Forum:Why do prefixes link as they do?

Theoretical questions
What's the rationale for prefixes not linking to the actual pages for the series which they abbreviate? On MemoryAlpha or the BionicWiki, for instance, when you link to the prefix TNG or SMDM, it takes you to the main page for those two series. It doesn't take you to an intermediate, stubby page that explains what the acronym means. Is there a particular utility to the way we do things here? I'm not sure I see it — especially since we have so many different series to which we link.  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍


 * In some cases the prefix actually stands for a group of similar things such as the DWM and DWMS prefixes stand for both the comics and short stories etc. So linking to the Doctor Who Magazine page wouldn't be an adequate description of what it actually is about. In the case of Memory Alpha the TNG link takes you to the TV series article (but I struggled to find any of the TNG novels, and in the end just searched fir 'novels'). The various prefixes should have links out to the pages like the comics and short stories (I say should because many of the prefix pages are created quickly by various users). --Tangerineduel 14:44, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks for clearing that up. As for your problems with finding novels on MemAlpha, that makes sense, because MemAlpha doesn't cover the nevels with in-universe articles.  They cover the articles only to the extent that they catalogue their existence.  MemAlpha (I think quite wisely) is only for what Paramount considers canon, and therefore considers novels as merchandise, not narrative sources.  They leave it to MemBeta to handle the narrative "history" of those novels, although they do allow some intra-wiki links.   Czech Out   ☎ | ✍  03:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Whoa. I think I read ya wrong.  I thought you were saying that the prefixes should link to the main pages, but they haven't because they were a quick and dirty way for the site to be built.  But that's not actually what you said upon a re-read. Are you saying you don't think it's a good idea to make all of them link to the main page, except for those which may be ambiguous?  I can quite understand, for example, of the short stories vs. comics in DWM.   But is there a harm in making TW link to Torchwood or DW link to Doctor Who?   Czech Out   ☎ | ✍  05:26, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, there is, as it sort of sends a double message that some links go to the pages and others don't. I think to keep it consistent and logical we should maintain the system we have at the moment, at least right through the prefix system it ad hears to a logic. --Tangerineduel 13:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Eleventh Doctor Adventures
A new concern with this system is what's going to happen once we start getting Eleventh Doctor novels going. Then, EDA will be quite confusing. We might want to start thinking now of how we're going to fix this, as EDA has somewhere between 500 and 1000 entries in its "What links here?" list already. Might I suggest we create new prefixes for these novel ranges using actual numerals? 9DA, 10DA, 11DA, perhaps? And, a simple move isn't going to do the trick, because that'll just leave behind <1000 instances of linked EDAs all over the place, without in any way preventing the further use of that confusing prefix. We're gonna need a bot to clean it all up quickly. If I knew how to write such a bot, I'd take care of it right away, but my skills don't extend that far, I'm afraid.  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  01:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Urgh. Why did this have to become a problem? Well...a 1000 isn't that many things to change. (It's certainly possible, I've done it, all those Unsorted images didn't sort and add templates themselves, it's just mildly mind-numbing to do so).
 * I'd rather not change EDA to 8DA (and the others etc).
 * I don't suppose we could just have 11DA for the Eleventh Doctor Adventures and leave the rest as they are? (I say that with a hopeful tone in my voice).
 * At the moment I can't think of any other alternatives than going for numerals, unless we have a mix of numerals and alphabetical based prefixes. Which would be okay, but not all too logical for EDA/11DA.
 * I also don't have the programming skills to even attempt to create a bot for the task. (But as mentioned it's not a gigantic task, just mildly mind-numbing.) --Tangerineduel 14:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I think we should wait to do anything. Have we gotten confirmation that they will be called the Eleventh Doctor Adventures?  If not, then there's no issue.  I mean, the Past Adventure books and other books that deal with the First Doctor aren't called FDAs, and neither are the Fourth Doctor stories.  --TheOmnius 03:51, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm completely in favour of waiting.
 * That said if it does come down to it I forsee a lot of editors moving the EDA page around (attempting) to fix a problem that can't be fixed easily with a move as CzechOut has said.
 * Though going on past form the BBC will no doubt release something in prose fiction form for the Eleventh Doctor, so while waiting and ignoring it preferable I'm concerned something may need to be done. --Tangerineduel 15:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Wait if you want, but it's still gonna have to be done, and the longer you wait, the harder it'll be.


