Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Silent films task force

1920s silent film stubs

In tagging silent film stub articles, I have noticed that a lot of the silent films from the 1920s require 2 stub tags. For those that fall into more that one genre, this is fine, but for those that are simply either comedies or dramas, it seems redundant to add both {{1920s-drama-film-stub}} and {{silent-drama-film-stub}} to the same article. I propose creating two new tags: {{1920s-silent-comedy-film-stub}} and {{1920s-silent-drama-film-stub}}, along with the corresponding categories. This would still include the article in the categories of either Category:1920s comedy film stubs/Category:Silent comedy film stubs or Category:1920s drama film stubs/Category:Silent drama film stubs, but would eliminate the need for 2 comedy tags or 2 drama tags on the same article. Thoughts? Fortdj33 (talk) 14:54, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

AGREE. I do a lot of editing in the 1920s and 1930s. I say your idea is sound. Forgive my ignorance, but if you do create those new templates, is there a bot which will update the existing templates? Onel5969 (talk) 15:10, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

The edits could be performed by a bot, but I would probably just update the stub tags manually using AWB. I just wanted to get a consensus first on whether they were needed, because a lot of articles will be affected. Fortdj33 (talk) 15:25, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good to me too. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:45, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The tags have been created and sorted. {{1920s-comedy-film-stub}} and {{1920s-drama-film-stub}} are still in use, for articles that already have a tag for country of origin, or are not silent films. Thank you both for your support! Fortdj33 (talk) 20:47, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Sounds logical and makes it easier to find what you’re looking for. What about documentaries? I’m interested in Robert Flaherty’s work: Man of Aran; Nanook of the North and Moana. I think Disney stole Moana 2603:8000:9E40:C9:A153:A83B:65D1:3286 (talk) 02:08, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Determining directorial credit: 1914's St. Elmo

I've been hard at work assembling reference material to expand a bunch of silent film articles, especially Balboa and early Fox stuff. One of my first efforts has given me a ... challenge. To wit, how to credit the director for the 1914 St. Elmo. Contemporary Billboard credits Bertram Bracken, as does the 1914 Who's Who in the Film World. Solomon's 2011 monograph on Fox films seems to give the nod to Bracken as director, but doesn't really spend much time discussing this film (Solomon's safely canonical on most Fox material, but this isn't a Fox film). However, St. Elmo has long appeared in other sources as J. Gordon Edwards's directorial debut. That's Alan Goble's opinion, and the position of both the AFI and the Library of Congress's American Silent Feature Film Database.

So far, I've simply presented both possibilities. But, the more I reflect on this, should we consider the AFI and Library of Congress to be canonical (making note of the period sources that cite Bracken)? Or is doing so original research? Also, how do we list this credit in Edwards's filmography (currently I've gone with "maybe", but that's not exactly ideal)? Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 18:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Citing both is fine, if WP:RS are used. Nice work in starting the article too! Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 18:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Any idea what to do with the entry in the filmography table? "Maybe" hardly feels like the right answer, but since RS differ, I can't very well just say "yes" unless we take AFI/LOC over contemporary sources. In any case, thanks for the kind words. Sadly, there's not too much more to add for St. Elmo, which is by all measures, a pretty minor piece of film history. My next one will have a lot more to say. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

You could add a footnote against the entry and explain in the text that there's a question mark over who directed it. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 19:14, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Currently, I've actually provided some explanation of that in the list's introductory text. Given that the uncertainty was over his directorial debut, it seemed impossible not to address the topic. Thanks though, I at least feel better that I've made the right choices now. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:15, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

No problem and welcome to the new project! Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 19:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

1910s film stubs

A quick catscan shows that there are about 286 articles included in both Category:1910s comedy film stubs and Category:Short silent comedy film stubs, plus 220 articles that are included in both Category:1910s drama film stubs and Category:Short silent drama film stubs! Again, I feel that it is redundant to include the same article in both categories. Since the "1910s" categories are overpopulated, are there any objections to me removing the {{1910s-comedy-film-stub}} and {{1910s-drama-film-stub}} tags from those articles? Fortdj33 (talk) 22:05, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

There's something to be said for having a stub-category that preserves the year range for these, though, I think. If nothing else, because research for 1910s films (especially the shorts!) is a very different beast than for later works. Perhaps the best approach is a subcategory? Something like {{1910s-comedy-short-film-stub}}? Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 22:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I could see the advantage of that, though the proper format would probably be {{1910s-short-comedy-film-stub}}. Since all the 1910s film categories are silent anyway, the year range would take the place of the word "silent", eliminating the need for {{short-silent-comedy-film-stub}} on the same article. The corresponding category would then be a subcategory of both Category:1910s comedy film stubs and Category:Short silent comedy film stubs. Thoughts? Fortdj33 (talk) 00:19, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

