User talk:OttselSpy25

<div style="background-color: transparent;	border: 1px dashed #2f2cb8;	color: #000;	margin: 2em 0 1em;	padding: .5em 1em;	vertical-align: middle;       align:center;        width:90%;        line-height:110%;        font-size:95%;	text-align: justify;        -moz-border-radius:10px !important;        -webkit-border-radius:10px !important;         border-radius:10px !important;         -moz-box-shadow:0 0 40px #2f2cb8 !important;         -webkit-box-shadow:0 0 40px #2f2cb8 !important;         box-shadow:0 0 40px #2f2cb8 !important;">

Welcome to the OttselSpy25!

We hope you'll enjoy being a part of our community! If you're new to either us or wiki editing in general, you might want to check out some of these links:
 * Internal pages
 * Help pages
 * Manual of Style
 * Forums
 * Recent changes
 * User page policy


 * External Wikipedia pages
 * How to edit a page
 * Editing, policy, conduct, and structure tutorial
 * Picture tutorial

Remember that you should always sign your comments on talk and vote pages using four tildes like this:  ~

Thanks for becoming a member of the TARDIS crew! If you have any questions, see the Help pages, add a question to one of the Forums or ask on my user talk page.

Cybermen
I've done it after the discussion at Talk:Cybermen. I don't see how they can be considered "entirely different" anymore. And Mondasian Cybermen are definitely not any more notable than Cybus Cybermen according to this wiki's policy. The main page should either be an overview of both types of Cybermen, like now, or a disambiguation page. Ausir(talk) 05:19, June 15, 2011 (UTC)

Nice Job, RiverLover
Good job on the River Song page. I like your photo you added. Keep it up! Chris! 22:16, August 27, 2011 (UTC)

category:season 6b
Hi :) Thanks for your efforts to add categories.  However, please do not add categories which do not apply to the entire contents of a work.  The Short Trips collections to which you've been adding Category:Season 6B do not contain only stories set in 6B, making the category you wish to apply inappropriate.   I have rolled back the few of your efforts that were immediately apparent to me.  However, if you can think of other instances where you've similarly added this (or similar) cats, I'd appreciate it if you'd roll them back yourself.  It's very important that we maintain a clean and accurate category tree on this wiki.  Thanks!  :)  00:17:57 Sun 28 Aug 2011

Please don't make frivolous edits just to get Achievements
Hey, the Achievements thing is brand new, so we're all just trying to understand how it all works. Still we do have some rules in place at tardis:achievements policy. Please make sure you read and understand these.

The important point of those rules is that we want to avoid making edits just to get awards. It's pretty obvious that your message on user talk:Skittles the hog wasn't a real attempt at communicating, but rather so that you would get the Churchill award and thereby pass Skittles for the night. I mean, you didn't even sign the post, which is required under tardis:discussion policy.

Now of course it's cool in the first day or two to test things out. But I just wanted to make sure you understand that the point of Achievements is to encourage genuine editing that makes the site better.

Thanks for editing with us today, and I hope you continue enjoying Achievements! 03:35:35 Sun 28 Aug 2011

Note to Self
The Amateur

Pictures
Hi :) Thanks very much for your recent picture uploads. A couple of points, though, that will improve your contributions in future.
 * We don't allow the .gif format. At all.  Please don't upload this format in future.  Any current .gif-formatted pictures that you may have uploaded are subject to immediate deletion.
 * All pictures must have an image license attached. We recognise that the new editing page that Wikia dumped on us yesterday allows you upload a picture in a way that bypasses the normal upload page altogether, and so you may not even see the licensing drop-down menu.  Until we can get this corrected, we recommend that you only upload through Special:Upload or Special:MultipleUpload, so that you have convenient access to the licensing drop-down. (Both of these pages are linkable on the user toolbar which strips along the bottom of every page.  Also, the "add a photo" button in the right column of most pages links to Special:Upload.)  Images without licenses are subject to automatic deletion by bot through a routine process which is not monitored by a human being.

If you haven't done so, please consult tardis:image use policy for a more complete list of policies affecting image uploads and use. Thanks :) 12:09:17 Thu 08 Sep 2011


 * Okay, you've had the nice warning. Do not continue uploading .gif files.-- 15:01, September 10, 2011 (UTC)

It appears the image I was referring to was anomalous.-- 15:05, September 10, 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello again. I note that you have today uploaded yet another image without a copyright license: file:Silurian.jpg.  I do thank you for helping us with our project, but copyright templates are very important.  You cannot continue to "forget" putting them on.  Remember, we do not own' these images.  We have a duty to give a picture's copyright status if we want to seriously maintain any sort of "fair use" argument.


