Forum:Temporary forums/Relaxing the past-tense requirement: Difference between revisions

With regards to leads of the form "''[[The Horns of Nimon (TV story)|The Horns of Nimon]]'' was…", I find myself sympathetic to [[User:Najawin]]'s argument that this is not incorrect, nor even particularly arbitrary. It would be one thing to say "''[[Alien Bodies (novel)|Alien Bodies]]'' was a novel", and that sort of phrasing should be avoided. But when we use phrasings such as "''[[The Horns of Nimon (TV story)|The Horns of Nimon]]'' was the final broadcast episode of [[Season 17 (Doctor Who 1963)|Season 17]]", or "''[[Alien Bodies (novel)|Alien Bodies]]'' was the sixth novel in the [[BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures|BBC ''Eighth Doctor Adventures'' series]]", it's clear that the "narrative voice" of the Wiki is placing the work at issue within the historical context of its initial release. Season 17 ''was'' a one-time, ongoing cultural event, as much as it ''is'' a still-existing collection of stories you can pop in your DVD player at will. '''We shouldn't ban referring to stories in the present tense when appropriate, but the current widespread format is also valid, and there should be no massive campaign to "correct" it.'''

And in truth, talk of [[Tardis:In-universe perspective|end-of-the-universe perspectives]] and the like sort of bury the lede. It's perfectly normal for the narrative voice of a work of fiction to use the past tense across the board, even without a particular sci-fi-slanted "point of view". I might write a contemporary detective novel set in Paris where the narrator says things like "Paris was too large a city for the Inspector to have any hope of finding the fugitive again"; or indeed, "The Inspector didn't like the place; it was too yellow. Yellow was a dour, insalubrious colour, and men of taste rarely liked it". When it's done in such a context, no one screenshots it and jeers that hey, look, ''Murder at the Arc de Triomphe'' secretly takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where Paris and the colour yellow no longer exist! Mind blown!<ref>Okay, as soon as I typed it out, I remembered that very silly people sometimes use the past tense of ''1984''<nowikI>'s</nowiki> epilogue to argue a similar point that the Party "secretly" falls at some point in the book's canonical future. But it's rather daft when they do that, and besides, there ''are'' extenuating circumstances.</ref> If it doesn't bother people ''there'', it shouldn't bother people ''here'', and it's not our fault if they can't get over themselves.