Talk:The Monster Vault

Valid?

The The Doctor (Battlefield) page claims we do not treat this as valid? Yet this page says it treats itself to be an in-universe source?—-Editoronthewiki ☎ 05:00, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

It does pose itself as an in-universe source, but it doesn't have a narrative, so it fails Rule 1 of Tardis:Valid sources. Although, modifying the rule to allow sources like this is the subject of an ongoing discussion which has been temporarily closed due to the migration of the wiki and forums. (As the creator of the thread, it did need more people's input, so if you're interested I'd recommend participating in the discussion once it reopens.) Chubby Potato ☎ 07:51, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I gladly would join that. I see no reason to not alter the rule--Editoronthewiki ☎ 15:47, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Completely forgot about this talk page. Upon actually getting the book, it was wrong to mark this as non-narrative. Same narrative in the sense of The Dangerous Book of Monsters (novel). Additionally, the Boneless and Weeping Angels are effectively its "main enemies". We should treat this with the same standard as other reference books, giving the story a "short story" page Editoronthewiki ☎ 01:13, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Let me note that I have no issue with it being validated separate from the broader rule 1 issue if this is indeed the case. But until there's a thread, it is a T:BOUND issue, hence why I put up the delete tag. (Obviously a mod might ignore it until the forums are back in anticipation of it being resolved, but w/e. I just put the tag there.) (And iirc, can't find the policy off hand, but you'd need to be the one to make the thread. The person to make the thread needs to own the work.) Najawin ☎ 01:32, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is a T:BOUND issue necessarily. There is a difference between something which was previously ruled invalid, and something which had just sort of been tagged as invalid without due process, especially if it's an oversight. In the latter case, we have, in the past, revalidated improperly-invalidated works until such a time as a proper thread can be amde (e.g.).

That being said, when it comes to the dubiously narrative, I like to subject a work under scrutiny to to the "floats like a duck" test. To wit: if Monster Vault is purportedly narrative, what event or events are actually narrated within it? Could User:Editoronthewiki write a summary of it? (Not a full, detailed plot summary, of course; but some short synopsis.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 01:36, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Challenge accepted! Would you like the plot summary on the page itself or here in the talk page? Editoronthewiki ☎ 01:41, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

This talk page, or perhaps a sandbox version of the purported story page. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 01:42, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Written like so on this page, figured it best to not fill up this talk page heh Editoronthewiki ☎ 02:49, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Reply to Najawin: Oh I do own it now, that is what "upon actually getting the book" was supposed to say lol. If memory serves, this decision to make it non-valid was made after forums were closed. So reversing the decision while forums are down is just reversing a non-forums decision. This isn't The Dalek Handbook hehEditoronthewiki ☎ 01:39, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

(I realized, I meant that the rules, iirc say that in order to have such a thread someone must own it. So only a person who does, ie, you, can make the thread.) Regardless, that is, uh, a very loose framing device. I, personally, wouldn't call that narrative - I don't think notes inside a book are sufficient for there to be a story taking place within a book, but my perspective on these things isn't universal. (If I wrote a physics textbook but put in the margins "go buy groceries", would that be narrative? Or even if I instructed the reader to go carry out an experiment? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the content of the book, but this doesn't seem like a narrative to me. Knock! Knock! Who's There? had an actual story about characters being trapped in a joke book, with the author explicitly saying on twitter that he intended for it to be valid on wiki.) Najawin ☎ 03:16, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I know it is a loose framing device, but we have a precedent in the form of "How to be a Time Lord (novel)", "The Companion's Companion (novel)", "The Dangerous Book of Monsters (novel)", "A Short History of Everyone (novel)", "The Secret Lives of Monsters (short story)" etc. They are in universe documents given a loose framing device that we take as narrative. Same standard as Monster Vault Editoronthewiki ☎ 04:07, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I can't comment on how loose those other framing devices are, but a loose framing device does not a narrative make. As far as precedent goes, the obvious counter example is TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual, which is arguably narrative, (in the same way the examples you cite are) but is invalid, as it was the story that prompted the thread about these sorts of sources before the forums went down. (See User:Chubby Potato/Sandbox/Non-narrative fiction for a non exhaustive list of these sorts of stories. Suffice it to say that how we treat these sorts of things is wildly inconsistent and the best option we have, imo, is just getting rid of rule 1 or reforming it significantly.) We can let other users comment / an admin decide, but I'm just not convinced that this framing device qualifies as narrative. Others may, I'm by no means the person who matters on this subject. Najawin ☎ 09:21, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the rule is inconsistent in practice and our best option would just be abolishing it. However, as we stand right now, there is precedent for Monster Vault being valid, per the stories I noted in my previous comment. All those books are deemed valid for the same reason I am arguing Monster Vault should be. To be consistent, it should be treated valid like those. Editoronthewiki ☎ 16:37, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Again, I cannot comment on the strength of the framing devices of the others, having not read them. I can only evaluate the one you've presented to me, and I don't think it's narrative. Combined with the precedent of TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual, I think it should be invalid under current rules. If the others are the same, then they should be invalid as well. But, again, I can't comment on these, having not read them. Najawin ☎ 21:30, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

