Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Doctor Who/Archive 7

message: I know this is impossible to "police" given the nature of Wikipedia, but I hope that, as the new season airs in the UK, months before it is scheduled to air in Canada and perhaps as much as a year before the US will see it, that editors will avoid putting spoilers into edit summaries. The articles themselves have spoiler tags, so that's fair warning right there, but I already received a minor spoiler for the New Earth episode in the edit summary of the main Doctor Who article; I don't even have New Earth on my watchlist. I mean, can you imagine what it would be like to see an edit summary like "Adding details of death of Rose" or some such thing? I know it's probably useless to try and do anything about it, but perhaps WikiProject members could keep an eye out for such "back door spoilers". One very easy way to fix the situation is to do a minor edit which pushes the previous edit off the watchlist summaries. (Another, of course, is for spoiler-sensitives like me to remove potential spoiler articles from my watchlist -- and I have -- but to remove the main Doctor Who article kinda defeats the purposes of being a member of the Doctor Who Wikiproject. Thanks. 23skidoo 13:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sadly, I think I'm going to have to at least remove articles such as Rose Tyler and Doctor (Doctor Who) from my watchlist after all. I just got "edit summary spoiled" regarding an episode we won't be seeing in Canada till the fall. 23skidoo 04:32, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Request regarding 2006 season spoilers

message: Just wondering if this would be a good idea for an addition or not.  There are more than you'd think:  David Tennant, André Morell, Roger Delgado, Richard Shaw, Andrew Keir, Cyril Shaps, Moray Watson, Paul Whitsun-Jones, and Matthew Waterhouse.  OK, I'm kidding about Waterhouse, but the rest are all I can think of at the moment.  proteus71 21:37, 20 Apr 2006.
:In the future there may be a category math feature which allows :Category:Doctor Who actors and :Cateogry:Quatermass actors (should it be created) to be considered together. —Whouk (talk) 21:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Category:Doctor Who and Quatermass actors

message: Any Ideas on how to spilt up the History of the Doc? Aeon 04:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about by decade, or by actor playing the doctor?--Bjwebb (talk) 09:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably by decade if anything - the periods each incumbant spend as the Time Lord vary from one film to seven years. Perhaps we should group the Nineties and Naugthies together, as so little happened during the former...? NP Chilla 20:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

text:  That seems like a good idea.  Now where to start.... Aeon 01:38, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We've discussed this before, here, but it got stalled somewhere along the way. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 01:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: I've started an article on the first-ever "authorized" spin-off film at Wartime (Doctor Who) for anyone who's interested. Cheers! 23skidoo 19:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking good.  I've never managed to see this one, so can't really contribute.  However, I'm wondering whether, now that we've got articles for Wartime, Downtime and Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, we should have a category for this sort of licensed video spin-offs.  I'd create it myself, but I'm not sure what the best wording would be.  :Category:Doctor Who spin-off videos seems too broad, and would include things like the VHS release of K-9 and Company.  :Category:Videos featuring licensed characters from Doctor Who seems too wordy.  Anybody got a good phrasing? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Doctor Who Spin-Off Video's seems like a good category name to me....however do you include Doctor What and the video of the stage play? How unofficial do you want to go? DavidFarmbrough 11:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The three I mentioned above are all in :Category:Reeltime Pictures, which is a subcat of :Category:Doctor Who spin-offs.  Maybe that's enough? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wartime

message: School Reunion starts the lean towards "the non-TV stuff isn't canon" (and, indeed, means Five Doctors needs a little finessing, but not too drastically).
Basically, the whole SJS part of the plot revolves around the last time SJ actually *met* the Doctor being when he dropped her off (in Aberdeen, it turns out) to go to Gallifrey, and she was worried that he'd died there ever since. There's also a reference that he's regenerated "around half-a-dozen times" since he last met her. 5Docs is finessable, since she spent most of her time with Doc3, and I don't remember if she got properly introduced to Doc5, and whether he predated "her" Doctors like Docs1 and 2. But her book appearances with the Seventh and Eighth Doctors are far more difficult to reconcile without invoking crap like off-camera mindwipes... - SoM 20:16, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Canonicity debates are, by and large, silly for more or less this exact reason. Plenty of equally large problems exist within the TV episodes themselves. Better to just stop involving ourselves in debates about what's canon and what's not - especially since doing so is almost necessarily original research. Phil Sandifer 20:35, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True enough; but SoM has raised a valuable point - this story does seem to stick two fingers up at the spin-off novels. It is certainly possible that Sarah was referring to The Hand of Fear when she talked about when they last saw each other; and that the Fifth Doctor could be before or after the Pertwee/Baker incarnations (for all she knew). Let's not even mention Dimension in Time - it makes me nauseous just thinking about it. But, I think Phil is right - let's draw a line under this and move on! (Hoorah!) NP Chilla 20:42, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: theres a simple answer really.........what if in her time line she met  doctor10 next............then wnet on to meet 7 and 8........its also possible that 5 docs was in a sort of bubble...doubly so now gallifrey is gone.Jaime9526 00:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canoncity post-School Reunion (SPOILER) 

