Forum:Story names (modified like this)

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Castrovalva, Midnight and Frontios take you to the planet? Utopia takes you to a disambig page? Timelash takes you to the device? Although it does indicate a kind of patterned logic, it's completely against general wikipedia naming conventions. THe most common thing should get the least modified form of the name. It should be that Castrovalva takes you to the story and Castrovalva (planet) takes you to the planet. There is nothing in the TARDIS wiki manual of style which supports the way this has grown on the wiki, and it should be vigorously reverted. I mean, how many times are you going to link to Castrovalva and mean the planet? Judging by the "What Links Here" list, not a hell of a lot. The story is by far the more popular page. Pain in the ass to fix, but really, it should be. We've really got to put the average user first here. Someone coming to our site just to read our work isn't, by and large, going to search for Utopia by the search phrase Utopia (TV story). Especially if they've never seen or read the work in question.

Doctor Who is a television series, first and foremost. Its televised stories get unmodified titles. I hate to sound so strident, but that's just how it's gotta be. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 04:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that if a planet or decive or anything else has the same name as a story (TV/Novel Ect) when they should get the unmodifyed name however if it is the same name as a character i.e. The Master, Doctor Who then the character should get the unmodifyed name the the story should get The Master (TV Story) or Doctor Who (1996) Dark Lord Xander 05:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

All this is already covered in the Tardis:Manual of style page. Doug86 09:40, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

How so? The MOS doesn't actually say much about how to name an article related to a televised story. Thus, this thing of Castrovalva leading to the planet, but Castrovalva (TV story) leading to the story. What I'm saying is that the MOS needs to be amended so it's clearer that the thing most likely to be searched for/linked to gets the unmodified name. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 17:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that people searching for a tv story title will generally be looking for the story tile. Almost no-one would be looking for the object in Timelash, or Arc of Infity. I think that the only cases where it should be a disambig are if the story is a species name (dalek, robot), or the title of more than one story (human nature, shada). Planets, objects etc should be linked to from the story page itself. (e.g this is about the story, see x for the planet) Jack's the man - 17:00, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

In addition, when I cleared out Logoplois and Castrovalva, more than half the links to the planet pages actually wanted the story page - it should be clarified so this doesn't happen. Jack's the man - 17:00, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Revival

Well, two years on almost and I still don't get this. The conversation seemed to end here without resolution, but with reasonable agreement that the story title should get the unmodified name. Any new thoughts or explanations for why we have this weird naming convention here? CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 23:30, March 29, 2010 (UTC)

I've always thought of it that in-universe takes precedence and out-of-universe stuff goes in brackets. So much like names of people where we specify which story they're from (such as Jean (The Reign of Terror) and Jean (The Curse of Fenric). It's also become a convention (albeit another unwritten one I think) to put further definition elements into brackets when we've got multiple titles such as Twilight of the Gods (MA novel) and Twilight of the Gods (BNA novel). --Tangerineduel 05:53, March 30, 2010 (UTC)

This was the feeling I got as well. According to the Manual of Style the primary goal of this wiki is to emulate an actual in-universe reference guide. Someone in the Dr Who universe would be looking up "Frontios" the planet, not "Frontios" the story, so that gets precedence. Rob T Firefly 17:08, March 30, 2010 (UTC)

Now, wait a minute. You're saying that the person using the site should consider themselves in the universe of DW? That's taking things a bit far, I think. The search box is not in the DWU. The linking brackets are not in the DWU. I agree that there should be a fairly firm line between that stuff which is in-universe and that stuff which is out of universe, but if you're going to say that in-universe takes precedence over out-of-universe, that's going way too far. This wiki is not itself a work of fiction. The fact that we have different ways of writing real world and in-universe articles is to achieve stylistic consistency by keeping all the tenses the same. It is secondarily to help our readers more easily differentiate between a RW article and a DWU one (though, because so many of our real world articles are actually about things that happened in the past, you can't really say "past tense=in-universe"). It can't be taken so far that it actually confuses the reader. If we're going to allow coverage of out-of-univese things, and clearly we do, then the most relevant question becomes, "If I'm using this site for the very first time, what would I most likely be thinking of when I refer to the term Castrovalva?" And I think 9 out of 10 people are looking for the story, not the place. This can be proved by comparing the number of links to one article versus the other. What Tangerineduel is arguing is a point of consistency, not logic. Yes, I'll grant you that we are consistent in using TV story title (TV story) for the TV story and TV story title for the person, place or thing after which the story was named. What I'm saying is, that's wrong. The rules of encyclopedias take precedence over any in-universe/out-of-universe arguments. The thing that gets the most hits is, by definition, the way the term is most used, and that should get the unmodified term. The only instances in which I can think there might be a debate are the terms "Rose" and "K-9". There's enough ambiguity there that both should leave to a disambig page. Otherwise, it's very clear that Castrovala, Frontios, The End of Time, and these various other ones should lead directly to the TV story page, and anything else with the same name should be modified.

And the MOS does not say what you're claiming, Rob. The most it does say that's the perspective one should use when writing in-universe articles. But it's in no way implying that the reader should believe themselves to be in the DWU. Not even Tardis:Point of view, which explicitly applies to the writing of in-universe articles, suggests that the user of the site is in-universe. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 20:32, March 30, 2010 (UTC)

I could have sworn I read such a thing, but clicking around now I haven't been able to find it. It's possible I was misremembering. Rob T Firefly 06:47, March 31, 2010 (UTC)

How do we know that a user who's navigated themselves to a Doctor Who based wiki isn't looking for the planet rather than the story (on the times I've sought out other wikis it's because I'm looking for very specific information rather than the general or 'List of X things' Wikipedia generally does)?

Perhaps all the pages which are bracketed should go to disambig pages? Rather than perhaps assume what users are coming to the site looking for.

Which rules of encyclopaedias are we talking about?

Can it not be 'wrong' but still correct within this wiki's structure? All wikis have their quirks to maintain consistency throughout everything. --Tangerineduel 14:14, March 31, 2010 (UTC)