Talk:Brian Williams

Article needs renaming

It's been confirmed that the character will appear in a later episode, so the DAB nature of the title is inaccurate and will prevent users from finding the article on him, especially if the DAB page at Brian Williams is deleted by those who seem to want this wiki to be hard to navigate. 70.72.211.35^{talk to me} 02:40, September 9, 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation articles are there to navigate people to the correct article(s). When you search for something they're pretty much the first thing you see. Plus, on most articles it suggests pages that you might have meant when you loaded the article. I don't really think there's an issue tbh. Plus, the Brian Williams in the NSA "Snowglobe 7" came first and there's very little we can do about it.

TheFartyDoctor ^Talk 03:02, September 9, 2012 (UTC)

The page still needs to be disambiguated, even if he appears in a later episode. As this is his first, this is what we go with. Tardis1963 talk 03:41, September 9, 2012 (UTC)

For cases when there's only two people, {{You may}} is more than enough to alleviate the confusion. Often, when you start typing Brian Williams in a link, it'd show the two dabed Brian Williamses. -- Tybort (talk page) 11:37, September 9, 2012 (UTC)

It does seem that the Doctor's wife's Grandfather is going to remain more notable than a one off character in a novel. Perhaps Brian (Dinos on a Spaceship) should be the one listed as Brian Williams and a {{You may}} link could handle the rest. The page for (Snowglobe 7) is barely a blip as it is, clearly Rory's dad is already more interesting.– The preceding unsigned comment was added by AnaxagorasZ (talk • contribs) .

At a later date, when this character has made multiple appearances, it would certainly be best to give this page preference as I do not doubt it is the page most expect to find at Brian Williams. There is no urgency to make the move, but I see no reason to delay as links will only have to be changed when the switch is made and they're sure to pile up in the meantime.--Skittles the hog - talk 20:05, September 9, 2012 (UTC)

When Amy Pond first appeared in The Eleventh Hour, the page was named 'Amy Pond' not 'Amy Pond (The Eleventh Hour)'. So I completely agree that this page should be renamed. 86.22.110.143^{talk to me} 12:16, September 15, 2012 (UTC)

While I'm not completely opposed to the idea of maybe making this the "prime" Brian Williams page, the Amy argument has nothing to do with anything. amy has appeared in far more media than just one or two episodes, including three comic series running at the same time. I don't know of any conflicting Amy Ponds like with Brian Williams (Snowglobe 7) (which until DOAS' airdate was the Brian Williams page), so for what purpose would we even consider requiring an Amy Pond page with the disambiguation term (The Eleventh Hour)? -- Tybort (talk page) 13:27, September 15, 2012 (UTC)

Conversely, I am totally opposed to dropping the dab term from the full article name. There's no cause to make an exception to policy in this case. He's not more important than the Snowglobe 7 guy, because core site policy sets all media as of equal weight.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  06:00: Mon 17 Sep 2012

Moreover, it's an incredibly common name. I'm not entirely convinced there's not another Brian Williams somewhere in some story we've not got around to cataloguing yet. And given that we have two stories in 5 years to use the name Brian Williams, I certainly don't think it's unlikely that there will be another Brian Williams somewhere down the road. One thing people are forgetting in this thread is that we've only got about 30k articles on this wiki, and a lot of those are behind the scenes pages. We've barely begun to scratch the surface of in-universe characters. We use dab term naming as much to futureproof ourselves as to make differentiations that we're sure about. I can't see a situation whereby it'd be good policy to move this to Brian Williams; we're only gonna have to move it back.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  06:10: Mon 17 Sep 2012

Leadworth

Where is it established that he is from Leadworth? The only time he has been seen is at Amy and Rory's house (last we heard they are in London), and he was never mentioned, or seen during the adventures set in Leadworth. He is not even present at the wedding, which took place in Leadworth. Geek Mythology ☎ 21:28, September 9, 2012 (UTC)

Another victim of the silly Disambiguation policy on this wiki

There are a number of wiki users like myself who don't bother using the search tool and instead just browse to tardis.wikia.com/wiki/<search term>. This is how I get to most pages, and finding that disambiguation pages have been deleted because there's only two or three similarly-named entries is, frankly, a bit rubbish, and makes the wiki very hard to navigate.

I'm strongly in favour of either renaming this article to simply Brian Williams, or recreating the disambiguation page. Certainly the article's current title, which includes the name of what will be only the first appearance of the character, is not the way to go. Ben Paddon ☎ 20:24, September 11, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, our dab policy would look pretty stupid to someone who doesn't use the search tool. Obviously, though, using your browser's URL field isn't in any way a search. You should only use that method when you're sure of an article's name. There is absolutely no reasonable expectation that a name as common as "Brian Williams" would have appeared only once in a franchise that's 50 years old and comprised of thousands of unique stories.

