User talk:NateBumber

Faction Paradox
I completely understand my closure of the thread did not go the way you wanted. As someone who's repeatedly been on your side of the fence, I feel ya. It's rough when you've got a convincing argument, and someone -- worst of all someone you don't really know yet -- throws up a roadblock, maybe even for reasons you can't appreciate.

But it's important to understand some things about Tardis discussions. As compared to many -- heck, I'll say almost all other -- wikis, we allow debate on a grand scale. Some wikis have no forum activity at all. Some would have shut down a debate like your thread after the first post. Instead, we invite discussion, and we want it to be vigorous and well-attended.

That said, they work under a basic convention that, since you're a relatively new editor with us, you might not yet have picked up on.

We have a volunteer staff -- even I don't really get paid for my work here -- and so we don't have time for endless debates. At some point -- maybe a week after the thread is open, maybe years -- the thread closes one way or another and we move on with our lives. Once a decision has been made and the thread has been closed (preferably by an admin who has not yet attended that thread), it's bad form to continue that debate outside the forum.

Since you've been keyed up to debate this issue for a number of days now, I understand that you want to keep having it. Believe me, I'm the same way sometimes. But it's important to understand that a closing argument is not the same thing as an exhaustive one. If a conversation is a relatively long and detailed one, it's not reasonable to expect that the closing argument will touch on every single point raised in the preceding discussion. And so it's not fair to come back and say to a closing admin, "Hey, what about this thing I said in post #23 and this other thing I said in post #89?"

I and other admin who write closing arguments spend a lot of time editing them down to the most salient points.

However, because you're new with us and you have been extraordinarily respectful and well-reasoned in the thread, I'm going to answer some of the points arising in your latest message.

In the thread, you offered two options: re-merging with Tardis or installing a new admin staff at FP. I took you up on the second option, which means that one of your proposals was accepted. Yet in your latest message, you're suggesting that you weren't really serious about it, and you're distancing yourself from your own proposal. Now we're onto to some other thing that was never in the thread. Not fair. Contrary to what you've been told by people who tried to edit there, there's nothing complicated about editing at FP that would in any way prevent the building of content there. No content page or policy page has ever been protected there, not even for an hour, since the split happened. I did a lot of work in 2012 to set up that wiki's basic structure -- wordmark, category tree, detailed instructions on how to edit the front page, some basic universal policies, site design -- so that an incoming group of editors would be set up for success. The claim that there is anything preventing the editing of the wiki to whatever standard FP enthusiasts would want is patently false.

Much of what exists there on the front page and some policy pages is absolutely placeholder text, and the fact that it hasn't been changed since 2012 actually baffles both me and, I don't think it's wrong to say, SOTO. We've both wondered to each other why so much time is being applied to the debate rather than simply editing FP Wiki to your liking.

You say that the FP Wiki has rules which prohibit writing articles there. So change them. There's only one policy page that has anything to do with what counts as a valid source, and it's very simply written. It's not protected, and never has been. It's also from another age, cause it speaks of "canon" in a way I would never do these days.

I think it's dumb, too, but the solution is just to edit it, not vilify it. In fact, a participant to the FP thread has edited it, so it must be known that it is editable, right? I guess I just don't see the problem because it has such an ordinary, easy solution.

You've suggested that even if the rule gets changed that there would be "unnecessary duplication of content". But I think that fails to grasp one of the central benefits of the Fandom platform.

There are plenty of closely-related wikis all over Fandom that have articles about the same topic written from different angles. What you'll get on disney:Tinker Bell is not the same article as w:c:disneyfairies:Tinker Bell; there's a good and useful difference. We actively try to make our actor pages Doctor Who-specific, so Julian Glover is not the same as w:c:indianajones:Julian Glover. muppet:Yoda is not the same thing as starwars:Yoda, nor the same thing as w:c:theclonewars:Yoda.

This isn't duplication: it's specialisation. For end users -- readers -- it will be very useful to have a clear distinction between the way that something is described within FP fiction, and the way that we find it in the main body of DW fiction. It's an exciting use of the Fandom platform -- not something to be regarded as second-class citizenry. It allows you greater freedom to explore how is treated by FP writers in a way that readers can better follow. They can pull up one window at Tardis, one at FP, and literally compare the two. That's leveraging the software in a powerful and dynamic way that will provide more clarity to a reader than trying to hunt for FP material within the body of a larger article here.

