Wikipedia

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Doctor Who

Finishing touches on my proposed List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens rewrite

[edit]

I've posted about this before, but I am now acting on this. My rewrite of this list (Which can be found at User:Pokelego999/sandbox/Doctor Who Aliens List Rewrite Doc) is nearly complete, and all I need to do is finish writing and sourcing a few entries in the 1970s heading before doing a copyedit on the whole article. The current alterations to the list include:

-Incorporating an inclusion criteria (As discussed here, as well as during the AfD) which notably made it so only species with two or more significant appearances on-screen could be included, and species with seven or more spin-off appearances, if they did not meet the first criteria, could be included. Though the initial discussion was agreed to be five, I have elected to up it to seven due to size concerns, as even lowering it by two opens the floodgates to a lot more monsters. Additionally, it forbids monsters that debuted in spin-off media and monsters that are a particular individual rather than a species (I.e, the Intelligence, the Mara, or Sutekh for example).

-Changing it from an alphabetical to a chronological organization, as the amount of cuts compared to the pre-existing list meant alphabetical order simply did not work anymore, and there were too many entries to simply list alphabetically without sub-headings. Chronological was the next best method of organization I could find, and I personally feel it does help with showing the overall development of these species.

-Incorporating an overall development and reception section. This gives real world context for the overall development and evolution of the concept over time (Which also helps the chronological organization and vice versa) as well as their overall impact on the show and as a whole. These help with giving out of universe perspective and actually showing how this list meets LISTN.

