Talk:Precipice/Archive 1

Spoiler Source[edit]

I've listened through a couple episodes of the linked radio show. It appears to be a political talk show - which episode contained the spoiler details, and how were they presented? --Peter Farago 22:39, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

Further, could you tell us which specific episode this info appears in? What if this guy just saw the same early (wrong) script drafts I mentioned before, then read them on radio as if fact? --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 22:55, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

Peter, I'm trying to get to the bottom of all of these rumors: I consider them all as "accurate" as the unfounded rumors that the show would move to NBC! I asked Ron's wife in the messageboard but she has yet to return for a day or two and I'm iffy on whether or not she'd answer questions like this: I prefeced it by saying that I wasn't just a fan, but reporting it on BattleStarWiki and would spread corrections to other news sites, etc. (roving reporter) so I didn't just sound like one man that wanted to know. I hope that helped. But seriously, all of this isn't adding up. --->if you follow the link to that supposed early draft page, half of it has cross out marks on it. And usually most of an episode is heavily revised. IF this is even real! --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 22:59, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

The cross-out marks are for the parts that the oracle character isn't in, since it's a casting side for that particular role. --Peter Farago 23:04, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

Gotcha. My other complaints stand. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 23:26, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

Kuralyov, if you can't provide an exact source, this needs to be deleted. --Peter Farago 20:20, 14 April 2006 (CDT)

That's kind of what I meant, yeah Peter. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 20:28, 14 April 2006 (CDT)

Well, I wanted to give him a chance to get back to us about it. Do we even have a source for the title? If not, we should just delete the page outright. --Peter Farago 20:29, 14 April 2006 (CDT)

Yes, but meanwhile, we have to have SOMETHING for "Occupation" even though I think it's not true, because Gateworld and such already reported it, but just to keep warnings in saying that we don't know how true it is. We've all seen wrong rumors before, haven't we? Last time I trusted one of these things, I thought that Cally would kill Crashdown in "Fragged"! After that I realized how unreliable these "early reports" are. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 20:32, 14 April 2006 (CDT)

We're not talking about Occupation here, and the source of those rumors (the casting side) is a settled matter anyway. Gateworld is no longer cited. The question is, do we have a source for "Precipice"? Even gateworld would be sufficient here, just something better than Kuralyov's word and a link to a talk radio station. --Peter Farago 20:36, 14 April 2006 (CDT)

Yes. To be honest, when I followed the link I couldn't even find the interview, but this may be due to my own lack of techno savvy :) --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 20:39, 14 April 2006 (CDT)

I must be having trouble communicating today - No, I couldn't find it either, which is why I've brought this up. If Kuralyov can identify the particular interview in question, then we can cite it directly and keep the content he added here. --Peter Farago 20:43, 14 April 2006 (CDT)

Found it. Transcribing. --Peter Farago 20:50, 14 April 2006 (CDT)

LV Rocks Transcript[edit]

Transcription moved to Sources:Precipice. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 12:30, 15 April 2006 (CDT)

Question about Koenigrules[edit]

I know that he is a big name on Galacticastation.com, and a regular contributor at Subject2Discussion since its inception, but just exactly how "sourced" is this source? How does Koenigrules know this stuff? Is it possible...that he simply read the same stuff we did? What are HIS qualifications? Great work transcribing Peter. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)}

Having transcribed this, it's obvious that he knows absolutely nothing more than what we do from having skimmed the casting side and made a few logical predictions. The only new piece of information we have here is the title for the episode, so at least we have someone to cite; but I'm not at all satisfied with this as a source. Nothing else here was original information, so I'd like to find out the originator for the title. FYI to Kuralyov: I'm not going to do this again, so do your homework next time you post spoilers: quotes and citations. --Peter Farago 02:29, 15 April 2006 (CDT)

I had thought as much. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:05, 15 April 2006 (CDT)

Another bit of original information was that Ellen Tigh will die in the first couple of episodes. You can't really infer that from the casting side. --Noneofyourbusiness 10:28, 15 April 2006 (EST)

