Talk: Valid sources

Possible mistake

In the following sentence, at the end of "Explaining the Rules" it currently says: "Extraordinary non-narrative evidence — such as the story's author directly saying that the story doesn't happen in the normal DWU – must be presented to the community for a story to be kicked out based on Rule 3." This sentence seems more like an example of Rule 4, and the paragraph is about Rule 4. Article is flagged against editing, so commenting here. Agonaga ^{talk to me} 14:40, July 11, 2012 (UTC)

Only Stories Count

Sounds like a reasonable rule. I just wonder, how does that apply when it comes to the interpretation of stories? For exapmple, take The Doctors Wife. It was never made clear wether or not that particular control room still existed after it was deleted. The writer/director/whatever stated somewhere that it obviously still existed, and that anything else would be a missinterpretation. Does that mean the control room still exists, or that it's uncertain?Thomsons Gazelle ☎ 13:36, December 15, 2012 (UTC)

Any information from outside of the narrative (the story) should go in the behind the scenes section of the article if it's in-universe or in the story notes section on the story article's page.

I'm a little unsure what you mean by "interpretation" however. Idris/the TARDIS said she saved it and then it's deleted by House. The information seems pretty straight forward. --Tangerineduel / talk 13:51, December 15, 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I think it is rather decadent. Yes, I read what it said below that, but I take Doctor Who: Monsters and Villains and similar books to be TIE-IN WORKS, not "works of non-fiction". They may contain some behind-the-scenes info, sure, but they also contain some extra in-universe information that could be crucial to understanding the characters described (like what was music probably like in 5 billion or how exactly were the Forest of Cheem created?). On Wookieepedia (yes, I also know that we're not Wookieepedia, but I'm still not trying to make us Wookieepedia-- I only want us to be more in favor of some fans like me), reference works are treated as valid sources depending on their content--in-universe or behind-the-scenes. The aforementioned books contain both, but it shouldn't take a well trained person to distinguish the two where they're together. Imagine if a new guide like Monsters and Villains was printed that contained never-before-seen illustrations of Fitz Kreiner AND Nobody No-One? How would you deal with that, CzechOut?

I also take the tie-in websites to contain canon information (Whoisdoctorwho.co.uk implies where and when the Ninth Doctor traveled before he met Rose), even if they might also contain behind-the-scenes data. I think we should create a new category of publication, Template:Tie-in work, which could say something like "This is a licenced tie-in work. This source can be used for both in-universe and behind-the-scenes sections". And I'm not sure about using "licenced" before "tie-in work", because the BBC doesn't hold all the copyrights. K-9, anyone? -- Vultraz Nuva ☎ 19:56, December 27, 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what your alternative would be. You'd actually require the admin staff of this wiki to look at every single book ever made and decide on a case-by-case basis? That's completely unreasonable, I think you'd agree. After discussing the matter since 2005, it became abundantly clear that we need a rule that was simple to administer — and that didn't require our administrative staff to outlay huge amounts of cash.

And that's really why your comparisons to Wookieepedia aren't particularly relevant. See, the BBC has no Leland Chee. It would be great if there were such a person, and I'm certainly jealous of Wookieepedia. They've got the great benefit of a Lucasfilm employee telling them what the scope of the SWG is. He has access to everything and can sit there and make a case-by-case review of everything. Not only can he; he has to. It's his job. And he doesn't have to pay for access to the complete library of Star Wars branded stuff.

By contrast we're not getting paid to do this, so we all have to work within our own personal budgets. And if we can't get a copy of a particular book, we can't get a copy of that book. So our rule that "only stories count" is immensely practical. It's something we can enforce without having to buy and sit in judgement upon every single release.

And, honestly, I don't think you realise just how much utter crap there is out there under the guise of a "reference work". Pick up The Doctor Who Technical Manual. Give that one a whirl for accuracy. Check out most any annual and tell us how we're supposed to integrate material from games pages that are introduced by characters. Are we to believe the Doctor actually told us about lunar missions or astronomy? Did the Third Doctor write a treatise on the production of Doctor Who for The Making of Doctor Who? Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

But I can't think of anything less fun in the whole world than looking at every single scrap of "non-narrative-but-in-character" writing and judging the validity of each one, individually. So we're not doing that. Nor are we inventing some kinda halfway house of "tie-in material" — whatever that's supposed to mean. It's either valid or it's not. Period.

All rules of the wiki have to be clear and easy to administer.

I think one thing you're missing about this policy is that it does not stop people from adding information from such works. It merely forces editors to place such information under a "behind the scenes" heading, so that readers know they're not reading info that comes from an ordinary story. There are many articles, for instance, which contain a "Brilliant Book" section, wherein information from The Brilliant Book 2011 or its sequel can be placed.