Right now I want to get any willing eyes to give this a once over and see if anything should be changed before it is finalized and mainspaced. I additionally wanted to iron out two points of the inclusion criteria: Spin-off monsters and individual characters. Should either be included? Spin-off monsters was decided long before our inclusion criteria was finalized, and thus was more pertinent when the list was flooded with one off Torchwood and SJA monsters. With the current inclusion criteria, only the Bane, Weevils, and Shadow Kin actually meet the inclusion criteria, and thus would not over-extend the list to include. As for individual characters, this is iffier; would the Master or Rani, for example, need to be discussed separately from the Time Lords? Or would this only include characters who are the only ones of their "species" (Like the above examples)? I am open and willing to hear out any thoughts, so please take a leaf over and let me know. This is probably the biggest rewrite I've ever done on the site so anything at all is appreciated. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 05:03, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing how the list is about the Doctor Who universe, and not just the show itself, it might be worth including the three spinoff creatures in the list also. I think the Master and Rani could be mentioned briefly in the Time Lord section, rather than being merely namechecked. However, the list is very well written and structured, so there are no other points I would mention. Mr Sitcom (talk) 09:08, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr Sitcom Do you have any opinions on other cases? Basically any cases where either it's an individual character with an unclear species (Toymaker, Mara, Intelligence, etc) or cases where a particular character is the only member of their species shown (Tim Shaw, Sutekh, etc, and for this case should they be listed with their species (Stenza, Osirans, etc) or just by themselves given we have no other members to base ourselves on?)
In the interim I'll expand details on individual Time Lord characters so there's at least something of a directory toward the big recurring names within the series. Also will see on including the three spin-off monsters as well. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 21:31, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the unclear species should not be included, while the characters who are the single members of their species should be included, but listed under their own species. However, if nothing substantial can be written about their species, then those characters should not be included. (For example, if Creature A is well-known, but the species they belong to is hardly talked about, then Creature A should not be included.) Just a suggestion, what do you think? Mr Sitcom (talk) 07:43, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr Sitcom I'm admittedly unsure since a lot of these cases are tied explicitly to their own member with little else. For instance, in the examples above, the Osirans' only real bit of lore is in relation to Sutekh specifically. I could maybe see an edge case for something like the Stenza given they have an off-screen major role in The Ghost Monument, but that's really the only major example I can think of that isn't just all about the particular individual we see. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 22:55, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have to backtrack on what I said earlier. I think the single-member characters should be listed, but under their own name, rather than their species's name, as long as their species is at least mentioned in their individual entries. I feel that characters such as Sutekh and Tim Shaw are notable enough to appear in the list, having been in two or more major appearances.
However, are the characters who are part of unclear species listed on any other articles? If not, should they be listed on this List regardless, seeing how they are notable enough, and (as far as I can see) not listed prominently anywhere else (apart from the Mara, which has its own article)? Mr Sitcom (talk) 06:02, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr Sitcom barring the Mara, all individual entities would be redirecting to their primary episode (So the Toymaker, for example, would be covered at The Celestial Toymaker, while Tim Shaw would be covered at The Woman Who Fell to Earth) with the only exception being the Intelligence, who, while currently on the live mainspaced list, would likely be covered at Yeti (Doctor Who) instead.
My query with this is what exactly would constitute inclusion here. While characters like Davros and the Great Intelligence have sections they can be easily covered alongside, what about cases Does any old future human count for inclusion here (I.e, would recurring antagonists like Madame Kovarian, Torchwood, or Cassandra (Doctor Who) count)? Would this count recurring characters (Not necessarily antagonists) such as Alpha Centauri, Kamelion, and K9, or other, human-like companions like Vislor Turlough, Nyssa (Doctor Who), Nardole, etc? There's also additionally unclear cases like Villengard or Bilis Manger where it's uncertain if they're related to humans or not.
At a glance the big entities that definitely would need to be added are The Toymaker, The Great Intelligence, Sutekh, The Mara, the Midnight Entity, and Tim Shaw, barring any surprise spin-off entities who meet the seven appearance criteria. Anything further would likely need to be narrowed down. Let me know your thoughts on the matter. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 22:35, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm honestly unsure. However, I trust your judgement for what to include in the list, so maybe leave out those six "big entities" that your mentioned, because they're all covered elsewhere in other articles, and their inclusion leaves the door open for too many more characters to be included in the list, such as the ones mentioned in your second paragraph. By doing that, it keeps the inclusion criteria for the list fairly simple, but still means the list is comprehensive. What do you think about this? Mr Sitcom (talk) 23:59, 20 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr Sitcom if I'm understanding you right, are you proposing just axing the individual entities, barring above mentioned exceptions like incorporating mentions of individual Time Lords and the like? Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 02:55, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's what I was thinking initially... but now I believe those six entities warrant inclusion, but only those six, and not the other entities you mentioned (such as Madame Kovarian, K9, etc.). Adding just those six will still keep the list streamlined, and those entities are too important for the series to be left out altogether. In the meantime, I'll give the list a closer look and help out with copyediting, where needed. Mr Sitcom (talk) 06:48, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr Sitcom sounds good, thank you for the copyedits! For the particular characters, perhaps we can word it as something like:
"Individual characters, such as Sutekh and the Toymaker, can be included so long as they are alien in origin and that they are the only major member of their race to appear in the show. Major companions such as Vislor Turlough and Nardole will be excluded from the list, as they are instead covered at the Companion (Doctor Who) article, and the races they hail from will similarly be excluded. Human characters and organizations, even if they hail from the far future or have received significant alteration, will be excluded, including characters such as Cassandra and the Villengard corporation."
This should include the main six above but exclude the other potential inclusions. I believe this should cover it, but if there are any alterations that should be done to this, let me know.
Since you're the other participant in this discussion, @TheDoctorWho, thoughts on this and do you agree or disagree with the proposal? Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 02:09, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The wording sounds perfect. I'll see if I can add anything else to the draft. Mr Sitcom (talk) 11:35, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pokelego999: Unrelated to your question, but would it be worth making the three "Introduced from XXXX-XXXX" sections a subsection of "List of creatures and aliens"? And then the also indenting all of the creatures/aliens by a further level from whatever they are now. Unless there's a presence for it that I haven't seen elsewhere, it seems a little odd to me to have an entire section dedicated to a (second) table of contents? TheDoctorWho (talk) 23:18, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@TheDoctorWho I made that table because the list is rather long and is helpful for those who may not know when a particular monster was introduced. Similar navigations are in other character lists but oftentimes have a different format; I chose this one since there isn't really a solid "chronology" that would make something like, for example, a character list table (Like at List of Gravity Falls characters, as one example) helpful for navigation, as well as the fact this series is so long that any other method wouldn't be feasible in the first place.
I'm unopposed to smaller headings but feel that may be harder to read that way given how small and compressed some of those headings are going to be. Admittedly more unsure on my end than anything else though. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 23:26, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have just mainspaced it at List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 03:44, 22 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

What actors did later

[edit]

