User talk:JohnWhiting

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 * templates substituted by a bot as per Template substitution Pegasusbot 04:56, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

"Anti-fanfilm bias?"
This is in response to the argument-shaped postings on my Talk page.

''Your first statement implies that you believe that a fanfilm series cannot possibly be either well-respected, nor popular. I point out that "Grayson", "Batman vs. Predator", and "World's Finest" are all both respected and popular. So is the Star Wars parody "Pink Five".'' This particular rhetorical fallacy is known as "begging the question" -- that is, assuming the truth of what you're arguing is true and using that assumed truth as an argument for it. Or, to put it more simply in this case, "Respected and popular? Sez who?"


 * It's possible that I have accidentally used a rhetorical fallacy; I am not a trained debater. I ask your pardon.  In response to "Sez who?" I can only answer that there are numerous reviews and comments on the above-mentioned fan film projects, easily findable via Google and other search-engines.  The numbers answer the popular part of the question, and the commentary made deals with the respected aspect.  If you wish, I can find a sampling of links, but I will not attempt a comprehensive list to demonstrate the "popular" aspect.  (If I find any negative links, I can include those for balance.)

In answer to your question, if one is unwilling to accept articles by Variety or Columbia University's School of Journalism as indicators of either respect or popularity If one is going to attempt some sort of passive-aggressive appeal to authority, one should offer at least the slightest hint of what one is claiming that the authority is saying. Or, to put it more simply in this case, "What the hell are you talking about?"


 * I see that I'm going to have to be more awake when I attempt to defend or excoriate something. Having part of one's faculties incapacitated creates an unnecessary disadvantage.  [wry smile]  This one I can clearly see is an appeal to authority and you have fairly caught me out.  The Variety article was favorably impressed with "Star Trek: Hidden Frontier", the fans who made it, and the hard work and dedication that goes into any fan film.  The Columbia University article observed that we (Hidden Frontier) had dealt with an important social issue by portraying a gay character in a positive light, something Paramount's Star Trek has not done.  Paramount, in fact, has never even mentioned the existence of gays in the Star Trek universe.  The Columbia University article was picked up by the Associated Press and appeared in mainstream papers as well.

A relatively easy way... Nice thought exercise, though utterly unrelated to anything resembling "reliable sources" and other such encyclopedic standards. In fact, if you're setting it up as a way of getting your favorite fanfilms in here, then it's an open-and-shut case of "original research", expressly verboten here.


 * My favorite fanfilm, Hidden Frontier, is already on Wiki. I'm attempting to deal with and understand the people who dismiss it so readily, some of them possibly never having watched an episode. Yet I hear HF being dismissed with a label, not an explanation: "fan cruft", or such derisive comments as "isn't 'popular and respected fanfilm' an oxymoron?".  At least the comments about the green screen, acting, and writing both are more detailed than the simplistic "fan cruft" lable, and also show that those people actually watched one episode.  They may still have not liked us, but they weren't dismissive or contemptuous of fan films in general.  I'll have to read this "no original research" article to see if I've managed to make another newby mistake.

Assuming that your question was not, in fact, rhetorical, that's how I would do it And since that's not the least bit applicable here, I'd say it was safe to say that your answer was purely rhetorical.


 * My answer may have been sufficiently wrong as to render it inapplicable, but when you say it was rhetorical, you are again being dismissive. Surely someone who understands debate well enough to know about the begging the question and appeal to authority fallacies would not stoop to being contemptuously dismissive as part of their answer?

(Oh, and nice attempt to frame the issue using a bogus dichotomy in your section header, using the "anti". I don't have an "anti-fanfilm bias", I have an anti-unencyclopedic-crap bias: it so happens that the vast majority if fanfilms fall under that category.) --Calton | Talk 00:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, the section header was framed as a question. You appear to have answered it.  Now, to address your answer, you've actually seen the "vast majority of fanfilms"?  I call that into question.  Besides, your statement smacks strongly of the implication that "the sample is the whole".  Even if I were to concede that many fanfilms are bad for the purposes of discussion, your statement strongly implies that you no longer need to check out individual fanfilms to pass judgement on one.  I'm sure that you're aware that "most fanfilms are bad, this is a fanfilm so it must be bad too" is an over-generalization fallacy, and again I'm surprised that an educated debator as yourself would use that even as an implication.