Talk:Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

Valid 'sources'

What is a valid 'source' for an external link? Is Lurker's Guide the only trustworthy non-commercial source? The blog entry which keeps getting deleted has no ads and is not spam related. It is simply an independent review of the latest and greatest from JMS.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.131.87 (talk • contribs)

See WP:SOURCE, especially WP:SPS. I wrote a review of this movie to my blog as well, but I wouldn't dream of putting that to WP. Sander Säde 03:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're treating this section as if it's your own personal fiefdom which it most definitely is not. As stated before, linking to blogs is not for spam or monetary generating purposes but to provide a critique of the film. Suggestion: a section of the page dedicated to links of reviews. Then readers won't get confused with 'official' sources.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.131.87 (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia isn't a links repository. There are just too many "review" websites to list them all. GreenJoe 04:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GreenJoe is right, this is fairly unambiguously covered in the official external links policy. "Links normally to be avoided ... 11. Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority." See the the verifiability policy for a more general description of why wikipedia tends to avoid using such personal publications as reference. --Codemonkey 00:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some things to keep in mind regarding current sources.

As WP:RS clearly states "Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, should not be used as primary or secondary sources". If we look to the current article state however, we'll see that this describes a lot of the article's sources.

Most of the info is based on JMS newsgroup posts, and probably a good deal of future info will be too. While newsgroup post have been deemed non reliable, for good reason, I feel that JMS's posts are an exception. In addition, I feel that once his messages have been picked up by the JMSNews.net archiving system, a message archive that is independently owned and operated, but does carry the approval of JMS (see the second question in their FAQ), a level of accountability and verifiability has been added to the presentation of these messages there (because of the introduction of a 'middle man' that says 'these are really from JMS, and I operate under his approval, even if there is no official connection beyond that'), and these can safely be used as reliable sources. Sometimes it takes a while before the archive system picks up a message, and I used google groups links in those cases. As soon as the archive system picks it up though, links should be changed to point there. --Codemonkey 22:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

JMS's postings frequently get reprinted in the news sections of sci-fi magazines. The existence of the series will be confirmed in a press release by the studio. Andrew Swallow 14:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Split Voices in the Dark

All B5 episodes have thier own episodes, and I belive Voices should be no exception. I also belive that if the episode page is split from the series (TLT) page, this will prompt some expansive editing on both of them. Voices in the Dark counts as an episode, so I belive it deserves its own article. TLT is the series, like Crusade (TV series) is a series. I would be greatful if someone would respond and if possible even do it. Thanks. Tom walker 17:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A counter example would be LotR and tLaDiS, which are handled in one article. The initial decision to keep it in one article was motivated by me by the fact that there wasn't a heck of a lot of info to justify a separate article. There is more now, but for probably at least the coming year, TLT and VitD will still be the exact same thing, just as LotR and tLaDiS are the same thing at the moment. For now I think readability and clarity is best served by keeping it in one article, with Voices in the Dark being a redirect to this page. This could be changed if either (1) treating both in one article makes said article unwieldy and too big (i.e. WP:SIZE), or (2) if more than one installment of TLT has been announced. Neither are true at this point, I think. This article is 10.2 kB in size, and JMS has made it clear only one installment has been greenlit at this point, with more installments only going into production on condition of good sales numbers of VitD. --Codemonkey 03:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clean Up

Parts of the article are written in future tense and parts in present tense. Now that the first DVD has been written, tenses should be cleaned up. For instance, the part discussing JMS's writing schedule. Shsilver 18:21, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline

I had my edit undone but I find it useful to know when this episode takes place in terms of the whole timeline and I think A Call to Arms is the best thing to put this relative to. Not counting crusade and not counting any novels, it's the last thing that most people remember. Watching the episode, I kept wondering how many years had passed since Earth got infected by the Drakh plague so I think it's notworthy to put the number of years since call to arms. Thoughts? Pocopocopocopoco 22:54:47, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I was the one who undid your edit. My reason for doing so was pretty much as I explained in the summary. You might find it useful to know when the stories occur in relation to Call to Arms, but others might find it equally useful to know when it's set in relation to the original series, or Crusade, or Thirdspace or... I could go on. Were either story to have any particular attachment to Call to Arms (beyond characters), I wouldn't have a problem with mentioning it. But as things are, it seems a little irrelevant. Best regards, Liquidfinale 06:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not uncommon and very useful for stories like B5 that have an arc to mention where episode sits in that arc. I mentioned above that I chose A Call to Arms because I had thought that it was the last major thing that happened in the B5 world. There is other attachments to A call to Arms, as that The lost tales makes reference to A call to arms several times when Galen visited Sheridan for the first time in his dreams. Also, lost tales features a future battle on earth and this makes people think about the last battle on earth against the drakh in A Call to Arms. During the future battle on earth, the viewer might wonder what happened to the Drakh plague from A call to Arms. I could go on. It's not unprecedented in wiki Bablyon 5 articles that an episode refers to prior episodes or a prior mini-arc. If you look at the article for Sleeping in Light it says that this episode occurred 20 years after the Shadow War. My preference would be to revert to what I had originally wrote but if you're still opposed to that, we could put that this article occurred 10 years after the shadow war. Thoughts? Pocopocopocopoco 01:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The thing that the stories really mostly mention time relation wise is that it is set 10 years after the founding of the Interstellar Alliance at the end of season 4. And that's already mentioned with the summary, so I think it is ok the way it is, to be honest. --Codemonkey 05:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]