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I'm going to change 'accidental fall' to 'fall' as there is no way to prove it wasn't suicide. And surely ANY fall is accidental - otherwise it's a jump!
Smurfmeister (
talk)
10:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)reply
OK, people keep changing the page to read "Bradley Branning was a fictional character". Can we please stop this?
I know the character has died, but just because he's died doesn't mean that he stops becoming a fictional character. Therefore the page should always read "Bradley Branning is a fictional character". That's the clearest way I can think of explaining it. I'm sure if I'm wrong an admin will come along and correct me but I'm sure I'm right :) --
5 albert square (
talk)
20:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)reply
Bradley Branning will never stop being a character from EastEnders, even in a billion years time. Fictional characters, unlike real people, do not cease to exist (well, maybe they would if all the episodes were destroyed and nobody had any copies anywhere in the entire universe). People changing "is" to "was" was the main reason for changing "in EastEnders" to "from EastEnders". Still didn't work though! AnemoneProjectors (
talk)21:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)reply
That was the very first mistake i made when i joined this changing is to was haha Brianwazere 22:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Why not include Tanya?
Hi. I just wanted to ask why we shouldn't include Tanya as Bradley's stepmother. She has had a relationship with him and has parented him in a way. I know she didn't raise him when he was a child but it's the same with Dot Branning and Jim's children, and Sharon and Chrissie Watts. And sometimes it's much more obvious not to include a step parent, like Kevin Wicks and Mick Carter, or Charlie Cotton and Danielle Jones.
SamLaws81101 (
talk)
19:21, 1 June 2016 (UTC)reply
The reason she's not included is because she hasn't raised Bradley as a child (the default reason for not including step family) and her inclusion hasn't been discussed. But I can see your point. I wouldn't object to her being included in this case.
anemoneprojectors21:05, 1 June 2016 (UTC)reply
(Thanks for asking for my input, Anemone!) I'd have to disagree with this. That's a definition of parenting so broad that if we applied it in real life it would have Woody Allen married to his own stepdaughter simply because she was at one point his wife's stepdaughter, when clearly he is not and never was in anyway involved in parenting her. Similarly, Tanya met Bradley for the first time when she and Max moved to the square, by which time Bradley was already a young adult and had been established as working in the City for months. I don't recall his age at the time (it so happens that on some channels in the US/Canada, this period is now the current time frame of broadcast, and my mother is watching this, and I with her, hence it's fresh in my mind), but he must have been at least 18 (I know you can leave school and begin working at 16, just saying). Did Tanya adopt him? No. Did she raise him? No. Of course, she was on good terms with him and friendly and supportive--but so are his friends. Stepmother is a formal, and indeed legal relationship that doesn't exist here. Dot Branning has as strong if not stronger claim to be his grandmother than Tanya does his stepmother, and that's where this line would take us if we cross it. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
User:ZarhanFastfire20:55, 3 June 2016 (UTC)reply
Thanks. I think Bradley was in his early 20s at the time. No Tanya didn't raise Bradley, which is the reason he hasn't been included before. You're right, Tanya was friendly and supportive but I don't remember the relationship being like a stepparent relationship as between, say, Peter and Lucy Beale and any of Ian's wives. I think you make a good point.
anemoneprojectors07:45, 4 June 2016 (UTC)reply
I just reread Sam's query. Please for the love of God tell me we haven't got Chrissie Watts listed as Sharon's "stepmother", seeing as they met for the first time when Sharon has got to be in her 30s... Or Dot as Max's or Jack's "stepmother", two grown men likely in their 30s or even 40s?... Oh dear... That really, really should not be. For the same reasons as I've listed above. Is it not a form of
WP:SYNTHESIS and terribly inaccurate to say X is so-and-so's parent and therefore whomever they marry is automatically a co-parent of some kind? I think there may need to be a review of these and similarly misleading relationship tags.
ZarhanFastfire (
talk)
08:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)reply
Hi,
I hope you don't mind me adding to this, but I think she should be included. Yes, she didn't raise him from a child and he was a young adult when they met, but she did support him. I know he wasn't a child, so she couldn't punish him or tell him what to do, but she certainly helped him and I can remember she was the one, along with Dot, to help Max and Bradley make amends and for Bradley to get to know Lauren and Abi. It's the same with Sharon-Ben (he was 18 when Sharon and Phil married), Chrissie-Sharon, Dennis and Vicki (35, about 30 and 18), Phil-Ian (Ian was 25!) etc.
