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In order to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information, the TARDIS Index File, the Doctor Who Wiki contains details about all stories that have been officially broadcast, released or published for the first time, be it in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, or the United States.
The TARDIS Index File, the Doctor Who Wiki contains full spoilers for all aired; television and radio broadcasts, for all webcasts, for all; published novels, short stories, and comic strips, and for all released; audio, video, DVD, Blu-ray and digital media recordings.
Stories not yet released
All series articles and other media articles relating to yet-to-be-released stories must carry {{pre-broadcast spoiler}} at the top of the the article. This alerts the reader to spoilers about upcoming adventures and places all such articles in the a common category for easy maintenance.
Spoiler information relating to not-yet-released stories must be kept to series or, in some cases, story articles. Please do not create articles about narrative elements rumoured to exist within stories that haven't been released. It is impossible to verify such things before the story is released.
What does officially released mean?
Basically, the rule is really simple. If the factoid you want to write about hasn't been in a story that has been officially released, you can't write about it here.
However, for clarity, it might be useful to define the word released as it affects this policy. We consider something officially released when it is made available to the general public, in venues that are ordinarily and legally used for that particular medium. If you are attending the dress rehearsal of a Doctor Who play, or if you are watching an episode of the show at a convention, or if you've downloaded an episode of Torchwood prior to it's televised debut — even if your enjoyment of those entertainments was made "legal" by the fact that the BBC or Starz made them available to you — you can't come here and start editing articles about those stories.
- For Big Finish, the moment of public release is when a story is made available to download by the official Big Finish website. For those audio dramas not made downloadable, the moment of release is whatever date the company sets on its website for the CD release.
- For televised episodes, it's, approximately, the top of the hour after the date and time at which the end credits roll on the global premiere broadcaster's initial showing of the episode. For Torchwood: Miracle Day, for instance, that time is 2300 Friday nights, EST (0300 UTC). This is because the global premiere happens in the Eastern time zone. If you attend an official screening of the episode at a press launch or other similar event, even though the event might well be sponsored by the producers of the program, you have not witnessed the global premiere of the episode. You have, however, been very lucky and are now in possession of every true spoiler about that episode.
- For books, it's the date given by the publisher as the release date. If you have an advance review copy, congratulations. But don't write about that story until the date the publisher gives as the official launch date.
- For comic books, it's the date it actually hits comic stores (not necessarily the solicitation date), or the date it's made available on a company's official digital comic reader application, whichever is first. Though publisher's delays push back the date of official release, distributor's delays generally don't. Distribution snafus can mean that a comic has hit some comic stores, but not every comic store. The comic is nevertheless deemed to have been officially released.
- Example one: An issue of Don't Step on the Grass was delayed for a week for some, but not all, parts of the United States. The "day of official release" was therefore deemed to be the initial day on which distribution was successful, somewhere in the country of first publication (the US).
- Example two: The comic is generally delivered around the country, but doesn't hit your local comic store. The "day of official release" is unchanged.
- For theatrical performances of live stories, the official release date is the first performance open to general admission in the first city on a tour. Therefore, if you attend a dress rehearsal, even at the behest of the production company, you have not attended a global premiere.
Confirmed stories
Stories that have been confirmed — by the BBC, Starz, Metal Mutt Productions or any other production partner — but have not been broadcast, are routinely created with their basic layout and infobox and then fully protected to prevent further edits until the stories have been broadcast or released.
Information relating to these fully protected stories should go on the story's series article.
For example, prior to the The Sarah Jane Adventures television story The Nightmare Man being broadcast it would have been fully protected, any sourced information relating to it would go on the Series 4 (The Sarah Jane Adventures) article.
Actor and in-universe articles
DO NOT create articles relating to in-universe elements or actors who will appear in yet to be broadcast or released stories. This information is often vague, inaccurate or contains spoilers.
If these articles are created they will be deleted.
- To nominate a page for deletion add {{proposed deletion|reason for deletion}} and add your reason for nominating the page for deletion. See our Deletion policy for more information.