 * Are "Tenth Doctor Adventures" and "Ninth Doctor Adventures" official BBC terms? I was always given to understand that just something we developed for this site.  The Wikipedia page calls both the NDAs and TDAs "New Series Adventures".  I'm not sure I've ever seen an official name of the range actually printed on the books.


 * Oh, snap! That's the answer.  Use the Wikipedia name.   Call them all NSAs.  They've already had a wide-ranging discussion for us three years ago. Heh, they saw all this coming 3 years ago, but I guess it was pretty obvious, even back then.   Here's the archive of the final decision to merge it all to NSA, with a little bit of insight into how they actually accomplished it.  No instructions about using a bot, sadly.  Czech Out   ☎ | ✍  20:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Based on the previous section, I propose a vote to merge NDA and TDA into NSA and Ninth Doctor Adventures and Tenth Doctor Adventures into New Series Adventures, with the implication being that future Eleventh Doctor novels will also be so linked.

Agree

 * Per above,  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  20:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure. Just looking at the books themselves, there doesn't seem to be any difference between the Ninth Doctor and Tenth Doctor lines. -<Azes13 21:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've been under the impression that NSA is the official series name. I'm fine with using this proposal - but not until AFTER the books come out.  We could just create more work for ourselves if they give the series a different name.--TheOmnius 02:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Both the Discontinuity Guide and the DW Reference guide online call them New Series novels or New Series books... Seems like an elegant solution to me. - Monkey with a Gun 06:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, I agree and suggest we go ahead now rather than waiting. The sooner we do the switchover the less work there'll be in the long run, probably. --Tangerineduel 14:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I totally agree. We could just call the page New Series Adventures Matta jr 10:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Merger complete
I've merged both the Ninth and Tenth Doctor pages (and their histories) into the New Series Adventures article, in keeping with the others it is named BBC New Series Adventures. I've done a (very) quick edit of the article, but it probably needs going over with more attention.

I've also merged the TDA and NDAs into NSA. --Tangerineduel 16:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Doctor Who Adventures vs. Doctor Who annuals
Wow, this is a confusing. I would never intuitively guess that DWAM refers to Doctor Who Adventures, because there's no "M" anywhere in the title. We've just completely stuck on the word "Magazine" in order to justify the acronym. It should just be DWA, like the acronym used for individual issues (DWA Issue 34, for instance). But DWA is being used for stories from annuals — even though it applies to annuals that aren't necessarily Doctor Who Annuals or Doctor Who books that aren't nominal annuals so much as "once-yearly" publications. It seems to me that this is a more reasonable course:

'''Propose moving DWA to ANN, then moving DWAM to DWA, then deleting DWAM. This should be a relatively easy fix, as there are currently less than 100 uses of DWA and less than 25 uses of DWAM.   Czech Out ''' ☎ | ✍  13:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

 * I understand everything except what ANN stands for. --Tangerineduel 14:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ANNual  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  15:54, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh....I think we need to work on that. As you say it doesn't just apply to annuals. DWASY (Doctor Who Annual, Storybook, Yearly) perhaps? I'd like to have the DW on there as I think there's a Torchwood Annual lurking around somewhere and possibly in the future there may be a SJA (or is there and I've missed it?) anyways we should future proof so we don't have to go through the mind numbing process of changing 3 letters on 50+ pages (which I've begun for TDA/NDA to NSA). --Tangerineduel 16:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not wedded to the acronym ANN absolutely. However, if you look at the DWA page, it's clear that it's meant to be used for stuff that's not just DW.  It specifically lists Dalek Annuals and K-9 Annuals.  So either "DW" really shouldn't be in the prefix, or we're going to have to come up with unique prefixes for every type of annual.  I'm not hugely thrilled at the prospect of ANN, but it is possible to write the language of the page so that it's clear it stands for any sort of "annual publication".  That way, you sort of avoid the distinction between year books, story books and annuals buy saying, "Anything that's published once a year is covered by this prefix".    Indeed, if you look at the main page (Doctor Who Annual), that's the approach the authors have taken.  That said, it sounds like you're saying you disagree with the current wording at DWA.  Are you saying you don't want it to include spinoff annuals, and that you therefore want to create unique prefixes for each strain of annual publication?   Czech Out   ☎ | ✍  16:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)


