User talk:Najawin/Archive 4

	This page is an archive. Please do not make any edits here. Edit the active conversation only.

Saying hi

Hey, I saw Scrooge merged City (The Aztecs) into Tenochtitlan and it made me think of you. I hope your absence is due to good things only! – n8 (☎) 20:12, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Welcome back! How we have missed you! The forums aren't back yet, but that's only because I've been stalling everyone: I wanted to make sure you didn't miss too much… I'll give them the go-ahead now! (I wish!) Very sorry to hear that the circumstances keeping you away have been less than happy, but I'm glad you're still around and hope we can catch up soon. :) – n8 (☎) 02:43, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Welcome back!

Very glad to have you back, friend(?)! And sorry to hear things have been rough. No, still no Forums just yet (though wheels are in motion), but still some good work done. You were missed, though! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 00:39, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

More FP Wikification never goes amiss! And yours was a very high standard of it. Though if other projects catch your eye, that's quite alright too. Regarding Golden Age, no, I feel no sense of property over the page, and have been feeling quite bad that I fell off Wikification as I finished my reading, leaving it with that poor little stump of a summary. I'd be very happy (though again, no obligation) if you decided to finish it. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 12:22, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Re: SMW

Hi, I'd completely forgotten about my SMW guide and I'm glad you've found it useful. I should really get round to finishing it at some point. You can set hidden SMW "tags" using the #set parser function. For your example, you would place the following on Cobweb and Ivory (short story):

{{#set:TheEnemy=Cernunnos}}

Ideally, this would be wrapped in a template like {{Wales crew}} or {{Infobox Story}} but it certainly doesn't have to be.

By Eragon, are you referring to the fantasy book series with a film and video game adaptions? If so, I love that series but I can't think where the Doctor Who references would be. With Transformers, I actually can't believe that it was missed out of the diagram on my user page . That's a big omission. Bongo50 ☎ 11:22, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Wow! I read Eragon before I got into Doctor Who and haven't yet got round to rereading it (it's on my pile of books to read/reread, though) so this is awesome to find out about. I am aware of Cultural references to the Doctor Who universe but I've never really read through it. Bongo50 ☎ 19:21, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Re: Capaldi interview

Ahh, bugger, thanks for letting me know. I've archived the relevant bits at User:NateBumber/Capaldi interview. – n8 (☎) 13:04, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

"On mobile", "without Ctrl+F", "for a limited period of time" is exactly the kind of not we use case we should have in mind. You shouldn't need Ctrl+F or a lot of time to find the most important details about a topic: as an example, last night I wanted a quick refresher on Stanley Kubrick, and by skimming the first few paragraphs of his Wikipedia page on my phone, it was trivially easy to find his death date and most notable works within seconds. In contrast, right now you can't even answer the question (for instance) "what episode did the Twelfth Doctor regenerate in?" without scrolling 2/3rds of the way down Twelfth Doctor. The way we prioritize information on pages is broken – but it is fixable. Currently I suspect subpages will be a part of the answer. – n8 (☎) 14:33, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Re: actor and crew preload

Hi, I'm not SOTO, but I'm pretty certain that the edit to the preload was made erroneously so I have recerted it. Bongo50 ☎ 12:07, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Sandbox edits

Hello! Saw your last few edits to The Sandbox. On two of the later points I think your worries may be misplaced. With regards to Adventures in Lockdown — its status as a charity work of sorts is known, but then, so are all the Comic Relief specials and more. There is vast precedent for BBC Who works to be covered even if they were part of charity events, and I think the book's position is secure, though in point of fact its existence could be used as a precedent in a thread wanting to revisit the coverage of e.g. charity stories with a licensed Iris.

And as to Time (mythology) — covering the different depictions of Time on one page is part of a wider effort to keep DWU depictions of mythological beings in one place. I think it's clear that a single Zeus that acknowledges different accounts of his true nature/origins, in a The Doctor's species spirit, is much more useful than the undisciplined labyrinth of separate pages for "Zeus as a deity worshipped by historical characters", "Zeus in Deadly Reunion" and "Zeus in The Life Bringer! that we had to deal with before, you know? Covering Time on a single page is the logical extension of that; and it's all the more justified, even from a watsonian point of view, with the allegorical entities depicted — among others — as Menti Celesti, since Platt himself suggested that the core conceptual entities could have many different incarnations each, not just the ones seen in the VNAs. (Also, T:SPOIL prevents, but I have knowledge of certain upcoming releases with an incidence on the specific Time case, that would tip the scales yet further towards keeping them all on one page.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:54, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Sorry to be a gadfly again, but Tardis:Valid sources already enshrines "multiple-choice" series where an in-universe timey-wimey gimmick means all the paths are true as valid, giving Flip-Flop as an example! (EDIT: Oh, I see you already mentioned as much on the story talk page. Mh. The "you" is a fair cop, but see my reply there.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:06, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Russell Mcgee

I've protected the page for now to only allow autoconfirmed users, which hopefully means new named users can't edit it (at least that's what it used to mean). Keep me posted if you see something else that I miss. Thanks Shambala108 ☎ 18:19, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

I feel like this is getting over my head and maybe another admin who is more current on these things could help, but you are not being a creep. We have a strict rule, that is based on the definition of FANDOM (made by and for fans), and it's important to keep any self-promotion off the wiki for that reason and also just for fairness. So keep up the good work. Shambala108 ☎ 17:16, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest User:Scrooge MacDuck or User:OncomingStorm12th. They both seem up on latest release info, validity, authors, what-have-you. Shambala108 ☎ 19:41, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Erasing Sherlock

No, unfortunately I do not have a physical copy. As a result it's really never been clear to me what exactly the differences are between the digital and physical versions, or even how many physical or digital versions exist. Sheesh. Maybe I'll poke around and see if I can get some more clarity on this point if nothing else. – n8 (☎) 00:39, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't familiar, no, but these rock! Can already tell I'll be going deep down this rabbithole… Thank you! – n8 (☎) 01:59, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, Blood Ties: Inside the Grandfather's House (short story) is still a redlink, but it's probably the clearest explanation we have. Archive link – n8 (☎) 21:18, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

RE: Thomas Milligan

Yeah, it could be a localisation issue. I'm pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that the episode had little bits and pieces cut off in some versions in America (and maybe other places too). LauraBatham ☎ 08:36, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Re: SMW User Rights

Hi. Yeah, I know about these user groups. Currently, they don't really restrict what I can so with SMW. There's a few things that I would need them for, but I currently haven't had to do those things yet. I actually have loose plans to apply for admin and probably also these rights once forums are back and I've been able to propose and hopefully implement some of my technical projects (mostly my citations template), but that'll probably be a while. Bongo50 ☎ 11:45, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Concerns with self promotion

Hey, sorry that I'm only getting back to you now, but the middle of the week is usually a bit busier for me. Now, I've taken some time looking at this and my personal thoughts on the matter are: I also don't think it's the greatest precedent that people so closely related to the matter of an article to be the one to write it, but it's technically allowed.

That said, and with your concerns of plagiarism in mind, I'll leave a message on Solt's asking her that, in the future, if she wishes to make and edit to someone's page, that it be original text rather than adapting a pre-existing biography. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 19:23, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Blood Ties

Hi, sorry for the delay in my response! The FP website was updated 5 times, which is reflected by the "First Edition" – "Fifth Edition" text on the main page. The same page gives a date for each update, which was very helpful (for us) of them to do; these dates are listed on The Spiral Politic Database, which iirc appeared in the second edition. With the exception of A Tour of the Capital, everything in the Spiral Politic Database was written by Lawrence Miles. This is confirmed in a few different places. I have no opinion as to whether or not Blood Ties specifically is narrative, but it was reprinted in full in The Book of the War –

All the material in this book is the copyright of its original authors (2002), except for The Faction Paradox Family, © Lawrence Miles 2001.

