Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reality film


 * 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 no consensus. --Core desat 03:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Reality film

 * – (View AfD) (View log)


 * Delete because Wikipedia is not a dictionary (see WP:NOT). This inadequately sourced stub also comes across as original research. Where does the idea originate? Wryspy 17:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Verify, or delete - most stubs are little more than definitions. That's why we call them stubs. But this one looks like it may be a non-notable neologism.  So it should be verified as notable, or be sent to the wiki-graveyard.  See WP:A.   Th e Tr ans hu man ist    17:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Changed to keep - Shankbone has found references that verify it. The situation as it stands is this:  the term exists, the term is notable, the genre the term refers to exists, the genre is notable.  This is a no-brainer.  Keep.   Th e Tr ans hu man ist    21:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong keep - a burgeoning genre, with enough Google hits (over 30,000) that the subject can be fleshed out. It's a stub, not a dictionary entry, and worth expanding. By the way, can we make use of edit summaries, especially when we are doing an AfD? -- David  Shankbone  17:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * What did you have in mind?  Th e Tr ans hu man ist  


 * Keep: Has sources as far as I can tell, but from what I can tell not having sources isn't enough of reason to delete, as many around here say to tag as refs needed, which always does lots of good, right? How many articles have that tag now? Yeah, that's effective. IvoShandor 17:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is no non-trivial reliable coverage in a secondary source, which in wikipedia parlance means no notability. Cool Hand Luke 18:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. Many of the google hits do not use the term in this sense. The first page of results is mostly junk with only one or possibly two uses of the term in this sense.  More of the hits use the term as a simple synonym for "documentary". Besides, a collection of citations to mere use of a term cannot justify an article (think of the "Allegations of apartheid..." series). No non-trivial reliable sources seem to exist here. I think that the Category:Reality films that has been added to several articles should also be deleted. Few references support this categorization, which appears to be a neologism in any case. Cool Hand Luke 18:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The apartheid series isn't really a good comparison because most of that nonsense represented unpublished synthesis, OR, not even trivial coverage, just use of the word "apartheid" once or twice in some of them. Of course, google hits aren't necessarily an indication of anything at all. IvoShandor 18:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * My point is that this isn't unpublished synthesis, this may be trivial coverage, but the phrase reality films does exist in the context the article puts it in, not like the apartheid articles, which used sources that said apartheid on Page 100 and never said anything about allegations against some of the nations. Those articles were/are a WP:POINT violation anyway.IvoShandor 18:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I didn't want to get into it, but I didn't pick this analogy at random. There is an arguably POINTy backstory to this article as well. It exists in part because of a dispute about whether films like Jackass are documentaries. As you can tell, the partisans have found more sources indicating that it's a documentary than sources labelling it with this neologism. That's why the article asserts&mdash;without citation (OR)&mdash;that Jackass is a reality film in spite of no sources to that effect. Davids comment below is enlightening. User thinks it would be inappropriate to label Jackass flatly as a documentary, and I agree. But that does not make this categorization (as a new "entity") any less OR. Cool Hand Luke 19:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The article was definitely not created to make a POINT. Assume a little good faith please. And here's Joel Stein in Time Magazine:  "Like reality TV, a reality film is supercheap, and as Jackass proved, there's an audience willing to pay $9 for what it gets free on television."  Again, there's enough out there that the article deserves stub status to be fleshed out.  It's not just a "POINT" article, and I don't create POINT articles, thank you very much.  -- David  Shankbone  19:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I know it's not POINT, but being born of a far-removed Michael Moore dispute does not inspire confidence. Incidentally, this neologism&mdash;when it is mentioned&mdash;is rarely mentioned apart from reality TV (has no independent notability). As suggested on the talk page, I also think it would be acceptable to redirect to reality TV. Cool Hand Luke 20:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It isn't really a neologism when I'm finding articles going back 4 and a half years using it to describe Jackass The Movie. It is often used in conjunction with reality television because it springs from it, but that doesn't mean it belongs on that article.  It's a stub, an appropriate one.  It's a term used often, and although WP:CRYSTAL is at play, I dare say will be a burgeoning new genre for the reasons Joel Klein pointed out back in April 2003.  -- David  Shankbone  20:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Age doesn't matter when there is no non-trivial coverage of the term. There are presumably invented words from 500 years ago that do not deserve articles. Cool Hand Luke 19:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment The article and category came from a disagreement, but one that I think fleshes out the issue well: What are films such as Jackass The Movie and The Real World Cancun?  Are they documentaries, in the same category as Capturing the Friedmans, March of the Penguins and Ken Burns's work, or are they something different?  If they are documentaries, are they a sub-genre of documentary or their own entity (e.g., a Reality film)?  It's worthwhile to research and flesh out, which is the reason for my strong keep.  I think it strikes most people odd that Jackass Number Two is being called a documentary, whether it technically fits that definition or not.  Unfortunately, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences's definition is unhelpful.  -- David  Shankbone  18:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply to comment - It's the movie industry counterpart to the reality genre on TV. Jackass, for example is a reality TV show.  It only makes sense that Jackass on the big screen is still of the reality genre.  The medium has changed, not the content.   Th e Tr ans hu man ist    22:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm curious how the Academy will treat these movies. I doubt that any of them will make it to be finalists for awards, but if so, would they be under the documentary category?  Would it fall under an unfiltered performance, which would disqualify it?  How should this question be treated in a non-OR way on the Reality film article (if at all)?  -- David  Shankbone  22:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * If there's no extant analysis, we can't introduce it here. Cool Hand Luke 22:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep The subject seems reasonable enough for an article, and decently cited. I really don't see how this is a synthesis of information. Calgary 20:42, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NEO - lack of "reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term—not books and papers that use the term". The refs only show instances of the term being used Corpx 04:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOT and WP:NEO. Shoester 06:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete or redirect to Reality television. "Reality film" is a neologism which could have many different interpretations and I don't think the sources are non-trivial coverage of the genre/supposed genre. As far as I can tell, it's a slang term for films that came from reality TV shows and/or a gimmick created by New Line Cinema to promote The Real Cancun. I've left a comment on the talk page which I think is much too long to include here. --Pixelface 12:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - as per neologism comments. A lot of people seem to want to separate this out from what they consider a documentary film, without actually taking the time out to clarify their thoughts on the difference. It's worth noting that a whole genre of documentaries, the cinema verite movement, was similarly spurned for a time as "not documentary" because of their fly-on-the-wall approach which set them apart from the predominant classic documentary style (with lots of voiceover), which itself emerged from newsreels. Documentary, non-fiction, reality - different people have ideas about the exclusiveness of these terms and what they do and don't apply to. Documentary tends to be the predominant English usage; this certainly does not preclude further division into genre and period, given some critical secondary sources to refer to. Girolamo Savonarola 17:24, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 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.