Forum:Temporary forums/Trailers

Opening post
On this Wiki, it has been long held that "trailers" cannot be valid sources as they don't tell narratives of their own, or some variation thereof. And yet, in the years since, the BBC has released what some editors have defined as "narrative trailers", type of trailer that presents an all-new unique narrative, but because these stories have been called trailers, they've been declared invalid sources, and the policy has never changed despite obviously needing to do so. In this thread, as for once I actually feel the most qualified person on this Wiki to talk about this, I aim to explain many things.

But not to say trailers should be valid. Trust me, let me explain, I'm going somewhere with this.

Context
I'm not sure specifically when trailers were invalidated, but I believe it was at a time when the only trailers that had been released by the BBC were those "Next Time" trailers that accompanied the 2005 revival of Doctor Who; now, it does make sense that these should be invalid, as they often contained misleading information. As Wikipedia : "Some trailers use "special shoot" footage, which is material that has been created specifically for advertising purposes and does not appear in the actual film." Obviously, as evidenced by the existence of this very thread, things have evolved and flat-out invalidating trailers seems to be a problem.

Currently, I am studying a Level Four Creative Enterprise course (equivalent to the first year of a degree) at college. Now, you may ask, "what the cruk has this got to do with trailers?" Well, the fun thing is, I've been studying brand marketing, and a lot of that is based around promotional videos. In fact, I'm making one. (Spoilers!) Now, I've done research into promotional videos, and there are over ten types of them. From this knowledge, I cannot help but actually cringe at how this Wiki covers trailers, and the frankly bizarre language that has been created to refer to things such as "narrative trailers".

Breakdown and reclassification
Trailers should remain invalid. Yes, you heard me. No, I'm not stupid. But then, at the same time, sources such as Step Into the 80's!, the 2009 BBC Christmas idents, Season 17, The Journey, The Universe is Calling, etc, should all be valid. In order to explain this seeming contradiction, let me first share some definitions of what a trailer actually is.

Now let's define something else. I'm sure you'll be able to understand where I'm going with this now.

It should also be noted that trailers (albeit under American law, I'm not sure about British) cannot be over two and a half minutes long.source

Now, all of this is to say: what we define as "narrative trailers" are not, by definition, trailers. They're branded short films. In fact, the term "narrative trailer" does not exist. We've made it up! Its roots are pretty clearly derived from "oh but Mr Admin, why can't this trailer with the Fourth Doctor and a Prime Computer be valid, it's got a narrative!" And bam, "narrative trailer" is born. In the real world, outside of this Wiki, these are branded short films. And you'll find a lot of what this Wiki covers, primarily webcasts, actually falls into the "branded short film" type. All of the Tardisodes, pretty much everything in Category:Big Finish webcasts, especially stories such as Dead and Buried, and so so so much more. The term "narrative trailer" doesn't even make much sense, as most actual trailers actually have a narrative. It's kinda the point, to give you a cryptic, greatly truncated version of the final film to drum up publicity.

You may be thinking to yourself, "but doesn't the BBC and Big Finish call a lot of these stories "trailers" in the YouTube descriptions?" Yes they do, but that doesn't mean they're correct. I cannot explain why they are so intent on not picking up a dictionary, but these things are not trailers, all I can do is explain they're wrong. Hopefully that is not arrogant of me!

However, branded short film is a bit of an odd thing to call a lot of, typically really short, little DWU productions which are like little scenes and what-have-you, so I believe we should go with a term a lot of Whovians (not just Wiki-folk) are familiar with: "mini-episode" and/or "promotional mini-episodes". It has the same meaning as "branded short film", but uses terms Whovians are familiar with, which aren't Wiki-isms based around the ins and outs of our validity policies which in no way is actually relevant to our readers.

