Tardis talk:Canon policy

Star Trek
I don't think this is solely owned by CBS - what about the Paramount movies? --Silent Hunter UK ☎  13:47, June 22, 2013 (UTC)

I think CBS created it, and then after the original series was over Paramount bought it and created the movies and later series. Also, why are non-narrative things not sources? Am I asking in the right place? CloneMarshalCommanderCody ☎  20:11, July 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * You are asking in the wrong place, but it's not your fault. A while back, when someone wanted to describe what the wiki means by "non-narrative", they would link to Tardis:Canon policy. I've tried to correct that when I can, but there are still a few links to that page. Nowadays, we link to Tardis:Valid sources, which offers a nice description of why we allow what we allow and why we don't allow what we don't allow. Hope this helps. Shambala108 ☎  20:30, July 26, 2014 (UTC)

Because I'm feeling my A-type personality tonight, just to correct the above, Star Trek was created for Desilu Productions, which was bought by Paramount. It has always been a Paramount-owned property, but at some point CBS ended up being connected to Paramount, so as a result CBS now has a piece of the action which is why the new Discovery series will air on a CBS network. But Paramount has always owned the various TV series and the movies. There, I feel better now! 23skidoo ☎  01:27, June 23, 2017 (UTC)

Boundaries of "non-narrative"
Hello! I'm rather new on this Wiki, but I have been perusing the various canon policies and related debate, and found in no uncertain terms that, say, a "press article" about the Doctor's exploits, written in an in-universe style, would not constitute a valid source even if published by the BBC. After lengthy research into the rather large archives of the forums, I was unable to locate any discussion to explain why this is so.

And it seems rather odd to me! For writing a facsimile of an in-universe document (be it a press article, an encyclopedia, or a fragment of a diary entry) is an established literary technique. Most Doctor Who literature is written in good old third-person omniscient, but if a Doctor Who novel about an adventure of the First Doctor were written in first-person and purported to be a lengthy extract of Ian Chesterton's personal diary, say, it would be as much a Doctor Who novel as any other.

Meanwhile, a short story is as valid as a novel, assuming all else (licensing, etc.) is equal. Thus, how is a "fictional press article" about the Doctor out-of-bounds, when it is, for most literary intents and purposes, nothing more than a short story, written in the "facsimile of an in-universe document" style? It's quite baffling to me.

I understand why information on the back of a trading card (another example given of "non-narrative" info that wouldn't be valid) might be disregarded, but what I'm arguing, at the end of the day, is that an in-universe newspaper clipping or encyclopedia is, in fact, a piece of narrative fiction, despite what the wording of the policy seems to imply.--Scrooge MacDuck ☎  22:59, July 10, 2018 (UTC)