Forum:Temporary forums/Subpage policy

Proposal
For a long time, the "Policy" section on my user page has listed a broad array of my concerns and suggestions. Over the months and years, I've come to realize that many of these could be addressed by a singular proposal: the establishment of a proper use of subpages on this wiki.

Below is my proposal for what Tardis:Subpage policy could look like. How closely this resembles the final text is up to our admins, but this draft expresses the core ideas which I think such a policy should encapsulate.

What is a subpage?
Doctor Who Magazine/1985 is an example: because of the slash in the page name, it's a subpage of Doctor Who Magazine, so there's a link to that page right at the top, just below the title. This is great for navigation! Fandom's Editor Experience team explains,

Additionally, a subpage can also be linked to from its parent page with only a partial title: if you're on Twelfth Doctor, the link  will take you to Twelfth Doctor/List of appearances. It's even more powerful than the pipe trick!

If subpages are so useful, why aren't they used on wikis more widely? In 2001, a lengthy debate on Wikipedia resulted in a new rule: This was to avoid fights like whether to create History/Algeria or Algeria/History. Because subpages had provided a home for material about fictional universes – for instance, Doctor Who/Sonic screwdriver – this presaged a slow exodus of that content away from Wikipedia.

Tardis Data Core was born from that exodus, and ever since we've said we're Wikipedia's evil twin. This means we're free to reconsider Wikipedia's decisions with fresh eyes, including the rule about subpages. The conclusion is that our finite set of standardised section names means we can avoid the confusion that caused Wikipedia's ban in the first place!

How big is too big?
According to the Editor Experience team,

A softer version of this guideline was established as a local rule in Thread:264489. When an article egregiously exceeds these length standards, rather than flat-out deleting the extra material, split the page into subpages or separate pages instead. While Fandom's above guidelines describe the best standards for every article on wikis, length is less of a concern on subpages; we can assume that a reader who clicks through to Tenth Doctor/Biography is ready for a much deeper level of detail than the summary in Tenth Doctor.

When to use a subpage
Subpages are usually only meant to be linked to from their root page and navigation templates. To use the example mentioned above, Twelfth Doctor - list of appearances is only linked to from Twelfth Doctor and, making it an obvious candidate for a subpage.

Subpages should be named after section headers, usually those with headings formatted with ==, such as "Biography" or "Plot". Subpages should never have in-universe titles: for instance, if the subsection Twelfth Doctor were deemed too big, we would move it to a section on Twelfth Doctor/Biography, not Twelfth Doctor/Continued adventures with Clara.

Here's a sample of other potential subpage names:
 * BBC New Series Adventures/Covers
 * The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)/Plot
 * Twelfth Doctor/Appearances
 * The Doctor's TARDIS/Gallery
 * Sixth Doctor/Other realities
 * Ace/Non-valid sources
 * David Tennant/Spoilers (if we ever change T:SPOIL!)

To prevent the unsustainable proliferation of subpage types that Wikipedia faced, a wholly new type of subpage should be discussed on the talk page beforehand. For instance, if you want to create Series 9 (Doctor Who)/Promotion for information about trailers and interviews promoting that series, first you should compare your idea against existing precedent. If /Promotion subpages already exist in other places, you can go ahead and create your page! Otherwise, you should propose it on Talk:Series 9 (Doctor Who), link to that proposal on Tardis talk:Subpage policy, and allow an administrator to conclude the discussion before your split.

When not to use a subpage
Alternately, if you think some material represents a self-contained idea that other articles might want to reference as well, consider splitting it without using a subpage. For instance, when conflicting accounts of the Doctor's origins on First Doctor became too unwieldy, I created The Doctor's early life. Other examples include pages for specific arcs, like Exile on Earth, or pages for specific events, like Operation Mannequin. This is an art, not a science, and experienced users should use their best judgment to decide how to group content into logical topics.

Here are some examples of when not to use a subpage:
 * Third Doctor/Exile on Earth – instead create Third Doctor/Biography or Exile on Earth
 * The Doctor/Sonic screwdriver – instead create The Doctor's sonic screwdriver
 * Aliases of the Doctor/Theta Sigma – instead create Theta Sigma
 * Last Great Time War/Origins – instead create Origins of the Last Great Time War
 * The Master/Missy – instead create Missy!

Moving material
Once you've identified a lengthy section and the new page or subpage that will hold it, cut the section's contents and paste it to the new location. Include any subheadings, images, galleries, footnotes, and infoboxes that are inside that section. Subheadings should be adjusted upwards: for instance, each === subheading should become a ==.

Look through Special:WhatLinksHere to update any redirects to the sections you've moved. Similarly, look through the original page's templates and "Behind the scenes" bullet points for any which are more relevant to the new page. One of the biggest advantages of subpages is that they provide more room for not just ordinary coverage but also specific templates and sections. Subpages like Tenth Doctor/Appearance could have their own "Behind the scenes" sections discussing real-world information related to the topic.

Most importantly, Tardis:Plagiarism requires that you credit the content's original authors per CC BY-SA 3.0. When you're moving material to a subpage, it's usually obvious where it came from, but you should still link to the original page in your edit summary so later readers know where to look for the edit history.

Writing a summary
After moving material to a new page or subpage, you have to fill the gap on the root page. The Editor Experience team explains the  method in this way:

In other words, replace the copied text with a shorter summary of the new subpage's contents and a link. In exactly the same way that a lead paragraph summarises the contents of its page, this summary should give a broad-strokes overview of the subpage's contents, with a particular emphasis on the details most relevant to readers. Start of Contested Section! A general rule of thumb is to mention all major information as well as any notable minor details. The line between "major" and "minor" is up to editors' discretion.

For instance, take Tenth Doctor. If it were moved to a subpage, the summary left behind might cite all of the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones' major adventures, such as their televised ones, but not all of their minor adventures, such as PROSE: Wetworld or COMIC: The Skrawn Inheritance. Similarly, it would mention the Tenth Doctor's companions Gabby Gonzalez and Cindy Wu from the multi-year COMIC: Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor arc, but maybe not minor companions such as Emily Parr or Rok Ma.

