Talk:List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens

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Untitled[edit]

I know nothing about Dr Who, so I'll not edit this myself but

Unknown which planet these fearsome creatures come from, their cloaks draped over their necks to give an impression that they had a head, but no. Their skin has been tied into a tight not where the head has been cut away. Remember, anyone could turn into one of these if you are not careful.

I like this, but it's not encyclopaedic. TRiG (talk) 01:55, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's the Headless Monks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.65.224.106 (talk) 14:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Size Split?[edit]

Support - Artile is over 100kB, and should be split into sections. Thoughts???--Jax 0677 (talk) 13:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SIZE: "Articles of about 200kB (~30 pages) are not uncommon for topics that require depth and detail, but it's typical that articles of such size get split into two or more sub-articles. ... These rules of thumb only apply to readable prose (found by counting the words, perhaps with the help of Shubinator's DYK tool or Prosesize) and not to wiki markup size (as found on history lists or other means). ... They also apply less strongly to list articles, especially if splitting them would require breaking up a sortable table." 24.23.163.55 (talk) 10:49, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Skarasen[edit]

The Skarasen was indirectly mentioned in the revived series (9th-11th) in School Reunion. Sarah Jane cites "the Loch Ness Monster" to Rose & that was the Skarasen. I'm not sure if you count such indirect mentions, so I'm notifying you, rather than editing the list myself. --89.242.72.64 (talk) 09:53, 27 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Stingray doubled?[edit]

Seems "Stingray" and "Flying Stingray" are the same, yet listed twice. I've only watched seasons 9 and 10, so please check me. I wouldn't want to introduce a mistake. Also, feel free to remove this entry after checking, whether I'm right or wrong. Rmikke (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One was in Army of Ghosts, and the other was in Planet of the Dead. They were separate beings, but now "Stingray" (from the latter episode,) has been retitled "The Swarm" to allay confusion. G S Palmer (talk) 16:38, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Linking back to the term?[edit]

I clicked on some of these terms, which appear to have active links, and the links bring one back to the term. It's crazy. Why have a link that opens a window and brings one back to the term that one clicked on to? It's useless. Unless a link is taking the reader to a different Wikipedia article or a different section of the same article, they should be removed.69.125.134.86 (talk) 01:09, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled[edit]

If I remember right there used to be descriptions of each fictional life form on this page now there's just this chart. The problem is many of the fictional life forms don't have their own articles and redirect here. There should of been a better solution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jph (talk • contribs)

The information hasn't been lost, it's just been moved to subpages (which are linked from here). The redirects just need to be retargetted to the correct destination. --SnorlaxMonster 16:02, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Table on this page[edit]

Hi, could I possibly raise a talk discussion for this page? Namely, the table of appearances. Frankly it's quite an eyesore. The vast, vast majority of it is simply large red 'no's, which seems to dominate the bulk of the entire page. It's not at all aesthetically pleasing, and the information contained therein could surely be put across in a more succinct and accessible method. I'd be happy to make some changes myself, but I'd rather get some consensus first to see if anyone would object to this first. Please let me know. Justin.Parallax (talk) 18:19, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it generally works to convey the necessary information, namely, where they have appeared. G S Palmer (talk) 19:03, 13 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Change Links to Redirects[edit]

I would like to propose an edit: Instead of having the creature's names be linked to their first appearance, wouldn't it make more sense to have them redirect to their entry in the list proper? Perhaps the "Yes"s in the table could then be formatted to link to their first appearance. If we can reach a consensus I would be happy to start on the task myself. G S Palmer (talk) 16:32, 21 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Creatures From Other Media[edit]

