Forum:The original Panopticon

Greetings! Here in the hallowed halls of the Panopticon, members of the  TARDIS  Index File wiki community may gather to discuss various issues and topics regarding the operation of the wiki. It is not, however, a place for idle conversation or off-topic discussion that doesn't directly concern the TARDIS Index File.

Important! The following types of questions do not belong on the Panopticon page:


 * Newcomers' questions. Please take the time to read the introduction and  help pages before posting.
 * Facts and canonical questions. Questions regarding specific facts of the Doctor Who universe should be posted at the Reference Desk.
 * Bug reports should be forwarded to the administrators.
 * Issues concerning specific articles should addressed on that article's talk page.
 * Questions for an individual member should be posted to that member's talk page.

After a period of time, inactive discussions without any long-term value will be deleted from this page. A discussion that may be of use in the future for reference purposes may be moved to a different section (like the FAQ page), or added to the  Panopticon Archives.

Please remember to sign and date your posts by typing four tildes ("~"), or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar.

Things to Do
(This topic has been moved to the Panopticon Archives.)

Wiki Project Logo
(This topic has been moved to the Panopticon Archives.)

Cast
(This topic has been moved to the Panopticon Archives.)

Capitalisation
Should Frontier In Space be moved to Frontier in Space because I moved The Wheel In Space to The Wheel in Space but now that 'in' is capitalised again I think it might be a deliberate title?--GingerM 16:40, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I've actually had trouble remembering myself what the proper conventions are, but judging from how the stories are listed on other sites, it looks like "of," "in," "a," and "the" should be lower case in the titles, - except, of course, when they're the first word in the title, - while "from" should be capitalized. So the pages should be moved to ones with the proper capitalization, with redirect pages for those who have as much trouble remembering this convention as we do :)

--Freethinker1of1 11:36, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * So what about The Creature from the Pit, that has no capitalisation and in wikipedia articles 'from' isn't capitalised so I think that from shouldn't be capitalized, so if you agree I will move the pages.--GingerM 16:32, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, if Wikipedia isn't capitalizing "from" then I can guess we will go with lower-case. --Freethinker1of1 20:54, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Extended Cast
What do people think of the following page An Unearthly Child Uncredited Cast, if you look back at the history of An Unearthly Child you will notice that the cast list was getting really long. I think it is better to have the main cast on the story page and then the uncredited cast on a different page. It makes the story page a little simpler to read and to be honest there are going to be fewer people who are interested in uncredited cast. I think it is important to include them for the sake of making this project as comprehensive as possible but on the main page I think they only make it more cluttered than it needs to be. What does anyone else think? Amxitsa 21:32, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Good idea, for exactly the reasons you stated. Oh, and my apologies for not being as involved with the project the last few days. My current work schedule is taking much of my time. I'll be continuing work on pages for years, decades, and centuries when I can. Have also downloaded the Wikipedia article on the Daleks and will be editing and adapting it to fit the format and WHOniverse perspective for this wiki.

--Freethinker1of1 09:34, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Should that be used on all serials with uncredited cast or just ones with a lot of uncredited cast?--GingerM 14:33, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Transcripts
I have put links to transcripts on each of the story pages, but i was just wondering what the copyright position is before i actually upload one onto An Unearthly Child page. I know they are freely available on the internet but are we allowed to upload them on to here? I would personally have said yes, but i just wanted to know what everyone else thinks before actually doing it. Amxitsa 11:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * If you mean copying and uploading a transcript from someone else's site, I would certainly contact the owner of the site and get their permission, regardless of whether the content is formally copyrighted, as a matter of courtesy. If these are official BBC transcripts, they may very well be copyrighted. Keep in mind that just because something is on the internet does not automatically make it public domain. If it's your own synopsis of the story, I see no problem. --Freethinker1of1 17:46, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

User pages and welcoming newbies
I'd like to encourage everyone to please add content to your user pages so we can get to know each other better. Don't need your life story. Just add whatever you feel confortable divulging. Some email or other contact info would be nice. If you're worried about spambots getting your email address, just write it out as I did on mine, without an actual link.

I'd also like to encourage everyone to contribute welcoming messages, compliments and, if necessary, critiques (make that polite critiques) to the user pages of new contributors. Quite a few people are contributing one or two things and then disappearing, and I think the lack of feedback is making them think their contributions are not appreciated or welcome. --Freethinker1of1 18:57, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Getting off track
(Relevant sections of this subject have been moved to the Canon Policy talk page)

Doctor Who Book Format
What is going to be the standard format for all the Doctor Who novels, as none of them have been made yet? Maybe we should make a page to experiment, like Suggested Format for Television Story Entries, only Suggested Format for Doctor Who Novels.--GingerM 15:24, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll try to be put together a format when I have time. Right now, I'm wanting to get this site back onto emphasis on the fictional Whoniverse, as I originally intended for this project and was agreed upon by the other founding members, who have since left after everything went off on this whole behind-the-scenes tangent. There is too much of that on the site, and it really belongs at Wikipedia, not here.