And you know that other editors not familiar with the FP -- which is realistically to say the vast majority of the people who edit here -- are going to edit out FP material cause they don't know it or they view it as too minor to whatever topic they're editing. That was one of the things that was happening back in the day when we split.

The FP Wiki is a way to protect, clarify and amplify FP material. It's a way of making it possible to look at the DWU through the lens of FP stories. I honestly think the average reader would appreciate it, and that from an editorial standpoint, the clearest way to describe FP is from within its own wiki.

I've been writing this thing forever and I know I haven't answered everything you've asked about. So I'll do one more and call it quits.

Yes, as a matter of technicality, you can create a link back to an article in a revision note and that will satisfy our license. But as I pointed out in my response, that's not as clear as simply having an intact revision history. And it's super laborious; you have to remember to do it every single time, which is going to try anyone's patience in the case of a remerge. But more to the point, a link is only as permanent as the thing to which it links. If the FP wiki were to become truly unusued, after a period of time it would be automatically archived and then the link would go ... nowhere. That's why I'm saying the best and clearest protection for people's copyrights is the current situation.

Well, this has been massively long and probably, in your view, incomplete. For that I can only apologise -- and hope that the remainder of your holiday season is a good one. 23:52: Wed 28 Dec 2016

The Concept of War
Hello.. Holmes to Homes here.

The Concept of War is a story available on paperback (as of today) at limited pressings at some DW conventions, but it also sees an eBook version. At the Amazon Kindle store.

HolmestoHomes ☎  19:34, January 6, 2017 (UTC)

Input desired
Can you join in this thread? --Pluto2 (talk) 19:00, January 21, 2017 (UTC)

Sutekh
There is another matter of integration I predict it would be good to coordinate on.

From what little I've seen during my exploration of FP, Sutekh plays an important(?) role there. Last year, he's also been included as a major enemy in Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Year 2, which finished a little more than a month ago. I sincerely doubt those two storylines can be made into a continuous narrative. For once, FP Osirans seem to have time travel technology, whereas the comic Osirans explicitly say that they consider time travel an abomination.

Since I don't know the story in FP and can't assume you to be familiar with the comic stories (apologies if you are), I wanted to give you heads up on the matter and a short synopsis of the comic side. Then we can try to decide if this is Lungbarrow vs. The Beginning kind of contradiction or if they can still be woven together by claiming unspecified distinct time periods. I don't care if it's the former: DWU is full of contradictions. (As a side note, I put a note on the page that it's missing stuff. I think Sutekh - list of appearances is complete with respect to comic stories. It would be good to complete it also for the FP stories, so that even when information is not added yet to the Wiki, at least the editors would know where to look for the missing parts and could then, say, contact the most prolific editor of the respective story.)

However, before giving you the synopsis of the comic side, I should, perhaps, ask whether you mind such spoilers. They are not spoilers in terms of this Wiki, but still. Please let me know. Also, I believe Anubis is updated and does tell the story of what happened.

I myself have nothing against learning the FP side of Sutekh from talks/forums rather than from stories themselves.

Oh, and I have a question: I presume his FP storyline does not contradict Pyramids of Mars. Am I right? Amorkuz ☎  19:17, January 23, 2017 (UTC)


 * Oh, so FP stories are pre Pyramids of Mars! That's good news because the comic stories are very much post PoM, with an explicit visual reference to it no less. Therefore, I agree with you that the two are completely independent and do not interfere with each other. (Just for completeness purposes, there is a scene where the Tenth Doctor travels to ancient Phaester Osiris and talks to Sekhmet there and gets some piece of technology from there. But such small things should not matter. What I was afraid of was that Sutekh dies in a completely different matter or that his escape from death in PoM is explained differently.) Okay, so this actually would require almost no special management. And there certainly is no urgency to make any edits. Still, I prefer to manage potential subtle cases before editing rather than on the go.
 * Incidentally, some time ago I've created a category tree for Osiran stories, with the usual subdivisions into comic, audio, etc. At that point I tried to find all Osiran stories and categorise them. But then FP was still invalid. I've added all the FP Sutekh stories you pointed out to Category:Osiran audio stories, but beyond that I can't do much. It would be good if, at some point, somebody could categorise FP stories into these categories, as again this makes it more visible for editors, not knowing FP well. Amorkuz ☎  21:33, January 23, 2017 (UTC)

