Contents 1 Statement about theories, editing, and conversation 2 Edit problems 3 New Edits Replacing Older Edits 4 Ajira Airways: Take it, and go. 5 Charlotte and the Korean Language 6 Others deleting others theories... 7 Adam & Eve 8 Added Repititions section 9 Lets be grownups, kids 10 Deletion of Jack and Sun from the discussion on motivations for return 11 About the Cleanup 12 Ben's quip about reading 13 Desmond and Penny's Photograph 14 Situational Repetition of the Two Plane Crashes 15 I'm Done

Statement about theories, editing, and conversationEdit

There seems to be debate about what can and cannot be included on the theories pages. On one side, many posts have been too conversational and rife with too much abstract conjecture. On the other hand, a theories page necessarily entails attempts to fill in gaps of facts and understanding, as a simple list of what has happened would not amount to a theory and is already done on the main page of each parent article. Can I suggest a compromise between these two positions? Let's be pragmatic and fair to each other when editing. A conversation should take place on the talk pages, but know that theories require conjecture and attempts to explain the unexplained. Dpetley 13:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

AGREED People who agree with theories already listed don't need to add their opinions that they agree to that theory. If you have something to add to a theory that is not a discussion with the person who wrote said theory go ahead and add it, just make it look like your giving evidence to the theory or counter-evidence. In fact just add a evidence or counter-evidence line and make your bulletin and add your theory. If you want to add a theory make it sound like a theory, don't add stuff like "I think that Jin has been on the island for three years with the DHARMA Initiative and now knows perfect english." Say; "Jin has been with the DHARMA Initiative for three years since Locke turned the wheel and now speaks perfect english." It will help us all out in the long run and that way we don't have a theory page that takes 3 hours to read through because people want to add their opinions and the fact that they agree with a theory and they just had to make a line on the theory page.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 23:23, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I find that people keep deleting perfectly acceptable theories for no good reason. Some people seem to either have issues leaving the theories they disagree with be, or are drunk on power with the ability to edit a wiki... DraveShift 04:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Edit problemsEdit

The page is being edited by so many people that the edits overlap. If person A pulls up the page based on his email and begins an edit and person B, currently working on an edit, saves the page the record on the server no longer matches the record on the local machine. Person A gets an error message. Solutions:

• Back off for a couple of days. No one likes that answer!
• Draft you work on your user page then copy and paste to the "busy" page when you are satisfied with the content.
• Don't expect other editors to stop editing just because you are. They are think the same thing, btw.
• Remember that we are all in this together.

--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 02:26, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

No, this is not the problem. Go to the most recent edit and bring up the diff. You will see that this is in fact not the most recent edit. ∇ϕ 02:29, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that much is true, but while you are working on the most recent edit, someone else may also be doing so. If he/she saves first, you are no longer on the most recent edit.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 03:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Not sure if this is clear as mud to everyone yet. When attempting to access the most recent edit, that is not what's being made available. So when someone 'thinks' they are updating the most recent edit, they are not. OR more recently, when you click to access the most recent update of the page, it's physically impossible to get it. The database is not making the most recent edit accessible for editing. - ZachsMind 03:46, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a correct assessment of the situation. The page is not edited that quickly. The edit history is broken. Is anyone going to look at this? ∇ϕ 03:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

It's impossible for me to get to a draft of the 316/Theories page without seeing " WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be lost. " I am seeing under latest activity that people are updating the page every 30 seconds or so on average, and they are presumably inadvertently deleting each other's updates, causing some people to attempt to re-edit to re-input their updates, thinking other people are maliciously or accidently deleting their updates. This means ultimately that no one's getting heard, or if your edit survives it's a matter of luck. I'd recommend the page gets frozen until a more palatable solution is found. - ZachsMind 03:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

• Hey I know there have been a lot of problems with edits. Someone deleted my theory about the Island's space-time properties. Since a few people had replied and said they liked it, I think it's fair for it to stay on the page. I've reinstated it and hope it's deletion was accidental. Dpetley 03:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
  • There's no real problem with putting it back on the page, but since the page has been cleaned up you should clean up your theory. Theory pages are not talk pages. Deal with the negatives, incorporate the positives and make it more readable.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 03:17, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

New Edits Replacing Older EditsEdit

There is something wrong with the edit history on the page. New edits are unintentionally replacing old ones. Can someone fix this, please? ∇ϕ 07:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

• Agreed. I have had about 5 edits disappear, it is really frustrating. My edits typically have disappeared after DesmondFaraday edits. Not blaming him, just pointing out the pattern.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Crabapple (talk • contribs) .

