Forum:The original Panopticon

Greetings! Here in the hallowed halls of the Panopticon, members of the  TARDIS  Index File wiki community may gather to discuss various issues and topics regarding the operation of the wiki. It is not, however, a place for idle conversation or off-topic discussion that doesn't directly concern the TARDIS Index File.

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Things to Do
(This topic has been moved to the Panopticon Archives.)

Page controls
Why do some pages (such as this one) have a move tab but others do not? Is there an easy way to delete pages? The only reason I am asking is that I created a page for The Reign of Teror (TV story) which is spelt wrong. I couldnt see an easy way to move or delete this page, so i have just created another one at The Reign of Terror (TV story). Can someone either delete the original or better yet tell me how to do it.

Ok i must be going mad there is now a move tab, but i have already created the page, and i still cant see how to delete pages --Amxitsa 15:39, 14 Apr 2005 (EDT)


 * I believe deleting pages is something only sysops can do. That said, I deleted the page for you. Based on your contributions, both articles and ideas, I had been considering offering you sysop status. A formal invitation will be posted on your user page. --Freethinker1of1 16:21, 14 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Wiki Project Logo
Khaosworks has created two possible logos for the project. (I created one earlier, but am withdrawing it from consideration.)  Click on the thumbs to view the full-size versions. I will also be uploading versions resized to fit the 135-150 pix wide size for wiki logos, with links on the full-size version pages, to give a better idea of what these would look like if used. I invite everyone to give their feedback and vote on which version they would most like to see used. Thanks. --Freethinker1of1 18:40, 8 Apr 2005 (EDT)

I prefer the bottom one --Amxitsa 15:21, 14 Apr 2005 (EDT)


 * Ack! Since no one had said anything about which logo they wanted, I went ahead and uploaded the top one, after adjusting the size and the colors. Ah well, I'll just leave it up for now until a third or fourth party gives their vote. If they want the bottom one, I'll change it. --Freethinker1of1 16:23, 14 Apr 2005 (EDT)


 * Sorry i was just on this page to post the question above and saw this, I didnt realise you had already made a decision.


 * No problem. As I said, I'll gladly change it if any more members voice a preference for something else. Remember, almost nothing on a wiki is permanent. (And I wasn't annoyed or offended either, just being facetious.) ;)

--Freethinker1of1 16:38, 14 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Cast
Does the cast section have to be directly from the serial or can it be added to, e.g. is the cast section full names or common names e.g. Jo Grant or Josephine 'Jo' Grant and if people aren't credited on the serial are they on our cast list? --MJP 16:08, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * If you can verify that someone had an uncredited role in a story, by all means please list them (IMDB has a list of Doctor Who guest appearances for the original series which can be found here the current series which can be found here, and which include uncredited performers.) As for full versus common names, I think most people would know the Third Doctor's second companion as simply "Jo Grant." If a page already exists for someone that uses their full name and you list them under their common one, making a redirect page might be easier than moving page content. (I'll try to post a "how to" on redirects when I have time.)

One last thing I'd like to add is that for characters that were known in the story only by a common first name, i.e. "John" or "Marsha," or a common title or function, i.e. "Guard" or "Commander," I've been creating links and pages which include the title of the story they appear in in parantheses to prevent confusing them with characters with the same names or functions in other stories, - for example, "John (Another Dalek Story)" and "John (Yet Another Dalek Story)."

--Freethinker1of1 11:27, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * What about people named in novelisations but not in serials e.g. a guard is called Rogers in the book but credited in the serial as 'Guard'?--MJP 14:45, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. It would depend, I think, on whether the person was actually called "Roger" in the course of the original television story, even though the character was listed as "Guard" in the credits. Fans might remember the person by name, rather than "the guard in such and such story." But since most people won't remember the character's name, and to prevent confusion, it might be better to use the title and mention the specific name, if known, in the actual article. We pretty much decided early on with the project that the novelizations would pretty much not be used as source material, since the authors sometimes took liberties and put things, events, and characters in the novels that were not in the original televised stories. --Freethinker1of1 12:04, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Capitalisation
Should Frontier In Space be moved to Frontier in Space because I moved The Wheel In Space to The Wheel in Space but now that 'in' is capitalised again I think it might be a deliberate title?--MJP 16:40, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I've actually had trouble remembering myself what the proper conventions are, but judging from how the stories are listed on other sites, it looks like "of," "in," "a," and "the" should be lower case in the titles, - except, of course, when they're the first word in the title, - while "from" should be capitalized. So the pages should be moved to ones with the proper capitalization, with redirect pages for those who have as much trouble remembering this convention as we do :)

