http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Law_in_Star_Trek
Most of the sources appear to be episodes. I explained how interpreting episodes is original research, and asked for some more sources. So they went and cited more episodes. Either I am completely wrong here or someone needs to go and explain to these people patiently but in words of one syllable that "cite your sources" does not mean name the episode in which you saw the plot device which leads you to conclude something.
Guy (JzG)
There is nothing wrong with watching the episodes, recording what happens, then putting that in the article and citing the episode as the source. (For example, watching Picard punch Worf then writing in the article "In the episode ___ Picard punches Worf (source)" is okay.)
However, watching the episodes then fiddling with it so you get other stuff in addition would constitute original research.
On 12/7/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Law_in_Star_Trek
Most of the sources appear to be episodes. I explained how interpreting episodes is original research, and asked for some more sources. So they went and cited more episodes. Either I am completely wrong here or someone needs to go and explain to these people patiently but in words of one syllable that "cite your sources" does not mean name the episode in which you saw the plot device which leads you to conclude something.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Law_in_Star_Trek
Most of the sources appear to be episodes. I explained how interpreting episodes is original research, and asked for some more sources. So they went and cited more episodes. Either I am completely wrong here or someone needs to go and explain to these people patiently but in words of one syllable that "cite your sources" does not mean name the episode in which you saw the plot device which leads you to conclude something.
Episodes are perfectly valid sources, but they are primary sources, so have the same issues as any other primary source. (Basically, they're only useful for stating facts, any interpretation needs to cite a secondary source.)
Thank you. People who argue that primary sources are Evil drive me batty.
On 12/7/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Law_in_Star_Trek
Most of the sources appear to be episodes. I explained how interpreting episodes is original research, and asked for some more sources. So they went and cited more episodes. Either I am completely wrong here or someone needs to go and explain to these people patiently but in words of one syllable that "cite your sources" does not mean name the episode in which you saw the plot device which leads you to conclude something.
Episodes are perfectly valid sources, but they are primary sources, so have the same issues as any other primary source. (Basically, they're only useful for stating facts, any interpretation needs to cite a secondary source.) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 23:21:32 +0000, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Episodes are perfectly valid sources, but they are primary sources, so have the same issues as any other primary source. (Basically, they're only useful for stating facts, any interpretation needs to cite a secondary source.)
They are valid sources for "Kirk was prosecuted by JAG in episode ''foo''"
They are not valid sources for "Military law is influenced by the actual Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)" based on comparing the code as described in the cited episode with the UCMJ,
Or for "One aspect of Starfleet legal procedure which is hardly explored is the concept of Captain's Mast. Only on two occasions, over a 30 year period, is a brief mention made of this and then, only in action and not by name."
Or indeed "Dialogue reveals that a court-martial may be convened in the absence of any JAG officers by three presiding command-level officers".
Memory Alpha loves this kind of thing, apparently. I think we could safely leave it to them...
Guy (JzG)
And indeed:
"In the Cardassian legal trials are entirely a formality and only have a ceremonial function. The verdict is determined long before the actual trial is held. The person prosecuted learns what he or she allegedly committed at the trial."
Which is a generalisation based on a single episode. Is it universally true? Do we care?
Guy (JzG)
"In the Cardassian legal trials are entirely a formality and only have a ceremonial function. The verdict is determined long before the actual trial is held. The person prosecuted learns what he or she allegedly committed at the trial."
Which is a generalisation based on a single episode. Is it universally true? Do we care?
It could be written better ("In Episode X a Cardissian legal trial is shown to be entirely a formality..."), but the episode is a valid source. I don't care if you care or not - how much people care doesn't appear anywhere in Wikipedia policy that I know of.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
"In the Cardassian legal trials are entirely a formality and only have a ceremonial function. The verdict is determined long before the actual trial is held. The person prosecuted learns what he or she allegedly committed at the trial."
Which is a generalisation based on a single episode. Is it universally true? Do we care?
It could be written better ("In Episode X a Cardissian legal trial is shown to be entirely a formality..."), but the episode is a valid source.
The episode would be a valid source for how Cardassian law was applied in that episode, but even in fiction one should resist the temptation to generalize. Such bad habits could too easily be adapted to the real world. If the episode makes a specific statement about Cardassian law that would be an entirely different matter. "Shown to be" can be problematic because it can harbour a veilled POV.
Ec
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
And indeed:
"In the Cardassian legal trials are entirely a formality and only have a ceremonial function. The verdict is determined long before the actual trial is held. The person prosecuted learns what he or she allegedly committed at the trial."