• I've noticed that every time I've checked the new revision, ulongfor is the name on the "new edit" side. I checked the admin talk page and they think the page might be broken and every time someone clicks "save page" it is overwriting old edits rather than adding new edits. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.Abarker20 17:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
• I have recently (just now) also noticed a flatout deletion of my post, attributed to ulongfor, intentional or not.--Clen 00:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been accused of deleting people's edits. It was not intentional. There was something wrong with the page. Now there's something new wrong with the page. Every time I try to edit the page, I'm told I'm looking at an old edit. That message was not appearing before, but now it is and I can't seem to get the latest version. This can only be happening if different people are updating this page every few seconds. So will all of you kindly KNOCK IT OFF!!! (j/k) - ZachsMind 23:40, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

• If this is the case I may have been reporting vandalism by accident.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 23:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay seriously this issue needs to be fixed because it is getting annoying and I don't want to delete others theories by adding my own theories and I don't want people deleting my theories for adding theirs.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 00:37, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Ajira Airways: Take it, and go. Edit

The name reminds me of Russell Peters' stand-up in his "Red White and Brown" special about how Indian people's stereotypical cheapness invented the number zero.

"Jero.... take it and go". The Indian pronunciation of zero is so similar to Ajira Airways. Suprah 10:32, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Charlotte and the Korean Language Edit

"People who can barely speak English themselves can't teach other people how to speak another language." False. How do you think Jin learned English? He learned it from observing people who didn't speak Korean.

Wrong Jin learned English from Sun who spoke both fluent Korean and English

So how did Jin learn Korean? And Jin didn't start learning English from Sun, he surprised her with the fact that he had been learning English from Sawyer, Hurley, et al, none of whom speak Korean.--Evernight 21:33, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Besides, we don't know how long Jin has been in the "past" for. He seems to be a quick learner (is able to communicate with English speakers after only a month and a half of trying to learn)so its entirely possible that he's fluent in English by now, especially working for Dharama (what seems to be an English speaking community)

Yeah, Jin wont't be able to teach Korean because he doesn't speak English very well and you won't be able to teach your kid English because you don't speak baby.Chicocvenancio 02:14, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, as a linguist I have to say the idea that you can't teach somebody a language if you don't speak their language is false. How do you think people learn to speak each other's languages in first contact situations between two civilizations? Language is simply a form of symbolism in which a sound represents a thing or idea. If you can find some way of identifying the thing or idea (by pointing, miming, through context, etc.) you can teach the word to someone. Over time it becomes easier to identify things. Also children (which Charlotte definitely was), especially children under the age of 6 (not sure how old she was) have an innate ability to understand language through context if they are repeatedly exposed to it. If Charlotte for some reason or another spent a lot of time around Jin speaking korean, she could easily have picked it up. Also, has far as Jin's ability to speak english, Jin appears to speak english fairly well by now (not being able to understand Daniel's explanation that they are travelling through time, a fairly complex topic, does not show that he can't understand English for the most part). Not to mention that with Charlotte dead and Sun gone, leaving Jin with nobody who can possibly translate for him, Jin's proficiency in English has nowhere to go but up. TDiNardo 02:27, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't know if it's relevant but she is a cultural anthropologist and that seems like it would require some knowledge of many different languages. Didn't read any others additions above but they way I just explained it would seem to fit her reason for knowing Korean.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 08:31, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Others deleting others theories... Edit

So I noticed that a bunch of my theories were deleted the next day. I don't know why anyone would do that and I can't seem to find out why it was because there have been so many edits to the article it would take forever to find out. Just because you don't agree with a theory does not mean you can delete it.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 22:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't intentional. The page is all wonky. It's not showing people the latest version to edit so people are editing an older version thinking it's the latest one. Please don't take it personal. =) - ZachsMind 23:41, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I guess that is whats going on, I think I reported a couple of people as vandals but I let the sysops I reported to that I may have made a mistake.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 23:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Adam & Eve Edit

What I never understood about this theory is where did the stones come from? If Jack found them on the body and died with them on his body, how were the stones formed, because they were certainly never picked up off the ground at any point in thier existence. A horrible paradox!!!--Unsunghero83 09:28, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

The stones belong to Penny. They were in her flat in one of Desmond's flashback. I am one of the people who believes Pen and Des are Adam and Eve, and after seeing a bloody Ben at the marina, I'd almost be inclined to believe that he went to kill Penny, and now Desmond will bring her to the island to heal her and to get revenge, and that is how they will end up in the cave.

