Forum:Relaxing our fan works policy (within reason): Difference between revisions

← Older edit

Forum:Relaxing our fan works policy (within reason) (edit)

Revision as of 05:26, 28 February 2024

37,150 bytes added , 28 February

no edit summary

Najawin

Trusted

8,473

edits

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{Forumheader|The Panopticon}}
+{{Archive}}[[Category:Panopticon archives]][[Category:Policy changers]]
 <!-- Please put your content under this line.  Be sure to sign your edits with four tildes ~~~~ -->
 == Proposal ==
@@ Line 80: / Line 80: @@
 * I've only created series pages and redirects in cases which meet our current notability requirements: for instance, with the scope of {{tlx|NCmaterial}}, to my knowledge no story in the charity anthology ''The Twelve Doctors of Christmas'' meets our requirements, so there is no series page for that anthology.
 All of these examples concern fan fiction, but the same precedent would easily extend to fan films and other forms of fan work via overview pages like [[Fan films]], [[Cruise fan films]], etc. Whatever fan works this thread chooses to cover, I have a stong conviction that the existing precedent I've described here is the way to do it. – [[User:NateBumber|n8]] ([[User talk:NateBumber|☎]]) 22:17, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
+: I want to quickly mention that one historical case I strongly disagreement is the banning of fanzines. Fanzines, for the most part, aren't fan fiction, they're usually just reference books on a budget. If we're going to have pages on ''[[Downtime – The Lost Years of Doctor Who]]'' and ''[[Vworp Vworp!]]'', we should be able to cover fan zines which feature important interviews and such. Again I'm speaking purely on a historical nature here. I know at least one fanzine literally made up some of the names for Hartnell stories which are still in-use today, alongside others which were used as recently as the early DWM issues.
+: As for N8's proposal, I'm not sure I agree with such a limiting level of coverage for relevant stories. I find the Fanfiction.net page very unconvincing as an example of this done well, for instance. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 23:11, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
+: Though I understand that this proposal would not be striving for validity for these items it raises... And I would, at least, be agreeable to ''Devious'' as is - I have a bit more of a question about how we should be generally handling the matter of 'Dark Season scenarios' of things like ''Time Rift'' where a pre-existing character enters the DWU. Rather than an individual page, mightn't it be more practical to have a list page to notate these instances. (perhaps titled 'List Of Licensed Characters That Predate DWU Debuts') That list page could then be a general home for detailing these characters, their original debuts & potentially link out to Wikipedia coverage of those debuts (if one exists)?
+: The thing I am wary of is that if we expand ourselves to the extent of full articles on these original debuts - then we might stretching our article coverage in a way that is more than it should be. Sort of like if we opted to start giving all the Cultural References articles... Thinking of that, the 1980s Cultural References list includes ''Ishmael'', a licensed Star Trek novel notable to us for including unlicensed cameos of the Doctor & the wider history of fan culture for those and the numerous other elements outwith Star Trek that it invokes... And we redirect that out to its Wikipedia page rather than having a page for it here. (I am as yet undecided about The Doctor and the Enterprise.)
+: With the upfront admission of vested interest, I am rather against the notion of having a list of fan films or fan audios in which people (main cast, guest cast, supporting artists or crew) reprise their official roles in an unofficial capacity. Aside thinking that the remit of covering fan films and audios would be either the scope of a new supplemental Wiki of ours (or the external purview of the DW Expanded Wiki), I am also hesitant about the logistics of necessarily notating some fan productions. Something that DW Expanded has already been rather careful about is the matter of generally letting the creators do the coverage - as a sign of their wishes to be notated. (Some we, of course, can't allow on OWN WIKIFY basis; so we'd need to find a new yardstick on how to ensure that the creatives of a particular production '''want''' to be notated so relatively closely to officially produced items.)
+: The next question to me in this would be that we should - precautionarily - think on how to handle any such instances where a privately commissioned fan production '''not intended for public viewing or knowledge''' featuring any such reprisals might become accidentally known in a public sphere. (And also, how we might handle instances where cast and/or crew did their work under intention that the production was not meant for a wider consumption. ''Gene Genius'', if I recall correctly, was initially meant only as a birthday present to be screened for the child, their family and friends. Its appearance online is somewhat outwith that.)
