Forum:A Fix with Sontarans: Fixing Fix's Validity: Difference between revisions

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 In fact, it is truly the elephant in the room. It is messy. Undeniably so. It has Jimmy Savile inexplicably enter the TARDIS and then the episode just kinda melts into non-fiction where Savile gives Gareth a medal and a [[meson gun]]. Arguably, this isn't even a fourth wall break, as at no point does any character turn to the camera and say "you're watching ''A Fix with Sontarans''!", it's in-universe-ness fades, which is the issue. Six and Tegan don't really break character however, although they also don't really question the inexplicable appearance of Savile either. However, I think it should be said that all of this plausibly ''could'' take place in-universe? It would be very ''strange'', but not ''impossible''.
-So what we're faced with is a very messy ending that dissolved from otherwise a pretty conventional minisode. It doesn't break [[T:VS]], so even by its own merits it should be valid. (And for the record, [[Jimmy Savile]] being in it is not a ''remotely'' justifiable reason for its invalidity. We're not gonna invalidate ''[[The Mind of Evil (TV story)|The Mind of Evil]]'' for having the [[Third Doctor]] being friends with [[Mao Tse-Tung]] or invalidate the entirety of [[Series 1 (Doctor Who)|Series 1]] and [[Series 2 (Doctor Who)|2]] because of [[John Barrowman]] and [[Noel Clarke]]!) It wouldn't even be impossible to just say "according to one account, the Sixth Doctor presented Gareth Jenkins with the ''[[Jim'll Fix It]]'' medal after [[Jimmy Savile (in-universe)|Jimmy Savile]] presented it to him to be placed on Gareth's bonce."
+So what we're faced with is a very messy ending that dissolved from otherwise a pretty conventional minisode. It doesn't break [[T:VS]], so even by its own merits it should be valid. (And for the record, [[Jimmy Savile]] being in it is not a ''remotely'' justifiable reason for its invalidity. We're not gonna invalidate ''[[The Mind of Evil (TV story)|The Mind of Evil]]'' for having the [[Third Doctor]] being friends with [[Mao Tse-Tung]] or invalidate the entirety of [[Series 1 (Doctor Who 2005)|Series 1]] and [[Series 2 (Doctor Who 2005)|2]] because of [[John Barrowman]] and [[Noel Clarke]]!) It wouldn't even be impossible to just say "according to one account, the Sixth Doctor presented Gareth Jenkins with the ''[[Jim'll Fix It]]'' medal after [[Jimmy Savile (in-universe)|Jimmy Savile]] presented it to him to be placed on Gareth's bonce."
 Furthermore, if this isn't good enough reason to validate ''A Fix with Sontarans'', then there is the rule-four-by-proxy angle to validate the minisode from. ''[[Fixing a Hole (short story)|Fixing a Hole]]'' was a short story printed in ''[[Short Trips (series)|Short Trips]]'': ''[[Past Tense]]'', which serves as a direct sequel to ''AFwS''. Heck, even the title of this story is pun about fixing ''A Fix with Sontarans''{{'}}s plot holes; quite ingenius if I say so myself. In this short story — which is mostly a character piece — it follows Tegan and Six after Gareth has been returned to Earth. Interestingly, unlike other cases of stories like ''[[First Frontier (novel)|First Frontier]]'' bringing more infamous stories like ''[[Dimensions in Time (TV story)|Dimensions in Time]]'' "into continuity" by recontexualising the latter's events (e.g. "it was all a dream"), ''Fixing a Hole'' just seems to... ignore the ending of ''A Fix with Sontarans''. No mention of Savile or ''Jim'll Fix It'' is ever made, which is contrasted by the rest of ''AFwS'' being recapped. Is this enough evidence for rule-four-by-proxy? I'd say so, even if it doesn't provide a satisfying way for us to Wikify the ending of ''AFwS'', which is something I don't believe is necessary for the rule-four-by-proxy approach.
