User talk:MystExplorer

Welcome to the MystExplorer

Welcome to the Tardis!
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Thanks for your edits! We hope you'll keep on editing with us. This is a great time to have joined us, because now you can play the Game of Rassilon with us and win cool stuff! Well, okay, badges. That have no monetary value. And that largely only you can see. But still: they're cool!

We've got a couple of important quirks for a Wikia wiki, so let's get them out of the way first.
British English, please
We generally use British English round these parts, so if you're American, please be sure you set your spell checker to BrEng, and take a gander at our spelling cheat card.
Spoilers aren't cool
We have a strict definition of "spoiler" that you may find a bit unusual. Basically, a spoiler, to us, is anything that comes from a story which has not been released yet. So, even if you've got some info from a BBC press release or official trailer, it basically can't be referenced here. In other words, you gotta wait until the episode has finished its premiere broadcast to start editing about its contents. Please check the spoiler policy for more details.
Other useful stuff
Aside from those two things, we also have some pages that you should probably read when you get a chance, like:

• the listing of all our help, policy and guideline pages
• our Manual of Style
• our image use policy
• our user page policy
• a list of people whose job it is to help you

If you're brand new to wiki editing — and we all were, once! —  you probably want to check out these tutorials at Wikipedia, the world's largest wiki:

• How to edit a page
• Editing, policy, conduct, and structure tutorial
• Picture tutorial

Remember that you should always sign your comments on talk and vote pages using four tildes like this:

~ ~ ~ ~

Thanks for becoming a member of the TARDIS crew! If you have any questions, see the Help pages, add a question to one of the Forums or ask on my talk page. -- Doug86 (Talk) 02:42, November 26, 2012

Birthdays

People are not a valid source for their own birthdays. Especially actors. I'm aware of the conversation you've been having with Neve McIntosh and I'm not saying she is lying about her own birthday. But it would hardly be the first time that an actor has lied about such information, since it's critical to their employment. We absolutely cannot accept a person's word about their birthday as a valid source. That may seem paradoxical, but like all facts, we require independent verification. We don't want to put ourselves in the position of being used by actors to publicise their own little fibs about their ages.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  16:56: Wed 09 Jan 2013

You're assuming that other people's birthdates are, in fact, added by the subjects themselves, which is not evidently the case. Because of the "Twitter trail", though, the Neve McIntosh info, though, clearly falls foul of T:NO SELF REF.

In fact, we've already come to a forum agreement to remove birth information that is improperly sourced. I just haven't gotten around to enforcing it yet.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  19:51: Wed 09 Jan 2013

"Worked on" categories

Please do not abuse the "worked in/on" categories. It's not sufficient to just add the category and move on. You have to also change the text to explain why you added the category. You've recently said that Susannah York, for instance, Worked on Casualty. How? In what capacity? It's not helpful to our readers to just add that category and run.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  17:00: Wed 09 Jan 2013

A category is never a substitute for writing an article. It does appear as though many people, most of them IP users, have increasingly abused these "Worked on" categories to the point that it's worth considering eliminating them entirely. See Thread:119834.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  19:51: Wed 09 Jan 2013

Block

The procedure to get rid of all these categories is complex. I know you're trying to help, but you are — quite accidentally — making it harder to complete. I don't have enough screen space across two monitors to also monitor your activities and avoid what you're doing. Therefore, I'm reluctantly going to block you until this procedure has been completed. It probably won't take anything like 3 days, so don't be scared by the block length you're seeing. It's only temporary, and, again, doesn't reflect poorly upon you. It's just a precaution. You can still edit this page in the meantime.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  22:28: Thu 14 Mar 2013

I was editing the Dad's Army actors because that category is in the Zero Room and therefore must be deleted manually. It's the same thing with the Magic Roundabout. I promise to leave the other categories alone. I frankly don't think this block is necessary and if I'm blocked again I have half a mind to leave this wiki altogether. Slughorn42 ☎ 22:37, March 14, 2013 (UTC)

I completely understand that it's frustrating being blocked. I apologise for the inconvenience this caused you. It was, I felt, necessary to shut you down at the time. Your edits were directly impacting my bot runs, and I simply needed to power through and get the work done. During complicated bot manoeuvres — and I think 8,000 edits in a 24 hour period qualifies as complicated — the right of way must be given to the bot. I routinely hand out temporary blocks to people if they appear to be editing contrary to the bot's plan. It's not personal, and it in no way reflects badly on you. It's simply easier to briefly stop you than to keep an eye on your editing practices and the 16 bot windows I have open.

For future reference, note that your assertions are wrong, above. Even when a category is "in the Zero Room", it still can be edited by bot. You'll see that the categories you mentioned above have been deleted as well.

