User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-31010985-20180428165444/@comment-24894325-20181022185831

Well, there was recently a very interesting discussion (at least interesting for me) at Thread:231309, which touched upon similar topics. Specifics and the outcome of that discussion aside, it pointed out something that I have not realised before and that is brought up in the preceding post: there are multiple Doctor Who continuities that were intended to be separate from the very beginning. The Dalek movies and, according to that other thread, Daleks Versus the Martians, and Dr Who and the House on Oldark Moor are all parts of such a separate continuity.

Of course, creating a separate wiki for it is always an option. And, unlike this wiki, which is in no danger of losing space to develop any time soon, such a small wiki might even be made complete and perfect.

However, one can also think outside the box and ask why do we continue to treat stories in a binary way. It used to be a division into canon/non-canon. Now it is valid/invalid. But why not allow more types? Why should one type be defined negatively, as INvalid? And why should the Dalek movies be relegated to another wiki? After all, it is quite preposterous to suggest that the Dalek movies have nothing to do with Doctor Who, isn't it? Isn't it fascinating that before playing our beloved Wilf, Bernard Cribbins was in one of the Dalek movies all those years ago? That's definitely something that tingles my molecules and something I would like to be able to learn here at Tardis, without the need to jump between wikis.

Sure, it is vitally important not to mix continuities that are not intended to be mixed, but there must be a way to create disjoint categories (and maybe prefixes) to make it work. After all, we do have invalid categories such as Category:Non-DWU Doctors. They are simply not too developed because the focus of this wiki is on the main DW continuity.

I know for a fact that there are editors interested in fleshing out such stories that are "invalid" according to T:VS but can be also viewed as a disjoint set of DW stories. While there is no literal prohibition on developing such stories, I suspect the negatives "in" and "non" used to describe them are not very encouraging. Rebranding them as separate DW continuities might help.

And isn't this what, in effect, happened to The Infinity Doctors (a BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel), which was put in the Infinity Doctors universe (see Forum:Is The Infinity Doctors canon?)?