Talk:Hugh Grant

Disambiguation
Okay, to avoid an edit war, I'm bringing the topic here. According to T:DAB, in-universe topics conventionally are left undabbed, and out-of-universe topics given a dab. "The precise way in which we choose to use dab terms has evolved over time on this wiki. From the beginning, though, the guiding principle has been:
 * Out-of-universe things get dab terms; in-universe things generally don't.

This means that if you have a choice between the city Castrovalva and the story Castrovalva, the city stays at Castrovalva and the story goes to Castrovalva (TV story). This notion was one of the first things decided by our founding editors, and it has gained widespread acceptance by our community. Note, though, that this is a very different organising principle to that which you'll find on other wikis, like Wikipedia. There, the notion is that relative popularity determines which page goes without a dab term. If we were set up like Wikipedia, Castrovalva would lead to the TV story, because it is by far the thing most people associate with the term "Castrovalva". But our system isn't like that. We consistently choose to prioritise on the in-universe/out-of-universe metric, giving no weight at all to most linked to /least linked to, or most searched for/least searched for."

- T:DAB

So, as the policy states, the in-universe topics shouldn't be dabbed. Therefore, Tom Baker (Bafflement and Devotion) should be Tom Baker, and Tom Baker should be Tom Baker (actor). Scrooge MacDuck just wrote in his edit summary of this page that the in-universe page should be dabbed, due to T:BOUND, a rather contrary statement, as the in-universe pages having a dab is going against T:BOUND, not the opposite way around. Epsilon  📯 📂 17:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * T:BOUND does not merely cover written policy, but also widespread practice that has been tacitly confirmed by the test of time and the evident knowledge of admins. The page about the real-life has sat at Tom Baker for over a decade, despite all my fellow Administrators knowing full well about T:DAB and about the existence of the "Tom Baker" page. Moreover, renaming this page would mean changing links across the Wiki, a monumental effort.


 * The Tom Baker rename may be a good idea. But there is a de-facto exception to T:DAB for prominent BTS people with a comparatively minor in-universe presence. Putting an end to that exception would be a matter for the Panopticon, because it would mean changing current practice for dozens of pages' names, with tens of thousands of links needing to be changed across the Wiki.


 * Until we do that', I contend that we should remain consistent about it, and keep actors who have played the Doctor undabbed in all cases. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  17:10, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be possible to get a bot to take care of switching the links? I'm not sure, not having ever been an admin, so correct me if I'm incorrect, but it seems like the sort of thing it'd be possible to program a wiki bot to do. That said, I don't believe this switch would be ideal either, because nobody is ever going to type Tom Baker into the Doctor who wiki looking for the in-universe character. Although, then again, nor will anybody type Hide looking for animal skin, The Woman Who Lived looking for a thing on iPlayer in an obscure minisode, or a lot of the other places we enforce the "in-universe takes precedent" rule (although in fairnessboth those examples are TV stories, which are automatically dabbed anyway). So basically I can see the case both ways. Quite frankly if it were up to me I'd have either the rule the other way around or do what Wikipedia does with regards to prominence, but this wiki has decided otherwise and far be it from me to ever try and change that age-old policy. Quick question, though, would Episilon suggest taking this to the logical extreme and moving Doctor Who to Doctor Who (TV series) and Doctor Who (N-Space) to Doctor Who? And, for Scrooge, is the rule "prominent real world people with a comparatively minor in-universe presence" of "actors who have played the Doctor undabbed in all cases", because you say both and they aren't the same thing. Angus Villiers-Stuart is an example of somebody who has played the Doctor but isn't prominent, and Verity Lambert vice versa. Although I'll admit the issue's hardly likely to arise in the former. NightmareofEden ☎  20:10, 28 January 2021 (UTC)