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Opening Post
A spectre is haunting this wiki - the spectre of Doctor Who (N-Space).
There was substantial discussion on how to handle the in-universe iteration of the Doctor Who franchise in the now hidden forums. At first the page was dabbed using The Thief of Sherwood, but the situation was always complicated, as Remembrance of the Daleks had an allusion to the show, and earlier works began to pop up as the thread went on. (In addition, it came to light that Thief was intended to be in a completely separate universe as well.) In the end, due to this nuance, (and, I believe, the fact that the earliest story known at the time to reference the in-universe franchise also had a dab term, making the thing clunky) it was decided that T:DAB OTHER would be applied to the situation, in a... creative interpretation of this policy. Since then, as {{Doctor Who}} shows, the situation has become more and more convoluted, we've (mainly Epsilon, but others as well) discovered a wealth of information relating to in-universe analogues of the real world franchise or people involved with it. I think it's time we reconsider.
Aside from Doctor Who (N-Space) these pages are dabbed through a hodgepodge of various rules, sometimes not having dab terms at all (Bbcdoctorwho), sometimes being dabbed through the story they first appear in (The Woman Who Lived (The Zygon Isolation)), and sometimes through other means entirely (Give-a-show Projector (device)).
Is it plausible to go backwards? Can we return to this patchwork system of dab rules for the franchise in its entirety, and call it Doctor Who (Story Name)? Well, the first instance I could find of the franchise appearing in the DWU, at least on this wiki, is TV Terrors (TVC 709 comic story). If we consider this a parody, the second is Lady Penelope Investigates the stars of the Sensational new film Dr. Who and the Daleks! (short story). And I believe the first unambiguous DWU reference (that is, you can't quibble that it's a parody, you can't argue that it's TV Century 21 which some (wrong) people might take umbrage to) to the franchise is A Letter from the Doctor (DWM 1 short story). Of these three options, two have dab terms themselves. So this won't work.
Alright. We can't go backwards. Does staying still cause problems? Yes. A patchwork, inconsistent system is inherently a problem. But even if we ignore that, see the discussions at Talk:Give-a-show Projector (device), and Talk:The Woman Who Lived (The Zygon Isolation), two criticisms have been leveled at our current situation, that the current dab term framework makes in-universe counterparts harder to find (and, yes, Epsilon's template has made this less of an issue, but ideally it would be nice to make them easily searchable as well as having a navbox), and that for some of our undabbed in-universe counterparts there's some inherent level of confusion between them and their real world counterparts. (Against Nature, TARDIS Wiki, BBC iPlayer, etc)
So. Backwards is out. Staying still has problems. How do we proceed? A single unified dab term. But there are at least two open questions.
1. What is this dab term? Currently we're using (N-Space) on the franchise page, and there's been some suggestion that it will be the single unified dab term. Since we're here to define an entirely new dabbing policy, I'm not wedded to this idea. I would accept (N-Space) if others were set on it, but I think the better option is just to move everything over to (In Universe), and this is what I support. I think this dab term is simpler for the average user to understand, and is easier to search. The only reason to use (N-Space) was to apply T:DAB OTHER, which isn't necessary if we're defining new policy, or for sentimental reasons, given that we've lived with it for almost 3 years.
2. What is the scope of the dab term? This may seem like a trivial question, but it's not. Are we concerned with things related to the in-universe counterpart of the DW franchise, in-universe counterparts of things related to the DW franchise, or the intersection of the two? I think the first is clearly out, if something is stated to be related to DW (IU) but has no real world counterpart, there's no clear reason to dab it. The second might be doable, but it seems... questionable. Notable problems with this line of thought are Niki (For the Girl Who Has Everything), Antonio Amaral (Omega), and Vitas Varnas (Omega), (yes, those last two are only very tangentially related to the real world DW franchise, being backers of Omega, but technically they would qualify). I think the third is the most viable, but it does run into some issues when we consider that the in universe versions of Faction Paradox, etc, haven't been explicitly stated to be related to the in universe version of DW, so we have to do a little bit of sleight of hand to make everything work.