--Freethinker1of1 22:53, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, since the original messages posted under this heading, a template for the novels has already been created (see Template:Infobox_Novel). I think that the novilzation infobox should be an adaption of this template. --Mantrid 21:41, 17 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * Working on it :) Although I don't think we need the Enemies section - quite a lot of the information that is in the novels is already covered in the actual televised story section (barring Nightmare Fair, Mission to Magnus, etc). I've got almost all the Target novels, so running up the info isn't a problem, and I've a scanner so we can get the covers - but several of the Target novels have more than one cover, due to re-releases, etc.  All of mine are original editions, but do we want to offer the alternative covers for viewing as well?
 * -- Taleya 23:07 18 Oct 2005 (AEST)


 * How's this one for Marco Polo look? I've also updated  Frontios,  The Visitation and  An Unearthly Child.
 * -- Taleya 23:14 18 Oct 2005 (AEST)

I've kinda been mucking about with one for the Frontios Novelization - what do you think? It's relatively easy to obtain the information in the table, and I think inclusion of the ISBN may help readers look for the book elsewhere. I was also thinking possibly including a deviations section - many of the Target novels for instance have marked expansions on or deviations from the televised versions of the episodes.

--Taleya 07:07 17 Oct 2005 (AEST)


 * I quite like the Frontios Novelisation page and I like the idea of having a page for each novelisation. Also the library number could be included (some novels have it on their spine) and we could also have pages on the novelisations of TV stories that were never made, like Mission to Magnus. (Also is it spelt novelisation or novelization as according to dictionary.com they're both correct?)

--GingerM 16:12, 17 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * the useage of Novelisation as opposed to novelization is a regional thing. I'm Australian, so I use the S rather than the Z, which is the US version. However, when I was putting the data in the Frontios pages, it was already listed there in template form with a Z, so I left it as such.


 * Kinda bugs me though :P


 * EDIT - actually, that may well be an issue. I just noticed your hyperlink tossed to the S spelling rather than the Z - we're going to need to set up redirects for each one to suit all typing modes... (I've set one up here on the results for Frontios Novelisation)

--Taleya 04:03 18 Oct 2005 (AEST)

I've also tweaked the book format slightly - a link to the televised episode entry would probably be a good idea! --Taleya 05:32 18 Oct 2005 (AEST)

Some Further Thoughts on Canon Policy
(This subject have been moved to the Canon Policy talk page.)

Suggested Changes to the 'Character' Pages
To remain in keeping with the 'in-universe' perspective of the wiki, I wonder if we should be using 'individual' (as the Star Wars wiki does) rather than 'character' as 'character' suggests fiction.

With the above point in mind, I would suggest changing the heading 'Character Description' to 'Biography'.

I would suggest that we should decide that all entries be written in the past tense. At the moment there is a noticeable mix of tenses in some of the Character Descriptions (eg Ian Chesterton).

I would propose using an infobox template for characters/individuals. I also think it would be a good idea to include some or all of the information that has been included in the info boxes for Doctor Who comapnions in the main wikipedia (eg Ian Chesterton).

I think a question that a lot of people might come to this wiki to find an answer for is 'which TV stories/comic strips/books/audio stories does 'character X' appear in?'. With this in mind, I think it important that we aim to list EVERY appearance of a particular individual in all media. For most incidental characters I think this information can be included in their info box. However, for long-running companions and Doctors etc, this list could become quite long and unwieldy (and is already becoming that way on existing character pages such as Barbara Wright. So, for these longer lists, I would suggest having a separate page which we link to from the Individual's info box. For example, on Ian Chesterton's page we could include the link 'Full List of Appearances' which would take you to the page Ian Chesterton – List of Appearances. This list would be split in to the canon categories previously suggested, and each of these categories would, in turn, be split in to sub-categories (eg under Prose Stories you would have BBC Past Doctor Novels under which would be listed the book Face of the Enemy. Obviously such a list would always be a work in progress and there should be a notation to say as such.

As an aside to the above, I think we should avoid using acronyms such as PDA or EDA (or at least link them to a page where they are defined). We shouldn’t assume that users know what PDA stands for etc.

