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Chronology of the Doctor Who universe[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page. The closing editor's comments were: 14 days, 8 support, 3 oppose. No consensus. Fail. Juhachi 11:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this qualifies as a featured content, as below:

  1. "Useful, comprehensive, factually accurate, stable, uncontroversial and well-constructed."
    1. Useful
      Meets 1a1; "a timeline of important events on a notable topic", said topic being the Doctor Who universe.
    2. Comprehensive
      Contains the dating of every episode of all four shows.
    3. Factually accurate
      All are sourced: pre-TV movie, they're sourced to the BBC's site, post-TV movie, most are sourced to the primary source itself.
    4. Uncontroversial
      Impossibility given all statements are sourced to a secondary or primary source.
    5. Stable
      Yes - apart from a periodic updating, it is stable, and even when episodes air, it's normally a "add date, per episode"
    6. Well-constructed
      Yes.
  2. Complying to the MOS
    Yes - contains a full lede and a proper system of hierarchical headings.
  3. Images
    N/A - none

I believe this qualifies as a list due to its nature as a timeline, lending itself to list format.

Thanks, Will (talk) 20:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I support the nomination of this list. It is well constructed, notable and laid out in a simple and easily understandable way. It is thoroughly sourced to the series itself, directors' commentary programs and external databases. Doctor Who is a long-running series with many stories in which time travel is a a major feature, listing the episodes by setting is therefore culturally significant to some extent with regards to era portrayal and airdate.~ZytheTalk to me! 22:55, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; I was going to suggest making a graphical timeline, but I think that given it would go from 13.7 billion BCE to 100 trillion CE, it would be one very long line! Laïka 18:27, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - When this page was created, I groaned a bit and promptly ignored it, as it seemed more suitable to somebody's fan page than Wikipedia. I'm really impressed with how far it's come, particularly in terms of its references. Looking over the criteria for featured lists, it certainly seems to meet each point. --Brian Olsen 22:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose
    • Integrating the headers in the table has so many issues I won't even bother to list them.
    • There's a reason {{scrollref}} was deleted, and "to be replaced with in-article code doing the same thing" is not one of them. (The fact that they may not print properly, however, is)
    • Some header placement can be considered dubious:
      • 1rst millennium has exactly 1 episode under it.
      • "Early" and "mid" 2nd millennium are at best artificial divisions, given that "Unknown year" is longer than their combination.
    • There needs to be an explanation for "Adventures on, or dealing with, Gallifrey" for those, like me, totally unfamiliar with Doctor Who.
  • Circeus 05:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    What are the problems with headers in the table? It looks fine in all of the skins (I've checked) - the only place it may look out of place is in previewing, but I think such occasions where preview needs to be used will be few and far between. Will (talk) 23:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    The header had to be put as 3rd-level instead of 2nd so they would look good. That's one strike against Semantic HTML. Second, the headers are far too discrete when placed in the table: you hardly notice you scroll past them because you expect the table to break up, like they do in every other similar article. Finally, no other friggin' article (and if there are any, there can,t be too many of 'em) ever did this, Keep it simple, stupid (no insult meant). Circeus 23:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    None taken (I know about KISS). I've also merged the 0-1500 AD sections. Will (talk) 00:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Now that I look in more details, I see that sometimes, multiple episodes sharing a date have a merged cell for the date, other times are placed in the same "episode" cell. This needs to be fixed. Also removes multiple links to a given episode, at least when the occur one above the other (cf. "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" under "Early 20th Century"). Finally, although it,scaused by the table breaking, couldn't the cell widths be given a minimum of standardization? Even for "year aired", which never exceeds 4 digits, the width vary a lot.
    Maybe you could also consider of sourcing all the episodes separate (which would remove the original "need" for scrolling refs), and cite the Doctor who classic episodes guide as a general reference, keeping notes for different references and content notes? As is, the content notes are drowned amongst references. Circeus 01:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    I misunderstand about the merged cells - do you mean that the below:
foo bar
foo baz
lorem baz
lorem ipsum
  • ...should become:
foo bar
baz
lorem
ipsum
  • ...or something different entirely? Will (talk) 01:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

reset indent
Right now some places you have:

"episode"/"another episode" time period

and some places else:

"episode" time period
"another episode"