Tenth Doctor is another lengthy section. It details each of the Tenth Doctor's various clothing and hairstyle changes. If this information were moved to a subpage, the summary would describe his major outfits (for instance, those worn for a whole television episode or an entire comics run or Big Finish boxset) and any particularly notable minor outfits (such as his lei from TV: The End of Time) while reserving a more detailed breakdown and minor single-appearance costumes for the subpage. End of Contested Section

Note the Editor Experience team's emphasis on a summary being "spoiler-free". While this may not be possible in some circumstances, ideally a new fan should be able to read the summary of a character's biography without having the experience of the stories being totally spoiled for them. For example, a summary of Twelfth Doctor/Biography might mention that his travels with Bill, Nardole, and Missy concluded in TV: The Doctor Falls during an encounter with, without explicitly spelling out that enemy's identity or the specific details of Bill's fate. Like a lead paragraph, a well-written summary should "lead" its readers to want to learn more, whether that means clicking through to the subpage or actually experiencing the stories in question.

Applications
There are many problems that this proposal will solve. Below I discuss those problems and the motivations for this proposal.

Subpage-like pages
Many articles on this wiki are already written like subpages. Our 1000+ lists of appearances are perfect examples of subpages in both purpose and execution: The only problem is that … well, they're not actually subpages! We've been using a dash instead of a slash for no reason. Twelfth Doctor - list of appearances, to name of one of many, should be moved to Twelfth Doctor/List of appearances.
 * 1) when a page section (the infobox list of appearances) grows too large and unwieldy, it's moved to a separate page;
 * 2) the new page is titled in reference to the core page (Character name - list of appearances); and
 * 3) the core page retains a summary of the most important information (first mention, first appearance).

These aren't our only subpage-like pages. We also have almost 100 "galleries" which function just like subpages; most of them are even already linked from story or series pages with. Their form should follow their function: BBC New Series Adventures covers should be moved to BBC New Series Adventures/Covers without hesitation. Standardising gallery subpages and creating them for major characters and concepts will also rescue our thousands of orphaned images.

As another example, consider Aliases of the Doctor. The vast majority of links to this page come through redirects to specific sections, like Theta Sigma, which is already a strong hint that the page should be chopped up! According to the principles in the policy proposal above, we should follow the method to split the article into separate pages for major individual aliases, such as Time's Champion and Time Lord Victorious, and then move the remaining overview page to a subpage like The Doctor/Name and aliases. This precedent will also unlock improvements for many pages which shoehorn all of their topics' once-used alternate names into their first sentences, like Chris Cwej's Superiors. Instead, the lead should only mention the two or three most prominent names, while the rest can go in a "Name and aliases" section.

These are just a few examples of low-hanging fruit unlocked by this subpage proposal. I'm willing to bet that there are many more out there!

Plots and summaries
Tardis Wiki is notorious for its lack of plot descriptions. A vast, vast majority of story pages have plot sections that say to be added. This is understandable: few editors actively enjoy typing out these lengthy breakdowns, and those who do often hold themselves to extreme standards of detail. But these to be added tags, many of them 15 years old or older, are a problem: according to the Editor Experience team,

Subpages offer a way out! Rather than marking thousands of story pages as stubs just because they lack lengthy plot breakdowns, we should put these breakdowns (when we have them) on "Plot" subpages. This won't even require a change to our preload templates! It will look something like this: Summary A brief, non-spoilery teaser that someone could use to check if they're interested in a story. If a publisher's summary is provided, this is where it goes, in which case the section is called "Publisher's summary". In rare cases where publishers have given many different summaries, such as PROSE: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, this section may have a  link.

Plot

A short synopsis that someone could use to get a gist of a story or remind themselves of the plot. For an example, see Silver-Tongued Liars (short story). Unlike full plot descriptions, which tend to provide enough detail that one could experience the story without actually experiencing it, these shorter plot synopses could be written from memory without any editors needing to pause or relisten to take notes on every aspect of a story. Not only will synopses make our pages less likely to appear unfinished, their length will also make it easier for readers to scroll and access other sections on the page. All the while, readers interested in the nitty gritty details can still easily access that information when available by clicking to the subpage via.

Other realities
As Tardis:Merging policy describes, our longstanding precedent regarding alternate versions of characters – whether they're from alternate timelines, parallel universes, palimpests, simulations, or so on – is to split when possible. This has had two results:
 * 1) Many pages with strange dab terms and very little actual content, such as Waterton Street (Pete's World), Sash of Rassilon (Barusa's universe), and Moira (Shadow World); and
 * 2) Many articles with  below their infoboxes, increasing the glut of obscure material past which mobile readers must now scroll to find a page's actual contents.

Both of these are problems for usability, and T:MERGE itself contains the seeds of the solution by clarifying that not all alternate versions of characters deserve separate pages:

Tenth Doctor/Other realities – not, as the section is currently called, but a title also inclusive of parallels, palimpests, simulations, and so on – would provide the space for this coverage. It would have the room for discussing the alternate versions of the character, either in separate sections or in a single section with s, and linking to separate pages with when separate pages are justified. Such a subpage would also provide a more suitable home for specialized templates like.

This type of subpage won't remove the need for or existence of separate pages for many alternate versions of characters, but it will go a long way towards alleviating the pressure which has caused so much sprawl in the first place!

Corollary: Clarifying in T:MERGE that the alternate timelines "rule of thumb" extends to subpages. New precedent for "Other realities" section header where applicable, rather than "Alternate timelines" specifically.

Other validities
NOTVALID: Death Comes to Time depicts an alternative fate of the Seventh Doctor and Ace following TV: Survival. We're meant to recognise these names: within this story, Ace is the same character whom we met in TV: Dragonfire, and her actions are shaped by her experiences in TV: The Curse of Fenric and other stories. This background is assumed as understood.

