Tardis:Valid sources
Hence, two contradicting sources can be considered equally valid, while one that seems like it fits in may not be for the reasons below.
When you write an article on our wiki, you need to cite your statements. Knowing which sources are valid is therefore crucial to the writing — and reading! — process. Without a clear sense of what works of fiction will be discussed here — and which will not — your writing may be considered untrustworthy.
Therefore, only valid works of fiction can be used to describe an "in-universe" topic. For instance, if we were writing about Sarah Jane Smith's experience of the country of Italy, we could use anything within The Masque of Mandragora or even The Ghosts of N-Space. But we could not use something from a 1986 fanzine in which Sarah Jane was described as having visited Florence (which is not something we cover) or even from a strip in Doctor Whoah! where she'd have met Rory Williams in Ancient Rome (because that's an invalid source).
For our real world articles — that is, articles about behind the scenes personnel and other things tagged with {{real world}} — it's equally important to know what sources you can use. After all, someone in South Dakota writing on ilovetennant.blogspot.com shouldn't be considered a valid source for our article about David Tennant.
In-universe sources
Terminology
The Doctor Who universe is a tricky place when it comes to defining what should "count" and what shouldn't. You should make sure you understand why the DWU isn't like other franchises before you go on. Suffice it to say here that the word "canon" is not applicable to any attempt to define the boundaries of the DWU, least of all our own — and that more generally, no definition of the DWU is truer than another.
However, as a matter of common sense, any reference guide about the DWU has to make certain choices about what to include – and what to kick off the farm. Our methods have long stressed the need to include as many different tales as possible, even if they are in explicit narrative contradiction.
We also specifically do not consider the quality of the source when deciding whether to exclude a source. Instead, we are guided by the legal status of a work as well as the authorial intent. Those things which don't have the permission of all relevant copyright holders, or those which were never meant to be continuous with the established DWU, are excluded. Except in the most obvious of cases, community discussion is required to declare a source invalid. In these discussions, sufficient evidence must be provided that that the source either doesn't have permission from all relevant copyright holders, or that there are solid non-narrative reasons to believe the source does not occur in the DWU.
In practice, there are three broad statuses that works of fiction can possess on the Wiki, detailed on the table below.
| “Valid sources” | These are works of fiction which pass all of the "four little rules" described below. They are the most common "kind" of work of fiction on this Wiki, and its primary focus. They can be used to source statements on the vast majority of in-universe pages on this wiki — those written as if the DWU were real. |
Examples: City of Death; Lungbarrow; Political Animals |
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| “Invalid sources” | Works which we cover, but do not use as sources on our "normal" in-universe pages about elements of the DWU. Information about, say, the Fourth Doctor in an invalid source can only go in the "Behind the scenes" section of the page "Fourth Doctor". If such a source introduces concepts not featured in any valid sources, they can be covered on in-universe-type pages, but these must clearly be tagged as "invalid" too, and should not be placed in the same section of the category tree as their counterparts. |
Examples: The Final Script; The Web of Caves; The Invasion of Bash Street |
| “Not covered” | Works which we do not cover at all, usually because they have no legal link to any part of the DWU. They do not warrant pages of their own, except for series overviews where applicable. Such works are not sources, invalid or otherwise. As such, they should not be used as sources for any pages about fictional concepts, even those tagged as invalid. However, they can be briefly mentioned in "Behind the scenes" sections of valid pages if relevant to the real-world history of things we do actually cover. |
Examples: The Audio Visuals Campaign Big Finish's Sherlock Holmes |
Four little rules
It is important that we as a community work to a common understanding of what "counts" and what doesn't. Otherwise, our articles will gradually become "muddied" over time, with some people viewing certain works of fiction as "okay" and other people thinking the opposite. Over the course of several debates in our forums, four main rules have emerged to determine whether a work is a valid source.