Faction Paradox
Hey NateBumber. I'm not at all familiar with FP (but plan to read/hear all stuff from it in the future). However, I do check up on Faction Paradox (series), and the page looks a bit confusing/ too crowded to me. For this reason, I made a version of the page with tables, instead of the current list. As an admin of the FP wiki, and one of the most avid FP editors here, I came to you to see if you think it looks good, and if it needs any improvement or factual changes. A few things I'd like to note:
 * a) I moved the prologues/other short stories to a separate area of the page, because the page looks "cleaner" to me this way.
 * b)Random Static did not get a table because making a table for just one book would be a bit stupid
 * c) There is some info missing (specially from audios), and some info can be more specific regarding release dates, but I made that with just the info from Faction Paradox (series). I'll later complete the tables
 * d) Do you think it's worth creating individual pages for The Faction Paradox Protocols and The True History of Faction Paradox? Most audio series get pages on the wiki. If we do, we can go to the Faction Paradox (series) page and add a template and redirect to the pages. OncomingStorm12th  ☎  02:01, January 24, 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I've now created pages to both audio series, (here and here) and updated my sandbox. They could certainly get a bit info on the intro, but I'll leave it up to you, since I have no knowledge about them.
 * Would you suggestion of the novels table be to make something similar to the one present on Iris Wildthyme (series)? OncomingStorm12th ☎  18:18, January 24, 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, so I made a few last changes on the tables, mostly coding stuff, and added the tables to the Faction Paradox (series) page. All that needs to be done now is add a intro to the page explaining the publication history, something similiar to BBC New Series Adventures, although this will probably be way shorter than that one. OncomingStorm12th ☎  22:55, January 24, 2017 (UTC)

Page moves
Hey, these last few days we've been a bit absent of admins, so, seeing no admin or other user told you this, I came. Please, understand this as a 100% friendly note. On a previous thread, it was decided only admins should rename pages. The reason? Short version: we, non admins, leave a redirect behind when we move pages. Admins don't. This means that they still have work to be done if we move pages ouserlves.

So if you come across a page that needs to be moved, you can put a or a  tag on the top of it. The is for pages whose name needs to be changed without discussion (like was the case with Justine McManus. You can even see that Justine (Alien Bodies) still exists, even though it is no longer necessary). The would be for cases were a discussion is necessary. Anyway, I myself (and most editors here, actually) have made this mistake in the past. OncomingStorm12th ☎  15:48, January 25, 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, okay! I'd been wondering why Speedy Rename wasn't totally redundant; thank you for clarifying and letting me know. I just read through the rules yesterday, so I was puzzled when Amorkuz mentioned it in passing the other day; it's good to see a source and an explanation. I'll definitely keep this in mind when editing in the future. :) NateBumber ☎  16:14, January 25, 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, it's fine. Also, one more tip: if you actually move the links, (though we're only supposed to do that if there's less than 10 links) there is a higher chance the page will be moved faster. To check how many links exist, and where these links are, you can go to this page. Then, you put the name you want moved (for example: the page "Boots" needs to be moved, but still has 2 pages linking to it. So, if you move the links from "Boots" to "Boots (The Lonely Clock)", and change the parameter from "no" to "yes" on that page, it'll probably get moved a lot faster). OncomingStorm12th  ☎  18:30, January 25, 2017 (UTC)

Apology
I sincerely regret that today's discussions descended into less than friendly conversations. I genuinely valued and continue to value our collaboration yesterday on FP. As, perhaps, you have already learned, I am passionate about DWU and this Wiki, as are many of us, and would fight for my opinions. Please be assured that, despite my snarkiest comments, I recognise my opponents as equals and respect them and their opinions. In this respect, I would like to assure you that the "shoving down the throat" remark you've read in my private conversation with another editor, did not encompass you (or Pluto2, for that matter) but referred exclusively to Fwhiffahder, specifically to him branding all who oppose the inclusion of Magrs's stories into this Wiki as "f****** bastards". I protested this phrase then to him personally, I oppose it now. And I strongly believe that this is, if anything, a mild reaction to such a phrase. I'm afraid, his insistence on keeping this phrase on the front page of his Wiki, including restoring it twice after other editors' attempts to make it less offensive, has robbed him of my respect completely. Despite having absolutely no respect for him, which is demonstrably mutual, I still believe to this moment that I have not said anything that would be offensive or not factual. Unpleasant, yes, but there is no reason for me to be pleasant to him. I would also like you to know that, in the same span of time, he called me an "idiot", easily a stronger insult than anything I said today. As I said to that other user, I am genuinely sad that Paul Magrs has been poisoned for me and forever connected to the "f****** bastards" remark. But I'm afraid, this will not change. So I will continue fighting against improper (from my point of view) inclusions of his work. At the same time, I can promise to be fair and not fight for the sake of the fight. In other words, I will always bow down to genuine evidence. Amorkuz ☎  22:29, January 25, 2017 (UTC)


