Forum:Early 2010 dissatisfaction with Discontinuity sections

Index → Panopticon → Early 2010 dissatisfaction with Discontinuity sections

Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

Are you're discontinuity sections actually for discontinuity? Cause they seem to be used by silly people to attack everything they can in the new series whether it's an actual plot hole or not. If you're trying to be an encyclopedia - tidy them up to remove the stupid ones - if you're a classic series fan based site simply trying to Hate the new series regardless of what it does, then say so on the front page. 188.221.79.22 16:09, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

The OP has a point. Discontinuity sections should be wholly removed, I think. They're little more than a playground for half-remembered "truths" and kneejerk reactions in the immediate aftermath of watching an episode. There's a reason why Wikipedia pages on episodes don't have discontinuity sections, but instead stress the more positive continuity. To steal a line from their manual of style: "The easiest way to do this is to limit continuity points specifically to those that are referenced by reliable sources or self-evident, undisputable facts from inspection of the source material; for example, Sarah Jane Smith encountered Davros in the serial Genesis of the Daleks."

Not only are the discontinuity sections, especially on the 1963 version's serials, wholesale theft (at least in their initial stages) from The Discontinuity Guide, but they encourage users to look for what's wrong with an episode. This is almost universally a bad thing, as it's very difficult to keep in one's head the entirety of the 1963 and 2005 series' episodes, much less adventures in other media. Thus, a lot of the things listed as "discontinuous" especially on BBC Wales episode pages aren't actually discontinuous at all, or are just "one guy's theory after they watched the episode".

I know that discontinuity sections are incredibly popular on this site. The discon section of The End of Time is what's keeping it the most-edited page on the wiki right now. But the "information" usually conveyed by these sections is tripe. If we closed these sections, we might find that people would start using their time to better purpose on the wiki. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 16:50, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Many of the objections raised in these sections aren't actual plot holes and are nullified by the italicized explanations that follow, and there's a negative vibe to these sections. I'm always tempted to delete a lot of the examples in them. The one argument I can anticipate for keeping the erroneous objections that might have some merit is that seeing an objection and its explanation in the Discontinuity section prevents someone from adding that very objection, and thus we don't have to remove it over and over. However, if we simply do away with Discontinuity sections, that wouldn't be an issue as such. -- Noneofyourbusiness 19:59, January 28, 2010 (UTC)