Forum:Formatting the Doctors

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Revision as of 13:50, 12 June 2010 by Tangerineduel (talk | contribs) (clarifying my statement)
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I think that we should discuss the formatting of each of the individual Doctors' pages. A lot of them have sections in different orders, some are subsections of other sections. I think we should devise an order in which each of these sections should go. Have a look at the contents section on each of the Doctors' pages and you'll see what I mean. The Thirteenth Doctor 13:13, June 7, 2010 (UTC)

We should focus on making the articles in-universe, fully in-universe. Some sections like 'unrecorded adventures' just seem to be a place to dump information that hasn't been incorporated into the article.
I think we need to seriously look at 'Key life events', it's especially bad for the new series it's become a list of stories except written in-universe - maybe even getting rid of this section across all articles.
I've done a quick edit, removing 'profile' making Biography the first heading.
The Companions section on the Fourth Doctor article seems a little surplus to requirements, it's not really about the Fourth Doctor or really his relationship with them, it's more a summary of their time with the Fourth Doctor, referencing them.
Clothes and impact on later incarnations on the Fifth Doctor article should be integrated into the article, both would probably be better in 'Psychological profile'.
'Mysteries and Discrepancies' seems to be 'Discontinuity, Plot holes and errors' by another name and a little bit more in-universe. Some of the info could be integrated into the article better. On the First Doctor article it seems well researched, though on many others its devolved into the sort of stuff we used to see in 'discontinuity' sections on the story articles.
The Tenth Doctor article needs a good cull of information and big re-structure a lot of the sections read like condensed plot summaries. --Tangerineduel 15:01, June 7, 2010 (UTC)
I think the "Key life events" sections are near-useless for not just the Doctor's incarnations, but for almost everyone. They seem to fall into four categories:
  • Most classic companions, non-TV characters, and one-story characters who have this section have nearly empty lists (Ben Jackson).
  • Most characters who had two separate runs in continuity have a list of "bookend appearances" with synopses (Liz Shaw, Jamie McCrimmon).
  • Most new-series characters, Doctors included, and some of the classic Doctors have a huge list of randomly-selected appearances with attached synopses (Fifth Doctor, Martha Jones).
  • A tiny handful of characters with complicated timelines have somewhat useful lists (Sam Jones, Fitz Kreiner, and maybe River Song if "River Song's Timeline" were rewritten), but even there I don't think much would be lost by scrapping it. (Look at The Master, Sarah Jane Smith, and Bernice Summerfield, which seem to do fine without it.) --Falcotron 03:19, June 9, 2010 (UTC)
I agree with this. There doesn't seem to be anything in the "Key Life Events" sections that couldn't be better conveyed in a simple biography. Rob T Firefly 07:39, June 12, 2010 (UTC)
Alrighty! Feel free to go forth and integrate the information in the Key Life Events section into the article or remove it, I think we should do this across all articles, not just the Doctors articles. --Tangerineduel 13:50, June 12, 2010 (UTC)