User:Xkcdreader/Amended "Title" Section Into Darkness

Amended "Title" Section Into Darkness

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E P I S O D E 'V'

COMPROMISE NEARS as a SOLUTION ARISES

Multiple people contended there were too many citations, now there are ten.

One sentence in particular caused opposition, due to alleged WP:SELFREF. (Beware potential WP:COI).

Concerns that text was too technical, verbose, and synthesized have been addressed and hopefully corrected.

The following text was amended to the Title section of the 'Star Trek Into Darkness' article section on February 5th.

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Star Trek Into Darkness, Verbs and Colons Content Proposal

The film title, Star Trek Into Darkness, is grammatically ambiguous in light of traditional use of the series title Star Trek and raised questions concerning the stylistic intent of the title's authors with respect to possible interpretations of the title's constituent structure and orthography. Trek can now function as verb, and due to the lack of demarcating colon, Into Darkness may no longer imply a subtitle to the series title Star Trek but instead be part of the phrase Trek Into Darkness. In regard to prior Star Trek film titles, star Simon Pegg dictated "How do you get past the curse of the ":"? You get rid of it altogether. Trek ain't a noun, it's a verb. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS MAY 2013" Paramount's initial marketing synopsis used Star Trek Into Darkness as a declarative phrase and began: "In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes Star Trek Into Darkness." In reference to a webcomic lampooning a lengthy debate over the title's orthography, The Daily Dot writer Kevin Morris characterized the situation as "a swirling maelstrom" and recognized director J.J. Abrams' propensity for clever marketing tactics, speculating that "perhaps Abrams knew what he was getting into when he gave his film such a grammatically bizarre title."

References: collapsed to save space

Extended content
References

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Justifications

• Applicable Rules, policies, rules, guidelines, and essays:

Extended content

WP:BEBOLD - Just do it! WP:IAR - If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. You do not need to read any rules before contributing to Wikipedia. WP:PRINCIPLE - The rules are principles, not laws, on Wikipedia. Policies and guidelines exist only as rough approximations of their underlying principles. WP:COMMON - Instead of following every rule, it is acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing. Being too wrapped up in rules can cause loss of perspective. Even if a contribution "violates" the precise wording of a rule, it might still be a good contribution. WP:BURO - Rules are not the purpose of the community. Written rules do not themselves set accepted practice. Rather, they document already existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected. Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policy without consideration for the principles of policies. If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them. Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, not by tightly sticking to rules and procedures. A procedural error in a new contribution is not grounds for reverting it. WP:TOO_LONG!#Content_removal - Content should not be removed from articles simply to reduce length; see WP:Content removal#Reasons for acceptable reasons. WP:Content_removal#Reasons - If there is any doubt the removal may be controversial, or if it has been restored following a previous removal, it should be discussed on the page's talk page prior to removal. WP:Content_removal#Consensus_on_removal - If a second editor steps in on one side, and two editors outnumber one, the two can make fewer than three edits each toward a cause, while more than three edits will be required to make the minority cause take place. (Let's NOT start one of these!) WP:SIZE - Consider reader attention span, readability, information saturation. Most articles are very small (under 10k) there is no bandwidth need to exclude material. WP:Abundance and redundancy (essay not rule, policy, or guideline) - It is a preferred solution that material be included rather than excluded to resolve an edit war. In many cases edit wars are based on a premise that: "material doesn't belong here, because it belongs in another article". Instead of removing content, it is preferred to have abundance and redundancy of content. (As an essay, consider WP:Abundance and redundancy with discretion. Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines.) WP:PRIMARY - A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge. WP:Notability#SPIP - The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the topic itself have have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it. WP:SUBJECT#Articles_are_about_their_subjects - If publicity regarding an article is significant, that information would not be included in the article, unless it is relevant to the topic of the article itself. (Kevin Morris' comments in regard to J.J. Abrams' marketing tactics and the debate he caused is relevant to the topic itself. Thus, WP:SUBJECT does not apply and as a criticism is invalid. "The article is explicitly and specifically about Wikipedia" and thus falls foul of WP:SUBJECT is an invalid claim.) WP:UNDUE - Treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. It should be easy to name prominent adherents. WP:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information - Summary-only descriptions of works, Lyrics databases, Excessive listings of statistics. WP:SELFREF - The belief that "self-references should be avoided" is a Manual of Style guideline not a rule. (The Daily Dot has [oversight] and is an appropriate source for commentary on J. J. Abrams choice in selecting the film's title. Desire to obscure the perception that Wikipedia is WP:LAME is not a valid reason in and of itself to remove an otherwise appropriate, neutral, accurate cited contributions. Beware a potential WP:COI.) WP:FANCRUFT - (essay not rule, policy, or guideline) - A term sometimes used to imply that a selection of content is of importance only to a small population of enthusiastic fans. While "fancruft" is often a succinct description, it may be regarded as pejorative and uncivil. (As an essay, consider WP:FANCRUFT with discretion. Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines.) WP:SPA - Many single-purpose accounts turn out to be well-intentioned editors with a niche interest [...] here to build an encyclopedia. Care is needed if addressing single-purpose accounts on their edits. Focus on the subject matter, not the person. Don't WP:BITE. Think hard before tagging a single-purpose account and make sure you are doing so with good reason. Be courteous. WP:AGF - Editors should not attribute the actions being criticized to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice. When disagreement occurs, try to the best of your ability to explain and resolve the problem, not cause more conflict. WP:Cooperation - Civility is part of Wikipedia's code of conduct and one of Wikipedia's five pillars. The civility policy is a standard of conduct that sets out how Wikipedia editors should interact. Stated simply, editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect. WP:BITE - Newcomers may be hesitant to make changes due to fear of damaging Wikipedia. Teach them to be bold. To a newcomer, the large number of Wikipedia policies and guidelines is overwhelming. Ignorance of the rules can often be expected. This is a place where anyone may edit and therefore it is each person's responsibility to edit, rather than to criticize or supervise others. WP:BEBOLD - Just do it!

