Forum:Validating non-fiction
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.
Opening post
Although this wiki's "in-universe" role-play gimmick is probably too entrenched ever to be removed, I'm glad that the community has finally made some strides towards ameliorating some of its more encyclopedically damaging effects, most notably the recent decisions to validate several types of material which the wiki previously labelled "non-canon".
Of the remaining problems in this area, one stands out to me because it's both particularly silly and would be extremely simple to fix. In summary: information from non-fiction sources such as reference books, magazine articles, documentaries, press releases, and toy packaging - no matter how explicitly stated, objectively official, and plainly true within the narrative itself - is bizarrely considered "speculation" and is relegated to BTS sections, if acknowledged at all. This is a really ridiculous state of affairs and has led to a considerable amount of Doctor Who knowledge being lost.
Most egregiously in my view, there are several Doctor Who characters who go unnamed in-story for various reasons, but whose official names have been known for years - yet the wiki refuses to use them in article titles and running text. For example, Jim Broadbent's character in Curse of Fatal Death is actually called "the Shy Doctor", but the wiki misleadingly calls him "the Eleventh Doctor". Because his real name was only shown in DWM credits and the VHS documentary, editors whose real issue is evidently that they personally happen to dislike the official name can continue to pretend it's only "speculation", and point to the non-fiction rule as an excuse to stall the debate for years on end. As a wiki reader and a fan of the show, this kind of behaviour is incredibly embarrassing to see. Clearly, something has to change.
Here is my humble suggestion: we validate non-fiction. That is, when a rights-holder conveys a fact about the fictional world via some formal non-fiction publication, it should be treated with the same weight as any other official material. We've already validated non-narrative fiction; non-fiction is just the natural next step, and there's a plethora of forgotten information out there waiting to enrich the wiki. PintlessMan ☎ 14:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
Strongly disagree with everything here. We have Template:Conjecture for a reason - to allow pages to bear their "production" names while clarifying that these names have not been confirmed in-universe.
Furthermore, this forum itself is arguing for the validation of non-fiction information while the four rules of T:VS clearly state that Rule 1 is "only fiction counts." This exists, explicitly, to disqualify non-fiction.
Before we go any further, I'd like to ask that we don't get into the Curse of Fatal Death naming debate here. But I think it could very well be argued that the "production titles" are not necessarily helpful to our readers or very thoroughly in-universe. The distinction between "The Handsome Doctor" and "The Very Handsome Doctor" is tedious at best. I think it's similar to how during the production of Masterful Big Finish officially called the 1996 Master "The Movie Master" but went out of their way not to credit him this way. Sure, naming the page Movie Master would mean there's no longer a story DAB - but what we all need to realize is that sometimes a DAB is good. Story DABs are not the natural evil of the website which need to be purged, they are more than often the right choice for the situation. OS25🤙☎️ 15:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
