Talk:List of DWU concepts not owned by the BBC

Category vs Page
Would this be better served as a category, and not a page? Najawin ☎  06:57, June 20, 2020 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily vouching for the page, but a category would not work. Licensing and intellectual property rights are out-of-universe attributions, and such a category would be applied to in-universe pages for characters and species. 09:22, June 20, 2020 (UTC)
 * i think that this is a valuable page. no word of a lie, yesterday i was looking for a similar list - although i hoped it would be far more extensive, this list could get there in time. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:02, June 20, 2020 (UTC)
 * Quite honestly I'm all in favor of something like this. I just have massive reservations of doing it as a page as opposed to a category, for one. But if that's a no go, that's understandable. That said, I think proper sourcing is important for this. Obviously things like Daleks, K9, are well known, and we can infer some others from publishing history. But I really do think if we have this page it's going to be one where we have to be very careful to explain each and every addition to it, unlike some other pages where people tend to be a bit lax with sources. Just for example, I've seen some people say Moffat owns the rights to the Paternoster Gang. My understanding of the BBC policies is that this would not be the case, unless there was specific language in his contract otherwise. So we don't want someone putting them on this page without a very clear source for this fact, and it's a rumor in the fan community that does exist. Najawin ☎  10:13, June 20, 2020 (UTC)
 * Hooray to digging up sources! In the specific Paternoster Gang example, my understanding is that Moffat individuall owns the characters of Vastra, Strax and Jenny, because they were "incidental" characters in a run-of-the-mill script of his, but that he doesn't own the brand of "the Paternoster Gang", and the concept of the trio as protagonists — because when he developed that, it was in his capacity as showrunner, creating a new element of the recurring premise, so the BBC owns that for the same reason it automatically owns new TV companions.


 * At any rate, just enacted a big retool of the page. I think the tables setup is more informative and much clearer to the reader. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  12:10, June 20, 2020 (UTC)

I'll be honest, I think we need to get some very clear statements about how the modern contracts work before I'm comfortable putting any new characters there. Najawin ☎  19:45, June 20, 2020 (UTC)

Debuting in non-BBC-licensed media

 * Iris Wildthyme is listed under Debuting in non-TV BBC-licensed media, but given the fact that Iris originated from a trilogy of non-DWU novels, so wouldn't she be better suited under Debuting in non-BBC-licensed media, even though the wiki doesn't cover her first few stories?
 * Epsilon the Eternal ☎  12:19, June 20, 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I believe the Wiki's current stance is that Old Flames is essentially a "second beginning" of the character, rebooting her to such an extent that the DWU Iris is best treated as distinct from the Phoenix Court Iris. Which is why all her subsequent appearances are covered on the Wiki, rather than her perpetually being treated as a crossover character on "loan" from the Phoenix Court series. Consequently, the Iris we care about did debut in Old Flames. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  12:28, June 20, 2020 (UTC)

Other characters
so i am not too sure about all the licensing, or where these characters would fit on the list, but i believe Minister of Chance (appearing in Minister of Chance audio series) and Chris Cwej (soon to be featuring in his own anthology series) should be on the list. also Praxis and the Quoth seem to be licensed by Arcbeatle Press as they will appear in the Cwej series. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  14:11, June 20, 2020 (UTC)
 * Abslom Daak and Sabbath Dei are other major characters. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  14:20, June 20, 2020 (UTC)
 * Be mindful of Tardis:Spoiler policy. You can't mention details from upcoming releases.


 * Yes, Cwej should very much be on the list, and that's true heedless of Cwej: The Series — his jumping-around from the VNAs to Faction Paradox to Big Finish certainly justifies it on its own. Not sure about the Minister. Ditto Abslom and Sabbath. I greatly expanded the lists but I make no claims of exhaustivity; by all means add any ones I forgot.


