Forum:2023 Naming Scheme Reset

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Opening post

Okay, so now we’re at it again. As some of you may have noticed, Russell T Davies has taken over as showrunner once more. You even might have noticed that they’ve made a deal with Disney Branded Television for the 60th Anniversary specials and beyond to be available for streaming on Disney+.

So now we come to the, perhaps inevitable, rebranding of the naming scheme going forward, as the powers that be at the BBC has come to the conclusion that going forward with the naming scheme that has been held for the past 18 years should be no longer. The bosses at the House of Mouse went with the decision that the past 60 years of Doctor Who does not, at this time at least, merit a place on their streaming platform, and they’re beginning their era of Doctor Who partners, with the David Tennant 2023 specials going forward to the era of Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa, branding the forthcoming batch of episodes post-specials as "Season One", then "Season Two" and so on… this naming scheme has been announced in the 1 November 2023 issue of SFX magazine by Russell T Davies himself as being the naming scheme that they at the BBC and the Doctor Who production at Bad Wolf are rolling with, therefore putting a halt to the "Series" scheme put forth since 2005 since Series 1, that itself replacing the naming scheme used by the now-"Classic Who" era of the franchise, itself being names "Seasons" since 1963 with Season 1 all the way up to 1989's Season 26.

Now here comes the juggernaut of the problem… with the naming scheme going back to being called "Seasons", how do we tackle the situation as we won’t be able to have two identical named pages on the wiki. How do you distinguish William Hartnell's Season 1 from Ncuti Gatwa's Season 1? As well as seasons/series going forward for that matter. How do we go ahead with this, practically, identical naming scheme. Do we use dab terms as with the "Series" naming scheme? Do we use words, such as I presented them above instead of numbers? Do we re-name the Classic Who naming scheme to use dabs? Or do we do nothing at all and ignore the bosses of our beloved show?

What would you propose is the best solution to do this going forward? Please discuss. Danniesen ☎ 20:44, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Personally, I think that I'd like to have both year and series added to the dabs for all series. For example:

etc. This would make the new series Season 1 (2024 Doctor Who). While, yes, some of these dabs are unecessary, I like the consistency and clarity. Bongo50 ☎ 20:48, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

[Wrote this before Bongo's comment] Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I think we should keep things the way they are for the time being. Let's see how iPlayer, Disney+ and TV guides call it publicly and go from there. If they're really going to push for "Season One" to be used everywhere, instead of RTD just calling it that, then that means digital libraries (e.g. iTunes or on-demand cable) will likely consider it a separate show, which I'm not sure if they'd do. Also maybe a DVD release will be announced, though that's farther off. That said, it's probably worth including in the beginning of the article pages. Chubby Potato ☎ 20:50, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Note: I realize the comment on digital libraries is for the time being an oversight, as the new episodes are exclusive depending on the region- I of course was thinking about the past. Though there's still things like Apple TV or Google which connect shows from different apps. Anyways, my point is that this one magazine interview isn't enough yet and we ought to see how it's actually handled. Chubby Potato ☎ 21:00, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
I like Bongo's suggestion, but there may be something to be gained in waiting and seeing what other outlets do. (Of course, we could just rename series 1 (2005) to series 27...) Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 20:58, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Series 2 (2006 Doctor Who) looks very weird to me. That seems to imply that it's Series 2 "of 2006 Doctor Who", i.e. the second season of a version of Doctor Who that started in 2006, and so onwards. I would prefer Season 1 (1963 Doctor Who) through to Season 26 (1963 Doctor Who) if we go down the years route.
Alternatively we might divide by production company. Season 1 (BBC), Series 1 (BBC Wales), Series 1 (Bad Wolf Studios)?
Yet another option would be to somehow use "Classic" and "NuWho" terminology, plus, I guess, Bad Wolf Who for 2023 onwards. It's fan terminology to be sure, but it's seen officially acknowledgement, notably in the Official Doctor Who Tumblr's watching guide. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:03, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
So I note that the lack of prior Who on Disney+ isn't because of The Mouse not deigning to include it, it's because there are prior contracts at play. Max still has the rights for another, uh, year or three, not sure exactly. And Britbox has Classic Who for a while as well. I suspect that in time this will be rectified. But this is all speculation.
I also note that this entire discussion may be pointless, as S5 was also called S1 during production, so we just need to wait and see, and I would hold off on actually making a change until we see the actual changes on the official BBC end. But discussing it to get ahead of the rush is a good idea.
My suggestion, fwiw, is Season 1 (British Broadcasting Company) / Series 1 (British Broadcasting Company), Season 1 (BBC Wales) / Series 1 (BBC Wales), Season 1 (Bad Wolf) / Series 1 (Bad Wolf). Distinguish by production company and make season and series interchangeable as redirects, perhaps defaulting to the official term that the BBC uses with an explanatory note for the nuance in the BTS. Najawin ☎ 21:31, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
Remember that these are OOU pages so there's no BTS section. The idea of noting down nuance is still valid, though, just in a different section. Bongo50 ☎ 21:41, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