Is this content relevant, or trivia? Posting here, not at Talk:Vengeance on Varos because it happens on many articles. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 13:29, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64 this would likely fall under trivia unless it's strictly relevant to the serial as a whole (For instance, including later reference of Capaldi at The Fires of Pompeii because his character has later significance for another character Capaldi was cast as would make sense, as it shows later importance of the episode; this Varos example is just trivia). The Varos example should likely be removed unless there's a reason it's relevant to the serial as a whole, at least in my opinion. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 01:27, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
My biggest issue first of all is that it's unsourced and could be solely removed on those grounds. Secondly, I realize this is coming from a fan perspective, so this specific point doesn't hold any weight: Big Finish isn't known for maintaining perfect continuity with the parent show, and as a form of spin-off media, it makes this connection less-notable. Regardless though, my first point is valid and still sounds as a core content policy, WP:V.
Their statement that "This section what the cast members including Jarvis had been doing elsewhere in the Whoniverse. If you have a problem with this then why not delete the whole Casting section." is also incorrect. The casting section is for real-world information on who was cast, why that person was cast, how they were cast, their portrayal of the character, etc. Not FANCRUFTY TRIVIA.
I've never been against explaining these when they are clearly sourced and notable (such as this excerpt from "Lux", which says "Alan Cumming voices the antagonist, Mr. Ring-a-Ding. It marks Cumming's second appearance in the show after his role as King James VI and I in the 2018 episode "The Witchfinders". Davies said that he and the production team had considered whether it was too soon to cast Cumming again and that he likely would not have been had it been a live action role." and is worth mentioning because Cumming's 2018 role in Doctor Who almost affected his role in a 2025 episode), but this does not seem to be one of those situations. TheDoctorWho (talk) 05:50, 5 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Citation style

[edit]

Hi all, I'd love to hear your thoughts here regarding my use of list-defined references in my rewrite of The Massacre (Doctor Who). Thanks! – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 01:00, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Doctor Who: The Monthly Adventures

[edit]

Following the recent Monthly Adventures merge discussion, many non-notable audio dramas with little sourcing have been redirected to the parent. As there were only a smattering not already redirected, I took the liberty of doing research for all the others to see what notability is like.

In short summary, there was little coverage of most. A few had a smattering of trivial mentions, but no significant analysis or discussion justifying a size split. Only two were notable: Jubilee (audio drama) and Spare Parts (audio drama). While coverage is light for the former, both have enough sources to justify notability, especially when considering development information from sources like Doctor Who Magazine. Some reception I gathered can be found at User:Pokelego999/sandbox/Audio dramas.

Given the sheer number of other non-notable audio drama articles we have, it may be worthwhile to go through individual ranges and see which are individually notable, and which of their dramas are as well. I deem it unlikely, given how few in the main range had any significant discussion, that the latter will have much, but it for the wider audio drama ranges with more debateable notability (For example, things like Jago & Litefoot, Counter-Measures, or Vienna (audio drama series)), it would be good to see if they have notability or not beyond their wider range.

