User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-44988386-20200325202329/@comment-6032121-20200325203427

User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-44988386-20200325202329/@comment-6032121-20200325203427 This Wiki doesn't recognise the concept of canon. As long as a story was licensed and that we have no evidence that it wasn't intended to be set in the Doctor Who universe, we cover it as valid.

There was a lengthy debate long ago about the backup Titan comics — and for the record, it's not that "Rose is a cat", it's just that the Doctor adopts a cat and names her for Rose Tyler. But long story short, it was found that the author did mean for them to "count"; she created comedies set in the Doctor Who universe, not parodies spoofing it.

As for the Blogs of Doom, some of them do include comedic elements, but no more than many of those Titan backup strips, and I see no evidence that they're meant to be parodical. Maybe a couple of them are (which ones?), but Ian the Elf, for example, is written in exactly the same register as all material involving the Elves in Last Christmas. And I simply cannot see how you could read the first, Jorj, as any kind of parody. It's got a few funny lines (what modern DW story doesn't?), but it ends with the main character abandoned alone on a dying ship, hoping against hope the Cybermen won't kill him. Talk about a comedy.

And they're certainly not advertised as parodies, being instead defined as "sneak peeks into the secret diaries of characters in the Doctor's orbit", which seems pretty clear intent that they take place in the DWU.

I can completely understand why someone more used to the more "serious" strain of Doctor Who stories like Torchwood or the VNAs might be surprised that we cover all of these things, but being funny has never been evidence, on its own, that a story doesn't 'count'. (Good God, but if that was so, half of Steven Moffat's writing credits would be invalid!)

So if you find a quote from Jonathan Morris (or, in a pinch, an editor of Doctor Who Magazine) saying that the Blogs of Doom short stories aren't supposed to be set in the Doctor Who universe, you can start an inclusion debate for those specific stories in Board:Inclusion debates. But I really don't think it's in accord with What We Do Here to exclude them, or the Titan comics we specifically validated in another, well-argued debate, for occasionally tipping over into being a bit silly.

(Mark, mind, that all the above is the informed opinion of a user who has a lot of experience with the Wiki's policies by now — not an official decision from an admin. But I'm pretty sure I've got it right here.)