Who decided to remove all log entries from the episodes they belong to, and to move them to a separate page, without the episode named, and no direct link from the episode to the correct log entries?
For instance, TNG: "Contagion" was edited by Airtram3, with both personal logs and captain's logs removed from the article. The captain's logs were replaced with a link to the article Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2365. That page has logs for 16 different "missions", presumably representing 16 different episodes, but none of the episodes are named, and there is no easy way to match the episodes to the corresponding log entries. This is being done to a large number of episodes. The only way to tell which episode goes with with entry is an obscure link at the end of the last log entry made for each "mission". To find log entries specific to a particular episode, you have to search the entire page for the obscure back-link, and each page covers a whole year. And who came up with these mission names? Surely that's not canon. Furthermore, it appears to be assumed that every thousand stardates occur in the same calendar year, when this has not been established for certain, and when there is clear evidence in the canon to the contrary. Just because the first two digits are the same and they occurred in the same TV season does not mean that they all occurred in the same year of the 24th century.
I would think that such a major change to the structure of this wiki would require major discussion and consensus, but I do not know where that occurred. Even if that occurred, there are major problems with the way it is being carried out. --Nike 12:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- I didn't start it, Nike, I just followed suit. I initially listed the log entries on the episode page themselves. I soon found that, starting with episodes in the first year of TNG, the log entries were being moved into these pages. I noticed that it was some of the senior members who had begun the change. Why? I don't know. I did attempt to put the episode name as the header to each body of stardates; however, I was told by Cid Highwind on my page that this would be intruding the real world onto the Star Trek world. His exact words:
- Hi again. Just to explain my changes to Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2364, which basically reverted your edits: We try to write articles from an in-universe point-of-view, that is as if written by a person in the Star Trek universe. This means that episode titles shouldn't be used as section heading, qualifier or anything in those articles. -- Cid Highwind 23:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
- My entries were changed, and some other member began using the vague descriptions you now see on these pages. I felt the process was random, and as I like consistency, I updated all the TNG episodes for the first and second years, with a few third year ones thrown in. Hope this helps.--Airtram3 12:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I did not say that you started it; I was just using one of your edits as an example. I am not against having all logs in one place. However, you, and perhaps others, are breaking the associations between the episodes and the log entries. Instead of Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2365, you can put Captain's log, which will link to the correct entries.
I don't see the sense in using non-canon mission-names instead of episode names. Not everything in this wiki is in-universe POV. Things like episode articles and lists of episodes are examples; this seems like it should be another. But whatever.
The other major problem is the assignment of episodes to specific years. Unless the year is mentioned in the episode, it's fanon, not canon. And there is canonical evidence to the contrary. For example, VOY: "Homestead" had the stardate 54868.6, and occurred on the 315th anniversary of First Contact Day, which means that this stardate is April 5, 2378. If January 1 was stardate 54000, then April 6 would be 54263, not 54868. 41986.0 was in 2364 (TNG: "The Neutral Zone") so 54868.6 is less than 13 years later, which would be 2367, which means that stardates cannot be predictably tied to the Gregorian calendar. So we cannot with certainty provide a canonical date for an episode unless it is actually stated. It would be better to list logs according to stardates, rather than AD years, i.e. 41000s, 42000s, etc.
As I said, I do not know if it has been discussed before, but either way, I think it should be now. --Nike 13:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you Nike. However, as I have learned, the majority rules, and the majority believes these events occured in a single year. They also believe that the Eugenics War and Tarbolde wrote his poem in 1996, regardless of the rest of the evidence such as these events being seen as 200 years before the episode, which would place them in the mid-21st century if the original Star Trek is in the mid-23rd century. People will take what they want, and if it doesn't accord with their view of the matter, they will ignore the inconvenient bits. It's human nature after all.
- A few thoughts, for what it's worth:
- (1) Frankly, I don't quite understand why the log entries should be removed from individual episode entries. I have no issue with log entries being collected in an overall entry, but I don't quite see how each individual episode entry is bettered by having such intrinsic, episode-specific information removed from the episode entry. Maybe I'm missing something.
- (2) That said, I agree that the arbitrary mission names such as "Mission to Iconia" and "Readout Anomalies" now being used on the Captain's Log page are very removed from how many would search for that information. Logically, they should be noted by episode name, like any citation, but if that's going to cause a crisis of POV, I don't know how to resolve matters to make the overall Captain's Log pages as useful as they could be. Ideas, anyone?
- (3) In any case, if it's been decided that the text of Log Entries should indeed be removed from individual episode entries, then the link that remains in the episode entry should at least use the anchor feature to link directly to the episode-relevant subheading section. So the link in, for example, "Peak Performance" should go to the specific Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2365#Starfleet Battle Simulation and not just the general Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2365
- --TommyRaiko 14:25, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- The major problem behind all this seems to be the fact that all this "log content" might be interesting both in relation to the episode it was made in (production POV) and as a stand-alone article (in-universe, what is the content of the Captain's Log?).
- An in-universe article about the Captain's Log shouldn't contain episode titles as headings, as that would break our POV. It shouldn't really contain years in the title either, if we can't be sure that this year even is the correct one for all entries.
- Although I'm normally against content duplication - what about having log entries in both places, the episode article and a "Log article"? For the latter one, I would suggest headings that make use of the stardate instead of invented mission titles... -- Cid Highwind 14:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- That is all good if every log entry had a stardate. Many don't. I think there are far more supplementals than actual dates. So, what do you do then? As for episodes that mention the exact date, these are few and far between. I think there have been only a handful that have done so, outside of Star Trek: Enterprise of course.--Airtram3 15:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not saying that every single entry should have its own section header with a stardate. My suggestion was that, if we keep the log articles as-is, we could replace the current headings (one per "mission") with a stardate and also move articles from "TITLE (2364)" to "TITLE (41000-41999)" if necessary.
- The Table of Contents of those article would then be a chronological listing of stardates falling into each range. -- Cid Highwind 15:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Congress voted for the war in Iraq, but that does not mean it was the correct decision, nor would the current majority in Congress probably vote for it. We don't have to stick with a bad decision made by other people. Just using the proper links would go a long way. I would also vote to list by stardate, rather than non-canon year. This is Star Trek, after all, where stardates are much more common than calendar dates. (Except for Enterprise, of course.) --Nike 22:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)