Talk:The Doctor's sonic screwdriver - list of appearances

suggestion for improving this article

• add whatever use the Doctor (or someone else) put the screwdriver to that story.
• change the name (can't think to what). --Stardizzy2 15:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Necessary?

I feel like similarly to why something like a list of appearances for The Doctor's TARDIS, or Earth or Humans, this list doesn't work, because in all media there are just so many appearances it'll be near impossible to add them all. What does everyone think? StevieGLiverpool ☎ 22:48, October 21, 2018 (UTC)

Page deleted. There are some things on this wiki that are so ubiquitous that it's a waste of time trying to list all appearances, and this is definitely one of them. Shambala108 ☎ 02:41, February 24, 2019 (UTC)

This page has been around for 10.5 years. If it's going to be deleted, this should actually be discussed first. I agree, of course, that an LOA for the TARDIS would be nonsensical, but it's mostly only from the point of the Eighth Doctor on that the Doctor's sonic becomes truly ubiquitous. We're not about to delete the LOAs for each Doctor, despite them racking up quite a few stories.

Certainly, the final version of this page was a genuine good-faith jab at such a list. My main objection would be that it falls afoul of our policy for media neutrality, perhaps, by underserving the comics. All I'm saying is such a major move to delete a long-standing page, even just a list page, still merits (at least some) discussion.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 02:58, February 24, 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, nobody seemed to think it was important enough to defend it in the last four months. And remember when you tried to create a list of appearance pages for cell phones. User:CzechOut adequately explained why such a page is not just unnecessary but also impossible to make complete. Shambala108 ☎ 03:03, February 24, 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I do recall, and I'm well aware of where we have drawn the line in the past, just as you are. My objection is that a delete tag was up for 6 days, not 4 months, for a page that's just a few years short of being as old as the wiki. Clearly, that was not enough time for anyone to have noticed, and during the 6 days the tag was up, no one had yet responded to the conversation which was started here. Just due process. I see no reason why there would have been such a rush to delete, before anyone at all had contributed, rather than first allowing editors the chance to respond.

As an aside, I did not create this page, it has been around longer than me, and I have hardly personally contributed, so I would ask that you refrain from trying to make this a personal issue, and instead stick to policies and precedent. Thank you. My sole point is that users should be given reasonable chance to respond, when concerning long-standing pages. I do not object to the result of that discussion coming out in favour of deletion.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 03:27, February 24, 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm well the comment by User:StevieGLiverpool has been up for four months, I assumed the delete tag was added then. But not every delete tag requires a discussion, and this one, as Stevie says above, it's near impossible to have anything close to a complete list. Shambala108 ☎ 03:34, February 24, 2019 (UTC)

I agree that this is too omnipresent to properly list, but I also do think there is a use for this page - indeed, I found this discussion whilst specifically looking for this page to check specifically this - in tracking the frequency of the use of the device across various eras and media. So, would it be at all possible to split this list into "the Second Doctor's sonic screwdriver - list of appearances" "the Third Doctor's first sonic screwdriver - list of appearances" "the Third, Fourth and Fifth Doctor's sonic screwdriver - list of appearances", etc.? I feel that could work. NightmareofEden ☎ 12:26, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Of course, they’re really all one device, "same software, different case", and all that, but the Doctor is "all one person" and that doesn’t stop us splitting THEM up. And I’m not even necessarily suggesting splitting up the pages (although I wouldn’t object to that), but just the list of appearances at least. NightmareofEden ☎ 12:31, 5 July 2021 (UTC)