User talk:DuMan

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Welcome to the Wiki, DuMan. Tell us about yourself on your user page. We have a template that lets you put some information about yourself in a nice-looking box.

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We look forward to your contributions to the community! --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 15:59, 18 June 2007 (CDT)

Recent Rollback

Welcome to the wiki, DuMan. I had to revert your contributions to the article, God (RDM). There are no aired events in the Re-imagined Series that support your information in any way I can recall. Battlestar Wiki does allow some original research, but unsourced information that hasn't any supported basis in an aired episode is "fanwanking". Don't let this discourage you from making more edits, but be sure to read our policies and guidelines on editing and official sources before you continue. --Spencerian 16:43, 18 June 2007 (CDT)

Letter to Critics of the Technological Singularity Article

I'd like to thank you personally, Spencerian and Serenity, for the feedback and criticism you have given me so far. While I am coming up with ideas and arguments to write the article, I do have concerns about how and what to source as well as whether my argument is bordering on speculation or "fanwanking."

About the sources, how do I source something from the show? Would the title of the episode be sufficient, or would you need more? Do I need to work off of direct quotes from the characters or could a use general plot points? When I use general plot points, could a just cite them with the episode's name that they appeared in, or must I provide more information, such as even quoting a nBSG wiki article?

While you said not to worry about it, Cyrannus (system) article does provide some good, respectable exterior links for its sources, while I was relying on the wiki's (as in Wikipedia's) article on technological singularity. How appropriate is it to cite something from Wikipedia? If I need more respectable sources, could I use only online sources and which online sources (generally) would be considered respectable?

As for the article, my plans are as follows. Proving how the topic of a technological singularity branches off of AI should be easy, but proving how the cylons could be controlled by a singularity should be difficult. The only way I know how is to cite events in the show that are easier to explain supernaturally rather than scientifically. My argument primarily works by pointing out events in the show that are unlikely to occur by coincidence (as the would in the real world) and that all of these events can further be proven as none coincidental as they all appear to have a cylon intention behind them.

This is where I’m worried about fanwanking, as it is speculation for something that is not explained in the show and appears to be like the case examples that have been provided on the nBSG wiki’s fanwanking article. Whether you think I should continue from here or not is up to you, but this vein of argument is my only source of evidence and if you consider it weak or fanwanking your opinion should put my efforts to rest.

If you are still interested or think that I am not fanwinking, here is some evidence from the show that I could think of off the bat.

• In episode “33,” there is the unusual timing between Balter agreeing to Six to support the cylons and President Roslin's command to destroy the Olympic carrier.

• The events of “The Hand of God” where Balter is able to pick out the exact weakness in the cylon tylium factory without having any knowledge of the structure of the base. He even confesses to Six that he had no idea what he was doing at the time, but Six reassures him that he was doing "god's will," thus leaving him to state at the end of the episode "I am an instrument of God."

• The chance encounter in the Miniseries that occurred when Balter happened to be alive with the same group of people that arrived at Boomer's crash site, and the unlikely chance that someone at the site (the old lady) allowed him to be noticed, leading him to be directly brought on Galactica.

• In “Six Degrees of Separation,” there is the coincidence that occurs when Baltar is almost first convicted. At the beginning of the episode Balter displays his atheism by blowing off Six's belief in god, to which Goodwin soon appears on board Galactica (in the flesh) and begins showing physical evidence of Baltar's possible guilt. The rest of the episode leaves Balter alone (from the populace of the fleet AND the cylon Six) until the end where he prays to the cylon god, at which point Six returns to his side and the evidence is proved to be fake.

• In the season 1 finally where Six encourages Baltar to get off of Galactica, warning him of unknown impending events that could put him in danger, thus showing there must have been some entity being aware that Boomer was about to become activated.

All of the above points could either be explained through pure coincidence, supernatural means, or the presence of a highly advanced computer or consciousness that can predict events and human interactions to an incredible degree. As each event appears to have an intention behind it that favors the cylons, these events could not solely be explained by coincidence, thus eliminating the first option. Assuming the show strives to portray realism, only the latter option remains.

Thank you for reading and withstanding my bad writing. I await your criticisms.--DuMan 20:28, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

I'm not familiar with all the background of this, but I will go ahead and weigh in on some of the citation questions, as I am comfortable at least answering that. Regarding citing onscreen evidence, a show title is sufficient. Just throw a parenthetical link to the episode in parenthesis at the end of the sentence/paragraph (remember the period goes AFTER the outer quotation mark, that's just the way we roll around here). Bonus points if you take the time to use Template:Cite episode. That template utilizes the "references" section, so it looks really snazzy, and it allows you to specify down to the minute if you want (which is great if you can nail it down). Quotes aren't required (you can use plot points), but be careful to drive off of what is concretely seen.

