User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-27280472-20160323173732/@comment-188432-20160804190135

Fwhiffahder wrote: As I understand it though, before anyone can actually write any articles, there has to be a drawn-out debate with CzechOut, whose unwillingness to consider a story a valid source appears to vary proportionally with how distant it is from televised Doctor Who.

Equality of media is a bedrock principle of this wiki. It will never be otherwise, even though there are other users who, indeed, do call for Tardis to be solely about television.

Nobody comes to me and says, "Please, may I write an article?"

Still, it's important to note that this wiki at first struggled mightily with the question of what to include, and what not. For several of our early years, we were writing articles about things that were only very slightly related to the DWU — productions with shared stars and crews, but which were clearly not in the shared universe. Fan fiction was also an early concern. As time passed, we started down the path that led to our four little rules. And I do mean we. There were multiple participants in all these discussions.

Yet these rules are generally instinctual ones. Out of our total article count, easily less than .5% are ever even questioned in light of T:VS — and a smaller percentage even than that are controversial enough to require conversation.

That's why when a discussion does arise, it's important to have it. Knowing how to regard a certain property allows us to know what to do with it:

• If it's unlicensed by all the copyright holders, we don't cover it here in any way.
• If it's licensed, but either not a story or intended by the publisher to be parody or otherwise not a part of the DWU, then we can cover it in a limited way, but we need to make sure we clearly label it as NOTVALID.
• If it's licensed, and a non-parodic, occurs-within-the-DWU story, as is the case for the vast majority of things people want to write about here, then we just create articles normally.

Shambala108 wrote:

Fwhiffahder wrote: At what point is it concluded, though?

As always, when CzechOut makes a decision. As I have stated many times before, he helped write Tardis:Valid sources and understands the nuances better than anyone on the wiki, so his is usually the final word.

Just to make it clear, while I respect the implicit confidence Shambala's words place in me, I do not agree with her. As Revan has pointed out, this is very much a community, and there have been many discussions taken over the years which haven't involved me or which have gone contrary to my stated position.

As Revan also points out, the Vienna situation is unusual. Big Finish themselves have been ambivalent, and respondents to that thread have also been divided. As such, it doesn't seem to serve as a particular model for this case.

In fact, I have no opinion in this case and defer entirely to Revan, SOTO and everyone else in this thread. You all seem to have made a good faith effort to judge this case against T:VS, which is the point of every discussion in this part of the forum.