 * However, since the Wiki doesn't cover the Minister of Chance audio series because it (I think, wrongly) holds that it was in breach of copyright somehow, then per T:BOUND we can't acknowledge it as recurring appearances of a DWU character, albeit invalid ones. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  16:12, June 20, 2020 (UTC)


 * while we cannot include spoilers, surely we can acknowledge certain characters as being owned by Arcbeatle Press due to them creating a future release around them? DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  17:17, June 20, 2020 (UTC)
 * No — acknowledging the existence of "a future release containing Concept X" already counts as a spoiler. If there were an official statement of "we now have the license for Concept X" that didn't refer to future stories at all, we could use that, but I don't believe any exist. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  17:19, June 20, 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing
So I'm going to move the above discussion with Scrooge to a better heading down here. How do we want to handle sourcing for this? Will a DWU character appearing in nonDWU work immediately qualify them for this list without other sources? Do we want sources to just establish "yeah, that's how contracts worked at the time and this writer was on that type of contract"? Or do we want a very clear "so and so owns the rights to this concept".

Similarly, do we extrapolate these "contract conditions" from classic Who to the VNA/EDA era? Or do we think that there's some other reason that Faction Paradox exists and not everything created by a freelancer is instantly their work? And does anyone have the explicit language for various types of contracts on the new series? Again, I'm a fan of this page. But it's a really difficult task we're undertaking here. Najawin ☎  20:07, June 20, 2020 (UTC)

Sontarans
I've heard that the BBC has bought the rights to the Sontarans from the Holmes estate. If this is accurate, the Sontarans should probably be removed from this list. Does anyone know whether this is true or not? --Bio Planet WoO ☎  21:16, June 24, 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know if this is true, but although, if it is, a note should definitely be made, the fact would remain that they were, for a lengthy period of time, not owned by the BBC, during which time they appeared in several non-BBC-overseen productions. So they absolutely should stay on the list in some capacity. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  21:20, June 24, 2020 (UTC)


 * Just so people know exactly when I heard this from, the author of, "Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who" Dylan Rees mentions the BBC buying the rights at the 51 minute mark during this podcast interview. https://podbay.fm/podcast/517595563/e/1488926118 Bio Planet WoO  ☎  02:07, June 25, 2020 (UTC)
 * I moved it to a new section. Najawin ☎  02:21, June 25, 2020 (UTC)
 * Is Dylan Rees involved with the Holmes Estate? 01:26, July 23, 2020 (UTC)
 * So the context of the podcast is that it was talking about Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who, which was a work about all the "Doctor Who spinoff media" in the 90s, written by Rees, and why Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans (home video) wasn't released on DVD. So while Rees isn't involved with the Holmes estate, he did do research relevant to our inquiry. Think of him as a secondary or ternary source, depending on how we count things. (IE: He's either a secondary source that the reason Shakedown isn't released is because of fears related to the BBC acquiring the rights, or a ternary source that the BBC actually acquired the rights.) Najawin ☎  01:42, July 23, 2020 (UTC)

Crossover characters
Right, so User:DiSoRiEnTeD1 believes that Aesculapius should be on this page. He argues that since the character was always within the loose "sphere" of Doctor Who, and has made several licensed appearances in Doctor Who stories, she qualifies.

However, while in the abstract I wouldn't disagree, this doesn't seem to be in keeping with this Wiki's policies. Never Go On Walks might be a homage to Doctor Who, but it is not legally connected to Doctor Who, nor even directly narratively connected to the DWU. Aesc is only very tenuously a "Doctor Who concept" — she is first and foremost a 10,000 Dawns concept, albeit one inspired by Doctor Who and who later made licensed appearances in DWU media. Yes, in real life, there's obviously a difference between Aesc meeting the Doctor, and Jean-Luc Picard meeting the Doctor, but T:VS has never acknowledged that. Why should this page?

Furthermore, the thing is, Aesc isn't alone — I feel like if we list her, we should also list the likes of Lauren Anderson and the Cyberons. And at this rate, what I'd recommend would be a new section/table for licensed-crossover-characters-with-more-than-one-appearance-in-the-DWU, where we might also document notable cases like Death's Head. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  01:32, July 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * A completely separate article listing the contents of Category:Stories that crossover with non-DWU series with lovely informative tables is another option. --Borisashton ☎  01:35, July 22, 2020 (UTC)


 * So Assimilation² is illustrative. Let's suppose that tomorrow we found a production diary that shows that the Borg were explicitly based off of the Cybermen. Would that be justification for them belonging on this page? I think clearly not. As a character she's not a Doctor Who concept, she belongs to another franchise, another literary universe, it's just one that happens to at times intersect with the Doctor Who Universe from time to time.


