Talk:ReBoot

Canadian + American?

From a press kit released by Alliance when ReBoot was renewed for its second season:

“ ReBoot is a co-production between Alliance Communications and BLT Productions and is produced in association with ABC, YTV and Meridien. ”

Is "produced in association with" the USA company ABC enough to be able to say "Canadian and American production"? Certainly the only actual production [i]work[/i] was done at Mainframe Entertainment in Vancouver, BC, Canada. But we also know that without ABC in the deal, MFE was unable to continue production on the series. And "producer credits" are often all about money. Jeh (talk) 08:04, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

@Tenebrae: what do you think about the above? Jeh (talk) 20:55, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

They key phrase is "in association with." ABC, YTV and Meridien are not producers but someone – in this case program distributors – with whom the producers had a contractual relationship. But ABC, YTV and Meridien are not producers. To clarify further: ABC is a network; ABC Studios is a producer whose shows can run on any network.--Tenebrae (talk) 20:58, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

ReBoot Revival reliability

I recently removed ReBoot Revival as a source because it doesn’t seem to meet WP:RS. This was reverted. ReBoot Eevival appears to be a self-published fan-site, and I’m unable to find any information on the site about the person or people who run it. I could say I got a letter from the showrunners and be just as credible. What exactly makes this source reliable for Wikipedia’s needs? —67.14.236.193 (talk) 12:18, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

@Cloud S: pinging as an editor who reinserted this source. DonIago (talk) 15:25, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't see what the issue is here. If 67.14.236.193 is unable to find information on the site or the administrator, isn't that on them and doesn't automatically give them the right to deem the source unreliable? The site and the admin are both well known in the ReBoot fandom and have been proven to be a source of valuable information over the years. The article sourced for Cooksey's departure from the film is valid. The email exchange is legit, and I see no reason to remove the only source of this information. Cloud S (talk) 4:45, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

We simply don't accept self-published sources, that's why. And we do not relax the reliable sources rules just because a site is the only way to back up a claim. There is no wiggle room. If the only source that backs up a claim is not what our policy considers reliable, then the claim must be regarded as unsupported, and may be removed at any time. If an editor wants to use what looks like a self-published site as a source, then it is up to that editor to establish the site's reliability, not the other way around. (A claim by an editor that the site has been reliable or valuable in the past is just another unsourced claim.) One good place to begin is to open a discussion at WP:RSN. Jeh (talk) 10:41, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

The site and the admin are both well known in the ReBoot fandom—our readers may not be in the fandom. If you know who the admin is and what makes him an expert on the subject, please share, because that information needs to be readily accessible. —67.14.236.193 (talk) 15:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Better would be an established history of editorial oversight. Widely-regarded expert (by some subset of the fandom) or no, otherwise, it's still a self-published source. Jeh (talk) 21:44, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jeh: I was thinking more along the lines of his being cited by past or present showrunners, by a widely published book about the show/fandom, etc., which I figure would satisfy WP:SPS exceptions. But yes, being able to establish it as an RS in its own right would be ideal. —67.14.236.193 (talk) 00:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. In any case the burden of proof is on the editor trying to establish RS-ness. Jeh (talk) 01:23, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Regarding who he is and why anything he says should be considered valid, I found this: Zeros 2 Heroes - The People's Publisher - The Real Heroes It's from 2007 when he was working with Zeros 2 Heroes and Rainmaker in the initial attempt to bring the series back. Cloud S (talk) 3:50, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Please. The reference was to a forum post. Forum posts are assumed to have been written with no editorial oversight.

"The email exchange is legit" - that looks like just another unref'd claim to me. How do you know this? And how do you propose to cite it?

I think you have a hard row to hoe if you want to establish that as a RS. But by all means, bring it up at WP:RSN.

But think... is it really worth it? Since the movie never happened anyway, just how important is it to mention that the original writer was later not-involved, before the movie was ultimately shelved? Jeh (talk) 11:24, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

"Please. The reference was to a forum post." - I'm sorry, I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that Zeros 2 Heroes link I provided is a "forum post"? Because that isn't what it is. It is, or was, a page created by the Z2H staff. Cloud S (talk) 00:33, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

