The Daft Dimension and Doctor Who? as parallel universes

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Opening post

Alrighty! I can't claim to be all that great at forming long-winded arguments of this nature, so I hope you're all willing to bear with me here.

To cut to the chase: Doctor Who? and The Daft Dimension should be validated as taking place in parallel universes. Or at the very least just acknowledged as taking place in parallel universes in general, "valid" or not.

The strongest case I can make for both works is authorial intent.

For Doctor Who?, said authorial intent is already addressed on that series page: as a product of DWM under Marvel UK, the gag comic is classed as a part of a reality in the official Marvel Multiverse, specifically, Earth-333333333, explicitly a different reality from the main Whoniverse (Earth-5556). A bunch of other Marvel properties are all also a part of this reality, but I'll leave that up to those who are more knowledgable on the strips.

As for The Daft Dimension, look no further than this post from the man himself; Lew Stringer not only considers it to be, as the title of the strip implies, set within its own, "daft" dimension where everything is much more silly, but he even goes as far as to suggest a shared universe with his other works.

Whether these universes should be classed as "validly existing in the Doctor Who multiverse" is something that you guys can decide on, but the intention is still clear in that these are not supposed to be in the Doctor's universe. The Doctor (Doctor Who?) and The Doctor (The Daft Dimension) are two completely different characters from the Doctor (N-Space). Their respective universes, and their inhabitants therein, are different from N-Space and those therein. It's as simple as that. WaltK ☎

P.S: As a side note, I'd like to give a special thanks to our own Scrooge MacDuck for directing me to Lew Stringer's testimony on the matter. WaltK ☎

Discussion

I support validating these two series and treating them as parallel universes, per authorial intent. Pluto2☎ 19:41, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Ditto Pluto2 Cousin Ettolrahc ☎ 20:08, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I think I support validating these but only under a specific condition which might involve actually changing the text of our rules.

Here's my stance. I think, in practice for at least several years, the website has functioned with the idea that T:NPOV does have an exception when it's a case of an alternate reality. So, while Spiral Scratch and The Brink of Death are both treated with equal weight, two different universes are not. We don't need to cite Exile's off-color theory about gender-swapping regenerations every single time the topic comes up because, well... To use a phrase I once came up with that's been misappropriated recently, it's a universe, not the universe.

So if we allowed these two topics in the valid subspace, I would only want it with the promised condition that not only do these two universes not qualify for universal T:NPOV, but in-practice we're actually implementing the opposite. The Tenth Doctor's page only needs to mention or link to Tenth Doctor (The Dark Dimension) a single time in the "alternate realities" subsection or subpage. We do not need to constantly be saying "Oh this might have been true, but it was contradicted by one source. (COMIC: The Daft Dimension).

It is only if we accept this sort of anti-T:NPOV that I would even begin to consider that allowing these pages in the valid space would actively do anything other than making the website worse. OS25🤙☎️ 20:12, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree with bestie OttselSpy25. These should be valid, but under those rules. Also I think the wiki would benefit from a rule that doesn't exclude official parodies straight away as sometimes, rarely, but sometimes parodies are intended to be in the Doctor Who multiverse. Also I think the wiki would also benefit from differentiating between Doctor Who comedies and Doctor Who parodies some more. The aforementioned often gets declared invalid because it's mistaken for the latter. See: Looking for Pudsey. 81.108.82.15^{talk to me} 20:22, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

You have some good points there! Technically, we've never validated a "satire" or "parody" for being DWU by proxy of intention to be a parallel universe.

Also, I wanted to mention quickly that my Anti-T:NPOV idea isn't really a new policy, as it's more of a T:BOUND issue of a rule we've been acting off of for years which we've never written down.

Finally, I have a question. What are we going to do about the occasional Quinnn & Dicky stories which we do cover as valid? For instance, COMIC: Nostalgia Corner. Does this story feature John Who, or should the information in the story be moved to John Who (Doctor Who?)?

Are we going to continue and presume that there are Quinn & Dicky stories set in the "primary" DWU, or will we now retroactively say that all currently-valid Quinn & Dicky stories take place in Earth-33 1/3? See also: The Test of Time, Enlightenment. OS25🤙☎️ 20:39, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

I have ...misgivings with validating Doctor Who? in this manner, but I could accede at the end of the day if everyone really really wants it? Given that parodies are strictly verboten on T:VS and this is a parody of Doctor Who, unlike CoFD, I think I'm against validity. (Gonna guess that it's more controversial than the people above suspect though.) I simply can't imagine validating Daft Dimension based on the evidence linked. That's so astonishingly poor that it boggles the mind. I have no qualms with treating either as alternate universes that are invalid, if that's authorial intent. Though it is a bit odd. ("According to an invalid source there is a parallel universe in which xyz happened, but that invalid source tells us nothing about what the main DWU universe would be like that we still couldn't cover on IU pages because it would be invalid". I mean, sure. A bit weird, but knock yourself out.) Najawin ☎ 01:16, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The title the Daft Dimension seems enough proof to me it’s set in another reality. Another dimension. Even without the authorial intent. Even if I hated the idea of these being valid, I’d have to concede due to the overwhelming evidence that they pass rule 4 on title alone 81.108.82.15^{talk to me} 01:48, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, to be absolutely fair, the comic is named after The Dark Dimension, which itself wasn't set in a dimension but a timeline. But semantics. OS25🤙☎️ 02:04, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The title is very much a reference to The Dark Dimension. I don't in any way see that as "overwhelming evidence" for rule 4. Najawin ☎ 02:19, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

That’s fair, but the author’s intent then backing it up as well. Fair enough if you disagree, but I’m firmly in the “valid because they fit the rules, even if I don’t like it” category. 81.108.82.15^{talk to me} 10:12, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The source provided says no such thing. It's a blatant misrepresentation of that link to portray it as suggesting that authorial intent takes it to be in the mainline DWU. If there's other evidence, I'm willing to consider it. But the evidence provided is nowhere near sufficient. Najawin ☎ 19:17, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Fair, but disagree. The evidence for validity seems clear rule 4 pass to me. 81.108.82.15^{talk to me} 19:27, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, I've been really bad at making time for participating forum threads recently, but as the creator of the pages for the vast majority of Quinn & Howett's stories on this Wiki I've made contributing to this one a major priority. I have less knowledge of The Daft Dimension, so my thoughts here refer only to Doctor Who? and its close relatives.

My take is that yes, Doctor Who? should be validated due to authorial intent placing it in a parallel universe. "Earth-333333333" (or "Earth 33⅓") was created by Tim Quinn and Dicky Howett, the people behind Doctor Who?, a couple of years prior to the start of their Who? work and this dimension was where all their parodic stories for Marvel Comics took place. As the OP states Earth-333333333 is part of the larger Marvel Multiverse, the same multiverse where the Doctor's adventures in Doctor Who Magazine occurred. The fact that Earth-333333333 is truly where Doctor Who? is set is alluded to on several occasions but in my opinion is no clearer than in the first story, wherein the Fifth Doctor meets several superheroes, including Quinn and Howett's pre-existing parodic creation Jet Lagg, with precisely zero indication of travel between universes.

With that out of the way, I'll now move on to the more difficult question of how much Quinn & Howett material to classify as a parallel universe, with some of these stories currently considered valid and deemed to take place in N-Space.

• All weekly instalments of Doctor Who? from DWM 64 to DWM 225: As stated above, these clearly take place in Earth-333333333.
• The Doctor Who? story published in Channel 33⅓: Another clear candidate for parallel invalidity. This story was originally intended to be published as part of the main series in DWM 64 and the name of the publication Channel 33⅓ also alludes to the name of Earth 33⅓.
• Doctor Who? 350 and Doctor Who?: Although produced after Marvel stopped publishing Doctor who Magazine, these stories are a continuation of the series in the same vein and should be classed as part of the same universe, with the latter referencing this by stating Quinn and Howett were "in their 33⅓rd regenerations".
• The eleven stories making up The History Tour: Despite creating these as valid as I thought it was a separate series, I now believe that was wrong. There was a thread on the old forums which had pretty much agreed on invalidating this series when the forums blew up. Since that discussion was abruptly concluded, I have also discovered that the series was sometimes called the "DOCTOR WHO? HISTORY TOUR" on the contents page. A clear spin-off, meaning it should be in the same universe as its parent series.
• The four Quinn & Howett stories from "special issues" of DWM: These are very much cut from the same cloth as Doctor Who? and should be classed as the same universe. The Next 20 Years, An Unearthly Child: The Unscreened Edition and Ever Wondered What Happened At.. The Auditions For The Seven Doctors? would be valid in this context, but So You Think You'd Make A Good Companion For Dr Who! should remain invalid pending the result of the proposed fourth wall and branching narratives threads.
• The other four (invalid) Quinn & Howett stories from regular issues of DWM, not explicitly labelled as Doctor Who?: Again, these are almost instalments of Doctor Who? in all but name and should get parallel universe validity. Everyone Wants To Read Doctor Who Magazine and Untitled (DWM 181) would have been invalid for being ads not long ago, but this is no longer a problem.
• Enlightenment from DWM 105: I created this one as valid too, but with hindsight I think that was incorrect. It's status as a story set in the main Doctor's universe is currently hindering accurate coverage of its contents. In the story we see several numbered portraits inside the TARDIS: -10, -6, No. 1, No. 2, No. 13 and No. 33. No. 1 and No. 2 resemble William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, clearly meaning that we are supposed to interpret all these portraits as incarnations of the Doctor. But we don't, because it would be a bit silly. Retaining validity but reclassifying to the parallel universe would help us to cover these portraits as was originally intended. Additionally, No. 13 is identical to an actor considered for the part of the Seventh Doctor but rejected in favour of Sylvester McCoy in Doctor Who? 128 so there's clearly some sort of relationship there.
• All the currently-invalid (and yet-to-be-created) contents of The Doctor Who Fun Book and It's Bigger on the Inside!: I see no reason why these shouldn't be given parallel universe validity as they are essentially extensions of Doctor Who? in the same way The History Tour was. The Doctor Who Fun Book was published by Target Books, not Marvel, but there are very similar styles between the two and the Fun Book was given an in-universe counterpart in a couple instalments of Doctor Who?.
• The three currently-invalid Quinn & Howett stories from Doctor Who Yearbook: Very clear candidates for parallel universe validity, with both The Complete Guide to Doctor Who? and Doctor Who's Infamous Moments in History both being explicitly identified as part of Doctor Who?. Untitled (DWY93) isn't, but presents no issues.
• Untitled (DW94), from Doctor Who Yearbook 1994: I apparently created this as valid but can't for the life of me remember why. Very much in the tone of the Doctor Who? and should be reclassed as happening in a parallel universe.
• Untitled 1 and The Doctor Who Awards Cermony 1989 from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: These should be valid as a parallel universe because they were both seemingly omitted from publication in Doctor Who? and It's Bigger on the Inside! respectively by mistake, to such an extent that It's Even Bigger on the Inside purports that they were originally released in this manner.
• Untitled 2 from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: We cover just the reprint of this because it's claimed to be another appearance of the Duke of Bath from Doctor Who? 90. I'd probably grant it parallel universe validity on that basis. The original version from Tit-Bits would remain not-covered, unless someone wanted to argue it as a case of Rule 4 by Proxy?
• Untitled 3 and Untitled 5 from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: These are early drafts of Doctor Who? stories which were later given full releases in Doctor Who Magazine. We should re-classify these as taking place in a parallel universe but due to them being replaced by superior versions I think they fail Rule 4 and should remain invalid.
• Untitled 4 from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: A completed instalment of Doctor Who? featuring Harry Sullivan which was originally intended for publication in DWM 121 before being pulled due to the death of Harry's actor Ian Marter. Unlike the two stories above, this was never released for real-world concerns rather than simply being unfinished, so I'd say its 2015 release qualifies for parallel universe validity.
• Untitled 6, Origins of Who? and Untitled 10 from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: All three of these were originally produced for fan conventions during the era of Doctor Who?. I'm unsure of what to do with these, but the unlicensedness of the originals and the fact these were made for conventions about Doctor Who in general, I'd probably leave them as they are, invalid but in N-Space.
• The six instalments of A Moment from 'Doctor Who' from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: These were taken from Dicky Howett's private collection so parallel universe authorial intent is doubtful at best. Again, I'd leave these as invalid but in N-Space.
• Untitled 8, Untitled 9 and Character portraits from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: These are all private commissions so, once again, I doubt there was any parallel universe intent at the time of their production, meaning they should remain invalid but in N-Space.
• Untitled 11 from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: This is a weird one, being promotional material from an unproduced fan audio starring Richard Franklin as Mike Yates. Without opening up any potential can of worms, I think it's fair to say this one can remain invalid but in N-Space.
• Untitled 12 from It's Even Bigger on the Inside: This one doesn't come with much explanation but it seems parallel universes would not have been on Howett's mind when he drew this. As such, it can remain invalid.
• All eight stories from the "From Other Worlds" section of It's Even Bigger on the Inside: As the name suggests, this is the section of the book featuring stories by Quinn & Howett with small Doctor Who references. These are entirely divorced from Earth-333333333 and should remain invalid in N-Space.
• The six stories the Wiki covers from Quinn & Howett's autobiographies, Drawing Breath and Argh!: Similarly to the above, these are not related to Earth-333333333 in the slightest and are often small Doctor Who-related cameos. They should stay invalid in N-Space.

