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Opening Post
I know you are but what am I?
So, like, what even is validity?
Wait, no, come back, I promise this is important.
Validity isn't canon. It's not something given to us from on high by The BBC. It's also not really a thing that exists out there in the general fanbase, like, we don't poll the overall Doctor Who community to see what should be a valid source for articles on this wiki. We have Dr. Men as valid, and for the longest time didn't have P.S. as valid. I think anyone would say this is the wrong way 'round. We don't smash atoms together to find out what validity is, it's not a platonic form floating out there in the ether. It's not really a natural kind and probably not a social kind. It is socially constructed though, it's constructed by the actions of the editors of the wiki. I've opined before that we could, tomorrow, if we so decided, make it so that only Summer Falls is valid on this wiki. That's what validity becomes. It just becomes a fundamentally worthless concept. We're not factually incorrect to do so. It's just a bad idea.
Ultimately, and I do want to stress this fact, the users of this wiki can just decide to make something valid or invalid by sheer fiat, regardless of logical consistency, regardless of argument, regardless of strength of evidence or whether the rules we've written down elsewhere say otherwise. If we want to encode some sort of exception to the rest of our validity practices that mean any story that begins with "q" and doesn't immediately follow it up with "u" or "i" is valid, we can do this. It's a, forgive me, insane rule, but we can do it. So you all absolutely can simply reject the argument I'm going to present in this thread. But I don't think that this is a good idea. (Well, of course I would say that.)
But what does it mean for our validity rules to be good or bad?
Well. This is obviously a truly massive topic for discussion and not really something that I think anyone is prepared to discuss in full here. In part because I don't think anyone is fully cognizant of their own motivations! The specific reasoning that you or I have towards certain policies will be a subtle interplay of conscious and unconscious factors. I don't expect anyone here to have a completely fleshed out philosophy of what our validity rules would look like were they to be written from scratch - I certainly don't. But I have thought about some general principles that I think any change to T:VS should try to hew towards.
- Ease of explanation
- Ease of enforcement
- Continuity; in 2 senses
- Continuity with past policy interpretation
- Continuity with prior forum rulings
- Consistency of reasoning
Now, there are others, of course, such as maintaining that Summer Falls, that pure, pristine bastion of innocence, is valid, but I bring these up because I think we have a problem with a recent rule change that violates these specific four(five) principles. That rule change is, of course, Rule 4 by Proxy, as detailed at Forum:Temporary forums/An update to T:VS, as those of you who know me are aware. I'll admit that in my crusade against this rule change I have at times sympathized with the following quote:
William James said that sometimes detailed philosophical argument is irrelevant. Once a current of thought is under way, trying to oppose it with argument is like trying to plant a stick in a river to alter its course: "round your obstacle flows the water and 'gets there just the same'". […] Planting a stick in this water is probably futile, but having done so before I shall do so again, and-who knows?-enough sticks may make a dam, and the waters of error may subside.
I too may be shoving forward sticks futilely in an attempt to provide guidance to a torrent of water. But unlike Blackburn I think there might be a more optimistic route forward. While many sticks may make a dam - so too may they make a water wheel, and we can harness the tides of change towards something constructive. I think both options are possible outcomes from the reasoning this thread will present. The choice is up to you.