Theory talk:Timeline - Seventh Doctor

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post 2005 short trips/DWM Comics[[edit source]]

In the previous conversation the placement of these things was never resolved. So I am creating a new thread. My Evidence and arguments Short trips I think the post 2005 short trips should go after the PDAs because of release order.

DWM Comics These should be placed where the author intended except where contradictions are evident (The first 4 post survival ones need to take place shortly after survival instead of where the author intended. Tellymustard 02:19, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Wait, if nobody disagrees with using the few years statement in atom bomb blues to place it later it should be post 2003 short trips instead of post 2005. Tellymustard 02:36, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

During your exile, I experimented by restoring the timeline to its previous setting, after I read the archived discussion and it seemed to be that the majority where shifting towards the original line up, to see if a third party would edit the timelines to your proposed variation. No one did, so it seems that how it currently is is the favored version by the majority, so renewing the discussion seems unneeded.BananaClownMan 10:07, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
Just to note, I don't care about the timeline pages, I was simply restoring them because the issue didn't appear to be resolved as a third party. Y'all do whatever. Najawin 17:27, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

It seems this conversation is not resolved, so I would like to hear your reasoning on this. PS: I am yalking about the pre-vna wilderness years placement in general, not just the short stories. - Tellymustard 19:17, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Other issues with the timeline.[[edit source]]

Disregarding the back and forth over placement of specific novels and short stories that take place in the vicinity of Survival, there are other glaring issues with the timeline.. As it currently stands, it blatantly disregards Stripped for action? and ignores that a chunk of the DWM comics are set during a period after Paradise Towers where the Doctor and Mel temporarily part ways, per the article's own internal chronology.. Additionally, the post-Lungbarrow section of this timeline page is a complete mess. It has the TARDIS interior arbitrarily changing back and forth between the white console room and Victorian parlour design, authorial intent that the Klein arc is set after Kingdom of Silver is completely ignored, and The Sirens of Time is placed late in the Seventh Doctor's life despite the audio adaptation of Cold Fusion having him explicitly begin to refer to its events as being in his past before the Fifth Doctor interrupts him to tell him that hasn't happened for him yet. There's lots of glaring issues with the post-Lungbarrow part of the page that are in urgent need of addressing, IMO. Pluto2 (talk) 18:33, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Someone needs to clean up the post-lungbarrow stuff, I mean ur a older user so I think u should have a good amount of influence. Tellymustard 23:49, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

PS: but that is just my oppinion. About the post lungbarrow stuff, it is such a mess I think someone, probably u or sarahjanefan should create a sandbox for us all to edit and just entirely redo that part of the timeline. Like start by putting all the audios in order, then try to fit in the comics, then put the short stories where they fit.

Stripped for action is ignored because the fourth doctor section is inacurate, that conversation needs to be reopened though because that decision was made ages ago. Intertwining with the VNAs is another very similar problematic topic. I personally think we should follow these whereever no contradictions are present.

I also think we should make a list of how much influence each user should have ordered from most influence to least like this to make this orderly. 1. Sarahjanefan (counts as 2 people) 2. Pluto2 (counts as 1 person) 3. Bananaclownman (counts as 0.9 people) 4. Tellymustard (counts as 0.75 people) 5. IRegisteredforthetimelines (Counts as 0.75 people) 6. Any infrequent timeline editors should count as 0.5 people This would make voting and decision making much easier. Tellymustard 00:06, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Stepping in as an admin to say that we won't be ranking people's votes in the way User:Tellymustard suggests. Given the huge number of people who write for DW and their complete disregard for not just other writers' continuity but also their own, there are going to be discrepancies and stories that can't be reasonably placed. Discussion among editors can hopefully resolve these, but there won't be any voting where some users count less than others. Incidentally this whole need for speculation on timelines is why we moved the timelines out of the wiki's main namespace. Shambala108 00:20, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