And, saved for last, but certainly not least:

• The Test of Time and Nostalgia Corner from The Doctor Who Fun Book and It's Bigger on the Inside! respectively: I've saved these for last because they are probably the stories most deserving of discussion here. The "big" stories of their respective publications, they are both currently valid, which I believe is the correct decision. The Test of Time is much more serious in tone than anything else Quinn or Howett did and its status as a genuine entry set in the Doctor Who universe is backed up by its tie-ins to the television stories An Unearthly Child and The Web Planet. Nostalgia Corner is admittedly less serious than The Test of Time but I do think (as a story featuring the First Doctor, John and Gillian) that it's as faithful as possible to stories of the TV Comic era without descending into parody and does try to tell an actual story with this TARDIS team. Compare John and Gillian's depictions here to their appearance in Doctor Who? 72; you'll see a world of difference.

Very briefly (because this is probably one of my longest single posts ever) I also wanted to address the naming conventions for Doctor Who? and The Daft Dimension. The system I established for the many unnamed instalments of these series which can only be differentiated by issue number in page names (e.g. Doctor Who? (DWM 64 comic story) and Doctor Who? (DWM 65 comic story)) was to render these in text as Doctor Who? 64 and so on. I did this for two reasons: firstly, so that the number in the link matched the number in the page name; and secondly, because (in my opinion) people are more likely to know the issue number of a particularly instalment than the in-series number. For example, if I've just read DWM 201, Doctor Who? 201 is much more useful to me than Doctor Who? 138. Similarly, I feel Doctor Who? 350 for DWM 350 is way more intuitive than Doctor Who? 162. This way of doing things was acknowledged as T:BOUND-style de facto policy at User talk:Bongolium500#Re: The Daft Dimension but this is a good opportunity to properly codify it (or choose a different method altogether). Borisashton ☎ 23:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

This is very helpful, thank you Borisashton. OS25🤙☎️ 23:17, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't planning on having an opinion in this thread, but I've been very persuaded by Boris' analysis. I second his recommendations in full, including establishing the naming format, which I think will very usefully generalize to other contexts as well. – n8 (☎) 23:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I have the same reservations of allowing Parodies of DW to pass R4, as they're specifically verboten, but this a very exhaustive analysis. Still against. But pretty much so on technical grounds. I'd say like 55/45 against. Najawin ☎ 23:41, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

That’s why I say use this thread to change that rule. Make it so parodies don’t fail rule 4 by default, but instead should be investigated to see if there’s specific authorial intent that it’s in the DW multiverse. As rare as it is. Or if rule 4 by proxy comes knocking. Parodies should be assumed invalid, but not barred from validity in certain circumstances. Also, side note, the no parody rule causes Doctor Who comedies to be invalid. There should be a rule that non parodic comedies shouldn’t fail rule 4 for being funny: see Looking for Pudsey. As mentioned above. 81.108.82.15^{talk to me} 23:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The "no parody" rule does not cause Doctor Who comedies to be invalid, this is flatly false. This was explicitly ruled upon in the most recent CoFD thread. See User:Scrooge MacDuck/The Lost Closing Post. The work in question need not be merely humorous, but a parody of Doctor Who to fail this rule. Najawin ☎ 00:04, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Well I personally think that there's clearly a difference between a parody that says "This doesn't count" and a parody which says "This exists in its own universe, a universe which has different internal values." OS25🤙☎️ 01:13, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. As I understand it, the section of T:VS with regards to parodies ("What doesn't count") is just providing examples of applications of the four rules. Parodies are listed as an application of rule 4— i.e., most parodies are, by nature, not "intended to be in the DWU". However, as the evidence above shows, Doctor Who? and The Daft Dimension don't seem to follow this pattern. I think that section could do with better wording because not all parodies fail rule 4 in this way, and the current phrasing implies they are mutually exclusive.

Anyways, I fully support the proposal as well. I basically said as much on the talk page a while ago. I had found coverage of Doctor Who? confusing because it's very much set in its own continuity, and even in the invalid realm, explaining what happens in those strips with links to usual pages like Fifth Doctor is pretty misleading. Parallel universes aside, it's clear he's not only different from the usual Doctor you just saw on TV, but is also his own distinct version. So valid or not, these ought to be handled separately. But I do think there is sufficient evidence that these comics are intended to be set in the DWU, as parallel realities, and as such do pass rule 4. Chubby Potato ☎ 03:43, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I support the proposal, while I think Najawin is right to be cautious, I think OS25 and Chubby Potato make a compelling argument about why this is different from most parodies. Time God Eon ☎ 16:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I would agree with this characterization of parodies if they were only mentioned in the first chart. But they're also mentioned in the list of exceptions at the bottom.

Though almost everything which is licensed by the BBC and other rights' holders is considered a valid source here, our community occasionally rules certain works of fiction out of bounds. [...] If something is blatantly a spoof of the DWU rather than an "earnest" DWU narrative, it can safely be created as invalid even without a thread to specifically rule on the matter. However, "obvious" implies no significant disagreement; if there are conflicting opinions on whether a work qualifies asa parody, it should be taken to the forums.

This isn't a mere case of example, it's an explicit disallowal of parody. Maybe we should change this! But at the very least it's a pretty damn big deal, and isn't the same as just treating these things as "alternate universes", this is a much more serious discussion we need to have. Najawin ☎ 19:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that if this is passed we should change that rule.

Though almost everything which is licensed by the BBC and other rights' holders is considered a valid source here, our community occasionally rules certain works of fiction out of bounds. [...] If something is blatantly a spoof of the DWU rather than an "earnest" DWU narrative, it can safely be created as invalid. This is however unless there is specific authorial intent that places the official or licensed parody in the DWU or a later story brings the parody into the DWU. Official parodies should not be barred from validity due that nature, but can be assumed rule 4 failures until the aforementioned evidence is presented.

We should change it to this. 81.108.82.15^{talk to me} 19:52, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

And as said, this is an absolutely massive change that needs substantially more evidence and motivating examples than what we have here. Maybe we should! But I'm not going to support doing such a thing in this thread on the basis of the evidence provided. We'd be turning over a decade of wiki jurisprudence, that's a big deal. It needs to be handled with care. (PS: In case you missed it, I addressed the Pudsey issue on your "talk page", such as it exists when you're an IP user.) Najawin ☎ 20:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Moving back to the debate, I had somehow missed this page linked in the OP. I think this is pretty convincing, that Lew actively agrees that Daft Dimension is a parallel universe and part of this greater works "Lewniverse". OS25🤙☎️ 22:19, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

That's precisely what I consider to be not even slightly convincing. :P Najawin ☎ 23:01, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I did some reading on this topic, and I was actually wrong to say that Tardis Wiki has never validated a parody story for being set in a parallel universe. In fact, it was once site policy that we were supposed to do this by default. So I think there is some precedent to do it for individual stories like these. OS25🤙☎️ 18:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

More complicated than that. It was policy, for about a year. But it's not clear that it ever meaningfully applied to anything except the Cushing films in that time. See Talk:The Curse of Fatal Death (TV story)#Part of the DWU. There's an application of a proto R4bp and CoFD is taken to be DWU 3.5 months into the span of this policy. This change is applied to the page on October 4th. This was reversed in March, CoFD becomes outright notDWU, and things begin to slide towards valid/invalid. I note also that the thread this policy was "derived" from was Forum:More canon questions - which very much did not come to a consensus. It was just Tangerine trying to clean up the canon policy as he thought best, but ultimately didn't have community consensus.

I would be deeply hesitant to derive anything meaningful from this, given the surrounding historical context. Najawin ☎ 18:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

It still seems to me that the "no parodies of any kind under any context" rule wasn't nearly as unanimous as our wiki's history books would suggest. So it seems to me there no fault in doing things in a case-by-case basis, instead of just invaliding everything or invalidating nothing. There's a good place between the two extremes.

As per that talk page, it seems to me that Tangerine was adopting the policy which had been suggested by others and is actually what we should have had in the first place, in regards to things like Curse of Fatal Death and the Unbound series. OS25🤙☎️ 21:48, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Timeline doesn't work, if I'm understanding you correctly. It goes Forum:More canon questions -> Tangerine changes it -> Talk:The Curse of Fatal Death (TV story)#Part of the DWU happens and CoFD gets validated into the mainline DWU on the wiki. Tangerine's not changing it because people suggest this specific change, he changes it unilaterally in response to someone pointing out that the canon policy is just vague and ambiguous in general on certain issues. Czech pushes back quite hard on the way in which he changes it and the issue is just never addressed. (You're free to do your own search through the forums and talk pages during this time period if you don't believe me. I honestly don't remember seeing anything.)

This is not something we want to base policy off of. It's precisely the opposite of why I think we should consult prior threads and talk pages, this was a decision done by fiat, no matter how well intentioned, we simply don't have substantial arguments here for this change, and do have dissent. I don't see a way to square the idea that we should take this as precedent with your earlier idea that we shouldn't listen to policy from 10 years ago as a guide to the wiki today.