Proposal
Trailers should remain invalid. However, we reclassify all "narrative trailers" (i.e., all those that do not fit into the actual definition of "trailer"; this also includes things such as Campfire) as "promotional mini-episodes" and validate the lot of the them (unless if they fail another part of T:VS obviously). We should give them dab terms based upon our current conventions, so a promotional mini-episode released on YouTube would be "webcast", something on the telly would be "TV story", etc. Furthermore, by abandoning the term "narrative trailer" not just because it's made up and there are better terms that could be used instead, we have to remember that as non-narrative sources are now valid sources, then non-narrative promotional mini-episodes should also be valid, such as those Big Finish ones that have a character monologuing while footage of landscapes and stuff plays.

Obviously, this change essentially means that we are validating promotional sources, while keeping actual trailers invalid. This scope also allows us to validate promotional comics, such as Dr Who and the Turgids and On the Icy Edge of the Galaxy..., and promotional short stories, such as Dalek Wars. Trailers are explicitly productions that contain little to no unique content and merely present a cryptic stinger of an upcoming release, and should remain invalid for now. Promotional mini-episodes are any production released that contains a large amount of unique fiction and, by definition, is not a trailer.

As per the ruling at Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/Overhauling image policies, proper trailers that contain no unique fictional material but do contain unique visuals, primarily Big Finish trailers and DWM preview comics are all now valid but as part of the story they are released alongside with a la cover art and interior art, so there is no need to discuss their validity here. 15:40, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Discusssion
I fully support validating all the promotional sources that the validity of is being proposed here. We should not be treating, say, Dalek Wars the same way we treat a "Next Time" trailer. Pluto2 ☎ 15:48, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Short and sweet from me, apologies, but agreed! Fractal Doctor ☎  16:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I totally support this. Time God Eon ☎  16:13, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

I want to, first of all, thank User:Epsilon the Eternal for writing such a fantastic opening post. Really summed up this topic better than I could.

As Epsilon said, this is yet another case on our website where we had one very simple rule, that next time trailers shouldn't be covered as valid, and we've somehow extrapolated several other completely different rules from it.

The worst of this comes from our long-standing judgement saying that commercial fiction is not valid. What this has been said to mean is that fiction created to sell something else can not be covered on this wiki. What we have effectively done here is ban capitalism. Most Doctor Who spinoff media has existed to sell something else. Be it when the BBC novels were being used to boost VHS sales, or all the times Doctor Who Magazine has been used to promote the revived series.

Perhaps the most infamous recent example of this has been PROSE: Can I Help You?. This was a short story, released to tie into Time Lord Victorious, which was hidden on a glow-in-the-dark t-shirt. We currently consider it invalid because, as it was printed on clothing, it is a commercial item. As I've said elsewhere, I think stories printed on paper and sold in books are also commercial items.

To me, the most glaringly inconsistent thing on our website is that Dalek Wars (series) is invalid, while Doctor Who and the Daleks (short story) isn't. For those out of the loop, Dalek Wars was a short story series released in the 2000s to tie into bubble gum cards. DWatD was a short story series released in the 1960s to tie-into candy cigarettes. Look me in the face and tell me why this contradiction exists.

The answer is that, in my opinion at least, 1960's commercialism is seen as something cute and worth highlighting, while 2000s commercialism has been judged in an unfit way.

To me, this "rule" actually stands as a major contradiction to T:VS, as rule 2 is entirely about stories being commercially licensed. Oh, so a story has to be commercial to be valid, right? Oh, but it can't be too commercial. It has to be commercial fiction but not too commercial as fiction. Sure, okay.

A big topic we have to talk about here is what we will do if this OP passes. I think an obvious point here is that we are accepting that "trailers," as in collages of scenes from a future release, are still invalid. But a piece of promotional material showing entirely original content is not something that should be invalid. The small hiccup this creates is that there are a few things on the wiki that have the (trailer) DAB, which obviously need this removed.

The second issue is that I don't think everything that is promotional but isn't a trailer should be validated via this debate. Rather, I think once we remove this as a universally interdict for inclusion, we need to return to the Four Little Rules at T:VS. Some things will still warrant discussion.

To write down some of my thoughts, I've made my own sandbox for reference. Here I've listed out as many examples as I can count, sorted into three main categories: fiction that should be automatically validated if this thread passes, fiction that likely would need its own debate, and stories which I do not personally consider as viable for validation (mostly due to failing Rule 4).