message: Maybe, instead of having lots of pages for every different fanvid, just have a list of them. E.g.:
* Dr. Who and the Horrible Slime  (starring John Smith and Jenny Smith)
* Wrath of the Rani (starring John Smith, Jenny Smith, and Jane Smith)
So in the stars section, there is the Doctor (in bold) and his companions (not in bold).
Thoughts on this matter? Davidpk212 15:30, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The question is whether any of these pass the notability test, and I would venture the answere would be no. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 16:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Also, it depends on your definition of fanvid. Assuming you are referring to Downtime, Shakedown and Wartime as fanvids, in point of fact they are not. They are professionally made productions, available commercially, and featuring characters officially licensed from their creators. That's a big difference from productions made by fans for fun. There's a similar debate over at the Star Trek articles about where to draw the line. There's been an explosion of fanvid productions made for the internet, but at least one of these endeavors has actually involved members of Star Trek's original writing team and cast -- so what constitutes a fan video. The BBV/Reeltime productions, getting back to Doctor, would easily pass WP's notability requirements; something like "The Horrible Slime" (which I've never heard of before) likely wouldn't. 23skidoo 16:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fanvids...? 

message: : I've noticed there aren't really any good resources on the web (or at least I've yet to find any) for the Doctor Who comic range. I just now picked up a copy of the collected Ninth Doctor comics, and honestly they're not too bad. I'm now curious about some of the earlier eras, especially the Eighth Doctor's (as, along with the novels and audios, this essentially was the Eighth Doctor's era). 
: I can see room for an article compiling the comic serials: breaking them down by Doctor; listing the titles, credits, and publication dates; and offering a brief one-or-two-line summary. Maybe the occasional panel, to see how each Doctor looked in comic form. Perhaps beneath each "era" heading, we could list companions (including original comic ones). Maybe listing the books compiling each range of strips (if any). Like the two Eighth Doctor compilations -- how much do they cover? How do the Marvel comics tie in?
: If the lists get long enough, I can see breaking them up into multiple pages: one per Doctor. The comics seem like a significant enough (if greatly underrepresented) portion of "extended Who" to carve out their own small corner. Heck, a lot of the TV writers and staff have been involved with the strip, from Cartmell to Paul Cornell. And again, from 1989 to 2005, the strip was one of only a few official sources of "new Who" -- indeed, the only visually-based one. Maybe it's considered a little "lower" than the audios and novels; still, it seems somewhat important.
: I can't do any of this, as I simply don't have the resources. That's why I'm so interested in seeing it somewhere. --71.139.19.107 20:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that an article on Doctor Who comics would be worthwhile.  It should probably begin life as a summary of the various places Doctor Who comics have appeared (TV Comic, Countdown, Doctor Who Magazine and now Doctor Who Adventures), before anyone undertakes an attempt to catalogue every appearance.  The Doctor Who Reference Guide includes listings and brief summaries of most Doctor Who comics.  Another (incomplete) resource which could be used is Strippingdown.co.uk, which covers many of the earlier comic appearances of the Doctor.  I don't know if I'll have the time in the near future, but I'd support anyone who wanted to work on this. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:50, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Same here. I don't have time to launch such a thing myself, but I live and breathe the Doctor Who Reference Guide site, plus if I recall correctly the "Discontinuity Guide" also has info on some of the strips, so I could certainly contribute. And Marvel Comics also published an American Doctor Who comic book for a couple of years in the early 1980s (featuring colorized DWM strip reprints), so by rights there should also be a separate article about it, alone. Also, Colin Baker wrote a comic mini-series for Marvel (Age of Chaos, I believe). I don't know if it was ever actually published (if it did it was never distributed in Canada as I was in tight with a major comic book shop at the time it would have come out) though it's listed on the Reference Guide. 23skidoo 20:12, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently "The Age of Chaos" was released as a graphic novel or novella — anyway, it was published as a one-off in 1994.  You can see the cover here and read some reviews here; I've never managed to get old of it myself.  I don't know whether the US Marvel comic deserves its own page or not, since it was just colorized reprints of DWM strips along with hastily written backup text pieces about the show ("History of the Cybermen!", "Meet the Sixth Doctor!" and the like).  But we can see what develops. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:45, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd say distinctions should really be made for the origin of characters like these: comics, novels, audios. That's whenever the information gets glutted enough to start building the walls. --71.139.19.107 11:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comics 

