Forum:Discontinuity revisited

Index → Panopticon → Discontinuity revisited

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Tidy up the section, or delete it?

To bring back a old topic - should the Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors section be tidied up or just deleted in general? Some pages, such as The End of Time seems to have massive of information in that section. Should the section be deleted altogether ot just have a general tidy to and leave the main points in? Mini-mitch 16:41, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

I'm in favour of keeping it, but clearing it up (and keeping a tight hold on it), leaving the points that are production errors or continuity problems. Any explanations that have things like 'maybe, probably, perhaps etc' can just be removed. Also anything that's got conversation styling to it should also be removed, the articles are about presenting information, not pondering ideas from people that's that the Howling is there for. --Tangerineduel 16:51, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

This is an issue about which I have a strong opinion: I vote for complete deletion. An absolute, write-it-in-the-Manual-of-Style, zero-tolerance ban on discontinuity points on story pages. The story pages should tell us only what's in the episode itself, and describe the production, broadcast, and later home video release of that episode. Any narrative "problems" are better noted on an individual in-universe topic page itself. That the Doctor uses the wrong button on the TARDIS console to open the door, for example, belongs at the Doctor's TARDIS, not in a section under the episode where he makes the "mistake". After all, story pages are real world, out-of-universe pages. How can there be "discontinuity" in the real world? Continuity problems, to the extent that they are noteworthy, only exist in-universe. Yes, the discussion of them can only be told from an out of universe perspective — that's why you put them in italics or in a behind-the-scenes section — but they apply to the in-universe topic, not to a real world discussion about the story. Looking at it perhaps more simply, the continuity error doesn't apply to the episode as a whole, just to one topic within the episode. Thus these notes firmly belong elsewhere.

A separate problem is the size of these sections. They're often the biggest parts of articles here, because many editors think the section is little more than a forum page, where they can post claims and counter-claims about an issue. (Hell, I've done that in the past, myself.) Or possibly they attract so much activity because we've made it easier to note continuity problems by including these sections. Who'd want to do the hard work of going to a topic page and figuring out how to phrase things within that article, if all you have to do is add a bullet point to the episode page?

And yet for all the words these sections contain, very few of them actually convey any sort of hard information. When you frame something in the negative — i.e., Discontinuity — you tend to get negative responses. We are actively inviting people to pick episodes apart with these sections, and that's not the point we're after. Eliminating only the points that are couched with the words "maybe", "probably" and "perhaps" won't eliminate the dubious points being made. Just because an entry doesn't say "maybe" doesn't mean the point isn't iffy. (As a total aside, I actually prefer phrasing which uses the words "maybe", "possibly" and "perhaps", because at least the writer is being honest. It's useful for readers to know that a point is uncertain.)

Nevertheless, the sensible course of action is to eliminate discontinuity sections from story pages. This would ensure the length of that section isn't greater than the length of the rest of the article combined. Remember, our goal is to provide a concise guide to the DWU — not a long-winded, often speculative one. Discontinuity notes belong only on individual topic pages in a concise, italicized note at the bottom of the article, or directly underneath the problematic point. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 18:19, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

So should we take a vote then?Mini-mitch 18:46, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

Vote

Delete the Section

• Mini-Mitch 18:43, March 20, 2010 (UTC)
• Delton Menace 21:30, March 20, 2010 (UTC)
• CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 23:47, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

Keep it and Do a Major Tidy Up
Leave it as it is
Create a New Page for Major Error

• Delton Menace 21:30, March 20, 2010 (UTC) (alternate vote)

New pages for discontinuities?

I am with Mini-mitch here, the discontinuity section is known to become a place of pointless so-called 'errors' (when, in fact, someone doesn't use logic or fails to notice something simple for an explanation), large, flooding discussions and arguments, picking episodes apart, and detracting attention from the main article of the story. The disconinuity section seems silly to me - we're supposed to be fans, not perfectionists. If anything, there should be special pages for disconinuity alone - and only very big discontinuity, not little things. Delton Menace 21:30, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

Well I agree with you, DM, that we should delete the section from story pages. But I strongly disagree with this notion of creating a new page for a major error. How would we judge what a "major" error is? How major does it have to be to get its own page?