Note that these four rules are not quite the be-all end-all of our validity policies, as all the text after this table will demonstrate. We've got specific jurisprudence that "rounds up" some edge cases to failing or passing one of the four rules, but which cannot necessarily be intuitively derived just from the rules.
Still, these work 99.9% of the time. If you want to understand what our validity policies are all about, first spend time with these; worry about the fine print later.
| 1 | Only works of fiction count. |
| 2 | A work of fiction which isn't commercially licensed by all of the relevant copyright holders doesn't count. |
| 3 | A work of fiction must be officially released to be valid. |
| 4 | If a work of fiction 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 determination. |
Explaining the rules
Rule 1
Rule 1 may seem redundant or just plain unnecessary. It's not. There are a lot of things about the DWU that aren't, in themselves, works of fiction. Most obviously, the thoughts of someone on the production team shouldn't be used to write an in-universe article, and this is the main situation Rule 1 was created to prevent, even back when it was "Only stories count".
What matters is that something is a complete work of fiction. Aside from BTS quotes, you may encounter a DWM article or a real-world-focused reference books which throws out a few worldbuilding tidbits, or the name of a creature that went unnamed on TV. None of this counts on this Wiki.
Rule 2
Rule 2 is also relatively self-explanatory. A Wiki like ours has to draw a line somewhere for what sources it will or will not cover: fanfic, fanfilms, and even professionally-printed charity books with no license to use the characters they feature, are that ultimate boundary for Tardis. Except for very special cases, Rule-2-breakers do not even deserve pages of their own on Tardis, and any truly notable information about a DWU concept's use in an unlicensed production should be kept at a short note in the Behind the scenes section.
Rule 2 also excludes works of fiction which don't infringe on any copyrights, but simply don't have any. BBV Productions' direct-to-VHS feature Cyberon was ostensibly meant to take place in the Doctor Who universe, and was a perfectly law-abiding product — but at the time it was released, it did not contain any preexisting DWU element to license. Thus, we don't cover it, though we do cover later uses of the Cyberons or Lauren Anderson in works of fiction that also exploited licensed DWU concepts. (Of course, such a system needs a "prime mover" to end the infinite recursion; in our case, that is, obviously, An Unearthly Child.)
However, "relevant copyright holders" is an important word. A one-line namedrop is not legally a form of copyright infringement, for example, so as long as a story is fully licensed for the use of — say — the Brig and the Great Intelligence, it doesn't necessarily need a license to briefly mention New Earth for us to cover it anyway. The rule is also only meant to apply to DWU concepts — if it should hypothetically turn out that Assimilation² did not actually have the license to use the Borg, we would still cover it as valid, because it was licensed to use the Doctor, the Cybermen and so on.
Note that the BBC do sometimes issue what they call "creative licenses", which allow fans to make things that have the "approval" of the BBC, but which cannot be sold. Such things are not covered by this Wiki in any way.
Rule 3
Of the three rules, Rule 3 is by far the most easily grasped, and the most frequently used. Is a televised episode of Doctor Who valid? Obviously — as long as it has been released in its entirety. But, as a natural extension of our spoiler policy, you can't start writing about the events in it based on trailers, early previews, or leaked — even if you are 100% certain your knowledge of what the story will contain is already accurate. This rule exists not only due to concerns about spoilers, but also because in cases of leaks, last-minute changes can, in fact, occur before the true release of a story. Work-prints of several episodes of Series 8 of Doctor Who leaked online ahead of their broadcast, but the spuriously-released Into the Dalek famously killed off Rusty, which is no longer the case in the TV version; and, indeed, Rusty's survival later became essential to the events of a later TV story.
Is a Sarah Jane Adventures audiobook that you've downloaded from AudioGO something you can use on the Sarah Jane page? Of course, because if it's downloadable it's by definition officially released.
