Talk:Rose (Doctor Who episode)

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Why is the title not Rose (Doctor Who episode)?
The title of this article is ambiguous despite having a parenthetical disambiguator, and one would think if anything the character would be the primary topic of "Rose (Doctor Who)", since she appeared in multiple episodes beyond this one, and this title would redirect there. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:47, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * this is a fair point. I'm curious if we should make similar provisions for Timeless (Star Trek: Voyager) to Timeless (Star Trek: Voyager episode) to differentiate from Timeless (Doctor Who) which redirects to Timeless (Cole novel)?- 🐦Do☭torWho42 ( ⭐ ) 09:01, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Umm... no... that's a completely dissimilar problem, since Doctor Who is a separate franchise from Star Trek (let alone Voyager)... ? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 09:53, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Never mind then!- 🐦Do☭torWho42 ( ⭐ ) 16:06, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 7 February 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. The arguments opposed to moving focused on the fact that the character was adequately disambiguated. Those arguments didn't satisfactorily whether or not this page was adequately disambiguated to someone who is a lay person/someone who knows about Doctor Who, but isn't very familiar with it (which is the spirit behind COMMONNAME). Those who supported a move made a strong case that the current title is confusing and could lead to people going to the wrong article thinking that they were going to the character. Because of all these factors, I feel there is a strong enough consensus to execute a move. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:14, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Rose (Doctor Who) → Rose (Doctor Who episode) – The current title, despite its parenthetical disambiguator, is still ambiguous. In fact, it is probably more likely to be taken as referring to the character, about whom we also have an article. Whether that is the case can be dealt with by making the current title redirect to one article or the other, but the current title of this article needing to be changed is clear-cut, since using a parenthetical disambiguator that still is ambiguous is out of line with WP:DISAMBIG WP:PRECISE, as it could (indeed probably usually does) refer to the character who appeared in multiple episodes after this one. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 09:44, 7 February 2018 (UTC) (Edited: 10:14, 7 February 2018 (UTC) )
 * What specifically in WP:DISAMBIG do you think this is out of line with? I don't immediately see anything that necessarily warrants a move. There is a hatnote for Rose Tyler for people that do come here by mistake. Cheers, Dresken (talk) 10:03, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, yeah, but wouldn't they be the majority of people who type the title of this article? Anyway: Shit, you're right. Not DISAMBIG. WP:PRECISE. And a few others that were cited in this discussion from five years ago that I misremembered. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:14, 7 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Support given the character this fails WP:CRITERIA; if we're going to title an article, might as well make it helpful to readers. In ictu oculi (talk) 13:20, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose "Rose Tyler" is a fully-qualified unique name for the character (it is mentioned numerous times on the show) and requires no special distinguishing from this episode. The hatnote is sufficient to direct people to the character if they search "Rose doctor who". --M asem (t) 15:02, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * And to add, nearly all TV episode articles that need disambiguation use simply the show name for that, without "episode". Yes, precision suggests we do that, but we'd need to do it equally across all TV episode articles, and that likely needs a larger RFC to decide. --M asem  (t) 15:03, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:OSE I actually agree that the other articles should be moved to more precise titles. See my earlier statement on the matter here. But multimoves are difficult, messy, and if I had opened one with a hundred proposed moves and three or four of them were bad that could have sunk the whole ship. This page should be moved now, and if you want to RM all the other articles with similar problems, feel free to ping me and I will probably support those as well. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 01:20, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * But as brought up below, this would go against NCTV. You'd need a full RFC to change NCTV to add "episode" to all of these, not just this one. (I will say that I do think we should go in that direction, but that does require a serious challenge to establish practice, and you don't go changing that one tiny article at a time). --M asem  (t) 02:40, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:NCTV -Where the title is the same as an episode, character, or other element from the show which has its own page, disambiguate further using Title (Show episode/character/element) and WP:SURPRISE because people looking at the current tile might rightly think its about the character. -- Netoholic @ 20:05, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Except, the example given with Serenity is not what is happening here. We can fully disambiguate the character, there is no need for "Rose (Doctor Who character)". If we didn't know her last name, as the case was of Ace (it's buried in script), we'd absolutely follow that example, but we can get Rose off any disambiguation and as there is no other Doctor Who concept named "Rose" beyond this episode, it doesn't need further disambiguation. --M asem  (t) 02:38, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * But we can't fully disambiguate the character. In general popular discussion of the show (it's been a while since I watched the show itself) companions are usually referred to by their first names. By giving the title "Rose (Doctor Who)" to the episode article, we are explicitly prioritizing that one. NCTV is at best ambiguous about what to do in cases where an episode is named for a character but the character is indisputably better-known: it also gives an example of the name of the show being used as a parenthetical disambiguator for a character article, and even if it were clear that the minimum possible disambiguation should be used, it would at least be in conflict with other naming guidelines like PRECISE. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 04:35, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * She was called "Rose Tyler" many many times (including some of the first few words the Doctor says to her here). There's zero question of her last name. Yes, I can envision that not every person who watches DW can recognize that but we're not talking obscure trivia, and the hat-note here helps those looking for the character. --M asem (t) 04:59, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You're missing the point. I didn't say there was a question of what her real last name was. I said that she is usually referred to in secondary sources by her first name only. This means that the present title of this article is ambiguous at best, and should probably redirect to her article. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:03, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Then we'd needing to move Tegan Jovanka, Amy Pond, Clara Oswald, and many others for that same reason, which doesn't make any sense. Article titles should avoid requiring disambiguation if there is a natural and well-known non-parenthetical name we can use, and that's fully the case here and the others. --M asem (t) 06:23, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * But I never said the character article should be located at this title. WP:DISAMBIG is clear that natural disambiguation is preferred over parenthetical disambiguation, and since she (obviously) is not the PRIMARYTOPIC for Rose, we use her surname (natural disambiguation) instead of a parenthetical "(Doctor Who character)". I was clear above that Rose (Doctor Who) should be a redirect to one or another of the fully disambiguated titles. The other character articles you link to do not have this problem as none of them apparently have episodes named for them, and one of them in fact already had Amy (Doctor Who) as a redirect. (I've just now remedied the other two.) You are mincing words by saying article titles should "avoid requiring disambiguation" since her surname is disambiguation (natural disambiguation), and it's really unclear why. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:53, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * There are only two topics for "Rose" that apply to DW - the character and the episode. You seem to be arguing that we should have "Rose (Doctor Who)" as a two-item only disambiguation page. That's very much unnecessary and thats when we should use hatnotes to avoid the extra disambiguation page. In addition to of course breaking the TV naming conventions for episodes. --M asem (t) 07:02, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No, I'm saying (and this is now the fourth time) that it should redirect to the character article and that article have a hatnote for the episode. (Although I recognize the possibility that I might be wrong and more readers are looking for this page so it should redirect here; I guess also theoretically it could redirect to a section of the main disambig page, similarly to how The Avengers (film) does; those are discussions for another day.) This is how it has worked with for the last eight years and  and  for the last half-hour. Please stop responding to what you want me to have said rather than what I am actually saying. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 07:12, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree, and am confident that more people are looking for the character article. Rose (Doctor Who) can redirect to Rose Tyler, and a hatnote can be added pointing to the episode. -- Netoholic @ 15:13, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * We have to ask ourselves how many readers to WP are going to be searching for Rose Tyler the character by the search term "Rose (Doctor Who)" (exactly like that), to justify this approach. And knowing most users, that is not how they will search for the character. Assuming they don't know the last name but know it's Rose and on Doctor Who, they will search "Rose Doctor Who", which of course is not an article and will bring up the search results, which the first two hits are this episode article, and Rose Tyler. They will find the character in exactly the same number of hits as if they typed "Rose (Doctor Who)" in the current situation. What's being asked to be changed here in this RM is to go from a standard approach set by our disambiguation naming policy and the TV project policy that doesn't affect how fast one will get to the character by any means they search, to a non-standard scheme that only benefits by saving one click for a small portion of readers that happen to search a specific way. --M asem (t) 15:27, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The "standard approach" is that once we move a page, we can leave the redirect as is, or point it somewhere more generally useful. If someone comes to look up the character and starts typing in the search box R...o...s...e...(space)...D...o...c - a that point they will see Rose (Doctor Who) as the top suggestion in the search line pop-up. I think there is a reasonable expectation that they will click it and expect to see info on the character. Keep in mind also, this will help with optimizing outside search engine results too. -- Netoholic @  18:59, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I just tried that and I don't get that result. "Rose Doc" does not bring up any results. So we can't use how the autocomplete works to judge this. --M asem (t) 20:00, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * We have to ask ourselves how many readers to WP are going to be searching for Rose Tyler the character by the search term "Rose (Doctor Who)" (exactly like that) For the last time, no we don't. Please read other people's comments before replying to them. I explicitly stated at the very top of this RM (and numerous times since) that that is a question to be dealt with after this page is moved. The lack of precision of this article's title is rationale enough to move this page. The fact is that most readers probably aren't searching for this article with the exact title either: if anything, they are typing "Rose (Do..." into the search box and the autocomplete(-ish thingamajig) is telling them that the current title of this article does not have the parenthetical disambiguator "Doctor Who episode". But if I was looking for the episode, and I saw the current title, I would probably think it was the article on the character. (This actually happened the other day, and I had to type out "Rose (Doctor Who e...", since I type a lot faster than my mobile internet connection loads wiki entries -- this is what prompted this RM.) Using a parenthetical disambiguator that is still ambiguous makes the disambiguator useless. Again, see The Avengers (film) -- 99% of readers who search that term, or editors who link it, mean either the 2012 film or one of its sequels, but since we have an article on an identically titled 1998 film, we fully disambiguate both articles' titles, even though one is definitely more obscure than the other, and this was even true in 2013 before Age of Ultron had its own article, so searches for that would also all redirect to the 2012 film. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:05, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * And FWIW, it works for me. When I type "Rose Doc" the first item is this article, which I would assume referred to the character (how many people even know the names of random episodes of the show?) and the second is for the character. If we moved the page, I assume "Rose (Doctor Who episode)" would be one of the first two hits, which would prevent confusion by people who are looking for the episode but assume the current title of this article also refers to the character. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:13, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose As the character article is sufficiently disambiguated, all that is required on this article is the hatnote. Unless sufficient evidence can be provided that there is a majority of readers that come to this article that are meaning to go to the character article? --  Alex TW 00:46, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * What about the fact that editors looking for this article are likely to be confused by the title, which seems more likely to refer to the character? At present, "Rose (Doctor Who episode)" doesn't appear in autocomplete when one enters "Rose (Doc", so I initially assumed Wikipedia didn't have an article on the episode. When you say that the character article is sufficiently disambiguated and that all that is required on this article is the hatnote, are you implying that the episode is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the title "Rose (Doctor Who)"? That seems unlikely; given that ......... I was actually going to cite page view statistics here, but stats.grok.se doesn't seem to be working (it's been a while since I last cited page view statistics); once I figure out what's wrong or find an alternative I'll get back to you. If you know of an alternative and could cite statistics right now that would demonstrate that the majority of people who type "Rose (Doctor Who)" into the search box are looking for this article (which seems to be your assertion), that would be just as good. Anyway, even if PRIMARYTOPIC would support the status quo, PRECISE supports moving, so it would have to be very PRIMARYTOPIC. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 07:58, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, so after getting home to a computer (as opposed to an iPad with almost no battery) the first thing I did was check page information, which does give view stats for the last 30 days, but not in a way that would be verifiable long-term. Still, it's 5,711 for the episode and 14,731 for the character. Even if we assume no one (except me) typed "Rose (Doc..." into search and assumed that "Rose (Doctor Who)" and "Rose (Doctor Who character)" were the same thing, that's still over 2.5 times as many people who were definitely looking for the character article. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 08:45, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Those statistics are all well and good, congrats, but where are the statistics to back up the claim that the majority of editors who visit this page are actually looking for the character page, and not just one? --  Alex TW 19:14, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * What kind of evidence would you like? It's obvious that the title of this article applies just as much to that article as this one, and far more people are definitely looking for that one. Do you know of any way to find numbers for people who come to this article and then immediately click the link in the hatnote? I have never seen such statistics cited in an RM, if they exist. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 20:41, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * And there's also the fact that people looking for this article (who are definitely in the minority but we do exist) will see this article's title and assume it refers to the character, perhaps assuming we don't have an article on the episode. I know the English Wikipedia speculative fiction TV editing community better than that, but I still typed out as far as "Rose (Doctor Who ep..." just to be sure, since I type faster than my browser loads. But having an article with the fully disambiguated title "Rose (Doctor Who episode)" would solve this problem. Did you read this part of my initial comment or did you just click on the links to the page view stats and assume that was all I wrote of substance? Because your response seems to imply the latter. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 20:46, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It's not up to me to find those statistics, it's up to those making the claim. All I'm seeing is an assumption on what other readers are apparently wanting based on one's personal views, without any actual basis to this claim. --  Alex TW 06:12, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * What "claim"? What "statistics"? I showed you statistics that clearly show more than three times as many people looking for the character article despite its being at a less intuitive title, so it can be assumed that a significant number of people who come to this page immediately click the hatnote off of it. You are claiming that precise statistics for this number of people clicking the hatnote link exist and you want to see them, but you are not telling me where I can find them to show them to you. I frankly don't believe they exist so I don't know why you are trying to waste my time making me search for them. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:57, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, you did give me statistics on how many people view the articles, but you did not provide statistics that those who come to this article are specifically looking for the character article. You yourself state that it is an assumption, and that is not what we base discussions on. It is not up to me to provide the statistics - it is up to the one wanting to make the move based on the apparent statistics. Without them, we could base the entire Wikipedia on assumptions, but this is not the way we work. --  Alex TW 23:01, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but it's an assumption based on clearly established and obviously significant facts. Lacking exact statistics (you are claiming such statistics exist, apparently in an attempt to waste my time looking for them), all we have are probability judgements based on the established facts.