A small number of the creatures on this list have appeared exclusively in other media such as comics or print. While these may be Doctor Who aliens, they don't really belong on this list. Perhaps a separate page could be created for them, though I doubt it would be useful. These entries specifically are likely unnecessary: Aquarbi, Arcanus Servitoris, Bruydac, Caxtarids, Chimera, Communication field, The Dark, Droon, GENIE, Lamprey, The Light, Melkene, Naglon, Olympian, Parasitic alien tapeworms, Pwccm, The Sanctified, Selachian, Serfian, The Shroud, "The First Senior", Skith, Veritas, Viyrans, Vondrax, Vortisaur, Water hag, Waterhive and Yend. After all, their is no way that all the creatures from spin-off media could be included in this list. If we can get a consensus on this these entries should be removed. G S Palmer (talk) 15:19, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Update: if there are no replies to this suggestion by 10 March 2014 I am going to be WP:BOLD and make the changes myself. I will provide links to each edit here so that anyone who disputes the changes can easily reverse them. G S Palmer (talk) 01:04, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have now removed the entries on creatures which have appeared solely in spin-off media.
  • Removed Aquarbi, Arcanus Servitoris, Bruydac, Caxtarids, Chimera, Communication field, The Dark, Droon, and GENIE with this edit and Eutermesan with this edit.
  • Removed Lamprey, The Light, Melkene, Naglon, Obelat, Olympian, Parasitic alien tapeworms, and Pwccm with this edit.
  • Removed The Sanctified, Selachian, Serfian, The Shroud, "The First Senior", Skith, Veritas, Viyrans, Vondrax, Vortisaur, Water hag, Waterhive, and Yend with this edit.
G S Palmer (talk) 00:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Slitheen family should be added. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=slitheen&oq=slitheen&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2312j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8">Source</a href> 63.96.39.67 (talk) 20:25, 9 June 2014 (UTC) Shirley F. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.96.39.67 (talk) 20:19, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Please clarify. Added how? We already have an entry on the Raxacoricofallapatorians. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 20:27, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Name[edit]

There's List of Doctor Who planets, List of Doctor Who henchmen, List of Doctor Who villains, List of Doctor Who robots...this article should just be List of Doctor Who creatures and aliens. 41.132.49.185 (talk) 13:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

[1]. G S Palmer (talk) 15:22, 18 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And that's supposed to mean...? 41.135.172.4 (talk) 08:29, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was just providing a link to an edit summary where I made an opposing argument. G S Palmer (talk) 13:49, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a disruptive one. 41.135.172.4 (talk) 15:18, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Table of appearances: unencyclopaedic?[edit]

The big Table of Appearances that makes up most of this article does not appear to me to meet Wikipedia's basic criteria: it falls foul of WP:OR, WP:V and WP:INUNIVERSE. That is, it is original research, with no citations given, and written in an in-universe tone.

I suggest one of two options:

1) Delete it (or transwiki it to the TARDIS wikia); or

2) Trim it down to creatures and aliens that had some lasting impact (as a start, cut anything that only appeared in one story).

Do others have thoughts? Bondegezou (talk) 18:01, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are zero references in the table. If allowed to list "every" creature in DW, there's no way any editor could ever verify it. If left to a core dozen creatures, it's pointless. What possible purpose does such a table serve anyway but to appease hardcore fankwankery? I think it should go. By the way, the article proper is now encouraging people to create links to it for single-appearance species like Argolins even though they have no article of their own: don't link something to a list entry if there's nothing there except the fact the creature appears in the episode article you're linking from. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 19:51, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Article structure[edit]

I'm assuming the article was split into the subsection articles in order to accommodate the ghastly table. Can those be restored? The various species links around DW articles are now leading to this orphaned page. ZarhanFastfire (talk) 02:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it was the other way round. The article got too long, so was split. This article then looked empty and the table appeared...? Bondegezou (talk) 08:07, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's a problem for all those orphaned links now. Why was it a problem for a list article to be long? Isn't that kind of what they are? ZarhanFastfire (talk) 05:32, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oof, referring this to the Guild of Copyeditors[edit]

eek Atomic putty? Rien! 19:42, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rutan (Doctor Who)[edit]

This AfD discussion ended with a "merge" to this article. However, I found that the relevant and sourced material was already here. This is a link to the source article just before it was converted to a redirect, if someone wants to pull any other content over here. Joyous! Noise! 00:32, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article needs some cleanup, or some form of inclusion criteria[edit]

There are numerous issues with this article. Most notably, it's clogged with numerous aliens who were either minor spin-off antagonists, or never appeared outside of a small mention. Some are incredibly minor and don't have much notability beyond the episode of their debut. There is also an issue of random infoboxes throughout the article. It's understandable for more notable aliens, but do we really need them on minor aliens like the Sky Fish?