There's a notes section, which is functionally the same thing. It's used for whatever minutiae people want to put on the page that they think is relevant. Najawin ☎ 21:43, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

To your second point Najawin… yes, they referred to S5 as S1 during production, that is true… and up until today’s SFX Magazine statement I would have agreed with you that this was just them referring to Series 14 as season 1 for the sake of making it easier, but this issue of SFX states exactly this: '"Next year, season one. Yes, we’re calling it season one." We’ll let you catch your breath - we imagine there’s a collective gasp, a clutching of anoraks, a seizing of sonics. Not series 14, not season 40 - controversial! Davies chuckles at our geekery. "What fun that is, to be controversial."' Danniesen ☎ 21:46, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm aware of the comment. I stand behind my statement that this still might be moot and we shouldn't actually make changes until anything official happens. But it's enough to actually discuss this. Najawin ☎ 22:07, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Maybe it would make sense to take a leaf out of iPlayer/Whoniverse’s book, which has named the classic series "Doctor Who (1963-1996)". To do this, you could shift to using subpages of "era" pages. This would eliminate the need to put "Doctor Who" and the time range within the same brackets. So maybe like this:

Or brackets could be removed entirely:

( and links to seasons could be written as "Doctor Who 1963-1989 (Season 1)" )

Then, DISPLAYTITLE could be used to change how the article name displays within the page, if needed. Plus, at this stage, it would probably make sense to make dedicated pages for the three eras, to better communicate what these three eras actually are.

Adding the full time range makes the titles longer than ideal, but ultimately it would provide more clarity than confusion, imo. TheGreatGabester ☎ 22:36, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the subpages, but of everything, I prefer marking the different 'segments' of the show by the years they ran then any other way presented here so far. Doctor Who (1963 - 1989), Doctor Who (2005 - 2022) and such are more immediately understandable than Doctor Who (BBC) and Doctor (BBC Wales) for example, as the latter ask the reader to have at least some knowledge about the production of the show, whereas the years clearly distinguish which segment it is without the reader needing to actually know anything about those segments. Time God Eon ☎ 18:41, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
We could also dab the pages by what their eras are known as… for example "Season 1 (Classic Who)", "Series 1 (New Who)" (or whatever new term fandom comes up with) and "Season One ('new term')". Danniesen ☎ 19:17, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
Strongly against that. When possible we should use official terminology. Najawin ☎ 21:07, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
As I mentioned earlier, "Classic Who" and "New Who" have seen some use by BBC sources. Certainly they started as fan terminology, but, well, so did "the Whoniverse", and look at us now… It's not my favourite option, but I do think it's very much on the table. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:31, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
Calling what is a now-bygone era "new" is confusing. If the 2005-2022 series is "New Who", then what is Ncuti's series - "Even Newer Who"?? TheGreatGabester ☎ 22:02, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
Isn't "Revival Who" also used? 22:52, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
Reply to Gabester… which is why I said there might be a change in terminology.
Reply to Epsilon… yes "Revival" is also a term used. Good call there Epsilon.
Danniesen ☎ 23:21, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
People sometimes say "the Revival", but I've never heard the phrase "Revival Who", and I don't think it has any grounding in BBC sources. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 00:46, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
That's another reason to advocate for using the years instead. "New Who" can become outdated or obsolete, "Doctor Who (2005 - 2022)" will not. Time God Eon ☎ 03:55, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

