Talk:No Safe Spaces

Reviews that are non-notable
https://glidemagazine.com/236204/no-safe-spaces-review/ is of Glide Magazine which doesn't seem to have a Wiki article (if the publication is later judged notable it can be restored)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lukethompson/2019/10/24/review-no-safe-spaces-takes-on-political-correctness-just-like-everyone-else/#acf65b576737 is not from Forbes staff (and AFAIK not under their editorial oversight) and therefore cannot be included. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:21, 17 November 2019 (UTC)


 * How can you tell? That sure looks like a Forbes page.  Thompson does not have to be paid staff in order to be published there.  Forbes puts its name on it, so it appears to be "their editorial oversight". DougHill (talk) 01:51, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Post-credits scene
The film has a humorous post-credits scene. I see that a recent IP editor removed this from the lede, and perhaps it doesn't go there. OK, it's not the main point; that's why it was shown after the credits. I think it's an interesting bit of trivia, but I'm not sure where it goes. Any ideas? DougHill (talk) 03:14, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

What's a review?
An editor objected to this National Review article on the grounds that it's not a review. It's an article about the movie. Now, the reviewer talks more about the content than his opinion, but he still gives his opinion. Isn't that a review?


 * This is not a review, it is an opinion column about the film, and not by a film critic, hence it does not belong in a section called "Critical response". There may be a place for this on the page, but I think it should be properly labeled for what it is. It may also be worth clarifying which sources are from left and right wing sources, as the National Review clearly has bias not only as a right wing paper but also as a paper that Dennis Prager writes for.Wasianpower (talk) 07:07, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * You have a point here. While the author does give his opinion of the film, it's missing some things that a review should have.  So I don't object to moving it elsewhere on the page, and of course we should label it for what it is. DougHill (talk) 17:47, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Going to go ahead and remove this article until someone writes a more appropriate section for it. The tribune article should probably also be removed, but I will wait until there is more of a consensusWasianpower (talk) 20:29, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

The Chicago Tribune article is more clear cut. He tells us it's a great movie, tells us why, and says we should take our kids. If that's not a review, there is no such thing as a positive review. DougHill (talk) 04:12, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I flagged this as not a review because it's not by a reviewer. In fact, the Tribune specifically flags it as a column, and it's by one of their columnists, not one of their film reviewers. The Tribune specifically flags its articles that are reviews as such -- this is an opinion piece, not a review. As I suggested below, perhaps a controversies section would be more appropriate for these articles and for differing opinions by commentators.Wasianpower (talk) 07:07, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * This has all the elements of a review. If you review a movie for a newspaper, then you are a reviewer.  I looked for, but did not find, another review at the Tribune.  (If you find one, please put it on the page.)  However, we could attribute the review to "John Kass of the Chicago Tribune". DougHill (talk) 17:47, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * It does not have all the elements of a review. Just reviewing a movie may technically make you a reviewer, but it certainly does not make you a critic. If you look at the authors other column it is clear he is a political writer not a film writer. Additionally, it lacks several aspects of a review. For example, it does not give the film a rating (ie 3 out of 5 stars), it focuses on the movies message instead of its content, and, again, it is not written by an actual film critic. We do not *need* to include a review from the tribune, and it is entirely possible they did not review it. Wasianpower (talk) 20:34, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Removals by
Recently Waisanpower has removed several sources from the article as well as content citing reasons that are in dispute. In line with discretionary sanctions that apply to this article it is imperative we follow WP:BRD.

Removal one - says the Chicago Tribune article is not a review. disagrees.

Removal two - says the National Review article is not a review of the film. DougHill also points this out in his reversion, saying it should be discussed.

Removal three- says that Rotten Tomatoes is a) not reliable for audience reviews (which is fair, it is know to get review bombed). Also claims we don't include audience reception in articles of this nature, but for controversial works like this it would make sense to include audience reception, at least in my opinion. The Rotten Tomatoes article can likely be less prevalently used at least - which is how it is typically used, from what I have seen.