 * Please do not upload any more images without ensuring that one of our copyright templates is attached.  06:58:02 Mon 12 Sep 2011


 * Thank you very much for your recent efforts to add copyright templates to your uploads! It seriously frees up time the admin staff can then use on other matters.   20:49:58 Thu 15 Sep 2011

Categories
Please do not add the category Uncanon stories to articles. For starters, uncanon isn't word, but more importantly, each of the articles you added it to was already categories under non-canonical stories, so I'm not sure why you were doing this. In future, please ensure you are not adding unnecessary categories. Thanks-- 14:33, September 12, 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes, I did relise this after a little while. The cofusion was caused by, and you can check this for truth, that I was editing The Invasion of Bash Street when I noticed that there was no Category on it for the fact that it was uncanon (other than the parodies and pastiches category) so I typed in Un canon (yes, I was not ware that it wasn't a word) and found no Category's for it. Thus, I decided to create one. Once I relised that there was already a Non-Canon Catigory, however, I ceased adding pages to it. OttselSpy25 00:09, September 13, 2011 (UTC)

Nice Badges

MM/ Want to talk? 23:05, October 1, 2011 (UTC)

GREETINGS
Hi, I'm Patrick Watt, Esquire... whatever that means. I'm delighted to make your acquaintance, provided you've read this message, which, as per my pessimistic nature, I've already assumed is a "no".

But... what was I talking about? Oh, yes, I was asking if you like South Park. I'm assuming that based on your avatar. Well, do you? What are your favorite TV shows?

file:500.jpg
There are several flawss in the upload named above. First of all, it violates the tardis:Manual of Style and tardis:image use policy by being a colour photo of the black and white era. Because it's in colour, that means it can't possibly be a screenshot. It's therefore a publicity shot and out of universe. Therefore it can't be used to illustrate an in-universe page like 500 year diary. The only page this particular image could possibly be placed is Patrick Troughton. Because it's a publicity image — and again, we know this because it's a colour pic from the black-and-white era — the only place you can put it is on the page of the actor seen in the photo. However, shots of the actor in costume are not particularly desirable on out-of-universe actor pages, as we generally want to see the actor out of costume and makeup — in their street clothes, really.

So I'm deleting the pic.

More importantly, however, it's really important that you put not just any copyright template on your files, but the correct one. You called this pic an image from a comic book, which it clearly isn't. I thought that you were beginning to understand our image licensing policy, but it appears you're just trying to technically satisfy the requirement, withotu actually caring so much about accuracy. These copyright templates also add a category to a file. If you put the wrong template on the file, it will go into the wrong category, which makes it harder to maintain the database. I urge you to please take copyright templates seriously, if you wish to retain the privilege to upload photos here. 04:05: Tue 11 Oct 2011

Sorry, I got so used to uploading Comic files that I seem to accidentialy put that category on alot. I've done it before, but gone in and fixed it, however it seems I have forgotten this time. Sorry for the confusion, I'll try and do better next time. --OttselSpy25 talk to me 12:42, October 11, 2011 (UTC)

Block
Sorry about this, but I have to block you so that I can be sure that you have read and will understand the following. You must be dreading to see my name on your talk page already, but this is really important. I've just noticed that you have a very unconventional editing syntax that's literally destroying the fabric of the wiki.

Here's a snippet from your merry little edit war over at Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctors
 * This story takes place somewhere in between DW: The Android Invasion and The Leisure Hive.

You cannot edit this way. I'm not quite sure where you picked up this style, but it completely goes against fundamental wiki markup. You should be linking using the following:

That's it! Isn't that a lot easier? Unless you use standard wiki markup, it's impossible for bots to find and properly change linked text. So you must use standard wiki markup. Your block allows you to edit this page. Please acknowledge that you have read and understood this message, and that you are willing to edit here using only standard wiki markup. If you do not acknowledge this message in 24 hours, your block will be extended indefinitely, until you do promise that you'll use standard linking syntax.
 * This story takes place somewhere in between DW: The Android Invasion and The Leisure Hive.

