More actions
Warring States FPW
Yes, I recently stumbled across that page of yours and was admiring it mightilyΒ :) As both its caretaker and the user who made it redundant to Tardis, I see the Faction Paradox Wiki as the giant, free-for-all sandbox where we can more beautifully cover the aspects of the Faction Paradox universe that grate against TW's conventions, eg my shot-down merger of Interference - Book One and Interference - Book Two into Interference (novel), or the finer points of who exactly left Carmen Yeh on that ElleryCorp shipping vessel. So by all means, the inventive timeline trickery of User:Najawin/Sandbox 4 would have a welcome home over at the Faction Paradox Wiki! β N8 (β/ποΈ) 02:27, September 12, 2020 (UTC)
Quantum Mechanics for Audio Story Editing
Hey Najawin, hope you're keeping well! I just finished listening to the audio story Ghost Walk. There's actually a bit of quantum mechanics involved in the story. Nothing crazy, but I made a little explanation in the "Notes" section explaining the differences between its use in the story and its actual definition in real life (they involve time in it to a certain degree but not in a sensible way). I was wondering if you could give it a quick check to make sure it's publishable in case an admin comes along and is confused by it, as I'm sure you have more experience with that sort of stuff than I do. Cheers, DoctorQuoi β 04:26, September 15, 2020 (UTC)DoctorQuoi
- I see. I would have to play the audio back and give you the exact lines to work with but from what I understood, they were trying to use the analogy that "the more certain/exact a point in time they try to reach, the less likely they are to reach it" I believe was what was thrown in the story. The story, unfortunately, never explicitly states that it is comparing it the the uncertainty principle, it just seemed to be implied. I will have a look at those Pre-narrative Briefings (short story) as soon as possible, thank you for providing them.
- In terms of the time-energy uncertainty relation, I only mention it because in the story, they apply the "abstract" understanding of the Uncertainty principle, in other words, the popular "misconception" and erroneously apply it to time. However, debates on "time-energy" uncertainty aside (thank you for providing those articles, will make for some nice reading this weekend), I only brought it up to explain that time in non-relativistic QM is not thought of or treated the same way as position and momentum in Heisneberg's Uncertainty Principle, as the story erroneously does. So I thought it would be a good idea to explain the "actual" "uncertainty relation", namely the one provided in non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics, at least according to my NRQM textbook (Townsend, A Modern Approach to Quantum Mechanics, 2nd Edt). I will edit it up and reply to your talkpage tomorrow to see if I have properly fixed up the section. Thank you again for all your help. DoctorQuoi β 06:10, September 15, 2020 (UTC)DoctorQuoi
- Indeed, while we used Sakurai throughout my graduate course on NRQM, I would continually go back to Townsend, especially since so many of the more difficult derivations in Sakurai are done and explained a lot more clearly in Townsend. It's one of my most prized books.... that and every page is full of notes haha! Alright then, I will either bring it up on SOTO's talk page or another admin's tomorrow. Thank you for all clarifications! DoctorQuoi β 06:19, September 15, 2020 (UTC)DoctorQuoi
Re:Concerning admin nom
Hi, thanks for reaching out! You're right that User:CzechOut is indeed the best person to direct the question to, for two reasons: he was the one to reach the decision for Borisashton candidacy being cut short, and moreover because he's not only an admin at Tardis Wiki, but also he works at Fandom, so he has a better grasp at the ins-and-outs of the more specific details.
