Film Template‑class

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I have a problem with the fact that this template is mostly post-2002 productions seasonsed with one or two of the fine older work such as "Animal House". Post 1991, the words "National Lampoon" became a phrase that you could rent out for a fee and slap on any piece of garbage you threw together. Invertzoo (talk) 14:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I apologize for the blatant POV in the above comment. It was fueled however by the desire to improve the encyclopedia and to eliminate what appears to be commercially inspired spam, so my motivation was not as "off" as it may have appeared. Best to all, Invertzoo (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The template has some serious problems and was put together by a sock puppet of someone who was blocked indefinitely a month after he started editing. I have a strong suspicion that there was a COI going on in the creation of the template and also the article on the films. In any case I feel that the template needs either a major re-working or failing that, a deletion. Thanks in advance for any input you might be able to give,Invertzoo (talk) 15:12, 10 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, I created the List of National Lampoon films article, but I'm not sure what you mean by "a major re-working", or what you think would be accomplished by deleting the template. The template currently contains every National Lampoon film on that list that has an article, and I don't see any problem with that. I'm open to suggestions for any improvements, but they would be better suited to the template talk page, or the talk pages of any of the articles that the template includes. Fortdj33(talk) 15:23, 10 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

OK, let me explain. I will also copy all of this to the talk page for the template. I strongly suspect that the template was created by someone working for hire for the modern company that has the name National Lampoon, Incorporated and dates from 2002. (The person who created the template was blocked 4 weeks after joining WP and had multiple sock puppet accounts.) The modern company has nothing whatsoever to do with the old National Lampoon, except they bought the rights to use the name. The heading for the template links only to the modern company, which was created in 2002 and has nothing whatsoever to do with Animal House, was the only film that was directly spun off of National Lampoon magazine using writers and even several actors such as Belushi who had worked on the magazine and the National Lampoon Radio Hour. The template as it currently stands thus conflates the superb original work with the less than mediocre straight-to-video crap films that were created by the modern company.

If the template is supposed to be about the modern company, then it should not include any work older than 2002, but... the modern company is not notable enough to need a template anyway. If the template is supposed to be about the original National Lampoon, then the recent dreck needs to be removed. If the template is supposed to contain everything that is "National Lampoon" then why is it only about films, TV films and videos? How come no books or albums? Because... the template was written for the modern company and essentially by the modern company. In other words it is cleverly disguised spam.

I am fortunate enough to know personally about a dozen of the surviving National Lampoon staff because my husband was one of them and worked with Belushi and Chase, Doug Kenny and so on. When the National Lampoon started falling on hard times they started renting out the name to anyone who could afford it, and later on the name was sold outright several times, finally ending up as the property of the modern company.

I had a run-in with a COI editor a couple years ago who had tacked everything about the recent company onto the Nat Lamp article. I split the new stuff off into the current article on the modern company. The editor mysteriously disappeared when I asked him directly about COI. Obviously the company is still trying to find ways to combine their stuff with the far superior older Lampoon stuff and this template is one of the results of those efforts.