Hate to come down so harshly but your current style of editing is really quite destructive. I know, of course, that you didn't mean to do anything wrong — I certainly don't think you're a vandal or anything — but I still can't let you edit further unless you agree to standard markup. 04:56: Tue 11 Oct 2011

I have read over the message, and I promis to use the proper standard wiki markup until The End of Time. --OttselSpy25 talk to me 12:51, October 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) In that event, I shall now remove the block.  12:59: Tue 11 Oct 2011
 * By the way, have you been linking using URLs from the very beginning of your time with us? Or is it something you just started doing recently.  All instances of URL linkage have to be found and changed.  I'd appreciate it if you could do it yourself, because you know better than anyone else where this kind of linkage exists.  17:59: Wed 12 Oct 2011

Possibly Non-Canonical stories
Hey, can you please remove this category from all the pages you added it to and then suggest the idea at the forums. This should always be standard procedure with such a big addition and, I for one, am strongly against the idea. Thanks-- 17:13, October 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, and sorry if this seems a little harsh. Perhaps that wasn't the friendliest of messages, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.-- 17:17, October 12, 2011 (UTC)

Deleted scenes
Well, generally you'd look at tardis:canon policy, but it's being rewritten at the moment, specifically because it doesn't contain references to forum discussions about things like deleted scenes. The prefiguring forum discussion is at forum:Are deleted scenes canon?

That discussion concludes with the notion that deleted scenes aren't canon, but that they may be referenced in "behind the scenes" sections of articles. To put it simply, the version of a story that made it onto the airwaves of the broadcaster of origin is deemed the "prime" version of the story. Generally, this means that we preference what happened on BBC One, but in the case of K9, it would be the Net10 broadcast, or for Miracle Day, it would be the Starz broadcast. 17:53: Wed 12 Oct 2011
 * Having a prefix for deleted scenes wouldn't be helpful, in my view. Deleted scenes may only be referenced on the story page themselves or in "behind the scenes" sections of articles.  They should never be referenced in the normal, in-universe parts of articles, which means there's no need for a prefix as you suggest.  Any information about deleted scenes should be made unambiguously clear, as they would be in the sentence construction, "In a deleted scene from ..." We don't want to make it at all obscure to our readers that this information was deleted.   23:40: Wed 12 Oct 2011

Second warning about proper wiki markup
I note that you have again linked by use of url rather than standard wiki text at Forum:Possibly Non-Canonical stories. I'm going to assume, however, that this is because you didn't quite know how to link directly to a category name. So let me go through some basics of help:wiki markup with you.


 * Most things link simply by putting two square braces around the word. First Doctor, Forum:Forum Name, Talk:talk page name, user:user name, user talk:user talk page name
 * If the namespace does something — like add a page to a category, or place a picture or video on a page — then you'll need to precede the page name with a colon, like: category:category name, file:file.jpg, video:videoname Putting the colon in front of the namespace means you'll make a link to the name of the object, rather than make an action happen.

I hope that makes sense. If you have questions, please ask. It's both possible and required to link to everything on this wiki using a  syntax of some kind. 02:55: Thu 13 Oct 2011

Destiny of the Doctors
Hi there. No worries about etiquette, this is the Internet and such things are prone to not translating well to an online context.

I am indeed replaying Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctors. I had to get a Windows 95 virtual machine running for another project, and after that it seemed like the perfect excuse to throw the game back on for the first time since the 1990s. It's not the best game in the world but it's quite impressive for its time (especially now that I have a computer that can run it at full steam, the one I had back then was slowed to a crawl trying to render it) and since I'm a huge TARDIS fanboy I enjoy it just for the opportunity to run around in the two TARDISes. :-)

Since it'll be faster than playing through the game (which I only get the chance to do every so often) I'm going to directly go through the dialogue and movie files on the disc to see what references I can find. As I mentioned on the Destiny talk page, I don't think we'll get all that much we can actually use in the article for timeline purposes; if you have any info which would help please add it to the game's talk page. &mdash; Rob T Firefly - &#916;&#8711; - 06:03, October 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * I cleaned up the sections you added to the game's plot section. I wish to mention a few points about that material.


 * A) I have to point out that a large amount of your spelling needed major work. While minor things could be overlooked (this wiki requires the use of UK spellings such as "manoeuvre," which definitely looks odd to American eyes, per Tardis:Spelling policy) there were very many other basic spelling errors which could have easily been avoided by running everything through your choice of spell-checking software before posting it.  Your use of capitalization was also fairly random and required a lot of correction.


 * B) It's generally "the Graak," not just "Graak." Like the Doctor and the Master, he's a "the" in all the game's text apart from when someone talks directly to him.  I've just moved the Graak's article to the Graak in deference to this point.  Also, it's the "Great Divide," not "Devine" or "Divine."


