Forums: War Room → Separating comments in film pages

I am Hasdi. This is a follow-up to my earlier withdrawn proposal. We may not be able to make this site less "hostile" for film fans, but we can improve the "signal-to-noise" ratio on the film pages, by enforcing (and expanding) existing discussion policy:

• Relevance - Comments should not be social conversations between users. They are to facilitate interaction that is relevant to the topic of the article or blog post. Comments deemed irrelevant are subject to deletion by an administrator or rollback user.

When I review the comments on the film pages, it occured to me that we have not been enforcing this policy for quite some time. My biggest gripe (since last year) is that the comments and criticisms for the Film:The Last Airbender (TLA) that kept ending up on the Film:The Last Airbender 2 (TLA2)! Most people reading on TLA2 are film fans (because they want to see the sequel) so what better place to vent your frustration in the face of film fans than to comment on TLA2 page. This is a no-brainer - we need to delete such irrelevant comments on the first movie on TLA2 page.

The page Film:Reception to The Last Airbender (which contains reviews and criticism on the movie) was spun off from TLA on February 5, 2011. However, reviews and criticisms on the first movie remained on TLA page. What's the point of spining off that page then? At least if people comment on the page, it may get edited and updated with relevant information. Also, I realize that for those of you who hate the movie, it is probably difficult to imagine what other things that can be discussed other than what SHOULD have been done in the first movie. As a film fan, I find it very frustrating that I do not get a chance to discuss with other film fans what was ACTUALLY done in the movie. What SHOULD have happened has ZERO relevance on the film adaptation by M. Night Shyamalan - if he wants Katara to be a novice Waterbender, so be it. That needs to be captured and documented - a lot of things are not edited as such because some of you think "it's wrong". How long did it take to figure out that Film:Ozai is a composite of Zhao and Ozai, and Film:Zhao is really "Zhao Jr."?

As for racebending comments, these kept spilling all over the film pages time and time again, drowning out other relevant discussions and conversations. I never understood why we don't have one place for these comments as done in other forums like LAF's Racebending forum. I propose we treat these like Shipping comments, and restrict them to the newly created page Film:Casting Controversy. Yes, Buttongoo, we will have a page dedicated for "racist" comments, but that's better than have all film pages to fair game for "racist" comments.

As for reboot ideas, yes, KaneC is the biggest proponent, but others also kept talking about ideas for reboot, what should be done for a reboot, etc, etc. These comment recur frequently on TLA2 but also kept spilling on other film pages. 99.99% of the time, these comments are REALLY REALLY REALLY off-topic. I don't want to tell KaneC and others to shut up, as many Avatar wikians are dissappointed in the movie and want someone to work on a reboot. Hence, the page Fanon:Readapting Avatar: The Last Airbender as an outlet for their creativity.

Finally, comments that can be deleted include...

• Comments that are inflammatory and can be considered as trolling (e.g. "M. Night is RACIST!!!"). If you wish to make an assertion or a criticism, it should sound reasonable and should be backed up with reasoning and evidence.

Whatever M.Night has done, we should not tolerate name-calling such as "Shamalandingdong" or "Shamalalalan", any more we should tolerate "Konietzkokoko", or "DiMartinononono" or "Kisusususu". If it is insulting and inflammatary to use such language or name-calling against Bryan, Mike, and Kisu, then the same goes to M.Night. Also, I ask haters to be mindful that although there is freedom of speech, defamation of character is a crime is most civil law jurisdictions - any claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give negative image to a person.