Regardless, we've got a ruling that CoFD isn't a parody of Doctor Who, so I don't think it matters if it's ever been valid before as to the question of whether parodies should be valid. It's also not what you were suggesting this period in the wiki's history is precedent for - rather, that we validate things as an alternate universe. Najawin ☎ 22:40, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

All I'm seeing here is one admin repping for a policy which was then written down, then a different admin saying he disagrees. Why am I supposed to assume that the rule of law of the latter admin has any more weight than the former?

And indeed, the Cushing films were listed as valid as far back as 2005. So in the case of the forum you listed, it is of more historical note that the films were considered acceptable as a parallel universe than that Czech said he disagreed one day and actively ignored the rules we had written down?

All I'm saying is that this concept clearly goes back as far as the start of the wiki, and a much more extreme version was written down in T:CANON for two years. So it seems logical for us to study these in case-by-case basees, as we are doing right now. OS25🤙☎️ 03:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

But it's even more complicated than this, in February, 4 months before the discussion in question, Czech moves the Cushing films to NC. Yes he did so unilaterally and shouldn't have, but Tangerine edited the page linked in April and didn't remove the template at the time. Czech also recategorized parodies and pastiches as explicitly noncanon in February, during a large change to categories. And while Tangerine didn't comment on this specific change, he actively thanked Czech for the overall category changes being made and noted that he notices most stuff on the wiki. (Note that the time on the last comment is after the change made. Not proof that it was seen. But the issue was complicated!)

Prior to the change Tangerine made in June, the sources are explicitly called secondary, which means they're not to be used without a primary source backing them up, as well as non-canonical. I don't think the issue is as clear as you're portraying it. I'm not saying "oh, no, we can't do this, it would be awful and horrible". I'm saying I don't think this is good precedent for that decision, a rather major change. I emphasize that many of my qualms in thread after thread have been about the reasoning presented. This is no different. I'm not thrilled at the idea of validating these, but at the end of the day I think there's a decent case for validating Doctor Who?. But overturning our explicit disavowal on parody is a large deal, and I don't think you're pointing to well thought out precedent. Najawin ☎ 05:50, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

All I'm doing here is citing a historical viewpoint and a historical rule which was written down on paper. If you disagree that's fine, I'm simply saying that it's clear that historical consensus on this topic was not unanimous. I also think you're incorrect in saying that the "secondary canon" distinction is important, as again the rule states that these stories were to be covered as alternate universes. Of course they were "secondary", they were secondary universes. OS25🤙☎️ 16:24, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

No, I said they were secondary sources. See the language prior to the change:

These sources are as[sic] also valid resources, however should not be the only resource of an article.

I agree the issue didn't have unanimous agreement! But that's not all you said. You began this section of conversation with saying:

I did some reading on this topic, and I was actually wrong to say that Tardis Wiki has never validated a parody story for being set in a parallel universe. In fact, it was once site policy that we were supposed to do this by default. So I think there is some precedent to do it for individual stories like these.

The reality is more complicated than that. That's all I'm saying. This would make for poor precedent. Najawin ☎ 17:17, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I have looked at the language prior to change, and I'm here to tell you it says what I've been saying it says.

Both Dalek movies starring Peter Cushing (i.e., Dr. Who and the Daleks, Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD) These are valid provided they are dealt with in article specific articles relating to the theatrical movies and characters developed in the universe established in the movies.

I.E. The Dalek films are their own universe, and are to be covered on their own relevant pages (Dr. Who, Louise (Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.), Ian Chesterton (Dr. Who and the Daleks)). This is what the policy said, even if it was filed under "secondary canon" that's not what the actual policy for the Dalek films states.

And on the topic of parodies, all I'm saying is that as we once had a rule going strongly in the opposite direction, studying satirical works in a case-by-case basis is justified. Historically, one admin said no parodies ever and another said all parodies as presumed alternate universes, we are finding a reasonable middle ground. OS25🤙☎️ 17:35, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

It does say that. While also listing them under secondary sources. This "secondary canon" thing you're getting at isn't in the policy. Anyone reading this is free to check! It's about sources. It explicitly names them as secondary sources, which are stated to only be used in conjunction with other sources. Adding additional comments to that doesn't change what is said about secondary sources. But this is a pretty esoteric point about a policy that's been out of practice for 10 years.

Historically, one admin said no parodies ever and another said all parodies as presumed alternate universes

Changes in policy are not the same thing as admin disagreement. Even if this characterization were accurate, which it is not, it wouldn't matter after the changing of T:CANON into T:VS or Forum:Is The Infinity Doctors canon?, where User:Josiah Rowe agrees with the parody criterion, and Tangerine appeals to it as well to explain why Infinity Doctors is different. I don't know what more to say. Najawin ☎ 18:04, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to say either. I had assumed, and quite reasonably I think, that saying "Secondary sources when it comes to Tardis Canon" and "Secondary Tardis canon" are synonyms, at least when talking about policy history in context.

And I simply don't understand why a policy written down from 2010-2012 is something we need to universally ignore as historically existing, while three people agreeing in a different debate must universally be respected 13 years later. OS25🤙☎️ 18:43, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

I also generally think that the historical ban on all parodies is staked pretty heavily in the Wiki's political history with DWU once meaning that parallel universes were invalidated by default, such as the Unbound series being non-valid until 2017. OS25🤙☎️ 20:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Given the term "Secondary Tardis canon" isn't used, it doesn't seem to be a synonym. Secondary sources, as I understand them were sources you could use to support and fill out an article if a primary source already established the fact. There were attempts to delineate different levels of "canon" early in the wiki's history, using italics to differentiate TV sources from EU sources. See Forum:Let's Get Organised and Talk:The Doctor/Archive 1#Italics, but this was abandoned. So this doesn't seem to be what "secondary source" means.

Why does it matter that these people agree in a thread as opposed to disagree earlier? Well, let's be clear, I brought up Forum:Is The Infinity Doctors canon? to note that policy had changed, and that there was consensus, rather than that there was unilateral action to clear up confusing wording and disagreement on the part of users. But the reason why I think we should, at times, listen to old threads and talk pages is when there is reasoning present in them. Mere agreement or disagreement is interesting, but ultimately not determinative of best practices for the wiki. What is interesting is the arguments used in such a thread. This is why long drawn out threads with lots of back and forth tend to be helpful, because they allow users to expand on their thoughts and try to convince others.

I note again that it's entirely possible that we should make this change and that it's a good idea. I just think that this is very bad precedent for doing so. I think the reasons we give to enact change are at least as important as the change we enact. I don't like this reason. That's all. Najawin ☎ 21:45, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

With regards to covering The Daft Dimension as a parallel universe, I must admit the idea appeals to me but as it stands I'm not satisfied with validating such a large body of work based entirely off of a statement which arose due to prompting from a fan in that specific direction. If further statements can be found in which Stringer refers to "a daft dimension" or something similar then this comment is lovely supplementary evidence but in the absence of anything else the fact he says the alternative universe idea "sounds good" doesn't suggest to me that it was his authorial intent for any of the seventy instalments from before The Daft Dimension 553.

All that said, I have attempted to do some research on the web to look for more evidence, though as I said upthread this is not my area of expertise. Stringer has mentioned the "Lewniverse" as far back as 2017 so that seems to be an original coinage. In 2021, he stated:

"I've always liked to connect my strips into one universe, or Lewniverse, whenever I can. Not in a major way that requires people to buy every comic, but just in subtle ways such as the fictional town of Skegpool cropping up in various strips, or when Combat Colin appeared in my Brickman series in Image Comics' Elephantmen."Lew Stringer

This reference to Skegpool, originally from Stringer's Combat Colin strip for Marvel UK, is especially interesting because the location has appeared in two Daft Dimension stories which we know of, The Daft Dimension 568 and The Daft Dimension 581. He also refers to Skegpool as "the linking theme to the Stringerverse" here.

Diving deeper down the rabbit hole, I discovered that there exists a "Marvel Lewniverse" covered by the Marvel Database in a similar vein to Quinn and Howett's stuff, namely Earth-8377. Although the Wiki coverage is stubby, I was able to glean from Combat Colin's Wikipedia page that Colin's stories were set in this universe at least to some degree, with the series featuring "humorous cameo appearances from Transformers and characters from the Marvel universe". One story in particular sees Colin trapped in "The Place of No Return", where "Stringer's comedy back-up characters for Marvel UK" have been residing. Expounding on this, this could mean that The Daft Dimension is set in Earth-8377 through its connections to Combat Colin and provide a route for parallel universe validity using the same Marvel Multiverse logic as Doctor Who?.

To be honest, I'm still not completely convinced with this myself for the big reason that The Daft Dimension is not published by Marvel and is only implicitly brought into its multiverse by virtue of crossovery elements. I think the argument is certainly better than before but I'd still say I'm reluctant to validate these. If some more Daft Dimension-specific quotes can be found, my position would be subject to change. Borisashton ☎ 21:31, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I support this proposal. Danniesen ☎ 10:40, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

A new development in regards to The Daft Dimension; new testimony from Lew Stringer! This definitely reads as explicit confirmation to me. WaltK ☎ 16:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Why? "Alternate reality" can refer to many different things on this wiki, some of which are valid, some of which are invalid. That doesn't read as confirmation that it's intended to be a parallel universe within the same literary universe. If all we're discussing is the original topic of the thread, then what's being suggested is "According to an invalid source there is a parallel universe in which xyz happened, but that invalid source tells us nothing about what the main DWU universe would be like that we still couldn't cover on IU pages because it would be invalid". Going beyond that is explicitly verboten by T:VS, it's a parody, we have explicit rules against parodies. You need more evidence to overturn that than simply saying a source passes R4. Even if a source passes R4, if it's a parody it's still disallowed. Najawin ☎ 18:10, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

With respect this is just a fan wiki run for fun. Policies are helpful for editing, but let's not pretend that because something is policy that it's impossible to chnage. It'd take all of five minutes for an admind to close the thread saying "parodies can count with rule 4 intent" and add it to the valid source page. Easy. Precedent shouldn't be a barrier in changing the precedent. The response is to a question asking if the daft dimension is alternative to the Doctor’s main universe. That’s pretty clean cut. 81.108.82.15^{talk to me} 18:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Sure, they can change. The question is whether it's good jurisprudence to do so ignoring precedence based on evidence that merely refers to R4 intent on two individual instances, rather than as a larger conversation (it is not), and whether this would be a good policy change overall (also no, since R4 assumes validity by default). The 4 rules are a summary of T:VS, they are not its entirety. It really doesn't matter that this passes R4 unless there's a larger discussion to revisit the issue of parody. Najawin ☎ 18:27, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Hello, hello, hello.

Not presently resolving this thread because 1) I don't think there's a consensus on how to interpret Stringer's comments yet, and 2) this is a fairly big endeavour deserving a bigger time-span on principle.

But I feel I must step in to resolve the broader policy controversy. This thread is empowered to overturn the no-parodies-ever rule. The point that this is something quite different from User:Najawin's interest in past "dissenting opinions" is well-taken, but nevertheless it does count for something that default, blanket validity for parodies was once the explicit, textual policy of this Wiki. The sky won't fall if we revert to that; it's not the very heart of T:VS or anything. And the policies exist to serve the Wiki, not the other way round. If the community comes to a consensus to overturn some minor part of T:VS, that is within the community's power through a lawful Forum thread.

