Forum:Name of the wiki

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What is the official name of this wiki? That should be a fairly simple question, but I've seen several different variants of it used. The Manual of Style really needs to specify one or at best two correct versions (one for the full formal name and a shorter version that can be used in more casual contexts). And then the various help and policy pages should be cleaned up to consistently use only those correct names. Right now, looking at the logo, most casual users will probably assume the formal name is the Doctor Who TARDIS Index File, but many of the help pages have an extra "Wiki -" in the middle, which makes it rather ungainly. And I've seen all sorts of variants used for a shorter casual name. Given that there are other Who-related wikis out there, I think it's rather important to establish a clear unambiguous identity for this wiki. And, of course, speaking as a copyeditor, inconsistent usage makes me cry.

My own votes would be for "Doctor Who TARDIS Index File" and "the TARDIS wiki."

--Bedawyn 22:51, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

I like "the TARDIS wiki", sounds nice and short, and more, per say, friendly. Delton Menace 23:00, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

The front page is the most correct. This is the TARDIS Index File, a Doctor Who Wiki.

I seem to recall some time ago the front page's article name was changed from being 'main page' to being what it is at the moment, 'Doctor Who Wiki', which is probably where the contention regarding the name came about. --Tangerineduel 13:18, December 25, 2009 (UTC)

Thing is, from a copyediting standpoint, the front page looks wrong. It should be either Welcome to the TARDIS Index File, a Doctor Who wiki that anyone can edit ("TARDIS Index File" is the official title, "a Doctor Who wiki" is a description that applies to both this web site and others and grammatically belongs to the "which anyone can edit" phrase) or Welcome to the TARDIS Index file: A Doctor Who Wiki, which anyone can edit (the title is "TARDIS Index file: A Doctor Who Wiki"; "A Doctor Who Wiki" is the subtitle, part of the official name, and grammatically distinct from the "which anyone can edit" phrase).--Bedawyn 20:23, December 25, 2009 (UTC)

I use "TARDIS Wiki", personally. {{SUBST::User:Robomilk/autosig}} 20:30, December 25, 2009 (UTC)

In which case I'd be in favour of TARDIS Index file: a Doctor Who Wiki. Does the "a" need to be there or could it be "TARDIS Index file: Doctor Who Wiki"? (I've read it so many times over I'm not sure if it's just me imagining it sounds awkward without the "a"). --Tangerineduel 10:56, December 26, 2009 (UTC)

If "Doctor Who Wiki" is used as an official subtitle, the "a" needs to be both present and capitalized. However, I am concerned about that appearing in the page titles the way it currently does, which implies both that this is the only Doctor Who wiki and that "Doctor Who Wiki" is a more important part of the name than "TARDIS Index File". --Bedawyn 15:10, December 26, 2009 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, the way Memory Alpha has it as; (article title) - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki, so that's incorrect?

Other wise, I'd just be willing to do that; TARDIS Index File, the/a Doctor Who Wiki.

The two other DW wikis I can think of is Doctor Who Expanded Wiki and Doctor Who Fanon, and they write their titles just as "Doctor Who Expanded" and "Doctor Who Fanon". --Tangerineduel 15:34, December 26, 2009 (UTC)

Well, an html page title isn't the same thing as a proper name. I've haven't seen Memory Alpha use anything but just "Memory Alpha" as the name of the site. The phrase "the Star Trek Wiki" that appears in the page titles is a description, just like "the free encyclopedia" at Wikipedia is just a description. Having it in the html title helps the search engines (which is the strongest advantage I can see of using "Doctor Who Wiki" in the page titles here), but it's still not part of the official name. Sites can use a proper name as their page title, but they don't have to; many don't, and depending on what your proper name is, using it as the page title might even be a bad decision. As for the capitalization in the html title, that's a style choice. Wikipedia is using sentence case. Memory Alpha is mixing sentence case and title case. Mixing is generally bad, but as long as they're consistently using sentence case for the variable article title and title case for the boilerplate part, it can pass. It looks weird to me, but it is a matter of style rather correctness, and so not worth fussing over.

It would make me very happy to have the html titles here say either "(Article title) - TARDIS Index file: A Doctor Who Wiki" or "(Article title) - TARDIS Index File, a Doctor Who wiki". The former uses it as a subtitle, the latter as a description. Both run a little bit long, but I think the SEO value and the clarity for readers is worth the extra length. --Bedawyn 19:18, December 26, 2009 (UTC)

Righty. So it's either subtitle or description.

Both are good, both are valid.

I think we may need to pull in other admins to consider this discussion. --Tangerineduel 11:36, December 27, 2009 (UTC)

Archivist's notes

Just to answer the question of the original poster, the name of the wiki is, from a coding standpoint, that which is located at namespace #4. That is to say, the name is "Tardis". That fact is unalterable by any user on this wiki, save for those that actually work for Wikia. Any other names you may see around the joint aren't really "names", but other variables. The whole "TARDIS Index File" thing is just an internal name that we've kinda invented. But it's not the name of the wiki.

Think of it this way:

Star Wars wiki = Wookieepedia

Star Trek wiki = Memory Alpha

Glee wiki = Glee TV Show Wiki

Fallout wiki = The Vault

Game of Thrones Wiki = Game of Thrones Wiki

Doctor Who Wiki = Tardis

Basically, the name of the wiki is the name of the project. Go to any wikia wiki and type in the searchbar "Project:Community Portal". Whatever returns as the prefix of that page is the proper name of the wiki.

We can change, as Bedawyn pointed out above, our "html titles", the bit that (used to) come underneath the title of an article, and read "ArticleTitle - TARDIS Index File: A Doctor Who Wiki". But we can't do a damn thing, independent of asking for help from Wikia, about the actual, true, project name of the wiki.

This thread is thus deemed "out of date", since it references a logo that no longer appears and a front page that no longer exits.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍ 19:10:47 Thu 26 May 2011