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 As a minor tangent, the name "[[meson gun]]" seemed to have originated from ''AFwS'' despite the prop being seen in ''[[The Two Doctors (TV story)|The Two Doctors]]'', and the novel ''[[Lords of the Storm (novel)|Lords of the Storm]]'' has the Sontarans use a [[Meson cannon|meson ''cannon'']], so this may be a very minor reference to ''AFwS'' by showing Sontarans use different types of meson weaponry. Although, it wouldn't be unprecedent for the name "meson gun" to have originated in an early draft of ''TTD''{{'}}s script.
-The final reason for ''AFwS''{{'}}s validity is the pressing one, and also more of a technical one. When ''[[Doctor Who (TV series)|Doctor Who]]'': ''[[The Collection]]'' — ''[[Season 22]]'' was released not too long ago, a ''new'' version of ''A Fix with Sontarans'' was released, with all of the bits with Savile removed for obvious reasons. (Incidentally, this actually is more in continuity with ''Fixing a Hole'' than the original...) Now, I created [[A Fix with Sontarans (home video)|a new, separate page]] for this recut given that it, in its new form, has absolutely zero reason to be invalid. In passes [[T:VS]] with ''flying'' colours. To justify this, I treated it like everything in [[:Category:DVD adaptations of television stories]], but since then I seem to recall that there have been talk pages (can't remember which) that cite a forum thread that sought to merge these pages into their original broadcast cuts? I dunno the specifics, although I can see the rationale. With the 2022 ''AFwS'', a lot of new OOU info is exclusive to the new page when it would be better served to be covered on one page, and as for in-universe info, the only difference is the ending which can be covered in subsections of the plot summary. It is not even unprecedented for there to exist multiple versions of the same story, such as many of the comics in [[:Category:Stories with unknown or disputed Doctors]], e.g. ''[[Doomcloud (comic story)|Doomcloud]]'', which much more substantially has either the [[Third Doctor|Third]] or [[Fourth Doctor]] depending on the reprint. Now, it would be simple to just put {{tlx|merge}} on [[A Fix with Sontarans (home video)]] and have it quickly merged into [[A Fix with Sontarans (TV story)]]... if it wasn't for the original cut continuing to be invalid. I don't think it is possible under our current rules to have a source page be both invalid and valid, depending on the version, but at ''the same time'' the two pages only exist so one can be valid and is not good for actual coverage of the sources.
+The final reason for ''AFwS''{{'}}s validity is the pressing one, and also more of a technical one. When ''[[Doctor Who (TV series)|Doctor Who]]'': ''[[The Collection]]'' — ''[[Season 22 (Doctor Who 1963)|Season 22]]'' was released not too long ago, a ''new'' version of ''A Fix with Sontarans'' was released, with all of the bits with Savile removed for obvious reasons. (Incidentally, this actually is more in continuity with ''Fixing a Hole'' than the original...) Now, I created [[A Fix with Sontarans (home video)|a new, separate page]] for this recut given that it, in its new form, has absolutely zero reason to be invalid. In passes [[T:VS]] with ''flying'' colours. To justify this, I treated it like everything in [[:Category:DVD adaptations of television stories]], but since then I seem to recall that there have been talk pages (can't remember which) that cite a forum thread that sought to merge these pages into their original broadcast cuts? I dunno the specifics, although I can see the rationale. With the 2022 ''AFwS'', a lot of new OOU info is exclusive to the new page when it would be better served to be covered on one page, and as for in-universe info, the only difference is the ending which can be covered in subsections of the plot summary. It is not even unprecedented for there to exist multiple versions of the same story, such as many of the comics in [[:Category:Stories with unknown or disputed Doctors]], e.g. ''[[Doomcloud (comic story)|Doomcloud]]'', which much more substantially has either the [[Third Doctor|Third]] or [[Fourth Doctor]] depending on the reprint. Now, it would be simple to just put {{tlx|merge}} on [[A Fix with Sontarans (home video)]] and have it quickly merged into [[A Fix with Sontarans (TV story)]]... if it wasn't for the original cut continuing to be invalid. I don't think it is possible under our current rules to have a source page be both invalid and valid, depending on the version, but at ''the same time'' the two pages only exist so one can be valid and is not good for actual coverage of the sources.