The project of stripping away "worked on" categories has now been completed as much as I can for the day. I'm just awaiting the daily cache to see if there are any stragglers that need to be fixed. Accordingly, I"m restoring your editing righs — but please stay away from editing any real world people articles for another 24 hours.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  06:39: Fri 15 Mar 2013

Birthdays, part 2

Hey, remember the stuff with Neve McIntosh? Please do not use Twitter as a way to fact check our work here, as you apparently did again with Brendan Patricks. If birthday info is unsourced, please either find a valid source for it — that is, not the actor themselves — or, better, simply strike it. It is really not important that we have the right birthday for people. And it's even worse when we have the wrong birthday, or the "public birthday" — i.e. fiction — that an actor wants to give out.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  16:19: Tue 05 Nov 2013

Christmas cheer

Happy holidays!

As this fiftieth anniversary year comes to a close, we here at Tardis just want to thank you for being a part of our community — even if you haven't edited here in a while. If you have edited with us this year, then thanks for all your hard work.

This year has seen an impressive amount of growth. We've added about 11,000 pages this year, which is frankly incredible for a wiki this big. November was predictably one of the busiest months we've ever had: over 500 unique editors pitched in. It was the highest number of editors in wiki history for a year in which only one programme in the DWU was active. And our viewing stats have been through the roof. We've averaged well over 2 million page views each week for the last two months, with some weeks seeing over 4 million views!

We've received an unprecedented level of support from Wikia Staff, resulting in all sorts of new goodies and productive new relationships. And we've recently decided to lift almost every block we've ever made so as to allow most everyone a second chance to be part of our community.

2014 promises to build on this year's foundations, especially since we've got a full, unbroken series coming up — something that hasn't happened since 2011. We hope you'll stick with us — or return to the Tardis — so that you can be a part of the fun!

Re: Thread:149786

Hi! Please do not change anything related to the Doctor Who Proms while the discussion at Thread:149786 is ongoing. This policy is spelled out at Tardis:You are bound by current policy. Thanks! Shambala108 ☎ 22:20, January 17, 2014 (UTC)

Please stop now

Please do not continue to add "This is the nth story to not feature any humans". Only the first is significant and relevant. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎ 20:16, January 19, 2014 (UTC)

I was merely trying to indicate how incredibly rare those stories are. But if you feel they aren't significant, then fine. Slughorn42 ☎ 20:20, January 19, 2014 (UTC)

Birthdays, part 3

Hey, I'm sorry you felt the closure of the thread was premature or unwelcoming. That wasn't my intent.

I tend to quickly close threads where the request of the thread is, in my view, a technical impossibility. As an example, you might want the sky to be red, but it can't be red, so there's not much more that can be usefully done but to explain the scientific reason why it appears to be blue.

I wasn't trying to kill conversation, so much as redirect it here to my page. As I said in the thread closure, I'm perfectly willing to continue to talk about it, if you have questions, but there's no real need to do so in a community discussion.

To answer some of your questions, certainly I considered the possibility of splitting up Tardis:List of cast and crew by age. But you'd have to split it up into so many separate parts, it would no longer have a point. The template is simply not designed to do what the page wants to do. It cannot be used to create a list of every cast and crew member who's worked on a 50 year old show. It cannot even do the cast and crew for a couple of episodes of modern Doctor Who. If you had the cast and crew for just The Day of the Doctor, the template would fail. So it obviously can't be expected to handle the entire history of DW? And if you could only put less than the amount of information available on a single episode's credit list, how would you break up the data in a way that would actually be useful to people? (Yes, I know that multiple episodes share cast and crew members, but there's significant turnover when you start talking about the cast and crew of whole seasons.)

Additionally, you claim that I've not objected to your work with ages before. Please note the header of this section. This is the third time I've advised you away from this kind of editing. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I've been trying to curb this particular editing practice since January of 2013. And I long ago directed you to the relevant 2010 forum discussion — one I didn't start and one that was attended by several community members. No one argued for keeping the date information the way that it was, and the way that you continue to edit it.

Also, Wikipedia and IMDB are not valid sources on this site. They never have been. T:OOU SRC says:

... user-editable sources such as Wikipedia, the Internet Movie Database and this very wiki are to be avoided, as are sites that are built on largely un-edited user contributions, such as the Doctor Who Reference Guide.

The point is not that ages are completely forbidden here. Rather, they must be properly sourced. Remember, IMDb got sued for publishing actors ages, on the grounds that it prevented actors from getting work. If there are ages listed in our articles we need to have them fully sourced by something other than Wikipedia or IMDb. Age information is not, nor can it be, immune to our normal rules on out-of-universe sourcing. Remember, we're talking about real people's lives here. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard when we're talking about alleging something that could have a direct economic impact on someone's life.