Explain how any of those are examples of
parenting. A
parent is not simply a
friend or someone you
cohabit with. A parent is someone who played a signficiant role in rearing you while you were in your early, formative years, which is to say when you were legally a
minor. It's someone who is formally and legally responsible for you and indeed accountable for your actions. They structure your life, or try to, administering rewards and punishments, etc., because you are a child and someone has to do this, whether a blood relative or state-appointed guardian. If the show did not present these relationships that way, if the show did not explicitly say Phil was Ian's stepfather (by having him adopt an adult Ian, which I find highly doubtful), for example, then no, he's not and by including him on Ian's page as a stepfather we are basically doing so with
WP:SYNTHESIS, which is a violation of Wikipedia policy. Moreover, if you are basing whether a character is someone's parent based on your own assessment of their relationship (they act like a parent in your personal opinion through "support") then you're engaging in
original research to establish a relationship which is not necessarily there in reality. If all these pages are doing that, then they should be reviewed and those relationships likely removed. It seems to me this discussion is now bigger than this page. Anemone, would this be better discussed on the general EE talk page or similar?
ZarhanFastfire (
talk)
16:17, 4 June 2016 (UTC)reply
However by that definition, we shouldn't include
Dennis Rickman as the father of
Dennis Rickman Jnr or
Cindy Beale as the mother of
Cindy Williams, or
Kush Kazemi as the father of
Arthur Fowler because they never parented their offspring. If Phil had adopted Ian, he would be listed as his adoptive father not his stepfather, but Phil and Ian's long-running feud specifally relates to this relationship, regardless of Ian's age while Phil was married to Kathy. Dot is certainly more notably a stepmother to Max Branning, and Tanya more notably a stepmother to Bradley, than Dennis is a father to his actual son.
You do bring up a good point about original research though - I've often thought we should include stepfamily where there are reliable sources to support it. In which case,
Phil is Ian's stepfather and
Dot is Max's stepmother.
Discussion affecting a large number of EastEnders articles would normally take place at
WT:EE but nobody contributes there anymore so here's as good a place as any.
anemoneprojectors21:32, 5 June 2016 (UTC)reply
@[first]No, that's not the case, as you're confusing two different kinds of relationship, one of which is based on biology, the other being based on choice. Blood relations are blood relations irrespective of whether a person was involved in actually parenting the character; whether they are notable enough to be included on someone's page is another matter, and one I'm not really interested in. That's real world biology: someone is either someone's parent, sibling, cousin, or they aren't, usually (though of course on EE it frequently turns out that someone you thought was your relation isn't or is!). Stepparenting, on the other hand, is a choice you make, and it has nothing whatsoever to do, on its own, with just being married to someone's parent, or providing some vague degree of "support". I agree it does not always require adoption but that certainly helps confirm it, and its absence is not insignficiant. @[second] I'm not at all certain we should rely on even secondary sources concerning EE to prop up the notion that grown adults can have "stepparent" relationships with anyone at all, just because I don't think papers, even the Guardian, are reliable sources for this topic. Let me unpack that. I understand where you're all coming from. It's a common thing amongst people to sort of 'automatically' think of a parent's new spouse as stepparent to their children but just ask any adult you know whose mum or dad marries again if they consider that new spouse to be their stepparent--you'll get a resounding no. But the people who write about soaps in the papers think the same way, sometimes, and may well refer to Ian and Phil's 'step' relationship for a laugh--it does not make it real. Maybe I'm making too much of this. At the end of the day it's just a show. But I'm glad I've provoked some discussion at least. The important thing is we all think about what words mean when we use them and do they fit with our policies. For what it's worth, Phil is conspiciuously absent from Ian Beale's family tree on the BBC's website (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5N68Dd0HslcmgXNMss194hQ/walford-families#character/beale_ian)
ZarhanFastfire (
talk)
23:11, 5 June 2016 (UTC)reply
The BBC website's family tree only shows direct relationships and current romantic relationships - Lou Beale isn't included in Ian's tree, for example. And indeed, my mother's husband is not my stepfather. Which is the original reason I didn't want these types of relationships included and why they've only been included by discussion.
anemoneprojectors07:04, 6 June 2016 (UTC)reply
Hello, sorry to come back again so much later. I do wonder if having these family/relationshp boxes isn't rather in-universe treatment of the characters.
