Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chronology of the Doctor Who universe (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   no consensus. Black Kite (t) (c) 11:29, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Chronology of the Doctor Who universe
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log )


 * WP:Original research. Article is attributed to inferences, observations, and speculation ("suggests", "suggesting", "it is possible", etc.). One of the author's favorite references, used 20 times, is "the time period over which the story is set can be deduced from the storyline as presented." Most of the references use observations by the editors as the source. The article has admitted it is unverifiable (see the "dating" section which states "not all of these stories can have a possible date attributed to them.") At many different points, the reference section self-consciously admits to guessing and deducing.


 * Even if you ignore the pervasive original research, this is still a WP:CONTENTFORK that inherently fails the policy on what Wikipedia is not, namely not plot summaries. There are no sources that provide information on reception and significance of this chronology, outside the significance of the Doctor Who series itself. Without any information on reception or significance this fork will fail the policy on WP:WAF and WP:PLOT. Also see the policy to WP:AVOIDSPLITs.


 * See this AFD for similar discussion and reasoning. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:21, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Instead of nominating this article here, you should at last have tried to fix the article. After all, problems with sourcing and/or OR can and should be addressed by editing and WP:BEFORE says so. They are not a reason for deletion. The article has, at this moment, 298(!) different sources and you picked a single one as an example why everything should be deleted. A lot of those entries listed are indeed sourced to reliable sources and/or primary sources after all. The list serves a valid purpose for readers who wish to place the episodes of the show in context. The article does not fail WP:CONTENTFORK (vague waving there does not excuse not reading what the page is about), as it explicitly says "[...] as an article grows, editors often create Summary style spin-offs or new, linked article for related material. This is acceptable, and often encouraged, as a way of making articles clearer and easier to manage." As for WP:NOTPLOT, it simply doesn't apply here and you have not explained why we should think so. WP:WAF does not apply because as a part of the MoS it describes how to write about fictional topics not whether to do it. As for linking to another AFD, remember that every article should be based on its merits. Regards  So Why  17:01, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is deeper than the one reference I mentioned. I have explained how WP:PLOT applies. WP:PLOT says articles "should contain more than a recap or summary of the works' contents" and "Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner, discussing the reception and significance of notable works in addition to a concise summary". This article has no information about the reception or significance of the chronology. The sources are almost all primary in nature, and provide no secondary information to help this meet policy, making it impossible to fix the article. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep, the deletion nom is confused both about this being nothing but OR and about this being nothing but plot summary. What this is, fundamentally, is an index of articles about notable fictional works, organized by the setting of those works.  The "reception and significance" of those works is/should be/can be addressed in each serial/episode's individual article; it need not be repeated here as well.  The chronology includes the title of the story and the date it was first broadcast, which are not plot, but real world facts.  And setting isn't even plot either, but rather the context (time and place) in which the plot unfolds.  Given that Doctor Who is a show about a man who travels without limitation through time and space, indexing the stories by what time they are set makes perfect sense.  The original concept of the show was actually for it to be more educational rather than sci-fi/fantasy through having the Doctor visit the past, and there are still many episodes in which the Doctor meets real historical figures or visits real periods in history.  The Doctor also has repeatedly revisited the same fictional future settings, making it natural to list such stories together for having that shared setting.  And we do it for all works even outside of a shared franchise: see subcats of Category:Works by setting.  Regarding the OR claim, I'd have some objections if this attempted to squeeze this into a coherent narrative, given that continuity has never been the show's strong suit and via time travel the characters continually rewrite history anyway.  But the setting of a particular episode is in most instances going to be easily verifiable, even if only from the episode itself without any interpretation necessary: the Doctor often declares out loud what time they have traveled to, or the story is set in a clearly identifiable period of history, such as when Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, days before the destruction of Pompeii, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, or the Moon landing.  In many cases as well, there will be ample secondary sources confirming the episode's setting even if those aren't currently cited in this chronology.  