Now read our article for Ace (Death Comes to Time). There's no mention of her shared roots with regular Ace; in fact, there's no citation of any story besides Death Comes to Time itself. If you read the page in a vacuum, you could come away thinking she was one of Dan Freeman's original characters! To an extent, this is understandable: it would be very silly to duplicate half of Ace on two pages. But there's a better way.

Many pages for characters and concepts which appear very briefly in non-valid stories, like George W. Bush, feature a "Behind the scenes" subsection called "Information from non-valid sources". This is better than the Ace (Death Comes to Time) approach, since it establishes a clear link between the valid and non-valid topics, but we understandably haven't taken this route when it comes to more major characters, since it would be cumbersome to cover that much material in a behind-the-scenes section.

You should know what's coming by now: in this case, Ace/Non-valid sources, decorated by a helpful new template tentatively called.

In Ace, a subsection called "Information from non-valid sources" will briefly list or recap Ace's more prominent non-valid appearances, with a link to the subpage covering Ace-related material in these non-valid sources in maximum detail.

also unlocks a new solution to another old problem: our coverage of concepts whose main licensed appearances are in non-valid stories. Right now we either shove most of these pages' material in their "Behind the scenes" sections, like on Canisian, or we jam our fingers in our ears and pretend we don't understand the obvious connection, like on Man with a bent nose (The Tomorrow Windows). Using the above template on pages like these – not on a subpage, but on the original thing – will enable much better coverage of not just Canisians but also licensed crossover concepts like the Vivaldi inheritance and Gwanzulum.

Corollary: Editing T:VS and T:NOT to reflect that licensed appearances of valid concepts in non-valid sources can be covered on relevant pages and subpages when marked with.

Biographies
In Thread:264489, Shambala108 ruled that the biography sections on pages of "highly-recurring characters" should only have 2-3 sentences per story. This ruling was widely ignored – it hasn't been enforced on any page anywhere – and I believe that many, myself included, did not understand it at the time. But I have come to see the wisdom in Shambala's approach.

In the proposal text above, I quoted the Editor Experience team's guideline that articles should be

Currently, we fall hilariously short of this standard. Our pages Tenth Doctor and Eleventh Doctor are both over 60,000 words long, requiring (according to WordCounter.net) over 3 hours of reading time each – and it's hard to argue that their prose is especially engaging. No person is sitting down and reading either of these pages start to finish. And don't even mention The Master!

If Shambala's decision were implemented properly, we would see a dramatic reduction of these page lengths, but two problems would remain:
 * 1) the matter of what to do with all the material we'd be removing; and
 * 2) the fact that such a reduction would be nowhere near drastic enough to meet best practices!

Subpages will solve both problems. Biographies which are too long by Shambala's standard can be moved to subpages, rather than deleted outright; and the  method would unlock far larger potential reductions in page length.

As described in the proposal text above, the information in a summary should be chosen for its relevance to the not we. I've received some pushback for this part of the proposal, but in actuality, it satisfies both the spirit and the letter of Tardis:Neutral point of view. Our entire purpose as a wiki is to cover DWU-related stories and concepts in whatever way will best serve DWU fans, and the reason we have T:NPOV is to serve that purpose, not to promote "expanded universe" content. A neutral point of view does not prevent us from realistically assessing what information is most relevant to our readers: otherwise it would be against the rules to use the "Main actor" variable in infoboxes!

The guideline as written also has implications for lead paragraphs. Peter Capaldi himself had such a hard time finding relevant information in our article on The Beatles that he ultimately gave up! I've since fixed the issue with that specific page by moving information about TV: The Chase from its 14th paragraph to its 2nd. Applying this approach more widely across the wiki will greatly improve general usability. – n8 (☎) 15:21, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Discussion
In the spirit of our "fresh start", I've taken the liberty of adapting the user rights nominations format to structure this thread somewhat. Hopefully this will keep discussion organised and constructive and give our admins an easier time of gauging support and opposition. – n8 (☎) 15:21, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Support

 * Please outline the reasons you support this proposal below.

In general I support this idea. I do have the following comments to make. I manifestly deny Nate's claim that
 * [...] in actuality, it satisfies both the spirit and the letter of Tardis:Neutral point of view.

and consider his proposal on how to summarize the Tenth Doctor's biography to be a blatant violation of T:NPOV. However, I do not think that this is a core feature of his proposal, as we can write "main page" summaries that mention every story with a sentence or so and still dramatically trim down the size of many articles. I propose that we specifically put the discussion of the biography summaries on hold, as it concerns larger issues of how to interpret T:NPOV and return to that when and if the policy in general is passed. I think overall expansion of subpages is compatible with multiple approaches to trimming down biographies, and it's a larger discussion on how precisely we wish to do that, we shouldn't let that discussion get in the way of this wonderful proposal. Najawin ☎  18:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I strongly support this proposal as it deals with various issues I’ve encountered on the wiki, and offers a solution that allows both the type of lengthy and hyper-detailed breakdowns we editors love so much, while also offering a muc better usability for the more casual readers.


 * I note your mention of galleries as potential subpages, and I want to highlight how much of a good idea that is, as I’ve long felt that the lack of a good visual support for our articles was a problem on the wiki, but was not quite sure how exactly it could be improved as our policies stand. Subpages are an elegant idea, and they are also incredibly easy to use, and intuitive for the readers as well (After all, most other wikis I frequent use them!)


