Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Battlestar Galactica

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Contents 1 Project directory 2 Naming conventions 3 And now, to work... 4 More lightheartedly... 5 Categorising related people 6 Regular Cast template 7 TOS character boxes 8 {{Galactica-stub}} 9 Season number conventions 10 Article names, spoilers, and continuity 11 Wikipedia Day Awards 12 CFD notice 13 General Template 14 CFD notice 15 Immortal, not immortal? 16 CFD... AGAIN! 17 List of Battlestar Galactica (re-imagining) locations 18 Userbox? 19 what's up with this image? 20 Universe vs. Galaxy

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. Also, I note that yours is a comparatively new project. You may be interested in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide, which has a lot of information regarding project organization from several of the most successful WikiProjects. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.

[edit] Naming conventions

I've learned a lot of this the hard way, so I'm passing it along here before too much more confusion occurs around BSG articles.

When creating an article on a single episode of a television series, the article name should only consist of the title of the episode unless further disambiguation is needed. (See Wikipedia:Disambiguation, followed by WP:TV-NC, followed by Wikipedia:WikiProject_Television_episodes#Structure_of_an_episode_article.)

Examples

• Baltar's Escape (No disambiguation necessary)
• The Long Patrol (Battlestar Galactica) (disambiguated from The Long Patrol, a Brian Jacques novel)

Multi-part episodes should have only one article about the entire episode. (See Wikipedia:WikiProject_List_of_Television_Episodes/structure#Episode_titles.)

Examples

• War of the Gods (Battlestar Galactica)
• The Living Legend

I hope this helps abate any further confusion to editors creating and linking episode article titles. --BlueSquadronRaven 23:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree, that convention is the opinion of a [select] few users. I recommend for clarity and consistency, we include the suffix on all episodes. That is the way we have been doing it for a long time. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 00:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I know this may potentially be a sore issue, but I think we need to adhere to whatever consensus is reached at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television). It looks like the issue may head to arbitration, though I haven't been keeping up over the last few days. If it's decided that all series should follow "disambiguate only when necessary", that's what we should do here. Once the debate ends and the "disputed" tag is removed from the guideline, we're pretty much bound to whatever the outcome is. -- Fru1tbat 03:01, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The fact is there is *no* consensus – There are a few users proclaiming consensus and pushing there POV, and the fact is no one wishes to get involved as there likely to scared. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 03:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily saying there is consensus. I'm saying that when discussion/arbitration/whatever is concluded, we are pretty much bound to the resulting guideline. Until then, it's not really worth deciding here. -- Fru1tbat 03:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Fru1tbat, I think that your concern is valid; however, I would still ask, if it is decided that the WikiProject does have authority to decide naming conventions for BSG episodes, which format would you prefer? --Elonka 04:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

It's probably too late for me to get involved at this point, since I'm not a party to the mediation, and my opinion won't have any effect... --Fru1tbat 13:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I actually only posted it due to this. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 03:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, since it's my post there that started this discussion, I'll explain my logic. Yes, there is a great deal of discussion and contention at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(television) over whether or not articles on individual episodes of a television series should automatically have the name of the series added on in parenthesis as though being disambiguated from anything else on Wikipedia. At the rate it's going, this discussion is either going to head for yet another straw poll, or, worse, to mediation and/or the ArbCom. However, while this discussion is serving to set guidelines for a certain type of article on Wikipedia, there is still the guidelines at Wikipedia:Disambiguation. These guidelines are not in contention, they are the product of consensus, and they are equally applicable to all types of Wikipedia articles. Indeed, when I was creating many of the articles for episodes of the original series, those guidelines, not the ones at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(television), were what I had quoted to me after disambiguating every article (even though, as it stands, the Naming Conventions guidelines currently state the same thing, and will until discussion is resolved, at least). Should discussions lead to a change in naming conventions for this type of article, I'll revise the above appropriately, but until then, WP:D would seem to be the higher authority. On a purely personal level, I will also state the opinion that parenthesis in article titles look terrible, from an aesthetic point of view, though I realize their necessity when disambiguation is required. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:42, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Guideline.. not policy.. Guideline, remember it is not policy, Guidelines, they are not policy, Policy is a policy, a guideline while much like a policy is a guideline just not a policy. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 22:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines exist because a consensus of editors think they're a good idea. As it is, the discussion is largely being driven by individuals regarding only one television series. By your logic, then, the entire discussion at WP:TV-NC is meaningless and the outcome can be ignored. In which case, I propose the above stand regardless and will, for my above stated personal opions, work towards that end. (See the chaos that could thus result?) --BlueSquadronRaven 23:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

