Forum:How to best cover exhibits
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.
Right, so, we've already validated non-narratives such as illustrations and features... So what about exhibits?
Although some exhibits appear to be out-of-universe, some others - such as Travel Through Time and Space [+]Loading...["Travel Through Time and Space (exhibit)"], are evidently fiction in-and-of-themselves. As evidenced by that page and the "EXHIBIT" prefix already existing, this seems to have been experimented with prior to this thread, but nethertheless I feel this thread is fairly necessary, even if the result will probably be the same as how it's been done now.
"Come on TARDIS, let's go party"
"Come on TARDIS, let's go party" was the social media caption applied to a photograph of a pink TARDIS which was placed in London as cross-promotion between Doctor Who and the upcoming Barbie film. Although in and of itself, this wouldn't be sufficient reason for coverage, a Mr "Russell T Davies" (heard of him?) stated explicitly that the exhibit is "in-universe", which means it should proooobably be a source on this site. A page was made under the false belief that this statement regarded the photograph itself, but this doesn't seem to be the case. (Also if we alter coverage to not be of the photograph, I'm not entirely sure what the page should be called... "Untitled (Barbie exhibit)"?)
Presenting... The Lady Cassandra!
Presenting... The Lady Cassandra! was an exhibit which was featured at the Worlds of Wonder exhibitions. Now, unlike the other exhibits featured there, this one featured original audio of Lady Cassandra talking about the various augmentations her body had gone through (additionally, the brief summary of who she is seems to be fairly in-universe). This should probably be a source, but if it wasn't, it wouldn't be the end of the world (we're probably better off covering it, though).
Unknown object—RHCTDM-OEI-OLOAW/0209
Unknown object—RHCTDM-OEI-OLOAW/0209 was an exhibit which was featured at the Science Museum, London, as part of the #FindTheDoctor ARG. Now, I've heard some people wanting #FindTheDoctor to be a single source, but as it stands, it's its own page, currently covered as a "feature". I feel that covering it as an exhibit would be far more accurate than how it's currently covered.
Madame Tussauds waxwork exhibits
The main thing I feel will the site will benefit from via this thread is coverage of the various DWU-related waxworks at Madame Tussauds, such as Doctor Who [+]Loading...["Doctor Who (MTB exhibit)"] and Travel Through Time and Space [+]Loading...["Travel Through Time and Space (exhibit)"]. I feel that those pages get across what they are and how they'd be covered well enough though, so won't go into detail here.
Untitled exhibits
I'm unsure if we should require threads for "Untitled" exhibits, in the same way as we don't automatically cover untitled illustrations. An example of an untitled one (notwithstanding the Barbie TARDIS) would be "Untitled (SDCC 2024 exhibit)", an interactive TARDIS exhibit thingy from San Diego Comic-Con 2024 which AFAIK didn't get its own name (I especially feel it warrants coverage as Kastarion 3 can be seen through the doors, making this a bit more than just the inside of the Ship).
Friendship is Universal
At the Friendship is Universal event (same event as the above), a set of props and costumes from Doctor Who and Star Trek were featured alongside each other with prose thingies describing characters and the like. This is linked at Mavity (term)/Appearances, but I'm not entirely sure we should be covering it, or at least it should be debated as it features ST elements with no clear link between them and the DWU. I feel that we could perhaps only cover the DW-related parts, similar to our coverage of Hedz and Dead Ringers episodes.
How to cover them
In terms of dab terms and prefixes, I already have an idea for them: "(exhibit)" and "EXHIBIT: " - thus, "The TARDIS was once painted pink. (EXHIBIT: Come on TARDIS, let's go party)" (or "(EXHIBIT: Untitled)", depending on people's opinions). And indeed, these are what the person who jumped the gun a bit went with. Now that prefixes and dab terms are out of the way, we have the question of how much to cover - i.e. should we cover the background of the Barbie TARDIS? What about the other side of it, where (for example) Dave's Kebab Shop can be seen? Should that get a page, if we edit Tower Bridge for the other view? With Lady Cassandra, where do we say she was? Can we allow fan photographs of the exhibits?