ZarhanFastfire (
talk)
06:43, 24 June 2016 (UTC)reply
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or
poorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially
libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to
this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject EastEnders, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the popular
BBCsoap operaEastEnders on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EastEndersWikipedia:WikiProject EastEndersTemplate:WikiProject EastEndersEastEnders articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Soap Operas, an effort to build consistent guidelines for and improve articles about
soap operas and
telenovelas on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit
WikiProject Soap Operas, where you can join the project and/or the
discussion.Soap OperasWikipedia:WikiProject Soap OperasTemplate:WikiProject Soap Operassoap opera articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Fictional characters, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
fictional characters on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Fictional charactersWikipedia:WikiProject Fictional charactersTemplate:WikiProject Fictional charactersfictional character articles
I'm going to change 'accidental fall' to 'fall' as there is no way to prove it wasn't suicide. And surely ANY fall is accidental - otherwise it's a jump!
Smurfmeister (
talk)
10:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)reply
OK, people keep changing the page to read "Bradley Branning was a fictional character". Can we please stop this?
I know the character has died, but just because he's died doesn't mean that he stops becoming a fictional character. Therefore the page should always read "Bradley Branning is a fictional character". That's the clearest way I can think of explaining it. I'm sure if I'm wrong an admin will come along and correct me but I'm sure I'm right :) --
5 albert square (
talk)
20:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)reply
Bradley Branning will never stop being a character from EastEnders, even in a billion years time. Fictional characters, unlike real people, do not cease to exist (well, maybe they would if all the episodes were destroyed and nobody had any copies anywhere in the entire universe). People changing "is" to "was" was the main reason for changing "in EastEnders" to "from EastEnders". Still didn't work though! AnemoneProjectors (
talk)21:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)reply
That was the very first mistake i made when i joined this changing is to was haha Brianwazere 22:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Why not include Tanya?
Hi. I just wanted to ask why we shouldn't include Tanya as Bradley's stepmother. She has had a relationship with him and has parented him in a way. I know she didn't raise him when he was a child but it's the same with Dot Branning and Jim's children, and Sharon and Chrissie Watts. And sometimes it's much more obvious not to include a step parent, like Kevin Wicks and Mick Carter, or Charlie Cotton and Danielle Jones.
SamLaws81101 (
talk)
19:21, 1 June 2016 (UTC)reply
The reason she's not included is because she hasn't raised Bradley as a child (the default reason for not including step family) and her inclusion hasn't been discussed. But I can see your point. I wouldn't object to her being included in this case.
anemoneprojectors21:05, 1 June 2016 (UTC)reply
(Thanks for asking for my input, Anemone!) I'd have to disagree with this. That's a definition of parenting so broad that if we applied it in real life it would have Woody Allen married to his own stepdaughter simply because she was at one point his wife's stepdaughter, when clearly he is not and never was in anyway involved in parenting her. Similarly, Tanya met Bradley for the first time when she and Max moved to the square, by which time Bradley was already a young adult and had been established as working in the City for months. I don't recall his age at the time (it so happens that on some channels in the US/Canada, this period is now the current time frame of broadcast, and my mother is watching this, and I with her, hence it's fresh in my mind), but he must have been at least 18 (I know you can leave school and begin working at 16, just saying). Did Tanya adopt him? No. Did she raise him? No. Of course, she was on good terms with him and friendly and supportive--but so are his friends. Stepmother is a formal, and indeed legal relationship that doesn't exist here. Dot Branning has as strong if not stronger claim to be his grandmother than Tanya does his stepmother, and that's where this line would take us if we cross it. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
User:ZarhanFastfire20:55, 3 June 2016 (UTC)reply
Thanks. I think Bradley was in his early 20s at the time. No Tanya didn't raise Bradley, which is the reason he hasn't been included before. You're right, Tanya was friendly and supportive but I don't remember the relationship being like a stepparent relationship as between, say, Peter and Lucy Beale and any of Ian's wives. I think you make a good point.
anemoneprojectors07:45, 4 June 2016 (UTC)reply
I just reread Sam's query. Please for the love of God tell me we haven't got Chrissie Watts listed as Sharon's "stepmother", seeing as they met for the first time when Sharon has got to be in her 30s... Or Dot as Max's or Jack's "stepmother", two grown men likely in their 30s or even 40s?... Oh dear... That really, really should not be. For the same reasons as I've listed above. Is it not a form of
WP:SYNTHESIS and terribly inaccurate to say X is so-and-so's parent and therefore whomever they marry is automatically a co-parent of some kind? I think there may need to be a review of these and similarly misleading relationship tags.
ZarhanFastfire (
talk)
08:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)reply
Hi,
I hope you don't mind me adding to this, but I think she should be included. Yes, she didn't raise him from a child and he was a young adult when they met, but she did support him. I know he wasn't a child, so she couldn't punish him or tell him what to do, but she certainly helped him and I can remember she was the one, along with Dot, to help Max and Bradley make amends and for Bradley to get to know Lauren and Abi. It's the same with Sharon-Ben (he was 18 when Sharon and Phil married), Chrissie-Sharon, Dennis and Vicki (35, about 30 and 18), Phil-Ian (Ian was 25!) etc.