+: The other matter, as has already been raised, is the odd position this would put a number of our regular editors into in relation of WIKIFY OWN and NO SELF REF. I cannot think of any other instance where - as a list page - so many of us would be a little caught up in that. And there is, of course, the question of interests. It is understandable that any of us might, in all well-meaning and good faith, notice a fellow editor has done a fan production that fits such parameters for including... And add it. But would that necessarily be a proper thing to allow scope for occurring? I'm not so sure.
+: In terms of dabbing - at least for Devious, at this stage of my feeling - would (fan work) or (fan production) not suffice? Beyond this, as much as I can else say is of my vested interest: I've been on the helm of fan productions that have featured contributions of those previously officially involved... And as far as any productions I've been involved in go, I'll immediately make it known now that I do not wish those to be notated upon this Wiki amidst official materials. (In terms of any future potential 'character who existed before their DWU debut within a fan work or other media' scenarios I might one day cause, I'd say a whole article on here regarding the non-DWU item where they debuted would be a bit excessive. In terms of any future potential 'I let an unlicensed fan production use a DWU creation of mine, in the spirit of good fun.' situations, the same also applies.) [[User:JDPManjoume|JDPManjoume]] [[User talk:JDPManjoume|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 18:41, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
+:: In answer to Nate, I have to agree that I'm not convinced by the proposed solutions to notable fan-works that ''aren't'' meaningfully part of a series or anthology. I agree that the policy should match what we with non-fanfic "works with DWU connections"… but as a matter of fact, I have long wanted to reform [[:Category:Real world series with DWU connections]] to allow for pages on standalone works, such as various standalone works of [[Paul Magrs]]'s (''Exchange'' comes to mind).
+:: Again this is not to say we would have individual pages on short stories in charity anthologies, nor even on individual entries in ''Brenda & Effie'' (or the ''Sci-Fi Sea Cruise'' films!). Indeed, though I am obviously not qualified to make any kind of ruling on the matter, I want to submit that I don't see why there would ''have'' to be a page on ''A Better World'' — surely ''[[The Fan Gallery]]'' would suffice? But I don't think we should try and make up loopholes like [[FanFiction.Net]] when we find ourselves faced with resolutely standalone works. I think the fact that no analogous solution was ever found for ''Exchange'' is fairly strong evidence of the unintuitive nature of the requirement.
+:: As regards private fan-works, this is news to me regarding ''Gene Genius'' but I am not sure it sways me. Private fanfilms are private; we wouldn't cover them simply because we couldn't reliably source their existence. Ones that were ''intended'' as private twenty years ago, but leaked, and are now a single Google click away from fans' enjoyment… well, it's unfortunate for their creators, but their creation ''has'' become a ''de facto'' part of the DWU's history by that point. You worry about fan-creators ''wanting'' their stuff covered, but I am just as dubious of the suggestion that (as concerns stuff that is already in the public sphere either way) we should lose any sleep about the feelings of fan-creators who want their stuff ''not'' to be covered. It's not as though we would oblige should a DWU rightsholder tell us that they'd rather we deleted our page on [[The Master (The Destination Wars)]], or ''[[The Talons of Weng-Chiang (TV story)|The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]'', ''[[The Man Inside (audio story)|The Man Inside]]'', or [Etc. etc. Insert Old Shame Here]. If it's out and relevant, it's out and relevant.
