Talk:Snowed-Inn Christmas

Why the revert?

My edit was reverted with the following comment: "Reverting. Multiple problems with edits. Misspelled name of lead actor, failure to close quotation, source cited does not appear to be a reliable source, article cited has wrong year of release wrong, and basic facts on the plot are incorrect. Please go to talk page to discuss." In response:

• Yes, I got one letter wrong in the lead actor's name and left out one quotation mark. Fixed.
• I used an article which the reverting editor added, so assumed it to be reliable source. I don't see any evidence for it being more or less reliable than the other sources (at least one of which is a self-published blog). I think the synopsis in that source is close enough, I would not call it incorrect.

Adpete (talk) 06:31, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

You’re right, I did add the thrillist source, but not as a review. Mr. Moylan did not write a movie review; he wrote a ranking list of Lifetime’s top Christmas movies, with brief descriptions. The point of citing his article is to support the point that the movie is in fact on the list.

Here is what Mr. Moylan says in his piece:

There's delicious Christmas cookies and then there is whatever this is, which is just a tired cookie cutter production. Jenna (Bethany Joy Lenz) and Kevin (Andrew Walker) are coworkers at a blog who hate each other.

Wrong. They are not blogging, they are working at an online magazine. And they don’t hate each other. They are just polar opposites. In truth Kevin admires her and has read every piece she ever wrote. For her part, she thought he never noticed her. We learn later that in fact, he did.

They get stuck on a holiday assignment and get stranded at an old country inn that they decide they're going to save from ruin.

Wrong again. The plot is that the online magazine they work for has been losing readership. They are not stuck with a holiday assignment, they both wanted the assignment, for different reasons. Anyway, with things as they are at the magazine the assignment carries the imperative that their jobs are on the line. They are assigned to write about a resort in Aspen, and the writer whose piece collects the most clicks will be kept on staff. And the inn is not in the country, it is in Santa Claus, Indiana.

Thanks to working together and some Christmas cheer, they end up falling in love. There is definitely a Christmas movie mold, but this movie is so stale it seems moldy.

Of course they fall in love. That is a given in these holiday movies. The fun is in how it happens, and there is a lot of creativity in this movie as to how that occurs. To comment that two people falling in love is a predictable plot element is like saying most of the characters in a Friday the 13th movie get killed by Jason. That’s not news. Overall, Moylan's review leaves much to be desired.

When an edit you leave is reverted that means another editor thought your edit did not improve the article. The discussion should go to the talk page, which is where I invited you to comment on the merits of the edits. Reverting back tends to produce edit warring, and is counterproductive. AliciaZag13 (talk) 06:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the very long delay in replying. I agree that the thrillist article may not be a reliable source, but not for the reasons you give. It is not up to us to analyse a source and judge whether or not it is reliable - that is bordering on WP:Original Research. Also, we can't pick and choose what is and is not reliable in a source: if Thrillist is not a reliable source as a review, it is also not a reliable source for the claim that Lifetime say it is one of their most popular Christmas movies.

Three sources are used to review the movie: Screenrant, Thrillist and Junkee; and in my opinion they are all pretty poor sources. However I think it is fair to make an exception for that particular Junkee article, because Rotten Tomatoes lists it as the only "critic review" of the movie [1]. As for other two, I think we can remove both or keep both, but I if we remove them we also remove the claim that it is one of Lifetime's most popular holiday movies. And since I can't find that claim anywhere else, I think it is fairly suspect claim. Adpete (talk) 02:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I am hoping to keep the article in the encyclopedia. One has to be able to defend that the article meets requirements for WP:Notability. Articles on television movies do tend to get deleted. Notability is established by way of indepth coverage by independent, secondary reliable sources. Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability. Multiple sources are generally expected. Certainly the online news sites Screenrant, Thrillist and Junkee would all qualify, but a problem for Thrillist is that Mr. Moylan does not actually appear be a movie reviewer. That does not mean his mention of the movie is of no value, but it certainly could be of limited value. Presumably he is working off of television ratings systems that we are not privy to. His listing it among Lifetime's most popular movies is clearly independent of whether or not he liked the movie. Regardless, by reading his description I cannot say that Mr. Moylan has seen anything more than the trailer. Multiple factual errors in his article is not insignificant, and stating so is not WP:Original Research. It's not even bordering Original Research. It is making an objective assessment of a source. Assessing the value of a source should not be conflated with original research. AliciaZag13 (talk) 00:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, if Moylan is an unethical enough writer to pretend he's seen a movie which he hasn't seen, then he's also unethical enough to make up a list of 12 movies and pretend that he got them from a (conveniently anonymous) source at Lifetime. I don't see how a writer who basically lies about having seen a movie can possibly qualify as a WP:Reliable Source. And if it really is in Lifetime's "top 12 holiday movies" then that list should not be hard to find in a better source.

