Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Doctor Who

WikiProject discussion

Congratulation to everyone who has made Doctor Who Episodes GA/FA

Congratulation to everyone who has made Doctor Who Episodes a Good article or a feature article. Hopefully the good work will continue. Below is a breakdown of episode articles.

Series 1
Rose
The End of the World
The Unquiet Dead
Aliens of London
World War Three
Dalek
The Long Game
Father's Day
The Empty Child
The Doctor Dances
Boom Town
Bad Wolf
The Parting of the Ways

Specials
Doctor Who: Children in Need
The Christmas Invasion

Series 2
New Earth

Tooth and Claw
School Reunion
The Girl in the Fireplace
Rise of the Cybermen
The Age of Steel
The Idiot's Lantern
The Impossible Planet
The Satan Pit
Love & Monsters
Fear Her
Army of Ghosts
Doomsday

Specials
The Runaway Bride

Series 3
Smith and Jones
The Shakespeare Code (original Research Tag)
Gridlock (Doctor Who)
Daleks in Manhattan
Evolution of the Daleks
The Lazarus Experiment
42
Human Nature
The Family of Blood
Blink
Utopia
The Sound of Drums
Last of the Time Lords

Specials
Time Crash
Voyage of the Damned

Series 4
Partners in Crime
The Fires of Pompeii
Planet of the Ood
The Sontaran Stratagem
The Poison Sky
The Doctor's Daughter
The Unicorn and the Wasp
Silence in the Library
Forest of the Dead
Midnight
Turn Left
The Stolen Earth
Journey's End (Doctor Who)

Specials
The Next Doctor
Planet of the Dead
The Waters of Mars
The End of Time

Series 5
The Eleventh Hour
The Beast Below
Victory of the Daleks
The Time of Angels
Flesh and Stone
The Vampires of Venice
Amy's Choice
The Hungry Earth
Cold Blood
Vincent and the Doctor
The Lodger
The Pandorica Opens
The Big Bang

Specials
A Christmas Carol
Space / Time

Series 6
The Impossible Astronaut
Day of the Moon
The Curse of the Black Spot
The Doctor's Wife
The Rebel Flesh
The Almost People
A Good Man Goes to War
Let's Kill Hitler
Night Terrors
The Girl Who Waited
The God Complex
Closing Time
The Wedding of River Song

Specials
The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
Pond Life

Series 7 Part 1
Asylum of the Daleks
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship
A Town Called Mercy
The Power of Three
The Angels Take Manhattan

Specials
The Snowmen

Series 7 Part 2
The Bells of Saint John
The Rings of Akhaten
Cold War
Hide
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
The Crimson Horror
Nightmare in Silver
The Name of the Doctor

Specials
The Night of the Doctor
The Last Day
The Day of the Doctor

Thanks Kelvin 101 (talk) 13:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I also have this broken down with cool achievement bars at User:Glimmer721/DoctorWho and User:Glimmer721/ClassicWho (though the latter doesn't have cool achievement bars because, well, it's kind of improbable at the moment). Glimmer721 ^talk 00:04, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

For the record, in the classic series we have

• Genesis of the Daleks
• Enlightenment
• City of Death

The Rescue is currently at GAN and I'm working on Remembrance of the Daleks. Glimmer721 ^talk 00:15, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I must commend Glimmer721 on your break down pages they are brilliant. Thanks Kelvin 101 (talk) 21:27, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Agree. I must say I'm shocked and disappointed that more classic stories aren't GA yet. I do possess a significant collection of resource materials for reference, including some of the novelizations, meta-literature, most of the DWM issues through #150, all the Region 1 DVD releases, and assorted other materials. If there is specific information needed, let me know on my talk page, and I'll try to do what I can. I'd like to see at least one story per Doctor reach GA, and am willing to help with research as I am able. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:22, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Series 5 is also a featured topic. Series 6 could also become one. This is really good work from everyone involved. –anemoneprojectors– 23:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Affiliated Explanation

Could someone please explain to me just what is considered to be "affiliated" for character articles? It doesn't seem to be applied equally, from what I can tell. For example, Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith are considered to be affiliated with the Eleventh Doctor just for appearing in one episode with him, but Clara Oswald is not considered affiliated with Tenth Doctor or the War Doctor. Thanks. Ωphois 03:57, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it's where battles get fought and people pick their battles. Truthfully, Sarah Jane should only list 3/4/10/K-9/Unit. It's for organisational memberships and companion relationships. It's an in-universe label for expressing something with an out of of universe meaning = i.e. what period of the show are they affiliated with, and what are the other salient facts about the character such as UNIT or Torchwood membership?Zythe (talk) 11:05, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Navboxes no longer have Doctor numbers

