Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-26285319-20170104192003/@comment-24894325-20170125192334

Exactly, and metafictional for me equates non-DWU.

Iris is a very complicated time-space event. I don't think she can be used as any kind of precedent. But I do know that she met the Eighth Doctor and Jo Grant in my universe, so she is close to the epicentre.

In mathematics there is a concept of en Erdos number, the length of a chain of coauthorships that connects one to Erdos (with him having number 0). So for me DWU consists of concentric circles based on the degree of separation from the Doctor. And Iris is distance 1: she met the Doctor. I would define a Doctor Who spin-off as a series based on a character, 1-removed from the Doctor. I think all official spin-offs satisfy this definition. So I don't mind Iris that much (plus it's a done deal). But Vince Cosmos is distance 2 from the Doctor. For me it's too far. He's a spin-off of Obverse, not of Doctor Who Universe. This doesn't mean such distant connections should be always excluded. But the DWU intent needs proof. It is not automatic. It cannot be implied.