Forum:Relaxing our fan works policy (within reason)

Index → The Panopticon → Relaxing our fan works policy (within reason)

Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

Proposal

This is my first thread that I've written under the temporary forums system, so it might be a little rough around the edges. I would like to preface this OP by making it clear that nothing in this thread would allow for these works to be covered as valid sources, because they do fail Rule 2. This proposal is simply about extending the treatment that we give the Audio Visuals to other fan works that are of historical notability to the fandom, whether it's through being referenced/acknowledged in sources that are fully licensed, or by being mentioned in critical essays, articles, or books about the Doctor Who franchise and its fandom. These works would not be cited even on "/Non-valid sources" pages, unless there was a licensed concept included. And any further fan works beyond the ones that are mentioned in this thread would require individual debates to have articles created.

So, let's get started.

Specific examples

The Doctor and the Enterprise

It is important to note that The Doctor and the Enterprise formerly had an article on this wiki. It was deleted years ago, but I do not think this was the right call. It is very much something that is noteworthy enough to have an out-of-universe article. Copies of it were everywhere in the 80s - it became, by some accounts, THE most reprinted fanzine of all time. It has received professional notice - being discussed in John Kenneth Muir's A Critical History of Doctor Who on Television, being acknowledged on the website of Tor Books, and referenced on the blog of prolific Trek author Dayton Ward. I think that such a work is easily notable enough to qualify for its own page, which would just entail undeleting the existing page and perhaps cleaning it up.

Time Rift

Time Rift is one of those works that is notable due to its connections to licensed Doctor Who fiction. Written by Jonathan Blum, it introduced the character of Adrienne Kramer, who would later reappear in Vampire Science. Blum thanked the cast and crew in the opening pages of Vampire Science! It's also been mentioned in D. G. Valdron's A Pirate's History of Doctor Who. This one would probably qualify as a NOTCOVERED candidate, in fact, and be included in "/Non-valid sources" pages for Adrienne Kramer, etc. I don't really have much more to say on this one.

Devious

This is probably the "easiest" sell, because part of it was already included in an official release, in the form of Devious (home video). My proposal is that we would also create Devious (fan series) to cover the overall work, and slap an {{invalid}} template on the page. It's worth noting that the Daleks and TARDIS props built for and used in Devious were literally borrowed by the crew producing The Curse of Fatal Death to be used in that story, so there's a production connection as well. Not all of the Daleks in Curse were from Devious, but some of them were, and the TARDIS interior set seen in Curse was specifically built to be used in Devious and loaned out. Again, not much to say here, but it does segue into the last example.

Fan films where Doctor Who actors reprise their role

There are TONS of these. And honestly, I don't think every single one of these needs an article. It'd be too cumbersome to have one for Gene Genius, one for each of the various ones where Bowerman played Benny in those cruise films, etc. So I think we should roll all of these into a page titled something like List of fan works in which Doctor Who actors reprised their roles or something.

How to implement this

Fan work template

We're going to need a way to make clear that these works are not citable anywhere. I haven't worked on creating a template, but I think something like the old {{unprod}} template at the top of these pages, saying that these are fan works and cannot be cited on in-universe pages, is an absolute must. I'll defer to someone who actually knows how to make templates like this, because I have no idea how.

Dabbing

I really think that we need to give dab terms to these pages. Audio Visuals not having a dab is an eyesore. So I propose that we go with "(fan [medium/format])". Audio Visuals would become Audio Visuals (fan series). The Doctor and the Enterprise would be "(fan novel)". Time Rift would be "(fan film)", I guess, because "(fan home video)" seems absurd to me. You get the point.

Medium pages

We already have fan fiction, but I think we should also create fan film, summarizing the overall history of these things, and talking about stuff like "what was the first Doctor Who fan film created?", with links off to ones like Devious and Time Rift that are notable enough for their own articles.

Conclusion

What does everyone think of these proposals? I feel like this would be a positive improvement as it would allow us to actually talk about the fan aspect of Doctor Who while also preventing the floodgates from being opened so that some random story published on FanFiction.net gets an article. Please give your thoughts on each individual example I cited and my three ideas on how to implement these! Pluto2☎ 20:41, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

I like this idea, and support it, but would like to emphasize that Devious (fan series) should be tagged with {{fan}} and not {{invalid}}, as the latter implies IU pages can be made about it. Also, I think having one long article on fan works might be better than creating fan film. So basically rename and expand fan fiction to fan work or something similar. Or, tbh, it could all still be at fan fiction, because films are fiction. Cousin Ettolrahc ☎ 19:14, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

This one is complicated, with many moving parts that I feel might be controversial. Firstly, I think I support most of the individual proposals without question.