message: I was thinking, should articles on conventions like Gallifrey One, Invasions, and Dimensions be written. I was just thinking if there are articles on things like Auchinawa why not ones on Doctor Who Cons? GracieLizzie 21:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be surprised if Auchinawa survived an AFD challenge. I don't think convention articles are considered notable enough, otherwise we'd have ot write dozens and dozens of them to cover the many conventions hosted over the years. Better to confine such discussion to sections about Doctor Who fandom, or region-specific articles like Doctor Who in America. 23skidoo 21:40, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

text: If you take a close look at the infobox on the Auchinawa article, you'll see it links to about 70 separate Anime convention articles. Perhaps it's more likely to survive an AFD than you suspect. Or perhaps they're all AFD candidates? I don't know myself. Personally I think conventions as large as Gallifrey and Panopticon are probably worth articles. Maybe Whovention at a pinch. --The Brain of Morbius 00:21, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd add content about conventions to Doctor Who fandom. If that article gets too long, conventions could be split off into a separate article. —Whouk (talk) 06:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good Idea, I'll add links to individual conventions websites later :). GracieLizzie 09:07, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Maybe the convention series can be made into their own articles (i.e. one article for all Panopticons) but IMO I would personally vote against keeping articles on individual cons if they were ever to come to AFD. I was actually going to nominate Auchinawa for AFD but didn't get around to it; I've seen articles sit around for a year or more before someone notices them, AFDs them, and they get deleted. And you're right -- all 70 could, in theory, be AFD'd if a keener decided to set his mind to it. Also, where do you draw the line? If we give Panopticon 7 it's own article, what's to stop someone who ran a con in, say, Tuktoyaktuk from creating their own article? There needs to be hard and fast criteria set for inclusion -- I don't know if such notability criteria has been established at the Wikipolicy level. 23skidoo 16:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conventions - yay or nay? 

message: Following on from Werewolf (Doctor Who), I have started Vampire (Doctor Who) and invite all contributions. Tim! 13:19, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vampires 

message: Just found this, which seems more like an essay than an encyclopaedic piece. Opinions? Tim! 21:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an article, at least subject-wise, that we've been talking about for a while. However, it needs a reworking for, at the least, POV and verifiability issues. I agree that as it stands, it is more an essay than an encyclopedia article. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 22:22, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I would just like to point out that the whole companions part needs real clean up. Not only is the information repeated a lot (for example, there is a catagory of "Doctor Who Companions" and also spin-off companions here in addition to the article you have mentioned) but there is also irrelevant info within that article itself (for example, there is a brief section on Villians in that article). What might be wise would be to change the article's name completly, to something more like "List of Important Doctor Who characters" and maybe add a brief description of some sort. (Pkwebmaster 14:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Doctor Who companions]] 

message: Has this really been mentioned in DWM? Even if it has, is it worth keeping? Tim! 17:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't believe it merits an article. Do we have an article on unmade stories? That would be the best place for it (possibly in a "Fan myths" type section) if it deserves a mention at all. —Whouk (talk) 17:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can support an article or a subsection on these stories, but there's no substantive source that this even exists, save for an apparent mention in DWM and a newsgroup. No way will this survive AFD. A story like Shada deserves an article because it was at least partially completed and was later adapted as a webcast, but otherwise I see no reason why this deserves its own article any moreso than Ian Briggs' never-produced Ice Time. 23skidoo 20:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an article that deserves never to have existed - if the serial was never made, and probably never existed, why the Rassilon does merit an article (even one such as this, which consists of simply a short, embarrassing paragraph)?? Let's just bin the thing before it gets too silly. NP Chilla 15:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have prodded. —Whouk (talk) 18:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I support that, but I think AFD might be a better idea, so that it can set a clear precedent. 23skidoo 19:10, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the PROD is removed, I'll take it AfD. That said, if it was mentioned in an unmade stories article, I would support a redirect. —Whouk (talk) 19:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Banishment of the daleks]] 

