Are other fandoms as obsessed with rating things, and voting on things, and producing top 10 lists, as we are?

Not just here on DS, but everywhere - every fan magazine, every other fan site. We're always trying to vote for our favourite episode, decide who the most annoying companion is, rank all the Doctors in our preferred order, list the worst episodes ever. And then get heated when others don't rank things the same way.

And then, six months later, we do it all over again, just in case things have changed somehow.

Do other fandoms do this? I mean, I know everyone talks about who their favourite Star Trek captain is, but that always comes down to Kirk vs. Picard so it's not much of a fight. Batman vs Superman? *shrug* Do Star Trek fans produce rankings of how much they like each member of the Enterprise crew? Do Game of Thrones fans have votes to determine the best episode ever?

If an episode was a person, would it be bothered about 'winning'? Is this something that we feel that validates our opinion, or is it just about making sense of a vast library of content? Or is it that there are so many characters and Doctors over the years that it's just a big game of Top Trumps?

Edit: Just to be clear - I'm not saying it's not fun, or that we should stop doing it, I'm just wondering if it's unique to us.

It's not unique to us - we just have so much more to debate and list and rank and choose favourites from.

Star Trek fans rank their favourite Captains, Series, Seasons, Starships, Villains just as much. But Star Trek - after almost fifty years has had five Captains (six if you include both Kirks). Doctor Who has had twelve leads - quadruple that (and above) if you include companions - starring or otherwise.

Star Wars fans rank their films. Of which there have been six - in two banks of three which mostly include the same actors / characters.

There are debates over which head of the Atlantis Expedition was the best in Stargate... and there are only three choices.

Other fans are very much obsessed with debating and ranking and competing. But Doctor Who just has so much to choose from. Especially behind the scenes. Showrunners and producers and writers are so prolific with our show... and there have been so many of them!

I'm sure the impending George Lucas versus JJ Abrams debate won't hold a candle to RTD versus Moffat.

Though I will say Doctor Who fans tend to look at things which aren't that important and take them to extremes. Much like The Doctor himself. I'm sure he would be just as passionate over trailer release dates and whether or not a faux movie poster truly represents the content is it promoting as we are.

We're not alone. We're just spoilt for choice.

I think it's good fun and I like to see how much my own opinion fits in with everyone else's and also I like to see what the majority opinion is on a lot of topics. Only that way can you get a rough of idea of a story's/character's/actors popularity overall.

Some stories like The Twin Dilemma you know it's unpopular but other stories like say, The Claws Of Axos, you know it's a middle-top ranking story but you're never a hundred percent sure quite how popular it really is.

Other fandoms certainly do this. Geeks!

I enjoy the sort of polls DWM have just done. Nice for debate and whether I disagree (Again. Hartnell 9th?!) or agree (Kinda and Enlightenment doing well) it's all interesting and I don't take it too seriously.

Then again, I'm a Doctor Who geek.

Is this johnnysaucepn's best or worst post? Let's rank them all in order!!

I think that rating everything is part of being an obsessive. And let's face it, by posting about Doctor Who numerous times on here, we're all exhibiting obsessive tendencies to some degree. Nowt wrong with that.
With something like Doctor Who an easy way to interact with other fans is to break the ice with a question like 'What's your favourite story?' 'Who's your favourite Doctor?' - simple straightforward questions that can easily create common ground with other fans.
From that it's not a very big step to major lists ranking all the companions in order of, say, length of hair, or Daleks in order of favourite colour (for the record, mine would be the Dead Planet era ones with the blue balls).

Most attempts at this on here don't reach a conclusion because the person who started it got bored. Once every 5 years is a suitable time to do a poll because episodes normally stay in similar positions. Why is there multiple polls in a year to find out Genesis of the Daleks, Caves of Androzani, Blink and City of Death are very popular episodes?

Its a quiet period. There was very little Who on last year and then an eight month dry spell til the start of season eight, so instead of discussing new episodes, storylines, plot arcs and companions as we would be, we've nothing left but retreading old topics etc.

True. Things'll start livening up soon enough!

In the meantime, I'm thinking about starting a thread asking for comparisons between the RTD era and the SM era as that really needs examining for a change. I can see it ending well.

Who was it that said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

I suppose the other observation I would have is that I find it interesting how often discussion of a given episode comes down to 'one of my all-time favourites', or 'worst ever episode in the Pertwee era'. I guess people find it easier to think of a thing as a whole rather than as component pieces or moments.

Tbh, i think you sort of nailed it in your last para. I thing DW fans are more obsessed with fun and keeping DW alive, particularly so during the wilderness years, that adding gravitas to any ranking.

I love a good poll, me (emphasising the word 'good'). .

But then I used to work for a polling company.

Why are Doctor Who fans obsessed with ranking everything?

Is it cos we're a load of rankers?

Ooh, ooh, let me create a new thread with a poll for that! And then a new thread discussing whether that was a good idea!

If we were to rank all those threads in order of popularity, I have a feeling we'd be here sometime........

I do find polls and others opinions about DW episodes gives me food for thought and i have revisited many stories as a result, and even changed my mind about them from time to time.

If you look at the fact that once the new series arrives, you have new episodes to add to the rankings. Perhaps we have a new number one or a number five to insert into the total ranking order. Just think of the arguing -- I mean discussions - that can be had for the next few months about that!

People want validation of their opinions, and if others share them. Then whatever the outcome they want to know whether it is still the case.

Also boredom is a factor. There have been loads of polls over the past couple of months but I guess there will be practically none, apart from the episode thread polls, once the series starts, because there will be far more interesting things to talk about.

Yeah and irritate the hell out of us. Why do they need to keep ranking with polls. Everyone likes different stories.

I used to see the polls in DWM when I was younger and just has been habit ever since
I never rank anything else I watch or enjoy, apart from films occasionally on the Movies forum.

How many times have they done the poll?

I remember McCoy won it one year.