I only noticed today that the navboxes have seemingly all had the Doctor groupings removed, so that all the episodes appear in one section. I agreed with the notion of splitting minor and major appearances because hearing a Dalek's voice doesn't really count as an appearance, but I wondered why the decision was taken to remove the different Doctors (can't find the discussion here) as I think it could result in some of the more popular characters' navboxes becoming large & unwieldy. Tony2Times (talk) 11:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Several of the navboxes have had a greater or lesser degree of back-and-forth editing, in contravention of WP:BRD. One example is {{regeneration stories}}, see Template talk:Regeneration stories#To clear up formatting, what about something like this?. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Missing Believed Wiped - BFI announcement

Dick Fiddy of the BFI has apparently announced at the Missing Believed Wiped event this evening that Philip Morris has returned over 10000 reels of film from Zambia (see here and here). Until there is any official confirmation of what it consists (which will take some time) people should be on the look out for changes based on speculation. I expect there to be a lot of speculation. I think it might be a good idea to protect a few important articles like Doctor Who missing episodes and some of the articles for the serials with missing episodes.

good news though => Spudgfsh (Text Me!) 18:40, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

It'll be EastEnders or some other modern trash that the BBC already hold. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

It actually turns out to be more rumourmongering [1] => Spudgfsh (Text Me!) 23:20, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

In-universe numbering source

Hello. This is not truly a big problem for us, as the vast majority of WP:RS and other sources have taken to maintaining Moffat's preference for continuing to call Eccleston Nine, Tennant Ten, Smith Eleven and so on. An exception to this is the Mirror, which like a punctilious fanboy insists on referring to Smith as the Thirteenth Doctor. If ever it was needed however, here is clearly an in-universe source in the form of Strax's field report on the Doctors which counts "Eighth Doctor, Warrior, Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor" — using those titles as names. It's a fairly good confirmation from the production crew of Moffat's stated intention of not affecting the numberings.Zythe (talk) 20:09, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Good catch. The BBC website hasn't changed anything at all. I really hope the commotion eventually dies down...I took it not as a major change and that whatever actual incarnation they are, they still retain the names of Ten, Eleven, etc. Plus it was made clear that the War Doctor is not worthy of the "Doctor" title. Glimmer721 ^talk 16:02, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, "Day" confused it by having him become redeemed and worthy of the Doctor title in the end, but this doesn't change that he wasn't known as the Doctor. In "Time," Eleven clarifies that though he is Eleven, "Number Ten" (confirmed name) used two regenerations, and though War "didn't go by the name Doctor," his regeneration counted. I'm happy accepting that the "Eleventh Doctor" is the "twelfth incarnation" of the Doctor, and that the Twelfth Doctor is the thirteenth incarnation and the product of a thirteenth regeneration. It's just way confusing, for anyone, especially as a lot of these words have been used as synonyms before now.Zythe (talk) 19:19, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Surely then, it's also confirmation that he counts as a face of the Doctor, and should be in the image. 94.193.96.26 (talk) 11:30, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Reread the discussion, no one was ever saying he wasn't a legitimate incarnation within the fiction. It's about the real world status as the show's lead actor.Zythe (talk) 15:43, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy WP:UCN is to use the most common, recognisable name, and says "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We do not know what terms will be used in the future, but only what is and has been in use, and is therefore familiar to our readers. However, common sense can be applied – if the subject of an article changes its name, it is reasonable to consider the usage since the change." If in one year, over half of published reliable sources refer to the Matt Smith portrayal as either "the twelfth Doctor" or "the thirteenth Doctor" rather than the eleventh, then we should consider changing. But that is very unlikely, and Steven Moffat has now provided two good story reasons for that never to happen (the more recent one being that the Tennant portrayal would be arguably both the eleventh and twelfth.) So there seems to be consensus that the Mirror headline [2] was a understandable misinterpretation of Moffat's tease, and will have little influence. Since the Christmas broadcast Radio Times first confusingly referred to "13th incarnation Peter Capaldi" [3]. Fortunately then TIME welcomed "the era of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor"[4] and CNN [5] said "Peter Capaldi is now the Twelfth Doctor", and the Independent refers to "Peter Capaldi's twelfth Doctor" [6] --Cedders^tk 11:04, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Re-assessment, TARDIS, etc

I hope this is the right place to raise my following points:

