Forum:Navigation from one story to the next

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I've noticed a disturbing trend on some pages, both in television and other media. It looks like there have been several different "approaches" to linking from one different story to another. Can we please agree that the only linkage between stories will be in the infoboxes? This business of taking up a whole section at the bottom of the page to do a really ugly text-based "Previous Story/Next Story" has gotta stop. That's what infoboxes are for: slamming all the little details into one, easy-to-find location.

While I'd like to believe this practice merely predates the existence of infoboxes, and no one went back to remove the redundancy after rolling out the boxes, I note that it's still the practice on some newly-created pages, such as Sisters of the Flame. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 04:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Sisters of the flame doesn't have that its just simply that the next and previos story in the series are also the next and previous story in the timeline / canon.

While i agree that we should use the ifo boxes to link one story to the next i still think we should have entire series templates down the bottom Dark Lord Xander 04:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

They aren't even templates. They're sections that are just a collection of linked text. And they're not at the bottom. They're towards the bottom. They're just wedged in there in this great, bulky mass towards the end of the article. And they're not consistently there. Seriously. They're ugly, they're redundant, and they're only used just enough to be annoying.

As for those few examples of the "next story in canon" to which you allude, please. That's total fanwank. Trying to place a short story next to a novel next to a televised serial next to a comic strip is a pointless exercise of speculation. Dunno why anyone wants to put themselves through this, because even the best examples of this sort of "timeline" readily admit it's utterly impossible to do for the Eighth Doctor stories. Plus, you really don't have to do much more than see the name "Gary Russell" before you know you're in temporal hell. Here are a few of the problems inherent in creating "next story in canon" links. there are at least two explanations of Evelyn's departure from the TARDIS, two explanations of LIz' departure from UNIT, a view of John and Gillian which makes them and the whole of the TVC run involving them a dream of the DWM Eighth Doctor, an end-of-reality explosion in The Glorious Dead (which can be said to have reverted every one of the black and white DWM comic strips to, well, Oblivion) — and, oh yeah, a little thing called the Last Great Time War which makes all accountings of what did or didn't happen completely unreliable. One of the mandates of the TARDIS Manual of Style is to keep things concise. One link the the last and next story in that particular series of stories, neatly tucked away in an infobox, is more than sufficient. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 05:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I think sometimes you forget that this is what the wiki is for as you put it "Fanwank" otherwise why right articles from an in-universe point of view hell why even write articles at all if you arn't going to state this story happens (obviously before this story) in Audio it works because they have there own timline, in novels it works because they have there own timline, short stoires perhapse not as they cross timelines, TV episodes easy (one is released after the other) and "Trying to place a short story next to a novel next to a televised serial next to a comic strip is a pointless exercise of speculation" as you put it who's doing that? timelines for me is linking fifth doctor audios together, fifth PDA's togeather ect not interseries and if people are doing that good luck to them but i see no problem is saying The Land of the Dead comes after Winter for the Adept because it does Dark Lord Xander 06:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

And I don't see any harm in saying that, either. I just don't think it needs to be said twice on the same page, especially when the second time it's said, it takes up a whole section of the article. MOS says that sections shouldn't be created for trivial information. As for who's trying to track all stories in all media chronologically, well, take a stroll through the Sixth and Seventh Doctor's televised stories. I've been gradually removing them, but there are some vestiges still around, as at Battlefield. It's even in the infoboxes to some extent, as at Survival. I suppose this derives from some fans who still cling to the notion that the NA's are a "higher" form of novel (they were once briefly called the "official continuation of the series"), but it's a rather old-fashioned view of things these days. There's no particular reason to rate the NAs higher than the PDAs now, and the PDAs have somewhat upset the chronology of the NAs. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 07:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute. Hold the phone. We're talking at cross-purposes a bit. I was speaking mainly from looking at televised pages and series where it focuses on the same Doctor. In other words, groups of stories where the release date and the chronology are the same. You're saying that, with say the regular BF releases, the section in the body of the page of, say, The Haunting of Thomas Brewster refers to the placement on the adventure in the Fifth Doctor's timestream, whereas the links in the infobox are talking about the overall BF release number. Well, that IS different info, and might have some value, but it's certainly not clear on the page what the "Timeline" section is for. Still, the infobox template should be changed to allow for it. It shouldn't be buried in the article. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 07:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I now see better what you were talking about before, I still have serious reservations about having a timeline note on every audio story. Most of these releases are treated as one-off stories. Even Big Finish have never given internal BF continuity points for the vast majority of the stories on their website. And it seems to me it would be problematic for several reasons:

• How do we deal with asynchronicity between Doctor and companion? Do we always go with the Doctor's perspective? I guess I'm thinking here of The Condemned. From the Sixth Doctor's perspective it follows one story, from Charley Pollard's it's very clearly another. And fine, we have the note on that page that there's a difference between Doctor and companion perspective. But are we gonna keep doing that as more Sixth/Charley stories are told?
• I think I've got issues saying that Lucie necessarily followed Charley, just because Sheridan Smith followed India Fisher. Narratively, I don't think we've got evidence one way or another. We just have a plausible, companionless gap into which to drop the Lucie adventures. But such a gap also exists right after the television movie.
• What do we do about Evelyn Smythe? She supposedly left in 2005, in a story which was itself displaced from her previously released story, Arrangements for War by a few narrative years. But she's been back in stories which appear to predate her original departure. So can we really be sure that stories released in 2007 onwards featuring the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn are being released in their own chronological order? And how do we place them against the titles released prior to Thicker Than Water?
• What happens when BF decide to make a clear sequel of some popular story? Let's say they make a sequel to Spare Parts and it's clear that it predates, I dunno, The Game. Is someone gonna go back and re-edit everything? Given the amount of chaff that remains on the wiki from tis very earliest days, I've gotta believe that "no" is the answer to that question. We'll get it "right" as of 2008, and then if something comes along in 2010 to upset the ordering that's been done, it'll sorta stay broken.

Overall, though, I gotta question whether the time line links really so strong that they're worth noting on every story. Yeah, they matter with Eighth Doctor stories, new and old, but with the other Doctors, on most releases, it doesn't seem to matter so much. Most of the timeline notes seem to amount to listing the adventure in terms of when stories involving that particular TARDIS crew were released. It's just a subset of the thing in the infobox. So I tend to think, given the maintenance that might be involved in keeping the list current, it would be better to reduce all this to a continuity note. Make a note of it only when there is actual continuity. And that just doesn't seem to happen too much. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 08:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Well you have written a long response so i am just going to comment on a part of it the dot points

1. Doctor and conpaion have seperate timelines at the moment and i can see and agree that that needs work

2. It is placed there as stated by Big Finish

3. again yes or it would be stated on there individual pages

4. Not everything has to be re done just that page the page before and after hardly a major edit.

well they are my answers for know i will go back and read the rest of your post Dark Lord Xander 09:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the only linkages should be in the infoboxes, except for the Big Finishes.

The text at the bottom of the pages as in Battlefield is very messy and un-necessary, it's a tie over from the early days of this wiki and there's still bits of it lying around that hasn't been tied into the page properly. (As I slowly work through the TV pages I try to tie them in, but if not, it's just as easy to remove them now).

As for the infoboxes, for the novels and CDs, what the 'next and previous' should say is 'Next release' / 'previous release', the only reason it hasn't changed is it would mean a slightly (more) confusing infobox when filling one in.

As for Survival perhaps the infobox shouldn't be as clustered with regards to the NA/TVM, but the NAs are a long continuous line which eventually lead into the TVM so there's a direct interrelatedness of it all, while the PDAs are more oddly positioned somewhat.

The timeline links are worth noting for each story in case someone comes to that exact story and wants to see the interrelatedness of everything (admittedly it's slightly less needed in stories such as the Divergent universe arc where things follow each other, or the Lucie Miller New Eighth Doctor arc, but sometimes there might be a short story that jumps in between). --Tangerineduel 16:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)