In my view, the important bit is whether it's a) easily observable and b) written about in more than two independent sources. And there's only one bit of discontinuity in all of Doctor Who that has risen to that standard, I think: the UNIT dating controversy. More to the point, it's a logical outgrowth of the article on UNIT, moved to its own page to control the length of the UNIT article itself. And even more importantly, it's actually an in-universe thing, thanks to a reference in The Sontaran Strategem.

I definitely do not feel we need to start creating pages every time we perceive an error. Any discontinuity notes must be a part of the articles whose subjects are involved in the error. This is vital, because the information must be easily discoverable by our readers. Making up titles like Different ways the Doctor opens the TARDIS doors, or some such, is just counter-intuitive. Again, notes should be made on the topic page itself, not in a section at a story page or on some conjecturally-titled page no one is going to find.

A good, basic rule of thumb is that if you're so unable to write about a continuity error on a topic's page that you have to create a new page, it almost certainly doesn't belong on the wiki. That is, if it's long enough to require its own page, you probably have interjected some of your own thoughts into the matter, and are not just reporting an evident error. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 23:47, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

For a new page, I was thinking along the lines of Discontinuity in Doctor Who, Discontinuity in Torchwood etc. And under each episode, which would be a separate heading - all the major errors etc will be listed. People can then use the discussion on the page to discuss the reason\solution for this Error\Discontinuity is Mini-mitch 00:00, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

I've tried this, created a page and show it to Tangerineduel, who said it would be too much trouble, i feel it would be easier just to delete the section completely Mini-mitch 17:43, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

Change it to Production errors and strip out other info

Fair argument CzechOut. But I do still feel there is a place for genuine 'Production errors'; things like boom mikes in shot (such as in Warriors' Gate - When Romana and Adric are under the MZ), Daleks colliding with scenery, jump cuts (Remembrance of the Daleks - Baseball bat in Doctor's hand in funeral home) and other things like this. --Tangerineduel 12:58, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

The only thing is, I feel that people will still continue to fill up with space with errors etc... A new page (as mentioned above) , I feel is a better way to go about things, and put a link to it on each page.But the decision is up to the vote or to you and other admins Mini-mitch 13:05, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

Specifically labeling it as 'Production errors' would allow us to specify that the errors are, well production based, continuity wouldn't enter into it. I just feel this information is somewhat worth it (for all the jokes about wobbly sets there aren't that many actual stories with wobbly sets, the Errors section is where this info would be found). --Tangerineduel 13:27, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely, TD. Production errors are out-of-universe, and therefore obviously fair game on an out-of-universe story page. However, we do need perhaps a stronger wording, because some people will think "production errors" can include mistakes on the production team's part with respect to narrative continuity. The problem, here, is that the word "continuity" has both a narrative significance (as in canon) and a production one, as controlled by the continuity supervisor. So what's the unmistakable phrase here? "Production errors" could work, as long as the manual of style is altered to explain it. But here are some alternatives to consider: "Things that slipped past the continuity supervisor", "Behind-the-scenes gaffes", "Recording errors" or "Filming errors". I kind of prefer one of these last two, because they clearly distance themselves from discussion of the script, which is a part of the production process. "Recording errors" might be the better of the two, as it can be used to encompass sound as well as visual errors, and because, of course, the 1963 version was mostly not filmed, but video recorded. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 16:39, March 21, 2010 (UTC)

The Manual of Style/Layout guides will need editing whichever way we go, so I don't mind rewording them to make it clear.

Recording errors would be okay. But would recording errors be fine to encompass stuff like post production errors like my above Remembrance of the Daleks error (which is technically speaking an editing error) as recording implies errors made during the actual recording of the story. --Tangerineduel 06:57, March 22, 2010 (UTC)

Production errors vs Discontinuity

Here's a comparison on two pages Remembrance of the Daleks and An Unearthly Child.

