User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-24894325-20170121220436/@comment-24894325-20170123102532

Some points I'd still want to make before considering the matter of the original post decided for me personally (it is not my place to close the thread).
 * If TARDISes are used exclusively by Time Lords (which is not strictly speaking true: I've seen Veraxils using a TARDIS; it would be better to say that TARDISes are built exclusively by Time Lords), it does not imply that Time Lords exclusively use TARDISes. That's a logical fallacy.
 * The appeal to Time Lord as containing complete information about all timeships used by Time Lords is completely unfounded. It is very dangerous to conclude that something does not exist just because it has not yet been added to this Wiki. In this particular case, I can actually point out a whole lot of transportation devices used by Time Lords but not present in that 2-paragraph section: no timeships from FP are present in that article (I am using here NateBumber's definition of FP, which excludes Alien Bodies). Bowships are not there. During the war, various ships have been used as decoys, including the Tempest, which is clearly not a TARDIS. And these are just the ones I can recall without thinking. Here's another transport I did not know of but easily found: Dimensional node.
 * When we switch from timeships used by the race of Time Lords to timeships used by specific Time Lord renegades, such as the Master, the situation becomes even murkier. The Master's TARDIS was kept on Shada, broken out by the Eleventh Doctor and River Song, and then seemingly perished during the Time War. So how was he/she travelling through space and time after that? We see him in Utopia at the end of time, apparently without the TARDIS. How did he get there? During Saxon's times he doesn't have own means to do so. Then suddenly she does (and then at some point she starts using a Vortex manipulator). The The War Chief famously used SIDRATs as timeships. Thus, the line of reasoning that a Time Lord traveling in a timeship must necessarily be travelling in a TARDIS is again a logical fallacy, even if we know who this Time Lord is and that he/she had a TARDIS at some point.
 * NateBumber wrote: Can you link to the place where it was concluded that the Doctor with the technicolour dreamcoat was decided to be the Sixth Doctor, and the similar debates for all the Short Trips stories? I'd be interested in reopening those debates, especially if we decide that there's not enough evidence to conclude that the male and female crewmembers from Toy Story are Fitz and Compassion based on their unique physical descriptions and mannerisms. Just for the record, this would be an almost textbook violation of T:POINT. Since I don't write this maliciously and don't believe you did, I would trust you to reread the policy. What I want to say is that in some cases no discussion is needed if everyone agrees from the get-go. I'm sorry you're not in that situation with FP. Call it quality control. Plus, at a certain point, people learn to deal with particular type of stories in a particular way. I often struggle with this myself because much of this lore is unwritten and much is distributed over multiple talk pages and forum discussions. There is usually an expert who can explain why things are done this way if you ask. With FP, this baseline has not yet been established (or rather some baseline was established but it has been completely uprooted by the ruling of FP to be valid). In effect, what we will be doing in the near future, I expect, is establishing this very baseline. And, being an admin on the other end, you will probably be the expert responsible for this baseline. Unfortunately, this process is likely to take time as more and more editors will be faced with FP-type material and will search guidance as to the established baseline and these editors need to trust you and to respect your authority on the matter. This is why I appreciated not only your detailed explanation of why Lolita is a TARDIS and how TARDISes have been established as timeships of the Great Houses, but also you being upfront about potential problems with the Ship being the Doctor's TARDIS. To trust your expertise, personally I would need to know just two things: that you know the FP part of DWU and the policies of this Wiki, but also, very importantly, that you do not withdraw information about FP to make the transition smoother.