Forum:Speculation - What is and what isn't?

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Due to recent discussion in the Howling Halls, we need to discuss what counts as speculation, what is not speculation and maybe create a policy regarding speculation. The Howling Halls page current stand like this, but some User do not regard the sentence at the bottom as speculation. Putting the sentence on the Howling Halls page under a 'Behind the scenes' heading work? (see here). So what so we do as regards to speculation? Mini-mitch 18:43, January 31, 2010 (UTC)

What definately is not speculation is meanings not explicitly stated in the text or show such as meanings behind concepts or obvious things that are not directly stated as being the obvious. --Revan\Talk 21:29, January 31, 2011 (UTC)

Speculation is, quite simply, anything which isn't stated as a fact. However, in the example above, it's more of an analysis of the text, rather than pure speculation. I'd be fine with it in a behind the scenes section, but not on the main article, the main reason being the main section should be in-universe, and anything out of universe, like analysis of the script, should be in the behind the scenes section. --The Thirteenth Doctor 22:47, January 31, 2011 (UTC)

Well, in terms of reasonable, but clearly-stated, rules and regulations, Wikia doesn't have any finer example that Memory Alpha. Thus, I think one of the upshots of the "Howling Halls incident", for lack of a better term, should be the immediate adoption of the following policy, adapted from Memory Alpha's "Don't disrupt to prove a point" policy, itself largely adapted from Wikipedia policies:

Discussion is the lifeblood of a wiki. The give and take of discussion leads to better articles. Participants to discussions should endeavour to add new points each time they respond to a discussion, and all sides should seek ways to include some portion of others' views in the progress of the wiki.

That said, there are a few things discussion is not. It is not merely the opposition, or gainsaying, of another's point of view. Nor is it simply belabouring of the same points. Additionally, it should not involve the abuse of the rules of the wiki in pursuit of a point.

In other words, don't disrupt other editors just to have an argument or to prove a point. Several examples of this behavior follow.

Gaming the system

For further information, see Gaming the system.

Gaming the system means using our policies and guidelines in bad faith, to deliberately thwart the aims of the Doctor Who Wiki and the process of communal editorship. Gaming the system is subversive and, in some cases, a form of disruption. It usually involves improper use of (or appeal to) a policy, to purposefully derail or disrupt the Doctor Who Wiki's processes, to claim support for a viewpoint which clearly contradicts those policies, or to attack a genuinely policy-based stance.

Examples of gaming include (but are not limited to):

1. Wikilawyering
2. Playing policies against each other
3. Relying upon the letter of policy as a defense when breaking the spirit of policy
4. Mischaracterizing other editors' actions to make them seem unreasonable or improper
5. Selectively 'cherry picking' wording from a policy (or cherry picking one policy to apply such as verifiability but willfully ignoring others such as neutrality)
6. Attempting to force an untoward interpretation of policy, or impose one's own view of "standards to apply" rather than those of the community
7. False consensus
8. Stonewalling (willfully stalling discussion or preventing it moving forward)
9. "Borderlining" (habitually treading the edge of policy breach or engaging in low-grade policy breach to make it hard to actually prove misconduct)
10. Abuse of process

Gaming can sometimes overlap with policies and guidelines such as disruptive editing (including "disruption to illustrate a point"), incivility (including posting of repeated spurious "warnings"), personal attacks, and failure to assume good faith.

If there is no evidence of improper intent or there is a genuine mistake, it is not usually considered to be gaming. It may well be, however, if the action is deliberate, or it is clear there is no way they can reasonably claim to be unaware.

Refusal to "get the point"

In some cases, editors have perpetuated disputes by sticking to an allegation or viewpoint long after it has been discredited, repeating it almost without end, and refusing to acknowledge others' input or their own error. Often such editors are continuing to base future attacks and disruptive editing upon the erroneous statement to make a point.

The Doctor Who Wiki is based upon collaborative good faith editing and consensus. When a stance passes the point of reasonableness, and it becomes obvious that there is a willful refusal to "get the point" despite the clear statement of policy, and despite reasoned opinions and comments provided by experienced, independent editors, administrators or mediators, then refusal to get the point is no longer a reasonable stance or policy-compliant – it has become a disruptive pattern, being used to make or illustrate a point.

Note that it is the disruptive editing itself, not the mere holding of the opinion, that is the problem.

Hoaxes

On a related note, please do not attempt to put misinformation into the Doctor Who Wiki to test our ability to detect and remove it; this wastes everyone's time, including yours. See Do not create hoaxes.

As to the specific question of speculation, I've always favored these guidelines from Memory Alpha. None of them actually use the word speculation (or at least not prominently). Rather, if you follow them all, you'll tend to find that you aren't writing in a speculative way.

• define and describe
• nitpicks
• This little snippet of tolerance in valid resources, in which they state that the validity of a resource shall not be compromised because of:

"The archivist's [or editor's] assessment of the trustworthiness of the character who is the source of the resource (for example, [the charlatan] Harry Mudd), or the archivist's assessment of the overall accuracy of the information contained in the resource. (Note that archivists are free to describe the resource's data in the article as "Character X stated that..." if there is a desire to imply that the resource may not be entirely accurate; however, any further commentary on the perceived accuracy of a resource should be confined to the "Background" section rather than in the body of the article.)"

That ruling perfectly describes what was attempted at Howling Halls: Precise account of a character's statement about the topic, followed by a background (or what we call "behind the scenes") note.

Well, those are some ideas that hit me as of now. Enjoy :)
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 

...and the background note was a fan guessing at what the meaning of 'escape' meant. In other words, a user added unsubstantiated information unprovable. It was, quite frankly, out-of-universe speculation. Again, to go beyond what the canon says in any way is to speculate. --Bold Clone 02:14, February 1, 2011 (UTC)

I found, looking at the Howling Halls article that the BtS note was somewhat lacking in a neutral point of view. We don't actually have a

I found the behind the scenes note is analysis rather than information.

When I first looked to the Howling Halls discussion it made me think of neutral point of view, something that's often tacked to Wikipedia articles, here's the Harry Potter Wiki:Neutral point of view policy as with Memory Alpha it's based on the Wikipedia policy, but has the benefit of being shorter.

Reading the behind the scenes note I found it wasn't neutral.

I agree that anything from behind the scenes, like script notes, commentaries, interviews or anything like that is a valid behind the scenes note. But the note on the Howling Halls article wasn't that.

It is analysis done by the user that tells the reader that it's could be a prison. Now if that's the case, why not present the information and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions based on the information presented.

We don't say for instance that the one individual is "evil" or not, the idea is to present information and for readers to read and interpret the information and if need be draw their own conclusions. So it is enough to say the script doesn't say anything and leave it at that, anything more is telling the readers something.

I think the we should look sooner or later adding the 'don't disrupt' policy (or maybe including within Editing/discusion policies). I'd also like to look around for some other less-polished examples than MemoryAlpha, on occasion less polished polices can foster a better/less imposing editing environment. We also don't want to become too over run with policies. --Tangerineduel / talk 12:14, February 1, 2011 (UTC)