User:OttselSpy25/T:NO RW OP

Introduction

So today I am going to be kicking the hornet's nest in a sense. There are a lot of things Tardis Wiki is infamous for, and I'm sure privately we all have a lot of things we think the site needs to change. This OP is about one of my biggest gripes with how Tardis operates, and it all comes back to a rule which was created in good faith but is constantly enforced in ways that do not make sense. I'm talking about T:NO RW.

Background

T:NO RW is a very simple rule. The Doctor Who universe and the real world are not the same. The big infamous case given here is Marco Polo from TV: Marco Polo. In the story, Polo is said to have been born in 1252. This is a mistake, as Polo was actually born in 1254. Thus, on our wiki, we not only assume the 1252 date is correct in-universe, we generally don't add any real world facts about real world figures if said facts have not been stated in a story.

This rule is awesome, and exactly how a wiki like this should run. When it comes to the examples given on the actual rule page for T:NO RW, I pretty much agree with everything. However, where I disagree is mostly in practice.

Wikipedia, the clear godfather of all FANDOM wiki content, has a very interesting rule which I often see cited in debates about topics like this. You can find it at Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. If you don't want to click, here's the contents of the article:

If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.

So you might be wondering if I've highlighted this quote to recommend that we add this to our website? The answer is no, as it would be used it really stupid ways! But what I moreover wanted to represent was simply the other positive edition ideology present with this rule.

Our first goal as a wiki should be to make the website better for our readers. It should not be to blindly follow all rules in spite of if our actions actually benefit our users. Rules exist to make the site better, not to be followed to a point of destruction.

Issues on the site

I can not think of a better historical debate over this than TV: The Lie of the Land.

So in The Lie of the Land, the final arc takes place in this huge room filled with TVs projecting images of famous people. After this happened, User:Borisashton began adding screen grabs of these images to relevant pages. Shortly afterwards, our former admin User:Amorkuz messaged him and ordered he stop.

Hi, I've noticed that you're uploading and putting on pages images that were flashing, usually without context, in the Pyramid and in Monks' broadcasts. I would like to remind you of T:NO RW. In short, you cannot identify a person by the image based on your real-world knowledge. In order to put those images on pages, you need either to use the context (like in the case of Neil Armstrong, where the event is identified by the narrator and there is enough prior DWU information to understand who is in the spacesuit) or you need to compare the image with images of the same person that were featured in the DWU before. In the latter case, however, the new image is in most cases simply redundant in the presence of a superior image. A good example is your image of "Gagarin", which is so fuzzy that it would have been impossible to tell whether it is really him even if other images existed.

I would appreciate if you remove those images that are based on your real-world knowledge rather than DWU information from pages. Thank you in advance. Amorkuz ☎ 08:21, June 8, 2017 (UTC)

Here, Amorkuz stated that policy was that if there was no in-universe evidence of a photograph representing a person, that info should go in the behind-the-scenes section.

This began the, honestly confusing trend of pages like Mother Theresa. You'll note this page still insists on the image behind in the Behind the scenes section, because it was believed this was the policy, even though the article doesn't follow this logic.

This caused Amorkuz and I to have a very passionate disagreement, stemming both from me not understanding his suggested implementation of policy and also me being a bit of a hot head.

Here's the gist: at the time, there was only one documented story to mention Martin Luther King Jr. The Age of Revolution, where he was called Martin Luther King. So, Amorkuz set up the page as he intended: you can see it here at this edit. The info from that audio story was on the main page, the info from The Lie of the Land was in the behind the scenes section. When I added Remembrance as Dr. King's first appearance, Amorkuz moved that to BTS as well.

So here's where I got real annoyed with the situation. It's my opinion that, in cases like these, these topics do deserve in-universe coverage. And what Amorkuz was suggesting was that if I wanted to write an in-universe article about the man who gave the I Have a Dream speech, it had to be a different page than Martin Luther King.