I agree the movie deserves an article, and I think we agree the article needs some better sources. There are some lists of Lifetime holiday movies at source which I think are more credible, such as this "best 88" list at Elle (magazine) [2], unfortunately Snowed-Inn Christmas isn't on that list. Another possibly reliable source is this one from one of Australia's major TV networks [3], one of 10 Christmas movies it lists as among their favourites. Adpete (talk) 01:54, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

One other point: while searching I found this Buzzfeed article [4] which ranks Snowed-Inn Christmas at #5 in a list of mainly mainstream movies. The review says the characters initially "hate each other", one of major holes you found in Moylan's synopsis, so are you going to conclude that this reviewer has not seen the movie? But in this case we know she has, because the reviewer is the same person who wrote the Junkee review! So you can't use the same logic to say Moylan has not seen it. Adpete (talk) 02:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Okay, well at least you can see now why I would grab the thrillist piece in the first place to add to the references. That piece by Jenna Guillaume looks pretty good. I do believe she is a movie reviewer. Two pieces by the same author, I think that would work notability wise as long as they are different articles. The article would still be helpful even if it did not buttress notability. We might need to sort through the notability question on WP:Notability (films). I am not really sure on all this stuff and I do not write arguments on administrative boards, but an article I put together recently on another Christmas movie had previously been brought to the main page and then a month later deleted. I had to figure out how to place the material I wrote on the redirect page, and then... un-redirect it? Anyway, after doing that I realized the article had previously been deleted, and I took a look at the discussion on the article's deletion page. On the Moylan piece, its pretty thin stuff and I think its time to just let it go. It's not very helpful. I am just guessing as to why he would put Snowed-Inn Christmas on his list. He clearly didn't think much of the movie, and yes, I doubt he saw it because he missed all the fun, but who knows? I have been thinking of maybe expanding the production section a little bit. FYI. AliciaZag13 (talk) 23:08, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I don't care either way if we use Moylan's article, so long as we are consistent and either use both points (the supposed list of top Lifetime holiday movies, and his low opinion of it) or neither. My initial edit was because I reacted a bit to the overly positive description of the movie, but now that I know that another one of these articles got deleted, I am guessing that might be why you wrote it that way. Anyway, even if we remove Moylan's opinion, I think my other edits to the "reception" section make it more balanced. Personally I thought it was a fun movie, and I've seen enough user-submitted reviews to convince me it really is one of the more popular Lifetime movies and deserves its own article. I think the second Guillaume reference helps notability, because Channel 9 is a major TV outlet in Australia (roughly equivalent to one of CBS/NBC/ABC in USA, though of course a much smaller country), and is certainly a more reputable media outlet than Junkee. However, Wikipedia:Notability (films) says "full-length reviews by two or more nationally known critics", so we can't just count her twice (and she's probably not "nationally known" either). Adpete (talk) 23:27, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

In fact, this movie is Guillaume's only movie review on Rotten Tomatoes [5], so she doesn't count as a nationally known critic. I think we need to establish notability in other ways, namely as one of the most popular Lifetime movies. For that, I think Guillaume's channel 9 list is pretty good, because although she is not film critic, she seems to be a moderately successful writer and journalist (published some books, former editor of Buzzfeed Australia). I think one other good reference would go a long way to passing WP:GNG (see Wikipedia:Notability_(films)#General_principles). Adpete (talk) 00:13, 31 December 2021 (UTC) Correction The Channel 9 list is someone other than Guillaume, so that helps. But it's not independent because Channel 9 was streaming the movie. Adpete (talk) 04:13, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Okay, good. AliciaZag13 (talk) 22:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC)