Category talk:Fiction about police misconduct

Minimum threshold for inclusion?

Infocidal (talk · contribs) has been adding this category to a number of film articles in which police misconduct may be discussed in the film's plot section but is not necessarily discussed outside of the plot. My question is: is it sufficient for police misconduct to be brought up in the plot as a basis for adding this category, or should it only be added in cases where the misconduct has been discussed outside the plot section (i.e. with reliably-sourced information)? Thanks for the clarification! DonIago (talk) 16:32, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I think this category should be added only where the misconduct is essential to the plot of the film and not a side occurence (even if it could somehow be mentioned or implied in the article's plot section). I am not sure if this must require reliable sources, but in the case of Zootopia it certainly is not essential and mostly OR. Hoverfish Talk 17:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

As stated at WP:CATDEF "A central concept used in categorising articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article." So I agree with Hoverfish about the need for it to be essential to the plot. As to the need for sourcing that gets a little tricky as - per WP:FILMPLOT - there is leeway in sourcing while writing plot sections. OTOH if there is secondary sources that describe police misconduct as being a major part of the plot then its inclusion as a cat would be confirmed. All too often WP:OR is used by those adding categories to article and that should be avoided. MarnetteD|Talk 18:23, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm with Hoverfish on Zooptopia, but wasn't sure how to handle some of the other films. Examples available upon request (sorry, rushed for time right now. DonIago (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

In Category:Films by topic, we see category names with "films about a topic" and some with "topic in films". The "in" ones seem to suggest -by their name- that any instance of murder in a film, for example, could warrant this catergorization. IMO a limit of inclusion should be explicitely stated in the category page and it should be seen to it that the contents do not exceed it. In this case the category page states: "This category is for fictional police officers breaking rule of law." So we see some names of fictional charactes that fill the bill but also we see some films (NOT fictional characters) in it. I think the films (or novels) themselves should not be here, but in categories of the type "films (or novels) about a topic"( and therefore it becomes clear that the film should be about the topic and not any instance of a topic in film, or we would end up with plenty of overcategoprizarion as more "in" categories get crearted and populated. Hoverfish Talk 22:16, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

For the "XXX in film" category it needs to be clear from the plot summary or some other part of the article why the article is in a particular category to be compliant with WP:CATVER. For the "Films about XXX" category it should also be compliant with WP:CATDEF i.e. there should be significant coverage of that aspect in reliable secondary sources. Betty Logan (talk) 23:58, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

I guess this also begs the question of when it becomes "reportable" under this category. If there's a film where a cop shoves someone over a bar (or other extremely minor infraction of your choosing), which presumably they're not really supposed to do (at least, in some countries), does that meet the criteria for inclusion here? That doesn't seem notable to me, hence my instinct to say that there does need to be some third-party discussion for the article to belong to this category. Otherwise I feel like we're going to end up with this category featuring all kinds of "slap on the wrist" situations, or at least open the door to that. DonIago (talk) 12:54, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that the "XXXX in film" categories are inherently at odds with CATDEF, since it appears to be set up as a "non-defining" equivalent of "Films about XXXX". If they are meant to be synonymous then the inclusion criteria should really be precisely laid out at the category page. Betty Logan (talk) 22:27, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with MarnetteD. In the case of L.A. Confidential, police misconduct is an essential element of the plot, so the category would be appropriate. But, I have seen that category added to film and tv articles in which misconduct was only a minor element. This makes the comparison to the "murder in film" category, which Hoverfish mentions, apt. I've always felt that category was too broad, and have seen it added to numerous film articles in which, yes, a killing occurred, but was not central, and was maybe only implied. In the case of the police misconduct category, we could see this added to articles in which no such misconduct happened on screen, but was only referred to. This is a situation we want to avoid. ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 16:02, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

So...granted this isn't a film-specific cat...would editors support the creation of Category:Films about police misconduct, with the film entries listed here either being moved there or de-catted if they didn't really pass the bar for that? I wonder whether WP:FILM should inherently discourage categories that allow for "casual mentions", but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable launching that kind of paradigm shift without some serious support. DonIago (talk) 01:11, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

For one thing it makes sense to avoid placing films directly in an "in fiction" category, rather than in a relevant film sucategory to it. This way we have the film category also present in the film categorization tree and its contents can be checked more easily. For another, I agree 100% with Betty Logan that "XXXX in film" is a "non-defining" (which includes "casual mentions") equivalent of "Films about XXXX" categories, and I believe they should be discouraged. This also connects to the question of what film project members think film categories should do (and I owe both Betty Logan and myself starting a project survey on this to consolidate some structural issues in film categorization). Which also means that I agree with the creation of "Category:Films about police misconduct", and moving there all films that fill the bill from this category. But like Doniago says, I wouldn't be comfortable generalizing this unless there is serious support. Hoverfish Talk 03:49, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to take the resounding silence as an indication that people are okay with the category being created and film articles either moved to it or de-catted. I think it would be worth asking the larger question, but I suspect that would need an RfC for proper coverage. Happy to help with it; not sure I'd want to lead the effort. DonIago (talk) 20:31, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Well done, thank you. Hoverfish Talk 22:06, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! There's probably a fair number of films that could be added to the new category, but also please note that I wasn't very familiar with a number of the films in the existing category, and have avoided de-catting unless it seemed clear (to me, at least) that police misconduct wasn't a significant element of the film. I'd recommend someone with more film expertise scrape the category at some point. DonIago (talk) 14:19, 16 May 2018 (UTC)