Talk:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (series)

Coverage?
The first Hitchhiker's book appears to qualify for coverage, as it contains references to Madranite one-five and Qualactin, which debuted in The Pirate Planet. Does anyone know why this isn't covered? Aquanafrahudy ☎  15:57, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Good question. Because no one brought it up, I assume. But the fact of the matter is that, well, we also do not currently cover Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency which features a whole dang Time Lord as a major supporting character, and is set in a DWU location. It would be a bit silly to start covering another Adams book over a very tangential reference to a couple of substances, when we still don't acknowledge that one as the obvious spin-off that it is. So I think this sort of a T:BOUND thing even if Hitchhiker's was never actually ruled out in particular. I intend to argue quite strongly for Dirk Gently coverage once the Forums reopen; we'll see how it goes from there.


 * (Not that I think it's a shoe-in even after we hopefully fix up our Dirk Gently coverage; first, one should rigorously fact-check the timelines on those minerals and whether they were or weren't precent in the audio version. Second, the situation seems arguably analogous to other name-drops whose coverage would be, at the very least, controversial, e.g. The Rose & Crown in that one episode of Dracula. Maybe there's an argument to be mad that Rule 4 is stronger here than in those cases and so it wouldn't necessarily set that big of a precedent, but…) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 16:16, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * We should probably also debate that episode of Dracula, perhaps? Besides, isn't there precedent for minor references validating stuff? Aquanafrahudy ☎  16:35, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Well, yes — but in that case (and the argument with Hitchhiker's would be that for the reasons documented on this page the same was true of Adams's works in the 1970s and 1980s) there's a very strong Rule 4 grounding. Essentially the current practice seems to be that a minor reference is certainly grounds for coverage if it is known beyond reasonable doubt that the story passes Rule 4 (or is otherwise intended to be perceived as a Who spin-off of some description), but may not justify coverage-by-default the way foregrounded usage of that DWU concept would, in the absence of such groundwork.


 * (If you want to debate the Dracula episode, well, I won't stop you. I think somebody else proposed it in the Temp Forums, it just didn't make its way up the chart.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 16:41, 22 May 2023 (UTC)