Did you ever get a chance to visit doctorwhoworldwide.com? There’s no point checking now, the site’s down, has been for over two weeks. It’s a shame, it was a great site. Even though I was a contributor on the site, I haven’t heard anything concrete about why it has gone down or if it will ever be back up. With more than 10,000 twitter followers at one point, it was a powerhouse of a news, reviews, rumours and opinion site.

I had my first article posted there on January 6th. After seeing “Keep Calm, Don’t Blink” online, I made a solemn vow that I would be the site’s number one contributor, the most prolific writer (other than the site’s owner) to post under its banner. I think I can congratulate myself that I did actually achieve my goal. So I was and still am extremely disappointed that it has disappeared.

Not only was it the best place to find out new rumours, its forum, the Panopticon, was a great friendly place where I made lots of friends. It was a nice relaxing walk in the park compared to the bitter anger that emanated from some other forums. Members were free to speculate at will without being ridiculed or mocked or talked down to.

Well, out of the ashes of Doctor Who Worldwide something beautiful has bloomed. It turns out that I am unable to keep my opinions to myself, so I took a blog that  I had neglected for years and made it in to the website that you’re looking at right now. I’ve been in contact with many of the other contributors from DWW and hopefully soon we will have some of them posting reviews, news and opinions on here as well. On that topic, if you would like to write something for the site, email me at dcollins@troughtonismydoctor.com and we can talk about it.

Missing the forum? Well Pascal Salzmann started up a facebook group to discuss missing episodes. It’s been an instant success. I would encourage all the former Panopticon members to come on in and check it out, you’ll see lots of familiar faces. Never visited the Panopticon? No worries, everyone who wants to have a civil discussion on missing episodes is welcome on board.

So although we have lost one great site, two more have sprung up to replace it. With your help they can achieve the sort of reach that DWW enjoyed. So spread the word, share the links, like the pages, join in on the conversation.

UPDATE 3/25

Well, it’s been an eventful few days on the new FB page. The numbers have exploded as posters and lurkers come flocking over looking for a new place to chat or gather the latest information. Right now we are sitting at 286 members and that’s climbing every hour.  With all the new members comes new troubles though, and I would like to take a minute to layout the ‘charter’ for the group.

“This is a friendly open discussion group. We don’t want to enforce rules or be no fun or too controlling like certain forums, but the rules are quite simple.

Basically, this group was set up to try and recapture the ethos of DWW, so, in a nutshell, let’s all be nice to each other.
Personal attacks are not on. Not trying to censor anyone, but lay into someone and you’ll be politely asked to back off. Three strikes and you’re out. There are ways of disagreeing that don’t involve all-out warfare, so please play nice and keep it civil. Anything just plain offensive is a one-strike-and-out deal.

Please remember this is a closed group. What’s said here stays here. You can talk about it in other forums, we can’t and won’t stop that, but please no direct quotes without the original poster’s permission.”

So we are still welcoming all new members, but must ask that everyone tolerate the views of others, even if you don’t agree. Civil discussion will always be permitted and only personal attacks or offensive comments will be moderated.