– so there'd be little point in it being invalid! – n8 (☎) 13:25, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I see Nate has already obviated the problem! But yes, in terms of policy, if we lacked a release date and/or author for a story, those fields should be left blank in the infobox. (If we know something like "there's hard evidence it was somewhere between 1964 and 1967", that can then be discussed in BTS.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:29, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

The Off-Cuts and Afterthoughts all came from the scripts for The Eleven Day Empire and The Shadow Play, which were also posted on the website and archived, so you could probably reconstruct them from there! – n8 (☎) 17:47, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Re: BBV scripts

In the abstract I'd be happy to send ye forth the script to Sabbath and the King, or indeed the recording; but obviously such a thing cannot be done, or linked, on the Wiki. We come once again to the matter of how you may be contacted other than the Wiki… I suppose at a push I may send you a message on your Community Central message wall?… Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:22, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Subpages

Oh no, I've just noticed your comment on my sandbox. I really didn't mean any offense! That comment was intended completely lovingly; you know what a fan I am of your plot descriptions – I was just taking the opportunity to highlight one of your best and most thorough. Sincerely hoping I'm missing a joke, I'd really hate if it came off as an attack. Just in case, I've swapped the link out with a different example of the same effect. – n8 (☎) 17:30, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Okay, thank god, lol. It's a good riff, I just fell for it a little too hard 😅 Well, your summary makes sense to me, for whatever little that's worth! In your absence I tried to think of a way to rearrange it so there's a single section for the North storyline, South, etc, but there's just no use. It's that kind of story! – n8 (☎) 17:41, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Re:Personal information

Jesus, thank you for alerting me! Left the page open for edits of autoconfirmed users, as there's potential useful edits to be done in the future, and users with accounts are "easier" to mediate, so to speak. If needs must (and I hope it doesn't get to that) I can further protect it so that only admins can edit it. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 17:25, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Hm, I don't think I can, but I'll leave a message on Czech's talk page. Thanks again. :) OncomingStorm12th ☎ 18:38, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Re: Crikeytown

I would, yes! It's clearly part of the story. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 07:24, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Regarding this edit, this seems wholly within the parameters of the "mention of a Cyberman in An Ordinary Man" thing/Talk:Legacies (short story); those elements don't actually appear, there's just a brief mention of some characters having dressed up as them. That doesn't require licensing. Indeed, there is another layer here, which is that it's all being referenced as a work of fiction (and not with any overt meta shenanigans), which also doesn't generally legally require licensing, except for specific things like song lyrics. I really don't think the story is at any risk of being deemed a Rule 2-breaker under current precedent. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 07:12, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Neither option is acceptable, I'm afraid. We can't miscategorise them as Crikeytown residents because "close enough", but the Rule of Three is absolute and brooks no exceptions. My unconventional suggestion would be a merged Category:Crikeytown or Dunfunnin individuals, in the same spirit as Category:Silurians and Sea Devils and other such occasions where we cut (or rather merged) a categorisation Gordian knot regarding two closely-related categories. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 14:20, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Please forgive me

Won't redo that. How though? – The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Sum41Champ (talk • contribs) .

Reply re forums

Hey there! Just replying here in response to the Discussions thread. That is a public discussion you linked re temporary forums, is that something you want Czech's involvement in? Have you tried asking for his input? I also see Bongo gave an option for DPL forums minus the archive which Czech may be open to. --Spongebob456 ^talk <staff/> 21:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Excellent! Might be a good move where all of us can get involved perhaps and have a conversation. I know you're keen to work with Czech on it. Did you want to message Czech with a link to the thread perhaps and see what he says? I'm happy to pass on of course, but might be worth that approach of going direct. I'm here to help though, want to emphasise that, and my talk page/Discord always open! --Spongebob456 ^talk <staff/> 19:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Re: Community consensus

Ahh, interesting reply from Spongebob456 above, I'd missed that. Seems like CzechOut is the person to go through, then, although Spongebob456 should certainly be kept in the loop whenever the admins decide to make their move.

I hear what you're saying. "Our chances are better the more people we have." I guess my question is, "Our chances … of what?"

• Getting admin support? We already have it. There's admin consensus on this issue.
• Getting an admin to request it of CzechOut? That should be a matter of time.
• Getting CzechOut to approve the request? He seemed reasonably apologetic in his latest comments on this topic: they were phrased as "please wait a couple weeks" rather than "you cannot do this until I complete the archives". Based on what he wrote there, there's actually nothing stopping us from enacting SOTO's original temporary forums proposal; the current hold-up is because we want to do it right, and that will require FANDOM's help on the DPL side of things.

I'm optimistic that it's still simply a matter of asking. We just need an admin to tell CzechOut to reenable DPL forums, and then stand firm / push back if he tries insisting on restoring the archives first or promising a new deadline. The current silence is simply because our admins are (a) dragging their feet in terror of the big bad bureaucrat, or hopefully (b) taking the time to carefully draft their message. In my view, taking the time to run a poll would just give them a further reason to delay, which is the opposite of what we need.

But given how long we've already been waiting, odds are that they won't act during the time period in question, anyway; so if you're going to go ahead with a census, might I make a suggestion? Tardis talk:Temporary forums is bogged down with loads of history and conversation from months ago, and it also seems from Spongebob's response above that the URL might cause some confusion – what we're proposing is anything but temporary. So I've just ported a bunch of conversation over to Forum talk:Index. (While the Forum namespace is closed, Forum talk is still open.) That will be a better home for "showing CzechOut" purposes, and it will provide more room to conduct a census.

My other suggestion is that you use the traditional Wikipedia-style proposal voting format, as currently only used on Tardis:User rights nominations/Archive. Let's make it an example of what a forum thread would look like, and demonstrate why the DPL forum format is better than using discussions! In practice this would just mean creating a structured section for people to vote "For" or "Against" on the specific DPL reactivation proposal. This would make things more organized and provide a very clear way to watch the number of users commenting in support. In fact, maybe I should have preemptively gone ahead and rearranged the comments on the page to use this format. Oh well! – n8 (☎) 15:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Re:Welcoming new users

Ugh, that's very much annoying (and surprising that no one's noticed it before. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!). But yeah, this is definitely something that's out of my league. I'll contact Spongebob456 and see if he can help us. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 15:45, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for {{Welcome}}-ing User:Deriksmith. But for future reference: please don't do it anymore. With the help of Spongebob and Bongo50, I've set up an fix which *should* start welcoming them automatically in the (near)-future (aka, as soon as possible/as soon as codes are reviewed and take place), and it'll be useful to see if/when it starts taking place. But again, thank you for the initiative. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 15:30, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, no probs. As of the time I wrote you my last message, it was half solved, but now it's fully working! Anyway, t'was good that you did a few extra welcomes (though I suspect the .js solution would've caught up with them eventually). Anyway, let's get onto some editing for the new content. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 20:19, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Re: sandboxes

I think you'd be pretty safe, yes. There is broad precedent for sandboxes of pages which current coverage policies forbid, but which people have in good faith argued ought to be on the Wiki at some point. I'm not quite sure where we would stand on creating user pages documenting random ao3 fanfics with no particular claim to notability, but charity anthologies and the like — sure. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 07:15, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh yes, both of those seem entirely A-OK for sandbox coverage. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 13:12, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Re: Twitter

Yes, for some reason I run the (unofficial) Twitter account. Do you mean the recent news about where Doctor Who will be streamed in future or is there something else that I've missed? Bongo50 ☎ 22:09, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Ok. It's 11:30pm in the UK right now so I can't Tweet anything today but this seems like a great idea for tomorrow. Thanks! Bongo50 ☎ 22:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Forums

Hi Najawin! I got your message on my talk page. Sure thing, I'm happy to contribute to the discussion and express my support for the change - the wiki is in desperate need of a proper forums discussion area again. However, I noticed - per the link you sent - that no discussion has occurred there since October 20th. Is that the correct page for me to voice my contribution? Hope all is well! Snivy ✦ The coolest Pokemon ever ✦ 14:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi! Happy New Year! Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it. Snivy ✦ The coolest Pokemon ever ✦ 18:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Unregistered contributor(s) and BBC America

Sorry for the delayed reply, middle-of-the-weeks have become a busier time for me. Regarding the former: gaaaaaaaah, I don't think there's anything *effective* we can do about it. It's rather unfortunate, because they're *almost* useful edits, but the amount they happen makes it so that there's so much cleanup to do.

Now regarding the latter: I honestly have no idea. I don't know the specifics of the deal Czech made with BBCA, so you'd need to check with him, really. In any case, the news seems like the perfect opportunity to revamp our theme(s), which I find extremely good news! OncomingStorm12th ☎ 17:40, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think you're insane at all! I remember something about a deal with BBCA, and that we couldn't just change the current theme to, say, our old blue/white one because of it. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 20:31, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

There is no current agreement with BBCA, as they are the outgoing distributor in the US. As it will be about a year before the next episode, there is not currently an incoming deal either. However, there could well be some activity in the second half of next year, as obviously Disney+ will want to make some noise about their aquisition, as their streaming deal comes closer to fruition.
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  23:42: Wed 16 Nov 2022

Re: Vandals

Done. Thank you for suggesting it! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 20:21, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Re: Weird wiki list comprehension thing

Hi. Generally, this sort of thing is a job for DPL which is designed for generating lists of pages. Certainly, the uses and notuses parameters could be used to get a list of all pages using {{Infobox Story}} that don't use {{invalid}}. The problem is that DPL is slow and inefficient and generating a list this big (more than 8,000 pages use {{Infobox Story}}!) would probably slow down the entire wiki momentarily.

