Talk:Death of the Doctor (TV story)

This is a real story, why is the page being deleted (also when deleting a page you have to explain in your summary why you are deleting the page) Springwood1984 21:40, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Happy now? The page is barren and the infobox is wrong. There is not much information available at the moment and it is only an infobox with a few rumours. User:Solar Dragon/Signature 21:55, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Then fix the info box, and let people fill the information in. Deleting it will only lead to someone else making a new page for it, since DWM has announced the name of the episode. Lokiofmidgaard 21:56, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Typically, in the past, pages have been made for upcoming episodes as soon as the titles of those episodes were revealed. There were pages for "The Vampires of Venice", "Vincent and the Doctor", and "The Big Bang" long before we knew any definite details for those episodes. There really ought to be pages for all the Sarah Jane series 4 episodes now. And even if we wait on those, the Doctor's appearance in "Death of the Doctor" makes it important enough to have a page dedicated to it now. Bluebox444 22:01, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Prop delete, again

The example cited above of The Vampires of Venice is actually an argument against the existence of this page at this very early stage. Episode names do change, even as late as the date of transmission. Or, as with The Pandorica Opens, there's the possibility that the title might be the name of an actual item in the DWU and we might have to go back and changes lots of pages. For all we know, Death of the Doctor is the name of a book in the DWU. Impatience only creates additional work. I suggest that this, and all SJA series 4 episode pages should be deleted at this stage. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 22:09, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

"The example cited above of The Vampires of Venice is actually an argument against the existence of this page at this very early stage. Episode names do change, even as late as the date of transmission. "

By that logic, there's no point creating a page for any episode until after it has aired. If the episode title changes, set up a redirect, it's not that hard.

"Or, as with The Pandorica Opens, there's the possibility that the title might be the name of an actual item in the DWU and we might have to go back and changes lots of pages."

Though it's highly doubtful a device would have the name "Death of the Doctor", in this kind of case you simply make a disambiguation page, and let people fix links over time - that's the whole advantage of a wiki site. So I don't see the need to delete this page. You talk about creating more work - deleting it will do that, because I guarantee you that again and again different contributors will come in unaware why the old one was deleted and recreate it from scratch. Lokiofmidgaard 22:15, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

• I agree with the deletion. Even the series 5 ones weren't created this early. The episode won't even air until the fall. There is no point speculating who will be in the episode, who won't, and there's only two rumours on the main body of the article (which don't even have sources). There's no point in having it. The Thirteenth Doctor 22:21, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

"By that logic, there's no point creating a page for any episode until after it has aired. If the episode title changes, set up a redirect, it's not that hard."

That is exactly what I'm saying. There's no point creating a page for any episode until after it has aired. You make it sound like all you have to is create a redirect and — voila! —it's all done. But it's much more than that. It's finding every instance of the wrong title on the wiki and changing it. Even with a bot it's a good day's work. Without a bot, it's potentially a much longer job, depending on how many links are made to the wrong title. You say "let people fix links over time", but do you have any idea how truly tedious that is? It's far, far easier to just keep deleting one page than to have links sprouting up all over the place. There were hundreds of links to The Pandorica Opens before they were stopped and reverted. Likewise, there were tons of links to Vampires of Venice and some to Vampires in Venice before we got broadcast confirmation that the actual name of the episode was The Vampires of Venice. Though I'm constantly doing it, I'm honestly not thrilled about cleaning up messes like this which are caused be simple impatience. It is better to be accurate than to be first. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 22:26, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

And I reiterate - all deleting it will do is see it get constantly recreated by one user after another. "You make it sound like all you have to is create a redirect and — voila! —it's all done." Yes, it is, in some respects. Any wrong link will go to the correct page, which sorts the main problem - fixing links can then be done over time. Plus, there should be redirect or disambiguation pages, as the case may be, for working titles or common misnamings. And yes, I do know how tedious fixing links can be - but who said you had to be the only one doing it? You see the creation of this page as impatience. It's not. It's human nature, the desire to be up to date combined with the ease of creating something on a wiki. Once people know the name, people are going to want to start filling in the info, adding in new info as it comes out. Lokiofmidgaard 22:34, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