 * I have apologised before. Out of respect for you, I will try to parse that remark once again, for the second and last time. But, of course, nothing prevents you from thinking I only wrote it this way, secretly trying to attack you but in a clever enough way as to avoid any danger of violating the personal attack rules.
 * So there were three statements in that remark: shoving down the throat, pushing Magrs and three People Who Love Invalid Stories. I just reread what I wrote in fear I was still too harsh fresh from the heat of the debate. But I did write what I meant. "Shoving" is explicitly applied to one user only, which is not you. The other two do apply to you. I do believe you were pushing Magrs work. If this term is offensive to you or if it is offensive to you that I might be pushing back, there is nothing I can do. I don't even see a reason to apologise for having a different opinion and for defending it. As for the "cabal" of three, one of them just happens to be my "pal" as he would say. Whether you believe me or not, I am capable of respecting him (and mourning his departure) without trusting him to properly vet invalid stories due to his self-proclaimed bias. I am equally capable of respecting you without trusting you to properly vet Magrs works due to your self-proclaimed bias for Obverse publishers.
 * What I valued in our discussions was that you argued based on content rather than on ideology and preferences. However adversarial I might seem or be, that is all I ever try to achieve in discussions. Amorkuz ☎  16:54, February 28, 2017 (UTC)

RE: LEGO Batman
Thanks! That means a whole lot actually. OS25 (Talk) 20:31, February 26, 2017 (UTC)


 * And I'm going to warn you to refrain in future from calling people who disagree with you "confused naysayers". Take a look at Tardis:No personal attacks when you have some free time. Shambala108 ☎  02:36, February 27, 2017 (UTC)


 * That's a pretty good point, actually. I think both sides of the argument in this discussion have their merits! If anything, I'm the "naysayer." OS25 (Talk) 06:05, February 27, 2017 (UTC)


 * I will let admins determine what constitutes an attack. I would, however, like to clarify that "not identifying anyone by name" did not make this statement impersonal. I was aware of this statement and clearly understood myself to be named as one of the "confused naysayers". With that I wish you happy editing and eagerly await more information on Rump Parliament from FP. And yes, too many people have been banned recently. I hope that all of us can stay civil and avoid more losses. Amorkuz ☎  16:05, February 27, 2017 (UTC)

I don't really understand what part of Tardis:No personal attacks is so hard to understand here. It's meant to explain the wiki's intolerance for personal attacks. It's not meant to be a list of bad things that someone can then creatively get around and then say, "It's not on the list".

For the education of anyone interested, User:CzechOut explains this pretty thoroughly at User_talk:SOTO/Archive_1. Also, for a clear example of how/why we enforce this rule, please see Forum:What about Bob?. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎  01:10, February 28, 2017 (UTC)


 * You're not in any danger of being banned. I just wanted to clarify how seriously we take Tardis:No personal attacks. Especially since an online forum like this doesn't allow a user to show tone of voice or facial expression — we can only go by someone's words. Shambala108 ☎  04:32, February 28, 2017 (UTC)

RE: S10 EPISODE TITLES SOURCE
The trouble is that the page doesn't exist. I know the magazine issue exists, but you gave a source that doesn't exist on this Wikia. There's no information about it on this Wikia yet. That means it can't be used as a source. But you can use that picture you also added as a source. :) I wouldn't just remove it without reason. --DCLM ☎  17:09, April 5, 2017 (UTC)

Edit summaries
Hi! Please do not post anything that might be a spoiler in your edit summaries. Please review Tardis:Spoiler policy and Tardis:Edit summary. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎  21:28, April 6, 2017 (UTC)

House Dvora
Was Romana explicitly said to be a member of House Dvora within a story? If not, I think adding the category is a speculation, even if the house was obviously named after her (but not so obviously in-universe). JagoAndLitefoot ☎  23:23, August 9, 2017 (UTC)
 * Thing is, based on the general rules of this wiki, if she's not stated to be of House Dvora explicitly, it's best to consider it speculation, and only maybe state it in the behind the scenes section. JagoAndLitefoot ☎  14:30, August 10, 2017 (UTC)

Apology
Sorry. I remember your Interference request and think it's a good idea (I'll need to look at it afresh of course). I'll get back to you. It's just things keep popping up. Amorkuz ☎  23:34, August 15, 2017 (UTC)

Re:Interference
Hi! Yeah, I've learned the hard way not to take a stand on anything. I suggest you ask User:CzechOut's opinion, especially since the issue of how to define multi-part episodes/stories has still not been resolved at Thread:183627. Thanks for your concern, and I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. Thanks, Shambala108 ☎  03:17, September 4, 2017 (UTC)

Re: admins
Hi! I wanted to address the concerns you posted at Talk:First Doctor (The Brain of Morbius), but since it's off-topic I'm posting here.

