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WP:RFCBEFORE: Should Doctor Who be considered one, two, or three shows on Wikipedia?

I'll preface this by stating that I have not watched Doctor Who in well over a decade and I'm posting this to avoid it being taken to RfC, and I hope it can be settled within this WikiProject. On Wikipedia, should Doctor Who be regarded as a single television show, two television shows, or three television shows? The three versions maintain continuity of the show between them. Reliable sources typically consider it one cohesive show. There is a prevailing notion of it being divided into two shows from 1963–1989 (with a film in 1996) and 2005–present, known as 'Classic Who' and 'New Who'. The production company restarts the series numbering, which some argue indicates three shows. The production company restarted the series numbering in 2023, and this has caused an eight-month long discussion on Talk:Doctor Who series 14#Season 1 vs Series 14.

  1. One television show (1963–present)
  2. Two television shows (1963–89/96 and 2005–present)
  3. Three television shows (1963–89/96, 2005–23, and 2023–present)

Svampesky (talk) 15:00, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

One Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 15:11, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
One (opener of this WP:RFCBEFORE). My argument is based on reliable sources. These reliable sources regard Doctor Who as a single, unified programme, maintaining the continuity of the three iterations as part of one cohesive show, rather than as separate entities. However, the show has been produced in three distinct iterations: 1963, 2005, and 2023. Before the 2023 version an ad hoc solution was to name the 1963 version 'seasons' and the 2005 version 'series'. If Doctor Who is considered three different shows, the article for Doctor Who may need to be divided into three separate articles (per iCarly and iCarly (2021 TV series), and The Twilight Zone). This might also necessitate splitting the article for The Doctor (Doctor Who) into three to maintain this, or to restructure it into Portrayal of The Doctor in television (per Portrayal of James Bond in film). There is a lot of 'having one's cake and eating it' with the production company of Doctor Who, reliable sources, and Wikipedia. Svampesky (talk) 15:13, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
One per the above. Sources generally consider Doctor Who as all one show, such as recent Sutekh explainers ("who last appeared in Doctor Who almost 50 years ago") and anything regarding the anniversary dates. Plus the single main article is WP:STABLE and has existed across the period of time where two distinct eras of the show (with a lengthy production break, unlike between series 13 and the new season 1) were apparent. U-Mos (talk) 15:51, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
One as has always been the case on Wikipedia. The so-called "New Who" is an informal term used to describe the 2005 revival, which is not a separate show / reboot / sequel / anything like that. And the fact that the season numbering has changed multiple times does not mean "the production company produces it as three separate shows" at all. - adamstom97 (talk) 16:06, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Amended the post. Thanks for pointing it out. Svampesky (talk) 16:21, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
One the several splits are all continuations of the same show, and not separate, individual series. Basically everything I'd add has been said already by the above posts, but saying it's three shows really makes no sense. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 16:24, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Comment Should a consensus be reached for 'One', there would be no distinct separation between 'Classic Who' and 'New Who'. Wikipedia can still acknowledge both but as the same entity, as reliable sources do. This might result in mergers, such as merging List of Doctor Who episodes (1963–1989) with List of Doctor Who episodes (2005–present), as the current consensus for those particular pages is 'Two'. Svampesky (talk) 17:10, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
I'd argue against merging them since while they are the same show, they've had such a large gap in time with such a large number of episodes between them that it's far better organized as two lists. They may be one show, but Wikipedia:SIZESPLIT is still a valid rationale. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 17:22, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
The pages are already very long, I'd argue for splitting it by decade (but retaining the decade overlap of the lead actor) for readability, not to distinguish separate shows, to '1963–1969', '1970–1981', '1982–1996' (to include the television film), '2005–2008', '2010–2021', '2024–present', 'Specials'. The current '1963–1989' and '2005–present' is a consensus of 'Two' as it distinguishes "Classic era" from "Revived era". Svampesky (talk) 17:30, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
"Classic Era" and "Revived Era" are still considered separate iterations of the main show, which feature vastly different styles of episodes between each other. It's considered the same show, but this distinguisher is still a way used to separate the wildly different production styles of the show. I feel splitting it into smaller lists would be detrimental to readership since you have to hop between several smaller lists instead of just hopping between one or two with a clear division due to production styles, especially since these lists don't really have a proper ideology for a split out (Would they be split by showrunner? How many Doctors should we measure a split of a list by? Should it be a specific span of time?) and it just feels like it's asking for future debate where people use all sorts of criteria to merge lists together or split them in an arbitrary way, especially given this WikiProject already has a rampant unnecessary lists problem to begin with. These lists have been used without difficulty for some time and are arguably better for the casual reader (Since the casual reader understands the difference in production values as "Classic" and "Revived" but would not understand, for example, several of these more complicated random splits). While "Classic" and "Revived" aren't two separate shows, they're still terminology used to refer to the difference in production values from before and after Doctor Who's hiatus that are in widespread use. Even if they are describing the same show, it's not uncommon for long running fandoms to group up parts of the run by certain names (Take, for instance, the Silver Age of Comic Books. Many of those comic series (For the most part) are still one ongoing narrative and thus count as one ongoing series, but various points in that history are referred to as "The Silver Age" or "The Golden Age" to differentiate them from different points in history where production values are different.) I don't see an issue with continuing to use the terminology, nor do I see an issue with this list as it currently is, since it's in a state most greatly beneficial to the average reader. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:00, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
@Pokelego999: especially since these lists don't really have a proper ideology for a split out, by decade (with an overlap of the lead actor) as I suggested. Svampesky (talk) 18:02, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Decades concerns me given each decade had considerably different amounts of episodes (The 80s for example have a large number less than the 70s, while the 60s have more dwindling numbers than the 70s) and for the revived series, you can't split it by decade evenly, since 2005-2015 splits halfway through Capaldi's run as the Doctor, and moving to a different list to discuss his last series would be confusing for non-fans. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:43, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
1) A decade, as in calendar-decade. 2) The two lists are already too large. 3) The lists need not be of equal size. 4) If there is a calendar-decade overlap of the lead actor the list would end at the end of their tenure, but are grouped in where the lead actor acted for the most time (if an actor has one series in 2019, but five in 2020–6, it would be grouped as 2019–2026) thus:
The '2018–present' list is because the 'Thirteenth Doctor' has more episodes in the 2020s. The specials list includes the television film. Svampesky (talk) 18:53, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
I still worry about the fact we're basically tripling our current list total. Given the two current lists handle the subjects more than adequately, I see splitting as potentially being more complex. Nonetheless, I feel I've said my piece, so I'll let other editors comment on their thoughts on this for the time being. Should it be decided this is the best method of going about this, I'll help aid with the split/move, in any case. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
I think the above is overkill for the revival era; four series only in one list feels needlessly small. I don't see an issue with 2005–2017, or even 2005–2022 (175 episodes, still significantly less than the 60s and 70s) if we wanted to align with the series number reset in the event Doctor Who series 14 etc. are moved. Also, I'm definitely against separating the specials into their own list outside of the chronology. U-Mos (talk) 20:44, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Aligning with the series number reset in the event Doctor Who series 14 is the reason I opened this RFCBEFORE. If Wikipedia separates anything using this, that would be a 'Three' consensus. Svampesky (talk) 20:54, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
No, not if the list needs to be split for size reasons (which it does) - that's just pragmatism. U-Mos (talk) 21:02, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
If the list needs to be divided due to size constraints and is split by versions, this would suggest a 'Three' consensus, per Lists of The Twilight Zone episodes which splits it's lists as different shows. Splitting by calendar-based iterations would imply a 'One' consensus. Svampesky (talk) 21:11, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