They're valid because they have openings and, at least in many cases, conclusions, cementing them as narrative. While i concede the monster vault lacks a conclusion, it does possess the Boneless and Weeping Angel chapters, which present an enemy that needs to be overcome. I'm appealing to the same standard of TARDIS Index Files, which was deemed valid because Who Is The Master? (webcast) had a threat/narrative that grounded the rest of the series in narrative. The Boneless and Angel passages, combined with the intro, are enough for me to say there is a "narrative" at play. Its not War and Peace, but its enough for us Editoronthewiki ☎ 11:22, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Neither of the enemies actually appear, from your description. They're mentioned, and then the author uses the threat of them to insist you turn the page. This is qualitatively different from Who Is The Master?. I see no difference from my physics textbook example. Najawin ☎ 14:22, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

I'll be honest, I think the two of us are just stuck at an impasse of logic and need someone else to jump in and end the debate :P Editoronthewiki ☎ 14:48, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Almost certainly. I thought I was saying that a few comments ago, but maybe I was unclear. I think others should definitely chime in. Najawin ☎ 15:01, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Indeed; and what else are admins for. Hello again. I think there are two important points I have to clarify, here.

Point One: TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual should not be counted as a precedent of anything. It is not a case of something which was actively ruled invalid; the thread examining whether it was narrative or not was unresolved as of the Forums' demise. It did spark the "perhaps we should reform Rule 1 altogether" thread, but that didn't mean that we had concluded that it actively didn't pass by current policy; the debate just made people increasingly disillusioned about the necessity of splitting these hairs at all. With the incomplete thread being void in terms of precedent, the current, untested invalidity of the Manual is no more or less precedent than the current, untested validity of The Secret Lives of Monsters and its ilk. (Though speaking of ilk, I think A Short History of Everyone is on safe grounds Rule-1-wise. "History" is right there in the title.)

Point Two: when we ask whether a given piece of fiction is narrative, we mean to ask whether it narrates events as opposed to just describing things. Introductions and conclusions are neither here nor there, and neither, really, are framing devices (except insofar as sometimes a framing device is where something happens even though the main meat doesn't contain any events). So ultimately, we want to know whether The Monster Vault tells us stories about these monsters, or just tells us what they're like. If the framing device told us a story in itself, that'd be fine too, but it's not the only way such a thing could be narrative!

Bouncing off of Point Two: I have recently been shown some extracts from this book, though I've not read it in full. Specifically, the entry on the Destroyer. It appears to be telling a history of Arthur's World:

But the Magic Lords discovered the Destroyers' weakness: they could be imprisoned by silver chains and killed with silver bullets. Just as the Time Lords had hunted the Great Vampires, the Magic Lords hunted down the Destroyers until they were scattered to the fuhtest corners of the universe.The Monster Vault

That, right there, is a piece of storytelling (and original storytelling at that; this stuff, which I don't actually much care for, is nowhere to be found in Battlefield, so we're not dealing with someone summarising the TV stories here, this is very much original fiction). If the entires are all or mostly like that, this is narrative, framing device or no — though I suppose there could be a debate about whether to cover it all as one thing, or to consider the entries individual short stories. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:02, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I'd agree that this would be narrative if the book is like this. It's the framing device I was taking exception to. Najawin ☎ 15:18, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

A great deal of the passages do work like this, yes! Many actually end up working as a prelude to the stories in which the monsters appear; for example, the entry on the Morax starts by covering how "billions of years ago" they were "the scourage of our galaxy" and ends with

Once they had taken over the corpses, the Morax began to regain some of their powers, being able to kill with a blast of energy. But they remained limited by their hosts’ forms, so were slow-moving and vulnerable to burning torches made from the security system tree. What they needed was their King …The Monster Vault

It does then feature a "Unanswered Question" passage, which are basically "why did this happen in this episode?", if we want to take this as a narrative "chapter" it would be akin to an epilogue. (For the Morax, is it addressing why the tree the king was kept in looked like all the other trees, guessing that the other trees evolved via influence from that prison tree). I would, however, be lying if each chapter was strictly structured like this; the chapter on our favorite pepperpots, for example, is more an overview of how their species works and is designed, although some of that is focused on how they have changed over time (IE: the casing used to be only useable on Skaro's metal floors, but now it can buzz around in the air). I think we would be splitting hairs if we went "well this chapter is a short story, while this one is not", so I think the best option is taking the whole "in-universe" portion of the book as valid or nothing as valid. Editoronthewiki ☎ 15:37, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd say cover it as a "(novel)". Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:39, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd say novel works best then, okay. Better than chopping it up entry by entry Editoronthewiki ☎ 16:50, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Alright, it seems this is the way forward. I'm hereby closing this discussion in favour of creating The Monster Vault (novel). Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:05, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the Monster Vault with our 2023 valid rules

Well, folks, its been a busy year, and in that time our understanding of "valid" sources and how to categorize them has changed greatly. Look at Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse (reference book). Perhaps we follow that example: Make The Monster Vault a valid "reference book" Editoronthewiki ☎ 21:48, 18 November 2023 (UTC)