This rule also disallows works of fiction which were never released, whether it be because their production was interrupted before completion or, in rare cases, because they were withheld from release even after completion. Notably, such sources, even if backed up by reliable real-world sources, are not even "invalid": they should not give rise to in-universe pages cited to them, only a single overview page for each unproduced or unreleased works of fiction. Unproduced story pages do not get the {{invalid}}, but instead the {{unprod}} or {{unrel}} tags.
Rule 4
Rule 4 is rarely invoked because there are very few works of fiction which are deliberately set outside the normal DWU continuity.
Most works of fiction are trying to be narratively continuous at the time they're produced, even though they may be superseded by later works of fiction. Even when there is an intentional contradiction, it is generally a matter of retconning or "overwriting" the earlier story, rather than setting itself in a radically separate universe: Terry Nation was aware that he was contradicting earlier Dalek material when he wrote Genesis of the Daleks, but that doesn't mean he was writing outside the DWU itself. Because Doctor Who works of fiction have contradicted each other since the 1960s, a story cannot be ruled invalid simply because it is narratively discontinuous with other works of fiction.
Consequently, extraordinary non-narrative evidence — such as the story's author directly saying that the story wasn't intended to take place in the DWU at all, but merely make use of DWU licenses to tell a very different story — must be presented to the community for a story to be kicked out based on Rule 4.
One exception to this, named "Rule 4 by proxy", occurs if a later story makes an effort to bring an otherwise invalid story back into the DWU. In these scenarios, the otherwise Rule 4-failing story may be decided to pass Rule 4 in a forum debate. In general, in-story evidence may be used for this purpose simply because finding authorial quotes affirming the "DWU-ness" of the works of fiction that an author happened to reference is impractical. While nice to have, such quotes are not necessary. However, out-of-story evidence can still be considered when it exists, such as if a story is billed as a prequel or sequel to an invalid story outside of the story itself. On the other hand, authorial quotes that deny the "DWU-ness" of the works of fiction that an author referenced can cause passing Rule 4 via this method to fail.
Insofar as it constitutes the "spine" of the Doctor Who universe, it should go without saying that episodes of the actual TV series Doctor Who are held to pass Rule 4 almost by definition. Even if one should happen to seemingly break the fourth wall, mainline, televised, BBC-aired Doctor Who TV works of fiction are tautologically a valid part of the Doctor Who universe.
What doesn't count
Most Doctor Who-related works of fiction so obviously pass our rules that you don't really have to even think about it. The chances are very good that if a story bears an official logo from any of our covered television shows — and an appropriate copyright declaration — it'll be a valid source.
But let's take a look at the kinds of things that don't work for us. Seeing how these rules eliminate sources will probably help resolve any lingering questions.
| Class of source | Explanation | Examples | Rule offended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fanfiction | Fan fiction isn't allowed. Seriously, NO FANFIC. That doesn't just mean that users — obviously — shouldn't use Tardis as a place to post their fanfics. Any fiction, by any author, where the copyright holder hasn't given permission isn't allowed, even if it's written by someone who has also written official DWU fiction, or if the fanfiction's events are later referenced in an official story. | The Audio Visuals | 2 |
| Charity publications | And no, it doesn't matter that the story was written by someone who has otherwise written licensed fiction. Or that the publisher did a nice thing and gave his or her profits to charity. Or that the work was almost published by the BBC. | Time's Champion Campaign |
2 |
| works of fiction that have been both unlicensed and licensed | A few works of fiction have appeared in charity publications or fan-published media and then were made into professional, licensed fiction. We only cover the licensed version. | 2 | |