But, while I can't speak for him, I can look at some other precedent and try to give you a nudge of perspective. The mere fact that a user was blocked previous to candidacy doesn't exclude them from applying for an admin position (for example, User:SOTO had received two short blocks - for other reasons). I believe the reason Boris got unlucky is because he violated not just local policy - but a Term of Use. Though, again, only CzechOut will be able to confirm this for you. OncomingStorm12th β 18:32, September 16, 2020 (UTC)
Re:Template rename
Hi, you have to add the template like this for it to show up properly: [template]. Otherwise, all you'll get is {{speedy rename}} also appearing on every page you add {[tlx|Proposed Identities of The Enemy}}. I'll perform the rename now. OncomingStorm12th β 02:55, October 1, 2020 (UTC)
- Huh, weird, it should have updated, but sometimes that takes a bit to update. At any rate, thanks for reaching out. OncomingStorm12th β 17:07, October 1, 2020 (UTC)
Re:Images
Ah, I've figured out why the post is inaccessible. It's in a private group. (Specifically this one, if you're interested.) Epsilon (Contact me) 09:52, October 2, 2020 (UTC)
Re: Oh no
Heh! That instantly made me think of Oh No It Isn't!. Worse things to be reminded of, I'll say! And thank you for bringing that thread up again. --Scrooge MacDuck β 16:55, October 2, 2020 (UTC)
Re: Curse of Fatal Death
Haha, fair enough. Well, maybe once my thesis is over I can spare some time to browse the forums! Thanks for the relevant link! DoctorQuoi β 18:52, October 2, 2020 (UTC)DoctorQuoi
Re: BotE
Crikey, I'm so sorry I missed your talk page note about The Book of the Enemy! The way you've done it on {{Proposed identities of the Enemy}} looks phenomenal; it's good that the template isn't actually structured around the anthology, since as you've noted, there are plenty of suggestions for the enemy's identity in other stories. β N8 (β/ποΈ) 19:04, October 2, 2020 (UTC)
Admin categories
It's a little bit of both, as it's a little hard to tell if people are reading and just not editing (as I have been for a while). However you're right in that it can be confusing for new users unless they want look through a user's contributions. I've done a bit of a re-organisation and edit of the page. --Tangerineduel / talk 05:11, October 3, 2020 (UTC)
Vandal blocking
Ah, thank you! Done. --Scrooge MacDuck β 09:23, October 4, 2020 (UTC)
- And so I was! Done once more. --Scrooge MacDuck β 09:06, October 15, 2020 (UTC)
Story arcs
So, our earlier discussion at Talk:Story arc is being continued in this forum thread, due to a future release, and I was wondering if you could add your perspective? Never Forget The Day The 456 Arrived β 13:19, October 6, 2020 (UTC)
The Wintertime Paradox
Do you have a copy? I didn't think it was out yet. β N8 (β/ποΈ) 20:38, October 15, 2020 (UTC)
Time Lord Intelligentsia
Hi! I'm done with Time Lord Intelligentsia for now and will be moving on to Reflex Link. I'm not sure I picked the right Category, maybe you can help? Thanks! Captain Infinity β 20:24, October 16, 2020 (UTC)
T:BOUND and edit wars
Thanks for reaching about Daniel.holleman, and for pointing out that I'd left the message at the wrong place. I followed your link to their user page, and I'm tired enough that I didn't even realise I wasn't in the talk page. OncomingStorm12th β 22:34, October 16, 2020 (UTC)
Re:Vandalism/Block
Hey, I've protected the page for a week for anonymous/unregistered users, and blocked all relevant users. Hopefully, it'll stop soon. OncomingStorm12th β 20:44, October 21, 2020 (UTC)
DiSoRiEnTeD1's accusations
Hi! Just wanted to pop in to apologise on behalf of the Wiki for User:DiSoRiEnTeD1 dragging you into his apparent persecution complex. But also to ask you what exactly you were both talking about? From the sound of it I'm sure you did nothing wrong, but I am curious what message on what other Wiki DiSoRiEnTeD1 was referring to. --Scrooge MacDuck β 17:44, October 28, 2020 (UTC)
- Ahh, I see. Sorry, it seems I no longer get notifications from messages left to me on my $MD Wiki talk page in the UCP. Another loss to mourn about the move, then.
- I've replied to you there, but in essence, your (perfectly valid!) concerns are I believe unfounded insofar as I didn't actually make an admin decision, but rather highlighted that the thread was spurious and functionally T:POINT-breaking. (Not necessarily in a "being intentionally disruptive way", but certainly a "no new evidence necessitating a change of policy has been proposed" way.)