This then brings us to SMW. SMW also isn't particularly fast from a performance perspective. I feel like it would be faster than DPL but I've never tested it. SMW works off of properties so, in this case, we'd need to create Property:Valid with the Boolean datatype. We could then query all pages for which this property is true. Assignment of this property could be automated by having it done in {{Infobox Story}} based on whether or not it detects that {{Invalid}} is on the page (as {{Invalid}} is placed above {{Infobox Story}}, this is trivial).

While DPL is designed to do stuff like this, I'd lean towards using SMW as having a valid property would just be helpful for queries in general. Moreover, it would allow for more power in our queries and results format than DPL can offer. So yes, this is definitely feasible. Bongo50 ☎ 10:44, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Re:Tarpok

Thanks for bringing that up! I've (partially) protected these pages for autoconfirmed users only, so hopefully that'll solve our problems. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 22:50, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Re: Hellscape 5 and 6

I haven't listened to them myself, in part due to their reputation of being truly awful as well as being produced by post-controversy BBV, however I do know from personal interaction that @NateBumber has listened to them, so he'd be able to help you. (Though I'd recommend talking about them on the FP Wiki IMO.)

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

12:36, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Seventh Doctor Timeline

If you go to the talk page archives most of the issue was resolved. The only things that were left unresolved was the placement of the short trips and if in general misc short stories should be placed before or after the PDAs, But a lot of the placement issues in that conversation were definetely resolved. https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Theory_talk:Timeline_-_Seventh_Doctor/Archive_1 Tellymustard ☎ 00:55, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh, ok. that makes sense. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tellymustard (talk • contribs) .

Re: For(u)m Letter

Thanks for inviting me to the discussion regarding the forums. I'm sorry for not replying sooner, I've been less active on the wiki for the last few months due to work and contemplating how to resolve the discussion on the Doctor of War audios, but I'll try and take a look through the forum discussion and see what's been said already, and throw in my thoughts as well. Hope you have a good Christmas and new year!Thalek Prime Overseer ☎ 23:53, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Digital availability

Do we have this conversation archived anywhere? because I am curious about this. Tellymustard ☎ 19:18, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh, ok. I understand that entirely. Thank you for taking the time to reply to this. Tellymustard ☎ 19:36, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Re: This Town Cover

Fair enough, although the deletion reason being the file name made me assume that was the only reason - I'll try to read edit summaries in future (although, really, it should've been tagged as a duplicate imo). Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 22:43, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the pre-existing image, for reference? Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 22:54, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Death Comes To Time

Ah, probably just a misread on my part of something that I thought would support the case, sorry about that. I'll go over the talk page soon Editoronthewiki ☎ 04:42, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Response to your welcome

Hello, Najawin! Thank you for your kind word, greatly!! <3

I have read through a lot of the Tardis:Help page and other related things you sent me before I began editing, but thank you anyway! And thank you a lot for telling me not to copy-paste information, as i could have ended up doing that more by accident if you hadn't. (I seem to recall seeing small noun pages which had almost copy-pasted info, but now I look back on it, i dont think it was exactly copy-pasted. So again, thank you)

Also, im glad you appreciate the fact im an FP fan! Personally, i have read The Book of the War, Alien Bodies, Interference, and both audio series (and im getting TToP5+This Town+Shadows of Avalon in the post soon), so I do have some narrativr knowledge, but a lot of my knowledge is from this wiki itself. In fact, reading this wiki for hours on end over the COVID-19 Lockdown is what got me interested in FP in the first place! So im ever-grateful for its coverage on this wiki.

I am using the source editor already, as adviced by Bongo50, but thank you.

(Side note, my user page will look prettier when my phone starts working properly)

Good tidings, Etty ☎ 15:13, 1 January 2023 (UTC)Etty

planet Djinn page edit

What did you edit it with? – The preceding unsigned comment was added by JamesMaster12 (talk • contribs) .

Re: Forums

Yes! We have. But good thought! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 09:17, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

RE: Temporary Forums

Hi. I thought I'd better reply here as it's a different topic than the discussion thread we were on. I've had a look at the temporary forums, but so far I have nothing new to add. I'm gonna keep an eye out though, so I may end up contributing. It's good to have them anyhow :) LauraBatham ☎ 00:56, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Re: Vandalism + Lock page

Thanks. The anon has been blocked and the page protected. Bongo50 ☎ 11:37, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

This prefix actually seems to be a bit of an edge case, left over from the old series prefixes and now only used to prefix links to annuals in places such as DWM 389#Reviews and 2012 (releases)#August which is different to the usage outlined on its page. Therefore, I'm just going to turn the page into a redirect to Doctor Who annual. Bongo50 ☎ 13:14, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Temporary forums, Curse, validity

I have put forward a proposed update to T:VS at Tardis:Temporary forums which I believe would, if successful, obviate the need for specific debates on Death Comes to Time and The Curse of Fatal Death. As you supported the proposal for a new inclusion debate for the former, and are the standard-bearer for reexamining the current standing of the latter, I thought you may want to give that proposal a read. If you agree with the proposal, I trust you'll agree that we had best see if it passes before we start either of those two debates, so, unorthodox as it may be, may I prevail upon you to (temporarily, if need be) remove your support from the DCtT thread and put Curse on hold, to ensure that the wider proposal reaches the top of the list first? Entirely up to you, this is obviously a request as a fellow editor and Forum-goer, not a demand from an admin. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:06, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. (It climbed faster than I feared it might.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:58, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Citations etc.

I've been using "et al." fairly universally to refer to sources, frankly because I think it's prettier; but upon Googling earlier today, I was rather embarrassed to find that the use of "et al." in academic citations is usually reserved for people, whereas "etc." is used when a list is of objects. Wondering what your response to that definition would be? – n8 (☎) 23:27, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Not as doomed as all that, I'd say, myself! Should we decide to — say — replace "etc." with "et al." across the board, we could plausibly enforce that across the Wiki with a bot run. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 00:07, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Bound

You may be interested in Tardis talk:You are bound by current policy. – n8 (☎) 14:10, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Non-narratives

Hiya @Najawin, I see you've started Wikifying the opening post for the thread on the validity of non-narrative fiction, and therefore I feel I ought to help. Back in 2020, @Scrooge MacDuck did some research into non-narratives, finding the absurd reasons why an entire genre is invalid. This was lost when the thread he posted it in got deleted along with every other thread, but I have been able to recover parts. Please check out User:Epsilon the Eternal/Non-narrative fiction for his full documentation which is highly enlightening.

Also, would you mind if I had permission to edit your draft for the opening post? I feel I could add a bit as I have recently been dealing with non-narrative fiction a lot and feel I understand certain areas well.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

15:12, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Despite their histories being connected, I'm not sure discussion of non-linear narratives is best handled here. With non-narratives, I feel there it isn't going to be simple, given there are differences between non-narrative fiction told from an in-universe perspective and from an out-of-universe perspective, and discussion of non-deigetic references with the OOU perspective non-narrative fiction.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

16:15, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Hey! I think your OP's pretty good; one quibble, though — please refer to "branching" or, better yet, "interactive" narratives, not "non-linear" ones. Many valid novels and the like are "non-linear" in the sense of the narrative jumping around, even though, once you pull the threads back together, there's only one sequence of events being depicted. And then there's your experimental pieces with a timey-wimey gimmick… Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:55, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi again, wanna point out that your statement "As for the idea that many of the non narrative pieces of fiction are crap, this isn't for us to adjudicate. It's neither here nor there." can be backed up T:VS, which specifically states: "We also specifically do not consider the quality of the narrative when deciding whether to exclude a story." I feel citing the policy here could strengthen your well-made point.

Also! I have finished my opening post — at User:Epsilon the Eternal/Non-narrative fiction/OP — which you may want to read over as I have lot of information that would complement your opening post well. I don't wanna tread on your toes, so feedback would be helpful. I was planning to post my opening post underneath yours in the eventual forum thread, which I feel could be easier to do than just merging the two together.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

18:44, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Re: Warring

It is clearly edit warring, and us users who are trying to prevent these kinds of inaccurate edits are still only supposed to act within the three revert rule even if we know our edit is correct (as from the incorrect user's perhaps less educated view they also think that they know their way is correct). I think User:Sum41Champ will likely receive a more lengthy ban for this, and perhaps User:Epsilon the Eternal will be warned (although I think a short-term ban may be more acceptable considering there has been incidents like this from him in the past). I'd suggest leaving it to an admin now to avoid getting in trouble yourself, but obviously I'm not an admin so can only give my advice. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:27, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

My edits weren't intended to be direct attempts at edit warring as I did try to constructively explain my reasoning. Perhaps I should've shot @Najawin a talk page message instead or opened a talk page, but my edits weren't mere reversions like Tardis:Edit wars are good for absolutely nothing states. Also, as I, at maximum, made three edits, this doesn't qualify as edit warring per the policy as it states "an edit war is considered a "war" if you revert edits on an article 4 times within 36 hours". So warning/ban for not breaking a policy... pardon me what?