In any case I believe the rule has in the past been misconstrued and overinterpreted. Consider this an extension of the points I made at Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/Inclusion debates speedround#Conclusion: the four little rules are the heart of T:VS. Anything else like "does this break the fourth wall?" or "is it a crossover?" or even "is it a branching interactive narrative?" only matters insofar as it is felt to be evidence that something fails one of the actual Four Little Rules. In the case of parodies, it has been a long-standing assumption that if something is intended to be a parody, then it must not be intended to take place in the literary universe of Doctor Who in earnest.

But if we have even stronger evidence of Rule-4-compliance to counterbalance it, we should not act as though being a parody is a conversation-stopper in absolutely all cases. Like acute fourth-wall-breaking, it's merely strong circumstantial evidence that something should be assumed, by default, to fail Rule 4. (I do say if, i.e. for the sake of argument; again I am not presently ruling about the strength of the evidence for DW? and TDD in particular.)

I cannot say for certain whether this is what has always been intended when people have cited that rule. But it's what's in line with the rest of our policies and with the evident wishes of the community. And it's in line with the fact that "Parodies don't count" has never been "Rule 5"; just a footnote, an extension of the Four Little Rules. So let us agree that this is what it means going forwards. I'm sorry about Najawin's procedural scruples, which honour him as always, but for pity's sake, we're human beings doing this in our free time. There is no sense drawing out the elimination of a misshapen policy that is simply not in line with what T:VS and Tardis are actually all about in 2023.

(The one actual, rather than procedural, worry expressed thus far has been Najawin's concern that it would not be good policy because "R4 assumes validity by default", so let me clarify my earlier point that parodical nature is to be treated like egregious fourth-wall-breaks as one of the few things that do justify something being invalid by default, placing the onus on people wanting to argue validity. Valid parodies are to be a special case. But it is a special case that sometimes happens, we are now coming to realise, and if there is one thing I have steadfastly refused to do in my tenure as an admin, it is to ever stand for the throwing out of any babies with the bathwater.)

Though as a post-scriptum… For what it's worth, even if both series were to remain {{invalid}}, I don't think the question of whether TDD and DW? are intended to be their own universes is as abstract as Najawin fears it would be. For example, it's the difference between coverage amidst other Rule-4-failing sources at Eleventh Doctor/Non-valid sources, and coverage of exclusively Stringer sources at an {{invalid}}-tagged Eleventh Doctor (The Daft Dimension)! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:35, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Scrooge (not that my opinion hardly matters). I think that whenever we have random rules which have nothing to do with the "foundational four rules," we should feel free to amend them. As parodies do not all fail the four rules by default, it's fair to allow a few to be valid under specific circumstances.

The presumption has always been that they fail rule 4. But clearly here we have as situation where we have at least one exception. OS25🤙☎️ 02:24, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm still deeply hesitant to validate these things at this time due to the explicit ban on parody. We don't have the forum archives back, and the one thread I remember on the subject that was archived is very explicitly against parody in general, even if some of the details have changed since that specific discussion. See User:CzechOut's comment:

By contrast, Doctor Who is not Doctor Who?. The former is the thing which is the major creator of the DWU, and therefore the main topic of this wiki. Episodes which belong to it are explicitly valid on this wiki. The latter is a parodic comic strip, which the authors and publishers have called parodic, and its individual strips have no validity when writing of articles here.

We absolutely can and will kick parodies to the curb with extreme prejudice. Please note that Tardis:Valid sources#What doesn't count specifically outlaws parodies.

multiple people in this thread express similar sentiments. My suspicion is that there is even more evidence for this in the forums that we can't see. People are suggesting overturning 10 years of wiki jurisprudence because of two strips, one of which still has, imo, wildly ambiguous authorial intent. This is a really bad idea. Najawin ☎ 23:37, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I've been around this website for over ten years. And it's always been my take that the rules are designed to be written and rewritten by us - the users. We are bound to two kinds of policy - policy which is written down and policy which is actively followed in the current era. Both can easily be debated and altered if the views of the editors evolve over time.

But you seem to much more personally believe that there's a third side to this - that we are not only bound to the current practices and the policies written down but also every potential argument ever made about this topic at any point in the site's history. The idea being that to change a rule I need not only debate everyone in this forum, but also the ghosts of inactive admins and users. That before we enact any new policy, we must first consider something User:Mini-mitch said about this in 2015!

I just don't see it that way. And going through what historical forums we do have, it seems the admins of 2008-2012 didn't see it this way either, as they were constantly "starting from scratch" without considering former decisions and rules. And if we get back the old forum archives tomorrow, there is not a bone in my body that will accept the idea that we have to re-do any of our recent debates for any reason, no matter how many new ghost arguments we end up finding. OS25🤙☎️ 02:44, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

But what you're objecting to is to some extent written into the rules of the wiki. We are required to consider old threads on topics we're discussing or else we're violating T:POINT. Insofar as there is even a possible dividing line, it must be between making the same arguments as users in the past have done that were found not to be compelling, and arguments that users are making against positions slightly adjacent to the ones you're currently promoting. (I note also that neither T:BOUND, T:WRITE POLICY, nor T:POINT were written until 2012. Perhaps there was a rather large change in how the wiki functioned at that time, and we shouldn't take pre-2012 wiki as being the best guide for post-2012 wiki, yes? In the same way that late2020-2022 wiki is also not indicative of other times.) Najawin ☎ 03:08, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

And yet, as someone who again has been on the website 11 years, I have never once seen a recently discussed forum topic be thrown out because we suddenly found a previous forum that disagreed with it. And I think we are doing are due diligence to consider the topic at hand and the historical beliefs about it, and it is my reading that parodies are currently banned because they violate Rule 4. As we clearly have at least one case which does not violate rule 4, it's a non-issue. OS25🤙☎️ 03:26, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

This seems to me to be a mischaracterization of the discussion, since the issue is one of considering precedent in the thread, rather than reversing decisions after the fact. Indeed, the fact that decisions aren't reversed after the fact due to prior precedent should give us more pause, since it means that the idea that bringing up "new" (ie: old) evidence to reverse these decisions would likely be unsuccessful, though having the information in the first place is less likely to cause the decisions to proceed.

As for the other issues, I note again that the thread cited explicitly mentions parodies as an exception, even outside of the context of the plain text of R4, and we clearly are not doing our full due diligence, since we can't even see 8 years of forum discussions, the 8 years after which T:VS actually, you know, exists. Najawin ☎ 03:48, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

And you are to believe that this is our fault somehow? That we must cease all communications until the Lost Media Wiki can get on this case? Call me crazy, but I think the experiences of everyone in this forum, and especially our active admin team, holds more bearing on the site's history and rules than a handful of old forum posts no one cared to take screen grabs of. We absolutely have all the tools we need to make a decision in this debate, with no need to revisit the topic. OS25🤙☎️ 13:38, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Nobody is saying anyone is at fault here, just that key information is lacking. I'm much less cynical than you on the prospect of our archives being returned, but I think it's wholly misleading to characterize them as

a handful of old forum posts no one cared to take screen grabs of

We are required by wiki policy to consider previous threads. This is enshrined in T:POINT. Whether or not we're required to have defeaters for old arguments as opposed to simply not rehashing old ground in the points we personally make seems to me to be a distinction without a difference.

I strongly disagree with applying pre-2012 forum standards to post-2012 discussions, as alluded to above. With that said, the two discussions we have that take place after the advent of T:VS or literally 2 months prior both explicitly say parodies are a no. If we have all the tools necessary, precedent is surely on the side of invalidity. Najawin ☎ 14:22, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Still very much support validating the two subjects in the OP. Danniesen ☎ 14:33, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

We have not discarded any argument, and none of us are arguing in bad faith. Most of us were present for these "lost" debates, remember both sides, and we are not mis-representing them. OS25🤙☎️ 16:41, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Nobody has been accused of arguing in bad faith, but you're certainly encouraging us to discard past arguments. (You're very open about this fact!) Similarly, some people clearly do misremember these older discussions, see:

As I understand it, the section of T:VS with regards to parodies ("What doesn't count") is just providing examples of applications of the four rules. Parodies are listed as an application of rule 4

I'm also not sure who this "us" is. The only people who has presented a positive case for reframing R4 in light of past discussions is you and arguably Scrooge. Everyone else has just said that they support changing it because of these issues of authorial intent. Najawin ☎ 17:13, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I've spent the past few hours being deeply frustrated with this thread, and I don't think it would be healthy for me to continue further. My final statement on the subject will be this.

• I am deeply concerned with our tendency in these forum threads to move forward with sweeping changes based on both three weeks of discussion and the forum threads up until the end of 2012, when many of our policies only crystalized in 2012.
• I think all of these should be reconsidered when the forum archives return, including the ones I supported, but ultimately I have little faith that this reconsideration will be a fair hearing of the evidence. We are all, after all, only human, and it's easy to get swept up in the fervor of motivated reasoning for the position we want the wiki to take, rather than what the evidence entails. (I know I've done this myself!)
• I think enshrining "it was different before --> we can go back to that without considering the reason for the change" would be disastrous precedent, and I am deeply concerned that my involvement in Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/Non-narrative fiction and Rule 1 might have suggested this to some, when it was the furthest thing from my intent.
• We should all be concerned with the idea that rules generated through prior discussion may be abandoned at the drop of a hat. If there's no there there, that's one thing. But often times people have reasons for doing the things they do, and it's important to consider that there might be an angle we've missed. (Indeed, in reading talk page discussions I do occasionally find such an insight.)

With that said, I will highlight the following from the WeLoveTITANS thread

Guys, lemme clarify our four little rules here. Rule 4 allows us to simply say — about any story — that we don't think it's valid. Seriously, just a show of hands will do at this point, because we've talked a lot about them. - User:CzechOut (nb: an earlier post makes it clear that parody -> invalid even without the vote, but this is being quoted for rhetorical effect, no affirming the consequent here.)

I think the tide is clearly against me. But I think Daft Dimension's authorial intent is wildly ambiguous still, and should stay off the island even regardless of further research into forum archives that may come back. Doctor Who? I would keep off the island for the time being until I can see more context. That's all. I fully expect the end result, though, to be both of these back on the island. I think it's bad precedent, and I think we will come to regret it. Najawin ☎ 23:02, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Here's where I stand on this. I'm satisfied Doctor Who? passes Rule 4, that it was intended to be set inside the Doctor Who universe, yet T:VS claims that all parodies fail Rule 4 without any consideration of authorial intent which might support validity. Thus, something needs to be done to resolve the contradiction. What I'd personally do is remove the restriction that parodies are invalid in every case but retain the presumption of invalidity for them. This means that for a parody to be validated it would have to go through a dedicated inclusion debate and I'd also put a higher burden of proof than normal for a verdict of valid to be returned in said debates.

It might be some comfort to Najawin to know that I'm also against validity of The Daft Dimension at this time. I don't feel it's entirely clear what the "Lewniverse" is in relation to Stringer's other works and I could never support the validity of 100+ stories without being completely sure it was the right thing to do. Borisashton ☎ 23:56, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

…You people are making me wonder why I bothered with the explicit admin-hat-on semi-decision. I used the golden box and everything! It was hard to miss! So let me restate the operative bit in what I hope will be an even more legible format.