I'll likely begin going through it more when I have some more time, but I figured I'd at least bring this up here before I do anything further, and especially given the volume of articles that were removed courtesy of both the merge and my own efforts. All the best. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 01:43, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like a really good idea and I'm happy to help out with it as well. It definitely looks like we'll end up merging basically all the individual Big Finish audios except for Jubilee and Spare Parts in their range articles.
I will also say that the articles for the different Big Finish ranges are also pretty poor in general. With only a few exceptions they're just a list of the episodes with no context or further information. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of them were non-notable, but once we've established which ones are we should definitely work on improving them. OliveYouBean (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
100%. It'll definitely be easier to work on the bigger list articles when we trim down the non-notable split-outs, and from there we can hopefully get them into a shape similar to DoctorWhoFan's very good work on the Monthly Adventures' article. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 05:47, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hey Poke. As someone familiar with Big Finish and TMA, back when I used to do all the formatting and updating of new episodes, I have absolutely no issue with the audioplay articles being merged, or even BLARed. Many of them were created in the early days of Wiki, when notability wasn't much of a thing.
Just a reminder, if you merge/redirect any articles for an audio series as a whole, be sure to copy-paste the episode release table into the relevant Big Finish list article (there's three: The Classic Series, The New Series, The Worlds of Doctor Who). -- Alex_21 TALK 04:42, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, will make sure any non-notable ranges get merged properly, if any pop up. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 05:48, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Doctor Who: Destiny of the DoctorDoctor Who: Destiny of the Doctor was recently BLAR'ed [1], without merging the release table to the correct Big Finish range. I have rectified this. -- Alex_21 TALK 04:18, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Pokelego999 As above, The War Doctor (audio drama series)The War Doctor (audio drama series) was also recently BLARed, without merging the release table to the correct Big Finish range. This is what happens when the episode tables are directly deleted without being restored to their location of transclusion. -- Alex_21 TALK 20:24, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Alex 21 I am very confused; the tables were all already present at the parent? I am unsure what I am supposed to be merging here. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 04:06, 14 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
They were only present at the parent because they were transcluded from the child; once you BLARed the latter, there was nothing left for the former to transclude. The episode tables have to be manually copied to maintain them at the parent. Hope that makes sense. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 04:28, 14 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Ah okay, gotcha. I'm admittedly unfamiliar with transclusions and just assumed both articles were both using raw text. I'll try to manually copy the text next time. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 20:02, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
No stress—they're not especially common, so it's not like their usage is really clear unless you've dealt with them before. Feel free to drop a message (here or elsewhere) if you'd like someone to double-check next time; I'd be happy to have a look, and I'm sure others would as well. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 21:27, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhain I ended up merging Doctor Who: Classic Doctors, New Monsters and merged the tables over; please double check to make sure I did it correctly. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 02:49, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good! I just removed the <section> markup (as it's no longer being transcluded) and changed |sublist to |list (to restore the summaries; see ShortSummary here). – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 03:00, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Will make sure to change those for the future in any future merges. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 03:03, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Using Game of Thrones season 1#Episodes as an example; the table there is transcluded to List of Game of Thrones episodes#Season 1 (2011). It only exists at the S1 article, and not at the LoE article. If it was deleted from the S1 article, then it would no longer appear at the LoE article. The same applies here, but for The War Doctor (audio drama series) and List of Doctor Who: The New Series audio plays by Big Finish#The War Doctor (2015–present), in the same order as above. -- Alex_21 TALK 05:33, 14 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

An updated article index for WP:DOCTORWHO

[edit]

The current list we have that contains all our articles is very outdated, and needs manual updating, with its last update being in 2024. Thus, I propose we do something similar to what Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red did with their list and have a category containing all our articles (I.e, Category:All WikiProject Women in Red pages). This would allow for a continually updating list that would allow us to get a full page count without needing to manually go through all WikiProject articles. This would require a consensus and the usage of Template:Category handler, obviously. Admittedly I'm less so familiar with the technical side of things, so if I'm missing something let me know, but I think this would be hugely beneficial for the project. Thoughts? Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 21:32, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Normally the cat name ends in "articles", not "pages", so an edit like this would be consistent with other WikiProject banners. Despite the name, it will pick up the talk pages of non-articles like templates, categories and so on. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:48, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64 ah, gotcha. Was unaware of that; that should work then. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 23:05, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Forgot to mention: Category:WikiProject Doctor Who articles already exists. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:21, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64 is there a way to list all the pages out without being under a category like with the Women in Red example? Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 02:59, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
WhatLinksHere. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:22, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64 Is there a way to make it not list redirects? Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 19:32, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
If you follow the link that I provided, you'll see that the checkbox "Hide redirects" is selected. So it already doesn't list redirects. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:53, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Redrose64 even when selected, it's still showing many redirects. This includes articles such as Hand of Omega, Davros' Daleks, and more. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 05:47, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
From a technical standpoint, it's because Talk:Hand of Omega isn't a redirect, only Hand of Omega is. Talk pages that are actually redirects such as Template talk:Doctorwhoproject are excluded. TheDoctorWho (talk) 07:56, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Man, that's annoying. Is there a way to exclude redirect talk pages or would we have to go through and do that manually? Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 18:08, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There might be a way to do it semi-automatically (I was trying to think through the AWB logic when I made my initial reply going forward), but it wouldn't update the Category or What Links Here pages, nor would it update automatically going forward. Redirects are placed in their own category, so I imagine there's an automation somewhere that could take the parent cat and then remove articles that are also in the redirect cat (again just not [updating] automatically)? Others that are more familiar with categories might have a better idea. TheDoctorWho (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ice Warrior FAC