I thought this was extremely unhelpful for everyone involved. After I publicly disagreed with him, he left this message on my wall:

I understand you want to discuss this. And we could have several days of intensive back-and-forth that would not lead to anything. Since at the moment I have other projects, I can just cite the policy: Trust only Doctor Who sources. Additionally don't go further than what the DWU source actually tells you. You are not disagreeing with me. You are disagreeing with the policy. "Did a DWU source tell you that this is a photo of MLK?" is the question that the policy demands you to answer. In principle, I do not understand how editors would be disadvantaged from reading about this photo in the BTS section rather than in an in-universe one. I am especially puzzled by you first arguing that readers should have the right of knowing what happened in a story and then adding a link to a story that provides no such information anywhere on the page. But, as I said, your beef is not with me. You want to change the policy - start a discussion on Panopticon. Until then, you are bound by the current policy as it is formulated.

Your own example of Remembrance of the Daleks perfectly encapsulates how this wiki treats such occasions. Martin Luther King is mentioned only in the "Story notes" and "Ucredited cast" (both RW parts) and at both places his name is not linked because there is no in-universe link to the name. Did you ever think why editors painstakingly added the info about MLK to this story's page but not to his own page? Do you really think it was neglect on their part?

The "we can of course" attitude already led to adding the year of Albert Einstein's invention of his famous formula based solely on his photo forged by the Monks. It will not lead to anything good.

So, as I said, by all means argue against T:NO RW. When you succeed in changing the policy, I will be enforcing the new one. Amorkuz ☎ 14:16, June 11, 2017 (UTC)

Our debate went on for some time.

Here's a recent example that I've seen some of the admins bring up on a similar situation: we've all come to agree that "Paperback Writer" by the Beatles plays in TV: The Evil of the Daleks. At no point does anyone in that story stop to say "HEY! I sure love the Beatles, who are performing this VERY SONG!" Nor do they say "OH MY WORD! IT'S PAPERBACK WRITER! THE SONG THAT IS BEING PLAYED RIGHT NOW!" And yet, we have accepted that is is ineeed [sic] Paperback Writer, a song by the Beatles, because of course we have. Who would it truly serve to bleach the information on that song from the entire site just because no one steps outside the boundaries of natural character writing to confirm to a bunch of fan boys from the future that Paperback Writer does indeed have the same name inside this fictional Sci-fi show from the '60s. A recording of MLK is a recording of MLK, just as much as Paperback Writer is a song performed by The Beatles with the title of Paperback Writer. OS25 (Talk) 14:48, June 11, 2017 (UTC)

All your examples work against you: Struwwelpeter never mentions the name of the book in the in-universe part of the page. And "Paperback Writer" is not identified as a song by the Beatles on the in-universe part of the page either. The only reason the song title is in the lead is because "Paperback Writer" is (rather persistent) part of the in-universe lyrics.

In fact, I could get into comparison of various editions of Struwwelpeter in various languages and how it's absolutely unclear from the RW perspective how it could be in English already by the time of the Frost Fair and how it is not clear what would be the title of the book in RW: would it still be in German or would the title also be translated. But it is "wholly irrelevant" as you say. Because it is the real world and it does not matter.

You clearly do not pay attention to what I say, so there is no point continuing this discussion. You have the right to your opinion. And I have an obligation to uphold the policies. Amorkuz ☎ 16:09, June 11, 2017 (UTC)

I won't quote more, because few constructive words were found past this.

To me this is a key example of the foundational disagreement in terms of how to read T:NO RW. T:NO RW says we can not blindly add information from the real world to articles. It does not say that we can not connect blatantly connected pieces of information. And the idea that this is what policy says is relatively recent.

To circle back around to the argument in 2017: it is not a controversial idea for someone to add to The Beatles that the Beatles song "Paperback Writer" played at a cafe the Second Doctor visited. Nor is it to say that on the article that "A Taste of Honey", as covered by the Beatles, played at a cafe visited by the Seventh Doctor. Yet, according to the reading of rules by Amorkuz, it should be speculation to identify the Beatles as the performers on these songs, as it's also speculation to say that an audio recording of Martin Luther King Jr is Martin Luther King Jr.

Thus, the historic and current placement of this information on the mainspace of The Beatles is incorrect, no?

In respond to our argument, I started a forum thread, which is now archived at User:SOTO/Forum_Archive/The_Panopticon_III. I of course made an OP, which you can see here, that is shockingly similar to this one.