That's not a reason to use the years per se. That's simply a reason to avoid using fan terms or informal terms. Referring to production companies will work as well. Najawin ☎ 04:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I think that we should use the years; it looks better aesthetically, is what iPlayer is doing, and is the most intuitive. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 07:12, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
I do think that could be an option. However, I don’t want us to consistently use the year it was established. For example, I don’t want to see Season 1 (1963), Season 2 (1963), Season 3 (1963) etc., Series 1 (2005), Series 2 (2005), Series 3 (2005) etc. In my opinion that would be terrible. Danniesen ☎ 19:20, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
I doubt anyone will like this suggestion (I'm not even convinced of it myself) but we could do what some stubborn Classic Who fans have been doing since 2005 and rename Series 1 (Doctor Who) to Season 27, Series 14 (Doctor Who) to Season 40, and so on. 13:39, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
I like it, but I don't think it's a very sensible idea. And besides, I would insist on "series" instead of "season". Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 14:25, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Most people aren't suggesting Season 1 (1963), it would be Season 1 (1963-1989), Series 1 (2005-2022), Season 1 (2023-). Also, I didn't quite clock that the title "Doctor Who" isn't included in the page titles, that makes things a little easier.
I dislike the production company idea. Hardcore fans are familiar with these names but many casual fans won't be, it's likely to be confusing and/or alienating. TheGreatGabester ☎ 15:41, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Opposed to Bongo's proposal for the simple reason that users should be able to follow standard nomenclature to link to these pages, without having to check the year for each season each time.
My preference would be Season One (Doctor Who) for Disney Who, with the hope that things will reset again before "Season Twenty-Seven (Doctor Who)]]".
I will also say that T:MAGS does rather set the precedent for naming by year based on the first release. "Series 12 (2005 Doctor Who)" makes perfect sense to me. (This is almost definitely the most sensible option.)
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 05:13, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Honestly not opposed to (BBC), (BBC Wales), (Bad Wolf Studios), either, with the small caveat that those studios also produced spin-offs. (Then again, the "removing the Doctor Who prefix" precedent...)
Series 3 (SJA) should also remain unaffected, since there's no need for further disambiguation there.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 05:16, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Having both Season 1 for Classic Who and Season 1 (Doctor Who) for Bad Wolf Who seems incredibly confusing to me. This is why I think we need some form of year disambiguation. If people would rather just use the year of the start of the "era", fine, but I think we need something. Bongo50 ☎ 06:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I must reiterate that I would be strongly opposed to naming later releases after the first release. Having "Series 8 (2005)" or "Series 11 (2005)" when those aired in 2014 and 2018 would be entirely ridiculous imo. It would be wrong. But we should also not go "Series 8 (2014)" and "Series 11 (2018)" either. Danniesen ☎ 09:07, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Series 1 (2005 Doctor Who), series 2 (2005 Doctor Who) etc. could work, imo. But I think Series 1 (2005-2022 Doctor Who), Series 2 (2005-2022 Doctor Who) etc. is probably our best bet. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 09:29, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah I’m not entirely opposed to that. However, it would be a chunky title. Danniesen ☎ 09:53, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm optimistic that BBC and/or Disney+ will solve this problem for us by introducing official titles to disambiguate the 2005 and 2023 series. – n8 (☎) 15:30, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

