Forum:Splitting our BBC article

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Opening post

I think that this should be pretty uncontroversial but it's reversing a change made in a forum thread so hence must be a thread itself. There used to be 2 article about the BBC on this wiki: BBC was about the in-universe BBC, while British Broadcasting Corporation was about the real world BBC. This was very confusing and so it seems that, sometime in 2019, the pages were merged following Thread:141287 (which I can't actually find). However, we now have a more natural way to disambiguate the 2 articles: the "(in-universe)" dab term. In fact, as part of the page moves I performed following Forum:Temporary forums/IU DAB Terms, I moved BBC to BBC (in-universe). This now naturally opens up BBC to be a page about (or a redirect to a page about) the real world corporation.

This feels to me like an increadibly important entity that should receive its own page. It's quite possibly the most important real world entity surrounding Doctor Who and there's lots of stuff to say about it. The fact that it does not have its own page separate from its in-universe counterpart feels like a relic of the wiki's past.

Therefore, I propose that we move and expand the contents of BBC (in-universe)#Behind the scenes to either BBC or British Broadcasting Corporation (the other name being a redirect). To make things easier, I've gone through and changed pretty much all links to BBC that should now be to BBC (in-universe). I've probably missed a few but, in theory, all links pointing to BBC now intend to mean the real world corporation. As such, this would be very quick and easy to carry out. Assuming that everyone does agree to perform this split, all that needs to be decided is what to use as the primary page name. Bongo50 ☎ 14:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Great, common-sense idea, and I applaud your exhaustive effort in updating links. I support BBC as the page for the real-world corporation and BBC (in-universe) for the fictional entity, with British Broadcasting Corporation and British Broadcasting Corporation (in-universe) as redirects. – n8 (☎) 14:53, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I unequivocally agree with everything. This change is absolutely necessary and we now have the means to do it with ease. I feel, however the ultimate page should be at British Broadcasting Corporation in the same way Big Finish redirects to Big Finish Productions and BBV to BBV Productions.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

14:54, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I completely agree with the split, and think that it should be located at British Broadcasting Corporation, with BBC as a redirect. Aquanafrahudy 📢 15:42, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes! and British Broadcasting Corporation , due to the same reasons as Epsilon. Cousin Ettolrahc ☎ 17:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I disagree, Epsilon. Wikipedia's page for it is BBC, and I guarantee that anyone searching for it on our site will be using that search term. (The BBV redirect still goes to BBV Productions, not Bill & Ben Video Productions!) Furthermore, there is no in-universe source for BBC standing for "British Broadcasting Corporation", only "BBC", so it would ruin the parallel with BBC (in-universe). Putting the real-world entity at "British Broadcasting Corporation" and the fictional entity at "BBC", even with an (in-universe) dab term, would just be reviving the state of affairs that we correctly rejected in 2019. – n8 (☎) 17:18, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, T:EVIL TWIN, but that's a good point. I agree with Nate in that it should be located at BBC and BBC (in-universe). Aquanafrahudy 📢 17:22, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree, and think the same should be done for ITV, Netflix, etc., which I believe are currently unsplit. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 21:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Fair points @NateBumber; I'd be happy with either or then.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

21:54, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

We could use {{conjecture}} to have the fictional entity's article at British Broadcasting Corporation (in-universe). Cgl1999 ☎ 22:43, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Thread:141287 is at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon II. The reason why this is difficult to find is that there are four panopticon archive boards in SOTO's archive, and they list 2, and what they list as the second is, in fact, the third. So to see the second and fourth board you need to manually change the URL.

I'm unconvinced by Nate's argument based on searching, for the reasons detailed in Forum:Relaxing T:HONOUR. We do not base page names on what is most commonly searched. If there's a redirect, we're fine. (Is it the case that there's no IU source for the full name? This is a reasonable argument, but is itself a can of worms. The old thread says there is.) Najawin ☎ 22:43, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree searchability isn't the most convincing of reasons to do so, but I do think BBC would be preferable to British Broadcasting Corporation. The vast majority of sources in- and out-of-universe use the short form. Consider Romana rather than Romanadvoratrelundar, TARDIS rather than Time And Relative Dimension In Space, and, yes, BBV Productions rather than "Bill and Ben Videos Production". Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 12:31, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Conclusion

A relatively uncontroversial decision: in line with our modern overall way of tackling in-universe counterparts to subjects which we also cover from a real-world point of view, we should split the in-universe and real-world versions of the BBC, making use of the "(in-universe)" dab term to distinguish them — thus obviating the original thread's fundamental issue that it was arbitrary and confusing to use "BBC" for one and "British Broadcasting Corporation" for the other.

The only area of controversy, ultimately, was what to call the twin pages. I think it makes sense that the real-world and in-universe one should match (this is not an absolute rule, there could be cases where this is inadvisable for one reason or another, but this isn't one of them). As I outlined in my reply directly above this conclusion, there are many precedents in- and out-of-universe for using a shortened form or acronym if it is more widely used and recognisable than the full version, although those concerns do not really boil down to "searchability" in the way User:NateBumber implied. Thus, I am closing in favour of BBC for the real-world organisation and BBC (in-universe) for the in-universe page, with redirects at British Broadcasting Corporation and British Broadcasting Corporation (in-universe).

As always, thank you to all who participated. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 12:13, 1 February 2024 (UTC)