I have done a partial re-edit of the Ian Chesterton page to show how all this might work. I hope you agree that it at least looks better than it did before (compare it to Barbara Wright. --Mantrid 18:31, 11 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * On the list of appearances page should we include when they appeared in archive footage like when in Ressurection of the Daleks(?) the Doctor went through all his companions and past selves and they were seen on screen. Should we put that there and put next to it (archive footage)?--GingerM 15:25, 14 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think these sort of appearances should be indicated because they may be of interest. However, as you suggest, I think a notation should be attached - eg 'flashback sequence' or 'cameo' etc. I would suggest making these terms linkable so that (eventually at leat) we can have a page that defines what exactly we mean by 'flashback'. --Mantrid 17:12, 16 Jul 2005 (UTC)

--Freethinker1of1 11:22, 14 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * I actually created links for "PDA, EDA, etc." on one of the character pages; I just haven't gotten around to creating the actual pages. I'm beginning to think the general categories of "Televison series" and "Expanded Universe" may actually work better. While some folks may completely disavow an entire media category as canon, quite a few may accept most of the stories in a given format save one or two. I know of many people, for example, who accept the BBC novels as canon with one exception, - "War of the Daleks." With Expanded Universe, it's simply a matter of deciding which individual stories outside the television series you accept as canon, regardless of the media format.

For ease of reference, I propose dividing the character files as follows:


 * Biography
 * Personality
 * Habits and Quirks
 * Mysteries (or Discrepancies)... optional. continuity hiccups like the Doctor pre-Pertwee having just one heart. and things we simply don't know, like Susan's parentage.
 * Quotes.

in emulation of a reference page which existed a looong time ago (back when Nitro 9 served as the unofficial WHO homepage) somebody had a page with the eye colors and hair colors (and even heights!) of prominent characters so that you could, if you, wanted, look up the Davison Doctor's eye color for your fan fiction or PDA. -- (re-edited) *Stardizzy* 19:42, 17 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Adding height and eye colour doesn't sound like a bad idea to me (though where we would get accurate information about the heights of characters, I'm not sure!). --Mantrid 12:30, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Good comments. I had started to think that some of the listing were becoming unwieldy, but I've not been contributing for a while due to work pressures so haven't had a chance to think of how to fix things.  I do like the new-look that you've created for Ian's page, Mantrid.  I also hadn't noticed my tendancy to flip between tenses!  But that's one of the many great things about doing this in a community - as there's always someone who'll notice these things!  I'm now going to re-edit the existing pages into the new template, and I'm also going to edit the text to sort out the tense. Kazzab72 08:59, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Glad you like the look of the Individual template Kazzab72, and the new pages you've created using it look great. One thing I'd like to suggest though if I may, is that we need to reference the source of particular bits of info in the longer biographies. I think the revamed entry on The Master is a good example of this with the information source being sited at the end of each paragraph in brackets. --Mantrid 12:29, 28 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Before it gets confusing can we please make sure that on the individual pages and on the list of appearances pages we create links to BBC Past Doctor Adventures, not BBC Past Doctor Novels as the first name is the widely-used one. Ditto for Eighth Doctor Adventures.--GingerM 13:46, 1 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Sub-Headings in Articles
I would like to suggest that it would be a good idea not to include 'empty' subheadings in articles. In other words, I don't think sub-headings with no text below them should appear in the Wiki. My reason for this is that it makes pages look untidy and it also makes the wiki appear 'unfinished'. So, I would propose a guideline that no subheadings are added to artciles until there is text to go with them. This appears to be the the ruling adopted by the Star Wars wiki, and I think it looks the better for it. (By-the-way... I am guilty of this as well!) --Mantrid 22:17, 17 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Outside Sources - Canon or Not Canon?
(This subject have been moved to the Canon Policy talk page.)

Year Pages
On the year pages, e.g. 1720, what should we actually put on them? It's already split into History of Doctor Who and History of the Doctor Who Universe (which is a bit confusing/difficult in mu opinion, as it's easy for stuff like "--- was published in January 2001 or something but what about thingss like deaths of people who have been mentioned in Doctor Who like Samuel Pepys? Which category does his death fit into? And how much detail do we put on them as we cant for example put the whole synopsis of The Visitation on 1666 can we? Should we put the outlines of the story on it or even just say "events in The Visitation take place now"?--GingerM 20:00, 25 Sep 2005 (UTC)


 * The division between "History of Doctor Who" and "History of the Doctor Who Universe" is to separate events which occur in the stories from those which occured in the real world and which influenced the development of the series. Events which occurred in the stories, were referred to in the stories, and the births and deaths of historical figures and other characters which appear in or are referred to in the stories fall under "History of the Doctor Who Universe." While the historical figures also existed in the real world, they are treated in the stories as fictional characters, often with considerable license. (The H.G. Wells in "Timelash" is markedly different from the real H.G. Wells in our own history, according to the biographies I've read.) Births and deaths of Doctor Who cast and crew members, original transmissions or publications of stories, and the publication of books and other media which played major influences on the series, - i.e. "The Time Machine," - fall under "History of Doctor Who." One less confusing alternative I'm considering is placing events which occur in the Doctor Who universe under "The Doctor Who Universe" (or Whoniverse, as some call it), and events in the history of the series under "The Real World."


