Talk:The Minister

Speculation

This page seems to be 50% speculation? It tries to suggest that the Big Finish Minister is the same as the Minister of War mentioned in Before the Flood, where has this ever been confirmed? And it also tries to make out that she is also a version of the Minister of Chance, where has this been confirmed either? I haven't gone down the rabbit hole of the newly created Minister pages, but I can assume there's going to be more speculation and fanfiction throughout. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 00:47, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I suppose we could create a separate Minister of War (Before the Flood) page if there is deemed to be too much ambiguity over whether The Same Face really was referencing the Before the Flood name-drop.

There's nothing fanficky about the Minister being, er, the Minister, though, as my now-completed updated version of this page will hopefully show. The Same Face is a very deliberate prequel to Death Comes to Time in that respect, ending with the Minister intent on doing good in the universe as a Renegade, with a winking mention that her next incarnation might adopt a name like "Minister of Luck". ("Chance" and "Luck" are of course more or less synonymous terms, with Chance literally being the French word for "Luck".) This is the equivalent of a story about a man by the name of "Who", at the end of which he is seen stealing a TARDIS and running away with this granddaughter, and someone wonders if he'll come to be known as "Professor Who or something". It would, in my opinion, be laughable to deem this too implicit to be Wikified, but at any rate the intent is beyond reasonable doubt. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 00:53, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Completely disagree with The Same Face being a "deliberate prequel". Do you have any evidence that Big Finish sought out the rights to be allowed to use this character? Doubtful. Big Finish making a fun little reference to a character that they have no right to use belongs on the BTS section only. As for the Minister of War referenced in Before the Flood, they would have absolutely used that as marketing for the story (or at least mentioned it somewhere) so as of now it is also speculation.

Call my argument laughable all you want, but this is your fanfiction material and shouldn't be taking over the entire page. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it's no less explicit that the Minister is the Minister, than that the "man with a bent nose" in The Tomorrow Windows, The Gallifrey Chronicles and Miranda is the Minister; if anything it's moreso. There's nothing ambiguous about a Time Lord called "the Minister" who keeps changing what they're Minister "of" with each regeneration, and who it is stated might be "the Minister of Luck or something" next, being meant to be the Minister of Chance. Another way to think of it: what if we had a story about a Time Lord called "the Monk", who has in past incarnations been "the Assisting Monk" and "the Observing Monk" and so on, who ends the story vowing to start interfering in history, with some joking that they might come to be known in their next regeneration as "the Intervening Monk"… is there any way in the world at all that this would not be a clear prequel to The Time Meddler, with our Monk being an earlier version of the Meddling Monk? Come on.

But then, I note that you don't actually theorise anything about the intent not being that this is the Minister. You seem to acknowledge the idea that the Minister is referenced. Instead you go down the copyright rabbit hole, and… look, it is speculation that Big Finish have "no right" to use the Minister, and with something as explicit as this, you are doing nothing short of alleging that BF engaged in copyright infringement here. If The Same Face is unlicensed, then, well, it fails Rule 2, there's not really a way around this. But there's no need to resort to such an assumption; as seen with Faction Paradox, it is often the case that characters created for Doctor Who can be used by BBC Who in perpetuity even if their creator can also use them externally.

At any rate, I will note that Minister of War as currently written does not categorically state that O'Donnell was talking about the same Minister of War as the incarnation of the Minister who went by that name. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 01:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

People working on the stories with the "man with a bent nose" have confirmed that the character was intended to be the Minister. That changes everything. If someone working on this Big Finish project flat out stated that the character was intended to be the Minister I would have no objections. Do we have evidence of any confirmation, of course not. Right now this is your own ideas/interpretation being incorporated into a main article as fact.