 * I agree with the new section/table, but actually think it should be its own page. Just on the principle of it not really being the same sort of thing as what this page is doing, and it's something this wiki should document. Currently we have the "Stories that crossover with non-DWU series" category, but that includes Bad Wolf (TV story) and When Being You Just Isn't Enough which sort of obviously aren't the same thing. Najawin  ☎  01:39, July 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * 'course, the Cyberon/Zygon thing is another issue I've been meaning to bring up in the forums at some point (so watch out for that thread). Cyberon is emphatically set in the DWU, it just doesn't have any preexisting licenses to prove it — it's only a "non-DWU" series on a technicality. I'd argue Assimilation^2, Bad Wolf and Zygon are all very different types of "crossovers". --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  01:45, July 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * This list appears to be, at least under my interpretation, one that contains all recurring characters (and concepts) in Doctor Who media that the BBC does not own. I agree that cross-over characters as a whole should be kept separate - but I view Lady Aesculapius as an exception due to the character's entire existence being tethered to the DWU.
 * The character was first introduced in an unauthorised Doctor Who poetry book, and has since been set up to be the 10,000 Dawns (series) version of a Time Lord. If, and more likely when, she gets another valid appearance - and is thus a recurring character in the DWU - I think she should be readded to the list. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  01:49, July 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * I mean, she's already a recurring concept within Doctor Who, though not within the valid DWU. Recurring across several valid stories is a form of recurring…ness, in my book.


 * But as I said, 'TeD, BTS circumstances be damned, that's not really how this Wiki operates. So her first story was printed in a Doctor Who reference book. What then? Again, I see no argument here that doesn't also apply to, at the very least, Lauren Anderson and the Cyberons. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  01:53, July 22, 2020 (UTC)


 * That is why I added her, as she was a recurring concept within the DWU. But I thought @Najawin had a point about her not being recurring within valid stories.


 * I didn't realise that Lauren Anderson and the Cyberons were missing, I thought they were included - but they each only have one valid story too. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  01:57, July 22, 2020 (UTC)

I'd be in favour of a separate list of crossovers article to fully detail this, as well as the many other different types of crossover. For example, Dr. Thirteenth is a Doctor Who story featuring elements from a non-DWU series whereas Time Bomb! is a story from a non-DWU series featuring elements from Doctor Who. Then, you have the middle ground with Lauren Anderson and Cyberon / Zygon. All three types can have separate tables fully explained who owns what and where all the characters originate. --Borisashton ☎  02:09, July 22, 2020 (UTC)

Original Mammoths
Okay, so we're going to have to have another discussion it looks like. User:DiSoRiEnTeD1 seems to think that the Original Mammoths have only appeared in the DWU once, and thus do not qualify for a "recurring concepts" list, which was what I used to point out Aesculapius wouldn't qualify under. When User:Scrooge MacDuck originally added them, I too had some concerns, which is why I went to their talk page to ask them about it. Specifically because something very much like what Nate had talked about was first mentioned in Christmas on a Rational Planet, and continued in Political Animals, The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, and to a small extent in Grass (boy is Grass weird). Scrooge seemed to suggest that there's a Yssgaroth/Great Vampire sort of thing going on. Clearly FP was doing something with Mammoths that was just never explained because, well, Lawrence Miles never got around to it. And so Nate recontextualized all the prior mammoth appearances in a certain way. At least that's my understanding of the situation. But does that count as a "recurring concept" for the purposes of this list? Najawin ☎  01:58, July 22, 2020 (UTC)


 * Arguing that they first appeared in Political Animals is pretty redundant when the edit you keep reverting has them down as first appearing in Cobweb and Ivory.


 * The title and concept of the Original Mammoths first appeared in C&I - the writer can link this back to whatever he pleases, as long as he has the rights to do so, but that doesn't mean that the concept existed before its creation. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  02:07, July 22, 2020 (UTC)


 * Well so the concept of Mammoths existing in the pre universe and being weird and important predates C&I. More than that (aside from the specific Mammoth owned by King George III), giving specific form, comes in C&I. Similarly Great Vampires being a threat to Time Lords and fighting in a massive war with them comes from before The Pit (novel). We'd still say that they're fundamentally the same concept in some sense, and a radically different concept in another. Najawin ☎  02:14, July 22, 2020 (UTC)


 * The term Original Mammoths is unique to Cobweb and Ivory (short story). This is a term coined by Nate Bumber and, while it may be based on things mentioned in past books, it is distinct enough to give him specific rights and control over this individual name and concept. It does not suddenly give him rights to the stories that he took inspiration from.