One of the most important things I found during my research was this historical Czech quote about the Star Trek crossover:

I hear ya, but IDW aren't going to spoonfeed aspects of the STU through dialogue. That would make for a very boring, very insulting read. After all, it's not like DW always names its objects. There are many, many episodes where the sonic screwdriver isn't named. We just know it is because we see it, we hear it, and, based on our prior knowledge, we can obviously put two and two together.

After all, we have many articles that are based solely on visual inspection — like Volkswagen Beetle, HMS Teazer, London Borough of Barnet, real world people who appeared in archive footage, Doctor Who actors who played themselves — or aural examination, like practically the entire contents of category:Songs from the real world. It seems to me that the better approach is to give things their proper name in the STU and then provide a "behind the scenes" note that it wasn't specifically named by the story, but that it is unmistakably that object/person/species.User:CzechOut

This was part of my main point. That we have no policy which bans us from studying media with our eyes to make correct assertions about what is being seen. This was, confusingly, apparently my downfall. After a few posts, the forum was closed by User:Shambala108 based entirely on this argument.

Closing this one right now. User:OttselSpy25's claim that we are primarily a visual medium blatantly ignores Tardis:Neutral point of view. For someone who has been part of the wiki for so long, such a blatant misconception rules the whole thread invalid.

If he wants to open a new post, keeping the policy in mind, then go for it. It will then be discussed as it should be.User:Shambala108, closing my post.

No, I don't understand why that's a good reason to close the debate either. But what you can clearly see here is that, despite me starting this in the forum dedicated to changing rules, I was asked to only start topics which keep policy in mind. So back in the day, actually changing site policy was an uphill battle on a downhill escalator.

Now, today the precedent of Amorkuz' reading of policy is... well, honestly, widely ignored. I hate to cite this as policy, but look at Donald Trump. We have no in-universe evidence that the photo in that infobox is the same man as any other reference to Trump in Who media. And yet, it is not seen as controversial to have that in the infobox.

So, if in theory I've won the battle, why am I making a new OP? Well, because I think in spirit I still see the issues present in this topic come up time and time again.

Again, my basic argument here is that we have to use this policy in a way that benefits readers and matches authorial intent. Let me give you an example. Let's say I'm a Spider-Man fan! And I want to know every time the Doctor has mentioned Spider-Man. So I go to Spider-Man... And I scroll... and I scroll... and I scroll...

And it's not until you get to Behind the scenes that this information is presented.

In Winner Takes All, the Ninth Doctor says "My spider sense was tingling". This is a reference to Spider-Man, although no connection has been made in the DWU.

... Come on.

This is a reference to Spider-Man. We should be able to list it as a reference to Spider-Man in-universe. Now, you don't have to say "This was Spider-Man's catchphrase." But it should be in the article.

A similar instance can be found at Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The main article discusses all the abstract references to the book. But it then moves the most important reference to the Behind the scenes section.

This is the scene in Revolution of the Daleks where the Doctor recites the opening lines of the book in order to help herself get to sleep, because she is not an ally. Because the Doctor doesn't say "this is the opening page to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," we essentially ban it being discussed on that page or on the Harry Potter page.

Again, here's my issue: the "bedtime story" in that scene justifies a page. We can not simply say "Oh, this bedtime story is banned from being discussed in-universe. So do we create Bedtime story (Revolution of the Daleks)? No, because there's no need to have two pages for one thing. Well, in that case, we should be able to identify that the bedtime story is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Again, we are not adding any real world information here. We are just allowing two in-universe sources to co-exist on the same page using very basic logic. T:NO RW does not ban this! And it helps no readers for us to write articles like this!

The most recent example of this causing controversy can be found at Transformer (robot).

A recently uncovered Death's Head story with DWU connections, titled COMIC: Meet Death's Head, features Death's Head discussing Galvatron and the Transformers. This is the first in-universe source we've had that the "Robot universe" and "Robot war" mentioned in other DH stories were, in fact, the Transformers universe and the Transformers war. Thus, through T:HOMEWORLD, we can say "Transformers universe" and "Transformer war" etc.

However, there's another source. To quote the page:

When Gedarra told Primo de la Vega that Yaotl was a member of Faction Paradox, he expressed that this information meant as little as if she was a member of the "Transformers, robots in disguise." (PROSE: Against Nature)

This caused an argument between me and User:Najawin. His argument was that due to T:NO RW, the site should have separate pages for Transformer (robot) and Transformers robots in disguise. I disagreed, saying it was very very very very very very very simple as both editors and readers for us to assume that the Transformers and the Transformers, robots in disguise are the same thing.