+:: In any case I'm not entirely sure what the [[T:WIKIFY OWN]] concerns are here. It is already the case that many writers of licensed fiction edit to one degree or another; it is already the case that a non-themself-COI-laden editor might notice a recent ''licensed'' release by a fellow editor, and create that, in a way that some particularly anxious COI-avoider might bristle at. And those cases are surely ''more'' COI-involving than fanfiction which, generally, is released for free, and thus constitutes no actual financial stake for the creator involved. If we can live with one, we can surely live with the other. [[User:Scrooge MacDuck|'''Scrooge MacDuck''']] [[User_talk:Scrooge MacDuck|⊕]] 10:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
+:::That's definitely a hypothetical that's crossed my mind wrt my upcoming conflict of interest thread Scrooge. Suppose I completely misunderstand your story in [REDACTED UPCOMING WORK] and my summary of it is awful, from your perspective, or I make some notes that correct perceived errors in the work - similar to the ones I made at [[Pre-narrative Briefings (short story)|Pre-narrative Briefings]]. There's definitely some chance that I get a very polite talk page message. As far as Wikify own specifically is concerned, my thought was that only a few editors work in the fan works side of editing, and those are the same few editors most likely to have ''contributed'', and there's definitely a non zero chance that this causes an issue - especially if one of them decides to wikify a work that they think is notable but nobody else is aware of. I'm not sure this is a ''problem'' per se, but it's definitely something we need to be aware of and have very firm ideas on. [[User:Najawin|Najawin]] [[User talk:Najawin|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 18:55, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
+Here's my take. If [[Paul Magrs]] made a statement "I'm releasing a new novel, it features the [[Celestial Omnibus]] in a cameo, and I do ''not'' want it covered on Tardis Wiki," then I think it would be fair to call said story non-valid or even to go against having a page on it. ''However'', if Paul Magrs requested that we don't even mention said novel as a single sentence behind-the-scenes blurb on the Celestial Omnibus page, I would say that isn't reasonable. Recognizing the existence of something we don't cover is very typical, and in the case of ''Gene Genius'' we've long referenced that story on the page for ''[[Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet? (home video)|Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?]]'' and ''[[24 Carat (webcast)|24 Carat]]''. I don't see any issue with a statement like:
+: [[Sylvester McCoy]] and [[Sophie Aldred]] briefly reprised their roles of the [[Seventh Doctor]] and [[Ace]] in the unofficial fan film ''Gene Genius''. Aldred also appeared as Ace with [[Deborah Watling]] as [[Victoria Waterfield]] in ''Crossed Lines'', a fan film featured in ''[[The Megéve Experiment]]''.
+It would not be uncommon to see statements like these on our wiki ''right now''. If there's anyone who regrets the production of ''Gene Genius'', we don't dox them, we don't list the cast members, we don't list the writers... It's just a statement of fact which is pretty reasonable. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 19:51, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
+:I guess the discussions at [[User talk:Doug86/Archive 1#Page deletion]], [[User talk:CatherineMunro#Page deletion]], and [https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/User_talk:Tangerineduel?oldid=237747#Page_deletion here] are ''kinda'' relevant? Not exactly analogous. [[User:Najawin|Najawin]] [[User talk:Najawin|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 20:13, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
+:: The main reason I don't like the practice seen at [[FanFiction.Net]] is that I think these stories deserve, at the very least, a ''blurb''. Limiting them to a list or a table is just underselling how interesting the concept is. The minimum these topic deserve is a couple sentences recapping the plot and then explaining how ''this unofficial thing'' was influential to something that was ultimately released. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 02:02, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
+::: For sure! I mentioned [[FanFiction.Net]] above for its title, not its text, which ''definitely'' needs improvement; I wrote that page in literal seconds just because I needed something to point the redirect to, and I intend to flesh it out significantly once I get around to actually reading the stories in question. I could even imagine a section like "Notable stories" with dedicated paragraph(s) or even subsections for each one. – [[User:NateBumber|n8]] ([[User talk:NateBumber|☎]]) 03:20, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
+:: I grant that it's only a stub — but still, I can't help but feel that such things are just a patchy solution. What would you do with something like ''Exchange'', or — in fact — with a purely standalone fanfilm like ''Time Rift''? [[User:Scrooge MacDuck|'''Scrooge MacDuck''']] [[User_talk:Scrooge MacDuck|⊕]] 16:05, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
