Tardis:Canon policy

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T:CANON
T:CAN

The goal of the TARDIS Index File, the Doctor Who Wiki is to be a reliable, concise guide to all readers. Towards this end, it is necessary for us to restrict to some extent the type of information we accept and to restrict what we cover on this wiki.

Types of article

There are three types of articles:

• Doctor Who Universe articles

• Any subject mentioned in or derived from a television story, prose story, comic story, radio or audio drama. This type is further divided into two sub-types:

• Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and K9 and Company - Subjects seen or mentioned in these series.
• Spin-offs - Any subject seen or mentioned in prose (novels, novellas and short stories), audio and comic stories, officially sanctioned by the BBC and/or license holders.

• Other Universes - Stories which are not necessarily part of 'canon' but derived from the Doctor Who Universe, i.e. films such as Dr. Who and the Daleks and stage plays such as Doctor Who and the Daleks in The Seven Keys to Doomsday and parodies such as The Curse of Fatal Death, authorised, though not part of 'canon'.

• Real World/Out of universe

• Information on stories set in the Doctor Who Universe.
• Information on the creators and actors who have taken part in the making of the stories.
• Related topics.

For additional resources of information for Real World articles see Tardis:Resources.

The policy of the TARDIS Index File with regard to acceptable sources for use in articles is as follows:

Valid sources

In general, every-narrative-thing licenced by the BBC or the original licence holder of a Doctor Who derived character, race or species is considered a valid source.

• All Doctor Who television stories.
• Spin-offs such as Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, K9 and Company and K9 (TV series).
• All other Doctor Who spin-offs such as those produced by BBV Productions and Reeltime Pictures (i.e P.R.O.B.E., Auton Trilogy and Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans, Downtime)
• All Target Books novels not based on a broadcast television story (i.e., The Nightmare Fair, Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma)
• All Virgin Missing Adventures, Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures stories (i.e., Timewyrm: Genesys, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Beige Planet Mars)
• All BBC Books Eighth Doctor, Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor and Past Doctor novels (i.e., The Eight Doctors, The Clockwise Man, The Stone Rose, The Witch Hunters).
• All Telos Publishing novellas (i.e, Frayed, Rip Tide, Fallen Gods)
• All BBC Radio Dramas and webcasts (i.e., The Paradise of Death, Death Comes to Time, Real Time).
• Most audio dramas released by BBV, Big Finish Productions and Magic Bullet Productions (i.e., Zygons: Homeland, Storm Warning, Invasion of the Daleks, Coming to Dust).
• All comic strips appearing in Doctor Who Magazine, Doctor Who Adventures, Doctor Who: Battles in Time, TV Comic, Countdown / TV Action, Radio Times, Torchwood Magazine and the British Broadcasting Corporation's Doctor Who website.
• All Abslom Daak, Bernice Summerfield, Kaldor City, Faction Paradox, Time Hunter, and Miranda stories.
• All short fiction and comic strips published in Doctor Who Annuals (including Doctor Who Yearbooks), Doctor Who Storybooks, Dalek annuals, Torchwood Magazine Yearbooks and K-9 Annual 1983.

Secondary sources

See also Tardis:Resources for more resources for writing articles

These sources are valid sources, however should not be the only source for an article.

• Novelisations of broadcast television stories by Target Books and other publishers may be used, however any information that contradicts that novelisation's TV story's information is to be considered apocryphal and should not be included within the main body of the article. It should instead be included in the 'Behind the scenes' section of said article.

Other universe sources

The following sources are valid but are a deliberate break from Doctor Who Universe canon and therefore should only be used for articles relating to the worlds, individuals and objects etc created in the sources.

• Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who Unbound audio dramas and any prose stories connected to them.
• Both Dalek movies starring Peter Cushing; Dr. Who and the Daleks, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. and any prose or comic stories connected to them.
• The parody-stories and episodes such as; The Curse of Fatal Death, Tonight's the Night, Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?.

What is not considered a valid source, and why?

This section is still in flux, as elements of this policy are under discussion.

• Material from FASA's The Doctor Who Role Playing Game and other Role Playing games, as these sometimes contain histories and other information which conflicts with the television and prose stories.

Some material from the FASA game was incorporated into Virgin Publishing's Missing and New Adventures series. Such info should be cited to the NAs/MAs in which they appear, rather than the FASA materials.

• Merchandise - Several items of merchandise are often given names that never appear in dialogue or are never seen on screen and have often been produced for marketing purposes.
• Fan-made blueprints and specifications
• Fan fiction of any kind (this includes fanon).
• Websites, unless information is clearly stated as sourced listed on the Tardis:Resources page.

What is not covered by this wiki

• Per Forum:BBV and canon policy the following audio and video based series/stories are not considered part of our canon policy and are not covered in single articles on this wiki.

• Anything based on BBV's Cyberons; Cyberon, Cybergeddon.
• Anything from The Stranger series (video or audio) which includes; Summoned by Shadows, More Than a Messiah, In Memory Alone, The Terror Game, Breach of the Peace, Eye of the Beholder, The Last Mission, The Eye of the Storm,
• Anything from The Wanderer series; Cyber-Hunt and Vital Signs
• Anything from The Time Travellers series; Republica, Island of Lost Souls, Prosperity Island, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Other Side, Guests for the Night, Ghosts, Only Human, Blood Sports, Punchline
• The Airzone Solution
• Infidel's Comet
• The Pattern

Items on which policy is unclear

• The relevance of The Doctor Who Technical Manual, the in-universe history presented in part of The Terrestrial Index, The Doctor Who Monster Book and similar items and their suitability for use in creating and contributing to articles in the TARDIS Index File is unclear at this time, and up for discussion.
• Background information from the production staff (Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert, John Nathan-Turner, Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, etc) should either be included under the relevant background section (where available), or added to the article's Talk page where its validity can be assessed for inclusion.

Invalid articles

If you believe an article contains nothing but information this wiki does not cover, or is sourced solely from non-valid sources, then check out our deletion policy for information regarding what can be nominated for deletion and the process to do so.

If an article has information concerning a canon subject but contains information from a non-valid resource, the issue should be debated on the article's discussion or talk page, and the article should be edited as appropriate.

See also

• Resources