Forum:Temporary forums/Names from novelisations in page titles

Around the time of the first NuWho Target novelisations, I created Thread:231243 about our treatment of novelisations. Beforehand, we'd put novelisations in a strange second tier of validity: parts which matched the TV story were valid, but parts which contradicted the TV story weren't. Thanks to the arguments in that thread, we changed the policy and validated all novelisation content, wrapped in "By another account" logic when necessary.

However, CzechOut carved out a specific exception for page names. There are dozens of characters who were unnamed or only given a first name in their TV appearances but received full names in novelisations. For instance, Co-pilot (The Horns of Nimon) – a generic and cumbersome page name if I've ever seen one – was called "Sardor" in the novelisation. Why not just call the page Sardor instead? CzechOut's reasoning, mirrored at Talk:Miranda (The TV Movie), was that "articles shouldn't be named on the basis of an obscure work, like a novelisation". I didn't fully appreciate this logic at the time, but I've come to see that it's very wise and shows a keen sensitivity to the needs of the full spectrum of our users. When I proposed that the old, TV-dabbed names would still exist as redirects, CzechOut replied at Thread:231243#4 that the way redirects are displayed in search results simply isn't sufficient to bridge the gap for casual users of the wiki.

In the five years since then, our benevolent overlords at Fandom have added a new feature: when you search for a name which is a redirect, it shows you both the redirect and what it redirects to! For instance, to use the example of a novelisation-original name later adopted by other media, when you search "Cass" it offers

Cass Fermazzi (Redirected from Cass (The Night of the Doctor))

This perfectly addresses CzechOut's concern. With the searchability issue resolved once and for all, we should officially grant novelisations the same weight as other sources in page naming, particularly in cases where it would help disambiguation. – n8 (☎) 15:43, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I think this is a "common sense" proposal that I wholeheartedly support. The redirects showing up in searches pretty much solves the only reason we even blocked using names from novelizations in article titles. Pluto2☎ 16:40, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support this proposal, as it allows for easie linking to the page (lack of disambiguation), informs casual watchers of new information (whilst not confusing them - see the redirect) and, well, I always like moving further into "all (valid) sources are equally valid". There is only one small area I would be concerned about - if a full name is given in a TV story and is then (hypothetically) contradicted in a novelisation, which name do we use? I presume we'd use the TV name (with a mention of the alternative name in the lead), but I feel we should confirm this into policy from the get-go. Cousin Ettolrhc ☎ 16:55, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 17:03, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

100% agree. Why should a name from an audio, novel or short story be considered any less obscure than one from a novelisation? Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 17:11, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Totally Support and to respond to Cousin Ettolrch I think in the case of contradicting full names between a TV story and a Novelization, Susan Foreman vs Susan English for example, we'd go with name from the TV Story on the basis of seniority or frequency. In most cases the TV name would have been used first, but if there are occasions where a novelization's name was used first but the majority of later sources use a different contradicting name, that later name may be used instead. I don't know if any cases like that actually exist and I invite people to poke holes in and iron out this idea because I feel like this could have it's own complications that I'm not entirely foreseeing. Time God Eon ☎ 19:09, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Fully agree with you there Time God Eon, just wanted to get it out there. Sincerely doubt anyone will disagree except in another hypothetical scenario I just thought of. What if a character called "Sarah Smythe" on TV (credited as such) is then called "Sarah Smith" in the novelisation, and then later EU stories use the novelisation name, what would we do then? Or is this not worth thinking about until that actually happens, considering it's such an absurd edge-case and this policy would work 99% of the time. Cousin Ettolrhc ☎ 21:04, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Nothing more to add. Fractal Doctor ☎ 22:05, 7 February 2023 (UTC)