More blog team members needed

This blog needs more team members. If you watch movies and/or TV shows with at least some degree of criticality, you qualify to write for this blog. If you want to join the team, just contact me, letting me know what kinds of movies you go see or what TV shows you watch regularly. You can post nits on anything you watch where you spot a mistake.

I'll briefly go over what sources a nitpicker can use in nitpicking. The most important source is, of course, the movie or episode itself. The most satisfying nits come directly from the movie or episode. In the case of TV shows, previous episodes are relevant for nitpicking newer episodes. If there are spinoffs (whether to movies or TV shows) these can come into play also. When a movie or TV show is an adaptation of a book (or part of a book), that book can be used for nitpicking only when there is good reason to believe that the producers of the video content tried to be as loyal as possible to the original text; otherwise one has to go on the assumption that the producers allowed themselves licenses beyond what would be strictly necessary for translating the material from the page to the screen (that is, not just compressing action and removing the less important characters and scenes from the book, but also inventing characters and scenes not in the book and making other changes along those lines). Needless to say, novelizations of movies and TV shows are not valid for nitpicking their originals.

The second most important source is your own commonsense. For after all, contradicting our commonsense without even attempting to give an explanation is one of the most important ways that a fictional story can break the suspension of disbelief. Some plot twists rely on contradicting our commonsense for their shock value, but after the shock subsides, some explanation is usually offered (for example, in lawyer shows when the real culprit is revealed and everyone realizes how and why everyone waas fooled). But when the show ends and explanation is offered for a particular affront to commonsense, there is a nit.

Episode guides and technical manuals may be consulted, but their value to a nitpicker is directly proportional to how binding they are on the writers and production staff. Episode guides are at least useful for doublechecking original airdates and the names of guest stars. Technical manuals are aimed at the most rabid fans of whom one almost wonders if they can distinguish the TV show from reality.

The next most important sources are IMDb.com and TV.com, along with the more informative fansites (such as those that offer transcripts or other data collected from the show). These may be used to doublecheck your own viewing and hearing of the movie or TV show. When these sources confirm what you saw and heard, they have fulfilled their purpose. But when they contradict what you saw and heard in a serious way (e.g., more serious than a simple misspelling) they have also served their purpose.

The least important source is Wikipedia. Vandalism and the posting of false information are now no longer a major concern; thanks to patrols, patently false information is removed within seconds. The problem with Wikipedia is that the egalitarian ideals of its founder are completely at odds with our classist society. Wikipedia has evolved a ruling class, and that ruling class places its collective ego above the quality of the content, all in the name of making an "encyclopedia." The result is that while Wikipedia barely has false information, it also lacks true information which would, in its founder's ideals, put Wikipedia at a perceptible advantage over regular encyclopedias (such as Encyclopedia Britannica, the online edition of which is almost as up-to-date as Wikipedia). Since anyone can edit Wikipedia, why don't you fix it? You can't, because it's not simply a matter of adding in the information that it lacks, it's also a matter of changing the politics of its community to something less stratifying. Wikipedia can't be used for an application as frivolous as nitpicking, much less for any application where money or even lives are at stake. When it comes to movies and TV shows in English, Wikipedia offers nothing that can't be just as easily obtained from another website.

So in a nutshell: for nitpicking a movie or a TV show, the most important source is the movie or TV show itself. Everything else falls somewhere below that.