I hope you understand, and I hope this won't deter you from editing with us in future
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  21:44: Fri 23 May 2014

Well, I understand now. If you had said all that earlier, I wouldn't have responded the way I did. I'm sorry I neglected to look at the thread you mentioned. From now on, I'll steer clear of adding people's ages. Incidentally, I'm having trouble thinking of sources for birth dates that would be considered valid under the wiki's rules.

I just have one last question. Is it all right to have birth and death dates for people who have died? I mean, since they're no longer alive we don't have to worry about any potential economic impact on them. Slughorn42 ☎ 22:36, May 23, 2014 (UTC)

DVD commentary participants

Hi! Since you added Category:DVD commentary participants to so many articles, it would be helpful to have the actual names of the DVD commentaries in question actually stated in the articles themselves. Otherwise the category is not very helpful. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎ 03:06, June 26, 2014 (UTC)

Well, I figured since we had a category for the moderators we should have one for the participants as well. But I frankly don't see the relevance of listing which commentaries they were participated in. After all, we have category called BBC Audio audiobook readers and we're not required to list which audiobooks people read on their articles. Slughorn42 ☎ 13:58, June 26, 2014 (UTC)

I'm just now seeing your response to my post here since you didn't bother to respond on my talk page, which is wiki policy.

As CzechOut stated above, "It's not sufficient to just add the category and move on. You have to also change the text to explain why you added the category." and "A category is never a substitute for writing an article." Just because you see a rule abused elsewhere, it doesn't mean that the rule can be ignored. Don't just add a category stating someone participated in a DVD commentary without listing the commentaries in which they participated. Shambala108 ☎ 17:45, July 24, 2014 (UTC)

Videos

Hi! Please note that links to off-site videos are expressly forbidden per Tardis:Video policy. If you feel that a video is worth uploading to the wiki, you can list it at Tardis:Video recommendations.

I've removed the videos you linked to on Tasha Lem and Osgood (The Day of the Doctor), but if you've added any others, please remove them. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎ 17:40, July 24, 2014 (UTC)

Categories

Look, it's hard to explain this in detail on the edit summary so I'm posting it here. You are violating Tardis:Beware recursion. I suggest you read the policy, but I will sum it up here.

Category:Big Finish Doctor Who voice actors is a subcategory of Category:Doctor Who voice actors. Therefore, anyone who is in BF DW voice actors is automatically in DW voice actors. The recursion policy states that we only use the most specific subcategory, as doing otherwise messes up bot runs. This is a technical issue that supersedes issues of style, form, etc.

If you feel these actors do not belong in BF DW voice actors, that is a different thing. The way it stands, though, adding the DW voice actors category is not only completely unnecessary but also interferes with bot tasks. Shambala108 ☎ 20:48, August 16, 2014 (UTC)

Yes but the reason Jane Slavin and Lizzie Hopley are in the DW voice actors category in addition to the BFDW voice actors category is because they've voiced characters in productions that were NOT made by Big Finish. The same is true for Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, David Tennant and Nicholas Briggs amongst others. So by your logic, we'd have to remove them from the DW voice actors category as well simply because they're also in the BFDW voice actors category. I frankly don't see what bot tasks have to do with it. Slughorn42 ☎ 21:14, August 16, 2014 (UTC)

Ok, first of all, I completely understand what you're saying about the non-BF issue. Obviously, though, I am not explaining myself well enough, although in my defense I think our category structure is the most confusing thing on the wiki to understand and/or explain.

I'm going to simplify things to try to make myself more clear. Our category structure on this wiki is nested, that is, some categories contain other, more specific categories. So, for example, category A contains categories B and C, and maybe category B contains category D. Therefore, if you put an article in category D, that automatically includes it in categories A and B (but not C). Why can't we just put the article into categories A and B as well? Because it causes something called recursion during certain bot functions, where the bot, as quoted in Tardis:Beware recursion, " will spend hours bouncing back and forth between categories". It's a technical issue, and though most of us users will never understand it, it is something that we have to consider to make the wiki run smoothly.

Therefore, the actors you've named above, having been placed in cat BF DW voice actors, are already part of cat DW voice actors, so we don't need to place them in that category. The other examples you cited, Tom Baker etc., also need to be fixed. You've been here long enough to know that just because a rule is violated, doesn't mean it's not valid, it just means no one caught it yet.

