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"Rule 4 by proxy": a necessary update to T:VS
Within hours of Tardis:Temporary forums being activated, it began filling up with suggestions that we redeem all sorts of things from Scream of the Shalka to Vienna from {{invalid}} status. Now, any one of these cases might have some hitherto-undocumented aspect which would justify their validity under the current regime of T:VS, and I do not mean to make their potential validation depend upon the following proposal — but it seems to me that there is a common theme to all these proposals, constituting evidence of a systematic disconnect between our validity policies and the intuitions of readers and editors alike. I propose that we tackle the problem at the rule, and examine the possibility of fixing that underlying issue.
As written, Rule 4 of the "four little rules" is currently solely concerned with the authorial intent at time of release. This is very well in the positive sense that a story that was at one point released as being in-continuity stays valid even if someone should change their mind years down the line — that way would lie chaos, not to mention shades of a prescriptive "canon". But there is a mirror scenario which T:VS currently actively prohibits, even though it would be in the Wiki's best interest, and match the intuitions of most readers, to follow it.
To wit: sometimes a story is initially presented or even intended as discontinuous with the DWU, but later "retro-fitted" explicitly into continuity by a valid story by another writer. For example, perhaps Paul Cornell didn't think of Scream of the Shalka as "real" to the Christopher Eccleston-led Who universe in 2003… (I do say perhaps. Let us, for the moment, take that much for granted.) … and perhaps if that were all we had to go on, covering Shalka as completely discontinuous with the mainline DWU would be the fairest way to go. I don't at all mean to say that any old {{invalid}} short story should be declared a parallel universe on principle. But let me call your attention to a few valid stories like The Tomorrow Windows and A Brief History of Time Lords, which do construct bridges between the events of the "Shalkaverse" and NuWho continuity, presenting the Richard E. Grant Doctor's world as an alternate "possible future" right alongside Eccleston.
It is Jonathan Morris's authorial intent in a valid, licensed Who story to present the Shalkaverse as "taking place in the DWU" (broadly defined). Our coverage of valid stories ends up harmed by refusing to take them at their word when they essentially "incorporate" a preexisting text which was, perhaps, not originally meant to be part of the DWU, but is made so "by proxy" through the new source.
Granted, we do not start covering any random fanfiction or non-DW-related work that is referenced in a DWU source; it was very reasonably decided at Forum:Iris Wildthyme: should she stay or should she go? that we wouldn't start covering all of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books just because All-Consuming Fire brings them into continuity. But my proposal concerns stories which are already given coverage on Tardis due to being licensed. In no sane world should Ninth Doctor (Scream of the Shalka) and Ninth Doctor 4 (The Tomorrow Windows) need to be distinct pages on the same Wiki. As the "Cushing Conundrum" thread of the defunct forums discussed, our page on Peter Cushing's "Dr. Who" doesn't even try, and covers valid references and the invalid movie material on a single page — even though current policy very very clearly disallows this — because… there's just no other remotely sane way to do it. But that just makes a mockery of deeming the films "NOTVALID" in the first place, when we very clearly link to these concepts on valid pages!
Thus, it is my proposal that we accept the retroactive validity of Rule-4-breakers which are later explicitly referenced in valid sources in a manner which seeks to "bring them into continuity" in one way or another. The most common implementation would see us cover 'roads not taken' of Doctor Who's history as the alternative realities as which later stories sometimes reference them; but the proposal would also cover the way that, for example, Storm in a Tikka simply gives a straightforward place in the Seventh Doctor's timeline to Dimensions in Time and Search Out Space.
After the initial slate of validations on this thread, any further validations on this basis would have to go through their own inclusion debates; but as I said, I believe a lot of the proposed inclusion debates currently engorging Tardis:Temporary forums#Proposed threads fall so straightforwardly within this proposal that they could be validated straightaway if consensus around my proposal builds. I will include an explanatory table here. If any of the examples below are controversial in ways not directly related to the heart of my proposal, they will be retracted and left off to their own threads after the proposal is enshrined into policy. (This is also why I've left out stories whose invalidity arguably rests on more than ordinary Rule 4 concerns, like The Skivers.)
(Also of note:
- The Curse of Fatal Death, not currently {{invalid}} but which, according to User:Najawin, may have some additional evidence that would force us to invalidate again once examined under current Rule 4 policy. It is notoriously referenced as a possible future in The Tomorrow Windows, and its continuity regarding Tersurus is referenced in The Taking of Planet 5 as a part of the mainstream DWU's history.
- Vienna, currently not-covered-at-all rather than covered-as-{{invalid}}, but which has the profile of an invalid source — that is, it's licensed, it stars something which started in the DWU, but we don't currently consider it a valid source. Despite questionable intent at the series' launch on whether it was in the DWU, Master!, when it brought Vienna Salvatori back to the explicit DWU, directly acknowledged its continuity.
I think both's validity could also be enshrined by this proposal even if they don't quite fit the mould, but again, feel free to tell me otherwise and they can be shunted off to their own threads)
I hope we can come together to finally take decisive action on this matter, which would finally free us of the endless, circular debates trying to peek into the brain of e.g. Milton Subotsky in 1965 when I think we all know that was never the real, principal reason it is felt that the Cushing movies should be valid — and so on, and so forth. Inclusion debates have often been tiresome for all parties involved; perhaps we can make them a little saner today. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:04, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
Support
- Please outline the reasons you support this proposal below.
- Way back when in the Aughties, I helped write this policy page for the Transformers wiki called Ignore All Standards which boiled down to "In situations where the standards intended to prevent confusion would instead contribute to it, common sense should rule."
- That was for one-off weird cases. But this is a collection of one-off weird cases, several of which seem to fall under the same broad circumstances. At that point, if we are seriously looking at creating exceptions (and since several of these idems are currenly half-covered by the wikiand then either not-covered or half-invalid, we clearly are making weird exception judgements) we should probably examine the category as a whole and make some sort of policy judgement; even if that policy is, itself, a policy about exceptions to policy.
- I'm honestly not sure if I agree with all of the candidates for inclusion but some of them are well past-due. And their inclusion should take place under a coherent framework rather than in a willy-nilly fashion. -Deriksmith ☎ 23:33, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Oppose
- Why do you oppose this proposal?
Neutral
- Feeling lukewarm about this proposal? Tell us why.
Comments and concerns
- Do you have specific concerns about this proposal that are getting in the way of you making up your mind? Leave them here for discussion.