"G'Kar: It was the end of the Earth year 2260, and the war had paused, suddenly and unexpectedly. All around us, it was as if the universe were holding its breath… waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition, or moments… of revelation. This had the feeling of both. […] G'Quan wrote, "There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender." The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born… in pain."

""T. C." McQueen: We thought we were alone. We believed the universe was ours. Until one night in 2063, on a Earth colony 16 light-years away, they struck. Now we are at war. We fight when called, in space, on land, and at sea. To lose this war means more than defeat, to surrender is to never go home. All of us must rise to the call.. above and beyond." thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 23:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

A recently closed Arbitration Committee hearing has found that, for now, the naming convention stated above originally is the current one accepted by consensus. Hopefully this matter is now laid to rest. --BlueSquadronRaven 20:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] And now, to work...

There are two main tasks that the project can begin work on right away. First, there are a number of articles on original series episodes which, while linked, have little substance to them as yet. They can be found in Category:Battlestar Galactica (1978) episodes. Second, there is the ongoing task of creating articles for episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica as they are shown, linking them to various lists and to other articles, and categorizing them in Category:Battlestar Galactica (2004) episodes. If you're specifically volunteering for any one article, please consider leaving a note here for other project members to let them know how you're progressing, or for any other comments and the like. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More lightheartedly...

I invite any and all members to help design a project userbox and award. Please keep in mind neither of these can use fair-use images, so if anyone has some better graphic-making experience than yours truly, please feel free to show off! The userbox will ultimately be kept at a subpage of the project, while the award will likely be in Template: space. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categorising related people

I noticed that there is now a category for actors to be distinguished between the original series and that of the re-imagined series. However, there sits a vacant ambiguous actor category and a mix-matched cast and crew category. I'm thinking that the main actor category should be deleted with the category for the two series actors being categorised as "cast and crew" each. Anyone agree? I have nothing against categorising actors spcifically by which version they appear in, but it seems pointless to have two related categories like "Battlestar Galactica actors" and "Battlestar Galactica cast and crew" when we can cut out a middleman here. --Bacteria 12:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Heh, that was me, and that was my intention, but I hadn't finished. I thought the generic "Cast and crew" category was a little ambiguous too, so, feel free to move out any others that need to be. The only two in that category that fit more as "crew" than "cast" are Glen Larson and Ronald Moore. For now I think they can go into the main Category:Battlestar Galactica. As for the ambiguous "Actors" category, which has the two subcategories by series, I was thinking there of the way the episodes category is also that way, with subcategories for eache series as well as a catchall for things like a disambiguation page for The Hand of God (Battlestar Galactica). Having that space might be useful. --BlueSquadronRaven 17:25, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regular Cast template

What are the criteria for inclusion into the Regular Cast template? That they appear in the opening credits?

I think that for Season 3, Number 3 should be included into the Regular Cast template, because she is just so prominent. 132.205.93.19 04:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Could you tell us the name of the template, please? --BlueSquadronRaven 04:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Template:Battlestar Galactica regulars 132.205.93.31 02:22, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, it seems to be a process of editing as with most things. There's no discussion page, only the editing history. It's a nice template, though, and I think a similar one should be made for the original series. --BlueSquadronRaven 04:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TOS character boxes

The TOS character boxes use a shade of red and not yellow in their name bar... but the BSG Character template makes no mention of this. 132.205.93.19 04:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It is the same template. The colour of the name bar is alterable. Yellow is the default colour but whoever put the template on character articles from the orignal series made them all red instead. --BlueSquadronRaven 04:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Galactica-stub}}

