Inclusion debates/The Future Discussion about Alternate Doctor Who Universe Stories

So a few weeks ago, I wrote and posted a forum on my views on the main issue with the site. I was then informed by our head admin that the parts of the post I had done in defining words like “canon,” “fictional universe,” and “valid” was problematic. He, however, did not disagree with the changes that I was suggesting and stated that he too was looking for reform. To make up for this, I have removed and altered pretty much all of what he brought up in his final point (which was not the "basis" of the forum really, it was just side-stuff), basically eliminating all of what was noted in the final post. As any points that were used to close the thread are now fixed, there should be no issue with reopening the discussion. Welcome to the “future discussion.”

It was also brought up that most people don’t care about this topic, that most just care about the current TV show. I don't see why this is relevant. Most don't care about John and Gillian, either. Yet some do, and thus stories that feature them are worth talking about.

And since I have not seen this specific issue discussed in a forum in recent years, and none of what I am posting here was actually addressed in the closing post, it's also far from a break of policy.

CLARA: Is this a story or did this really happen?
DOCTOR: Every story ever told really happened.Hell Bent

Everything is canon.Steven Moffat

Our methods have long stressed the need to include as many different tales as possible, even if they are in explicit narrative contradiction.T:VS

Folks, we have a problem. And we've had this problem over and over again, time and time again. And I think it's about time that we all got together to say, “this isn't working, we can fix it. Let's fix it.”

In the novelisation of Day of the Doctor, a new piece of dialogue is added, where Kate Stewart points to two VHS tapes of the Dr Who Dalek films and discussed to Clara that the Doctor “loved” the films, and was personal friends with Peter Cushing. What this means is that our currently-invalid page for the version of Dr Who from the 1960's Dalek movies technically exist within what we perceive to be the Doctor Who Universe. So the most logical choice for us at this point is to discuss this revelation and to decide then how we should try and cover the numerous stories surrounding the Cushing Doctor. But to be frank, I think the fact that we are continually doing this is a much more pressing issue.

The fact that the key individuals most heavily involved with the inclusion debates always seem to be bringing up the same few stories declared “outside of continuity” on the site long-ago while raising new points about the stories and thus not contradicting any rules whenever a mainstream story makes reference to them or when it's brought into question how “outside of continuity” they are... Well, it's shocking.

Here’s the issue: we have made it the goal of our wiki to cover as many Doctor Who stories as we can. Our goal has always been to find a way for all stories, regardless of contradiction. That’s the reason that Lungbarrow and John and Gillian both have pages on our site. And yet, we’ve selected a few stories out to be invalid under the principle that they contradict continuity too much to “count.” That these stories shouldn't be written about from an in-universe perspective, because they exist "outside of continuity".

And since this only applies to a very short list of stories, stories which keep coming up over and over again in the discussions of how our site works, I would like to put this for rest once and for all by discussing how we could do this better.

The core issue

T:VS discusses the need for a story to exist within The Doctor Who Universe, and how stories which do not meet these standards should not be covered. Well, all of these stories, at the very least, exist within a Doctor Who Universe. That’s the key point of contention.

Dr. Who and the Daleks, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., Daleks Versus the Martians, and Dr Who and the House on Oldark Moor all certainly exist within the same universe. They are meant to be congruent, and their connections are meant to be explored by people like us. All four of these stories count to each other, they all exist to one-and-another, and they exist within their own Doctor Who universe. Thus, they all have the potential to be covered and explored by someone. And we are the Doctor Who wiki, after all. It's kind of our thing to create a space for people to do that with Doctor Who stories.

And that’s exactly why we DO have pages that discuss the nature of these stories. Pages like Dr. Who and Ninth Doctor, etc. The thing is, these pages already exist and function as if they are about valid stories. And they are able to act like this because they are coherent narratives. The only reason that they invalid is that they “don’t count” enough to exist within the “mainstream DWU.”

Some might try to argue that these stories can't be seen as in-universe, but by that logic, a story like AUDIO: Exile also is not "in-universe." And yet it is valid. All of these stories can be discussed from an in-universe perspective, and thus the potential of them to be in-universe exists. The problem is the classic game of "What universe?" Well, a Doctor Who one, obviously.

There are going to be people in this debate who staunchly stand by the fact that all of the stories listed at the bottom of this post can't exist within the mainstream Doctor Who Universe. That they can't be part of regular continuity, and thus we shouldn't try to hide their warts from our readers. And the thing is that I pretty much agree. Our logic isn't broken -- it's our system that needs to understand better what we are trying to say. We should find a way to tell our readers that these stories contradict the mainstream show. But we should find a way to do this without shutting the pages off from the rest of the wiki.

To understand how this can be fixed, let us glance over to other wikis to see how they cover this same situation.

Precedent in Other Wikis

In this section, I will be discussing other wikis who have come across this same issue. That being, stories which they have to cover despite them not existing in the current continuity or "universe." All of these wikis found ways to clarify to readers which stories and characters fit into what collection of stories, and did this without “exiling” them from coverage.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog, over the years, has had numerous continuities in numerous mediums of fiction. And instead of trying to pick one to cover in full, or indeed trying to banish all others, they simply keep their readers informed about which pages fit within what worlds, stories, and universes.

Check out w:c:Sonic:Doctor Ovi Kintobor. Here, you'll see a page dedicated entirely to a version of Robotnik which existed in early comics, alongside promotional material for the game. At the top is proudly shown a banner explaining what this character is.

This article's subject exists primarily or exclusively within the Sonic the Comic continuity. Information in this article may not be canonical to the storyline of the games or any other Sonic continuity.