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

01:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Re: T:NO RW

I actually don't remember such a lost Forum thread, but in my defense there were so many and it's been such a while since they were lost... I also didn't realise such descriptions were in contention. I've seen many of these descriptions and written several myself, so my mistake not knowing they were disallowed, and I feel the best course of action is to get T:NO RW changed a bit to allow common sense context. I also addressed the edit "war" above. Have a nice night.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

01:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Re: Appearances

Ah, thanks! (Regarding OS12th, I believe he tried a bot run and it was only partially successful for… whatever reasons.) On that note, could I have your thoughts at Talk:Nestene/Auton_-_list_of_appearances? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

I've performed all of the remaning moves. Bongo50 ☎ 21:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Lawrence Miles YouTube channel

Is this recent addition to your user page true or just a joke? If it is true, do you have a source? Bongo50 ☎ 12:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Exciting! Bongo50 ☎ 18:08, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Custom namespaces

Hi Najawin. I saw this edit on your first sandbox. We don't need Czech for custom namespaces. Any admin should just be able to send in a request in the Fandom contact form and they'll enable it. Bongo50 ☎ 11:54, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Oh ok. That is harder, yeah. Bongo50 ☎ 07:17, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I've asked on the Fandom Discord server whether custom namespaces that can only be edited by a custom user group is possible. Custom namespaces are definitely possible but custom user groups and making namespaces only editable by certain user groups are more tentative. I'm going to reach out to Fandom support to see if it is a possibility. If it isn't possible to get a custom user group, the SMW administrators and curators groups are not ones that we would want to give out to most people. SMW editors is probably harmless, although it would add possibly annoying help messages as shown here. Bare in mind that the user groups can only be granted by bureaucrats (or possibly even Fandom staff), though. If all of this locking the namespace to certain user groups proves too infeasible, we could just have it where the guides sandbox can be edited by anyone (and patrolled for vandalism like any usual page) while all actual guide pages are locked, including the page listing all guides. Bongo50 ☎ 19:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

RE: Wookieepedia question

As in like a navigation box you'd find at the bottom of a page? We have many, both for stories and in-universe examples. See here for one such in-universe example, and here here for an out-of-universe. However, we also have had a lot more that were recently trash compacted after being deemed unnecessary. See: here for an example. Its often case by case, does having this nav box help our readers. Editoronthewiki ☎ 18:05, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Re: Cosmology

Hmm. Yeah, I think the voice you struck isn't quite right in terms of Wiki precedent. I think you should adopt a more external perspective on the text qua text-that-exists-in-universe (we probably need The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic… or would it be The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic (in-universe document)?). "The document begins by stating that it is important to note" rather than "It is important to note", etc.? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 20:27, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Iron Law

Just stopping by to say hello and that "Laboratories of Oligarchy" was a good read and very, erhm, applicable. Great find. – n8 (☎) 18:25, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi Najawin. I saw your message on Nate's talk where you mentioned WikiChron. I am pleased to say that I have added Tardis to its available wikis! Because Tardis is quite large, it can take a long time to generate data, but I think it's all working and some of it is really interesting. This process also involved downloading almost the entire wiki which may have lead to a few more interesting things to follow. Bongo50 ☎ 21:58, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Re: WikiChron

I followed all of the instructions to get a full download (I used a script to download the wiki in 56 parts, then used another script to merge these before finally using another script to convert the data into the correct format). I do agree that some of the numbers are weird, though. I think it might be that some of the numbers are actually showing "thousands of edits", for example, and just not making it clear. This is a guess, though. I'm going to have a look at it all again tonight to see if I am missing anything. Bongo50 ☎ 07:21, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I've had a quick look at it now and it does actually seem to be missing around 90% of edits. I don't know what went wrong but I'll try to fix it later. I dread to think how much WikiChron will struggle with the full wiki, though. Bongo50 ☎ 07:34, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I have confirmed that the dump I was using was missing a lot of data. I don't think that the bug with the Special:Statistics dump still exists and so I have chosen to use that. Even if the bug still exist, however, it will still be better than what I was using (the dump currently on WikiChron was >1GB before processing, the new one is close to 30GB before processing). The only is problem is that it is from 20/08/2022. I have requested a more up-to-date dump but this can take a while to be generated. When it is, I will switch WikiChron to use that but I hope that this slightly outdated one will do for now. Also note that processing the dump to the required format takes a while and I haven't yet finished processing the better dump so WikiChron is still on the very patchy older dump. I will upload the fixed dump as soon as I can. Bongo50 ☎ 20:52, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I've processed the better dump and tried it upload it to WikiChron. However, the file is too large and throws an error. I'm going to look into running WikiChron locally. Bongo50 ☎ 07:17, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Dr Omega

Hey! Saw you'd like me to write an OP on "how to deal" with Doctor Omega, but I'm not entirely sure what sorts of question you want to discuss here. Is this about potential coverage of the Doctor Omega Chronicles, or what? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 11:41, 23 March 2023 (UTC)e

Ah yes! I'd forgotten about the Professor/Doctor Omega conflation that makes everything trickier. As for wider coverage of Doctor Omega media, I think the one real candidate thus far is The Doctor Omega Chronicles, which lifts the design from the cover of The Gallifrey Chronicles and makes it Omega's ship, in what some might argue is a very unusual example of a spin-off using a licensed DWU concepts. I suppose recent policy might allow us to cover that TGC cover as a valid "(illustration)" unto itself, which would help… If we take that whole matter seriously, of course, it would create further tangles given the apparent implication that Dr Omega was the Other. On the whole, plenty to talk about, yes. But the problems, while entangled with each other, are of different classes: an inclusion debate, questions of splitting and merging character pages… This'd be a tricky OP to structure. I'll ponder it, but any advice based on the above summary would be welcome!

Also, I've restored Talk:Skirmish at Tranquil Repose as per your wishes; it was indeed a pretty meaty thing worth preserivng — although it's wildly outdated for the reasons I mentioned at Talk:Thirteenth Doctor's forced regeneration, with people freely talking of linking to story summaries in in-universe sections, and mentioning as examples of overreach pages for events which have since found names, and thus ironclad justifications for their existence, in valid sources. Interestingly, as per the final comment from User:Dark Lord Xander, it also seems to predate, and to possibly have given rise to, the {{conjecture}} template. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:42, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh yes. A discussion on T:HOMEWORLD for equations of DWU characters with public-domain characters is overdue. Another important case is the Merlin of A Honeycomb of Souls, who is fairly clearly meant to be the Battlefield Doctor.

I actually do think "the specific version of Sherlock from Erasing Sherlock" would count as a licensable concept. The most famous example here would be the Pyramids of Mars Sutekh, whom we very much treat as a copyrighted entity whose licensed appearances require coverage, as well we should.

This seems to me, however, to be a somewhat different question from the common use of Doctor Omega as a thinly-veiled First Doctor. If we ever get a licensed BBC story where the bona fide Hartnell cops to having once gone by "Dr Omega" (as an impish reference to the ancient Gallifreyan engineer he idolised in his youth, perhaps), we'll have a different pickle on our hands. But I don't think we can start covering anything with a public-domain Doctor Omega in it. It's not as though we can start recognising that he is the First Doctor (why then, wouldn't we acknowledge The Corsair (The Bloodletters) as the Corsair, or indeed Ceol as Kelsey Hooper?), so what's the justification?

The claim that all uses of Dr Omega make him the Doctor also isn't really true. Marticide certainly doesn't (the following is obviously not a citable statement on-Wiki but Robert Shepherd oncce outright told me that his intent was to go back to the original character, as removed as possible from any Who welding). And while Doctor Omega Chronicles make him a Doctorish type of character, he's very much not the First Doctor in them, although he might be destined to become the Other. Further out of the potential remit of the Wiki, the version used by Callum Phillpott in Jenny Over-There and The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids is also wholly removed from the First Doctor conflation, characterising him as a much stranger, much more untrustworthy figure.

An open-source DWU-debuting concept is yet another conundrum. It's thankfully still hypothetical, but not by much: the aforementioned Jenny Over-There story feature a character who's very strongly hinted to be a development of Phillpott's man in black from Cyber-Hunt, who was in fact released into the public domain. What side-steps the issue for us in this case is that Phillpott didn't actually retain ownership of the Man in Black, for "BBV contracts are exploitive" reasons; indeed, they made and open-sourced the Man in Grey as a kind of protest. But it certainly demonstrates that the scenario is very possible. As the afore-linked-to Jenny Everywhere Wiki demonstrates, it is not impossible to endeavour to track all of an open-source character's appearances without exception, but that might be quite a leap of faith for our Wiki, even if we naturally exclude fanfics that'd also make use of copyrighted Who concepts.

