Help talk:Theories

Format

Some people are including a title for their theory in addition to a simple description. This does not fit the usual format. Should we remove the titles and put a rule in the format description that tells what exactly belongs in the theory box?--E rowe 18:41, 8 March 2007 (EST)

• I'm not a big fan of the titles. In fact, in most cases, I think the title should be the description of the theory, and the rest of the explanation should be in Notes. That would be more standard. The first two columns should really be very brief: a statement of the theory, and any canon evidence with a citation. The rest--all the reasoning, explanation, hypothesizing, and such--really belongs in Notes. The problem we're running into with these pages isn't that there are too many theories for this format--it's that the theories we have are far too detailed for inclusion in a table. Most of them are waaaay tl;dr.--Hardvice (talk) 18:54, 8 March 2007 (EST)
  • Maybe the 2nd column should be called "canonical data." This could include both evidence and counter-evidence. Similarly, it could be called "canonical evidence/counter-evidence." Then the notes column could be as you describe and there wouldn't be confusion about where to put relevant canonical information that isn't exactly evidence. It would also make it more clear that non-canonical information doesn't belong in the second column. Overall, I think the table format is the best way to present the theories as long as it can be kept consistent and well-defined.--E rowe 21:18, 8 March 2007 (EST)
    • I agree. Renaming the column headings is already on my to do list for the next clean-up of the theories articles (hopefully this weekend). They have to be changed individually, and I use an external editor with find and replace when I do the cleanup, so I'll do it then (unless someone else wants to do it before then).--Hardvice (talk) 21:25, 8 March 2007 (EST)

+ and -

Someone want to add the new formatting into this?--Bob 18:05, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Update

I updated this page to reflect some of the major changes we've made recently. It makes sense to me, but if anything sounds confusing, feel free to edit it. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 12:32, 22 September 2007 (EDT)

Back-and-forth

One problem I've noticed lately is people adding a string of pluses and minuses under each piece of evidence, arguing back and forth about its validity. The theory page ends up looking like a talk page--and it is, after all, still an article, and the same standards should apply. Whenever possible, I try to combine these into a single note, representing both sides, to keep the page from looking junky. Can anybody think of anything we can do with either this page or the edit page help to combat this? It's really getting bad. Also, the theories pages all need to be scrubbed again. It should be easier now that they're on separate pages, but still ... ugh. Not my favorite chore.--Hardvice (talk) 20:15, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

• Do we have a policy defined already for how the pages should be formatted? Perhaps we should emphasize that all the evidence must be to support or dispute the original theory itself and never be used for supporting or disputing a specific statement of evidence. Evidence itself should be factual (i.e. be as strict and confirmed as information in other articles) which means that with some rare exceptions no one should be able to dispute evidence most of the time. In instances where there's a back and forth it may be because the evidence itself is non-factual and therefore a theory in itself. I dont frequent the theories pages much so I don't know if this a reasonable policy or not, but it's what comes to mind. (Admin 20:40, 5 October 2007 (EDT))
  • The editing help when you edit a theory currently has, under evidence, "If evidence is incorrect, simply remove it or address it on the discussion page", and under general guidelines, "Do not respond to theories on this page. Use the discussion page instead." This help page doesn't really address the problem directly at all (it talks about how to add evidence, but not how not to do it.) We should probably clarify one, the other, or both. Really, what I'd really like is a guidelines sidebar like Lostpedia has, but I'm not sure it would work well with the tables (we'd have to narrow everything down), nor that it's appropriate to have guidelines for editors on a page that is, in essence, an article.--Hardvice (talk) 20:50, 5 October 2007 (EDT)
    • We could put a smaller, horizontal version of Lostpedia's sidebar at the top of the editing page by using MediaWiki:Edittoolstop. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 21:28, 5 October 2007 (EDT)