Forum:Tenses

What do we do about tenses? Why are some things past tense and others present tense?

The Eternals, Time (Eternal) and Death, are in the past...along with others I can't think of at the moment, in all the media they've appeared in they haven't disappeared, so shouldn't they be written in the present tense? --Tangerineduel 17:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the problem is perspective, so we usually have things in past tense. For example, it seems a bit odd to have an article saying "Lady Cassandra will be a Human from the planet Earth" so instead we view it from the end of the universe - Lady Cassandra was a Human from the planet Earth", etc. For some reason, some things - namely supergalactic things and anything to do with the Doctor seem to be written in present tense, unless they are past incarnations of the Doctor. Actually, I agree that the Eternals should be written in present tense, because they are eternal and never won't be. 17:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Archivist's notes
Ghelæ is pretty close to the current mark here. However, our notion of perspective has moved on a tad. Now, we tend to say that the encyclopedia is being written from a time after everything — even the Eternals — aren't around anymore. The entirety of the universe is in the past, so all in-universe articles are written in the past. 22:16:47 Wed 01 Jun 2011