Forum:Coverage/validity: A Better World

Opening post
It was recently ruled that charity stories that have commercial licenses for all DWU elements that they use are eligible to be covered as valid sources on this wiki. Based on this, I think that A Better World should be both covered and valid as writer Aristide Twain, better known on this wiki as Scrooge MacDuck, obtained a commercial license from Jayce Black for Auteur and was careful to use veiled stand-ins for any BBC-owned elements. Cgl1999 ☎  21:33, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

 * No.


 * This story uses far too much unlicensed material to even come close to be considered for valid coverage. Shan Shan, the Brigade, Donna Noble, Time Vortex. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎  21:47, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I would like to make a note for the record that I didn't view my closure on that thread as applying to this story — which wasn't technically excluded for being a charity work (which the Gallery wasn't really). If I had, I wouldn't have been within my rights to close it. A better World and the Fan Gallery as a whole were always their own beast. If memory serves the original thread which voted the Fan Gallery off the Wiki left the door open for a Better World inclusion debate, it's only that (very understandably) no one ever got round to it.

And indeed, in my opinion A Better World in its current form probably doesn't belong on the Wiki (as a valid source, anyway — it … would presumably be a source for Auteur/Non-valid sources? — but that's not up to me). I wrote it in the FPesque "thinly-veiled" style as an aesthetic choice, but I was nevertheless labouring under the misconception that the Fan Gallery was BBC-endorsed, and so freely name-dropped a few things which I never would in a purely standalone work. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:52, 19 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I thought that this story might be eligible for coverage if those charity stories were because the page for Auteur says that it was disqualified from coverage due to the Lockdown Fan Gallery being a non-commercial medium of release. Cgl1999 ☎  21:59, 19 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Oh, it's quite understandable. I'm contextualising the arcana, not chiding you for not having realised something obvious! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:03, 19 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It's just that the way you talked about it made it seem like you practically wrote it so that it could be covered by this wiki. Cgl1999 ☎  22:08, 19 August 2023 (UTC)


 * While we're here, let me just note that Corrie's comment above is premised on a misunderstanding we should nip in the bud here and now. It's explicit policy that the IU elements may be in some sense "unlicensed" if they're referred to in a way that they're blurry. See Ceol and Kelsey Hooper. We'd have to talk about Donna being "A Noble Woman", etc etc, instead, but this isn't grounds for disqualification.


 * The issue is, again, that Scrooge thought that this project was BBC approved rather than just something Cook did for people to post fanfic during quarantine, so it changes things a bit. Najawin ☎  22:16, 19 August 2023 (UTC)


 * You don't have to nip anything in the bud regarding what I've "misunderstood". There was no "blurry" reference to Donna, rather the text stated it explicitly. Her first and second names were given in the story - repeatedly, as was "Donna's World". What is so blurry about those clear references? Faction Paradox stories which actually blur the lines, like Ceol, do not go that hard on the reference.


 * Scrooge's misunderstanding that these were for the BBC changes absolutely nothing. He knew at the time of writing that they were fanfiction. Therefore there is no authorial intent for this story to be considered valid. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎  22:29, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

I think there's enough leeway in how it's described that you could easily make a case, your view here is far too extreme. But I wouldn't, and Scrooge himself isn't. Najawin ☎  22:41, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Nah. This story was created with the knowledge that it was fanfiction, there was no authorial intent for it to be valid. The use of unlicensed material is so strong - there's hardly any blurry lines - that there's literally no possibility for a case. This isn't a situation where Ceol Hooper meets up with her old friend Maria (which is ambiguous). This story is literally just a retelling of Turn Left with a few words changed in an attempt to get it covered. This red-headed Donna character (with the name "Noble") being attacked by a beetle of the brigade is not ambiguous in the slightest. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎  22:47, 19 August 2023 (UTC)