 * I think subpages are a good practical way to solve multiple issues at once,  And while I personally have no issue with the way you’ve outlined your proposals for trimming down and adjusting biographies, I do agree with Najawin that the exact details of how this could be achieved and how it relates to T:NPOV might be best left to discuss at a later date, once we’ve got the ball rolling on subpages as a whole. I feel like with such proposals, the future of Tardis Wiki is rather bright! Liria10  ☎  19:32, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

I support this completely and to the fullest. Danniesen ☎  19:41, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I support this proposal. It will both improve our ability to cover stories on the wiki and also the readability of articles. Pluto2 (talk) 19:54, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I also very much support this proposal. I've also been thinking about T:NPOV in general and have some ideas on that, so I added a thread to the proposals list so that we can discuss it later. In any case I think subpages will greatly improve the usability of the wiki for both editors and readers. Chubby Potato ☎  20:01, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree that subpages present an opportunity. Your suggestions for using them for invalid appearances and alt-realities seems particularly elegant. One potential beneficiary that comes to my mind is Last Great Time War, which has become vast due to the sheer volume of Time War releases in last few years. I share concerns about biography summaries though as I worry drawing a distinction between "major" and "minor" adventures may inspire endless discussions on what makes the cut and what doesn't. But that's for another day; subpages in principle I support. SherlockTheII ☎  20:14, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I absolutely love this proposal. With regard to biographies and T:NPOV, I'm not sure that it is an issue. The way I (and this is my personal reading, not an admin ruling) read the bit of T:NPOV that is relevant here is that it is talking about taking one source as more true than another, such as claiming that Genesis of Evil isn't true because Genesis of the Daleks is a TV source, which I don't feel is happening here. We always have to make some form of judgement on the relevence of different sources from different mediums because he have to decide where in an article to place the information. This is just taking that a little further to make using the wiki easier. All of the information will still be there and considered as true as it is now, but the most relevent information will be presented more prominently. Bongo50   ☎  22:26, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

I support this proposal, since I can see the merit in how using subpages could improve the user experience of the wiki. TheSpaghetOutcast ☎  04:13, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I enthusiastically support this new policy. I feel it will streamline the Wiki in some areas (/Covers, /Appearances) and vastly improve it in others. /Non-valid sources would be a great resource for the invalid stuff and crossovers we cover while /Plot is a fantastic idea that makes the prospect of de-stubifying our thousands of stubby story pages much more feasible, improving reader experiences on all fronts. However, I'm afraid I do share concerns about the summaries left behind by /Biography, though not (I think) as much as some others. I don't have a problem with putting a greater emphasis on TV stuff for this and I enjoy the idea of doing them spoiler-free where possible, but I do take issue with all TV stories being notable and with the inclusion of "notable minor" details. For instance, I'm not sure I would keep 10's lei outfit on the main page. A variation of his regular costume which only appeared in one scene seems destined for a subpage.

I think /Biography could work very well, but that the kinks which need to be worked out might be too big for that to happen within the timeframe of this thread. If that turns out to be true, I strongly advocate for T:SUBPAGE to be implemented but without the excerpts relating to biographies. I would see it as a great tragedy if /Covers, /Appearances, /Plot, /Non-valid sources and /Gallery subpages do not come into being just because of this one wrinkle. Borisashton ☎  00:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I realize I never threw in my hat of support, so here it is! Editoronthewiki ☎  20:02, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose

 * Why do you oppose this proposal?

Neutral

 * Feeling lukewarm about this proposal? Tell us why.

I'm somewhat hesitant here. I've visited a number of wikis which use subpages to an extent which I find unnecessarily excessive. However, I am pleased to see "When not to use a subpage" and I do recognise the benefits in lightening the load of parent pages whilst at the same time expanding coverage such as for character biographies. I would proceed slowly with caution on a case by case basis. MrThermomanPreacher ☎  22:43, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree. I can see why subpages might be a good idea, but if we do go ahead with them then I think they should be used as sparingly as possible. Jack &#34;BtR&#34; Saxon ☎  13:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Neutral support. I support the increased use of subpages, I think I was one of the first to actually use subpages here mostly because any other naming convention would've ended up with messy pages names I seem to recall.
 * The neutrality mostly comes from a concern that too much stuff will be 'shoved off' into a subpage that will stop someone reading through an article following the link. We need to ensure we're not losing too much of the 'Tardis Data Core detailed specificity' to be lost to a subppage if we're moving stuff around.
 * The proposal does give me confidence that any policy will be written and explained fully. --Tangerineduel / talk 05:02, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Comments and concerns

 * Do you have specific concerns about this proposal that are getting in the way of you making up your mind? Leave them here for discussion.

I'm sorry if this is completely daft, but would it be at all possible to implement something like they have over at Wookieepedia for alternate universe versions of characters, etc.? E.g. the page for Wedge Antilles displays initially as being on the Canon tab; if you go over to the Legends one (for the old de-canonised Star Wars EU), that's a subpage, but formatted as sort of equal to the "main" one, which I like a lot. Furthermore, on a page like Princess Leia's, they've somehow managed to link up what look to be two architecturally separate articles (slightly different character name, I have no idea why) using that same "tabbed" visual styling.

I think it would be wonderful if either or both of those arrangements could work here – not just for alternate universe versions but maybe even things or people that exist both in the DWU and the real world? Perhaps even (can you tell this is a bugbear of mine?) make sense of those blasted Zygon Lockdown Thingie versions of Doctor Who episodes that get to take up the main un-disambiguated namespace because of our terrifyingly complicated dab rules. Starkidsoph ☎  19:37, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * To clarify, they don't "take up" the un dabbed term, even without their existence the real world episodes would still be dabbed. They just happen to end up in it. Najawin ☎  19:41, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, but without their existence the undabbed titles would redirect to the place whoever typed them almost certainly wanted to go! I know that we are not Wikipedia, but I think a lot of users might still intuitively expect that we'd have a similar policy of "if the name applies to several things, and one is clearly much more notable/important than the others, that's the undabbed one," because that policy makes a lot of intuitive sense. It would be nice if things like "the stub article on a fictional episode of Doctor Who which is titled identically to the real one" had something more obvious than a tiny "You may" box directing hapless browsers to what they wanted, and even nicer if those hapless browsers didn't so frequently land on the other in the first place! I know I've gotten off topic, feel free to upbraid me on my talk page, but I really cannot emphasise enough how ludicrously unfriendly the current situation is to casual fans, or literally anyone other than diehard editors of this wiki. Aren't we meant to be a resource for everyone?