 * No. Probably not, now that I've thought about it. I just don't really like ANN as a prefix as it's a contraction rather than an acronym. How about AYS (Annuals, Yearlies Storybooks)? I know I'm obsessing over a very minor thing, but practically all the other prefixes are acronyms and it's nice to have a continuous logic running through. We can have it counting for all the spinoffs and everything, there aren't that many publication it makes sense to group them all together, for now. --Tangerineduel 16:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * For something like this how are the edits handled on all of the different pages that currently point to DWA for the Annuals? I'm working through the 1966 Annual and just want to know if I'll need to go back through and hit the different articles I've edited.  --Raukodraug 18:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In a sense, I suppose I feel "anything but DWA".  AYS could work, I suppose, although it's not particularly "natural".  In a way, it seems more obscure than ANN, because it presupposes the reader will know there are "Yearbooks" and "Storybooks".  I take your point about consistently wanting them to be acronyms, but would point out that TW, TWN, TWM, TS, WC and WEB aren't strictly acronyms, as Torchwood, Tardisode, webcast and website are all one-word nouns.  (Not, of course, that I'm suggesting they need be changed.  Well, I take that back.  WEB makes a little more sense as SITE so as to avoid confusion with webcast.  But I digress.)


 * I guess what I'm saying is that if you feel strongly that AYS makes greater sense, be my guest. The only thing I really care about is that DWA most naturally means Doctor Who Adventures.  Here's an alternative to consider, though.  AP, meaning Annual Publication is another possible acronym, which has only the relatively minor drawback of evoking Associated Press.  Would novice users even think for a moment that could possibly mean we were quoting a real life news organization, though?


 * As to Raukodraug's point, yes, ultimately all current references to DWA (meaning, stuff from an annual publication) will have to be recoded manually. It's a pain.  But, again, there aren't that many references yet.   Czech Out   ☎ | ✍  05:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes I'd rather AYS, fine it presumes some prior knowledge, but by clicking on it you'd be enlightened and it just feels like a more logical thing (if/when it's clicked on and then you see it means 'Annuals, Yearbooks, Storybooks').
 * Annual Publication is a maybe, but we might have people using it for stuff that DWM churns out (often yearly) usually some sort of special in addition to the Doctor Who Magazine. --Tangerineduel 15:47, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Just let me know when this goes into effect and I'll get started on the corrections. --Raukodraug 16:26, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, AYS it is then.


 * Now here's another point.  The list of prefixes page, but not the TVC page, asserted until ten minutes ago that TVC meant comic or prose stories printed in TVC.  Well, this reference to prose stories can't mean individual issues of TVC.  There's no prose at all in TVC "proper".  So it seems to imply the TVC Annuals.  Personally, I'm dubious of the existence of them even in these books,  Still, the implication was that TVC should be used for stories printed in either the issues or the annuals.  But the current text at the annual prefix page and the Doctor Who Annual page itself lumps in TVC Annuals.  This would seem to imply that you have a choice of abbreviations for material in TVC comic annuals; either you can use TVC or AYS. I can't imagine we want that kind of ambiguity.


 * At the moment it's totally an academic question, because no individual TVC Annual has a page yet. But as we build for the future, we need to make up our minds which way to go.  Personally, I think the fact that DW material is so scant in the totality of TVC output, that we wouldn't want to use AYS for comic stories in TVC annuals.   I'd think we'd move Doctor Who Annual to TV Comic Annuals, and then site the stories therein with TVC or maybe start the wholly new acronym, TVCA?  Then, on the AYS page, just to make things extra clear, we'd say that AYS stands for an annual publication wherein the majority of the material focuses on a Whoniverse topic, and then give a disambig line to TVC/TVCA and TVA/TVAA for information about their annuals.


