User:CzechOut/Sandbox8

The canon policy of this wiki exists to help both readers and editors identify the scope of our project. It does not reflect either an "official" statement by the British Broadcasting Corporation, nor any one fan's opinion. It is a practical, and in some instances, arbitrary, restriction on the items we will cover on this wiki. Yes, we know: Russell T Davies, Paul Cornell, Steven Moffat and others have all opined that there can't be such a thing as canon in a show about a time-traveller. But they're writers trying to protect their own output from being retconned at some future date. Put another way, they aren't writing an encyclopedia about the Doctor Who universe. We are. So we have to establish some kind of boundaries for what we will and won't include — or we'll be forced to cover some fan's Rose Tyler/Dodo Chaplet lesbian love story on LiveJournal. And we're just not going to do that.

What's generally canon and why canon is important
We believe that the main determinant of whether a story "counts" is whether it was officially licensed by the BBC. Thus, you should generally assume that if it has "© BBC" somewhere on it, it's allowable on this wiki. Following that simple guideline will allow you to determine whether a story is regarded as canon by this wiki well over 90% of the time.

Why does it matter whether we think something is canon or not? Because only canonical stories can be used to describe an "in-universe" topic. For instance, if we were writing about Sarah Jane Smith's experience of the country of Italy, we could use anything within The Masque of Mandragora, because this wiki considers that a canonical story. We could not use something from a 1986 fanzine in which Sarah Jane was described as having visited Sicily.

Although any fan is clearly allowed to believe whatever they want to about canon, and the superiority of their canon to someone else's canon, we have to work to a common standard on this wiki, or our articles will gradually become muddled. Thus, we must know what "counts" and what doesn't. To that end, we re-iterate that almost everything that contains "© BBC" or "licensed by the BBC" is definitely canon.

What's trickier are those minority of stories which live on the margins of the copyright.

Things we don't consider canon
The stories we don't allow in our discussion of in-universe topics are actually few and far between. However, for clarity, we've composed a list which may at first appear dauntingly long. Nevertheless, we feel it better to clearly define what we're not going to allow than to speak in generalities.
 * 1) Since they have no official BBC sanction, fan fiction, charity publications, and other unlicensed products are disallowed. Clearly, stories found on LiveJournal or in fanzines are well outside our scope. Likewise, fan films, no matter how good, or whether included on official DVD releases, aren't allowed, either.  Devious, for instance, cannot be considered a valid explanation for the regeneration between the Second Doctor and the Third Doctor — even if (some) of it did appear on BBC DVD: The War Games.
 * 2) Professional productions or publications where characters are almost certainly used illegally.  This doesn't happen too often, because of the risk of being sued.  Nevertheless, one clear example of this is BBV: The Killing Stone, which contains the character of the Fourth Doctor in a way that was not licensed by the BBC.
 * 3) Professional or amateur productions which involve approximations of DWU characters that deliberately "get around" the BBC copyright. These can be confusing, because they often star actors who played the Doctor or his companions in the main show.  Nevertheless such things are completely disallowed by the wiki, as they aren't even set in the DWU.  That said, you will currently find a number of articles on these stories, as of March 2011, because we are only in the process of getting rid of articles previously created here. Disallowed are:
 * 4) Cyberon stories
 * 5) The Stranger series
 * 6) The Wanderer series
 * 7) The Airzone Solution
 * 8) Stories which have nothing to do with the DWU which are made by production companies generally associated with making Doctor Who-related content. This may seem to be a bit of a no-brainer, but it's worth repeating that this is not the wiki for Big Finish's entire output, or for BBV original science fiction like Infidel's Comet''.
 * 9) When there are unlicensed and licensed versions of the same story, the unlicensed version is disregarded. This doesn't happen too often, but it has happened.  Two examples are Toy Story — a Faction Paradox story that was told first in a charity Doctor Who publication, and then edited and retold in an official Faction Paradox release — and The Wings of a Butterfly, a Colin Baker-written story that appeared in print in a charity publication, but later was converted to an audio short story.
 * 10) We allow some products that are not BBC copyright, but these items must have initially appeared in a BBC-licensed product. Examples would include the K9 series, which flows from the Bob Baker/Dave Martin copyright on the character of K9, but is allowed here because K9 initially appeared on Doctor Who, a BBC product.  Likewise the Bernice Summerfield stories published by both Virgin Books and Big Finish are allowed because the character originated in the Virgin New Adventures line, at the time a BBC-licensed product.  We therefore allow material which is sanctioned by a copyright holder other than the BBC, so long as the character or situations debuted within an official range of Doctor Who stories. More detailed guidance on this point is provided at our list of approved spin-offs''.
 * 11) Conversely, we disallow a few things that were produced under BBC license. Note that the presence of a BBC license, however, gives these items a "special" status. Articles about these items may be included on the wiki, so long as they are clearly marked with an nc tag, and placed in a non-canonical cateogry.  However, these items may not be referred to within an in-universe article. For instance, nothing in the article, Twelfth Doctor (The Curse of Fatal Death), should find its way into the article about the Doctor, as these are wholly different characters.   Generally, such items are confined to obvious parody or obviously discontinuous storylines.  Such things include:
 * 12) Any BBC parody, including, but not limited to, The Curse of Fatal Death.
 * 13) Any parody that would be "legal" parody under the laws of the United States or other countries. Clear examples of this are:
 * 14) The Doctor and the Enterprise, a parodic book which posited a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover
 * 15) The 1970s MAD Magazine comic strip featuring the Fourth Doctor, Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith
 * 16) Any comic strips by Tim Quinn or Dicky Howett
 * 17) Any appearances on The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live or similar parodic television shows
 * 18) Anything listed at Doctor Who parodies
 * 19) Dimensions in Time, which sits awkwardly in both Doctor Who and EastEnders continuity.
 * 20) The Peter Cushing movies of the 1960s
 * Doctor Who role-playing games, regardless of manufacturer or license