User:CzechOut/This wiki's scope

Defining the scope of the wiki — that is, telling people what we cover — is a vital first step in making our wiki truly useful to people. Without a clear sense of what stories will be discussed here — and which will not — readers and editors alike won't understand what we're trying to accomplish.

Why does it matter whether we think something "counts" or not? Because only stories within our scope can be used to describe an "in-universe" topic. For instance, if we were writing about Sarah Jane Smith's experience of the country of Italy, we could use anything within The Masque of Mandragora or even The Ghosts of N-Space. But we could not use something from a 1986 fanzine in which Sarah Jane was described as having visited Florence.

This policy therefore tells us which stories we can use, and which we can't.

Background
The world of Doctor Who — otherwise known as the Doctor Who universe or DWU — is a very different place to that of Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, DC Comics, Marvel Comics or really any other franchise. The copyright holders to the DWU, the British Broadcasting Corporation, have deliberately refused to say which stories "count" and which don't. In general they've been wholly silent on defining a canon of any kind. Unlike a lot of other franchises, our copyright holder has deliberately chosen not to define a canon. Which means we're stuck defining the borders or this wiki. While this stance has undoubtedly been good for sales of stories — few authors have ever been pushed out into the cold of non-canonical status by the BBC — it makes the life of the encyclopedia editor and reader much more difficult. After all, if we don't take some sort of decisions, we'd end up believing that Joanna Lumley really was the Thirteenth Doctor or that Dr. Who was a human who had built a machine called TARDIS. We also have to deal with stories legally authorised by parties other than the BBC. Another unusual feature of this universe is the fact that it is not wholly owned by one entity. Star Wars is ultimately owned by one person, George Lucas. Star Trek is owned by Paramount. But, due to oddities in British television practices, the DWU is primarily owned by the BBC, but individual elements within the DWU, like the Daleks, the Autons and even individual characters like Nyssa and the Brigadier, may be owned by individual authors. This has given rise to some stories being authorised by particular authors, such as Robert Holmes, which have nothing to do with the BBC.

Because of this somewhat complicated background, every encyclopedia about this this franchise must make some usually arbitrary decisions about the scope of their product, or they'll find making forward progress quite difficult.

The general rule
We believe that only stories officially licensed by the relevant copyright holder "count". Stories which are completely unlicensed by any relevant copyright holder may not be used as a valid source for writing an article. It is important that we as a community work to a common understanding of what "counts" and what doesn't. Otherwise, our articles will gradually become "muddied" over time, with some people viewing certain stories as "okay" and other peoples thinking the opposite. Over the course of several debates in our forums, one concept has emerged as central to this wiki's day-to-day operations. In most cases, a story can be used to write the main body of an article so long as it:
 * • is professionally published and released to the general public;
 * • has a Doctor Who, SJA, Torchwood, K9 and Company or K9 logo on it;
 * • is licensed by a copyright holder — typically the British Broadcasting Corporation

Following that simple guideline will allow you to determine whether a story is regarded as canon by this wiki well over 90% of the time. But there are exceptions.

When the licensor isn't the BBC
The wrinkle that is difficult to understand for those who are new to the world of Doctor Who is the phenomenon of the author-owned character. Copyright for individual stories of Doctor Who has long resided in the individual writer, unless the British Broadcasting Corporation made other arrangements. This meant that a lot of characters — particularly species — were owned by individuals, not the BBC. Clever publishers were therefore able to release stories connected to Doctor Who without having to ask for the BBC's permission. Stories licensed by an individual author are generally allowed here. Click here for a detailed list of these kind of stories produced by BBV Productions, the major publisher of them. The major publisher of this kind of story was BBV Productions. Typically, they would approach people like Robert Holmes (or, more precisely, his estate) and get permission to write, say, a Sontaran story that didn't involve other characters from the DWU. They then ended up with a story that was, in effect, fully licensed, because they got permission from the owner of the DWU element, and then they created wholly new characters around that copyrighted element.

