Talk:The Doctor: His Lives and Times

Non-fiction?
I haven't read the book, bear in mind, but the summary and table of contents as presented on this page really do make it sound like it's a fiction. It may be a non-valid fiction that breaks the 4th wall or something (again, I haven't read it), but whether it's plausible fiction to exist within the DWU is a different question than whether it is fiction at alL. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  22:31, July 11, 2018 (UTC)


 * Please refrain from commenting on material you haven't read. Note also that you should never edit story and non-fiction stories unless you saw/read/listened to them and have them fresh in your mind. Amorkuz ☎  22:50, July 11, 2018 (UTC)


 * Considering the second point, I haven't done any such thing. As to the first — where would you suggest I ask this question, then, if it shouldn't be here? --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  22:53, July 11, 2018 (UTC)


 * I think you misunderstand my intention. When I warn you not to break any policies, I do not imply that you have. I warn you not to do that in the future. You are a new user, understandably unfamiliar with the large volume of our policies. I would prefer to prevent any of them from being broken than to clean up after they have been. Note also that it is impossible for an admin to know what is in an editor's head. Some write that they do not like the policy and wait for the answer, which seems to be your strategy. Others protest against a policy and start implementing their vision. Yet others start editing without even explaining why they change things. It is impossible to know in advance, which type a particular user is.


 * As for the question, there was no question asked. You were opining on the material you admitted not to know. Please don't do that on talk pages. I once again suggest that you will find a more receptive audience at Discussions. Talk pages are to discuss editing, which should be rooted in the knowledge of source material, knowledge you do not yet possess. Amorkuz ☎  23:15, July 11, 2018 (UTC)

Short story titles
Regarding the existing story pages for this book, they need to be renamed to match the titles given in the book's table of contents and that appear at the top of each page of the stories:


 * Still Need a Title! -> The Fourth Doctor
 * When It Was Fun -> The Fifth Doctor
 * The Dark Scrolls of the Valeyard -> The Sixth Doctor
 * The Runes of Fenric -> The Seventh Doctor
 * Judge, Jury and Executioner -> The Tenth Doctor
 * Stop, Thief! -> The Eleventh Doctor
 * The Tale of the Pandorica -> merge with above

The current titles are headings used within the stories, but not given as the story titles themselves. There's clean up that still needs done, and the speedy rename templates do need to be placed on these articles. I'm badly in need of sleep so I can't sit down and do all that at this moment, but am leaving this talk page message so that the as-of-yet half completed job doesn't confuse anyone. Toqgers ☎  10:42, May 30, 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not at all sure about this. For TV stories, we follow on-screen titles over "episode guides" or Radio Times, so shouldn't the title printed on the actual page overrule the Table of Contents? With the various ones you'd have renamed The Xth Doctor, in particular, it seems to me the ToC is just saying "on this page you'll find our story showcasing the Xth Doctor", not that this is the title of the story. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:44, May 30, 2020 (UTC)
 * The titles in the table of contents are also at the top first page for each story, in large text, and are repeated at the top of each page therein. These are the on page titles given for the stories. The current titles are just sub-headings describing certain portions within the story, and not every Doctor's story has such a sub-heading on the first page anyways. Toqgers ☎  10:15, May 31, 2020 (UTC)
 * Man, I still don't know. Isn't that a lot like how in comics, you'll usually have a big capitalised logo with the name of the main character, and then the title in a smaller font, and sometimes no title? "WOODY WOODPECKER in "Good Neighbours" ". --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  10:43, May 31, 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with Toqgers. The existing pages need renaming. Each of the chapters contains far more fictional content than the titles of the existing articles currently allow. As an example, the chapter on the Tenth Doctor conatains not only Judge, Jury and Executioner, but also a series of short letters and newspaper articles, a number of which have no clear titles. For simplicity, they should be merged and renamed as Toqgers suggests above. 66 Seconds ☎  23:00, June 22, 2020 (UTC)
 * But are those letters & newspapers the same story? If they have no other unifying factor than being about the Tenth Doctor, then I'm sorry but it'd just be inaccurate to merge them into one short story pages. Untitled 1 (The Doctor: His Lives and Times short story) and so on may be ungainly, but if that's what it takes, then so be it. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎  23:07, June 22, 2020 (UTC)