Talk:How The Monk Got His Habit (short story)

"Discarded"

uh, i understand why theres two separate pages for this story - as harness said that he planned a novelisation of the story too. BUT i dont get why the short sotry is being treated as valid when, like the television episode, it was "discarded" in harness' own words. the article says its similar to RTD's discarded time war story but its different in the fact that RTD's story was signed off on and planned for the lockdown event. this story had nothing to do with locdown, harness took it upon himself to find the unfinished scrift after mentioning it and being asked to by fans. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

Just for the rcord, Davies's story wasn't planned for the Lockdown! event at all — it was written for the anthology The Doctor: His Lives and Times way back in 2013.

Either way, though, the thing is that Doctor Who and the Time War and Robert Shearman's Dalek alternative script extract were both written as complete products that looked (and were cheekily presented as) like extracts from deleted stuff. I think it more likely than not that Peter Harness was riding the same trend, and wrote this short story in 2020 for the Lockdown event.

I mean, let's look at the facts — one day all he has to offer of How The Monk… is a loose outline from an email, and the next, he springs on us that he'd already started writing a Target novelisation, of all things? Even though the BBC Wales series has never, at any point in its history, been known to be amenable to writers submitting novelisations of their stories, out of nowhere, before said stories are even aired? There have been a handful of Target novelisations of NuWho stories, but always "big ones" like The Day of the Doctor or Rose, and never developed right alongside the TV story.

Even in the fairly likely event that the novelisation project was real, though, Harness still decided to release a standalone scene from it, which ostensibly can function as its own short narrative about the pre-meddling Monk. Such a thing — taking a fragment of something-that-never-was and releasing it as its own shorter story — isn't unheard of: see for example Rain Gods, even if it's not a 1:1 analogy.

If we could credibly take Harness's word that the novelisation was planned for back in 2014 or so, we could have an {{unproduced}} page about How The Monk Got His Habit (novelisation), the unfinished and unreleased novelisation. This is distinct from the short prose story about "Roger" in his TARDIS that was in fact released in 2020 as part of Doctor Who: Lockdown!. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:21, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

what short story??? i dont see a short sotry, harness said himself that it was "discarded first page of a novelisation". and while RTD's work was intended to be published a long time ago it never happened, and then it was reworked and planned for the lockdown event. this wasnt. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 12:29, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

even if like you speculate the novl wasnt real and harness did just write it on the spot, then he had no licensing for the characters so it isnt valid - and the story was never prtrayed as being part of lockdown. RTD's story was part of lockdown, and had narration on the official outube channel, but this shown to be a spur of the moment thing that had no connecitons to the event. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

This story was very much a part of Harness's Tweetalong. The Wiki has thus far rightfully been exercising good faith when it comes to all the fiction released on creators' Twitter accounts during the official Tweetalongs being licensed, and without plausible grounds, it's quite a serious accusation to levy against a real person that he infringed copyright out of nowhere. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:41, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

the tweetalongs are not "officially licensed" so i dont get what you mean. emily cook clarfieid this herself and said that the tweetalong / watch alongs are all her doing and onlt the official original stories are being licensed and signed off on by chibnall himself. so no, the entire tweetalong being licensed doesnt make any sense especilly with a number of representatives have "views their own" mentioned in their information section.

and no, im not suggesting hes infringing copyright becase i actually believe that the noveliation was planned and he did in fact post the first page of that as he stated. why do we have reason to doubt him??? DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

Because there were three other instances in Lockdown! of a story being released under the banner of being an extract from a project than never was, and in all those cases, it was clearly good-natured fibbing that was just meant to make the experience more fun.

Cook may have stated that the Tweetalongs weren't a Doctor Who Magazine-endorsed project per se, but clearly some sort of agreement exists with the BBC, since some of the stories were released on the official Doctor Who YouTube channel or the BBC website, with no specific logic to which ones (one chapter of Paul Cornell's "Shadow" trilogy was released on the BBC website, then the other two were released on the Lockdown YouTube channel). Unless told otherwise, we have wisely been assuming that all the Lockdown-original stories and documentaries are being released under this agreement.

One way or another, Peter Harness released a page of fully-written out DWU fiction on 11 April 2020. Whenever and however it came to be written, it exists. The only reason it plausibly shouldn't be covered on the Wiki in some shape or form is if Harness didn't have the legal right to publish that page.

