Requiring Screengrabs to create a page?
 

I never thought I'd say it, but I was wondering about requiring that the creator of a page go through the trouble of SCREENCAPPING the movie. if they want to create a movie page. This goes for the 'drive by' anonymous users who create a sparse movie page and then move on without actually completing the page.

But we're also getting a ton of foreign films (a) none of us will never see (b) none of us will never screencap, thus those pages are destined to stay crappy looking forever, unless the person who is creating the page goes through the trouble of screencapping their own movie page.

Look at PhoenixEnt's pages. He was a new user and his movie pages were already exceptional. The screencapping work was 100% done before he even created the movie page, thus the pages had screencaps AND the movie poster ready to go. It's not that hard, and screengrabbing software is free.

I am tired of 'fixing' lame pages (and I've fixed A LOT on IMFDB over the months, considering those are movies I would not have uploaded myself initially) for foreign films and I was wondering if we could require some sort of standard if people really really WANT to have them represented on IMFDB?

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

Currently, I don't have the capabilities of decently screencapping movies (at least, not to the levels that some of you can). However, when I do an extensive edit to a page or create one, I take the effort to provide IMFDB links to the guns used and detailed descriptions (sometimes a little TOO detailed...oops) of the scenes they're in. I notably did this with the Die Hard with a Vengance page before the caps were finally added and I also did a pretty comprehensive edit of the CSI: Miami page sometime last year. With that in mind, I think that creating a page should have at least one of the two following:

A) Decent, clear screencaps from already-released DVDs or publically available trailers

AND/OR...

B) Detailed descriptions of the gun used, who uses it and in what scenes. Links to IMFDB pages of the gun and actor/actress are much preferred.

I agree on most as I have applied it to the pages I have created. The scene info would be more clutter than it worth but linking the actor/actress page and weapon page is a must to be complete. Check out some of the pages I have created. Just following the guidelines that some of the admins showed to me when I first started.

Yeah, I'd have to agree.
The first page I created "The Club" is a 360 game which made it impossible for me to get screen caps. The page is pretty well useless mostly as a result.
Thankfully my work on John Woo stuff is much better.

Part of that might just be my pure enjoyment of seeing a page with tons of screenshots and text. Really is the most enjoyable reading experience.

Well alot of anonymous users or noobs who create movie pages don't even bother to upload the POSTER or COVER (google is your friend). That's a minimum.

And a summary for a really obscure movie that no one has ever heard of would be nice.

Also, every user has the ability to paste the gun images from the gun pages onto their movie pages, so at least there are gun image graphics on their page. Again , no screen capping is needed for these steps.

It's laziness if they just make a few notations .... and nothing else. I'm tempted to DELETE the lame pages with the warning ("do it right or don't do it at all").....

Its taken me forever to get the hang of screencapping, wondering, how do i load pics of guns already on the sight, just the firearm image.

k9870:
1:You first find the image that you want(ex: go to glock page, and click the image of the 17 becuase you wan't it)
2: Then when you are on the page that shows the picture and what pages link to it
3: You look in the address bar.
The end of the link should read ":IMAGENAME.IMAGEFORMAT"
for example ":Glock17.jpg"
4: Copy paste the from the : to the end, "Glock17.jpg" and then hit the imbed image button in the page editor.
5: Paste the words "Glock17.jpg" into the highlighted space.

That might not have been helpful. I could create a tutorial with images?

I did just do a glock 17, pic was massive....

When you paste it on a page, it should say Image:Glock17.jpg. If you forget any part of the link it won't work right. Then put it in double brackets.

Since this link will make it a big image without control over the size add this after words:

[[Image:Glock17.jpg|thumb|none|400px|Glock 17 - 9mm.]]

This puts a thumb bubble over the image, controls whether it goes left, right, or nowhere (none is prefered as it doesn't screw up the page), 400px controls the size of the image (px always stays, but you can increase or decrease the size to 300px, 500px, 600px, etc.), and the final part is the caption for the image.

Hope I helped. I can't stress enough though that once you make pages, look at pages made by me, MT2008, and Speakeasy801, as they are a perfect example of how the format for page making should be on the site. This means not linking the gun page in the title, but in the description, adding a gun image so the page viewer can see clearly what the gun is said to be in the screencaps, and adding captions to the images (you don't have to add captions all the time, but none of the time kind of sucks because now you have an article with less to read, and I personally like to know what's going on if the movie is one I haven't seen).

Im still new to the wiki format, but ill try to get the page im working on done sometime during the week. Another drill tomorrow, may start working when i get back

:: (edit) Crap. Gunmaster45 beat me to it! BASTAAAAAADDDDDD!!!!!!


You create a thumbnail ... use this template



[[Image:Glock17.jpg | thumb | 300px | none | Glock 17 in my pants - 9mm ]]

When you put thumb between those vertical lines "|" it indicates that you are creating a smaller shot than the original.

When you put 300px as a value, anywhere on the line as long as it is separated by those "|" marks, then you are telling how many pixels ACROSS you want the image to be. 300 px is just an example. Most screenshots are anywhere from 500px-600px across. Any larger, it would be annoying to the many users who have 1024x768 screens, even though must of us Power users or Mods have higher resolution screens.

