Tardis talk:In-universe perspective

The Doctor

Now, I know that it says articles are to be in past tense, but what about the Doctor. Not the past versions, but the current one. Since his character is presently ongoing and changing, should his page be in past tense? I know the biographical stuff should, but what about the personality? Clothes? etc. I think these should be the exception. I mean, take a look here. Before, it was in present tense, giving the feeling that this is the present Doctor, but when it changed to past tense, it makes it seem as though the Eleventh Doctor isn't the present one, and that his personality etc. is now set, as he has regenerated. Do you see what I mean? --The Thirteenth Doctor 22:07, June 18, 2010 (UTC)

This sort of exception has been allowed at Memory Alpha, and it's created utter chaos over there. They have the notion of the "eternal concept", in which things that are effectively timeless can be written in the present tense. Only problem is that everyone wants to argue that the article they're writing has timeless qualities. If you want a trip through truly headache-inducing chaos, see their comparable talk page.

It's largely because of the negative example of MA that our rule isn't based on philosophical judgement, or placing yourself within the fictional environment at a certain point in the narrative timeline.

It's simply a stylistic call.

And it's really simple. If you're writing about something within a narrative — like a character, a species, a bit of technology, or a religion — do so with the past tense, excepting. only those sentences under "behind the scenes" section head. We could have just as easily said, "use only the present tense or the future tense." But we didn't. We simply chose past tense, and are requiring all editors to do the same simply to engender stylistic harmony.

If it helps you wrap your mind around the concept then you can simply believe you're writing at a point when all of the DWU no longer exists. At such a moment, the Doctor is dead and everything else has long since withered away, so the past tense is obviously indicated.

But that would be a palliative of your own application. Our rule doesn't depend on such mental gymnastics. We've simply picked a tense and stuck with it.

(Also, if you are taking the time to compare our rules to Memory Alpha's, note that from our first year of existence, we've had a clear policy on tenses. It's been rephrased every few years, but the gist of it has always contained the explicit statement, "use past tense". As you can see by reading the MA talk page linked above, they took a long time to make such a formal declaration, by which point they had thousands of articles written in the present tense.)
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  13:45: Thu 15 Nov 2012