It all falls into place now: I finally found out who Koenigrules is. Apparently, he is "a writer for Hollywood North Report, and has been since January 05". This happened some time ago and not all of you may have been here, but remember when we had our own problems with HollywoodNorthReport? Well, some time ago during season 2.0 I noticed that most of HNR's material at that time was a combination of information taken from either BattlestarWiki, or The Patriot Resource (a very good BSG news site). Anyway, contact was made with the guy who runs Patriot Resource, and he too noted that HNR seemed to be taking material without crediting the sources. --->What HNR tends to do is one of two things: they often take news from other sites, but unlike BattlestarWiki (which always sources news and says where we got it) HNR rarely if ever sourced its material (half-intentionally giving the impression that they were a great news site with original content). The downshot of this was A) it's a little rude, more importantly B) it makes it hard to determine the truth behind news they report. The second thing they did was literally cut and paste article information from The Patriot Resource and BattlestarWiki, whole cloth. By which I mean the difference is that at BattlestarWiki, of course we get information from other places, but we don't just copy them word for word (if we do we put that in quotes and give it an off site link citation). But we like, read an article somewhere, then RE-write the information here, in our own words. --->Hollywoodnorthreport just cut and paste articles, without crediting them. ---->Anyway, the guy who runs The Patriot Resource was quite nice, and before I could think of what to do, he actually **wrote a letter to HollyWoodNorthReport, pointing out that they were taking information from both his site AND BattlestarWiki, without crediting us. The response he got was lukewarm at best; they basically denied any of it, said it was free content, whatever, and told us to go away. We were rebuffed. Yes, on occassion HNR gets original info...because they've got people in Vancouver who can make trips to the set for interviews and such, but most of their other "news" is just taken from other sources without crediting them. For example, check out this recent thread hyping HNR that Koenigrules made here: on the one hand, I point out to him a flaw in his claims: you see, Koenigrules reported the rumor...and then Gateworld and Galacticastation reported what he said--->my point being that they weren't "confirming" it from their own independent sources that is, they just actually said "source: Koenigrules". So I told him "you cannot cite this as proof that there are "multiple cites corroborating your rumors"....when they were just citing him in the first place. This happened once before: we reported something here, then PatriotResource reported it (but CITED us), then Gateworld and Galacticastation in turn cited HIM, and finally, HollyWoodNorthReport ran the news as FACT, without giving any citations, and actually said "5 different sites are saying this, so it must be Confirmed!" (this is what made me e-mail the guy who runs Patriot Resource in the first place). ----->Secondly, you will note on the same thread that user TwobrainedCylon says" "Is HollywoodNorthReport EVER going to stop using the viper image they stole from me? They should at least swipe a Mark II viper pic to represent this series rather than continuing to rip off my stuff."--->So it appears that HollyWoodNorth Report on a regular basis tends to take information or artwork from around the internet, and refuse to credit anyone else for it, and present it as Their Own.

You see, there are those guest cast lists that I meantioned before, right? Or the early shooting scripts, which say the NAME ONLY of what scene will be filmed what day (such as "Tigh in prison cell with Cavil"....this doesn't give away other plot points, just that Tigh meets Cavil in a prison cell). It is now my firm belief that Koenigrules and his associates at HollyWoodNorth Report try to credit everything they ever hear as true and crated entirely by them. In fact, they know no more than we do. You see, I asked Koenigrules (on the official messageboard) "What exactly is your source?" and he said "I have an inside source close to production that I am unwilling to divulge"......well, isn't that more than a little "conventient"? For all we know, he just showed up as Subject2Discussion one day, claiming to have an exclusive leak source, when it fact all he sees are the casting scripts easily available to hundreds of people free online.

Now, benefit of the doubt, logically if he HAD an inside source he could not divulge their identity--->so the only logical thing to do, would be to check all of the reports his "source" has informed him about in the past, and check if they turned out right (often months passed between when he reported it and the episode). So I asked him directly, "what is something that you have reported based on this, if you cannot tell me what your source is?" He said "That Crashdown, Elosha, and Hot Dog would die". There are several flaws in this: first off, he just said "die"; he did not say who would kill them. Most people could have guessed by Kobol's Last Gleaming, Part II that Crashdown was going to die on Kobol, based on the plot setup. Further, guest cast script overview page said something like "Roslin mourns over Elosha"...you could guess she'd die.--->You see, if we based our information on the early spec scripts Koenigrules does...well, in the early draft of "Bastille Day" that went out Cally died, in the early draft of "Fragged" circulated we were told that Cally shot Crashdown, etc. etc. Perhaps worst of all, Hot Dog is not dead, he is alive and well at the end of the season. In the personal message to me, he said Hot Dog was dead. I responsed that assuredly, he meant someone else, as "Hot Dog" is not dead. And he responded, confirming his position that "Bodie Olmos's character is dead'.