message: A user has added information about the unproduced Season 27, that is, what would have been McCoy's third full season, to List of Doctor Who serials. I reverted citing the priot consensus at Talk:List of Doctor Who serials#1990_season, where it was also determined, as above, that one article on unproduced serials would be ideal. At this point all that's needed is for someone to create it. Any takers? :-)--Sean Black 06:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More on unmade stories

message: The first two episdoe breaks are on the City of Death article, but the third is not there. In fact, the cliffhanger event (Kerensky's death) is not mentioned at all. Could someone do something about it - I'm not quite sure where it goes --Jawr256 17:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[City of Death]] 

message: I've added precise episode lengths to Rise of the Cybermen and School Reunion (which were based on the timestamps of fade-in and fade-out on my PVR recordings of the episodes).  Rise of the Cybermen does indeed run about a minute long: so this has some relevance to the note about the lack of trailer.  Since I dared do something different I'm sure I'm going to be summarily different, but please at least move this info to the note if you do that.  Less certain about other articles.  Perhaps we could do a timing project, also noting the nominal lengths.  However: I presume the DVD releases all have the trailers stripped out anyway making the episode lengths variable?  Gah.  Morwen - Talk 00:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm kind of ambivalent about this. Where the episode lengths are really significantly shorter (re: The Mind Robber) is makes a bit of sense to note this, but it's probably better to be put in notes instead of in the infobox. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 00:51, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this level of detail is necessary. I know from all those In-Vision magazine of years gone by that no two episodes ever came in at the exact same length --some were a couple minutes short and some were a couple minutes long. As Khaosworks notes, if the episodes a really short or long, OK maybe mention it, but if we're talking about a minute or two then that's NN information as far as I'm concerned. 23skidoo 01:12, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If it's a minute out, like Rise, and especially in that case as it affected the Next Time trail, I think it's worth being accurate. I wouldn't include seconds, but I don't mind the figures being rounded up/down. —Whouk (talk) 06:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Episode lengths 

message: Can someone go through this? I'm skeptical as to the need for its existence in the first place since it's largely at present a list of contents (not to mention using some POV language). Perhaps it should be merged with Doctor Who missing episodes. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 02:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've given it a quick once-over and pulled out the POV bits I spotted. —Whouk (talk) 10:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Clean-up on [[Lost in Time (Doctor Who)|Lost in Time]]

message: Needs cleanup. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 16:00, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done a little work and moved it to what appears from most sources to be the correct spelling. Angmering 21:51, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've taken away stub status in view of the length of the article. Litefoot 06:44, 06 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Peter Brachaki]]

message: User:Pkwebmaster
Hi, Just enquiring as to what people would think of spliting the lists down (e.g. List of Doctor Who ____) so that we could have a classic series/new series split (For example, having List of Doctor Who Villians (Classic) and (New)). It seems to me that with the shows extensive history, that searching for a peice of Doctor Who knowledge on Wikipedia has become more like searching for a needle in a haystack. - 16:36 (GMT), 28 May 2006 Pkwebmaster
:Actually, what needs to be done is to not keep adding every new monster to the list. I'd like to see the lists start looking like List of Doctor Who items, actually. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 15:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But is treating the monster species like the items necessarily a good idea? Of course, most of the items can be dealt with by means of a single line (or possibly two), but can the same apply to a complicated species like (for instance) the Menoptra? After all - there are a lot more items in their retrospective list than the monsters and their equivalent list; natuarlly aliens and monsters require a lot more info than the average Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster-or-whatever-the-item-is (and YES, I'm aware that the Gargleblaster is from the wrong show...). NP Chilla 17:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The biggest problem, to my mind, is that people are using the monster entries to regurgitate the plot of the story they appear in, which is redundant, since the episode/story articles already do that. Also, there are some entries which are not particularly notable or disproportionately long - Counseller Gray comes to mind, as do the Drahvins, or the "goodie" race in The Dominators. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 22:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that excessive amount of plot elements in the lists should be avoided Tim! 17:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Listing options

message: I would also like to know what exactly we should do about the whole Doctor Who Television Movie Catagory thing. I am not sure whether we have done this or not, but if we have could we remove it as an objective. If we haven't, perhaps it is something we should dicuss. (Pkwebmaster 14:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed it. I don't think it's an issue anymore. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 14:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Doctor Who Movie?

