Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-24180601-20160628222102/@comment-28349479-20170526171640

I think it's important to clarify that we're dealing with different-yet-similar-looking words here: the pages are Masksmaster, the Pageant, and Maskmakers of the Pageant. Masksmaster =/= Maskmaker.

A large portion of this confusion comes from the fact that the text just isn't at all clear what the Pageant is. Its members are identified as aliens, and it's said that they come from outside this dimension, but it's never made clear whether they're a species or a group. Their members aren't described physically, and when they are, it's in the context of the masks and clothes they're wearing, which doesn't really help. They have some human agents, but they're clearly differentiated as agents, rather than members of the Pageant themselves. This ambiguity is reflected on the articles, hence the "Other dimension species" / "Time-active faction" category discrepancy.

You're right that "Masksmaster" is a title: one character introduces himself as "Robin Goodfellow, an artist-scientist of the Pageant, Masksmaster of Project Orbis Tertius." At another point, he's called "Masksmaster Goodfellow" by another member of the Pageant. Of course, as you argue, I wouldn't want the page for Masksmaster to be merged into either of the other pages, since it's a rank clearly separate from the rest of the Pageant.

However, "Maskmaker" is never used in The Man in the Velvet Mask. The Quantum Archangel peripherally mentions "Maskmakers of the Pageant" in a list of groups who traveled in time to help with the Millennium War. All of these groups (eg the Ministers of Grace and Faction Paradox) had previously appeared in Doctor Who stories; it's safe to say that the Maskmakers of the Pageant are definitely related to the Pageant from Man in the Velvet Mask. (I'd hazard a guess that "Maskmaker" is a typo of "Masksmaster", but we have to work with what we're given.)

If Quantum Archangel had instead said "Maskmakers of Faction Paradox" we'd obviously be like, "Oh, duh, the Maskmakers are a part of Faction Paradox," and we'd never make a page called Maskmakers of Faction Paradox: maybe Maskmaker, but more likely it would just be merged into Faction Paradox, since literally the only thing we know about the Maskmakers is that they're part of Faction Paradox. Replace "Faction Paradox" with "the Pageant", and there's my logic for making the merger suggestion.

I suppose, instead of a merger, I'd settle for a rename of Maskmakers of the Pageant to Maskmaker, leaving their identification as part of the Pageant in the text of the article. I'll add a rename template.