+::: ''Time Rift'' would go on [[Fan film]] or [[Fan films]], following the long-established [[Charity publication]] precedent. I don't know of any fan works called ''Exchange'', but if you mean the Magrs novel, I've long thought it would be very useful to have a "Other works with ties to ''Doctor Who''" section on author pages, for instance to discuss [[Russell T Davies]]' "single universe" approach to his shows in a single place. That idea may seem new or weird, but I still think it's leaps and bounds clearer than the alternative, i.e. opening the door to users creating pages for individual non-covered releases. – [[User:NateBumber|n8]] ([[User talk:NateBumber|☎]]) 18:52, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
+:: Yes, I meant the Magrs novel as mentioned above — going along with the aforementioned principle on which we agree that the same basic standards should apply to the coverage of ''all'' non-covered sources, whether they be fan works or [[:Category:Real world series with DWU connections]] fodder. I don't know, it just seems very strange to me that as soon as something is a trilogy we can give that trilogy its own "series" page, but a standalone work with the same amount of connections would be placed under a completely different theory of coverage. You propose to "follow the long-established ''Charity publcation'' precedent", but we've recently been engaged in the disengorgement of that page via the creation of specific anthology pages for /Non-valid_sources-citable ones — and again, it would seem ''really strange'' to me to still redirect to [[Charity publication]], instead of a bespoke page, if we ever find ourselves wanting to cite a charity ''novel'' on one of these subpages. It's unintuitive. [[User:Scrooge MacDuck|'''Scrooge MacDuck''']] [[User_talk:Scrooge MacDuck|⊕]] 19:01, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
+As regards the specific items mentioned in the OP, I would say that both ''Time Rift'' and ''Devious'' maybe deserve pages under current policy regardless of the outcome of this thread. As mentioned above, ''Time Rift'' could potentially be a NOTCOVERED source page or have a home in a "Entities thanked by production" category tree. (This is currently [[:Category:People thanked by production|Category:''People'' thanked by production]] but it's not a great name because [[Aldbourne (village)]], [[The Blue Boar]] and [[St Michael's Church (real world)]] aren't technically people.) With ''Devious'', if we're proposing to dab it "(fan series)", doesn't that make it eligible for a [[:Category:Real world series with DWU connections]] page if we count [[Devious (home video)|the home video]] as a licensed crossover? And that's before we consider the various behind-the-scenes links too.
+As for ''The Doctor and the Enterprise'', I'm not in favour of a separate page. Notability is an extremely broad parameter and I don't think it would make very good precedent. Lists with a narrower focuses and clearer remits are the way to go, I think. It's for this reason that I'd like to see [[List of fan works in which Doctor Who actors reprised their roles]] created in some form, even if it doesn't end up being a ''complete'' list due to the concerns raised above. Continuing on the topic of lists, I believe ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' has (or used to have) a regular feature in which a few fan videos were given a small spotlight in each issue. Is there a reason why something like [[List of fan works mentioned in Doctor Who Magazine]] wouldn't be possible? ''DWM'' is a long-running official publication and a list like this would be another one where what's allowed and what's not is crystal clear. [[User:Borisashton|Borisashton]] [[User talk:Borisashton|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 20:44, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
+: I would also like to see [[List of fan works in which Doctor Who actors reprised their roles]] created. I can already think of a few off the top of my head. [[User:BastianBalthazarBux|BastianBalthazarBux]] [[User talk:BastianBalthazarBux|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 22:02, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
+:: I’m massively against this. The wiki struggles to be taken seriously with what it covers as it stands so we shouldn’t muddy the waters and confuse readers by covering fan stuff valid or not. Just because the editors think it’s a decent idea doesn’t mean the readers would. I feel they’d hate it. This is a bad idea. [[Special:Contributions/81.108.82.15|81.108.82.15]]<sup>[[User talk:81.108.82.15#top|talk to me]]</sup> 10:25, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
+:::Some might hate it, others might not. I don't think we should let some hypothetical readers dictate this wiki's policy. [[User:BastianBalthazarBux|BastianBalthazarBux]] [[User talk:BastianBalthazarBux|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 12:49, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
+::::Nobody's talking about ''covering'' fan works, only creating pages for incredibly notable ones. [[User:Aquanafrahudy|<span style="font-family: serif; color: pink" title="Hallo." > Aquanafrahudy</span>]] [[User talk: Aquanafrahudy|📢]]  14:09, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
+Oh hey 81.108, good to see you again! We've missed you, or, at least, I have, I'm sure everyone else has too. Hmm. I think this is a reasonable point at first glance. Our internal wiki deliberations can often seem arcane to people who haven't gone through the rough and tumble socialization of editing for a while. I've seen it compared to jurisprudence and legal precedent on twitter, which is what I've taken to calling it, but just recently I saw someone talking about Talmudic interpretation that made me think of these forums.