message: There's a small dispute between  and... well, everyone else, really, about whether or not The Five Doctors is a "Dalek story" and therefore should be in the template. Welcoming opinions on this in an attempt to reach some kind of consensus on this at Template talk:Dalek Stories. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 01:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Everyone else" meaning about four other editors so far!  But yes, opinions are still welcome - especially anyone who can say why "Dalek television stories" does not equate to "Television stories with Daleks in them". Stephenb (Talk) 17:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Template:Dalek Stories]]

message: Boring query: in the infoboxes on the novels and audio dramas, story titles are quoted in italics, but in the infoboxes on the television serials they are not. I think this should be consistent, but which way around? Tim! 17:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just noticed this: I think we should standardise it as non-italicised in the infoboxes, because it looks cleaner. The main purpose to italicise it in the article text is to distinguish titles from the normal text — that distinction is not needed in the infoboxes as they have their own fields. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 15:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tedious formatting issue 

message: Might I recommend the proposed Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)? While there are many great Doctor Who pages on Wikipedia, some would be better with a greater use of an out-of-universe perspective, I suggest. Bondegezou 16:37, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Out-of-universe perspective 

message: I've fumbled around and aside of "signing in" I've seen nothing on how to actually join in other than the notice on attracting new members. So, how Do you get in?" I've also noticed that on the Missiing Adventures pages, you seem to be missing tons of information, not to mention the book covers. [ Adam ]
:Just click on the link that says 'edit' and you're basically 'in'.  If you want to be listed then just click on 'edit' in 'Participants' and type in your name.  DonQuixote 19:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not even necessary to join this project to edit Doctor Who articles - anyone can do that. Tim! 21:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Member Joining Question 

message: Just wanted to let y'all know that there are now stubs for all the stories in the following categories:
Virgin Missing Adventures
Virgin New Adventures
Eighth Doctor Adventures
Past Doctor Adventures
Please to feel free to 'have at', and fill in plot details and the like, doncha know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebyabe (talk • contribs) 
:Don't forget Who Killed Kennedy :) Tim! 16:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a side-note towards progress, since those lists are compleat in that they have the necessary articles for the corresponding books....
There should be articles written up for the Ninth and Tenth Doctor Adventures books, as well as a few others (i.e. Short Trips, &c). DrWho42 05:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Virgin and BBC novels 

message: Can I just ask - what has happened to the individual "Personality" sections of each individual Doctor's article (in particular, Doctors 5-8)? They used to be rich, interesting passages, now they are footnote-sized prose you could fit on the back of a postage stamp. Plus, it looks terribly biased when you consider that the Tenth Doctor's personality is longer than the other nine put together. NP Chilla 17:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uncertain... on  for example,  cut it down to about 3 paras with the edit summary "see discussion" on 15 April, but it's unclear what discussion meant. It really doesn't help that there are so many edits without edit summaries either. Tim! 20:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Doctors and their personalities 

message: Just wondering here wether we should consider changing "Doctor Who tie-in sites" into "Doctor Who tie-in sites and games", and maybe cleaning it up a bit seeing as the BBC do not update the "Defending the Earth" web adress anymore; just leaving the new games on the main page; and also because they haven't used any external sites since the Cybermen 2-parter. (Pkwebmaster 11:34, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doctor Who Tie-in sites 

message: First of all I want to say that I very much appreciate all the hard work that is going into the Who episode articles. That said, most of them, in particular those of the new series, have incredibly long 'plot' section, that both lose their encyclopedic value for summarized, concise knowledge because of their length, and might possibly skew the articles a bit too much into an in universe perspective.
Furthermore, previous Wikipedia consensus on TV episode articles states "Elements which are best avoided in any episode article: A scene-by-scene synopsis. An overall plot summary is much better; the article should not attempt to be a replacement for watching the show itself, it should be about the show". I think this is sound advice.
So, before just chopping up these article, potentially upsetting some editors, I thought I'd ask here first whether or not my opinion on this is shared, and if so, in what way these sections can be best improved.--Codemonkey 04:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there are arguments for both approaches. If the overlong plot length is a concern then this is partly addressed by the brief summary at the beginning of each article. One argument in favour of longer plot summaries is that the episodes are broadcast first in the UK, then overseas several months later (although some American Wikipedia editors have an uncanny knowledge of the show before its US broadcast!). I think the length of the summaries is justified in the context of other articles, for example look at the plot summary for Great Expectations. DavidFarmbrough 08:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: If you don't have complete plot descriptions it would be hard to justify not having articles on all the minor characters, planets, concepts etc. Better to just say what happened and point all the rest at the story it came from. For example, look in :Category:Middle-earth rivers — I think the approach we are following here is better in that we don't have so many of the really small stubs that some other fictional series have. Tim! 20:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel there is merit in both approaches, but the majority of plot summaries I have written have not been overly detailed. That's not to say I consider The War Games an acceptable level of detail for a ten parter mind you... As a major contributor of these summaries, I've long thought a guidline would be more helpful, but maybe as a first action we need to get all the plot summaries done (perhaps as relatively shorter versions). After all, there's only a handful left to do. I've also started using line breaks to denote episode breaks which, even on the shorter summaries, I feel helps the look and readability of the page, but again this is something that needs proper discussion and standardisatio. Litefoot 06:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overlong episode "plot" descriptions. 