if it does get changed, I'm okay with 2005-2022, that's sensible---oh new reply? you just found yourself agreeing with the three, welcome aboard! Continue as you were, ignore me. 69.161.57.181 (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
If the lists are excessive, another recommendation is to merge every other list in the above suggestion into:
I'm not saying if I support or oppose this list grouping, as I'm not a fan of the show. This approach would overlap the 'classic era' and the 'revival era', aligning with a consensus of 'One'. Svampesky (talk) 21:38, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
@Pokelego999: the 60s have more dwindling numbers than the 70s whilst there were 270 episodes broadcast in the 1970s and 252 in the 1960s, that's a difference of just 18 - and consider that the 1960s episodes were broadcast over a somewhat shorter period - six years and six weeks, rather than a full ten years for the 1970s. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:28, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
@Redrose64 Ah good catch. I misremembered the amount of episodes in the 60s. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:05, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
The episodes list was split due to size issues, not because of the "Classic Who" vs. "New Who" distinction, so this discussion shouldn't impact them. - adamstom97 (talk) 18:30, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
I concur regarding the sizing issue. However, the point at which they were divided was at the distinction between the classic version and revived version. Those lists have a consensus of 'Two', so this discussion has the potential to impact them. Svampesky (talk) 18:34, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
I think it's less of a consensus of "Two shows" and more of what I mentioned above, terminology used to describe the difference in production between two different eras of the same program. I don't think this discussion should impact this article. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:42, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
By the same reasoning, is The Simpsons a "consensus of Two" shows based on List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20) and List of The Simpsons episodes (season 21–present) existing? This is an identical case, simply disambiguated by year instead. -- Alex_21 TALK 02:15, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Not at all. The Simpsons is split into two, I'm assuming, because of size constraints and has picked a round number to do it by. Doctor Who lists cutting off a season 26 is not a round number to do it by and looks to me as an 'Two' consensus. In fact, if the consensus is 'One', I wouldn't be opposed to a The Simpsons approach with the first list group going from Doctor Who season 1 – Doctor Who series 4 if it should be grouped by a round number with thirty series in each list as:
Per The Simpsons splitting the lists into blocks of twenty seasons, an alternative list structure for a 'One' consensus could follow grouping by every twenty Doctor Who series:
Svampesky (talk) 02:34, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
Doctor Who split the two articles at a convenient location; in this case, it was between two production eras, in The Simpsons case, it was at a round number. Where an article is split is arbitrary and based on local consensus. It remains an identical case between two series that are individually one singular programme. -- Alex_21 TALK 11:40, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
These articles do not need to be merged if the consensus remains as it being one show. The article has been split for improved performance; we simply chose an easy place to split the two articles. -- Alex_21 TALK 23:26, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Having scan-read the above discussion, note that the WP:PEIS of the two articles are 1,821,728/2,097,152 and 1,227,182/2,097,152 bytes, respectively. The 1963 article won't be expanded any further, and the 2005 article is currently at 58% of its acceptable limit - neither of these articles needs any further split, by decades, showrunner, or any format. -- Alex_21 TALK 23:31, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
Treat as one show but if we need to split on size, there's plenty of sourcing to talk about Classic and NuWho eras as separate aspects of the same show. That is, there should remain a DW franchise article that talks about the fundamental origins of the show, overview of the main elements (the Doctor, regeneration, TARDIS, Daleks, etc.) and the impact the show's had on British culture. But in terms of discussing the broadcast history and development in detail, separate pages to talk about the different eras of the shows (making sure they are clear these are described as eras of the main show) would help alleviate size issues. --Masem (t) 19:33, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
One, there's no question that WP:Reliable sources treat the show as being one continuous show (as per examples given in other responses). I'm not 100% convinced that comparing Doctor Who to other shows is useful due to, to paraphrase a well know saying, the unique way the BBC has made Doctor Who. In a manner of speaking, 'Doctor Who' could be considered both a franchise and a single show. Practically speaking, one show does not mean one article - because if it was one article it would have to be split for size. While other articles offered up as comparison seem to split to three levels 'Franchise [ie Twilight Zone] -> Series [ie 1959 series] -> Season [ie 1959 series season 2]', Doctor Who missed out the middle and goes from 'Franchise' level to 'Season' level. I don't think introducing 1963 series, 2005 series and 2024 series articles would be useful for Doctor Who. That would seem to be an unnecessary split of 'Doctor Who' given that the 2024 series article would make multiple references to events in the 2005 and 1962 series. Obviously the number of seasons is a complication; my understanding is when the show was first made, they weren't numbered as such. Rather, after however many years, episode guide books were published which organised and numbered things, and these episode/series/season numbers were subsequently adopted by both fandom and the makers of the show. RTD has rather complicated things with his comic-book-like renumbering of the 2024 series which is currently being discussed, but the numberings for the 1963 series and the 2005 series at least are well established and commonly used by reliable sources. So broadly speaking, while Doctor Who may not me treating itself like other TV show articles on Wikipedia do, the articles are still structured in a way that is both internally consistent, and supported by multiple reliable sources. JustAnotherCompanion (talk) 21:37, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
One very obviously. There's also nothing wrong with the current way the episode list is split. I feel like you're trying to fix something that WP:AINTBROKE. TheDoctorWho (talk) 02:55, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
I strongly believe it's one show. Although there is a case (albeit weak) for 2 (1963 and 2005), there are many reasons why it's one per above, but generally it's just based on the fact that it's been one continuous story. XCBRO172 (talk) 04:22, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
If I can throw my hat in the ring, I agree that it's one show. However, I can imagine keeping it all in one article would make it more confusing and intimidating for any casual reader, both because of the length and because of the gap of time between the two eras. A number of reliable sources (and most fans of the show) agree that it's one show but refer to two separate eras as Classic Who and NuWho (or whatever other names they use). I recently worked on a project regarding tornadoes that have happened Canada that was so lengthy that it had to be split from 1800-1999 and 2000-present. Even though both are referring to tornadoes in Canada, it's much more convenient and makes much more sense to readers. I agree that 2024 series shouldn't be included as it's own article, especially with only one season.
However, and I might be crazy, in terms of articles actually talking about the show (such as the current Doctor Who article) I could see it even being split into three, along the lines of:
  • Doctor Who (Franchise) - explaining more overarching topics such as the history, background, public reception, impact on culture/media, viewership(maybe), spin-offs & other media, big finish, comics, novels, awards, etc etc.
  • Doctor Who (1963-1989/1996) - "Classic Who" explaining the production, maybe taking snippets from public reception, viewership, the doctors, the missing episodes, music for that era, the reasons behind cancellation, the etc. (I'm not convinced on the timeframe of these splits entirely because of the existence of the 1996 movie with the 8th doctor. I haven't seen anyone agree on whether it's Classic or New or somewhere in between? But I would be more inclined to add it to "classic Who" as it was a failed attempt to reboot before the actual series reboot.)
  • Doctor Who (1996/2005-present) - "New Who" explaining the history behind the show being picked up again, (maybe explaining the 8th doctor's movie as I discussed above), production history, production in general, music, viewership, public reception (particularly with the more recent series), showrunners, etc etc etc.
And then of course however many little tiny articles people want to make about each individual season or not, or whatever else. This way, people can read about the histories or information of one or both shows in as much detail as they want, as opposed to more vague or edited information from one huge article. One of the largest reasons I believe a split like this is feasible at this time is because if the show continues to go on for another 20 years, the length in the main article (Doctor Who) is going to become so long that it'll become basically unusable. We may as well split it now to make it easier for the coming years, where there may not be as much activity (or there could be even more, who knows). I also believe the distinction between the two eras would help anyone who has ever heard about Classic Who or NuWho eras who might go to Wikipedia to try to figure out what either of them means.
TLDR; I think we should keep the lists split into two & split the Doctor Who article into three. If I'm being completely crazy please let me know thankyou. Garriefisher (talk) 20:26, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