 * As to the individual stories, I think its enough to simply list a story whose events occurred in a given year, with a link to that story's page, as I've been doing. "Events in (story title) occur at this time" is a good alternative, but could prove problematic for stories such as "The Chase" or "The Daleks' Master Plan," in which the Doctor and company travel to several different times in the same story, unless one specified the individual episode or chapter.

--Freethinker1of1 13:55, 3 Oct 2005 (UTC)

--Freethinker1of1 16:58, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)
 * Looking at Memory Alpha, I notice that they put the fictional and behind-the-scenes events in two separate timelines, Timeline and Production Timeline. Production and broadcast of episodes are given their own indivdual pages, i.e. "1966 productions" and births and deaths of cast and crew are listed under Star Trek births and Star Trek deaths. This might be a better way of dividing the fictional and behind-the-scenes events from each other, as it is less confusing. Births and deaths of historical figures in the fictional stories would still stay on the fictional timeline pages, or perhaps they should be deleted entirely if they are not specifically mentioned in the stories, like Charles Dickens in "The Unquiet Dead."


 * Im for keeping the information all on the same page, if it can be clearly separated. Also if we deleted information that wasn't specifically mentioned in the stories, some of the pages would be completely empty, like Matthew Hopkins. I think we should keep the extra info and all the information together on the same page. Originally I was asking what we were putting on the pages as I didn't know the way we were setting it out. It might be difficult to separate the production details from fiction as in Doctor Who, fact and fition overlap frequently.--GingerM 17:12, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Categories
I've noticed that not all articles being created are being given a category. I think this is important and would advise that all articles should be categorised. It's also important to note that some articles might need to have more than one category. For example, The Doctor is an Individual but he is also a Time Lord.

Below is a list of categories and sub-categories that I've devised. It's very much a work in progress with more categories to be added. The way it works is that a category is a sub-category of the next category on the left. For example, Doctor Who Annuals is a sub-category of Prose Stories which is in turn a sub-category of Doctor Who Stories.

Categorising each and every page correctly will utltimately allow users to easily find there way around the site and help them find what they are looking for and other related pages. So, let's make an effort to add categories to every page. If you're uncertain how to categorise a page, add a note to its related discussion page.

There's a useful special page that lists all the Uncategorised Pages on the wiki. Perhaps we could start to work through these?

--Mantrid 10:55, 2 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * We need a category to put the dates and years in. Should it be called Time, or something like that?

Also do we have to put "Novels" on the end of Virgin Missing Adventures and Virgin New Adventures. If you look at their wikipedia page here and here they're called Virgin New Adventures / Missing Adventures. Also the logos say Doctor Who Missing Adventures and The New Doctor Who Adventures so shouldn't we go with the most commonly used version?. --GingerM 15:20, 3 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * I think the reason I originally added 'novels' was to make it clear what they were. I think self-descriptive names for categories is a good idea. Just 'adventures' could be anything - audio, TV, comic-strip etc. However, I am of course happy to go with the majority decision on this. --Mantrid 17:09, 3 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that the actual pages shouldn't have 'novels' on the end, e.g.Virgin New Adventures and either the category have 'novel' on the end or divide it further (making a novel category and putting the categories into it). Just some ideas. Any opinions?--GingerM 14:26, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, we already have Category:Prose as a category, so I'm not sure we need to introduce another level. If we split things up too much it starts to be confusing rather than helpful to users. I'd be happy to change the names to include novels if that's the popular choice. As long as we're consistent. --Mantrid 17:40, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)

--Freethinker1of1 02:18, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)
 * Memory Alpha uses the category "Timeline" for its year pages. Seems like the best one to use. I have no preference either way for what to call the categories for novels.


 * 'Timeline' sounds good to me. I've added in to the table below. --Mantrid 05:45, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * If you look at the list of uncategorised pages, I've got it down to a few that I think, don't fit into any category. Any category ideas for pages like The Cave of Skulls fit, as they aren't TV stories, just episodes which make up the TV story? Also where should we put things like producer and director?--GingerM 17:08, 19 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * Also, shall I move the category table to Tardis:Category Network as I think it's very useful but it takes up a lot of space.--GingerM 16:48, 3 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * I would put articles about individual parts of the early stories under TV stories, as they are related articles. Articles like producer and director would best fit under Doctor Who crew, as they are generalized articles on these roles. The table seems ready for its own page. New categories can always still be added as needed. Special:Categories might be a better name though, as this is what people are more likely to serach for. --Freethinker1of1 23:07, 3 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll put the category table on Tardis:Categories as you can't edit a special page and I'll finish off the categorizing.--GingerM 15:16, 4 Nov 2005 (UTC)

(for Category Table see Tardis:Categories