But Najawin believes that, because the above quote implies that the Transformers, robots in disguise is a group that a human could join, we should cover the Transformers as the species and the Transformers, robots in disguise as the organization that the members of the species were made up of. I have pointed out the obvious: that Primo is being factious and is purposefully saying a phrase that doesn't make sense. But Najawin believes that using real world context to apply a sense of tone to a passage is a violation of T:NO RW, and that covering the Transformers and the Transformers, robots in disguise as the same concept is also a violation of our rules.

So once again, we're back to that old debate: how many pages should Martin Luther King Jr have?

An additional issue

This forum pretty much recaps most of my issues here, but I do have one more complaint.

Our site's policy is that we create pages on only on concepts relating to characters and world building but also... Well, pages for words and nouns. The Tardis Wiki page [[Chair]] is very infamous on this front. I actually think this is charming and can be very useful for people researching niche topics... However, there is an obvious flaw with some of these pages which I think is quietly called by T:NO RW.

The way these pages should be formatted is that an opening sentence/section defines the topic. However, doing so often means making summaries of a topic based mostly in the real world. Very rarely does a DWU story give an in-universe definition for a very basic term. Thus some edit articles believing that writing definitions for nouns is against site policy because we can't prove that definition also applies in-universe.

So instead, many articles simply go straight into discussing some stories reference to the noun. Take for instance, Essay:

700 Wonders of the Universe was, as acknowledged in the Dalek Combat Training Manual, a detailed essay by Co-ordinator Engin which was available in the Panopticon Library by the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

Another example of this causing an editing conflict can be identified at Widow. The page, at various points, had had this as the leade: "A widow (female) or widower (male) was a term for someone who lost their spouse."

In January, User:Shambala108 removed this from the article. Her justification stated:

(T:NO RW.)

This was latered re-added and then removed by Najawin. His edit summary stated:

(T:NO RW: "don't go further than what the DWU source actually tells you" - common sense inferences are explicitly disallowed.)

If T:NO RW does ban this, I don't think it explicitly does it. I, in fact, think readings this extreme are not part of current policy. If contributing simple definitions for nouns is against site policy, then we should clearly state this. If the opposite is true then this distinction should also be listed in the rules.

Again, my issue with being this dedicated to following a rule to the most extreme point because we have to follow rules instead of following a rule to a natural endpoint which is constructive to our readers is that what we're doing here actually suggests a nature to this material that doesn't exist. It would be one thing if we had a source which gave a totally different definition for what a "widow" was. But instead what we do have is several sources using a word in precisely the context it's used in the real world. Giving said context is just a natural part of covering this content and expecting sources to treat us like babies to define words like essay and chair is not reasonable. A "widow" is the same thing inside the DWU as outside it. Thus simple definitions given in the context of explaining valid sources is not and should not be against policy.

Conclusions

So I know this OP is just sort of a long rant, but here's the basic argument.

If one story name drops Martin Luther King Jr, one story shows an image of him without naming him, and one story plays audio of him again without context... All three characters are the same man. There is only one Martin Luther King Jr. And if policy is that we have to dance around and pretend oh there's no evidence that all these sources depict the same person... Then policy is wrong. And we should amend policy to be function and useful to our readers.

Furthermore - we should be able to identify and define things not only with our eyes but with our ears. So when a photograph of the Beatles appears in a story, we can identify them as the Beatles. And if audio of the Beatles plays in another story, we again can very simply identify them as the Beatles because they sound like the Beatles. And we can thus connect these two sources as being the same band and have both pieces of information on the same page.

And if a story makes as overt a reference as "my Spider sense is tingling," that information justifies being added to Spider-Man without being moved to the BTS section. We are not inserting real-world information, we are again just allowing in-universe information to be presented in the same relevant place. Simply moving info to the behind-the-scenes section is not a good enough compromise and makes for very poor pages.

Sure, I'm certain there will be situations where there's more of a complexity. But these cases should be the exception, not the rule.

This is how the website should work, and T:NO RW should specifically explain this as the accurate reading of policy. OS25🤙☎️ 05:34, 8 May 2023 (UTC)