- You are of course correct in the general casethat it is best practice, though not always forbidden, for admins to avoid closing discussions in which they played a major part. --Scrooge MacDuck β 17:56, October 28, 2020 (UTC)
Re:inuse
- Ah, thank you for the reminder. I'll finish it in a few hours at the very most. 19:32, October 28, 2020 (UTC)
RE:Admin behaviour
Not to sound blunt but I don't change my views simply because someone came to my defence.
The edit that you made today was the exact one that had been reverted by an admin months ago, and your edit summary shows that you understood the change that you were making. You say that it wasn't intentional, so I accept that, and you later owned up to the mistake and came to my defence so I appreciate that too. DiSoRiEnTeD1 β 22:11, October 28, 2020 (UTC)
"Vincent and the Doctor's Gallery"
W/ regards to your recent edit summary of Vincent and the Doctor's Gallery (webcast): you're right that the discussion wasn't over and User:Epsilon the Eternal's edit was thus improper. But in theory, I actually think the "invalid" tag would be fitting, for at least one of the potential proposals for how to cover this, namely mine β that we cover it as akin to some episode of The Fan Show which mix in-universe and βdocumentaryβΒ material in a jokey, fourth-wall-breaky way. --Scrooge MacDuck β 19:57, October 29, 2020 (UTC)
- Ah, forgive me. I'd quite forgotten where we were at in the Talk:Doctor Who: Lockdown! page, and was instead (as, I think, was Epsilon) talking about the state of the discussion at Talk:Vincent and the Doctor's Gallery (webcast). Also, it's worth noting that The Fan Show dab terms aren't solid policy or anything, just a "close enough" deal. I've actually been thinking a unique dab term, patterned after "(CON episode)", might involve less guesswork. --Scrooge MacDuck β 20:42, October 29, 2020 (UTC)
Re: SpookyUCP
Yeah, I'm aware that we're losing WikiActivity. I think I could get used to RecentChanges (I've started doing so on other Wikis) but it's less than ideal. This patch-up is intriguing; but I'm useless at coding, and therefore the absolute last person to ask. You should probably take this to User:SOTO, who is savvier in these matters than I. (And/or Czech, of course, when he returns.) --Scrooge MacDuck β 02:02, November 1, 2020 (UTC)
"Engaging with Thread:272817"
Hey!
I do applaud your hewing closer to what is shown on screen until Thread:272817 concludes, but while it's not a full-on T:NPA violation or anything, it wasn't quite right of you to ascribe some sort of intentional negligence to User:Epsilon the Eternal and User:Jack "BtR" Saxon in "pointedly not engaging" with said thread.
Not only could this be argued to be a mild personal attack, but User:Shambala108 has, more recently, specifically cautioned against ascribing implicit motives to people. Moreover Epsilon at least has in fact contributed several posts to that very thread, even if Jack Saxon has not.
Obviously this is all quite mild and I'm not about to take any disciplinary action here beyond the above talking-to, but do please be mindful. After all the drama in the past two years, this Wiki is aching for its sense of community; there's no reason to be passive-aggressive in edit summaries like this when Epsilon and Jack, whether or not they sometimes put a foot wrong, are clearly editing in good faith (as are you!).
Cheers! --Scrooge MacDuck β 23:45, November 8, 2020 (UTC)
- Right! I understand better, now. But as you yourself acknowledge, one should also consider potential alternative readings of one's words.
- (Also, it had stalled even before that, of course, but it feels slightlyβ¦ odd to complain about lack of activity on a given forum thread in the current situation.) --Scrooge MacDuck β 23:59, November 8, 2020 (UTC)
Re: Potential vandalism
Quite right! Always happy to help. I've left a few stern words (and links to our edit-warring policies) at Bridget's talk page. Let's hope no more is required. --Scrooge MacDuck β 19:09, November 10, 2020 (UTC)
Re: Forums
I haven't properly rewritten the closing post. However, I did summarise its main points on the actual relevant policy page β see the first and third bullet-points of the last section of Tardis:Even good categories can be removed. --Scrooge MacDuck β 20:37, November 10, 2020 (UTC)
Re: Sanbox Nine
It's his sandbox so he can do as he pleases anyway. But as it happens, I'm with Epsilon on this one. Not all works involving a fictional Doctor are necessarily part of the in-universe Doctor Who series.