Another point I make is that trailers with unique footage, such as Doctor Who and the Ambassadors of Death and Death of the Doctor (trailer), are still "trailers" by definition, and newly recorded material does not cancel that out.

There's a lot of things to talk about here. For instance, if something like The Trip of a Lifetime and all neighboring ads capable of passing Rule 4? I encourage users to use my OP as a sampling of topics for things we need to discuss, and please bring it up to me if I missed out on anything caught in this discussion. OS25🤙☎️ 16:16, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I support the validation of not-really-trailers-but-still-called-trailers; we need Doctor, Doctor, Doctor validated. Cookieboy 2005 ☎  19:29, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Just to clarify, as I've been going through the history of the wiki (it's all commented out, look at the source code), I haven't yet found the decision that made trailers invalid. I have found references to merchandise being invalid. (Though it's taken almost as a given.) Now, the way the threads in question are set up (the reference was on a thread started in 2005, but was made in 2009) means that I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the causation here is backwards. I think it's merchandise rules that led to trailers being invalid. Or at the very least they're completely separate from one another. See User:Tangerineduel in Forum:The original inclusion debates:
 * There is no context for the merchandise to have canon, they are an object rather than a 'work'. Everything that is considered canon has content that can give the text context within the wider DW Universe. You can read a novel, watch a TV show, listen to an audio drama. A piece of merchandise, or specifically a figure is an object from a text, its meaning is given definition from its source text.
 * As you can see, the reasoning here doesn't really seem applicable to trailers in any way, you can watch a trailer. So either the rules around trailers came after, or came from an entirely different source.


 * As far as the OP is concerned, I'm not sure I know enough about the reasons we invalidated promos in the first place to have a strong stance. But I'm not convinced this is cut and dry, for one reason. Friend from the Future (TV story) introduces significant new narrative content, due to being deleted scenes from the episode. Is this a trailer or a short film? Najawin ☎  19:52, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I feel Friend from the Future should be valid regardless of this trailer thread, as The Pilot was written around it to remain in continuity. It also is not a trailer by definition, as it isn't a promotional compilation of scenes from all of The Pilot; it's just an extended sequence of a single scene. (Heck, Friend from the Future could easily just be validated under Rule Four By Proxy...) 20:20, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm unconvinced about R4bp. I feel that validating FftF is likely to be controversial, given the context. Which is why I'm a bit skeptical here. Najawin ☎  20:30, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Friend from the Future is not a deleted scene, it's an entirely separate production. At one point, all of the dialogue was going to be in The Pilot, but not a frame of the material filmed for FftF was ever going to be in The Pilot, and Moffat intentionally kept in just enough material to show "where it fits". You can't call it a "deleted scene" because it was never going to be in The Pilot.


 * By the definition given in this thread, and used everywhere else in the world, Fftf is a mini-episode, not a trailer. It can't be a trailer because there are no clips from series 10 in the episode. And the reason is because Friend from the Future was filmed before anything actually used in Series 10.


 * But as I said in my sandbox that you clearly glanced at, FftF is not a part of this forum because so many random reasons were given to make it invalid in 2017. And I don't find your reasoning very satisfying. We can't validate commercial stories because some have unique narrative details? How is that different from saying "We can't validate Lungbarrow because it has details not in the TV show"?


 * The point isn't that all of these stories should blankly be valid without debate, as I said earlier. The point is that something being an advertisement, something being merchandise, and something being commercial fiction should not be universally disqualifying for it being covered on the Wiki. Or even, selectively disqualifying, which is a more accurate description of the entirely inconsistent way that we have been enforcing this.


 * Sorry if I sound annoyed, but you're essentially arguing about an entirely different forum topic at the moment. OS25🤙☎️ 20:34, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

"And I don't find your reasoning very satisfying. We can't validate commercial stories because some have unique narrative details?"

Politely, this is not what I said. I said I'm skeptical of the specific lines Epsilon drew (unique narrative details) for trailers/minisodes because a certain story fell on one side of them and I felt that it was going to be a controversial placement. I don't know enough about the reasoning invalidating trailers to have a strong stance on another demarcation. But this one seems a bit sketchy to me.