On both pages I whittled down the discontinuity to actual errors in production which leaves 3 errors for Remembrance and 2 for An Unearthly Child. I would really prefer to see this sort of thing, rather than completely wiping the section out, as there is still some useful information left when presented as production errors (plus now the info isn't lost in amongst everything else). --Tangerineduel 15:46, March 24, 2010 (UTC)

I like this idea and feel we should go along with this, and announce that that section is for Production Errors Only and leave the discussion page open to discuss Discontinuity, plot Hole etc. Mini-mitch 17:16, March 24, 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it looks much, much cleaner as production errors. Delton Menace 00:10, March 25, 2010 (UTC)

Alrighty, I've changed the Tardis:Format for Television Story Entries guide from Discontinuity to Production errors and re-written the information for it. Any discussion about discontinuity of the story can take place in Forum:The Howling (as noted on the Format for TV stories page) as the article's talk page should be used to discuss the editing of the article rather than debate about elements of the story. I've begun working through the stories editing out the discontinuity starting with An Unearthly Child. --Tangerineduel 07:48, March 25, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, much cleaner, but still I think people aren't necessarily going to read the MOS to know that production errors don't include continuity (canon) errors. It is a "(pre-)production error", for instance, that the Doctor was conceptualized as a human named Dr. Who in the films; or that Genesis of the Daleks appears to conceptualize Daleks in a very different way to The Daleks; or that the mixture of human and Time Lord DNA is seen as problematic in "Journey's End", but not in the TVM. But none of that is really what we're talking about. I don't think the average user would see the heading "Recording errors" and think to put stuff like that there. Besides which, there is the messy issue of the fact that on modern DW there's a very clear line between production, pre-production, and post-production. A "production error" is technically only something that occurs in principal photography and pick-ups. Your earlier editing example is not a production error, but a post-production one. Likewise, the massive errors in The Waters of Mars screen graphics are post-production errors. I still think recording error works, because it's immediately apparent we're NOT talking about the script, and because ultimately the final cut is recorded onto a master. Which means the sum total of all behind-the-scenes errors is ultimately a recording error. These things wouldn't be errors if that final record button didn't commit them to the master. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 15:48, March 25, 2010 (UTC)

We will obviously need to point this out to some people, which is the nature of changing things like this. Mini-mitch's suggestion above of an announcement (on the forums or somewhere) is a good idea also.

Jump cuts aren't really recording errors either. But production errors wraps up the idea of 'this is stuff that was wrong in the recording and post production of this story'.

I have a problem with the word record as it's really about something being written in a permanent form, whilst some of these errors have occured through the process of producing a final work using the recorded elements, hence Production errors.

The Waters of Mars 'errors' are debatable, they don't make sense within wider continuity, but that doesn't necessarily make them errors (they are elements of continuity that doesn't make sense), but there's nothing inherently wrong with them. Unless there is a source that can be cited that proves they were wrongly created? --Tangerineduel 16:06, March 25, 2010 (UTC)

Alright. Points noted; this is still a step forward whatever we call it. Perhaps with persistent education in several different places on the wiki, we'll bring everyone on board. Moving on to a separate issue . . .

I would argue that the error must be ironclad and unexplainable. For instance, in An Unearthly Child, the bit about the length of the caveman's shadow isn't an error. It can be explained (and currently IS explained) as having to do with the light source's position. And even if it isn't a realistic shadow, that doesn't make it an "error". It's at worst an artistic choice by the lighting director that couldn't happen in real life. It's on a par with the TARDIS being bigger on the inside than out. That couldn't happen in real life, but that doesn't make it an error. There's no question but that the shadow is what the lighting director intended. An error would be if the studio light were visible in shot, or if the light temporarily flickered without being explained by the narrative. We really can't have the section follow the old pattern of a statement followed by an italicized explanation. If there is a justification which can be entered in italics, the chances are it's not an error but an artistic choice. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 16:14, March 25, 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure I was reading one of the articles you've been editing that there weren't any 'lighting directors' back in the day?. The italic explanation I must have left by accident. As for the error itself, yes now that I read it again it isn't an error, when I left it in I was thinking of backdrops and shadows falling on them, but now remember the shot in question and it's not an error (I shall fall back on the; 'it is the very nature of a wiki that things will be edited multiple times before they're correct and everyone makes mistakes'). --Tangerineduel 16:25, March 25, 2010 (UTC)