There are many accounts listed on The Doctor in popular culture and mythology of works which feature a fictionalised Doctor, by name, but aren't part of a wider, preexisting Doctor Who brand: the A Doctor Who Discovers books, the Cushing movies in The Day of the Doctor (where they exist removed from the TV series that inspired them in the real world).
So the metafictional implication may be clear in Afterword, but strictly speaking Moffat's book could be a one-off. --Scrooge MacDuck β 20:44, November 11, 2020 (UTC)
Re: Sanbox Nine [sic]
Well spotted! That part flew over my head when I first read Afterword. Now, I won't remove him from the Sandbox, as it's there for me to collate info about real world individuals' in-universe counterparts' connections to Doctor Who (N-Space) specifically, but I will add a footnote, explaining that he did write a book of fiction about the Doctor.
20:47, November 11, 2020 (UTC)
Paul Bowman
Ahh, of course. Thank you for the reminder! β N8 (β/ποΈ) 21:28, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
Do we know what's happening with Sandboxes/Following Pages/etc?
Hey, I hope you're well! It's end of semester for me so lots of marking and writing and assignments and well you get the idea haha. Do you have any updates since the changes regarding the mysterious disappearance of Tardis:Sandbox pages for users as well as pages we follow? I wanted to edit an audio story tonight but I can't find my sandbox pages since I chose some pretty poor names. I have seen that we can "search" for the pages using the wiki search feature and I see you've just linked yours on your profile page, however, what about the pages/articles we "follow"? I had all the future pages I was going to edit in that list... Best, DoctorQuoi β 21:21, 29 November 2020 (UTC)DoctorQuoi
- I see , ok thanks. That's really frustrating. Might just hold back on major editing until the mods figure out what's going on. Hope you're keeping well! DoctorQuoi β 22:43, 29 November 2020
(UTC)DoctorQuoi
- Thanks, I've only been following this half-heartedly, didn't realize it was a more general thing. I just thought that due to some of our older functions/features, we were finally updating them (like the image uploading problem I had a little while ago). Thank you again for the update. Guess we'll just have to be patient. DoctorQuoi β 04:44, 30 November 2020 (UTC)DoctorQuoi
- Hm, interesting, thanks for the share! I'll be blunt, reading it was like reading those memos the university sends out every time they change software for something, usually emails I delete straight away as they're along the lines of "... we are dong this to improve the user experience to make editing fun for everyone!" and general silliness and over-optimistic tones and like that. It's funny because we switched to a new payment system and the software is terrible and if like myself and a group of others you run linux logging into the software is an absolute nightmare. Almost everyone is the department hates it and rightly so, I had to (rather embarrassingly) call our IT service for help, even they're not happy about it/the change. It is what it is. I do appreciate having the source editor combined with the visual editor, I'll give it points for that. I understand where they're coming from and fully support the migration, it's just annoying, had I known I would have better-prepared for this by keeping a better track of my sandboxes and following pages, like export a list or copy/paste into a textfile on my machine, idk. When did they give us a warning? I know it's too late now, just rather frustrating as we DEFINITELY could've been better prepared for this, which is why I'm cautious about putting too much of the blame on fandom. DoctorQuoi β 05:13, 30 November 2020 (UTC)DoctorQuoi
- I see. Well thank you once again for taking the time to clarify. Now I'm really miffed. Plus my opinion has one-eight-tied entirely. That's such a poor way to deal with the migration issue. I saw the messages and visited briefly but never fully read comments beyond the initial post. Once again, my mistake. Also, now quite annoyed about the visual editor. I'm seeing the "Edit Page" thing at the top of the page, and only see source editor. I don't know. This whole operation just sounds so.... botched, for lack of a better word. They really could've done this better. Anyway. Cheers.Β :/ DoctorQuoi β 23:13, 30 November 2020 (UTC)DoctorQuoi
Regarding The Adventure Games
I don't know if you would saw this in The Adventure Games, so I'm posting here just in case.
