Talk:Doctor Who

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

Contents 1 Tributes page? 2 Is it worth continuing to work on this? 3 Is this worth mentioning on the page? 4 To-do bump

[edit] Tributes page?

Shouldn't this be part of the parody/tribute television page? Like every other seriously referencing and referenced TV show? There are a lot of them after all... -- sulfur 11:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

To follow this up, if we're going to have a separate Doctor Who page from the Science fiction references in Star Trek, we should have one for "Buckaroo Bonzai" and "Star Wars" too, as there are a lot of references between those two things. In fact, the current BB comic mini-series has had a few Trek references in it. This page, while well done, should be split, and merged into the tributes article and the references article. -- sulfur 15:14, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Why not have pages for "Star Wars" and "Buckaroo Bonzai" as well? —Josiah Rowe 19:05, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It is a well-written article, to be sure, but I agree, the info belongs on the tribute page, where it more-or-less already is... at least the "Who references in Trek" part. That part should be merged with the tribute page; the "Trek references in Who" part needs to be merged to the Trek references in pop culture page. --From Andoria with Love 16:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Part of why I started this page was that I thought it would be informative to have a single article with the references in both directions. I realize that most of the content is at Trek references in pop culture and Science fiction references in Star Trek, but there's no simple way for a reader of one of those pages to know that the "reverse" information is at the other page. (Each page has a link to the other in the "related links" section, but if you're reading the Doctor Who section of either article you might not see that.)

Similarly, what about the reader who sees the bit about the Doctor Who names in "The Neutral Zone" and wonders what other Doctor Who references have appeared in Star Trek (and vice versa). The existence of a Doctor Who article to which "The Neutral Zone" can link enables that reader to find that information easily.

Also, there's more content that can be added, such as actors who have appeared in both franchises, more specific citations of when Doctor Who has used Star Trek terminology, and comments from the writers and producers of each series on the other one. For example, I think that Harlan Ellison's thoughts comparing the two series would be within the remit of Memory Alpha. (He once wrote an introduction to some American reprints of Doctor Who novelizations in which he said, with typical brio and hyperbole, "Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to purée of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who!") And there are other (less inflammatory) examples. This sort of thing can't fit easily into either of the two existing articles. (That comment should probably also be added to Harlan Ellison, but that doesn't help a reader who wants to see other related comments.)

I hadn't seen the discussion at Talk:Science fiction references in Star Trek#Forum Star Wars before now, and I see that some of the same arguments came up there. I think what's missing in that discussion is the idea that it would be possible to have a more encyclopedic article on the intersection between two franchises, which is more than a list of references in each direction. The list of references is the easy part. But what about the thoughts of Russell T Davies on where the Star Trek franchise went wrong, and how he's working to avoid that with Doctor Who and its spin-offs? Or the thoughts of Brannon Braga or J. J. Abrams on Doctor Who? Heck, there have even been semi-scholarly works examining the audiences of the two long-running series, which could be summarized in an article here.

If there's a real consensus that there's no place for this article at MA, that's OK — it's just one evening's work wasted. But I think that if MA wants to be a comprehensive resource about Star Trek, there should be room for this. —Josiah Rowe 19:03, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but what Russell T Davies or George Lucas thinks of Star Trek has no place here. This is an encyclopedia about various planets, starships, races etc mentioned in Star Trek and also about the people that worked on the show, in front of and behind the cameras. If we start creating separate articles for other shows that have referenced Star Trek or were referenced in Star Trek, where will it stop? Take a look at the various "reference" articles, we'd have to create many many pages, and a Star Trek joke in "King of Queens" would ultimately warrant an article about the show here too. The information can be added to the two pages, as Shran suggested. Links to the other articles can be created there, so people can jump from one place to another without a problem. Original research, like such an article about the connections between the Star Trek and the Doctor Who universe would be original research, which we do not allow here. There are other places on the net were such articles would fit in much better. --Jörg 19:13, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Jorg. — Morder 19:45, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

In some ways, I think this approach is better than the craptastic approach we took here in the application process, which is a mix of latinum and targ manure. --Alan 19:50, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Point #5: "Original research. Subjective essays which analyze or draw conclusions about Star Trek are not encyclopedic. Conclusions, synthesis, analysis or associations which have been mentioned in canon or sourced from a credible real-world authority are acceptable Background content, with citations." --Alan 19:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Is it original research if it's all cited to relevant production personnel or noteworthy academic sources like John Tulloch and Henry Jenkins? The article wouldn't be drawing any conclusions or making original claims — it would just be noting connections made in reliable sources. (I know what "original research" means on Wikipedia — what does it mean here?) —Josiah Rowe 19:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict): Alan, in response to your first comment: So you're saying we should have seperate pages on things like Doctor Who, Buckaroo Banzai, Star Wars, Boston Legal, South Park, etc.? I agree, the current state of the parodies/reference pages really sucks, but is giving each show they're own page really the answer? --From College with Love