It is outrageous that you have accused me of trying to accuse BF of copyright infringement (and surely a breach of T:NPA - but one rule for one and all that). Nowhere have I stated that Big Finish didn't have the rights. I questioned whether they did, and even if they don't at no point did they infringe any copyright as they explicitly do not mention The Minister of Chance. The rights are in doubt and so without evidence or stated authorial intent the information should be removed. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Here's a fun idea why don't we just fold Painted warrior into Weeping Angel for a laugh, who cares about rights? Professional fanfiction trumps all! DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:27, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

(Scrooge, I don't want to say I told you so, but... ;P) We had a discussion on this subject in the Tardis:Temporary forums recently Corrie. Against my strong objections it was ruled that narrative evidence would be taken as authorial intent for linking linking stories together to string together validity. I insisted that it would be near impossible to tell the difference between "fun little reference"s and actually trying to "bring stor[ies] into continuity" but nobody but User:Tangerineduel agreed with me.

I don't think Corrie is accusing BF of copyright violation, a fun easter egg or reference is not copyright violation, no more than how the Ceol/Kelsey Hooper situation is. But I'm not seeing how this page passes T:HOMEWORLD unless we assume that BF acquired rights that we do not know that they have, and we have explicit rulings to not assume that they have. (In the sense that we don't assume rights issues are solved in general.) Also, forgive me, could you elaborate on your FP remark? I'm not sure what BBC usage you're referring to off hand. At the very least the only recent ones don't actually use FP licenses. Najawin ☎ 01:29, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Najawin, I thought I was going potty.

Whoever made that ruling probably knew that BF would likely have not had the rights to this character (although did not breach any copyright laws due to the "Minister of Luck" loophole) and therefore had to come up with some idea about authorial intent being devised from narrative evidence (ridiculous!). Scrooge is well aware that when in doubt we shouldn't just assume something has rights. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Let's not violate T:FAITH. I think the ruling was poorly thought through, but I don't think it was intended to sneak through stories that wouldn't otherwise count. Najawin ☎ 01:38, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I'll keep an open mind (as me suggesting that would likely get me a ban whereas others can actively allege people are accusing a company of copyright infringement). DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:40, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Gotta say, I agree with @Scrooge MacDuck; without saying "Hey, me, the Minister, will regenerate into a new incarnation called the Minister of Chance who looks like Stephen Fry!" I think it is very clear that, copyright aside, this character is pretty explicitly the Minister. They have the same bloody name, come on!

Furthermore, regarding copyright... I feel it is completely safe and within track record to assume that the BBC retains the Minister's copyright. After the Classic Who shenanigans, as evidenced by Neil Gaiman clarifying that the BBC kept the copyright to the Corsair, and the fact that both Faction Paradox and Iris Wildthyme have both, legally, appeared in Canaries and Buyer's Remorse respectively, that the BBC is authorised to use the Minister without the consent of Dan Freeman... like they did with the stories featuring "the Man with the bent nose". Accusing both the BBC and Big Finish of breaking copyright when they have precedent in very similar situations is speculative at best and libellous at worst.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

01:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

"They have the same bloody name" - Is a bit of a funny argument when it comes to DW. Sabbath and Sabbath say hey. We don't assume rights here. All you are doing is speculating and pulling seeming random parallels to the Corsair and others that I don't understand in the slightest.

Also, I think that something should be done about people falsely suggesting others are being libelous in order to try and stifle their arguments. Nothing anyone has said in this thread could be taken as libelous. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The obvious solution is:

The Minister remains as an umbrella page covering all the Minister incarnations from The Same Face and each of the individual pages (Fisheries, Agriculture, Housing, Environment, Health, Education, War, Industry, Foreign Affairs and Diplomacy and Prime Minister) remain and are the only ones covered on the Minister template.

Minister of Chance remains as an umbrella page for the Death Comes to Time Minister and First Minister of Chance and Second Minister of Chance remain covering their individual incarnations (with their own template).