+Has anyone ever objected to our already existing pages for [[Campaign (unreleased novel)]] or other unreleased novels? How about for various reference works? These seem to be the most analogous things. [[User:Najawin|Najawin]] [[User talk:Najawin|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 22:14, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
+:[[User:Najawin|Najawin]] I recall I did copy the 'no fanfic' policy from another wiki, as was back in the day I'd look around for other examples on other wikis of problems we'd encounter as the wiki grew. And there wasn't a lot of discussion on some of these things because the wiki was growing at such a pace we were struggling just to deal with vandalism and other stuff a the time.
+:I agree with a page to cover fan films as a concept, there's some examples even on officially released stuff like the Wartime VHS which included some clips of Doctor Who fan films would be one of the earliest releases I can think of. An umbrella real world page would be a good place to collect these, although they would still need to pass a notability standard.
+:My concern would be notability and 'content bleed' from these pages as [[User:JDPManjoume|JDPManjoume]] refers to.
+:And I agree with '''81.108.82.15''''s sentiments. There is a danger in covering too much of this stuff the wiki descends into too much coverage of vaguely related topics, which dilute the licensed/inuniverse topics which we've worked hard to keep free from fan works etc.
+:It is where the threshold is for "incredibly notable" works as [[User:Aquanafrahudy|Aquanafrahudy]]  terms that is my concern if we are creating dedicated pages for these works, rather than them just being covered on an umbrella page.
+:[[User:Najawin|Najawin]] raises an interesting point, but I'm not sure if it's relevant, unreleased / unproduced stories that are released inhabit a little bit of a different sphere to stories that are pure fan productions. There is the implication with the former that they were commissioned (or had the potential to be) vs just a fan work. —[[User:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]] / '''[[User talk:Tangerineduel|talk]]''' 06:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
+== Conclusion ==
+<div class="tech">
+=== Introduction ===
+==== Other Wikis do cover fan works to some degree ====
+This thread speaks to a real need. Look at our brethren, the other Wikis of big science-fiction or fantasy universes: [[w:c:starwars:Fanon|Wookieepedia has a short "Fanon" page]] and an official [[w:c:starwars:Fan film|"soft redirect" to a side-Wiki's "Fan film" page]]. [[w:c:memorybeta:Fan fiction|Memory Beta has a "Fan fiction" page]]. The HP folks not only have [[w:c:harrypotter:Fanon|a page about "Fanon" as a whole]] but [[w:c:harrypotter:Fanon#Notable fanfiction|multiple pages about notable specific fanfictions]]. Likewise the ''Lord of the Rings'' Wiki has [[w:c:lotr:Category:Fanfilms|an entire category for "fanfilms"]].
+''Contra'' our I.P. user, I don't think covering fan works to ''some'' degree, in a specific, delineated way, is going to confuse the readers. It's what Wikis do! It's what all Wikis do ''except for us''! What's good for the goose, etc. In fact, I think it is clear [[T:NO FANFIC]], a rule which — as [[User:Tangerineduel]] recalls — was created more as a stopgap measure against early vandalism than a reasoned, complex policy framework, has caused us to fall behind in an aspect of coverage which most other Wikis absolutely take for granted to ''one'' degree or another. Our [[Fan fiction]] page is — well, it's not the ''most'' embarrassing, but it's much less than what it should be.
+==== We are not here to be taken seriously, but to actually be serious ====
+Moreover, I do want to nip in the bud this dangerous notion that we should care about something like the idea that the Wiki "struggles to be taken seriously with what it covers as it stands". Whoever said "being taken seriously by nondescript 'fans'" was one of our goals? Like, at all? Ever? Maybe we should add a little note at [[Tardis:What the Tardis Data Core is not]]: "the Tardis Data Core is not a PR campaign". We could call it [[T:NO PR]]. It would be cute. …In all seriousness, '''we are here to provide as thorough, accurate, and easily-browsed a record of information as possible'''; we do not bow to the whims of those who would see us ''deleting information'' simply because they think it's silly. Not now, not ever. We may as well delete the site if we surrendered to such destructive, obscurantist instincts.
