User talk:Witoki

Thank you and a small notice
Thank you for adding and finding out James Corden's return to Doctor who and properly sourcing it onto the Series 6 page. Just two things to keep a note of, please don't add spoilers to in-universe articles (such as you did with the Craig Owen's page) and also, just a small thing - please try and keep all the guest cast members of the series 6 page who's character's are announced together, and those who's character are still TBA together - this is just a small thing, but makes the list look much more neater, smarter and presentable. If there anything I can help you with, please contact me on my talk page. Thanks. Mini-mitch\talk 16:37, February 25, 2011 (UTC)

Past tense
Hey there, please note that we write all in-universe articles on the wikia such as characters, in the past tense. This is part of our Tardis:Manual of Style. Thanks. --Revan\Talk 17:08, May 1, 2011 (UTC) If you have any questions, just leave me or another admin a message on our talk pages. --Revan\Talk 17:17, May 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay. Hadn't seen that bit, thanks! --Witoki 17:11, May 1, 2011 (UTC)

US Presidents
Heya :) Thanks for your comments.  Must disagree with you, though, and refer you to FTRW, a policy template that outlines wiki policy on handling real world people.  As editors working on in-universe articles, we must resist the urge to go beyond what's given in-narrative.  Even giving the first names of Carter, Reagan and Bush the Elder goes beyond what's actually supplied by the narrative, and the absence of first names must be noted in those articles.  We know nothing, within the DWU, about the life spans of most presidents, much less their terms of office.  I've given pretty much what's known as fact about the times these people served. Moreover, the previous timespan architecture was a bit imprecise, because it listed Jefferson as a 19th century president (which he was, but only in his second term), and Nixon as a 1960s president (which he was for only 300-odd days).

Also, you have to remember that temporal arrangement is potentially useful to Americans with a background in history, but it's not the most useful organisational tool for non-Americans, or Americans with a weak grasp of history. Tons of people alive today can't place Carter on a timeline; even more have no idea who James Buchanan is. Alphabetisation gives an organisational method that doesn't assume you went to grammar school in the US and were forced to memorize presidential order in 5th grade.

Finally, trying to sort things by time becomes very messy the closer you get to 2011. There are simply too many presidents in the DWU starting in the 1990s. Let's assume that the last absolutely known president is Bush I, and that he leaves office in January 93. From that point you have to fit in Carrol, Clinton, Dering, Springsteen, Norris, Winters, someone to directly succeed Winters for the remainder of that term, and then Obama. That's eight people for the five terms of office between Clinton's first term and Obama's first. Fine, it's possible, but you'd have to have a lot of deaths and/or resignations — none of which any narrative describes.

We seriously don't have enough information to accurately organise the DWU POTUSes by year. 05:08:27 Sun 29 May 2011


 * Oh, wait, there's also Felix Mather, sometime after the early 2000s. And Schwartzenegger comes into power by 2012, which doesn't make sense, because Obama will be president throughout 2012. So make it now 10 people for 5 slots.  And the thing is, we can't definitely say that Springsteen is supposed to be the 2001-2005 guy.  For all we know Dering snuffs it in 99, his VP, mentioned in Option Lock, is no longer around, so it passes to the Springsteen, who's Speaker of the House.  None of this is in any narrative, of course, but that's what trying to stick to a timeline will do to you. If you alphabetise, you leave it up to the individual articles to sort out the inconsistencies.   05:27:20 Sun 29 May 2011