I feel the template needs either deleting or a major reworking. One problem is that if you put even all of the genuine Lampoon projects in to a template it would be very large indeed and many of the links would be red links. Invertzoo (talk) 20:33, 10 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I see where you're coming from. But IMO, the origin of the template is irrelevant. What you really seem to be concerned about, is separating the "superb original work" from "the recent dreck". If that is the case, it can be reflected by modifying the current template, instead of splitting the information into multiple templates. I'm open to suggestions on how to do that, but your admitted connection to the original National Lampoon staff, may have biased your opinion about the National Lampoon name in general. I would suggest that you read WP:POV, WP:OR and WP:OWN, before making any changes. And then I would suggest to post those changes here, so that anyone interested can help us come to a consensus. Fortdj33 (talk) 20:51, 10 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I believe WP:Spam is the basic underlying problem here and therefore the origin of the template is quite relevant in understanding what is wrong with it and what needs doing with it. And yes there are other ways of dealing with this, other than separating it into two templates or deleting it altogether. We can attempt to modify the existing template, but how exactly to do that is the question... Yes, I am well aware of the POV, OR and OWN guidelines, and that is why I am trying to involve other editors such as yourself in this question/problem. I have also just now posted an outline of the problem on the talk page for WikiProject Spam here. I am hoping you may have some suggestions about how the template could be improved. Thank you for your time and effort, Invertzoo (talk) 22:08, 10 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I appreciate your effort too, and I hope that I didn't offend, as it was not my intention. But even if the template was created because of spam, the problem can be corrected by simply updating the template. For example, the links related to National Lampoon Magazine could have their own section, with sub sections for films, TV, radio, books, albums, etc. Another section could then be for National Lampoon Inc., with sub sections for all of the more recent films and videos. If it appears that these sections are too large for one template, then the idea of splitting the template can be discussed. The only reason I pointed out the guidelines above, is because when you refer to "less than mediocre straight-to-video crap" vs. "far superior older Lampoon stuff" those statements are blatant POV statements, and go against WP:NPOV. Fortdj33 (talk) 03:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Very good suggestions! Thanks you so much Fortdj33, you are very kind. I am very keen to try to enlarge the template in the ways you suggest. I did also want to comment that the POV viewpoint I expressed on the spur of the moment was not very admirable or suitable, but basically a chunk of POV is not so very damaging when it is on a talk page, however POV most certainly is not OK when it is inserted in an article or in a template. However it is possible to edit something and make sure that one's Point of View does not unduly influence ones edits, such that the article or template one is working on ends up clean and OK. But since you have no POV on these questions, you are ideal to have more control over input into this process than I do.

I guess I still have one preliminary question which is: are the modern company's productions all notable enough to include in a template? I say that because when I click on their blue-linked listings in the template, at least some of the articles have no references. By the way, I got one reply from Project Spam here. Best to you, Invertzoo (talk) 19:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I hope you are OK with this Fortdj, today I started to work with the template a bit, trying to include all of the material from both articles, and trying to get it all on there in a logical fashion. I put the two subgroups of films under subheadings of the film section, as you will see. Let me know how you think it's going and feel free to change it. Invertzoo (talk) 20:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So, I am taking a break now. Do you think the groups of listings should be in an alphabetical sequence? Please let me know how you think this is shaping up and what you think will need changing. Invertzoo (talk) 21:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I added a couple links, but not bad so far. However, all the redlinks that you included for books and recordings, are cluttering up the template, and go against WP:REDNOT. Usually links are not included in templates, for subjects which do not have their own articles yet. So, unless you plan on creating articles for all of those subjects, I would remove the redlinks. You also haven't reflected which projects are related to the magazine, and which products are related to the current company yet, which I thought was your main intention. Fortdj33 (talk) 01:32, 13 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Actually I am currently considering going ahead and making stubs for all of what is currently 35 red-linked books and recordings, assuming I can find OK references. As for the thing about indicating which projects were linked to the magazine, and which are from the modern company, what do you think would be the best way do that? Divide the individual sections using a date range, like 1970 to 1989 and then 2002 to present, and do that for each of the sections? Or redo the whole template by chronological order so it would have one division partway down? I would welcome suggestions. I don't want my POV to color the choices too much. Thanks for all your help, Invertzoo (talk) 20:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Also I wanted to say that there is quite a bit that I don't know how to do with the template syntax. You may know the syntax better than me so I may have to ask you for help on some things. Invertzoo (talk) 20:42, 13 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

• Three done, one duplicate link removed, 32 more to go. Invertzoo (talk) 01:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• OK another 3 done today, 29 more to go. Invertzoo (talk) 00:49, 15 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• Two more stub articles created this morning, one being a book on Lampoon that was not previously listed. Added a Lampoon-related book that already had a stub, but was not listed on the template. Created a stub for another Lampoon-related book that was not on the template. One more red link turned to a blue link, 27 to go. One more red link blued, remaining 26. Invertzoo (talk) 02:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• 22 left to do now. Invertzoo (talk) 01:56, 17 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• 16 left for me to do now, but I am certain there are other titles I have not yet unearthed. Invertzoo (talk) 01:31, 19 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• 12 left of the links I knew about. There will be others. Invertzoo (talk) 02:58, 20 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• 10 left. Invertzoo (talk) 02:51, 21 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• 6 left. Invertzoo (talk) 02:05, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]
• No red links left but I have come across a number of other items that will perhaps need to be added. Invertzoo (talk) 01:12, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Fortdj33, Can we talk about this? Invertzoo (talk) 22:18, 16 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If you are referring to my reversion of the template, I am happy to discuss it, so that we can hopefully come to a consensus. First of all, you had duplicated several links in both sections, which is completely redundant. But then, you also split some links into different sections, such as the Vacation series of movies. The purpose of a navigation template should be "to facilitate navigation between related articles in a central place". The larger a template is, the more limited its navigation value is, and per WP:NAV, we should avoid repeating links to the same article within a template. If your goal is still to divide the magazine-related articles from the rest, I am open to suggestions, but the divider that you placed made no sense to me. Fortdj33 (talk) 03:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks Fortdj33 for replying. Yes, let's talk about trying to get the template into good shape while simultaneously being a fair representation of the history of NatLamp related stuff. I was aware of the various problems when I stopped work yesterday, hoping to start again in a few hours.

