Talk:Free The Army tour

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[edit] Propaganda films

Why is everyone riding me about this?

I don't have an agenda, as all the right leaning films I've put in the propaganda cat will show. I merely want a full listing of the relevant topics, or else the category would consist of little more than WWII newsreels and 50s exploitation films. Why is it so controversial that latter day American propaganda films. which touch on contrmpory debates, be excluded? It isn't POV, either. The FTA tour, Outfoxed, F9/11 all were films which had a clear policitcal and/or social agenda, why is it so difficult to admit that they are propaganda? (No one has ever raised objection to Stolen Honor, FahrenHYPE 9/11, or Michael Moore Hates America, btw).

That isn't my only reason for putting them in that cat, they all use selective editing and presentation of the facts, fail to show the other side, and try to be "entertaining" enough to lure in an audience. What other qualifications for propaganda could I possibly give?--Dudeman5685 20:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Dudeman. Thank you for taking the time to lay out your thoughts on this issue. The problem as I see it is very simple: you have a very broad notion of what constitutes "propaganda", whereas many people feel that "propaganda" is a highly loaded term that should, indeed, only be used very sparingly. Clearly there is no true concensus on what is and what isn't propaganda -- and there never will be. That in itself should be a major red flag.

As you may recall, 2 months ago there were debates/discussions at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion which resulted in the deletion of 3 sub-categories of propaganda films. By strong majorities, those who weighed in with comments were concerned that using the "propaganda" label for all of those films was highly NPOV, and therefore not appropriate. Those discussions are worth taking a few minutes to read, so here's the links to those pages:

Vietnam War films

Two discussions: Left-wing & right wing films

I made a point of including the "right-wing" films category, because, as you say, this isn't about a particular agenda, but rather about a consistent principle:

That pinning the "propaganda" label on a film merely because it has a strong POV is fundamentally wrong for Wikipedia, because for the vast majority of readers the term "propaganda" is highly pejorative.

That being the case, all of those films are, in a sense, damaged when they're tarred with that label. On the other hand, the only "damage" from NOT labeling a whole bunch of films as "propaganda" is that those Categories & Sub-categories will be sparsely populated.

In short, the desire to have "full listings" simply is not a good enough reason to slap an inherently disparaging label on dozens of films. Regardless of your personal views (which you are certainly entitled to), such labels simply have no place in Wikipedia.

I hope I've helped you understand why sticking lots of films in those categories is always gonna bother people. Cgingold 09:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)