How should the lede for each series be written?

This is solely concerning the ledes. I have included alternative titles for the first/fourteenth dispute, as this section does not pertain to that matter. Please refrain from using this section to rehash the titling dispute. The options are not the precise wording to be used, they are a general idea of how the text might be phrased.

Option a. (overall series first, version series second)
  • The twenty-seventh series, and first series of the 2005 revival, of the British science fiction programme Doctor Who began on 26 March 2005 with the episode "Rose".
  • The fortieth series, and first series of the 2024 reboot, of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 11 May 2024, and aired through to 22 June.
  • The fortieth series, and fourteenth series of the 2005 revival, of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 11 May 2024, and aired through to 22 June.
Option b. (version series first, overall series second)
  • The first series of the 2005 revival, and twenty-seventh series overall, of the British science fiction programme Doctor Who began on 26 March 2005 with the episode "Rose".
  • The first series of the 2024 reboot, and fortieth series overall, of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 11 May 2024, and aired through to 22 June.
  • The fourteenth series of the 2005 revival, and fortieth series overall, of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 11 May 2024, and aired through to 22 June.
Option c. (version series only)
  • The first series of the 2005 revival of the British science fiction programme Doctor Who began on 26 March 2005 with the episode "Rose".
  • The first series of the 2024 reboot of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 11 May 2024, and aired through to 22 June.
  • The fourteenth series of the 2005 revival of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 11 May 2024, and aired through to 22 June.
Option d. (overall series only)
  • The twenty-seventh series of the British science fiction programme Doctor Who began on 26 March 2005 with the episode "Rose".
  • The fortieth series of the of British science fiction television programme Doctor Who premiered on 11 May 2024, and aired through to 22 June.