Yikes. How these HNR guys like Koenigrules got into "news" source positions, I do not know. But it all seems to make sense now. By the way, has anyone else actually listened to his appearanced on Subject2Discussion, such as the most recent one about "Precipice"? At the end, he literally says "BSG would be great with a smaller cast and more special effects. More people will spread through word of mouth that there are great special effects, and ratings will go up"--->One of the central tenants of the Naturalistic science fiction underlying BSG is that it focuses on *many characters and their fleshed out interactions*, as opposed to the emphasis on flashy special effects which ruined Star Trek.

I do not want to drag BattlestarWiki into this, and I must admit it is very unsavory to do. But if any of you have listened to the "reports" he gives S2D, I believe you will agree, that something must be done. He is feeding wrong information to S2D, presenting it as fact, and as he has duped S2D into believing him, because S2D (a reliable news source) reports it, other cites like Gateworld and Galacticastation then report it. This is a serious problem. I do not want to bring it up on BattlstarWiki again, and I think it most unsavory that I have to be saying these things at all. But I'd prefer finding out the TRUTH about BSG, and verifying our sources like good wikipedians, instead of standing around and doing nothing. Updates as I get them. Five by Five. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 22:22, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

I'm perfectly happy with a blanket policy against citing Koenigrules or HNR. How do others feel about promulgating this on ~~Battlestar Wiki:Spoiler Policy~~Battlestar Wiki:Citation Jihad? --Peter Farago 22:49, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

I agree on principle, but I'd have agreed if only to say "Let it be promulgated." Oops, I meant "So say we all." --CalculatinAvatar 23:22, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

I'll open a proper vote there with the relevant information. --Peter Farago 23:25, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

Peter, more importantly, I have secured MY OWN interview on Subject2Discussion this Tuesday April 25, due to my capacity as official spokesperson for the Golden Toaster Awards. I plan on getting my foot in the door in the first interview, talking about the GTAs and ****Promoting BattlestarWiki; FOR TOO LONG have we been the "little secret" of BSG on the internet; many sites use us as a news source, MOST of the messageboard users I've met either use us, or have begun to use us after following my advise. We do most of the work and too little of the credit. I want to start speaking for BattlestarWiki as well. That's what my first interview will cover, I hope it's succesful. In my second one, first week of May, I intend to expose Koenigrules----->do I have permission to say "**BattlestarWiki** has a standing policy not to trust *anything* Koenigrules says, or his website HNR". Do I have permission to use the weight of BattlestarWiki behind me? If you tell me not to, I will try to use the weight of BSWiki; although I will still mention, just annectodally as a fan, that this site doesn't trust him: **We have the chance to make a real change here guys. Can I actually say "BattlestarWiki condemns his "Spoilers" as blatantly false, speculation or stolen? or some variation of all of this. Because ***if you tell me to TONE DOWN the BattlestarWiki connection I WILL. If you don't want to get involved in this, I will just say that yes, I am a prolific editor at BSWiki and that BSWiki has even stopped trusting him. But would you like me to condemn him? (Maybe not "condemn" your choice of words); if we can expose this man who has been playing Subject2Discussion for fools for the past year, it might be a real boon to the street cred of BattlestarWiki. I will obey your decision. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 23:31, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

I'm basically opposed to anybody but Joe speaking as the single voice of the wiki, and even then only under extraordinary circumstances. --Peter Farago 23:36, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

Absolutely correct. Others should chime in on whether they agree or disagree so we can have an informed dialogue going, but I want to know what Joe thinks. It is his site, and his prerogative. By his command. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 23:42, 19 April 2006 (CDT)

You could just say 'Active member of BSG Wiki along with other people that contribute to the site...' if Joe does not get back to you in time. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 01:10, 20 April 2006 (CDT)

He could, but I hope he doesn't. Strictly as a matter of ettiquette, I think it would be bad idea to attack the host's other guests, and it has the potential to reflect poorly on both Merv and the BSG wiki as a whole. --Peter Farago 01:21, 20 April 2006 (CDT)

Totally agree, but if you don't stand up for people reading directly off your site without citeing the infromation as KR did, I would (but I will not) get the infomation out that he is just gathering "info" from a muliatude of sites and that his "listeners" should go to those sites that he read off, either Gateworld, scifi, or here. What would stop someone else from doing it in the future. --Shane ^{(T - C - E)} 01:25, 20 April 2006 (CDT)

He'll probably keep doing it anyway. The best way to undermine his credibility is by being more timely, better sourced, and more accurate than he is. Even if he rips us off, at least we'll have the advantage of naming our sources; if he names his sources too, then we won't have anything left to complain about. --Peter Farago 01:34, 20 April 2006 (CDT)

Here's what I think... I don't mind Merv stating that Koenigrules information is ripped from other sites (this is true), and I don't mind him saying that we don't source his information -- because we ourselves avoid citing information that comes from dubious, unverifiable sources. Therefore, I am in support of putting KR (and, to an extent, HNR) on a blacklist of sites we don't source.