 * To be fair I am (slowly) renaming the articles to have story dabs (see Erasing Sherlock (Contributors) and The Woman Who Lived (The Zygon Isolation)). Also, I don't think putting in-universe articles in subpages for out of universe ones is a particularily intuitive idea IMHO. 20:30, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Starkidsoph, I share your frustration with page names like Doctor Who Series 9. You may be happy to know that "if the name applies to several things, and one is clearly much more notable/important than the others, that's the undabbed one" is already the policy when it comes to author pages (see Talk:Dave Stone (Many Happy Returns)), but unfortunately this precedent isn't applied universally or consistently. While this is definitely a problem which needs to be solved, and I do encourage you to propose a forum discussion about it, I'm not sure that subpages are the best way to fix it, so I'd prefer not to incorporate that specific application into this proposal. For what it's worth, the above paragraph "To prevent the unsustainable proliferation…" lays out a template for how new subpage types should be proposed and approved, so there will be a framework for ideas like yours. – n8 (☎) 22:41, 2 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I completely understand that. Sorry for derailing – I've ended up burying my own original query! Did anyone actually have any info or opinions re: Wookieepedia's tabbed layout & its applicability here? Starkidsoph ☎  22:47, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Re:Bongo's above comment, I believe this is Nate's interpretation of NPOV as well when him and I were discussing the proposal back in October. Suffice it to say that I do not agree, and I believe the very second sentence of T:NPOV contradicts this. But I don't think it's core to this proposal, so we can and should spin this discussion off. It's a clarification of a larger policy, and it's also compatible with this new proposal either way we fall on it. Najawin ☎  00:43, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
 * To address SherlockTheII's concern, I don't think there will be much dispute over the major/minor factor, actually. Why doesn't the lede of Twelfth Doctor mention The Blood Cell or The Caretaker, whereas it does mention Death in Heaven and Twice Upon a Time? For common sense reasons: reasons so obvious that this exclusion hasn't sparked any arguments or edit conflicts; reasons which, I might add, do not violate T:NPOV.


 * Najawin, you're right that Bongo's interpretation matches my own. Regarding your proposed amendment, I think it would be obviously detrimental to usability if the Twelfth Doctor lede were forced to mention every single one of his appearances, and the same would be true for a main page summary of his biography subpage. (Of course I would expect that summary to be longer than the page's overall lede in its present form; but not that much longer.) If in an admin's eyes this concession is necessary to cobble together a majority vote for passage, so be it, but I hope that it won't be necessary and the proposal will pass as-is. – n8 (☎) 16:26, 3 January 2023 (UTC)


 * If the choices are between the proposal living and failing as it currently stands, I'm opposed to it, strongly so and I will argue vehemently against it. I'm supporting it currently because I don't think the biography T:NPOV issue is core to the proposal. I also strongly deny that common sense immediately solves the question of what minor adventures are. "Common sense" is applicable for ledes because everything is still grouped on one page. This approach you're suggesting immediately relegates some stories to second class status. Every editor will have their own pet stories that they will want to place on the main version of the page, regardless of the prominence of the character in the story. For example, 13's appearance in The Day of the Doctor (novelisation). Relatively minor appearance within the context of the story. But it's a major story, and massively important for the Doctor in general! Could easily be argued to count. Do we mention every time 13 interacts with 10 because it's multi Doctor? That's a good deal of her EU media at this point. I'm unconvinced that common sense easily solves this problem, and when you add in the "notable minor" clause it gets even worse, because editors will disagree on what makes a story notable. Najawin ☎  17:04, 3 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't mean to suggest that the choices are between the proposal living and failing as it currently stands! I'm just leaving it up to an admin.


 * To briefly respond to your argument, your supposition about "second class status" is just wrong. Fandom's best practices guide says that both readers and search engines understand that subpages aren't separate articles but extensions of a single article, in exactly the same way as separate sections are. Note that despite their extreme lengths, major character pages already omit many minor stories: for instance, only a single one of the 17  Battles in Time comic stories in which Martha Jones appears is cited on her page – and even then, only parenthetically! The guidelines I proposed above are actually far more lenient than current de facto practice in this regard. In contrast, actively requiring each and every one of these stories, however minor, to be cited not just on Martha Jones/Biography but on Martha Jones itself would be a far more radical departure from how the wiki works.


 * … all that said, you and I have been debating this for months now, and I'm sure we could go back and forth ad nauseum. Hopefully by agreeing to disagree, we can open up the space for other people to express their thoughts, to make it easier for an admin to assess the vibes of the entire community on this topic when making their final decision. – n8 (☎) 22:31, 5 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Oh, of course, I wasn't interpreting you to be suggesting that! But I think there's substantial concern, not just my own, for the biography issue. I was just emphasizing to whichever admin that will eventually close this thread that I'm strongly against the biography summaries as represented in the main post, so much so that I think it's worth getting rid of the entire proposal if this is how they're making their determination (which I hope they don't!). I'd hope we can simply discuss this issue elsewhere, as myself and others have suggested. I obviously have a response to your comment, and I obviously don't find your comment compelling (quelle surprise, we've been discussing this for months), but I would hope that we can discuss this issue on its own thread where we can give the issue the space and nuance it truly deserves, allowing this thread to be the place to flesh out details like "what characters should get subpages for their appearance" or what have you before enshrining these things into policy. Najawin ☎  23:17, 5 January 2023 (UTC)


 * For ease of use, I've added markers for the start and end of the section you're contesting. – n8 (☎) 14:05, 6 January 2023 (UTC)


 * If the sentiment is to hold off on a ruling on the "NPOV-skirting" aspect of this proposal, perhaps it would be helpful to outline some version of what the policy would say on the matter of biographies if we don't initially go with what User:NateBumber drafted here. At the moment, I'm not quite sure what implementing such a version would look like, short of simply not splitting off /Biography at all. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:00, 7 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I share some of the feelings of Najawin, but only to the extent that I consider treating televised stories as inherently major is against T:NPOV. I can't think of any reason The Idiot's Lantern should be considered major, for example. My opinion is that however we decide what is major and minor should be entirely medium-neutral.