Given that I'm the person who first mentioned validating Can I Help You?, it seems rather unlikely that this point would generalize to commercial stories more generally. Insofar as I mentioned them, it was to make a historical point about the origins of merchandise policy vs trailer policy. Najawin ☎  20:42, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Well I apologise if I misread your statement there.


 * Friend from the Future, as I recall, was disqualified for three or four things. One of the most important was simply that when Moffat wrote it, he didn't know if it would "count" as it were. Thus, it failed our Rule 4, as Rule 4 by Proxy was not codified yet. So it wasn't just because it was a promotional video. Thusly, declining to qualify it as a trailer does not automatically make it valid. In fact, there is currently an OP being written for a future forum debate about this topic.


 * And again, if something is controversial we should leave it for future debate. The Trip of a Lifetime is a better example of a promotional video that is not a trailer that probably shouldn't be made valid without its own debate.


 * Your historical theory about this topic actually dating back to merchandise is relevant. I always raise an eye when I'm told the source of some rule came from a debate about Doctor Who canonicity. So I still believe creating rules more consistent with our actual policy is a good thing.


 * When I say "consistent," what I mean this... If this forum does not pass and this rule is not revised, I recommend we make several pages invalid. For instance, if A return to Skaro for the First Doctor... is a trailer, then so are all of the Tardisode releases. And so are most stories released online. If Dalek Wars (series) is merchandise and thus instantly invalid, then lets also treat Doctor Who and the Daleks (short story) the same way.


 * All I am suggesting is that we actually follow the judgement of T:NPOV. This rule isn't consistently followed on the website. So either we need to fix the rule, or follow through and invalidate dozens or hundreds of stories. OS25🤙☎️ 20:55, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, if we don't make promotional mini-episodes valid, then the reasoning for it should be consistently applied accross the Wiki, so we should invalidate everything from VNA preludes to 99% of Big Finish webcasts and all of the Doctor Who tie-in websites. The "trailer" rule is only a facet of what the policy's scope is meant to be; so if we deem a work of fiction to have been created as primarily promotional material then we should apply this standard to everything promotional. 21:02, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I completely support validating everything that is not factually a trailer. Danniesen ☎  21:38, 18 March 2023 (UTC)


 * We will also have to change the definition on the page Trailer. Danniesen ☎  21:41, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Excellently written really, it has my vote as I support the notion here. StevieGLiverpool ☎  17:52, 19 March 2023 (UTC)


 * While promotional stories are being discussed, what about marketing campaigns like Step Into the 80's! (TV story), The Appliance of Science (home video), etc.? I think the Prime Computer advertisements should probably be valid but I'm iffier on the Zanussi marketing campaign. I bring these up because they're also promotional sources. Pluto2 ☎ 01:34, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * The current understanding is that the Prime computer ads would be valid under Rule 4 by Proxy. The Zanussi ads I don't think we've really talked about, it really comes down to if you think they pass rule 4. OS25🤙☎️ 03:06, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * This is very much not the current understanding. They could be valid under R4bp, but this is less than trivial. Najawin ☎  05:00, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I support the original proposal in full. I oppose opening this thread up to things other than "trailers" as Pluto2 suggested on the procedural ground that such a decision should be a separate thread, in my opinion. Schreibenheimer ☎  19:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

