Forum:Tenses

From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference
Revision as of 22:25, 6 May 2012 by CzechBot (talk | contribs) (Robot: Automated text replacement (-[Ff]orum archives header +archive))
ForumsArchive indexPanopticon archives → Tenses
This thread has been archived.
Please create a new thread on the new forums if you want to talk about this topic some more.
Please DO NOT add to this discussion.

What do we do about tenses? Why are some things past tense and others present tense?

The Eternals, Time (Eternal) and Death, are in the past...along with others I can't think of at the moment, in all the media they've appeared in they haven't disappeared, so shouldn't they be written in the present tense? --Tangerineduel 17:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, the problem is perspective, so we usually have things in past tense. For example, it seems a bit odd to have an article saying "Lady Cassandra will be a Human from the planet Earth" so instead we view it from the end of the universe - Lady Cassandra was a Human from the planet Earth", etc. For some reason, some things - namely supergalactic things and anything to do with the Doctor seem to be written in present tense, unless they are past incarnations of the Doctor. Actually, I agree that the Eternals should be written in present tense, because they are eternal and never won't be. ~ Ghelæ -talk-contribs 17:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Archivist's notes

Ghelæ is pretty close to the current mark here. However, our notion of perspective has moved on a tad. Now, we tend to say that the encyclopedia is being written from a time after everything — even the Eternals — aren't around anymore. The entirety of the universe is in the past, so all in-universe articles are written in the past.
czechout<staff />    <span style="">22:16:47 Wed 01 Jun 2011