message: Just thought I'd ask here to check, but as it has now been confirmed that Rose is leaving at the end of this series how much are we willing to put this infomration into the articles with regards to spoiling? The Rose Tyler article already has this information, but the Doomsday page does not. I was just wondering as this is pretty much rating a ten on the Spoiler scale... The_B 11:02, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia contains spoilers. If something is verifiable, neutral, etc. then it should be put into articles, regardless of the damage done to those who may be potentially "spoiled".--SB | T 11:04, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SPOILER!! Rose.... 

message: Needs looking at. I'm not even sure the title of the article's appropriate. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 17:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Nice idea, but doesn't feel quite right. Can'r put my finger on a solution without being a bit brutal.  --Litefoot 06:26, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just List of UNIT personnel? Tim! 08:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe. It is also a little bare, to boot. NP Chilla 10:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[List of Doctor Who UNIT Personnel]]

message: Is this the first time a cast list for a story has all its entries wikified and active? (Not including Inside the Spaceship). --Litefoot 06:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears so! Tim! 08:33, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Love & Monsters]]

message: Doctor Who: Season 1 (1963–64)
An Unearthly Child | The Daleks | The Edge of Destruction | Marco Polo | The Keys of Marinus | The Aztecs | The Sensorites | The Reign of Terror
----
List of Doctor Who serials | Season 1 (1963) | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | Series 1 (2005) | 2
Above is my idea for a template to put at the bottom of episode articles for people to jump from episode to episode.  Though after looking at how short the seasons got in the eighties I'm think about changing it to a Doctor by Doctor list.  Any thoughts? --Jonathan D. Parshall 08:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I love it!!! Seriously, it's a great idea. Well done, Jon!!--NP Chilla 20:00, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I personally thinks it adds another layer of complexity to the page that isn't needed; this is as the template is too wide to fit neatly, and kind of confusing with a lot of numbers.  If I want to visit a specific Doctor's seasons, I like typing in 'Eighth Doctor' and going in from there.   Just my thoughts though. Liyster 03:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with Liyster here, but for different reasons. Including the season numbers instead of names may make episodes hard to find, because not everyone knows which season the show was in, whereas they may be able to remember the Doctor who starred in it, or the creatures that featured in it. I suggest you focus more on that respect than a season-by-season breakdown. --JB Adder | Talk 07:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Doctor Who episode nav template

message: I suppose one could write an article about the title sequence, I think it has been raised before... this one needs work or something Tim! 20:25, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting find. I think that article, as such, should be redirected to Doctor Who theme music and a new article could be started focusing on the title sequence (using the theme music article as a guide). -- MisterHand 20:36, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. —Whouk (talk) 08:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I've changed it to a redirect for now. -- MisterHand 14:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there's a need for a separate article on the title sequences. I'd rather see a section added to the Doctor Who theme music article. 23skidoo 15:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Doctor Who Themes And Title Sequences]] 