Doctor Who: The Adventure Games is not a collection of games, it's *the* game. It's the same, for instance, as The Walking Dead or Batman: The Telltale Series. You can't play the episodes individually. You need the main game to do it. Just like in Legacy and Infinity. A collection of games is, for instance, Atari Vault. It gets different games (*really* different games) who were release separately and released them in one package. The episodes in The Adventure Games follow the same gameplay, the same visuals. It's not like the first game is a top down action-adventure, the second is a 2D plataformer, the third is a 3D first-person shooter. They follow the pattern established by the game, The Adventure Games. They are episodes, not games. --D25m09 15:57, December 16, 2020 (UTC)
Jodie Whittaker (The Terror of the Umpty Ums)
To be honest, I haven't read The Terror of the Umpty Ums yet, but as there were on several pages statements such as "she was played by a woman", I changed the link, thinking it'd be apt to have a more specific page, albeit with a conjecture tag.
If the information from Jodie Whittaker (The Terror of the Umpty Ums) was just from Umpty Ums, I'd be okay with it's deletion (provided what you say is correct, about nothing in Umpty Ums saying anything about Jodie, named or not), but as there is a visual shot of Jodie as the Doctor in The Zygon Isolation, and an image of Jodie on the cover of Wild Thymes on the 22, it leaves us in a bit of a pickle, as there is clearly some information to show that she exists in-universe, though it's hindered in its brevity.
I'd be opposed to create pages for the versions of the Doctor and Clara ect, as it's already covered in the legacy sections of the respective characters. If these pages were to be created, I'd prefer something like [[Thirteenth Doctor (fictional character)]] or [[Thirteenth Doctor (character)]].
05:35, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Re: Stupid awful fandom drama
Dear, dear, dear. I don't want to cover it any more than you do, and I think there are strong reasons not to, at least at this time.
- Firstly, a tweet is not "reference material we cover", even if it could be used as a footnote if the information in it were otherwise noteworthy. So it fails the "Hartnell Precedent". If a book on the complete history of Arcbeatle Press mentions the event, and we have a page on that reference book qua reference book, then this would fulfill the Hartnell precedent.
- Secondly, this also fails the Roberts Precedent because nothing had been formally announced that has now been cancelled β the association between writer and publisher is simply at an end.
- Thirdly, I don't know if such a policy has been formalised but we should in no way shape or form wade into ongoing, surfaced-within-twenty-four-hours drama, especially drama involving accusations that could have legal repercussions. There is such a thing as illegal slander.
Oh, and feel free to link people to this; it constitutes an admin decision, albeit an off-the-cuff one. Crikey.
Scrooge MacDuck β 22:35, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Homeworld treatment
What are the limits to the "Homeworld treatment"?
Hypothetically, what would happen if the Faction Paradox use of the "Homeworld" continued to grow with its own mythology and became absolutely unrecognisable to Gallifrey? Both the BBC and Faction Paradox writers will both have their own versions of this concept which will inevitably continue to clash and contradict. Would there ever become a point where a decision is made to separate them once again? RadMatter β 21:55, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Re: The Master talk page
Hmmf. Well, people are entitled to their opinion, but the thing is that this has been ruled upon, by me, the matter of the Terror quote being conclusive. T:BOUND and all that. Unless new factual evidence is presented, any number of people could disagree without that changing anything; these things aren't decided by popular vote!
