User talk:Dallan007

List of companions/disputed companions
Hi :) Thank you for your efforts in trying to improve our lists about companions.  I wanted to explain, however, why I had to substantially edit your efforts.  Your changes to List of companions have all been reverted, because those changes were about changing the lead so you could introduce List of Disputed Companions.  That list had to be removed from the main namespace; therefore your changes to List of companions were no longer relevant.

The main reason that your new list of disputed companions had to be moved was because it was, by the admission of your article, something that was disputed by fans. We don't generally allow whole articles to be based on fan theories, unless they can be very well sourced, such as Season 6B and UNIT dating controversy. This list was more or less your own perception of the characters who caused problems for fans' lists of companions.

Another way of looking at it is that a companion does have at least some in-universe definition, because the word "companion" has appeared in narrative. John Smith openly wonders to Martha, for instance, "What do you do for him?" after directly calling her a companion of the Doctor. The nature of being a companion is an open question within the narrative. But there's no such thing as a "disputed companion" within the bounds of DW fiction. You don't hear Sara Kingdom going around saying, "I wonder if I'm a companion or not". Liz Shaw never ponders, "Well, I was sorta a companion of the Doctor." The title only exists in the minds of fans. Thus it's a matter of fan speculation only, which means it belongs in The Howling a forum dedicated to speculation.

Also, administratively, this would have been a bit of a nightmare to keep in the main article space. We already have many raging debates in our forums about who counts as a companion (see, just for one example, Forum:Disputed Companions). There have been lots of minor skirmishes over who should be on the list of companions and the various templates that flow from it. The last thing we need is to have to adjudicate two lists about companions — the positive and negative sides, for lack of a better term.

Nevertheless, I recognize that you put a lot of work into it, and I didn't want to just delete your work outright. So I moved it to Howling:list of disputed companions. I hope this doesn't discourage you from making further contributions. If you have questions about the action I've taken, don't be afraid to click on the telephone to the right of my name. Just. . . there &rarr; 05:52:23 Tue 31 May 2011