Therefore I have restored the version before these three removals until consensus is reached on their validity. Kirbanzo (userpage - talk - contribs) 04:13, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Please see my comments above for removals 1 and 2. Regarding the audience reaction, we are relying on (and citing) the FoxNews article.  And while this article cites RottenTomatoes, it also links some box office results to draw this conclusion. DougHill (talk) 04:19, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Box office results are not necessarily indicative of audience reaction. I primarily edit the wiki pages films and I've never seen a film discuss audience reactions before in it's critical response section, as that is hard to get a grasp on overall, and especially not a film released so recently. If an audience reaction is included, it is often under the heading of legacy as a film ages and the audience reactions to it change. As you say, the main source for this seems to be rotten tomatoes which is a poor source for this. Additionally, as this is a film political in nature, I feel as though it is important to distinguish between critical reviews (by professional film critics) and columns by pundits, which do no fall under the category of critical reviews, hence why I removed them. Perhaps there should be a different section for controversies which can address the film's divisive nature among pundits? That said, I think it is important that the critical response section be kept to only responses from film critics. One final point - I do think there is already a good balance of positive and negative reviews already on the page without these two examples that demonstrate the film's divisive nature. There are, without these two non-reviews, three negative and two positive examples reviews from legitimate film critics. Wasianpower (talk) 06:52, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Audience review ratings should absolutely never be used; they are not intended as a stratified sample and it is very misleading to use them even if the source is attributed. Our guideline on user-generated content actually says explicitly: Although review aggregators—for example, review aggregation sites—such as Rotten Tomatoes are used across the site, audience ratings based on the reviews of site members from the public are not. In my view, the Fox News source is still primarily based on the RT score and it's not a reliable measure of audience reaction. We'd need a good range of varying sources reporting on a specific aspect of the audience reaction for it to be reliably sourced information. — Bilorv ( talk ) 12:54, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Then let's find a way to paraphrase the FoxNews article while ignoring anything they got from RT. The title of the piece, "Moviegoers flock to free speech doc ‘No Safe Spaces’ despite panning from mainstream critics", is not bad, but we can't use that.  Suggestions? DougHill (talk) 17:53, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd recommend changing the audience reviews part to not be specific to one article, in that case - we could probably passively mention that "the documentary had high turnout despite mixed critic reviews" or something of the sort. In that way we would not rely on UGC. Kirbanzo (userpage - talk - contribs) 18:07, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * , I'm not seeing anything from the Fox News source which mentions audience reaction that doesn't originate from RT, other than the "second-highest ..." box office stat we already have in the article. I simply don't think the Fox News source suffices for any sort of audience reaction comment. Note that, per WP:RSP, Most editors consider Fox News a partisan news organization, and defer to the respective guidelines for these types of sources. Editors are advised to exercise caution when using Fox News as a source for political topics. However, the source has a few usable things, a couple being things already in the article; of those that aren't, I'm interested by Donald Trump Jr. praised the film and the per-screen average was $3,542. — Bilorv ( talk ) 18:24, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think this is enough of a consensus to remove the audience reaction from the article Wasianpower (talk) 04:29, 19 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I thought the consensus was for something like User:Kirbanzo's sentence (which reports turnout but not reaction). So I'll merge that sentence with User:Wasianpower's recent edit, and encourage all others to improve it. DougHill (talk) 17:25, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm moving this to the box office section instead of the critical response section which is where it should go. Doughill, I would ask that you please look at the guidelines for maintain the pages of films and look at the pages for other movies to get a better idea of how these pages are handled. I mean this in the least offensive way possible but his process is fairly standardized and we shouldn't deviate from it except in very rare circumstances and this is not one of them. As Bilrov said, audience reactions are absolutely never used, and we should stick to facts (ie literal numbers about box office turnouts) rather than subjective sentences ("it had a high turnout").Wasianpower (talk) 20:28, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually User:Kirbanzo's sentence does pretty well at summarizing the FoxNews article's relevant points here. (The things User:Bilorv mentions should probably go elsewhere in the article.) DougHill (talk) 20:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree - those things can be put elsewhere in the article (except maybe the Trump Jr. comment, but I'm not sure). Kirbanzo (userpage - talk - contribs) 20:21, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Wasianpower, I thought that we were trying to reach a consensus here. You seem to have gone ahead before we have. DougHill (talk) 23:31, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

citing IMDB?
I'd like to add a sentence about the actors in the movie:

In dramatized scenes, Griffin Kramer portrays the young Adam Carolla, and Joseph Servin portrays the young Dennis Prager.

But the only source I can find is IMDB. Can we cite that for a non-contentious claim like this? DougHill (talk) 17:50, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not too certain, but since it doesn't seem to be too major or controversial I'd say it'd be alright to be bold and put it in. If someone questions the sourcing we can always fix it then. Kirbanzo (userpage - talk - contribs) 18:59, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * citing_imdb - Wasianpower (talk) 21:57, 19 December 2019 (UTC)