A new stub template has been created specifically for BSG-related articles. When starting a new article that needs to be marked as a stub, include {{Galactica-stub}} at the bottom of the page to indicate that it is about BSG. This will also place it in a special category, Category:Battlestar Galactica stubs, which can be referred to by others who can expand on the articles. For those articles that are already stubs, you can put this stub template in place of other similar stubs. In general, {{Galactica-stub}} should replace {{sf-stub}}, {{sf-tv-stub}} or {{sf-char-stub}} in any BSG stubs. --BlueSquadronRaven 04:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I generally don't think there is a need for this stub - it is also very hard to oppose a stub when you do not actually notify the project.. MatthewFenton (talk • contribs • count • email) 16:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Noted for future reference. --BlueSquadronRaven 19:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Season number conventions

I think some guidance needs to be added to the project page regarding season numbers. I'm cutting and pasting a comment (and the only reply) I made in September at Talk:Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)#Season numbers:

There seems to be a general habit in the BSG articles to refer to the two halves of Season 2 as if they were separate seasons, and use the US DVD release scheme (2.0, 2.5). There are several reasons why this is a bad idea:

• The official scifi.com website doesn't use them for its official lists (episodes, etc.)
• This is the English Wikipedia, not the US Wikipedia. "2.0" and "2.5" are specific to certain regions (North America).
• Many shows are released on DVD in volumes that don't maintain broadcast or production groupings (or even order, in some cases). Using the DVD nomenclature is nonstandard and sets a bad and confusing precedent.

"2.0" and "2.5" may be convenient shorthand, and various people involved with the show's production may sometimes use the terms as such, but until official lists use the nomenclature, I think we're better off confining the terms to discussions of the DVDs in most cases. -- Fru1tbat 12:26, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be one season, it's a US centric viewpoint that only came around because they had a longer than average mid-season break and the DVDs have been released as a US experiment based on the current European TV DVD sales tactic of splitting seasons in two and selling them as two separate box sets (the cynical amoung us would say to get the studios more money but that can't possibly be true, can it? )Ben W Bell talk 13:23, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Since I made that comment, I've noticed various references to "Season 0", "Season 3.0", etc. I'm assuming for now that "Season 0" is meant to refer to the miniseries, and not to events before the show began (the latter we can deal with separately). I think we're better off not using any designation earlier than "Season 1", to simplify things. I'd prefer to consider the miniseries to be the pilot, and part of season 1. If anyone has a better idea, though, I'm open to suggestions.

"Season 3.0" (or any other arbitrary decimal season notation), on the other hand, is meaningless. If anyone wants to chronicle events in smaller terms, the episode name should probably be used instead. That being said, the purpose of infoboxes and the like is not to provide exhaustive or detailed accounts, etc, but rather to summarize/overview. If a character is promoted from Lieutenant to Captain mid-season, it's perfectly reasonable in a summary listing like an infobox to say that their rank was Lieutenant in Seasons 1 and 2, and Captain in Seasons 2 and 3 (the ranges need not be mutually exclusive). More detail can be provided in the character bio, if it's important. Comments? If there are no objections, I'd like to start a new section on the project page, something like "Article guidelines", and include information like this.
-- Fru1tbat 15:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Oi, vey, the changing face of media productions makes for some chaotic classification, doesn't it? I'm tempted to agree on keeping it as simple as possible, and rather than using ideas like "Season 2.5" that an outside reader of the articles might not have a clue about, that we should continue to call a spade a spade, use whole numbers specifically for the seasons of episodes that aired on TV, and refer to the web-based episodes as such. Thoughts?--BlueSquadronRaven 23:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article names, spoilers, and continuity

I had a discussion a month or so ago at Talk:Cally Tyrol#Cally's first/last name about the name of the article. I requested comment ([1]) on the disagreement but didn't get any bites, and I still feel there are several problems with the current name:

1. The title includes a blatant spoiler (see WP:SW)
2. The title becomes relevant to only part of the character's continuity (i.e., "Cally Tyrol" doesn't exist before the end of the second season, and when writing about fiction, all events depicted are in "the present" - see WP:BETTER#Check your fiction)

I proposed moving the article to Cally (Battlestar Galactica), which solves the problems mentioned above and appears to violate no Wikipedia policies or guidelines. The arguments against this move were:

1. It doesn't follow the "first-name last-name" style of other 2004 BSG series character articles
2. It's her actual name now
3. The previous article name (Specialist Cally) was improper

My rebuttal (I left some of this off the original discussion so the debate wouldn't escalate while comment was sought. Maybe that was a poor choice):

1. In terms of importance, spoiler and proper perspective issues should trump consistency in article names.
2. The fact that it's her actual name now is exactly why the article title is a problem, precisely for the reasons I mentioned in proposing the move.
3. I agree that the previous name was improper. That point is irrelevant, as I am not proposing moving the article back to its original name. The debate is about the appropriateness of the current one.