Just for the record, I've been an admin for four-and-a-half years, and since then three admins have been added, starting with User:SOTO at the end of 2014, with User:PicassoAndPringles and User:Amorkuz some time after that. In addition, there have been at least two users that I know of who have been offered the position (but who very wisely turned it down).

It's not really a matter of having enough active admins; there are a couple of different things going on that (though I can't speak for the other admins) I think might be the problem:
 * There have been a ton of forum posts, especially inclusion debates, of late. These don't always go the way users want them to go (Tardis:Valid sources is an especially complex set of rules), and some users are very vocal about expressing their, frankly, anger (we've even had one long-time user earn a long block for repeatedly criticizing admins for their decisions). This makes it harder for an admin to want to venture into a debate and make a decision.
 * From my own personal experience, I've had many occasions where I've made a decision, only for another admin to overturn my decision. It's happened so many times that I'd rather not waste my time; instead I have to settle for just reminding users that certain decisions need admin approval.

I know this doesn't really help the problem, but I wanted to let you know that your concern was at least heard. Thanks for your attention, Shambala108 ☎  03:17, September 8, 2017 (UTC)

BC dates
Hi, you posted a question at Talk:6000000000. The main article was deleted, but the talk page remains and I answered your question there, if you're still interested. Thanks, Shambala108 ☎  01:03, September 24, 2017 (UTC)

Clockwork clean up
Thank you for improving the page as in replacing incorrect information with correct one. Amorkuz ☎  16:57, October 19, 2017 (UTC)

Chapterhouse 5
Just to let you know: I'm not ignoring you. I just need a guaranteed in advance sufficient continuous quantum of time to give your reply its proper due. In the meantime, I can only commend you for doing proper, honest-to-god research. I should also clarify that by downgrading to rename I wasn't arguing against it being renamed. I just really lacked context to do it on the fly. Amorkuz ☎  17:21, October 29, 2017 (UTC)

Unfinished Interference
By the way, as Shambala108 wanted to know what CzechOut thinks about it, the move is postponed pending his opinion. To expedite things, you may want to ask him about it. Amorkuz ☎  21:51, November 18, 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm against merging the two Interference novel pages.


 * A novel is much more dense than a TV serial. Each novel in this duology will have many more references than can be made to a single TV episode. It's more useful to our readership that we're able to cite one of the two novels. Merging them would be to throw away a level of citational accuracy for no strong reason. (Examples: Sam says in Book 2 that she once had sex with Fitz; K9 Mk III is shown to be capable of detecting artron energy in Book 1.)


 * Morevoer, they've been separated since they first appeared on the wiki a decade ago, making their link lists distinct at this point. It would involve a kind of busy work to go back and make them a single list, since it's better for SEO to actually link to the correct page rather than using mere redirects.


 * Also, since I've brought up SEO, it's important to note that the titles of these two works are Interference - Book One and Interference - Book Two. From a technical standpoint, we actually want people to be able to enter "interference book one" or "interference book two" into their search bar, and for our page to come up first. And that's the case in Google right now. We are the number one page in Google for the proper name of these books. That would not be the case if we changed these pages to something that is not their name: the common noun, Interference.


 * They also have distinct ISBN numbers, making them separate things. Were there a collected edition, as there are for trade paperbacks of comic books, there might be an argument for a page called Interference (novel) -- but there's no such animal. And even so, the separate pages would still exist on this wiki, since those are genuine products.


 * Finally, our naming conventions aren't quite as black and white as you aver. Your examples neatly avoid our treatment of Children of Earth, where we do indeed have separate pages for each part of a multi-part story. And again, the rules for TV pages -- even if they were uniformly applied to TV -- do not clearly apply to novels, since novels have so much more content than TV episodes.


