Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Topic workshop

This is the topic workshop of WikiProject Films. This area of the project concentrates on creating a centralized place to collaborate on the creation and development of film good and featured topics.

Overview of topics
The purpose of the featured topic process is to highlight some of the most distinguished parts of Wikipedia in terms of article quality. This section will discuss how to form a featured topic, as well as the nuances of the process.

Selecting a topic
From the featured topic criteria, all topics must have at least three items, have a clear defined topical scope, are linked together, and have no major gap in the topic. For the purposes of film articles, many of the most visible topics are major film series or franchises. Many film series have a series article (X-Men (film series), The Lord of the Rings film trilogy) in addition to articles on the individual films, which form a viable topic. Other viable topics include the filmographies of directors or actors, in which the filmography article in addition to the individual film articles the director or actor has participated in will form a viable topic. Topics such as these may be difficult to make, as these topics will continually grow as the director or actor participates in more films. Topics based on film awards are also plausible. Academy Award in addition to all the articles on the individual awards is an appropriate topic. Note that depending on the notability of the award, the award article may be a list, or there may be a separate list for the award winners (for instance, Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Foreign Language Film). In this case, there would be two defined topics (Academy Award in addition to the individual award articles and Academy Award (or an article listing the Academy Awards) and the lists of winners and nominees).

In all, the key to picking a topic is ensuring that the topical scope is clear and logical. Topics tend to be formed naturally and be easily visible. The general rule of thumb is that if the structure of a topic cannot be easily seen from first glance, chances are that the topic is not viable. Naturally, this is subject to exceptions, which are determined by consensus; do not be afraid to propose topics below that you believe are viable. One of the purposes of this page is to ensure that prospective topics have a good deal of visibility from the project.

Main article
The main article of a topic must be one that is clearly the parent article or list for the other items of the topic, and defines the scope of the topic. The main article of a series is an appropriate article for other items in a franchise, a filmography for a topic covering all the films of a director or actor, and so on and such forth. The main article of an topic also must demonstrate clear linkage to the other items of the topic. This can be done through main, see also or similar links in individual sections of the article or by using a template. The main article can be an article or a list depending on the scope of the topic; topics on series tend to use the main article of a series and "subtopics" tend to have lists as their main article, but both of these cases may change depending on each individual topic.

Quality bar
For all topics, good topics and featured topics alike, all of the articles in the topic must be at least good articles and all lists must be featured lists. This requirement is the minimum bar for a good topic. For a featured topic, the amount of featured content within the topic (both featured articles and featured lists are considered featured content) must constitute at least twenty-five percent of the topic, with a minimum of two items of featured content. This figure is rounded up; for instance, if the topic had 10 items, 3 items would need to be featured (10/4 = 2.5 --> 3) or if the topic had 15 items, 4 items would need to be featured (15/4 = 3.75 --> 4).

The featured topic criteria accounts for cases in which certain articles or lists cannot pass the good article nominations or featured list candidates process due to inherent instability or limited subject matter. This process is known as "auditing". For instance, a film that has not been released cannot become a good article because the article is inherently unstable. In these cases, the article or list can undergo a peer review in which the article is reviewed thoroughly. Failure to garner sufficient commentary for a peer review can be cited as grounds to fail a featured topic nomination, as the peer reviews of all "audited" items are reviewed in the topic's candidacy. For those who are attempting to audit an article through a peer review, it is recommended that they inform WikiProject Films, and contact a few peer review volunteers to acquire sufficient commentary. Also, all audited items in the topic do not count towards the total count of the topic; the topic must have at least three other articles or lists in the topic that are not audited.

Recommendations on collaboration
Once the scope and items of a topic have been identified, collaboration on the topic can then ensue. Given the large number of quality articles required for every individual topic, it is much easier for topics to be formed through collaboration by large numbers of editors. Separating the workload by assigning tasks to individual editors or groups of editors is a possible method, as is all collaborators working on the individual items of a topic one-by-one. As a courtesy to the other collaborators, it is recommended that the editor(s) working on individual items contact the other collaborators on a topic prior to any good article, featured list, or featured article candidacy. WikiProject Anime and manga currently has under its scope episode, chapter, and character lists of featured quality, as well as series and character articles of good quality. Using these articles and lists as models for the relevant articles in the topic is highly recommended. Also, when a topic is nominated, it is recommended to list the editors that have collaborated on the topic; it is always helpful to recognize editors for the work they have put forth on any individual topic. Lastly, creating a good or featured topic is among the most difficult tasks for a Wikipedia editor, and please do not be discouraged by the amount of work that is often needed to create these topics. Keep going forward and do not be afraid to ask for help from the WikiProject and your fellow project members.

Current topics

 * Featured topics
 * Star Wars episodes


 * Good topics
 * Pirates of the Carribean films
 * Spider-Man films

Potential topics
When listing a topic, please use the topicnom template, and create a section for the collaborators on the topic and a section for discussion on the topic. Indicate whether the topic is a potential good topic or featured topic by adding (GT) or (FT) respectively to the title of the topic. If you wish to collaborate on a topic, please add # under the "collaborators" section of a potential topic listed here. Please keep the topics up to date on the status of the articles. The following templates can be utilized:
 * FA – for featured articles and featured lists
 * GA – for good articles
 * B – for B-class articles
 * C – for C-class articles
 * Start – for start-class articles
 * Stub – for stub-class articles
 * List – for list-class articles
 * AA – for "audited" articles
 * DA – for articles that have not been created yet
 * FAN – for articles at featured article candidates or featured list candidates
 * GAN – for articles at good article nominations
 * PR – for articles at peer review

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

 * Collaborators
 * 1) —  sephiroth bcr  ( converse )


 * Current nominations
 * None


 * Discussion

Maneater film series (GT)

 * Collaborators
 * 1) --  Collectonian  (talk · contribs)

None
 * Current nominations


 * Discussion
 * A rather daring goal, but I'm wanting to get articles created for all ten films in RHI Entertainment's "Maneater" series, along with a series article, get them all to at least GA and go for a GT! At the moment, I'm working on the series article, getting Maneater ready for GA, and cleaning up Croc before I start on the new articles. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 04:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Any suggestions for what the overall series page should include? Ideas on the table format? Right now, its the "weakest" link. -- Collectonian  (talk · contribs) 04:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Current topic nominations

 * None