Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2021 October 23

= October 23 =

Creating an artist page for Wikipedia
Hello! My name is Lex, and I’m an artist from Mobile, AL. I recently seen that my page was declined for reasons I simply cannot understand, and I was wondering how should I create a wiki page about myself where it will not get declined? I am fairly new to all of this, and any help would be great help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by FreshestFreshmenIssue (talk • contribs) 02:23, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Welcome to Wikipedia. I'm sorry it's not going well, but please read Help:Your first article, especially the section headed Things to avoid. If you need further help, the place to go is Teahouse, "A friendly place where you can ask questions to get help with using and editing Wikipedia". Good luck! Alansplodge (talk) 08:29, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The reason your draft was declined was explained as being that its references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article—that is, they do not show significant coverage (not just passing mentions) about the subject in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject. This is a stock formula, but the explanation also referred to the guidelines on the notability of music-related topics. These guidelines contain a section Criteria for musicians and ensembles, which states that the subject must have been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, published works. So a single article in a local newspaper is not enough. --Lambiam 10:49, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Your page about yourself will not get declined if you put it on your own website. That's how I do it. —Tamfang (talk) 00:37, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

The Status of Extant/Lost Films
Good morning.

I appreciate that your time as volunteers is precious, but my question might be one that spreads right across Wikipedia as a whole, rather than to one specific article or group of articles.

I was looking through a list of films from the Hollywood Studio Warner Bros. and some of those titles, especially the earlier ones, came up as 'Lost,' or, if a film had originally been shot in Technicolor, might be extant only in a black and white reference print, or similar.

Please bear with me.

I'll give you an example: The film In the Next Room was released by Warner Bros. on January 26, 1930. It is now considered a lost film - no more prints exist (sniff!). But when I hover over the title, the abstract reads "In the Next Room is a 1930 American Pre-Code mystery film...", etc.

It occurred to me that, when someone with a Wikipedia page dies, their status is immediately changed from "is" to "was." If a film no longer exists in any known copy in the world, should it also be referred to in the past tense instead of the present? And should a copy of the film be found, it would be easy to change its status from "was" back to "is," would it not?

Is this possible? I would certainly be happy to volunteer to make such changes as would be required wherever they could be found.

What do you think?

Thank you so much for your time, and making it this far into the email.

With best wishes, Stephen Butler Gloucestershire, UK Stephen Butler (talk) 10:35, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * This isn't really the right place to establish a consensus. May I suggest reposting at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film, where those who regularly edit film articles can have their say. Alansplodge (talk) 10:44, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The issue is much more general; see Lost literary work. A not unusual formulation uses this style: "... is a lost work by ..." (or "mentioned in ..."); see e.g. History of Alexander, Phoronis (Hellanicus) and Story of the Prophet Iddo. This fate may also befall works of art such as paintings and sculptures, such as The Battle of Anghiari, which is a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci, or Head of a Faun, which is a lost sculpture by Michelangelo. For more examples, see Lost artworks. When using the formula "a lost ", you have to use the present tense. The past tense would suggest the original (or, for a reproducible form of expression, a copy) had been found after all, in which case one usually says a work " was thought " to have been lost, such as Archimedes' The Method of Mechanical Theorems or the film The Cave of the Silken Web. More examples can be found at the long List of rediscovered films.  --Lambiam 11:30, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia guidance for this can be found at MOS:TENSE. According to that guideline, the past tense can be used for "subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist", but the distinction between "periodicals and similar written material that are no longer being produced" (past tense) and television/radio series that are no longer being produced (present tense) may seem somewhat artificial. I think that Lambiam's suggestion of "is a lost film" would be a good way to characterize such a work in the opening sentence. Deor (talk) 17:01, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree these should remain in the present tense. If a film is still lost, then it is a lost film; if it was a lost film, that implies it is no longer lost.--Shantavira|feed me 19:10, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * One way to get around it is to say, for example, "That Royle Girl is the name of a lost film..." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Please don't say that. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be about stuff, not about the names of stuff. --Wrongfilter (talk) 21:56, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, Bugs; please see WP:REFERS. Deor (talk) 22:55, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * How many thousands of edit wars have there been over the names of things? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:52, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Henry Reed (poet) even wrote a poem about it: . --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  03:19, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Name for type of online game
My daughter and I are both occasional gamers (okay, maybe my thousands of Skyrim hours qualify me as more than occasional) and we'd like to find a game to play together. What I'm asking for here though is not so much specific suggestions, but rather a name for this kind of game: a two person, online shared experience. The thing is, when I search for games to play with friends, there are two huge groups of games I'd like to filter from the results: MMORPGs, like World of Warcraft, which would have us mixed in with strangers, and puzzle games, like Words with Friends, which are fun but do not contain a shared experience. What we'd like is something similar to the gaming experience of Goldeneye or Mario Kart, but where we each connect via our PCs rather than on a console. Or, even better, ones where we play together against NPCs. Does this type of game have a name I could include in my searches? Matt Deres (talk) 16:04, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I think they're simply called "two player games"; searching that term will yield results such as: https://www.twoplayergames.org. --2603:6081:1C00:1187:C1F6:2046:A287:CD75 (talk) 17:39, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Further searching has revealed that the term I needed was "remote play together". Matt Deres (talk) 13:43, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * While you can play with only two players (invite one other player), according to Steam: Using Remote Play Together, one player owns and runs the game, then up to four players — or even more with fast connections — can quickly join in the fun. with support for Remote Play Together. Invite anyone to play. (Emphasis added). --2603:6081:1C00:1187:E8DC:AD79:E57:EA87 (talk) 01:49, 25 October 2021 (UTC)


 * It sounds like you're specifically looking for cooperative multiplayer. Often just abbreviated "Co-op".
 * Steam has a tag that you can search for.  (However, do read the games' descriptions before purchasing. Tags are not always 100% accurate.) ApLundell (talk) 02:22, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

A Perfect World - one of Clint Eastwood's best/favorite movies
How come the film A Perfect World is one of Clint Eastwood's best and favorite movies? 86.156.133.20 (talk) 21:23, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * "Best" according to what definition?
 * "Favorite" according to what metric?
 * Even if you could answer the above, we still could not tell you why it is so. Nobody can. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The discussion about the film, within the article, explains why it was critically acclaimed. That's probably the closest you can come to "best". As to it being Eastwood's favorite (a factoid that I don't see in the article), if you can find a source for that, he might say why. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:51, 24 October 2021 (UTC)