• Conclusion: The new paragraph is a brief, Encyclopedic, accurate, well-sourced, relevant, and a neutral overview of the inherent ambiguity in the phrase Star Trek Into Darkness that deftly handles the topic without putting unnecessary emphasis on Wikipedia. It does not violate WP:SUBJECT or WP:UNDUE. WP:SELFREF is only a suggestion. You don't need WP:Consensus to WP:BEBOLD, you need WP:Consensus for WP:Content_removal. I repeat, You don't need consensus to make changes, you need it to revert them. The burden of proof is on those people who want content removed, not the people contributing content. If this practice is flipped, the people doing so completely undermine WP:BEBOLD. Those in favor of removal need to come to a valid WP:Consensus justifying why a sentence needs to be removed.

• Result: The first five sentences explain the history of the title and the second five respectfully, clearly, and concisely explain why the title is confusing, and the resulting effects caused by the confusion.

• Note of Caution: I tried as hard as possible to be tactful and respectful with regard to the i|I debate and the feelings of those involved. Users involved in the initial i|I debate are the partial subject of a secondary source used, and could possibly hold a WP:CONFLICT of interest if they propose removing this contribution. I ask any of those users to please tread lightly. I fully understand this contribution may be controversial because it could shed some negative light on how WP:LAME this place is. That alone does not justify its removal. If you have a suggestion that can make this contribution better, by all means help and propose better wording. It goes against everything Wikipedia stands for to revert it, just because you don't want it here or don't personally find it interesting. Let's not start another war. An edit war over this contribution would create more bad press than allowing the contribution to stand. To quote Joshua, one of the smartest computers of all time, "The only winning move is not to play."