 * At the end of the day, the reasons for keeping them separate are stronger than the ones you've given for merger. 14:15: Mon 20 Nov 2017 14:15, November 20, 2017 (UTC)

Now we are six hundred
The rule "valid until proved otherwise" is more complex than this phrasing suggests. I would agree with you when a release is of a standard type, just in a new place. We did not discuss the validity of "The New Series" range of Big Finish or the ascendance of Candy Jar Books. There indeed it is hard to find why they should be invalid. The situation is not at all so simple when the released thing is innovative/creative. For instance, Big Finish decided to spice up the trailer to the second volume of First Doctor companion chronicles by making it more or less a linking narrative between the four stories of the box set. But because it is a trailer, which is not a typical source of (stand-alone) narratives, this cannot be valid until Thread:224324 concludes. What we have in Now We Are Six Hundred is a completely new genre, according to their self-description: "the first volume of Doctor Who verse published". We cannot treat them as valid by analogy then. There is but one course of actions: discussing it at the Inclusion debates.

But there is more to it than that. Short poems are not exactly the genre famous for narratives. I wonder how many of Shakespear's sonnets can be considered narrative stories. I'm not saying that poems cannot contain narrative. But they don't more often than do. There are definitely non-narrative poems in the book. This is a sharp contrast to even short stories, which are, in overwhelming majority, narrative-based. In other words, at least some of the poems in the book are not stories (violate Rule 1 of T:VS). And this means that, in order to validate some of the poems, we need first to come up with reasonable criteria for determining which poems are stories and which are not. The fact that one (or several) editors feel this particular poem has narrative should not make it valid as it creates a precedent without a policy to match, a recipe for chaos. Finally, it should be mentioned that the format is (or mimics) a children's book. The self-description calls it "whimsical". This raises a possibility that this is akin to a parody. In fact, the children orientation is arguably the only reason we had a discussion about Dr. Men. Mind you it was a very short discussion as there wasn't really a problem. But we did due diligence. I believe these poems are not as clear cut. But at any rate, it needs to be discussed by the community rather than decided ad hoc, one poem by one editor, another by another.

Don't get me wrong. I am not arguing to keep them invalid forever. I did not yet form an opinion about all of them (though, as I said, some are clearly non-stories). I just want to be able to point any newbie to a closed "Inclusion debates" thread when they start ridiculing us for counting "some children's stuff". I had the pleasure of doing just that with Dr. Men recently, so I can attest that people may have very different opinions on such matters. Pointing them to a principled in-depth discussion goes a long way to establishing the base line that things are not random here on the wiki and they should not start changing stuff based on their own opinions. Amorkuz ☎  19:49, November 25, 2017 (UTC)

Re: spoilers
Hi! Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but I had relatives over the holiday weekend and didn't have much time online.

You definitely didn't break the spoiler policy, but your post could have led less experienced users to respond with spoilers. Unfortunately, most users don't have any idea just how strict our spoiler policy is. They might know not to post plot information, but they think that it's ok to post cast information, trailers, story titles, etc. Therefore, I decided to act pre-emptively. If a situation comes up like you described, we can then discuss it, but it's better to just leave it for now. Thanks for your understanding, Shambala108 ☎  01:46, November 27, 2017 (UTC)

Pigeon German
In case you are interested, "die Spinne" means "spider" in German and it must be feminine. Unfortunately, it is not trivial for an English speaker to get the gender system of German, so the masculine "der Spinne" is wrong unless it is used in German in the so-called dative (or possibly genitive) case. This case-based usage is not reproducible in English though (apparently, the only remaining vestiges of the dative case in English is in "methinks"). Anyway, I don't know if has any relevance there. Just keep in mind that the German words used are slightly bastardised, whether by design or or not, I cannot say. Amorkuz ☎  22:36, November 29, 2017 (UTC)

BS treatment
Yeah, now I'm a bit late with responding. Sorry. No, alas, I don't have the Benny Inside Story (though it's bad there isn't even a page on the wiki for the book). Thanks for taking a note of the series page. It's kind of a pity that there are almost no series pages for audio as opposed to TV (except for box sets). So I tried to come up with the information relevant to the season. If you feel like some standard info is missing, let me know. About the rename, I agree with your reasoning. Unfortunately for you, I try to do renames about once a month (otherwise there is no time for fun stuff). So at the moment I'm on a rename break. But this is a big rename (>250 links to move), bot-worthy. Maybe try poking SOTO? The main rationale for the rename for me, after working on this thing is the ability to do the pipe trick. And I agree that Big Finish is not a necessary dab here.