Consider this an extension of the points I made at Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/Inclusion debates speedround#Conclusion: the four little rules are the heart of T:VS. Anything else like "does this break the fourth wall?" or "is it a crossover?" or even "is it a branching interactive narrative?" only matters insofar as it is felt to be evidence that something fails one of the actual Four Little Rules. In the case of parodies, it has been a long-standing assumption that if something is intended to be a parody, then it must not be intended to take place in the literary universe of Doctor Who in earnest.

But if we have even stronger evidence of Rule-4-compliance to counterbalance it, we should not act as though being a parody is a conversation-stopper in absolutely all cases. Like acute fourth-wall-breaking, it's merely strong circumstantial evidence that something should be assumed, by default, to fail Rule 4.

[This] is what's in line with the rest of our policies and with the evident wishes of the community. And it's in line with the fact that "Parodies don't count" has never been "Rule 5"; just a footnote, an extension of the Four Little Rules. (…)

[Of course,] parodical nature is to be treated like egregious fourth-wall-breaks as one of the few things that do justify something being invalid by default, placing the onus on people wanting to argue validity.This very thread

As User:Borisashton summarised above, what we essentially have here is an errror in the wording of T:VS, a contradiction — the occurrence of a paradox where two different rules are in contradiction with each other, existing because its existence simply was not foreseen in the past. The Four Little Rules, which are paramount, state that Rule 4 invalidation works only through authorial intent; but then other parts of the policy and jurisprudence act as though it's trivial that parodies fail Rule 4, smuggling in an, it now turns out, inaccurate assumption that all parody-authors' authorial intent would fail regular Rule 4.

Boris continues:

(…) Something needs to be done to resolve the contradiction. What I'd personally do is remove the restriction that parodies are invalid in every case but retain the presumption of invalidity for them. This means that for a parody to be validated it would have to go through a dedicated inclusion debate and I'd also put a higher burden of proof than normal for a verdict of valid to be returned in said debates.User:Borisashton

Which is all very nice, but he didn't need to say it's "what he'd personally do". I already ruled that this is what we will do. Days ago. An error in T:VS had been identified and I had fixed it and you could now all focus on the object-level issue of debating the specific authorial intent of DW? and TDD.

I truly do not understand how this was unclear, and how people have continued fighting over the policy question since. You want to talk about something that could be uncharitably characterised as T:POINT breaking, there it is.

But at the risk of making it the first Forum thread in history with three closing posts, I suppose I must step in a second time before my eventual return to adjudicate the authorial quotes on DW? and TDD. So let me address a few things and, perhaps, alter my earlier ruling slightly in light of new evidence (that's how things work). To address some key points:

"I think all of these should be reconsidered when the forum archives return, including the ones I supported,"

No. Just no. Absolutely not. This would promote a state of fearful paralysis completely opposite to the Wiki's needs as an evolving community. T:POINT already exists for this: old threads can be reopened in light of new evidence. We cannot waste time reviewing every damn T:TF decision on principle and I will not under any circumstances allow such a time-wasting scheme. If people want to actually put in the work to review the Archives once they're available, and if they then find evidence or arguments which were not addressed in the matching T:TF thread, they will be allowed to open a new thread on that basis (i.e. the degree to which this would normally be improper because by definition evidence from an Old Thread isn't "newer", will be relaxed/inverted). That makes sense and is only fair enough. But we are not reviewing all thirty-something decisions just in case.

"I think enshrining "it was different before --> we can go back to that without considering the reason for the change" would be disastrous precedent"

Yes, it would. Perhaps I was not clear enough on this, but it was not my intent to enshrine such precedent; noting that we had once had a similar policy to what is now being proposed (similar, not identical) was merely a rhetorical flourish and an acknowledgment of that part of the discussion. It's not a reason to do anything in and of itself. Furthermore we should of course in any situation of this type "consider the reason for the change". It's just that in this instance there is no good reason for the change to be found, at least not one which stands up to the current form of T:VS. There cannot be. As I have ruled, restated, emphasised, bolded above, the four little rules are what it's all about: everything else is commentary. If there is a part of T:VS which does not in fact logically flow from the 4LR by at least some intelligible argument, that part of T:VS stands in error, and should be corrected. And it's very very clear that prima facide what happened here is a fair, and yet, we now see, factually wrong assumption that "I intend this to be a parody" always corresponds with "I do not intend this to be set in the DWU". There's nothing mysterious here.

If this assumption about what happened is wrong, and the Archives reveal it to be so, then yes, we should reopen the discussion. But we have a pretty good guess about what the reason was; if it's correct, then the reason is trivially wrong in light of new evidence; so, we shouldn't paralyse ourselves from making a much-needed correction to policy just on the off-chance that the reason might have been something cleverer than that. It is not that we are failing to consider that "there may be an angle we've missed", it's that a reason that stands up to scrutiny for why we'd have a rule where its application contradicts the Four Little Rules (i.e. would see us treating something intended as explicitly DWU as explicitly invalid) is an extremely tall order, and we simply cannot policy based on an over-generous assumption that such a reason exists when the null hypothesis is that the special case simply wasn't foreseen.

…all of which said. All of which said.

Something's changed since I made the first semi-closing post. Namely, User:SOTO's technical odyssey to recover the Archives has kicked into high gear. So for all the flailing and hand-wringing on all sides about what to do in the absence of the Archive, it now turns out we may have them very soon. Very, very soon.

So soon, in fact, that I think we can cut the Gordian knot and just keep this thread open until we do in fact have access to the Archives, so that it can be closed in full, unambiguous, non-assumption-based knowledge of the history behind the no-parodies rule. I truly think my assumption (that the case of an authorial-intent-passing Rule-4-breaker was simply never considered) will be validated by such research; but fine. We now have the option. There is no reason, now, not to wait and see.

It's not entirely impossible that the Archives will be here before this thread's three-week span elapses, but in case it's not, and in recognition of the concern about sweeping decisions made in three weeks, this thread's maximum span is hereby prospectively expanded to six weeks instead of three. This does not mean it will have to last six weeks if conversation dries up before then, but it can if the community wills it. I trust a month and a half will be felt to be sufficient time allotted for a decision like this.

…And on that note, carry on. But please, this time, take note of the bolds and the borders and explicit statements of such, and understand that this was a partial admin ruling, not the user Scrooge MacDuck presenting a personal argument. Crikey.

But I like to end this on a positive note, so despite the frustrations all-round, let me restate my usual thanks for everybody earnestly participating in this and other difficult discussions, despite the stress and the strife they might entail. For all the conflicts we've been seeing, I truly and earnestly believe that we're all people of goodwill here, acting in good faith and with respect of the other fellow; which was not something you could always say of the Old Forums. And it goes a long way. So thank you. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 16:03, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Hand on heart, I have nothing really to contribute to this thread other than my support for validity. @Borisashton's views on the contradiction in T:VS is exactly how I feel on this matter, so I won't clog this thread with a relitigation of what has already been said.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

17:37, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to reinstate my my support of validity-as-AU, and emphasise that even if these stay valid, they should be covered as an other reality.Cousin Ettolrahc ☎ 05:30, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I've continued my search for quotes pertinent to The Daft Dimension and found this from 2013:

After Colin's adventures concluded a year or so later, Marvel UK gave me the rights to the character, so these days he's not part of the Marvel Universe. He's now part of the Lewniverse. Um... okay. Maybe I'll call it something less egotistical.Lew Stringer

As well as this tweet in which Stringer cites the Lewniverse in response to someone asking if Combat Colin is in continuity with Doctor Who. Borisashton ☎ 22:24, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

I believe that if we do intend to validate these through the idea of them as works set in an alternate universe, we'd need to consider a template similar to the Invalid image for stories that are explicitly parallel, but which have not crossed over with mainline Who. That way, we wouldn't have to include the tag on stories like Rise of the Cybermen or the Unbound Benny audios. Or, indeed, stories which were shown as an alternate reality via other conflicting sources, like the Cushing films.

This could be used for not only the stories taking place in the realities of Doctor Who? or The Daft Dimension, but also the disconnected (non-Unbound Universe) Doctor Who Unbound universes, and possibly other universes I'm blanking on. I feel like this idea would be good for these very specific instances, so as to avoid us the headache we used to have over the validity of Unbound releases. Granted, this is a lot of effort to go through for a very select couple of stories, but I truly believe it would make us more prepared, should this issue arise in the future.

I support the validity of these two series' as an alternate universe. The statements of authorial intent make it very clear, to me at least, that the Lewniverse is a distinct part of the same literary universe, existing parallel to the main Who reality. Trying to ask him for clarification on what he specifically meant seems misguided, since to me, he's given us all the information we really need for this case to be put to bed as valid. LilPotato ☎ 04:02, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Alright, coming to this now that there's some level of access to the old inclusion debates, here's my immediate comments. I still find Stringer's comments wildly ambiguous, as I guess he's now suggesting that his works in the MC(omic)U aren't part of the Lewniverse? Wouldn't that suggest invalidity, that this is just a completely distinct literary universe? Thread:140309 (Not sure how we're linking to these atm.) very much affirms that "authorial statement of parody --> invalid" even in an unrealized hypothetical where this is said and the work doesn't read as a parody. Thread:178627 actually discusses Daft Dimension very briefly, two comments from OS25 himself:

I agree. Blatant spoof, breaks fourth wall commonly. Furthermore, it's an extended sequel to Doctor Who?, which has been one of the examples brought up by our head admin more than any other of invalid parody sources. I don't really think that a discussion is needed for this one.

Yeah, this one isn't really debatable. Many of the strips are set in the real world, so they already discount rule #4. If they were all separate strips with separate names, you could argue for each one. But as they're all one large collection, they're invalid.

I find Thread:207236 to be relevant to this and other recent threads. Thread:224568 concludes something is parody based on humorous fourth wall breaks, a concern User:Scrooge MacDuck at the time notes as reasonable.

That was the most cursory scan possible, I'll be doing a deeper dive in the next day or two. I'll note that I did not find anything saying that parody --> invalid contra authorial intent. But I do think the threads I found, specifically 140309 and 224568, are a pretty large negative. Whether they move your needle enough, only you can decide that. Najawin ☎ 09:37, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

I thank you for the research effort but, again without yet ruling on how this affects TDD and DW?, I will restate what I told you on your talk page: in this or any other fact-finding-effort-in-the-Lost-Forums, simply finding people who assert that parody=Rule-4-break means nothing whatsoever. What we need is a rationale. We as a Wiki are done accepting policies by fiat. If a policy cannot be explicitly rationally justified, we must — of course — make a good-faith effort to figure out whether there was ever a valid rationale, but if we find that there isn't one that can actually be articulated by anyone, it needs throwing out.

Indeed, from where I'm standing, Thread:140309 seems to support my null-hypothesis that insofar as it had a thought-out rationale at all, the no-parody rule was historically mostly viewed as a special case of Rule 4 rather than a separate rule that could overrule regular Rule 4 (in that this thread posits that "parody" in the sense that affected validity was a question of the author's intent, not an externally-observable quality). Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 09:49, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Well there were many more threads I could have referenced if all I cared to do is discuss parody and not specific reasoning relevant to this issue. ;P Perhaps I should have quoted the reasoning myself rather than merely referring people to those threads, but the size of that page and this one in the editor was threatening to crash my browser. Every thread there has some level of reasoning present.