Svampesky (talk) 17:37, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

  • B (opener of this discussion). The version series should be first since it's familiar to the reader; and if a consensus of 'One' is reached, the overall series number should also be included in the same section after the version series number. Svampesky (talk) 18:39, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
    Agree The consensus is currently strongly swinging to "One" and b fits the best, as with "A", it would mention an uncommon name over the WP:Commonname, "C" might give the wrong impression to people unaware of the history of the series (i.e. that the revival and original aren't connected) and isn't as comprehensive, and finally, "D" doesn't even use the common name. XCBRO172 (talk) 04:40, 5 August 2024 (UTC)
  • The current format (somewhere between b and c) works completely fine as far as I'm concerned. The lead for Doctor Who series 14 says This series is the fourteenth to air since the programme's revival in 2005, and the fortieth season overall, and some, but currently not all, revival series have similar sentences. If consensus is to move series 14 to season 1, the lead obviously should reflect that. I feel that the phrasing in B makes the sentence too long and reads poorly; the first sentence should not be so broken up. Introducing the article with the "version" numbering, and later stating which series it is overall, gets the same information across but has drastically improved readability. The current phrasing is fine. Irltoad (talk) 18:47, 4 August 2024 (UTC)
  • I'm inclined to concur with the above that the current format that is out there, is fine as is. Not every series/season article has to read exactly the same way. Some editors may be inclined to use one option on one article and a different option on another. Alternative options may also exist depending on the current state of any specific article; option c may work for a Start-class article, while a good or featured article may not be suited by any of these formats. TheDoctorWho (talk) 21:19, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Revisiting "Useful reference websites" section on WikiProject

Hello all! I'm pretty new to this WikiProject (and to Wikipedia in general) and while I'm not certain if this is where I should bring this concern, I thought I'd give it a shot!

I was looking through the WikiProject's "see also" section where websites for referencing is listed to help me fix up some citation issues on a few pages. As I was looking through, I noticed that a number of the links are either no longer available or have changed destination, are broken/dead, etc. So I kinda fell down a rabbit hole of checking them all. However, I'm not sure about the formatting that everyone wants and I'm ngl I felt pretty nervous about changing anything myself so here's a list of all of the references already included along with my research about what links needed changing:

  1. The BBC Doctor Who microsite - Orange tickY Maybe. Link currently used redirects to here instead, but the topic seems to be the same?
  2. The BBC classic series episode guide - Orange tickY Maybe. Website page is archived via the BBC, I'm unsure of it it was archived prior to the link being added.
  3. Shannon Patrick Sullivan's "A Brief History of Time Travel", which contains a wealth of production information - Green tickY Good.
  4. The Doctor Who Reference Guide, which primarily focuses on plot - Orange tickY Maybe. Current link redirects to here. Appropriate change would be to change current link to https://doctorwho.guide/who.htm.
  5. Outpost Gallifrey Episode Guide, which primarily focuses on plot but includes the entire production team and cast for episodes (defunct since 2007)
  6. Doctor Who Locations, for finding filming locations for the series - Green tickY Good.
  7. Digital Spy's Doctor Who section, which includes news and reviews pursuant to the new series - Orange tickY Maybe. Current redirect is a broken link. I think the equivalent would be this link.
  8. The Stage's TV Today blog, which nearly always reviews new series Doctor Who episodes after they have aired. - Red XN Broken. "Blogs" category of The Stage no longer exists. I'm unable to find an alternative relating to DW.
  9. SFX's section on Doctor Who, which is useful for finding news and reviews - Red XN Broken. Current link is dead and instead redirects here. I'm unable to find a tag equivalent to Doctor Who as the tag feature seems to have been removed, but please correct me if I'm wrong. The only way to access specifically DW content is via the search bar.
  10. The Guardian's Doctor Who section, which is also useful for finding news and reviews - Green tickY Good.
  11. The Doctor Who section on IGN, which has reviewed episodes since series 2 and also contains some news articles - Orange tickY Maybe. Current link is dead, instead redirects to here Using search, I've found two different possible equivalents: Doctor Who (1963-1989) & Doctor Who (2006-present)
  12. The A.V. Club's reviews of the new series (series 4-present) and the classic series (selected serials). The site also contains news and interviews. - Red XN Broken. Both links are dead and the site's "TV club" seems to be discontinued. I could only find DW content individually via the search bar.

Anyways, sorry for the lengthy post & if this is totally not the right place to do this. Thank you all for your time, and please let me know if there's anything I need to do or if it's someone higher on the list than me's job or whatever! Thanks :) Garriefisher (talk) 06:53, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

