User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-4028641-20150917235441/@comment-4028641-20151005032200

The concept that stories being valid can relay entirely on if they are set within our Doctor Who universe or if they feature characters from our universe is an interesting one, which of coarse quickly begins to collapse like swiss cheese being poked by a child.

The problem is that we do occasionally allow pages on this wikia which are not meant to be set within our universe, but are still valid stories. "Yes," you retort, "but all of those feature characters from our universe. So they are DWU centered." At first gland, that might appear true, but there are exceptions.

Imagine, for instance, there was a prequel to stories featuring universe hopping which were set in the alternate universes. A prequel to Inferno or Battlefield set in the "other world" without hints of the Doctor or his universe. That's not a theoretical example, we do have a story like that: Tardisode 5. Set in Pete's World, it featured Ricky Smith as its only main character. That's not the only example either -- Prelude Blood Heat is also like this. Then there's The Infinity Doctors, set in an alternate timeline according to our policies. Those are just a few examples, but there are many.

In fact, the Doctor Who Unbound series came very close to being valid on this wikia. There is a Doctor Who Sixth Doctor audio, The 100 Days of the Doctor, which featured a mention of one of the Unbound Doctors by the Sixth Doctor after he and Evelyn accidentally slip into an alternate universe. At the time of the discussion, it was not known if this scene was actually depicted, and it was agreed that if it was, that meant that every Doctor and story in the series had to be "alternate universes" instead of "invalid." As it was just a throwaway line in the end, our policies did not change. Despite this, that shows the thin line here: something can be set in an alternate universe and still be valid on this wikia, and there is a strong difference between an invalid and "alternate universe." In fact, you could argue that the Cushing Doctor, the Unbound Doctors, the Curse of Fatal Death Doctors, and the Shalka Doctor are all one Titan Comics cameo away from being "valid" sources (which would be a game changer as our "invalid" template features an image from one of those stories).

Furthermore, and this is an important note, not all of our invalid stories are the way they are because of their universal classification. It is pretty clear that Shada, P.S., Worlds in Time, The Dark Dimension, The Monsters Are Coming!, Whoisdoctorwho.co.uk, Dr Who and the Turgids, Mission to Venus, Judoon Monsoon and even some of the #WeLoveTitans comics are clearly meant to be set inside the Doctor Who Universe. They're not alternative timelines or dimensions, few of them were disqualified due to story, and all of them are invalid and thus marked by the prefix proclaiming that they are not set within the Doctor Who Universe.

Let me repeat that one more time. Our policy states that there is no Doctor Who canon. We don't care about if something is "canon" or "non-canon" or contradictory or silly or old -- it's all about if it's a valid story or not. We don't argue if something fits inside the universe, because that's not our bother and we will never have the answers. That's something that fans themselves have to decide for themselves.

And yet our prefix loudly declares "this isn't set in the DWU. We decided this, we know better than you." And that's the opposite of our policy, what we've worked for years to back away from. So let's change it.