As for the complex relation among the stories, yes, a table with the linear order is a must and the series page is a place for it. I think this order is also implemented in the navigation panels of infoboxes. I did notice some irregularities around the beginning of prose releases but didn't have time to chase them. Would you say that novels can be attributed to seasons, like most of BBC New Series Adventures? The table is a very good source of info but it looks scarily big. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to break it into separate tables for each season, writing a short introduction and, when applicable, sending a link to the main page of the season? The point is to explain the multiple changes of format in between the tables. It would seem that stating there are no more novels after season n is superfluous because it can be inferred from the table. But inferring takes time and effort and the table is big. I believe a casual reader could benefit from such simple explanations. Or that Epoch see a change of format from single releases to box sets. Plus it would create a natural visual separation between seasons. Another thing that I would think about is the enumeration. To me it's hard to process because numbers jump between novels and audios (and anthologies?), plus the three lists behave differently about the season boundaries: audios go down to 1, while novels and anthologies are enumerated consecutively. I'm not really sure how to make it clearer, but it feels like this can be improved. Note that the order should be maintained because, if I understand correctly, it is an in-universe timeline order, not just release order. So the table is very valuable because it provides this info. It's how to best present this info that I'm struggling with. First idea (probably not very good) is to give the numbers in three different columns: one for audios, another for novels and the third for anthologies. That would help figure out the predecessor visually. Another possibility is to make numbers look different. For instance, 3.1 for audios, N4 for novels and A3 for anthologies. (3.1 for audios is the best format because it matches the one used by BF both on the website and in the Big Finish Companions.) Note also that novels don't seem to have numbers given to them by BF. So another possibility could be to drop the numbering for prose things completely. Then the empty cells would help distinguish them from audio. Fourth idea is to use colour coding. (Note that this might run into problems with LoD scheme: ask SOTO, they are a specialist in this.) But the idea is to use one colour rows for audios, another for novels, etc. Oh, and question: did you consider the benefit of separating novels from anthologies, given that on BF website they coexist in the same subrange? What if they are the same colour/formatting? Thinking of it, colour-coding might be the most effective way. Perhaps, a possible example of what I mean can be found at List of Doctor Who television stories. Ok, can't think of anything else at the moment. I'd be happy to continue brainstorming this.

Another related thing. Don't know if you've noticed, but I'm trying to institute some order in the navigation panes of infoboxes. I was happy to see that they already had two panes---one for audios only and one for the whole series. In places, I've inserted an extra navpane to account for the release/story differences. I got tired of having to click through four stories of the main range anthologies, for instance, so I added an extra pane that goes through releases rather than individual stories (it is not always there, only when there is a difference from the story order). What it means for the Benny range can be seen at Dead Man's Switch. Now there is a choice whether to follow to the next story or to the next release (box set). Benny case might turn out to be too complex for the three nav panes maximum we have, but I have hope. At least I was able to fit things into three panes at Dragons' Wrath. Amorkuz ☎  23:14, December 13, 2017 (UTC)


 * I keep getting distracted by other projects. But I wanted to try something and it is here: User:Amorkuz/Sandbox3. I copied your table and coloured it (yellow for novels, red for anthologies). Now, these are the colours that are known to work in both LoD and DoL schemes in terms of contrast. Whether you like it in terms of colour scheme is a separate issue. There are many things to unpack in your post. They are best looked at one by one. And I'm not sure this is the best time for me. But in general terms, your separate tables are an unmistakable improvement over the one huge one, even disregarding the multiple comments and explanations. Potential further tweaks notwithstanding, in principle, I would say it's worth putting your version (or your version with my colouring if you like it) already now.


 * What I am not sure, however, is the addition of the New Adventures. It's not that I am against, but this changes the focus of the page and I do not know enough of the series to be sure it's the right thing to do. What I do know is that BF treated the New Adventures as a separate production. I've spent quite some time divining the meaning behind the production codes and it turns out that the Doctor Who designation on the website is more than a marketing ploy, it is also reflected during the production in the "DW" part of the production code. So the New Adventures gained this "DW". Secondly, the infobox of Bernice Summerfield currently creates The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield as the next series, which is incompatible with both being covered on the page. This separation may well be idiosyncratic. I don't know. Maybe it makes sense to ask on the talk page of the series what people think. Either way, the separate page for the New Adventures should, of course, remain.