| works of fiction from series that crossed over with the DWU once | Sometimes, a valid DWU story will have DWU characters interact with concepts from an unrelated preexisting series, with the implication that the rest of that series is also "applicable" to the DWU. However, those series had no DWU licenses at time of release, and their authors didn't intend for them to exist in the Doctor Who universe at the time — in fact, quite a few of those predate the broadcast of An Unearthly Child. All that stuff may be "canon" in some abstract way, but we have better things to do on this Wiki than cover every Sherlock Holmes or Star Trek story ever. | The Sherlock Holmes books by Arthur Conan Doyle | 2, 4 |
| works of fiction written by people affiliated with "official" Doctor Who | Some things seem like they might be licensed cause they're written by people associated with the DWU. But they're really not licensed at all. That also falls under the "No fanfiction" rule. | The Killing Stone
|
2 |
| Pastiches with DWU actors | Fan-run companies have generously employed a lot of DWU actors over the years, sometimes in roles meant to evoke their better-known DWU parts. But we don't cover everything Sophie Aldred and Colin Baker were in. It must be a licensed DWU story. | The Airzone Solution
The Stranger |
2, 4 |
| Parody | works of fiction that are explicitly parodies rather than "earnest" DWU works of fiction are things that cannot be used to write an in-universe article. But we often do allow there to be a page about the parody. Additionally, a story can be a parody of something else — such as Robot of Sherwood lampooning the Robin Hood myth — and still be valid; it's Doctor Who parodies we disallow. | 4 | |
| Non-parodic "what if?" works of fiction | Some completely serious works of fiction have been explicitly tagged by the publisher or author as being outside the DWU | An Adventure in Space and Time | 4 |
| "True" trailers | Trailers — that is, the "Next Time" trailer that appear at the end of episodes, not original, promotional minisodes — are considered spoilers here. They can't be cited before the episode they preview airs. And if they contain information which doesn't make it into the final cut of the episodes, that information is considered a cut scene, and therefore doesn't count. | A couple of the The Waters of Mars trailers contained information not in the final product. | 1, 3 |
| Review copies | If you receive a review copy of a story in advance of the official release date, keep it to yourself. | 3 | |
| Merchandise | Unlike that which obtains at w:c:starwars, packaging for merchandise is not a valid source here, unless it constitutes a source in itself. | 1 | |
| Most "interactive works of fiction" | Most games and "choose your fate" games present alternative, branching storylines rather than giving a definitive account of events in the DWU. Additionally, some of them will cast "you", the player, as a character, instead of having you play as an actual DWU characters. | Decide Your Destiny novels Anything in Category:Non-DWU games |
1, 4 |
| Behind the scenes information | Although behind the scenes comments are pretty much the only way that a story can be disqualified under Rule 4, such information cannot be used in the writing of in-universe articles. | PCOM: The End of Time establishes that Julie Gardner believes the Woman is the Doctor's mother. But her opinion is not reflected in the story itself, so it can't be included in the in-universe portion of the article about the Woman. | 1 |
Sources that have been specifically disallowed
The works of fiction we don't allow in our discussion of in-universe topics are actually few and far between. However, for clarity, we've composed a detailed list below.
Trickier stuff
Our simple little rule works to help you understand what works of fiction "count" on this wiki well over 90% of the time. The rest of this document is concerned with the other 10% — the marginal cases that are a little less clear.
When the licensor isn't the BBC
DWU concepts owned by others
The wrinkle that is difficult to understand for those who are new to the world of Doctor Who is the phenomenon of the author-owned concept. Copyright for individual works of fiction of Doctor Who has long resided in the individual writer, unless the British Broadcasting Corporation made other arrangements. This meant that a lot of characters, locations, and — particularly — species, were owned by individuals, not the BBC. Clever publishers were therefore able to release works of fiction connected to Doctor Who without having to ask for the BBC's permission.
The major publisher of this kind of story was BBV Productions. Typically, they would approach people like Robert Holmes (or, more precisely, his estate) and get permission to write, say, a Sontaran story that didn't involve other characters from the DWU. They then ended up with a story that was, in effect, fully licensed, because they got permission from the owner of the DWU element, and then they created wholly new characters around that copyrighted element.
Our approach is to generally allow these sorts of works of fiction.