Re: Alan on original research: OK — this page isn't a subjective essay, and it draws no conclusions. The material is (or will be) sourced to credible real-world authorities — and isn't Background equivalent to "real-world POV"? —Josiah Rowe 20:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

RE: Shran's IP: I'm not saying that it's the way to go, but what I am saying is that this approach is far more aesthetically pleasing than our current guidelineless approach, of throwing everything together in as part of a huge pile and pretending it is some sort of respectable article. At least this approach covers the same topics while retains some sort of self-respect. (PS: Josiah, please add new comments to the bottom of the page (possibly with a RE:) so that the flow of the discussion remains intact, thanks) --Alan 20:11, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I'm used to putting comments with the remark they're responding to, to keep subjects together. Funny how discussion style seems to vary from wiki to wiki, isn't it? —Josiah Rowe 20:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I must say that this format is a lot better and really well done, Josiah. I'm actually quite torn as to how I feel about it - On one hand it's not an appropriate page since it has nothing to do with Star Trek itself other than a reference to it - on the other hand it's really well written and clearly shows, in detail, the references to and from the show. Having 100's of pages of worthless (shows/movies/music) reference only material is really going to be annoying but the current form is hard to follow as well...But, if you had asked someone about making the page, they would have outright said no. it doesn't belong so we should probably remove this page but possibly have a discussion on a new format for the tributes pages... — Morder 21:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

For future reference, where is a good place to ask things like that? —Josiah Rowe 21:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Forums — Morder 21:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind, we're not saying you have to ask us everytime before you create a page, it's just that in this instance, creating a page for a non-Trek TV show that's unrelated except for a few references, it probably would have been best. :) --From Andoria with Love 21:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't support this Doctor Who page, or the idea of pages for anydangthing out there that ever referenced, or could be imagined to have referenced, or could be imagined to have been referenced by, Star Trek. Aesthetic concerns about the popculture page shouldn't override content rules, and if an improvement to its aesthetic condition is desired, this isn't it. Personally, I don't even support any of the catch-all Trek references in pop culture pages either. There's absolutely nothing in there that's related to any of MA's POV's.

Science fiction references in [canon] Star Trek is, to me, a legitimate MA page, when cited. But MA doesn't simply "want to be a comprehensive resource about Star Trek". That's why Memory Beta and the rest exist. True, our About page says "Our goal is to be[... the] encyclopedia about everything related to the Star Trek universe." To MA, the Star Trek universe is canon content and official and licensed productions. There's just some material that MA doesn't create articles for, no matter how objectively such could be written. And to be frank, Doctor Who is far less objective and astronomically less relevant than, for example, Star Trek books and novelizations. Doctor Who has nothing at all to do with the Star Trek canon universe or real-life licensing or production. Neither does any of the Trek references in pop culture. --TribbleFurSuit 21:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Fair enough. As for the subject being "unrelated" — it's true that there are only a few connections from an in-universe or production standpoint. But from a real-world POV, there are lots of connections. A Google search for "Star Trek" and "Doctor Who" yields 870,000 results. In the popular imagination, the two are often thought of together (at least in the UK, where Doctor Who has a much higher profile than it does in the US). They're the two character-based science fiction franchises which have thrived more or less continuously for over 40 years. The only ones that are older are either not character-based, like The Twilight Zone, or have fallen into relative obscurity before being rebooted in a new continuity, like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Star Trek and Doctor Who have each more-or-less maintained an ongoing continuity since their inception in 1966 and 1963.

Perhaps this shows the distinction between "real-world POV" and "production POV", as touched on here. In production terms, the connections between Doctor Who and Star Trek are relatively tangential. In real-world terms, there's a lot more material to work with. —Josiah Rowe 21:25, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

As touched on there, there's no distinction between realworld and production POVs here at MA. It's one POV. We were only talking about its names over there. Our realworld/production POV is not supposed to be about any old real world Trek connection. That's why Memory Beta, Expanded Universe, Memory Gamma, Ex Astris Scientiae, et cetera, exist - because they cover what MA does not. --TribbleFurSuit 21:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think those sites really address a lot of the issues being discussed here, and we should be willing to address alterations to our policies that would allow this data to be placed somewhere useful without becoming a nuisance (which the policy was designed to avoid).