Our approach is to generally allow these sorts of stories. A rose by any other name is not as sweet. If the story consistently uses alternate names for DWU characters, places and situations, it's probably not allowed. The big exception to this is the story that contains analogous elements. As a general rule, if something is an approximation of something else in the DWU, then we don't fool with it. The classic example is the independently-published Faction Paradox stories that are not a part of the BBC Books range. Because writer Lawrence Miles does not have a license to DWU elements other than the Faction Paradox organisation itself, he must resort to using "code names" for Gallifrey, the Doctor, TARDISes, the Master and any number of the basic building blocks of the universe. Moreover, his "Faction Paradox universe" is an explicit reaction against the Faction Paradox narrative seen in BBC Books. It's therefore not the DWU at all. In early 2012, after a year of debate, we put Faction Paradox outside our fences.

Things that don't count
Want a more positive list? Go here for a comprehensive list of things that do count. The stories we don't allow in our discussion of in-universe topics are actually few and far between. However, for clarity, we've composed a detailed list below.
 * 1) Since they have no official BBC sanction, fan fiction, charity publications, and other unlicensed products are disallowed. Clearly, stories found on LiveJournal or in fanzines are well outside our scope. Likewise, fan films, no matter how good, or whether included on official DVD releases, aren't allowed, either.  Devious, for instance, cannot be considered a valid explanation for the regeneration between the Second Doctor and the Third Doctor — even if (some) of it did appear on BBC DVD: The War Games. (An article about Devious is allowed, however, because it's a DVD extra.)
 * 2) Professional productions or publications where characters are almost certainly used illegally.  This doesn't happen too often, because of the risk of being sued.  Nevertheless, one clear example of this is BBV: The Killing Stone, which contains the character of the Fourth Doctor in a way that was not licensed by the BBC.
 * 3) Professional or semi-professional productions involving approximations of DWU characters that deliberately "get around" the BBC copyright. These can be confusing, because they often star actors who played the Doctor or his companions in the main show.  Nevertheless such things are completely disallowed by the wiki, as they aren't even set in the DWU.  Disallowed are:
 * 4) Cyberon stories
 * 5) The Stranger series
 * 6) The Wanderer series
 * 7) The Time Travellers series
 * 8) The Airzone Solution
 * 9) Stories which have nothing to do with the DWU made by production companies generally associated with making Doctor Who-related content. This may seem to be a bit of a no-brainer, but it's worth repeating that this is not the wiki for Big Finish's entire output, or for BBV original science fiction like Infidel's Comet.
 * 10) When there are unlicensed and licensed versions of the same story, the unlicensed version is disregarded. This doesn't happen too often, but it has happened.  An example is The Wings of a Butterfly, a Colin Baker-written story that appeared in print in a charity publication — which doesn't count — and its later Big Finish audio adaptation — which does count.
 * 11) We allow some products that are not BBC copyright, but these items must have initially appeared in a BBC-licensed product. Examples would include the K9 series, which flows from the Bob Baker/Dave Martin copyright on the character of K9, but is allowed here because K9 initially appeared on Doctor Who, a BBC product.  Likewise the Bernice Summerfield stories published by both Virgin Books and Big Finish are allowed because the character originated in the Virgin New Adventures line, at the time a BBC-licensed product.  We therefore allow material which is sanctioned by a copyright holder other than the BBC, so long as the character or situations debuted within an official range of Doctor Who stories. More detailed guidance on this point is provided at our list of approved spin-offs''.
 * 12) Conversely, we disallow a few things that were produced under BBC license. Note that the presence of a BBC license, however, gives these items a "special" status. Articles about these items may be included on the wiki, so long as they are clearly marked with an nc tag, and placed in a non-canonical cateogry.  However, these items may not be referred to within an in-universe article. For instance, nothing in the article, Eleventh Doctor (The Curse of Fatal Death), should find its way into the article about Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor, as these are wholly different characters.   Generally, such items are confined to obvious parody or obviously discontinuous storylines.  Such things include:
 * 13) Any BBC parody, including, but not limited to, The Curse of Fatal Death.
 * 14) Dimensions in Time, which sits awkwardly in both Doctor Who and EastEnders continuity.
