Battlestar Wiki talk:Citation Jihad

Citation Consistency

"Zoic" is a name that sounds like what Shaggy from "Scooby Doo" would make when surprised, I think.

Despite being the special effects company for the series, I wonder how much of their information still holds weight. I noticed that Peter gave neither negative or positive weight to this source. As we go through pages, two issues are going to crop up, of which one may need to move to the Standards page.

• Consistent and useful visual separation and identification of TOS and RDM information and characters. I find the mingling of TOS and RDM data in the same article confusing and lengthens an article unnecessarily. More germane to this project, it will also keep RDM and TOS stats from cohabitating and confusing the citation process.
• We need to cite official sources for TOS information on the project page, keeping in mind this wiki is for both series. There are surely more TOS fan sites than RDM, and things like games, fan fiction and the like over the years have surely diluted what is official and not.
• The level of detail or a standard of detail on technical pages needs some kind of governor. At which point is something being reasonable in description (such as Galactica's rail guns) or is embellishment or technobabble that just gives fan service (like "Galactica uses a BFG-3244 Rail Gun with Strapless Attachment")? I'd be more strict on this info than any other since tech is tech and such "facts" should not be different from what is seen on screen.

I think color coding article titles to identify TOS and RDM pages (rather than using "TOS" and "RDM") may be better on the eye. Spencerian 11:05, 29 September 2005 (EDT)

I intended Zoic to fall under point 3, for "crew" - ie, of roughly the same reliability as that interview where Lorena Gale talked about how Elosha used to do "a lot of drugs". --Peter Farago 11:21, 29 September 2005 (EDT)

I believe the actual word is spelled thus: ZOIKS! Caps are not optional. ;) --Day 01:21, 10 October 2005 (EDT)

Request for name change

I am uncomfortable with the use of the term "Jihad". I would rather we use the term "Crusade", or perhaps "Inquisition"; I think "Inquisition" is best (i.e. Spanish Inquisition [no one suspects the Inquisition!] b/c it's rooting out unsourced information). --Ricimer 13 October, 2005

Striving for accuracy certainly has better overtones than any use of "crusade", and "inquisition" has draconian connotations. --Peter Farago 01:11, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

I, uh, don't get Peter's post. Does that means he agrees or doesn't? Anyway, I'm fine with Jihad because it implies a religeous devotion and a fanaticism that I think could be, sarcastically, applied to the purpose of this project. However, I'm also fine with Inquisition because it implies a religeous devotion and a fanaticism that I think... You can see where I'm going with this, no? Also, the Spanish Inquisition sketch is my favorite Monty Python sketch in the history of Monty Python's being viewed by me. And I'd love for my comments on changing citation errors (if I ever see any, because I'm bad at seeing them) to be "Our chief weapon is Fear. Fear and surprise. Our TWO chief weapons are fear, surprise and a fanatical devotion to citation. Ah. Our THREE chief weapons are: Fear, surprise, a--" You get the idea.

I find it interesting that the name and the two proposed substitutes are all tied to religeon? We could have a Citation Rampage. Or a Citation Mosh Pit. Heh. Maybe we should be the Ministry of Citation. I always liked ministries. We would then address each other as "Minister Day" and "Minister Farago", etc. Or maybe one of you can come up with a more Orwellian name. That would be cool. --Day 01:52, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

To clarify: I like Citation Jihad. I came up with it, after all... --Peter Farago 02:08, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

"Jihad", in this context, does indeed present - shall we say - disconcerting ramifications for those of us who are not Christian. While humurous to most of us (I hate to splash cold water) the casual use of such a revered term amongst a potential audience of Islamic adherrants is a wee bit less than delicate... especially in light of the suspicion many perfectly native or naturalized citizens of Mid-Eastern descent faced immediately subsequent to 9/11... and the suspicion they currently face every time they reenter the U.S.

While rather fascinating that we should find ourselves encountering a problem delt with in more artfull ways in our favorite television program, it is nevertheless significant (dare I say important) that we handle this question of naming with a sense of diplomacy. --Watcher 04:12, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

I was unsettled--albeit briefly--with the name initially, but I'm not into political correctness. "Jihad" is correct in definition. Currently, however, some take the word with the same emotional charge as Muslims would hear "Crusade," since, essentially in the context of past conflicts between Christians and Muslins at war, both signify a religious purge. In any case, the term sites a religious note that might sour some.