Time Rift is an obvious candidate. I believe that any fan/unofficial work which later influenced a Doctor Who Universe story should have a page on the wiki. This can be something like a character turning up later in a Short Trips adventure or even, more controversially, the reuse of assets by official productions. Devious (fan film) justifies creation simply because the props and sets from the film were used in The Curse of Fatal Death. These should not be fleshed out "covered" story pages in my opinion, they should instead discuss the connections to other covered stories, probably with a plot rundown, but no use for the other detailed sections.

The Doctor and the Enterprise is a whole other discussion I feel. We could cheat in this instance and say that the story might have been influential to Assimilation², but if we're going just on the grounds of "This is a historically important fan project," I think it's valid to call that too vague a definition. But I think I do believe that The Doctor and the Enterprise should have either a page or some mention elsewhere.

One thing I feel strongly about is that we need to have more pages like Fan fiction. In particular, I support the creation of Fan films, not as a complete 100% overview of every Who fan film ever made but instead as a historical look at how fan films got started. What was the first fan film? Did the franchise's growth in America influence fan film culture? Who was the first female Doctor in a fan film? Things like this could easily be covered on a single page without there being any threat of us fully covering fan film in general. I often feel we need more "real world" pages discussing the fandom's history, because it's one of the areas where our wiki is very lacking.

Finally, Fan films where Doctor Who actors reprise their role... This one's weird, because I would love to have this as a resource. But I think many of the people on the wiki who have done fan films featuring a "returning actor" would not agree! It would be less of an issue if 99% of these films were not simply filmed at conventions, meaning getting a returning actor in your fan film is far far easier than you would think. However, I do understand the natural appeal of having that info somewhere on the internet in one place.

Generally, I do agree this is an area where we need to expand our coverage, I am just weary about the extent I suppose. A final note is that I have for a few months been thinking that we need to split Template:Invalid at least into two pieces - one for stories which are invalid and one for stories which we have pages on but do not themselves justify coverage on in-universe section (AKA "not covered"). If we end up with a third one for fan works, that's fine, but I do think a NOTCOVERED template would cover that ground. OS25🤙☎️ 19:22, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Ahhhh! I didn't see this at first. Okay, I have thoughts. So, the relevant policy is T:NO FANFIC which is part of T:NOT, written in Dec 2009. The fanworks discussions in 2009 that I can find are Talk:TARDIS key, Talk:Enlightenment (fanzine), and to a lesser extent (because it shows that charity works were around) Tardis talk:Prefixes/Archive 1. I don't think any of these caused the policy, I think it was people treating the wiki like wikipedia, leading to the creation of the original policy, which User:Tangerineduel wrote based on his needs at the time and policies from other wikis. I could be wrong, he and others are free to correct me. Partially on the basis of this charity works were booted off the wiki in 2011, see Forum:Charity anthology short stories. (Really the policy would be used as a catch all on the issue later, this discussion didn't default to it.)

But this is one of those early policies that didn't have clear discussion that I can find. Talk:DWIN does say that we can't have a list of Doctor Who Fan Clubs (and this extends to Fan Sites) because such a list would be endless and we would miss some. And it's quite right to do so. But Talk:Doctor Who Club of Australia, a year later, explicitly acknowledges, if tentatively, that notable clubs and sites might still be worth mentioning. But Category:Fan websites is incredibly empty - for a variety of reasons. Talk: Doctor Who fan music, Talk: The Doctor and the Enterprise/Archive 1, Talk: I Am the Doctor: The Unauthorised Diaries of a Timelord, User talk:Stardizzy2, and Forum:Canonicity of ''I Am the Doctor'' all touch on the issue, but none of them ever establish clear precedent that fanworks can't have pages here imo. Insofar as there's an issue, it's that R2 -> no page, not just invalid. But that doesn't apply to all fanworks, and it's not immediately obvious from T:VS, it's more a convention.

I have a thread in the works that may surprise some of you that will touch on R2, (though it's weeks if not months away) and while I'm not convinced that it will change R2, it should force us to critically examine it.

With all of this said, I'm not sure where I stand on specifics. Time Rift, sure, Devious, yeah, Enterprise, ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The talk page for this one makes me feel a little squeamish. But I'd also suggest that we allow Charity publication style articles for particularly notable fan productions in general. If we know a fan production has a direct DWU link, through licensed characters or cast/crew, we create a page that notes that and discusses the production in the broadest possible terms. Similarly if the fan production goes on to inspire DWU work and this is stated in interviews by DWU cast/crew. Najawin ☎ 19:57, 28 May 2023 (UTC)