversial point because it can be easily checked and because "worked with" is vague. Did he bring them coffee? Babysit their dog? Were they his mentor? Did he co-write a screenplay with them? Did he write a screenplay by himself for them? You run the risk of name-dropping.

Notability: Salinger

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It makes sense to me to mention accolades for the Salinger book and movie, although both book and movie got bad reviews—unjustly, in my opinion, because I loved both. I've read the book many times, I wrote my college thesis on Salinger, and I wish I could get a copy of the DVD. The movie was only a short run in a few big cities. It wasn't given a chance to make much money, or to be seen and reviewed by people outside of New York and Los Angeles. You say you can reliably verify 150 cities. OK. But there are 35,000 cities in America. How long did the movie appear at each of the 150 theaters. How many of those theaters were in New York and LA? How many were in Chicago, Indianapolis, Baltimore, San Antonio, Little Rock, Texarkana? It wasn't just one theater per city. New York and LA have many more theaters than Little Rock.

My opinions aside, it isn't necessarily Notable (Wikipedia:Notability), nor much of a help to Salerno if that's the goal of a previous editor, to say that the documentary was "one of the ten highest grossing documentaries of they year" when it was number 10 on a list of 15, according in the Indiewire source used here. How many significant studio documentaries are released in a year? Is it that many more than 15? In that context, the money gained by the movie isn't that notable. Actually, what might be notable is that neither book nor movie got good reviews or earned much money, except for hitting number one on the LA Times bestseller and number six on the NYT bestseller list, the latter being not as much an accomplishment as you might thinky. These results disappoint me, but I'm not going to elevate them based on my biases. That would break the rule of neutral point of view. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

Notability: Armageddon

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The money gained by Armageddon is notable if it stands out compared to how much other movies made that year. This is apart from the success of the story itself. Kind of a cheesy movie, but I liked it because I like sci-fi and the occasional disaster movie. I've read IMDb a lot for many years, but on Wikipedia it's considered an unreliable source because it allows user-generated comment. Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources I gave the movie a 7. Everyone else's votes averaged out to 6.6, which is not that great.

I have trouble with subjective reviews being placed on Wikipedia to begin with. They introduce unsolvable debates because the introduce matters of preference and opinion. If I say this movie made X amount of money, that's fine. If I say it was one of the top five grossing movies of the year, that's fine. Beyond that sounds like special pleading, cheerleading, and the sort of the information fit less for an encyclopedia, and more for a résumé, an article in Variety, on the introduction on a TV talk show. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not

After I say that a movie made X dollars, then I have to say/show why that's notable, and then I have to say/show why it's notable for the subject of the entry. Links in a chain. A number five movie written by one screenwriter is notable. A number five movie written by four screenwriters isn't notable for one screenwriter, if only because I have no way of knowing which screenwriter is responsible for which parts of the movie.

It's hard to look at a Wikipedia entry and say, "This guy did a great job" when anyone can contribute to Wikipedia. You can click on the history tab and read the changes, but that's it. There's no byline. How do I know, as reader, that the changes made on a Tuesday have improved the article that existed on Monday? How do I know that the article was better six months ago or will be better six months from now? There may be progress or there my be regress.

If Salerno is "best known" for "his work on Armageddon," and if that means audiene, i.e. quantity of readers/viewers, then we have to calculate the number of people who saw Armageddon versus the number of people who saw Salinger and read the book Salinger. What to do about people like me who read the book multiple times? You see how mess this can get. These are matters an encylopedia editor need not examine too much because of the trouble that can ensue. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

If by "best known" you mean how much money did each movie make, Armageddon or Salinger, then you choose Armageddon. But is that because of Salerno? He had much more to do with Salinger, book and movie, than he did with Armageddon.

I use "best known" only when it's obvious and the opinion is widely shared, not just among critics. What is Spielberg best known for? Movies. Writing or directing? Directing. Jaws? Jurassic Park? E.T.? Saving Private Ryan? Is he best known for 1941 because it was such a flop?

References

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  1. ^ "Michael Mann | American director and screenwriter". Britanica.com. Retrieved 30 June 2016.

June 2024 discussion

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Stevehamny thanks for your email. It's better if we discuss the content here rather than privately. While there were lots of specifics in the email, at a high level I see two major themes (and please correct me if there are any I missed): what to do about incorrect information and why I choose to remove certain information (such as the box office performance). For the incorrect information, Wikipedia requires verifiability from reliable sources. The LA Times has generally been considered a reliable source and so if they got something wrong, we should try to find another reliable source or change the wording to make it more accurate but still verified to the Times. This focus on verifiability can definitely be one of the frustrating things about Wikipedia - this article is about these same frustrations and a rather humorous work around - but is also a key reason Wikipedia has become trusted by many readers (put another way: it creates some problems, but solves even more problems).

In terms of information I removed, a lot of it was because it failed to be neutrally written. It was written in a way that ended up reading as promotional towards Solano rather than neutrally stating what was "due". In fact it was so promotional, a Wikipedian I showed it to suggested it could be speedily deleted. This seemed like a bad outcome which is why I am taking the slower approach to try and rewrite the article to be better for our readers.

I hope this explanation makes sense in general. I am happy to discuss any of this further. I am also happy to discuss any specifics you want (you listed several in your email but there are strong expectations about not posting content from emails so I've tried to speak more generally). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:37, 11 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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