@Garriefisher Thank you for taking the time to do this. Our main page is very outdated in a lot of aspects, so this is good to catch now, especially when we're in a large spot of growth. I have decided to be BOLD and edited the references page per your suggestions, slotting in new links for defunct ones and removing problematic sources. I have added the Radio Times' reference materials per an earlier discussion, and have additionally noted that AV Club, SFX, and The Stage TV Today may be useful sources, even if they do not have dedicated sections. Let me know your thoughts and if this can be improved further. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:45, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks so much for doing this! It looks great, however, I do have two(2) concerns: Firstly, I think I didn't state this well enough in my initial post so that's my bad, but The Stage doesn't have a TV section anymore, it looks to me like they only have content relating to theatre & stage (not TV or cinema). Even searching Doctor Who on the website comes up with reviews of performances by DW actors appearing on stage. So there's neither blogs nor TV, unless I'm completely blind and have missed it entirely.
Secondly, should link to the Wiki pages or to the websites themselves for AV Club, SFX, (and potentially The Stage TV)? I don't think we have to link to the search results or anything like that, just that we could do it like: AV Club and SFX. I think that would just make it more convenient for others to use, particularly because the list of sources above takes them directly to the sites themselves, but please let me know your opinions!
I could also maybe spend some time today or tomorrow looking for other reference sources, if we wanted? Thanks again! Garriefisher (talk) 20:38, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
@Garriefisher I've taken your suggestions and removed The Stage TV, and added direct links to AV Club and SFX. If there are any other sites you feel would be valuable to add, feel free to run them by here. I myself wouldn't know where to start, I'm afraid, but it would be beneficial if there's any big ones we could add to the list that we haven't added yet. I'd say it's entirely up to you if you want to take a look, since our current reference library is pretty solid, but there's nothing wrong with adding more sources if you feel there's place to expand. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:44, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

List of Doctor Who supporting characters

I am currently planning a rewrite of List of Doctor Who supporting characters, which is going to take priority over my previous plans to work on List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens due to the recent redirect of List of Doctor Who villains. This list will focus on giving in-depth, sourced coverage of the major characters in the series. However, I have a hit a major roadblock with spin-off characters. I have currently been going with the assumption of "if the character recurs in a significant capacity, include them" but in the world of spin-offs, nearly everyone shows up at least a half dozen times, and that's not even including spin-off exclusive characters. If I were to include them entirely, I would not be able to feasibly rewrite this list. Thus, I wish to ask you all what you feel should be included. Right now my thoughts are one of the following:

  1. Exclude spin-off characters entirely, with exceptions for characters who have significant roles in the main show (Such as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and The Meep (Doctor Who) and those who have articles, such as Kroton (Cyberman). Do not include characters only notable in spin-offs (Such as Yvonne Hartman and Jago & Litefoot)
  2. Include spin-off characters, but exclude characters counted as Companions. Additionally, limit spin-off characters only to those who have massively significant roles, such as Abslom Daak, who has several large pieces of spin-off media dedicated to him. (Though how would it be counted as what is significant?) The same applies to main series characters who have significant recurring roles in spin-off media.

Since it's near impossible to accurately cover this spin-off media adequately, especially given its lack of coverage in reliable sources, I'd appreciate thoughts on how this should be handled. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:19, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Pokelego999 One option we could consider is having multiple list pages? Maybe for characters who have appeared in TV appearances, then another for comics, and then another for Big Finish Audio only, and TV spin-offs, etc. Or really any combination of "criteria" we might want to categorize characters into, the ones I listed are really just examples. I think this would make it easier to include characters who are technically both main TV supporting characters & who appear in spin-offs, allow a more versatile system. I think that would make it easier to narrow down just regular series supporting characters as well as allowing characters who appear multiple times in multiple capacities to be cross-referenced across the lists. You could also still list those characters that have an article already, only directing to their article as well.
In the case of spin-offs with few sources, I think each list could have their own metric of how much information is added. AKA for those with generally very few references, the list could be a much simpler list as opposed to characters who have appeared on-screen or who have tons of sources. I also agree about excluding companions from the list of supporting characters, but that might get murky because many people categorize who counts as a companion in different ways. Overall, I understand that creating more than one list might be far more work, though, and I hope at least some of this makes sense. Just throwing my thoughts out there even though I am Not Very Experienced. Garriefisher (talk) 01:02, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
@Garriefisher: That would probably be the optimal world (The multiple lists approach) but given the crackdown on lists in the DW WikiProject rn, I'm hesitant to attempt it, especially with the lack of sourcing that would make the list justified (We don't even have NLIST on our side since the only spin-off characters with articles are also Companions, who have their own, admittedly not great article that's low priority rn) as well as the amount of work that would require. I think for now one uniform list is probably the best bet both for readers and for management.
As for whether a character counts as a "Companion" or "Supporting Character" or not, I think that topic is admittedly iffy, since as you said, sources conflict. Unlike the case with List of Doctor Who villains, there isn't really overlap to mess with, so that's going to be something that can't just be ignored here. I suppose we should discuss that now. (A link to my current draft. Very little has been done and no sources have been added yet, but this should give a rough outline of my plans) I've included a few characters sometimes classified as Companions, primarily if the character played a primarily supporting position to the main characters at some point in the series (For instance, Wilf was a companion during The End of Time but primarily served as a supporting character in the show) or in cases where their status is unclear. Let me know your thoughts. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 02:21, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

On the Subject of Fictional Elements in this WikiProject

I've noticed as of late a heavy assault on a lot of articles focusing on fictional elements in our WikiProject, which includes several ongoing AfDs and several former AfDs. This makes sense given that a lot of our articles on these subjects are rather... well, bad. For example, look at the article on Sixth Doctor in comparison to something like Ninth Doctor or Fourteenth Doctor, who are GAs. The Sixth Doctor has no developmental information, way too much plot summary of every expanded media appearance, and primarily lacks citations to secondary, reliable sources. Obviously this is just one example, but it's a highly recurring trend. I mean, look at articles like Gallifrey or Sontaran, which have highly similar issues and are on wildly similar subjects. And then of course we have our list problem, with articles like List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens (Which I am working on but have had to park due to scheduling issues) or List of Doctor Who supporting characters (A contender for the worst fictional characters list on this site). Many of these articles are just relatively low quality and, unlike episodes or seasons, which have a breadth of out of universe coverage due to their production, are much more targeted by deletions due to the fact their notability is far iffier due to their primarily in-universe status.

