Forum:The Destroyers and other Lost Stories

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czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 03:31: Tue 21 Aug 2012 

I realise that it's included as part of a Second Doctor boxset, but the The Destroyers doesn't feature the Doctor (specified on AUDIO as a requirement for that prefix), nor is the cover on the page advertised as Doctor Who. In fact, the original script's a pilot for an outright spin-off.

Should this be reworked to a one-off prefix, as with the TV pilot? Or should The Lost Stories as a whole be given a prefix instead to differentiate from the regular series? -- Tybort (talk page) 18:20, June 28, 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm. Really good question. I tend to favor giving all the Lost Stories their own prefix. It's a pretty easy bot fix, so the work time isn't an issue in this case. The reason I like this approach is because the guys at Big Finish have been specifically asked about how the Seventh Doctor stuff is supposed to marry up, and Richardson said that the Lost Stories and the regular monthlies are "separate continuities". And there really is a tonal difference between the Sixth Doctor Lost Stories stuff and his regular BFA stuff.

Actually the more I think about it, the more I think we should change BFA to BFM — for monthly — just so it's clear what Big Finish audios we actually mean. Again, it's not a hard bot fix.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 03:42: Tue 10 Jul 2012 

Would, in essence, anything not in the "monthly releases" segment of Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories page require a new prefix if we went throigh with that? -- Tybort (talk page) 10:15, July 10, 2012 (UTC)

There's also the whole AUDIO, which were originally radio broadcasts rather than CD and download releases. -- Tybort (talk page) 13:46, July 10, 2012 (UTC)

To rephrase what I said, if we're making an entire prefix for the Lost Stories (rather than JUST The Destroyers), then we need to look at each "Doctor Who subseries" that the BFA prefix currently encompasses, not just stories with a "different tone". I LIKE the early seasons of Torchwood, but I'll freely admit the tone isn't all too consistent. Doesn't mean we make a, say, TWCE or TWMD prefix.

Looking at the history of both AUDIO and Help:Prefixes, it looks like it started off as "every BF audio" and gradually expanded out. Any older admins want to confirm that? -- Tybort (talk page) 01:56, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

In fairness, the prefix AUDIO was more "catch all" in the past, because there simply weren't other lines around. It was the monthly release only for a very long time. The diversification into different ranges is relatively recent and therefore past decisions don't quite hold as much weight. BFA used to work well, but I'd argue that it really makes no sense to new users to have BFA, when we really mean just the monthlies. The more specific our prefixes, the more understandable — and therefore useful — they'll be.

So I think you're right: we do need to look at all of the sub-series to make sure they're prefixed as clearly as they can be. I wouldn't be opposed to BFEX, for instance, for the Excelis series.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 20:16: Sun 05 Aug 2012 

You're right. Apart from the special case of PROSE, it looks like a lot of these subseries were introduced in or after 2007, the year T:PREFIX was made.

My only certainty is "give each of the subpages here its own prefix", not what specifically to name them or which needs "BF" in front or not. Naturally, we already have AUDIO, BFDWU and PROSE and I'm sure that "BFM" is fine for the monthly series (especially as DWM's taken). -- Tybort (talk page) 20:46, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

To hell with it. These are my suggestions for the sub-series. They can always be tweaked if they're rubbish.

• BFM: Monthlies
• BFE: Excelis
• BFLS or LS: The Lost Stories
• BFEDA: Non-monthlies Eighth Doctor Adventures. Might need to be something else considering the stuff co-produced with BBC Radio.
• FDA: Fourth Doctor Adventures
• WCA: Webcast audios (I was initially going to say BFWC or even make this the same as BFS; but then I noticed that the audio version of Death Comes to Time is part of the BBC Radio Collection)
• BFS: Subscription exclusives that aren't WCA (or former subscription exclusives; everything before The Four Doctors seems to be available to anyone, going by the Big Finish website)
• BFSP: Stage plays

How do these sound? -- Tybort (talk page) 21:33, August 5, 2012 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea.