1. I notice that "TARDIS" is rated top-importance and was in 2006 a featured article on the main page, but has since been assessed as C-class. I assume this is because well-meaning edits based mainly on new episodes have added excessive in-universe detail and disturbed the flow and structure of the text, and then various editors including me have tried incremental cleanups. Some editors may have retired. Is it due for reassessment, and could experts add improvement suggestions on the talk page? I'm wondering whether to attempt a complete rewrite. The "In popular culture" section gets rationalised and then accretes even more trivial examples from comics, so could probably be restructured as a "cultural influence" section. Is there a recommended way of translating in-universe text into better encyclopaedia style? At a minimum, years of broadcast helps readers understand the programme's development. Present tense seems to be standard in WP examples. One problem is that a lot of reference material (which I don't collect) is itself in in-universe style. There are recent DWM "Fact of Fiction" articles and the Matthew Sweet stuff on CE Webber.
2. The article on Peter Capaldi has been assessed as "top-importance", although in line with previous assessment policy, other leading actors are mostly "Med" importance.
3. I recreated "Christopher Bailey (screenwriter)" a month ago. If anyone has any sourced biodata, please add.
4. The project page says "Story titles, like the television stories, should be italicised" and I think that may confuse people. MOS:T contains a reminder of normal English usage: place quotation marks (inverted commas) around short forms, including episodes and published stories that are part of longer works (for example in Short Trips); use italics for longer forms, collections, anthologies, novels, multi-episode serials. I'm assuming it's OK to clarify. --Cedders^tk 11:04, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

There shouldn't be anything of "Med" importance - the {{WikiProject Doctor Who}} banner (like most WikiProject banners) is set up to recognise |importance=mid (the value is case insensitive so |importance=Mid is also permitted). If you use |importance=Med it's counted as Unassessed. Anyway, Wikipedia:WikiProject Doctor Who/Assessment#Importance scale shows "lead characters" (not "lead actors") against Top, but "Doctor actors" against Mid, so I've reassessed Talk:Peter Capaldi. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:44, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

As for commas, a lot of material (like DWM) puts italics around all stories; however, we subscribe to MOS and only use them for serials, while the new series episodes are in quotes. Glimmer721 ^talk 23:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

"Last appearance" for Doctors - perhaps we should alter the bespoke infobox?

So, if you look at "Tenth Doctor" it currently lists two last appearances, The End of Time (regular) and "The Day of the Doctor" (guest). This is fairly standard for past Doctors who have made subsequent appearances. I think infoboxes should be cleaner and more specific, and discourage all kinds of qualification using brackets - because information that needs excessive qualification is not suitable to the "at-a-glance" function of the infobox.

How would this suit, as an alternative?

Debut episode: "The Parting of the Ways" (2005)

Exit episode: The End of Time (2010)

Most recent appearance<!--Only if different from then above-->: "The Day of the Doctor" (2013)

As the "tenure" of the Doctor is quite an important feature of the show. I'm not sure how best to phrase the last one, as characters in fiction don't tend to actually have "final" appearances, which is why I also strongly advocate leaving it blank for characters whose actors haven't died etc..Zythe (talk) 12:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I would go with First Regular Appearance and Last Regular Appearance. It is a good idea to change it as there is endless conflict over how it is at the moment. => Spudgfsh (Text Me!) 13:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I like that idea. Glimmer721 ^talk 02:28, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I like, but I think it should be First appearance and Last regular appearance. The reason for this is because there will inevitably be debate over what constitutes their first regular appearance - e.g. for Ten whether it's "The Parting of the Ways", "Children in Need" or "The Christmas Invasion", or for Twelve whether it's "The Day of the Doctor", "The Time of the Doctor" or the series 8 premiere. "First" without qualification has the same effect as the qualified "Last regular..." - it makes it certain and stable. Are people happy to go ahead and alter the template?

The only other worry is it wouldn't quite work for War Doctor, who didn't have a defined tenure, so we might need an alternative "Last" which encompasses his last appearance and any reprisals?Zythe (talk) 00:18, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Note: "First Appearance", without qualification, for Peter Capaldi's Doctor would be "The Day of the Doctor", even though his first regular appearance would be in "The Night of the Doctor" following Matt Smith's regeneration. Just raising the issue, as I'm not sure how much conflict would remain if we had "first appearance" wihtout qualification. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Torchwood Good Article Nomination

Torchwood is currently under review for a good article if anyone has time please feel free to contribute Talk:Torchwood/GA3 Thanks Kelvin 101 (talk) 17:44, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Sarah Sutton, youngest female companion actor

Just for future reference to people who keep deleting it, Sarah Sutton was born in December 1961. Her first story The Keeper of Traken began filming in late 1980 when Sarah was still 18 and thus younger than Deborah Watling (who was 19 when The Evil of the Daleks began filming). Paul Austin (talk) 10:38, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

The War Games

At The War Games#Production there is disagreement over what is supported by the ref and what isn't. 122.61.129.5 (talk) has something of a history of unsourced/OR edits. I've reverted twice in 2 days and it's past my bedtime. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

What constitutes a 'minor' appearance

I am given the third degree over at Template talk:Dalek stories#Categorisation of "The Pandorica Opens". More input is requested. — Edokter (talk) — 22:59, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh, surely only the second degree, if that. Degrees aside, I concur that project input regarding this matter would be gratefully received by, I imagine, all concerned. Thank you. 86.167.164.106 (talk) 00:29, 5 February 2014 (UTC)