 So the simple solution? Validate the 1985 version and just have to deal with "according to one account Jimmy Savile entered the TARDIS and gave Gareth Jenkins a medal and the [[meson gun]] prop". Not too complicated, is it? If the pages are merged, I do feel it is necessary to keep [[A Fix with Sontarans (home video)]] as a redirect for the occasions we want to specifically cite the 2022 recut, as well as allowing "([[HOMEVID]]: ''[[A Fix with Sontarans (home video)|A Fix with Sontarans]]'')" to be used alongside "([[TV]]: ''[[A Fix with Sontarans (TV story)|A Fix with Sontarans]]'')" as co-existing citations. This probably will be even easier to do given the developments at [[Forum:Cite source, a new citation template]]!
-Oh, and I also created [[User:Epsilon the Eternal/A Fix with Sontarans]] to demonstrate what the merge article would look like. I am proud of it, I must admit.
+Oh, and I also created [[User:Epsilon/A Fix with Sontarans]] to demonstrate what the merge article would look like. I am proud of it, I must admit.
 The other solution to the validity of the 1985 version of ''A Fix with Sontarans'' is to ''in''validate the 2022 cut, which I feel is wholly unideal and would result in an unfair invalidation of a source despite it passing [[T:VS]] and would also impact a lot of valid pages which cite the 2022 cut, such as [[Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet]], as the 2022 cut seems to actually conflate the [[Tenth Sontaran Battle Brigade]] from ''AFwS'' and the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet from ''[[The Sontaran Stratagem (TV story)|The Sontaran Stratagem]]''. {{User:Epsilon the Eternal/signature}} 17:16, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
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 :Look. I can probably force through an opening post on the topic that's 80% complete in the next week or two if people really want to discuss it. The last 20% would be me looking through ''every'' talk page that existed for any potential evidence which I'd like to do, but it would take months. Does that satisfy everyone? [[User:Najawin|Najawin]] [[User talk:Najawin|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 20:54, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
+:: (''written before your second post'')
+:: I'm not ignoring anything.
+:: As I've said before, I have a very coherent view, rooted in the premise that it is much more serious and undesirable to ever wrongly invalidate something, than to inaccurately validate something; that invalidation should be a last resort deployed only when we are ''absolutely certain'' that something has no path to validity, while validity remains the preferred and overwhelming default. Validation-by-proxy existing but not invalidation-by-proxy makes overt sense within that view. "If this reasoning were applied to a different area of policy it would have bad results" is not an argument I'm ignoring, it's an argument which I weighed — as, presumably, did [[User:Bongolium500]], and people who participated in the thread — and ultimately pronounced irrelevant to how we ought to design policy. Different mechanics and standards are appropriate for different things. We are making policies here, not trying to derive some preexisting platonic truth or mathematical system! Judgement calls are involved! And our judgement call in this case is "it is acceptable, and perhaps even desirable, to have a lower threshold for validation than for invalidation".
+:: (Without necessarily endorsing it, I will add that there is also a simpler and more mechanistic view of policy which could suffice to ground Narrow R4BP, and one which echoes points you have made yourself: that ultimately ''the community'' decides what it wants to cover as valid or invalid. In this view T:VS becomes ''descriptive'' rather than prescriptive: the community decides "arbitrarily" on a grouping of works that it wants to cover as valid, then we try to derive what traits they have in common to be able to decide edge-cases later in a way consistent with that earlier consensus. And so there is nothing wrong with recording "and therefore, the community's demonstrated wish, in having decided to cover ''Death Comes to Time'' as valid but not to cover ''Genesis of Evil'' as invalid, is to apply proxy logic to validations but not invalidations" as the algorithm which most parsimoniously describes our choices. Not, again, my preferred framing of things, but a perfectly viable one as far as it goes.)
