Talk:Ancient Aliens/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Conflict of Interest | Request to add Recurring themes and elements

Here's more evidence that Binksternet has a conflict of interest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest) with editing this article. I recently noted that in the popular culture section the Debunked documentary line referenced an IMDb page. Amazed, I removed the reference only to find that, as usual, Binksternet immediately reverted the change. IMDb's pages are submitted by users, meaning he was (assuming good faith) uneducated in how IMDb works. So, instead of looking into the site and doing research into what it is/how it works he does a quick look and sees that IMDb says the film is "recognized" and tells me that's good enough to mention it in pop culture. I can cite NUMEROUS occasions where I've seen senior editors tell others that to mention things in popular culture they should have their own page to prove their notability. Not to mention, does being "recognized" immediately make something a part of pop culture? (The answer is no... here's a good read on what is acceptable for this section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%22In_popular_culture%22_content) But here's Binksternet and the other monitors of this page letting this documentary stay mentioned for months. Why was I the one that had to catch this? I'm not mad, but you know, when I get mocked for "balancing the page" by other editors on here, I feel the need to point things like this out so you can see why I fight for this page. Looking ahead, I would like to discuss this page having a "Recurring themes and elements" section as other TV shows do (example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bang_Theory) If there are no objections I will begin writing it tonight. --Xm638 (talk) 12:32, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

You accuse me of having a conflict of interest but you offer no proof. Instead, you talk about whether IMDb may be used as a reference to show independent recognition of a film, which is entirely different from COI.

My background and interests may be seen at my user page. If you go there you will find that nothing supports the allegation of me having a conflict of interest for this TV show. Rather, you'll see I am fairly skeptical and science-oriented; characteristics which cannot be held as a conflict of interest.

The TV show Ancient Aliens is filled with "idiocy", conjecture, fantasy and bad science, according to Brian Switek of Smithsonian.com. There is no reason Wikipedia should try and assist the TV producers in carrying forward their notions about aliens. Instead, that topic is amply covered at the ancient astronauts article. Any discussion of the TV show's main arguments would serve to legitimize the arguments, a legitimization of bad science. Wikipedia should not be responsible for promoting this "noxious sludge in television's bottomless chum bucket."[1]

The "Recurring themes" section of the Big Bang Theory article is a poor example. It relies to a suffocating degree on primary sources, that is, on Wikipedia editor evaluations of TV show episodes. The more important point is that the Big Bang Theory is a sitcom; it is fiction. The recurring themes are recurring fictional elements. The Ancient Aliens show, on the other hand, pretends to be scientific, based on fact. It is a documentary, more appropriately, a pseudo-documentary. Thus we cannot simply tell the reader what was the fictional plot of this or that episode. Instead, we must base any recurring thematic elements on WP:SECONDARY sources. There are precious few of these to draw from, because almost nobody who is reliable cares to embarrass themselves by seriously discussing the outlandish notions presented on the TV show. Binksternet (talk) 15:38, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Whenever I add anything to this article from the UFO or ancient astronaut community I am immediately told the sources are not valid... yet, this source stays for months? Do you not see the issue here? You watch this article like a hawk, yet you do not examine any negative source of information to the article nearly as hard as you do the positive; perhaps because your opinion of the subject matter is already made up as stated in your comment. In fact your comment above shows a conflict of interest.

Though the article has come a ways, you still persist that we cannot talk about some of the theories in the show, even though many of the topics presented have established Wikipedia pages. You say this isn't a platform to talk about von Däniken's theories, but that is an incorrect argument because he is not the sole proprietor of the theories on this show. You expect readers to find these articles themselves, this is suppression of information. Sorry that mainstream science doesn't agree with the ideas on this show, but if the show is notable enough to have a page, the content needs to be presented. There ARE common recurring topics in this series, such as the Orion Correlation Theory and Piri Reis Map, these are not discussed in the ancient astronaut theory page, again one of your invalid arguments. The readers will be able to tell it is disputed when they read the reception, lede and are linked to the respective articles for those topics. --Xm638 (talk) 18:17, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I certainly don't see a COI here. And I agree entirely that discussing the 'theories' in the show is off-topic for this article. That isn't suppression, that's just the way we build our articles. Please don't repeat any charges of COI here, take them to WP:COIN if you have evidence and want some sort of remedy. Dougweller (talk) 19:00, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

EDIT: Ooops, sorry Dougweller. I thought you were Bink. I was probably too furious to read that right; listen I'm done with arguing and the attacks (I've participated just as much as others have in making snooty comments) but please directly answer why we can't link to articles like the Piri Reis Map and Orion Correlation Theory when they are an essential part of the content of this show and not a part of the ancient astronaut page; which is where Bink suggests readers can learn about the content of this show. Those and other topics are frequently mentioned in the series, therefore essential information, and they are missing from this article. They have established articles on Wikipedia, therefore I believe this is suppression of information. --Xm638 (talk) 21:23, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The problem you will immediately run into is one of reliable sources discussing the Piri Reis map and OCT with regard to the television show's depiction of them. I made a few quick searches to see what was out there and I found only blogs, discussion boards and self-published books, all of which fail WP:RS. Thus it is fairly useless to propose a new section of the article, a new section that cannot be supported by good references. Binksternet (talk) 22:57, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The "content" is being adequately "presented" and there's no "suppression" going on here. We already have episode descriptions in the article. If (for example) OCT and Piri Reis Map are discussed in a certain episode, then that episode description would contain those linked terms. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:08, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Alright, thanks guys! --Xm638 (talk) 03:08, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Moving list to separate article discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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List of episodes on Ancient Aliens should be moved to list of Ancient Aliens episodes to make it consistent with many other TV series. Comments or suggestions?

I actually moved it once but a strict user reverted back because I did not discuss it first. PlanetStar 22:05, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

There is no actual requirement that TV series have separate episode lists. Separate episode lists contain additional information such as writers, directors, production codes, ratings figures, detailed episode summaries etc. With the exception of episode summaries, none of this exists in the episode list in this article. The episode summaries are fairly brief here, exceptionally brief in season 5 and non-existent in season 6. TV articles are generally fairly detailed but this article is not and removing the episode list makes it exceptionally short. The main reason for splitting articles is that they are too long, and this one isn't. TV articles usually contain significantly more information than this one does and splitting the episode list out is justifiable; that's not the case here. The split you did included a number of issues that, while fixable, were issues nonetheless. There was no need to add {{DISPLAYTITLE}}, the link to the episode list was in the wrong infobox field and all reference to episodes was removed except for a {{main}} link. At List of Ancient Aliens episodes the lead did not comply with WP:LEAD, and there were other minor issues. Neither article provided proper attribution as required by Wikipedia:Splitting and so on. --AussieLegend (✉) 01:45, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't think it was strict of me to expect discussion in an article with as much active editing as this one. AussieLegend is correct. There's no reason to split this. My first edit summary was wrong though, PlanetStar did provide the proper talk page attribution on the list article. Dougweller (talk) 09:12, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it was me who provided attribution, just after you had reverted. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:18, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose split. The article is not over-long and splitting separates off the background from the episodes in a manner that does not facilitate comprehension by the reader. The Whispering Wind (talk) 20:31, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. This article is not too large. Binksternet (talk) 02:16, 27 December 2013 (UTC)