So we won't be changing from our policy of accepting only stories for the in-universe part of our articles. But if you find an interesting tidbit in a non-narrative source, slip it into a "behind the scenes" section. We're not trying to lose information; we're just trying to draw a clear line between information from stories and information that's not from stories.
czechout ☎ ✍  22:11: Fri 27 Dec 2013

Thank you. You prove a point. But if somebody finds a picture of say, Nobody No-One, as I mentioned before, in a Brilliant Book, do you think 'twould seem out-of-place at all in the "behind the scenes" section? I'm not sure myself. Vultraz Nuva ☎ 23:09, January 4, 2014 (UTC)

Artefact of the prefix move

Naturally, there's no such thing as "an TV audiobook from AudioGO", so could that bit be amended to say "a Sarah Jane Adventures audiobook"? Also, could the bit involving prefixes next to the "Fictional information presented non-narratively" be fixed to get rid off all this COMIC and DAN stuff? -- Tybort (talk page) 12:22, August 15, 2013 (UTC)

Done. Shambala108 ☎ 13:38, August 15, 2013 (UTC)

Small typo

Rule Four should probably read "needed to make," the "to" is currently absent. — Rob T Firefly - Δ∇ - 17:02, May 25, 2014 (UTC)

Done, thanks for catching that. Shambala108 ☎ 17:27, May 25, 2014 (UTC)

Rule One Needs Clarification

Now, to start, I've read the previous discussion on this talk page about "only real stories," and that was unhelpful. The page itself needs to be edited to explain. I have a complete understanding of what the rule means; I just wonder why. There's no explanation on the actual article, and the explanation on the talk page is illogical. I understand that there is no central canon authority in DW and that makes everything a mess, but this rule makes no sense. The reasoning about star wars having Leeland Chee is wrong. Wookieepedia's Legends continuity is still a mess, even with his guidance. Wookieepedia votes on what to do about particularly troublesome parts of sources, rather than putting everything in BTS. Besides that, there are so many articles here that contain info that would be very useful if it were in the right order in the main body of an article, rather than displaced in BTS. I think Tardis editors are intelligent enough to figure out what information is weird and should be put in BTS. CloneMarshalCommanderCody ☎ 20:33, July 26, 2014 (UTC)

Typo

Paragraph three of the "Out of Universe Sources" section has a typo. Fourth line, the sentence that starts "Some long-standing webistes" has a typo in it as you can see here. 23skidoo ☎ 16:38, August 11, 2014 (UTC)

Review copies reference

Aside from admonishing people to "keep it to yourself" it might also be worth spelling out that there is precedent for review copies to not reflect the final televised version of the episode and should not therefore be used even after the episode airs. For example, the review copies of Partners in Crime that omitted Billie Piper. 23skidoo ☎ 16:43, August 11, 2014 (UTC)

Non-Doctor New Adventures and Bernice Summerfield

Rule 2 states in big bold letters : A story that isn't commercially licensed by all of the relevant copyright holders doesn't count..

of note, there are certain stories, like the 'Professor and Ace' stories like "Republica" using characters/concepts from DW that are clearly not valid sources for obvious reasons. Many stories were written as sequels to officially licensed stories by the same authors that wrote the original licensed stories, but do not count as they use DW elements/characters without proper licensing, eg. "Time's Champion" as a sequel to The Quantum Archangel (novel). Then there are stories where some characters are officially licensed DW characters, while others clearly are not. Over on the Faction Paradox Wiki the Main Page states:

"The trickiest thing to understand about the series, is that even though it's a spin off of Doctor Who it is not a part of the DWU. Creator Lawrence Miles had no access to concepts like "the Doctor", "the Master", "the TARDIS", "the Time Lords" — any of the things that make Doctor Who what it is. So you won't find direct mentions of these people and concepts."

Back to this page, and it clearly and unambiguously states:

"A rose by any other name is not as sweet. If the story consistently uses alternate names for DWU characters, places and situations, it's probably not allowed. The big exception to this is the story that contains analogous elements. As a general rule, if something is an approximation of something else in the DWU, then we don't fool with it. The classic example is the independently-published Faction Paradox stories that are not a part of the BBC Books range. Because writer Lawrence Miles does not have a license to DWU elements other than the Faction Paradox organisation itself, he must resort to using "code names" for Gallifrey, the Doctor, TARDISes, the Master and any number of the basic building blocks of the universe."