+:: As for "precedent", I wearily refer you to Ottsel's earlier points. '''More recent threads have the power to overrule old ones' conclusions'''; that is the bedrock of how the Forums work. If there ever was an earlier consensus against "narrow" policies, ''it has been overruled''; however interesting as a historical artefact, it no longer had bearing on live policy the moment [[Forum:Temporary forums/An update to T:VS]] was closed. [[User:Scrooge MacDuck|'''Scrooge MacDuck''']] [[User_talk:Scrooge MacDuck|⊕]] 21:06, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
+:::That earlier comment was entirely in response to OS25, not to you. Apologies. The issue is that while threads can overrule earlier ones, they can't ''ignore them''. This is why precedent isn't on the side of OS25. You have to ''address'' previous discussions. You can't just refuse to discuss earlier arguments because the people in the thread are no longer on the wiki. [[User:Najawin|Najawin]] [[User talk:Najawin|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 21:19, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
+:: AH, my mistake also, then. Sorry. [[User:Scrooge MacDuck|'''Scrooge MacDuck''']] [[User_talk:Scrooge MacDuck|⊕]] 21:41, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
+::: As I've said many times in these forums recently, simply because we have a better archive today does not mean that we need to mindlessly redo every discussion we'd had recently simply to dig up as many ghost arguments as possible. "Someone said ''this'' seven years ago" is not enough of a discovery to upend recent policy. We can not go around redoing the same debates over-and-over again, and I simply find it frustrating that every single time Rule 4 By Proxy is brought up, we are once again caught in the same arguments. I am just worried that you're going to make this long forum you're touting, consensus will be against it, and after it doesn't pass we'll again find ourselves arguing about R4BP a week after that. [[T:BOUND]] exists for a reason. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 23:07, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
+::::You call them ghost arguments. But what they really are is arguments you don't like. Do we just refuse to read Aristotle because he's dead? Descartes? Kant? Absurd. If the arguments are good the arguments are good. They don't have to have someone around to actively promote them.
+::::The issue is not "someone said something different seven years ago". This is what Scrooge thought as well at first and thought it was going to be a violation of [[T:POINT]]. It is not, I assure you. The issue is more nuanced than just "people in the past disagreed." Look, I'll skip the talk pages and get the 80% complete version out, k? We can discuss it then. [[User:Najawin|Najawin]] [[User talk:Najawin|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 23:53, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
+:::::As long as you agree that if this forum of yours fails you'll stop decrying that R4BP isn't real every time it's brought up. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 00:22, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+Have I ever said this? Of course not. Dear lord. [[User:Najawin|Najawin]] [[User talk:Najawin|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 00:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+With regards to covering the two versions on the same page, it's worth noting that the 1992 version of ''[[Shada (TV story)|Shada]]'' isn't considered a valid source, but it's still covered on the same page as the 2017 version, which is. [[User:Cgl1999|Cgl1999]] [[User talk:Cgl1999|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 06:28, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+: I think that is more of an oversight. That page has needed a substantial rewrite for ages and it even has a cleanup template that proposes a split. So while you are technically correct, I don't feel that example is good enough to take as precedent. {{User:Epsilon the Eternal/signature}} 08:49, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+:: It's actually not an oversight, keeping the two pages the same was forum consensus. The view, in the eyes of admins present, was that the 1992 ''Shada'' was "unfinished" and "a deleted scene" and thus keeping both on the same page was not a contradiction. The basic closing statement was that because there was no contradiction between them, and one was just ''finished'', they could be on the same page. This logic could easily be used, even today, to merge ''[[The Runaway (video game)]]'' with ''[[The Runaway (webcast)]]'', as there's no information presented in the video game ''not'' in the webcast as far as I know.
+:: Whereas that precedent is more controversial in cases like the two ''Fix''es. As another example, ''[[Doctor Who and the micro:bit (TV story)|Doctor Who and the micro:bit]]'' actually has two variations - one where it's just the Doctor speaking to you and then a "live" version where two presenters are talking you through the game as they are sent the Doctor's transmissions. If we end up saying that the "live" version is not valid but the non-live version is fine, then we should have some system for making it clear was info is non-valid ''without'' needing two pages. (For the record, as far as I know both versions should likely be valid sources) [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 16:00, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+::: Hmmm. With ''Shada'', that feels like the 1992 one wasn't treated as a source, valid or not. And for ''micro:bit'', I don't think either version is more valid than one another?
+::: I dunno, merging the pages but having one version be invalid seems like a headache, especially for new users.