I am working rapidly so that the template does not sit around for long with a lot of red links in it. At the same time I am trying to keep the template in good shape, and I am also trying to work out how we could set it up better to make it clearer what is what.

The main difficulty with the version that was reverted was the Vacation series. Some of the headings were duplicated like "Film" and so on. But if some red links were duplicated, that was not deliberate; those were just simple errors that would have gotten fixed hopefully the same day or next day.

The organization as it was was incomplete and provisional, but it was divided in two chronologically. The first part showed all the productions that came out during the years that the magazine existed, the second part was what came out during the tenure of the new company, which did not exist before 2002.

I do agree that a really huge template is perhaps not very useful, but for the time being, I will continue creating blue links. If necessary we can always turn some of the sections into list articles instead.

Looking forward to hearing from you, Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 20:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello again Fortdj33. I have just this minute discovered that quite a few of the things that appear to be books are actually "special editionds" of the magazine. Even though they were bound like books and did not appear to be a magazine, they were sold on newsstands and were published in addition to the regular monthly issue of the magazine. If you had a subscription you got the magazine but you had to go and buy these. I figures that since they are not actually books even though they look like books, I will have to create a separate section for them in the template, and plus maybe I can't use the book info box and the book project tag. What do you think about that? Invertzoo (talk) 03:00, 21 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Personally, I think that it's fine to classify them as books, and leave them in the Books section. That's how Amazon seems to consider them anyway. Good work with the redlinks, the template is shaping up nicely. Fortdj33 (talk) 15:03, 22 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks Fort. Now there are no more redlinks at all, thank goodness. (I ended up dropping 3 things that I could not find online refs for.) However, I have come across quite a lot more NatLamp books etc as I have been researching these, so there will be more to add, that is if I can find refs for them. But the tough part of the big rush is over and I can pace myself a bit better now. Invertzoo (talk) 01:10, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Heard from Project Books and it appears that the Special editions do not count as books but magazines..... Invertzoo (talk) 02:39, 24 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello Fort. Question: I am starting to check the post-2002 company's blue-linked articles. For example, just now I checked National Lampoon Comedy Radio. It has no reference section at all, and when I google "National Lampoon Comedy Radio" I get almost no results at all except for Wikipedia article, the company's own website, a Facebook page with a copy of the Wikipedia article, and a review on Yelp written by one of the organizers! To me that means that the subject is not notable and should be considered for deletion. What do you think? I ask not only for this case because I imagine that the same thing will crop up again, because several of the 2002 companies stubs have no refs. Invertzoo (talk) 22:35, 23 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Personally, I think that Wikipedia would be better served by trying to improve those articles with little information, rather than deleting them. However, if an article is a stub, and has little chance of being expanded, then it probably is not notable enough to have it's own article. This is not to say that the information should be removed, but the info from several stubs can be merged into other articles, or into a couple list-class articles. And at this point, that includes all the books and record albums that you've created stubs for. As for National Lampoon Comedy Radio, if it is not notable enough to warrant its own article, it should probably be merged into the National Lampoon, Incorporated article. Fortdj33 (talk) 17:03, 27 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I understand the point you are making. However, I would say there is a big difference between a stub that can rather easily be expanded, on a subject that is notable, and a stub for which there appears to be no reliable sources (at least no online sources) at all, and therefore which is likely to remain without any references permanently, and therefore should be considered not notable by definition. Many of the post-2002 companies stubs were started by someone who almost certainly had COI, was not acting in good faith, and almost certainly was being paid to increase the coverage of the company on here. Thus those stubs require special scrutiny. Invertzoo (talk) 20:39, 27 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Sorry that I wasn't able to respond to you quicker, I was busy this past weekend, and I apologize for being short with you on my talk page. Regarding the notability of the many stub articles included in the template, I think that you are having a hard time looking at them objectively. Inclusion in Wikipedia should be by definition of WP:Notability, not by your assumption of the creator's motives. If you feel that an article is lacking, feel free to tag it with ((notable)) or ((unreferenced)). Otherwise, I think that any stubs that are unlikely to be expanded, should be merged into existing articles, or new articles like List of National Lampoon books, List of National Lampoon recordings, etc. Fortdj33 (talk) 15:30, 28 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yes, you are right that regardless of the motives of the person who created a stub, if there appear to be no reliable sources to prove that that it is notable, then it is problematic and should be tagged. And if the creator's motives are suspect, as they are in this case, then certainly if I am willing to do so it is worth my while to check to see if the stubs have any references, and after that whether any suitable references even exist out there. This is what I was starting to do. But seriously Fort I want to emphasize that if you don't really enjoy this, or just don't have the time or inclination to work with me on this general subject area, I really don't mind hearing that at all, in fact I would rather you please just go ahead and tell me that, and then I will make an effort to find someone else who has more time.

