Template talk:Doctor Who

Phrasing

"DOCTOR WHO STORIES & ASSOCIATED SPIN-OFFS" probably doesn't help the average user who comes across this template understand what's going on and instead just confuses them with how sparse it is. Najawin ☎ 03:26, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I should rename it to "DOCTOR WHO (N-SPACE)"? I dunno, feel free to suggest something. I'm personally unhappy with what I currently called it, due to the inclusion of cast and crew, etc.

Epsilon 📯 📂

03:31, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Maybe? I think we should just bring this up as part of the Massive N-Space Thread That We'll Be Doing First Thing When The Forums Are Back. Najawin ☎ 03:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

With that said I quite like what SOTO just did. Najawin ☎ 04:22, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Conflation of two topics

It seems to me that this template has grown a bit past its remit, and is beginning to conflate actual instances of things we know in-universe to be attached to the in-universe version of the franchise with things that are merely references to people who have worked on the franchise out-of-universe. (There is a third instance here, one where we can reasonably attach their existence to the in-universe franchise through out-of-universe reasoning, or conjecture, such as BBC production team, but I'm not particularly concerned about that issue just yet.)

But pages like Niki Haringsma (For the Girl Who Has Everything), Timothy Dalton#In the DWU or Michael Moorcock (In the Sixties) have absolutely nothing to do with the in-universe franchise. We can quibble over things like Ayesha Antoine#In the DWU, but those three instances absolutely are a different sort of thing than the actual phenomena of a Doctor Who franchise existing in the DWU and some people from OOU having IU counterparts who are confirmed to work on it.

While I'm not against documenting these things, it seems to me deeply misleading to group them together, and would suggest at the very least a separate navbox. Najawin ☎ 21:20, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm. The point of this navbox, like with other navboxes such as {{Disney}} and {{Marvel Comics}}, is to collate info relavent to a topic, even if there isn't in-universe information to do so. Hence the conjecture notice at the bottom of the navbox.

If this information wasn't collected here, about in-universe versions of people who are connected to Doctor Who out of universe, where would we compile the info? On the Behind the scenes section of Doctor Who (N-Space)? If so, then that would be a long, unwieldy list. An out-of-universe page about this topic isn't helpful either.

Hence why I created this template.

Epsilon 📯 📂

22:30, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

But this template was originally created to be about the N-Space series, and associated people, etc, not merely things/people associated with the series out of universe who have in-universe counterparts. You literally created it with the title "Doctor Who stories & associated spin-offs". The pages Timothy Dalton#In the DWU etc have literally nothing to do with Doctor Who (N-Space), so clearly they wouldn't belong in the BTS section of that page. Nor are they similar at all to the phenomena discussed in the rest of the template. If you want a new template, say, "N-Space counterparts of Doctor Who cast and crew" (and maybe then add in related people as well, like authors for books), that's a different manner. But it really has nothing to do with Doctor Who (N-Space). Najawin ☎ 22:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Don't tell me that I did someting that I did not do. From the very beginning I included individuals on the template like Lalla Ward, despite her having no connections (yet) to the in-universe series. And yes, individuals like Timothy Dalton do have something to do with the in-universe series, from an out of universe perspective. Templates are also out of universe, so including links to pages like Timothy Dalton is useful for readers and prospective authors who might want to know if a certain real world individual exist in the DWU.

Just today, I discovered a wealth of new info in the A Letter from the Doctor series, that has already given me an in-universe source for Peter Capaldi, as well as info yet to be added, such as pages for all the in-universe Doctor Who Storybooks.

