Talk:John Benton

Non-canon information slipping in

When I encountered it, the article said:

Benton celebrates his seventieth birthday on 6th January 2008, with a party attended by, amongst many others, the Sixth Doctor and Mel. Benton meets this incarnation of the Doctor for the first time on this occasion (Time's Champion) and plays a vital role in the multiversal catastrophe which ensues later.

By 2010, when he attended Bernice Summerfield and Jason Kane's wedding, he was in his early 70s. (PROSE: Happy Endings)

Because Time's Champion is a disallowed resource for in-universe articles (See: TARDIS:Canon policy. Talk:Time's Champion), I redacted this whole section to basically "Benton attended the wedding of Benny and Jason in 2010". My question is whether he's described as being in his early 70s in Happy Endings. If so, that little snippet can go back in. But it seemed like an extrapolation based upon TC, even though it was credited to HE. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 22:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Alrighty, the exact wording is "...a stocky, tanned man in his early seventies." (page 72) He drives a green electric Bentley incidentally. I've changed the article to reflect this info. --Tangerineduel 15:18, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Picture

Wouldn't it make more sense if the main image had Benton wearing his UNIT uniform. Or, you know, any form of clothing?Icecreamdif ^{talk to me} 15:26, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

Infobox Error

The other actors portion of the info box is messed up. Masterpwn ☎ 18:18, May 2, 2014 (UTC)

Revert on Benton's brother

Can I ask why the revert? Are Short Trips not canon? Just my bad wording? Did I mishear something when listening? I thought it said "Sergeant Benton's brother works on the railways" - about 11 minutes in? Or am I jsut missing a joke? I'm kind of literal. Tzigone ☎ 00:18, June 21, 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't the user who reverted the edits, but most likely it was because of the "perspective" used. In-universe articles are written in the past tense, and should not use speculative language. So instead of saying "Benton seems to have a brother", you might say "Benton had a brother". P&P talk contribs 02:53, June 21, 2016 (UTC)

Benton in "Avatars of the Intelligence"

This reference has been deleted as 'speculation'. The character has the right first name, is the right age, has the right accent, and is appearing alongside another UNIT-related figure (Anne Travers). Granted, not all of these were cited in the edit, but "speculation" seems rather a strong objection.109.145.16.107^{talk to me} 17:30, April 4, 2019 (UTC)

I think the main problem was the phrasing of the statement. "The man who appeared to be Benton" is certainly speculation. --Borisashton ☎ 17:35, April 4, 2019 (UTC)

Borisashton is certainly right. No statement prefaced with "appeared to be" should ever be added to an in-universe page. But there are bigger problems here. Let's leave aside for the moment the question of how "accent" can be surmised from a prose piece (unless the accent is especially thick or is the Cockney rhyming slang). But what is the argument here? That there was only one person of this age in the whole of DWU? Or did Anne Travers know him? Then the argument is that she only knew one John of that approximate age? Or was it mentioned that Travers knew this John through UNIT? Then the argument is that she only knew one John of this age connected to UNIT? Does any phrase "she could ever have only known one John that..." sound true? Amorkuz ☎ 18:15, April 4, 2019 (UTC)