The reason I bring this up here is that I feel an agreement needs to be reached for all BSG articles, as characters marry/divorce/whatever in the future of the series. Thoughts? --Fru1tbat 19:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings are irrelevant, due warning is already given in the content disclaimer. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings are standard in practically every article on fiction on Wikipedia that I've seen. Regardless of the content disclaimer, they appear to have achieved broad consensus for inclusion, and so are hardly irrelevant. --Fru1tbat 20:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

You'll notice that it is a _guideline_ not a policy - should we rename New Caprica.. that is just as spoilerific? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the name "New Caprica" is a spoiler, as is any article on a character or location that isn't seen at the beginning of the series. It's also completely irrelevant. Since the entire subject is about events that takes place later in the series, it therefore wouldn't normally be referenced (i.e. stumbled upon) outside of spaces that obviously contain spoilers. Nobody that's trying to avoid spoilers would type in "New Caprica", or be likely to read a section that would link to it. Cally Tyrol, on the other hand, is a separate issue.

This side debate doesn't really address the issues, though. What it boils down to is this: The current title is problematic to varying degrees to a set of editors (i.e. those in favor of spoiler warnings). The proposed title offends no guideline (yes, they're guidelines, but they're there for a reason, i.e. consensus was that they make sense), and is only irksome in that it doesn't happen to follow the style of a subset of articles on this subject. The latter alone shouldn't be grounds to reject the renaming. Not to mention the disagreement on the spoiler issue fails to address proposal point #2 at all, which is actually of greater concern to me (I probably should have listed it first).

--Fru1tbat 20:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

For reference sake, what was done about the titles of the articles for Anastasia Dualla and Kara Thrace, as examples of two others who have gotten hitched over the course of the series? I would personally agree that an article title should not in and of itself be a spoiler, but, lacking an apparent maiden name for Cally (who was apparently called by her first name by her superiors throughout the first season), I'm at a loss for a better suggestion than the original Specialist Cally. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question, neither of those articles were changed, IIRC. It appears that the lack of a last name is more bothersome than the currency of the title. --Fru1tbat 22:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

If you don't like spoilers you shouldn't be at Wikipedia - her name is Cally Tyrol and so the page is correctly titled. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 22:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't like unwarned spoilers. Since neither of the above two examples have had their titles changed to reflect the characters' marriage (though I confess to being unaware if either character would have done so), I think the maiden name, if it can be found, should be used. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The maiden name would be inaccurate and if anything is that not a spoiler :o? Should we rename all characters to Character 1, 2, 3 or 4, etc? I sure hope not. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 22:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Nobody's proposing anything as unreasonable as "Character 1", etc. And while "Cally Tyrol" is her name as of late Season 2, it certainly isn't her name in the first season and a half. I don't see what's wrong with just "Cally" with a disambiguator, as I proposed above. It doesn't spoil anything, it doesn't violate the fiction-is-always-current convention, and it doesn't run afoul of any page naming conventions. The only "problem" is that it's not a nice neat first and last name, which isn't mandated for fictional characters anyway... --Fru1tbat 22:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

True enough. After reading WP:BETTER#Check_your_fiction, especially the example about Trillian, I'd say the original name is the best, with mention of her marriage to Chief Tyrol in a spoiler-warned section. When I get some of my copious spare time back (yeah, right!) I'll wander over to the debate myself. And while accuracy is important in article titles, so is warning of spoilers. Redirects are cheap, so, one from Cally Tyrol to any different article title would not be unreasonable. --BlueSquadronRaven 19:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Maiden would be incorrect. Fiction is written in the present tense, Tyrol is present. Also remember the fact (Shall we nickname it Fenton's law :o?): "Spoiler trolling is disruptive, lame at best, don't go to something that, regardless, will' contain spoilers if you do' not wish to be spoiled."^[1] thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 19:56, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

