Talk:The Doctor's early life

Page creation

Because of T:NPOV, it's always been the case on this wiki that the Doctor's multiple various origin stories - to wit, the First Doctor, the Other, The Doctor (The Brain of Morbius), Patience's husband, Dr. Who, and maybe the Timeless Child? - have been treated as equally true. But our coverage of the Doctor's childhood and early life at First Doctor#Life on Gallifrey has been an exception.

For instance, the novelisation, other stories, and behind-the-scenes commentary has confirmed that the infamous The Brain of Morbius faces are incarnations of the Doctor prior to the one we call First; if this is true (as we must treat it per T:NPOV), in The Time Monster when the Third Doctor remembered being a little boy and talking with the Hermit, that was a memory not from the lifetime of Hartnell's Doctor but from Christopher Barry's. But we obviously can't just move that information to The Doctor (The Brain of Morbius), since later stories have suggested that it was Hartnell's Doctor who was a child, and we can't treat those as not-true either!

So this page is the compromise. It gives us a way to discuss the 5+ contradicting origins upfront, and it houses all of the references to the Doctor's childhood, education, and career up until just before Hartnell's Doctor left Gallifrey, at which point it continues at First Doctor. (Any stories which do explicitly indicate that it was the First Doctor specifically as a child should be double-listed here and in the abridged original section.) Major sections are obviously very stubbified right now; please help me flesh it out! – N8 (☎/👁️) 21:22, February 21, 2020 (UTC)

I do not think we should jump into this without discussion. For one thing, it would take away from the main article to have a large portion of it missing, confusing new editors to what is worthy of inclusion on the main article, as well as requiring watching and/or editing two pages for the same information. Also, how far does this go from here? Are to now make new pages for other sections of characters history if they are too long and contradictory? Will the Master pages be separated as well?BananaClownMan ☎ 21:59, February 21, 2020 (UTC)

The issue is not that the First Doctor page was getting "complicated" as such, it's that it is a violation of T:NPOV, and simply wrong, to assert that all things dealing with "the Doctor's childhood" are definitely things which happened to the William Hartnell incarnation of the Doctor which most, but not all, sources dub the "First Doctor". --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 22:11, February 21, 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I fail to see how the assumption that the childhood happened to the Hartnell Doctor is a violation of any policy when the majority has it has such.BananaClownMan ☎ 22:19, February 21, 2020 (UTC)

T:NPOV, for Rassilon's sake, that's the policy. A majority of stories might say one thing, but just because those stories are more numerous and higher-profile, that does not mean we should make light of the equally-valid stories which disagree. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 22:25, February 21, 2020 (UTC)

BananaClownMan, to address some of your points specifically:

• This edit will not set any precedent. This is not a situation where a character's history is disputed. This is a situation where which character it was is disputed. As far as I know, this is the only such situation on the wiki (although I'd love to hear if you know of any more), and as such it has no bearing on whether or not The Master should be divided.
• Like it or not, Thread:264489#9 mandates that long character pages must be abbreviated in their coverage of individual stories. First Doctor is currently the 6th longest page on the wiki. By removing such a large chunk (roughly 10%, by my reckoning), the page can be spared from further pruning.
• You're right that as it currently stands, two pages have to be edited for information about the Doctor's early life, as much of the material on this page is replicated on First Doctor. But that's not the intention. When I created this page, I also removed the duplicate information. It was you who reverted my edit without explanation and created the redundancy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've reread T:NO WARS and I don't think it would be wrong of me to re-instate my reverted edit to remove the redundant information, to avoid the awkward scenario of someone editing First Doctor#Life on Gallifrey without mirroring it on this page (which, with everything that's happening in Series 12, may be likely). But I know you're extremely active on the Doctor pages, so I want to give you a chance to reply first. Did this reply help to address your concerns? – N8 (☎/👁️) 13:32, February 24, 2020 (UTC)

Nate, I didn't see your earlier version, but it seems to me that information about the First Doctor's life on Gallifrey that's definitively stated as being about the William Hartnell incarnation still ought to be present on First Doctor, with The Doctor's early life primarily being a repository for information which is not explicitly stated as being for any incarnation in particular. Flashback, for example, definitely belongs on First Doctor IMO.

To lessen the risk of someone adding info to First Doctor without mirroring it here, could we not add a "hidden note" in the source code of that section of the page, telling editors not to forget to also add any information present in "Life on Gallifrey" to this page (though not the reverse)? --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 13:46, February 24, 2020 (UTC)

Yes, in my version of the First Doctor page, I left in the one or two stories which I personally knew featured Hartnell's incarnation explicitly; likewise, on this page, stories which explicitly feature Hartnell's Doctor rather than the Other or a Morbius incarnation should clearly describe the protagonist as the First Doctor. If this page is an encyclopedic overview of the Doctor's early life as suggested in the title, I don't think that explicitly Hartnell stories should be left off entirely, but they can be discussed in more detail on that other page. I'll welcome the help in differentiating between explicitly Hartnell stories and ambiguous ones! – N8 (☎/👁️) 15:29, February 24, 2020 (UTC)

Oh no, I'm not saying stories where the incarnation is explicitly identified should be left off this page, I'm saying that the info should also be duplicated at First Doctor (or other applicable incarnation pages). --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:36, February 24, 2020 (UTC)

There we agree! – N8 (☎/👁️) 16:41, February 24, 2020 (UTC)