 * As an aside, I should also point out that not every TVC Annual actually had Doctor Who strips — because, of course, Pertwee strips were in TV Actions annuals. At some point, that Cover Images gallery should be whittled down to just those with DW stories (i.e. 1966-71, 1975-79).      Czech Out '  ☎ | ✍  21:11, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree

 *  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  13:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC), per above.

Polystyle, The Incredible Hulk Presents comics
Okay, I know I'm just on a prefix rant here, and please don't think I'm just trying to make a lot of mind-numbing work. I'm genuinely confused. TVC is supposed to mean stuff from TV Comic, Countdown and TV Action? Why? They're different publications with different target audiences. (Also, despite what the article says, Countdown was actually distinct from TV Action; the name changes weren't simply whimsical or insignificant; the format of the mag actually changed as the name did.)

I think we should at least have TVC and TVA, provided the TVA article is re-written to explain the Countdown phenomenon. Third Doctor comics are an entirely different kettle of fish to the First and Second Doctor stuff, in that they generally observed what most would consider the tone and continuity of the TV show at the time. Most of the John and Gillian Who [I swear to God, that's their last names! (DWCC: "Beware the Trods!")] nonsense you kinda have to take with a grain of salt if you're an adult, cause it was written for wee children. Countdown/TVA stuff approaches the level of DWM comics, in that you can believe it might well have happened to the Doctor you saw on television. I mean, the Brig's in Countdown, as are Liz Shaw, references to both sides of the Exile on Earth, the Time Lords, etc.

I wish we had a "Stripped for Action" documentary on a Third Doctor DVD to illustrate the point more clearly. But the long and short of it is they are different publications, with different numbering schemes, meaning that each should get their own prefix. It's kinda weird to me that DWCC gets its own prefix — when it contained no original comic material ("Beware the Trods!" is prose) — but we're denying separate reference to one of the publications that made Doctor Who Classic Comics possible in the first place.

On a secondary note, we also need a prefix for The Incredible Hulk Presents comics, as well. Luckily, there doesn't appear to be much need to change prefixes; it just needs to be started (unless, of course, someone has mistakenly referenced these as DWCC or DWM] comics. How does IHP grab you?   Czech Out   ☎ | ✍  06:28, 9 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with having TVC and TVA.
 * Really? John and Gillian's last names are 'Who' they say that in a comic strip? Shouldn't we move their article then to their 'proper names'?
 * IHP is also fine. --Tangerineduel 16:16, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's a one-page piece of prose fiction, in the form of an in-universe memo from "Professor John Who" at Zebadee University (the university in which the Doctor enrolls John and Gillian in TVC "Invasion of the Quarks") to the head of the Space Security Service. According to the text, Sara Kingdom had come across an abandoned spacecraft and sent the video back to her boss at SSS headquarters.  He, in turn, shunted the video to the "expert" at Zebadee.  John analyzes the information and sends a report back to Sara's SSS boss, saying, basically, "Run like hell, you have NO idea what you're up against."


 * The piece was likely, but not confirmably, written by John Freeman, and is one of the few pieces of fiction to originate in DWCC. (Actually, it might be the only new fiction in DWCC, now that I think about it.)  Basically, it served as the introduction to the Trod-themed issue.


 * Now, as to whether that's really their last name, I suppose you'd have a debate on your hands. It makes sense, given that in the strips in which they appear, the central hero's in-narrative name is "Dr Who", and they are said to be his real grandfather.  Certainly the fact that the TVC First Doctor takes pride in John's victory at a track meet (TVC: "The Galaxy Games") and then the TVC Second Doctor ships the pair off to college makes it feel like there's a genuine familial pride there.  So if his name is "Who" then their name could logically be "Who" as well.  It's the only name we have for them in any piece of fiction.  On the other hand, the two do eventually stop calling him "grandfather".  And in their farewell they oddly call him "Doctor" instead of "grandfather".