 * Note also that I wouldn't want to put this table or modify it myself as I prefer to edit on things I either listened to myself or at least did research on (as I did on Series 1). Here I'm happy to be your consultant and opine on your ideas, but would leave the leading role to you. I'll continue nibbling on your last post but don't promise any expediency through the holiday season. Amorkuz ☎  23:27, December 22, 2017 (UTC)


 * Still not really a detailed response. Two things. I only used yellow and red because those are the only ones working. Thing is, when something looks good on the wiki, it is usually thanks to our resident coders CzechOut and SOTO. They did some CSS magic to make the yellow and red work, and work differently in different skins at that. You could not use other colours because they are not done yet. Sorry for not being clear on that.


 * But, on the other hand, I wonder if it would help readers to distinguish short story from novella anthologies. Here is a thing I've understood while working with SOTO on the table of Big Finish releases by year. It is not universally true that giving all details helps digest big data chunks. There are divisions that are important, for sure. And then there are things that you and me and another dozen people here on the wiki cares about but a first-time reader would just be confused by. The presentation of ranges on the Big Finish website is a great example of extremely confusing data dump with structures and substructures whose role is not at all clear at first site. For instance, Counter-Measures were at some point rebranded The New Counter-Measures, but it is not immediately visible on the website unless you already know about it. And thus, we decided not to burden the table with these extra details. I understand why it's useful to distinguish a novel from a collection. But (and it's an honest question), what does a reader gain from distinguishing between novellas and short stories. Amorkuz  ☎  02:16, December 25, 2017 (UTC)

Re: category naming
Hi! My mistake, I meant to say "second sentence". I quote it here for your convenience (something I couldn't really do in the edit summary:


 * "Above all else, category names must not be open to multiple interpretation, and must be free of any bias or value judgements."

Sorry for any confusion. Thanks, Shambala108 ☎  01:36, December 14, 2017 (UTC)

Prose overviews
Hey, just dropped in to say that this is a very cool idea. I distinctly remember searching for this info (first First Doctor novel), not being able to find it and resorting to checking each page in the category. I can imagine how much background research it requires. So kudos for putting time and effort for data that is both hard to find and useful. Amorkuz ☎  19:09, January 22, 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations
Just wanted to stop by and congratulate you on having your work published. I too wish to some day become an author for Doctor Who prose, mainly so I can make some theories I've had canon, like how the Master's timeline works. But, this isn't about me, so I congratulate you once again, good sir.BananaClownMan ☎  17:55, January 29, 2018 (UTC)

Spoilers, DWU or otherwise
I'm truly sorry I caught you mid-edit. It's very annoying independent of the reason. And the idea that spoiler policy is somehow restricted to DWU stories never crossed my mind. So if you find a quote supporting this view, I am ready to apologise and restore the thread. However, the relevant quote suggests that this thought did not cross the minds of the policy authors either: "A spoiler is any information — in-universe or behind-the-scenes — coming from a story which has not yet been officially released in its entirety." Nowhere before this phrase is DWU or Doctor Who mentioned. And the quote does not say "valid story". When I think of it, it can't say "valid story" because an unreleased story is neither valid nor invalid. It does not exist yet. As I said, the idea to treat non-DWU differently seems simply illogical. The point of the spoiler policy is that we cannot know what the story will be until it is released. The best we can do is scientific speculation, and DWU being what it is, we are bound to fall on our faces more often than not. How can we discuss suitability of a story to DWU if we do not know the content of the story? It seems futile.

I have no opinion of the series in question and would have nothing against having a discussion about it, say half a year ago, provided that truly new arguments are provided. But it makes really very little sense to discuss something soon to be released. Imagine that a story is released a month from now where the Twelfth Doctor appears. Bam! It would be hard to dispute the validity. Unless of course by that time both sides argued each other into two corners and refuse to listen anymore. The inclusion debates being what they have been lately, it is a real danger. So why not start the debate already having all the relevant facts instead of throwing them into the middle of an already heated argument? Amorkuz ☎  17:19, February 6, 2018 (UTC)

With friends like these who needs enemies
Sorry, Nate, I'm afraid Vienna's chances of validity decreased. I didn't have a skin in the debate before, but now I've been forced to waste enough time to have any desire to stay engaged with this issue or consider new vague statements by BF. No one can accuse me of actively preventing BF material from becoming valid. And now, after thoroughly reading the original discussion, I can see that no one ever had anything against these stories. The problem was always the public statements by BF staff. In light of all this, I would appreciate it if you do not start a new debate if BF says something along the lines of their previous vague statements. I explained in my closing argument why a repetition of the debate with no clear path to validity is sure to be harmful to the relationship among the editors. On the other hand, if a clear statement is found, then by all means bring it to everyone's attention. Amorkuz ☎  10:10, February 8, 2018 (UTC)