"Fiction is written in the present tense" does not nearly imply what you're saying it does. It's more the opposite, actually. Fiction is written "in a perpetual present tense" because it "comes alive" whenever it's read/viewed/whatever (quoted from WP:BETTER#Check your fiction). It absolutely does not mean that article titles should be changed to reflect the "current" state. Additionally, we're not talking about excising spoilers here. Even the content disclaimer itself that you linked to above links to the guideline on spoiler warnings (WP:SPOIL) that recommends avoiding them where they're unexpected, even down to edit summaries (and that's going a lot further than we're discussing here). Certainly, anyone reading an article on, say, a first-season episode would not expect to happen across something from later seasons like "Cally Tyrol" without any warning, nor should they. I don't see what the big deal is here. --Fru1tbat 20:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CFD notice

[edit] General Template

Hello ! Has anyone been working on a generic template for Battlestar articles, similar to the existing one for stargate, Template:StargateTopics ?

Topics in Stargate		v • d • e
Story of Stargate	Stargate, Stargate SG-1 (episodes), Stargate Atlantis (episodes), Stargate Infinity (episodes), Literature, Comics
Stargate Universe	Alien Races, Planets, Technology, Characters, The SGC, SG-1, SG Team, Atlantis, The Stargate, Ascension
Factions in Stargate	Tau'ri, Jaffa Resistance, Tok'ra, Asgard, Ancients Goa'uld, Jaffa, System Lords, Replicators, Ori, Wraith, Lucian Alliance, The Trust, NID, IOA

I tried modyfing it, and came up with:

Topics in Battlestar Galactica		v • d • e
Battlestar Galactica Universe	The original film, The original series (episodes), Galactica 1980, 2003 re-imagining, Miniseries, Television series (2004—) (episodes), Webisodes, Caprica

Of course we should find a suitable picture and a list of battlestar articles to include...

FiP ^{Как вы думаете?} 17:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Considering how convoluted the subject is, especially with "webisodes" and such, it might be an idea... Anyone else have any thoughts? --BlueSquadronRaven 20:02, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

We'd need a new colour scheme and I can't think of a good image so may as well just remove it. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 20:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok then. I've created Template:BattlestarGalacticaTopics, let's see where it goes.

Also, let's not forget that "Template:GalacticaVehicles" exists :

Battlestar Galactica spaceships
Colonial Military
Battlestars		Military Vessels
Galactica | Pegasus | Valkyrie		Viper | Raptor | Blackbird | Stealthstar
"The Fleet"
Astral Queen | Colonial One | Cloud 9 | Olympic Carrier | other..
Cylon Vessels
Basestar | Raider | Heavy Raider | Resurrection Ship

FiP ^{Как вы думаете?} 17:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Sweet. I've added both to the front page of the project. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:23, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Whos idea was it to put a fair use image in the template? Secondly we need a new colour scheme. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 22:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that :), I just wanted to see what it would look like; Also, I didn't want to start the template with a stargate picture.

FiP ^{Как вы думаете?} 02:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

This does bring up a recurrent problem, though, in that there are no public-domain images related to Battlestar Galactica as yet. I'd like there to be a couple for use in such things as templates, preferably one representing each version of the series. Anyone have or know of someone with some decent graphical talent to help us in this? --BlueSquadronRaven 02:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of images... Hey, Matthew! Good on you for finding screencaptures for Galactica 1980! --BlueSquadronRaven 21:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Took them my self (-:, people underrate Galactica 1980.. I enjoyed it my self.. even if the bike scene was overused.. just a little, hehe. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CFD notice

The link for the above discussions doesn't work as there are a massive amount of categories being discussed at once. The discussion for this one in particular is Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_January_25#Category:Actors_by_series. --BlueSquadronRaven 21:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Despite the actual final words of the closing admin, these categories were moved, renamed, retargeted, and all of it done badly by a bot. I'm in discussions with the bot's owner about it. --BlueSquadronRaven 09:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry I intend to DRV them, there was no consensus for the actions. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 09:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Immortal, not immortal?

