Forum:DWU, Canon, Continuity and References - rename them

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Doctor Who universe (DWU), Canon and Continuity are three terms that are used fairly broadly throughout the wiki, and they all mean vaguely the similar things.

Canon being all the stories we use to make the universe and DWU being the end result once we've got all the in-universe info out of them. With continuity being the direct connections to the stories through the narrative.

Discussions of this nature have been brought up before (see Forum:References and continuity: what exactly is the difference?).

I think part of the issue is that the three concepts are fairly similar and we assume that other readers know what we're talking about when we use these concepts which are used fairly uniquely on this wiki.

So I propose we rename both the sections on the stories pages.

• "Continuity" becomes >> "Canon and continuity"
• "References" becomes >> "DWU references"

This way we actually tie the sections into terms we already have defined on the wiki and separate these terms from generic terms of "Continuity" and "References". --Tangerineduel / talk 15:21, June 25, 2012 (UTC)

I agree with this, there is to much confusion between the two on them. DWU references should contain every single scrap of information presented in a story. C&C should be used if a certain story/event if mentioned.

An example:

• Barbara mentions the Daleks.
• Oswald Danes eat an hot dog with mustard.

They would fall under "DWU references", whereas:

• Barbara talks about her first encounter with the Daleks on Skaro (TV: The Daleks)
• Jack talks about be poisoned on a plane. (TV Rendition)

would fall under C&C

C&C should also only mention/reference/contain stories that have already occurred. For example, a Fourth Doctor story couldn't link to a Tenth Doctor story, but it could link to a Third Doctor story. Likewise, a Tenth Doctor story couldn't link to an Eleventh Doctor story, but could link to a Fourth. MM/Want to talk? 23:16, June 25, 2012 (UTC)

What about a Third Doctor story produced after a Tenth Doctor Story. Could not , say, a Third Doctor trip Trips story published in 2011 echo an event from a Tenth Doctor television story? In a timey-wimey universe published in no particular order....Boblipton ^{talk to me} 00:00, June 26, 2012 (UTC)

I absolutely disagree with the reintroduction of the term "canon" after having worked relatively hard to rid the wiki of it. Continuity, fine. Canon? No. Canon is in no way the same thing as continuity. We need to continue the work of ridding the wiki of the term "canon", rather than doing the precise opposite.

And I really don't get the difference between "continuity" and "DWU references". It's the same thing. I would support a collapsing of these two sections into one, but I really don't support Tangerineduel's original post in any way, nor do I understand the distinction that MM is trying to make.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 00:27: Tue 26 Jun 2012 

I agree that introducing the word "canon" into every story page is a terrible idea. I think that collapsing "continuity" and "references" into a single section is probably the simplest solution. —Josiah Rowe ^{talk to me} 01:52, June 26, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I didn't really consider the wider issue of adding "canon" to every single page, I just thought of it as an addition to what's there.

The issue I have with rolling the References and Continuity into one is a lot of the References to the DWU in stories are just within that story, they're references to the "stuff" of the DWU without explicitly being a reference to another story.

Some information in a story is simply unique in context to that story and doesn't need supporting continuity links or is mentioned in later stories. Does that mean we have to add continuity links to that info?

Something like:

• Barbra flies a broomstick like a witch.

If the Continuity is integrated with References would people feel compelled to add links to every other story where witches appear.

So it'd become;

• Barbra flies a broomstick like a witch. (TV: The Dæmons, TV: A Girl's Best Friend)

Which isn't true at all, yes those stories feature witches etc, but they're not directly linking into this bit of info (from 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice)

How about:

• Ian fights a dragon, stabbing it with a lance.

Would this give cause to add a continuity link to every other instance of Ian fighting something?

While other things that turn up in Continuity don't have a References equivalent.

These are links to other stories that is not an explicit link in the narrative;

• The story begins literally two minutes after the events of TV: Marco Polo. Ian is described as wearing the same outfit that he wore in the preceding story.

Continuity takes into account how this story relates and is framed by other stories. I'm just unsure how we blend these two things together.

Would it help if we blended Timeline into the mix as well, as that's all about where a story fits and relates to others? --Tangerineduel / talk 16:04, June 26, 2012 (UTC)

I am against merging continuity and references, mainly for the reasons stated above by Tangerineduel and also because I feel they are completely different. If we do merge them, then we will need to have very strict rules about what falls under each. Continuity would need to solely link to a story, such as:

* Barbara mentions her first encounter with the Daleks (DW: The Daleks)

and NOT:

* The Doctor fell over. The Doctor previous fell over in (whatever story)

Continuity would need to be direct links/mentions etc to another story and not just vague similarities, which some, at the moment are.

As for references, they would need to stay as they are, broken down by headings, covering everything mentioned in a story that is noteworthy. I see the headings, if we do merge, looking like the following.

– The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mini-mitch (talk • contribs) .

Also, this and this might be helpful. MM/Want to talk? 21:41, June 28, 2012 (UTC)

I have to say that I still don't understand the difference between references and continuity, because they're all continuity references. Lemme see if I can come up with an example here. Imagine we're on the page, The Long Game (TV story). And in the references section, you put:

=== Food and beverages ===
*Rose and the Doctor encounter a stand selling [[kronkburger]]s.

That's not just a reference. That's a continuity reference, because it's drawing information from an earlier comic book.

To my mind, everything you could ever put into the references section is an expression of some kind of continuity idea. It's a connection to a past or future story.

Maybe what would make the most sense is to have a section called "Continuity references" and then just have a subsection — after you've finished listing all the more specifically-categorised notes — be "General notes". Or maybe it'd make more sense to have the general notes first, since these are the ones in which most people are likely more interested.

Actually, another thought strikes me now. Maybe it would be good to have:

== Continuity references ==
General continuity text goes here. Possibly bulleted. Possibly not. It really depends on the story. Points that really need some explanation are given their due here

Underneath these notes would be a template that would kinda look like this, but obviously with a better design. It would have a standard format so that you could list the various things by type. So it would be:

Food and beverages	Spacecraft
Kronkburger, Sherry, Banana milkshake	Thunderbird, Enterprise, Columbia

Obviously, this is just a rough idea, but the notion would be to have a general section which allows for discussing the bigger continuity points, and a bit of a chart which allows certain terms to be linked to the story without necessitating a sentence. It would be, if you will, a combination of meaningful text and helpful cheat card.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 22:45: Sat 07 Jul 2012 

Archivist's notes

Closing as having achieved no consensus.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 02:23: Tue 21 Aug 2012