Talk:The Doctor Appears (TV story)

Invalidity

This page was created with an {{invalid}} tag back in 2017 without discussion by an unregistered IP user, and personally, I do not believe there is grounds for this story to be invalid. Doctor Who (N-Space) shows us that Doctor Who exists in-universe, Afterword shows us that the Doctor retroactively inserted himself in popular culture, and Who's After Your Cash has a virtually indentical premise and execution... So can this be validated? It doesn't violate any of the four little rules either.

Epsilon 📯 📂

15:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I would also say that Scrooge MacDuck's rationale on Talk:Who's After Your Cash (short story) is also applicable here.

Epsilon 📯 📂

15:15, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

This is quite right. Not only was this invalid tag added without discussion by an IP user, but by an IP user who was blocked on several occasions culminating in an indefinitely-long ban that is still going on.

As highlighted by Tardis:Valid sources, barring really obvious cases, stories need a community discussion to be proven invalid under Rule 4. Not the reverse. For the reasons Epsilon states, this is not an obvious case, if somebody feels that this story should be ruled invalid, they'll need to create a thread on the subject. We can't have "the judgement of random IP users + time" deciding invalidity for us.

However, if that thread is ever created, a fairly low standard will be required in terms of "new evidence". This hasn't been ruled upon yet; this story is just valid by default. Therefore, while having some evidence in the OP is always preferable, there would be few ways to begin the "exclusion debate" that would really break T:POINT.

(EDIT: Oh, and another note: another potential grounds for this thing's alleged invalidity, I suppose, was that it was originally a live performance. But as highlighted on many, many occasions in our past debates on stage plays, it has always been evident that if a live show is professionally filmed and given a "fixed" release as a webcast, home video production or TV story, it'll more likely than not be valid. After all, many 1960s serials were recorde as-live too. But just to be clear, the TV version of this is provisionally valid. The "stage version" itself is not.) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:24, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Can I just point out that I find it a bit that this is valid whist Dermot and the Doctor and The Doctor Drops In are invalid, but I’m not sure if this should be invalidated or those should be validated. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by NightmareofEden (talk • contribs) .

A veeery old inclusion debate officially ruled Dermot and the Doctor invalid back in the day, and a more well-rounded rationale was proposed at Talk:The Ultimate Guide (2013 documentary) by User:CzechOut as part of a different discussion.

Now, it's worth noting that the former rests on a practice overturned by the "Sequels to invalid stories" thread this year, and the latter is in the context of saying "X can't be valid, see, because Dermot and the Doctor is invalid and does [Same Thing That X Does]"… when X is something that a proper inclusion debate later ruled valid. So it could be argued that Wiki policy has evolved since that really very old (and, even at the time, quite off-the-cuff) decision. But those decisions do exist, so Dermot and the Doctor stays invalid per T:BOUND until a new thread rules otherwise, unlike this story, which is valid unles proven otherwise due to there never having been a decision about it.

The Doctor Drops In I'm actually unsure about. If there is no evident ground for its invalidity and no official ruling was ever made, it probably should be provisionally-revalidated as well. But I'd need to have more data. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 00:57, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

(Update: see Talk:The Doctor Drops In (TV story).) Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)