Chose one format and use it everywhere. Circeus 02:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Episodes such as Human Nature and The Family of Blood are two-part stories, hence why the slashes are used. Will (talk) 02:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That makes some sense, although I still find it slightly confusing. One very last thing: Maybe "dating" (or something else I can't think of) is better than "date" when that column include stuff like "400 million BC," "Summer 1289," "between 2070 and 2164," none of which can reasonably be called a "date". Circeus 16:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The lead text is weak. One example: "It is intended roughly to give", ugh. Within the table, the prose dips in and out of universe. The layout isn't particularly pleasing to the eye. One of the sources is a blog written by a fictional character. The current series appear to be over-emphasised. Most importantly, the talk page supports the suspicion that many of the entries are the work of original research, combining the real world and the fictional to guess the date. The series was made up as they went along, written by different people, often unaware of inconsistencies. I suspect the "roughly" in the lead is actually about right. But roughly right doesn't "exemplify our very best work". Colin°Talk 22:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll concede on that the lead may not look pleasing and there nay be in-universe problems. However, you can't blame the current series; they're much more dynamic in time travel than the classic series (i.e., we can get four time periods in a new story, while in the classic series we'd normally only get two periods at most). There's also being a massive overhaul so that there is no mixing of the real world to guess the date of any of the stories. Will (talk) 23:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead is better. The various section leads are still inconsistent wrt in/out universe, unsourced and possibly overconfidently mixing descriptions plucked from episodes written decades apart. I don't deny that this chronology may be useful to fans, but it will probably remain a work-in-progress as you try to extract as much period info from each episode. The new format, with standard section headers, is an improvement. Colin°Talk 12:32, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Colin, I can also see several MoS fixes that are needed. Matthew 14:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Such as...? Will (talk) 14:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    "The article's subject should be mentioned at the earliest natural point in the prose in the first sentence, and should appear in bold face." (Wikipedia:Lead section) The articles subject is Doctor Who, so that should be bold, and chronology (but that's already bold). Also, on further reading, it looks like there's some synthesis going on in the article. And why is it not all Br-Eng? Matthew 15:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    {{sofixit}}? Will (talk) 15:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable if a reliable source has published the argument in relation to the article's topic. - episodes can be used as reliable sources to date each other. Will (talk) 15:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    I took the liberty of fixing the "bolded topic" issue. Circeus 16:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Too much is unreferenced. From Time-Flight onwards The Tribe of Gum 20:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Inactionable oppose - its not unreferenced, the references have been condensed. Will (talk) 21:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's very acceptable when most list entries are reffed from a single source to list that source instead of cramming hundreds of individual references. Several existing featured lists work that way. Circeus 22:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Surely the "Unknown year" stories could have an approximet time. Buc 06:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the unknown year episodes don't even give an indication of when it is - The Daleks being a prime example (describes as both a million year before and after our time in separate episodes). Will (talk) 12:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I can support now. Circeus 18:49, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I'm worried at how much original research I see here -- suppositions and inferences which aren't necessarily backed up by production intention or execution (eg. A) the assertion that Last of the Time Lords has a scene set in 1912 has a very weak basis, B) dating episodes 2-4 of An Unearthly Child to c. 100,000 BC seems to be on the strength of an alternative serial title, because there certainly isn't any dialogue to that effect, C) putting The Aztecs (Doctor Who) at c. 1450 seems to be simply a guess, etc). Moreover, I've learned that the article uses sources of questionable reliability (BBC websites of uncertain canonicity, such as the "official" blog of a fictional character). Mark H Wilkinson 17:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    A) BBC did say the Titanic in the press release for the Christmas special - of which is a direct continuation of Last of the Time Lords.
    B) is a date taken from Outpost Gallifrey's guide.
    C) is taken from the BBC's episode guide.
    Canonicity is up for debate, but there's really no objection to use officially commissioned tie-in sites to date episodes (which the myspace is, see here) Will (talk) 17:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    A) So, we're assuming without good basis that said ship is where it should be in time, which is an assumption too far: supposition, not verifiable fact.
    B) The Outpost Gallifrey guide has no special authority (ie. reliability); it's a fan work. So, in the absence of anything in the primary source, we're presenting one speculation as the approximate date: this certainly doesn't satisfy WP:NPOV.
    C) That episode guide includes speculation on the part of the authors who wrote the works on which it is based. Again, we're favouring one possibility. Its inclusion at the BBC site grants it no extra authority.
    The point to all this being that if I can this easily (and quickly) pick out problems like this, then we ought not to be sending this out to the world as "our very best work", because it fails to be best on 1.(c) "Factually accurate". Mark H Wilkinson 18:28, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    OG and the BBC's episode guide are reliable secondary sources - they were given quite a lot of fact checking and editorial oversight. I presume the same has happened for the MySpace, which blurs the line somewhat between primary and secondary. On the subject of the Titanic, I'll concede, and thus I've moved the episode to the "Unknown date" section, but only until the episode airs. Will (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: a well-written and sourced article, perfectly valid as a member of the elite FL group.--Rambutan (talk) 17:50, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Well-researched and assembled. Comprehensive and adequately notes all major controversial points. Radagast 20:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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