+::: I think it would be much simpler to just... ''validate'' 1985 ''AFwS''. {{User:Epsilon the Eternal/signature}} 16:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+:::: The 1992 version of ''Shada'' wasn't treated as a source, valid or otherwise? [[The Doctor (Shada)|Are you sure about that?]] [[User:Cgl1999|Cgl1999]] [[User talk:Cgl1999|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 16:50, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+:::::1992 ''Shada'' was treated as a source, it was just treated as an incomplete one. We should, under no circumstances, split that page into different variations - for the same reason that we should only have a single page for ''[[The Five Doctors (TV story)]]''. (A forum, long ago, ruled that ''[[The Five Doctors Special Edition (home video)]]'' should be deleted... But no one did it. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 17:23, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+:: I'm of two minds. I certainly think that the 1992 ''Shada'' is one of the "special editions" with the ''most'' claim to a separate page, compared to something like the ''Five Doctors Special Edition''. It's got a whole new character commenting on the action! Isn't this a fair bit like ''Incomplete Death's Head'' not being reducible to its component preexisting stories?
+:: But either way: we really do need to work out a ''coherent'' overall policy for how to cover and cite variant cuts of video stories; I think we will be in a good position to do so once the {{tlx|cite source}} thread wraps up; and I do not think this is something we should do in this thread, whose title isn't very indicative of such a broad topic. In the meantime this thread should hash out whether the original TV ''Fix'' is valid in ''some'' form but not waste too much time trying to put together some ''ad-hoc'' decision on whether to merge the two ''Fix'' cuts or not, when we'll hopefully set clearer bases for all decisions of this type in a couple of weeks. [[User:Scrooge MacDuck|'''Scrooge MacDuck''']] [[User_talk:Scrooge MacDuck|⊕]] 18:22, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+In that case, there are only two coherent options in my mind:
+# Jimmy "walking on stage" is treated as the end of the IU section, and we explicitly only cover the story up to this moment, treating the rest as part of the credits.
+# We treat Jimmy walking on stage as part of the story, and that the actors are still in-character. The Doctor is still the Doctor, Tegan is still Tegan, they've just been visited by a monster worse than the previous pair.
+I don't personally think that calling the story non-valid entirely is consistent with our current rules, aka the 2023 policies by which we currently measure our precedent. But as per which of the above options are the best... I think I lean a little more towards the first one. As I remember it, it's a very big character breaking moment, literally "off-script." But I would like to hear more from others about this specific topic. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 20:26, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
+:I don’t understand how it can be any harder than having the 1985 version be invalid and make the 2022 re-cut valid. The original with Savile was entirely removed from their releases. For years basically wanted to remove it from existence. They wanted you to forget about it because they wanted you to forget Savile had ever been involved with the show. Only they found it a pity that the story itself had to go, most likely because they found the story itself decent enough, plus it would mean a piece of the actors' work would be lost. Which is why we now have the 2022 re-cut with Sontaran fleets, entirely removing Savile from the story. And given that this one even has a continuity with another story, whereas the original did not, I think it is entirely proper to say that the 2022 re-cut is the valid one while the original remains invalid. Also, while fourth wall breaking is not grounds for invalidity, the fact that there is a version without it gives an entirely sound reasoning to make the fourth wall breaking version invalid. I disagree with the merge, if not for anything else, then at least for Epsilon's original reasoning that while 7 seconds from a full story of about an hour is not a lot (and hence we would not split articles over that) it '''''IS''''' a lot for a mini-sode (which, as the moniker suggests, doesn’t go on for very long). [[User:Danniesen|Danniesen]] [[User talk:Danniesen|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 09:33, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
+*pokes discussion with a stick* <font face="Maven Pro" color="#000000">— [[User:Fractal|Fractal]] [[User talk:Fractal|<span title="Talk">•</span>]]</font> 21:49, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
+: I definitely think they should be merged and the original cut validated through Rule 4 by Proxy - at time of release, the short story should logically validate the original version, even if we now have one that'd pass rule 4 anyway. [[User:Cookieboy 2005|Cookieboy 2005]] [[User talk:Cookieboy 2005|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 21:54, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

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