But before you knock Peter for his choice, consider our subject matter: "Battlestar Galactica" is a morality play in the tradition of the original Star Trek series, which addresses in allegory the Muslim/Judeo-Christian issue present through current terrorism against the West as well as the Israel/Palestine conflict by using the Humano-Cylon/Human and God/Lords of Kobol issue. If nothing else, the use of the term "Jihad" in its purest form is actually appropriate and striking so for this Wiki. Don't let the Al Qaeda terrorists or other extremists make you afraid of a word when in fact, it is THEY that slur it from its true meaning. Peter has always shown a concise use of words that has little to no ambiguity--I should know since he frequently slices my edits to their essence when I use too many words. I'll back up Peter on this one. Spencerian 12:43, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Taking these points into account, I would greatly prefer "Inquisition" over "Jihad" or "Crusade". -- Ricimer, October 14, 2005

Good point. And very nicely said I might add. --Watcher 13:10, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

I hope you don't mind, Watcher, I indented your previous post one more. Anyway, I like Johad fine. I actually find it kind of refreshing to use it for something that's not violent. I'm not Muslim, so I can't speak to that. However, as an American I don't feel, I dunno, threatened by the name, or anything. When I first saw it, it gave me pause, but that pause was me thinking, "Whew. Someone's probably gonna throw a fit about that one." --Day 14:13, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Well I'm sorry but I do and I have. What's the consensus on this? --Ricimer, October 13, 2005

Not a problem Day. I think there might have been an unintentional slip during one of the edits (notice the time/date stamps) but I seem to constantly screw this detail up anyway. Feel free. I may read as insufferably serious but I assure you that's not the case. --Watcher 16:50, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Good deal, Watcher. Anyway... I was about to make a post about not wanting anyone to feel threatened by this project, but I find I have to revise that. I don't want members of the project to feel threatened by the name. I hope people who don't cite sources are scared witless of us. ;) Anyway, as much as I like using Jihad, I tend to like to not offend reasonable people, so I'd be okay with a change, I guess. --Day 17:21, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

A note on nesting - if Watcher was replying to Spencerian, not Ricimer, it should be indented to the level of Spencerian's comment + 1, not Ricimer's + 1. --Peter Farago 18:42, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Ah. Good to know. I shall endeavour to remember this. --Day 22:47, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Votes

We need to come to some kind of consensus, I think. So, first, is to change or not change. If we decide to change, then we can quibble over what to change to. Place your name under the appropriate heading.

No Change

1. --Day 06:14, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
2. --Not afraid of words when used properly. Spencerian 13:56, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
3. --Name doesn't bother me. Talos 19:46, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
4. --Peter Farago 00:51, 24 October 2005 (EDT)
5. --Ditto Spencerian. Let's not fear words when used properly. -- Joe Beaudoin 21:28, 27 October 2005 (EDT)

Change

1. Reluctantly --Watcher 06:30, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
2. Wholeheartedly --Ricimer 09:46, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
3. Normally I don't care about words, but I have to admit, that in today's world, some words have become too negatively charged. --cp.hayes 14:30, 23 October 2005 (EDT)
4. Wholeheartedly --Lone Odessan 19:36, 23 October 2005 (EDT)

BSG: The Magazine

I saw this on the news stand at Fry's and thought it was worth picking up an issue to see what was in it. I've so far read a whole of two pages, so I don't know much about it, except that it has an article on Pyramid that was interesting. Does anyone else know anything about this magazine? How reliable is it? I'm going to edit the Pyramid article with some things that are revealed about the rules. How should I cite this, exactly? I'm gonna go with page numbers and title for now. --Day 17:24, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Given that we haven't had much about the RDM show in print, I'd carefully use it to compare to the canonical stuff we have. If things are consistent, I'd say it's a reliable source since I strongly suspect that USA/Universal may have to sign off on its content. Spencerian 17:58, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

I say we put it on level 4, (sci-fi and skyone websites), provisionally. --Peter Farago 18:41, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Correction. The title is Battlestar Galactica, the Official Magazine even thought the words are not in that order on the cover. And, I must say, the thing was really clumsily edited. There are missing periods, 'and' for 'a', 'their' for 'they're', tense mixing, Obvious typos. Yech. --Day 01:04, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

