Talk:100,000 BC

Better as redirect to An Unearthly Child than to year

I note there's been a little tussle in the history of this page over where it should redirect.

The answer is flatly An Unearthly Child.

Because an earlier objection was that "more things linked to year than story", I have re-linked all instances of usage as a year to BC#Prehistory. 100,000 BC is the actual, not working, title of An Unearthly Child. It's what the production team called it in all internal memos. Through the years, we have come to believe that it's called An Unearthly Child, but that's not what the production team intended. BBC Enterprises and/or John Nathan-Turner changed it after the fact. Thus as the site increases its coverage of the very early days of Doctor Who, it will be more convenient to have a redirect to AUC through 100,000 BC than it will be to retain a link to the year. After all, once you've defined all the characters in AUC, you've exhausted your use of 100,000 BC as a year marker. As we begin to quote from any number of memos written by any number of people, we'll encounter 100,000 BC, the story, more and more often.

Another point is that 100,000 BC doesn't conform to our naming convention on very large years, which removes commas. We don't even seem to be able to agree on this site whether we refer to "BC" as "BC" or "BCE". Additionally, as a year, a redirect for 100,000 BC leads to a page that is not just about 100,000 BC. Serial A is the only thing that the exact phrase "100,000 BC" definitely is.

Finally, older fans of the program will search for "100,000 BC", believing it to be the title of serial A. Lazier users will want to search for "100,000 BC" because it's shorter to type than "An Unearthly Child". CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 14:29, January 9, 2011 (UTC)