Heinlein reference
I mentioned that the origin seemed to be the Heinlein book because it is the earliest reference I can find. Is that insufficient or just incorrectly worded? Perhaps something like, "The earliest reference appears to be..." or "The origin may be..."? I'm new so all advice is welcomed. - Operknockity (talk) 13:28, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
The "may be" might be OK, but in general making such inferences from what you can find is WP:OR. Better to just say "an early use of the term is" or something that's not forming a conclusion based on limited evidence; best, if you can find someone who has already published a comment on the origin of the term, is to report and cite that. Dicklyon (talk) 16:56, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I took it to "an early use appears to be" so as not to formally even conclude that it is definitively an early use. Only the earliest we've found. Better? - Operknockity (talk) 18:43, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
- Concerning revision 186972069:
- Why remove the long quote? The short quote seems meaningless by itself.
- What does "use the one with an accessible source" mean? The source that was removed can be accessed just fine by me, whereas the source that was left there doesn't actually give the quote, just the page number. Brian Jason Drake 08:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
- OK, I put it back like it was. I wasn't able to access your source, but found enough in quote in Google book search. The extended quote is a bit useful, since it seems to clearly imply a meaning of idiot code that's simpler and more specific than the one given in the article. Still, sci fi can't be taken as a reliable source, and the topic is still non-notable, as far as I can tell. Dicklyon (talk) 08:21, 27 January 2008 (UTC)