Which is a generalisation based on a single episode. Is it universally true? Do we care?
Actually, I remember the episode and it _is_ universally true. Characters declare this explicitly on screen, explain the philosophy behind why it is that way, and describe other aspects of Cardassian jurisprudence in great detail as well. It was a very legal-system-centric story.
I am not an expert on law, but I am somewhat of an expert on Star Trek. :)
They are valid sources for "Kirk was prosecuted by JAG in episode ''foo''"
Agreed.
They are not valid sources for "Military law is influenced by the actual Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)" based on comparing the code as described in the cited episode with the UCMJ,
Agreed.
Or for "One aspect of Starfleet legal procedure which is hardly explored is the concept of Captain's Mast. Only on two occasions, over a 30 year period, is a brief mention made of this and then, only in action and not by name."
I'm not sure on that one. It's borderline.
Or indeed "Dialogue reveals that a court-martial may be convened in the absence of any JAG officers by three presiding command-level officers".
That sounds fine to me. If something is specifically stated in an episode, then it can be used in the article with the episode as a primary source.
Memory Alpha loves this kind of thing, apparently. I think we could safely leave it to them...
We have completely different aims to Memory Alpha, there's not point even comparing.
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 23:36:02 +0000, "Thomas Dalton" thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
We have completely different aims to Memory Alpha,
Or at least some of us do :-)
Guy (JzG)
On 12/7/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Or indeed "Dialogue reveals that a court-martial may be convened in the absence of any JAG officers by three presiding command-level officers".
That sounds fine to me. If something is specifically stated in an episode, then it can be used in the article with the episode as a primary source.
Moreover, the court martial was actually convened in such a fashion during the episode, so this is an instance of poor wording that appears to be OR rather than actual original research.
In regards to the rest of the article, I'm kind of torn here. Obviously we need sources for comparisons or claims of influence. On the other hand, if a fictional trial obviously resembles a US military court martial, why can't we just say that?
Rob wrote:
In regards to the rest of the article, I'm kind of torn here. Obviously we need sources for comparisons or claims of influence. On the other hand, if a fictional trial obviously resembles a US military court martial, why can't we just say that?
It won't be "obvious" to those who are unfamiliar with the operations of a US military court martial.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Rob wrote:
In regards to the rest of the article, I'm kind of torn here. Obviously we need sources for comparisons or claims of influence. On the other hand, if a fictional trial obviously resembles a US military court martial, why can't we just say that?
It won't be "obvious" to those who are unfamiliar with the operations of a US military court martial.
Dude, I've seen hundreds on TV! The TV series JAG is a documentary, right?
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Rob wrote:
In regards to the rest of the article, I'm kind of torn here. Obviously we need sources for comparisons or claims of influence. On the other hand, if a fictional trial obviously resembles a US military court martial, why can't we just say that?
It won't be "obvious" to those who are unfamiliar with the operations of a US military court martial.
Dude, I've seen hundreds on TV! The TV series JAG is a documentary, right?
So is CSI.
Ec
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Or for "One aspect of Starfleet legal procedure which is hardly explored is the concept of Captain's Mast. Only on two occasions, over a 30 year period, is a brief mention made of this and then, only in action and not by name."
I'm not sure on that one. It's borderline.
Since there are only two such occasions it should not be difficult to identify the two episodes.
Ec
On 12/8/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since there are only two such occasions it should not be difficult to identify the two episodes.
Ah, but how do you source the fact that it isn't seen in any other episodes? This is not a facetious question by the way.
Do we have something against academic fraud: such as, say, adding something as a "Source", apparently without having read it, or even having a good idea of its contents from other sources,
Abigail Brady wrote:
On 12/8/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since there are only two such occasions it should not be difficult to identify the two episodes.
Ah, but how do you source the fact that it isn't seen in any other episodes? This is not a facetious question by the way.
Good point. One possibility is to source every episode which *doesn't* show this happening, which is somewhat burdonsome. Another is to say that it *did* occur twice (and source the episodes); discovery and proof of other occurences is left as an exercise the reader. The third option is to find a secondary source which claims this, and (again) let the reader determine if it's valid or not; after all, we don't present The Truth, only what is verifiable; and the fourth option is to just remove the bloody thing as being too much of a pain in the proverbial.