The background information on The Minister and the Minister of Chance pages can go into detail about the speculative connections/similarities. And a third page can be created for Minister of War (Before the Flood) only covering the mention of the BTF character. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:57, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Faction Paradox didn't appear in Canaries under copyright, as far as we know. Both Canaries and The Wintertime Paradox are very intentional in not using the term to refer to the individuals in question and being somewhat vague as to what precise group they come from. I can't remember where, off hand, but I actually suggested making a thread on the subject when the forums were up but Scrooge suggested that there were enough similarities that it would qualify under the Homeworld Principle, so I didn't put it in The List. But let's be very clear that there's no evidence that they actually had the copyright rather than this being an analogous situation with how FP references BBC concepts.

Again, Corrie is not suggesting wrongdoing anymoreso than Ceol/Kelsey Hooper is wrongdoing. Please stop accusing him of this. Najawin ☎ 01:59, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@DrWHOCorrieFan: With respect, I have in no way attempted to "stifle your argument" or said that you were "being libelous". My point was that, in my view, The Same Face is sufficiently explicit about featuring the Minister that either we can cover it as such, or it fails Rule 2; such that, logically, there is no scenario where we'd have distinct pages about its Minister and Freeman's Minister, because either it's licensed and we can cover them as the same, or it's not and we should delete its page altogether.

Your explicit proposal of a different coverage scheme is appreciated, though, much as I still don't believe it to be warranted. Heated discussions such as this one need more of those. I will say that, as I said in the first post, I have no objection against creating a separate page for the BTF reference.

But I maintain that there is nothing "speculative" about the connection. At worst, from your line of argument, it is a "clear but not-legally-possible" situation like Ceol/Kelsey. But for pity's sake, I didn't randomly make this up. It is at the absolute least a clear "easter egg", if we must call it that.

@Najawin — I grant that this is the sort of disagreement which you had in mind all along, but I do deny the charge of the present disagreement being an example of th sort of discussion within the actual scope of Tardis:Temporary forums/Archive/An update to T:VS that you reference (being that Death Comes to Time's proxy-validity does not rest on Same Face alone by any means). The question was whether little references were substantially "bringing stories into continuity", not about how to treat such references from one valid story to another. The question now is not: "does The Same Face suffice to say Death Comes to Time is valid?", it is "granted that Death Comes to Time is valid, do we acknowledge The Same Face as referring to the Minister of Chance". Thus, it's more analogous to the "can we talk about the Tomorrow Windows references on The Valeyard and The Doctor (Battlefield)" part of the discussion, where I don't believe you disagreed with keeping these references in the "day to come" sections…

As regards Faction Paradox: in part I meant that the BBC EDAs were able to use the Faction, and other War in Heaven elements, in The Ancestor Cell even after Miles (temporarily) walked. But I was in fact also referring to Same and Different in The Wintertime Paradox — similarly long postdating the original concept leaving the BBC for greener pastures, and similarly not quite fully, explicitly named, but so explicitly described that there can be, at the very least, no possible doubt about the intended reference. We acknowledge Same and Different as Faction members, and have from the start. Granted, it could also be a Homeworld Principle situation; we just don't know for certain…

(And of course, there's the Great Intelligence in The Snowmen — I think we have yet to locate a hard source for its appearance being technically unlicensed, but it provides, at least, a tangible hypothetical; if it should turn out to be true, would we really stop documenting Series 7 on Great Intelligence? Hell, would we hypothetically invalidate Dalek/stop listing it at Daleks - list of appearances, if there should turn out to have been a paperwork screwup that made it technically illegal? Much as it saddens me that BBC Who should get "special treatment" over other kinds of partially-unlicensed stories, I don't think there's really a way around it.)