 * note: this production is "entertainment" and not a "documentary" just like Fox ain't news and only qualifies as propaganda or "entertainment" under the least restrictive of definitions. I await your unbiased removal of my comments as usual, internet flunkies :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.52.200 (talk) 04:21, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Audience score noteworthy
The audience score is 99% while critics' is 47%. This huge difference is very interesting and should be mentioned in the article. The reasons given for not allowing this obviously noteworthy fact seem more in line with pushing a one sided POV than to objectively inform. Wasianpower is like a one sided prosecuter. 102.250.0.114 (talk) 06:19, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The difference is interesting, but many interesting things are not suitable for Wikipedia. I can assure you that we do not allow audience scores anywhere in Wikipedia, unless they are discussed in a reliable secondary source to a significant degree. The reason is that online audience scores have various selective biases—think about how surveys in a scientific research paper need to sample their participants, and those differences are the reasons we don't allow Rotten Tomatoes audience scores here. If you see unsuitable audience scores anywhere on Wikipedia, please remove it (with an explanation in your edit summary that it needs a secondary source). — Bilorv ( talk ) 08:44, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Nazi film
Why have we not put in anything about how this a nazi film made by literal nazis? Denis Prager is a well know nazi racist and surely this is important so people can know if they want to see a nazi film made for literal nazis. This should be easily verifiable from prager universities racist, homophobic, transphobic content. Animermaid 11:08 15/07/2020 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.224.124.253 (talk) 11:08, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Please provide independent secondary sources which are omitted from the article. (PragerU is of course neither.) — Bilorv ( talk ) 18:07, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

"Critical response" vs. "Political response"
With respect to these edits by, I'm not sure I understand the difference between "Critical response" and "Political response". All newspapers are political; all film reviews are political. From my experience it is true that reviewers tend to bring their own politics into topics rather than toeing the party line of their newspaper, but they are nonetheless political forms of writing that differ greatly from publication to publication. As such, I'm not sure why Chicago Tribune is being singled out here. None of the quoted passages analyse the film's artistic merit, cinematographic style, pacing and narrative presentation (or lack thereof). They're all just political opinions like "the most head-turning point made by No Safe Spaces is that today's anti-free-speech radicals, who on many college campuses dominate the discourse, are going to be tomorrow's leaders" (from a disappointing Variety article). — Bilorv ( talk ) 16:07, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Dividing them between professional film reviews and general takes is good. Not sure 'Political' is the best header through, I'd prefer 'other' Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:21, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, 'Other' would be a better header. 'Political' was the first thing that came to mind so I agree it should be improved ( makes a fair point that all reviews have some semblance of politics, especially for an explicitly politically motivated film, so I think 'other' would be more apt to separate reviews from film critics from general reactions by commentators.) Wasianpower (talk) 17:36, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Why is it an "Other" response though? I don't see the point in sectioning off this content. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:03, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe instead of sectioning off the content, we could instead make it clear which reviews are critical and which are not? i.e., something like "In an opinion piece for the Chicago Tribune, John Kass said ...". I think the main concern is the unlabeled/uncritical combining of Op-Eds and film reviews, which I think confuses the nature of the reactions to the piece. Wasianpower (talk) 22:04, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Sure, I have no objections to using descriptions like "in an opinion piece for X". — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:44, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * TBH for films I really like separating out critical responses and general responses. They're fundamentally different things. Horse Eye&#39;s Back (talk) 16:40, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I concur about separating them. The way to think about it is that film critics review films routinely, and depending on the film, other kinds of commentators who don't routinely review films may weigh in. Scientists may weigh about science-based films, historians about historical films, political commentators about films where some political issue becomes noteworthy. However, I do prefer "Scientific accuracy" and "Historical accuracy" and "Political commentary" sections as distinct from "Critical response", which to me means that film critics respond to the film. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 16:50, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Scientific accuracy and historical accuracy sections are one thing. But all reviews are political, and comments should be sectioned by content and theme rather than by type of source. Here, we have political commentary in all the reviews and there's no difference between the Chicago Tribune and others. This isn't the same difference as one review of The Imitation Game by a layperson reviewer that says that the acting was terrific and another by a computer scientist that says that the educational content was rubbish. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:21, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Like I said, the difference is that film critics review films routinely, and people who are not film critics will weigh in when it is relevant, more directly about the subject matter, more than the general film quality. It's not black-and-white with critics versus scientists either; critics can pan The Core as scientifically ridiculous as part of their takedown. Scientists can explain exactly why (about the science); not really as relevant what they think of the characters. The film critic's job is to review the quality of the film, including how it shares its political message, and of course a critic can bring their own perspective to it. And of course there can be some overlap that bleeds over, where a critic will make a political point, or a passerby political commentator will make a film-criticism point. Furthermore, when we sample film reviews, we have to summarize them best we can, so that means skipping the plot details, background information already covered elsewhere in the article body, cheeky language (because it's too slangy), and try to narrow down what qualifiers they have for the film. Political commentators are more likely to talk about the topics at hand that are presented in the film. So the grouping of content is by type of source and by content and theme because of the writers' background and framing. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 17:35, 18 August 2022 (UTC)