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Tardis:Disambiguation: Difference between revisions
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But why does the [[serial]] ''Castrovalva'' get a dab term, at all? Why isn't it simply ''Castrovalva''? Our rationale comes down to consistence and ease of use. | But why does the [[serial]] ''Castrovalva'' get a dab term, at all? Why isn't it simply ''Castrovalva''? Our rationale comes down to consistence and ease of use. | ||
Authors in the [[DWU]] are unusually literal with their titles. Unlike, say, ''Star Wars'', which mostly shies away from titling stories with the name of a thing in the ''Star Wars'' | Authors in the [[DWU]] are unusually literal with their titles. Unlike, say, ''Star Wars'', which mostly shies away from titling stories with the name of a thing in the ''Star Wars'' Universe. Depending on the range, the percentage of DWU stories named for a thing in the universe can be as high as 50%. | ||
Historically, this has meant that the situation was quite confusing for new editors. Look at just this one run of four television stories: | |||
*''[[Warriors' Gate]]'' — not a literal name, so it was safe to title it without a dab term. | |||
*''[[The Keeper of Traken]]'' – really, quite a literal title, but because the ''office'' was at [[Keeper of Traken]], we got away with not having a dab term. | |||
*''[[Logopolis (TV story)]]'' — [[Logopolis]] is a planet, so we need the dab term | |||
*''[[Castrovalva (TV story)]]'' — [[Castrovalva is a city, so we need the dab term | |||
Now, most of our users didn't have too big a problem recognising when television stories had literal names. The real problem came with titles in other media. Do you know, for instance, that: | |||
*[[Verdigris]] is a couple of things in the DWU, not just a novel title? | |||
*the [[Gemini Plan]] was more than just the name of a Third Doctor comic story? | |||
*[[The Crystal Bucephalus]] was actually the name of a restaurant, not just the name of a novel? | |||
You begin to see the problem. There are ''thousands'' of story titles. How can we possibly know which will require <code>(novel)</code>, <code>(comic story)</code> or <code>(audio story)</code>? The answer is that we can't. Thus, it is simply better and easier to require '''all''' story names to have a disambiguation term attached. | |||
== Main principles== | == Main principles== | ||
These basic principles guide the choice of whether to add a dab term to a title: | These basic principles guide the choice of whether to add a dab term to a title: | ||