+The very bedrock of [[T:VS]] is "we cover as much official-DWU-adjacent stuff as we ''can'', while making our sourcing transparent, and individual readers can decide what they keep and what they overlook". Had we the means, we would be within our remit to decide to cover all ''Doctor Who'' fanfiction ''ever'', so long as we devised a structured, easily-grokked way for readers to distinguish between licensed and unlicensed stuff, and to find the licensed stuff without having to wade through reams of fanfic. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done, and moreover, there are ''insane'' amounts of ''Doctor Who'' fanfic in the world; more than a Wiki even of our size could hope to make a dent in without actual literal centuries of work. It's a resolutely "post-Singularity" kinda project, as it were; not to be spoken of until then, lest we drown our good limited efforts in a sea of redlinks and stubs and poorly-policed vandalism. It's not that we ''shouldn't'' cover fanfiction for some grand cosmic reason, it's just that we… very literally… ''can't''. It would kill the Wiki to try.
+That is, we can't cover all of it.
+But if we can carve out narrow strips of that giant piece of work called "fanfiction", and cover ''those'' to a standard of completion, in a way which improves our coverage of official ''[[Doctor Who]]'' media and their history — we should. We absolutely should. By the view of many not-wes, we are ''already doing this'': this terminology is not to be used on-Wiki, of course, but if you want to talk outside view, to many people, ''[[Wartime (home video)|Wartime]]'' and ''[[Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor (home video)|Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor]]'' are "fanfilms" — just "fanfilms that happen to be licensed by the individual license-holders".
+Now what remains is to determine to ''what'' degree we grant fan works coverage, and along what parameters; but that degree is not zero.
+=== What shall we cover? ===
+==== Notability doesn't cut it ====
+I do understand the wish to have a page about something like ''The Doctor and the Enterprise''. It is, after all, what some of those other Wikis do. But it is very conspicuous that the Wikis that do this are the ones for comparatively smaller bodies of work. The ''HP'' and ''LotR'' Wiki do not, as we do, ''struggle'' to even cover all the ''licensed'' fiction; their communities do not have to contend with potentially ''thousands'' of fanfics with ''some'' kind of claim to notability. I think the only reasonable way to make a pure notability criterion "work" would be to rely on established reference source: "if it's been documented in a reference source otherwise covered by this Wiki, like [[DWM]], then it can have a page".
+But the problem with that is firstly that there would ''still be an awful lot of it'' for full pages with plot summaries and the like (even if we obviously do not grant them in-universe coverage!); and secondly, {{w|Goodhart's law}}. Within a year people would be tripping over each other to get their little thingie name-dropped in ''Vworp Vworp'' and voilà, ticket to fame.
+(Some people raised a similar argument to people getting ahold of a DWU actor to reprise their role, but I think that's different, as we'll get to in a moment: having a DWU actor in your thingie is not ''a measurement of notability'', it is ''itself'' a notable fact. People doing notable things on purpose is not the same thing as people trying to ''get noticed'' on pri,ciple regardless of whether they actually did anything interesting!)
+'''We will not be implementing bespoke, individual non-covered pages for fan works on grounds of sheer "notability"/historical importance'''.
+==== Lists ====
+As [[User:Borisashton]] noted:
+{{quote|Lists with a narrower focuses and clearer remits are the way to go. (…) Continuing on the topic of lists, I believe ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' has (or used to have) a regular feature in which a few fan videos were given a small spotlight in each issue. Is there a reason why something like [[List of fan works mentioned in Doctor Who Magazine]] wouldn't be possible? DWM is a long-running official publication and a list like this would be another one where what's allowed and what's not is crystal clear.|User:Borisashton}}
+I think this is very sound. There has also been a lot of support for some variation of [[List of fan works in which Doctor Who actors reprised their roles]] — I think the page should be at [[List of fan works in which official actors reprised their roles]] (with that other name as a redirect), because surely if [[Robert Moloney]] reprises [[Alistair Gryffen]], or indeed just if [[Anjli Mohindra]] reprises [[Rani Chandra]], that's just as relevant as if [[Simon Fisher-Becker]] reprises [[Dorium Maldovar]], even if those are not technically "''Doctor Who''" actors.
