Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-4028641-20151008023030/@comment-25041817-20191107161719

Schreibenheimer wrote: This is all great discussion, but I believe we all agreed that assigning numbering to the incarnations is impossible. So, in terms of the topic of this thread, we just need to figure out how to separate and label the incarnations on the template, and, honestly, I think it's mostly good as it is.

We have no idea if the Master ever regenerated before leaving Gallifrey, so grouping those appearances as "Early Life" makes sense. Then we have Dreyfus' Master, who could possibly be grouped with "Early Life", but we have no in-universe evidence of him being the First Master, so I would leave it as it is.

War Chief has already been decided to be a debate for another thread, so we'll move right past that one. Next is Delgado, wherever he falls in the numbering.

The original focus of the debate was on this next part. As stated above, I believe the template should follow the consistent narrative presented by most sources, and that we shouldn't let a single conflicting source force us to label everything as "Uncertain". I repeat my opinion that all sources are equally valid, but one source is not equal to many, at least in terms of structuring the wiki. So I support the next section continuing to be "Pratt" (unless we want to change it to "Pratt/Beevers"). "Pratt" eventually becomes "Ainley".

If any section deserves to be "Uncertain", I would say it's the next one, because "Dust Breeding" and First Frontier both feature the Master losing his Trakenite body. I like the order they are in currently, though; if you're going to bend over backwards and fit both stories into one narrative, you can interpret it that "Dust Breeding" merely damaged the body, it was healed. . . somehow, and it regenerated in First Frontier, so I'm good with putting "John Smith" before "VNA".

It's unclear if Gordon Tipple is supposed to be the Tzun Master or an unexplained incarnation, so I'm good with the next section being "Roberts". "Day of the Master" finally gave us a consistent narrative here, so we know "Mastermind" comes next, then "Macqueen", "Titan", "Jacobi," "Simm," and "Gomez" is generally free from debate.

Here, here.