Please share your thoughts and sign with ~~~~

— Hasdi (talk • contribs) 05:21, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Hi Hasdi, this is KaneC. Regarding the reboot ideas, I think it is best for the Wikians to discuss what they want for the reboot in the Fanon:Readapting Avatar: The Last Airbender page, because a lot of changes made by M Night does not register in most of the Wikians' heads. For example, they don't want Katara to stay as a novice waterbender throughout the first movie because they wanted to see character development in her in that movie. Also, they wanted Ozai to stay hidden until Book 3 and let Zhao be more of his series self in the movie. You're right, most of these reboot comments should be discussed on that page and not the main TLA page. However, I agree in deleting comments that are inflammatory and can be considered as trolling, that already crossed the line. You can separate or delete comments, I don't mind. For my ideas, please refer to the [Revised Film Spirit fanon category] for suggestions and script samples.--KaneC (talk • contribs) 05:29, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with most of what Hasdi says. It's important to keep all sections of the wiki as optimal as possible. All comments should be relevant and on-topic, so that goes for the TLA 2 page. As for "racebending", perhaps we should have a separate page of that. It's a sensitive topic that leaks onto other pages - just like shipping might, so there's a shipping page to serve as a "hub" for such discussion, which is frowned upon elsewhere. Following the same logic, there should be a separate page for the race thing.

As for the trolling and inflammatory comments, they should all be deleted. @Hasdi, as a rollback user, you can delete those on site, you don't need a forum to do that. --AvatarRokus Ghost (Message me • Read my fanon) 05:48, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with ARG. I've deleted these kind of comments as well. And at one point, the Casting Controversy page was labeled "racist", so I think we can discuss that in the reboot fanon page.--KaneC (talk • contribs) 15:02, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Hasdi. Dislike the movie, go comment it somewhere else or make a blog. – Natsu11 · (wall • Avatar Answers) 15:06, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

And if anyone wants a reboot, read this page: Fanon:Readapting Avatar: The Last Airbender. Also, see what I did HERE.--KaneC (talk • contribs) 15:12, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

I already linked your suggestions under See Also section.

— Hasdi (talk • contribs) 15:15, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with Hasdi in the circumstance. As the film pages should allow people to comment on whatever they want. Buttongoo 04:12, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

If it against the existing discussion policy, it's gone. If people are not allowed to comment on whatever they want in other pages, it should also apply to film pages. The film pages is not your personal pissing ground. But the real problem is making people aware of that - it would save me the trouble deleting the comments in the first place.

— Hasdi Bravo • 04:24, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Hasdi, let me rephrase that: the film pages should allow users to comment anything they want as long as it is constructive. Buttongoo 04:26, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

I am fine with constructive criticims, as long as you post them on the right page. You can't post comment on Katara on Aang's page, so why should we let anyone vent on the first movie on the page for its sequel? How can anyone judge a movie that is not even out or confirmed yet.

— Hasdi Bravo • 04:53, July 26, 2011 (UTC)

Proposal #1

[UPDATE: This proposal has been reworked and redirected over HERE]
I am Hasdi Bravo. This is my first proposal to keep the comments on the right pages. I developed it with the film pages in mind, but there is no reason why some of the suggestions cannot be applied to other pages. What we have right now is a banner on top of The Last Airbender 2 page, which seemed a little "tacky" to me. Some comments have been diverted. There are still some bad comments I had to delete because some are not bothered to click on (details) to know what is considered "inappropriate language, irrelevant, inflammatory,..."

My suggestion is to change the comments header (see MediaWiki:Oasis-comments-header) that we currently have...

...to something like this...

The first "advisory" table is moved from the top of the page to a position closer to the comments, so people would not miss it. The second collapsible "policy" table is mostly a cut-and-paste from the Discussion Policy, to make it easier for commentors to know what a bad comment is without having to navigate to another page, minimizing page reloading. The rest is kept as is.

The advisory table can be a subpage ("/commenting") of the commenting page, which is included as a template by the comments header. Note that the table has a discuss link for users to discuss the advisory itself. This can be discussed in the forum like this one, or on the subpage itself, which conviently can have its own commments.

For commenting on the first movie:

For commenting on the film characters, a separate review page is not necessary but racebending comments are inflammatory hot-buttons hence must be diverted!

Please share your thoughts and sign with ~~~~

— Hasdi Bravo • 16:20, July 30, 2011 (UTC)

Discussion #1