And sure, "a fun easter egg or reference is not copyright violation", but The Same Face is all about "the Minister". It's not an easter egg or reference, it's the core of the plot, the character whose face is biggest on the cover. It's my turn to feel like I'm "going potty", honestly — I don't know how else to repeat that this is a story about a Time Lord going by "the Minister". The Minister of Chance himself is referred to as simply "the Minister" most of the time; again I return to my earlier Monk comparison. A Time Lord going by "the Monk", who ends his story intending to start interfering in the universe with someone saying that he might become "the Interfering Monk" or something, is not an easter egg reference to the Meddling Monk, let alone one which might pass muster at a copyright level. It's just… explicitly about the Meddling Monk. I truly, genuinely don't see how this is different from that, and am fairly surprised that, with the valid/invalid barrier removed, covering it as such is proving controversial.

Reasonable minds can always find ways to disagree — on this, Najawin has the right of it in the abstract — but I hope you can both at least see my end of this. I really don't think my line of argument deserves the name-calling that was thrown my way in the earlier parts of this discussion. On that note, as it's quite late in my time-zone and I have other things to be doing, I'll bow out of this very draining discussion for for the immediate future; please don't take it personally if I fail to engage with any further replies until then. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 02:04, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Can we get one thing straight, even if BF do not have the rights to the Minister The Same Face would not fail Rule 2 as they do not explicitly use anything copyrightable to the Minister of Chance. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 02:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Of course, see you later. (With that said, I think Talk:Ceol shows we're considering Canaries to be a T:HOMEWORLD issue. The Ancestor Cell would require some digging, but it certainly seems that the rights situations of the EDAs were similar to that of Classic Who.) Najawin ☎ 02:13, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Just got to the end of Scrooge's post. With them bowing out that most likely means this discussion will be shelved for the foreseeable leaving this as the default *sigh* Oh well. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 02:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

People have to sleep. I would encourage you to join in the threads in the Tardis:Temporary forums, so your voice can be heard in discussions like the one that prompted this. Najawin ☎ 02:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Do we have a statement of authorial intent in this case? Having listened to The Same Face, I think it's actually fairly ambiguous – for instance, Felicity Morgan's tenure as Minister of War is explicitly confined to the planet Samael, nor is it suggested that she'll leave in her "Minister of Luck" incarnation; and half the time her former position is referred to as "Minister of the War". I don't think it's speculative to note that the connection exists, but DrWHOCorrieFan's proposal of having separate pages for Minister of War (Before the Flood) and Minister of Chance, with in-universe prose on those pages discussing the potential connections, seems to me like the fairest way to cover the material. – n8 (☎) 18:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I can pretty confidently say that no statement of authorial intent has been made, nor will one likely be made. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 19:11, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps it's fair to say that there's intentional in-universe ambiguity, but I still consider it beyond reasonable doubt that the reference is intentional.

As a compromise solution along the lines of n8's suggestion, I propose keeping the in-universe prose in the relevant "A day to come"/"Eventual fate" sections, but:

• reworking Minister of Chance to be more solidly a Time Lord character page about "the Minister of Chance as more or less distinct from the Felicity Morgan Minister";
• removing the two MoCs from {{Ministers}};
• making the paragraphs discussing them at The Minister#The Minister's incarnations plain-text paragraphs rather than full bullet points (and removing them from the infobox image);
• creating a

  Incarnations of the Minister of Chance

  template.

This will be similar, though not quite identical, to how the whole Magnus/Master/War Chief matter was recently resolved. Thoughts? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with anything linking these two incarnations being in the main article of the text beyond "another Time Lord went by the name Minister" or something. The Minister of Chance being identified as a future incarnation in a section like "a day to come" literally just rehashes the problems we have at the minute. These incarnations are not confirmed to be the same, in-universe or by stated authorial intent, so having them identified as such in the article is fanfiction/speculation. Why are you so against just giving them a lengthily BTS section? DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 20:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Scrooge, I like your design. It seems like an agreeable compromise between the two positions. – n8 (☎) 20:19, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Scrooge's latest post seems to meet halfway through the demands; not entirely drawing the connection between the two characters, but not entirely dismissing the possibility and the in-texts hints/nudges. Feel free to implement it. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 22:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)