That being said, I also don't want to come across as an Admin Lord Victorious locking down discussion in the face of dissent. I'll think on it and get back to you. Maybe a separate section on the talk page, where this discussion could be allowed to continue in parallel to our more on-topic discussion in the existing section β with the understanding that it wouldn't necessarily be empowered to change anything, unless it led to more tangible results than a headcount of people who disagree? Let me know if you have any suggestions. Scrooge MacDuck β 18:48, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think we're quite talking about the same thing. The fact here is that unless new facts (or, marginally, new viewpoints on the existing facts) are presented, it is not within policy for people who disagree with a ruling admin's interpretation of existing evidence to be able to argue against that ruling by simply saying "I hold the opposite interpretation of the contentious evidence". It is not just that some arguments come to naught no matter what β it is, rather, that this particular argument (to continue the legal metaphor) wouldn't be admissible evidence in any case.
- It is, as a matter of policy, held to be true by the Wiki at this time that User:Borisashton's initial arguments were persuasive β that barring omissions of additional data, we should indeed interpret those passages in those books to say those things. Providing a new interpretation of those passages, one which had not been discussed at all prior to that ruling (e.g. your "maybe they're saying Delgado did War Games") is an acceptable counterargument; so is examining further quotes not previously presented (e.g. Laura's calling up, and disagreeing with me about, the "These days he calls himself the Master" line). But going back to those same passages I already ruled conclusive, and merely saying "personally, having read those same passages, I'm not seeing it"β¦ is not.
- Additionally, the way in which I felt the "burden of proof on the opposition" guideline was being ignored was that people were not bringing opposing interpretations of the quotes β rather, they were saying, "could the pro-War-Chief-inclusion side elaborate on the quotes more?". I did so under the good-faith assumption that it was merely a request for information β but it might equally have been viewed as asking the pro-WC side to justify itself, whereas the idea behind the burden of proof thing is that it wouldn't have to, and it's the opposite side which would have to bring positive arguments to the table rather than try to nitpick at the pro-WC side's arguments without formulating any of its own.
- I hope all of that makes sense. Scrooge MacDuck β 20:41, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Affiliated Wikis
Hi! W/ regards to your message on User talk:Time Lord the Incognito: actually, we are affiliated with more than one Wiki: there's also the Doctor Who Legacy Wiki, and, more recently and to a lesser extent, the Doctor Who: Lockdown! Wiki. Not that it matters much in this case, just reminding you.
Anyway, thank you for attempting to deal with that user while I was away, and ultimately warning Shambala. It's disconcerting when you just can't get through to someone, I knowβ¦ Scrooge MacDuck β 12:10, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
The wording
Lol the SEP is written by "socialists" of the same sort Lenin so accurately describes in the first paragraph of State and Rev. Also I just realised my auto correct got me there and changed "commodity" to "community" for some reason but oh well this isn't really a discussion for a Doctor Who wiki anyway. What is more relevant for a Doctor Who Wiki is that yeah the specific wording you discussed would probably be better. Idk though I'm really tired to the point of being barely conscious rn. Honestly though I don't think we have real definitions of Communism or Feudalism in the DWU either. NightmareofEden β 20:57, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Sandbox4
Ohhhhhh boy. Kudos, and best of luck!!! β n8 (β) 04:11, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
- Do you know, I'm not altogether sure about "the whole Eye of Harmony/Attack of Ignorance thing basically confirms Von Neumann Wigner as being the correct interpretation of QM". For one thing, the Observer Effect in the Time Lord sense of the term is in fact an ability unique to the Time Lords, give or take particular posthumans, so it can hardly be quite the same phenomenon as what allows garden-variety possibilities to solidify in our backyards and particle colliders.
- More generally, I think it is paramount to remember that while logic may tell us many things, "logic is a new toy". The mathematically-definable physics humans grope towards are, within the framework of the anchoring of the thread mythos, not the true governing principles of the universe at all, but rather an arbitrary framework created and enforced by the Great Houses, imposed over the rest of reality. The Gallifrey Observer Effect is a function of the true laws of the universe, the meta-physics (har, har, see what I did there) through which they were able to bind the rest of the world to their laws in the first place.
