Forum:Canon policy: Items on which policy is unclear

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Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

In the Tardis:Canon policy under the "Items on which policy is unclear", in which it states:

The relevance of The Doctor Who Technical Manual, the in-universe history presented in part of The Terrestrial Index, The Doctor Who Monster Book and similar items and their suitability for use in creating and contributing to articles in the TARDIS Index File is unclear at this time, and up for discussion.

It's actually been in the policy from the beginning, I'm just not sure why these three are unclear on the canon front. Should this whole paragraph just be removed? Or should it be placed in secondary sources or...something else? --Tangerineduel / talk 14:32, March 7, 2011 (UTC)

They're unclear because they contain material which could potentially be used on in-universe articles, but probably shouldn't be. That is, they contain information about, for example, the technical specs of K9 or the operation of the TARDIS, or details about the sonic screwdriver — a substantial amount of which has never been confirmed in any narrative. They also contain, in the case of The Terrestrial Index, the author's opinion as to the narrative history of the DWU, in much the same way that AHistory or The Discontinuity Guide will throw out pearls of "wisdom" about how certain in-universe things fit together. All these reference books are one step removed from the source material, the episodes themselves, and therefore make for potentially dangerous resources for in-universe articles. It's fine if you want to include information from these sorts of books in a behind-the-scenes section or on a story page. But I can't see the rationale for including the Technical Manual's ideas of what makes the sonic screwdriver tick in the main body of sonic screwdriver. Primacy must be given to narrative works on in-universe pages.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  <span style="">04:45:04 Thu 10 Mar 2011