On the whole I can't help feeling that we have three or four distinct topics here, only a few of which directly touch upon Dr Omega, and they're fairly-removed from the Omega-centric issues of how to deal with the Professor conflation and whether to cover Doctor Omega Chronicles over the ship. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:55, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Question

Hey, I've got something I'd like answered and you might be the person to ask.

When this Wiki started, and when I joined in, invalid pages had continuity sections. Today they don't, and I recall them all being removed sometime around 2012. But, I can't figure out if this was an on-site consensus, a debate we had, a forum discussion, something on a talk page... Or if it's just something the admins did one day. You have any clue? OS25🤙☎️ 05:42, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, you're always great at looking into these topics. OS25🤙☎️ 07:22, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I was going to ask you for help with that one too! OS25🤙☎️ 09:12, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Señor 118

…eh? Would you be kind enough to elucidate that statement about Señor 118 and new FP audios? I've been staring at it in bemusement. (As far as FP audios or lack thereof are concerned, I really could clear up a few rumours for you if you were contactable in some private fashion, you know…) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:06, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I thought it was. But I still don't see how the Señor factors into this! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:11, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Shame on you, Scrooge. All this time I thought you were a FP superfan like the rest of us, only to find out that you haven't even read Wallowing. – n8 (☎) 19:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, let me think. Aside from possible brushing against the problem in the OG FP thread, there was definitely discussion of it on the huge "Doctor's TARDIS is individual or object?" thread, which as you'll recall got derailed into a sort of impromptu inclusion debate for Toy Story, arguing on whether we could acknowledge its characters as the TARDIS, the Doctor and Compassion. Therein, User:NateBumber successfully persuaded the opposition (as embodied by User:Amorkuz) that it was kosher for Miles to lean on the situation he established in Interference, and that through the legal link to the events on Foreman's World as something which happened to Compassion (appearing under license), we could therefore acknowledge the Ship as the TARDIS and the Cuckoo Pilot as the Doctor.

(The thread did not, however, fully clarify the implications of this as regards "the dangerous-looking one" being the Master, Lolita thus being the Master's first TARDIS, and the War King thus being the Master; which is why our coverage on this point is, at present, somewhat confused. I understand Nate has a proposal in T:TF to rethink our coverage of the FP Master-analogues.)

Also of general relevance, if its existence should have slipped your mind, might be Thread:279761, the long and heated 2020 thread that eventually enshrined the general outlines of T:HOMEWORLD once for all, closed in the final years of Special:Forum by User:SOTO. There was a long discussion of the "by-another-name" concepts, with User:DiSoRiEnTeD1 initially arguing for a hardline view that we should have different pages for The Homeworld and Gallifrey, and merely cover stories licensed to use both on both pages. The conclusion of the thread rejected that proposal, reasserting the philosophy established in the FP inclusion debate, but did lead to doing away with a few cases of overreach, e.g. separating Ceol from Kelsey Hooper. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 14:31, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I think you may have misunderstood? I never said Amorkuz had been convinced of Lolita=TheMaster'sTARDIS — quite the opposite. What I said was that he had been convinced of Cuckoo=Doctor and Ship=TARDIS, and thus accepted the principle, even though the discussion failed to extend the reasoning all the way to Lolita for some reason. Note this quote:

I would agree with you if we didn't know whether it was intended as the Doctor's TARDIS. But on that we all seem to agree. Out-of-universe, this seems clear. The problem is that the author's intent is not acceptable evidence. What we search for, therefore, is in-universe evidence. But for the in-universe evidence, it should immaterial whether the author was aware of it, right? In fact, maybe it does not even matter when the novelisation was published.User:Amorkuz

which explicitly frames the issue in terms of in-universe evidence, with no further concern about licenses. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 16:45, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Arc precedent

Over in the T:BOUND thread you mentioned "a pretty heavy removal of 'arc related' content a while back". I'm not sure I recall what you're referring to. Would you refresh my memory? – n8 (☎) 19:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Ahh, okay, one of the "ambiguous categories" debates, I remember those. Cheers for the link.

Btw, I received some Q&A questions from Neo, and I understand I have you to thank for some of these humdingers? You've got me reviewing every paper I've ever downloaded! – n8 (☎) 20:26, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Re:Legacies

Okay, so here's the motivation I had during that discussion.

Around this time, Candy Jar started using their material to heavily retcon Moffat TV stories. Because of this, there was a movement on the website to inaccurately cover certain stories that started on TV in order to better match with the half-assed CJ retcons. For instance, there was a brief edit war over it TV: The Snowmen should be presented as an origin for the Great Intelligence, as the TV story clearly states that it is. Certain editors even removed moments in the story, such as the Doctor setting up TV: The Web of Fear, because it "no longer fit" with the CJ retcon.

So it became my mission to set better boundaries. For instance, I did not think that Walter Simeon should have the CJ novels listed as appearances, as the novels only describe his appearance and did not have the license to use him.

So basically my motivation was not letting CJ's more obscure stories significantly retcon BBC Wales concepts that they did not have permission to use. I'm sure that my arguments went beyond this, but really the central conflict goes back to how I believe we should cover TV: The Snowemen. I personally think I've won on this front, as the GI page correctly discusses it as a potential origin, as was the intention.

But furthermore, I feel strongly that the Candy Jar novels represent this weird moment, where we were suddenly getting this influx of Wilderness Years-style material, except the content sometimes read like causing people to rewrite other stories on the wiki was the purpose. I felt extreme hesitation to this, and I continue to as we see the odd BBV releases with the same general tone. OS25🤙☎️ 03:05, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Re: New stub image

Hi, thanks for your design of a "tab-style" image for {{unprod}}. However, I have decided to go with the designs that User:OttselSpy25 put together. I think having the text run over the image like he did works a little better and reduces the cramptness. Bongo50 ☎ 18:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Re: Bot

I had not seen this talk page. However, I am already loosely familiar with the technical process of setting up a bot. What I need from Tangerineduel is to have a new account placed in the bot user group. That requires a bureaucrat and I'm unsure what procedure is for requesting this, if there is one. Bongo50 ☎ 08:03, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Dispute?

I don't follow; how is River's partial humanness disputed? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 09:03, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Aah, yes, I see. Disputed in the sense of the correct interpretation of the text being disputed between Wiki editors, not of there being a conflict of accounts. Gotcha. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 13:12, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Further Timeless Child mess

Actually, thanks for reminding me, because I think that The Secret of the Timeless Child has been misinterpreted. It says:

But, before she could share this incredible secret with her fellow Gallifreyans, Tecteun tested the theory on herself. The process worked, and Tecteun allowed others the power of regeneration — but there was a strict limit. Each Gallifreyan could only change twelve times. And that's how the Shobogans of Gallifrey became the Time Lords.

When I first read it, I too thought "but there was a strict limit" was referring to "The process worked". However, I think it is meant to add to "Tecteun allowed others the power of regeneration", especially given the following sentences. Or basically, it is meant to be read not as "The process worked […] — but there was a strict limit." but as "[…]Tecteun allowed others the power of regeneration — but there was a strict limit." Would you agree with this interpretation or not? Chubby Potato ☎ 06:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Handramit

Restored! But I think you'll be disappointed. It's just a one-post note from Czech, not a discussion. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 10:53, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Queer cats OP

Hey, I know I'm not the person you asked, but I've just read through the OP, and I think there are two perspectives missing.

One is the view that we should respect the wishes of the people involved, on principle, regardless of whether we find these feelings justified. e.g. the correct way to evaluate 'Against 1' is not by weighing probable harm ourselves, but by observing that some of the people we are proposing to put in these categories are concerned at the prospect. (Contrariwise, of course, some BTS people have come out in favour of them. Though the further answer here is that we can note these people's identities on their pages, in accordance with their wishes, while withholding the category because the people who wished not to be categorised mean that such a category would be irreducibly incomplete.)

Another is that I'm not so sure about your T:BOUND interpretation regarding the adjudication of the topic for in-universe pages, because, like… if memory serves, that thread explicitly ruled only for in-universe cats and not for real-world ones, so it feels weird to use it not just as a precedent but as an overriding precedent on the exact issue it explicitly said it wasn't ruling about. You know? And all questions of harm aside there are many ways in which our IU and OOU category trees differ. Category:Human biological fathers exists, but I don't think that's an open call for people to make matching categories for real-world people, not for reasons of harm reduction or libel or anything, just because that information is not relevant for real-world people in the way it is for characters. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:13, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

For the first thing, you did pay some service to it, yes, but I really think it should be considered an "Against" in its own right. For at least some in the discussion, I believe that there is nothing more to be said once the people themselves have come out against the categories, as simple as that.