--Freethinker1of1 11:36, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * So what about The Creature from the Pit, that has no capitalisation and in wikipedia articles 'from' isn't capitalised so I think that from shouldn't be capitalized, so if you agree I will move the pages.--MJP 16:32, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, if Wikipedia isn't capitalizing "from" then I can guess we will go with lower-case. --Freethinker1of1 20:54, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Extended Cast
What do people think of the following page An Unearthly Child Uncredited Cast, if you look back at the history of An Unearthly Child you will notice that the cast list was getting really long. I think it is better to have the main cast on the story page and then the uncredited cast on a different page. It makes the story page a little simpler to read and to be honest there are going to be fewer people who are interested in uncredited cast. I think it is important to include them for the sake of making this project as comprehensive as possible but on the main page I think they only make it more cluttered than it needs to be. What does anyone else think? Amxitsa 21:32, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Good idea, for exactly the reasons you stated. Oh, and my apologies for not being as involved with the project the last few days. My current work schedule is taking much of my time. I'll be continuing work on pages for years, decades, and centuries when I can. Have also downloaded the Wikipedia article on the Daleks and will be editing and adapting it to fit the format and WHOniverse perspective for this wiki.

--Freethinker1of1 09:34, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Should that be used on all serials with uncredited cast or just ones with a lot of uncredited cast?--MJP 14:33, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Transcripts
I have put links to transcripts on each of the story pages, but i was just wondering what the copyright position is before i actually upload one onto An Unearthly Child page. I know they are freely available on the internet but are we allowed to upload them on to here? I would personally have said yes, but i just wanted to know what everyone else thinks before actually doing it. Amxitsa 11:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * If you mean copying and uploading a transcript from someone else's site, I would certainly contact the owner of the site and get their permission, regardless of whether the content is formally copyrighted, as a matter of courtesy. If these are official BBC transcripts, they may very well be copyrighted. Keep in mind that just because something is on the internet does not automatically make it public domain. If it's your own synopsis of the story, I see no problem. --Freethinker1of1 17:46, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

User pages and welcoming newbies
I'd like to encourage everyone to please add content to your user pages so we can get to know each other better. Don't need your life story. Just add whatever you feel confortable divulging. Some email or other contact info would be nice. If you're worried about spambots getting your email address, just write it out as I did on mine, without an actual link.

I'd also like to encourage everyone to contribute welcoming messages, compliments and, if necessary, critiques (make that polite critiques) to the user pages of new contributors. Quite a few people are contributing one or two things and then disappearing, and I think the lack of feedback is making them think their contributions are not appreciated or welcome. --Freethinker1of1 18:57, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Getting off track
(Relevant sections of this subject have been moved to the Canon Policy talk page)

Doctor Who Book Format
What is going to be the standard format for all the Doctor Who novels, as none of them have been made yet? Maybe we should make a page to experiment, like Suggested Format for Television Story Entries, only Suggested Format for Doctor Who Novels.--MJP 15:24, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll try to be put together a format when I have time. Right now, I'm wanting to get this site back onto emphasis on the fictional Whoniverse, as I originally intended for this project and was agreed upon by the other founding members, who have since left after everything went off on this whole behind-the-scenes tangent. There is too much of that on the site, and it really belongs at Wikipedia, not here.

--Freethinker1of1 22:53, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some Further Thoughts on Canon Policy
(This subject have been moved to the Canon Policy talk page.)

Suggested Changes to the 'Character' Pages
To remain in keeping with the 'in-universe' perspective of the wiki, I wonder if we should be using 'individual' (as the Star Wars wiki does) rather than 'character' as 'character' suggests fiction.

With the above point in mind, I would suggest changing the heading 'Character Description' to 'Biography'.

I would suggest that we should decide that all entries be written in the past tense. At the moment there is a noticeable mix of tenses in some of the Character Descriptions (eg Ian Chesterton).

I would propose using an infobox template for characters/individuals. I also think it would be a good idea to include some or all of the information that has been included in the info boxes for Doctor Who comapnions in the main wikipedia (eg Ian Chesterton).