The reason I am not in favor of merging the more promising, more expandable of the stubs into list articles, is that less experienced people, who might feel like adding info or an image to an article, or might want to generally expand that article, are much more likely to do so if a stub already exists, because most inexperienced editors find it a nuisance and a chore to have to start an article from scratch. I have worked for over 4 years on WikiProject Gastropods, where we now have 23,000 articles, and we have found that stubs are very effective in attracting new and inexperienced editors to add info and images. We find list articles do not attract edits in the same way. But of course this disagreement is part of the classic tension between the immediatists and the eventualists on Wikipedia. Best wishes to you, Invertzoo (talk) 21:50, 28 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This evening I found out there are another 7 special editions, another 3 books, at least 2 True Facts books, one more recording, another radio show, another two stage shows and one television show! Of course I may not be able to find suitable refs for all of them, but it could possibly mean a lot more new stubs, maybe as many as 17. Invertzoo (talk) 02:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hey Fort. The company "J2 Communications" is in fact very relevant. It was the company that owned the magazine and the National Lampoon brand name for 8 years from 1991 to 2002. All the productions that were put out during those 8 years and which had "National Lampoon" in the title had to negotiate with and pay J2 Communications for the right to use the name "National Lampoon", because J2 was the rightful owner and the people in charge.

At some point (I am not sure when exactly) Warner Brothers bought the rights to exclusively use the phrase "National Lampoon...Vacation" in movie titles, but they own those rights now apparently. I can try to find out if Warner Bros bought those rights during the time that J2 was the company that controlled National Lampoon.

I am a well-established and trusted editor like yourself. I know you are busy, but please do not revert significant changes of mine (even if you don't understand them) without leaving me a note beforehand asking me to explain the change or justify it first. This is the third time you have treated me in a rude and off-hand manner, and then afterwards you say you hope I was not offended. After three of these incidents, yes I am offended. The Wikipedia civility guidelines say, "editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect."

Thank you. Invertzoo (talk) 18:32, 2 December 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I understand, but a navigational template is not an article. If there is no link to a Wikipedia article about J2 Communications for further information, it does not belong here. The relevant information could possibly be incorporated into one of the National Lampoon articles already linked in the subheading of the template. Fortdj33 (talk) 19:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As you noticed, I created a stub about J2 Communications, so that company name was restored to the subheading. Invertzoo (talk) 13:53, 21 December 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Can we have bigger bullets? Why the asterisk format and not the more visible  • ? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:38, 6 December 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Support - The current list format was adapted from using the ((ö)) bullets before, which IMO was not much of an improvement. Fortdj33 (talk) 14:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Anna, thanks for that very constructive suggestion! I replaced all the bullets with the larger clearer bullets, and as a result the template looks much better now. If you have any other suggestions, please do tell. Invertzoo (talk) 14:13, 22 December 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Since it's quite large, I added the ability to specify |state=collapsed if desired.-- Atlantima ~✿~ (talk) 21:28, 30 April 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Great! Thanks very much. Invertzoo (talk) 13:27, 17 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]