 * I also wouldn't hate it if we didn't have short versions of biographies at all, dodging the whole issue. I'm not certain the short biographies or short summaries are really necessary once we establish that such things are always found on a subpage.


 * My only other input is that I personally disagree with Epsilon and consider in-universe subpages of out-of-universe articles far more intuitive than having separate pages. Schreibenheimer ☎  18:22, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

"No comment" until we resolve the issue seems the correct strategy to me. It's disappointing, because it doesn't really shorten pages at all, but pretty much all the other benefits of the subpage policy seem to be preserved. But I'm willing to be convinced otherwise on that point. We could theoretically adopt the language as is with the understanding that it's not to be implemented without a very long discussion over it, but that idea I'm skeptical of, as it suggests that violations of T:NPOV are now the default if we don't find consensus in 3 weeks. I have proposed alternative wording for the section, but I don't want to use it until said thread is resolved because that feels unfair to Nate in the same way I'm uncomfortable with his language being the default. Najawin ☎  21:27, 7 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm intrigued, albeit not entirely won over, by User:Schreibenheimer's suggestion that we could dispense with a ==Biography== section in the main page altogether. We do, after all, include the basic cliffnotes version of Doctors and companions' life stories in our leads. If we have that for casual skimmers and the full, unabridged biography (with no concerns of emphasis or "two sentences per story") as its own subpage… do we also need a second, longer-but-still-incomplete biographical summary on the main page? Do we? I am at the very least tempted to try this on for size as the "temporary" implementation waiting on the resolution of the separate NPOV debate. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:32, 7 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I feel like it could be increadibly confusing for readers if the biography section suddenly dissapears. We're already picking and choosing information to place in the lead so, as I've already said, I don't feel that there should be an issue to pick and choosee the most significant information to go in a summarised biography. Bongo50   ☎  22:46, 7 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't know — we would still have a ==Biography== heading, I expect, ing to the subpage. It would just be comprised of general statements about the nature of the Doctor's biography instead of an attempt at a biography in itself (similar to the way that the "The [X]'s incarnations" section on Time Lord pages directs readers to their incarnations). I don't think that'd be overly confusing. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:15, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

The lede is usually populated by information about their character arc and personality. Compare a revision of the 13th Doctor's page after her first season (including special) with one of the 12th Doctor's page. Ignoring the regeneration cycle stuff, the second is a good 70 words longer, devoted entirely to characterization. In large part, I contend, because characterization was the focus of S8 while it wasn't the focus of S11. (Lest you think I'm cherry picking, I assure you, the surrounding revisions are similar.) But it's not clear to me that we can apply this standard to a biography section easily. The two situations are disanalogous. But Bongo, let me ask you, I've raised specific examples where I think it's unclear how to apply the standards on a biography section. Schreibenheimer has done the same. If this is a non issue, surely you can suggest how you'd adjudicate these matters? Najawin ☎  23:43, 7 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Certainly. For The Day of the Doctor (novelisation), I would exclude it from the summary because, as you mention, it is a minor appearance for the Thirteenth Doctor and that is the incarnation who we're concerned about in this summary. For Thirteen/Ten multi-Doctors, I think this would be done more case by case. Titan Comics' Thirteen/Ten stories could probably be mentioned all in one short parahraph in the summary as they are multiple stories that form a key arc in Titan's Thirteen Doctor run, one of the main strands of her non-TV media. The Edge of Reality would probably also recieve a brief mention as it is one of the bigger Thirteenth Doctor releases (evidenced somewhat by the fact it has recieved physical releases on all major platforms, something that not every Doctor Who video game recieves). I'm struggling to think, off the top of my head, of any more multi-Doctors between these 2, but it should really come down to whether the story is a significant part of Thirteen's in-universe life or of the real-world era. For something like The Idiot's Lantern, I agree that its not particuarly notable either in Ten's life or the real world era. Therefore, I would be tempted to include it, alongside other more minor stories, in the summary somewhat like this: "The Doctor and Rose continued to travel with each other for a while. During these travels, among other things, they [...], defeated the Wire in 1953 London, (TV: The Idiot's Lantern) [...]." The reason for including it this much would be that the story had a very wide reach due to its television broadcast. I think that's all of the examples you 2 raised. Let me know if I missed any. In general, in my eyes, the summary should be, well, a summary, detailing the largest overall plot points, the broader arcs and the really, really signficant one-offs. Editors already have to make a lot of decisions regarding how content is presented on this wiki and so I trust that we will be able to handle a few more. Bongo50   ☎  00:35, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Alright, thank you for giving me a concrete proposal. Let me just point out that you already disagree with someone else who is suggesting that we can summarize biographies in this way. You've described Idiot's Lantern as a minor story, when Nate explicitly considers it a major story. (As he considers all tv stories major stories.) And let me go one further here. Idiot's Lantern isn't important for 10's character arc. But you know what's even less important? Blink. I assume we'd keep Blink on the hypothetical trimmed down version of 10's biography. But this is perhaps the most obviously egregious violation of T:NPOV I can think of, that we would prioritize Blink over other stories, simply because it was televised and thus super popular and we should mention it. (I'm also not sure why Edge of Reality should get a mention and Day of the Doctor doesn't, given how important the latter is for the character overall and how the former is a complete nothing, but that's your prerogative.) I'd just like to ask if the other people who think this proposal is workable as-is agree with this. Because if they don't, and I'm willing to bet that there are disagreements, and these disagreements will only get more severe as we include more and more stories that might be considered "notable minor stories" (eg, Canaries for quite a few Doctors or The Paradox Moon specifically for 13), that's a serious problem for the idea that this is something trivial that we can just come together on without it being an issue. Najawin ☎  01:08, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I was sitting here formulating a rebuttal to your opinion about Blink before realizing that was exactly your point, and these discussions would be constant. I'm with Najawin. Schreibenheimer ☎  04:00, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I am starting to see your point here. I can very easily see how someone else, or even me on a different day in a different mood, could disagree with my decisions. I feel that the best course of action here may be to make a draft of some character's biography summary. Seeing it all put together and giving us something more solid to argue over could be helpful for deciding if this is at all workable. I don't have time to do this right now, but I will have a go at it over the next week or so (unless someone else wants to give it a shot first). Bongo50   ☎  17:14, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Both Schreibenheimer and Borisashton have mentioned that I claimed every television story is inherently "major". To the extent that the proposed text suggests such a thing, it's a mistake: a relic from a prior draft. I intended the final proposal to decide whether a story is "major" or "minor" for a character in a medium-neutral way, albeit within the bounds of common sense. If a line here or there slipped through the cracks, that's mea culpa. (As Boris notes, the entire Tenth Doctor lei example may be one of these leftovers!) Contra Najawin's accusation of contradiction, my assessment of notability in the case of Martha Jones agrees with Bongolium500's perfectly.


