Sanctuary Wiki:Citation Practices
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Sanctuary Wiki strives to be a comprehensive and accurate source of canonical information for a fictional work. Because of the nature of a wiki where anyone may contribute as well as the subjective interpretations implicit in a work of fiction, it is vital that sources be cited and facts checked. This project page devotes itself in defining what is considered officially sourced or verifiable information regarding characters, events and situations in the Sanctuary saga.
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[edit] Preamble
Sanctuary Wiki's primary goals do not include discerning which unofficial sources have valid information. Our primary goal is to report valid information in an encyclopedic medium. Due to this, we will not be citing rumors from any sources other than official channels, such as Stage 3 Media, Damian Kindler, and other cast and crew of the series. Any information from sources other than those in the list will be immediately removed from the wiki.
Actions which lead to the repeated reintroduction of said unofficial and unverifiable material will be dealt with by an administrator.
[edit] Acceptable Sources
In roughly descending order of reliability:
- Content from an aired episode.
- Such as visual evidence and behind-the-scenes material.
- Official comments from the producers:
- Other statements from producers, cast, and crew
- Interviews
- Cast and crewmember websites
- Cast and crew video Q & As from SF conventions
- The Official Sanctuary Website
This list is an important guideline, but its order is not to be slavishly obeyed. Taking from Battlestar Galactica: If David Eick mentions offhand that Galactica is four inches long, but a reliable source from Zoic gives scaling information used in the visual effects sequences, deference should be given to Zoic's field of expertise. (This would also fall under the guideline of placing on-screen evidence before producer's commentary). Obvious gaffes and bloopers should also be ignored.
Where later comments contradict earlier ones, defer to the most recent statement and make a note at Continuity errors. An example of this (again from Battlestar Galactica) is the size of [[bw:the Fleet (RDM)|the fleet], which increased from 40 ships in the miniseries to 75 in the series. If the issue is not decisively settled, make a note at the bottom of the page (see bw:Olympic Carrier#Notes for an example).
List of sites that are not good sources
- Sanctuary Wiki itself. This is important. If you read information here that you have not verified yourself, do not trust it.
- Wikipedia. Where Wikipedia cites its own sources, it can be a useful guide. However, uncited assertions should not be trusted.
- IMDB. IMDB has not demonstrated a rigorous standard of fact-checking.
- Scifipedia. This is a new wiki operated by the Sci Fi Channel.
- Fan sites, such as TV.com where they do not themselves cite sources.
- Anonymous sources, including those that cite an anonymous source. The validity of these sources cannot be verified without bias.
[edit] Our Weapons
[edit] Derived Content
Sanctuary Wiki is an encyclopedia on works of fiction. As with all fiction, the characters, technology, events and other items in Sanctuary are never fully explained or defined. Because of this, contributors are allowed to add material that helps in adding intriguing interpretation and explanation into an article's content, provided that the addition is based on logical or actual events, characters, and objects from official sources. We call this derived content. There are two forms contributors can use as appropriate: plausible speculation and logical deduction.
The plausible speculation method best works in filling the gaps of data on character motivation or plot direction based on the behaviors or motives expressed by any and all characters as appropriate. When done correctly, plausible speculations add "color" and insight to the article, as well as defining the article's content for readers who may not have realized a significance to the subject matter presented in the article.
Plausible speculation occurs when official sources on the subject are sparse, but substantially important events and results occur in the official sources that logical possibilities can be generated. Plausible speculations are highly fluid and subject to extreme editing as new official information occurs. Again, plausible explanations lend themselves best to character behaviors and motivations.
Using Battlestar Galactica as an example, an article that uses a great deal of plausible speculation is the article on Humanoid Cylon speculation and Case Orange.
The second method is logical deduction. The logical deduction approach differs from plausible speculation in that much more information is available from official content and sources to derive strongly supported article content, despite the fact that the subject matter per se may not be discussed in any one source, but over a series of sources. Logical deductions usually lend themselves best to explanations of technology, terminology or procedure, with technology that has been illustrated, although not fully explained.
The subarticles in the Science in the Re-imagined Series parent article are good examples where logical deduction from sources gives greater insight and detail on a topic from the analysis of screenshots of displays, dialogue, scientific principles, and the like.
Remember: Using either plausible speculation or logical deduction methods require all contributors to cite credible official sources that support their speculation or deduction. Be sure to use footnote templates or the Sources namespace (see later sections) to add in the references that support your hypotheses.
It is also very important to note the subtle differences between logical or plausible interpretation of observed concepts and events of the show, and generating ideas of what you or other fans of the show believe has happened. Don't attempt to explain away a plot hole or mistake in the show with your own created idea that hasn't an official source. This mistake is known as fanwanking. As a wiki that encyclopedically chronicles a work of fiction, Sanctuary Wiki policy on derived content treads all too closely to the problems created in using original research, which is why official sources are critical for any derived content.
[edit] Footnote Templates
Sanctuary Wiki supports the Cite.php script for the purpose of making footnotes where in-text citations become too cumbersome. This is the preferred way of citing sources. If you use this method, please make sure the <references/> tag is flanked like so: <div style="font-size:85%"><references/></div>. In addistion to using the Cite.php script, all citations are to be in proper format. Citation templates have been imported from Wikipedia to help. Please review the template pages to understand how they are used. These templates should be placed within the <ref> tags.
In the past, we have used {{ref}} and {{note}} (imported from Wikipedia) for this purpose. They have been removed from the system. Please see Cite.php script for examples on how to use the new tags.
We also have taken the liberty of adding {{citation needed}}, a template which does double duty by adding articles needing citations to the Articles requiring citations category as well as indicating which paragraph or sentence requires the citation.
Footnotes are most useful to keep the voice of an article from oscillating between describing a viewer perspective or behind-the-scenes notation as opposed to the "in-universe" description of the character or event. Here is a Battlestar example of where a footnote would aid in keeping the focus of the article on the subject matter and not related matter:
"Ragnar Anchorage resides inside the gas giant, Ragnar. Filmed in a sugar mill near Vancouver, the Anchorage is a Colonial storage depot. The main depot area is later used as the Temple of Five in the episode, "The Eye of Jupiter."
Here, the out-of-universe comments (shown in bold, above) on the real-world scenery take away the article's attempt to describe Ragnar Anchorage as if it were a real place. By moving these comments to a footnote, the "flavor" of the article and its subject matter is retained.
[edit] Sources namespace
The Sources: namespace exists to host primary source content. See Sources:Correspondence with Jose Perez for an example. All primary source pages can be seen at Category:Sources.
[edit] How to cite print sources
Print sources, such as Sanctuary Galactica: The Official Magazine, should be cited with a full MLA style citation in the footnote and, where possible, a brief and pertinent quote. See Saul Tigh#References for an example.
[edit] Our Missions
[edit] Articles needing sources
Category:Articles requiring citations provides a list of articles already tagged with {{citation needed}}.
[edit] Widespread misconceptions (aka "Fanon")
- None yet. Yippee!
[edit] Members
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