The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. ‑Scottywong| spill the beans _ 17:40, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Versions of Justice League

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Versions of Justice League (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · of Justice League Stats)
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The page goes into such excessive detail on every tiny aspect of Zack Snyder's Justice League and its process in reaching theaters that it seems unlikely to interest or meaningfully inform anyone except dedicated fans of the director's work who are heavily invested in seeing the "Snyder Cut" released. In fact, it also seems unlikely this subject rises to the standards of notability for such a minutely detailed article, and largely exists so it can be shared in celebration that Wikipedia thinks the Snyder Cut notable enough to deserve such a lengthy article. Smacks of fan bias at every turn. User:Gargus-SCP

  • Comment: Firstly, the tendency of the article to devolve into bullet points enumerating every last change to the theatrical cut of the film strikes me as information only a fan of the film would be interested in. Getting into the nitty gritty of minor deleted roles, alternate costume choices, and director cameos is the sort of trivuium one would find on imdb, not in a Wikipedia article out to inform in a general manner. Your article may be very well researched, I can admit that much, but the articles for far more notable alternate film cuts you link at the bottom achieve largely the same effect for films with extant, available alternate cuts with nowhere near so much minute detailing. It's difficult to imagine an unbiased editor thinking all this at all necessary.
The excessive write-up on Snyder's numerous plans from before the film actually went to production also make me think of bias. It's one thing to have a brief note on what Snyder planned to do, but there are paragraphs about plans that never made it to a screenplay phase that go into equal amounts of detail as the process of removing Snyder from the project and instating Joss Whedon. I rhetorically ask again, is it to Wikipedia's standards of notability to give a detailed summary of Zack Snyder's entire planned Justice League trilogy, which will never see the light of day and is at best a minor footnote in the story? Details like that are best left to fan wikis, where the readership is more directly invested in such information.
Notating the Black Suit edition is just downright suspect. The Phantom Edit, which you link at the bottom, has received substantial media coverage, and is actually out and available for viewing. You yourself admit the Black Suit edition has a "possible release date," so I see no reason to include it here other than promoting its existence to a wider audience.
It's just very difficult to believe this article was written in good faith, and not as some attempt to promote the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement. It reads like a fan sermon to the masses about the great injustice they hope to undo rather than an impartial encyclopedia entry, especially when it includes so much information pages for more notable alternate cuts see fit to leave out. Even if you did not intend it this way, it functionally reads as such, and should not be on Wikipedia. User:Gargus-SCP
  • On the charge that this page should be deleted because information about unreleased films is unsuitable for an encyclopedia, I have to disagree. Wikipedia has tons of information about cancelled or unreleased films, especially superhero films, such as Superman V, Superman Reborn, Superman Lives, Superman: Flyby, Batman Unchained, Batman: DarKnight, Batman: Year One, Batman Beyond, Spider-Man 4, Venom, cancelled Marc Webb sequels and spinoffs, Green Arrow: Escape from Super Max, Justice League: Mortal and tons more. If any of those individual films had four different versions, I'm sure a separate page for that information would be warranted. On the charge that this page should be deleted because it constitutes propaganda or a soapbox, I have to strongly disagree. Just like the above cancelled films, this page is a collection of facts and attributed opinions about four versions of a film. It does not contain any opinions of my own nor does it promote any ideology or product. It merely states multiple versions of this film exist. As WP:NOTPROPAGANDA states, "An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view." The article is objective and neutral as previously stated, unless you can point out any specific bias beyond your belief that the whole article is biased. On the charge that this page should be deleted because it promotes the upcoming Black Suit Edition, I have to strongly disagree. Wikipedia often includes upcoming release dates and information about upcoming films without being seen as a promotion. Updated as of today are the recently announced Phase 4 MCU films with official release dates and other upcoming MCU films in production, and Wikipedia has pages such as 2021 in film that highlight release dates of upcoming films two years from now. Saying a movie is in production is not a promotion of that movie. On the charge that this page should be deleted because it contains a lengthy list of information, I agree it may be lengthy, but I disagree that's grounds for deletion. Fezmar9 (talk) 09:10, 21 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe you are misconstruing several of my points here. As you will note, none of those unreleased films you list are articles on their own, nor do any save Superman Lives go into such great detail about every aspect of the production process, with Superman Lives serving as the exception because it has a fairly comprehensive documentary to draw from. You argue there are four different cuts of Justice League as a reason necessitating its own page, yet your own article states two of these supposed cuts are ideas for a proposed series of films that never made it past the planning stage and a script that was heavily reworked before filming began, so they cannot serve as a justification for writing an entire article like Blade Runner's seven fully extant cuts. The point about soapboxing does get a little messy, I'll admit, but to elaborate - even if we disentangle the ongoing efforts of another user to fill the article with pro-Snyder anti-critic rhetoric of the like more toxic