Epsilon 📯 📂

23:42, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Forgive me, "the template purported to be created about the N-Space series originally". That doesn't refer to your intentionality, merely the facts of the matter. The things you're referring to aren't useless, they aren't things I'm suggesting we do away with. I'm rather pointing out that they're not the same sort of thing as the phenomena of the in-universe franchise. I have suggested, since my very first comment, that these things still be documented, and documented in a similar way to how they currently are. It's the grouping of them with the N-space series that I object to. These are qualitatively different things. Nothing in your comments begins to respond to this. (Also, saying that Timothy Dalton played, for instance, Rassilon, in the N-space series, is not something we can know OOU. It's just complete speculation.) Najawin ☎ 23:58, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Invalid info

So now that Tom Baker stars in John Lloyd's lost Doctor Who adventure, The Doomsday Contract is invalid, some of the articles in this template are also invalid. While some of it already had valid pages (e.g. Lalla Ward (The Dying Days)) and can stay here with the info relegated to a BTS section on the actual pagr, a fair amount is from invalid sources only (e.g. John Lloyd (radio producer)). And I wouldn’t be surprised if there are future releases that are invalid but have information about in-universe Doctor Who.

So I think this template can include these things, but it should be clear they are invalid. I suppose something similar to what is done for Template:Master stories would work, where invalid info that fits into a subsection gets an area there, and another subsection at the bottom for the invalid stuff that doesn’t fit into any of them. (I think as of now, the latter is unnecessary, but it may need to be added in the future.) Chubby Potato ☎ 20:46, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Well looking at the template again, it seems there's some stuff there that already is invalid, for example The Doctor Who Cookbook (book). So I suppose we can keep it as is and let readers find articles are invalid once they click on the page. I'm not really sure which route to take. Chubby Potato ☎ 20:51, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Creating sub sections for invalid material works well on templates such as {{Master stories}}, but on this template, its already got sub sections so creating more inside the already crowded template would make this template look bad. Perhaps we could mark invalid material in bold?

But as it stands, I've just been going with the latter example that you mentioned. A lot of these invalid stories are supposed to take place in the DWU, but they're invalid because they're from The Collection trailers for example.

Epsilon📯 📂

20:57, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Woah woah woah. No, I'm sorry, we must separate invalid and valid sections in this thing like with the Master stories navbox, no two ways about it. This is not arguable.

Additionally, per T:BOUND, the Wiki's understanding is that being a trailer means a story fails Rule 4 and wasn't really intended to take place in the DWU. You're welcome to disagree personally with this ruling (I do, personally), but such private disagreements cannot be taken into account when formulating new Wiki policy. That is in fact what T:BOUND is all about. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 22:44, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Two similar navboxes already exist

Template:DWU DW stories and Template:DWU Doctor Who stories are two existing navboxes that seem to have gone almost completely forgotten. The first one is actually being used on a select few pages already.

I believe this one is overall superior, but what should be done about these other two? WaltK ☎ 20:30, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

This actually predates Template:DWU Doctor Who stories. I'm not entirely sure how we should handle this, given that Epsilon went ahead and created the latter as well, and the former does exist. Some level of clarification definitely is needed. And the issue I raised above about the template seeming to refer to two distinct things still hasn't been resolved. Najawin ☎ 10:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

While I'm not sure why this needs clarification, as I find the purposes of each to be self-evident, I will still do so:

• {{Doctor Who}} is for the grouping of in-universe stories — and also other concepts such as in-universe companies — that direct parallels to the "real world" equivalents; i.e., have been said to explicitly be a part of the in-universe franchise.
• {{DWU DW stories}} is for the grouping of in-universe stories about the Doctor, that don't directly parallel anything from the real world, e.g., Sarah Jane's Doctor books or Doctor X.
• {{DWU Doctor Who stories}} is a wholly out-of-universe Category about real world stories that feature elements concerning the in-universe series, a la {{Master stories}} or {{Dalek stories}}.

Now I feel that each category serves a pretty different purpose and therefore I am not sure why it is being proposed we get of some.

However, that isn't to say that there templates couldn't have better names, or perhaps certain things should be removed from them, as I was pretty overboard with how I handled metafiction-y stuff a year or so back, (I understand I probably annoyed a lot of people, especially with those dabless names!), so perhaps something like BBV (Varunastra) could go. Also, these templates should be added to the pages linked, although I am embroiled in other projects right now so I shan't be able to do it myself.