 * As it happens, today we have been handed an excellent case study for consideration. From the beginning, this proposal has been for T:SPLIT as well as T:SUBPAGE, and its guidelines for how to summarise moved information should ideally apply whether the information is moving to a subpage or a regular page. And what better demonstration than the long-anticipated split of The Master! For instance, a large part of the Master's biography was moved to Missy and replaced with the following paragraph:

Having regenerated into a female body, the Master adopted the nickname of Missy. She arranged for the Eleventh Doctor to meet Clara Oswald (TV: The Bells of Saint John, Death in Heaven) and created the Nethersphere. The Twelfth Doctor's discovery of this artificial afterlife was the first of many encounters between him and Missy, (TV: Dark Water, The Magician's Apprentice, etc.) and they had even tried to renew their friendship, with Missy pledging to renounce her "evil" ways, by the time the two were killed on a Mondasian colony ship, with Missy being shot in the back by her own past self. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
 * While this summary will likely change over time, perhaps substantially – for instance, it may be shorter than it absolutely needs to be – I don't anticipate any edit wars over its contents, and in this light I continue to believe that fears of conflict are overblown. That said, I can't ignore the emerging consensus that this question is serious enough to jeopardise the /Biography subpage concept entirely. In light of this, I've added my vote to Chubby Potato's proposal for a dedicated thread to discuss T:NPA; and in the meantime, rather than sacrifice /Biography subpages entirely, I'll draft an answer to Scrooge MacDuck's request for a compromise, which will do away with the problematic "major"/"minor" language. I'll aim to share this compromise here later this week, but if anyone wants to beat me to the punch, I'd more than welcome it. – n8 (☎) 17:23, 9 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Upon further reflection, and emboldened somewhat by Tangerineduel's kind show of confidence, here's my suggestion for what we replace the contested section with: nothing.


 * We didn't have a special policy guiding how we wrote the summary after splitting The Doctor's early life from First Doctor. We didn't have a special policy guiding how we wrote the summary after splitting Missy from The Master. And we don't have a special policy guiding us when we write ledes of articles. Instead, we've simply followed existing policy – including T:NPOV! – and our general familiarity with the Tardis Wiki style: a style which includes our "Tardis Data Core detailed specificity". These things have sufficed before, and they will also suffice here.


 * Here's how the "Writing a summary" section would look under this proposal:

After moving material to a new page or subpage, you have to fill the gap on the root page. The Editor Experience team explains the  method in this way:

In other words, replace the copied text with a shorter summary of the new subpage's contents and a link. In exactly the same way that a lead paragraph summarises the contents of its page, this summary should give a broad-strokes overview of the subpage's contents, with a particular emphasis on the details most relevant to readers.

Note the Editor Experience team's emphasis on a summary being "spoiler-free". While this may not be possible in some circumstances, ideally a new fan should be able to read the summary of a character's biography without having the experience of the stories being totally spoiled for them. For example, a summary of Twelfth Doctor/Biography might mention that his travels with Bill, Nardole, and Missy concluded in TV: The Doctor Falls during an encounter with, without explicitly spelling out that enemy's identity or the specific details of Bill's fate. Like a lead paragraph, a well-written summary should "lead" its readers to want to learn more, whether that means clicking through to the subpage or actually experiencing the stories in question.
 * This is my new proposal. Gone is any contestable division between "major" and "minor", and gone is any reference to medium as a determining factor. But even if the section is less detailed than it had been before, the editor isn't left entirely without guidance: rather, they're guided both by existing precedent and by all the other policies as always. Najawin and Schreibenheimer, I'd be particularly interested in hearing your feedback. – n8 (☎) 21:04, 11 January 2023 (UTC)


 * This is... better, and I'd be willing to accept it if an admin deems it necessary to do so. But I think the appropriate response until we resolve the T:NPOV issue is to simply not summarize biographies. As written the policy, is, well, a non policy, which doesn't necessarily lead to endless debates like the original one does, but I think it has a very real possibility of doing so. idk, maybe I'm being too reticent here. We do have a finite number of regular editors, and most of us are a pretty reasonable bunch. But we still have wildly different views on the stories we'd want to place in this summary imo. Again, maybe I'm just worried for nothing. But I think this particular section of the proposal needs to be hammered out far more than it is, and until then we should just decline to summarize anything. Najawin ☎  22:54, 11 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I still feel there's a fair bit of potential in the option of simply not having a summarised biography on the main page at all, just general reflections about the nature of a character's biography and a link to the subpage. Some might say that falls rather squarely within User:Tangerineduel's concerns about rendering information less accessible, but I say the opposite: if there's a "perfectly good" limited summary on the main page, people are quite liable to never check out the full-length /Biography version. In contrast, if there's just no biography  on the main page as such, anyone with any sense will realise it's all going on in the subpage and head there. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:33, 11 January 2023 (UTC)


 * One of the ideas about the wiki was to get people to explore the wiki more, to see more of than the TV story pages or whatever people were coming to look for.
 * So, I guess reading through I've kinda flipped a little on my perspective by Scrooge MacDuck's recent comment. That if there's a summary, then that will stop people actively exploring more of the wiki, and that includes a sub-page.
 * We also need to look to not creating more work for ourselves, we don't want to have to be writing a sub-page and a summary of that page. As has been noted there's some sections still not written on old pages. And needing to write a summary of a subpage is going to introduce inaccuracies, or at the very least a conflict as the two pages get edited / linked at different rates. —Tangerineduel / talk 01:50, 12 January 2023 (UTC)