Almost. There were no cinematographers back in the day. There were lighting directors, though they didn't begin to be credited until Season 8, and you would still find occasional stories that didn't credit people, particularly in the McCoy era. 22:04, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

STOP!

Stop! What are you doing? I agree some pages may need a tidy up but you’re destroying many people’s hard work. All you have done is destroy and delete dozens of unanswered questions, and given it a stupid new name leaving the bear minimum, I most want to complain as I am the one who add loads to the ones that had little and now your destroying all my work, stop and undo, you don't the right. After all if people are going to add to it wanting there questions answered and they aren't stupid or obvious who said you can delete them? And I've looked over your deletions and found you have deleted many reasonable unanswered errors and reasonable answers, and before you argue why to keep answered questions, how else do you stop new comers adding the same question? Just stop, and preferably undo and leave your meddling to yourself. If people wanted them gone, they would have been got rid of by now so your reason seems bit rubbish, as is this page and your ideas, just undo you’re meddling and leave. And before you ague be prepared to know that I will fight you till you back off.

There were issues raised in the past about that section and Tangerineduel decided to do something and change the section to what it is now; Production Errors. This is so that the page is not clogged up with loads of Discontinuity, Plot Holes etc and user can then use the Discussion page or the Howling to talk about the mistakes. If worst comes to worst, a new section can be created in the forms to discuss the episodes errors? Mini-mitch 18:05, March 25, 2010 (UTC)

You have (unsigned user) answered your own question. They were unanswered questions. Which aren't production errors. They aren't even discontinuity.

It is the very nature of a wiki that it grows, develops information and edits down the slack. This is an encyclopaedia, it's about bringing forth information. We're seeking to distill the information that was there into usable information. The question response format wasn't providing any information in the encyclopaedic sense.

Forum:The Howling is the place for people to ask and answer questions relating to continuity and plot holes (it's the reason it was created in fact). --Tangerineduel 01:57, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

No I'm not willing to except that, we can't have forms and discussion pages for all the errors, it would over crowd the site and it would really just be a waste of space, as there is no need for that many, and they are errors, to return to my original statement if people are going to go to the trouble of adding them then what gives you the right to delete them? And besides that doesn't ocount for the fact you have deleted the answers and made the proplems unanswered. And as I said you will see I am prepared for this, and my action starts now, if you want to talk about this, so we can come to a reasonable agreement then say, I am a reasonable person, so if you want to talk then say, but untill then, well your see...

If you are a 'reasonable person' then you can accept that this change from Discontinuity section to Production Errors is what the admins have decided to do. Mini-mitch 15:52, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

I don't see this as reasoning, I see it as failure, I spent ages making many of the Discontiuity sections and now that you are destroying them because you think there messy, and you expect me to be okay with that? I won't give up, but as I said before, to save all of us a lot of strain can we just talk about this rather than us having to keep undoing each others undos?

"It would crowd the site and would really be a waste of space"...this is what other users have been saying about the 'discontinuity and question/answer element' and what lead us to clearing it up to Production errors.