If Merv is to point out anything, it's how KR gets his information and how unreliable some of his information is (i.e. the Hot Dog thing) and how inspecific his information is (it's generic information, really, and gives no other details). No matter how bad KR is with his so-called "reporting", we should never resort to ad hominem attacks. Period. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 08:21, 20 April 2006 (CDT)

Can we move this entire conversation into its own thread? --StrayCat0 09:45, 20 April 2006 (PST)

I dislike having to add more information to this, but I asked a user that has been on the official messageboard since the Miniseries, and they gave me this very informative summation of Koenigrules' history:

"When the show started in the UK, several of us discovered bittorrent and downloaded the episodes. At the time Koenigrules never gave out spoilers. When the series started in the US, of course you could get spoilers by reading the threads opened by the british and those who had downloaded the episodes.

KR became a spoiler source during the hiatus to the second season, and he usually gave them in the S2D show. They weren't neither memorable nor rather long. Just a line or two. Most of the times he stepped in as some sort of "source confirmation". Your fight with him on this issue is old and many people have claimed the same things that you claim. KR has always stated that he contacts the production team, usually the PR office, and that he has somebody in the crew that gives him some spoilers.

During the first season, he was the one who claimed that Dirk Benedict was going to be the Cylon God. An ugly flame war started between the TOaSters and him. Later they laughed at him when it didn't happen, but somehow he was vindicated when RDM said in his blog that indeed he had considered Dirk Benedict for that role but later on he dropped it altoghether.

My opinion regarding KR? He has access to some (if not all) the casting "sides" before everybody else, which is where he gets his information. The rest are just plain wild ass guess on his part. As for Tigh losing an eye. I would keep it as unconfirmed rumor, it could very well be a typo after all."

(I couldn't just link it sorry, it was in an e-mail). This really solidifies my belief that his "spoilers" consist of listing off the one or two sentence plot points he can glean from available online sources. I do not intend to attack "the messenger" Joe, I assure you: What outraged me was ***not so much that he takes material from our site and others, but that he is ***Reporting his speculation as if it is FACT, and as a result other web sites like Gateworld have been reporting it as fact. I don't really mind that he is reporting what he sees on messageboards and such. It's that he's reporting his *opinions* as fact, and then claiming to have a non-existant "inside source" which has fooled everyone into thinking his position is legitimate. I will handle the situation maturely. Though I must admit, it is hard to avoid his character....when his character and behavior is what we question. Nonetheless, I really want to handle this delicately. But it must be done. Thank you for your support. --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 13:14, 20 April 2006 (CDT)

BTW, another message I got from a fan who's fanart was stolen by HNR (this is an arguement against HNR as a whole, not KR himself, but it does reflect on our opinion towards everyone associated with how that site works:

"Sounds about right. I've asked these guys a few times not to use my art and they told me to screw myself ... along wiht some descriptions about how I actually deserved to be dumped on for being such a creep so why was I bothering them in the first place. Not so much as a credit line from these people.

To be fair, its my understanding that KR did ask them to remove it but that request fell flat on its face. I place this at others feet. I don't blame KR for this theft.

However, Michael Hinman did once again tell me that I should be honored they stole from me, which is a common theme with that guy and not the first time he's been involved in my stuff getting swiped and misused. He's got a conception that everything he's involved in is so terrific that if he or another person on the team steal your stuff, you should be thrilled they thought to steal from you. Strange thinking in my book but I never did understand Hinman." --The Merovingian ^{(C - E)} 23:39, 20 April 2006 (CDT)

Please don't get me started on Hinman... What I will say, however, is that his belief that it is an "honor" to steal from others chimes with my view of him. This is mainly because I had worked with him before (more than six years ago, now than I think about it), and yes his thinking is unique in the universe, to state the least. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate} 23:56, 20 April 2006 (CDT)