Talk:Silurian/Appearances

Missing appearances

unfortunately i have been accused of a bad faith edit, apparently i went ahead and made a "massive decision" - in removing Madame Vastra and Strax from their respective species' LOA pages - without discussion. however, the discussion was first started in May 2016 here and the three people who bothered to get involved in that time all agreed to the change. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 16:50, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

I never accused you of making a bad faith exist. I did say you had made a massive decision, which you did. You removed tons of stories from the lists of appearances, which is a major edit; and you did so even though there was an existing decision on the topic that no admin had closed, which I think is poor protocol (though as it is not a thread, it may not be as hard-and-fast a rule).

As for the factual issue — I believe that readers will want to know that there is a Silurian in e.g. The Crimson Horror, whether or not that Silurian happens to be a recurring character. I mean, by analogy, the Cult of Skaro are individualised, recurring characters, so applying that same standard to other species would mean that Daleks in Manhattan shouldn't be at Daleks - list of appearances, which I think would just be outright silly.

I think the fact that not every story with the Doctor or Master in it is at Time Lords - list of appearances should be the exception, not the rule.--Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 16:56, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

sadly for you the only others that bothered with the discussion disagreed.

personally i do not think that every recurring character's solo appearances should be removed from the species' LOA page (such as your Cult of Skaro example). however, Vastra and Stax are main characters in their own The Paternoster Gang Investigates|comic and audio series - their appearances should not be included on Silurians / Sontarans LOA pages for the same reason as The Doctor, The Master, Romana, The Monk, etc.

i presume there would be more examples of main characters being separated from their species lists if there was a Humans - list of appearances page. however, there is not. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 17:09, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

See, I sort of see your point, but the Doctor and Monk far predate the creation of the Time Lords, and there are accounts which suggest that's not what species they are, so that already changes things somewhat. Stories about Strax rely more on his Sontaran-ness than stories about the Doctor rely on their being a Time Lord, I'd say; certainly A Good Man Goes to War, where he even wears the classic Sontaran uniform, seems disingenuous not to include on a list of appearances of the Sontarans in TV Who.

Also, the Daleks were also main characters in many different ranges. The Cult of Skaro were the main characters of Birth of a Legend, for example, and the Dalek Prime/Golden Emperor was the main character of Duel of the Daleks. Granted, both of these stories also include secondary Dalek characters that would still justify their being at Daleks - list of appearances, but say Big Finish made a spin-off about the solo adventures of Rusty. I think these hypothetical stories, and Twice Upon a Time, should still be at Daleks - list of appearances, even though Rusty would now be a "main character" in his own range.

Also, the fact that no one who agreed with me had weighed in on the earlier discussion yet means little when A) that discussion was never officially closed, and B) not many people had weighed in at all. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 17:19, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

who's fault is that when not many people had weighed in at all in over four years? certainly not mine, and i shouldn't be accused of avoiding discussion when one was open.

so the Cult of Skaro have been main characters in a single story and are comparable to the Paternoster Gang who have been main in more than 30? as for your point about Rusty i think it would depend on how many appearances he made whether it would eventually be decided to remove them from the Dalek LOA, but Twice Upon a Time (TV story) wouldn't be removed when there were other Daleks in mutant form in that episode.DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 17:26, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

I suppose that's our intellectual disagreement — I feel as though the ever-looming potential existence of a spinoff thirty years on shouldn't lead the Wiki to change its coverage of preexisting stories. The Paternoster Gang were not yet intended to become a unit, and main characters of their own spinoffs, in A Good Man Goes to War, any more than there are currently any plans for Rusty to have a spinoff to himself beyond Twice Upon a Time. I think it would be insane if, suddenly, in 2035, we decided that Twice Upon a Time was no longer an appearance of the Daleks because of a random batch of unforeseen new stories.

(Okay, I'll grant you the mutants for the specific TUoaT example, but that's a loophole, a useful coincidence. You could very well imagine a version that didn't have the mutants in it.)

Anyway, I'm not blaming you for the fact that the discussion stalled, just saying you can't actually act as though that discussion decided anything. There was no conclusion, and the amount of people who engaged in the debate was so minuscule that you can't really draw any useful data from the statistics of it, I think. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 17:35, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

i do not see it as a "loophole". A Good Man Goes to War (TV story) contains both Vastra and individual Silurians, so that stays. The Snowmen (TV story), The Crimson Horror (TV story), The Name of the Doctor (TV story) and Deep Breath (TV story) only contain Vastra, so they are located at her page.

not all recurring (or even "main") characters should get this treatment. but there is no reason having half on the Sontarans - list of appearances covering Strax-only appearances when his appearances can be found on his own LOA page. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 17:47, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

There are other Silurians in A Good Man Goes to War, but I don't believe there are other Sontarans than Strax. Yet though I can kinda imagine why you wouldn't want The Snowmen on Sontarans - list of appearances (although personally I would want such a story story to be on such a list, if we're talking about what I'd like to see on the Wiki as a reader), it seems obvious to me that A Good Man Goes to War is (among other things) a Sontarans story, complete with Strax being here as a Sontaran soldier, with the outfit and all — not yet a member of the Paternoster Gang. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 17:55, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

i dont think being part of the Paternoser Gang really has anything to do with it. the fact is that these two characters have appeared so much that the majority of appearances in the respective lists for the entire species is made up of their solo adventures. what if someone is wanting to look for other silurian or sontaran episodes? DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 18:04, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

At the very least, there should be a very prominent note on this page on the Sontarans LOA linking to Strax and Vastra's individual lists of appearances, and explaining that solo appearances by these individuals are omitted from the following list.

Because equally, I can ask: what if someone is wanting to look for the actual list of TV stories with Silurians with them, whoever they are? --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 18:28, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

is "This list does not include Vastra who has her own list" not enough of a note? it is as prominent as it can be, in my opinion, and matches the ones excluding the Doctor, Master, etc, from the Time Lord LOA page.

didnt understand your last point. if you meant somebody may want to know which episodes say Vastra appears alongside Silurians then they could easily compare the two LOA pages and see which ones are consistent. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 19:07, June 18, 2020 (UTC)

No, I meant that I can (do!) want to have a list of "every Doctor Who episode with at least one Sontaran in it", whether or not that Sontaran happens to be Strax. "List of appearances of the Silurians" is a different thing from "List of appearances of other Silurians than Vastra". I would quite like to have the former on the Wiki somewhere. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 19:09, June 18, 2020 (UTC)