message: Hello! We at the Work via WikiProjects team previously contacted you to identify the quality articles in your WikiProject, and now we need a few more favors. We would like you to identify the "key articles" from your project that should be included in offline releases of Wikipedia based on their importance, regardless of quality. We will use that information to assess which articles should be nominated for Version 1.0 (not yet open) and later versions.  Hopefully it will help you identify which articles are the most important for the project to work on. As well, please keep updating your Arts WikiProject article table for articles of high quality. If you are interested in developing a worklist such as this one for your WikiProject, or having a bot generate a worklist automatically for you, please contact us.  Please feel free to post your suggestions right here.  Thanks! Walkerma 01:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Doctor Who, TARDIS and Dalek are probably the three culturally most important. Doctor Who includes several main article links to other articles which are relatively important such as List of Doctor Who serials and Doctor (Doctor Who). —Whouk (talk) 08:42, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded. Perhaps too crufty, but Doctor Who theme music also has quite a lot of cultural impact and interest outside the Doctor Who fan community. My two cents, anyway.--SB | T 08:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Thirded, though I'd also add Doctor (Doctor Who) as one of the up-front articles. 23skidoo 15:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Here's what I think: at the moment, there is a grading system concerning the quality of articles on Wikipedia (the current system can be found here. So, I'm thinking, maybe we should submit all articles that are considered Good articles or better to WP1.0. --JB Adder | Talk 07:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Key articles for Wikipedia 1.0 

message: I just discovered this article while going through the latest PROD list. It gave me a chuckle, though whoever created it needed a spell check for the title. Unless someone contests it being listed on PROD it'll be deleted in a few days. 23skidoo 15:30, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure why it was listed for PROD, when clearly this is featured article worthy! -- MisterHand 15:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It did inspire me.--SB | T 22:20, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, a spell checker is needed for the article. However, the proposed deletion is, as necessary as it may be seen, can be avoided by combining all references "foreign" (unrelated) to the Doctor Who franchise into a single page. Who agrees with my proposal (and it's a serious one too)? --JB Adder | Talk 07:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Refrences to The Lion King in Doctor Who]]

message: Hi people; we have a slight problem over persons named Norman Kay. "Our" (WikiProject Contract bridge) Norman Kay was a famous American bridge player, so we'll need a disambiguation of some sort. See Talk:Norman Kay for possible solutions. Duja 14:49, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Norman Kay 

message: Above is a Sontaran appearances box that I have created to follow those of the Daleks, Cybermen and Master. I've included the Rutans as they are the main enemies of the Sontarans. What do you think? --Jawr256 17:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Erm... well, my worry is that the Sontaran beasties do not merit a box of their own, considering how they only ever appeared in four stories. And as for the Rutans, well...!!--NP Chilla 18:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think such an infobox would be over-egging the pudding a tad. Angmering 20:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm inclined to agree - and you've missed A Fix with Sontarans :-) —Whouk (talk) 08:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sontaran appearances 

message: So.  A Rather Significant Piece of Casting Information has been released by the BBC but is technically on embargo til midnight.  Are we considering ourselves bound by that?  Morwen - Talk 13:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When Tennant was announced as the next Doctor both Angmering and I abided by the embargo, but that was we had less people who paid attention to the pages. I don't think anybody else will these days. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 13:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been abiding by it too. Trouble is, we can't claim it's not verifiable if someone does put it up when it's clearly there. —Whouk (talk) 13:45, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And someone has.  Morwen - Talk 13:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Had a similar case over on Daedalus class battlecruiser#First battle of P3Y-229, where publically available casting information for the next season of Stargate SG-1 gave a strong indication of how part of the season-ender cliffhanger would resolve. Wikipedia contains spoilers so I see no problem with this sort of information being present. In this case it's only a day in advance of when it's "supposed" to be revealed anyway. Bryan 15:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah - if we'd been given this information in confidence it would be another matter, but it's clearly leaked.   I note outpostgallifrey's forum moderators have now basically given up firefighting all mentions of the actress's name, and have fallen back on asking just for no links to the press release.  I half wonder whether we'll see a story on news.bbc.co.uk by the end of the day. ;) Morwen - Talk 15:31, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The BBC have put a press release on their website that anyone can access, ergo the information is verifiable, ergo I feel it can go in Wikipedia. (You have to know the URL, but once you do, anyone can see it.) Had the BBC sent a press release around without making it publicly available (e.g. an e-mail only message or a website requiring a password), then I'm sure the information would have leaked out to fan circles but, in a sense, the information would not have been verifiable, ergo it would not be appropriate to put it on Wikipedia. In other words, if the BBC are too lazy to recognise how the world works these days, that's their problem! When they see lots of hits coming from Wikipedia, they'll learn to control the flow of information better. Bondegezou 15:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Morwen is right, we are not under any legal agreement not to disclose.  And the information itself isn't illegal in the way, say, official military secrets are.  I also think that the only moral side is to warn our readers to look away if they don't want to know.     It's out there, verifiable and published, nothing to stop us using in IMO. -- sannse (talk) 20:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's up on Outpost Gallifrey without any fuss -- Litefoot 21:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep. Is it worth it waiting until GMT midnight (which, at the time of writing, is less than two hours off) to pop the thing in, or should we just shove it in and hope no-one notices? Heck, that last part came out a lot more malicious than it sounded in my head... <wanders off, mumbling and rambling incoherently...> --NP Chilla 21:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It was supposedly a link in an email only sent to the press, and then someone leaked it. However, the page itself was not password protected, although originally the only way to access it would have been if you knew the exact link. The_B 22:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, fair enough. I saw the URL at the Trek BBS this morning and there was no indication that it was a "private" link. Still, they should know better. A better way to avoid something like this would have been to just do a straight e-mailing of the press release rather than relying on a webpage that anyone could access... granted it's not perfect, but then I remember the days when my newsroom used to get embargoed press releases sent by fax. 23skidoo 22:51, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One other obvious way to do it would be to give everyone a different (unique and hard to create random working ones) link, then you can tell who leaked it.  Morwen - Talk 23:58, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Embargo 