Thread:140309 more suggests that "the parody label" was an instant disqualifier, not a specific reference to R4. It seems difficult to square your reading here with your suggestions in Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/An update to T:VS that we should take narrative as strong evidence of authorial intent; were we to do this, surely read authorial intent in this hypothetical would conflict with the label. If parody is an overriding concern, where it immediately negates all other strong instances of authorial intent, no issue. But as it stands, it seems to me there's some tension here. (And I note again that there's evidence of them using the no parody rule outside of this view. Note, for instance, Talk:P.S. (webcast)/Archive 1#Inclusion where Czech explicitly says that the reason a certain thing was on the “list of exceptions” was simply due to community decision.)

But let’s sort out precisely where this reasoning came from, since there's been some discussion of that. As far as I can tell, the discussion begins at Talk:The Curse of Fatal Death (TV story)#Part of the DWU, which, funnily enough, doesn’t have a ton of impact on the discussion except for its consequences, because a lot of people missed it. However, because of this discussion, we get Talk:Fred/Archive 1 a month later, which then leads to Forum:BBV and canon policy. This thread has a lot of problems by today’s standards, but it’s very relevant from a historical POV. The only discussion of parody at this time was of Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet? (home video), which was always noncanon as a spoof, so wasn’t discussed on that basis.

Anyhow, as a result of this, Czech decides to rewrite the canon policy, see User Talk:Tangerineduel/Archive 2#Canon policy rewrite, leading to User:CzechOut/Sandbox8. Note that this does not explicitly ban parody, it merely says that obvious parody is usually deemed noncanon and excluded, but also lists the Cushing Films, the roleplaying games, and Unbound among related things. User:Revanvolatrelundar comments on this, referencing to the CoFD discussion that existed earlier, leading to a brief chat about this issue. Is authorial intent mentioned here? Maybe, but it’s not the authorial intent of Moffat, but of Morris, and even then it’s more a reference to how vague the entire issue is in Czech’s mind.

Almost immediately after we have Forum:Is The Curse of Fatal Death canon?, again, an interesting thread from a modern perspective. But people here are very much so on board the spoof -> out train, without any reference to authorial intent except perhaps the comments made by Sawalha.

But, there are three places where authorial intent is mentioned, all from User:CzechOut. What precisely they say is a little more ambiguous, all from Forum:Is The Infinity Doctors canon?

I mean, Dicky Howett's entire body of Doctor Who work — which spans years and years — is outside of what we allow to be used to write in-universe articles. Why? Because it's not licensed? No. Because it's not professionally published? No. It's solely because Doctor Who? is parody, meant to be read as out-of-continuity. Similarly, we don't run around talking about the time the Doctor was a woman who worked in a grocery store, because the non-parodic, fully licensed Exile is clearly labelled as Unbound. Also, we reject Scream of the Shalka, not because it's parodic, not because it's unlicensed, not because the BBC told us it wasn't canonical, not because the producers (initially) told us it wasn't canonical, but because RTD told us not to believe in it.

We throw out Curse of Fatal Death because we've made a judgement its genre is parody, aided by what Moffat and Curtis told us in the "making of" video.

We aren't excluding Curse for any narrative reason, but because the authors tell us it's not meant to be in continuity. There is nothing which narratively preventing us from just assuming it to be an alternate universe within the DWU. This was the whole basis of the earlier, well-attended, but ultimately defeated challenge to our exclusion of Curse.

Here's the thing. Czech's just wrong, as far as I can tell, for those second two. Like, I'm working my way through talk pages in 2011 atm, but I've already checked the ones Revan was active on. Unless this "CoFD authorial intent discussion" either didn't include Revan or it took place in early 2012, this is just him misremembering Forum:Is The Curse of Fatal Death canon?, which never discussed authorial intent. I think the first quote in isolation might be seen as pretty strong evidence of your view, except for the second, where genre = parody seems to be sufficient in its own right, even if authorial intent helps. And the first lends some credence for this thread's basic premise, at least on the part of Doctor Who?, but the third is very explicitly against it (by analogy). Ultimately it's up to admins, but my conclusion is that even if moving forward we're treating parody as strong indication of R4 intent, and even if that's what it was meant to be originally, (maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, the discussion at this time is very unclear) it was consistently applied in ways contra that interpretation for at least 5 years. (The actual argument in the CoFD thread seems to be more what the average viewer will think, so maybe that's the approach? Implied viewer/median viewer, something like that? These old discussions are frustrating because some of them are brilliant, and some are foundational policy issues with half a sentence of discussion.) Still hesitant on Doctor Who?, still just don't see the argument for Daft Dimension. Najawin ☎ 20:37, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you or the in-depth work! Tone can be hard to judge in these things, so I want to be very clear that I really appreciate you doing all this and picking at all the loose threads (if you'll forgive the expression). I concede that the historical underpinning of the rule appears to have been somewhat blurry and to not always have been "parodical intent implies a conventional Rule 4 break so the no-parodies rule is an extension of that", although I still get the sense that this was the basic inkling. However, yeah, the headline remains that I just do not see a rationale in any of this, just a bunch of unexamined assertions. Nothing that calls my above decision into question, that I can see.

In the meantime, please keep discussing Daft Dimension. It may be helpful if you phrased in what ways you find the quotes from Stringer unconvincing, and (falsifiability!) what sort of evidence would hypothetically convince you? I dunno. This part of the discussion feels like it's stagnating when it should be the main event. All procedural "let's keep this open until the policy issue is clearer" aside it's why I still do not feel in a position to make a ruling on the object-level issue. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 20:49, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I mentioned that above,

I still find Stringer's comments wildly ambiguous, as I guess he's now suggesting that his works in the MC(omic)U aren't part of the Lewniverse? Wouldn't that suggest invalidity, that this is just a completely distinct literary universe?

Maybe this literary universe has a lot of crossovers, but that's not something we haven't handled before. What would convince me? "Daft Dimension is intended to be in the same continuity as the main Doctor Who show, just a different universe" would certainly do it. :P Look, authors don't think about things in terms of our validity rules, it's one of the reasons why I don't like this heavy switch we've recently been doing where we frame everything through authorial intent. Authors just don't consciously think like that while writing. Our categories and delineations are made for us, not them. It's a mistake to conflate them. I don't know what sort of realistic statement he can make that would convince me, it would probably have to be a lot of smaller bits of evidence built up over time. The comments about a Lewniverse are so vague as to be meaningless. (Do we validate a lot of things RtD has worked on? How about Moffat + Gatiss's Dracula?) I don't know what these comments mean in terms of our wiki, and that's not his fault. But there's just no there there. Najawin ☎ 21:18, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh yes, I had seen that bit, but that was only about one of the later quotes, and didn't really clarify your already-voiced objection to the earlier quotes presented in the OP. This makes me grok it better. To finish clarifying, do you at least believe that these quotes are sufficient that we should cover Stringer's characters as Twelfth Doctor (The Daft Dimension), etc., albeit invalid? Or are you also unconvinced that, regardless of validity, they belong anywhere but Twelfth Doctor/Non-valid sources? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:26, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

As stated, I have no preference in this regard; I see it as pointless, but knock yourself out. Najawin ☎ 21:41, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

As I'm writing this, SOTO is moving things around so stuff is unstable, but Thread:282770 is relevant, and is something we should reference when things settle. (I don't think we had consensus, but it focused on The History Tour, and is probably the most recent discussion of parody and Doctor Who?) Najawin ☎ 05:18, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Well sadly, as an incomplete discussion with no closing post, I certainly don't think it stands as precedent. But it could be used for slightly more context in a closing statement. OS25🤙☎️ 00:07, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

So an interesting connection I just discovered, which probably doesn't help us here but is worth pointing out.

Part of the "Lewniverse", and perhaps the main origin of it, is Combat Colin. Combat Colin originated a race of aliens named the Gwanzulums.

The aliens were created by John Freeman and Lee Sullivan and were basically used in a bunch of comics in 1988 in order to do a "secret" crossover between numerous franchises. The creatures then appeared in Thundercats, The Real Ghostbusters, and finally Doctor Who Magazine in Planet of the Dead.

Now, fans do not typically say that Thundercats, The Real Ghostbusters and Doctor Who co-exist in one universe, so typically it's been said that this represents the Gwanzulums existing in several universes, with perhaps the Gwanzulum traveling between them. If so, that does imply that the "Lewnverse" is a parallel reality to the DWU. However, I can't find any evidence of this in online sources which describe the story. (As a side note, I think it would be justified to cover all of these stories as a "crossover event", but that's likely an argument for some other day.)

Basically, all of these stories just illustrate these aliens existing and invading Skegpool, Third Earth, Wyoming and Adeki. So you could see this as another Death's Head-style crossover coyly implying that these comics share a universe.

So, in the end, this bit of trivia probably doesn't really help us at all because it's so very vague. However, it is notable as being the first Doctor Who Universe connection to the "Lewnverse." OS25🤙☎️ 21:43, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Great find, OS25! I agree there's no explicit evidence within these stories to support them taking place in different universes to each other, though "We'll be back... somewhere, sometime!" at the end of Combat Colin Versus the Gwanzulums possibly hints at it and certainly suggests these are the same four Gwanzulums across appearances. No firm conclusions can be drawn, though.

I think, as you point out, the fact of this being the first crossover between the Doctor Who universe and the Lewniverse is much more significant. Earlier in the discussion I was reluctant to give weight to the idea that Skegpool was in a parallel universe because its Daft Dimension appearances had come long after the time when its parallel universe status was more explicit in Marvel UK's Combat Colin content. To have a crossover between Colin and Doctor Who at a time when both series occupied a different part of the licensed Marvel Multiverse makes me more open to validity of The Daft Dimension. I'd still urge caution and Stringer's seemingly conflicting definitions of the term "Lewniverse" still trouble me somewhat, but I'm no longer staunchly opposed to validation. Instead I'm somewhere in the middle.

On a different topic, while preparing lists of appearances for Doctor Who? concepts, I became aware of another matter to do with coverage which we should clarify: how exactly would T:DAB OTHER be applied?

I started off with the belief that simple story dabs would do the trick on account of the "(Doctor Who?)" dab being easily recognisable as the work of Quinn & Howett. However, I soon discovered this was unfeasible. The reason for this being important concepts like mainline Doctors and the Daleks actually debuted in a non-DW? story, resulting in needlessly confusing situations where "Fourth Doctor (The Next 20 Years)" and "Sixth Doctor (The Next 20 Years)" would both exist, but one being the alternate Tom Baker incarnation and the other being a one-off Doctor unrelated to Colin Baker.

The idea I'm working with at the moment is to use Earth 33⅓, the name that Quinn & Howett established for this universe ever since its first appearance in the eponymous Earth 33⅓ comic strip. We could even possibly avoid a conjectural title if we invoked the same precedent which allows us to refer to Star Trek elements which went unnamed in Assimilation² without any bother. The only reservation I had about this was an uneasiness to use a Marvel universe designation without the Wiki having had a specific discussion to rule on how to deal with them. However, this isn't actually an issue. Although I was perhaps a little careless on this topic at the very start of the thread due to using both interchangeably, Earth-333333333 is the official designation of this universe, not Earth-33⅓. The "Core Continuum Designations" used by the Marvel handbooks don't allow for the inclusion of fractions or decimals so Earth-33⅓, despite looking like a proper designation at first glance, isn't one.