As BW:CITE points out, Wikipedia is NOT generally a good source. This is not a slight to Wikipedia, just that it really doesn't even claim to be a source itself. It (like us) should merely be a collection of citations to other credible sources, so ideally you'd point to the parent source. As for online sources to be considered credible... there's not a hidden "list", by any means, other than the one provided on the BW:CITE page. Generally real world articles aren't heavily pointed to as Battlestar Wiki is more dedicated to documenting what goes on in and around the show more than how the real world stuff works. Though I see the dilemma of needing to justify in-universe theories with real world concepts, and in that case citing credible sources to back your theory would be excellent.

Both Spencerian and Serenity are really good contacts to develop the type of article you are describing. The number of citations you're able to quickly produce is very encouraging and points towards a good probability of success. (Unfounded speculation is the enemy, thought-provoking and well-cited analysis is something to aspire to.)

I'll butt out now, but if you have any other questions of me (or any of the other sysops), feel free to ask. --Steelviper 21:53, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

Simply saying something like: "Baltar conveniently guesses the weak point in the Cylon tylium factory (The Hand of God)" should be good enough. Citing Wikipedia is no problem as long as the Wikipedia article in question provides good cites. You can use Template:Ext-wikipedia or Template:Ext-wikipedia-name to link to a Wikipedia article in the External links section of a page (currently, 52 articles do this). If you have any questions about using these templates, ask me. To link to a Wikipedia article in the body of an article, you can use [[w:Article|Link text]], which will show up as Link text.

Steelviper is right that Spencerian and Serenity are the best contacts to help you in writing the actual article, as they are the ones who write most of the content around here. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 08:53, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Lots of people write content around here, but Spencerian and Serenity are also extremely familiar with the S's and C's, and Spencerian has a great deal of experience creating new articles as well as developing analysis-type articles. There's FAR too much content in the Battlestar Galactica universe (especially when you consider the 1980 and TOS content) to saddle the load just on one person (or a few people). Not that it hasn't been tried, but the results usually aren't that stellar. The best one-person show I can think of off the top of my head is the BG Concordance, which we are still catching up to in terms of having articles that correspond to all its entries. And that's for a show with ONE season. I didn't want in any way to minimize how crucial Spencerian and Serenity are to the wiki, but I did want to emphasize how important it is for the long term success of the wiki to utilize (and cultivate) a multitude of contributors. Speaking of which, I'll try to get some TOS work knocked out today after I get some errands knocked out. --Steelviper 10:17, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

I wouldn't consider myself an expert on developing articles, since I haven't really created many and one of two of them I cobbled together from other articles. But it's probably right that I can be very nitpicky when it comes to enforcing standards, and I do a lot of cleanup.

Anyways, the way you wrote it is fine. It doesn't need to be too elaborate. Any details can usually be found in the episode article you link to. But keep in mind that the standard tense here is present tense, except for event prior to the Miniseries. And for episode titles we put the commas outside the quotation marks, as those aren't real sentences. That's all detailed in BW:SAC. But noone expects that you get every little style thing right at the beginning, as others can clean up stuff.

As for the content. I'm not sure. It's certainly enough to conclude that something else might be at play. Whether that something is a big artificial intelligence is another thing. I'll see what others like Spence or Joe think about this. They have the strictest standard regarding derived content. --Serenity 10:55, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Thanks everybody for the advice on sourcing and how to do it wiki style, but the only criticism I got on my idea for the god article was from Serenity. Feel free to jump in and argue against me, I am currently pumping up and clarifying my argument with more points. I would like to put more thought into writing the article, but I'd rather not until I know it can't be considered fanwanking and can be published on the god article. But hey, knowing my luck and the upcoming final season, god will be revealed as a supernatural being, or worse a figment of the cylon's imagination :(.--DuMan 17:15, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Beyond the Red Line

Good theory, I hadn't thought of that. But of course it is possible to jump to certain systems and charter them at regular intervals, providing a semi-up-to-date star chart which is more up-to-date than a telescope-generated one. --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 16:09, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Guess that's why they are always sending out those Raptors. They're not just scouting, but getting those star charts that Galactica dosn't need to generate at the moment. But still just to store all that data has to be a pain.--DuMan 17:04, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

There are things to throw away as well, though: nobody's gonna need star charts of the Colonies or New Caprica :P --Catrope^{(Talk to me or e-mail me)} 02:13, 1 July 2007 (CDT)