Featured articleThe Dark Knight is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 14, 2023.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
September 14, 2008Good article nomineeListed
December 12, 2008Good topic candidateNot promoted
January 1, 2023Featured article candidatePromoted
Current status: Featured article


The

@Mr Redfield: Please discuss here if you believe your changes should be reinstated, rather than simply re-revert. As explained to you, the character is very explicitly referred to as "the Batman" throughout the film and trilogy. "Unnecessary" sounds like an WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT argument. InfiniteNexus (talk) 22:53, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I watched the film recently and yes, while he is referred to as "The Batman" in the movie, having it that many times in the article sounds clunky and doesn't read well at all. I have a degree in English literature, having the Batman spelt out that many times is truly redundant, take it from someone that's studied the language.
In addition to this, I changed it to keep consistency with the articles for the other two films in the trilogy. Neither Batman Begins or The Dark Knight Rises refer to him as such in their descriptions, so it keeps consistency across all pages. So as long as you keep changing it, I'm going to keep fixing it. Now back off pal, I'm not asking again. Mr Redfield (talk) 01:33, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive me for being rude earlier, I'm working through finals in my current program and I'm more irritable than usual. That said, I believe that I've provided valid reasons for my edits. I don't wish for this to escalate any further, and to offer a form of compromise, I'm willing to agree on a few instances of The Batman in the article. I think it can be used, but it should also be used sparingly. Having it for every instance that describes the character is, as I've said, redundant, unnecessary, and choppy to read. Mr Redfield (talk) 02:02, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the apology, as your initial comment (specifically, So as long as you keep changing it, I'm going to keep fixing it. Now back off pal, I'm not asking again.) was not appropriate. I realize you are a new editor, so I would like you to be aware that Wikipedia has a strict policy against incivility, edit-warring, and ownership of content. It is essential to the collaboration process to make constructive comments in a calm and civil manner, and a failure to do so disrupts the consensus-building process and may lead to serious consequences.
How is including "the" redundant? Imagine something like the Netherlands, the Flash, or the Terminator — we would not normally omit "the" from those phrases, and it is the same situation for "the Batman". The reason people sometimes say "Batman" for short is because in other contexts, for example the comics or other film series, he is perhaps more often referred to as simply "Batman". But here in Nolan's film, he is extensively referred to as "the Batman" in nearly every instance, and throughout the trilogy. As for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises, adjusting those two articles for consistency will not be a difficult task. InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:10, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're missing my point on redundancy. It isn't redundant in and of itself, however, it's a matter of repetition and excessive usage. A few instances is fine, but having the entire article read the Batman simply doesn't read well. Did you try reading the document out loud beforehand? In a lot of ways, "the" is a filler word such as like, if it gets used too many times it gets annoying.
As for other usages of the, I agree on some of them. The Netherlands is the official name of the country, and The Terminator is the official name of the character. However, as for The Flash, most articles refer to the character by his civilian name of either Barry or Wally to avoid a similar situation. Even though the character is referred to as The Batman in the film and trilogy, nobody in the larger general public refers to the character as such, they simply refer to him as Batman. I looked over every other article I could find on Batman in film and I couldn't find a single other that referred to the character as the Batman like this one did. So, would you rather edit one document to keep it uniform, or edit dozens of others and throw a wrench into the reading process?
I'm trying my best to compromise here, hell, I even went back through the document again and added a few more uses of "the" to meet you halfway where I saw it fit. Again, I have a degree in this, it even says "Specialization in English Language and Literature" right on it. I'm still new to this, and I respect that you want to ensure I'm staying within the guidelines and I thank you for that, but I wouldn't be making these edits if I didn't know what I was talking about. I would imagine we both have better things to do than argue over this any further. Mr Redfield (talk) 14:29, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Attributed to multiple references"

The phrase "attributed to multiple references" is in footnotes all over the place. This strikes me as an odd construct.

Firstly, why not just write "Sources"? As far as I understand, factual statements are supported by sources, and a reference points to a source. How exactly are we supposed to understand "attribution to a reference"? Attribution by whom, of what?

Secondly, are all those references really needed? That the film "has been assessed as one of the greatest superhero films ever made" has twelve sources. Consider WP:OVERCITE.