 * Cernunnos may have been revealed to have been the leader of the Original Mammoths in C&I, but that doesn't suddenly make a story (fifteen years before the concept was even thought created) a licensed appearance of said concept. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  02:33, July 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't believe I've suggested anything you're responding to here, so I'm confused as to this response. Let's suppose that no mention of the Great Vampires was ever again made after The Pit (novel). Would Yssgaroth still bear mentioning on this page? Note that it has a footnote stating "Penswick owns the name of "the Yssgaroth" and the conception of them as an impersonal force of evil, but the rights to the original Great Vampires as seen in State of Decay continue to lie with the BBC."


 * It's an interesting discussion, because "Vampires fought by the Time Lords", owned in part by the BBC, show up multiple times in this hypothetical, but the specific impersonal force of evil does not. Similarly, weird progenitor mammoths show up multiple times, but fleshing them out past that does not. It's deeply unclear. And to just blanketly say "nope, doesn't belong" is utterly absurd and can't be taken seriously for half a second. Najawin ☎  02:42, July 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, it is beyond reasonable doubt that Penswick and Bumber own something DWU in both cases. The idea of there having been mammoths in the pre-universe predates Cobweb and Ivory, indeed; what Bumber does own is the concept of a species of sapient pre-universe mammoths. Similarly, Penswick does not own the Great Vampires who fought the Great Houses, but rather the term "Yssgaroth" and the concept of the Yssgaroth as an eldritch vampiric force from another universe who fought the Great Houses.


 * Speaking of which, this is the exact example we need — there might be a direct in-universe link between the two in valid sources, but pre-VNA TV stories about the Time Lords aren't sudden licensed appearances of the Great Houses. Pre-The Dark Path stories involving the Master obviously don't involve David A. McIntee's copyright of "Koschei". Etc. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  09:44, July 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * So the issue discussed here isn't "do Bumber (and Penswick in the hypothetical) own something", it's "is what they own (again, considering the hypothetical) recurring enough to merit inclusion onto this list". As they've added something to the concept, but what makes it a recurring concept in the DWU isn't premised on these new features, and comes from places where these features weren't yet fleshed out. Najawin ☎  09:56, July 23, 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, I disagree strenuously if that is your argument. The Yssgaroth as featured in Faction Paradox under a Penswick license is very much the "impersonal, eldritch force of evil" of Penswick, not the giant bat-people of State of Decay — indeed, FP never bothered to get the license for the giant bat-people in State of Decay, because all the features it wanted to use were the ones introduced by Penswick.


 * (Lawrence Miles is on record as saying that originally he was just going to create his own "crawling chaos at the beginning of Time", until it occurred to him that Penswick had already established one in the DWU with a cool name he could hire; it's not clear that State of Decay was even on his mind when he began plotting out the place of the Yssgaroth in the FP mythos/plotline.)


 * As for the Mammoths, their licensed appearance in White Canvas was similarly predicated on "sentient, magical mammoths who want to unravel the Web of Time as part of the War in Heaven, led by a guy called Cernunnos", which is what Bumber owns. (I'm not sure the sheer concept of "in the time before the Anchoring of the Web of Time, there were, somehow, mammoths" is even copyrightable.)


 * It would be against policy to go into potential future appearances of the Mammoths under that same paradigm, but we don't need to. The concept recurring once under Bumber's license is, I think, enough. If it recurred, it's recurring — and if it did so thanks to a specific non-BBC-involving licensing situation, it belongs on this page. That is my view, anyway.


