Oldak Quill wrote:
On 17/10/06, Chris Picone ccool2ax@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