 * C) You made many references to the Graak "waking up" in various places.  The game never indicates that the Graak was knocked unconscious; you simply appear in the next area.  It could be any manner of transporting; much more accurate to say "the Grak finds himself in..."


 * D) Most importantly, the Doctors' levels can be encountered in any order and any manner of things can be skipped over or done differently.  The only parts we can use in the "plot" section are the story elements which are unchanged no matter how the player completes the game.  I invite you to look over the discussion at Forum:We need a policy on videogames and its conclusion; what that means for Destiny of the Doctors is that we can't include things like the blue diamonds or specific bits of random dialogue that the player might not encounter if they take another path.  We can only use the unchangeable beginnings and ends; we can't say exactly what path the Graak took to picking up the Metebelis Crystal, we only know for certain that he was sent to get it and that he got it and brought it back to the Master.  We can't say what order the Graak freed the Doctors in, only that he did individually free them and the endgame happened.


 * Please note that I'm not intending any of this to be an attack on you or your work on this wiki, your efforts are certainly appreciated. I offer this here as hopefully constructive feedback which will improve your further contributions to the TARDIS Index File. &mdash; Rob T Firefly - &#916;&#8711; - 03:48, October 18, 2011 (UTC)

Heavily manipulated photos
What are your plans for file:2nd oc.jpg and file:1st oc.jpg? These are obviously not just screenshots, so the licensing is at least incomplete. Before you waste too much time going through all the Doctors (if that's your intent), you should be aware that "Photoshopping" is not allowed in the main namespace. If you intend them for your user page, you should be aware that you are at the limit of the number of user images allowed. 15:34: Fri 14 Oct 2011
 * No, no, I did not make these, these are screenshots from Destiny of the doctors, where Graak tries to speak with the Doctors, I swear. --OttselSpy25 talk to me 15:36, October 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * SO, lemme get this strait. YOu see images, thing they look weird, presume they are for my User page, and Ban me again. In other words, I'm blocked because you decided what I was doing. You didn't even ask me whatthey were for, HELL you didn't even wait two minets to see where the pictures would be put, you just decided what they were, and Banned me. Whatever, see you tommoro. --OttselSpy25 talk to me 15:44, October 14, 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, look at the license template again.

This image is a screenshot of a television programme, movie, video game, web broadcast or DVD feature over which the BBC have some level of ownership. It should therefore be considered the BBC's intellectual property, likely as administered by BBC Worldwide. Other parties may enjoy intellectual property rights over this image, as well. Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, K9 and Company, Doctor Who Confidential, Torchwood Declassified, Totally Doctor Who and associated names, titles, logos and screen captures are © BBC Worldwide, Ltd. It is believed that the use of this image on the TARDIS Doctor Who wiki, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikia, Inc,

qualifies as fair dealing under the laws of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, and as fair use under United States copyright law. Other use of this image, on Wikia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. See Wikipedia:Fair use for more information. To the uploader: please add the source of the work and copyright information.


 * See the note at the bottom? It's your responsibility as the uploader to make clear where the pictures came from.  Now, I'm not gonna lie and say that I always give sources every time I upload a screenshot, because most of the time it's pretty obvious where they come from.  These images, though, weren't from a common source and they look heavily pixellated and distorted.  Believe it or not, people do regularly upload pictures that look better than these, which are nevertheless their own creations.  I got it wrong in this case, and I'm sorry.  But you could have helped a lot by clearly identifying these pics.  In fact, I saw before the block that you were posting them to Destiny, but I just didn't believe that they were un-retouched photos.  The feathering effect seemed too inconsistent to be anything other than an amateur job.


 * But here's the bigger point. Even though these pictures may indeed come from a valid source, you gotta stop.  The job of a page about a story is not to be a host for every possible picture from the story.  Destiny is not any different than any other story page.  Do you see a gallery at The Wedding of River Song or Sky?   No.


 * When editing a story page, you have to be able to balance text versus graphics. At present, I count that you have a minimum of 30 pictures for one page.  Now, I'm generally all for pictures, but that's just totally beyond our standard practice.  There aren't, I grant you, specific rules about the number of pictures possible on the page, but Destiny is obviously inconsistent with our general practice.  The worst offense on that page, however, is that all the pics are lumped in a gallery.  Look at any other story page.  Pictures are sprinkled throughout the text, not bunged in to a massive great gallery at the end.  Pick the five or six most representative shots — and put delete on the rest, please.