This problem is only going to continue to compound itself as seasons progress and more and more people begin to turn a more scrutinous eye to these things. I'm certain most of the articles we have right now have the necessary coverage to prove themselves notable, but just haven't had that done due to a lack of attention being drawn to them until it's the eleventh hour and we have to rush to find sources during an AfD or merger. For the sake of not only preserving these articles but also benefitting our readers, I propose a Fictional Elements Improvement Drive. These articles, for the most part, are far less difficult to source than episodes due to these typically being smaller subjects, and they also tend to have heavy coverage in book sources in terms of their development and analysis. If we pool our resources and minds together, I'm certain we'll be able to improve our coverage and knock this problem out of the way going forward, because unlike episodes, this section is highly unlikely to significantly expand (Outside of the occasional new Doctor or Companion) and thus should be easier to get out of the way if we focus on it in the now.

Currently, we have, according to our character template:

19 articles for incarnations of The Doctor, as well as the Doctor's main article (Which will almost certainly be the most difficult article to improve out of all of them), bringing the total to 20. I will note that Dr. Who (Dalek films) and The Valeyard have iffier notability than the others, so these two should likely be prioritized first in the circumstance they turn out non-notable.

43 articles for Companions who appear in the main series, as well as the main article. There are additionally 5 articles for spin-off companions and 17 articles for supporting characters, as well as Iris Wildthyme, bringing this total to 67 articles. Counting Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, we have more, but these are lower priority (And it helps many Torchwood characters are already GA).

We additionally have 23 articles for series antagonists, as well as alien species, with another 3 articles (with one currently at AfD) for lists. I will note this list includes several articles with dubious notability, such as Voord and Judoon, so this one I feel may be easier to prioritize than the Companions, of which there are many. Articles such as Dalek and Cyberman should also be prioritized, Cyberman especially due to its complete lack of information. This topic also includes Death's Head, which falls under the scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics, who we may be able to collaborate with on the subject.

Excluding Ninth Doctor, Fourteenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Astrid Peth, Adam Mitchell (Doctor Who), Jenny (Doctor Who), and Harriet Jones, who are already GA, and Gwen Cooper, Oswald Danes, Esther Drummond, Captain John Hart (Torchwood), Ianto Jones, and Rhys Williams (Torchwood), who are also already GA from the Torchwood side of things, we have, in total, around 112 total character articles to focus on, though I may be slightly off since I probably missed an article or two. In terms of other in-universe articles, we have 2 articles for planets (Gallifrey and Skaro), 7 articles for series concepts (Sonic screwdriver, TARDIS, Regeneration (Doctor Who), Time War (Doctor Who), Torchwood Institute, UNIT, and Cardiff Rift (Didn't this get merged months ago?)) as well as several rogue lists, such as List of Bernice Summerfield characters, List of companions in Doctor Who spin-offs, Dalek variants, and List of Torchwood characters. Thus, this adds at least another 13 articles (Though I know I'm missing quite a few articles) bringing our total to around 125 articles at minimum that need work. This may sound like a lot, but the work depends on the scope of the subject. I'd assume subjects such as Sara Kingdom and Danny Pink have less work needed due to their shorter durations compared to subjects such as the Daleks and UNIT, for example, and I'd assume at least a good few of the subjects here are not notable. Given the amount of work, it may not be worthwhile to attack every article, but I feel we should at least try to get a good bulk of them. Thus, I've listed a few proposals below:

  1. We make a list of priority in terms of subjects we feel need the most amount of work. Subjects that are mostly complete or do not need a high amount of work can be ignored while work is focused on high importance subjects (Such as the Doctors, for example) or on subjects that are weak in terms of notability and are at target for AfD.
  2. We select a group of articles to work on, and only focus on those. These will be subjects we deem most relevant to the project going forward, and any lesser important subjects can be sidelined for a while and worked on when editors see fit.
  3. We make a long term goal to improve all fictional element articles. This will take a while, but is certainly do-able (Take it from someone in Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Video game characters) if we put our minds to it. Issues with this one include potential burnout and a lack of focus due to its long term goal, but would potentially alleviate the problem permanently.