 * Still, if you accept "The Land of Happy Endings"' conclusion that Dr Who is a dream of the Doctor, then, yeah, their last names are "Who". Within the DWM continuity — which is usually recognized as more authoritative than TVC — John and Gillian are definitely the grandchildren of "Dr Who".  If, on the other hand, you're treating early TVC stuff as an actual part of the First Doctor and early Second Doctor's history, then you're more likely to believe that "Dr Who" is a continuity error, as in The War Machines.  Thus, I think you'd have a hard time diggin' the "Professor John Who" bit.  You can accept some of the less ridiculous strips of that era into "real" continuity if you just go on thinking they had no last names and ignore Lungbarrow.


 * Not sure if that really answers the question, "should we change the article names to John Who and Gillian Who?" For me, the answer's no, simply because this one-page story is incredibly obscure.  They are overwhelmingly known as "John and Gillian".  I do think the articles should be merged to John and Gillian, though.  There's not enough information on them as individuals to justify having two articles.  And it's a hell of a lot of typing to type  John (comic strips) and Gillian (comic strips) , when you could just type  John and Gillian  and be done with it.  This little memo thingie is the only piece of fiction in which one appears and the other doesn't.
 * While we're on the subject, I suppose I should mention for completeness that there are "John Brent" and "Gillian Roberts" from Kim Newman's novella Time and Relative, but these are not purported to be the actual John and Gillian. Rather, they're classmates of Susan at Coal Hill School, which makes them too old to be the TVC John and Gillian.  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  18:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

BFA
While there's an active dialogue about prefixes; this would probably cause endless amount of work, but it's something that's irritated me a little bit for a while. If you look at the Tardis:List of prefixes all the other prefixes reference the series they're prefixes of. Except of course BFA, which we use for all the Doctor Who Audio Dramas. I know this one came first, but...in theory it should be BFADW or BFDW. Or am I just obsessing over nothing? --Tangerineduel 16:18, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Besides that, there's not a prefix for the Cyberman or UNIT series. I was going to edit the BFA page's description so it said Big Finish Doctor Who Audio Dramas but then I realized I would have to also write "excluding Doctor Who Unbound which is on the same page and including Cyberman (audio series) and U.N.I.T. (audio series) which are on the Big Finish Doctor Who Audio Spin-offs page!"--Nyktimos 00:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose the question you have to ask yourself is not whether you're obsessing over nothing, but rather whether perfect symmetry of acronyms is really worth the workload necessary to achieve it. This move, it seems to me, is more work than any of the changes we've recently bandied about.  There are between 500 and 1000 instances of BFA on the wiki.  If we could get a robot for this stuff, I'd say, sure go ahead.  But if you're talking about manual changes, not even I would have the temerity to suggest this change.


 * Another thought: BFADW might create unnecessary confusion with the other change you'd have make: DWU to BFDWU.  I myself like BFA.  It seems to be well-established.  Editors are — except where no other acronym exists — seemingly correctly using it to identify just those things from the main DW range.  (BFA is currently being used to identify UNIT audio plays, for example, but that's because there is no UNIT acronym.)  Part of the reason for this, I suspect, is wide acceptance of this acronym across various sources.  It actually is what the majority of fans across the web are using.


 * Personally, if I were to contemplate a change in this area, it would be to eliminate the "BF" from all the other BF ranges. BFSJS makes my skin crawl, for instance.  It should be just SJS.  BFDE should be just DE.  The problem with these BF prefixes is that they're just too damn long. It's completely unnecessary to add "BF" before these names.   There's not another Gallifrey series but the Big Finish one, so you can safely move that to just G.  The only series in the entire BF output for which an argument an be constructed for a five-letter acronym is UNIT.  Obviously, the link can't just be UNIT, because that properly takes you to the organization's page.  So UNITA or UNITBF are disagreeable, but understandable.  (Still, I'd prefer UA, since UNIT itself is no longer strictly an acronym.)


 * I think you'd make fewer total manual edits if you were to change the other prefixes than if you attempted to change BFA.


 * To add to Nyktimos' list, we also need a prefix — CC — for The Companion Chronicles.  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍  15:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)