 * To be completely frank, the idea that “leading users to explore the wiki more deeply” is (1) a central premise of the Wiki and (2) that such a premise would outrank healthy UX practices as a matter of priority boggles the mind. The Wiki should be a resource of information —-it’s top priority should be giving readers relevant information in a deep yet succinct form, not to make users linger here longer. An approach that centers TARDIS Wiki as a creative writing project first and a resource for readers second is deeply problematic. I think that we as editors sometimes need to step back and think about what priorities the de facto Official Doctor Who Wiki should have. NoNotTheMemes ☎  07:44, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

The more I think about it the more I like it. Tangerine's arguments in particular are quite convincing. Put me down for "don't implement summaries at all for the time being while still creating subpages, and if we figure out a way to do so in a way we can all agree upon at the resolution of the T:NPOV thread we can instate the summaries then." Sorry Nate, I'm sure this goes against your intent with the proposal here. But the issue of summary/subpage discrepancy is a really great argument Tangerine makes. It then comes down to whether we create the subpages for biographies or not. I'm still okay with not doing so at all, but encouraging users to get into the habit of exploring is exactly what I want to do. Najawin ☎  04:21, 12 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've thought about this a bit and don't have a definite "answer", but here's my thoughts:


 * Kind of addressing Tangerine's concerns, I thought that the summaries would/should give the bare minimum of the section to answer a question (more on that in a moment), but if the reader wants to know anything more than an overview, they should be incentivized to click the subpage. This might sound a bit silly, but I think for a character biography, the summary should be what they did with their life and the biography what they did in their life.


 * I know what you're probably thinking— the similarity between lead sections has been mentioned. I actually think a fair amount of character leads would do better to be shortened and adapted into biography summaries. Here comes the "question" I meant. I would say the lead should (concisely) answer "who is the character", and the biography summary should answer "what is the character's history". The former question certainly includes and necessitates some aspects of the latter, especially for major characters, but there qre some that I think focus too much on it. Examples of just a few major character pages that I personally think do a good job of this at a glance: Seventh Doctor, Martha Jones, Davros (though perhaps could be shortened) and in fact all the newly split Master pages. Some that I think are a bit too biographical (and long) to answer "who are they": Thirteenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, River Song, and Bernice Summerfield. It's not just biographical/historical focus that can dominate; sometimes it's something better suited for another section like personality or even trivia. I've also noticed a great portion of a lead might be dedicated to listing every possible name for the subject, like at Time Lord. Don't be afraid to make a section for that either— I'm rather proud of what I did about it recently over at N-Space.


 * Although as we well know, their pages are much different than ours in some respects, has a useful tip: " As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate, although it is common for citations to appear in the body, and not the lead." This is aptly from the page's own lead, and the guide is extremely detailed. (Also, did you know we have the comparably pithy T:LEADS? I didn't until now. Maybe we can work on that as part of this.)


 * Unfortunately, I currently lack the energy to create a more in-depth proposal right now, and I also don't want to in case my idea is too different from others. But my suggestion is that because the idea of subpages affects the flow of a page, we should preserve this flow by looking at each section of a page as answering a question. The summary tells you a basic, general overview, but if you want details, you should be actually inclined to visit the subpage. Another suggestion I have is to potentially base biography section summaries off the section headers of the actual biography. What do you all think of this lump of ideas? Chubby Potato ☎  07:48, 12 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Scrooge MacDuck, you wrote, "if there's a 'perfectly good' limited summary on the main page, people are quite liable to never check out the full-length /Biography version." Indeed, both proposals for the "Writing a summary" section already say, "Like a lead paragraph, a well-written summary should 'lead' its readers to want to learn more, whether that means clicking through to the subpage or actually experiencing the stories in question." I don't see what else needs to be said; limiting our summaries beyond this line would begin to compromise our higher-order priorities as a wiki, as NoNotTheMemes insightfully pointed out above.


 * Chubby Potato, I agree with everything you've said here, down to moving names from leads to a "Names" section – I suggested the same thing above, citing Aliases of the Doctor, without any idea that such a thing already existed on N-Space. And I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I'd forgotten T:LEADS existed! Your formulation of "a section as the answer to the question posed by its header" is elegantly phrased and, as a principle, describes our current practices very aptly – in fact, its explicit adoption would lead to so few implications outside of precedent (by my reckoning, none!) that I wouldn't be surprised if it could be officially adopted without a forum thread, similarly to the process which gave us T:MERGE. Codifying that would go a long way towards clearing up the dispute in this thread, and it's a compelling next step, even if surely it can't be accomplished within the 3 week allotment. Until we can sort it out, I can accept Scrooge's suggestion of "no bio summaries" in the meantime. – n8 (☎) 23:05, 12 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Something I haven't seen mentioned, and I just thought about it, what does this proposal do for our SEO? I seem to recall Czech killing a few proposals because they would futz with our SEO. (In particular, moving everything to a biography page sans summary might do this.) Najawin ☎  22:06, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Take a look at the very beginning of Nate's proposal, it does address this. Subpages are encouraged by Fandom for this reason (and others). I know of some wikis which are, in my opinion, overly dependent on subpages (and sub-subpages, etc), and they come up fine on Google, and make it easier to find specific information. Chubby Potato ☎  23:04, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I did miss the quote. With that said, per the source Nate's grabbing from:


 * If a single section would make a good book chapter with an unambiguous title, it can usually safely be split off. There's no problem with leaving behind a "CliffsNotes" summary of the essentials, and going into deep detail on another page.

This was my main concern SEO-wise, doing a biography subpage and leaving nothing behind. We could ask Spongebob? Najawin ☎  23:25, 16 January 2023 (UTC)