Talk:Zal rule

Criticism by Seneca

If this rule "when a movie of an event is made, the event can safely be considered fake" is taken seriously it could be seen as a result of a logical fallacy.

For example if it is seen as the outcome of the following examples of faulty reasoning:

• All events that have been proven to be fake are made into a movie -> when a movie of an event is made, the event can safely be considered fake
• Many events that are made into a movie have been proven to be fake -> when a movie of an event is made, the event can safely be considered fake

Another problem is that the terms of the rules are not well defined:

• There are many different kinds of "movies", "Hollywood-movies" being only one of them. The examples here also include animated series and sitcoms.
• "Documentaries" is also a broad term, which also includes Youtube documentaries that everybody can make. It is absurd to think that nobody can make a Youtube movie/documentary about a real event.
• "can safely be considered fake" is a very vague term. When would it be "unsafe" to consider an event fake? As we know, it is hard or even impossible to prove for 100% an event is fake.

All this makes it impossible to falsify the stated rules.

Still this leads to interesting questions: when an independent movie maker makes a movie/documentary about a fake event while thinking that it is real, would the people that invented the hoax sue him for copyright infringement? This could be the reason behind some Youtube censorship and it could be in fact legitimate. You can't just make a movie about superman either without buying the rights. It could be an explanation of why only certain people can make movies about certain fake events. originally added to the article page here

Seneca, I moved your comment to the talk page as the proper place to discuss this idea.

1. First I would say that the term "rule" is more like a rule-of-thumb (funnily enough the English speakers don't call it rule-of-fist, like in Dutch). It is not a law (legal or scientific). As a rule of thumb it works pretty well, but the Zal rule of thumb doesn't mouth so well...
2. I think the kind of movie is important to refine in a better description. Like the subsets Wallace rule and Jet rule do specifically; about the In Search of..." and Air Crash Investigation documentaries respectively. Mainstream documentaries is meant, not some YouTube video made by someone on the internet.

Some optional rewordings:

• major movie
• popular movie
• famous movie

or similar terms. Yes, these are also "vague" (how do you define "major", "popular" or "famous"), but Hollywood is not a good one I would say. There are many European, Asian, South American movies too made of staged or probably staged events.

1. The term "fake" is a horrible one imho. That should be rewritten into something better. Obviously the many movies made of wars (many examples), natural disasters (Lo imposible about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami), political changes (No about the resignation of Pinochet in Chile), etc. are not about fake, yet staged/scripted events, but to rehearse political propaganda, or the money scam, etc. Those changes and wars and disasters obviously happened. So "fake" is the wrong word.
2. Indeed there is something too vague about 'can safely be considered fake staged'. What would you propose as a better alternative wording? Some ideas:

• "If a major movie is made of a historical event, probably the event was scripted too"
• "In case a popular movie is made based on a story appearing in history books, the original event was probably/likely staged/contrived/scripted"
• "When a mainstream producer makes a movie about an event or series of events, claiming 'based on a true story', that 'true story' was probably indeed just a story"

Or something along those lines.

Note that the Zal rule is the most quoted part of the whole Fakeopedia, a term used at Fakeologist, Piece of Mindful and AAMorris uses it a lot in his Proper Gander podcasts too.

It's great you joined and review these things, because I agree, we should be as clear as possible in the definition of these rules-of-thumb. Look forward to your suggestions, Gaia (talk) 12:08, 27 April 2018 (UTC)