Forum:Tie-in website disclaimer pages & handling out of universe sections
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.
On this site, tie-in websites have recently seen a great increase in coverage, especially with non-narratives being validated, so long as they comply with the updated rules (being fiction, etc.). However, with these sites, there's one big issue: the disclaimer pages.
Now, in some cases, such as the U.N.I.T. website's Privacy Policy, Disclaimer and Terms of Use, the disclaimer pages are presented almost entirely in-universe, with a clearly separated section for a behind-the-scenes disclaimer of the site's fictitiousness. Although this works perfectly well, other sites don't quite do this. One fairly average example is the Millingdale website's disclaimer page. This, for the most part, provides solely in-universe information about the Millingdale company, such as how their ice cream is made, and even provides an image of one of their workers handing ice cream to a customer. However, right at the end, just as all seems good for validity:
This is a fictional website for the new series of Doctor Who.
Right at the end, with no separation other than a line break (as had been used periodically throughout the source), it unapologetically breaks the fourth wall. Now, with this, you could probably argue "that's clearly not meant to be part of the source", and you'd probably be right - this is practically like the end credits of an episode, or the "JOHN HURT AS THE DOCTOR" text in The Name of the Doctor - or even the behind-the-scenes disclaimer on the U.N.I.T. site to some extent (although of course, as stated earlier, that was a bit more clearly separated), in that it's not meant to be "real", rather providing important behind-the-scenes context into the work's production. However, there is another, more extreme example on the GEOCOMTEX website, where after a paragraph of in-universe text, you're hit with:
Obviously we are completely fictional.
This is a fictional website created for the new series of Doctor Who by bbc.co.uk's official Doctor Who webteam. We apologise for any inconvenience caused if you thought this was a real website. If you would like to learn more about Doctor Who please click here.
...Oddly enough, the word "here" doesn't appear to actually link to anything in later versions of the site, but that's not the focus of this debate. Now, most of the text above is quite clearly out-of-universe, as any rational human (or, incidentally, mole) being could probably figure out without much thought. However, the beginning text, "Obviously we are completely fictional.", seems to present itself simultaneously as in-universe and out-of-universe, GeoComTex themselves commenting on their own fictionality.
My main proposal is this: We create pages for these sources as valid, and remove the clearly fourth wall-breaking content, leaving only some notes on the source page. In most cases, taking every part of the text in a source is fine, even if meta, but for these, I feel that "intent" is there for the start of these pages, but goes away as soon as they start rambling about how they're fictional, and how you should go check out Doctor Who. This will allow in-depth documentation of corporations such as GeoComTex and Millingdale, without too much yammering on about Doctor Who and the BBC. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 19:34, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
I support this. I think the old idea that all OOU sections have to be clearly separated for valid coverage is simply outdated. As you said, this is no difference from John Hurt's name appearing on-screen, or the credits beginning to roll. We can and should separate these things and encourage coverage. OS25🤙☎️ 19:38, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
- Yep, this makes sense. A little bit at the bottom of the page so that people don't confuse fiction with reality should not affect our coverage of these sources. Aquanafrahudy 📢 19:51, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
- The matter of the real world bleeding into unfiction (the fiction that tries to make you think it's real) is something that I feel this Wiki should have better precedent to cover. To me it is comparable to things like lost and found footage having end credits (like The Zygon Isolation having the cast credits appear onscreen without virtually any delineation from the "in-universe" fiction. It's not like we'd invalidate Summer Falls and Other Stories for having a copyright page that mentions "Doctor Who © BBC" despite it desperately trying to appear as if it was genuinely written by Amy Pond to the point she actually has a real writer's profile on the Penguin Books website. 00:11, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
