Wikipedia:WikiProject Doctor Who

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Some Wikipedians have formed a project to organize information in articles related to Doctor Who. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list there.

Contents

[edit] Scope

This WikiProject aims primarily to improve and organize articles relating to the television series Doctor Who and its associated spin-offs. This is an attempt to establish a standard for making good articles. Such an effort endeavours to produce a reference that has value as an authority on material within the television series, is easy to read, and has a consistent style. Please discuss.

The WikiProject (and its editors) have been responsible for producing five featured articles so far:

[edit] List of articles

A list of all Doctor Who-related articles can be found here. For a list of changes to those pages, click here.

[edit] Style guide

To keep a consistent style to the articles, these guidelines should be followed.

[edit] General

The article name, when first mentioned, should be bold, or bolded and italicised if it is a story title.

Where mentioned in subsequent text, story titles should be italicised and reference should be made to the year it was broadcast (and/or which Doctor's era it belonged to). For the classic series, if references are made to individual episodes within serials, the title should be put in quotes.

British English spelling should be used, and dates should place the number first. With the exception of episode synopses and ongoing events, the past tense should be preferred in the main article text.

Names like "the Doctor" and "the Master" should not have "the" capitalised.

Articles should be categorised in the correct subcategory at Category:Doctor Who.

Quotes in general are not encyclopaedic, and are better added at wikiquote, for example at q:Doctor Who.

[edit] Episodes

162 - The End of the World
Doctor Christopher Eccleston (Ninth Doctor)
Writer Russell T. Davies
Director Euros Lyn
Script Editor Helen Raynor
Producer Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s) Russell T. Davies
Julie Gardner
Mal Young
Production code Series 1, Episode 2
Series Series 1 (2005)
Length 1 episode, 45 mins
Transmission date 2 April 2005
Preceded by Rose
Followed by The Unquiet Dead

This infobox is an example of how Template:Doctorwhobox should be filled in. Production codes should be used where available. For the 2005 series, we should follow the production team's designation of Series and episode. If you require references to fill in the credits and transmission times, you can look in the following places on-line:

  1. BBC episode guide for the new series
  2. BBC episode guide for the classic series
  3. Shannon Patrick Sullivan's "A Brief History of Time Travel"
  4. The Doctor Who Reference Guide
  5. Outpost Gallifrey Episode Guide

The story numbers preceding the title are follow-ons from the story numbers assigned on the Region 1 DVD releases, which seem to count The Trial of a Time Lord as 4 separate stories. They are there to give an idea of where the story stands in the overall context of the series.

Format for episode articles should be:

  1. A general description of what the episode/serial is and when it was first broadcast.
  2. A teaser Synopsis with no spoiler content.
  3. A more fully detailed Plot with spoiler warning.
  4. Cast section with the name of the character followed by an em dash ( or —) followed by the name of the actor
  5. Any additional miscellaneous sections, if necessary.
  6. Trivia
  7. References
  8. External links, to include a link to the BBC on-line cast list.

Although most of the classic series was serial in nature, it is not neccessary to summarise the stories episode by episode. Generally, plot summaries deal with the story in its entirety. If you wish to split it up, you can divide the individual episodes with <hr> tags, or end cliffhanger paragraphs with ellipses (...), but this is purely optional. Please don't introduce subheaders as this will clutter up the TOC box and lead to an inconsistent look to the story articles.

Screenshots for episode/serial articles should immediately follow the spoiler warning, adjusted up and down where necessary so as not to conflict with the info box. They should be 300px for the classic series and 350px for the wider screen new series. We should generally limit ourselves to one screenshot per page, to safely stay within the bounds of fair use.

For an example from the new series, see Rose. For an example from the classic series, see An Unearthly Child.

[edit] What do we include?

The main criteria for inclusion should be notability. That being said, to avoid clutter, confusion, we should note the following.

[edit] Canon or not?

To avoid the tricky issue of canonicity, we should identify the source of the information if it comes from anywhere else besides the television series.

