Forum:Making pages for individual VHS/DVD/ect. releases

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Opening

This one should be pretty straightforward; I think there should be pages for each individual home video release of Doctor Who media.

The way we cover it now is in the form of lists, or relegated to the bottoms of story articles. But I think they should get pages in the same vain as those that we do for graphic novel compilations.

Simple. I… can't think of anymore reason than that. WaltK ☎

Discussion

Umm... Why? The lists, for me, appear to suffice. What new information would be presented in these articles that could not easily be found elsewhere? Aquanafrahudy 📢 18:13, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Easy:

• 1) To include coverage on things like bonus features and other miscellaneous info that the lists currently don't.
• 2) To declutter those story pages just a little bit.
• 3) For consistency. As I pointed out, doing this would be no different from covering the individual graphic novel releases we get for comic stories.

WaltK ☎ 18:20, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay then, I support this proposal. Aquanafrahudy 📢 18:39, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I do think one major failing of our website is that our story of DVD releases isn't clear enough. But in some cases would it not make more sense to have a subpage? Like, The Five Doctors (TV story)/Home video or something. Then we'd have full subsections about each release and the material included, galleries, etc. I don't see the point in having pages like The Five Doctors (1985 VHS), The Five Doctors (1990 VHS), The Five Doctors (1999 DVD), The Five Doctors (2008 DVD) etc.

One thing I do think is that special collections (like... The Collection) should have their own pages. There is no reason that The Collection Season 12 shouldn't exist, we should treat these as the same as magazines or books. OS25🤙☎️ 19:04, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm just not seeing the need for a full page, but I don't do series stuff that much, so weight my comments accordingly. Najawin ☎ 19:13, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with OS25, that subpages might be the best way forward (especially given some cases where there have been multiple releases and a page for each would be messy and convoluted). I also agree "The Collection" sets could have their own page, akin to when DWM do specials for different years/eras/aspects of the show. — Fractal Doctor @ 19:16, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I like the idea of individual pages for boxsets, but not really for individual releases. A subpage would be better as highlighted above; take the DVD of The Two Doctors, for example, which years after its release the BBC removed A Fix with Sontarans after the Jimmy Savile controversy. The DVDs, to the best of my knowledge, are identical apart of the absence of AFwS and likely the serial number.

Although, that being said, if we were to expand our coverage of bonus features, then individual releases may be justified.

Not sure where we should draw the line between a subpage and an individual page, but we definitely should have pages for at least boxsets.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

19:51, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

We might also want to discuss digital availability on subpages as it varies over time, but the main issue there is that those things change so often and they're so hard to keep up to date on every page. Najawin ☎ 20:09, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

OS25 says we should treat home video collections the same as magazines or books, and I agree, but we already do! Check Category:Box sets. Pages for individual VHS, DVD and Blu-ray collections are well-established on the Wiki.

That being said, I had noticed that this Wiki's coverage of special features and the like is rather poor so I'm glad this thread is shining a light on the issue. I think my ideal scenario would be to reaffirm the existing policy of creating pages for collections and also go with OS25's idea of Home video subpages. The reason that I would prefer single subpages over separate articles is that I believe coverage of special features would be harmed to an extent by the latter. Readers should be able to see which extras are common among editions and splitting this info across several pages is needlessly unhelpful for this purpose in my opinion. Borisashton ☎ 20:11, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with having separate pages, at the very least for collections (and will probably create Thunderbirds Complete Collection if this passes). Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 21:01, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

This is definetly an area where I feel the wiki's lacking and something I'd like to see in some form or another. However, I'm not convinced that each individual release should receive its own page: I feel that a subpage for each thing with at least one home video release would suffice and allow us greater depth to talk about differences between releases while still giving space for going more in depth on the quirks of each individual release. I also think that redirects should be created at [[Story Title (home video)]], or similar, such as The Daleks (home video), as this is very helpful for linking: you can link to this instead of a regular story page and use the pipe trick when linking to a page about home video releases would be more appropriate.

I feel that, if The Collection boxsets get their own pages, regular 'New Who' series boxsets ought to as well, but, again, I think that separate pages are overkill. Surely a /Home video subpage of the relevant series page would suffice? Redirects could probably exist from names like The Collection Season 12, but I don't see why a subpage wouldn't work. I feel that boxsets collecting stories that aren't from 1 series, such as Lost in Time and The Davros Collection, should still receive pages and be {{main}}ed from the relevant subpages. Bongo50 ☎ 21:13, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

How about instead of giving The Collection boxsets pages, we also allow seasons to have subpages? This would also be useful for Trial/Key to Time. OS25🤙☎️ 21:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Bongo50 ☎ 21:33, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Upon reading this, I've changed my mind from above. I agree that seasons/series should have subpages, eg. "/home video" or "/releases". I think that'd be much tidier, and I think it's a more efficient system if they're linked. (Plus it would mean any variants could be together and reduce confusion, such as the way Season 12's Collection set in the US is marketed as "Tom Baker Season One". Putting both in a subpage branching off Season 12 is neater.) I agree with Bongo50. — Fractal Doctor @ 18:25, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Conclusion

Well, this thread didn't get as much engagement as it might have done, but I do think it reached a fairly clear consensus, and I don't have a lot ot say.

The clear consensus is that we should allow the creation of /Home_video subpages for both stories and seasons, allowing us to discuss both the specifities and the commonalities of the various home video editions of a given story or set of stories. It should be noted that in cases where only one or two home video editions of a given work/series exists, we should refrain from creating a subpage, and simply use a ==Home video== subsection on the main page. In other words, normal subpage criteria (as also used for e.g. "/Non-valid_sources") apply.

Redirects for the names of individual releases, like "Tom Baker Season One", should be created to these subpages/their relevant subsections.

Additionally, pages about collections which don't correspond to a series or season page were always within policy, and this is hereby reaffirmed.

As a preemptive note for the future: this is a somewhat slow-traffic area of the Wiki compared to in-universe coverage, it always has been. I foresee that implementation might be sluggish. Let it be known that even if, in a year or two's time, there hasn't been much progress on these pages, this should not be grounds to repeal the present policy; the decision is taken in full knowledge of the fact that implementation might be slow. But this doesn't need to be perfect. The opportunity for such coverage existing is better than not, even if we lack any guarantee that implementation will be exhaustive anytime soon.

Thank you to everyone who participated! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 13:37, 19 August 2023 (UTC)