Talk:A Night with the Stars (TV story)

2013 ruling
It has just come to my attention that Thread:144977, while never closed, essentially ruled this invalid. 06:53, December 24, 2016 (UTC)
 * Is this article covering the parts between the Doctor and Brian only? Because during the lecture, Doctor Who the fictional TV show is referenced many times and Prof. Cox attempts to prove/disapprove certain aspects of the show. Whilst we could take the easy way out and say he's referring to Doctor Who (N-Space), I just don't think that solves our problems. I'd love this to be valid, but I'd like to solve this properly. I'd love to have read the above Thread before it got deleted/moved. One way of allowing this is to treat it like 24 Carat (webcast), where Mel aboard the spaceship is valid, but the trailer part in the middle is quite clearly invalid. The  Farty  Doctor   Talk  19:01, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This message is? Kind of a non sequitur? Given that it is a reply to a ruling that is in fact declaring this invalid, and nobody has previously argued for it to be valid, so you're just sort of arguing in favour of an already-unchallenged consensus.


 * At any rate, as you will see from reading through the summary, this page, valid or invalid, is clearly about just the "pseudo-DWU" sketches — the ones where Cox is in the TARDIS with the Doctor — rather than the documentary they're packaged into. See also The History of the Doctor for a valid equivalent and Interweb of Fear for an invalid one. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  19:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

As much as I thank you for answering my question, it was mainly in response to the unreadable Thread. I was intrigued as to what ruled this invalid. I was unsure as to whether the segment itself was invalid or the whole thing in general. That's why I was arguing for validity, in case there was something I'd missed. If I'm correct in reading sarcasm there, it truly isn't necessary as we're all on the same page on this Wiki. We all want what's best. But once again, thanks for answering my question. Have a good day. The Farty  Doctor   Talk  20:12, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I meant no sarcasm, sorry if I gave that impression. I was merely confused as to why you appeared to be finding new arguments for the invalidity of something already ruled invalid. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  21:52, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Invalid, but not invalid, but should it be invalid?
Well, it was technically invalid all this time, but never marked as such, and nobody ever changed it over when this error was discovered. But now that we can see Thread:144977 in User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon II maybe it just shouldn't be? Ostensibly we can have an inclusion debate if an admin thinks this is proper, but this is the reasoning given.
 * These aren't meant as serious narrative. They are parodic in nature. This is stuff along the lines of the National Television Awards Sketch 2011 and the little sketch for the BAFTAs.


 * Parodic doesn't have to mean comical. Though certainly that's a common definition, a parody is really something that imitates something else, but obviously falls short of being that something else.

Literally just the blanket ban on parody that we recently removed, as well as a wider definition of parody than we generally use these days. See, specifically, Thread:125064 at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon I. User:CzechOut says
 * And, as the principal author of T:VS, I'm certainly not conceding that I myself didn't intend both meanings of the word parodic—languages certainly do allow for double-entendre.

I mean, the argument it's not a complete work of fiction is also given, so maybe we should have an inclusion debate. But this is very clearly not in accordance with contemporary practice. Najawin ☎  03:39, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the fact that it has its own title and can clearly be discussed coherently as its own thing puts that to rest as well. Given the close comparison to The History of the Doctor, yeah, I think under current policy it's best to keep it valid and put the onus on anyone wanting to rule it invalid again. It's not that the parody accusation is neither here nor there, but although you could argue it's parody of "a Doctor Who story" in the non-comical sense, it's not at all clear that it's a parody of "a DWU minisode" in the sort of way that would have meant invalidity in the prior state of policy, let alone which indicates Rule 4 failure in current policy. (By that definition of parody I think you could argue that many, perhaps most, minisodes are "parodies" of a long-form episode.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 09:35, 20 July 2023 (UTC)