However, there are a few exceptions, detailed below.
| Character | Where decided | Covered? | Valid? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet? | Forum:BBV and canon policy | Yes | No | Makes use of licenses to several DWU elements in the context of a parody of Doctor Who — and of Doctor Who spin-offs. It is the ur-type of a non-BBC-licensed story that should be covered, but as an invalid source. |
| Gobbleknoll Hall | Thread:207278 | No | No | Although Vince Cosmos appears in this episode of Baker's End, the overall intent of Baker's End was that it would be a sharp break from Doctor Who, "allowing" Tom Baker to star in something non-DW-related for a change. No sufficient evidence was presented about the authorial intent on Gobbleknoll Hall specifically to get around this basic fact. |
| Big Finish's Vienna | Thread:125464, Temporary forums/Archive/An update to T:VS | Yes | Yes | Although Vienna Salvatori made her debut in a Doctor Who audio, the creators of Vienna have made statements showing that they don't consider the series to be a Doctor Who spin-off, or Vienna's universe to be the same as the DWU. However, due to later being reconnected to the DWU by Master!, Vienna is valid due to "Rule 4 by proxy". |
| The Sleeze Brothers | Thread:210741, Thread:283828 | Yes | No | The evidence is insufficient that this short-lived spin-off was intended to be set in the DWU. It is thus invalid by default. |
| The Periodic Adventures of Señor 105 | Thread:117545 | No, except in crossovers | No, except in crossovers | Partway through the inclusion debate about the solo series of this secondary Iris Wildthyme character, the Señor's own creator weighed in, telling us that as far as he was concerned, it had "nothing to do on a Who wiki". We obliged. |
Non-DWU characters appearing in DWU productions
Very occasionally, a non-DWU character will appear in a "crossover" Doctor Who production and then go back to making appearances in their home series. Sometimes, this character will then be spun off into their own series. In such cases the spin-off is generally not considered a part of the DWU, except in very special cases or within further crossovers with the DWU.
| Character | Where decided | Valid? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Death's Head | Lots of discussions, including Forum:BBV and canon policy and | Narrowly | While we do have articles on the original comic series itself, the entirety of the character is not up for discussion here. Basically, Death's Head is valid to us only in works of fiction directly featuring the Doctor or characters introduced in Doctor Who Magazine — if you want a full explanation of the character, go to the Marvel Database. However, at least one Death's Head run, The Incomplete Death's Head, serialised a singular frame story which did feature DWU characters, so the entirety of The Incomplete Death's Head is considered a valid source. |
| The Fantastic Four & other Marvel heroes |
Lots of discussions, including Forum:Iris Wildthyme: should she stay or should she go? | No | The Seventh Doctor may land on top of the Four Freedoms Plaza at the conclusion of the Death's Head story Time Bomb!, but although this implies that a significant amount of the Marvel "canon" exists inside the DWU, these elements did not debut in the DWU. Thus, earlier or later appearances of any Marvel character is not validated by having once encountered a DWU element, albeit the Doctor themselves. |
| Iris Wildthyme | Thread:208795 | Mostly | Because she was reimagined as an inherently a DWU character (a Time Lady, or later a denizen of the Obverse) upon her introduction into the DWU, all official appearances by Iris Wildthyme after Old Flames are held to be part of the DWU. However, we still do not consider her handful of pre-DWU appearances in the Phoenix Court series to fall within what we cover on this Wiki. |
| Scott Handcock's Dorian Gray | Thread:118228 | No, with two exceptions. | The Confessions of Dorian Gray audio series is not a valid source. The authorial intent of author Scott Handcock is that it not be considered a spin-off of Doctor Who. The only exceptions of this rule are Shades of Gray (a Bernice Summerfield which happens to feature the charecter) and The Worlds of Big Finish (a crossover event with several DWU ranges). |
| Big Finish's Sherlock Holmes | Thread:118228 and Thread:210966 | No, with two exceptions. | Big Finish's Sherlock Holmes can only be said to be a part of the DWU because of a crossover in The Confessions of Dorian Gray series. Since that series has been ruled invalid, the Sherlock Holmes claim fails. Similarly to Dorian Gray, however, there are two exceptions to this ruling: All-Consuming Fire, and The Worlds of Big Finish. |
When the licensor is the BBC
Though almost everything which is licensed by the BBC and other rights' holders is considered a valid source here, our community occasionally rules certain works of fiction out of bounds. The following is a list of those specific works of fiction, along with references to the debates that declared those works of fiction out of bounds.