I think pursuing this reform of our massively convoluted approach to the in-universe franchise, a T:DAB IU, if you will, will benefit both editors and readers, in providing a unified approach to the subject that has frustrated many of us for years, and removes confusion that the average reader might experience. Najawin ☎ 17:21, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
Just for clarity, I think it must be stated by myself I obnoxiously went against dab terms for meta in-universe counterparts of Doctor Who related topics. Nowadays, I can see that what I did was in no way helpful. While I'd be fine with story dabs for all of these topics, using more descriptive dab terms would improve searchability, as @Najawin stated. If we are to use "in-universe", I'd prefer if we went one step further and did things like Tom Baker (in-universe actor), The Seeds of Death (in-universe serial), The Woman Who Lived (in-universe episode), in part to reflect instances where we do use dab terms like "actor" and "episode", and also in cases such as Fanboys where both the serial and novelisation of The Seeds of Doom are mentioned, thus making a single dab term, either story or descriptive, suboptimal. Thoughts? I do support this proposal, by the way, despite how much I used to fight against such an idea.
15:52, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I probably won’t be participating in this particular discussion. I have no strong feelings for or against this topic. Danniesen ☎ 17:20, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Do you mean Planet of the Spiders (Fanboys)? Seeds of Doom doesn't seem to have a novelization and also has the wrong BTS info. With that said, I'd have to toy around with some search bar logic, maybe on another wiki, but I think that's probably a decent modification. Najawin ☎ 18:15, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
I prefer (in universe) (with or without Epsilon's modification) over (N-Space), since Doctor Who (N-Space) seems to suggest that Doctor Who (E-Space) would be viable, and I'd much rather a single concentrated page, even with an "Other realities" section if need be, than a dozen Doctor Who (another universe) pages. I'm also interested in clarifying the question of when we will use whatever dab term or terms we choose. In the case of metafictional information, my inclination is to say always. To quote User:OttselSpy25:
On this wiki, we have a precedent for giving in-universe concepts higher-ranking in terms of page names. For instance, Meglos goes to the character and not the episode. However, I think we should begin to make a precedent of finding exceptions to this in cases which are particularly "meta". For instance, The Five Doctors should not link to a video game, as it only confuses the user and leads to bad links. For examples of this being done right, see: Tom Baker (TV Action!), John Lucarotti (The Meeting), Gareth Jenkins (A Fix with Sontarans), etc.
This principle was already articulated and enforced by admins at Talk:The Woman Who Lived (The Zygon Isolation) and Talk:Dave Stone (Many Happy Returns). It's common sense: Doctor Who Series 9 and The Witch's Familiar referring to in-universe equivalents of Doctor Who stories, rather than the stories themselves, is user-unfriendly for readers and editors both. Whatever T:DAB IU results from this discussion will need to codify a solution to this concern as well. – n8 (☎) 18:55, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- One big issue is I've never quite understood why N-Space has been consistently considered the universal term for the Doctor's universe, when logically other universes exist with their own versions of N-Space and E-Space. Like, The Doctor's reality (The Eight Doctors), Virgin reality, and 2-D universe surely all have their own N-Spaces? Especially as Adric seems to exist in all three. Pete's World probably has an E-Space equivalent as well. The whole N-Space / E-Space thing with the realities having to do with positive and negative coordinates across a divide is just too different from the typical definition of a "multiverse." I'd prefer we not use it because of that.
- Also, I agree with Nate's point about making a choice about exactly when this is done. One is example to me is that Stephen Fry exists as a character in a novel. Are we going to thus say that actor who appear in even the most obscure DWU productions always have the DAB page on the fictional equivalent? Clearly that's what we've officially been doing, but I don't think we've ever had a debate about this properly. OS25🤙☎️ 19:07, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Regarding whether "N-Space" and "the main Doctor Who universe" are synonymous, that particular conundrum has been the subject of long, long discussion at Talk:N-Space, which has not been resolved yet. Feel free to chime in yet. For the purposes of the present discussion, let's take it as read that by the "(N-Space)" option, we mean using as a dab term whatever we may or may not end up renaming our page on the "main universe" to; not N-Space specifically.
