[WikiEN-l] fancruft

[Anthony]

On 7/22/06, Michael Hopcroft <michael at mphpress.com> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > This is somewhat confusing to me, because it seems so obvious to me
> > that watching a TV show and then writing about it is original
> > research.  Anyway, here's what I found about what is a primary source:
> >
> >
> Yet defining it as such creates innumerable practical problems when
> doing articles on television and film.
>
Well, after reading the argument about Shakespeare's works over again,
I have to say that I'm probably wrong that this falls explicitly under
the WP:NOR policy.

Of course, I still think it's a bad idea, to use a fictional work as a
source for itself.

> There is also a logical contraction: you seem to be asking people to
> write articles on movies and TV shows they HAVE NOT SEEN, which of
> course is as much a total absurdity as asking a literary scholar to
> write a thesis on novels and plays he has never himself read, based
> solely on previously-existing external scholarship. The idea is
> unrealistic nearly to the point of psychotic detachment.

Well, you're not exactly getting what I was saying accurate.  I don't
think people should only write articles on movies and TV shows they
haven't seen.  I think it's fine if they do so, but they don't have
to.

I think you're missing an important point too.  Most Wikipedians
aren't literary scholars, and Wikipedia articles aren't thesis papers.
 Furthermore, Wikipedia isn't set up to easily distinguish between
literary scholars and crackpots.  Wikipedia is written by and large by
non-experts, and that's the context you have to put the rules about
original research into.

But again, I capitulate that the "no original research" rule probably
doesn't explicitly bar this type of statement.

Anthony