Look: only people with access to nuclear reactors and extreme training can verify what's in any number of Wikipedia entries on nuclear physics. It COULD all be a DANGEROUS HOAX foisted upon us by scientists. I mean, what proof do I have that the half-life of Polonium-210 is actually 138.376 days? Maybe it's really 139.24 days. Maybe Polonium-210 doesn't EVEN EXIST. Only a few select people with access to Polonium-210 can verify that information. But EVERY SINGLE ONE of those people can. Similarly, maybe only a few people have access to Star-Gate episode #23. But if they say that in that episode Cmdr. Pickett gets eaten by a Florgbernian Rumpox, then I'm willing to ASSUME GOOD FAITH. On 12/8/06, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

It's not difficult to get access to a scientific paper or a textbook that states the half-life. You don't have to be able to verify that something is true, you need to be able to verify that the source given really says when it's being claimed it says.

You don't have to believe it. If you choose not to believe the source, that's fine, but we have a policy on what sources we consider reliable. A few fans of a TV show is not on that list. If you disagree with Wikipedia's definition of reliable, you should try and get consensus to change it. Until you do, that's the definition we go by, and by that definition, a scientific paper is reliable, a random fan of a TV show is not.

In which case, your source isn't the episode, it's those few people that watched the episode. The episode is reliable, those few people are not. Therefore, you do not have a reliable source.