Perhaps these other, non-production-related sources could be articled with a prefix of some sort to the names of those large enough to deserve subpages, and the rest could be kept on one master list. Example, if "King of Queens" does one Star Trek joke, it gets listed in the main article about "Media that reference Star Trek", but if a show does a number of Star Trek-themed episodes, then it would be linked from there -- "Media that reference Star Trek (South Park)" -- as a subpage. I don't think the title I put here is sound but I think the procedure is. -- Captain MKB 21:37, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

TribbleFurSuit, I understand that here "production POV" and "real-world POV" have been used interchangeably. I was just pointing out that to an outsider, the two phrases could have different connotations, and this article is an example of something that might fall under one but not the other.

RE: CaptainMKB's suggestion: Star Trek parodies and pop culture references (television) is currently 134K long. Under CaptainMike's proposal, it could become a sort of index article, and the major subsections could be split out into subpages of their own. If people like this idea (and I can see that it would be controversial), would it be best to have these articles in a pseudo-namespace of their own, as Captain MKB suggests, or just to have them as independent real-world POV articles and create a category for "Star Trek references and parodies"? —Josiah Rowe 22:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is it worth continuing to work on this?

The discussion above seems to have stalled out a bit. I had thought I would continue to work on this page (adding actors who've appeared in both franchises, opinions of notables, etc.), but if the page is just going to be deleted, there's not much point. (I was also going to link to this page from pages like William Hartnell, but again there's not much point if the page is going to be deleted.)

A few people suggested that even if the page is deleted, it might point to a way to improve the "references" page... any more thoughts on that? —Josiah Rowe 17:30, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, still worth continuing this for the time being, I'm just not sure about the linking to here at the moment. Since, if we do split this and merge it to the other pages, everything will still be saved, it'll just end up on the relevant page(s) in the end. -- sulfur 17:44, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is this worth mentioning on the page?

According to Russell T. Davies, the current/soon to be former producer of Doctor Who, he seriously considered a Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover before Star Trek went off the air. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6022914.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2

Thoughts?--76.195.220.122 04:13, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that definitely merits inclusion here. I see that someone (you?) added it to Star Trek: Enterprise#The would-be Season 5; I'll add it here. (It's a wiki — if someone else feels it's inappropriate, they can always remove it and we can discuss.) —Josiah Rowe 07:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] To-do bump

the what-to-do with this article has remained untouched for nearly a year now. any new ideas or good old ideas anyone wants to toss back into the ring to figure out, once and for all, what to do with thus.. --Alan 17:59, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

The page seems fine to me, if it's any help. Geek Mythology 19:01, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

I think it may be worth proposing this for deletion. As said above, we are not here to document what other shows do with Star Trek. As for actors in both, we should only be noting on their own pages that they worked in Doctor Who and, if applicable, any other Trek actors they worked with.--31dot 22:24, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, there's not really any information on this page that can't be added (in truncated or list form) to Science fiction references in Star Trek. I don't think it should be deleted, though, we should just merge it to the sci-fi references page and add as much info as possible to that page. The section for Star Trek references in Doctor Who will probably have to go entirely, but the bit about a potential crossover could stay, I suppose. Everything else can remain as a list on the sci-fi reference page. --From Andoria with Love 22:31, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the Trek references in Who should go entirely. If you don't like the page then add this information to other pages by all means, but the Trek references should be moved to the references in tv page rather than deleted. Personally though I think that if the Who Wikia has it's own page (two pages if I'm not mistaken) for Trek, then it would be courtious of us to do the same to compliment each other, just as Trek and Who compliment each other as TV shows. Geek Mythology 23:52, November 12, 2009 (UTC)

Difference there is that Doctor Who has explicitly referenced "Star Trek" as a TV show existing in their universe and referenced a number of characters from it. -- sulfur 00:36, November 13, 2009 (UTC)

Those references could be added here; that's where we've been throwing those things (though that page itself needs a lot of work/retooling). --From Andoria with Love 02:40, November 13, 2009 (UTC)

I have put up a merge template with Shran's suggestion, and I think that might be the way to go.--31dot 15:52, November 19, 2009 (UTC)

I thought that the original discussion suggested (rather persuasively, to my mind) that since the Star Trek parodies and pop culture references (television) page was so bloated and messy, that this was preferable. I also maintain that there's an advantage in having a page for Doctor Who, so that (for example) if someone is looking at Simon Pegg or Guy Siner, sees that they were both in Doctor Who as well as Star Trek and wonders who else appeared in both series, they can find out on MA with one click. —Josiah Rowe 03:59, November 21, 2009 (UTC)