Forum:Validating non-fiction

Index → The Panopticon → Validating non-fiction

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

Although this wiki's "in-universe" role-play gimmick is probably too entrenched ever to be removed, I'm glad that the community has finally made some strides towards ameliorating some of its more encyclopedically damaging effects, most notably the recent decisions to validate several types of material which the wiki previously labelled "non-canon".

Of the remaining problems in this area, one stands out to me because it's both particularly silly and would be extremely simple to fix. In summary: information from non-fiction sources such as reference books, magazine articles, documentaries, press releases, and toy packaging - no matter how explicitly stated, objectively official, and plainly true within the narrative itself - is bizarrely considered "speculation" and is relegated to BTS sections, if acknowledged at all. This is a really ridiculous state of affairs and has led to a considerable amount of Doctor Who knowledge being lost.

Most egregiously in my view, there are several Doctor Who characters who go unnamed in-story for various reasons, but whose official names have been known for years - yet the wiki refuses to use them in article titles and running text. For example, Jim Broadbent's character in Curse of Fatal Death is actually called "the Shy Doctor", but the wiki misleadingly calls him "the Eleventh Doctor". Because his real name was only shown in DWM credits and the VHS documentary, editors whose real issue is evidently that they personally happen to dislike the official name can continue to pretend it's only "speculation", and point to the non-fiction rule as an excuse to stall the debate for years on end. As a wiki reader and a fan of the show, this kind of behaviour is incredibly embarrassing to see. Clearly, something has to change.

Here is my humble suggestion: we validate non-fiction. That is, when a rights-holder conveys a fact about the fictional world via some formal non-fiction publication, it should be treated with the same weight as any other official material. We've already validated non-narrative fiction; non-fiction is just the natural next step, and there's a plethora of forgotten information out there waiting to enrich the wiki. PintlessMan ☎ 14:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)