The only thing that fandom seems to agree on is that the televised episodes, barring specials or spoofs like Dimensions in Time and Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, are unquestionably canon (this includes the 1996 television movie, though some fans dispute this). The two Peter Cushing films of the 1960s are not considered canon. Everything else is up for grabs. We should not take a firm stand on what is "canon" and what is "non-canon" apart from this, but simply source where the material comes from and let the reader decide for themselves how it fits in.

In practice, what this means is that anything from the televised stories need not be sourced or distinguished, although the relevant episodes should be referenced. These can be stated as fact. Any material outside the television series needs to be sourced.

We should also limit the non-television series material, where possible, to officially licensed BBC material. This will leave out the fan videos, but will include the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip, the Big Finish Productions audio plays and story collections, the Telos novellas and the Target Books, Virgin New Adventures and BBC Books novels and short stories. Story titles, like the television stories, should be italicised and author credit given.

The one exception to "officially licensed" would be material from BBV. It is of a more professional standard and known to a wider audience than the typical fan video or audio productions. While the character of the Doctor himself is not licensed by BBV, many related properties, such as the Autons, Sontarans, and Faction Paradox, have been licensed. Similarly, any production (such as the videos from Reeltime Pictures) which licenses characters or aliens from Doctor Who from their creators may be mentioned, with an appropriate citation.

This is of course inclusive. If something else - from a fan video or other reference - is actually notable, we should not exclude it because it falls outside of these categories. We just need to make it clear where it comes from.

[edit] Minor topics

Some articles on what might be termed minor topics, e,g. monsters, villains, planets or devices which only appear in a single episode are better placed in a list. These are the lists available so far:

Articles can be demerged if they grow very large. Some very minor characters are probably not worth writing about, and it would be preferable to write the plot synopsis of the episode in which they appear. An example is Doctor Constantine from the episode The Empty Child, when this article was created it was sent to Wikipedia: Votes for Deletion and was deleted. A redirect

#REDIRECT [[The Empty Child]] 

is a solution to any minor articles that are created, and you may wish to consider adding the content to the main article.

[edit] Parentage

[edit] Descendant WikiProjects

No descendant WikiProjects have been defined. Possibilities:

  • Doctor Who audio plays
  • Doctor Who novels
  • WikiProject Torchwood

[edit] Similar WikiProjects

[edit] Participants

Add yourself!

[edit] Goals

  1. To create a consensus on what should be included and how to distinguish between the various media sources.
  2. To create a consistent look and style for each type of page: episodes; characters; places and devices; people; and so on.

[edit] General strategy and discussion forums

[edit] To-do list

[edit] Sample articles

[edit] Templates

What to type What it makes What it's for
{{Doctorwho-stub}}
Talk
The official stub for Doctor Who-related articles.
{{Doctorwhoproject}}
Talk
Dr Who This article is within the scope of WikiProject Doctor Who, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Doctor Who and its spin-offs on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this notice, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
The project notice, designed to be placed in the talk page of any article that has been edited as part of this Wikiproject.
{{DoctorWhoWikiProject-Member}}
Talk
Peer review This user is a member of WikiProject Doctor Who, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Doctor Who and its spin-offs on Wikipedia. Please feel free to join us.
This can be placed on your user page to show that you are a part of this Wikiproject.
{{user WPDoctorWho}}
Talk
This user is a member of the
Doctor Who Wikiproject.
This can be placed on your user page to show that you are a part of this Wikiproject.
{{user Doctor Who}}
Talk
This user is a Doctor Who fan.
This can be placed on your user page to show that you are a fan of Doctor Who.
{{user Doctor Who Doctor}}
Talk
Dr. Who This user has been a Doctor Who fan since the Doctor. '
This can be placed on your user page to show your first Doctor. To change Doctor insert the number as the variable, as in {{User Doctor Who Doctor|1}}, etc.

[edit] Sandbox

You can experiment with edits and put them up on discussion prior to them going "live" at the Project Sandbox.