Also, please do not add spoilers to in-universe articles, even to the Behind the scenes section. Please wait until an episode airs before adding the new information. All spoilers relating to an in-universe article should be place on the appropriate series page.
Rumours
Any rumours posted on pages about un-broadcast topics must be cited so that users can verify the page's claims. Citation of this kind is effected by reference tags around the source, like this: <ref> '''source'''</ref>. All facts not confirmed by the BBC Press Office or members of the production crew in a formal interview must be placed within a section labeled "rumours" so that users may clearly understand what they are reading.
Information without a source can be tagged with {{fact}} or {{facts}} which produces the following results: [source needed] and [additional sources needed]
Cast or crew information
Information as to cast and crew must initially start in the rumours section of an article, unless the news is broken by the production company themselves. Once the person has been confirmed through either official, production company press release or a known member of the production team, it may be moved to either the cast or crew section, as appropriate. It must still, however, retain a citation, as mentioned above. (<ref> '''source'''</ref>)
Only after the story is released may the reference tags be pulled from the article.
After broadcast
Rumour sections are subject to complete removal after the story is broadcast or published, unless a rumour has some bearing on the story as released. By their nature though, rumours are rarely of any value once a story becomes public. If they turn out to be true, the info naturally goes into another section of the article. If they turn out to be false, the info is most often dismissed as no longer interesting.
Once the story is released, it becomes the primary source for information about itself. Thus, the credit roll at the end of the story becomes the highest-order source for information about the cast and crew, and citation for that person's involvement is no longer necessary.
Full example
For example, let's imagine that Jennifer Aniston were rumoured to be in an episode of Doctor Who called The One with the Bug-Eyed Monsters. And imagine we learned of her involvement first through a report on DigitalSpy. So initially, we'd put her in the "Rumours" section, and cite Digital Spy. Then imagine she were to be confirmed by the BBC Press Office. We'd pull her up to the "Cast" section and change the citation to BBC Press Office. Then imagine The One with the Bug-Eyed Monsters comes out. Sure enough, she's in it. At this point you can remove all citations, because it's now a fact established by the episode itself.
Spoilers and the forums
As made clear above, spoilers are only allowed on series pages or story pages — although in practice, the story pages are locked from general editing until the moment of their release. Spoilers are not allowed anywhere else, save from Howling:The Howling. They are absolutely not allowed in the forum namespace at all. Please be very careful about how you speak in the forums of the current series of the various programmes we cover. The excuses, "Oh, but that's in a preview trailer", or "the BBC have already released that", will not protect you from the wrath of an administrator. Our definition of a spoiler is simple, but it's different than the common definition of a spoiler. Trailers are spoilers. Information on the BBC's website prior to the broadcast of an episode is a spoiler. A spoiler is not "that which hasn't been released by the BBC". A spoiler is "anything released by anyone prior to the debut of the story in the country of first publication". Even "next time" trailers that frequently come at the end of episodes are considered spoilers here.
The forums must be areas in which every user can go without fear of encountering material about un-broadcast episodes. Again, when we say "un-broadcast", we mean "not yet broadcast in the country of first publication. Thus, it is not a violation of this policy to, for example, talk about the latest episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day on a Saturday night, even though the BBC premiere won't be until the following Thursday. Nor is it a violation to talk about the comic strip in the latest issue of DWM, even though American readers could not possibly have received their copy yet.
Finally, it is a violation of this policy to use the template {{Please see}} to entreat someone to come to a thread in the Howling namespace. This is the template equation of a "form letter", and it makes it look to the reader like you're asking them to any other forum thread. If you want someone to join you at the Howling, please write out a personalised message. And, if the thread to which you're inviting them includes spoilers about the future, please make that fact clear in your message on their talk page. If a user comes to an admin, complaining that they were asked to go see a thread, and now that thread has ruined things for them, then the party who extended the invitation is in violation of this policy.