Assuming we continue to cover it, then if we make a lot of assumptions it might be an invalid short story for similar reasons to P.S.. But I see little reason to make such assumptions. The three precedents within Lockdown! were clearly not genuine excerpts from old material. And even if a novelisation was for some insane reason begun in 2015, Harness deciding to release this specific scene in 2020 could still count as a separate short story release, unless it were proven that Harness doesn't think this scene can stand up as its own event in the DWU.--Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:58, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

im struggling to deal with your comments. you speculate that Harness completely made up that there was a novelistion for this story, but when i tell you that would be unlikely as he woulnt have the licensing to do so - you falsley lable me as accusing him of copyyright infringment. thats complete slander and i want you to stop. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

theres a very big difference between official lockdown stories - pompadore, the zygon isolation, doctor who and the time war, farewell sarah jane, etc. these are promoted by the organiser of the event emily cook, and official sites like the DW twitter page. these stories are also planned and teased in advance. this on the other hand wasnt planned, it wasnt promoted by any of the lockdown representatives or the official DW sites. it was simply posted by harness by himself, after his tweetalong had endded too, after fans asked to see mre from his unproduced episode. he stated that this was a "discarded first page of a novelisation". and not a short story. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 13:18, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

I didn't mean to falsely accuse you of anything, merely to caution you what you, accidentally I'm sure, implied about Harness. If he had no legal right to publish new fiction about the Monk by that point (but personally, I think this was still part of the Tweetalong event!), why should it change anything whether the one-page bit of prose fiction was originally written in 2015? That doesn't give him any more or less legal right to publish it.

(And a short piece of prose fiction is what a short story is, whether or not it started out as part of a larger novel that never materialised. That is in that sense that I am using the term. If it's worthy of having a page on the wiki, it's, per T:DAB, a "short story", in the same way that the Dr. Men books at "(novel)s" even though they're not exactly Oliver Twist.)

I don't think the distinction is anywhere near as clear as you make it out to be; Strax Saves the Day was released on Twitter, as were Message from the Doctor and the clearly-licensed Incoming Message (webcast) — yet the latter at the very least certainly had no "teasing in advance" involved, and as far as I remember neither did Message. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:27, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

i didnt imply anthing about harness! youre the one who is suggesting hes lying about intended to write a novel, and i said that he wouldnt have the rights to the characters if hewasnt telling the truth.

both strax / incoming were promoted by emily cook! thats the whole thing, the lockdown is her organisation. she plans all the official material, and chibnall signs off on it. she had nothing to do with this story whatsoever. it is the only one on the entire list that she hasnt acknowledge at all, because it was not planned - it was a spur of the moment post by harness after his tweetalong ended when fans begged to hear more about his unproduced story. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 13:32, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

someone should pose the question during the lockdown watchalong tonight. but im pretty sure what the answer will be, this story had nothing to do with locdown. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

someone should pose the question during the lockdown watchalong tonight. but im pretty sure what the answer will be, this story had nothing to do with locdown. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

You've got me all wrong if you think I'm saying Peter Harness was lying about his having actually planned the novel. I think he claimed to have planned the novel in 2015 as a self-evidently outrageous metafictional framing for his new short story — no different from the framing of The Thief of Sherwood being framed as scavenged material of a lost Hartnell serial. There's no lying because the readers aren't supposed to believe for one moment that the improbable 2015 novelisation ever existed.

Either way, though, you haven't addressed my point. What does it change if the page is indeed an extract from a 2015 draft? If, as you claim, Harness was no longer permitted to release new DWU thing as part of his Tweetalong by this point — then why would it make any difference whether the DWU thing had been written in 2015 or 2020? He'd still be infringing the BBC's copyright by publishing it. Either Harness had the right to publish prose with the Monk on 11 April 2020, or he did not ("does he have the right?"); the exact nature of the prose with the Monk isn't the point in this instance. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:41, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

he didnt publish it as a story for profit. he only showed a piece of work that he had intended to write, nothing more than fanfiction! i think it should exist as a page as it was a planned story that ultimately never happened, but definetly not valid!!! DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

There's two different thing. There's what this page is about — the one-page, fully-written-out prose released on 11 April 2020, with "Roger" in his TARDIS. Then there's the unproduced novelisation it was supposedly a part of, which, if the Wiki decides to take the view that it ever really existed, should be covered on HowThe Monk Got His Habit (novelisation). Those are different things, much like how the actual Rain Gods deleted scene of The Doctor's Wife is not Planet of the Rain Gods is not Rain Gods. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:50, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

I follow Emily and; TazminDaytime ☎ 13:53, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

File:Emily Cook tweet reply.png

(I've placed this to the right point in the conversation) This is very kind of you, but could you ask her about the short story? This question sounded like it was more about the unproduced TV story. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:58, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

your grasping at straws, she clearly distances herself from any of the harness work that wasn’t the zygon isolation (which she organised) without need for much confirmation. it was obviously not part of the event all along. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

isnt this over? unless your just waiting for others like tazmin to go around asking emily questons. she confirmed that this was just something harness mentioned himself and the story was never ackowledge by any of the lockdown team so it is your burden to prove tha it is part of the evnet. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

It's not over until an admin says it is. The quote also seems to be about the TV story, not the short story based on it. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 14:55, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

it doesnt at all. it appears to be about both, which were both mentioned at the same time and neither had the slightest to do with lockdown. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

I fail to see how it appears to be about both stories even though "story" is used in the singular.

