Forum:BBV and canon policy

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There's been some chatter on Talk:The Doctor (Party Animals) and between Revanvolatrelundar and Tangerineduel that has seemed to produced the basic sentiment: "If it's BBV, it's canon to us." Indeed, it would seem that the ill-nuanced canon policy is behind such a notion.

But I'm not sure such a blanket policy makes sense.

BBV weren't like Big Finish or IDW. They never, ever had a full license to produce Doctor Who fiction. In fact, they had no license whatever from the BBC. So characters that looked like wholly-BBC-owned characters, like the Doctor, couldn't actually be those characters. The Nick Briggs BBV character, Fred, is therefore Fred, not, as was previously intimated by redirect, a version of the Doctor who appeared briefly in official DWM comics. I think we need to remember and clearly state in our canon policy that BBV productions are at best semi-canonical, because they never involve the rights of the BBC. However, at worst they're not at all canonical, because quite a bit of BBV's output doesn't involve the rights of even Doctor Who writers.

Actually, this "Fred" character shouldn't be mentioned by us whatsoever, because all his adventures involve the Cyberona, who are themselves rip-offs of the Cybermen. There's zero legal tie whatever to the DWU, so why are we covering them?

I get why we're including some of BBV, like that which uses Autons, Zygons, Krynods, the Rani and Sontarans. But for the life of me, I can't understand why we allow things like The Time Travellers, as the explicit point of these is that they have been designed so as to come as close as possible to portraying the Doctor, but to do so in such a way that explicitly avoids copyright infringement. It's zirconium — not a real diamond. And since we don't cover/allow in-line references to any other unlicensed stories, we shouldn't be covering these, either.

Seems to me that the such a stance would compel a few actions:

1. The rewriting of tardis:canon policy. The rule should be: BBV productions which involve the rights of people who contributed to televised Doctor Who are valid resources on this wiki. However, works which are 100% copyrightable by BBV Productions should not be referenced here. Thus, if the production uses Auton, Zygons, Krynoids or any other race or character seen on Doctor Who, it's allowable. If, however, the production uses only characters that are close approximations of those seen on Doctor Who — as in The Time Travellers, The Wanderer, The Stranger, Adventures in a Pocket Universe and the like — they're not allowable.
2. The creation of a template, like {{nc}}, to be clearly displayed the top of allowed BBV articles. It should read something like, "'This topic related to BBV Productions is only semi-canonical, as rights to create it were granted by the original Doctor Who writer, but not by the BBC.
3. The transfer of all the non-compliant BBV material to the Doctor Who Extended wikia.
4. The eradication of most of the links to the non-compliant material from our in-universe articles, and the redirection of real world links to the DWE articles. (Really not as daunting as it sounds; you can create a redirect directly to the DWE article. And there wouldn't be that much "eradication", as most in-universe articles have shied away from BBV, anyway.)

Thoughts?
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 

I agree, ive just been going through the BBV stuff I just got (hence the interest in the subject atm) and things like the PROBE and even the Stranger has nothing to do with the DWU (The Stranger branches away and i didn't even see too much of a resemblence to the Doctor or Peri anyway).

I'll get a list together of all productions that are definately in the DWU, those i havent tried yet or are unsure of and lastly the unrelated productions.

watch this space

--Revanvolatrelundar 20:38, January 29, 2011 (UTC)

Within DWU

The Auton Trilogy

• Auton
• Auton 2: Sentinel
• Auton 3: Awakening
• Zygon: When Being You Just Isn't Enough and by extension its prequel: Cyberon

====The Time Travellers==== (the Doctor and ace with new names)

• Republica
• Island of Lost Souls
• Prosperity Island
• The Left Hand of Darkness
• The Other Side
• Guests for the Night
• Ghosts
• Only Human
• Blood Sports
• Punchline

====Adventures in a Pocket Universe==== (both with K9 in as far as i know)

• The Choice
• The Search

Zygons

• Zygons: Homeland
• Zygons: Absolution
• The Barnacled Baby

Krynoids

• Krynoids: The Root of All Evil
• Krynoids: The Green Man

Sontarans

• Sontarans: Silent Warrior
• Sontarans: Old Soldiers
• Sontarans: Conduct Unbecoming

