On 8/13/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 8/13/06, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 8/13/06, Matt Brown <morven(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 8/13/06, jayjg <jayjg99(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
The accuracy of a quote in a book can easily be
verified by going to a
library and looking it up; often the quotes can even be found online.
How does one verify the accuracy of a screencap?
Presumably by obtaining the movie in VHS or DVD form. Many libraries
have collections of movies for loan, and there are commercial
providers as well (cf Blockbuster, etc)
Once there, one can look for the scene.
24 frames per second, times 2 hours? That works out to over 170,000
frames. Is the fact-checker supposed to skip through a frame at a
time? And even then how can one assure that the screencap hasn't been
altered in some subtle way? And then one must actually describe what
one sees in the screencap, which, of course, is open to many different
interpretations (i.e. original research).
With a quotation, it's quite simple - get the book, open up to the
page number listed, and read a couple of hundred words. Do the words
in the article match what's in the book? Verified.
...
Jay.
Not really. Which book, what edition?
Proper footnotes give the exact edition, and date.
Consider the Bible - there are
dozens and dozens of possible original source manuscripts, and then
even more possible ways to edit their errors and ambiguities into a
generally acceptable text, and then one must decide on punctuation
(most of the languages concerned having none), and then one must
consider what books will be ruled canon, and then the actual
translation could be one of hundreds. How does one verify a Bible
quotation? And the Tripitaka is even worse in this regard. (The Koran
isn't such a textual problem, but that's because all the variant
versions were burned early on and the designated edition religiously
maintained until the relatively short time to the invention of the
printing press, IMO).
The Bible is usually considered a primary source, and many differing
versions of quotations are all acceptable. If one wants to build some
sort of claim or theory based on those quotes, that would be, of
course, original research, and one would have to use some secondary or
tertiary source discussing that theory instead.
Or the Origin of Species - which of the six editions by Darwin
(varying substantially) would one be quoting from? Would a section
from the 1st overrule one from the 6th? Or would one split the
difference and go with #3?
Why would one have to, unless one was trying to build a novel theory?
And if one was doing so, then that would be original research.
Assuming one is not trying to build a novel theory, any quotation from
any version would do in general, so long as it is properly attributed.
Matter of fact, it's probably easier to
'verify' an image since most
films and such are released in one way, unlike texts which are
endlessly malleable.
In fact, the exact opposite. What "tool" actually does the
verification - does one compare pixels between the original and the
uploaded version?
Jay.