Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-24894325-20151101001641

Having started to listen to Companion Chronicles by Big Finish and, hence, reading their pages here, I was alerted to a comparative scarcity of material there: plots are typically absent, references/continuity/notes might miss important facts, even leads are quite often just the number of the release, overall and within the season.

Take The Flames of Cadiz (audio story), for instance. No plots: check. Nowhere is it mentioned that in this story the TARDIS crew met Miguel de Cervantes. The lead is actually longer than some but still provides barely any information of interest.

To quote from the leads policy, "Good, interesting leads draw the reader into an article. Leads also save readers' time, by allowing them to quickly decide whether they're reading about the topic for which they were searching." Well, this story actually has a lot going for it: 2 hours instead of the usual (for Companion Chronicles) 1 hour. 2 companions instead of one. Francis Drake, King Philip II of Spain, the Spanish Armada, and Miguel de Cervantes (the latter being a spoiler).

As I've bought all Companion Chronicles and plan to listen to them all eventually, I would be happy to improve the leads as I go. But I've run into some subtleties before, where the policy is not well defined and even admins might disagree. Thus, I would appreciate if some experienced editors (admin or otherwise) could opine on the following elements I thought of including into the leads.

1) Many but not all pages include the writer and the featured cast. This information is, in a sense, redundant as it is present in the infobox. But Google search shows the preview of the lead and most people would start from it, so I would say such a duplication is reasonable. There is, however, a question of what featured means. My position would be that, unlike the Early Adventures where the Doctor is rightfully featured even though not voiced by the original actor, here only the cast "feature" their characters. For instance, I do not believe the First Doctor is featured in The Beginning (audio story), as is currently stated.

1a) If more than one original character is featured in the above sense, I would emphasize it as it is both unusual and occurs more than once.

2) A recurring monster/enemy.

3) The length surprisingly varies: there are a few 2-hour releases. I would think this should be mentioned as it makes a release special.

4) While in most cases the depicted era of the show corresponds to the set of companions (from the infobox, not from featured in the above sense), there are exceptions. Such an exception is noted in The Beginning at some length. There are several other adventures, however, that lie outside the expected eras of the show: the adventures predating Barbara and Ian are an obvious example. But there is also the question of Sara Kingdom surviving her death in a way I don't know about yet. Such irregularities seem a good thing to mention.

5) The rough typification of the story: historical, pseudo-historical, contemporary set on Earth, space story, etc. if easily recognizable/uncontroversial.

5a) In case of a (pseudo-)historical, the rough period. (Here I am not sure as this is usually present in the Publisher's summary and in the infobox, but once again, the lead is supposed to help decide whether to read those.)

6) Occurrence of famous/infamous historical figures. Depiction of famous historical events.

7) Firsts in all shapes or forms. I wouldn't want to specify because these are usually present already.

8) Plot connection or immediate temporal connection to another story in the same or different medium. An example of the latter is the 2nd paragraph of Utopia (TV story) mentioning a Torchwood episode where Jack Harkness begins running to the TARDIS. An example of the former (disclaimer: added by yours truly) is the connection to the The Time Meddler (TV story) in The Bounty of Ceres (audio story) that is used as a plot device. (I chose this as a less obvious case: there are clear prequel-sequel relationships like in the case of Rocket Men, for instance.) One should, of course, distinguish such plot devices from simple name checks ("we faced mortal danger so many times: in this adventure, and that, and that").

Those are my initial thoughts and I would be glad to hear comments/additional suggestions.

While I did not find another purpose for the leads in the policy other than helping people decide whether to read the whole article, I myself have an additional purpose in mind. As this purpose guided me in devising the points above, it might be useful to formulate it explicitly. For me the lead should be useful not only with respect to this TARDIS Data Core, but also with respect to the DWU. For a character, I want to read the lead to get a rough idea of who he/she/it is and whether it matters at all. For an audio, personally I want to quickly get an idea of whether I want to listen (have already listened) to this audio or not. Some people care about the writer (according to Big Finish CD Extras), some about an actor, some about historical figures, etc. Similarly, if there is a reasonably strong plot/time connection to another story, I would want to have enough information to decide whether I should familiarize myself with that story first. That's why I would want this information to be added.  