When I say "the current understanding" am referring to the Prime computer spots being directly referenced in PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet. Chris Cwej finds a PRIME computer bank disconnected just outside the TARDIS control room. This is a pretty cut-and-dry example of rule-4-by-proxy, as set by our former precedent. OS25🤙☎️ 20:38, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm aware of the reference. I decidedly wouldn't consider that to be R4bp under current precedent, as R4bp still requires an attempt to bring the story "into continuity". There's no continuity here! It's just an Easter egg! Christmas is notorious for them! (And, indeed, this is exactly the sort of case that I was always concerned about with R4bp. I was never concerned about validating Shalka, or DCtT. But the logic used was so broad that it validated tiny little Easter eggs that were clearly just supposed to be fun jokes.) (I will say that some people do seem to be aware of this issue and are trying to avoid expanding R4bp jurisprudence - see the Shalka discussion - for which I'm thankful. But this only cuts against the idea that the Prime computer ads are obviously valid.) Najawin ☎  20:52, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't understand how this is not direct continuity to the Prime mini-episodes. It's a PRIME computer bank disconnected outside of the TARDIS control room. It's not an easter egg. It's a pretty direct reference based in continuity. OS25🤙☎️ 20:55, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Swinging back to the Zanussi segment, I would say quickly that I've never seen sufficient evidence that it passes Rule 2. When this was brought up, I mistook the topic for Time Is Everything, which again I believe would need its own debate. OS25🤙☎️ 21:01, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * This is generally what we call an Easter egg, yes. A fun little reference for people to find, an allusion. This doesn't seriously expect us to think that the events of the ads happened. It's a nod and a wink to those who know about them. But we're clearly off topic, and this would be served better in a discussion about the minisode if and when commercial minisodes writ large can be valid. Najawin ☎  21:03, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I don't see particular evidence that the Prime spots don't pass Rule 4 to begin with. They clearly take place in the DWU, and were even written by Tom Baker. And it's not really "off-topic" as this is an example of a story which is invalidated exclusively for being commercial fiction. OS25🤙☎️ 21:04, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not really sure how you're contending that they clearly take place in the DWU. Might they? Perhaps. Clearly? Absolutely not. (Hence not simply commercial fiction, there are also R4 concerns, which you even mentioned at the beginning of this discussion!) In the same way, they might pass R4bp (I don't think so) but it's certainly not obvious that they do. Najawin ☎  21:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Agreed. If, say, a Past Doctor Adventure set in the 1970s had a villain hyping up his powerful new supercomputer and then it turned out to be an ordinary Prime 200, that would be an in-joke. It might be funny to fans who remembered the advertisement but would imply no continuity connection. But what we have here is a very direct connection to the narrative situation of the advertisements: the Seventh Doctor is shown to have, in storage aboard the TARDIS, a Prime computer which he has clearly acquired at some point in the past. We know exactly when he acquired it, and what the circumstances were, because we have literally seen this happen on television in a story starring Tom Baker and Lalla Ward. The idea that this is "just an Easter egg" is baffling to me.
 * In Alien Bodies, Miles mentions that the Raston Warrior was a product manufactured by a company called Raston and that all the talk about its incredible power was just marketing bluster. That's an intertextual in-joke about the incongruity between its visual appearance in The Five Doctors and how the characters talk about it. But it is also a true thing about the Raston Warrior within the Doctor Who universe. Something being brief and humorous does not mean that it is a non-canonical untruth embedded within a canonical story. PintlessMan ☎  21:18, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Just to note, the purview of this thread has always been inclusive of any and all promotional stories and marketing campaigns. I did lump them in there, but we may as well do it all in one go as promotional stories being invalid is an obvious side effect of the invalidity of "trailers". 22:44, 20 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Indeed, as the person who pitched this forum I have always seen "commercial fiction," "fiction that advertises" and "fiction which is also merchandise" to be three sides to the same dimensionally-transcendant coin. OS25🤙☎️ 00:20, 21 March 2023 (UTC)


 * To clarify Epsilon, are you saying the intent of this thread is to throw out Merchandise Rules entirely, and let in things like Can I Help You? Because I'm not against this idea, I'm quite for it, but I don't think your post establishes the relevant argument for doing it. Najawin ☎  00:24, 21 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Najawin, you can argue that Epsilon presented the history in slightly the wrong order. But you can't argue that he didn't include this topic in his opening post, nor that there hasn't been discussion and consensus on the topic. OS25🤙☎️ 00:30, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think Epsilon did. "Promotional stories" are distinct from "stories on merchandise", or what have you. I also note that just now he still referred to the former, it was you referring to the latter, and I asked him to clarify as a result. Najawin ☎  00:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)