Forum:Discontinuity revisited: Difference between revisions

*'''[[User:CzechOut|<span style="background:blue;color:white">Czech</span><span style="background:red;color:white">Out</span>]]''' [[User talk:CzechOut|☎]] | [[Special:Contributions/CzechOut|<font size="+1">✍</font>]] 23:47, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

::Well I agree with you, DM, that we should delete the section from story pages. But I '''strongly''' disagree with this notion of creating a new page for a major error. How would we judge what a "major" error is? How major does it have to be to get its own page?

::In my view, the important bit is whether it's a) easily observable and b) written about in more than two independent sources. And there's only one bit of discontinuity in all of ''Doctor Who'' that has risen to that standard, I think: the [[UNIT dating controversy]]. More to the point, it's a logical outgrowth of the article on [[UNIT]], moved to its own page to control the length of the UNIT article itself. And ''even'' more importantly, it's actually an in-universe thing, thanks to a reference in ''The Sontaran Strategem''.

::I definitely do '''not''' feel we need to start creating pages every time we perceive an error. Any discontinuity notes must be a part of the articles whose subjects are involved in the error. This is vital, because the information must be '''easily discoverable''' by our readers. Making up titles like [[Different ways the Doctor opens the TARDIS  doors]], or some such, is just counter-intuitive. Again, notes should be made on the topic page itself, not in a section at a story page or on some conjecturally-titled page no one is going to find.

::A good, basic rule of thumb is that if you're so unable to write about a continuity error on a topic's page that you have to create a new page, it almost certainly doesn't belong on the wiki. That is, if it's long enough to require its own page, you probably have interjected some of your own thoughts into the matter, and are not just reporting an '''evident''' error. '''[[User:CzechOut|<span style="background:blue;color:white">Czech</span><span style="background:red;color:white">Out</span>]]''' [[User talk:CzechOut|☎]] | [[Special:Contributions/CzechOut|<font size="+1">✍</font>]] 23:47, March 20, 2010 (UTC)

::::Oh, absolutely, TD. Production errors are out-of-universe, and therefore obviously fair game on an out-of-universe story page. However, we do need perhaps a stronger wording, because some people will think "production errors" can include mistakes on the production team's part with respect to narrative continuity. The problem, here, is that the word "continuity" has both a narrative significance (as in [[canon]]) and a production one, as controlled by the [[continuity supervisor]]. So what's the unmistakable phrase here? "Production errors" could work, as long as the manual of style is altered to explain it. But here are some alternatives to consider: "Things that slipped past the [[continuity supervisor]]", "Behind-the-scenes gaffes", "Recording errors" or "Filming errors". I kind of prefer one of these last two, because they clearly distance themselves from discussion of the script, which is a part of the production process. "Recording errors" might be the better of the two, as it can be used to encompass sound as well as visual errors, and because, of course, the 1963 version was mostly not filmed, but video recorded. '''[[User:CzechOut|<span style="background:blue;color:white">Czech</span><span style="background:red;color:white">Out</span>]]''' [[User talk:CzechOut|☎]] | [[Special:Contributions/CzechOut|<font size="+1">✍</font>]] 16:39, March 21, 2010 (UTC)