Power Rangers

Power Rangers Wiki notably covers two completely different shows. That of the Japanese Sentai series, and that of the American Power Rangers series. They apparently decided at some point that having different sites for the two versions wasn't in their interests. However, what interests us is their coverage of Power Rangers: The Movie. For the many of you uninitiated, Power Rangers: The Movie was a stand-alone high-budget film made to tie into the TV series. It did this by retelling a key sequence of episodes, and because of this, it is considered by fans to be "outside of regular continuity". You might notice that it is a precise description of the 1960's Dalek films created for Doctor Who, which infamously starred a human Peter Cushing. So the question is, how do they allow for coverage of these stories? The answer is that they create unique pages for every human, alien, species, and rock featured in the film with the DAB term “(movie)” added. Then, at the top of these pages, like at the Sonic wiki, a banner explains the issue.

At the top of the page for the film, a banner reads “This article is about a/an independent-continuity film entry in the Power Rangers franchise.” Pages about characters featured in the film display a similar banner.

File:Icon-mmprmovie.png

This article is about a/an [blank] in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, existing in a different continuity than the TV series.

What to take from this

These sites have realised something that is important for us to as well. There is no point in there being a billion Sonic wikis for every version of the universe, or a separate set of wikis for Sentai, Power Rangers, and the Power Rangers movie. One Sonic wiki should learn to find a space for all fans of the series to discuss the stories that exist under its title. And in the same light, there is no need for there to be a 1960's Dr. Who Dalek Films Wikia. We are the Doctor Who wiki. Warts and all. We should find a reasonable place to cover stories that break rank, just like these sites have.

Precedent on our own Wiki

In the past several years of debates, numerous validated stories have served as test-runs of the implementation of these rules. First, in Forum:Is The Infinity Doctors canon?, it was decided that despite the fact that the book The Infinity Doctors was not intended to be set inside THE Doctor Who Universe because the writer saw it as an alternate reality, we could cover it and simply state that this was the case. This change has gone over extremely well. It not only gives writers the chance to write about the versions of characters in that book but also gave a window for references to the book to be explored in an in-universe fashion. This was arguably one of the debates that lead to us changing the word “canon” to “valid." In short, there are no reasons for The Infinity Doctors ever to be invalid.

Then came the discussions of Thread:197392, Thread:197509, and Thread:207240. In short, Big Finish had done a crossover between one of their Unbound audios and their Bernice Summerfield line. Other users pulled up plentiful examples of various people saying that the Unbound audios were set in alternate realities and universes. The rules were changed to allow a space for the Unbound stories to be discussed as “alternate universes.”

The amazing thing that happened next... was that the world didn't end. Suddenly, all Unbound audios were now available in their own little pocket of the wiki, where connections between the Unbound stories and regular ones could be discussed fairly, all while letting the readers know that the stories existed outside of the regular Doctor Who Universe. It didn't scare users off, and it certainly didn't distract users who otherwise would be writing about mainstream stories. People who liked these stories wrote about them, and people who didn't care watched Aliens of London again.

What should we do?

What I (and arguably a good chunk of people who care about these stories in the first place) want is simple. For us to take all alt-DWU stories currently placed in the “Not-valid” category for discrepancies with continuity and move them to a stance of being a part of an “alternate Doctor Who reality.” This will allow users who want to write about the Doctor as he was played by Peter Cushing to easily discuss what this character was and how it existed without roadblocks. It will allow users trying to point out how The Taking of Planet 5 mentions the plot of The Curse of Fatal Death from an in-universe perspective to do so. And to be frank, it will end any gatekeeping trying to dictate what can and cannot be Doctor Who.

Why this is really, really easy

This is amazingly easy to pull off, mostly because all of the pages who exist under this issue are already written as if they were valid. Go check out Dr. Who (Dr. Who and the Daleks), for instance. A page which is the perfect example of how we should be covering these stories, and the only thing making it “invalid” is a little tag at the top. Otherwise, it perfectly functions as a valid coverage of a story.

The only big issue we would come across is that the prefixes for these stories (all “NOTVALID”) would need to be replaced. However, a little problem like that has hardly stopped us fixing a blatant problem before.

Furthermore, this is just the right choice for people who are tired of the in-universe pages created under the NONVALID category. If we can take pages out of this group that are fully-functional and ready to be valid, then it would easily allow us to clean up this part of the site. We can get rid of horrid superfluous pages like The Doctor (Shada) and Graske (Attack of the Graske) (if these stories are invalid because they can't be covered, why are we covering them?), and people who actually care about these Doctor Who stories that “contradict too much” would have a place on the wiki to discuss them without their coverage really being changed that much at all.

I really don’t see this as changing the rules, but rather clarifying what we mean by having these rules. It will help our wiki function better, and I hope my points are still clear after this rewrite.

Stories which should be affected by this change

The following stories, which are invalid for not fitting the current view that we have f the Doctor Who Universe (and are thus invalid for the heinous crime of being allegedly “too far outside of regular continuity and thus the universe”), are what I intend to have covered as “alternate realities” if the community comes to a consensus about these points.

• The 1960's Dalek Films
• The Curse of Fatal Death (In a DWM interview, Moffat noted that the story, despite being written to be funny, was meant to be real, honest Doctor Who, and watching it, you can tell that it was meant as a genuine continuation (and finale) of the show. If it were the only sequel ever made to the show, we would cover it the same way that 21jumpstreet wiki covers the (comedic) sequel films.)
• Scream of the Shalka (This is a story that's packaged with regular Doctor Who stories in most shops, it should be said)
• Death Comes to Time
• All and any stories considered invalid for being connected to the above narratives. See: The Feast of the Stone, Daleks Versus the Martians

Thank you for your consideration, apologies if I was a little to blunt in any key places.