+I think the basic way to go is '''expand [[Fan fiction]] into a much bulkier [[Fan works]] page''' (with redirects at [[Fan film]], [[Fanfiction]], etc.), outlining '''a history of unlicensed DWU fiction using reliable documentary sources''', which will be able to discuss such things as the impact of ''The Doctor and the Enterprise'' — and '''a smattering of list pages, beginning with [[List of fan works mentioned in Doctor Who Magazine]] and [[List of fan works in which Doctor Who actors reprised their roles]], to complete it'''. Further list pages should not be created freely, but more can be subjected and discussed at [[Talk:Fan works]] at any time. Ideally, they should emerge organically as split-offs from sections of the page.
+(Likewise, if there is call for it, "Fan film", "Fan fiction" and whatever other mediums could hypothetically be split off. But this strikes me as awkward because comics, etc. are all "fiction"; there is no really good name for ''prose-''only fanfiction, and there might not be much demand for a bespoke "Fan video games" page even if there are a few that warrant discussion. A gestalt history seems, on the whole, wiser than trying to split hairs.)
+With regards to fan-creators not ''wanting'' these things covered, well, as discussed earlier:
+{{quote|Private fanfilms are private; we wouldn't cover them simply because we couldn't reliably source their existence. Ones that were intended as private twenty years ago, but leaked, and are now a single Google click away from fans' enjoyment… well, it's unfortunate for their creators, but their creation has become a de facto part of the DWU's history by that point. (…) It's not as though we would oblige should a DWU rightsholder tell us that they'd rather we deleted our page on [[The Master (The Destination Wars)]], or [[The Talons of Weng-Chiang, (TV story)|''Talons'']], or (etc. etc. Insert Old Shame Here). If it's out and relevant, it's out and relevant.|User:Scrooge MacDuck}}
+Further, as [[User:OttselSpy25]] noted, all these proposed lists would largely ''collate'' information which it is already within policy to include on specific BTS pages in isolation. '''Neither ''List of fan works…'' should contain a full cast-and-crew or the like, or even a plot summary — just the basics of the fan-work's title, medium, date/medium of release, and claim(s) of relevance to official ''Who''.'''
+==== "Non-valid sources" and source-pages ====
+As of the promulgation of [[Tardis:Subpage policy]], it has become official site policy that in "#In non-valid sources" subsections and on "/Non-valid sources" subpages, we can cite not only the licensed appearances of the DWU element at hand in {{tlx|invalid}}, but any authorised appearance by that concept ''in otherwise-unlicensed story'' — e.g. a charity story where an author of official works has one of their creator-owned inventions interacting with BBC-owned characters in a way which also sheds more light on the licensed character.
+Although these sources are still substantially ''not covered'' — i.e. they don't get full plot summaries, nor pages about their cast and crew — they do need pages in some shape or form, so that the citations have something to link to. So far, this has been done exclusively within the framework of [[:Category:Real world series with DWU connections]], but this has proven increasingly unsatisfying. Certainly, when such a series or anthology ''exists'' for the non-covered work, it's a handy solution to prevent coverage-overreach — but there is simply no satisfying way to fold standalone fanfics, or indeed standalone non-fanfic works with DWU connections like Magrs's ''Exchange''. Everything that has been proposed has been a clumsy patch, unintuitive and unconducive to detailed/well-sourced coverage even if it's ''theoretically possible''. Perhaps it ''would'' "be very useful to have a ‘Other works with ties to ''Doctor Who''’ section on author pages", but the idea that you could start at [[Panda/Non-valid sources]] and get redirected by a story citation to an ''author page'' seems unreasonably disruptive.
+In conclusion, '''[[:Category:Real world series with DWU connections]] should be renamed to, or made a subcategory of, a [[:Category:Real world media with DWU connections]] page apt to contain pages about standalone works which connect to the DWU in the same way as the series currently covered in the former category'''. These pages should ''not'' be formatted like source pages, with a complete plot summary and cast list, but rather, like the existing "real world series…" page, with a short blurb on their premise and then an exploration of the in- and out-of-univere connections to stuff we actually cover.