====The I==== (from Seeing I for convenience)

• I Scream

The Rani

• The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind

Wirrn

• Wirrn: Race Memory

The Faction Paradox Protocols

• The Eleven Day Empire
• The Shadow Play
• Sabbath Dei
• In the Year of the Cat
• Movers
• A Labyrinth of Histories

Rutans

• In 2 Minds

Mike Yates

• The Killing Stone (actually has the Fourth Doctor in it, no "dentist" type thing)

Guy de Carnac (Sanctuary)

• The Quality of Mercy

====P.R.O.B.E.==== (Liz Shaw

• The Zero Imperative
• The Devil of Winterborne
• Unnatural Selection
• Ghosts of Winterborne

Unsure

Cyberons

• Cybergeddon

The Stranger

• Summoned by Shadows
• More Than a Messiah
• In Memory Alone
• The Terror Game
• Breach of the Peace
• Eye of the Beholder

The Wanderer

• Cyber-Hunt
• Vital Signs

The Stranger

• The Last Mission
• Eye of the Storm

Other

• Infidel's Comet
• The Pattern

NOT DWU

• The Airzone Solution
• Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet? (spoof, fan made but should it be kept?)

I have not included Reeltime productions in here (although as far as i know they all use DWU characters).

Discussion

Please discuss Revanvolatrelundar 20:44, January 29, 2011 (UTC)

If they have no obvious tie to Doctor Who, then I think they should go.--Skittles the hog--Talk 22:38, January 29, 2011 (UTC)

Guy de Carnac is from Sanctuary. He gets a fake cameo in Happy Endings. Like Miranda (comic), its a spinoff from the character's creator. --Nyktimos 01:35, January 30, 2011 (UTC)
Oh right! I should also add that a clean way to not simply junk stuff like The Wanderer is to migrate it to Doctor Who Expanded which is our version of memory(gamma?) but lawless and full of self-promoting lowlifes. --Nyktimos 01:59, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

Refined the list somewhat, any flaws? --Revan\Talk 15:33, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

I agree with CzechOut on the approximations front, 'The Time Travellers, The Wanderer, The Stranger'.

I disagree in relation to PROBE and Adventures in a Pocket Universe. PROBE includes Liz Shaw and Adventures in a Pocket Universe includes K9.

I think we should keep 'Do you have a licence…', it is a spoof, it is made by BBV, it does include the Autons and Sontarans, it's an interesting book end to the big DW parodies etc.

I disagree partially on the template, I think if we start getting into statements like "semi-canonical" we'll start to get into trouble with things. If it's really needed I'd prefer it to read "This topic is related to BBV Productions. Rights to create it were granted by the original Doctor Who writer, but not the BBC." With maybe a link off to the a page covering all this, stuff about the Wilderness Years and how all this came about. But I'm not sure if it's needed or would help or confuse more.

I'd be cautious about stating whether or not something has an "obvious tie" to DW, the reason a lot of people bought these things DW related or not is precisely because of their ties to Doctor Who. It's the reason I've got The Airzone Solution VHS on my shelf (which is actually a very good story). --Tangerineduel / talk 15:43, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

I'd already put the pocket universe and PROBE stuff in the DWU section, it was an initial mistake that i thought they didnt haev Who characters in them. Any clue about the Infidel's comet or The Pattern? --Revan\Talk 15:45, January 30, 2011 (UTC)

Adventures in a Pocket Universe is tricky, though. Okay, it's a character called "K9", but is it our K9? Was there actual permission obtained from Baker and Martin? And it's definitely not Romana, even if played by Lalla Ward. So I'm not sure how you'd easily refer to this work in, say, pages about K9. It's total speculation that this is K9 Mark II who went off with Romana II at the end of Warriors' Gate — even if that's what the writer is implying. Frankly, I think it deserves to be considered K9 (BBV), and definitely shouldn't be mixed with the DWU K9 Mk II.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 