Epsilon📯 📂

11:42, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Also, I don't feel it wise to merge anything into {{Doctor Who}}, as I've already had to split content into templates such as {{Doctor Who individuals}}.

Epsilon📯 📂

11:44, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Forgive me, but

{{DWU DW stories}} is for the grouping of in-universe stories about the Doctor, that don't directly parallel anything from the real world

is subtly untrue, as it has a section for those accounts that parallel things from our real - linking back to {{Doctor Who}}. But it lists this as simply a specific account of the Doctor in television not all the real world related production issues as well. Similarly, the template explicitly links to (I note also that not all of the pages in this template are what you say they are, see: Cosgrove Hall) Similarly, the template explicitly links to Doctor Who (N-Space) and we don't yet have consensus on the spinoffs being connected to Doctor Who in universe iirc, so this is also an issue. The same issue exists on {{Doctor Who individuals}}. You're explicitly referencing the in-universe show, but then making use of out of universe classifications.

As for {{DWU Doctor Who stories}}, no, that's fair enough, I've been off the wiki, flipped to it, saw that it was created after and was confused. You're absolutely right on that one. Najawin ☎ 18:38, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Okay, so perhaps the link to {{Doctor Who}} should be removed from {{DWU DW stories}}. I only added it as I felt some may want a link to that information.

I had linked, IIRC, Cosgrove Hall as there was an invalid story that mentioned it, and I was going through my phase of wanting all in-universe counterparts to be undabbed, so I had expected Cosgrove Hall to be moved to Cosgrove Hall (studio) or something.

As for the final point, I was indeed making a connection to in-universe counterparts of spin-offs that haven't said to be connected in-universe, as templates allow conjectural grouping, so I felt it best, for the convenience of having one place on the Wiki that links to every in-universe counterpart of something to do with Doctor Who; there is no page like List of in-universe counterparts of the real world Doctor Who franchise, so I felt this template was place to link everything.

Epsilon📯 📂

19:25, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

The spinoff issue is actually part of a broader problem, which perhaps I wasn't clear enough on.

You're explicitly referencing the in-universe show, but then making use of out of universe classifications.

Was the real complaint here, the spinoffs being but the most obvious example. I apologize for that. Niki Haringsma (For the Girl Who Has Everything), Vitas Varnas (Omega), and Antonio Amaral (Omega) have nothing to do with the franchise in universe. It's not even conjectural - the characters in universe are substantively different from the real world counterparts. (There might be others, these are the three that caught my eye.) The template is conflating different things because it has this confusion about what it's trying to do. Which I complained about above and you've admitted here. Najawin ☎ 20:30, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

For future reference…

For some reason, if a list has a single item in it, and I remove that item, the list stops showing up on the final product.

For example: I removed The Pilot from the Series 10 section, as a result the Series 10 section ceased to exist instead of just showing up as blank.

What am I doing wrong here? WaltK ☎ 17:23, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Series' 3 and 10 stop showing up in the navbox after I remove their content.

Added picture. WaltK ☎ 17:28, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

You're not doing anything wrong, this is just how navboxes normally operate. Why should the row show up if there's no longer anything in it? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:46, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Well normally, @Scrooge MacDuck's assertion is correct — if nothing is in the "|list1 = " field, for example, it shouldn't show up. But because in the "|group1 = " field, I have linked to a specific page, I felt that the list needed to show up. To "fix" this issue, I used unicode: "ㅤ" (U+3164) allows me to add a space, which to us is invisible, but Fandom's software allows the list to show up.

Epsilon📯 📂

19:15, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Splitting

The bigger this nav gets - and how much more of a headache it can be to edit as a result - I believe this could do with being split up. A nav specifically for televised Who, one for spin-offs, and so on. WaltK ☎ 19:49, 1 February 2024 (UTC)