On 17/10/06, Chris Picone <ccool2ax(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Sorry, I'm new to mailing lists, so bear with
me. I am user Ccool2ax
on English WIkipedia (too lazy to link), and I've noticed in the past
that many "Episode summaries", plot summaries of TV shows, have
absolutely no sources. They are completely OR. Family Guy, the
Simpsons, Lost, all of them have no sources! Every time I bring up
discussion I get "The episode is teh reference!" as a reply. I'm here
to ask you guys what we should do about these thousands and thousands
of OR articles? So far, all there is is WP:EPISODE (again too lazy to
link), a small essay saying that episode summaries need sources. What
should we do?
The episode is a source, the problem is whether we should be using primary
sources like this.
"Like this"? He has described a behavior that is vague enough that
it could be totally appropriate use of the episode as a source or not.
Shows like books are perfectly good sources for the facts of the events
they contain. The problem is when we wonder into the area of literary
criticism, in that case the episode or book is not a valid source for
the simple fact that it does not verify the criticism.
SKL