User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-188432-20130129081336/@comment-188432-20130129205429

SmallerOnTheOutside wrote: Okay. Though I think it's kid of unfair your way as one side (yours) clearly has an advantage: if there's no consensus either way, you win.

Anyways, I'm yet to hear an real reason that explains why it specifically shouldn't be two articles, rather than just opposing our reasons.

Well, lemme be clear. This isn't my way. This is the standard way that consensus works in wikis. Digifiend has gone outside the normal process by making a radical change to an article while that change was under discussion, thereby disrupting the normal order of things. Worse, this was all done on a talk page, rather than The Panopticon, which is not the normal place that such discussions have taken place historically.

In other words, there was never a consensus to make that change, so this is the discussion that should have happened. We are now initially having the proper discussion that should have preceded the breaking up of the article.

Of course, I'm not saying that we have to have every, single article splitting discussion here at The Panopticon. But it has been our usual habit that we bring "the biggies" here. Regular characters and concepts that are going to be frequently linked on a number of different other pages are almost always discussed here, because they'll affect almost everyone's editing practises.

If we as a wiki allow Digifiend's split to stand as the "current" state of affairs, then we'll be saying to everyone who gets involved in a contentious move, "Eh, skip the discussion, move things how you wish, and let the chips fall where they may." It would be disastrous for the wiki, and make a nonsense out of the whole discussion process.

Thus, the original state of the article — all Claras on one page — is the one we are now talking about, and the burden falls on the people wanting to change that to build a consensus for change. Put in Wikipedia terms,

"In discussions of proposals to add, modify or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit."

Sometimes we do stray from Wikipedia's "no consensus" rule, as when discussions fail to generate any interest. But given that this is a well-attended discussion, it's gonna take more than a tie for your position to prevail. This notion is really ancient (well, as ancient as anything can be with wikis), and far predates the existence of this wiki.

Finally, if you haven't heard a pro-active reason why it should be kept as one article, then you've not really been reading what I and several other people have said in this thread. The reason is, quite simply, all in-universe evidence is that they are the same person. Check out the Eleventh Doctor quote above. Couldn't be any clearer: "She's the same woman."

It's up to you and Digifiend and OS25 to give clear in-universe evidence to the contrary. Somehow, you have to dispute the Eleventh Doctor's own words with actual evidence from the series in order for your view to prevail.