- Evidently the capita-O/capital-E Observer Effect resembles the Von Neumann-Wigner theory of human physics, but although that is a mite too speculative for the Wiki, it seems to me more a case of the Great Houses' noosphere echoing down into the lesser species and/or the design of the Great Houses' system than anything deeper, and as such, it may or may not be true regardless of the existence of the "true" Observer Effect beyond the laws of physics. Scrooge MacDuck β 14:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Heh, good to know you follow! Yeah, unfortunately like most of the books reviewed by "The Untranslated", Schattenfroh might be straight-up untranslatable. I'm working on my Deutsch, so I might try to give it a go ... or more likely, absolutely not. But maybe it's the sort of thing that might be fun to reference in a Cwej story one day, given the Army of One vibes. ("Professor Shadowglad" has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Or maybe "Professor Shatterfrond"?) Good eye on OSR in Logopolis, I'd never considered it in that light before. I'm right there with you with regards to physics in FP and Who in general; presumably biodata theory includes some mindbending synthesis of the many-worlds and Wignerian interpretations that's inconceivable to our fragile 21st century minds ... but incomprehensibility rather defeats the purpose of a theory, doesn't it? Personally I'm at a state of epistemic learned helplessness when it comes to QM stuff; ten years ago you could have found me arguing vociferously for the pilot-wave interpretation but then 2015 happened.
Also, there's a good chance that you've already seen this, but besides Burton's Nahuatl dictionary there's also
These glossaries aren't valid per se, but each definition could be deduced from the text of the novel by a very careful reader, so they're functionally valid. If that makes any sense?
While we wait for the forums to reopen (I'm fully on-board with creating something new in the [[Forum:]] namespace, btw), my eye has turned to the author biography problem in The Book of the Enemy. I'm still leaning toward the idea that for now, we should cover the in-universe biographies as a part of their respective stories, and the future forum debate will concern whether or not the not-clearly-referenced-in-story versions should be included as valid (presumably alongside the stuff I just mentioned on Epsilon's talk page. Would you be strongly opposed to me going ahead with my Sandbox5 in the interim? β n8 (β) 14:48, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
- It's actually that discussion which inspired my edits to Nothing day etc! And oh, I never replied to your previous message. I really appreciate your insight on Pilot Wave Theory; and that Tumblr ask was brilliant (we've really got to get you an author page here sometime). I see your issue with Wilhelm Liebknecht, and I'm embarrassed to see that it was me who cited "Biographies of Authors" there. The first few weeks of trying to figure out how to cover BotE was a real headache -- a headache that some of us are still feeling! Should we wait for the forums or, given the recent and relieving effectiveness of talk page discussions while they're closed, ping an admin about Talk:The Book of the Enemy (anthology) and see if we can reach a resolution there? β n8 (β) 17:30, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not surprised at the length. And it's going to be a pain to condense without compromising the plot. I had a similar problem on Interference (novel) and chose to just "untangle" the story's different segments into standalone narrative parts, but that only worked because they were sequential and relatively standalone, so no help for AN. Definitely a head scratcher. But incredible work so far, I've enjoyed reliving the book through your summary updates! β n8 (β) 00:15, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Re: Observer Effect
Hmmm. Well, I suppose. Still, it doesn't quite make sense to me that the means by which the Time Lords instituted mathematics would itself be mathematically legible. The relationship between the two "observer effects", as I picture it, is not unlike the difference between a printer, and a 2-dimensional photograph thereof printed using the actual printer. Outwardly similar to somebody with depthless, two-dimensional vision, perhaps; but little else. Scrooge MacDuck β 18:40, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Notablity
Just dropping you a message to re-affirm that we create pages for things even if they're only about a throwaway reference - otherwise thousands of pages would have to be deleted. Also, might I ask you about why you said this in you edit summary of life-spore?