message: * 
The aforementioned articles have been listed at Articles for deletion.  Please contribute to the discussion. Uncle G 11:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AFD listings 

message: I've had a try at making some companion navigation templates at User:Percy Snoodle/CompanionTest.  To give you an idea what to expect, here's the First Doctor one:
Companions of the First Doctor	         	         	       	      	        	        	      	      	         	         	
{| class="toccolours" width="100%" style="border: 0px; border-collapse:collapse"	... Susan	... Susan	Vicki  	Vicki 	Vicki   	Vicki   	Sara  	Dodo  	Dodo     	Dodo     	 
Ian                           	Ian      	Ian      	Ian    	 	Katarina	Katarina	 	 	... Ben  	... Ben  	
Barbara                       	Barbara  	Barbara  	Barbara	 	   	   	 	 	... Polly	... Polly	
                         	    	    	Steven 	Steven	Steven  	Steven  	Steven	Steven	    	    	
^                             	^        	^        	^      	 	^       	^       	^     	^     	^        	^        	
What do people think?  Percy Snoodle 15:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see what you're trying to do, but I had to think about a bit. Unfortunately, if one has to actually think about it to figure it out, it's probably not that useful as a template. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 17:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough.  Do you have any suggestions for how I might make it clearer?  Percy Snoodle 18:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Looks neat.  I did something like that for a newsletter ages ago.  (In MacPaint!)  But it was vertical and included the episode names down the left side.  I don't know how wiki tables work so I can only guess if you could do it that way. Algr 17:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Vertical text doesn't work well in HTML; It's a limitation addressed in CSS3. Percy Snoodle 18:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree it's an interesting idea, but I also agree it's too complicated and busy for the actual companion pages (I looked at your page, and the 7th Doctor in particular is...well, complex, to say the least - fanboy in me likes it, wikipedian in me doesn't). I think any template would just have to have the companions listed in order they joined up - trying to convey more information than that isn't needed, since it'll all be in the pages linked to anyway. --Brian Olsen 23:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it works especially well, but it's an interesting idea, we could certainly do with a kind of companion-timeline thing.  Having the main flow be vertical doesn't imply the actual writing has to be rotated 90degrees...  Morwen - Talk 09:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See  for a dgood exmaple of the execution of a timeline, but I suggest you do it by series/season (tricky) or by Doctor (simpler) than story or year. GraemeLeggett 10:07, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that's the template that inspired me to try.  I initially thought about doing just two templates - one for Docs 1-7 and one for docs 9+ - if you think that's a better plan, I'll give it a go. Percy Snoodle 12:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia/Wikimedia has a custom markup designed to make timelines easier - you can read about it at meta:EasyTimeline -- Chuq 04:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Companion templates 

message: Comments, please. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 01:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Delete, surely? I can't believe this even comes close to being notable enough for Wikipedia. Angmering 06:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Delete - if this stays up I'm writing one on Doctor Sweetman. Litefoot 06:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Delete. Non-notable. --Siva1979Talk to me 06:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, will someone do up the AFD or shall I? The only thing I might be able to raise in Crichton's defence is that he appears in Big Finish's Project: Valhalla as the Deputy Director of the Forge. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 06:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Colonel Crichton]]