As for the second thing — ah, I see. That's fair. But I do think you should edit the OP to be clearer that this limited thing is what you meant. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 19:39, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Re: T:POINT

I didn't mean to actually accuse anyone of breaking T:POINT; I said that if any conduct could uncharitably have been characterised as such, it would have been the continuing discussion after my post. (Nor, by any means, did I mean yours alone.) Apologies if my tone was unclear.

That being said… did you really "bring up specific new evidence that wasn't addressed in the discussion"? If you mean the quote from User:CzechOut, I must say I really don't see it. All that quote shows is "admins were aware that T:VS specifically banned parodies, and User:CzechOut apparently agreed with this", but this isn't evidence of anything in a way that would affect the discussion. It doesn't matter if a thousand people were in hearty emotional support of the policy in the bygone days, the question is whether they ever had a rationale that reconciles it with the actual, core Rule 4, and which would make as much sense today as it made sense then. (Analogously, "new evidence" on a now-validated invalid story would look like "a Rule 4 quote that wasn't brought up in the new debate, but was actually used in the original invalidity debate"; it wouldn't look like a post from Czech reasserting "[Story] isn't valid. Look, there's a policy page saying it's not valid." That's just not… anything.) Am I missing something?

Moreover, if you intended it to be "new evidence" I don't think you sufficiently flagged it as such. That is, you didn't really say "I realise the above was a ruling, but I think we unfortunately must reopen the discussion because…". And you began with "I'm still deeply hesitant to validate these things at this time due to the explicit ban on parody", phrasing which certainly implies that the "explicit ban on parody" is still in force, which, as of my ruling post, it wasn't exactly; as opposed to "of the historical practice of an explicit ban on parody" or the like.

As for the Forums issue — "But I absolutely think we should do massive attempts to reconsider the ones where there is commentary, like the non-narrative R1, or anything related to images, etc." — again, this should only be done if and when evidence that was not considered in the debate (again, actual evidence of the form "we shouldn't upload PNG images because XYZ technical reasons", not just "Czech was against PNG images on principle and here's a show of hands of people approving without explanation") is found and can be put in an OP. If such evidence exists, which I agree it might in some cases, I really don't see why normal T:POINT procedure of waiting on such evidence to be found to create a thread would not suffice. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 20:26, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Re: quotes and evidence… I am puzzled by "people interpreted T:VS in an explicit confirmation of what I was saying (that parody, regardless of other intent, made things invalid)". I don't think anybody ever disagreed that the old policy was that parodies were always invalid, and that people understood it to say so. This isn't "evidence", let alone new evidence, from where I'm standing: it's just the factual status quo we started from! It's not the topic of debate! Of course that was the policy for an extended period of time. We didn't need a quote from CzechOut to tell us that. The question is whether there was ever an actual rationale for this position (as opposed to it just being bias/fiat, or else, based on an assumption that a case of explicitly-intended-to-be-DWU parody would never be found and thus that "parodies are invalid" was just shorthand for a broad case of regular Rule 4). The fact that parodies explicitly were invalid across the board once was very much a known fact as of my ruling.

Re: Archives-based thread-reopening: well I interpreted your prior comments to be saying that we should open "review-threads" en masse on principle, with their OPs calling for people to look for evidence to fill them out. Whereas I am saying, let people look for evidence first, and only open threads if actual evidence is found. If you agree with that way of doing things then we don't actually disagree, except insofar as in that case, this is just normal T:POINT procedure and there's no need to make a specific "thing" of it.Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 20:58, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I see. Mostly fair enough, but I will say that I don't actually think your Czech quote clinches this. I don't see by what reading it's explicitly saying anything like "even if there were a parody that otherwise passes Rule 4 it would be invalid"; indeed I'd even say the emphasis on "the authors have called it parodic" seems to be working within the framework where "stating your thing is a parody" is deemed to inherently be a type of Rule-4-disqualifying statement. I think, like most jurisprudence on the issue, Czech wasn't specifically ruling out "things that pass Rule 4 but not the no-parodies rule", so much as he was denying that there could be such a thing in the first place — a factual belief which has now been contradicted. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:18, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Just saw your R4BP "proposal", and… especially with the links not even working yet, but also given the recent issues with your mistaking assertions for evidence of any value whatsoever, could we please set a norm that one must create at least a rudimentary OP draft, specifying the alleged evidence, before adding a "let's re-discuss [X decision] in light of the archives" proposal to T:TF? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 17:29, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Hm. Fair enough if you are pledging to write the OP, although I'm still worried about setting the precedent.

But as to the object-level issue, again, I do not see why you think this would change anything. I know full well about that thread, I participated in it. The R4BP thread changed policy. Finding threads from before policy was changed that acknowledge what the policy was at the time does not constitute new evidence. We know it wasn't policy yet when we did the R4BP thread, that's why we did the R4BP thread! There's no "contradiction", just a newer decision on how to deal with "valid stories referencing invalid ones" that supersedes the older one and ushers in a new paradigm. I just don't understand you. "New evidence" from the old forums which justifies the reopening of a T:TF thread is a fact or argument which was not addressed/refuted in the T:TF thread. An assertion of a given viewpoint at odds with the one decided upon by the thread is neither a fact nor an argument!

I know you think R4BP is patchy and woolly, and you want to relitigate it on that basis. And if you can articulate that argument, you're welcome to that proposal. But from the way you make it sound, it's just not a matter of evidence from the Old Forums. A new argument of your own would be just as apt to permit such a thread, if not moreso, than old threads construed as "evidence" which, from what I see, they do not constitute.

And in terms of precedent for reviewing T:TF thread, I really just want to nip this in the bud. Stop acting like admins asserting things that are at odds with recent rulings means anything, whatsoever, at all. It is not evidence. It's nothing. We cannot, should not and will not restart threads based on things of that nature. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 18:06, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I see. This makes more sense and I apologise for misconstruing you as making a category error of which you were innocent. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, I disagree with your dichotomy and with the fact that there is "absolutely no way to justify one decision over the other". To begin with, even if it were an absolute coin-toss, we would still have community consensus, and defaulting to the most recent and thus up-to-date community consensus, that would be the R4BP one.

But I think your reasoning is just not correct. The currently-live rationale as I see it is this: "A non-parodical, non-strenuously-fourth-wall-breaking Who is assumed by default to pass Rule 4 until proven otherwise. Even sequels to prima-facie-invalid stories, if they do not themselves replicate the invalid story's reason for invalidity, should be treated like this. From there on, in-narrative clues can provide circumstantial evidence of positive R4BP intent to bring the invalid source into the DWU in some form".

Why this, rather than the pre-Sequels thread way of doing things? It's all in the fact that a licensed story is assumed to pass Rule 4 by default unless there is "extraordinary evidence" otherwise; and that is a very old, very well-established piece of policy indeed. What the Sequels thread did, was establish that (as you recently argued in the Daft Dimension thread!) authors' understanding of "the DWU" cannot be trusted to correspond to the Wiki's boundaries of validity; such that we cannot safely assume that by referencing something we call invalid, they are intending to set themselves outside the DWU. In other words it established that the in-narrative continuity-references weren't good enough to meet the threshold of "extraordinary evidence" that we require to cancel out the default presumption of Rule-4-validity.

Whereas there is nothing procedurally wrong with the R4BP thread establishing a different, "lower" standard of evidence for the completely different question of whether a source intends to bring another one into the DWU in some way. It's not a contradiction to have different thresholds of evidence/different default assumptions, for different questions. The default assumption should be that a Who story is intended by its author to be in the DWU, therefore very strong evidence is needed to contradict that claim and minor in-story instances of discontinuity don't suffice; meanwhile, the default assumption (or so the R4BP thread decided) should be that an author who references an "invalid" story intends to bring into the DWU, therefore we have a lesser threshold of evidence for confirming this scenario.

These aren't contradictory, and they don't even come from different mindsets: both positions flow naturally from a shared assumption that the default should be an assumption of Rule-4-passingness from any given author (whether it be for their own story, or the work they're choosing to reference) unless stated otherwise or suggested otherwise by extremely strong circumstantial evidence, like parody-ness or egregious fourth-wall-breaking. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:36, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Oh yes, sorry if that was unclear; I absolutely concede that the thread is worth having if you disagree with the above.