Explain how any of those are examples of
parenting. A
parent is not simply a
friend or someone you
cohabit with. A parent is someone who played a signficiant role in rearing you while you were in your early, formative years, which is to say when you were legally a
minor. It's someone who is formally and legally responsible for you and indeed accountable for your actions. They structure your life, or try to, administering rewards and punishments, etc., because you are a child and someone has to do this, whether a blood relative or state-appointed guardian. If the show did not present these relationships that way, if the show did not explicitly say Phil was Ian's stepfather (by having him adopt an adult Ian, which I find highly doubtful), for example, then no, he's not and by including him on Ian's page as a stepfather we are basically doing so with
WP:SYNTHESIS, which is a violation of Wikipedia policy. Moreover, if you are basing whether a character is someone's parent based on your own assessment of their relationship (they act like a parent in your personal opinion through "support") then you're engaging in
original research to establish a relationship which is not necessarily there in reality. If all these pages are doing that, then they should be reviewed and those relationships likely removed. It seems to me this discussion is now bigger than this page. Anemone, would this be better discussed on the general EE talk page or similar?
ZarhanFastfire (
talk)
16:17, 4 June 2016 (UTC)reply
However by that definition, we shouldn't include
Dennis Rickman as the father of
Dennis Rickman Jnr or
Cindy Beale as the mother of
Cindy Williams, or
Kush Kazemi as the father of
Arthur Fowler because they never parented their offspring. If Phil had adopted Ian, he would be listed as his adoptive father not his stepfather, but Phil and Ian's long-running feud specifally relates to this relationship, regardless of Ian's age while Phil was married to Kathy. Dot is certainly more notably a stepmother to Max Branning, and Tanya more notably a stepmother to Bradley, than Dennis is a father to his actual son.
You do bring up a good point about original research though - I've often thought we should include stepfamily where there are reliable sources to support it. In which case,
Phil is Ian's stepfather and
Dot is Max's stepmother.
Discussion affecting a large number of EastEnders articles would normally take place at
WT:EE but nobody contributes there anymore so here's as good a place as any.
anemoneprojectors21:32, 5 June 2016 (UTC)reply
@[first]No, that's not the case, as you're confusing two different kinds of relationship, one of which is based on biology, the other being based on choice. Blood relations are blood relations irrespective of whether a person was involved in actually parenting the character; whether they are notable enough to be included on someone's page is another matter, and one I'm not really interested in. That's real world biology: someone is either someone's parent, sibling, cousin, or they aren't, usually (though of course on EE it frequently turns out that someone you thought was your relation isn't or is!). Stepparenting, on the other hand, is a choice you make, and it has nothing whatsoever to do, on its own, with just being married to someone's parent, or providing some vague degree of "support". I agree it does not always require adoption but that certainly helps confirm it, and its absence is not insignficiant. @[second] I'm not at all certain we should rely on even secondary sources concerning EE to prop up the notion that grown adults can have "stepparent" relationships with anyone at all, just because I don't think papers, even the Guardian, are reliable sources for this topic. Let me unpack that. I understand where you're all coming from. It's a common thing amongst people to sort of 'automatically' think of a parent's new spouse as stepparent to their children but just ask any adult you know whose mum or dad marries again if they consider that new spouse to be their stepparent--you'll get a resounding no. But the people who write about soaps in the papers think the same way, sometimes, and may well refer to Ian and Phil's 'step' relationship for a laugh--it does not make it real. Maybe I'm making too much of this. At the end of the day it's just a show. But I'm glad I've provoked some discussion at least. The important thing is we all think about what words mean when we use them and do they fit with our policies. For what it's worth, Phil is conspiciuously absent from Ian Beale's family tree on the BBC's website (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5N68Dd0HslcmgXNMss194hQ/walford-families#character/beale_ian)
ZarhanFastfire (
talk)
23:11, 5 June 2016 (UTC)reply
The BBC website's family tree only shows direct relationships and current romantic relationships - Lou Beale isn't included in Ian's tree, for example. And indeed, my mother's husband is not my stepfather. Which is the original reason I didn't want these types of relationships included and why they've only been included by discussion.
anemoneprojectors07:04, 6 June 2016 (UTC)reply
Hello, sorry to come back again so much later. I do wonder if having these family/relationshp boxes isn't rather in-universe treatment of the characters.
ZarhanFastfire (
talk)
06:43, 24 June 2016 (UTC)reply