Talk:Space and Time (Doctor Who)

Article Title (Space and Time or Space/Time?)

It's odd to me that this is the only two-part episode where we separate the two titles with "and" as apposed to a slash. Now the use of "and" in the article itself I have no problem with as it's clearly covering both episodes. If we were covering any other two-parters on a single page "and" would be appropriate there too (though those all currently have individual pages). It's the use of "and" in the article title and on the episode list and template that bug me. The way it is currently makes it look like "and" is in the actual title of the episode, when it's not. It's two separate episodes, one called "Space" and one called "Time". So I'm wondering if anyone would be opposed to moving the page to Space / Time (Doctor Who) and changing it on the template and episode list to "Space" / "Time" to match the way the other two-parters are listed? --DocNox (talk) 06:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Using a slash in article titles is problematic, see WP:NC-SLASH. — Edokter (talk) — 09:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

True, I hadn't considered that, although the convention still doesn't say not to do it if the name is appropriate. And I've seen other pages manage just fine with a slash in the title (Frost/Nixon (film) comes to mind). It seems the only real side effect would be that this talk page would have a tiny inappropriate link to Talk:Space at the top, like the Frost/Nixon talk page has a link to Talk:Frost at the top. Not really a big problem if you ask me. --DocNox (talk) 10:29, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, let's try it out. — Edokter (talk) — 10:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I really think it ought to be moved back to "Space and Time (Doctor Who)", two episodes in one article. The slash is just colourful...Zythe (talk) 12:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I can understand DocNox' reasoning; the old title "Space and Time" implies that "and" is part of the title, which it isn't. — Edokter (talk) — 13:24, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Just a note, Frost/Nixon is the title of the film, so it's supposd to be there. It's a different situation than this article. DonQuixote (talk) 18:21, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

For the record I wasn't using Frost/Nixon as rationale for using a slash here, but just as an example to show why using slashes in article titles isn't really a problem. Now as far as I know we don't currently have any conventions for how to title articles that cover multiple episodes with different names. All the classic series multi-part episodes have overall banner titles, and all the new series two-parters have individual articles for both parts (save "The End of Time" which also has a banner title). But lets say we were to hypothetically merge the episodes "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood" into a single article. What would we call it? Human Nature and The Family of Blood or Human Nature / The Family of Blood? The first one to me is very inappropriate and misleading for the same reasons Space and Time (Doctor Who) is here. The second one is much more accurate. Although if someone has a third option I haven't thought of I'm open to hearing it. (I also think a lot of those two-parters probably should be merged together, but that's a completely different discussion) --DocNox (talk) 03:55, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The lead sentence explains that "and" is not part of the title, obviously. The two episodes aren't notable enough for (or indeed, as) separate pages, we all agree. As I see it, the "/" looks more like part of the title than "and". It implies it's a two-parter called Space/Time rather than a two-parter made up of "Space" and "Time". Normally with groupings, a disambiguation would occur (e.g. Treehouse of Horror (series)). In other cases of episode groupings, you might refer to an overall name (e.g. Night of the Hurricane for the Seth MacFarlane crossover). An interesting case is Franny and Zooey; the article for a long time maintained it was "Franny" and Zooey (i.e. short story + novella) until I came along and solved it with "is a book" (as it is collected, sold, and more commonly known). I'm personally in favour of moving back to the admittedly unusual but less problematic "Space and Time", in lieu of something cumbersome like 2011 Red Nose Day specials (Doctor Who)! You'd have to be fairly stupid to see the article and read the first line and not understand it; it would only ever appear in piped links as "Space" and "Time", and one could always leave a "technical limitations", since article names don't acknowledge those sorts of formatting features.Zythe (talk) 12:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)