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Forums → Archive index → Panopticon archives → Doctor Who prefix in titles
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How should we handle the usage of "Doctor Who" in titles? We seem to have a fairly inconsistent use of the prefix in titles.

With video games we've got a fairly inconsistent usage. Doctor Who: The Adventure Games is prefixed yet the individual games aren't. Then with single releases some like Destiny of the Doctors aren't prefix.

Most of the Doctor Who reference books are titled this way such as; Doctor Who: The Sixties, though there are a few exceptions The Universal Databank, Travel Without the TARDIS, The Key to Time.

I propose we just drop the Doctor Who prefix for everything. As far as I can see the rationale appears to be that it's on the cover (at least that holds true enough for the books), but if that were the case the majority of merchandise and texts we have listed would need to be prefixed also. --Tangerineduel / talk 15:44, May 31, 2012 (UTC)


I have been assuming that when "Doctor Who" begins at the beginning of a title, it is because the publisher/producer/distributor/boyfriend of the owner titled it that way, like the way Target used to change the names of the stories for the novelizations to "Doctor Who and...."
That being the case, the name of the whatsit is (e.g.) * [[Doctor Who: the Sixties. It should be noted up front and on top. After that it may be convenient to refer to it as The Sixties, but that's a nonce or nick name, and no more appropriate than using an old, annoying nickname at the front of your page. Show a little respect. Boblipton talk to me 16:47, May 31, 2012 (UTC)]]
I agree with Tangerineduel. Drop the prepending Doctor Who. It should be taken as read on a DW wiki, unless of course it actually disambiguates in some way (as it does with Target novelisations). This isn't an issue of "respect", Bob, but organisational efficiency. If this were a general library catalogue, I'd agree that the prepending DW would be necessary. But here it gets in the way of auto-suggest, alphabetisation in categories, and various other automated processes. When we speak of "The Sixties" on this wiki, of course we mean the reference book. The Doctor Who bit is unhelpful and redundant. Here's the full list of everything affected by this issue:

With that many things beginning with Doctor Who: autosuggest is useless, the titles are immune to {{TitleSort}}, and, as TD pointed out, there's no particular rhyme or reason to why some things don't have the prepending Doctor Who:. If we make the rule "drop the Doctor Who" unless it's absolutely necessary for disambiguation, the system will make much more sense.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 18:37: Fri 01 Jun 2012 

Isn't it possible to type "Where's the Doctor?" (to choose a case at semi random from the bottom of the list where it shows up easily on my editing page) and his the system suggest "Doctor Who: Where's the Doctor?"?Boblipton talk to me 20:35, June 1, 2012 (UTC)
Nope, not with auto-suggest. It does show up in the list derived from Special:Search, but that's not auto-suggest. Auto-suggest, sometimes called link-suggest, is far more useful and important. It's the little list that pops up as you add letters to your search term, or as you add letters after the open brackets of a newly created link whilst editing.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 21:26: Fri 01 Jun 2012 
Grumble Grumble. I concede that it does look necessary, I'm going to pick one nit. Your statement that "it's not about respect" is an attempt to simplify the argument. Writing is almost never a simple choice with one right way to do thing and no other choice possessed of any validity.
I think the best way to handle this would be to make the page name -- going back to the title I am using as an example -- "Where's the Doctor" but referring to it in its first reference in the introduction as Doctor Who: Where's the Doctor?. As the White Knight teaches us, there is a vast difference between something's name and what it is called. Boblipton talk to me 00:01, June 2, 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the general consensus here, but I think we should be generous in allowing for disambiguation. That is, I think the rule shouldn't just be "drop the Doctor Who unless it's absolutely necessary for disambiguation", but "drop the Doctor Who unless it might distinguish the article from another topic." The difference would apply in cases like Doctor Who: Original Television Soundtrack. Under the former rule, we would have Original Television Soundtrack, which would be distinct from any other title, but wouldn't really distinguish between either the existing Doctor Who - Original Soundtrack Recording or an article on the Torchwood Original Television Soundtrack, if somebody made one. Similarly, we should keep Doctor Who: The Sixties at that full title, to avoid potential confusion with 1960s.
I also agree with Bob that we should distinguish between the article title (in which ease of auto-suggest can be a factor) and the title given in bold at the top of the article (which should reflect the work's full title, as given on the copyright page or indicia, etc.). So we could have an article at The Writer's Tale, but the first line of the article would still say "Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale is a 2008 book..." —Josiah Rowe talk to me 00:09, June 2, 2012 (UTC)
I agree that we should only add the Doctor Who or Torchwood or whatever when it's absolutely nessecary for DABbing.
However I disagree with Josiah Rowe's proposal that the Doctor Who: The Sixties books should remain their titles. A {{you may}} can be added to those pages that have similar date names.
If there's no further discussion on this topic in the next 4 days we'll move forward to change all the titles. --Tangerineduel / talk 14:13, December 1, 2012 (UTC)
The vast majority with this prefix should probably go, but references to trading cards and related magazines (like Battles in Time) should probably keep the "Doctor Who" bit, as we don't say "Adventures comic stories", or "Magazine special issues". And as mentioned before dabbing is pretty much required for the modern-day soundtrack albums.
Also, keep Doctor Who: The Script of the Film and Doctor Who - The Novel of the Film, as Doctor Who is the actual name of the TV movie. Other script-based books I'm not sure about, especially the one for Eccleston's era, which doesn't even say an episode or season.
Anything play or video game related should never have a prefix. It just doesn't gel with other uses of stories on the wiki. -- Tybort (talk page) 18:20, December 1, 2012 (UTC)
I'll prepare a final list of the changes to be made so that we can review before pushing the "go" button. A list has to be prepared in any case for the swift bot move. The only question I'd have at this point is whether we want to retain the redirects or not? That is, do we keep Doctor Who: The Early Years upon moving the actual PAGENAME to The Early Years? I'm guessing yes, but I'm biased in that it's much less work to leave the current links as is. Still, if anyone strongly feels that the all the links should be changed over to the "Doctor Who:"-less versions, I'll have the bot do its thing.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  22:30: Sat 01 Dec 2012
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