Forum:Are Blogs valid sources?

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In going through many of the pages, it looks like most of the rumors are sourced to blogs. Most of the time the blogs either have no sources or are sourced from other blogs...that is, two or three blogs share the same rumor. Still, there is no firm source. Are blogs a valid source? If so, how do we determine which blog is valid and which is not? Also, to blogs trump sources such as the BBC? Is there a policy on this? If so, could somebody point me to it? Thanks! -- Rest In Peace Sarah Jane \ Talk to me! 19:41, April 21, 2011 (UTC) PS. Why do I still need to do captcha even though I am registered?

In our Tardis:Manual of Style sources section states "please do not cite sources such as; fan forums, fan blogs, or other truly unofficial material".

With regard to the captcha, newly registered users who have been registered for less than 4 days will be presented with the captcha, after that it should go away, if you're still presented with it after this time log out and log back in. --Tangerineduel / talk 12:59, April 23, 2011 (UTC)

Thanks...with regards to the blogs, what constitutes a "fan blog" vs an "official" blog? -- Rest In Peace Sarah Jane \ Talk to me! 15:20, April 25, 2011 (UTC)

Well, I kinda think you're misreading the policy quote there. It's not comparing fan blogs to official blogs, but rather to official material. That said, there was once an "official" blog, back in 2007, when the character of Martha Jones had a myspace blog.

Problem is, there are blogs and then there are blogs. In a sense, A History of Time (Travel), one of the sites we rely on the most, is just a blog. It's one dude writing about his favorite subject, without an editorial staff checking his work. Which is all that a blog is. But he's researching his stuff and writing what amount to academic essays, which he's then self-publishing. That, to me, is an okay source, especially if you incorporate it into articles with clear attribution, like, "According to Shannon Sullivan . . ." , or if you footnote a statement coming from his site. There are equally other sites having to do with other aspects of DW that are regarded as more "academic" than "fannish", like On Target (generally seen as definitive as regards the Target novelisations), which aren't either official or peer-reviewed. But we still accept them as "valid" because the research level is very high. Nevertheless, it's important to always source statements, because if a fault in the person's research is found, we can trace our statements back to the fault.

An unacceptable blog for backing up statements of fact is one that's obviously offering editorial comment (like pretty much all wordpress blogs) or one that's merely republishing others' material (like doctorwhospoilers).

Taking the latter first, we should always strive to source the original publisher of the news. This means that even the reliable Doctor Who News page that we stream on our front page really shouldn't be the source of any statement of fact on our wiki. We should take the time to click on the source button at doctorwhonews.com and use the real source. Doctorwhonews.com isn't a news-breaker, it's a news-aggregator. Fortunately for us, doctorwhonews is well aware of their role, and they always, conscientiously, give their sources. So they're a great but unquotable site. We want only news-breaker sources. Using doctorwhospoilers is even worse, because they're often sourcing another source who's sourcing a third source. So they're really far away from the actual source. And they throw in editorial comment, otherwise known as freakin' baseless opinion, as well.

Opinion is the main reason we don't want to use blogs. Imagine there's a person called "DonnaFan77". She's from Tuscon, Arizona. She goes to her local Doctor Who fan club viewing of the latest episode. She hears from a friend of a friend that the Beeb are making a new episode where the Ice Warrior — DonnaFan77's favorite monsters ever — are going to be in a new episode with Matt Smith. So she goes home, fires up her blog, and "reports" this as news. Next thing you know, it's viral and it ends up on doctorwhospoilers.com. Now, we could trace this back, if we did the homework, but we don't. We report it here, source it with doctorwhospoilers, and — just like that— DonnaFan77 has influenced our wiki. We could've stopped it by doing the proper research, but we didn't.

Thus we can begin to see why we accept A History of Time (Travel), but not doctorwhospoilers. Shannon Sullivan makes plain what his sources are on every article he posts to "A History of Time". He hasn't vigorously footnoted his articles, but we do know the sources he's using. And all those sources are, individually, acceptable sources on this wiki. So he might be wrong in his interpretation of those sources, and indeed the sources might be wrong, but it's a good faith, even painstaking, effort to represent the truth of things. I've caught one or two things where primary sources (those at an even more foundational level than the books and magazines he uses) seem to differ with him, but largely you can at least treat his stuff as "the way the production story is usually told". By contrast, the "source" for something at doctorwhospoilers usually turns out to be another blog or news aggregator. There's no fact checking involved.

All that said, there are a couple of occasions on which the opinions of blog writers can be useful. If the blog is maintained by a principal involved in the production of DW, it's certainly acceptable as a means of sourcing that person's opinion. Paul Cornell's blog is obviously valid for the pages, Paul Cornell or The Family of Blood Summer (audio story) or canon — just to name a few. Also if you're trying to back up a comment about fan opinion then regular fan blogs are appropriate sources. For instance, if your article said, "Fan reaction to the efficacy of the completely CGI Doctor in Last of the Time Lords varied.", then you could definitely back that up with fan opinion from fan blogs. You gotta be careful, though, to represent things fairly when talking about fan opinion. You could easily source the statement, "Fans hate Twin Dilemma" so as to make it appear the statement is unambiguously true. But we know there are fans who like TWin Dilemma. If you're going to speak of "fan opinion" in your article, it's vital to do the research in as unbiased a way as you possibly can, and to make the statement fit the results of your research. Do not make the research fit your hypothesis.

Thus the answer to your question is this:

Blogs are generally invalid sources for statements of fact, except when:

• they're in-universe and officially maintained by the BBC.
• they're out-of-universe and officially maintained by someone from the BBC production office (thus not all BBC-maintained blogs are acceptable, but they are acceptable if hosted somewhere on bbc.co.uk and written by someone in the production hierarchy}
• they are independent of the BBC, but take a scholarly approach, using sources deemed acceptable by tardis:resources (nevertheless all such statements should be specifically footnoted or classed as the opinion of the researcher inline)

Blogs are acceptable sources for statements of opinion when:

• the blog is maintained by a creative talent vital to the production of Doctor Who or its spin-offs, and you are sourcing his or her statement of opinion on a matter for which their talents give them competency. (Paul Cornell's statement about the technical details of the CGI work in The Impossible Astronaut is no more valid than a fan's, for instance — but his opinions on canon are well worth noting and attributing to his blog.)
• the blog is maintained by a fan, but you are using it — typically in concert with several other blogs — to back up a fair statement about fan opinion.

czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 14:50:50 Fri 20 May 2011