All of which brings us back to the Bernice Summerfield novels, audios and short stories. Bernice Summerfield of course first appeared in the officially licensed novel Love and War (novel). She then remained for most of the New Adventures. So far, so good. However, after Virgin's licence expired, they decided to carry on using Bernice as the main character(as they were legally entitled to do). However, they no longer had the rights to concepts like Time Lords, TARDISes, the Doctor etc.

Yet, the post-The Dying Days (novel) novels feature what are unambiguously Time Lords. The Big Finish Productions Bernice audios and books exist in a totally separate licence to their Doctor Who Audio ranges. The bernice stories were not legally allowed to use the Doctor, Time Lords, TARDISes etc. Thus, it must be asked exactly who are Irving Braxiatel's people who keep getting mentioned, and are influenetial in numerous stories? What exactly is that "time space machine" that Braxatiel travels in? When Bernice meets Iris Wildthyme and they both mention that they have travelled with the same time-traveller, who was it? It can't be the Doctor, can it, because the Bernice audios couldn't legally use or mention him.

And who are those creatures from Mars in the Benny novels and audios? The way they are described, the way they behave, even what they sound like on the audios, one could be forgiven for thinking they are Ice Warriors. Yet, the Bernice stories never acquired the legal rights for the Ice Warriors. Note how in the officially licensed audio Red Dawn (audio story), the term "ice Warriors" can and is used frequently.

So, what disqualifies Faction Paradox? It's a story that while some aspects are legally owned(eg. The Faction, Compassion, Chris Cwej, Sontarans etc.), when it comes to "the building blocks of the DWU", FP had to use the same "code words" or "euphemisms" for the Doctor, the Time Lords TARDISes etc.

Which is EXACTLY the same as the Bernice Summerfield novels, short stories and audios(certainly the early ones). Characters like Bernice Summerfield and Chris Cwej could be used. Meanwhile Irving Braxiatel was clearly a Time Lord who travelled in a TARDIS, yet they were never legally allowed to SAY "Time Lord" or "TARDIS". Benny mentioned her friend a lot, who we all know who he is, however they could never legally call him "The Doctor". Iris Wildthyme shows up, and SHE can't say "Doctor" or "Time Lord" or even tell us what her bus is! There are characters that are clearly supposed to be Ice Warriors but nobody, not even the characters themselves(!), are legally allowed to call them "Ice Warriors".

In this article's own words:

1) A story that isn't commercially licensed by all of the relevant copyright holders doesn't count.

2)A rose by any other name is not as sweet. If the story consistently uses alternate names for DWU characters, places and situations, it's probably not allowed.

And we can change a few names in the reason Miles' FP isn't part of the DWU and get:

Because writer Paul Cornell does not have a license to DWU elements other than the Bernice Summerfield character herself, he must resort to using "code names" for Gallifrey, the Doctor, TARDISes, the Master and any number of the basic building blocks of the universe. M

Master of Spiders ☎ 10:59, May 18, 2015 (UTC)

You're not going to get a lot of responses hidden away here on this talk page. I suggest you take this to Board:Inclusion debates. Shambala108 ☎ 14:13, May 18, 2015 (UTC)

Big Finish Sherlock Holmes

This bit needs to be updated since the BF Sherlock Holmes has crossed over into the DWU by way of The Worlds of Big Finish (audio anthology) and isn't the BF version of Holmes being used for the audio adaptation of All-Consuming Fire? Either way, just as with Dorian Gray (who is also in Worlds) an addition to the exceptions list is probably necessary at this stage; the main Holmes line remains off-limits but there's now one storyline where he does appear in the DWU, possibly 2. 68.146.233.86^{talk to me} 14:23, April 19, 2016 (UTC)

Out of date debates

Just an observation but some of the debates listed for stories lik dimentions in timpani doctor who unbound are out of date and have been debated more recently this is most notable for Doctors who unbound which was ruled to be valid the last time it was debated and this statis is reflected in the relevant articles but if used as a invalidated here with a link to an out of date descuotion also some are titled is (story name) canon and not about velidetey based on current policy

Tom Baker's Shada

Shada has been completed with animation like the missing episodes. Saying Tom Baker's version of Shada is invalid is like saying Marco Polo or The Tenth Planet, Part IV are invalid for missing footage. 24.205.83.199^{talk to me} 23:18, January 14, 2018 (UTC)

