Talk:Main Range

Rename

I have created this talk page to address the question: should the Big Finish range entitled Main Range on this wiki be entitled The Monthly Adventures as is it's official name on the Big Finish website? – The preceding unsigned comment was added by K9-1132 (talk • contribs) .

I'd agree with that. As that name has been used for several years while it's been active, that seems fair enough. Danochy ☎ 01:49, November 3, 2020 (UTC)

Think that this is wise. Aren't they coming to an end in early 2021 too? So main range isn't really appropriate when the range is discontinued. KennethBenidorm ☎ 02:43, November 3, 2020 (UTC)

I mean, neither would "The Monthly Adventures", by that standard, seeing how they'll no longer be coming out monthly. We don't call it "the main range of Big Finish", anyway. We call it "the Main Range" because that's what it used to be named.

In the abstract I could see us renaming to "The Monthly Adventures", but equally, we don't have a duty to use the latest name. Quite the opposite, in fact — we care a great deal about how things were presented at the time of release, which is why the TV Movie to us is "Doctor Who (TV story)", not "The TV Movie" of "The Enemy Within (TV story)". For series titles, the rules are somewhat more flexible, but the fact remains.

And the big roadblock I see is this: we link to "Main Range" an awful lot across the Wiki. It would be a lot of work changing every one of those links, and it would be a bit pointless to enact the rename without doing all that work. By which I mean: yes, we could rename this page to The Monthly Adventures but keep Main Range as a redirect and thus keep all the links the way they are. But if so, why even bother? Functionally we'll still be calling it "the Main Range.

Before anyone mentions using a bot to change links, even that is not without issues. "Main Range" doesn't have an article, so usually, when mentioning it in an article, we'll type something like

Ascendency of the Trods was the 789th story of the Main Range, released on Asbril the 89th, 2167.

or perhaps

Ascendency of the Trods was the 789th story of Big Finish Productions' Main Range, released on Asbril the 89th, 2167.

whereas under the new name, we'd want that text to read

Ascendency of the Trods was the 789th story of The Monthly Adventures, released on Asbril the 89th, 2167.

If it was a matter of swapping a link for another, a bot run could do it. But here we'd want the bot to grab not just the link "Main Range", but also a hypothetical non-hyperlinked "the", or indeed to rephrase the whole thing to better fit the new title! It's just not feasible.

That's not a hard no on the rename, then, but it's a pretty strong technical argument against. And as I said, there's nothing wrong with using the older names. Please address that problem, then, if you still want to argue for a rename. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 02:55, November 3, 2020 (UTC)

None of the pages directly use Main Range though, they are all (and I've checked a fair range of them) formatted as such:

Ascendency of the Trods was the seven hundred and eighty-ninth story in Big Finish's monthly range.

So the only change required there would be in the infobox, which would be a direct switch. If we also want to change the lead, the ubiquitous use of that format would make it very easy.

Whether we actually want to make the change is a different matter. While I'm now not entirely sure we should switch, I don't think the TV movie is a valid comparison, as that was a case of changing the name after the fact. The Monthly Adventures is very much an active range (for a while longer, and at least while the name was changed), so a closer comparison would be Doctor Who Magazine, although that one is much more clear cut given the longevity of its third and current name. Whatever the case, I feel we should go with the title which best has our readers in mind. I know a fair few people still refer to its as the Main Range, and as far as I know this is the most long-running name of the series, so perhaps that would be the best route to take? Danochy ☎ 03:22, November 3, 2020 (UTC)

I mean, we'd still want to change "[[Main Range|monthly range]]" to "[[The Monthly Adventures|monthly range]]", you know. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 11:16, November 3, 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I know, but we wouldn't have to worry about the surrounding formatting, would we? That's what I meant when I referred to the ubiquity of the current format. Danochy ☎ 11:26, November 3, 2020 (UTC)