Did you read what CzechOut said? It takes ages to fix incorrect links, even with them being fixed automatically, and it is both very annoying and tiring. The page will be deleted and locked so that no-one can create it. The Thirteenth Doctor 23:32, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

No, wrong links won't necessarily go to the correct page under your idea. There are two things that could happen under your idea of "creating now, move later":

1. If we later move Death of the Doctor to a disambig page, then these links will go to the disambig page, which is a bad link. And the thing is, they'll be harder to notice as errors because they'll be blue links.
2. If we later move Death of the Doctor to, let's say, The Death of the Doctor, you say that's basically okay because at least it's still blue-linked to the right page. But I say that's still a problem because the link issue is secondary. Now the article has an inaccuracy in it. But again, it looks fine, because there's a blue link.

While I understand the point that it might be nice if we allowed lots of alternative links to things, based upon common misspellings — in that it makes searching slightly easier — it has the serious downside of allowing articles to become populated with blue-links to misspellings, which wholly negates any searching advantage. I mean, it's possible for someone to believe that the name is Padraig Trowton or even John Pertwee — and therefore to put that in the search box — but we don't want to allow people that link for Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. As an encyclopedia, we do have a duty to be accurate, not approximately accurate. Likewise, there are plenty of instances where the placement of an article, like "the" or "an", is absolutely critical The Daleks is a materially different thing than Daleks, for instance. And we don't want to give the impression that we believe The Inferno, The Pyramids of Mars, or Ribos Operation are proper titles. Spelling and accuracy "count" here. Allowing approximate titles of topics is the death knell of accuracy. Allow them, and you'll start to see articles absolutely riddled with lots of misspellings being given the "authority" of a blue link. It's fine to shorten a name once you've already established the full name at the top of an article, but you don't need to start the article off on the wrong foot by being allowed to blue link to a misspelling or misnaming. If you wouldn't allow The Unearthly Child — and who among us would, really? — then the most sensible thing to do is to wait and know for sure what the name of the episode actually is. Just because an episode is new doesn't exempt us from taking the same hard line on its allowable redirects that we use for episodes from 50 years ago. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 23:54, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with CzechOut. No episode article should be made until the episode airs. To stop it being created continuously, protect the page! As simple as that. Then unprotect it as the title comes up on the screen. Simples! Also, all that is in the article is an uncomfirmed cast (who knows who will appear apart from the guest stars). And it is a tedious task of changing links. Lokiofmidgaard, what you are saying is that you want there to be wrong names on the wiki and it is fine as long as they link to the correct page? That is stupid to me. The page should be deleted and protected to stop it from being created again. Who knows, it may change near the time to The Death of the Doctor or something. User:Solar Dragon/Signature 07:17, June 24, 2010 (UTC)

First of all, I notice that despite there being no consensus to delete (three posters for, three against), someone deleted the entry. Charming. In other words, "Please discuss whether or not to delete, but be aware that we won't wait for a consensus because opinions that differ from the ours don't count." Re: "John Pertwee" and "As an encyclopedia, we do have a duty to be accurate, not approximately accurate." Then you set up pages for the misspellings, where you have "John Pertwee. There is no actor or character of that name pertaining to Dr. Who. Do you mean Jon Pertwee? Please redirect links on any page where the wrong spelling has been used to the correct one." And then every so often you check the John Pertwee page and use the "check which pages link to this article" feature to find where people have spelled it wrong.

"Lokiofmidgaard, what you are saying is that you want there to be wrong names on the wiki and it is fine as long as they link to the correct page? " No, I'd prefer the names to be right. But I also prefer that when there is a common incorrect name that it gets the person searching to the right page, rather than have people unable to find articles. There should be a page for "Peter Davidson" that gets the person searching for the actor who played the fifth Doctor to Peter Davison. Lokiofmidgaard 10:15, June 24, 2010 (UTC)