I can find this construct at a few other places, but exclusively when it comes to the critical reception and analysis of movies, and it seems to have started rather recently. What is going on (and where's the best place for discussing it)? —St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 13:51, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is such an unnecessary thing to complain about, what harm is this process doing to you or the article? It is a process that was recommended during a Featured Article nomination, and in cases for older films like this when the internet wasn't as robust as it is now, sometimes it took multiple references to source a small amount of collective text. We collectively determined to apply this to any more than 3 references. Yes, it does need twelve sources because it heads off any challenging of the text. In contrast, John Wick has 14 sources saying it's one of the best action films and a FAC reviewer considered this insufficient referencing for the statement to the point of blocking the nomination. Especially when it comes to what can be puffery statements, having multiple references to back up it's not just a statement by a small collective helps evidence the statement beyond doubt. Because of the risks of link rot and privatisation of sites behind pay walls as well as the death or near death of archive sites like webcite, if we have robust referencing for any situation I would again challenge you to answer the question, what harm is being done to you or the article in this scenario? The statements made are attributed to the references (def: to say or think that something is the result of a particular thing), and again this type of collective referencing has gone through FAC multiple times in recent memory. Is the issue the word "attributed"? Darkwarriorblake (talk) 14:22, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It would be interesting to see the discussion where this style was recommended. Could you link it? (We should probably stick to discussing what style makes the better article – not whether any proposals are "necessary" or any wordings "harmful".)
My suggestion would be first to just change all the concerned footnotes to just read "Sources: [...]", since it's less cumbersome and does not use "attribute", which I suspect is currently misused.
Then perhaps we can discuss whether all those sources is a good thing? Cutting down sources throughout would be a big job, and I don't think I'm prepared to do it, but a consensus would be desirable anyway.
My opinion is that the better guard against puffery is few high-quality sources, rather than many sources, since the source-pile actually can make it harder for the reader to assess the basis for the claim.
—St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 16:03, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bundling citations is a guideline under citing sources. You will find more references for more modern films because these films now generate 500 reviews instead of 10 and it'd be very easy to cherry pick a handful that say what you want, a wide array of sources saying the same thing further evidences the facts. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 16:36, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But this does not seem to be "bundling", where it should be clear "which source supports which point". This is just nesting a lot of references in one footnote; it looks nothing like the example given at WP:BUNDLING.
Regarding the second point: If you cite a lot of reviews to prove what reviewers "generally" say, you probably risk to run afoul of WP:OR. Perhaps this was not why you meant? But in such a case it seems like a secondary source is needed (e.g. Rotten Tomatoes "Critics Consensus"), rather than lots of primary. –—St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 17:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what the concern is, the general rule of thumb is that citations should be bundled per WP:CITEBUNDLE if there are more than three. The claim "has been assessed as one of the greatest superhero films ever made" must be attributed to multiple sources (12 is a good number) per MOS:ACCLAIMED and WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Many options are available when it comes to bundling citations; this is one of them that is pretty widely used. Per MOS:VAR, there is no reason to change this wording unless you have a very good rationale other than WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT. InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:13, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the wording is that it seems confused to say that a fact is attributed to a reference. It sounds like we subjectively consider the fact to belong, well, not to the source, but to the citation details at the bottom of the page!
When it comes to WP:ACCLAIMED and "multiple high-quality sources", we have six sources to establish it as "one of the greatest films ever made", so I'd think that a lesser number would suffice for "one of the greatest superhero films". Wikipedia is not an index. On the other hand, this might not do any damage to the article. The sheer number of references could raise suspicions of a past edit war for someone, somewhere. But most readers probably already know the claim to be true. :)
Anyway, it doesn't seem like all the sixty bundles of citations concern exceptional claims. Sometimes, it's many sources for rather ordinary claims. And in several places the sources together support multiple claims. This seems to hurt the text–source integrity, contrary to what bundling is supposed to do, according to the guideline. For example, that 'Christopher took an "aggressive editorial approach"' is given four sources, but the quote is only found in one of them. Perhaps keep just that one? —St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 22:28, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No. You're not giving the appropriate context either, it's not four sources for "Christopher took an aggressive editorial approach", it's "Alongside lead editor Lee Smith, Christopher took an 'aggressive editorial approach' to editing The Dark Knight to achieve its 152-minute running time." The sources will be for editor, editors name, aggressive editorial approach, and the running time. It seems like you want it to be "Alongside lead editor Lee Smith,[1][2] Christopher took an "aggressive editorial approach"[3] to editing The Dark Knight to achieve its 152-minute running time.[4]" which isn't happening. The entire point of bundling is for readability of the text, if there were a question that the sources were low quality and unreliable or it hadn't gone through a thorough FAC review, since when it has not changed to any significant degree, you may have a point, but here your point is moot. I've also explained that the robust sourcing helps secure the article for the future as references increasingly die. This also applies to the increase in clickbait news which has made once verifiable sites no longer reliable and thus they can end up banned from Wikipedia. It's not an unstable article or an edit warring article and the veracity of the article has not been in question. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I focused on the quote since it immediately raises the question of where and how it was said. The other things are less particular, easy to verify independently and not very likely to be questioned. But a direct quote needs to be very clearly sourced.
Now, WP:TSI seems to say that "Alongside lead editor Lee Smith,[1][2], etc." is preferable, and to improve readability the sources can be bundled in such a way that it is clear which source supports which point. Of course even featured articles have imperfections. I'm not questioning stability or veracity.
How about "attributed to multiple references"? Support, oppose or no opinion about simplifying to "Sources: [1][2][3]"? —St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 00:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If it were up to me (as in, if I were the first person to arrange the citations), I would have gone with Alongside lead editor Lee Smith,[1][2] Christopher took an "aggressive editorial approach" to editing The Dark Knight to achieve its 152-minute running time.[3][4] (putting refs in the middle of the sentence is generally frowned upon, unless for contentious subjects). But putting all four refs at the end of the sentence doesn't quite breach TSI, so it doesn't matter, and the status quo is fine per MOS:VAR. As for replacing "Attributed to multiple references", I don't see a problem with it and would therefore invoke MOS:VAR as well. (By the way, please do not add line breaks between your comments per WP:TALKGAP. Thank you.) InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:30, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Attributed to multiple references" is used widely across Wikipedia so changing it en masse becuase you [nerol] disagree with the definition of attribution does not seem like an acceptable outcome. Changing it to "sources" only does not explain why some references are present in the text and some are bundled either. Attributed/Attribution has several definitions and its current usage does apply. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 10:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Searching for the phrase gives about 160 results on WP, a large majority of which seems to be related to film and computer games.
And how about the neglected reference–source distinction? —St.Nerol (talk, contribs) 15:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's at least 426 results per Google, the particular media it relates to doesn't matter, it's pop culture so it will have more references and coverage by default, and you've already started another discussion at WikiProject Film, so I think we're done here rather than spreading the discussion across multiple articles. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 16:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note that St.Nerol has started a discussion at WT:FILM#"Attributed to multiple references". InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why is Christopher Nolan referred to by his first name?