Do me a favor. If the above explanation made any sense to you, let me know. I've been wanting to work on the explanation at Tardis:Beware recursion but I don't want to make it worse than it already is. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎ 17:35, August 17, 2014 (UTC)

Redundant categories

I know you've been doing a lot of work recently on removing redundant categories. However, I believe the categories Category:Doctor Who (2005) television stories and Category:Doctor Who (1963) television stories are involved in the Game of Rassilon, so they really shouldn't be removed. If I'm wrong, please correct me. P&P talk contribs 22:12, September 2, 2014 (UTC)

Also, is there a reason you removed the Tomato Check categories (e.g. Category:SH ok)? P&P talk contribs 22:27, September 2, 2014 (UTC)

That's fine. You can set hidden categories to be shown automatically in your preferences under "Advanced Display Options". P&P talk contribs 22:32, September 2, 2014 (UTC)

Category:Robots is also involved in the GOR. P&P talk contribs 02:00, September 6, 2014 (UTC)

GOR categories

Hey, I'm not sure if you need this information or not, but I thought I'd give you a list of the categories that are currently part of the Game of Rassilon:

• Doctor Who directors
• Companions of the Doctor
• Fifth Doctor audio stories
• Action figures
• DWM issues pages
• Torchwood television stories
• Third Doctor comic stories
• Individual Time Lords
• Brief Encounter stories
• Sixth Doctor DWM comic stories
• Vehicles
• Years
• Disambiguation
• K9 television stories
• Doctor Who (1963) television stories
• Conflicts
• MA novels
• CON episodes
• SJA television stories
• Days of the year
• Planets
• Bernice Summerfield stories
• Months
• Doctor Who (2005) television stories
• Seasons
• Robots

Thanks! Shambala108 ☎ 05:20, September 3, 2014 (UTC)

Merry Men

"Merry Men" is not a category for "individuals" as it is a group. Therefore, I've removed it from category:12th century individuals. Shambala108 ☎ 02:51, September 9, 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I forgot to remove that part. Shambala108 ☎ 03:15, September 9, 2014 (UTC)

Hidden category

Hi :) I'm gonna have to pull you back from Category:Pages with Behind the Scenes sections. It's a flawed concept for a category, since you don't realistically stand a chance of making it complete — thousands of pages have a BTS — and since its aim is not particularly clear.

Several editors will immediately see it as needless busywork.

And it creates an additional burden for people that will instantly lead to categorical inaccuracies. People who remove BTS sections will inevitably forget to also remove the category, and people who add BTS sections will forget to add the category.

Your goal seems to be to illustrate proper usage of the BTS section, which I applaud. This would more effectively be done as a guideline page, such at Tardis:Guide to images. I think you'd make a clearer impact with your message if you were to create Tardis:Guide to Behind the Scenes sections, in which you gave some examples of good BTS usage.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  02:08: Sat 20 Sep 2014

No, you're the winner!

Heya :) So it turns out that both our administrators, who placed above you in the contest described on our front page, have declined their prize in an effort to make sure the prize goes to someone not on the administrative staff. You came in third, which means you're the highest-placed non-admin. So you've won! If you'd like to give us your physical address, we'll have the prize sent off to you. You can do that in any variety of private ways. I think you follow @TardisWiki, so you could just DM us there, or send an email to tardiswiki at gmail dot com or arrange a meeting in Special:Chat or send a friend request to CzechOutWikia in Skype. You could even send a physical letter to Wikia in San Francisco, if you'd feel more comfortable with that. Lots of options, really! Please get in touch with me soon to let me know which method you'd prefer.

Congratulations! It's great to see your hard work around here get rewarded!
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  14:32: Wed 08 Oct 2014

Yes, the prize is as pictured on the front page.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  13:41: Thu 09 Oct 2014

Hey, I can't send you a direct message on Twitter since your name change, since you don't follow us anymore. Just wondering if you got your prize yet? I didn't ship it, but I'm guessing that it should have probably arrived, based on the information I have to hand.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  18:34: Sun 26 Oct 2014

Video games

Hi! Please leave the video games pages alone for the next hour or so. I'm working on some complicated page moving, and it adds extra time and work when I hit an edit conflict. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎ 03:45, November 4, 2014 (UTC)

Visiting Hours

Hi! Can you tell me where in Visiting Hours it says the 1960s, because I haven't been able to find it. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎ 17:08, November 6, 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but the DWRG is not a valid source. Only stories are valid sources. Yes, Eleanor mentions a Beatles album of more than three sides, which places it squarely in the late 1960s, but that's using real world info that is not established in the DWU. T:NO RW applies here

Even as a guideline, be careful using the DWRG. I've seen major spelling errors in prose character names, suggesting the person who wrote the particular article didn't have access to the stories in question. Additionally, they don't have the same valid sources/no real world policies we have, so sometimes their info, while correct, wouldn't apply on this wiki. Shambala108 ☎ 17:23, November 6, 2014 (UTC)