 * I will now lift your block on the condition that you immediately start marking these shots for deletion. 16:06: Fri 14 Oct 2011


 * I promise to add the Files to be Deleted Category to the files. --OttselSpy25 talk to me 17:40, October 14, 2011 (UTC)

Picture of the Master
You probably aren't aware of this, but the infobox picture at The Master was the subject of the single most intense community discussion about a picture in the history of the wiki. The picture was carefully vetted over the course of months. Many alternate designs were proposed and considered. The version which you replaced was the one that emerged from that process. The discussion is at talk:The Master and/or its archives.

Though I don't think you meant any ill-will, it's most improper of you to do an end-run around that discussion by just uploading a new revision at file:TheFiveMasters.jpg. Your revision has been reverted, and your uploads will soon be deleted. The file itself is now locked to new revisions. Please do not place a new primary image at the Master, companion, the Doctor or really any character played by multiple actors without discussion. Generally, all these collage images have been the result of some level of community discussion.

Thanks :) <span style="">23:16: Wed 19 Oct 2011


 * I have added it to discussion, however, I dobt it will recieve any attention. In truth, I think it is a minor change, technically still being the "Five Masters" Pic, just with some size alterations. I dobt anyone will notice it.

Oh, and You're welcome! --OttselSpy25 talk to me 23:20, October 19, 2011 (UTC)

Destiny of the Doctors
From a purely visual standpoint, the article looks way better. Thanks for eliminating the gallery. I'm a bit confused where the images went, though. I only count 7 in the bin, 8 on the page, so where are the other 15-ish? <span style="">04:45: Sat 22 Oct 2011

Timeline information
Please be aware that a current timeline discussion seems to be leaning heavily towards eliminating DWRG from use on this wiki. It really never should have been a source for timeline information, anyway, as it's just a fansite, and therefore isn't a valid source, per T:SOURCES. I notice that you're putting a lot of timeline information into pages, and that this information matches what's at DWRG. It'd be helpful if you stopped doing this, as it appears this information will soon be eliminated, anyway.

If you'd like to participate in the discussion, please do so, rather than adding more dubious timeline material. Thanks :)

<span style="">04:45: Sat 22 Oct 2011

Dimensions in Time pics
Thanks for trying to better illustrate Dimensions in Time, but your recent uploads are not of an acceptable quality, and will be deleted. The black bounding box around them, and the general resolution problems, combine to make the pictures too weak to be included on our site.

Please note that it may not be possible to better illustrate this story, as there will never be a home video release. Thus, unless you have a first generation off-air recording, you really don't have a good enough source for screencapping. For this reason, this is the one story for which we allow a publicity still in the infobox. <span style="">01:59: Fri 28 Oct 2011

Cybermen template
Thanks for the heads up. Feel free to report any more issues you come across.-- 12:36, October 30, 2011 (UTC)

Sorry
I deleted your work on the Doctor's Scarf infobox, didn't realise that it had been played by an ACTOR.Dragonmaster79 talk to me 18:35, November 7, 2011 (UTC)


 * It's okay. I should've been more clear in the infobox. OttselSpy25 talk to me 18:36, November 7, 2011 (UTC)

Stevie Wonder
Well, if he brought along Kanye West as a sideman, who'd notice?

It's not a great picture, but it's the only one I could track down. Feel free to replace it.Boblipton talk to me 11:35, November 13, 2011 (UTC)

Color versions of monochromatic comic stories
Please note that color versions of comic stories that were originally published as black-and-white strips are generally disallowed. They may never be used in the infobox. A color image doesn't faithfully represent the original story, and would be confusing to people unfamiliar with the publication history of the comic. Your image at Timeslip, now deleted, implied that the strip was originally in color, and would be especially confusing if a reader were clicking through the Fourth Doctor DWM stories chronologically. Please consult T:ICC for more quick tips about our rules regarding pictures.

If you have recently posted color pictures to other monochromatic stories like Timeslip, please return to those pics and place the delete tag on them. Thanks. <span style="">16:24: Mon 14 Nov 2011

Disambiguation rules
Please familiarise yourself with T:DAB RULES before creating further disambiguation pages. Importantly, you should not create dab pages for terms with only two examples of that name. Three is the minimum threshold for dab page creation.

Additionally, if you create a page with an obvious spelling or punctuation error in it, please put a delete tag on the bad name so that we're alerted to the need to delete your naming error.

