Tardis:Canon policy

(Important: This is currently only a draft policy. Please feel free to expand upon this article, and also to discuss the issue on Tardis talk:Canon policy.)

The goal of the TARDIS Index File is to be a reliable, concise guide to all readers. Towards this end, it is necessary for us to restrict to some extent the type of information we accept.

Types of article

There are three types of articles:

• Doctor Who Universe articles

• Any subject mentioned in or derived from a television story, prose story, comic story, radio or audio drama. This type is further divided into two sub-types:

• Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and K-9 and Company - Subjects seen or mentioned in these series.
• Spin-offs - Any subject seen or mentioned in prose (novels, novellas and short stories), audio and comic stories, officially sanctioned by the BBC and/or license holders.

• Other Universes - Stories which are not necessarily part of 'canon' but derived from the Doctor Who Universe, i.e. Dr. Who and the Daleks and parodies such as The Curse of Fatal Death, authorised, though not part of 'canon'.

• Real World/Out of universe

• Information on stories set in the Doctor Who Universe.
• Information on the creators and actors who have taken part in the making of the stories.
• Related topics.

For additional resources of information for Real World articles see Tardis:Resources.

The policy of the TARDIS Index File with regards to acceptable sources for use in articles is as follows:

What is considered a valid source?

This section is still in flux, as the policy is still under debate.

• All Doctor Who television stories.
• Spin-offs such as Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, K-9 and Company and K-9 (TV series).
• All other Doctor Who spin-offs such as those produced by BBV Productions and Reeltime Pictures (i.e P.R.O.B.E., Auton Trilogy and Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, Downtime)
• All Target Books novels not based on a broadcast television story (i.e., The Nightmare Fair, Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma)
• All Virgin Missing Adventures, Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures stories (i.e., Timewyrm: Genesys, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Beige Planet Mars)
• All BBC Books Eighth Doctor, Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor and Past Doctor novels (i.e., The Eight Doctors, The Clockwise Man, The Stone Rose, The Witch Hunters).
• All Telos Publishing novellas (i.e, Frayed, Rip Tide, Fallen Gods)
• All BBC Radio Dramas and webcasts (i.e., The Paradise of Death, Death Comes to Time, Real Time).
• All audio dramas released by BBV, Big Finish Productions and Magic Bullet Productions (i.e., Republica, Storm Warning, Invasion of the Daleks, Coming to Dust).
• All comic strips appearing in Doctor Who Magazine, Doctor Who Adventures, Doctor Who: Battles in Time, TV Comic, Countdown / TV Action, Radio Times, Torchwood Magazine and the British Broadcasting Corporation's Doctor Who website.
• All Abslom Daak, Bernice Summerfield, Kaldor City, Faction Paradox, Time Hunter, and Miranda stories.
• All short fiction and comic strips published in Doctor Who Annuals (including Doctor Who Yearbooks), Doctor Who Storybooks, Dalek Annuals, Torchwood MagazineYearbooks and K-9 Annual 1983.

Secondary sources

See also Tardis:Resources for more resources for writing articles

These sources are valid sources, however should not be the only source for an article.

• Novelisations of broadcast television stories by Target Books and other publishers may be used, however any information that contradicts that novelisation's TV story's information is to be considered apocryphal and should not be included within the main body of the article.

Other universe sources

The following sources are valid but are a deliberate break from Doctor Who Universe canon and therefore should only be used for articles relating to the worlds, individuals and objects etc created in the sources.

• Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who Unbound audio dramas and any prose stories connected to them.
• Both Dalek movies starring Peter Cushing; Dr. Who and the Daleks, Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD and any prose or comic stories connected to them.
• The parody-stories and episodes such as; The Curse of Fatal Death, Tonight's the Night, Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?.

What is not considered a valid source, and why?

This section is still in flux, as the policy is still under debate.

• Material from FASA's The Doctor Who Role Playing Game and other Role Playing games, as these sometimes contain histories and other information which conflicts with the television and prose stories.

Some material from the FASA game was incorporated into Virgin Publishing's Missing and New Adventures series. Such info should be cited to the NAs/MAs in which they appear, rather than the FASA materials.

• Merchandise - Several items of merchandise are often given names that never appear in dialogue or are never seen on screen and have often been produced for marketing purposes.
• Fan-made blueprints and specifications
• Fan fiction of any kind (this includes fanon).
• Websites, unless information is clearly stated as sourced listed on the Tardis:Resources page.

Items on which policy is unclear

• The relevance of The Doctor Who Technical Manual, the in-universe history presented in part of The Terrestrial Index, The Doctor Who Monster Book and similar items and their suitability for use in creating and contributing to articles in the TARDIS Index File is unclear at this time, and up for discussion.
• Background information from the production staff (Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert, John Nathan-Turner, Russell T Davies, etc) should either be included under the relevant background section (where available), or added to the article's Talk page where its validity can be assessed for inclusion.

Deleting invalid articles

If you believe an article contains nothing but non-canon information, or is sourced solely from non-valid resources, then the article should be noted with a {{proposed deletion}} template/banner, which will alert others to the article's invalidity and allow others to defend it.

If an article is concerning a canon subject but contains information from a non-valid resource, the issue should be debated on the article's individual talk page, and the article should be edited as appropriate. (See also Templates - Cleanup Tags for more information)

Except in cases of obscenity and other offensive text, you should not edit the article and delete the text.

See also

• Resources