1. To prevent Pregnant Kira Fallacies: For more than a year it was common knowledge that the character Kira was pregnant in "Way of the Warrior" when she beat up a Klingon. Cause it was an old claim no one bothered to do the research and back it up. When someone did do the research this bit of common knowledge was proved very wrong, and even then it was thought that Nana Visitor was pregnant at the time. A claim that if true would have meant she was pregnant for no less than 17 months.
2. To Prevent Thread Overload: At any given time there could be as many as a dozen topics each with multiple threads and a dozen debaters in each one. Because of this it is hard for the best of us to keep track of who said what in response to who and where. Add in when, why and how and you can see the confusion build.

Q: I repeatedly make the same claim but I don't want to type out the evidence each time. What should I do?
A: You have three options:

1. Stop making that claim.
2. Write a website and have the URL in your .sig. This way you can say, "For evidence see my website section 3.ii."
3. Write a complete description of the thread and give it to a member of The Committee to be added into the Previous Threads DB.

1. All films are canon, so since the originals were films they are canon, period.
2. Special Edition, Director's Cuts, etc. versions of both franchises have come out on DVD.
3. Where multiple versions of the same film disagree, the latest version is considered the most canon.

• Almost every DVD produced for either franchise has at least some special features. How these special features are treated depends on the franchise in question.
• Star Trek: Special features are to be treated like the TM, i.e. speculation. Granted, it is informed speculation, but still nothing that can be the basis of a theory without direct canon evidence to back them up.
• Star Wars: Special features are Official and on par with the novels.

Some important points to remember:

• When sources of the same level (Canon vs. Canon or Official vs. Official) disagree then it is up to whoever put forth the claim to research additional sources to find which way the majority go. So no one can claim that their book is more official than another book or movies are more canon than TV episodes. The only exception to this is the Canon Hierarchy set up by LucasFilm.
• All other Star Trek sources (TM, Encyclopedia, Fact Files, etc.) are considered by the newsgroup to be, in the words of RAST, 'close to official.' I.E. they contain useful information and interesting theories but can not be the basis of an argument here unless backed up by other, canon sources.
• Quoting from Non-Official sources (Nit Pickers Guides and Fan Web Sites) can meet the minimum burden of proof. However, the conclusion drawn by the authors can still be debated.
• All known evidence from acceptable sources must be taken into account when trying to settle a debate. You can not pick and choose what to look at no more than you could choose to ignore the results of an experiment in real life. Of course, this should be obvious to all but the very, very stupid. So I'll repeat it again. You must take into account ALL acceptable information.

Examples:

• Wrong: "The Defiant was seen travelling at Warp 6.2 and 7.0, BUT never warp 6.7. Therefore it can't go Warp 6.7." - As long as it is within known upper and lower limits it is fine.
• Wrong: "In TDiC the ships could only travel Warp 6 and still be undetected. But they probably improved the design by now, so they can go Warp 9 now." - no hint of improvements has been seen.
• Wrong: "The have replicating mines. They have sub-space mines. Therefore they can make Replicating Sub Space mines." - again, no evidence that they have, or can, do this.

Note: For clarification: In these debates logic is allowed, extrapolation is not.

• Logic: While Federation Officers are never seen going to the bathroom, we see them eat and know that at least some are human, so it's safe to conclude they have bathrooms on their ships.
• Extrapolation: Photon torpedo tubes can be fitted onto fighters, so it's likely they can be fit onto the Worker Bees and used in combat also.

• Keeping in line with Orkham's razor, dialogue is to be taken at face value. No twisting words, looking up obscure definitions, etc. Semantic Wars^TM are not the way to victory. Note: The rules says face value, not literally. Exaggerations, jokes, similes, etc. are used in everyday life, deal with it. Also, people have been known to make mistakes, lie, and generally not tell the truth, so it is possible the person talking is wrong.
  

  In other words, saying, 'He was exaggerating when he said that, and here's why ...' is acceptable, BUT saying, 'He used the word 'world' instead of 'planet' and one of the definitions of world include ... so maybe he meant ...' is not acceptable. In other other words, when you claim that something a person said should not be taken literal or even as truthful you must supply direct outside evidence.
  

• All evidence, including dialogue, is considered accurate unless there's reasonable doubt based on direct evidence. Examples:
  

  • '30% of the crust destroyed in opening volley.' Romulan Officer in TDiC - Visuals contradict this.
  • 'You're too late, we're everywhere.' - Dying Changeling - No direct contradiction, in fact circumstantial evidence supports this statement.
  • 'We have enough power to reduce a planet to a smoking cinder' - Tom Riker - Then why did the ship have so little effect on the power generation asteroids? Either he was mistaken and / or bluffing or there were unique circumstances regaring the situation.
  • 'They could be half way across the galaxy by now!' - If that was true travel times would be measured in minutes, or at most, hours. Hyperspace is fact, but its not that fast.