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Topic: Registries... again

The_Tom
recently silent
Member # 38

posted

Under the terms of the Capps doctrine, you shall all either grow up or shut up. Post-haste. Jolly Good.

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"I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

Boris
Active Member
Member # 713

posted

What, people's methods of analysis are above criticism? We're all perfect analysts? I dare not criticize the way someone analyzes something, point out the logical fallacies in someone's argument, only state my own opinion and merely nitpick, and then we'll see what the consensus is?

I thought people hung out at the Officer's Lounge. I also thought they gave their creative views at the Designs, Artwork, and Creativity forum. I thought that this was a forum where we analyze, discuss, and debate, not settle for easy answers.

Remember, not everybody here is an expert in everything. Some people are newbies in some regards, some are complete newbies. I can't even name all the Wolf 359 ships or their classes, and have no idea where this or that picture came from, or what's still unclear about the whole thing.

But what do people do? As soon as a newbie makes a post with a decent spelling and repeats one of the accepted opinions, nobody dares to attack that person's argument. I'm sure that's not what Vulcans had in mind with Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

Boris

Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709

posted

I like spaceships.

Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

AndrewR
Resident Nut-cache
Member # 44

posted

My apologies to Boris.

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"Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)

I'm LIZZING! - Liz Lemon (30 Rock)

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

SoundEffect
Active Member
Member # 926

posted

Don't sweat it Boris, as a fellow newie here, I hear ya. I posted a thread in 'Design, Artwork & Creativity'. Aparently, though scale models are not art. I just wanted to show off some of my models, [artwork & creativity] and the thread was locked promply for reasons of spam!

I guess here you have to pay your dues with 100s of posts, then you're accepted.

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Stephen L.
-Maritime Science Fiction Modelers-

Registered: Nov 2002 | IP: Logged

AndrewR
Resident Nut-cache
Member # 44

posted

Actually no not really SE. I found that quite silly to lock your thread - it was quite in-line. I thought.

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"Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)

I'm LIZZING! - Liz Lemon (30 Rock)

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

SoundEffect
Active Member
Member # 926

posted

Thank you.

Just want to be a contributor here.

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Stephen L.
-Maritime Science Fiction Modelers-

Registered: Nov 2002 | IP: Logged

Boris
Active Member
Member # 713

posted

FYI, I'm not a fellow newbie, it's just that I had to reregister and that I don't really worry about my member status; if it can make some people think that they can deal with me easily and attack my argument, all the better for me, them, and the argument.

I think that if you linked to the actual images and asked for specific comments, as opposed to linking to your entire website, it wouldn't have been considered spam. That's how the guys at 3D Gladiators do it. Bernd is a long-standing poster here, and even he links to specific webpages-under-construction of his site when he needs feedback. However, it really is a minor thing.

BTW, your post was in the correct forum, given that there is a measure of creativity in your designs. For the same reason, Mark's "You're the Admiral" threads belong in that forum, because he created the hypothetical situation that is being played with.

What if I create a hypothetical situation where I'm designing a phaser: "You're the Phaser Designer, Sector Alpha", and am asking everybody to contribute their views on how the phaser should be designed? It is technology, and yet, it would probably get moved over to "Designs, Artwork, and Creativity."

The name "Starships and Technology" is too vague. How about "Starships and Technology Research"?

Boris

Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

The_Tom
recently silent
Member # 38

posted

double-double, toil and trouble

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"I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

The_Tom
recently silent
Member # 38

posted

You research a cure for cancer. You discuss the technology of Trek. There is a difference.

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"I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

Boris
Active Member
Member # 713

posted

From Merriam-Webster:

quote:

Main Entry: dis�cuss
Pronunciation: di-'sk&s
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin discussus, past participle of discutere to disperse, from dis- apart + quatere to shake -- more at DIS-, QUASH
Date: 14th century
1 obsolete : DISPEL
2 a : to investigate by reasoning or argument b : to present in detail for examination or consideration c : to talk about
3 obsolete : DECLARE
- dis�cuss�able or dis�cuss�ible /-'sk&-s&-b&l/ adjective
- dis�cuss�er noun
synonyms DISCUSS, ARGUE, DEBATE mean to discourse about in order to reach conclusions or to convince. DISCUSS implies a sifting of possibilities especially by presenting considerations pro and con . ARGUE implies the offering of reasons or evidence in support of convictions already held . DEBATE suggests formal or public argument between opposing parties ; it may also apply to deliberation with oneself .

I'm not sure I see any of this here. What I see is a casual chat with endless nitpicking and circling around the main issue until nothing is resolved.

Research, on the other hand, is careful and close study of something, regardless of whether it involves discussion or not. It can be done by one person or by several people working together and discussing their results. There's historical research, medical research, anthropological research, linguistic research, and many other kinds that you haven't mentioned.

You can call it discussion or research -- in any case, investigation and study is implied. If you were in a discussion, would you suggest that the approval time of NASA spacecraft can be estimated by looking at the approval time of dog food? Yet this is exactly the kind of "reasoning" I see here.

If you're discussing "Defiant", you have to define "Defiant". It's a fictional starship. What's the primary source of information on that fictional starship? The show. If the show has errors, explain what they are and give evidence to support the idea that they are errors.

