User talk:Sutherland

Welcome to Memory Alpha, Sutherland! I've noticed that you've already made some contributions to our database – thanks for your edit to the "Thine Own Self (episode)" page! We all hope that you'll enjoy our activities here and decide to join our community.

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If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in our Ten Forward community page. Thanks, and once again, welcome to Memory Alpha! -- Cleanse (Talk) 13:05, 23 April 2012


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StarTrek.com
..is not a canon resource. Stop making changes based on information there without further explanation. - 13:25, April 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi - StarTrek.com is not my only source - I'm also using episode guides such as Larry Nemecek's Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion which places, for example, Eye of the Beholder in the week of February 28th 1994 - i.e. a minimum of two days after the date given in the Memory Alpha article. Out of interest, what makes the database on the official Star Trek website not a reliable source? (Sutherland 13:35, April 23, 2012 (UTC))

STOP. If you have different information than what is one those pages, check the Memory Alpha:Episode data project for why we use the dates we use. StarTrek.com, and most of those companion books don't cite where they get their dates from, we try to, and ST.com seems to outright make up information if they don't have any. - 13:48, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

BTW, further explanation means a talk page, not the edit summary. The dates we use tend to be from the DVDs themselves, so it's important to have a citation somewhere that doesn't require digging through the history of these pages for why those are wrong. - 13:54, April 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * If there is not a fault with the release order in late TNG Season 7 and late DS9 Season 2, how can with an airdate of 25th April 1994 be the 318th episode released when the 319th episode released  has an airdate of 24th April 1994? Similarly,  is given by Memory Alpha as the 320th episode released stating it to be shown on 2nd May 1994. The 321st episode released,  was shown on 1st May 1994. How can this be? The release order is in error. (Sutherland 14:53, April 23, 2012 (UTC))

There's no reason to use my talk page when the discussion is already here. I'll see it either way.

I'm not saying that there isn't a problem, just that your solution wasn't how it should be fixed. The data on the project page needs to be corrected, with citations and reasons listed for future reference, so the bot can make the changes and/or not show errors when checking the list. I'm not sure the last time a bot has done that, so there may already be other issues with the dates on the episode page compared to the project page. The whole point of that project is to have a central location for this information, instead of having to check over 700 pages every time someone thinks there might be an issue. - 15:27, April 23, 2012 (UTC)


 * After further research, I found the problem to extend further back to include a few Season 6 TNG articles and earlier Season 7 TNG articles where episodes were dated to have been shown on Saturdays not Mondays with no explanation nor proof that such changes to the broadcasting pattern occurred having been provided. After consulting numerous episode guides, I went with the dates given by products officially licensed by Paramount or CBS and found a possible source for the erroneous dates - a 1990s unlicensed episode guide that - if memory serves - sold well and so may well have been used by a Memory Alpha editor in establishing dates here. That last part is of course speculation and so is not the basis of my edits - I am relying on what I consider to be reputable sources. I have found no citations on Memory Alpha explaining where the dates given are derived and so am inclined to trust StarTrek.com - amongst others - on this one. I also trust Larry Nemecek to be a reliable source. In conducting my edits I found numerous discrepancies between the typed date and the numerical date in the page's coding and so if the release order was produced by a bot, this may account for why it produced errors. My edits begin at and run through many of the articles through to, (there were a few articles that required no changes). You will note now that the release order flows logically with broadcast date such that there are not the errors as cited above, (e.g. Bloodlines before The Marquis, Part II), whereby an episode is said to be released before another despite being broadcast after it. Please do not revert my edits as you did previously without proof that TNG episodes were shown first on Saturdays and not Mondays as official sources suggest. Also, such revisions will reinstate the erroneous release order. Finally, thank you for directing me to Memory_Alpha:Episode_data_project/airdate_and_release_order - and, incidentally, I found a few examples where the date given on the list did not match that given in the article even prior to my edits and so I have amended these accordingly. I trust that my edits meet with your approval and please feel free to contact me again if you can prove error in my work. (Sutherland 06:47, April 24, 2012 (UTC))


 * P.S. I elected to make the changes manually rather than wait for a bot to do it such that a corrected release order is available to users of this site (myself included) now. Watching TNG Season 7 and DS9 Season 2 at the moment, I find easy navigation between episodes of the two series desirable and so I thought if I am able to make the changes myself, why wait for a bot to do it? (Sutherland 06:54, April 24, 2012 (UTC))


 * As an aside, changing one list and then the other within a few hours before anyone's had a chance to look at it is not generally recommended. -- sulfur 11:34, April 24, 2012 (UTC)


 * Apologies if I have broken Memory Alpha etiquette. Although a long time user of the site, I have made few edits prior to this series of edits and so am not well versed in the house style. I was once very active on Wikipedia (under a different name) but ceased editing there a few years ago as I tired of the endless conflict between inclusionists and deletionists. I'm not sure that I follow your point entirely though as I only made changes to one list...? (Sutherland 13:13, April 24, 2012 (UTC))