Talk:Bruce Gerhardt

Surname

I know that Doctor Who - The Novel of the Film has many elements that differ from what we see on screen, but Bruce and Miranda being called Gerhardt doesn't contradict anything. Why do we only mention it in the "Behind the scenes" section rather than make it part of the article itself? --Lelal Mekha ^(Parlour) 20:29, December 6, 2014 (UTC)

There are lots of articles in the same situation. There's no policy that I could find that says whether or not to rename these kinds of articles. The closest thing I could find was Forum:Novelisations info - Not inuniverse. This issue should probably brought up at the forums. Shambala108 ☎ 20:58, December 6, 2014 (UTC)

You're at the wrong spouse's talk page. See Talk:Miranda (Doctor Who).
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  22:44: Fri 12 Dec 2014

As this character and his wife, Miranda, have recently appeared in a discussion thread. I suggest we at least give their respective articles another look. What objections are there to not renaming both Bruce's and Miranda's article names to include their surnames? :) TheFartyDoctor ^Talk 21:28, May 25, 2020 (UTC)

The original reason for this is given at Talk:Miranda (Doctor Who), as indicated above. That being said, I would be in favour of the page being renamed as proposed. --Borisashton ☎ 21:29, May 25, 2020 (UTC)

Just a question, but would a Disamiguation page not solve that? If they typed in 'Bruce', it would just lead to the Disambiguation page. And if we're doing an official rename, doesn't the search bar intelligently suggest appropriate 'Bruces' in the search results. I've noticed that when searching for stuff. TheFartyDoctor ^Talk 21:45, May 25, 2020 (UTC)

Right, it's been years and years since this discussion was started, and nowadays, T:NPOV has our backs, so novelisations being treated as "secondary" (I'm looking at CzechOut for saying this) should be thrown out of the window, and Bruce and Miranda should be renamed to their full names. I can't see that anybody would rationally object to this.

Epsilon 📯 📂

03:07, November 5, 2020 (UTC)

So are you pre-emptively calling any objection irrational? Well I will give you a "rational" argument for the pages (including Miranda) being named the way they are: most of the people who visit this wiki (I've seen some estimates around 90%) never edit here. Most people who come here do so for info about the tv series. Therefore we often try to make it easier for those viewers to find things (this is apparently a general practice for many wikis). So while I don't care what the pages are named, I did want to point out that decisions made on this wiki are done for a reason, and sometimes the average editor can't understand why. So maybe ask an admin next time if you can't understand why something was done the way it was. Shambala108 ☎ 03:20, November 5, 2020 (UTC)

While I agree with Shambala that this is a reasonable position to hold (not one I necessarily agree or disagree with, but a reasonable one) and wiki policy, the wiki is somewhat inconsistent about it, as noted at User:NateBumber's user page. Najawin ☎ 03:25, November 5, 2020 (UTC)

Sigh. Okay, @Shambala108. You claim most visitors of the Wiki come here for the TV series, right? Even if that's the case, doesn't mean we can start favouring televised media, which we all know is going against T:NPOV. Also, take a look a Polly Wright. Do you see? Her surname. Never once used in a televised story, yet here we are. And this tells us something. Even if the users come here for televised media, they're not stupid and can therefore find the page, despite the surname not being used in the TV series.

Now, you might argue that nobody knows Bruce and Miranda's surname, so it's "unhelpful" to add it. But if we started to use it, then more people would know about it, therefore making the whole process worth it.

It's been over six years since this discussion wbout the name started on this talk page, and nearly an entire decade since it was opened on Miranda's talk page. I think it's time we got our acts together, don't you?

Epsilon 📯 📂

07:55, November 5, 2020 (UTC)

While I don't agree with some of their words, I do conceit that User:Epsilon has a point there.BananaClownMan ☎ 09:48, November 5, 2020 (UTC)

The reason this wasn't resolved here is that it was resolved at Thread:231243. Is it a bit weird that we have specific rules around the naming of characters based on novelisations (versus based on other tie-in media)? Yeah, I suppose it is. But that's the policy, which was lawfully decided in a thread.

If there are cases where this policy has not been applied properly, then until such a time as policy changes (which could only be done by a Forum thread, not a talk page discussion), they should be brought in line with the policies established in that thread. Not the reverse. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 10:57, November 5, 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I personally strongly disagree with CzechOut's closing post, so when the forums reopen, I think it's worth a re-evaluation. For now though, I shan't touch the matter.

Epsilon 📯 📂

11:49, November 5, 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Saxon (✉️) 11:57, November 5, 2020 (UTC)