Please see these histories: [2] and [3], Noneofyourbusiness (talk • contribs) believes that they are immortal, I however do not believe this to be so as it has been stated that Cylons can die (for example with no Resurrection Ship/out of range, etc) - any opinions? thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that I made the case well enough in my edit summaries. They are immortal under normal circumstances, which is what qualifies them as fictional immortals. Just about everything in the category can die. It takes a specific and unusual circumstance to kill a humanoid Cylon (destruction of the Resurrection Ship or too much of a distance from it), just as it takes a stake or a beheading to kill a vampire or a Highlander immortal. Combine that with Cavil's statement that they'll still be around in five thousand years. -- Noneofyourbusiness 21:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would call them immortal even with a resurrection ship in range... I could go either way, I guess, but I think the fact that their "immortality" depends so heavily on technology makes me lean the other way. The Cylons are more or less just computers with sophisticated backup systems. If I backup my computer every day and it "dies", I can copy the contents to a new computer, but that hardly makes it immortal... I guess it wouldn't bother me that much if the category stayed, but if I had to choose, I'd side with Matthew. --Fru1tbat 21:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It's the same consciousness, not a copy. Hera can tell the difference between her mother in a new body and a duplicate of her. -- Noneofyourbusiness 21:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The consciousness can be lost, that nullifies any immortality in my opinion. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 21:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Same with vampires (various means of death depending on series) or Highlander immortals (beheading) or Greek gods in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (hind's blood). There are few to no true fictional immortals in the sense of "cannot ever die". In common usage, an immortal is someone or something which would last forever in the normal course of events. We really can't exclude humanoid Cylons (minus Number Three) from this category unless we want to exclude all those others or put both the Cylons and the others in a category for characters with limited immortality. I think either option would be tiresome and unnecessary. -- Noneofyourbusiness 21:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

An idea would be to CfD the category then, personally I'd say it's extraneous at any length (all these: Fictional xyzers seem to be popping up a lot, and also getting deleted, a lot) -- the result however is that I believe you're saying because it is in x article it should be in y article, that is an argumentum ad ignorantiam in my opinion and isn't a valid reason it should be in the Cylon articles. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 22:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think, under the circumstances, if the category of "immortals" include those that can only die under limited circumstances (stake, beheading, etc.), then humanoid Cylons count, too. I think getting any more into the nitty gritty of this debate would require debate across the entire category, in all articles, and I'm not that picky about semantics to want to undertake that. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that characters with "limited immortality" truly belong in the category, not merely that the Cylons should be included because the rest are there, and that the category itself is not extraneous. -- Noneofyourbusiness 22:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict -- you guys reply too fast!) Well, now we're getting into a bit of a philosophical debate. What you call "the same consciousness" (i.e. a "soul"?) is "a copy" to me. As far as I'm concerned, when you transfer the full contents of one Cylon body's brain into another identical one, the new body should take on all the subtle mannerisms of the original, even if it's just a collection of bytes. Of course Hera would be able to recognize these qualities in a different physical copy. And who's to say that Hera isn't just responding to her mother's maternal behavior, i.e. the fact that her actual mother cares about her much more, and in a different way than the other Sharon copies? Considering that the show treats the Cylons as having some sort of innate technology, I'm inclined to consider the process to be technical, instead of supernatural as in what you might call "classic" immortality. --Fru1tbat 22:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well you're free to take that interpretation, but in the show a resurrected Cylon is referred to as the same consciousness. -- Noneofyourbusiness 22:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it's semantics. It hasn't been shown to be anything more than a download of the dead copy's program and memory, or whatever. The term "consciousness" doesn't imply anything more than that. It's just a different word for it. --Fru1tbat 22:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It could well be more than that. Let's leave this as a moot point. -- Noneofyourbusiness 22:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree that it would be stretching the boundaries of the term "immortal". Without their technology (the Res. ship), Cylons are "dead-upon-dying" - the "normal circumstances" Noyb describes are because they stay within range of the ship. (In effect, they are "trapped" by their own technology.) All this aside, of course, we can't really categorize them as "immortal" unless the show's creators describe them as such... --Ckatz^chat_spy 22:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Would David Eick's statement that they can't kill each other count? Show producers aside, several characters have said that Cylons "don't die"/"can't die". -- Noneofyourbusiness 22:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CFD... AGAIN!