Thanks :)  <span style="">17:11: Fri 18 Nov 2011

I'm Sorry For Changing Those Photos On Episode Pages. Though Will I Still Be Able To Add Photos To Pages That Don't Have Any?

PS. Your Birthday's A Day Before Mine!

Season 6b
I notice that in October you put every single Second Doctor TV Comic story into the category Season 6B. Please note that this isn't at all accurate. Action in Exile clearly establishes itself as the beginning of the "Season 6b" stuff, both by title and narrative. If season 6b is understood to mean "those stories which occur after the sentence in The War Games but before that sentence was fully executed", comparatively little of the TVC run explicitly "fits" into that definition. Indeed, only these stories are 6b:
 * Action in Exile
 * The Mark of Terror
 * The Brotherhood
 * U.F.O.
 * The Night Walkers

It's an easy mistake to make, because sometimes people talk casually and say things like "the season 6b TV Comic stories". If you haven't actually read the stories, then you might not know that this phrase is talking about 5 stories, not the whole lot. So don't worry about correcting the mess. The bot'll take care of it.

However, I would urge you to exercise caution when editing about topics for which you don't have the full text in front of you. Remember than fan sites, from which you apparently took the pictures you placed on on various TVC pages, are not valid sources under T:SOURCES. They may be mistaken, vaguely written, or written in a way that assumes you've read other parts of the site.

If you'd actually had the Action in Exile comic in front of you, you'd have seen that the panel immediately to the left of the one you posted to the article said, very clearly, "Exiled to Earth by the Time Lords, Dr. Who books into a swanky London hotel to take things easy for a while..." (And if you had the whole text in front of you, I think you wouldn't have chosen that image as representative of the story as a whole.)

Even on a Doctor Who wiki, which is obviously about a silly li'l fictional show, it's really important that any information you put up — even something as seemingly trivial as a category — be something which can be verified. <span style="">18:59: Sun 04 Dec 2011 <span style="">21:04: Tue 20 Dec 2011

Mentions
Mentions have been deliberately turned off. Notice was given at Forum:"Mentions" field being deactivated.

They render in a very confusing way in the mobile skin that Wikia recently launched, such that they seem to be appearances on most mobile devices. But it's not just mobile issues. Ordinary desktop displays are flummoxed by these super-long mentions fields. As the infobox grows vertically, photos in early sections of the article are seriously displaced. That's two significant tech issues, so they're outta here without further debate. There's no forum discussion that makes right a technical problem -- much less two.

Moreover, there was user dissatisfaction with the field anyway. A big problem was they were notoriously incomplete. Infoboxen should really contain only solid, simple facts. They're not places to build lists, especially ones where "what counts as a mention?" is at issue. Removing them was the prudent course of action.

Basically they're junk clogging up the design, and the info is too insignificant for its own article. So the "info", to the extent it was actually informational, goes. .  <span style="">03:33: Sun 25 Dec 2011

Sig
Please comply with tardis:signature policy by including a clickable link to this page. <span style="">03:33: Sun 25 Dec 2011

Thanks!
....for putting the bells and whistles on the 4398 page. Looks spiffy. Boblipton talk to me 15:24, December 25, 2011 (UTC)

Navboxes
It is vital that you edit navboxes with great care. It cannot be done safely with the vsual editor, if that's what you're using. You MUST use the normal editor mode (source), as this gives you a monospaced font, so that you can see every space as an equal-width character.

The following edit of yours -- http://tardis.wikia.com/index.php?title=Template:Master_stories&diff=next&oldid=736515 -- had disastrous consequences for Template:Master stories. //the fact that you failed to put any space around the  expression added a stream of extra vertical space to the bottom of the navbox, radically displacing the categories and toolbox strip on every page on which it was located.

You might not know what this command does. It prevents a line break. It literally means "non-breaking space". If you put it without spaces either before or after (or both) two expressions, the whole thing gets treated as a single, non-breakable word, and the navbox code can freaks.

Here's the skinny on the usage from an HTML textbook:
 * Its intended use of creating a space between words or elements that should not be broken. The only problems that can be associated with this use is that too many words strung together with non-breaking spaces may require some graphical browsers to show horizontal scrollbars or cause them to display the text overlapping table borders.

Basically your edit created the worst-case scenario described above.

There's actually not much of a point to nbsp as we're using it. Browsers are better now, obviating its usage. And most of the time, we surround, as at Master stories we surround the expession with spaces, meaning only that the bullet is stuck to the nearest space. This isn't originally what we were trying to do with it. We could go with bare bullets now and achieve the same effect.