members of the movement like to employ, the decision to list each and every last change made to the final product is odd. If we return to Blade Runner as an example, the Versions of Blade Runner article is nowhere near so fine in description, reserving the bullet pointing for only major changes that would not flow well in a paragraph. The present version of your article contains thirty-one bullet points about the changes made to Justice League, many of which are inconsequential to the typical scope of a Wikipedia article. It gives the piece the feeling of a fan attempting to inform the public of every last grievance inflicted on the director by the studio, which does not become an encyclopedic work. Finally, with the Black Suit edition, my objection is not on the grounds that it is an unreleased work, but rather that it is an unreleased fan project. Of all the information on this page, "Someone somewhere is trying to make a new, unauthorized cut of Justice League" is the least essential of all, and I cannot help but read it as another attempt to boost the Snyder Cut movement's profile rather than inform in an unbiased manner
And if I may note once more, while your article is very impressively researched (if heavy on sites like ScreenRant and CBR as sources) and put together (save the present vandalism), I still maintain the truncated attempt at the same present on the film's own page is more appropriate for the notability of the subject. Gargus-SCP 8:07, 21 July, 2019 (PST)
  • To some degree, what determines an article's length and existence is the amount of information that has been published. As a non-film example, The Beatles' history has been separated out into a dozen or so subpages, including The Beatles in Hamburg which details the two years the band spent in Hamburg, and The Beatles timeline which details every minute detail including when their parents died and competitions they lost years before being known as The Beatles. These pages exist and are the length they are because this information was extensively documented. I don't think a direct comparison to Versions of Blade Runner is warranted quite in that way because the differences between its cuts are relatively minor, and there aren't tens of thousands of online articles going into detail about what those changes are. It is the length and detail it is because that's what's out there and would likely be significantly more detailed if more published sources went into more detail. Perhaps a more direct comparison would be Star Wars sequel trilogy. The first section about the early ideas for a sequel trilogy was originally the only content of the article for a decade and outlined dozens of proposed ideas for a film trilogy that, at the time, was not in production and no one had any reason to believe it would be any time soon. It was nominated for deletion five times but was kept because notability of the subject (which didn't even exist in any tangible form) could be established through a wealth of reliable sources. For Justice League, it is very difficult to find any article published in 2018 or 2019 that does not discuss or at the very least mention the different versions of the film and I believe this is what makes the movie culturally and socially relevant post-release. Similarly, the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released in 1975. A year later, the film gained a cult following, which became its defining cultural and social aspect. As a result, Wikipedia acknowledges this with two sections § Cult phenomenon and § Cultural influence and the separate page The Rocky Horror Picture Show cult following The film's page also has section § Sequel which outlines three unproduced attempts at a sequel. Speaking of cultural and internet phenomenon (which I think the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement could easily be considered) Wikipedia extensively covers these topics. The dress was an internet sensation for a few days a few years back and has a very detailed GA-status article. I also hope the recent efforts from the actual Snyder Cut movement (again, of which I am not a part of and have zero interest in being affiliated with) to edit this page have shown that there is a wealth of additional information out there, and despite what you might think, I have actually made efforts to keep this article brief. But if the main concern is that the article is too long, why not have a discussion about what to trim (perhaps an arbitrary limit of say 10 bullet points of differences between versions) instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? TL;DR: all of the elements of this page exist throughout Wikipedia (alternate film versions, unproduced sequels, unproduced films, fan edits, cultural phenomenon, etc) with no problems. I believe what makes Justice League culturally relevant after its 2017 release is the differences between the different versions and the associated movement. All of the information can be reliably sourced to an abundance of reliable online sources (GN search for "Snyder Cut" alone brings up 50,000+ hits) and that abundance also establishes this article's notability. If length is the concern then let's cut it down, not throw it out. Fezmar9 (talk) 17:13, 22 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • You make fair arguments, particularly in regards to the presence of an article on the Star Wars sequel trilogy for years prior to any official movement. I would personally disagree with the decisions made in that case, but precedent is precedent and you do have a point. I will, however, still object on two major grounds. Firstly, as I have already pointed out, none of your justifying other pages from similar topics on Wikipedia come anywhere close to the exhaustive level of detail regarding minute issues that could easily be summarized. They get by with far less, and are far more palatable to a reader with a perspective totally outside the engagement of online film fandom, and are, if I may, better sourced. This issue of sourcing forms my second objection: you DO have quite an extensive list down at the bottom, but I cannot help but notice how many of your sources are from comic book movie news/rumor sites that exist to generate eye-catching headlines and take advantage of audience's interests to generate traffic. We can get lost in the weeds arguing to what extent the reliability guidelines and notability applies when practically every online