I know that would be helpful for me once I get done with the backlog of films I've already queued up for improvement and start looking for more to work on. But I'm just one crazy editor, so the opinions of other folks working in the area (there are more of us, right?) would probably also be valuable. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 02:37, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, well assuming that Lugnuts or Racconish don't have any problems with this, I'll start on updating these tags tomorrow... Fortdj33 (talk) 22:35, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Not all Short silent drama film stubs are 1910s films and vice-versa. There is a long established stub by decade category, hence why they are included in both. There's no problem with this, unless an article is suffering from over-stubbing (3 or more stubs on a page). So I see no reason to remove one or the other stub in this case. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 07:59, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Same opinion: two different aspects. Or maybe I did not get it . Cheers, — Racconish^📥 09:45, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand the difference, the proposal is to create a couple new subcategories and stub tags, so that the articles are still tagged as short films and by decade, but with only one stub tag. It wouldn't affect all the articles in those categories, just the ones that have both tags. The main reason to do this, is because the decade categories are overpopulated, and there's no need otherwise for the same article to be in multiple silent film stub categories. Fortdj33 (talk) 12:49, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Right, the problem here isn't overstubbing, it's that the 1910s stub categories are enormous. The proposed stub categories would get the short films out of the huge parent stub cats and into their own box. In my opinion, that's good for everyone. It makes the category sizes more manageable all around, and it's a helpful division from an article-writer's standpoint, because a lot of the sources that could be used to expand the feature films barely touch the shorts. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:04, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure no-one expands any stub based on what category it is in currently. It's all about someone having an interest in the subject matter, not the self-imposed wiki categories. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 15:14, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

1900s short film stubs

For info, today I've created Category:1900s short drama film stubs and Category:1900s short comedy film stubs. There are 58 articles in the latter, with more to be added to both as I work through D. W. Griffith's filmography. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 20:43, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Lugnuts, I look forward to using these new stub tags! However, the new categories seem to have depleted the parent categories, to the point that they no longer meet the threshold for stub categories. Specifically, now that Category:1900s short drama film stubs exists, both Category:1900s drama film stubs and Category:Short silent drama film stubs have less than 60 articles in them. Was it really necessary to create categories for these new 1900s stubs, or do you anticipate there eventually being enough articles to re-fill the other two categories? Fortdj33 (talk) 21:37, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

It's only been a couple months, but IMO there hasn't been a justification for those templates to have their own categories, so I have nominated them for deletion. Fortdj33 (talk) 19:20, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Films with no images

Please forgive me for side-tracking : is there a category for films with no images ? I would very much appreciate for example the challenge of voiding a category such as 1915 films with no illustration. Cheers, — Racconish^📥 10:37, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

There must be a way using WP:CATSCAN to look at Category:Silent films articles needing an image and any given year, but I can't quite get the text right at the moment. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 11:15, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Good luck trying to get surviving stills from many of silents which are lost. I try not to use text-only advertisements, but quite a few productions simply do not have any known surviving photos. The old Edison Trust releases should have plenty of press and images though. Thanhouser's survival alone is exceptional, but their advertising was very weak in places. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:10, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

7100 stubs - Article Alerts time!

Just a question - how do we have nearly 7,100 stubs yet have less than a sixth of the total films released? From a purely tracking standpoint this seems a bit amazing, and I think we need to set up Article Alerts to better give notice to AFDs, GAs, and such. Once we start having everything organized and start really producing a lot of high quality content - I might grab the other website's crowds to chime in about Wikipedia's progress. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it's the early morning fog, but I don't understand the first sentence! What do you mean by "...have less than a sixth of the total films released"? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 10:23, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I was stating that despite having 7,000+ stub articles, we still have almost five times as many uncreated articles. Which shows how daunting and how much information is missing from Wikipedia on the subject of silent films. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, right! When I first started editing back in 2007, I was amazed to find missing films starring Charlie Chaplin, so it's not too surprising that there are so many gaps. I keep chipping away where I can! How do you set up alerts? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:46, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article alerts has info - if you want to implement it for the project. Pretty easy to do. Wikipedia may have its critics, but in general Wikipedia is like less than 1% functionally complete from what it could be doing. Most of Lon Chaney's work is still incomplete and without articles, but the actors, directors, companies and such are all of very limited detail at this point. I've been able to rectify dozens of errors on certain Silent films, some of which are really bizarre in nature. Also - please avoid all of Froggy's reviews - I cannot stress this enough, but I know this is tangential at this point. Do not cite Froggy because of the hoaxes. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:25, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Forgive my ignorance, but how would Wikipedia:Article alerts help us add information about missing films? Doesn't it rely on articles that already exist, being tagged with banners or placed in the proper categories first? Fortdj33 (talk) 17:15, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Alerts to deletions, prods, GA, FA - that sort of thing. Sorry, I ran the two ideas together some. I was like 7000+ articles! We need alerts to help manage such a large number of articles! ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:49, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