So for the future, I'd say either eliminate the nbsp expression altogether or make it harmlessly conform to other usage on the page (i.e., a space before and after).

<span style="">17:20: Sun 25 Dec 2011

Doctor Who: Cybermen
No. Just no. Doesn't matter that it has a part written in "an in-universe style". It's not actually in-universe. It's fact-written-as-fiction. It would be massively hard to administrate this rule on a case-by-case basis. We can't have some reference works allowed as primary resources, and others not — much less some parts of reference works allowed and other parts not.

Doctor Who Discovers is written in this "narrative style" — i.e., the ramblings of the Fourth Doctor about subject whatever — but it's clearly not a proper narrative.

Here are some questions that act as a litmus test. If the answer to these questions is "no" then you might well have a narrative on your hands: Obviously, your example fails questions 1, 2 and 3.
 * 1) Is it the recitation of facts from the perspective of a character or narrator?
 * 2) Is it merely giving facts already known in other narratives?
 * 3) Is it in a book that is otherwise written from a behind-the-scenes or non-fictional perspective?
 * 4) Is it accompanied by an elementary school-level riddle, puzzle or crossword?
 * 5) Is it only one page (or a double-page spread) long?

And here are some questions to which a positive answer means you probably have a primary source on your hands: Your example fails all of these.
 * 1) Does it have a narrative beginning, middle or end?
 * 2) Does it appear in a publication with other, clear narratives?
 * 3) Is it a part of a well-established, recurring, narrative section of a publication that is otherwise non-fictional, such as the DWM comic strip?

Failing one of the questions doesn't necessarily doom the thing you're considering, depending on which one is failed. For instance, it is possible to have a one-page narrative, as we know with Brief Encounters. And it's possible to have a character study that has a more subtle beginning, middle or end. Or to have a "preview", which deliberately teases a narrative. But when you start failing a lot of these questions, like your piece does, you've got to call it a day. <span style="">15:02: Wed 28 Dec 2011

Vandalism
Thanks for alerting me to suspected vandalism. Please continue to do so. However, it is not necessary for you to output the vandalism itself onto my user talk page. Basically you're just propagating and repeating vandalism. Users who come to admin's page should not have to be confronted with swear words. So, in the future, please just list the pages on which you've noticed vandalism and the user whom you suspect. Thanks :) <span style="">22:06: Wed 28 Dec 2011

Canon
The Brilliant Book 2012 is cannon.Tirenifs talk to me 23:34, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant Book
Hi there - great work with the Brilliant Book info and good job for keep you cool earlier on when all you work was getting undone. That User is now blocked so he can think about the policies.

I have left my feelings over at the forum discussion on the Brilliant Book - here - which includes information on what happened last night and a request for it to be added to the manual of style as a direct reference for it not to be used - I just thought you should know :) Thanks and keep up the great editing! MM/ Want to talk? 16:13, December 29, 2011 (UTC)

Master stories template
Gonna need more than just your say-so that these are Delgado stories. Please put forward your evidence at template talk:Master stories. <span style="">15:08: Fri 30 Dec 2011

Brilliant Book
Please stop writing that the Brilliant Book is non-canon. It isn't. It's a book that contains non-narrative information. This is different from non-canon. Non-canon is Curse of Fatal Death, or Doctor Who Unbound, it's other universes that make a deliberate break from the DW universe. The Brilliant Book (and countless other books) are merely presenting non-narrative based information. --Tangerineduel / talk 16:35, December 31, 2011 (UTC)

Block?
Right. K. Sorry. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 02:26, January 8, 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, won't be a full day. You just complicated the cleanup process by making intervening edits.  It could have been a one-button fix.  Needed to stop you before you did more editors.  The block will probably only last another few minutes.   <span style="">02:37: Sun 08 Jan 2012
 * It's okay, I needed to make some progress on my own Wiki anyways. OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 02:44, January 8, 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, all done. All Master pages returned to their pre-Sinefirt titles and move-protected.   Actually, his changes were made in good faith, and he had some good ideas.  But there's an ongoing debate about what to do with all these Master pages, and we should let that process go forward.