 * (I similarly think that Kramer before Candy-Jar picked her up, or the Cyberons before A Bright White Crack, already should have been on the page had it existed at the time. "Recurring" shouldn't be taken to mean "has more than 5 appearances" here; what would be the point of that? It's "what DWU characters have been licensed from their authors?" that interests the reader.) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:13, July 23, 2020 (UTC)
 * My thought isn't "more than five appearances", it's "more than once". If a character shows up in a single episode/book/arc/story and then never pops up again, I don't think the wiki reader will care. Do we really care about the rights status of Diana Goddard? I can't imagine we do, it gets into obscure issues with BBC contracts, and that's all that we really learn from analyzing that situation. But with, say, The Mammoths, someone who's curious as to a feature that pops up from time to time, it's legal status, can come here and see what it is. I do think it should have an asterisk, a la Yssgaroth, saying that "primordial mammoth's from the before time might not even be copyrightable, but sentient ones doing xyz are owned by Bumber". Najawin ☎  10:22, July 23, 2020 (UTC)
 * Hm, I see. I find nothing wrong with that. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:30, July 23, 2020 (UTC)

DiSoRiEnTeD1, have you anything to add? Or should we just add them back with the asterisk? Najawin ☎  04:31, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * The concept has appeared a single time so is not recurring. Add Cernunnos by all means, but I will continue to challenge OM’s inclusion here. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  05:37, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * So would the Sontarans not be recurring as of The Sontaran Experiment? (Note this argument that Linx is a subtly different concept than we see later on.) Najawin ☎  05:46, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * This is an out-of-universe thread talking about copyright in the real world. The Original Mammoths was created as a concept for Cobweb and Ivory and, while it may have been linked to stuff mentioned earlier, this remains the concepts first and only appearance.
 * What are you proposing exactly? Continue having Cobweb and Ivory listed as their first appearance - and created by Nate Bumber? Despite trying to say that they made appearances (a whole decade) before that?... DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  05:55, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm just trying to understand your position. You have a very weird view on some things, as seen in Thread:279761, and it doesn't seem like it's what the wiki is doing. Generally we care about a continuous concept. Concepts that as someone with a math background I might call "homotopic" (or "homotopically equivalent", if I was going to try and be a bit more robust for a layman). If there's a continual narrative transformation between two concepts, then they're the same. The continuous concept of the Original Mammoths has appeared prior to Cobweb and Ivory, but it only became distinct enough to be copyrightable in said story. Najawin ☎  06:10, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Then you’re admitting that Nate Bumber only owns the copyright for the concept he created (which you say “only became distinct enough to be copyrightable in said story”) and which has only appeared once since in valid media. Why would you then try to add the speculative content that he is somehow the creator and licensee of the original pre-historic mammoth concept that came long before him too? DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  06:17, July 28, 2020 (UTC)

Hmm? Bumber owns the copyright for the part of the concept he created, similar to how Platt owns part of the Homeworld concept, or Penswick part of the Yssgaroth concept. The entire continuous concept has appeared in media before the story Bumber wrote. Indeed, if you read the discussion Scrooge and I had, you would note that we both came to the conclusion that an asterisk noting that Bumber did not come up with the "weird mammoths in the pre-universe" part of the concept, similar to the Penswick example. So to say that we would add the speculative content you're suggesting is just factually incorrect. Najawin ☎  06:26, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * This seems to be exactly the same as the Gallifrey situation. The then-unnamed planet of the Doctor was referenced multiple times (and even seen on the occasion) before it was given the name Gallifrey in The Time Warrior. I believe that both of these concepts have always been owned by the BBC but, talking hypothetically, if they were created by individual copyright holders then there would be separate copyrights for the planet as a whole and for the name Gallifrey.


 * This is the exact same situation as the Original Mammoths. The concept of pre-historic mammoths has been referenced several times (and even seen on occasion) before it was given the name Original Mammoths in Cobweb and Ivory. This doesn’t suddenly give Nate Bumber the rights to the entire concept, seen decades before his contribution, but the name that he created.


 * So, how can you then go on to add to the page that the Original Mammoths are a recurring concept when that concept has only appeared in a single story? DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  06:29, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * I mean, there's just a flat out contradiction between "The concept of pre-historic mammoths has been referenced several times (and even seen on occasion) before it was given the name Original Mammoths in Cobweb and Ivory." and "the Original Mammoths are a recurring concept when that concept has only appeared in a single story?" You yourself admitted that they've appeared in multiple stories, they've just only been named and given a slight change in form in that particular story. But I agree, this is deeply similar to Thread:279761. Would you agree to have that thread resolve this issue as well? Najawin ☎  06:37, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * There’s literally no contradiction there. In-universe they can be documented as the same thing; but out-of-universe (which this page is for) the concept of the Original Mammoths has appeared a single time.


