Talk:The Eighth Doctor Adventures (audio series)

Rename

The rename suggestions is well-reasoned. Only one point seemed weak to me: the BF website rarely uses "the" in front of the name. The provided link is to an obscure thumbnail collection and is not corroborated by the navigation links, page names, etc. However, upon checking both Big Finish Companion volumes, the article is confirmed. There the range name is resolutely with "the". Given that the two volumes were written at different times by different people and that all printed materials (for other Doctors) indeed carry the article, I agree with this rename. Are there objections? Amorkuz ☎ 21:22, June 28, 2018 (UTC)

I've axed the rename tag at Talk:Fourth Doctor Adventures (audio series) to concentrate the discussion in just one place. It's the same issue here as there.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  18:34: Sat 30 Jun 2018

I don't think the range names actually have changed.

The perceived need to add a prepending "The" is very much a recent thing, arising from the introduction of the series-branded bundles. Indeed, I think it's fairer to say that "The Fourth/Eighth Doctor Adventures" is a name reserved for only the as-a-series bundles — such as The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series 7 Volume 2 — but the range as a whole is still called "Fourth Doctor Adventures" and "Eighth Doctor Adventures".

There is no corresponding title for other Doctors, because McGann and Baker have largely had their own series outside the main range. That is, there is no such thing as "Fifth Doctor Adventures". So consistency can only be reasonably expected between Four and Eight, since only they have had similar experiences. Even Ten is unlike Four or Eight, because his adventures have, to date, always been released as a boxed set.

So I think that's why the website still, as of today, maintains that the range names are "Eighth Doctor Adventures" and "Fourth Doctor Adventures" — even in the range dropdown.

And even if BF actually do change the names on the website, it's the convention for real world pages that we prefer original names to be the actual {{PAGENAME}} — and then add names that come later as redirects. (For that matter, we generally apply that principle to in-universe pages — which is why Jo Grant is not Jo Jones — although there are one or two exceptions.)

I notice, too, that our categories have gotten inconsistent because of all this. Sometimes, they're Category:Fourth Doctor Adventures audio stories and sometimes they're The Eighth Doctor Adventures voice actors. A bot will be required either way, so let's clean up all this in favour of the way Big Finish market the ranges themselves — not one or two collections within those ranges.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  18:34: Sat 30 Jun 2018

Big Finish's naming convention is... messy, at least. Using a link of Wayback Machine that User:Amorkuz added today, I was able to find and old version of Big Finish's "Ranges" page. There alone we have two ways to refer to the range: "The Eighth Doctor Adventures" and (a down a bit), we have it as "NEW 8TH DOCTOR ADVENTURES". Also on an old version of the "News" page we can see it being referred as "The Eighth Doctor Adventures". So there is evidence, or, at the very least, suggestion, that all of these names have, at one point, been used as the names for the range as a whole, and not just series-branded bundles. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 23:57, June 30, 2018 (UTC)

Furthermore, taking advantage of the fact that Vortex always lists upcoming releases, we can check VOR 35, for example. It was released the same month that Fourth Doctor Adventures (audio series) started. On the "Forthcoming releases" section, all stories are preceded by "Doctor Who - The Fourth Doctor Adventures:". OncomingStorm12th ☎ 00:28, July 1, 2018 (UTC)

So I thought about this, and then thought some more. As I mentioned earlier, first I agreed with OS12. Then agreed with him again, after he pointed out that the original names on the old site included (in some cases) the article "the". But then I asked myself: why couldn't they get it straight? Couldn't they write a memo to all staff about it or something? Couldn't people copy the way it was on the previous news item/release? And I think the reason is that they simply did not consider them to be different names.

Thing is, I myself struggle with definite articles before proper nouns/noun phrases. I'm sure everyone who ever wrote a scientific article, asked themselves: "constant c" or "the constant c"? I still do not know the answer, but I do not really care either as for me these two are the same.

Perhaps, for BF, "The Eighth Doctor Adventures" and "Eighth Doctor Adventures" are also the same, or at least sufficiently similar that they do not bother to keep it uniform. And, to be honest, we do not view articles as too important either, given that we ignore them while alphabetising on the wiki.

Things written on the cover are set in stone and should not be changed. Here we all seem to agree.

Ranges whose names have been known (exclusively or for a long time) only through marketing can, methinks, go either way while remaining faithful to the will of the producers. And here I am reminded of the special field of expertise of CzechOut: the world (wide web) outside the wiki. We can come up with various rationals how to choose among the two options: by the first mention, by the most common mention, by the mention that turned out to be the only serious one. But if, as I believe now, both variants are equicorrect, then perhaps, the best choice would be the one that simplifies searches and improves visibility.

Yes, it pains me too to suggest the possibility that naming for "similar" things on the wiki could end up different ("similar" because the differences have been discussed before). But really in this case we should not be catering to a couple dozen people who know our naming conventions across our wiki as the back of their hand. We should better make sure that the rest of the world has the best and fastest chance of finding the pages.

Funnily enough, I am not entirely sure which of the two variants is more beneficial in this respect. My natural instinct suggests that a search for the phrase "Eighth Doctor Adventures" should also hit all mentions of "the Eighth Doctor Adventures" as it is part of it. Vice versa, the latter is not a subphrase of the former. So conceivably, a search for "the Eighth Doctor Adventures" might miss some mentions of "Eighth Doctor Adventures". However, it might be that technology has gone so far ahead that this is not a problem anymore. Perhaps, CzechOut knows a more precise answer to this. Amorkuz ☎ 00:32, July 8, 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what the best solution here is, but I just want to stress once again that only admins are permitted to move pages on this wiki. Please see Thread:128198 for the details. Shambala108 ☎ 01:52, December 15, 2018 (UTC)

One of the changes of the new BF website was that now the range is officially being called The Fourth Doctor Adventures not only on the boxset covers, but as a whole (the same applying to Eighth Doctor Adventures (audio series). OncomingStorm12th ☎ 14:51, April 1, 2019 (UTC)