Talk:An Unearthly Child

message: As far as I can recall, there is no reference in the story to this being set in the Stone Age or even on Earth at all? Episodes 2-4 could have been set on another planet.--Tuzapicabit (talk) 14:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Earth, agreed; but some of the characters (Kal and Za) definitely use stone tools - an axe and a knife - so whether Earth or not, they are people whose primary material for making tools is stone, so it's a stone age, even if not The Stone Age. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You raise an interesting question T and you are correct that the WP:PRIMARY source - ie the episodes themselves - doesn't specify Earth. However, there are numerous WP:SECONDARY sources, including (I am pretty sure) some original production notes, that state that the setting is Earth. As to the "stone age" I concur with Redrose64's assessment of the situation. MarnetteD | Talk 19:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stone Age 

message: The plot section states that, "The time machine retains its outward appearance when it travels through time, which Susan explains as a malfunction in the circuitry that is supposed to adapt its appearance to its surroundings." For the record, that sentence is misplaced. From what I remember of the episode, Susan only explains the circuitry malfunction after the TARDIS appears in the stone age - not when the TARDIS is still in Totters Lane, as the current placement of the sentence suggests. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 00:59, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plot section 

message: William Hartnell's copy of The Tribe of Gum script featured on the Antiques Roadshow on 31 December 2017:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09l255k 
Starts at 48:34 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.175.67 (talk) 20:54, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  William Hartnell's copy of The Tribe of Gum script on Antiques Roadshow 

message: There are a couple problems with the recent edits. First I have no idea why the "2" is being added to the alternate title nor is there any need to add extra quote marks. Second the parenthetical items are not needed. Several editors have removed these so the current consensus is to leave them out. They should not be added again until that consensus changes. MarnetteD|Talk 13:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent edits

message: May I ask what parts of the following are considered unsourced or trivial? The information is almost entirely straight out of the text it's replacing, so if you're concerned about sourcing or trivia, you might as well delete the whole section. The only information that isn't in the original, I think, is the publishing companies to the two translated versions of the novel. That hardly seems trivial, and I don't know that a source is particularly important as it shouldn't be contentious. It's listed right there on the cover, which you can find with a Web search of the title. 
The paragraphs may be fairly straightforward in their own right as a collection of words, but not for their function of gaining a quick understanding of specific, detailed information. You have to read through a large block of lopsided prose, largely focused on the oddities of various translations, phone cards, and other business, to grasp the more pertinent information about how one might access the material and in what form. For the kind of summary that a Wikipedia article serves to exhibit, this is less than an ideal informational structure.
The matrix scans quickly. As the reader who scrolls to the commercial releases section, what format are you looking for? DVD? Well, here's the same information that was buried in the paragraphs. This is what to look for. If anything, I think the below matrix suffers from inadequate information, as it adds almost nothing to the (inadequate) information already present on the page. This situation is best resolved not by deleting it and replacing it with a worse solution but by expanding it.
Or, you could ask the reader to puzzle over phone cards and out-of-print script books, then to assemble the scant information on VHS and DVD releases in their head. That could work too.
Format     	Release Title                                                    	Date      	Region    	Publisher   	Notes
Novel      	An Unearthly Child                                               	15/10/1981	UK        	Target Books	Written by Terrance Dicks; cover art by Andrew Skilleter
Novel      	Docteur Who Entre en scène                                       	02/1987   	France    	Garanciere  	Translated by Jean-Daniel Brèque
Novel      	Doctor Who und das Kind von den Sternen                          	1990      	Germany   	Goldmann    	Translated by Bettina Zeller
Script Book	The Tribe of Gum                                                 	01/1988   	UK        	Titan Books 	Edited by John McElroy
VHS        	An Unearthly Child                                               	05/02/1990	UK        	BBC Video   	Original release; cover art by Alister Pearson
VHS        	The Hartnell Years                                               	03/06/1991	UK        	BBC Video   	Contains version 1 of the "unaired pilot" episode
VHS        	Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction and Dr Who: The Pilot Episode	01/05/2000	UK        	BBC Video   	Contains version 2 of the "unaired pilot" episode alongside The Edge of Destruction
VHS        	An Unearthly Child                                               	04/09/2000	UK        	BBC Video   	Remastered edition
DVD        	The Beginning                                                    	30/01/2006	UK        	2 Entertain 	Box set containing version 3 of the "unaired pilot," alongside An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, and The Edge of Destruction (plus special features)
Blu-ray    	An Adventure in Space and Time                                   	27/05/2014	US, Canada	BBC DVD     	An Unearthly Child included as an extra to the main feature
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Aderack (talk • contribs) 17:56, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, there are a few pieces of unsourced information added with the table: "version 1" and "version 2" of the unaired pilot being included in The Hartnell Years and The Edge of Destruction, respectively, on VHS is not included anywhere in the source; and the publishers of the translated books and the VHS releases has not been sourced either—as editors, we have the burden to provide sources, not state that "a Web search" will find the answer. Secondly, the purpose of prose (according to WP:MOS) is to "explain", not to provide a "quick understanding" of information nor a "kind of summary". I'm not sure what you're referring to when you describe the paragraph as "lopsided", and I don't see how it focuses on the "oddities" of the releases: as I see it, it provides the necessary information about the releases without useless rambling. You should also consider WP:WHENTABLE, which states that "if the information you are editing is not tabular in nature, it probably does not belong in a table"—considering the paragraphs are seven and four sentences, respectively, I don't see how they could be perceived as "tabular in nature". Lastly, Wikipedia is not a store; a script book is still relevant to our readers, whether it is out of print or not. The "scant information on VHS and DVD releases" is sufficient detail for a Wikipedia article without divulging into trivia. Or, we could explain every little detail about the releases. That could work too. – Rhain ☔ 22:13, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced Information / Trivia