K, I am sorry. I didnt know that I was violating the wiki's policies. Tellymustard 00:49, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I created a sandbox for anyone to edit for the purpose of reorganising the post-lungbarrow timeline. I placed all of the obvious stuff where it belongs so far. https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/User:Tellymustard/sandbox2 Tellymustard 21:24, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

In response to the comment about Cold Fusion and The Sirens of Time, the reference in question comes during a conversation between the two Doctors about the circumstances in which they can and cannot remember multi-Doctor events. They also refer to Day of the Doctor in the future tense and know that they will join with their other incarnations to save Gallifrey. This suggests to me that Doctors are able to unlock their memories of previous multi-Doctor events while in the middle of a multi-Doctor event. Therefore there’s no reason to say that the Seventh Doctor wouldn’t be able to recall the events of Sirens of Time from the perspective of being the Fifth and Sixth Doctors even if he hadn’t yet himself taken part in that incarnation. The Sirens of Time is blatantly supposed to take place in the TV Movie era of the Doctor's timeline so I don’t think it should be moved for the sake of an ambiguous line in an audio adaptation. SarahJaneFan 00:34, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
I completely agree with this, I dont think this is a problem at all. I have gotten the sandbox to a state where all the easy to place stories are placed in a reasonable order. What remains unplaced in the sandbox is the really hard to place stuff and we need to thoughogly discuss that stuff. Tellymustard 00:46, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
A Thousand Tiny Wings was placed before Kingdom of Silver due to the Doctor being played as young looking in the former as opposed to the latter. And Stripped for action? was rendered moot by later releases and a lack of narrative support to the Doctor leaving Mel to travel with Peri and Frobisher again. I do not know why these render the timeline a "mess", since both are explained on the page, but we can work on that together so the page is more coherent. I'm more curious why I seem to rank lowest at 0.9, when I was the one why organised these pages all the way back in 2014 and have been editing them the longest? I am tempted to consider this a personnel attack of disrespect towards a fellow user who should be of equal rank when not an Admin.BananaClownMan 10:25, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
Sorry about the 0.9 thing I really should of had that be like 1.2, but anyways we arent doing that because it was a breach of the wiki's policy, I honestly dont remember why I did that. I think it may of been because of a few unpopular edits I saw on talk pages, but considering you have been editing for so long those are bound to happen. I am sorry about that overall. With the klein stuff I dont agree with pluto22, it should definetely stay the way it is. But it should be said that the post-lungbarrow timeline is definetely a mess in general. With Stripped for action? I think there isnt narrative evidence against it being validated on this timeline either so it should be used I think. Tellymustard 19:53, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm getting kind of tired of this "it's a mess criticism"; it's one thing to call something a mess and provide conrext that can be discussed and reviewed, but apart from User:Pluto2's comments, which have been explained, no other examples have been given. If it does appear "messy", it's only because, unlike Disney's Star Wars, there is no one supervising continuity to avoid contradictions, especially during the Wilderness Years, where the bulk of these confusions appears to originate; it's up to fans like us to try to reconcile these stories together, since the publishers don't often acknowledge stories outside their jurisdiction. Heck, prior to the audio adaptation of Love and War, the post-Lungborrow section was even longer due to having the Hex audios there due to us fans not knowing where they sat in Big Finish's intent. Bottom line is, the whole timeline is gonna be seen as a mess by someone due to how they interpret how these ultimately unrelated stories connect.BananaClownMan 10:19, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
Just dropping in here to add that there's no way I should've been considered even close to Banana or even TM in 'weighting' (0.75) since I literally just asked a few broad questions about the rough placement of the BF vs VNA runs and the idea of multiple timelines and never actually edited the timeline page. (And yes I'm aware that the ranking thing ended up being a breach of policy but I'm just saying you overestimate my relevance given I haven't checked here in months). IRegisteredForTimelines 08:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