I remain firm in my belief that we should have a separate thread on Marvel universe designations before we fully adopt them but it turns out the matter is not especially relevant in this case.

For The Daft Dimension, I guess Daft Dimension would work for the in-universe page? As stated above, I'm against Lewniverse for this due to the differing ways Stringer has used the term, especially that 2013 quote which indicates to me that it's more to do with IP than physical realities. However, I quite like the idea of Lewniverse being a real world page to act as a parallel of sorts to Marvel Multiverse. It would definitely make a good place to document the history of the term. Borisashton ☎ 22:38, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Borisashton's proposal to name the The Daft Dimension reality, Daft Dimension, and Doctor Who?'s reality, Earth-33-and-a-third, formatted correctly. Cousin Ettolrahc ☎ 16:08, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Ditto! – n8 (☎) 16:15, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Just a query that's rather relevant: do we, as a wiki have a definition of parody? Because, if we are going to have parody as invalid by default, or just invalid generally, then we do need to have a definition. According to Google, parody is this:

an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

Now, this is obviously not viable for our definition, as a decent swathe of material, possibly even mainstream television material, would be rendered invalid by this. Anyone got any ideas? (oh, and by the way, if this is in violation of T:POINT then please don't hesitate to tell me off) Aquanafrahudy ☎ 17:00, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

See User:Scrooge MacDuck/The Lost Closing Post. Najawin ☎ 17:19, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I will say that, in the olden days, the definition on-site of parody was lax on purpose because some admins wanted to go as far as to call any story with a goofy art style a parody by default. See A Visit to the Cinema, which has a strange out-of-place essay in the middle about if it's a parody or not. I can tell you from experience that there were many non-transcribed arguments about what a parody was. One admin even suggested that Happy Deathday should be considered a parody.

Also, if we're going to use "Daft Dimension" as the name for that universe, wouldn't it be much more sensible to just go with the dab... (The Daft Dimension)? That way it both matches our prerequisite about using the universe when we're able, but it's also the story title. It's just cleaner that way.

Also, as this is the final day of the final temporary forum, I wanted to thank everyone for several months of successful debates! It was rough trying to squeeze two years worth of issues through six doors, but I think we did good in the end. OS25🤙☎️ 19:38, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I do like the idea for a "(The Daft Dimension)" dab but I've just checked the individually-titled instalments of The Daft Dimension and it turns out Ace debuts in Christmas Times... meaning if we used story dabs her page would be at Ace (Christmas Times...) not Ace (The Daft Dimension). Unless we considered "the Daft Dimension" to be the name of the universe for the purposes of T:DAB OTHER, rather than simply "Daft Dimension"? Borisashton ☎ 09:26, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

The idea is that "The Daft Dimension" would be the full title of the universe but only for the sake of the DAB system. OS25🤙☎️ 18:03, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Non-valid template

I encourage everyone to keep discussing this topic in the main section above this, but something occurred to me just now. If we go ahead and validate Doctor Who?, that means we'll have to also change the image for Template:Invalid. So I decided to do a few mockups of ideas for replacement images.

• 

  Idea 1 (K9 hosting Doctor Who Night)

• 

  Idea 2 (Sutekh as Santa, from Oh Mummy!)

• 

  Idea 3 (Doctor Woah!)

• 

  Idea 4 (The Fan Show)

It's getting increasingly harder to find images that look good at this resolution. On top of that, I think we need to mark a distinction between non-valid and non-covered. So I tried to focus on images that represented non-valid material which we would still allow coverage on (so no An Adventure in Space & Time, etc). I also tried not to pick images which could also be mistaken for valid stories, so most of the main Doctors were out.

We also might consider changing the text itself, as these days I'd say we try to use non-valid and notvalid exclusively, invalid has been sort of phased out imo. OS25🤙☎️ 23:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

My vote would be for Idea 3, Doctor Whoah!. I quite like the image of K9 but I feel like I remember Tom Baker putting his hat (and scarf?) on K9 in one of his episodes so I'm not sure it would be entirely suitable for its intended purpose. Borisashton ☎ 23:56, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

My vote too lies with three. Having done a little bit of graphic design (and absolutely hated it) I do see that option three has the most legible image for such as small size.

Although, I do find it interesting how "invalid" has disappeared from usage in the past few months we've had T:TF, instead with the introduction of "non-valid". I do kinda wish we had done a slightly more official thread about officially changing the terminology but I'm not gonna kick up a fuss about such a small matter.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

17:37, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I vote for three as well. I don't think the others are terribly clear. Aquanafrahudy ☎ 21:01, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Conclusion

And here we are at last — the third closing post in this thread. It was perhaps one of the biggest ones of these Temporary Forums, because it was, in the end, trying to settle three questions:

1. Can parodies ever be valid? (Granting that this was not, at the time, current policy, the question becomes "should we hereby change policy to make that possible?")
2. Granting #1, should Doctor Who? be valid?
3. Granting #2, should The Daft Dimension be valid?

So let's take those one at a time.

Part 1: On the validity of parodies

This is an issue which I had already made a ruling about in Partial Closing Post #1, above. However, we then started covering the Special:Forum archives, and I agreed to make that conditional on no contravening rationale being found in these old threads. However, even with the extra delay, the research did not turn up any positive reason parodies should be {{invalid}}-by-default beyond an assumption that they probably fail regular Rule 4.

Indeed, this inquiry showed that the rationale given by User:CzechOut for the Quinn and Howett œuvre's invalidity was in fact Rule-4-based:

Dicky Howett's entire body of Doctor Who work — which spans years and years — is outside of what we allow to be used to write in-universe articles. Why? Because it's not licensed? No. Because it's not professionally published? No. It's solely because Doctor Who? is parody, meant to be read as out-of-continuity.User:CzechOut

Here we have a very clear equation of "X is a parody" with "X is intended to be read as out-of-continuity" (which is the very essence of Rule 4) as regards DW?.

Granted, it also showed that this was not a unanimous position, and many people at various points in the Wiki's history seemed to hold "parodies are invalid by default" as a principle unto itself, separate from the Four Little Rules. However, I cannot overstate how bizarre and improper that is in itself. It really should all reduce to the 4LR: to the extent that any given side-policy regarding validity fails to decompose into the interpretation and disambiguation of the Four Little Rules, we should give that side-policy a long look and if necessary a whack of the old wrench until it does.

And it would be one thing if there were a rationale for this secret "Rule 5", but in the end, it truly seems that there isn't. The people who do not justify it via Rule 4, do not justify it at all. They simply hold it to be self-evident that surely a parody could never be valid. There is no reason given, just an axiom. "Come on, we can't start allowing parodies!"

…Well, why not?

User:Najawin argues:

Look, authors don't think about things in terms of our validity rules, it's one of the reasons why I don't like this heavy switch we've recently been doing where we frame everything through authorial intent. Authors just don't consciously think like that while writing. Our categories and delineations are made for us, not them.User:Najawin

Speaking for myself, I have complicated thoughts on this in itself. Obviously there is some truth in that last sentence, notwithstanding the factual question of to what degree Rule 4 describes a concept that exists in the minds of most DWU writers. And yet, I do think once we've decided to use regular Rule 4 to dictate 99% of valid-vs-invalid cases, that does create an expectation that we shouldn't then invalidate something else in a way which contradicts that apparent law, just for our own convenience. It becomes tantamount to misinformation: through experience, we create an expectation with readers that if a work that passes Rules 1, 2 and 3 is invalid, it must be because its author intended for it "not to count" — so it becomes rather inevitable that readers would assume the same of the hundredth invalid story they see, and thus come away with a factually inaccurate belief regarding Quinn & Howett (for example)'s authorial intent in the 1980s.

But setting aside all that, I believe this reform is in the practical best interest of the Wiki, not just a matter of chasing high principles off a cliff as I think Najawin might (understandably) fear.

The fact of the matter is, as highlighted by User:Chubby Potato upthread:

Anyways, I fully support the proposal as well. I basically said as much on the talk page a while ago. I had found coverage of Doctor Who? confusing because it's very much set in its own continuity, and even in the invalid realm, explaining what happens in those strips with links to usual pages like Fifth Doctor is pretty misleading. Parallel universes aside, it's clear he's not only different from the usual Doctor you just saw on TV, but is also his own distinct version.Chubby Potato

Now, Fifth Doctor/Non-valid sources helps with this, to a degree. But it does not resolve it. Quinn&Howett's Fifth Doctor is his own specific parody-iteration of the character, and it is still unhelpful to intermingle him with Doctor Whoah! material; in fact, the Whoah!Five bears the same relationship to the Davison original as the Q&H Five, but that means that, in a sense, the two parody Fives are two steps removed from each other instead of just the one!

This is acceptable for one-off parodies which don't cohere into their own coverable continuities — which I think is in the end the case for Whoah, at least as far as we know. But it's clearly suboptimal for a huge sprawling project like Quinn&Howett's Who œeuvre. We are not covering this stuff properly if there isn't as clear a way to navigate from First Doctor (Earth-33⅓) to Second Doctor (Earth-33⅓), as there is between First Doctor and Second Doctor. We are failing to represent the way these sources actually work and are meant to be experienced. I am frankly baffled at User:Najawin's continued, avowed apathy regarding the world of difference which, to me, obviously exists between an even-invalid Twelfth Doctor (The Daft Dimension), and Twelfth Doctor/Non-valid sources. These networks of separate pages simply must be created, and yesterday.

Granting this, however… it is true, as people have intimated throughout the thread, that it becomes a bit silly that we would stubbornly insist "these sources describe 'a parallel universe', but we absolutely cannot say that the universe it is parallel to is N-Space". Not so silly that I don't think it would still be worth it; but silly, all the same. If we're going to have pages of the form Twelfth Doctor (The Daft Dimension), discussing how "In the Daft Dimension, a version of the Twelfth Doctor did XYZ…", we may as well include them in Category:Alternate versions of the Doctor and on Twelfth Doctor/Other realities, surely. Having to make do with Category:Non-DWU Doctors ad Twelfth Doctor/Non-valid sources would be subtly unsatisfying, though functional.

(It is not as though the former tree of pages doesn't already include the likes of Theta Stigma and Tardis Tails… Frankly, if Doctor Who? had been ongoing in 2000, I rather suspect we would have gotten a brief visit to Earth-33⅓ in that same The Glorious Dead montage.)

Now, we can't just do this. It is certainly possible for a distinctive parody universe to emerge, to the degree of justifying separate pages for its characters, without any hint of Rule-4-compliance, even By Proxy; and in that case, we'd be stuck. So it goes. But if the authorial intent is there on the two series at stake here — and I do believe it is — we should whoop and holler for joy at how much more convenient and legible this will make our coverage.

Part 2: Doctor Who?

This is the more straightforward of the two; really, the least contentious part of this debate. The evidence that Doctor Who? and related works were meant to cohere into a universe of its own, which had genuine continuity and coherency despite its silliness and fourth-wall-breaking, is plentiful when looking at interviews of the creators; and there is clear evidence that they were written, and intended to be perceived, as taking place within a universe (then Earth-33⅓, now rechristened "Earth-333333333" in reference books) which had its place within the multiverse as readers of the 1980s Doctor Who Magazine understood it — right alongside the default continuity of the TV series and "serious" comic strips. Readers who were paying attention to what Q&H were up to really were expected to read it as "somewhere in the multiverse", rather than "out of continuity" altogether. So let's Wikify it that way.

