Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-26975268-20130201045831/@comment-188432-20130219025816

Well, look, I'm probably not going to be able to give you a rule that fits in every case. But if a person has risen to great heights in different departments, go ahead and give the highest credit in each department.. There aren't too many people like Gatiss. So there's little problem calling him "writer and actor Mark Gatiss". That's fine.

The issue with D'Oyly-John is that all those credits were from a single department.

Just use your best judgment. Is it sensible to say, "production assistant, location manager and director Graeme Harper"? No, he's just "director Graeme Harper". Is it "prose author and television writer Russell T Davies"? No, it's just "show runner Russell T Davies" (or, if you're talking about him in connection with Torchwood or The Sarah Jane Adventures only, then it's "creator Russell T Davies").

You shouldn't have too much problem with this, because I doubt we really have too many people at D'Oyly-John's level on day of the week pages.

That observation sparks the questions, "How senior do you have to be to get noted on a day page? Are we doing to start noting the birts and deaths of practical electricians?  Cyfle trainees? I mean, where does it end?"

And those questions make me think, well, why should we have births and deaths on day of the year pages — at all? Why not just have the info at real world birthdays and be done with it? I'm not really seeing the advantage of noting birthdays on these day pages at all.

I mean, fine, keep the real world birthdays and real world deaths pages for those who really are into that minutiae. But let's keep 1 January (real world) for genuine production information. After all, the day of someone's birth is not actually relevant to the production of Doctor Who, is it?