[edit]

The Ice Warrior FAC is currently liable to being archived if significant headway is not made within the next few days. Any comments made on this FAC would be greatly appreciated, and I am willing to either do a review swap or a review of an article of someone's choice in exchange for comments here. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 02:15, 18 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The image conundrum

[edit]

So frequently at Doctor Who articles, we use images of items from the series taken at conventions like the Doctor Who Experience. This is normally all well and good, but recently there's been a lot of questioning about our ability to use these kinds of images, especially those from the Experience. Due to British FoP laws, images from private displays cannot be taken and used unless permanent displays, and many Doctor Who exhibitions tend to be very short affairs. The Experience is closest to being permanent, at least initially, but is still very up in the air since there is no clear consensus in sources if this closure was planned from the get go or not.

As a result of these variables, I think it's high time we finally settle how to handle this. I believe that, due to how questionable the status of these images are under copyright law, we should either remove or refrain from using them in articles, and instead replace free use images, where applicable, with valid fair use ones, or instead finally try to get a consensus going, either on Commons or elsewhere, toward these images' usability. These have been a problematic sticking point for a while, and, given a recent failure to get clarity on it at Wikipedia:MCQ, I figured I'd bring it up here to try and get a plan of action together regarding this, as this debateability is impacting our ability to use these images as it stands. Some form of consensus needs to be determined given the weird limbo we're in right now, and I'd appreciate any and all thoughts on the matter. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 05:56, 19 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A Character List Proposal

[edit]

So a while back I BLAR'd the article for List of Doctor Who supporting characters, given that the list was completely CRUFTy, needed a TNT, and on top of it had little coverage (Most discussion of Who's characters tend to be toward particular sets of characters, not the overarching group). However, recently I've brainstormed an idea for a replacement list, since for a show as big as Who it feels weird not to have something covering the whole thing.

My proposal is here: User:Pokelego999/sandbox/Doctor Who Characters List Proposal. Obviously unfinished, but the end goal is basically a primarily navigational list. You get a list of all the articles we have for characters, get a pointer to where to go with a brief blurb on them if you're unfamiliar, and then move on. This way it should avoid the bloat we had last time while still providing an article that'll help for those unfamiliar with the series who need to navigate and learn about the universe as a whole.

This has four proposed sections: The Doctor, Companions, Antagonists/Aliens, and Other.

-The Doctor will give a brief overview of the character, their role, and the basic bits. This would be short, with most incarnation-specific info-bits being for their own article. Admittedly not quite sure how to format this yet; not sure if collist or table would work better.

-Companions. Since there's so many, this will likely not delve too deep into individual ones, but rather provides an overview of their role before giving a list of all the articles on them we have. Could potentially indicate in the prose a timeframe for the companions for better navigation, but admittedly not sure on that.

-Antagonists/aliens is what it says on the tin: Basically all the "villains" the Doctor encounters. These are in table format since there aren't as many with articles, leaving room for a blurb.

-Other: Similar to the Antags, not many so there's table room. This is basically for anyone who doesn't fall into the above categories and provides a place to cover them since they don't have a separate article unlike the ones above.

The plan for this list is to keep things as brief as possible to avoid bloat (Especially important given scope) so for now the inclusion criteria is this:

-Has to have an article of their own

-Has to be from Doctor Who

This excludes spin-off characters not originally from Who, though likely it'd be good to include hyperlinks to relevant articles (Namely List of Torchwood characters) which have their own lists. It also excludes those without articles, meaning we get to avoid the bloat of minor recurring characters entering into the fray.

I am unopposed to potentially working in those without articles in some way, since that would likely be helpful for their navigation, but that would require a far stricter bar than is currently used at the aliens list currently (I'm thinking at least three appearances in different stories, have no idea how the hell I'd gauge spin-off appearances though) to avoid the very high amount of minor, two-story recurring characters that exist.

Anyway, that's my pitch for right now. This is mostly just a spitball right now, I would appreciate thoughts on if it should be completed and mainspaced once it is, and/or methods on how to improve this. Otherwise, if it's not good, I can easily put this on ice. Please let me know thoughts on this and if I can elaborate anything about it! Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 06:36, 19 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]