Whether it's part of Lockdown remains an altogether different question from "does the short story break T:NO FANFIC", however; it's just that if it were part of Lockdown! we could assume it to be licensed. For that, we need to ask Harness whether he was breaking copyright by publishing this short story.--Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:08, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

it is your burden to prove that it is part of lockdown. it was never ackowledged by the official lockdown representatives apart from emily cook distancing herself from it, so you can ask her yorself or find other inforation to prove that it is. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

I'm not talking about it being part of Lockdown! at this point, I'm talking about whether it was licensed. It could be outside Lockdown yet licensed — so was United we stand, 2m apart, wasn't it? --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:14, May 17, 2020 (UTC)

again, seems like your burden to prove. but i very much doubt youll find anything, it was clearly presnted as just an unpublished story which probably never got to the licensing stage. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

I think User:Shambala108's comment on Talk: The Castellan has returned and has brought a message from Gallifrey! (webcast) applies here too;

"Yes we should [jump to the conclusion of something being unlicensed just because nothing specifically points out that it is licensed]. We should be careful about making assumptions. We have to be strict about licensing just like we have to be strict about plagiarism."

there is nothing to suggest that this story is licensed. unlike all the other Lockdown! releases it was not promoted by emily cook as part of the tweetalong. and peter harness himself calls it a "similar discarded first page of a novelisation of it" DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

There is as much evidence that it's part of Lockdown! as not, as I and many other people have told you many, many times. Thinking this is an actual first page from an actual novelisation, meanwhile, strikes me as a complete misreading of the text. What next? Are we going to add information from Dalek alternative script extract to the BTS section of Dalek as legitimate production info about what went on in 2005?

Your so-called quote from Shambala108 is made up in great part of you putting words in her mouth from the context, which weakens its value somewhat. And besides, the quote, even in this altered (not maliciously, but altered all the same) form, is telling us to be careful and to investigate carefully. It explicitly tells us not to "make assumptions" — one way or the other. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 23:23, May 21, 2020 (UTC)

if there is "as much evidence that it is part of Lockdown! as not" then it is clearly too speculative - we have strict rules when it comes to licensing and must be completely sure. and no, the Dalek extract was completely satirical - and the creator's reactions on twitter indicate it to be so. no such interaction with harness suggests the same.

also i did not put words in her mouth, please do not slander me. the bit in the brackets was the comment she was replying to. her point and the quote is exactly the same as how she intended! DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎

This is currently under discussion at Thread:275277. Any further comments should be posted there. Shambala108 ☎ 03:37, June 6, 2020 (UTC)

Rename

so finally, Monk has been deemed invalid - there was no reason to question Harness' confirmation that it was "discarded". yet, most of this page still threw that into doubt - heavily speculating that it was a framing device, despite still no evidence.

nevertheless, an extract is not a story. a story needs a beginning, middle and end - this extract does not have that. this was even stated to be an extract; the "discarded first page of a novelisation", so it should be renamed How The Monk Got His Habit (novelisation) DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 02:57, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

This absolutely has a beginning, middle and end. It is very hard to tell any kind of narrative anything that does not, and you're being very weird, whatever else may or may not be the case, in continuing to insist on this even though it's obviously not true. The narrative of "the Monk was listening to some music, then grew unsatisfied with it and decided to try and fix it, then gave up and went off to listen to some LPs" presents a clear beginning, middle and end. This is unrelated to whether it's an extract, whether it's valid, or whatever. -Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 03:04, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

how dare you call me "weird", and my changes "nonsense". you come across as being unable to accept when you are mistaken. even when a ruling was made that wasnt in your favour, you attempted to have the page majorly reflect your own speculation - by repeatedly making comment about "IF Harness is to believed" when there is no evidence of a framing device whatsoever. and on a side note, some of the other things in that intro were completely made up - never was it mentioned that the television story and novelisation were written side by side, and a quote from Harness was unsourced and very unfamilar to me.

anyway, an extract is not a story in itself. George R. R. Martin has released several extracts from his upcoming book but none of them are treated as their own separate stories - because they are not. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 03:18, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