source is marred by the need to do such in modern times, but I wouldn't think it controversial to claim sites such as Screenrant, ComicBook.com, and MovieWeb report on the Snyder Cut to such a degree because it is beneficial to their revenue stream thanks to fan interest, particularly when they make entire articles out of nothing details like "a minor character was cut" or "a line of dialogue was deleted." You do have better sources here (Washington Post, Hollywood Reporter, New York Times, etc), but a casual glance over the article in comparison to the Justice League article looks as if those sources are shared between the two, and those that are not are here in support of poor sources for tiny, insubstantial details. I wouldn't worry much about throwing the baby out with the bath water, as a version of this article cut down to an appropriate length for the subject matter once the poor sourcing and fandom bias is removed would look near identitical to the Snyder Cut section on Justice League's own article. Gargus-SCP 10:59, 22 July 2019 (PST)
  • I think your first point is an argument in favor of trimming and your second argument is in favor of editing or swapping out niche publications with more mainstream publications, neither seem to be in favor of deletion. I will admit that in my ~13 years of editing Wikipedia, 95% of that has been related to albums and bands—I don't know much about what is considered a reliable source in the film sphere. I noticed that on most new superhero film articles including Justice League, there was a mix of niche blogs such as Screen Rant, Cosmic Book, Comic Book, Comic Book Resources, /Film and even social media posts, as well as larger, more established publications such as Hollywood Reporter, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, etc. So, I followed suit when creating this article. I will admit it does lean heavily on Screen Rant, because those were the first articles I first read. At Wikipedia:Reliable sources, it says "source" can mean a few things that can impact reliability, including what the source of information was for an article. I was conscious of the fact that a lot of Screen Rant's articles relied on rumors and gossip, and an effort was made to avoid adding things such as the rumor that in Justice League 3 Superman and Lois Lane were going to have a baby named Bruce in honor of his death, which was sourced to a Vero post with a fan posting that theory and Snyder replying with a hand clap emoji. I attempted to exclusively source my contributions to any Screen Rant article that was supported by a quote from a member of the cast or crew. Fezmar9 (talk) 21:23, 22 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • All fair all round. The reliability of places like Screen Rant is heavily dependent on what they're talking about and where they're getting their points from, and it is admirable that you restricted yourself to ones based on verifiable information. On an entirely anecdotal, personal-experience level, however, all I can say is that these sites tend to report on such minor details as if they were big ticket news items largely because fans of the work generate good ad revenue by clicking through to complain about the studio's actions or bias from the sites in the comments. I am, admittedly, too new to seriously using Wikipedia to definitively say whether a site doubling down on covering a niche interest invalidates its reliability as a source, but my time in academia tells me far more discretion is necessary in choosing which sources matter, and what an encyclopedic article on such a subject should cover. I stand firm on the matter of deletion not because I want this content off Wikipedia entirely, but because to my eye the best practice, best written version of this article I can imagine involves an expansion of the existing subheading on Justice League's page, not an entire article whose tone reads as accusatory towards the studio and ingrained in grassroots activism, even before fans of the work arrived to heavily bias it in their favor. To stress just one more time, this seems a good piece for independent coverage of the Snyder Cut story, but dissecting every step involved in creating a version of a film that may not see the light of day for several decades does not seem to fit with the spirit or mission of Wikipedia. Gargus-SCP 15:09, 22 July 2019 (PST)

Delete The page shouldn't exist in the first place, regardless of editor bias. You don't see, for example, Blade Runner getting its own page for alternate versions, all that information is condensed into the main article. Justice League shouldn't be an exception to that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:CC9D:3F00:2C21:E566:B849:D46E (talk) 20:26, 24 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Agreed, because the differences seen in the multiple versions of the First two Star Wars trilogies don’t have AN ENTIRE ARTICLE dedicated to them AT ALL, right?...RIGHT?


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_Star_Wars_re-releases — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.167.116.8 (talk) 01:36, 25 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Film-related deletion discussions. Fezmar9 (talk) 13:32, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Comics and animation-related deletion discussions. Fezmar9 (talk) 13:32, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Fezmar9 (talk) 13:32, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Fezmar9 (talk) 13:32, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Besides, Wikipedia should be to inform people of things that happened, not things that might've happened. It is indeed interesting to know that Snyder had a different vision, and the vision and tone of the movie changed with the Directorial change. But to know of any plan that Snyder might've had that didn't even make it to the screenplay? That happens with Every movie (e.g. the Rogue One movie, that even went through a similar Directorial change) and a detailed article was not needed then, and it shouldn't be created now. Just a basic mention on the original article should be enough. If, on the other hand, a Snyder cut is actually released at some point, then a specific article could be considered, I guess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.4.226.113 (talk) 10:11, 24 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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