| Story/series | Where decided | Covered? | Valid? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Death Comes to Time | Inclusion debate: Death Comes to Time, Thread:240617, Thread:267931, Temporary forums/Archive/An update to T:VS | Yes | Yes | Valid via "Rule 4 by proxy" - the idea that a later story can pull an older and otherwise Rule 4-failing story into the DWU. Therefore, despite the fact that, judging by some quotes of his, author Dan Freedman did not consider it part of the "canonical" DWU at the time it was released, it is valid due to its later references in the also valid Zagreus, Trading Futures and The Same Face. |
| Dermot and the Doctor | National Television Awards Sketch 2011: Canon? | Yes | No | |
| A Fix with Sontarans, Tonight's the Night | Is A Fix With Sontarans Canon? | Yes | No | Those two are rare examples of so-called "TV stories" failing Rule 1. What we see of the Doctor and Jack's respective adventures may be set in the DWU, but neither of the sketches actually ends, instead bleeding over into fourth wall breaks. Thus it's a nonstarter for validity in both cases. (Contrast with the 2022 recut of A Fix with Sontarans, which eliminated the fourth-wall-breaking and instead appended a proper conclusion to the in-universe narrative.) |
| Dimensions in Time | Is Dimensions in Time canon, Tardis talk:Canon policy, Thread:211495, Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/An update to T:VS | Yes | Yes | Original Rule 4 intent is questionable as far as John Nathan-Turner's authorial intent is concerned. However, this is still valid due to "Rule 4 by proxy" as Storm in a Tikka presents itself as a sequel to this story. |
| PROSE: The Infinity Doctors | Is The Infinity Doctors canon? | Yes | Sorta | On this wiki, we make a special exception to our usual rule against authorial intent, to allow us to acknowledge The Infinity Doctors as DWU, yet clearly not part of the "mainstream" continuity. Consequently, we hold its events to have occurred in an alternate reality and while references to events from the story are allowed in in-universe articles, they must be prefaced with explanatory language such as "In the [[Infinity Doctor's reality]], the Doctor was told that..." or the like.
|
| Doctor Who? and other obvious parodies | a statement repeated without controversy throughout Is The Infinity Doctors canon? | Yes | No | If something is blatantly a spoof of the DWU rather than an "earnest" DWU narrative, it can safely be created as invalid even without a thread to specifically rule on the matter. However, "obvious" implies no significant disagreement; if there are conflicting opinions on whether a work qualifies as a parody, it should be taken to the forums. |
| Deleted scenes | Are deleted scenes canon?, P.S. | Yes | No | Deleted scenes were ruled deleted for a reason and therefore cannot be considered a part of the final narrative; they arguably fail Rule 1 and Rule 3, and definitely fail Rule 4. (That includes P.S., because writer Chris Chibnall admitted it was cancelled DVD extra, not a completed work.) |
| The Tom Baker version of Shada | Are deleted scenes canon? superseded by Shada: The Elephant in the Room |
Yes | No (unfinished and 1992 versions). Yes (2017 version) |
The 2017 version of Shada, presented as a complete story with animated linking scenes, is valid. However, we never considered the VHS version with linking narration by Tom Baker as a fourth-wall breaking future Doctor to be valid; it's more of a really long deleted scene with a fun framing device. |
| Devious | Thread:184791 | Yes (trailer) No (finished serial) |
No | The home video release is an extended trailer, not any kind of self-contained story, so it fails Rule 1. As for the thing it's a trailer for, it was never licensed and fails Rule 2. Only the home video release deserves coverage — as an invalid DVD extra. |
|
Why do prefixes link as they do? | Yes | No | Stage plays are deemed to be invalid because they are ephemeral. You may see something in the evening performance that wasn't there during the matinée. Or by the time it comes to your town, an entire section might have been removed from the performance. An actor that was at the Glasgow run may have given a line-reading that was meaningfully different to the guy playing the same part in London. Because of this uncertainty of content, only fixed "adaptations" of plays, one with clear records that can be gone back to, are valid. This includes Big Finish audio adaptions of these stage plays, and, if it exists, an official televised, webcast or home-video capture of a specific performance. Illegal fan-made recordings do not count, even if they are complete and objectively reliable. |
| Many official Doctor Who games; Anything like the Decide Your Destiny and Find Your Fate ranges, in their entirety | Decide Your Destiny and Find Your Fate are NOTDWU from here on out | Yes | No (with rare exceptions) | Any story with multiple conflicting endings, or otherwise "branching" storylines that vary with every reader's experience, clearly can't be counted as a valid source, insofar as we have no mechanism — unlike Star Wars fandom — by which we can determine which of the endings is the "correct" one. (This rule should not be considered to apply to the likes of AUDIO: Flip-Flop, where the "choose your own adventure" format is pastiched to depict "timey-wimey" phenomena, and the authorial intent is clearly that all the paths are equally and simultaneously real.) |
| WeLoveTITANS comics | Thread:177099 | Yes | No | The #WeLoveTitans comic strips in the back of Titan comic books are not valid sources, because they are essentially commercials — and oft-parodical besides — meaning they break Rule 4. Note, on the other hand, that the humorous hand-drawn backup strips do pass Rule 4. |
| The Doctor Who Online Adventures | Thread:136206 | No | No | The Online Adventures only ever had a non-commercial creative license to work in the DWU, so they fail Rule 2, albeit by a hair's breadth. Since the licensed seasons follow on directly from completedly unlicensed material, it would also be too much of a hassle trying to cover only half of this series for it to be worth our time. |
The real world doesn't count
It is a great temptation to believe that the Doctor Who universe is very much like the real world. It is not. There are many, many ways in which the DWU's version of Earth history is different from real world Earth history. You should never assume that because you personally know, say, Albert Einstein's birthdate, or the year the film Breakfast at Tiffany's debuted, or the duration of the Second Afghan War, that these dates will be the same in the DWU.
Historical episodes of Doctor Who — even from as far back as season 1, when the show was explicitly meant to be "educational" — are replete with historical inaccuracies. Marco Polo's given DWU birthdate is different from the real world date. Modern day episodes of the show, like The War Machines, are based on qualities of British computer science that didn't exist in 1966. And episodes that were supposed to be set in the clear future, like The Tenth Planet, described events that obviously never came to pass.
The long and the short of it: don't write the in-universe sections of articles about subjects that exist in both the DWU and the real world using Wikipedia. Trust only Doctor Who sources. And don't go further than what the DWU source actually tells you. If there are noteworthy discrepancies, they should only be discussed in the BTS section.
When real-world elements are alluded to in a DWU source, but go unnamed, we do sometimes use real-world information to derive a {{conjecture}} page title: if a reader wants to know if U.K. Prime Minsiter Anthony Eden has ever been referenced in Doctor Who, it wouldn't be very helpful to give that page an "unclear" name like Eden (Knock Knock), even though only his last name is mentioned in the TV episode Knock Knock. However, this only applies to page names: the in-universe text of the page itself, including the lead, should not employ the conjectural real-world name.
Out-of-universe sources
When writing an out-of-universe or "real world" article, your sources must be verifiable. Please do not cite sources such as fan forums or fan blogs, as this violates our commitment to establishing a neutral point of view. Blogs and forum posts are generally written by single individuals, without any special intellectual rigour or fact checking. Therefore, to include their opinions in our articles would be to give undue to weight to single individuals.
The broader point, however, is that blogs and forum posts are often simply wrong.
This is especially important when citing information regarding living people, upcoming works of fiction, airdates, and the like. Such sources are notoriously inaccurate. Few, if any, are edited. Especially with regards to information about upcoming works of fiction and other broadcast matter, BBC announcements should take precedence among all other sources. Officially-licensed media such as Doctor Who Magazine are acceptable. Some long-standing websites, such as doctorwhonews.com, are useful as starting points for further investigation, because they always source their works of fiction. However, it is a better practice to cite the original source than to cite doctorwhonews.com. Reports in major media — The Times, Associated Press, CNN, Reuters, BBC News etc. — are also acceptable.
Finally, user-editable sources such as Wikipedia, the Internet Movie Database and this very wiki are to be avoided, as are sites that are built on largely un-edited user contributions, such as the Doctor Who Reference Guide.
Unofficial reference sources
A distinction should be made, however, between the above types of sites which are "forbidden" because of their fan involvement and lack of intellectual rigour, and, for lack of a better phrase, "unofficial reference sources".
Some fans have created sites that are more like interactive reference books, in that they present well-sourced analyses, in exactly the same manner as would any reputable reference writer. Prime amongst this type of allowed fan site is Shannon Sullivan's A Brief History of Time (Travel), which we feel is a genuine attempt at behind-the-scenes scholarship.
Equally, we feel that, due to the fact that John Nathan-Turner historically used fanzines as a way to officially disseminate genuine information about Doctor Who — and very many people involved with the production of the programme followed suit — some articles in some fanzines are completely legitimate sources. Indeed a fanzine like The Frame is almost entirely comprised of primary source interviews with individuals who didn't live long enough to be included on DVD special features. Likewise, the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club's Time Space Visualiser is replete with primary source interviews with a number of figures important to Doctor Who.
Pod- and video-casting have largely replaced fanzines as the highest-profile method of fan communication. These, too, are acceptable sources in some cases. If, say, Radio Free Skaro conducts an interview with Jane Espenson, that's "on the record". If Doctor Who: Podshock secures a video interview with Waris Hussein, that's no less legitimate than something filmed by the BBC. Information given by Dan Hall to a podcast about upcoming DVDs is potentially "news".
A good rule of thumb is that interviews with Doctor Who production figures are of equal weight, regardless of the "professional" status of the interviewer, so long as it can be reasonably established that the person being interviewed is actually whom they purport to be.
Self-reference disallowed
Extreme caution must be exercised with respect to information that comes from the subject of a page. David Tennant's opinion, given to Doctor Who Confidential, about the filming of 42 is perhaps of interest at the page 42 (TV story). However, Tennant's tweet of his age or hometown or other biographical information absolutely cannot be used at the page David Tennant.
It is a fundamental truth of show business that people lie about themselves. Actors will portray themselves as younger (or, rarely, older) in order to get a part. They will say they can ride a horse or speak Spanish or climb mountains — when none of that is true. Janet Fielding is, for example, well known to have lied directly to John Nathan-Turner's face in order to get the part of Tegan Jovanka, misrepresenting both her age and whether she was tall enough to be an Australian air stewardess. Similarly, directors might use the word film in the hopes of connoting feature, even though they may have only done a 15-minute short.
The last thing we want is to become a conduit of deliberate disinformation. Therefore, we do not accept the statements of individuals about themselves as valid sources for the page about them. As an extension of this, if you are yourself the subject of a real-world page on Tardis, please do not edit it; more about this, and related issues, at T:WIKIFY OWN.