With regards to the specifics, User:Borisashton's post on 17 April 2023, with its detailed bullet-point list, gives us a clear roadmap of how to proceed; I summarily endorse his conclusions and recommendations (particularly as regards making sure that something like The Test of Time does not get construed as a 33⅓ tale just because of the art-style). I think he is certainly correct for the bulk of these; some may quibble with this or that specific unnamed strip's placement, but that is an issue best worked out on individual talk pages, or if need be in a future, more focused thread.

There seems to be broad consensus on applying T:DAB OTHER instead of story dabs, and using "Earth-33⅓" as the dab term. Naturally, redirects at story dabs ought to be created all the same — and perhaps even redirects at the "spurious" Fourth Doctor (Doctor Who?) namespaces and the like, for searchability.

Part 3: The Daft Dimension

This one was a little more contentious than DW?, with even people who accepted the basic principle of validating DW? being unsure of what to make of the authorial quote from Lew Stringer.

Uhm — for the most part, I don't see it.

Let's put all the quotes in order, shall we, with more context than had previously been provided.

18 March 2013:

Back when Combat Colin was a regular strip in Marvel UK's Transformers Weekly there were a few occasions when he met characters from the Marvel Universe. And why not? He was, at that time, a Marvel character and therefore part of that universe... at least as far as I was concerned. (A million Marvelites may disagree.) The story guest-stars another character of mine, - Macho Man, - who had previously appeared in his own strip in Marvel UK's Secret Wars comic.
(…)
After Colin's adventures concluded a year or so later, Marvel UK gave me the rights to the character, so these days he's not part of the Marvel Universe. He's now part of the Lewniverse.
Um... okay. Maybe I'll call it something less egotistical.Lew Stringer's blog

7 September 2020:

Fan: Love it! So *that*'s the real, canonical reason the Daleks went from City-dwellers to galactic conquerors, is it?
Stringer: Absolutely 100% canon. :)
Fan: (…) There was actually a bit of a serious edge to my question, which is that I've been wondering about the title The Daft Dimension — besides being a play on an unfinished TV special thought up by a conman (which is brilliant in itself!), I wondered if it meant to imply that your comics take place in a parallel universe to the Doctor's world, where everything is just a bit sillier. But equally, there's an argument that the Doctor's dimension is quite Daft enough.
Stringer: The alternate universe idea sounds good to me. Or Lewniverse if you prefer. :)
Fan: Maybe the Lewniverse is the world of the more meta strips where people watch Doctor Who on the telly?
Stringer: Yep, the characters in The Daft Dimension are all aware they're in a TV show, and may even be aware they're in a comic strip. :)Lew Stringer's blog

21 August 2021:

Fan: Loved seeing Skegpool in this month's @DWMtweets. I'm taking this as official confirmation that Combat Colin is in continuity with Dr Who. That's right enough, isn't it @lewstringer?
Stringer: It's all part of the Lewniverse.Lew Stringer on Twitter

16 October 2021:

I've always liked to connect my strips into one universe, or Lewniverse, whenever I can. Not in a major way that requires people to buy every comic, but just in subtle ways such as the fictional town of Skegpool cropping up in various strips, or when Combat Colin appeared in my Brickman series in Image Comics' Elephantmen. Obviously I can't do it with strips I don't own so you'll never see any Beano characters I've worked on turn up in Derek the Troll!Lew Stringer's blog

23 April 2023:

Fan: Hey Lew wanna say I’m a huge fan of your The Daft Dimension comics in DWM.
I have a question if that’s okay. Am I right in thinking they’re meant to take place in a universe alternative to the Doctor’s own where everything is daft. In the daft dimension?
Many thanks.
Stringer: Thanks [Name of the Fan]. Yes, it's a comedy alternate reality where anything can happen, usually daft stuff. Part of the Lew-nivwrse you could say. :-)
Or rather Lew-niverse. Made a typo spelling my own universe! :-DLew Stringer on Twitter

I think putting it all in one place like this with the dates is rather edifying.

The 2013 one is interesting because it suggests that in the 1990s, Stringer actually just thought of Combat Colin as taking place in the regular Marvel Universe. I think that clicks together with the discovery that the Gwanzulum stories didn't actually have any in-story multiverse gimmick at the time: Combat Colin, as far as his personal authorial intent was concerned ("a million Marvellites may disagree"), just took place on Earth-616… and of course, in those days, so did the DWM Who comics, maybe, if a crossover demanded it, as documented at Marvel Multiverse.

Obviously no one is arguing that Daft Dimension is intended to be in the same universe as the modern mainline DWM strips… but it's rather enlightening, all the same, that the earliest acknowledgments of a shared universe of Stringer's works were done with a tacit assumption that this universe was straight-up just synonymous with the regular DWU!

At any rate, going back to that line-up of quote — I don't think there's a contradiction about what the Lewniverse is — just a retcon, a decision from Stringer to redefine his cosmology; and that tipping point long predated the start of TDD. It didn't alter the existence of a shared universe of all of Stringer's comics, just redefined its position relative to other people's stories.

• As early as the 1980s/1990s, Stringer wrote all his comedy strips as taking place in a secret shared continuity ("I've always liked to connect my strips into one universe").
• While Combat Colin ran under Marvel UK, he liked to think that this shared universe could now be established as straight-up just "the Marvel Universe", Earth-616. Thence, in 1988, he wrote Combat Colin Versus the Gwanzulums as taking place within the same space-time-, but not universe-, hopping crossover narrative as DWM's Planet of the Dead.
• In 1991, Marvel UK ended their comedy strips and gave Stringer the rights to Colin. At that point, he decided to dissociate his ongoing shared universe from the mainline Marvel Universe, and came up with the idea that they didn't just all take place in the same universe, but in a bespoke universe he controlled: what he will later dub "the Lewniverse".

There have been concerns that authors "don't think in those terms", and maybe many don't, but Stringer certainly does. And that's why I'm not too concerned about the 2020 quotes as "a statement which arose due to prompting from a fan in that specific direction", as User:Borisashton concernedly argued. In the first place I find this concern to be dangerous precedent. Fans trying to make authors mouth along to the right words for reasons of Wiki politicks is no great credit to our Wiki, sure. But what kind of Rule 4 jurisprudence are we running if we literally won't take "yes" for an answer — if we can ask a writer point-blank "does this take place in the DWU", and have them say "yes, sure", and not be satisfied with that?

Examining the exchange, it's actually clear that Stringer has his own notion of what the Lewniverse is from the start, and does not simply nod along with whatever the fan says. To begin with, the 2020 fan doesn't ask a yes-or-no question: they teases the possibility that TDD could just be read as taking place in the regular DWU ("there's an argument that the Doctor's dimension is quite Daft enough") and Stringer specifically picks up the "alternate reality" instead. Then, when the fan proposes that "the Lewniverse" could be the universe of the meta strips about people watching the show, while "the Daft Dimension" is the one with the Daft versions of the DWU characters, Stringer directly goes against it and explains that no, that's not how it works, it's all one universe with meta-aware characters in it.

This repeats itself in 2021: the fan asks if Combat Colin was in the Doctor Who universe this whole time, and Stringer says, no, it's not so simple as that, both Colin and his Who strips take place in the wider Lewniverse!

Granting this, the question becomes — does the post-1991 Lewniverse, the one which retconned itself into being something different from Earth-616/N-Space, pass Rule 4? Granted, it got a Marvel reality number of its very own as "Earth-8377", but, uhm, I am not sure Stringer actually knows about this. Certainly his quotes above don't show it.

So it's down to the quotes above again. User:Najawin argues that "Alternate reality can refer to many different things on this wiki, some of which are valid, some of which are invalid". I agree. But the quotes in context make it clear what kind he means. The 2020 fan does not say "alternate" anything: they say "a parallel universe to the Doctor's world, where everything is just a bit sillier", and in his reply, worded affirmatively, Stringer rephrases that as "alternate universe". Later, the 2023 fan asks if it's "a universe alternative to the Doctor’s own where everything is daft, (…) a daft dimension" and Stringer replies "yes, it's a comedy alternate reality"! Seriously, what more do you want? These are not conversations about "alternate continuities" in a purely real-world sense. Both fans are clearly asking him about a parallel universe in the Watsonian sense, and both times he says yes!

User:Borisashton has a final concern:

(…) in the absence of anything else the fact he says the alternative universe idea "sounds good" doesn't suggest to me that it was his authorial intent for any of the seventy instalments from before The Daft Dimension 553.User:Borisashton

Well… maybe. But the 2023 quote certainly proved it stayed his intent after. And the other quotes presented certainly show that he has consistently thought of all his comics as being in a shared universe for fifty years, even as he's changed his mind about the nature of that universe. I don't think there is any doubt that Daft Dimension was always intended to be part of the overall "Lewniverse"; and accordingly, that The Daft Dimension 554 onwards are intended to be in the same universe as the seventy prior installments of TDD (the Lewniverse).

…Do you see where I'm going with this?

I really didn't see it coming, but… I think what we have here is potentially a Rule 4 by Proxy case. In September 2020 at the latest, although it is not 100% certain that he thought this beforehand, Stringer decided that dubbing the Lewniverse a parallel universe relative to the Doctor's world "sounded good". He asserted the fact with no caveats in 2023; so we can be reasonably sure that his Daft Dimension comics starting in late 2020 and up to now pass Rule 4. And they are continuations of the pre-September-2020 strips, which are therefore, if it was ever necessary, retroactively brought into validity as part of that ongoing, internally-consistent Lewniverse.

This leaves the question of what to call this universe. I think the cleanest solution, the most useful to readers, is the Daft Dimension, which will also be used as the T:DAB OTHER dab term. It's snappy, descriptive, it's substantially in (or at least on) the stories, and it's recognisable to Who fans. Lewniverse can be better used as a real-world page similar to Marvel Universe and Quality Universe, outlining the rather fascinating BTS history this thread has helped unearth.

Final points

I think a lot more has been said about all this than Quinn, Howett and Stringer would ever expect already; you will forgive me if I eschew a lengthy and repetitive conclusion. A few final points:

• Regarding the new {{invalid}} tag, Proposal #3 is the one with the "most" support, so this will be going up prima facie; but there's really been very little discussion, and little real enthusiasm for the proposed template. So let it be clear that this is just a temporary measure, not a stopper on further proposals and discussion at Template_talk:Invalid.
• There is an obvious question here about lists of appearances, and the truth is that I am not sure how to answer it, with the matter not having been discussed. To outline the problem, it's one thing for the highly-recurring parallel-Doctors like Seventh Doctor (Earth-33⅓), who will certainly warrant their own subpage; but should a one-off appearance by an N-Space character's Earth-33⅓ counterpart be listed on the N-Space version's LOA, if it exists? Prima facie I think that would make sense, particularly if it's a sufficiently minor appearance that we would in fact just cover the Earth-33⅓ version in the #Other_realities section of the N-Space one's page. But there is a lack of discussion and precedent on this issue, and it goes beyond parodical parallel universes, to all other alternate-reality counterparts we cover. I think this will need another thread to clear up. For now, stick with T:BOUND if possible and attempt to use common sense to fill any gaps…

As always, thank you to all who participated.

Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 00:53, 29 May 2023 (UTC)