People also go to the trouble of adding unsourced rumours which are deleted and at one point in this wiki's development they were left on the pages, unsourced. However as this wiki has developed we now state that any rumours cited must have sources. As I've said it's in the nature of a wiki to change and develop. --Tangerineduel 16:01, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

The problems that are left are errors in production, any issues were issues with story or in some cases not even that. Whilst editing The Moonbase I came across something about Ben knowing about thermonuclear science and other things, far from being discontinuity it's more an interesting character development. Other things like this can be over anaylsed as being a plot hole/error are actually elements of the Doctor Who universe. --Tangerineduel 16:12, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

Vote 2

(Please sign user name and place a reason why)
Keep Production Errors, move discontinuity to NEW PAGE

Keep Production Errors, move Discontinuity to NEW SECTION IN FORUM

• Tangerineduel 16:44, March 26, 2010 (UTC) As we've already discussed the plot holes/discontinuity is basically just a discussion. So Forum:The Howling would be a perfect place for it. (As is already stated in Tardis:Format for Television Story Entries#Production errors. Having a page for discontinuity is what The Howling was created for, it's a forum for people to discuss the continuity.
• CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 22:01, March 26, 2010 (UTC) I've already talked at length about why. Not quite sure why we're having a second vote. Asked and answered, as far as I can see. Still, see also newer arguments at Talk:Discontinuty, plot holes and other errors. Brief recap of arguments: we already have a place set up for this stuff. It's called Forum:The Howling. Perhaps others could clarify why they're so desperate to have this kind of information go in the main article space?
• Mini-mitch 16:24, March 26 2010, (UTC)
  • After reader your thoughts and opinions, I now understand that it will be easier to move into The Howling, and now create a new page

Keep Discontinuity Section, move Production Errors to NEW PAGE

Keep Discontinuity Section, move Production Errors to NEW SECTION IN FORUMS

General Points

Would it not be easier, to create a new section in the Forums, for all this! Not The Howling, but create New section for all? And the Production Errors stay on the page? Mini-mitch 21:58, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

I imagine it's fairly easy to create a new forum, sure. But my question would be, why is it necessary? What's wrong with The Howling? When I read the description of The Howling, it matches exactly what I think all this discon stuff is. Do you somehow think this stuff is "too good" for The Howling? CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 22:10, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

I don'y think the stuff is too good for the Howling. Can we please decide what happening and end this debate? Mini-mitch 22:14, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, but that would be helped by an explanation of why you don't want it on The Howling. What's confusing me, and I daresay Tangerineduel is that The Howling is:

"a forum where all contributors to this wiki can solve problems and create fixes for continuity holes, speculate, discuss trivia, and offer up theories on continuity and other points of trivia"

How is that not the place to put discontinuity information?

Hmm, thinking about this more before you respond . . . Is what you want a nice, orderly article that neatly puts all the stories in order, then branches out to a bit for each story? If that's the case, it could easily be achieved without leaving the howling. What you do is just create a single forum page with 220 subpages (or however many stories there are). The subpages could be easily called up (but only from that page) by use of the following syntax:

[[/An Unearthly Child]]
[[/The Daleks]]

etc.

This syntax is a shortcut for typing some big long thing out. So if the main page were Forum:The Howling:Doctor Who Discontinuity by episode, then /An Uunearthly Child would stand in for Forum:The Howling:Doctor Who Discontinuity by episode/An Unearthly Child.

I can see why you might want to have it centralized, but it can definitely be centralized on The Howling. The Fora are just a different namespace, or folder, on the wiki. They're not a barren wasteland where the rules of wiki coding fail to apply. You have precisely the same abilities in The Howling as you do elsewhere. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 22:26, March 26, 2010 (UTC)

Alrighty, taking CzechOut's idea I'd created a proof of concept/beginning of the pages.

Forum:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes I've just created links for the first two seasons and created Forum:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/An Unearthly Child with all its discontinuity intact from the original page. --Tangerineduel 04:23, March 27, 2010 (UTC)

Putting the decision to work

One thing I've noted in the process of changing over these pages is that there's no obvious sign of where to have discon discussions on the story page. Accordingly, I've changed Template:discontinuity to work in both directions. It points to the relevant discon discussion if you put it on a story page, and it points to the relevant story page if you're on a discon page. This might cut down on new discon notes creeping back into production error sections. See Template:Discontinuity/doc for more info. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 21:12, April 25, 2010 (UTC)

This has now been put on every story page (at least as far as I can tell, without manually checking all 210+ pages), so you shouldn't need to any work. Might change the wording of the note to make it slightly less verbose. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 00:40, April 26, 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be verbose for now, since it's new, but with the plan to edit it down a bit once people are more familiar with it. Something along the lines of "For a discussion of the narrative discontinuity, click here. You could win an iPod!"