Added Repititions section Edit

I thought it would be interesting to codify the various situational connections between the two flights that brought these people to the island. Please add any I may have missed. It's a surprisingly long list, actually. DrowningLessons 17:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant work, indeed. However, a whole article about proxies has been established which lists Flights 815 & 316 similarities in a more appealing fashion. I highly suggest that you consider expanding theses similarities further over there. Managing an exhaustive list here is kind of off-topic to a theory page on an episode, IMHO. —Iimitk 20:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Lets be grownups, kids Edit

If you want to delete several similar posts in order to condense them into one, more coherent post (i.e. several people posted that Sayid was being extradited to another country with guam as a connecting flight; I posited that he was being extradited to the Seychelles. Now somebody has condensed the two ideas into one line), that's great. Everybody likes the page to be a bit neater. But don't delete peoples' posts because a) you don't like their theory, because they have just as much right to post their theories as you do or b) they challenge your theory, because they have that right as well, and if you truly believe that much in your theory you should be able to put forth evidence. TDiNardo 18:39, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Deletion of Jack and Sun from the discussion on motivations for return Edit

It seems that the show has clearly established both Jack and Sun's motivations for returning to the Island. Particularly with Sun, no theories are proposed, simply known information is reiterated. The theories under Jack's section deal with issues peripheral to his motivation for return. I propose their sub-sections be deleted.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by DesmondFaraday (talk • contribs) .

• Disagree, reluctantly. Not everyone bothers to do their homework before making posts. If we drop Jack and Sun, someone will begin re-inventing the wheel. I changed motivations to reasons, btw. I'd be hard pressed to describe Sayid as having "motives" for being on Flight 316.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 03:34, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

About the Cleanup Edit

So i noticed that after about 3 days of this episode being aired that the theories page has been marked for a cleanup. I would gladly work on the cleanup but it will be difficult when people are still editing it every minute or so. I will attempt to cleanup this article if there will be an agreement that people will just pause and wait for at least 1 hour. Right now as I post this it is 12:45 am pst 2-21-2009 and I will finish the cleanup by 1:45 am pst 2-21-2009 so please no more edits I don't want to delete the theories that have been edited when I start.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 08:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Well I guess people don't read these talk pages and just ignore the cleanup marker on the theory pages because people are still editing it and I don't want to erase their edits. I'll come back later after the next episode airs.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 09:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Editing and clean up are not necessarily seperate. If you want to help with cleanup, you don't have to get permission. You are never going to get editing to stop; there's a recent change to "Pilot, Part 1". Typically, editing is furious for the first several days. Plan your work. Copy from the theory page to your user page or -- better -- to a sandbox. When you're happy with it, copy it and paste it back to theory, which will almost certainly have changed while you were working. If you need help with building a sandbox, drop me a note here: User Talk:Gaarmyvet. Enjoy!--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 17:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah its just that I don't to finish with my cleanup and find that there have been 10 more edits to the page, I just don't want to erase those edits. I have done this before to other pages it's just that those pages were not continuously edited every minute or so. I just wanted people to give the page a rest for at least an hour so I can clean it up and then people can go crazy again.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 22:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

• I wouldn't worry too much about cleanup on the theory page of the most recent episode. In this case, there's more speculation than usual because several new things happened that were completely unexplained (flashing from plane to Island, vanishing Aaron, Hurley and Sayid appearing out of nowhere, bloody Ben, new characters). As more facts develop in the coming weeks, theories that have been proven false will be removed and the page will shape up sua sponte. --Butseriouslyfolks 22:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Finished the cleanup as best as possible without upsetting others. There was a lot of people discussing about the theories and thats where this page comes in.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 22:58, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Ben's quip about reading Edit

Did anyone catch Ben's line about learning to read from his mother? While it was obviously sarcastic, I thought it was odd that he felt the need to lie about it. He could have easily said he learned from his father and the statement would have still been just as sarcastic. I suppose it's possible he could have had visions of his mother who then taught him to read, but that would seem kind of pointless from the storytelling perspective.