How reasonable is it to jump to conclusions without investigating something in detail? What gives one the right to do that? If I haven't researched something in detail, at least I do come out and say so, not imagine that I can nevertheless give a truthful view through my Magical Personal Vision (tm) without explaining myself in painstaking detail.

It's arrogance combined with laziness.

Boris

[ November 20, 2002, 16:22: Message edited by: Boris ]

Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

Timo
Moderator
Member # 245

posted

I'm in agreement about the "You're the Admiral!" thing, really. Moving "Sector Gamma" to the Creative forum at this point would be a bit awkward, though - but "Sector Delta" or "You're the TOS Commodore!" or other suggested developments should move there, certainly.

Apart from that, though, I do not see the benefits in narrowing down the scope of Starships & Technology. People will still come here with both questions that require speculation to answer, and with ideas that are treknology at its best even if purely speculative. Guiding them elsewhere would be a chore.

And S&T is a lively group, with far-ranging speculation in addition to "serious research". The other two groups under Star Trek are oriented towards the dramatic aspects of the shows and the movies. This group is the remaining forum for pretending that the Trek universe is for real, and for speculation on what we *don't* see in the telly. The scientific method isn't all that suited to covering the whole range of issues discussed here.

I'm sure it won't be impossible to run serious research alongside more free-form discussion here, without subdividing or reorganizing this forum. And even serious research needs to be punctuated by witty remarks and wild ideas every now and then...

Timo Saloniemi

Registered: Nov 1999 | IP: Logged

Boris
Active Member
Member # 713

posted

I fully agree. Speculation is perfectly fine, as are witty remarks, and a lot of research begins with an odd hypothesis such as "objects fall down with speeds proportional to their weights" or "The TWA 800 crashed because of a terrorist attack."

The problem I have is with people who ignore actual testing done by people who have time to test these hypotheses. The former stick to their original hypotheses like the Aristotle or Bible followers in the 17th century. They think that you cannot agree on some things such as the ordering of sources, or a definition of error.

You can. It's only that such discussions are a bit difficult, and that few have a desire to follow the reasoning and to discuss specific, disputed points. It can get as tedious as a legal dispute, but that doesn't mean that the people who choose to examine it in greater detail are as right or less right than those who chose not to.

Were it just a question of a lack of research, it would be understandable. Not everybody has time or the DVD's for such research. However, how many canon examples are required before people finally accept the notion that the ship classifications aren't as simple as Okuda laid them out -- that outwardly identical ships can have different class names? How difficult is it to recognize that Okuda isn't canon, and that proving the show is in error requires a source more valid than the show, which is the real world -- our physical universe, in which the show pretends to take place?

Since the real world is a tricky, complicated place, it allows for a lot of weirdness that doesn't neatly fit into Okuda's Encyclopedia. We can't even prove that warp drive is impossible -- how can we ignore the possibility of random registry numbers?

Okuda is a technical advisor -- his suggestions are used by writers who create the final show. Okuda doesn't research in detail, because his hypotheses that end up being used become fact by the virtue of his creating parts of the show. That's the distinction, and I'm merely arguing that if fans want to pretend they do the same, they ought to go to the fan-fiction forum and by all means create.

They can create here likewise; however, it should be understood that such creations are mere untested hypotheses that stand or fall depending on the actual evidence, and not pronouncements that can be as valid regardless of evidence. Saying that A is more canonical than B requires evidence. Saying that C is an error requires evidence. Say whatever you want, but defend your argument. To me, that's the fun of it.

Boris

[ November 21, 2002, 05:30: Message edited by: Boris ]

Registered: Sep 2001 | IP: Logged

Sol System
two dollar pistol
Member # 30

posted

This is one of the more frightening threads I've read.

Registered: Mar 1999 | IP: Logged

Peregrinus
Curmudgeon-at-Large
Member # 504

posted

Let me see how briefly and non-inflammatorily I can touch on some of the points raised...

Some of those who have been here for a while know my position on registries. I look at both the intention and the execution, and when the two don't match up, I tend to err on the side of intention. Execution gaffes tend to be due to time or budgetary restrictions, or to a breakdown in communication. I think everything could be resolved if the impetus was there to go back and fine-tune the episodes -- from all of the series -- that felt the effects of those considerations.

Everything from changing the registry of the Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine" to redubbing Riker's '1305-E' line, to making the Crazy Horse and Pegasus the Cheyennes they were supposed to be to revising the VFX shots in the last couple episodes of DS9 to reflect the Sao Paulo's registry on the new Defiant.

In my own endeavours here at home, I'm deconstructing things even further, going into why things are the way they are. By understanding the nature of the screw-ups and wounded egos and departmental miscommunications and all, I'm finding it's actually possible to go back and create a consistent structure for the fleet that transitions smoothly from Matt Jeffries' scheme to Mike Okuda's scheme with only two or three highly-visible things that would have to be retconned. That works a lot better than trying to shoehorn one into the other or vice versa.

The rest is just padding out the background information in such a way that it 1) supports the conclusions reached through research, and 2) provides a guide for those who come after so they don't start a whole new crop of errors to bitch about.

I'll spare you the details for now, as I'm not wearing my fire-retardant bodysuit.

--Jonah

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"That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."

--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused

Registered: Feb 2001 | IP: Logged

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