Lacanic

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Happy editing! Jacona (talk) 11:45, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

❤️❤️❤️ Lacanic (talk) 19:19, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Strange Harvest Occult Murder in the Inland Empire Film Poster.jpg

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Thank you, used here Lacanic (talk) 17:22, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Original research

Hi! I saw that you're interested in creating film articles - a topic dear to my heart! Especially horror films. :)

I wanted to give you a bit of an overview since one of the articles you created (Strange Harvest) contained some non-neutral sounding prose and also had some original research. Wikipedia can have a bit of a learning curve when it comes to these areas, as what's considered to be normal elsewhere can be seen as non-neutral or original research on here. I certainly know that I had to learn this lesson the hard way myself when I first started editing!

With promotional tone, this can be a bit tricky to get used to since a lot of what is considered promotional on here can seem pretty innocent elsewhere. A lot of it is getting used to avoiding certain WP:BUZZWORDS, but you also have to be careful of how things are kind of stated. For example, the phrase "weaves a narrative that echoes real-life crime documentaries, staying vague as to what is fact or fiction" can be a bit problematic depending on where and how it's used. Some this can also run afoul of original research, which I'll go into a bit more next. With tone, the issue here is that it can come across as marketing speak, where the goal is often to represent the topic in as favorable light as possible. While it's an essay, this does an excellent job of covering the issue with marketing buzzspeak. Now that doesn't mean we have to completely avoid words like "weaves" and "blends". We just have to be extremely careful about where it's used and how the rest of the article is written. Some buzzwords are kind of OK in synopsis sections and the like, but if you use them there you also have to make sure that the rest of the article is written in a WP:NPOV (neutral point of view). My recommendation is to review articles that are of good or excellent quality and model them after those - by good quality I mean that they have been evaluated and pass the Good Article criteria like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Original research is more of what I wanted to caution you about. In a nutshell, we can only summarize what has been explicitly stated in source material. In the Strange Harvest article you added a section comparing the film to the real life crimes of Richard Chase and the murder of Lilly Lindeström. We can only include information like that if it's stated by effectively one of the following people: the writer, the director, producer (or any major person in the crew), one of the main actors, or a journalist covering the film. So for example, if the director were to explicitly state that he drew on these cases as inspiration in say, an article with Dread Central or an interview with Kim Newman, we could put that on the article. What we can't do is use an article about Richard Chase (that doesn't mention the film at all) and use that as evidence that his crimes were an inspiration. There can sometimes be a bit (or a lot!) of overlap in how serial killers act and how murders take place, so it's not impossible for the director to have taken inspiration from someone else entirely - or not from the actual killer at all. Because there's the potential for misinterpretation, we can only summarize what the person has explicitly stated. Even if it seems obvious, there's always the possibility of them meaning the exact opposite of what is implied (but not outright stated). For example, in this situation it's likely that he drew upon Chase as an inspiration - but it's also possible that he didn't. With so many films and characters loosely based on real life crimes and killers, it's extremely possible that a director would base their story and characters on someone/something fictional. Even if that original fiction was based on a real life killer, it would still be incorrect to say that the writer or director based their creation on the real life person. This sounds like splitting hairs, but that's what it all boils down to. You can see more about original research at WP:OR.

I also want to expound a bit more on the sourcing. Other than using a newspaper article for the Chase claim, the sources you have are generally very good. So this is more of a pre-emptive caution than anything else. Make sure that you are using the best possible sources. By this I mean that we should avoid using self-published sources unless they're widely known and proven to be a reliable source. Sometimes there can be a bit of wiggle room when we have a verified interview with one of the creatives involved with the movie, but we would still need to be able to verify that the source is legit.

Part of the reason that I wanted to reach out and give advice/caution is that well, Wikipedia can have a steep learning curve. It was steep back when I started editing, as I would find some of my stuff reverted with some borderline mean messages. There were also those who would just link to policies without trying to explain them, assuming that I would understand both what was written and the community expectations (a lot of those pages can be pretty dry and only have limited examples). I was very fortunate in that no one accused me of being a troll or promotional editor, but I did see it happen to others. I'm not saying that Wikipedia is full of unkind people, just that it's not uncommon for editors to put all of the onus on newer editors to learn everything on their own without a ton of explanation. It's why this has all gone on for so long - I want to make sure that I've included a lot of the basics because I was once a newer editor who did the same things.

I'm not on as frequently, so if you have any questions and I'm not on, you can always hit up WP:HORROR for advice - the WikiProject is kind of dead but there are still some actives on there. Paleface Jack is on more frequently and he's a treasure trove of sourcing and advice. He's one of the people kind of single handedly keeping that project alive, honestly. I also recommend these training modules. They're aimed at students editing Wikipedia but honestly they're still some of the best training modules out there since they give a great overview of policies and are regularly updated to include any major changes in said policies. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 19:31, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh! One more note! When it comes to things like inspirations and the like, it's best to include those in a single production section. There's nothing inherently wrong about making separate sections, it's just that in most cases there's not enough info to really justify multiple sections. Every once in a while you'll get movies that become media darlings (either instantly or over time) and spawn a ton of sourcing to flesh out multiple sections, but the vast majority of films - ESPECIALLY horror films - tend to get a few handfuls of coverage. Non-mainstream horror tends to get even less than that, honestly.

And again, we can only summarize what has explicitly been stated. Even if someone sounds like they're describing a cat, we can't say that they're talking about a cat. We can only summarize their description and, if it's available, follow that up with a reliable source where someone says "the creature sounds feline in nature". Otherwise, we can only say "Ortiz described an animal with pointed ears, whiskers, and a tail; he also said the animal makes a rumbling sound when it's happy". He could be describing a cat, or he could be describing something else entirely - like a fox that just happens to make a rumbling sound when it's happy. Part of the reason you have to be so careful is that misinterpretations can spread like wildfire, as a lot of places use Wikipedia as a source. Then you also have to be careful of those individuals who are deliberately vague and spread misinformation because they love the chaos. I'm not even talking about journalists or editors. I'm directly referring to the creatives who made up the topic in question. The artist who came up with That Man took special delight in deliberately misleading a media website when he realized they weren't aware it was a hoax. (On a side note, do look into that - it's hilarious!) ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 19:39, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@ReaderofthePack:Imagine my surprise reading this and seeing my name mentioned as the MVP of WikiProject Horror. I cannot take any credit for keeping the project alive, not as nearly as award winning or recognized as some others on here, but appreciate the thought. The project is still alive and well, (Insert Frankenstein quote here:[...]) and it is always nice to see others interested and working on these sorts of things. Paleface Jack (talk) 20:05, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! I’ll go through and make some revisions with your detailed notes. Appreciate it! Lacanic (talk) 01:45, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Ty for help with cleanup! I've done some as well and gone back and added some more sources. Lacanic (talk) 19:03, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

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