That would be 1963 and 2023 though. :P But I get your point. Danniesen ☎ 16:56, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
The idea is "Season One" versus "Season 1" and "Series 1". Bit of a BBC/British Broadcasting Corporation solution, I suppose, but it does the best job of continuing the current naming scheme without overhauling everything. Too much of a reach?
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 04:31, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
See that’s what I was thinking we could do. Danniesen ☎ 09:39, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
That's just confusing. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 11:31, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, that's confusing and, in my opion, even less clear to the uninitiated than dabbing with "BBC", "BBC Wales" and "Bad Wolf". I even think that the distinction between Season 1 and Series 1 (Doctor Who) may be quite confusing for newer fans, hence why I'd like all series/season pages to be dabbed with a year and series/range, even if it's not strictly required to disambiguate. Bongo50 ☎ 13:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
I too agree it's confusing, especially as I often write links like this: [[[Series 14 (Doctor Who)|series fourteen]]. 13:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
That, in my own opinion, is a bad way to write the links. Danniesen ☎ 13:25, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Nah, there are times when writing out the number stylistically looks better, and the BBC officially use them interchangeably, so it's a valid alternative. 13:53, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
@Danniesen No, it wouldn’t be that. iPlayer/the Whoniverse have already provided an official title: Doctor Who (1963-1996). Sure, you have to tweak it to get Doctor Who (1963-1989), but I’m baffled that people can’t see that Season 1 (1963-1989) is not the same thing as Season 1 (1963).
If it wasn’t already clear, that "(1963-1989)" suffix would be applied to every season page. e.g. Season 10 (1963-1989), Season 26 (1963-1989), etc. TheGreatGabester ☎ 14:34, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
I would like Season 1 (1963 Doctor Who), Series 1 (2005 Doctor Who), and Season 1 (2023 Doctor Who). With redirects from series/season. This is because many more people know the begining year of each run than each year of each series, and it is clearer IMO. Cousin Ettolrahc ☎ 08:16, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Surely either year option will just cause headaches because of the fact that the upcoming S1 will be in 2024 but the Christmas special will be in 2023. That seems to have some weird nuances. (A lot of people will think of it as 2024 if we place it as 2023, or the special will be listed as from 2024 Doctor Who while being released in 2023, or if we do start + end we might have 2023 show up as each. Nothing disqualifying, just a bit weird throughout.) Najawin ☎ 19:25, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Oh yeah. And iPlayer will just say "Doctor Who", so that's no help. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 19:46, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Seeming as I don't think there's been any proposal to create pages like Doctor Who (1963) but rather just to use the years as dab terms for series pages, I don't see why this would cause an issue as the specials do not have a traditional series page that requires a dab. Bongo50 ☎ 21:51, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I mean currently we're considering the Christmas Special to be part of the new S1. So I think those dab terms will be a bit weird and counterintuitive to people. Najawin ☎ 22:34, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Yea, the special is seemingy being treated as the first episode in the series as far as I can tell. Could've got the wrong end of the stick though. Worst case, these things can be changed later. 14:50, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
It is being treated as such, yeah. Danniesen ☎ 10:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Season 1
Well… the Christmas Special has now been added to the list on the Doctor Who website, treating said episode as Episode 0 of what they now officially call "Season 1". So it’s officially Season 1. No getting around that now. How do we proceed from here? Danniesen ☎ 09:42, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I have been thinking of solutions but mostly coming up short. There just isn't a satisfactory way to maintain the official numbering and have a disambiguation term that is concise. We dab by series, but there are two season ones in Doctor Who; we could further disambiguate by year, but that becomes complicated by the time you get to season two, as you'd have Season 2 (1964 Doctor Who) and Season 2 (2024 Doctor Who), and so on. Disambiguating by showrunner era is hard to maintain on many pages. I don't know what to do. I genuinely think we may have been placed in a corner we simply cannot get out of with our current system.
However, there may be a way to fudge it. Keep RTD's Season 1 at Series 14 (Doctor Who) or move it to Season 40, whichever works... and use {{retitle}} to place the text 
Season 1 (Doctor Who)
to change the way the page's title is displayed. This would not be elegant, and I expect lots of redirects would have to be created to guide users to the correct page (so pretty much everybodies suggestions for dab terms for "Season 1" could be used as redirects). This may be one of the only "neat" solutions, as it would allow us to have the page at a uncomplicated dab term whilst still appearing to be titled by its true name.
One immediate flaw in this plan though is in categories, where {{retitle}} doesn't do anything. 14:30, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
The solution is so simple, but it probably breaks some rule. I've always thought brackets with Doctor Who inside them were untidy anyway. We named them like this:
  • Doctor Who: Season 1 (1963-64)
  • Doctor Who: Season 12 (1974-75)
  • Doctor Who: Season 26 (1989)
  • Doctor Who: Series 1 (2005)
  • Doctor Who: Season 1 (2023-24)