Okay, maybe without that last sentence.

A related question: would it be appropriate for us at this stage to be moving things back into "Production Errors" that seem better there? I was just glancing at The Tomb of the Cybermen and noticed a number of entries actually are production errors, like the film being run backwards and such. Monkey with a Gun 01:26, May 2, 2010 (UTC)

If it's absolutely, positively, crystal clear that a thing in the discon forum has been placed there by mistake, yeah you can move it back. But it should be fairly completely unambiguous, like the example you've noted. And you should make sure you've left behind a good edit summary that explains your rationale for re=placement in the article proper. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 08:54, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

Slight update

I've created a contents page Forum:Discontinuity and plot holes which has links off to Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and K-9 (as it was innevitable we'd need them at some point). I've also got (currently redlinked) audio and prose pages which are there as a provisional sort of thing. --Tangerineduel 04:35, April 26, 2010 (UTC)

Format and Readability

Two thoughts. First, for the 1963-1989 stories, it might be helpful to separate the discontinuities by episodes within the serial. Second, I found it a lot easier to read the "old" Discontinuity sections when the discussions of the apparent problems were italicised. I don't know if that sentiment is shared, but to me that's more readily visible than the indentation. Monkey with a Gun 01:33, May 2, 2010 (UTC)

Separating it into episodes sounds like a good idea for the ones where you have to go watch 11:13-11:20 of episode 3 or whatever to understand the issue, but for the ones about major plotlines from two stories contradicting each other, I don't know. It's a tough call.

But remember, the discontinuities were all listed on the page for the overall story, and just moving them to separate pages blindly has proven to be a time-consuming task; who's going to have the time to go through all of them and separate them out?

As for the formatting, personally, I find the indentation easier. But maybe that's because now it looks like what I expect a discussion on a wiki (e.g., on a talk page or a forum thread) to look like....

This last paragraph above is bang-on. That was entirely the intent. To make it very like a standard wiki discussion page cause . . . that's what it is. I've got to strongly disagree with Monkey with a Gun's second point. It was not easily readable when you got to heavily contended points. Take for example the "Half-human argument" at Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Doctor Who. That was originally one very long paragraph with italics followed by (parentheticals} followed by non-italics in a six-times-over loop. It was extremely difficult to follow. Now it's one neatly descended set of indentations, making it very obvious where each point ends and the next begins. It's fine, I suppose, if there's one point and one counter point to use italics, but when you get to three arguments about the same point, you really have to go to either indentation or a table to make it parse correctly.

As for Monkey's other point, individual episode pages spinning out from serial pages are certainly possible, and perhaps even necessary, for some of the longer serials. It'd of course be quite easy to do something like Forum:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/An Unearthly Child/An Unearthly Child if you wanted to have a separate page for just episode 1. Thing is, though, having done all of the 1980s serials, I didn't find a single one that had enough notes to justify separate pages. So I wouldn't support a universal switch-over to episodic subpages, but might be persuaded that The War Games, The Daleks' Master Plan, and maybe a few select others might be able to carry separated episode discussions. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 08:45, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking, rather than subbing the subpage, we could just include some sub-headings on the page like; 'Over all story discontinuity' and then 'Individuals Part/Episode continuity'. That way all the story continuity is contained on one page. --Tangerineduel 12:22, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

That's a great idea; it gets the best of both worlds. Since there would be a heading for each episode, you could even link to a specific episode if you needed to (e.g., if some specific detail in one episode contradicts something in another episode and you want to reference the earlier in the later). --Falcotron 15:53, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

Signing

In the discontinuity pages, should people be signing their answers?
It seems to me that it just makes it look untidy Lord Aro 12:51, May 19, 2010 (UTC)