Obviously this does not need to be acted upon immediately (I myself cannot work on these subjects for some time due to irl commitments) but I feel this should be something of a priority for the WikiProject in order to alleviate a problematic issue in a highly trafficked area of our WikiProject. I have made this proposal now in order to allow time for discussion in order to gauge potential activity in the Drive, as well as how this is best handled given its scope. Please let me know your thoughts on the subject and whether it should be done, and if so, how it should be done, because this is a major problem for this WikiProject that I feel is best addressed now before it ends up getting any worse. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 21:31, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I strongly support this proposal but would like to make a few suggestions. First of all for such a big project I think we would benefit from collaborating with another project, such as Fictional characters or Television Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 21:57, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
I definitely agree with this, since this proposal will go far smoother when working with more editors. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 22:02, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
I boldy added the progress bar to the homepage. We have significantly more stubs then I thought we did. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 22:11, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
@OlifanofmrTennant would it be possible to get a label on which class is which, as well as if this is encompassing every subject or just fictional elements? Right now it's a bit unclear. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 22:30, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Its every article tagged with WP:DRWHO. Hovering over the specific color with your cursor reveals what it is Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 22:39, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Ah, thank you. I will say this will be helpful for tracking overall progress, though for the circumstances of fictional elements, a much smaller group, I'd say we'd want to strive for B-Class on every article (If the editor wants to nom it for GA/FA/FL afterwards, then that works fine as well) as that shows the article is in a good state overall. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 23:38, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
I support the proposal for the Fictional Elements Improvement Drive, because I don't like articles that are notable enough, but poorly cited, being deleted... it sucks. Regarding the Drive, we could almost create a task force to work on such fictional element articles, given the amount of articles there is to work on. Mr Sitcom (talk) 07:50, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
@Mr Sitcom While true, I am not sure if there is enough enthusiasm or interest to warrant the creation of a task force, as much as I'd love to do that. It is something to keep in mind, but I'd have to see how much interest is warranted before we set about doing this. We need at least a good handful of editors before we can construct a plan of attack on how to tackle this issue. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
Pinging some active users about whether or not they would be interested in this proposal.
@Alex 21 @TheDoctorWho @U-Mos @Just Another Companion would you all be interested in participating in this proposal? Additionally pinging @OlifanofmrTennant and @Mr Sitcom as well on this in order to double check if either of you would be willing to participate in this. If we can get a decent group together, this proposal would be able to move along and be completed with significantly quicker speed than if done in isolation.
Of course, this proposal is not an immediate "right now" project, especially since I recognize a lot of yall have ongoing personal projects or irl commitments. Perhaps we could schedule a start date for this drive at some point in the near future, and start work on it then? This is entirely up to the amount of support and membership this proposal receives, as well as depending on which of the above proposals are decided as being the best for the long term health of the project. If any of you don't want to participate, don't feel obligated to, especially if yall have longer term goals and agendas within the Project or outside of it, but do let me know your thoughts on the proposal if you have any. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 02:34, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
I'd perhaps be willing to take on an article or three if this comes to fruition. TheDoctorWho (talk) 05:11, 10 August 2024 (UTC)
I feel Point 1 would be an ideal way to go about this Drive. The Doctor articles really need work, but they are already notable enough to be safe from deletion. Therefore, some other, pressing articles should be worked on instead (like companions, or "list of..." articles, or those articles that are at risk of deletion). Mr Sitcom (talk) 09:49, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
@Mr Sitcom Given the amount of participation we seem to be gathering, I'd say this is probably for the best as well. I think focusing down on Companions is a good idea given the high amount of them in comparison to other articles and the fact most of them aren't in a complete state, though given the number of them I'm curious how we would handle them.
I will note in terms of quality, at a brief glance, Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, Rose Tyler, Adam Mitchell, Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Astrid Peth, and Amy Pond all seem in decently good spots, with the others all needing some degree of heavy work. Not sure if we should count the supporting characters for this (Stuff like Paternoster Gang, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, etc) but most of those need work as well. In terms of the other articles, many need Reception and Developmental information, and many are greatly lacking in general prose as well. There's a few articles that look iffy notability wise as well (Vislor Turlough, Grace Holloway, etc) so we should also focus on in order to assess notability.
I will note that most of these should be smaller subjects than specific episodes (Barring larger characters like Susan Foreman and Sarah Jane Smith who will likely require more in-depth research) so I'd say most of these won't be too difficult to assess or improve. Either way, I can probably determine a priority order in terms of work sometime soon if you feel this is the best method of accomplishing this right now. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 16:47, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
I like that proposal. If you can rank the Companion/villain articles in terms of priority, we would be at a much better position to improve the articles. That being said, I think we should prioritise those most at risk of being deleted, over the poorly-written-but-still-notable-enough articles. Mr Sitcom (talk) 13:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Also, it would be beneficial to find a "perfect" companion article, so that we can attempt to edit the other companion articles to look like that one. I am not sure which one would be the ideal article, however. Mr Sitcom (talk) 13:14, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
@Mr Sitcom I've created a mock-up template for this. I've included all Companions and antagonists (Villains and alien species) per your request, and included a few supporting characters sometimes considered Companions for completion's sake, and did my best to create categories for improvement, with a few suggestions for higher priority. This was mostly done at a glance and with knowledge of my own experiences with the articles in the past, so if you feel these are better moved up or down, feel free to let me know.
I feel a "perfect" article is hard to get due to the lack of focus on these elements in the past. I would say Rose Tyler, but her article's made more in-line with late 2000s writing styles in mind, which includes a lot of things we don't need to touch on these days. Jo Grant or Martha Jones also seem solid, though I'm not fond of the Reception formatting. I could potentially try to whip up a subject I know will have a lot of information, like Bill Potts (Doctor Who) into good shape to create a "perfect" template, but I'm not sure if that is the best approach. Please let me know your thoughts. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:32, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
I agree. Upon reflection, we don't really need a perfect article. I like the look of the mock-up template. Hopefully we might get more interest in the project, now that a basis of articles to work on has been established... Mr Sitcom (talk) 11:45, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
@Mr Sitcom and Pokelego999: I do feel like the above sentiment reads like the episodes are safe. However several of them, particularly some classic ones, have pretty poor sourcing Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 04:27, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
@OlifanofmrTennant it's not my intention to say the episodes are in a bad state, but rather that episodes are far less likely to be AfD'd or put under fire. The bulk of AfDs and questionable articles in terms of quality have been directed towards our fictional elements. Individual episodes are more than easy to find sourcing for, with classic in particular having several books that cover every episode in-depth on top of the reviews from the usual crowd, with dev info being plentiful in sources like The Complete History and various BTS information revealed in books. Episodes, even in a bad state, are easy to verify in terms of notability, though I agree things like minisodes and such may be under fire a bit more. Still, fictional elements are arguably in a worse state overall. There's a smaller amount of them and very few are meeting quality standards, unlike the case with episodes where we at least have the bulk of the revived era on top of a good bit of the classic era in a GA or higher state. Fictional elements also tend to be a bit more scrutinized, as they tend to have an iffier "out of universe" context that make them far more likely to be targeted down for their quality. Additionally, fewer are really creatable, and there's far fewer than in terms of episodes. As a result, improvement is substantially more beneficial long term, since once the fictional elements are improved, they likely won't need upkeep for years, and it would improve what is debatably one of the lower quality ends of the project. It's essentially nailing down a long-term problem and making sure it doesn't bother us again, which would allow for greater focus to be put into improving episodes since the fictional element problem would be less of a concern. It's not my intention to say episodes aren't in a bad state in places, but I do believe that focusing down fictional elements is something that would be more beneficial in the shorter and longer term in order to improve the project's overall quality, and to nail down a problem that has been an issue in this project for years. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 04:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Doctor Who News