So it's not acceptable to just wave our hands and call everything OR when much of this is easily verifiable.  You have to do the work.  If there is a particular listing that is inaccurate or cannot be verified from any source, then correct it or remove it only after the sources have been checked.  postdlf (talk) 18:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep: Verifiable dates are used whenever there is one. "Not all of these stories have a possible date attached to them" refers to ones which are not given a date in the article because the episode has no indicators or statements to that effect. -- Noneofyourbusiness (talk) 21:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 19:20, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 19:20, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 19:20, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete, with respect to the first AfD: I was that nominator and it was closed as a very conditional keep. There, SilkTork noted that the article was unsuitable for Wikipedia without secondary sources, and also went through the article and found that of 184 sources, all but one was original research by a Wikipedia article. That has ballooned to 298 sources, with a few token URLs trying to paint a thin veneer of legitimacy on an article which still remains, two years after that AfD, unsuitable for Wikipedia (but maybe an interesting media studies research topic or a good Wikia page). Such an article will always fail our core policies, and as such it shouldn't be an article. There are all these wishy-washy platitudes about not demolishing houses during their construction (which, if you ask me, is a stupid analogy, but there you go), but this is a shanty town, not a row of bricks on top of a foundation. Sceptre (talk) 05:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete sourced to 300 personal observations, with a few token URLs. There is already an index of articles at List of Doctor Who serials which is great example of a suitable list. List of Doctor Who serials is entirely verifiable and this list can't be verified. List of Doctor Who serials summarizes existing commentary from secondary sources and this list is original research sourced to observations. List of Doctor Who serials offers more than just a plot recap and this one is designed to be nothing but a plot recap. We have two lists about the same thing, and this list fails three core policies. Dzlife (talk) 19:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It is incorrect to state that sourcing something to a primary source is necessarily OR. Per WP:PRIMARY, "primary sources are permitted if used carefully. Material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. [emphasis added]  All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."  And as I've explained above, the chronological setting of Doctor Who serials/episodes is not a leap of interpretation, but rather quite easy to verify from the episodes themselves in many if not most instances.  There is no question that the The Fires of Pompeii takes place during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, for example, or that Victory of the Daleks takes place during World War II, or that The Idiot's Lantern takes place during the coronation of Elizabeth II.  To state that those settings are unverifiable is quite plainly false.  And for those episodes that the time period isn't clear (are there any?  The Doctor tends to shout these things out, like "we're in the year 3125!" or whatever), secondary sources undoubtedly exist for most if not all.  At a minimum, even if you want to insist on a print source, the DVD releases undoubtedly summarize the premise and setting for each episode, as does the BBC website for Doctor Who ("The TARDIS is marooned onboard a 17th-century pirate ship..."; "The TARDIS travels from Leadworth to Berlin in the 1930s"...).  So again, there is no basis at all for claiming that this information is unverifiable.  Re: the redundancy with List of Doctor Who serials, that list does not provide information about the setting, which makes this list complementary, not redundant.  postdlf (talk) 16:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - With all due respect to SoWhy, editors have had since 9 January 2010 to correct the article (which was a condition of the previous AFD result). The problems have not been sufficiently addressed and WP:OR and WP:SYNTH are rife. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 11:06, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - on the grounds of synthesis, lack of sourcing that shows the topic is notable (as opposed to interesting to a reader) and has received coverage in reliable sources. Compounded by a fictional setting where we cannot assume that a writer means that real-world event A takes place on the same date in-universe. When the notes have statements like "placing Skaro's destruction in either c. 963 or c. 2963 (alternatively, the Doctor could mean that the Black Dalek would take a thousand years to travel back to Skaro from Earth) " then its a case of too much speculation on behalf of editors, and not enough sourcing. GraemeLeggett (talk) 05:57, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The "topic" is Doctor Who. This should just be renamed to List of Doctor Who serials by setting, because fundamentally that's all it is.  All of your other comments are fixable problems and have already been addressed above.  If a setting proves unverifiable, it can be removed, but as I have repeatedly demonstrated above, the settings of many if not most are easily verifiable.  