 * 15) The Peter Cushing movies of the 1960s
 * Doctor Who role-playing games, regardless of manufacturer or license
 * 1) The Tonight's the Night sketch
 * 2) Big Finish's Doctor Who Unbound audio range, and any prose which flows from them
 * 3) We also disallow the integration of material from any professionally-produced, non-BBC parody into "in-universe" articles. However, such stories are "special cases".  We do allow for the creation of articles about professional parodies — on the grounds that they are legal parody under the laws of the United States and other countries — so long as they are clearly marked with an nc tag, and put into a non-canonical category.  Examples of this type include:
 * 4) The Doctor and the Enterprise, a parodic book which posited a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover
 * 5) The 1970s MAD Magazine comic strip featuring the Fourth Doctor, Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith
 * 6) Any comic strips by Tim Quinn or Dicky Howett
 * 7) Any appearances on The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live or similar parodic television shows
 * 8) Anything listed at Doctor Who parodies
 * 9) Background information given by production staff cannot be used by "in-universe" sections of articles. RTD explaining what he meant to write in a story is not the same thing as the story that was actually broadcast.  Care must be taken not to let interviewees on Doctor Who Confidential influence description of the narrative elements within a story.  Any out-of-universe commentary by production staff must be kept firmly within "behind the scenes" sections of articles or fully "real world" articles.
 * 10) Scenes that were not originally broadcast or published do not "count", unless they were created specifically for home video release. Thus deleted scenes on, say, the Doctor Who series 4 cannot be referred to within the body of an in-universe article.  However, scenes like Meanwhile in the TARDIS can, because these were direct-to-DVD scenes — not rejected material.
 * 11) Parts of Target Books or BBC Books novelisations of DW or SJA television stories that conflict with the televised stories or the preponderance of evidence from other sources. Generally, this means that the televised story is considered "superior" to the novelisation where there is conflict.  But it can also mean that if more than one other source establishes a fact, the other sources might "outweigh" the novelisation.  This doesn't happen often, however.
 * 12) Non-fiction books aren't valid sources of information, even though licensed by the BBC, for the main body of in-universe pages. The Doctor Who Technical Manual, The Terrestrial Index, The Doctor Who Monster Book, AHistory, The Discontinuity Guide, and really anything in category:reference books may be used on real world pages, like story pages.  But only narratives are valid resources on in-universe pages.  Sources prefixed by "REF" can be useful for information on a story page like The Daleks.  But they shouldn't be used on the in-universe article about the Dalek species — except, perhaps, in a "behind the scenes" section.
 * 13) If a comic strip is reprinted and there are discrepancies between the original and reprinted version, the original version shall be deemed "correct".
 * 14) If a novel is converted into an audiobook, and there are discrepancies between the printed original and the reading of the audiobook, the printed original shall be deemed "correct".
 * 15) First-person videogames, like Attack of the Graske, are non-canonical to the extent that the player, you, or your actions are not a part of the DWU. However, Graske, and games like it, are canonical, in that the observed facts, which don't have anything directly to do with gameplay, are allowable.  Put more simply, Graske is a valid resource for defining the species of the Graske, but you may not refer to any impact your gameplay has on the specific Graske in the game. Likewise, Graske canonically describes that Rose Tyler saw an ABBA concert in 1979, and that a Graske came to Earth one Christmas to kidnap humans — but it does not establish that you are a companion of the Tenth Doctor.

The real world doesn't count
It is a great temptation to believe that the Doctor Who universe is very much like the real world. It is not. Its details are frequently dissimilar to our world. Historical episodes of Doctor Who — even from as far back as season 1, when the show was explicitly meant to be "educational" — are replete with historical inaccuracies. Marco Polo's given DWU birthdate is different from the real world date. Modern day episodes of the show, like The War Machines, are based on qualities of British computer science that didn't exist in 1966. And episodes that were supposed to be set in the clear future, like The Tenth Planet, described events that obviously never came to pass.

The long and the short of it: don't write articles about subjects that exist in both the DWU and the real world using Wikipedia. Trust only Doctor Who sources.



Stories specifically disallowed
shownamespace=false category=Inclusion debates