 * Oh, in future do remember that this sort of situation is what rollback was made for. One click and the whole thing gets undone.  Also your intervening edits mean that I have to check whether there was anything of significance that you added to the article, which just takes more time.  That's the only reason for the block.  Just a time saver.  Nothing to do with "punishment" of any kind. Good catch, by the way; I wouldn't have noticed any of this.   <span style="">03:20: Sun 08 Jan 2012


 * Hey, I looked, and you have unblocked me, but I still can't edit and my page still says "blocked" at the top. Is there a way to remedy this? OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 13:42, January 8, 2012 (UTC)

Brilliant book and template
No.

The canon policy still stands, we're not about to have pages for stuff that's in non-narrative. The idea of a template is to alert people so they don't create pages based on stuff that's in the Brilliant Book or the Technical Manual. --Tangerineduel / talk 13:55, January 14, 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation
With reference to your October move of A Christmas Carol, please note that standard dab rules state the following: Also, note that (novel) is the dab term for real world novels, and not novels from the real world. (For the distinction see FTRW and this overview). Thus the implication of the title A Christmas Carol (novel) is that there is a novel set in the DWU with the title A Christmas Carol. No such novel exists. [Incidentally, the disambig term for "a novel within the DWU" is (book), but that's rarely needed. A novel set in the DWU that fans can buy at their local book store is (novel)].
 * You need at least three things to start a dab page.
 * In-universe concepts take precedence over out-of-universe story titles

You might be scratching your head over why this distinction is important. To a bot, (novel) is completely different to (book). Database maintenance is therefore compromised if you use unexpected dab terms. Also the reason you need three terms is because of human interaction. A human entering "A Christmas Carol" into the search bar should get the Dickens work, on top of which should be a link to the 2010 Christmas special. Thus, people referring to the Dickens work can just link to "A Christmas Carol" instead of "A Christmas Carol (book)|A Christmas Carol", which saves keystrokes for editors, and involves exactly the same amount of mouse-clicks for readers trying to get to the TV story. It is simply more efficient to go without a dab page when there are only two terms around.

I am therefore deleting your dab page, reverting the Dickens book to A Christmas Carol, and returning any top-of-page dab notes to their original place.

If you have made any other disambiguation pages with only two entries, please give me the links so that I can revert your work. <span style="">15:55: Mon 16 Jan 2012

Pics on actor pages
Please immediately stop putting pics on pages by using the thumbnail option without also adding captions. This is a violation of T:ICC. You must use a caption if you're going to use the thumb option. Also, please remember that you may not set a px width if using the thumbnail option. The format must be  Please now go back and correct what you have done, on every page that you have done it.

Thanks. Block lifted. <span style="">08:04: Wed 18 Jan 2012
 * Note, too, that if you use an in-universe pic, you must cite the story from which it comes within the caption, also per T:ICC.  <span style="">08:08: Wed 18 Jan 2012

Novelisations are not novels
Please immediately suspend your efforts to put all novelisations within categories that have the world novels in their titles.

"Fourth Doctor novels" are not "Fourth Doctor novelisations".

There's a key difference between the two types of work which this wiki is keen to make clear through strict categorisation. Novels are stories original to prose. Novelisations are adaptations of television stories. Plus almost all of the Target novelisations don't fit the common, everyday understanding of the word, novel. Their word count makes some of them long short stories, and others, bare novellas.

Categories are the very lifeblood of a wiki. They're what makes it work. But they only work if they're strictly maintained. You've now polluted the "Xth Doctor novels" categories with these novelisation. This will make it harder to run accuratre DPL reports and to any sort of maintenance on novels. To avoid this kind of problem in future, think about what you're doing with categories. Ask yourself the following questions:
 * If this category is obvious to me, why hasn't it occurred to anyone else in the 8 years this wiki has been open? Is there a chance that this category hasn't been added for a reason?
 * Am I actually going to to be able to add this category to all the pages that need it? If not, will the net effect of only partially completing the task be worse than just not doing it at all?
 * Do I really want to waste my time doing this? Why not just give it over to CzechBot, who can complete the task in a matter of minutes?

If you're going to embark on a category add of more than 25 pages, it's probably a good idea to ask me about it. The main reason for this is a very practical one. If I don't think that your work improves the wiki, I'll undo all your category changes in a fraction of the time it took you to add them. For instance, your work on these "Xth Doctor novels" categories will now be stripped by the bot. I don't mean to sound egotistical. As this wiki's technical adminitrator, I have specialised responsibility to ensure that things are working smoothly at the category level. Therefore, it is simply a non-negotiable reality of this wiki that you have to make me, personally, happy with the soundness of your category changes. A sound category tree is absolutely vital to the successful administration of this wiki. <span style="">14:38: Thu 19 Jan 2012