Talk:Dick Deadeye, or Duty Done

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Formatting the cast list

Recently, I standardized the cast listing as elsewhere on Wikipedia as per the manual of style and the cast listing template. "(Actor) as (character)" seems to be relatively consistent across most featured film articles as opposed to (Actor)–(Character). I received pushback from Ssilvers, which surprised me as I have cleaned up many other articles on much more major films in the same fashion with no pushback. I am opening the topic here rather than engage in an edit war and am anxious to hear Ssilver's arguments for why the cast listing should remain the way it is. Specialsam110 (talk) 13:03, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, you did not "standardize" the cast list. What you did was expand it into 3 columns instead of the one neat column that it was in. MOS:FILMCAST says "Actors and their roles can be presented in different forms", so your claim that your way is the right "standard" way is incorrect. I am still waiting to hear what, exactly, you think is better about what you did, than what has been the settled state of the article for a long time. BTW, if you have had to "clean up" many other articles, obviously your method is not "standard". -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To begin with, my method is "standard". Not that I should have to justify it to you, but since Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information, films with large casts don't need every role listed, and smaller roles should be in prose form (as per MOS:FILMCAST, though this does not apply to Dick Deadeye). Even so, many people import entire IMDB lists into wiki articles that stand for years. They also often remove the cast listing template making it less readable. I know that articles like Mean Girls, The Princess Bride, and the Back to the Future trilogy, of much higher importance than this article, must have people watching them, and the fact that I've fixed dozens of articles to bring them up to these standards and never had so much as a revert let alone a talk page warning means that I'm not doing anything wrong.

As for the three-column thing, that's how Template:Cast listing works, and on a phone or in a smaller window it will appear as one or two columns. I hadn't seen it on a window as wide as that, and I do agree that the small cast does not look quite as aesthetic in three columns. Aside from the columns, there are several other things I changed about the cast list to make it more readable. Since you want to hear each one, I'll explain them.

1. Changed the role of "Nanki-Poo" to "Nanki and Poo" since they are different characters for most of the film.

2. Put line breaks and bullets to differentiate characters played by the same actor instead of slashes, which allowed me to put the operetta they come from in parentheses right next to the character instead of both the characters and the operettas being separately grouped together by slashes, meaning that

a.) the reader doesn't have to look back and forth to see which character it is referring to, and

b.) we don't need a NA to explain that Queen Victoria didn't originate in any operetta.

3. Changed the format of (Actor) – (Character) to (Actor) as (Character) which is certainly "standard" everywhere on the wiki.

That doesn't even get into the plot summary, which I haven't even tried to crack yet. Per MOS:FILMPLOT, a summary should be between 400-700 words, and this one is over 800. There is no reason that this 80-minute film should have a longer plot summary than Titanic. This is unrelated to the current cast listing debate, but it does go to show that this article is badly in need of an overhaul in many various ways. Specialsam110 (talk) 13:05, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Truth to tell I think the list of dramatis personae is difficult to read in either recent version. A table with columns would be much easier for our readers. Happy to provide one when I have time, if wanted. Tim riley talk 17:51, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Later: having read the summary for the film Titanic I can see why the one here needs to be longer. The convoluted plot for DD naturally takes longer to expound than the other film, whose plot as detailed in its article is straightforward to the point of cliché. Tim riley talk 18:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, User:Tim riley. By all means, add this to your "to do" list when you have time. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Compromises: I made the change suggested by Special in #1 above. I do not agree with the change in #2, and in any case Tim's table is going to change it, so we need not argue. Made the change in #3, as I see that the film project articles do generally do it this way. The musical theatre project articles often use the n-dash instead if they do not use tables. Tim's table will change this, but I don't mind making the change for now. I also streamlined the plot as much as I could. Well over 100 words in it are song titles, so it easily now complies with the spirit of the 700 word limit. -- Ssilvers (talk) 06:51, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update

First draft of a table is here. Comments most welcome.

I have the book of the film, but have never seen the latter. I find the Internet Archive has the cast recording, from which two things strike me:

There are several more G&S works/characters involved than are listed in our WP article - there are extracts from Patience and Iolanthe and the ensemble for the Sergeant of Police from PP.
Are we absolutely sure Barry Cryer is the voice of the Learned Judge? It doesn't sound a bit like him to me in the TJ excerpt here. (The Buttercup is unmistakeably Miriam Karlin, though!) Tim riley talk 14:31, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I made a suggestion about the table on your sandbox page. You now know far more about this film than I do. Cryer is listed on the cast recording page that you linked above, and his obituaries confirm that he played the role. Possibly useful: