Forum:Validating non-fiction

Index → The Panopticon → Validating non-fiction

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Opening post

Although this wiki's "in-universe" role-play gimmick is probably too entrenched ever to be removed, I'm glad that the community has finally made some strides towards ameliorating some of its more encyclopedically damaging effects, most notably the recent decisions to validate several types of material which the wiki previously labelled "non-canon".

Of the remaining problems in this area, one stands out to me because it's both particularly silly and would be extremely simple to fix. In summary: information from non-fiction sources such as reference books, magazine articles, documentaries, press releases, soundtracks, and toy packaging - no matter how explicitly stated, objectively official, and plainly true within the narrative itself - is bizarrely considered "speculation" and is relegated to BTS sections, if acknowledged at all. This is a really ridiculous state of affairs and has led to a considerable amount of Doctor Who knowledge being lost.

Most egregiously in my view, there are several Doctor Who characters who go unnamed in-story for various reasons, but whose official names have been known for years - yet the wiki refuses to use them in article titles and running text. For example, Jim Broadbent's character in Curse of Fatal Death is actually called "the Shy Doctor", but the wiki misleadingly calls him "the Eleventh Doctor". Because his real name was only shown in DWM credits and the VHS documentary, editors whose real issue is evidently that they personally happen to dislike the official name can continue to pretend it's only "speculation", and point to the non-fiction rule as an excuse to stall the debate for years on end. As a wiki reader and a fan of the show, this kind of behaviour is incredibly embarrassing to see. Clearly, something has to change.

Here is my humble suggestion: we validate non-fiction. That is, when a rights-holder conveys a fact about the fictional world via some formal non-fiction publication, it should be treated with the same weight as any other official material. We've already validated non-narrative fiction; non-fiction is just the natural next step, and there's a plethora of forgotten information out there waiting to enrich the wiki. PintlessMan ☎ 14:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Strongly disagree with everything here. We have Template:Conjecture for a reason - to allow pages to bear their "production" names while clarifying that these names have not been confirmed in-universe.

Furthermore, this forum itself is arguing for the validation of non-fiction information while the four rules of T:VS clearly state that Rule 1 is "only fiction counts." This exists, explicitly, to disqualify non-fiction.

Before we go any further, I'd like to ask that we don't get into the Curse of Fatal Death naming debate here. But I think it could very well be argued that the "production titles" are not necessarily helpful to our readers or very thoroughly in-universe. The distinction between "The Handsome Doctor" and "The Very Handsome Doctor" is tedious at best. I think it's similar to how during the production of Masterful Big Finish officially called the 1996 Master "The Movie Master" but went out of their way not to credit him this way. Sure, naming the page Movie Master would mean there's no longer a story DAB - but what we all need to realize is that sometimes a DAB is good. Story DABs are not the natural evil of the website which need to be purged, they are more than often the right choice for the situation. OS25🤙☎️ 15:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Furthermore, this forum itself is arguing for the validation of non-fiction information while the four rules of T:VS clearly state that Rule 1 is "only fiction counts." This exists, explicitly, to disqualify non-fiction.

@OS25, this thread is in the Panopticon, and from what I can tell seems to call for the abolishment of Rule 1. I'm not an admin, but to the best of my knowledge Rule 1 existing shouldn't stop this proposal from occurring, because Rule 1 is the thing being discussed, if you see what I mean. (You're probably confused because of the title.) On the matter of whether we should abolish Rule 1, I remain entirely neutral, until somebody presents an argument for one or the other. :) Aquanafrahudy 📢 15:10, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

While I disagree about @OttselSpy25's views on the Curse Doctor names, I do completely agree that we absolutely should not get into that can of worms here. The talk page has been going on for ages with no end in sight, so let's not drown this thread!

And to be honest, while our current rule one does limit certain bits of non-fiction that contribute certain bits of useful in-universe information... if we were to completely abolish it, it would mean the floodgates are opened to a lot of stuff that would cause issues.

With published works of fiction, especially ones closely tied to the BBC, they have to go through rewrites, reviews by editors, copyright holders, producers, and so on; there is a long list of people who make sure that this work of fiction is sound to be published ethically, legally, within the copyright holder's views, etc.

But this level of scrutiny doesn't apply to non-fiction, such as Tweets. While allowing such sources may mean we could acknowledge The Woman (The End of Time) as the Doctor's mother (or father!) it would also mean we would have to create the 'Jacob Keith' Master also because Gary Russell joked about it in a Tweet.

Long story short, while there is some in-universe information to be gleaned from OOU sources, these are often not held to the same level of quality as actual works of fiction and would mean we may have to start covering random things an author once said in a Tweet. And that could become harmful if someone decided to abuse that.

Also, we do sort of allow names near-universally used by the fandom and the BBC, like with everything from Romana II to Meta-Crisis Doctor without {{conjecture}}, so it's not like there is a complete ban on in-universe info from OOU sources.

As for things like in-universe info from toy packaging... why can't that be valid? If it is a work of fiction, it can be covered. We don't disallow "commercial fiction" anymore!

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

15:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I see no meaningful difference between fictive information conveyed via a "work of fiction" and fictive information conveyed otherwise: it's equally fictive. (In a sense, the latter is more solidly reliable, as it's communicated directly from creators to readers, without any narrative framework that could introduce unreliable narration etc.) A reader may choose not to "count" a character name mentioned in a reference book, just as they may choose not to count one mentioned only in a work of non-narrative fiction, or one mentioned only in an audio play; it's not the wiki's place to make those decisions for readers. (To address your example, I would certainly mention "Movie Master" in the opening sentence of his article, though I would not use it as the title; that character's situation is not really generalisable, as he's in a deadlock with multiple official names from non-fiction sources.)

The wiki's sole responsibility is to reflect official sources faithfully. If rule 1 is preventing that then rule 1 is outdated and should be removed. PintlessMan ☎ 15:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

To Epsilon - the reason I mentioned "formal non-fiction publications" above was to exclude social media posts or offhand interview comments. I would consider that sort of informal banter to be completely different from, say, Monsters and Villains. If Moffat says on facebook "sure, Bernice married River Song", then that is the sort of trivia that I actually think should be confined to the BTS sections. On the other hand, press releases that happen to use social media - such as the Cwej: The Series update a year or two ago that mentioned Kwol's surname was Serenity - I would consider valid information and grounds for a page move. PintlessMan ☎ 15:36, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

In that case... I think it is completely feasible to cover any in-universe info as valid.

We could do an == In-universe information == where we outline any in-universe info given. I think it may necessitate a new prefix, or perhaps the whole DOC, CON, etc, group of prefixes; it may even give those ones a purpose as we're slowing switching non-in-universe citations to footnotes.

While I think how we should cover in-universe info given in OOU sources still needs to be worked out, I think I support the idea.

And for some sources, they probably could just be covered as "(features)" and stuff, as they fall into that far edge of non-narrative fiction I outlined in Forum:Temporary forums/Non-narrative fiction and Rule 1, where it is mostly in-universe but may have phrases like "in Thingy of the Daleks" and so on, and they're not even flat-out invalid now, they just need case-by-case inclusion debates. I do intend to open an inclusion debate for Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia given it does have a lot of new info.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

16:34, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

We've already validated non-narrative fiction; non-fiction is just the natural next step

I reject this in no uncertain terms. I encourage everyone to look at Forum:Temporary forums/Non-narrative fiction and Rule 1, I gave four different options for how to approach the issue in my opening post. (In practice, he grumbles, it seems there are only three because people have decided to ignore that the "exceptions" list at the bottom really does mean that and people are trying to get things off it as quickly as possible.)

How natural a next step is must be defined by the reasoning that led to the prior step, not the conclusion reached. There is no reasoning present in the prior thread that would lead one to conclude that we should validate formal non-fiction, and, indeed, the idea is repudiated in the strongest terms in my opening post, and vaguely alluded to in Scrooge's closing post. One might as well argue that after this thread closes we validate all non-fiction, not just the formal stuff, given it's the "natural next step". No.

I would politely suggest that we avoid the topic of Curse as well, given the nuances of that discussion. It's also wildly uncharitable and inaccurate to say that people are against the move because they merely dislike the names and are claiming "speculation" to stall the debate. (And I say this as someone who doesn't care that much about the issue. People can read for themselves - Talk:Thirteenth Doctor (The Curse of Fatal Death).)

But I just don't see an argument here? It's that perhaps we should document things in the BTS sections better - indeed we should - or there being an assumption that BTS sections are somehow inferior given the issue at hand, or that the thing described is "plainly true within the narrative itself" (I'd love some examples for this, just to see what you're referring to, if you don't mind). These aren't arguments per se. There's no fleshed out reasoning for why we should validate non-fiction. Do you have one? Or is this just that you would prefer certain comments to be seen as IU and don't see a reason why they aren't already? Najawin ☎ 17:30, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I think I made my case pretty clearly, given that everyone else has been capable of engaging with it, and I am not going to be drawn into an endless pedantic back-and-forth over whether my arguments are "arguments per se".

I am putting this as plainly as I can: There is a large corpus of fully licenced Doctor Who Universe material - stretching back nearly 60 years to the various toys and merchandise of the Hartnell era - all information from which is currently segregated to BTS sections. This information is not "behind the scenes": it is part of the fictive content of the Doctor Who Universe. If an officially published BBC reference book is stating things as fact about Doctor Who characters, then the Doctor Who wiki should report those facts as what they are, i.e. facts about those characters, not as BTS trivia. All this information should be fully integrated across in-universe prose section, article titles, and the category and template systems, just as information from fiction is. Allowing this would also have the effect of motivating editors to dig up and wikify such lesser-known materials, as they will be writing coverage that people will actually see. Article titles are frankly far more important than any BTS section; to a large extent they determine how casual fans will talk and think of a character or other element. They should accurately reflect the official sources, regardless of the personal preferences of particular editors.

To pick a random example of the kind of coverage I would like to see improved: why isn't Character Options' Personal Tardis Arm Worn Time Travel Device covered as an in-universe device, and categorised as a TARDIS variant? That is what is it presented as. Currently, it does not even have an article. There are multitudes of similar offbeat and obscure contributions to the DWU that could and should be covered, but are not because of the wiki's arbitrary nonsense.

By "plainly true within the narrative itself", I'm referring to cases like the Child Master from Titan Comics, who is explicitly given the name "the Child Master" (including that proper-name capitalisation) in lead-in teaser text at the start of one instalment, yet whose article is still bizarrely located at The Master (The Then and the Now); and the Morbius Monster, an objectively official name which was reverted to the fan-fiction name "the Second Morbius" (though that should be resolved soon, as another source has been discovered). My proposal is that, rather than waste time endlessly arguing whether or not to use official names (a decision a fan wiki really has no right to make, and which often ends up privileging fan coinages over official sources), we should just use the official names whenever available. PintlessMan ☎ 18:20, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I must echo earlier messages in urging you to better police your tone. There are ways to make your points heard without describing every other possibility as "bizarre" or "fanficky".

I'll also make a quick note that if you are arguing for the validation of "nuggets" of fictive information within otherwise-BTS texts, then you are not proposing to "validate non-fiction". This thread's name is confusing and does not match your proposed reforms.

Another quick note is that a number of your examples seem to be about page-names, which {{conjecture}} and other standards do allow us to source from a broader array of sources than strictly valid ones, without that meaning that those sources can be cited willy-nilly in other respects. The "Child Master" blurb would certainly be within that area; the arguments against its use are unrelated to the invalidity of the blurb. (Purported invalidity, I should say; it seems to me that such things may be counted as part of the comic itself in the same way that, for example, the Primer for the Spiral Politic entries are cited as part of their matching audio release… but never mind.)

I would agree that the Personal Tardis Arm Worn Time Travel Device and its ilk aren't really accommodated by current policy, but they are by no means BTS/non-fiction texts. Surely the argument for validity is that the toy is essentially a non-narrative, but wholly in-universe, work of fiction in itself; the three-dimensional equivalent of a GRAPHIC… A proposed abrogation of Rule 1 doesn't really enter into it. But I would be interested in discussing more focused options for covering this sort of thing better, certainly; it's a genuine gap in our coverage. Though of course we still should have pages on these things as merchandise items under current policy; the page's non-existence is mere oversight.

When it comes to the actual concept of a broader validation of nuggets of in-universe information cited in texts with a real-world perspective… I think there are very, very serious issues even if it'd be theoretically doable. It's all very well when it's an impersonal reference book making a claim, but where would we fall on information in The Writer's Tale? On something Moffat quips on The Fan Show? On writers saying "now in my head, the TARDIS works in such-and-such way… That's how I always imagined it" in a DWM article? Seems like a mess of potential overexertions, taking as "fact" statements which didn't formally Fail Rule Four with capital letters when they were made — in the moment they are meant to describe something which, for purposes of the "current work" such as it is, apply to the DWU — but which their originators would never have wanted to be solidified as perennial in-universe Accounts in the same way as a complete work of fiction. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:52, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Hmm. One thing I'll ask is simply, what do you think the DWU is? Like, can you give me some delineating factors, a rough outline of how you might define it? The wiki used to define it through narrative, and just recently we changed to fiction. If you're insisting that we change to fictive content, well, obviously this is question begging, no? So I'd like some sort of clear definition that uses an external standard if possible.

As for the idea that there are useful secondary effects, I mean, this isn't really an argument for changing the policies, but for changing editor behavior. If we wanted people to heavily emphasize our summaries on the VNAs we shouldn't suddenly decide that only the VNAs are valid and everything else is invalid, go work on the VNAs, and then change back when everything is summarized. (An extreme example, but the point is the same. Validity shouldn't be used as a tool to motivate editors.) Titles are more important in the sense that they're required by wiki software, but less important otherwise, in that we allow conjectural titles and don't allow conjecture elsewhere on the page.

why isn't Character Options' Personal Tardis Arm Worn Time Travel Device covered as an in-universe device

Well that would be because it doesn't exist. Or, well, it doesn't seem to. Seems to be just a prototype shown at the London Toy Fair in 2012. As of October that year people were still asking about them and there's no real evidence of them ever being for sale. So even if this rule changed passed it would fail R3. But, quite honestly, I think the fact that you suggest this as a serious option is the most damning indictment of this whole proposal that I think possible.

I'm referring to cases like the Child Master from Titan Comics, who is explicitly given the name "the Child Master" (including that proper-name capitalisation) in lead-in teaser text at the start of one instalment, yet whose article is still bizarrely located at The Master (The Then and the Now); and the Morbius Monster

Ah, so not actually referring to anything to do with the narrative. Just names you happen to like. If you want to advocate for an expansion of the War/Fugitive Doctor precedent, by all means, do so. But that's not the same as this policy change. And it's simply not the case that these names you like are "plainly true within the narrative itself" since they obviously have no impact on the narrative. They're merely consistent with the narrative and they're ones that have been supported by outside sources. Najawin ☎ 19:19, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I endorse most of this. I will say that, were it an actual released product, I don't think it would be absurd to argue for a framework in which to cover original toys such as that Arm-Worn So-And-So as sources for in-universe pages about the imaginary objects they are meant to depict. Not to say I would be blanketly in favour, but it's something that can be argued coherently within the broader spirit of T:VS. So I would not consider it "the most damning indictment (etc.)", except as regards the sheer failure of research in picking an example that doesn't actually exist.

But other than that, I think Najawin has the right of it. This proposal just isn't a coherent… anything. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I could as easily have picked Dr Who's Anti-Dalek Neutron Exterminator. Again, maybe it would be easier to distinguish sold products from prototypes if the wiki covered them properly, or at all.

To your point about conjecture tags - I think using them for this purpose is a very bad practice that only serves to muddy things and create more confusion. Those tags should be used only for genuine conjecture, e.g. Bruce Master, Donna's World. Attaching them to official names from non-fiction sources not only falsely suggests they're unofficial, it also means that these tags no longer signify what they're actually supposed to - once a reader sees them improperly used with official names, they'll no longer be able to recognise unofficial ones at a glance and the communicative point is lost. (Plus, there are plenty of Doctor Who characters whose names are accepted without question without ever once being "confirmed in-universe". Why isn't there a conjecture tag on Pigbin Josh? Credits are absolutely non-fiction in the same sense as reference books, soundtracks, and everything else I am advocating.)

Since you're open to the idea of toys contributing to the fiction: how about introducing a TOY suffix, which would allow us to include photographs of the toy on corresponding in-universe pages, properly cited, along with any lore or scans of artwork from the packaging? Anti-Dalek Neutron Exterminator for Dr Who's weapon, Anti-Dalek Neutron Exterminator (toy) for the real-world product all information on it is cited to, just like The Book of the War and The Book of the War (novel).

Those example of non-fiction sources you've provided are interesting to think about, but I really don't find them as intractable as you seem to. The Writer's Tale is largely a memoir of Davies' toying with many Doctor Who ideas from a dramaturgical angle, but never at any point does he lay down any "facts of the DWU" for the reader (though I would be interested to see if there are any significant bits like nameless sidebar featurettes along those lines). As for interviews like The Fan Show or DWM, I would just exclude them categorically, along with social media - certainly so if the interviewee couches their statements in wishy-washy "I like to think... in my head..." language. If there exist interviews in which a writer makes serious, definitive declarations about the fate or biography of their characters, then maybe that could be considered, but I'm unaware of any. As stated at the beginning, I'm really more interested in the "nugget"-level information available in reference books, soundtracks, press releases and so on - and these nuggets would manifest most notably in names. If I could get something like "also known as The UnBruce (OST: The TV Movie) and the Movie Master (DOC: Masterful)" somewhere in Bruce Master's opening paragraph I would consider that a big improvement on the current status quo.