19:49, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Re:vandalism
Hi you would be better off asking User:SOTO or User:CzechOut; I'm absolutely the least tech-savvy person on this wiki. Sorry Shambala108 β 05:22, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Re: The Other Side of the World
As for temporary forums, our new Wiki Manager has told me in private messages that they may look into finishing the setup of the actual DPL Forums soon if Czech remains silent, so at the moment I'm waiting out for that, but I feel you. Scrooge MacDuck β 02:15, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- If it's not indiscreet to ask, have you/will you buy Other Side of the World? I've actually found reason to believe that that book was very nearly printed as-was by Random Static before that publisher ceased publishing FP, which would warrant an {{unprod}} page for the novel. Scrooge MacDuck β 14:10, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- To the contrary, it's my understanding that this was the first draft of the novel as Burton originally submitted it to Random Static, before the RS editor insisted on a ton of changes to the characters, plotting, etc. As an early unfinished draft that just happens to bear its own name, even though it was put on Lulu (for no profit) I don't think it belongs on the wiki, any more than all the cut Dying Days epilogues which were given their own names in fanzines. Not to mention that Burton likely had a very good reason for excluding it from his Goodreads page, and we might do well to honor that. β n8 (β) 17:12, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- Oh, I'd sort of assumed that you'd want to own the book regardless of whether we ended up covering it.
- To the contrary, it's my understanding that this was the first draft of the novel as Burton originally submitted it to Random Static, before the RS editor insisted on a ton of changes to the characters, plotting, etc. As an early unfinished draft that just happens to bear its own name, even though it was put on Lulu (for no profit) I don't think it belongs on the wiki, any more than all the cut Dying Days epilogues which were given their own names in fanzines. Not to mention that Burton likely had a very good reason for excluding it from his Goodreads page, and we might do well to honor that. β n8 (β) 17:12, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- At any rate, I agree (from your message on Nate's talk page) that what we'd be covering would be the unpublished-book-that-mutated-into-Agains-Nature, as {{unprod}} β not the released version, which clearly isn't licensed DWU fiction.
- While I'm sympathetic to an extent to the "dirty laundry" concern, it doesn't really fall within policy. If something was once publicly available, it's fair game to us, and actively should be documented provided it's relevant to Who's history. I mean, Mark Gatiss has explicitly said that in hindsight, he wishes people didn't have access to his early, and, in his view, embarrassing, P.R.O.B.E. scripts. But those aren't going to stop being valid on such a basis, and even if they somehow did, we'd still cover them from a real-world perspective either way. Scrooge MacDuck β 17:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
- Naturally it would be covered as unproduced, as like Campaign, Time's Champion, etc it's completely unlicensed. But is there any precedent for covering earlier drafts of an ultimately-published work as unproduced? Despite the existence of Unnatural Selection, we don't have any pages for the significantly divergent earlier drafts of The Natural History of Fear. In any case, I've read The Empty Days but don't have my copy on-hand, so while I might be useless for any specific questions, my broad-strokes impression of the timeline is pretty solid. β n8 (β) 17:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Re: Wiki Representative
Hey! Yeah, I've noticed as well. Though honestly, I think Staff probably know about this already.
But for the record, while I do have DM access to him, Spongebob456 does have a user talk page where you or any other user, admin or otherwise, are quite welcome to ring him up for something like this! Scrooge MacDuck β 03:10, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Rels
Very interesting additions to Rel! If I understand this correctly you try to draw conclusions from the Daleks' using "rel" both for speed and for time β but that leaves one alleged meaning of "rel" unaddressed: is there any way you could fathom to account for the unit also being used as "a measure of hydroelectricity"?
(Of course, what precisely "hydroelectricity" is, is a riddle for the ages. It's clearly not "electricity produced by hydropower" in this context; the common-sense reading would be "how electrically-charged is this water," although of course that is a curious question in the first place from a point of view of scientific accuracy.) Scrooge MacDuck β 04:27, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
- I see. I still wonder what drives the Daleks to create a specific unit for "hydroelectric energy" in particular, though. Scrooge MacDuck β 04:54, 22 March 2021 (UTC)