• Ben's a compulsive liar. He does it even when he doesn't need to. Partially to keep up the practice, partly because he enjoys it, partly because he can't help it. Ben lies without thinking. Also, good liars reach for something familiar and comforting to lie about. Ben wishes his mother had lived to teach him how to read. So when he lies, he lies for comfort as well.

Me personally I think it was supposed to be funny, not for Jack but for us the viewers. We know that his mother died in child birth and he spent about the first 10 years of his life off the island. We can assume that he did not encounter his mother until he reached the island, and it does not look like his father had another woman in his life what with being all butt hurt about his wifes death.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 08:35, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Desmond and Penny's Photograph Edit

The backdrop for Desmond and Penny's frequently seen picture is surely the same LA marina from which bloodied Ben calls Jack. The palm trees and buildings are shown briefly in the scene. Penny picked that back drop from several the street photographer had available. This reinforces that what ever happened there was a combination of choice and fate.

Situational Repetition of the Two Plane Crashes Edit

• Please note, Mrs. Hawking said that they need to create "as many" similarities as possible, but that does not mean incidental things were needed (Jack being questioned about a casket), or that every single thing about 815 needed to be repeated (i.e. Claire's pregnancy). It simply meant that as many of the O6 as possible should be on 316 for it to work. Mrs. Hawking didn't say it WON'T work without all 6, but rather, it MAY not. "That means as many of the same people as you are able to bring with you." JACK: And what if we can't get anyone else to come with us? What if we're it? ELOISE: All I can tell you is the result would be... unpredictable. She says people, not conversations or drinks, etc.
  • The minor similarities were a sign that things were going right. Because the O6 and Ben managed to mirror the conditions of the flight so well, other minor things which were present the first time around recreated themselves.
  • I know this is a page about theories, but I need to know WHY they had to recreate as many situations as possible. We know Hawking said it needed to be, but WHY????
    • Lost is a show about repetitions, and cycles. The whole 815/316/Rousseau's crew/Black rock series of events are largely cyclical. the Island draws in certain similar groups over and over again, and has been doing it for centuries. So by intentionally recreating the type of situation that was present on 815, it acted like 'bait' for the Island's nature, by allowing it to initiate another iteration of the same cycle.
    • I would guess there is a certain action/thing or combination of actions/things which "triggers" the island. Hawking doesn't know the exact trigger, so she suggests recreating the condition of the previous island-landing as closely as possible. It is a sort of magic meets scientific method. I agree that a good theory should address WHY something happens, rather than recap what we already know.--Znils 00:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm Done Edit

I'm done with trying to clean up this theory page. People just don't understand the difference of the theory page and the discussion page. Asking questions about the theory on the theory page is not helping. "Why would there be canoes on the plane?" ? What is that? A theory or counter-evidence? It's neither, it's a question which would belong in the discussion page. Lets just let everyone throw their opinions on the theory page and not even have a discussion page and make a total mess out of it. I'm done. No more trying to correct others ignorance. Thank you and goodnight.--Deuce Dubbington XVII 21:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

• Hm, I guess we could all be a little more careful, but the canoe remark was, I think, a mildly sarcastic counter-evidence. The point is there wouldn't be canoes on the plane. But you have every right to be frustrated.--Domerin 23:21, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I think many just don't know the Talk pages' purpose for lack of paying attention. The most productive thing to do about it, rather than edit each instance, is to shoot a message to the author about amending their comment. Even if they ignore it this time, maybe next time they'll put their input in the right spot.

Just keep a chipper form letter on hand where you can fill in a blank or two, ie: "Hi, your recent edit to page name should be moved to its Talk page since it's a topic for community discussion. Or, you can edit it again to fit the standards for Theory pages. Thanks!"

I've done this many times pointing out the Minor Edit button and have yet to receive a snarky response. Amandakay1 21:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)