I have a recollection of discussing something like it in the past. (See Forum:Why do prefixes link as they do?#BFA for a previous discussion of this sort of thing)

Perhaps for Doctor specific prefixes go with numerals. So BF8DA, 4DA. Or does that make them awkward to type? --Tangerineduel / talk 15:07, August 6, 2012 (UTC)

We don't really refer to incarnation numbers by figures. T:DOCTORS doesn't specifically say 1st Doctor, 4th Doctor and so forth are wrong, but it doesn't seem right to shorten it to a figure unless necessary to disambiguate if we ever have some First Doctor Adventures series and so forth started for whatever reason. Would you suggest 8DA for the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novels as well? (I'm fine with leaving it as EDA, and not even adding anything in front. Is that being too inconsistent?) -- Tybort (talk page)

I've noticed that I missed out on audios included with Doctor Who Magazine and The Davros Mission. Not sure how those would be prefixed, though presumably Davros Mission is part of I, Davros. I guess maybe BFS could be "Subscriber bonuses and special releases", though that may be confusing. -- Tybort (talk page) 19:52, August 6, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, leave EDA as EDA.

Can't BFS, be for Big Finish Specials, Subscripts etc. So that can be used for subscriber-only and for The Davros Mission. Also there's things like the audio adaption of Love and War coming up from Big Finish soon that would need a prefix. So maybe BFS could be our "if it doesn't fit any other prefix use this one" prefix.

The Davros Mission isn't part of I, Davros. It was released as part of the The Davros Collection box set.

BFDWM for Doctor Who Magazine I think would be the most logical. --Tangerineduel / talk 07:31, August 7, 2012 (UTC)

You're probably right. Would the first season of BFEDA still need a AUDIO forward slash, as with the current AUDIO, or is that too messy?

Also, would BFDWM take precedence for The Mists of Time and The Revenants, or should those remain AUDIO? -- Tybort (talk page) 12:56, August 7, 2012 (UTC)

What do we actually know of the BBC Radio collaborations with Big Finish? Was it just money that BBC7 chucked in or something else? They appear to have been recorded in the same place and have similar lengths of recording days as other stories. On Big Finish's site there's nothing to suggest that there's a BBC7 connection.

Anyway, the continuing format and producer of those audio stories is Big Finish, BBC7 may have aired them first but BF published them and continue to publish them.

I think the prefix AUDIO should be reclassified as things that were debuted and were produced by the BBC. For the first season of the BFEDA we can note that they debuted on BBC7 but they were produced by Big Finish and for clarity they're all just prefixed as BFEDA.

I don't believe reclassifying BBCR like this will cause any problems, we don't appear to have a cover page for the BBCR audio stories but the Category:BBCR audio stories doesn't have any articles within it that would throw a spanner in this reasoning.

As for the CC stories you've listed. Should we take Big Finish's promotional stories as just that and they're not a DWM property but a Big Finish property? So we list them based on how Big Finish has released them. Any that haven't been released we put them under the catchall BFS. Or is this still making things too complicated? --Tangerineduel / talk 14:14, August 7, 2012 (UTC)

That works I think. If we can dig up proof that it is indeed a collaboration between Big Finish and BBC Radio, then should those be BFEDA/BBCR?

We used to have a BBC Radio Dramas overview page; but it was deleted due to not being a coherent range.

BFS seems a good catch-all for "other". BFDWM may be a little obtuse for the "free-with-DWM" stuff, as it's feasible one could be confused by that and BFM. I don't have any opinions either way on that, though. I'm fine with the other uses of BFS as suggested, however. -- Tybort (talk page) 14:31, August 7, 2012 (UTC)

I think it depends on the level of collaboration. It doesn't appear they're sharing anything now. So I think they should just be BFEDA.

It might be useful to look at resurrecting the BBC Radio Dramas or something like it so we have a overview page for the BBCR stories and to clarify things like The Dalek Conquests. --Tangerineduel / talk 17:21, August 7, 2012 (UTC)