I did not call you weird, I said you were being weird in these specific actions. You're right that extracts are not (necessarily) stories, but that doesn't mean they don't have beginnings, middles and ends. Beginnings, middles and ends aren't exclusive to "stories" (and neither are they universal among stories, as students of modern literature will tell you). --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 03:21, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

being weird is the same as calling someone weird in my books, theres just no need for it. this wasnt a story - was stated to be an extract of an unproduced story by the writer himself, it does not deserve two pages when the information can happily be covered on one. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 03:24, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

The information can maybe very unhappily be covered on one, but Spider Dalek and Friend from the Future are precedents for having separate pages, and I think it's generally useful in this case. The {{Unprod}} page wouldn't have the detailed summary of what happens in this page, not the "References" section. And it would obscure the fact that a page of prose was in fact released in 2020, separate from the alleged preexisting novelisation project that never was. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 03:28, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

You can always make another forum post arguing to merge the two pages if you so desire. Najawin ☎ 03:31, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

i will do that now, sadly i cannot change the template. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 03:45, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

Merger

this page should be merged with the newly created How The Monk Got His Habit (novelisation). this was an extract from the novelisation (or in the creator's own word the "discarded first page of the novelisation") not a short story in itself. there is no reason for this to be covered separately. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 03:45, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

Right! Well… as I said in the above section of the talk page, while we could, so long as we choose to believe Harness's claims about the novelisation, cover them both on one page, this wouldn't allow us to give the full depth of information about the "discarded first page" that we can give with a separate story page. Friend from the Future gives us a precedent for covering invalid extracts separately from the story they're an extract from, and Spider Dalek for giving pages of their own to release glimpses of unreleased stories. So… --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 03:49, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

im afraid to say we will be believing Harness' claims, and there doesn't need to be "full depth" of a single page... otherwise actual full-length novels would have extremely long indeed. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 03:53, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

I still see no reason to believe Harness's comments about a novelization. T:BOUND only forces us to consider this story invalid, and since the arguments in favor of the short story being its own thing were never adequately dealt with, and this page already exists separate from How The Monk Got His Habit (novelisation), T:BOUND establishes that this page should stay as it is, merely invalid. Najawin ☎ 03:59, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

honestly, it is out of my hands if you still dont see reason to believe Harness over your own speculation - but it has been ruled that this site will be listening to Harness.

User:Shambala108 even said; "The author's use (twice) of the word "discarded" simplifies things: we do not consider unpublished stories to be valid. None of the arguments for validity were able to get around this fact." DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 04:02, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

And you will notice that the page is currently considered to be an invalid source. However, that does not mean that it's to be considered the same thing as How The Monk Got His Habit (novelisation). Those are two distinct issues. A ruling on one is not a ruling on the other. Najawin ☎ 04:03, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

well, they were the exact same page until just recently Scrooge created the new page to try and get round the rename. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 04:06, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

Make a thread about it. Until then, T:BOUND, you can't say that they're the same thing. Najawin ☎ 04:10, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

i will do just that, thank you. but isnt there a rule against vandalising to prove a point? or something like that, the page was created during the edit war. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎ 04:13, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

"Creating the change you want to see on the wiki" isn't the same thing as disrupting the wiki to make a point. Najawin ☎ 04:15, June 10, 2020 (UTC)

Real or a joke?

From what I can tell, there is a debate over whether this is real or a joke. OK, I personally lean towards it being a joke, but don’t think it’s quite so blatantly a joke as the so-called "Alternative Script Extracts from Dalek". But I also fail to see why either way should effect its validity status, simply where it fails rule 2 or rule 4. But, most importantly, could we not simply ask somebody involved and solve this whole issue? --NightmareofEden ☎ 11:30, November 20, 2020 (UTC)

You weren't necessarily to know because the "(not-so-)Massive Irretrievable Data Loss" from the botched Forum move swallowed the closing post, but this has been debated to death and there has been a specific ruling that T:POINT applies very strongly in this matter. These Monk debates got nasty, they got overcomplicated, and most importantly they got long.

Right now our ruling is "The short story is covered as invalid because it's presented as 'something that never was', which we rule to fail Rule 4. We remain agnostic on whether the text of the short story was originally written for the alleged novelisation, or if said novelisation project never existed." And this is not to change unless some proper, copper-bottomed new evidence comes in.

(And as to that — I like the instinct of going directly to the source, but the problem is that Mr Harness deleted his Twitter account some time ago, so we cannot! And I believe even before then, inquiries had been made which remained unanswered.) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 11:56, November 20, 2020 (UTC)