Shada (TV story) was deemed invalid a very long time ago and for a very good reason: it was unfinished. Now that it has been completed by animation, a discussion was open regarding its validity at Thread:226169 of the Inclusion debates. I do hope that this discussion will be completed soon. (Unfortunately, it does not help that the new version is only available in restricted number of countries, whereas our editorship is global.) However, until this thread is closed by an admin, current policy stands, and current policy states that the TV version of Shada is invalid. Any attempt to include the story in in-universe pages is currently a violation of Tardis:You are bound by current policy. In addition, if such an attempt is done in multiple locations or multiple discussions of the matter are initiated outside of Thread:226169, this can be a violation of Tardis:Do not disrupt this wiki to prove a point. Every editor is entitled to their opinion. But they cannot unilaterally impose this opinion on other editors, no matter how right they think they are. If they are truly right, there should be no problem persuading others. Amorkuz ☎ 23:45, January 14, 2018 (UTC)

The Tom Baker version of Shada has now been determined to be valid. This page should be changed to reflect that decision. JMC Red Dwarf ☎ 23:40, March 2, 2018 (UTC)

An annual what?

"Or you may encounter a game in an annual which sets up the puzzle using the Doctor or his companion." Er, forgive me for being American here, but an annual what exactly? It's clearly describing something, but there's no noun given. I'm kind of assuming it's one of those British English things. Like being 'in hospital'. Not about to change anything, just asking for some personal clarification. Brushing up on my British, you see.Silvermistshadow ☎ 08:16, September 15, 2018 (UTC)

An annual is a yearly book specific on a topic in popular culture. They have articles on lore, puzzles and stories. Here’s one: Doctor Who Annual 2006 Ben Moore512 ☎ 09:56, September 15, 2018 (UTC)

The Incomplete Death's Head

Now that The Incomplete Death's Head has been ruled valid, we may want to specify how we cover that, especially the parts concerning the Fantastic Four and Death's Head. Chubby Potato ☎ 03:22, February 8, 2019 (UTC)

Pronoun

Just noticed a violation of Tardis:Doctors; the following:

Or you may encounter a game in an annual which sets up the puzzle by having the Doctor or his companion "telling" you the rules.

Should read "their" instead of "his". Danochy ☎ 06:38, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Small Typo

There's a typo in the entry for The Infinity Doctors. It currently reads, "to allow us t acknowledge" instead of "to allow us to." Bio Planet WoO ☎

Corrected! Thank you. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:31, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

The "in-universe document" rule

I've noticed lately that we seem to be disregarding the rule about mining information from things that are presented as in-universe documents, such as the articles in the recent annuals. What's going on here, exactly? WaltK ☎ 22:34, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Obviously stories that are presented as in-universe documents aren't invalid due to being such, or we'd have to exclude a bunch of things from Dead Romance to Extremis. The rule is simply that non-narrative information does not magically circumvent Rule 1 by having an in-universe framing. Note how the mention of in-universe documents is part of the section of the table entitled "Fictional information presented non-narratively". This isn't a specific rule, just a clarification of a set of cases where Rule 1 might conflict with what some fans new to the Wiki's ways might expect. If there are specific Annual sources (or other) which you think are being mistakenly covered as narrative, that'd be something to bring up on those individual talk pages, but the fact of their having an in-universe framing does not invalidate them. It's just not a relevant question for validity. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:39, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, I'm not entirely sure I understand everything said there, but I'm just gonna take it as "data files and documents presented in annuals are valid as long as they're presented as stuff written by characters and do not break the fourth wall" and leave it at that ^^; WaltK ☎ 22:53, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

(To clarify, that was my understanding when writing, say, The Weeping Angel: the narrative/valid portion came from the witness statement given by the Doctor, and not the criminal profile and vital statistics on Angela given by nobody in particular). WaltK ☎ 22:55, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Mmh, your understanding in the second-to-last post isn't quite correct.

This whole "in-universe document" aspect is ultimately a distraction. So long as a work doesn't break the fourth wall, the important thing is narrativity: whether something recounts events in the DWU, or just static facts. So, giving a breakdown of simple hypothetical examples:

• A schematic of a Dalek casing, presented without context, isn't valid.
• A schematic of a Dalek casing, presented as an in-universe UNIT document, still isn't valid.
• A schematic of a Dalek casing, presented alongside a telegram recounting how UNIT found a Dalek and dissected it in such-and-such year, is valid.
• A history of Dalek casings throughout the ages, which never breaks the fourth wall, is valid, regardless of whether it's attributed to an in-universe source or not.

Does this help? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:59, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Using Dead Romance itself as an example, if you've read it Walt. (I don't want to assume) It's entirely written as the recovered notebooks/journals of a particular character who's meeting with a time traveler and becomes involved with some very strange events.