 * But my move rationale wasn't even based on the probability judgement -- you are the one honing in on it; my move rationale was instead based on WP:PRECISE, and it's most definitely not "just an assumption" that the current title of this article is ambiguous. That's a given.
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 08:44, 13 February 2018 (UTC)


 * This all still comes down to WP:NCDAB "Natural disambiguation is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation". We have a way to naturally distinguish the character from the episode, by using her well-known last name. --M asem (t) 13:16, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * You keep saying that, but everyone can clearly see that this RM is for the episode article, not the character one. I have specifically stated (in fact I pointed it out to you) that the character article should be naturally disambiguated per NCDAB. The problem is that this article needs to be fully disambiguated as well, since the majority of people who search for this title are almost certainly looking for that one. "Rose Tyler" is a fairly common real name; casual fans (like me) who only know her by her first name would not necessarily think "Ah, the Doctor Who character!" when they see it in the search box drop-down list, and would assume that "Rose (Doctor Who)" would take them to the character article regardless of what her last name is. This means that the current title of this article should redirect either to her article (which, I emphasize for like the fourth or fifth time) or to the main "Rose" disambig page. But, again, that is a problem to be dealt with after this RM, since what this really all comes down to is WP:PRECISE. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 20:41, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * No, because all the arguments being given is that "Rose (Doctor Who)" should be the character article, but there is no move request for that. --M asem (t) 21:07, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * For the last time, no: the argument, based on PRECISE, is that the episode article should be fully disambiguated. Which article "Rose (Doctor Who)" should redirect to can be decided after that. Please stop repeating the same strawman argument. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:36, 10 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Support proposed move and turning Rose (Doctor Who) in to a disambiguation page for the character and the episode per the other support votes so far. Just because the character can be fully disambiguated doesn't mean that the episode can, and this proposal fixes that issue. Iffy★Chat -- 09:21, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, Rose (Doctor Who) could be a redirect to Rose_(disambiguation) per WP:INCDAB. Iffy★Chat -- 10:31, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I agree with the second idea, not the first. I just think it's a separate issue from fully disambiguating the title of this article. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 10:42, 13 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Support. Current title remains ambiguous as it could equally apply to the character because naming conventions for episodes and characters follow the same pattern.  -- wooden  superman  12:28, 13 February 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Critical Analysis
There are at least two different professional books which have been published, specifically examining both the 'behind the scenes' real world development of 'Rose' and the thematic elements which make it up. These are not versions of the story itself, but are (semi) academic studies of the episode as whole, written by people unconnected with the creation of the story on television, and are primarily made up of critical analysis. I added this detail to the page but one editor keeps changing/undoing the section to headline it first 'Commercial releases' alongside dvds etc, and then 'Printed releases' alongside the novelisation.

These are clearly not the same thing but the user in question is unwilling to engage in discussion (ignoring/deleting an attempt to open a dialogue on his talk page and adding no note to his reversions/changes).

Life is too short to keep coming back here (and on other Doctor Who pages) to revert his changes, but perhaps I'm missing something - sis the consensus that something like the Complete History or The Black Archive books on 'Rose' are in fact somehow versions of the story itself? If that is the consensus, then fine, but it'd be interesting to know if I'm wasting my time...

I've put the page back to what I think the more useful layout for now. StuartDouglas (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)