My opinions are that with regards to the Barbie TARDIS, I'm unsure on background information such as Tower Bridge, but I think if we do cover such things, we'd have to stick with only official imagery (I do think we should probably be able to say where it landed, though (London)). Additionally, with regards to Lady Cassandra, I personally feel that we should just say the objective facts of what she says, and no more, as intent would seem to be that her location is non-diegetic (unless there's dialogue that I'm missing). Finally, with regards to fan photography, I feel that it may be warranted to allow fan photographs of the exhibits (such as closeup shots/photos of exhibits with no official images) as part of the source, naturally categorised under "Category:(source title) exhibit images". I'm curious what other people think, though. (And after this, we only have a few things left to validate, such as stage plays and merchandise...) Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 12:00, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Discussion
I like this proposal. I think having an EXHIBIT prefix would be really solid, even when it comes to OOU behind-the-scenes coverage. Expanding our documentation of historical exhibits would also be a really good idea, since these sorts of things go back to the Hartnell era. There's a lovely book I have about this, it's called Doctor Who Exhibitions. OttselSpy25 ☎ 14:38, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- This is a very good proposal! Having some example pages already in this style is also helpful, as it lets us see what others might look like. In my mind, one of the biggest hurdles with exhibits (which ties into what you say about Dave’s Kebab Shop) is that these are primarily visually documented by guests taking pictures, which opens up a slightly unique copyright situation wherein the photos you find online are copyrighted to individual people rather than companies and so etiquette around copying them on this wiki would be slightly different. I feel like part of rules we build around exhibit pages should be to make sure you have permission.
- Also, re: Dave’s Kebabs, there’s a difference between public landmarks and shops. To my mind, when an exhibit is displayed outside, the notable location information is the public landmarks around it. IMO discussing private businesses is similar to if we covered a cosplayer going up to the Pink TARDIS and doing a skit; just because it physically happened doesn’t mean that its part of the intended experience. Covering brands that appear in the background of the TV show is possible because episodes of the show are finite products whose contents have been approved by the people making them.
- Regarding untitled exhibits, I feel like descriptive titles are justified in this context. SDCC 2024 TARDIS (exhibit), Pink TARDIS (exhibit), and so on. Let us not forget that calling pages “Untitled” is itself a descriptive title in which one chooses that the untitled nature of a piece is its defining aspect, which IMO doesn't apply to exhibits which operate on different norms from fiction with home releases. There’s obviously a degree of uncertainty in how different people would title things in different ways, but descriptive titles communicate more than Untitled (SDCC 2024 exhibit) and are possible if we keep things relating to core event and content information. The way these things tend to go is that whenever these pages are made, the person who does the work making them makes certain choices and us who come afterwards tend to follow them if they work alright.
- Anyways, this is quite exciting because there’s some more, older exhibits that would get pages from this proposal. This goes back at least to the Doctor Who exhibit within the BBC tv Special Effects Exhibition, which would absolutely get a page by these criteria due to the whole thing being set in the TARDIS, with the viewer looking out through windows at aliens on other planets. Pretty in-universe, with an original console and console room design.
- I wonder if we should define which in-universe exhibitions aren’t to be covered? My initial thought is that this would be "adaptational exhibits" that faithfully recreate scenes or settings from the show and do nothing more, such as those found in Doctor Who Exhibition Longleat and the Doctor Who Experience, or when sets from the TV show are displayed to the public, such as the Five Doctors sets at Longleat Doctor Who Celebration or when Clara Oswald's flat was displayed at The Doctor Who Festival (both events which don't have pages, RIP). If we had a page for Solon's castle, rather than having a list of appearances which includes Brain of Morbius diorama Longleat (exhibit), the same information could be conveyed by a BTS note saying that a room of the castle was recreated in Longleat with the Morbius Monster costume and a mannequin resembling Solon. However, this whole line of thought comes apart when one considers that Doctor Who (MTB exhibit) is clearly a page we should have, and that’s arguably an adaptation of a scene. Perhaps the issue is more how/if to divide larger Dr Who Exhibitions which are composed entirely of in-universe scenes, as my next paragraph gets into.
- A resource which I very much enjoy is the free online book Blackpool Remembered, which goes into the Doctor Who Exhibition Blackpool in extensive detail. The Exhibition was a series of ever-updating dioramas of monsters from the show, half of which would fit into the category of "displaying scenes from the TV show". The other half were quite notable, with there being a talking Dalek voiced by Michael Wisher and a talking K9 voiced by John Leeson that would move in a loop between dioramas, as well as a centrepiece exhibit (resembling the one from the BBC tv Special Effects Exhibition) where guests would go into the TARDIS and look out at alien worlds through windows (with there being a routinely updated alien planet scene which sometimes had moving Daleks in it). I'm not sure in what way this would all be split into exhibit pages in the same manner as the similar Cassandra exhibit, but I'm putting in the table as a potential thing to iron out. TheChampionOfTime ☎ 15:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