 * Your suggestion of an asterisks noting that Bumber didn’t create the original concept is a noble one, and can be applied once the concept for the Original Mammoths has made more than one appearance. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  06:41, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * The concept has appeared multiple times, the issue of legal rights (which this page is about) is a more nuanced one. Now would you answer the question about Thread:279761? We both agree it's similar, and it seems like it would satisfy both of us. Najawin ☎  07:05, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * Er… everyone calm down, I think you're overlooking the obvious. We don't need to bring in the non-copyrighted, pre-Cobwebs and Ivory mentions of the Mammoths into it. The OMs as seen in Cobwebs recurred into White Canvas. Which isn't valid at the moment, but whoever said this page only cared about valid appearances? I mean, you were the one advocating (in error, I still believe) for us to include Lady Aesc, whose debut is in an invalid source. Licensed appearances of Sontarans and what-have-you in Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet? have been in this page more or less from the beginning. So since the Mammoths recurred in White Canvas, what's your problem?--Scrooge MacDuck ☎  09:30, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed Aesc for only having one valid appearance and DiS ceded that I might have a point about that but removed the Mammoths under the same rubric. This was addressed in the section "Crossover Characters" - "But I thought @Najawin had a point about her not being recurring within valid stories." I believe you still disagree with this view, so no dice on resolving the conflict there. Najawin ☎  09:38, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah — the reason Aesc shouldn't be there IMO is that she isn't a Doctor Who concept in the first place. This is a very different matter from indubitably-DWU characters who happen to recur in stories that fail Rule 4. This page is concerned with legal statuses; how does it help the reader to obscure things like the fact that BBV mashed its Sontarans, Krynoids and Autons together in Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?? --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  09:53, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh I agree she's not a Doctor Who concept either. My point is just that this discussion began because I point out that even if we were to cede that she was, she still wouldn't belong as she's not really recurring in the sense really anything else here is. DiS then insisted that this equally applies to the Original Mammoths, even though the continuous concept has had multiple valid appearances in the DWU. Regardless, they seem to agree that Thread:279761 is relevant, so hopefully that will solve this issue. Najawin ☎  10:00, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps - but I still want to press the point that even if we ignore all the appearances of "mammoths later identified as Original Mammoths" (I suppose the question is: did the Time Lords debut in An Unearthly Child or in The War Games?), recurrences in invalid sources should be enough for something to be on this page. As I said, BBV's use of various licenses in Do You Have A Licence… is certainly the sort of thing we want to document on here. Why should Rule 4 enter into it? A story's a story. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:04, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Aesculapius is as much a DWU character as Adrienne Kramer. These characters both first appeared in fan-material surrounding the DW brand before eventually being brought into the universe properly - very different to other crossover characters, these individuals were created in connection to the DWU.


 * If the Original Mammoths can be readded because of their appearance in invalid material, so can Aesc. You can’t pick and choose. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:08, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * The Aesc issue should be taken to the section concerning her above. As for whether invalid appearances count, I think that's a far larger topic than one that should be handled under just the guise of a conversation of The Original Mammoths (namely because I do not cede that this is something we have to discuss with them). I suggest that we do the following. Create a new discussion about invalid stories and their relevance to this page. Then, let Thread:279761 or the new discussion decide this topic, and let the ongoing Aesc discussion above and the new discussion I've proposed decide whether Aesc is added to the page. Najawin ☎  10:13, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough.--Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:17, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * That thread has nothing to do with this topic? The Original Mammoths have been licensed in all of their (... one) appearances, nothing to do with the debate over Gallifrey / the Homeworld which haven’t been licensed uses of Gallifrey since Lungbarrow.


 * The way I see it - until the concept of the Original Mammoths has appeared more than once within the DWU (under the copyright that we are crediting Nate Bumber for creating / having the rights to), it should not be added to the list. Like I said earlier, if you wanted to add Cernunnos I would have no problems with that as he is a recurring concept within the DWU. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎


 * "This seems to be exactly the same as the Gallifrey situation." "That thread has nothing to do with this topic? The Original Mammoths have been licensed in all of their (... one) appearances, nothing to do with the debate over Gallifrey / the Homeworld which haven’t been licensed uses of Gallifrey since Lungbarrow."


