Talk:Walter the Worm (novel)

Validity

The character, Early Bird, first appears in Dr. First. To my knowledge, this was his first appearance in any Mr Men universe story. Toy Story Fan 09:40, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Ooh, this is possibly an extremely interesting find! How knowledgeable are you when it comes to Mr. Men? The type of role the Early Bird gets in Dr. First means it could have feasibly appeared in any of the existing Mr. Men universe stories. It might be quite difficult to verify Dr. First as the first appearance given the amount of online information on the subject (just look at the Mr. Men Wiki's page on Doctor Who!). Borisashton ☎ 10:57, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Dear god that page is just so... laughable.

Epsilon📯 📂

11:02, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I have access to every Little Miss book and a decent number of Mr Men books. I will check through what I can access when I have the time to and relay the information back here. Bongo50 (aka Bongolium500) ☎ 07:46, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Regardless if the character appeared first in the DWU crossover I personally do not think that this page should exist. The character of the Early Bird was clearly intended to be a Mr. Men character rather than a DWU character. RadMatter ☎ 09:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The page should exist, however, even if that were the case. A story which exploits a license to a character who debuted in a DWU story, but fails Rule 4, should be covered as {{invalid}}.

However, that is, anyway, not really a distinction the Wiki recognises. We view the Dr. Men book as taking place in the DWU straight-on, not as a case of two universes interacting; therefore by definition any character who is introduced as existing in the universe of those books is an N-Space character, even if in marketing terms they're not advertised as a Doctor Who character. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 10:19, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

That is simply incorrect.

It is the same reason why Vienna and The Confessions of Dorian Gray only have overview pages rather than individual story pages like this because, despite making their first appearance in a DWU story, they were never intended to be part of the DWU permanently (Vienna pending discussion). RadMatter ☎ 10:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

That is where you are wrong, as both series have been described in some capacity as being not set in the DWU. (Though Vienna is oh-so-tenuously been stated to be set outside of the DWU, of course.)

However, with Mr Men, there has been no such statement

Epsilon📯 📂

10:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

There doesn't have to be a statement. The Mr Men books are their own series with no connection to the DWU outside of these crossover stories. Scrooge said that because the Early Bird made their first appearance in a DWU story that we now have to cover every story that they appear in because they are a DWU character, but as my examples have proven this has never been the case. RadMatter ☎ 10:54, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

No, these statements make or break coverage; if it hadn't been for these quotes, we'd most likely be covering all of Dorian Gray. We cannot just assume something is set outside the DWU - with Mr. Men, the Doctor Who mythos has essentially become one with it, so therefore, if a DWU character appears in Mr. Men books after Dr. Men without a rule four failing statement, these stories deserve coverage.

Epsilon📯 📂

11:09, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I would like to show my support for the coverage of Mr Men in a valid, or at the very least invalid, capacity. However, this is all dependant on whether Early Bird did actually debue in Dr. First. Therefore, I feel this should be verified first, something I will happily help with when I have more time (likely in about 3-5 days). Bongo50 (aka Bongolium500) ☎ 11:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Let me clarify something: The Confession of Dorian Gray is not covered because it's a case of a public-domain character being played by the same actor in a DWU source and another series; it's become clear that it's a different (if similar) take on Dorian Gray. The Confession Dorian is simply not a licensed character who debuted in the DWU.

Vienna is a weird aberration and should not be counted because it's 95% certain we will bring her back into the fold once we have Forums. But even then, she was only excluded because there was an explicit quote which was interpreted as telling us she was not only "not in the conventional DWU", but "not a Doctor Who-related character". We took the interpretation that Vienna had been created as an independent character all along, and had happened to first appear in the Doctor Who story in terms of release order.

Is it possible the Early Bird is in a similar boat to what-we-have-thus-far-thought-was-up-with-Vienna? Maybe. Heck, it's even possible to argue that it's a public domain character too, what with coming from a saying. I'm really not sure Walter the Worm belongs on this Wiki. And we haven't even established for sure that the Mr Men Early Bird debuted in a valid source at all.

But in terms of policy, let me be crystal clear: in the overwhelming majority of cases, if a story uses a character who debuted in a licensed work we cover, then we will have a page about that story. If that story is not meant to be set in the DWU, this will simply make the page {{invalid}}. The vanishingly rare cases where a story exploits a license to a concept that debuted in the DWU, and yet is not covered on this Wiki, are abnormal and idiosyncratic and do not reflect the Wiki's general philosophy in these matters. Interested parties should reread T:VS. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Just because a character appeared in a DWU story does not mean that every subsequent appearance of that character is worthy of coverage - especially in an established non-DWU series such as the Mr Men books. And regardless, Scrooge you already know that the appearance of a single character has been deemed in the past to be not enough for coverage - for example; Panda's appearance in Hells Bells was ruled as not enough to cover the Brenda and Effie series and we have since had to unearth more links to other DWU licensed concepts and are waiting to reopen the discussion.

Also, you cannot say that we shouldn't count Vienna as a precedent because we are waiting for the discussion to be reopened as you are bound to current policy. RadMatter ☎ 12:33, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

...I do not ever recall a specific inclusion debate for Hell's Belles @RadMatter - only the inclusion debate for the series as a whole, which, IIRC, was botched up as nobody had actually read the damn novels, a common trend with Magrs' Works That Are Not Covered By This Wiki (coughBaker's Endcough). And as for Early Bird... you're still assuming that Roger Hargreaves believes that the Dr. Men are a mere crossover, and that Dr. Men isn't a part of the world of Mr. Men, or vice versa. What evidence do you have to support your claims? Until you can actually provide something tangible, let's treat this series with the benefit of the doubt.