London Editathon

For those of you further afield who cannot make it person, it would be great to hear from you. We could also do with suggestions for other pages to be worked on which are in some way connected with The Tramp. Fabian Tompsett (WMUK) (talk) 15:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Tackling Universal

I've been content to do the Thanhouser works, but I have most of the documents and many books related to the Universal Silents - including Braff's Universal silents, which is of great and immense help in simply figuring out "what was made". I wonder if anyone is able to drum up some complete release schedules to get a better overview of what needs to be done. Mind you, the release schedules for some have been completely messed up in publication and I spent many hours trying to dig up information on a minor company that seems never to actually have released any films in the end. This won't be an issue with the Licensed studios - so it would be best to start there. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:52, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Text in the public domain

On the article Bride 13 another editor has added a copy & paste plot from an external source. I reverted it, per WP:COPYVIO, but they state as it's from 1920, it can be posted. Any guidance on this would be helpful. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 19:19, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

First things first - that isn't a plot. It is the text from an advertisement. While it is actually not a copyright violation (as the text is public domain) it is something I would never use as a plot. And note - I use official plots on lost films to preserve the intention, nuance and style which cannot be gained and appreciated in any other fashion. Serials from that later era are typically easy to find plot summaries for.... so I think the addition of an advertisement's text was lazy, minimally useful and of rather poor taste. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:24, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanhouser 1910 done

I have completed all the articles and information on Thanhouser's 1910 productions. Most were not even given articles, but I have found and corrected a lot of misinformation that exists. I think I am going to start working on the main page while I proceed into 1911's works. I hope to have a good topic established in the end. Here's to the long journey ahead. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:41, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

The Blackbird

Or The Black Bird? Please see this discussion. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Silent Era website no more

Just found out that the Silent Era website is no longer live. The homepage has this message: "Silent Era has discontinued publication. We thank you for your readership and support." All the links are dead, but can be found via the web archive. Rats. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 07:59, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Quo Vadis (1912 film)

Quo Vadis (1912 film) should have been moved rather than copy/paste. I don't know how to solve the problem.Xx236 (talk) 09:40, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

I've reverted the deletion tag on the 1912 film. The 1913 film needs to be deleted, and then the 1912 page moved. Logging this at WP:RM should fix it. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:46, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

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Language=silent in infobox

Shouldn't the language(s) in which the intertitles were shown in the original release(s) be listed? I'm not saying any infobox annotation that a film is silent should be removed, as it's often the only such indication, as in Quo Vadis (1913 film), but that the language listing in the infobox should (also?) reflect that of the intertitles. 71.204.166.188 (talk) 14:40, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Smithsonian article on the search for lost silent films

I am posting this as of interest to this task force. There may be some cite-able information it it.

• Kramer, Fritzi (2019-01-09). "Why We Need to Keep Searching for Lost Silent Films". Smithsonian Magazine.

Peaceray (talk) 21:55, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

1913 "The Vampire" confirmed to not be lost.

Added this to the talk page of the movie. Basically the Wikipedia article said it wasn't lost, but the citation to the Silentera.com that said so didn't have concrete evidence of this. Other sites said the film was lost. Nitrateville.com has a few posts about the movie having been lost due to film degradation. I also found a few other conflicting sources on this film, and wasn't able to locate a copy online. 30ish people claimed to have watched it on Letterboxd, and so I sent out a few emails, I've added the responses below. The first reel of the film exists in the Library of Congress. The Eastman museum was able to preserve the film in the 1990s (all news of this has since faded from the internet due to it being in the 1990s). I'm not sure how to cite these emails but I think they offer better proof of the film not being lost, and will put this debate to rest. Additionally, I'm inquiring about obtaining a digital copy, or having one made, and if so I'll post the film into the commons as well.

Emails: LoC https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1025136932172337192/1103057085031256074/image.png?width=1408&height=379 Eastman Museum: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1025136932172337192/1103057145550876772/Screenshot_20230502-145236_Gmail.png 108.249.173.121 (talk) 21:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)