No, I'm saying the ref that was originally in the article to the ReBoot Revival site was to a forum post. Sure looks like a forum post to me. Jeh (talk) 08:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Huh, so he runs ReBoot Revival. I don’t believe that’s mentioned anywhere on the website itself, though, is it? (Edit: nope.) Anyway, all I get from your link is that he’s a passionate fan who wants his show back and found other people who also want their show back (which is understandable; hell, I want it back!). But like Jeh said, that doesn’t really relate to his reliability as a sole source of secondhand information (it’s fairly trivial to mock up a fake email screenshot or other private communication, for instance). We still need something more substantial, or a different source that isn’t self-published and meets WP:Identifying reliable sources. —67.14.236.193 (talk) 23:14, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

No, his name isn't on the site because he uses the screenname "GlitchBob" on the website and on the site's Twitter account. As for his reliability, I don't see why you don't try contact him yourself. He obviously worked with Rainmaker in the past, and has connections to the co-creators and former staff that worked on ReBoot. At this point though, I'm done trying. Can't seem to please anyone here, or somehow provide something that meets Wikipedia's ridiculously strict regulations. If you want to remove all traces of the site ever being used as a source all across Wikipedia, fine. But be aware that those "citation needed" edits will remain as such if his site is the only source with that information. Cloud S (talk) 00:33, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

@Cloud S: Please don’t give up if you believe what you say. If we can get it on good authority (not just his own) that he’s worked directly with them or otherwise has some kind of verifiable relationship with them beyond what your Z2H link describes, that should be good enough for a WP:SPS expert source in some capacity, in my estimation. Likewise for any kind of relationship with the TGC showrunners. Again, all I know of is his involvement in a grassroots effort (no idea if anything actually came of it besides outrage at The Guardian Code), and I couldn’t find much more from Googling his name with “ReBoot”; if there are links that objectively show something more, please do share them. Or we can just ask WP:RSN for outside opinions. —67.14.236.193 (talk) 02:29, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

@Cloud S: "I don't see why you don't try contact him yourself." Sorry, but that's not my job; and also sorry, but you completely miss the point. Then I'd have only his claims. What we're looking for is support for the claims in question in what Wikipedia considers reliable sources. Such sources must be verifiable; it's not even a little bit useful to say "well, I have a private communication that backs me up", because nobody else has a good way to check on that claim. Reliable sources must be found in generally accessible published media. That doesn't necessarily mean "online", but it shouldn't take an expedition to archives in Lithuanian caves either.

Similarly, free sources are preferred to ones you have to pay to read, but the latter are by no means forbidden. A while ago, for example, I cited some info the RS-232C article to the relevant standards document. Which you have to pay to download. Not a large amount, but it's enough to keep most people from buying it just so they can use it as a citation. (It's been relevant to my work, so I already had a copy.)

Now, please understand: I understand your frustration. I've been there. I am a SME in my own (very specialized) field and I've had a long history (going back to Usenet, not back to early Usenet, mind, but long before the general public had access to Usenet, which puts it really long before the web) of answering questions and otherwise sharing info online. And very early in my time as a Wikipedia editor, I tripped over the rules for sourcing and verifiability here. After all, I was completely used to just holding forth on Usenet. After I was reverted a few times I read WP:V and WP:RS and many others. Eventually I got it, but it took some time.

Especially because I was constantly finding stuff that didn't seem to comply with all those rules.

But that's an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument.

You see, Wikipedia has had a bad reputation for reliability because it is after all "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", and in the past they didn't pay so much attention to those "strict regulations", and a lot of people did edit it and inserted all kinds of garbage. (See WP:RANDY.) Recognition of this problem has led to increased scrutiny. Topics with a strong appeal to "fandom" are particularly subject to this (due, I think, to the great enthusiasm of fans and the vast amounts of information they remember (or think they remember)) and accordingly are now subject to more than the typical scrutiny. And you want to add a claim that's backed up only by a forum post. I don't think it will happen. — Jeh — continues after insertion below

Looks more like a blog post to me, featuring a Gmail screenshot. —67.14.236.193 (talk) 11:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

We've already suggested that you take your question about the usability of a forum post at the Reboot Revival site to WP:RSN. And then you could ask "how would people suggest we find a source for this claim?" Maybe back issues of Variety or Hollywood Reporter, or the Vancouver-area equivalent. Most especially, it's not really on anybody else to do that work for you.

On the other hand, maybe you don't care that much. As I already suggested - this not a hill I would choose to die on, either. I don't think that even a well-cited note that this person was removed from the ReBoot movie project before the whole project was shelved is going to add materially to any reader's understanding of the topic here. But WP policy is that it's better to remove a non-verifiable claim than it is to leave it cited to a non-reliable source, regardless of the importance of the claim to the article topic.

Jeh (talk) 08:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC)