Fact Checking Thread

This thread is for any factual claim on the site that seems questionable and lacks a proper citation, either due to not having one at all or citing a source that seems unreliable. These could be claims about behind the scenes goings on from Trivia pages, or about historical or scientific facts on Useful Notes pages. If you find a claim that you consider questionable, take it here and we'll try to find a source for it.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 11th 2020 at 3:44:00 PM

I'll start with an example I posted without thinking about it to the Music subpage of Genre Turning Point:

• The Beastie Boys further changed Hip-Hop with their 1989 sophomore album Paul's Boutique. Initially selling poorly and receiving a lukewarm reception from fans due to how different it was from its predecessor, the album grew in critical acclaim as the years went on and is now seen as a contributor in the development and explosion of sampling in Hip-Hop with its use of samples to create a lush, borderline psychedelic sound to back up the Beasties' rapping. Today, the album is considered to be a hip-hop masterpiece and one of the best albums the Beastie Boys have ever made, and a stunning example of what was possible with sampling in Hip-Hop before its use was restricted following a 1991 court ruling mentioned below.

I submitted to the "is this an example" thread because upon second thought, I don't think this entry is true. It didn't really contribute to sampling in a big way, as there were albums before it with lots of samples (It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, for example.) I put it on this thread because hopefully someone could help fact-check my claims and determine if I am accurate in my assessment. Although this may not be the right place to put this but I personally think this may need to be fact-checked.

I commented out this entry on Trivia.BioShock Infinite years ago since Ken Levine is listed on this wiki as having an Auteur License, and I think he could do pretty much anything he wanted after the success of the first BioShock:

• Writer Revolt: Irrational had to put up with a lot of Executive Meddling and make a lot of concessions (heavy focus on combat, a tough male main character, etc.) in order to secure the funding they needed to complete the game, but nearly all those concessions became Deconstruction fodder. For example, the obligatory ISO standard male shooter protagonist is an Atoner with a laundry list of past sins, many of which involve murder, and more than one critic has theorized that the reason the game has far, FAR more combat than necessary was Irrational passive-aggressively commenting on the artistic demands made of them.

Edited by rjd1922 on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:09:41 AM

That reads like classic "anything bad about the game is the studios fault, not the creators".

Not a lot of claims on Trivia.The Nostalgia Critic have sources, specifically the Creator Backlash section. The page has a history of complaining about certain episodes (it frequently suggests Doug resents NC for Demo Reel's cancelation for example) so I'm wary of unsourced claims that Doug himself hates episodes that the troper likely hated as well. I wasn't around for a lot of the early NC stuff, anybody able to verify or debunk any fact on that page?

Yeah, this thread is needed because of how TV Tropes lacks some sort of accuracy/verification system, making it less trustworthy than Wikipedia.

I mean, I don't think we've ever intended to be that trustworthy, there is the No Such Thing as Notability and the last paragraph of the first section regarding misinformation (that's how I interpret it), though I agree that if something is a blatant falsification it should be removed.

I'd made a thread like this ages ago because I found claims on descriptions of long-running franchises (such as Pokémon) about their best-selling status that contradicted what Wikipedia says. I got shot down by another troper saying that you shouldn't put audience reaction/critical reception cruft on the description.

So should I just remove the BioShock Infinite Writer Revolt entry?

The last part explicit says it's just something some critics speculated, so yeah, I'd cut it.

Anyone with any knowledge of Hip-Hop history willing to help me with determining if my entry is true?

For the example that actually inspired the creation of this thread, from Avatar: The Last Airbender:

• What Could Have Been:
  • According to the I.P. Bible, Aang and Katara were not supposed to end up together. Aang's crush on Katara was to remain one-sided until the end. Katara actually had more Ship Tease with the then male!Toph than Aang, but nobody was going to end up in a relationship. While the show was in production, Bryke decided to have Katara/Aang happen as they came to adore Aang and realized that Kataang was their "soft spot". I was able to find a released copy of the IP Bible here, but it only contains the first nine pages and says nothing about romantic resolutions for any of the characters. Was a more complete version ever released that backs up this entry?

  • Episode writer Joshua Hamilton has confirmed twice that a Zuko/Katara romance was toyed with in the Avatar Extras. I do know what source they're citing, but Avatar Extras has frequently been note as the act of a Trolling Creator deliberately baiting fans, and Avatar Wiki notes that it is hard to tell joke entries from real ones. However, the ones claiming that there was ever a planned romance between Zuko and Katara are generlaly believed to be jokes. As far as I know, no writer outside of Avatar Extras has ever repeated these claims in interviews.

Both of these fall into the pitfall of being claims that a certain section of the fandom would really want to be true, which makes me inherently suspicious of they're lack of credible sources. What do you guys think?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 12th 2020 at 6:29:08 AM

Found a Quora thing citing the I.P. Bible and another interview and mentioning the Avatar Extras. The responses seemingly affirm both entries: Aang/Katara was developed early in the show though not at the very beginning; and Katara/Zuko were never going to be a thing according to the creators, but the idea has been tossed around by other people in production. It sort of also seems to depend on whether one thinks the creators are liars who cannot be trusted, and that's a can of worms.

I don't really consider Quora answers to be valid sources, because anyone can claim anything in them. Several reference the IP Bible, but none link to an actual copy, so that still leaves us in the position of going off second- or third-hand accounts without any real evidence backing them up. Several also cite Avatar Extras as evidence, which I explained is questionable.

I'm not willing to dig any deeper than that, so if nobody comes forward with a concrete citation, feel free to remove the entries.

I commented them out pending a good source. Doesn't help that the person who originally made the IP Bible entry hasn't been active in four years, so I can't ask if they have a source.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 12th 2020 at 7:58:04 AM

I brought this up before: this has been on HoYay.Final Fantasy forever, and the only other websites to make this claim cite TV Tropes.

• Cloud grew up obsessed with Sephiroth and as an adult is chasing him down as his Stalker with a Crush. Originally, he had dialogue where he mentioned his obsession with Sephiroth was so great he even dreamed about him all night, and 'my mom gave up on me'. This puts a later scene featuring his mom, in which she begs the uninterested teenage Cloud to settle down with a nice girl, in a different light entirely. Most of the dialogue hinting at Cloud's crush on Sephiroth was cut at some point, though the script does retain a line where Sephiroth mocks Cloud for it - when Sephiroth vanishes and Cloud yells at him to reveal where he is, Sephiroth says "So cold. I am always by your side."

If that is so, then cut.

I note that an on-page example about The Amazing World of Gumball for Global Warming misspelled a character's name as "Robert" instead of "Bobert"; it was one of the first edits I made here. I encourage you to look for other misspellings of names and clarifications regarding violations of the One-Steve Limit; in this case, there is also a completely different character named Rob.

That is obviously the work of shippers. Cut it.

The whole bullet, or just the part I bolded?

EDIT: I just cut the parts about the alleged cut dialogue.

Edited by rjd1922 on Sep 21st 2020 at 11:29:17 AM

Under UsefulNotes.Romania, there's this paragraph:

Romania has a certain talent for computers and programming. You'd be surprised to know that the second most spoken language in Microsoft is Romanian. Also, due to the higher-than-average concentration of network engineers and programmers it also has fastest download speeds and second-fastest Internet on the planet, right behind South Korea. Internet access is generally dirt cheap.

I looked this up, and apparently, the Microsoft part isn't true. The Internet one could use some elaboration, though.

How do I quote blocks of text so that little bar goes next to it?

Thanks!

Edited by ccorb on Sep 21st 2020 at 3:25:42 PM

For quotes, the markup is the same as spoilers except with the word "quoteblock" instead of "spoiler".

Found this on Frank Herbert's Dune:

I can't find anything to corroborate this. The only thing I found was this Q&A with the director, which says that he chose Ability over Appearance in casting an older actor. Nothing about planning ahead for Time Skipping sequels.

WhatCouldHaveBeen.My Little Pony The Movie 2017

• There were plans for a sequel to the movie, but the film's disappointing box office take led to it being reworked into the television special My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip.

I asked awhile back if these tweets were legit sources and they said yes but it was deleted elsewhere and the MLP wiki has no acknowledgment of this. I looked up this "Sebastian Cordova" but couldn't find them in the works staff or credits, (could be a nickname), but show staff had liked the tweets which seems unlikely if not legit. Are they valid/adequate source?