Citation Format

Also, we should choose a citation format and stick with it. Opinions? MLA, APA, Chicago? --Peter Farago 18:41, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Damn it, Peter. I knew you were a student. You're going to force me to dig up a book or stand with the kids at the college bookstore, aren't you? :) Spencerian 22:50, 13 October 2005 (EDT)

Are you kidding? I just graduated and never once bought a book on citation. All that can be found on the net. I've only ever used MLA style before, however, I'd be willing, given the nature of web pages, to use something that just had footnotes with numbering. There was some tool Wikipedia has for this that I read about, but I don't remember much about it except that it seemed cool. --Day 00:06, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

I would find MLA with numbered footnotes ideal. For "personal communication", we would do well to follow MASON's example of including them in subpages, such as Mercury class battlestar/Sources (That should be linked to from the main article text, however.) --Peter Farago 00:16, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

Joe also mentioned possibly that we should scan things. What kinds of things? And, I assume those should go on a Sources page, too, neh? I think for whatever's on the sources page, we could do the foot note like this: (3) Personal communication (or whatever relevant info). See link to Sources page. I also think Sources pages should have a link back. WHat do y'all think? --Day 00:25, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

I Agree. --Peter Farago 01:14, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

By scans, I mean scans of publication articles and so forth. Scans should not be of the whole article but a snippet of the applicable text that was cited (enough to qualify as fair use). Also, as for linking the sources subpage, I created a template, {{source}} that can be placed next to the applicable information. The template automatically links to the Source subpage. (Format: Article title/Sources.) Thoughts? -- Joe Beaudoin 14:16, 14 October 2005 (EDT)

How does that work, then, Joe? The syntax, I mean? --Day 03:29, 18 October 2005 (EDT)

Character Ages

Character ages across the site appear to be based on the age of the actors who play them. This would normally be reasonable, but the Timeline of BSG does not match the progress of time in the real world - the characters have aged at most three and a half months in the same time that their actors have aged two years. Since we can't infer ages more accurately than a casual visitor could be glancing at a character photograph, I would rather this information simply not be included. Opinions? --Peter Farago 20:45, 15 October 2005 (EDT)

I concur. --Day 12:57, 17 October 2005 (EDT)

Another thought: Ages are hard to pin down... I mean, we might learn that it is someones XXth birthday in some future episode. Wonderful. However, it's somewhat meaningless. An "Age" attribute in the template needs to be "as of" some date. Right now we use the Holocost as that date, but we're no longer exactly certain how far ago that was. So, if it's Cally's, say, 25th or whatever birthday in the episode after next... how old was she at the Holocost? 24, or so, I guess, but you see my point? I think the best solution, and perhaps this should be brought up on the characters project page, too, is to make the "Age" attribute on the template hide-able and then blank everyone's age out unless we know explicitly a number. I also think we should say it thusly: Age: 23 (as of Scattered) --Day 02:50, 27 October 2005 (EDT)

Railguns

From the Official Magazine issue #1, p. 60: "Every Battlestar class warship has 24 primary railgun turrets as well as over 500 point defense turrets at its disposal." I don't have access to a scanner to prove that it says that, so you'll have to take my word on it. I'm not saying this is indisputable proof, but that it's maybe more than fanon, anyway. --Day 02:46, 18 October 2005 (EDT)

The magazine is wrong. Based on on-screen evidence, the large turrets on Galactica cannot be railguns unless we drastically redefine the very idea. This certainly trumps throwaway technobabble in a fan magazine. IMO, the only thing that should give us pause is if a character on the show specifically refers to them as railguns, which hasn't happened yet. --Peter Farago 02:51, 18 October 2005 (EDT)

Okay. I'll buy that. I bet that what's actually going on here is that someone somewhere who makes these desicions doesn't, actually, know what the heck they're talking about. I mean... What're we to do if someone busts out a ray gun and says, "This shoots a red lazer!" and then, *zap*, it's green? --Day 03:27, 18 October 2005 (EDT)

Oops. Ya did it now. Let's just hope TNS' writers don't become overwhelmed by the details and go the way of Space 1999. --Watcher 04:24, 18 October 2005 (EDT)