• Final Thoughts: I thank everyone who raised and explained concerns, their voices were taken into considerable account. The users Pfhorrest, douts, Eraserhead1, David93, and Whoosit all shared a sentiment of support for various incarnations of this contribution. Fletcher did not oppose a brief mention of the title being ambiguous and Frungi contended the topic was interesting. Although opposed, Nsign conceded it is acceptable for an encyclopedia but preferred to obscure the fact that Wikipedia is WP:LAME. Criticism, dialogue, and editing lead to better content. If I have misrepresented any of these people, they are more than welcome to correct me. I still believe this should have been a contribute first, edit afterwards situation, but gathering everyone's perspectives first helped make sure the contribution was appropriate and hopefully won't launch an edit war. (WP:REDUNDANT#Over-doing_it mentions Criticizing instead of editing. No one should have to read through this many pages of rules first to make sure their contribution is appropriate.) Telling users their contribution is WP:UNDUE and not helping to edit it is WP:BITEing. I hope everyone can take something positive away from the experience. Arguing and blocking content should not take precedent over helping edit it. The "I'm not going to waste my time helping you rewrite sentences" mindset is not beneficial to Wikipedia, and should be avoided. I hope my summary of the rules I learned about this week can be helpful in the future when this sort of situation arises. Xkcdreader (talk) 13:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Summary of Argument

My Position: WP:PRINCIPLE The rules are principles, not laws, on Wikipedia. Policies and guidelines exist only as rough approximations of their underlying principles. WP:SUBJECT#Articles_are_about_their_subjects If publicity regarding an article is significant, that information would not be included in the article, unless it is relevant to the topic of the article itself. (Kevin Morris' comments in regard to J.J. Abrams' marketing tactics and the debate he caused is relevant to the topic of the "title". Thus, WP:SUBJECT is an invalid reason to keep the DailyDot source from being used.) WP:Notability#SPIP - The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the topic itself have have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it. (The "Wikipedia debate, is notable, because it has been written about by at least 4 authors.) WP:UNDUE It should be easy to name prominent adherents. WP:TOO_LONG!#Content_removal Content should not be removed from articles simply to reduce length; see WP:Content removal#Reasons for acceptable reasons. WP:FANCRUFT is an essay, consider it with discretion. Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines. WP:COMMON Even if a contribution "violates" the precise wording of a rule, it might still be a good contribution. WP:PRINCIPLE#Ignore_all_rules Rules cannot cover every possible circumstance and sometimes may impede us from improving the encyclopedia. In those cases, we should be bold and do what is best. In the same spirit, the letter of policy will always fall short of completely encompassing the spirit of policy. We should feel free to do whatever is most faithful to the spirit of the policy, whether or not the specific circumstance is spelled out in the policy. WP:SELFREF - The belief that "self-references should be avoided" is a Manual of Style guideline not a rule. (The Daily Dot has [oversight] and is an appropriate source for commentary on J. J. Abrams choice in selecting the film's title. Desire to obscure the perception that Wikipedia is WP:LAME is not a valid reason in and of itself to remove an otherwise appropriate, neutral, accurate cited contributions. Beware a potential WP:COI if your conduct [the i|I] debate is the partial topic of a secondary source. If you participated in the i|I and lost, the events may bias your vote.)

Analogy: This situation is akin to Bill Clinton preventing his blowjob scandal from appearing in the Bill Clinton, Famous Blowjobs in History and Presidential Impeachment, articles and INSISTING it be moved to Controversies involving Presidents and blowjobs. The idea that this contribution only belongs in Wikipedia in the media article is ABSURD. See also: WP:Abundance and redundancy. To repeat, in case I wasn't clear. WP:SUBJECT#Articles_are_about_their_subjects If publicity regarding an article is significant, that information would not be included in the article, unless it is relevant to the topic of the article itself. WP:SUBJECT is an invalid reason to keep the DailyDot source from being cited to quote an author's beliefs in regard to JJ Abrams and his choice of title, because the subject is the Title and Wikipedia's reaction. Articles can have multiple subjects. QED!

In Short: the WP:SUBJECT objection should be thoroughly debunked by now (see above), WP:UNDUE is a minor issue, but the page will fill quickly as the release date approaches, so is it REALLY this big of a deal?. It is worth spending thousands of words keeping five sentences you don't like out of an article. WP:FANCRUFT is an essay, and irrelevant. WP:SYNTHESIS needs to be determined, I personally believe I took care of it. Others need to weigh in on the issue. (sorry this is long.)

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