Do we have something against academic fraud: such as, say, adding something as a "Source", apparently without having read it, or even having a good idea of its contents from other sources,
As in, a comeback against editors who do it? I think it's called "blocked for subtle vandalism" :)
On 12/8/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Good point. One possibility is to source every episode which *doesn't* show this happening, which is somewhat burdonsome.
Especially in Star Trek, where you would have to review several hundred hours of material to verify that something didn't happen.
Another is to say that it *did* occur twice (and source the episodes); discovery and proof of other occurences is left as an exercise the reader. The third option is to find a secondary source which claims this, and (again) let the reader determine if it's valid or not; after all, we don't present The Truth, only what is verifiable
This is quite feasible. In the case of Star Trek, there are excellent episode and continuity guides available for at least the first four series, etc. Much of the trivia on our articles seems to be derived ultimately from anecdotes recounted in these guides, but not attributed.
On Fri, 8 Dec 2006 11:44:54 +0000, "Abigail Brady" morwen@evilmagic.org wrote:
In the case of Star Trek, there are excellent episode and continuity guides available for at least the first four series, etc. Much of the trivia on our articles seems to be derived ultimately from anecdotes recounted in these guides, but not attributed.
That would be much less of a problem (apart from possibly copyright, of course) than repeating the claims and attributing them to episodes.
Guy (JzG)
On 08/12/06, Abigail Brady morwen@evilmagic.org wrote:
On 12/8/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since there are only two such occasions it should not be difficult to identify the two episodes.
Ah, but how do you source the fact that it isn't seen in any other episodes? This is not a facetious question by the way.
A while ago, I was writing an article on a notorious vanity-published and remarkably self-publicising author. (We'd just deleted a big swathe of articles on his books, and references to them in every article imaginable... and, for reasons which may not be entirely unrelated to vindictiveness, AFD kept his article but deleted everything else. So, of course, we needed to write something decent and sourceable on him)
The problem is, it's astonishingly difficult to provide an actual, reality-based, response to claims of fame and success. Barring quoting someone in the publishing industry saying "who is this guy?", what can we do? We can't quote the fact that his books aren't available in normal bookshops, that they don't exist on bestseller lists or in any library - because we can't cite the absence of something.
Do we have something against academic fraud: such as, say, adding something as a "Source", apparently without having read it, or even having a good idea of its contents from other sources,
This is often a simple misconception - "sources" become "references", references gets misinterpreted as "further reading". Most problematic with adding URLs, of course, but I've seen apparent good-faith drive-by inclusions of sources with no actual edits made to the article.
Abigail Brady wrote:
On 12/8/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Since there are only two such occasions it should not be difficult to identify the two episodes.
Ah, but how do you source the fact that it isn't seen in any other episodes? This is not a facetious question by the way.
We can't prove a negative, and a single counter example will disprove the claim. In the history of Fermat's Last Theorem the maddenining thing was thatfor three centuries nobody could find the example to prove him wrong. Proving him right took an enormous effort by many many people, and I still help but feel that a simple elegant proof is just around the corner. In law this is the fundamental reason why a defendant should not be required to prove his innocence.
To say "There are no such episodes" is presumptuous. However, even though it sounds weasely, one can note that he has been unable to find any such episode.
Do we have something against academic fraud: such as, say, adding something as a "Source", apparently without having read it, or even having a good idea of its contents from other sources,
That would be a different matter.
Ec
On 12/7/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Law_in_Star_Trek
Most of the sources appear to be episodes. I explained how interpreting episodes is original research, and asked for some more sources.
Interpreting, maybe. Citing, no.
So they went and cited more episodes. Either I am
completely wrong here or someone needs to go and explain to these people patiently but in words of one syllable that "cite your sources" does not mean name the episode in which you saw the plot device which leads you to conclude something.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 18:27:18 -0500, "The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Interpreting, maybe. Citing, no.
Sure. In episode ''foo'', Kirk is court-martialled. Perfectly acceptable. Drawing inferences about the legal systems from observing the trials in the episodes? Not so good.
Guy (JzG)
On Dec 7, 2006, at 4:11 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Law_in_Star_Trek
Most of the sources appear to be episodes. I explained how interpreting episodes is original research, and asked for some more sources. So they went and cited more episodes. Either I am completely wrong here or someone needs to go and explain to these people patiently but in words of one syllable that "cite your sources" does not mean name the episode in which you saw the plot device which leads you to conclude something.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
I fail to see how sources could exist for articles like this. Either the situation needs to be accepted (my preference) or the articles are out (a shame).
Fred