Board Thread:The Reference Desk/@comment-5959773-20130106175347/@comment-188432-20130107203722

Theband65 wrote: Yeah I figured it'd be something along those lines. Just figured I'd ask anyway though. I didn't even know that canon was such a gray area in the Doctor Who universe. Are there some mediums (audio, comics, novels etc) that are more often accepted as canon as opposed to other mediums (excluding the TV show)? Or is asking that question essentially opening up Pandora's box amongst the fans?

My last question is just a clarification of what you guys are telling me. So what I'm understanding is that if you were able to determine what you personally considered canon you could create a "comprehensive timeline" of the Doctor's stories. However it would only be accurate to a certain extent because of the lack of chronological evidence.

Thanks again! Canons definitionally require an authority that cares about defining certain works as "true" and others as "apocrypha". The authority in the case of Doctor Who is the BBC, who have, on most occasions, denied the existence of a canon. It's not just that they have been silent — both Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat have flatly said there is no canon. Hence there can't be a "Doctor Who canon".

This leaves it up to the individual to decide what they want. As to whether there's a "standard" way of thinking about canon, well, yeah, that's opening up a can o' worms. You'll find some that believe the TV stories alone are canon, all performed Who is canon, everything but comics are canon, and tons of different permutations in between.

That's why this wiki doesn't even dabble in canon. Our rules and guidelines only speak to that which we consider a valid source for writing our articles. We don't assert authority, merely manageability, as a guideline. We don't say you have to believe in any particular notion of canon, but we do insist upon a certain "radius of coverage", so that our wiki can have practical, manageable borders.

(It's been a struggle for us making this distinction, though, since we pre-date the BBC Wales revival and the post-Human Nature, Cornell-led backlash in DW fandom against canon. Thus, though we are officially opposed to canon — i.e. T:CAN — you will find the word cropping up in our discussions a lot.)

If you're new to the whole concept of canon and Doctor Who, you might find this blog post instructive and fairly comprehensive.