In calling our dab policy "stupid", you're not really understanding the challenges of organising information on a franchise that's 50 years old and comprised of thousands of stories. The DWU requires a different approach to naming that is dependant on using the search tool. If you used the search tool, you'd soon discover that it produces auto suggestions which then reveal the wisdom of the dab policy. Moreover, having the dab terms helps during editing, where autosuggestions are also prevalent. Without a consistent policy of applying the name of a character's first policy to their name, editing and searching would in fact be much more difficult. It's a good thing to have dab terms like we do, because it makes it completely obvious which Brian Williams you're looking for.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  05:45: Mon 17 Sep 2012

Spelling

Somebody, no idea who, but somebody sucks at spelling. This page was at the correct "Brian Williams (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)", but somebody, no idea who, who I'd assume is not as good at English usage as they think they are, moved the correct page to an incorrect title. Can an admin please move it back to the correct title? Unless all of a sudden 'soar'ing is the new dinosaur roaring. Tardis1963 talk 06:07, September 17, 2012 (UTC)

It's a truism of, well, life that people make mistakes. Take it easy, big fella.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  06:32: Mon 17 Sep 2012

I support the name change

Just like to say I support the name change. I struggled to find this character, using google. It took me to the page Brian. Considering the number of Brians in Doctor Who i think that Brian should be made a disambiguation or at least have a (bracketed conxtext) in the page title.

The "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" title is now irrelevant. Just had to share my thoughts.

-Thomas Love http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/jackass/images/5/5f/Star_tiny.png [talk] 13:48, October 12, 2012 (UTC)

• He's now appeared in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, The Power of Three, and P.S.. As the only other "Brian Williams" on record is a three-line page, I also support moving this to Brian Williams. If another particularly notable Brian Williams turns up, we can re-disambiguate this page as necessary. NOT doing it because there MAY be another B.W. somewhere down the line in either direction is frankly silly. d ●•· 13:58, October 12, 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah, man, this is absurd. Rory's dad is obviously the most notable Brian Williams. He's not just the Brian Williams from Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, he's a prominent reoccurring character. Parenthetically noting the story a character was in works when the character was only in one story, but in cases where a character was in multiple stories it looks like an error, and is certainly more confusing than useful for casual users. Any wiki policy that demands that article names be formatted in this way has to change if the wiki isn't going to look like a parody of itself. -- Rowan Earthwood ☎ 01:12, October 16, 2012 (UTC)

I think you guys don't understand our dismag policy... OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 17:32, October 19, 2012 (UTC)

Under the DAB policy header "Primary Topics":

"Although a term may potentially refer to more than one topic, it sometimes is the case that one of these topics is far more likely to be the one a reader is searching for when searching in the Search box. If there is such a topic, then it is known as the primary topic for that term. If a primary topic exists, that article should be titled with no disambiguation, however, with a note at the top of the article directing to a disambiguation page."

The likelihood that anyone is searching for Brian Williams (Snowglobe 7) is nearly zero, whereas searching for Brian Williams (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship), twice a companion with an entire webcast revolving around him, is substantially higher. It's like saying if there was a character named Craig Owens in Planet of the Spiders (TV story), who appeared in the first two minutes and was unceremoniously killed and never mentioned again, that the current Craig Owens would have to be "Craig Owens (The Lodger)" forever, despite being a direct companion twice, and the focus of both episodes. At WORST, Brian Williams should be "Brian Williams (companion)". d ●•· 17:51, October 19, 2012 (UTC)

It looks like you skipped two important points to get to "Primary Topics". Take a look at Tardis:Disambiguation policy#Main Principles and Tardis:Disambiguation policy#Finer Detail and you'll see the more specific guidelines. I understand that at present Rory's dad is "far more likely to be the one a reader is searching for" but how long will that last? He's pretty important now, but in the long run he's just a minor character who appeared in a handful of episodes in half a series. We're not naming articles for the current series, but rather for the entire almost-50 year run of the show and its various media. Shambala108 ☎ 18:15, October 19, 2012 (UTC)

Rory's dad was a twice-companion with a considerable amount of focus. The previous "Brian Williams" was a prose character we know effectively nothing about. Look at the two characters pages it connects to. Only ONE of them has any considerable detail. It has nothing to do with "right now", there is a clear, stark, substantial difference as to the importance of each character. d ●•· 18:30, October 19, 2012 (UTC)

yeah, if the policy doesn't allow a change then the policy may need updating becuase this is obvious. If someone just googles "doctor who brian" on google they are taken to the page Brian. Which is another insignificant character. No matter how much you love the old series, the majority of people searching for a Brian will be looking for this Brian. He should be made more accessible for this reason.

Agreed. The advantage of a wiki is that it can easily be edited as things change. If in the future Brian Williams (Snowglobe 7) or another Brian Williams appears in another story and becomes more prominent, we can revisit this. As it is now, it sounds like Rory's dad should be considered the primary topic, and appear without disambiguation. There's considerable support here for revising any rules that might say otherwise. -- Rowan Earthwood ☎ 00:02, October 20, 2012 (UTC)