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Introduction
So I had this idea a few days ago, and I thought it would be a good idea to pitch it to the fourms. It's a really good idea I think, and it's something a little less contentious than some of the other big rule changes we've been making. It's basically about inter-wiki linking and infoboxes.
For many many years, infoboxes on TARDIS wiki have had the "first=" variable. Historically, this has been used to denote the first valid source where this character appears. Despite sounding simple, caused a lot of headaches. For instance, Zog from the stage play Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure once listed a short trips story as his premiere story, despite this being an out-of-universe variable.
We recently changed this, making the standing rule that the earliest piece of fiction that Tardis Wiki has a page about will be the "first" variable for this topic. So Zog's page now says his first appearance is the stage play, even thought it's not a valid source.
However, I've now realized that this shift in rules actually might give us a chance to go even further with this. Basically, I am proposing the introduction of a new variable for infoboxes:
|firstNOCOV=
So why would we ever need this? Well, the idea is that we specifically would only use this for characters and concepts which originated in non-DW stories. This would link to their actual origin story, while our first= variable would be used just for the earliest story on our wiki.
So, Mickey Mouse's first NOCOV variable would link w:c:disney:Steamboat Willie. Jeff Tracy's first variable would list w:c:Thunderbirds:Trapped in the Sky. (obviously in each of these cases we'd hide the inter-wiki guts and gears, but I wanted you to be able to see how it works if you're not familiar)
There's a few notes about this idea.
I think it should go without saying that we'd really only do this for franchised concepts. There's no need for, like, John Lennon to list w:c:Beatles:My Bonnie (EP) or for Globe Theatre to list Julius Caesar (play) or whatever.
I also don't think this should apply to Doctor Who concepts which have been retconned to being related to other franchises. Like, I know the novels in the 90s were all excited about constantly retconning that, uh, Kandyman is Cthulhu or whatever. But I would still list The Abominable Snowmen as the first appearance of the Great Intelligence. I would not list w:c:Lovecraft:The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. But if the page for Yog-Sothoth had an infobox, sure you could list it there.
However, I think we should also consider the obvious topic of Doctor Who Universe characters and concepts which originated in things meant to be set in the Doctor Who Universe which we otherwise don't cover. An example might be Johnny Chess, who was introduced in a short story seen in the Perfect Timing Charity Anthologies. There are obviously many other examples of things like this.
The test template I'm using in this OP is at Template:Infobox off-wiki first. I changed barely anything, it's probably not good enough to be used right away, and I am not good at coding templates. But this is the basic idea of what I'm suggesting.
Complications
There are only one big complication I can think of for this.
While our infoboxes will allow very easily for FANDOM wikis to be linked, off-site wikis are going to be a challenge to link in the infobox. So far, there are three non-FANDOM wikis I can think of that we would want to link for this: TFwiki, the Magrsverse, and Wikipedia.
TFwiki we'd need to cite for Death's Head (Wanted: Galvatron — Dead or Alive!), Magrsverse wiki we'd want for a few things but mostly Iris Wildthyme (Marked for Life) and then Wikipedia for... I don't know, something where the first story isn't popular enough to have a wiki but does have a Wikipedia page. I don't have an example. Sue me.
So basically, we may need to either make a functioning template that making off-FANDOM linking more realistic, or we need a second variable, something like:
|firstoffsite =
Which would just let you do a typical [link title] sorta vibe. I went ahead and added this to the template... and it pretty much works!
Here is what I inputed to create the Death's Head infobox on the right:
|firstoffsite = ''[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Wanted:_Galvatron_%E2%80%94_Dead_or_Alive! Wanted: Galvatron — Dead or Alive!]''
|first = The Crossroads of Time (comic story)
I also want to say, speaking to the topic at the start of this debate, that some people might actually want to move "first non-valid variable" to its own separate input. I'm against this by principle because I, quite cynically and honestly, view "valid" and "non-valid" as terms we made up that have no academic measurable weight. When someone says "Where did this character originate from?" and you say "A Big Finish Short Trips anthology, because the other thing isn't valid!" I think that's not helpful to the reader.
But I would be more accepting of a "first appearance in a valid source" input, because that's being honest.
If we say, for Zog, first non-valid appearance=the stage play, first appearance= random short trips story... The second variable is still telling a non-truth. But if we say first appearance=stage play, first valid source appearance= random short trips story, then that's at least saying two statements which are factually true.
The more that I look at everything in this forum, the more I can see that I'm a little bit over my head with this one, and if this concept takes any shape I suspect it'll look totally different from what I've pitched. But I think this is a general good first step in trying to give a more useful and honest guide to our readers.
Tell me what you all think! OS25🤙☎️ 23:17, 10 April 2023 (UTC)