Please do read the other comments in an AFD before you post a !vote, because when you post arguments that have already been responded to but do not address that response, it does not advance the discussion.  postdlf (talk) 14:08, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * If they're fixable problems then why haven't the been fixed in the twenty months that have passed since the original AFD? This only avoided deletion then as an assumption of good faith that the issues raised would be addressed. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 14:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * At the risk of sounding trite, it doesn't matter: WP:NOEFFORT and WP:DEADLINE. postdlf (talk) 14:46, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * With respect, I don't believe that means an unsuitable article should exist indefinitely on the chance that it might be improved. ŞůṜīΣĻ ¹98¹ Speak 15:51, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It means that whether an article is suitable is a completely separate question from whether it has been improved. postdlf (talk) 19:13, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The article has been going the other way from having its issues addressed; indeed, the amount of original research has essentially ballooned since the last AfD. To go back to the famous house analogy: this isn't a budding two up two down, this is a massive shanty town. Sceptre (talk) 16:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete as content fork. If this really needs to be done, add a setting column to List of Doctor Who Serials. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:45, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see how the addition of a setting column can be done cleanly given the content of that list, nor would it be sortable so as to organize the serials by setting as this does. postdlf (talk) 19:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: The content of the article is original research by synthesis. It is also an unnecessary content fork that presents a different stance from the plot of the series without being supported by reliable secondary sources. Since it lacks reception and significance, it is a plot-only description of a fictional work. As the article is original research and a plot-only description of a fictional work, it falls into what Wikipedia is not and, thus, it is not an appropriate list-topic for Wikipedia per the criteria of appropriate topics for lists. Jfgslo (talk) 03:27, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete - I do not see how this is useful at all. you can put dates of when a story is set in the story articles themselves, why do you need an article of where they lie in relation to each other?  Add the fact that stories don't always have clear dates (leading to completely baseless speculation) and there is really no point to this at all. 188.221.79.22 (talk) 18:49, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - The page provides good information for the complex timeline of the series. Strong keep. 131.107.0.82 (talk) 14:43, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, causa sui (talk) 17:52, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: The article under discussion here has been flagged for rescue by the Article Rescue Squadron. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep per SoWhy and postdlf. Arithmetic is not original research, and it is not original research to note that a series is set in the last days of Pompei, the early days of the London Blitz, or other specific historical points, and to note what years those historical events correspond to. That the episode is set in such a specific time is usually verifiable from BBC summaries, as well as from the drama itself. Which of the 11 Doctors appeared in an episode and when it aired are not original research. The time course of article improvement ios not a basis for deletion, since Wikipedia is a work in progress and not on deadline. The editing process can removce entries based on conjecture. Edison (talk) 18:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You are not wrong to say that basic deductions, such as The Fires of Pompeii, takes place in AD 79. But this article, on occasion, makes deductions based on props or scenery which may not even support the hypothesis; for example, an episode is dated to the "warm season" of 1941 because the trees are green. But it doesn't take into account that The Sarah Jane Adventures probably filmed in June. After all, if it wasn't for a cold snap, there wouldn't be dialogue in "Planet of the Dead" about how a spaceship keeps itself cool (that's reliably sourced, by the way). Too much of the article relies on original research. Wikipedia is a work in progress, yes, but if a building inspector tells you that your bricks are made out of mud and need replacing, you actually use bricks, not mashed potatoes. Sceptre (talk) 23:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep This is a very notable television show, the list compiled is extensive and well cited, a very useful tool for anyone who wants to know more about the show, I have tagged this article for rescue, to generate more opinions, I hope WP:Snow will fall. – Phoenix B 1of3 (talk) 18:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - this long TV show is sui generis in its confusing time travel, so a chronology is especially useful for our core readerships of students. Bearian (talk) 19:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately this article is actually sus generis - a mess with editor suppositions and reflections standing in lieu of proper referencing for events relationships between events. And for the most part, that the Doctor visited 19th Century London in the nth season of the series is not linked to his visits to 16th Century London in the m-th and l-th season - the order of episode settings is not of direct relevance for all bar the most recent "timey-wimey" seasons. And those should be discussed in the context of the season as a whole. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the problem you're having is with viewing this as an attempt at a continuous narrative, basically an in-universe continuity reordered by calendar year rather than the Doctor's personal timeline that the show (usually) follows. Which would be inappropriate for Wikipedia, and OR, I agree.  And maybe that's how this was initially conceived, and the title certainly implies that, but it's not what this is fated to be and it's not what the bulk of its information is.  As I've characterized it, and as I plan on retitling it after this AFD is closed, it's a List of Doctor Who serials by setting.  It is useful to know which stories were set during WWII, which ones were set during the Middle Ages, etc., for the same reason it is to organize any works by shared setting even when they're not even part of the same franchise as these are (see Category:Works by setting), just because they address similar subject matter, not because they are connected within a single fictional narrative.  Some episodes with shared settings featured the same Doctor and were direct continuations of one another.  Other stories were broadcast decades apart with different Doctors and without regard to continuity, but even that disconnection is useful information, contrasting perhaps how a First Doctor story produced during the 1960s portrayed Ancient Rome compared to a Tenth Doctor story produced during the 2000s.  And one can also clearly see which settings the show has not yet depicted...  Again, to the extent this list deviates from such a straightforward description and organization of setting, and/or relies upon OR to assert a date not supported by the episode itself or any source commenting on it, it should and can be fixed.  We do not delete articles because of fixable problems, no matter how hard it might be to fix those problems nor how slow those problems are being addressed.  postdlf (talk) 19:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that anyone else would have gotten the pun of a malapropism of himself and swine. Bearian (talk) 21:13, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - as entertaining as the article may be, the (largely assumed) detailed in-universe chronology of the series is largely fancruft. Episode lists, plots and story arcs of Doctor Who are covered elsewhere, and there seems to be no compelling reason for this article as an additional 'index' of Doctor Who episodes. I'm not sure that the issues with the article can be fixed, as the issue is endemic to the purpose of the article. This article is largely based on primary sources and speculation, as opposed to articles such as UNIT dating controversy, which are supported by secondary sources. The amount of effort editors have put into the article is also not a basis for maintaining an article. Therefore, I have to say, Delete. (There is a Doctor Who Wiki for this kind of thing anyway.)-- Jeffro 77 (talk) 21:52, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The sources are adequate to establish notability per WP:LISTN. And here's another one: Doctor Who: A History of the Universe - "the complete timeline of the Doctor Who universe, from Event One to the universe's final destruction billions of years in the future." Q.E.D. Warden (talk) 22:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Most of my points are stated above; the core problem is that we don't delete articles with fixable problems - we fix them. Col. Warden offers what appears to be an excellent source, and others are available as well. Yes, speculation and OR should be excised from the article, but there's much less of that here than my esteemed colleagues would have you believe. This is salvageable. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 14:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, the use as a precedent of the AFD for the in-universe Star Trek Chronology is flawed, as many many more dates from Star Trek are pure speculation; Doctor Who, by its very structure, is much more closely tied to time and place. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 14:36, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep For the same reasons I said to keep it last year. This helps achieve a greater understanding of a clearly notable series.  There are also references found to confirm the information is valid.  Why should we have the same AFD over again?  Seems like a waste of time. Consensus was keep, the reasons still valid then as they are now.  And Wikipedia has no precedents, ever, never has, and never will.  What the random group of people that showed up at a totally unrelated AFD decided, has no possible bearing to this one.   D r e a m Focus  21:37, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: still a WP:CONTENTFORK based on original WP:SYNTHESIS. Only sources are the series itself, or commissioned works that generate a profit for those who made the series. What trivial mentions remain can be added to existing articles about the Doctor Who series. 74.198.9.153 (talk) 18:34, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve. Highly notable show.--Milowent • hasspoken  02:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.