That being said, I continue to deny that as it stands this is an example of "in light of evidence from recovered threads". We knew about the Sequels thread and the current rationale accounts for this stuff, just not in a way which you think is sound. This isn't about new evidence from an old thread; it's about a reasoning (slash potential hole in the existing reasoning) that was not discussed to your satisfaction in the R4BP thread. At best the argument was suggested to you by perusing the old thread, but that's still a very different from what I think of as potential inherently-old-forum-based reopenings e.g. "there is in fact a rationale, here in black and white, justifying the old policy which we had previously overruled by default for lack of having found a valid rationale for it".

I won't force your hand, but I would strongly prefer it if you edited the proposal-header in light of that, again for reasons of precedent — I fear it may give people a skewed idea of what sorts of "old-forums-based-review" proposals are warranted. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 22:00, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Ah — well, I've been keeping an eye on it, and would love to leave some personal thoughts — but I'll need to check whether any of the other admins feel up to closing it, otherwise I'll have to continue keeping out of it to keep that option open! I'll get back to you tomorrow. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 00:26, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

— Yes! User:Bongolium500 is game. I'll be along presently. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:28, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Re: Leo Tang vandalism

I've locked the page to just autoconfirmed users for a week. Hopefully this is enough to stop the vandalism. If it's not, let me or another admin know so that more extreme protection measures can be implemented. Bongo50 ☎ 21:58, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

RE: Forums

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I've dealt with the matter now.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 06:48, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Re:Let's Play

Thanks for the intel. One thing that's so very confusing in this search is that the need for admins to have a closing post to make something policy is very new, so often it's vague what has been made policy by an older forum. So when an admin says "See this" and links a forum, that is often extremely vague. OS25🤙☎️ 08:01, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Re: The No-Longer-Temporary Forums

Please see Forum:The New Forums for all of that and more! Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:14, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't seem to see the issue — the thread seems to be in Category:Panopticon, as it should be; did somebody else do something to fix the problem you described? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 09:51, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Ah, right! I see. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 10:21, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Re: points

Yes, I'm aware of the categorisation issue. Lots of work to do…!…

As for your quote, I apologise if I didn't make its context as clear as I should have; but I did, in the main, understand it quite as you explain it. My thinking was: "recent reforms are stressing the importance of authorial intent; this parody reform is an example of this; Najawin fears that the authorial-intent focus comes at the expense of Wiki practicalities; but I will show that in fact this reform, at the very least, does quite the opposite". Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 07:44, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

lmao - blocked

To clarify, I was editing User:Najawin/Sandbox 7 and I think the filter got annoyed that I had a sentence of commentary in all caps? Not sure. Maybe it was a chain of hyphens? Those are the only two things I can think of. Very amusing. Najawin ☎ 01:03, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Rebel's Gamble

Just wanted to inform you, if you're interested, that Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble is available to rent for one hour at a time from archive.org's book library. I shant link it due to the debate over if this is a legal library (it should be) or illegal (it shouldn't be), but that's a good resource if you want to check out the details. OS25🤙☎️ 17:08, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Re: Talk:Series 14 (Doctor Who)

Hi, thanks for the heads up. I've actually being following this talk page throughout the incident and will probably do something later today. Bongo50 ☎ 06:22, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

As you may have noticed, some stuff came up and I didn't get round to doing anything. As the user in question has backed down since your message to me, I'm going to leave it until they do something else, if they do something else. Bongo50 ☎ 19:20, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for taking your time with this btw… Danniesen ☎ 21:03, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

J.K. Rowling

Revolution of the Daleks was filmed in 2019, based on this BBC article from October of that year: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-50152072. That was two months before Rowling's "I stand with Maya" tweet. I hope that helps to clarify things. BastianBalthazarBux ☎ 12:43, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Scorpions

Uh-oh. Here is a detail which had slipped my mind, and apparently all of ours, in the debate regarding Biographies of Authors. You don't suppose that in light of this the bio involving "scorpion gods" should be reexamined as one which does feature FPU elements and tie into one of the short stories in the book? Unexpectedly making Purser-Hallard join Burton on the "FP authors who may potentially be the Enemy" roster… Then again, "scorpion men" are not necessarily precisely the same thing as "scorpion gods" (although "scorpion men = the Enemy = All-High Gods" would indirectly get you to scorpion men who are gods…).

Would like your thoughts before starting anything, though; both on the case on the merits, and also on whether, in your opnion, if this is indeed worth discussing, it would be best tackled as a delayed post-scriptum on Forum talk: Validity: The Book of the Enemy's Biographies of Authors, or as a short new thread all its own. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 08:51, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

You've got more form than me in checking the archives; I don't recall offhand quite where there was controversy and if so, whether it was formally resolved. But it was all a bit of a storm in a teacup, and I don't believe anyone's seriously doubted it since Adventures in Lockdown. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 21:01, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

It's a little late at night for me to reread the entire talk page, but that is neither my recollection, nor what I'm getting from a quick skim — both of which seem to concur that mostly we argued about 1] whether The Fan Gallery was licensed to any Wiki-worthy degree, and 2] which of the clearly-licensed BBC releases should be considered part of Lockdown as opposed to their own things. I certainly don't recall any advocacy for coverage of the later webcasts as invalid…?…

You… may be thinking of the few instances of User:DiSoRiEnTeD1 expressing doubts about whether the entire Lockdown thing was even licensed? Which wouldn't technically be a question of "invalidity"… (This distinction is to me as "deduction" is to you.) But I consider that matter very much settled in light of AiL, DWM 554, and Cook stressing the difference between the Fan Gallery stories and the "real" Lockdown tales in the quotes which led to the dismissal of The Fan Gallery. We're not so certain that an exposé in five years couldn't plausibly overturn all that and prove that there'd been some grand copyright fraud at work; who can say? But then it may someday turn out that Reeltime had been lying all along about having the license to Victoria in Downtime, or something.

Under the current state of the evidence it is, if such a thing be needed, certainly my admin ruling that the currently-listed Lockdown webcasts and other such releases are to be presumed licensed unless explicitly proven otherwise by future, non-yet-public evidence. (But then, one could already have considered this implicit in my ruling at Forum:Consolidating all of the 'How The Monk Got His Habit' pages. that How The Monk… should be considered the odd one out due to its specific circumstances.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Historical discussion of Rule 2

Hi there Najawin! I'm thinking of starting a discussion of rule 2 of T:VS at some point soon, and I was just wondering if you could possibly direct me to any historical discussions of the same? Many thanks, Aquanafrahudy 📢 10:27, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, good point. The policies that enshrined the current version of rule 2 would be good, and other stuff with massive policy implications. Is this still too broad, or shall I be more specific? Aquanafrahudy 📢 18:34, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Aquanafrahudy 📢 19:24, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Oh, if it's not too much trouble, would you also happen to know where it was that a "DWU element", with regards to r2, was defined, cause that'd be quite helpful? Aquanafrahudy 📢 21:02, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Re

I have no idea - all I know is I was discouraged from editing invalid spaces. I can't recall if it was ever "on paper" or the such. OS25🤙☎️ 12:49, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

R4BP thread

Hey! Looking over your sandbox; I think there are a few points which I can preemptively address now so as to save us time/digressions in the actual thread.

A general observation is that you don't seem to be engaging with the points I made on your talk page earlier and such, about different-standards-of-evidence etc. Perhaps this is just the draft being incomplete — but I really do think a lot rides on this, and I'd try and address it head-on if I were in your place. These were public explanatory statements on a user's talk page, from the admin who originated the policy under discussion; they very much constitute part of the existing literature. And if you don't address them in some way in the OP I'll just have to rewrite/repost basically the same points, which I fear would needlessly derail the discussion away from the other points in your existing OP.

In more specific points: I've long been gestating a "R2BP" of what you call the Cyberon type; indeed I've private called it the Cyberon Principle at times. (Although the Cyberons may turn out to be a bad test-case for unrelated reasons, but that's yet another thread…) And that's public; it's been one of my bullet points at my user page for ages. I'll probably get round to writing that OP sooner than later. So you needn't speak of it as a pure hypothetical.

Another thing: I knew very well about Forum:Is The Curse of Fatal Death canon? when I made the proposal. I neglected to mention it in the OP, though, so I cannot swear that the closing admin was familiar with it. My bad. Still, I think it's important to clarify that much. When it comes to the 'why' of my not having thought to bring it up… the thing, is that a lot of Czech's argument relied on rather pedantic nitpicks about whether the text's descriptions were clear enough to state as fact that the text was even referring to Curse — and that rather strange ruling had fallen by the wayside long before I put the thread forward, in a new-T:BOUND sense. We were no longer saying "who knows who the Listless-Looking Ninth Doctor is supposed to be; it's pure fan speculation that he's Atkinson". Just "as a BTS question he's obviously Atkinson, we just can't acknowledge that because it's invalid". This isn't to say that there were no other grounds for rejecting the proposal at the time, don't mistake me.