Epsilon📯 📂

12:42, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

RadMatter, you write — "just because a character appeared in a DWU story does not mean that every subsequent appearance of that character is worthy of coverage" — not necessarily. What I am telling you is that per T:VS it is the default. There are special circumstances where other concerns outweigh the fact that a story using a licensed concept that debuted in a DWU is, by default, covered. This was the case with Vienna. And the even better, ur-type example might be Señor 105, where the creator explicitly said "this shouldn't be on Tardis Wiki". But in the absence of serious reasons to think otherwise it leads to default coverage.

Another way to put it is that the policy is this:

• If a story features a licensed appearance by something which debuted in the DWU, the presumption is that it's intended to be set in the DWU too. We cover it as valid.
• If the creators say that the story is not continuous with the previous appearances of this DWU concept/with the DWU itself, then we cover it from a real-world perspective (because it's historically descended from the DWU), but it's {{invalid}}.
• If the creators go out of their way to explicitly say the story shouldn't be read in the context of the DWU even in real-world terms, we give it a series-overview page but don't give it {{invalid}} coverage.

As for Brenda & Effie, while User:Epsilon the Eternal's contention that the original debate was "botched" isn't really proper, my recollection of the debate is simply that Panda's appearances in a later book was not sufficient to show that the series as a whole should be covered (because the DWU elements weren't in the story's first entry, so it couldn't be considered to be a spin-off on the whole). But the door was left open to inclusion debates for those books in the series which "crossed over" with the DWU by featuring specific DWU elements — namely Hell's Bells and The Bride That Time Forgot. Those debates were never held because nobody really cared and there were enough inclusion debates as it was, but I must resist the spurious interpretation that the Wiki did anything as self-evidently wrong as rule that a story featuring as major a DWU character as Panda was not worthy of coverage. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:47, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Literally rule four is "If a story was intended to be set outside the DWU, then it's probably not allowed. But a community discussion will likely be needed to make a final decision". This story is clearly set outside the DWU, @Epsilon asks me to prove that it isn't set in the DWU (and for his information Roger Hargreaves died 30 years before the books came out so I doubt he cares if they are in the DWU or not) clearly forgetting that it is his burden to prove that it is set in the DWU. And one character, who may or may not have first appeared in a DWU story, is not enough. RadMatter ☎ 13:04, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

…Read that sentence again. The burden of proof in fact rests on the people wanting to exclude it. We need positive evidence of a story "being intended to be set outside the DWU", and even if we have it it's only "probably" not allowed. Excluding a story on Rule 4 grounds is something that can only be done with a thread and actual evidence.

And when it comes to the presumptive authorial intent in this case, what we have been trying to tell you is this: the way the Dr. Men books are written involves no interdimensional travel or things of that kind. They act like the Earth of the Mr. Men books and the Earth of the DWU are one and the same. Therefore, as far as the writers of these books are concerned, any further Mr. Men book logically passes Rule 4: it's all the same universe. This is similar to how I would expect that any Sherlock Holmes story written by Andy Lane (who wrote All-Consuming Fire) would pass Rule 4 in an abstract sense, because Lane believes the DWU and Sherlock Holmes universes to be one and the same. We don't cover every Lane Sherlock Holmes book, or every Mr. Men book ever, because they don't have an actual licensed concept to "prove" that they're DWU; but in terms of authorial intent, they are.

I'm not too hot on covering this book, myself. (I'm the guy who placed the {{delete}} tag!) But I think the arguments to exclude it have nothing to do with Rule 4 or authorial intent. The question is whether the Mr. Men rendition of a public-domain concept like "the Early Bird" really can be considered a copyrightable character as understood in T:VS, and, assuming it can, whether that character really did debut in the Dr. Men series or not. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

This is literally why this Wikia is mocked so heavily as there are people who want to cover everything despite it having nothing to do with the DWU. It is a shame to see the rules being twisted in favour of coverage when they have never meant what you are suggesting for them to mean. RadMatter ☎ 13:14, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Please don't use phrases such as "twisting the rules" when talking about other users. This could be construed as a personal attack.

As for the Wiki being mocked, people off the Wiki having boring conceptions of what "the DWU" can be is none of our concern, and stories which make use of concepts which debuted in the DWU clearly do have 'something to do' with the DWU in a very direct, objective, causal sense. Besides, in my own experience of my forays in online fandom spaces, people more often mock us for being too exclusionist (most notably for excluding Vienna) than too inclusionist. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:24, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

It isn't a personal attack as I am not saying that people are doing it on purpose or with intention. The rules are certainly being twisted here but it may simply be a poor understanding of them. RadMatter ☎ 13:26, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. I… will leave it up to readers to determine in their own minds who has the better reading comprehension, of the person who somehow thought Rule 4's wording meant the burden of proof was on the inclusive side, or the administrator who wrote parts of the current Tardis:Valid sources page.

In any case, this is all a bit of a digression and I'd appreciate it if we could stick to the topic at hand: this Walter the Worm thing. Let's first wait for User:Bongolium500 to report back with their research and inform us whether the Early Bird appeared in any earlier Mr. Men book, as that alone would render all other concerns moot and mean the instant deletion of this page. Also, I would appreciate second opinions on my inkling that "the Early Bird" might be considered a public domain character rather than a copyrightable one. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I have taken the time to research this topic (there are several YouTube videos online which read the stories).

Neither Walter the Worm nor the Early Bird are named in Dr. First. What is apparently the "Early Bird" is simply a generic bird design that has been seen in Mr Men book since their conception, and looks nothing like the later established named Early Bird from Walter the Worm. For some reason the Wikia isn't letting me post images at the moment? RadMatter ☎ 13:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Ah. Good work! Yyeah, that's a deletion, then.

Not sure what trouble you're having with the images; it's probably a UCP thing. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:44, 26 May 2021 (UTC)