Christopher Nolan is called Christopher throughout this article whereas everyone else is called by their last names. Last name usage is, I believe, WP style. Did someone get confused (Christopher can also be a last name), or is there some rule by which Nolan always gets identified by his first name? If not, I believe it should be changed. I'm willing to make the 77 (!) changes, but it seemed so weird I wanted to get the opinions of others before I did. ubiquity (talk) 22:30, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Because Jonathan Nolan also exists in the article. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also used quite frequently. If it was a one time use, then using his last name would be better, but Jonathan is just as intregal to this film as Christopher. — Masem (t) 01:14, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aha. Thanks. ubiquity (talk) 00:25, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Audience reception compared to other Christopher Nolan films?

In the legacy section, there are several comparisons between The Dark Knight and other superhero films at that time; can we add a section that discusses the reception to The Dark Knight vs. reception to other Christopher Nolan films, especially of that time (The Prestige was released just two years before and Inception two years after). (I am new to Wikipedia; sorry if this suggestion seems irrelevant). Charlesrinehart (talk) 17:53, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You need to cite a reliable source that does that. DonQuixote (talk) 18:27, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Placement of the Casting category separately from the Cast section

This may sound silly, but while reading this article I was curious why the cast section of the article and the part talking about the casting were separated by unrelated content. I Feel like if we were to move around sections in the article to have casting and cast either be the same category, or next to one another. I think that this would make more sense for how the information is organized, but please correct me if there is a reason as to why the content is split up the way it is. GoodUsername1423 (talk) 20:17, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One is a list of cast. The other is about casting. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 20:28, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Dark_Knight
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