Outpost Gallifrey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| URL | http://www.gallifreyone.com |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | No |
| Type of site | Fan site |
| Registration | Free |
| Owner | Shaun Lyon |
| Created by | Shaun Lyon |
Outpost Gallifrey is a fan website for the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
Contents |
[edit] Main site
Launched on December 11, 1995, the site was created and is currently administered by Shaun Lyon. The site is based in the United States, and associated with the annual Los Angeles Doctor Who convention Gallifrey One. In March 2006, the Los Angeles Times referred to Outpost Gallifrey as "the premier Doctor Who website" in America.[1] An interviewer for bbc.co.uk has recommended Outpost Gallifrey as a "terrific fan site", along with the BBC's official Doctor Who website.[2] The site's news page is known in the Doctor Who fan community for being a generally reliable source of news for the programme. Its front page claims that the website receives over 25,000 readers every day, rising to up to 50,000 at times of peak interest in the show such as a series premiere or finale.
The site has numerous sections such as an episode guide (giving cast and crew details and story outlines), feature articles and a reviews section. Reader and member submissions are accepted by Lyon.
On October 9, 2006, Lyon announced that he would no longer be updating the news pages due to the fact that his "heart was no longer in [the constant news collection and editing] anymore." The initial plan was that most of the website would be archived, with only the forum and pages related to the annual Gallifrey One convention continuing to be updated regularly. However, on November 2, 2006, Lyon announced that the site's news page would be returning in a new form, with Lyon as editor-in-chief and a committee of reporters from the US, UK and beyond.[3] The news page was relaunched on 1 December, along with the newly-incorporated Web Guide to Doctor Who, a manually maintained listing of Doctor Who websites. Previously this web guide had been a separate site, edited by Paul Harman over ten years.
On 21 January 2007, the website became affiliated with the popular Doctor Who podcast Doctor Who: Podshock.
[edit] Discussion forum
The site's discussion forum has over 20,000 registered members, and the site's chat room is extremely popular. The forum has close contacts with the production team and writers associated with the series, several of whom have been known to post on the forums. In April 2005, when the news of Christopher Eccleston's departure from Doctor Who broke, discussion on the forum became so heated that Lyon shut the section down for two days; the closure was reported in The Daily Mirror.[4] The British news media frequently use the site to garner examples of fan reactions to Doctor Who.[5]
Current Doctor Who lead actor David Tennant admitted in a 2005 interview with Doctor Who Magazine that he had visited the Outpost Gallifrey forum shortly after his casting had been announced, to gauge fan reaction. "Well, when it was announced, I admit, I did go on Outpost Gallifrey to have a quick look, because I just couldn't help myself, and everyone was encouraging me to go on and see what the fans were saying about me," he told the magazine.[6]
Gareth Roberts, one of the writers of Doctor Who, complimented the persistence of fans on the website's forum who were able to track down the locations where the series was being shot. "These people should be working for MI5, they're wasted on Outpost Gallifrey," Roberts said in a December 2006 interview with Doctor Who Magazine. "To be able to comb that amount of media and make contacts and find this stuff out... they should be hunting Al-Qaeda, not stalking Nick Briggs in a van in the middle of nowhere."[7]
On January 12, 2007, the MediaGuardian.co.uk website's "Media Monkey" diary column reported that Doctor Who fans from the Outpost Gallifrey forum were attempting to organise mass downloads of the song "Love Don't Roam" from the programme's soundtrack, which was available as a single release on the UK iTunes store. This was in order to attempt to exploit the new UK singles chart download rules, and get the song featured in the Top 40 releases.[8] They failed, with the song not even making the Top 100.
[edit] References
- ^ Beale, Lewis. "Dr. Who Poised to Leap Through Time Again", Los Angeles Times, 2006-03-19. Retrieved on April 11, 2006.
- ^ Barber, Martin (2006-11-01). Doctor Who: Ongoing adventures for Elisabeth Sladen (RealPlayer video interview). bbc.co.uk. BBC. Retrieved on November 1, 2006. “For more on Doctor Who, log on to the programme's official website, bbc.co.uk/doctorwho, or try the terrific fan site at www.gallifreyone.com.”
- ^ Lyon, Shaun (2006-11-02). November 2: Back by popular demand. Outpost Gallifrey. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
- ^ Robertson, Cameron. "DR WHO-HA: Eccleston row forces fans' website to shut", The Daily Mirror, 2005-04-02. Retrieved on April 11, 2006.
- ^ Williams, Tryst. "Time Lord trounces Potter in ratings", The Western Mail, 2006-04-17. Retrieved on April 19, 2006.
- ^ Hickman, Clayton (2005-08-17). "Perfect Ten". Doctor Who Magazine (359): 18.
- ^ Duis, Rex (2007-01-03 (cover date)). "Script Doctors: Gareth Roberts". Doctor Who Magazine (377): 15.
- ^ Who's in the pop charts? (Requires free registration). Guardian Unlimited (2007-01-12). Retrieved on January 13, 2007.