I think a question that a lot of people might come to this wiki to find an answer for is 'which TV stories/comic strips/books/audio stories does 'character X' appear in?'. With this in mind, I think it important that we aim to list EVERY appearance of a particular individual in all media. For most incidental characters I think this information can be included in their info box. However, for long-running companions and Doctors etc, this list could become quite long and unwieldy (and is already becoming that way on existing character pages such as Barbara Wright. So, for these longer lists, I would suggest having a separate page which we link to from the Individual's info box. For example, on Ian Chesterton's page we could include the link 'Full List of Appearances' which would take you to the page Ian Chesterton – List of Appearances. This list would be split in to the canon categories previously suggested, and each of these categories would, in turn, be split in to sub-categories (eg under Prose Stories you would have BBC Past Doctor Novels under which would be listed the book Face of the Enemy. Obviously such a list would always be a work in progress and there should be a notation to say as such.

As an aside to the above, I think we should avoid using acronyms such as PDA or EDA (or at least link them to a page where they are defined). We shouldn’t assume that users know what PDA stands for etc.

I have done a partial re-edit of the Ian Chesterton page to show how all this might work. I hope you agree that it at least looks better than it did before (compare it to Barbara Wright. --Mantrid 18:31, 11 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * On the list of appearances page should we include when they appeared in archive footage like when in Ressurection of the Daleks(?) the Doctor went through all his companions and past selves and they were seen on screen. Should we put that there and put next to it (archive footage)?--MJP 15:25, 14 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think these sort of appearances should be indicated because they may be of interest. However, as you suggest, I think a notation should be attached - eg 'flashback sequence' or 'cameo' etc. I would suggest making these terms linkable so that (eventually at leat) we can have a page that defines what exactly we mean by 'flashback'. --Mantrid 17:12, 16 Jul 2005 (UTC)

--Freethinker1of1 11:22, 14 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * I actually created links for "PDA, EDA, etc." on one of the character pages; I just haven't gotten around to creating the actual pages. I'm beginning to think the general categories of "Televison series" and "Expanded Universe" may actually work better. While some folks may completely disavow an entire media category as canon, quite a few may accept most of the stories in a given format save one or two. I know of many people, for example, who accept the BBC novels as canon with one exception, - "War of the Daleks." With Expanded Universe, it's simply a matter of deciding which individual stories outside the television series you accept as canon, regardless of the media format.

For ease of reference, I propose dividing the character files as follows:


 * Biography
 * Personality
 * Habits and Quirks
 * Mysteries (or Discrepancies)... optional. continuity hiccups like the Doctor pre-Pertwee having just one heart. and things we simply don't know, like Susan's parentage.
 * Quotes.

in emulation of a reference page which existed a looong time ago (back when Nitro 9 served as the unofficial WHO homepage) somebody had a page with the eye colors and hair colors (and even heights!) of prominent characters so that you could, if you, wanted, look up the Davison Doctor's eye color for your fan fiction or PDA. -- (re-edited) *Stardizzy* 19:42, 17 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Adding height and eye colour doesn't sound like a bad idea to me (though where we would get accurate information about the heights of characters, I'm not sure!). --Mantrid 12:30, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Good comments. I had started to think that some of the listing were becoming unwieldy, but I've not been contributing for a while due to work pressures so haven't had a chance to think of how to fix things.  I do like the new-look that you've created for Ian's page, Mantrid.  I also hadn't noticed my tendancy to flip between tenses!  But that's one of the many great things about doing this in a community - as there's always someone who'll notice these things!  I'm now going to re-edit the existing pages into the new template, and I'm also going to edit the text to sort out the tense. Kazzab72 08:59, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Glad you like the look of the Individual template Kazzab72, and the new pages you've created using it look great. One thing I'd like to suggest though if I may, is that we need to reference the source of particular bits of info in the longer biographies. I think the revamed entry on The Master is a good example of this with the information source being sited at the end of each paragraph in brackets. --Mantrid 12:29, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Before it gets confusing can we please make sure that on the individual pages and on the list of appearances pages we create links to BBC Past Doctor Adventures, not BBC Past Doctor Novels as the first name is the widely-used one. Ditto for Eighth Doctor Adventures.--MJP 13:46, 1 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Sub-Headings in Articles
I would like to suggest that it would be a good idea not to include 'empty' subheadings in articles. In other words, I don't think sub-headings with no text below them should appear in the Wiki. My reason for this is that it makes pages look untidy and it also makes the wiki appear 'unfinished'. So, I would propose a guideline that no subheadings are added to artciles until there is text to go with them. This appears to be the the ruling adopted by the Star Wars wiki, and I think it looks the better for it. (By-the-way... I am guilty of this as well!) --Mantrid 22:17, 17 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Outside Sources - Canon or Not Canon?
(This subject have been moved to the Canon Policy talk page.)