Forum:Who counts as a companion?

Obviously, there's no official definition of companion, and there's no way we're going to come up with any definition here that isn't at least somewhat vague, but it would be nice to have some kind of semi-official discussion that people can refer to, and maybe a place to discuss whether people count.

The article List of companions has a section for "disputed companions", but that doesn't really help. That just means we need to draw _two_ lines, one between disputed and official and another between disputed and not at all. Some of the people on this list seem pretty questionable. Is Borusa or Rodan really any more of a companion than, say, Ida Scott? Why is Adelaide Brooke more of a companion than Jackson Lake? Just because Sarah Jane's companions and Jack's team appear on Doctor Who, does that make them companions of the Doctor? And so on.

While we're at it, it would also be nice to have some guidelines for what it takes to add a companion. It seems like you need (at least) the following steps: Anything else? --Falcotron 07:13, May 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Add the category and template for the appropriate Doctor to their page.
 * Add them to the template.
 * Add them to List of companions, either in the top section or in the disputed section, as appropriate.
 * If they're not disputed, add them to the set of pictures at the top of Companion.

One more issue: includes, with one exception, all, and only, companions of non-canonical Doctors, not companions from non-canonical appearances of canonical Doctors. For example, the robot Master and Alison from Shalka are included, but Claudia Sermbezis's character from the Extras special and the kid from A Fix with Sontarans aren't. The one exception is The Viewer (who CzechOut has, I think rightly, argued needs to be deleted). (I don't mean that the viewer himself needs to be deleted--if you kill all the golfers, they're gonna lock you up--but rather the article.) --Falcotron 07:52, May 23, 2010 (UTC)