Forum:The Periodic Adventures of Señor 105

Index → Inclusion debates → The Periodic Adventures of Señor 105

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

This wiki currently does not cover The Periodic Adventures of Señor 105, despite being a spinoff of Iris Wildthyme, because its creator, Cody Schell asked for it not to be covered. However, I've seen at least two users say that they believe this to be because he misunderstood the scope of this wiki. From what I've seen, I think this is the case and that the series should be both covered and valid. I think the ideal thing to do would be to get into contact with Schell and explain to him that this wiki covers things which are only narrowly tied to Doctor Who. Cgl1999 ☎ 07:05, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

That could work. I do think this is the only time an entire series hasn't been covered due to apparent authorial intent and yet it failed none of T:VS...

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

07:15, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, except for R4. Previous discussion is Thread:117545 at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon I and also a deleted thread Forum:Inclusion debate:Señor 105. Thread is arguably precedent that this thread should be deleted as well - depending on how badly we mess up their SEO. We messed it up so bad in 2012 that Czech purged the thread so they didn't have a random wiki thread above their actual book. Najawin ☎ 08:05, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I thought they said that it shouldn't be covered on this Wiki? That is not the same as "it's not set in the DWU"; and even if this is the case, we'd still end up covering it because it's still licensed.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

08:09, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Also Cody's views on the series won't be enough to prevent the series from being covered anyway, given we listen to individual authors; so if an author of a later book in the series did intend for it to be set in the DWU and it was licensed, we'd cover it.

Going by User talk:Tangerineduel/Archive 6, Blair Bidmead said: " I'm not particularly concerned whether the book is included in this wiki or not". Pretty neutral, admittedly, but it does show that at least Blair doesn't view coverage as a bad thing.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

08:24, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Also the interview that is cited on User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon I, the one from Life on Magrs... yeah ngl I do not trust the accuracy of said interview given it is literally being conducted by Panda and Fester Cat, both very fictional characters.

Also from said interview, Cody says: "But generally, 105’s universe is his universe, and hers is hers." Isn't this just a non-literal description? Like that of that mention of Jago and Litefoot being "in a universe of their own" when Big Finish Productions made the Jago & Litefoot spin-off? Plus his mention of it not being a Doctor Who spin-off... isn't that because it isn't? Something can still be set in the same universe and not be a spin-off, surely? As an author myself I do understand the issue authors have with us calling their works Doctor Who spin-offs, as it implies their notability is solely definable by their connection to Who. (Glares at Doctor Who spin-offs.)

I dunno, all of these pieces of evidence don't seem watertight to me, as we're inferring that they mean more then they might, to fit into our rules.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

08:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Plus given the issue with SEO... there is nothing we can do about that! Señor 105 appears in many Iris Wildthyme stories, we can't just not give him a page because of something the author might've said a decade ago, that's not how Tardis:Valid sources works.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

08:43, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Also the quote about it existing on the Tardis Wiki doesn't seem to exist anymore.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

08:57, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, what are the issues with SEO? Aquanafrahudy 📢 09:57, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Our pages on the series — including the discussion (talk pages and forum threads etc) pages — were appearing as the top search result because of Fandom's dominance on SEO.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

11:24, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I will say that I personally think a topic this contentious and historical needs a bit longer of an opening statement. But generally I think this site is agree that it is a mistake to take every single use of the term "universe" so literally, as we then use the term in a non-literal sense and ignore other cases. For instance, Big Finish has often said phrases like "See Bernice Summerfield's further adventures in her own universe!" And yet we don't call her stories non-valid or an alternate timeline or the such. We simply understand that universe is a term used in several non-literal ways. "Universe" being used as a stand-in for "world" or "franchise" is not actual evidence of it not being DWU. Torchwood could easily be said to be "its own universe" - even having its own stand-alone continuity and world building.

But my biggest takeaway is that "This shouldn't be covered on Tardis Wiki" is not an actual statement of authorial intention. OS25🤙☎️ 21:15, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Is there anyone currently active in the forums who would call themselves a "Señor 105 fan"? I know people will quickly call that I bias, but really I think it's an issue that so far everyone has been saying things like "as far as I know" or "based on what I've been told" etc. To actually understand the scope of covering this and wikifying on Tardis, I'd like to have someone who knows a lot about the series and can either tell us if including it on Tardis is a good idea or a disaster waiting to happen, plus if it matches with the content of the series, etc. OS25🤙☎️ 03:59, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The issue of the term "universe" was discussed in Thread:117545. It had nothing to do with the series being ruled invalid. (I'm not sure why people are focusing on that.) That was due entirely to Quijano-Schell's statements about it not being appropriate for a DW wiki. You can read the closing post! Czech says:

You don't need to be familiar with our four little rules to opine that your work isn't connected enough to the DWU to be included on a Doctor Who wiki. And that's really enough to declare this thing invalid.

Fundamentally is this standard wrong? No. Authors don't have to deal with our validity rules. The rules are for our work, not for theirs. Is Czech correct in this specific instance in how he interprets Quijano-Schell's statements? This is perhaps less clear. But there's nothing fundamentally wrong with what Czech did here. Authors shouldn't be expected to understand our, at times Byzantine, validity procedures and the terminology we use to talk about them. It's our job to interpret their comments into our framework, not vice versa.

I am unconvinced as to Czech's decision, and I'm unconvinced with the quote User:PicassoAndPringles found, as it seems very similar to the Lawrence Miles quotes regarding Faction Paradox. But it's not abundantly clear to me that we can't use statements regarding status on the wiki to talk about validity.

(Part of the issue is that in being so expansive the wiki has probably done violence to the notion of any real "DWU" that any writer actually thinks about except for those who are aware of our validity rules in the first place. In a sense, "DWU", as the wiki uses the term, refers to the literary universe that we cover as valid. Which makes the entire affair come dangerously close to circularity.) Najawin ☎ 07:00, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have made this thread. Cgl1999 ☎ 07:29, 30 June 2023 (UTC)