However, in the ebook version of DR, there's a short story at the back, The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic, which might or might not be narrative. There was an ongoing thread about it before the forums closed. It basically just talks about the physics/metaphysics of the VNA/EDA/Faction Paradox take on the DW universe with very little plot. (Arguably there's some related to the Anchoring of the thread, but I think everyone admits that it's pretty close to the line.) So something closer to a history/physics textbook could be invalid, as opposed to a journal, which would be valid. Najawin ☎ 23:07, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

(Don't think the "history" part of that is correct. History is pretty definitionally narrative. The Book of the War itself is arguably a "history textbook"! But yes, other than that, this is a good pair of examples.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:11, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

(I think it depends entirely on how the history textbook is set up and told, and I think many historians would reject that history is narrative. But this is a far larger debate that's still being had in history and philosophy of history departments and not super important to our discussion.) Najawin ☎ 23:16, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

I think that's a confusion of levels — when we ask whether something is narrative on the Wiki, we mean "does it relate a sequence of events purported to have occurred in the DWU", not "would it be considered a work of narrative literature by its potential in-universe writers". After all, a MySpace blog is not precisely "a narrative work" in the real world, but a short story told in the form of a series of MySpace entries is "narrative" from our real-world perspective.

But yes, this isn't very relevant to WaltK's concerns. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:19, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Page summary

Although we have an in-depth explanation, I feel that for newcomers and casual users of the wiki, this most important policy of ours can be confusing. Despite Tardis:Canon policy existing, in my experience on other websites many seem to believe that an {{invalid}} tag totally disregards a source. Additionally, the lead of the page describes what it is for, but not what it actually is. As such, I think this summary using {{summ}} on the meaning of "validity" would be a helpful addition to the top of the page:

A valid source is one that we as a wiki believe satisfactorily and intentionally describes information and events in the Doctor Who universe. If a source is marked invalid, it is not because it is "worth less" or "didn't happen"; it simply means that due to some aspect(s) of the nature of the source, we don't consider it able to be used as a reliable and actual account of the DWU.
Hence, two contradicting sources can be considered equally valid, while one that seems like it fits in may not be for the reasons below.

This is not a change to policy, merely a clarification of rules that are already in place. If you agree, disagree, or think this could be improved, please say so. The use of {{summ}} is also not strictly necessary, this could be part of the lead, but I think it would be the best way to implement this. Chubby Potato ☎ 01:50, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

This seems like a good idea and I like the specific clarification you've written. I don't know how much it would help as I don't feel many of the readers we're targeting check policy pages like this, but it certainly can't hurt. Bongo50 ☎ 05:40, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Eh.. I feel like failing rules 2 and 4 sort of is seen as making those things one that "didn't happen" or are "worth less". (Except in some very corner cases like charity publications on the rule 2 issue.) At least per the old threads I remember. It's rule 1 and 3 that, at least per the threads I've read, are used as mere delineations on what the wiki can actually cover as opposed to actual judgement. Maybe that's my misreading of the threads, but there's been some fairly harsh language used when people doubt rule 2 concerns, and rule 4 straightforwardly means that it's thought not to happen in the DWU.

Given that, hopefully, we might get forums back soon^tm, and rule 1 is something people are keen to discuss, it might be best to wait on this. If you buy my reading as rule 1 and 3 being the only ones for which this applies, I mean. Najawin ☎ 05:51, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

No, I think that's a misunderstanding. As we discussed in the "Sequels to invalid stories" thread, even Rule 4 only disqualifies the specific source, not the depicted events in the abstract; e.g. Death Comes to Time is not a valid source for the factoid "Tannis existed", but this does not mean that we actively disbelieve in Tannis, and ergo a different author who does intend for their story to take place in the DWU dropping a mention of Tannis is no objection either to the invalidity of DCtT or to the validity of the new Tannis-namedropping story. "DCtT is invalid" means "we don't accept it as a source for whether X happened or not, because this particular 'account' of X is flagged by the 'witness' as something they don't really mean", not "we assert actively that X didn't happen".

As for Rule 2, it doesn't enter into this discussion because Rule-2-breakers (copyright-breakers) are not-covered, not "invalid". The quote put forward by User:Chubby Potato specifically defines "invalid" sources, which are quite different from non-covered sources.

In the interest of preventing confusion I'm implementing the paragraph; I do think that having such a paragraph is in any case an uncontroversially good idea. I am open to further discussion for the tweaking of its contents. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:06, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Have we never had Rule-2-breakers who are invalid? If so, perfectly reasonable there. But, politely, I think you misunderstand my Rule 4 point here. Not(DCTT) does not imply Not(Fact 1) AND Not(Fact 2) ... AND Not(Fact N) where the conjunction of the N Facts makes up DCTT. Those ANDs should be ORs. Regardless, I'd need to look at the thread in question to see the actual decision that was made and how the precedent works. So fair enough until then. Najawin ☎ 20:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)