- (Though for the record, note also that the various "realities" you cited aren't necessarily "other universe than" the "main" universe, just different accounts of that universe, and/or, as per the palimpsest universe, different iterations of it as it endlessly reboots itself. So they wouldn't necessarily imply that there's ever more than one N-Space and E-Space at any given "time". Still, there are definitely unambiguously-coexisting parallel universes with their own Adrics, so it's an academic distinction to make.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:24, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
Duly noted. I was basing my analysis there on my understanding of the plot to Zagreus, which I'll admit isn't the strongest.
On the topic of setting a precedent for DAB terms when there's an in-universe copy of a fictional concept, I wanted to bring up another example where we currently have it backwards to the presumed precedent: Doctor Who Discovers, a book series name dropped in a Big Finish audio, has the mainpage. Doctor Who Discovers (series), the real-world novels (written as if they are the Doctor's diaries) has the DAB. Whereas in many of the cases listed above, the dab goes to the fictional reference to the real-world Doctor Who media. As I recall at the time, it was the opinion of the admins that this usage was correct by our rules, which is why The Five Doctors goes straight to a video game link.
A very complex example to use as a litmus test is The Seeds of Dea- I mean Doom.
- In one novel, Sarah Jane is said to have written a series of books based on her adventures, one of which is called The Seeds of Doom (book). So it's dabbed with "book" to denote it's in-universe.
- In short story (probably) set in the fictionalized "real world", we see the TV story this is based on also exists, so that's The Seeds of Doom (Fanboys) (using the story title).
- And then The Seeds of Doom (DABless) still redirects to the TV story.
This is a really strong example, as we have both a meta in-universe copy of a real thing and an in-universe concept that only shares a name. Sarah Jane's book is not a direct copy of the TV episode.
So in both cases do we want the TV story to maintain the mainspace redirect? I'd say yes, which shows that it's a little more complex than just "things from the real world that also exist in-universe." It's mainly about making a site that's easy to maneuver for our readers.
Although as a quick note, I suppose the added complexity is when a story is supposed to exist in-universe, such as with Who Killed Kennedy vs Who Killed Kennedy (novel) and basically any story that pretends it's a diary or journal (like Who Discovers). I guess my point is that it's a very complex subject and we have no official policy that I can find on when all this is supposed to happen. OS25🤙☎️ 19:33, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Generally, I agree with Epsilon's proposal of disambiguating with (in-universe thing). But, there's also the issue of alternate realities. In-universe here means the fictional universe as a whole, which covers multiple "universes" as in realities. If you take a look at Tom Baker (disambiguation), you can see that there are quite a few instances of Tom Baker from both the Doctor's home universe and several others. However, per T:MERGE, these can easily be covered on an "Alternate realities" section of Tom Baker (in-universe actor). In fact, I think this makes things significantly easier to cover and to understand, because it covers all "in-universe" instances of the subject together, as they're all derived from the same thing in the real world. Arguably, this could be extended to something like The Seeds of Doom, where all in-universe references are covered together, but a book by Sarah Jane Smith is different from an in-universe version of the serial, so I think they should stay separate— and this is why I prefer Epsilon's more specific approach. In general, I think we should not shy away from more specific disambiguation terms, if they are more useful.
- Additionally, I think a "dab"-less version of any real-world story, series, etc should almost always redirect to the real world page, and having an in-universe disambiguation term should be standard on such pages. Whether it's through searching or linking, 99% of the time the link is meant to go to the real-world page. Chubby Potato ☎ 21:06, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- It would be nice to be able to treat stuff TV Action! (comic story) and The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who (comic story) as correlating, it does feel a little odd sometimes that Tom Baker (TV Action!) and Tom Baker (The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who) are treated as different people simply because we can't prove that the meta-reality of both comics is the same universe. It's a pretty big exception to T:DAB OTHER but in the end I think it would make the wiki a much easier place to comprehend.