But still, between that and the usage of "canon", it just painted the whole thing as falling some ways short of still-live jurisprudence. The ruling was made under a foundational assumption of "we cannot identify a character as [X] in the main namespace unless they are explicitly, unambiguously, nominally [X]" that we abandoned long ago; my proposal started from the basic observation that having both "Ninth Doctor 3 (The Tomorrow Windows)" and "Ninth Doctor (The Curse of Fatal Death)", while still asserting on the former that he was intended to be the latter, was silly, and if that had been how the 2011 discussion framed things I wouldn't bet on which way the community would have swung.

And thirdly, I suppose this all links back to the thing about the "android boyfriend" and Scream of the Shalka. But, I mean, it's one of those fully general arguments, that one. Regardless of whether this moves the dial on validity, the Wiki would have a problem if we couldn't agree on whether the line is a continuity-nod or not! Whether something is a continuity reference or not is in fact something we already have to make a decision about, for purposes of filling out the Continuity sections themselves. If continuity-nods were too inherently subjective to make Wiki decisions about, we would also have to get rid of the continuity sections themselves! (It's just that in the specific "android boyfriend" case, without even bringing Moffat's probable intent into it, it's trivial that the line doesn't match to the purported facts. (The Shalka Doctor didn't "invent" the Master, let alone "accidentally". But that's neither here nor there.) In a certain sense all this connects to Forum:Loosening T:NO RW, so maybe you should wait until that thread is concluded before starting this one? Not sure.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this… and as e'er, though we may disagree on this, I hugely appreciate your thoughtfulness and the quality of discussion that you always bring to these debates. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:00, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Re: "potential responses", ah, I see. I hadn't expected an actual, existing response, as it were, to fall under such a section. Fair enough!

Also, I again wasn't asserting that "they specifically voted on whether or not the references were just too vague". I grant that a proto-R4BP was brought into things, and dismissed 'on its own merits'. What I mean is that the thread was also predicated on an underlying assertion (a "présupposé", as we say in French) that the Tomorrow Windows references were too flimsy anyway. And I see two ways in which that's damning to the thread. First, this foundational assumption had ceased to be current practice by the time I made the R4BP thread, which calls into question whether the thread as a whole was standing policy at all, and either waycertainly justified a new thread based on new facts. And secondarily, in rhetorical terms I think spending so much of the OP on arguing that the would-be type-case for proto-R4BP was speculative on the merits, did an unfair disservice to the theory in terms of how it came across to the community at the time.

As for "canon" — it's a minor thing, yes. I know they meant "proto-valid" instead of garden-variety, unexamined "canon". But basically I think "proto-valid" is still pretty bad? I may be wrong. But I don't think the idea that "a source being invalid doesn't mean we claim its events actively didn't happen, just that this source cannot be used as evidence that they did" had been solidifed yet. I think, to a point, people were still just "using T:VS-esque rules to determine What The Wiki Would Say Actually Happened And What Didn't", as opposed to throwing out the idea of dividing between Things That Happened and Things That Didn't altogether. And I think that's a very worrying thing when you're talking about Rule-4-related issues. Just look at User:Tangerineduel's comments at Forum:Is The Curse of Fatal Death canon?:

(…) once we make CotFD canon all these links will go off and attach themselves and CotFD to the other canon articles and then therefore part of the canon-universe we're trying to describe and establishUser:Tangerineduel

There's still, here, a basic assumption that the canon policy's job is to "establish" a "canon-universe", even if we were moving away from using continuity vs. discontinuity as a method for doing so.

(I could cite several other, even more archaic-sonding posts here, like User:TemporalSpleen's very revealingly 'wrong' comment that "it can't be considered canon, as the events never really happened, but at the same time it existed withing canon as a possible future"… But Tangerine's seemed the most relevant, since it's an admin's opinion, and I think closest to what the intelligentsia was actually doing at the time, whereas some less-active editors' contributions could fairly be "written off", historically speaking, as them not having caught up with the times yet.) Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:44, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Just saw your edits! Thank you; At the risk of nitpicking again — I do want to emphasise that I didn't make, like, a concerted decision to not bring it up, as such. I quite agree that it probably should have addressed it, if only briefly. I just meant to clarify that my oversight was a case of it slipping my mind because I'd already accounted for it in my own reasonign — as opposed to a case of my making the case with no knowledge of it at all. But leaving it out of the discussion itself was not intentional. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 01:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

R4BP context

Hey, after seeing the above back-and-forth with Scrooge I gave User:Najawin/Sandbox 10 a readthrough. Interesting stuff.

To briefly clarify my line "there's no major difference between being INVALID and being in an alternate universe", I think that's best read in light of OS25's suggestion in Thread:231309, which by that time was already gestating on a sandbox or in private.

I think one thing you elide – perhaps for the simple reason that you disagree – is that there's a substantial difference between using internal evidence to justify validity decisions vs invalidity decisions. In the former case, one is saying, "This author clearly thought that an earlier story was connected or related to their current one, so we should be able to cite that story in the relevant context." In the latter case, one is saying "This author clearly thought that an earlier story didn't count, so no one should be able to cite it anywhere, even in contexts where it might be relevant." The former seems helpful to the reader. The latter seems the opposite.

Around the time I came up with {{NCmaterial}}, I had the realization that I've never been very interested in validity as a concept. It's simply the barrier that stands in the way between me and making useful or interesting edits. Authors are free to throw out references and incorporate whichever stories they wish into the Doctor's universe, but validity limits us from usefully covering those obvious connections unless the stories happen to fall within the bounds of the four (or five, or infinitely many) "little" rules.

But this is understandable to an extent because of the matter of contexts that aren't relevant. When we have a validity conversation about Señor 105, it's not just about whether it would be useful for pages related to Iris Wildthyme and Against Nature (it would be); it's also about whether Señor 105 content belongs on, say, Earth! As my user page declares regarding timelines, I don't particularly understand why some editors are motivated to try to present the DWU as a unified or consistent whole on pages like Earth, but inasmuch as our "all in or all out" system makes compromise necessary, this is why I stand by Thread:231309, however fundamentally misconceived CzechOut may consider it to be: it provided a pathway for editors to "pull in" information from invalid sources when relevant without burdening the rest of the wiki with it in contexts where it's not relevant. Mercifully, {{NCmaterial}} provided another solution, and its passage has nullified most of my interest in inclusion debates as a genre.

I will say, I do feel as if R4BP is too small a target for the historical analysis you've presented. It's meaty enough that it merits to have nothing less than a total overhaul of validity in its sights. – n8 (☎) 16:48, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Cheers for the considered reply(s) – although, of course, I would expect nothing less!

To begin at the end, the scenario, "This author clearly thought that an earlier story didn't count, so no one should be able to cite it anywhere, even in contexts where it might be relevant" – this was meant to describe the possibility of invalidating stories for being discontinuous, as in that ages-old Amorkuz debate. I confused things by adding the word "earlier".

I appreciate your disinterest in arguing over the primacy of the original author's intent, which I agree wouldn't get very far. In particular, "invalid stories, as written, are invalid, but specific references to them, insofar as they appear in valid sources, are valid." – this lies the way of Ninth Doctor 4 (The Tomorrow Windows) and is a total non-starter for me. "You could still do this in the bts section" – not much better. For just one example, Parkin's (valid!) "Benny dates the Doctor" timeline glimpses are integral to his concept of Last Contact, and the Last Contact page would be incomplete to the point of misleading if it didn't mention them, but the only definitive link is in a charity story. Sticking it in the "Information from non-valid sources" BtS just doesn't cut it.

(For this reason, while I agree that the logic behind Thread:231309 is shaky, I'm just blinded by the beauty of the outcome. Maybe I'm every bit as results-oriented as you are procedurally-minded.)

{{NCmaterial}} solves this for now, but enough users and admins have expressed befuddlement to me over its applications that it's clear a 2.0 thread will be coming at some point, a 2.0 thread that I probably won't like. Similarly, I think you've argued persuasively that R4BP has introduced a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" inconsistency – Storm in a Tikka is valid because we don't consider narrative evidence, but Dimensions in Time is valid because we do. To the extent that NCM and R4BP (and the would-be Cyberon principle) are doing the same sort of thing, I can't help but wonder if a more explicit alternative would be more logically sound: perhaps a new tier, separate from "valid", where stories breaking the four rules are disqualified from Earth but can be cited wherever helpful and relevant in the context of the valid stories which reference or tie into them.

Gah, just an idea. I'll refrain from further comment until you have written your conclusion, whatever form that may take. Thanks for reading! – n8 (☎) 22:25, 31 July 2023 (UTC)