As a note to everyone who was involved with any timeline related conversation that I was involved in, I'm sorry for absolutely everything. That can't really mean very much I guess because there was no excuse for anything I did. I arrived at this wiki at a time I really shouldn't of and I feel like I took out all my stress on the people here lying to myself saying that I wasn't. I am especially sorry to bananaclownman, I was a absolute jerk to you in every way and straight out harassed you. I understand that my interactions with others were wrong and if I went back I would try my best to simply have peaceful discource. Tellymustard 19:54, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

DWM Placement[[edit source]]

I thought it would be best to have the post lungbarrow stuff and the DWM stuff in different sections. So this section is for discussing if stripped for action and intertwining with the VNA's should be considered valid to this timeline (That is the best way I can word it sorry if the use of the word valid is confusing). I agree with Pluto2 and fully support using both of these except where in-narrative contradictions are present. Tellymustard 21:53, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

My personal view on Stripped for action? is that creating a gap where Mel takes a break during Season 24 is undesirable when we don’t actually have a proper narrative reference to this. Especially as it’s only the first few stories. I feel like it just fits better to keep them with the later “Ace in the Cretaceous” stories. But if the majority want to move those early stories to Season 24, I’m willing to concede on that.
As for Interweaving with the New Adventures, my opinion is a bit stronger. That article was written in the context of its time, when DWM and Virgin were truly interweaved compared to today, where things are a bit more complicated. The DWM comics have an arc where the Doctor and Ace are unable to leave Earth from just before Battlefield until partway through these comics. Placing the Timewyrm Saga before the comics contradicts this. And we’ve now got evidence from the bbc novels that there was actually a sizeable gap of time between Survival and Timewyrm: Genesys, so I think it makes sense to allow the DWM comics to exist in their original context (these arcs began before Timewyrm: Genesys was released). I think the only reason the Timewyrm Saga was placed before the comics in Interweaving with the New Adventures was because the novel was supposed to take place right after Survival but that’s a little more blurry nowadays. SarahJaneFan 00:28, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
Well my oppinion on stripped for action is that it is authorial intent so it should be followed. For the Interweaving eith the new adventures thing, the first four comics (up to when the helix is released) it says are post timewyrm should be shortly after survival then I think the rest are completely fine being after the Timewyrm saga. If there are other contradictions I don't know of I may be wrong but I think that it mostly can be used as a source for these comics. Tellymustard 00:51, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
Indeed, User:SarahJaneFan and I went back and forth on this for a while until, as memory serves, we agreed to disagree, but still rendered them moot due to lack of narrative support and later releases being contradictory.BananaClownMan 10:28, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Admin note[[edit source]]

I'm still looking into certain issues that have been requested of me, but I have to make two things very clear here:

  • This is a group project, so ya'll need to learn how to get along without undoing each others' edits, entering into edit wars, or engaging in personal attacks. As I've said on this wiki a hundred times, the DWU is so convoluted and bloated that it's impossible to order it correctly, no matter how much we might want to. So there is no right and wrong answer when you don't have story evidence; it will come down to where you can best place things, and this is where you have to agree to disagree. Sometimes that means giving in on one issue while championing another.
  • And please note that per Tardis:Archiving policy, arguments must be cold (2 months old as the policy states) before the page can be archived.

Also a note of caution: working on these timelines on sandboxes or word documents off-site does not guarantee that your edits/placement will stay. There is no ownership of pages on this wiki, and everyone who edits has to understand that their edits can be changed/removed; that's the nature of a wiki. Shambala108 03:25, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Have no fear, User:Shambala108, the word document is just an easier way to note down release dates to help reorganise the arbitrary stories now that I have embraced the release date algorithm. And I would like to apologies for archiving the previous decisions; they just got so long and repetitive that I thought it was best to start afresh after the recent ones appeared to have concluded. An act of ignorance on the policy, I assure you.BananaClownMan 10:11, 20 December 2022 (UTC)