+==== Special cases ====
+It gets in via [[Adrienne Kramer]], but I hereby enshrine that ''[[Time Rift (fan work)]]'' would also have warranted a page on the grounds of belonging in the [[:Category:Entities thanked by production]] category (the rename from [[:Category:People thanked by production]] proposed by [[User:Borisashton]] should indeed be enacted, and should have been a long time ago to accommodate the likes of [[Aldbourne (village)]]).
+Due to its [[Devious (home video)|unique circumstances]], ''[[Devious (fan work)|Devious]]'' probably warrants a page in "[[:Category:Real world media with DWU connections]]" if nothing else, as per fairly clear consensus. I say "if nothing else" because we really ''should'' have {{tlx|invalid}} in-universe coverage of what can be seen in [[Devious (home video)|the officially-released ''Devious'' short]] — I think ruling otherwise was a product of an ethos of coverage that is simply out of date in light of things like the subpage policy — and it follows that, I suppose, the wider fan ''Devious'' is potentially a "licensed for specific characters but no the BBC elements" NCMaterial source for the pages of the fan-created characters as they appear in the officially-released ''Devious''. Confusing.
+Another bit of old policy-making which I think needs dusting off in light of all these expansions is the ruling of [[Thread:136206]], which discussed the "''Doctor Who'' Online Adventures", a fanmade series of stop-motion ''Doctor Who'' adventures which obtained a non-commercial "creative license" from the BBC. This was the origin of [[Tardis:Valid sources#Rule 2|Rule 2]] being specified as discussing "commercial licenses", as opposed to any old non-commercial license; and as far as it goes that was probably sound. But there was a sort of all-or-nothing attitude at work, where ''either'' we had to resign ourselves to covering this stuff as official ''Who'' right alongside Big Finish and IDW, ''or'' it had to be banished from the Wiki to the last. This seems like poor acknowledgement of the BBC going out of their way to give these things a stamp of approval; they're extensions of the official ''Doctor Who'' brand to ''some'' degree, and our history of it is incomplete if we do not account for them. '''Such works should henceforth be eligible for real-world overview pages along the same lines as the previous section, in a [[:Category:Real world fan works which received a creative license from the BBC]] subcategory'''. (The naming can be tweaked on the category talk page if desired.) A page about the ''Online Adventure'' might include a list of episodes and a basic history, focusing on its interactions with the Beeb and official ''Who''.
+(Note that this applies to works which have ''officially'' gotten a Creative License(TM) from the BBC; not to any old fanfilm or charity publication which got an unofficial "go-ahead so long as it's not for profit" from some BBC spokesman, but did not get the right to have an "authorised by the BBC" sticker on it!)
+==== Dab terms ====
+Although redirects at conventional medium dab terms (e.g. [[Time Rift (home video)]]) should exist, it seems reasonable that pages on individual fan works, when they exist, should be dabbed in a way which clearly conveys this. The proposal of "fan series" for something like ''Devious'', however, is absolutely wrong — ''Devious'' is a serial in the Hartnell/Troughton mould; it's not a "series" any more than [[An Unearthly Child (TV story)]] is.
+And moreover, the protean nature of many fan works makes it hard to apply our classic medium dabs. ''Time Rift'' was originally "(home video)", but I'll warrant most people who have seen it know it as a YouTube webcast. In the case of prose fanfiction, for an online release on a website like [[FanFiction.Net]], when does a "short story" tip over into a "novel", exactly? Is it about wordcount? Chapter breaks? It's confusing — and it's not germane to how people think of fanfiction. Even a 200,000-words-long fanfiction is not typically termed a "novel" by either its author or its readers: it's just… a fanfic.
+In the end, it seems to me that '''universally applying "(fan work)" to our pages about fan works''' (whether they be individual works or series) is best.
+==== Final thoughts ====
+I don't have much to say here, but as always, thank you to everyone who participated! [[User:Scrooge MacDuck|'''Scrooge MacDuck''']] [[User_talk:Scrooge MacDuck|⊕]] 14:05, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
+</div>