I've seen a small small number of editors beginning to question the reliability of Doctor Who News lately. Especially when it comes to good and featured content nominations. I think it may be time to consider whether that site has outlived its time here on Wikipedia as a source? I understand that this site is largely used for viewing figures, and that it would be quite a mass exodus to remove it, as well as the fact that we'd either need to replace it or we would have portions of uncited content, but are we really serving our readers anyways if it's unreliable? Some summarized information I gathered from the above linked discussions: their "About Us" page seems to suggest poor editorial standards. They allow "volunteers" to write articles, it's won awards for "Best Sci-Fi News Blog (fails WP:BLOG), and was formally Outpost Gallifrey (which is labeled on WP as a fan site). TheDoctorWho (talk) 05:18, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I definitely think it's not really reliable. If it's outsourcing to volunteers (People without journalistic credentials) or acting as a blog site, then it's fundamentally unreliable. If the site is citing viewership data, that data should likely have a source that would be usable in replacement of DWN. I will say it shouldn't be a big concern in terms of removing it, as despite its iffy reliability, the information it is citing tends to be accurate enough for the time being, but we should focus on removing it where we see it, I feel. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 04:46, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Do you have an alternate source in mind that supports all the Audience Index values across 800+ episodes? Or will that be information be included in the "mass exodus"? -- Alex_21 TALK 11:05, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
The AI figures are supported by The Complete History DWM special editions for the classic series. Glimmer721 (talk) 16:37, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
I sadly fear that if there's not a reliable source for AI figures then they'll have to be removed. There do seem to be a few sources here and there. We wouldn't include any other information from a blog/user generated/fan site just because they're the only pages that support said information, why should this be an exception? It doesn't necessarily have to be something that's done overnight, but as we move towards improving the pages within the scope of this project, I think it doesn't hurt to consider phasing it out. TheDoctorWhoPublic (talk) 16:38, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Should I just delete the unsourced AI figures someone introduced on my GA Genesis of the Daleks then? Until someone gets a copy of The Complete History for that story? Glimmer721 (talk) 17:43, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
@Glimmer721: Most if not all of the Complete History books can be found on the internet archive. Conceitedly, Genisis of the Daleks is covered in the same book as my current project is! Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 18:22, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
"Doctor Who - The Complete History GENESIS OF THE DALEKS, REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN AND TERROR OF THE ZYGONS". Doctor Who - The Complete History. No. 23. Panini Comics. 2015. Retrieved 18 August 2024. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 18:22, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, haha I literally bought two of them... it's okay though, I'm having fun. For the record, I'm working on Power of the Daleks right now. Glimmer721 (talk) 18:43, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

List of Doctor Who Episodes(2005-present)

I am trying to promote/bring back the list of the revived series episodes to featured list status, and so I have added and changed information, to make it similar to the list of the classic series which is already a featured list, so like can anyone check if it seems complete and good enough for FL status, and if not, can anyone help me bring it to that level, or at least provide remarks. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 19:59, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

@DoctorWhoFan91 There's still a lot of uncited info in the series summaries, in terms of directors/writer credits, and other similar areas. The season summaries also feel very small and have several grammatical errors. I'd suggest improving these areas. There's also a lot of sources of debatable authenticity, such as Doctor Who News, which is currently under discussion as being unreliable, and Screen Rant, which, while not unreliable, is not considered a good source to use in Featured content nominations. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 21:38, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
The list of the classic series episodes also have uncited info and small sizes, which I was trying to copy, but will add references now. The classic series also uses Doctor Who News, along with many pages related to Doctor Who, so I decided to leave it be for the time being, despite it's ambiguous reliability. Is either of CultBox or doctorwhotv reliable, to the extent of your knowledge, because I cannot find anything that might prove or disprove the journalistic reliability of either of these two sites? DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 07:16, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
We can use barb.co.uk as a relaible source for the viewer count, but they only show data for the first seven days, plus we would need to search week by week to get even those numbers. Not to mention that there wouldn't be a source for AI, so if either of CultBox or doctowhotv is reliable, the work would be greatly reduced. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 08:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
@DoctorWhoFan91: These books [1] cover the relevent information. Every story through Twice Upon a Time Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 15:17, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
@Pokelego999 The episodes themselves act as primary sources for plot summaries, directing and writing credits, as per WP:TV standards. -- Alex_21 TALK 07:53, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Doctor Who is now without an infobox logo image, as the previous was deleted for copyright infringement. -- Alex_21 TALK 21:26, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

If I recall, the one that was there last was a vector version of the diamond logo on commons - if that fails copyright, can we upload that vector version here under fair use? or a screenshot of the title card? Etron81 (talk) 22:00, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Series 2: Prep for Good Article Nomination

I saw that the series 2 article only had a few issues by the end that prevented it from reaching Good Article status, so I have been making changes to deal with them. I have added a lot of stuff to the critical reception section, and a paragraph to the writing section, and everything else looks good to me, prose-wise. Anyone who could give it a look and suggest any changes would be great help. Posted this on the series 2 talk page as well. DoctorWhoFan91 (talk) 14:46, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

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