This time it's the crew categories for BSG and a few other series. The discussion, among the usual suspects, is at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_February_19#Category:TV_crew_by_series. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by BlueSquadronRaven (talk • contribs) 04:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

Please also note Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 February 20 for a review of the decision regarding Category:Actors by series. Tim! 08:05, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of Battlestar Galactica (re-imagining) locations

Somebody has suggested merging this to the Twelve Colonies article, please see the talk page to discuss if anybody is interested (Talk:List of Battlestar Galactica (re-imagining) locations). Matthew 20:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox?

Do we have a userbox? Would people like one? Here's a start:

--Fang Aili ^talk 14:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what's up with this image?

What's with this image from Template:WikiProjectBSG ? 132.205.44.134 23:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

No clue. I've removed it from the template on grounds that it's not readily identifiable with BSG. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

"Wheel of the zodiac", Aries, Libre, etc.. Matthew 22:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's the wheel of the zodiac, and considering we don't have any free BSG images to use.. well, heck. --Fang Aili ^talk 00:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Universe vs. Galaxy

I have an issue with the description on the main page, at the top of the article:

In a distant part of the universe, there exists a civilization of humans who live on planets known as the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.

This should be 'galaxy,' not 'universe.'

It is unrealistic to suppose that the Twelve Colonies are in a galaxy other than the Milky Way, which is where Earth is. Even with FTL and their ability to jump some distance, it would still take close to a million years to go between even two galaxies, let alone one that is in "a distant part of the universe." My assertion is supported by the fact that they use "roadsigns" such as nebulae to find Earth - something that generally doesn't exist in the vast distances between galaxies. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.7.38.13 (talk) 04:37, 22 March, 2007 (UTC)

1. First off, sign your posts.

2. Secondly, register so you have a name, not some "I-just-happened-to-run-into-this-article-today-and-think-I'm-an-expert" IP address. You may be an expert, but editing with only an IP address as an unregistered user will hurt your credibility on Wiki.

3. You're wrong. The original series very explicitly described the Galactica as being in one galaxy and Earth in another. Whether it makes logical sense or not, that's what they said. The final episode showed Galactica leaving their galaxy still en route to Earth. Many references are in the original series to Universe. Yes, you are right about the technical and physical details, but where the series says Universe, so must we. At the same time, the original series had a LOT of discontinuity with demonstrated speed and described speed. It's kind of like other TV shows of the time - Voltron comes to mind - that used "Galaxy" and "Universe" almost interchangably. Not accurate in a literal sense, but at the time viewers were perhaps less picky about those sort of details.

Any by the way, I am the same type as you when it comes to picking out those sort of issues in shows, and they bug me too, but in this case it's been written and has happened ("and will happen again"), and so we just write it as they give it to us.

VigilancePrime 06:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, don't bite the newcomers. Adding {{unsignedip}} or something should be sufficient, shouldn't it? And not registering absolutely does not make someone's contributions any less valid. Anyway, while the original may have been in a different galaxy, it seems fairly certain that the new series is not. They wouldn't likely know the same stars or nebulae or whatever if they were in different galaxies... Since it hasn't been explicitly stated in the new series that they're from a different galaxy (to my knowledge), I think it's safe to assume they're both in the Milky Way... --Fru1tbat 12:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The original is set in more then one galaxy, the re-imagining is highly likely just one (at least from what we've seen), the Milky Way. Matthew 12:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

1. I don't bite.

2. I never said contributions aren't valid, just that, among Wiki (as I have seen), IP-ers typically are not seen as being as credible. I think this has to do with a lot of vandalism coming from IP's. It's an "across populations" comment, nothing personal.

3. I was very nice. I was direct. I agree with the reasoning, but the facts are contrary. Yeah, I feel the same way. I thought it was very pleasant, if direct. Should I not be direct?

ANYWAY, I think the new series has pretty clearly established that they are in the same galaxy. The original was more entertainment then technical detail. And also, Welcome Newbies!!! (I was one once too.) I think the more people we have working on these the better! Assume Good Faith and all that good stuff too...it's hard sometimes. And despite rumors to the contrary, I'm not a vicious Wikipedian! ;-) VigilancePrime 15:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It's official, the fleet is in the Milky Way, as per "Crossroads", :-)! Matthew 18:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)