When you put none as a value, anywhere on the line as long as it is separated by those "|" marks, you are telling the wiki software what ALIGNMENT you want. Just for expediency sake, ALL of the gun and Screen shots are listed as none.

When you put a POSTER or a GAME/DVD/VIDEO Cover of the title on the top of the page, you align it right. You also align right when you do the GUN IMAGES on the individual gun pages.

Again these formatting conventions are obvious when you look at correct IMDFB pages.

Just a note...I used to do 500px screencaps all the time, and I think it's a bit too small even for a thumbnail. 600px seems to work much better, even though the difference isn't too substantial. I tried it on my laptop, my computer at work, and a machine in the UT library, at several resolutions, and have concluded that 600px is just a little bit nicer. So...it is what I encourage.

Seconded. :)

I myself used existing pages and the CTRL + C combo to learn and create my first pages and edits.
Still learning to some extent.

I forced myself to memorize the codes a while ago, because it is a huge pain to have to copy the codes over and over again.

Im wondering something, i cant find many pictures but I can find clips. How do i get a pic of the frame i want? I don't have any video editing programs and was hoping theres another way to go

Well, I usually use the print-screen key while the video is paused.
To get better shots I use the frame-step function on my viewer of choice: Media Player Classic.
Then I use GIMP to crop the picture and save it high-quality like.

I'll try it tomorrow.

Yeah the print screen does nothing. Ill just look for still pics.

Oh sorry, I wasn't very clear.
Press print screen.
Then open up Paint processor or something and paste.
Up pops a replica of your screen.

Where do i press this? Print screen? Sorry, I dont quite understand.

It's a button at the top of your keyboard, it says "Print Scrn SysRq", or at least mine does. Some computers (including my sister's laptop) require pressing a button next to the left side Ctrl key before it works.

It's part of the trio of least-used buttons on the keyboard.
PrintScrn
NumLk
and
Pause(who knows what this does? I do.)

mine doesn't seem to work, i even press that fn key next to control to do it.

Try pressing the shift key with the PRTSC key. That's what I have to do when I want to take a screencap from Rome: Total War.

Then I open up Paint, go to edit, then hit paste.

That worked! Thank you!

Now, how do i make my pics, well, bigger? The thumbnails of my screencaps are significantly smaller than gun images taken off the site.

GIMP should work.

GIMP? Sorry, dont know what that is.

GIMP 2.0 is a free paint processor like thing, that is of similar quality to Photoshop. Only free(because it's open source)

Do you mean the pictures are small when you post them? Or small on your computer. Because if they are small on your computer, you could just be viewing them zoomed out.
If they are small once uploaded then you need to specify how wide you want them.

small once uploaded, Im working on my criminal minds page and then want to move to my resistance 2 page.

Wait wait, Resistances 2? Ok, if there are any firearms in it that looks like they are based on real guns, I'll give it that, but completely fictional weapons that may look like hybrids of certain guns we know of do NOT count. And you listed the Chimera guns, they aren't even firearms.

Yeah, games like Killswitch, Resistance, and Gears of War may draw inspiration from existing firearms, but they do not really count.

dont forget Killzone. I've already gotten rid of those pages. Any page made about games that features fictional firearms that has no basis on real world weapons will be deleted. No some games like FEAR uses real world weapons, just designed a bit different, but at a glance they still looking like their real world counterparts

There is an m1911a1 in resistance 2......i have seen video game pages of fictional guns. Killzone comes to mind though, if you have deleted those.

but, i gotta say, you have a separte page for the prop guns from aliens and the star wars pages on those guns...

There are several rules for a fictional weapon having it's own page.

FICTIONAL FIREARM

(a) It is a fantasy weapon that houses or uses a real firearm inside (Morita Rifle / Aliens M41 / Smart guns /Deep Rising's M1-L1 Triple pulse rifles, etc.)

(b) It is a fake weapon, but is functionally close enough to a real world design to 'confuse' the audience or create curiosity as to whether or not it is a modified live firearm (Hellboy's Samaritan / Constantine's Holy Shotgun, )

(c) It is a fake weapon that is fabricated around the shape on a real weapon, but doesn't really use the weapon for firing purposes
(terminator Plasma rifles built around a Calico Gun, but not fired as a real weapon, only special effect 'laser blasts', etc.)

(d) It is a custom constructed weapon for the purposes of the storyline, it doesn't really exist in the real world in the normal chains of commerce, but it 'could' exist as a real weapon (Composite gun / Wanted Rogue Sniper rifle)

(e) It is a completely fake weapon, but famous enough to make fans/users wonder if there is any real world weapon basis - which there is not (Codpiece Revolver, "Doom" BFG 9000, "Red Dwarfs' " Bazookoid, etc)

Fantasy weapons that viewers will NEVER think is a real firearm are not allowed - (Star Trek Phaser, Star Wars Light sabres (the blasters are allowed since they are built on real guns), Klingon disruptors, etc.)

Any violations of these rules will result in Caning in a Singaporean courtyard.....

Oh sorry, when I was typing Killzone I must have changed tracks mid thought.
Ending with Kill-switch, which does have real weapons.

Yeah I noticed the killzone page was deleted. I just saw that and made one for resistance. Only a few weapons are based on real guns so i guess it doesn't count