You could list 100 reasons why this shouldn't happen and, with respect, I wouldn't agree. It's clear and obvious. 81.108.82.15talk to me 21:27, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

As it so happens, it does break a rule. Forum:Doctor Who prefix in titles. Najawin ☎ 23:11, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
(Glad to see you back 81.108, even if we disagree here.) Najawin ☎ 23:13, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
The IP editor is onto something actually. We could have "Doctor Who" in the non-parentheses part of the page name. Either we use "Doctor Who:" as a prefix, or do something along the lines of Doctor Who Series 12 (in-universe). As for the former option, we are in a forum thread so we can change the ruling of Forum:Doctor Who prefix in titles if we so wish. This is the right place and time to do so. 23:27, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Sure! This is a forum thread, we can change the rules here. But I think the reason given in that old thread is pretty sound. If we have all seasons start with "Doctor Who" it means that the search feature becomes damn near impossible to use when we start off with "Doctor Who". Najawin ☎ 00:08, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
Redirects will surely mitigate this issue, and, it may be the lesser of two evils. It may be harder to find the pages, but at least we may be able to call them something clearly. 00:21, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

How would they mitigate the issue? The issue is that if we do this anything that starts with "Doctor Who" becomes harder to find. Such as Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story), or Doctor Who Wiki, or Doctor Who Magazine. And redirects don't solve alphabetization within categories, or the inability to use titlesort on them, which are also mentioned in the thread. Najawin ☎ 00:33, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I maintain that the best way to do it would be something like Season 1 (Doctor Who 1963), Series 1 (Doctor Who 2005), and Season 1 (Doctor Who 2023), and keeping that starting year for later seasons. I think this is something that readers can be trusted to either understand or figure out quickly. Given that using the starting year to distinguish shows and ongoing media with the same title is pretty common, particularly on the internet. If we want or need to be more specific, we can make the years a range instead, though that would require going back and retitling all of the new era seasons again if/when the count is reset again. I think this would also avoid the search issue Najawin noted, I think this would also let us keep them properly ordered in the category, though I don't know enough to say that with certainty. Time God Eon ☎ 19:26, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

What does everybody think of it?

If it's appropriate to ask here, what does everybody think of the decision? Does this mean everything before has been erased? Or what? My apologies if this isn't part of what normally happens on these pages.

Kevin 'Chalky' Kaiba ☎ 11:17, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Forums are for discussions that impact editing, this should be in Discussions. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 11:23, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
I did apologise beforehand. Kevin 'Chalky' Kaiba ☎ 13:07, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
I know, I was just explaining. Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 19:06, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Why is everyone here such a dick, for just a general question? Aw21212121 ☎ 07:28, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Nobody was. Aquanafrahudy was just explaining something. And please don’t make personal attacks. Danniesen ☎ 07:50, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Tardis has a strict policy against personal attacks, T:NPA. As such, I'm going to issue you a short block. Bongo50 ☎ 16:36, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

My two cents

Uh, if anybody wants my two cents' worth as to renaming the eras, how's this? 1) Classic eras stay the same 2) The movie keeps its name ("the movie") 3) Stuff from wider universes (books, audio plays, webcasts, etc.) gets marked as "expansions" 4) Each TV era from Who itself since it came back gets named according to who was leading at the time (RTDI, Moffat, CC, RTDII), and numbering like for regnal and papal names if and when past leaders come back. Thoughts? Kevin 'Chalky' Kaiba ☎ 10:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

How would you number the individual series, though? Aquanafrahudy 📢 🖊️ 10:37, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Keep referring to the classic series as they were. And refer to the revival series in ordinal value, no resetting the counter. Unless something happens and it cancels everything that came before. Kevin 'Chalky' Kaiba ☎ 13:47, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
This is completely unviable. Not least of which because it blatantly violates T:NPOV. Najawin ☎ 16:23, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
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