 * I'm honestly at a loss. The thread in question will resolve whether the wiki refers to continuous concepts (for example, the continuous concept from primordial mammoths to primordial mammoths who are intelligent and want to steal a caldera or two) or legal rights. If it is the former, we then refer to the concept as being recurring, because, well, it is, and then say that the specific legal rights belonging to person p are "xyz". The thread is enormously relevant, and you even already admitted it. Najawin ☎  10:33, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Either we stick to what we know - Nate Bumber owns the copyrighted name of “Original Mammoths” (based on the original idea of pre-historic mammoths) which he has personally licensed out for use in 10,000 Dawns, or we begin speculating that he now owns the entire concept initially created decades before his contribution. Asterisks or not, that is what you are suggesting by adding it to the page when Bumber’s concept has only had a single valid DWU appearance. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:42, July 28, 2020 (UTC)

No, it's not. That's the only response possible. What I'm suggesting is that it's a recurring DWU concept (check) whose copyrightable portions are owned by an entity that isn't the BBC (also check). (For analogy, Daleks have non copyrightable portions as well, rolling death machine mutant that hates everything isn't copyrightable. But there are specific parts of the mythos and name that are copyrightable, hence why it's included.) Najawin ☎  10:48, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * The concept is not recurring, it has appeared once. In-universe you can say that they are the same because, unlike with Gallifrey / The Homeworld, Bumber was clearly allowed to link his concept back to other characters and mentioned things. However, this page is out-of-universe and therefore it needs to show the fact that Bumber hasn’t got the rights to a recurring concept as his concept has appeared once. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:52, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * Concepts are delineated/demarcated through in-universe narrative evidence. This is standard procedure for this wiki. Based on this metric the concepts being discussed are one and the same. The concept is recurring within the DWU, full stop. There are parts of the concept that are copywritable that are not owned by the BBC, full stop. Thus it belongs on this page. Full stop. The only way around this is if you argue that concepts, in the context of this wiki, are not defined by in universe narrative evidence.


 * But that's exactly why I'm asking you to cede that Thread:279761 is relevant, since prior discussion has held that this is the standard, see Thread:209869 and how multiple users, including a then admin, participated in the thread in which it was argued that multiple characters who were unnamed were specific DWU characters based on narrative evidence, even if the license was not present. Thus Toy Story was established to not only be talking about these characters, but was even linked as a source in the body of The Doctor's TARDIS.


 * Since this is the standard, if Thread:279761 does not overturn this (which it is unlikely to do so, but if it we can move forward into the new world together), we're just done. A concept has to have three properties to be on this page. 1. It must be a DWU concept. 2. It must be recurring (arguably within the DWU, we're sorting that out below). 3. It must have copyrightable elements not owned by the BBC. The Mammoths are clearly a DWU concept. As established, the current standard for whether something is a single recurring concept is currently based on in-universe narrative evidence. Not whatever standard you've dreamed up. The Mammoths meet this criteria. And finally, we both agree that there are copyrightable elements not owned by the BBC. So unless Thread:279761 changes policy, we're just done here. Najawin ☎  11:20, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * This is just going to keep going round in circles - you are going to keep saying I'm wrong, and I'll do the same back. So I think we should just leave it here until an admin makes a decision or new voices pipe up. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  11:23, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't think we need an admin. Given your admittance that this is related to the Gallifrey issue prior, and the clear precedent of Thread:209869, if Thread:279761 is resolved against you it becomes T:BOUND. So we'll just wait to see how that thread resolves. Najawin ☎  12:03, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * I have never “admitted” it was similar to that issue - in fact I can quote over five times where I have said that the issues are nothing alike!! DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  12:27, July 28, 2020 (UTC)

You've said it twice, after you said originally "This seems to be exactly the same as the Gallifrey situation." I can only speculate as to why you changed your mind on this issue. But it's obviously clear that the issue is one of you not understanding that the wiki delineates/demarcates concepts through in-universe textual evidence. (Once the concept is defined we then consider if it's recurring and owned by the BBC, but the definition uses in universe details.) That's why the thread in question is relevant. Najawin ☎  12:32, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * I haven't changed my mind at all - when I said "this seems to be exactly the same as the Gallifrey situation" I was clearly referring to the example I gave ("The then-unnamed planet of the Doctor was referenced multiple times (and even seen on the occasion) before it was given the name Gallifrey in The Time Warrior"). I was not talking about anything to do with The Homeworld which is a different issue entirely.