Some form of criteria determining what should be included/what should be getting an infobox or not (Or if infoboxes should even be kept in the first place) should be determined. I'm unsure myself of what could potentially work, given a large bulk of aliens tend to recur more frequently in spin-off media. In any case, it should probably be confined, at the bare minimum, to aliens who had a major role in an episode of the TV series, or to aliens who can have notability established if they are from spin-off media. For instance, the Mentors are probably noteworthy to include given their involvement in Vengeance on Varos and Mindwarp, but the Raak from Mindwarp is probably not a noteworthy inclusion. Another example would be Chelonians, who have a vast amount of appearances across all Doctor Who spin-off media, compared to something like the Wyrresters, who only appeared in a single novel. If anyone has any thoughts on this, then feel free to discuss. Pokelego999 (talk) 15:19, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion at talk:List of Doctor Who villains#AHistory resulted in trimming a lot of in-universe style prose, which eventually resulted in a list of appearances with a few notes. DonQuixote (talk) 15:36, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you proposing the same thing for this article? Pokelego999 (talk) 18:53, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I might tinker with it myself in future. DonQuixote (talk) 22:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My main concern with the usage of a notes format is that, just from a brief read of the List of Doctor Who villains article, the prose helps the reader understand what each of the aliens are in a quick read. While I doubt anyone's searching for the Z'ros any time soon, many of these are decently notable individually even outside of the episodes they show up in. Things like the Sisterhood of Karn or the Thals are very likely search targets and have appeared in a variety of media over the years, and it would be much better for readers to get an understanding of them from simple prose rather than scroll through numerous episode summaries and other articles to get a better understanding of them. I'm not saying everyone and their mother deserves like three paragraphs or something, but I feel in some cases prose is more beneficial than a notes box. Pokelego999 (talk) 23:36, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on how much in-universe description is removed. Long plot summaries of single episode aliens can probably be trimmed to a sentence or two. DonQuixote (talk) 23:58, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I suppose it does come down to how much information is necessary in a future revision. I'm not too keen on it, but it depends on how it turns out. Pokelego999 (talk) 01:51, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

slitheen[edit]

should the slitheen section be merged with raxacoricofallapatorian? the slitheen are only a subsection of the latter species, and i noticed that Autons were omitted for being a product of the nestene consciousness. Sebimus (talk) 12:49, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Androgum" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect Androgum has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 21 § Androgum until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 02:36, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Siterhood of Karn is comprised of merely Gallifreyans and are not another alien race.[edit]

Gallifreyans as in the people on Gallifrey who aren't Time Lords. They moved to the planet of Karn after being banished from Gallifrey by Rassilon. GarethBaloney (talk) 16:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You need to cite a reliable source that states that. DonQuixote (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think on Wikipedia it is quite hard to cite non-academic sources, especially works of fiction. GarethBaloney (talk) 19:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Use template:cite book or template:cite episode or whatever is appropriate--you just can't write it like a fictography (see MOS:WAF). DonQuixote (talk) 19:59, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like my words have been misunderstood. I meant to mean this discussion as in "The Sisterhood of Karn are not a separate alien race so they probably shouldn't be on here." GarethBaloney (talk) 20:47, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And...you need to cite a reliable source stating just that, otherwise it's just you saying it, and you're not notable enough to be cited on Wikipedia. DonQuixote (talk) 21:09, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly not notable enough... yet! I'll go find some sources tomorrow morning. GarethBaloney (talk) 22:42, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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