Talk:Bibliophage (short story)

Covered?
why does this get a page? Simply because its characters were later used in a DWU story? From that logic, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and episodes of Star Trek should get pages! NightmareofEden ☎  04:47, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Yeah you're right, I'm not sure why this exists, much less that it's valid. Danochy ☎  06:43, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I believe this follows the precedent of the non-Dalek-featuring stories in the early Dalek annuals; they are placed by authorial intent in the DWU, and the book they were published in had the rights to some DWU concepts even if they weren't used in this particular story; therefore we cover it anyway.


 * In this case the fact that the author later reused the characters introduced in Bibliophage in an unquestionably DWU story demonstrates apparent intent that the story was set in the DWU — and besides, the gimmick of "Wonders", being that each story explicates a different Wonder of the Universe, already implies that all the stories in the book take place in a single universe.


 * Of course, some might argue that this isn't strong enough, or have contravening evidence in terms of Stephen Marley's authorial intent at time of release. But this story has been covered by a long time; T:BOUND applies and an exclusion debate in the Forums would I think be needed to overturn the current practice.


 * Nevertheless you are both right that "retroactive validity" per se is not a thing, and the phrasing on this page should be amended. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:24, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * The lack of forums is starting to get out of hand with the amount of discussions pilling up.


 * A work around should have been developed long ago, these discussions should be allowed to take place on talkpages in the absence of forums because right now we're trapped with glaring issues being unabled to be solved for years on end. It is ridiculous. RadMatter ☎  17:41, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * From our validity policy page


 * > BBV Productions' direct-to-VHS feature Cyberon was ostensibly meant to take place in the Doctor Who universe, and was a perfectly law-abiding product — but at the time it was released, it did not contain any preexisting DWU element to license. Thus, we don't cover it, though we do cover later uses of the Cyberons or Lauren Anderson in stories that also exploited licensed DWU concepts.


 * Does this still apply or does it need to be updated? Because surely the argument for validity being made here would fall under something very similar to this? NightmareofEden ☎  20:35, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Or would Cyberon be indeed covered if it were a segment in an anthology film and one of the other segments featured a licensed appearance by, say, Davros? If BBV had released its Audio Adventures in Time and Space series as box sets instead of seperate releases would we be having pages on the "Ace and Professor" audios and The Boy Who Kicked Pigs? If so, that's... a little odd, but at least I can understand why this would then be VALID. But then why aren't the OTHER stories VALID? NightmareofEden ☎  20:56, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * "Or would Cyberon be indeed covered if it were a segment in an anthology film and one of the other segments featured a licensed appearance by, say, Davros?" Well, yes, that's more or less the logic, with the added wrinkle that we do need some explicit proof of authorial intent that it was meant to be set in the DWU. In the Cyberon and the Bibliophage characters' cases, this is/would be provided by their subsequent appearances in stories by the same creators which clearly treated them as DWU concepts while remaining in continuity with the earlier story. We don't really have that intent for the other stories in Decalog 5: Wonders. But I think that if Stephen Baxter went out and said that e.g. Poyekhali 3201 was also meant to be in the DWU, then yes, we would cover it too, and so on.


 * There's actual an example of this in the Cyberon short story anthology, which contains six stories which are clearly in continuity with each other, to the extent that it can almost be read as a single narrative, so it suffices that some of the 'arcs' showcase DWU concepts such as Chris Cwej for us to cover the whole arc, even should one or two of the parts not feature anything that debuted in the DWU; but it also contains a seventh story, Under Construction, which doesn't have any DWU content and was not intended to have any narrative link to the rest of the book's contents, meaning it is therefore not covered.


 * All very twisty, I know… And I do not deny that Bibliophage is an edge case. I have no strong feelings on its inclusion, myself, one way or the other. My point is simply that there is a sensible rationale for covering it, backed up by precedent, so its proposeed deletion was not the kind of no-brainer that can be carried out without a Forum thread after years of coverage. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:06, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * It is unfair, however, to immediately remove the proposed deletion tag when everyone but you so far in this thread wants it gone. RadMatter ☎  21:27, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I mean, I suppose I could re-add it with a note that this will be discussed in a thread when possible? But the point is that I am saying, admin hat on, that it is improper to discuss its potential exclusion on a talk page. That was the spirit in which I removed the tag, not attempting to present the case as "settled", as it were. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:41, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * It might be "improper" to you, but as I said before - and was ignored - it is outrageous how long we have went without being able to discuss issues like this. It doesn't make sense to me how the admin team haven't been able to knuckle down and work around the absence of forums. A competent team would have thought to rightly suspend the rule regarding coverage/validity discussions only being acceptable on the forums for the time when forums are unavailable, and then they would have held controlled discussions on talkpages before transferring the relevant topics over to the forums when they return. The fact that this admin team have not done that just seems like they are brushing a lot of problems that are being raised under the carpet and this Wiki is a worse place for it. RadMatter ☎  21:52, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Well, I've done the above. The pity is that I was rather hoping to manage to clear out Category:Proposed deletions in the near future, and now there'll be this one page where the tag can't be removed for the foreseeable future… Blah. But I'll admit that's just my OCD-adjacent side showing, there's no policy reason why that shouldn't happen.


 * As to the lack of Forums, believe me I agree with you that it's really harming the Wiki. I find the current situation highly frustrating, and certainly unsustainable in the long (or indeed medium) term. It is on record that I have some threads of my own which I'd like to be able to hold! And the ones listed there aren't even all of it. The thing is, though, that when I last suggested alternatives to User:CzechOut he assured me that he'd have the actual Forums back in place by the time Series 13 premiered, and so there was no need for a temporary solution, and that was the last I heard from him on the matter.


 * The thing is that I do not actually have the power to unilaterally declare something like this, myself — User:CzechOut has been an admin for longer and is actually FANDOM Staff. I can't take it upon myself to just overrule his decisions! At a push I suppose a consensus among active admins could allow for it, but I don't know how many of the other admins agree on this, and also, due to the whole "no Foum" thing we don't really have anywhere to officially get together to discuss it. If anyone has any solutions, feel free to present them.


 * EDIT: Also… again, I understand your frustration, I really, deeply do; but be mindful of T:NPA in terms of throwing around terms like "incompetence". I note appreciate that you did not name names, and again see where you're coming from, just… tread carefully. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:00, 2 December 2021 (UTC)