 * So, let's stop making false assumptions about other people's meanings and do as I said - leave it for an admin to make a decision, or wait until new voices are heard. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  12:41, July 28, 2020 (UTC)

Invalid appearances
Right, then, per User:Najawin's suggestion above: let's have it out: should invalid licensed appearances of DW concepts be documented on this page? I say yes. It's, for example, clearly a fact of interest to the readers that the Sontarans, Krynoids and Nestenes were licensed together by BBV for Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?, whether or not that is a parody. This is a real-world-focused page concerning licenses; Rule 4 shouldn't enter into it. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:17, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * So I don't actually see the need to document every non-BBC appearance, so I don't see it as inherently problematic if we didn't cover them. But this isn't exactly what my problem would be. My concern is just whether we define "recurring concept in the DWU" using invalid sources. If a character appears once in a valid source, and then multiple times in invalid sources, I don't think that's sufficient to make them a recurring character. (Obviously the worst possible example I could give is to compare the invalid sources to fanfic, and ask if there being fanfic of some fun one shot character means that they're recurring, but that's too cheap) Najawin ☎  10:25, July 28, 2020 (UTC)

Bit of a straw-man argument. I didn’t say that invalid appearances shouldn’t be covered - it’s necessary if you want to show where characters were licensed to appear outside of the DWU. But, I do not think concepts with only a single DWU appearance should be added to the list - regardless of how many invalid appearances they have. Therefore, no Lady Aesc or Original Mammoths as these concepts have but a single DWU appearance. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:27, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * The thing is that no one ever said "recurring" meant "recurring in the DWU". The word "DWU" is certainly not in the title of the page. I argue it should mean "recurring concept within stories we cover", no more, no less. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:29, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Literally “recurring Doctor Who concept” in the title. These aren’t recurring DWU concepts if they’ve only appeared once in the DWU. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:31, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * "Doctor Who" is not the same thing as "DWU". Rowan Atkinson's Ninth Doctor is indubitably a "Doctor Who concept", yet not, by the standards of this Wiki, a DWU concept. Those are very different things. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:37, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * So originally you were saying that the DWU mattered to this page - and that only characters created to be part of the DWU could be placed there and not “crossover characters” as you called them (although the likes of Adrienne Kramer and Aesculapius originated in Doctor Who fanwork before being brought into the universe so are different to actual crossover characters).


 * But now you say that the DWU doesn’t matter and a character is a recurring Doctor Who concept even if they’ve only appeared once in valid Who? DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:38, July 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * I note that Scrooge's view is currently how the page is being edited, for example The Sleeze Brothers are included, while not being recurring in any valid sources to my knowledge. (Though this is very much a "conflicting editors conflicting views" sort of thing) Najawin ☎  10:39, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * The Sleeze Brothers are actually yet another situation (isn't DW complicated?), because their reappearances are not invalid, they're outright not covered on this Wiki. There could be an argument for including the Mammoths but not the Brothers. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:41, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * The brothers can go too - they’re not recurring Doctor Who characters. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:43, July 28, 2020 (UTC)

(I actually agree the brothers should probably go, with a note on their page. But my point is that this is how this page is currently operating.) Najawin ☎  10:48, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * People mistakingly adding information because of the lack of clearly thought out rules is not a guideline to how the page operates. Otherwise, at the time I added Aesculapius that is how the page was operating (using Adrienne Kramer as a guideline). DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:54, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it was? I sort of explicitly said the opposite? '(Though this is very much a "conflicting editors conflicting views" sort of thing)' My point was just to inform everyone as to the current state of affairs. Najawin ☎  10:59, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * But that’s not relevant at all, really? DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  11:04, July 28, 2020 (UTC)

Any other characters?
I am cautious that the three rather long discussions will prevent others from posting characters that they think may qualify for this list - so I have created this separate discussion at the bottom of the page.

Scrooge's *edit* has made me realise *edit* Omega should be on this list somewhere, as should Irving Braxiatel logically (as Virgin Books were allowed to continue with this character when their license to print Doctor Who novels ended). DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  11:20, July 28, 2020 (UTC)
 * Yea on both, and I don't think it would be controversial for you to add these, as they are clearly "recurring Doctor Who concepts" by any sane metric. However, please edit out the mention of the hypothetical comic spin-off in question, because T:SPOIL. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  11:44, July 28, 2020 (UTC)