Lit Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki

Heh, Wookieepedia arguing with LFL employees? That's new.

 

Good grief. The dude seemed polite enough during the exchange but the argument is messed up. I'm always surprised Leland sticks with his post year after year.

 

See, this whole situation is clearly a point where the letter of the law has become detrimental to the spirit of the law. It is obvious that even members of the Story Group find it baffling.

 

There are days that I contemplate becoming an active Wookieepedian again. I've been a member since December 2015, but I haven't edited in probably close to 5 years. There are ALOT of canon articles that are lacking that I could contribute to (Ackbar, Mon Cal ships, New Republic, etc), but I feel out of touch with the rules and don't know if I have the energy to engage in some of the "discussions" I've seen there. I still love the Wook, like any entity it has it's good and bad. It's just daunting thinking about returning to it after all these years.

One day maybe!

--Adm. Nick

 

We certainly need editors like you, especially when it comes to ship-related articles. You're thorough--in the good sense of the word.

 

Matt is always very careful in his tweets to say things like "I think" and "I personally" because it avoids someone saying "Matt said it's canon!" What I think is important is making sure that we have a clear reader experience. What's written on Wookieepedia is, for better or for worse, automatically accepted as canon by most fans. So if something goes onto Wookieepedia that we're only assuming is still correct, like a species name -- and the comments from the Story Group are very much saying that they are also assuming it's correct because right now they have no reason to change it -- then it will automatically be accepted as canon by fans. If it ends up being changed later on down the line, those same fans will then say "but Wookieepedia said" and call it a contradiction or a plot hole. Or they'll just continue on with the same incorrect information.

Wookieepedia should only present information that it knows to be true, not to cater to editor-centric completionism. That being said, IMO the solution is to allow more "Unidentified" articles (very similar to Matt's "unconfirmed" suggestion, and how Leland uses placeholder names) but for whatever reason the community decided long ago that they hate those. For some reason. I have no idea why.

Assuming the Legends name is still the canon name isn't the right way to go. Banning "Unidentified" pages isn't the right way to go. And having no page at all definitely isn't the right way to go. There's a very obvious middle ground between the two big sides of the question, and it's using "Unidentified" names as placeholders that connect via tab to the Legends page and that reference the old Legends name in the Behind the Scenes section. That compromise idea is one that you yourself scoffed at, Lelal, when you said "Oh, come on! would you rather go for slews of "unidentifieds?""

There's high and mighty behavior on both sides of this question. Very few seem willing to cut through that and find a workable solution that allows for the documentation of the information in a thoughtful way that is actually in line with what Matt and Leland both said in the above quotes. Because if there's one thing that's true about Wookieepedia it's that people are either dug in to intractable positions or they're so apathetic that they just default to whatever the loudest voices in the room want.

That's a big part of where the bureaucracy and argumentativeness comes from. So I certainly can't begrudge anyone for thinking it's too daunting when problems like this exist.

You're in luck, because you can! You can rename your account here: https://community.wikia.com/wiki/Special:UserRenameTool

Make sure you're definitely comfortable with whatever new name you choose, though, since accounts can only be renamed one time.

 

@Brandon Rhea I scoffed at the idea of creating "Unidentifieds" in the context where names are available in the script. Especially when it comes to one-time characters who are unlikely to reappear (like most new characters in the Rebels comics), refusing those names because they are not in print is counter-productive. I am not against "Unidentifieds" per se (I've created many such articles myself), only when there is a better alternative. So yes, in that specific context, I scoffed.

And yes, I definitely think we should work on a solution in line with what Matt and Leland said. I'm just not sure what... or how many months it would take us to find out.

(And yes, I will admit that I have a little ego problem at times. I've been on Wook for 12 years, have been Wookieepedian of the month twice. I remember a time when people liked my work and valued my opinion. And now I find myself surrounded by a court-martial panel of (often) "newer" Wookieepedians who act like I don't know what I'm doing. This can be extremly disheartening at times.)

 

The solution is repealing, or at least heavily modifying, this:

"Subjects that both appeared within new canon material and received names and backstories within material that falls under the Legends brand shall not receive new canon articles until they receive names in material that is considered canon. Thus, the majority of subjects within the six original films that received names and backstories from Legends sources such as the Databank, reference guides, or trading card games will not be given articles for their new canon versions, so as to avoid a proliferation of unidentified subject articles. Once a subject's name is established in a new canon source, whether that be new material or old material that has been designated as canon, it can receive an article detailing its existence in the canon continuity."
​

I've raised this before, to little success. In fact the introduction of the CT to say that tweets are not independent sources was originally understood to be Part 1 of a larger look at notability policies for canon articles. There was then a lot of mind changing/backpedalling from the powers that be. I still agree with that CT about tweets, but it was supposed to lead to loosening the restrictions in the notability policy.

I don't see this happening anytime soon, unfortunately.

 

I just don’t get who determines which FFG stuff is canon and which isn’t. I don’t know why it’s considered canon since it’s both Legends and Disney.

 

So I found a good-sized error on the Wook. As a fan of Star Wars aliens, I naturally look through WP articles on them at times. One article that caught my eye was that of the monkeylike people that Death Watch armed in the Jango Fett comics. According to the Wook, they appear literally nowhere else but the comic - they're not even in the CSWE, despite having a good-sized role in Jango's backstory. So I checked out the comic itself and...

...these guys aren't the Kordans. The word "Kordan" is applied only to the humans fighting against the monkey guys, who hired the True Mandalorians to assist them. The monkey guys are simply called "the natives." I left a message on the talk page, but nobody's responded.

 

Unfortunately, talk pages aren't as trafficked as they used to be. The page should probably be moved to something like "Unidentified species (Korda Six)" or something.

 

Nobody does. None of it is. It's a game, my dude. It's no more canon than a box of action figures is; it's there to provide pieces to play with.

 

Instead of Canon/Legends tabs, it should be Canon/Non-Canon. Non-Canon would be Legends, Tales, Infinities, FFG, Lego, etc.


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It's still important to separate the old EU and what was intended to be non-canon within that old EU. Lumping it all together would be dishonest and a disservice to the reader, just as lumping the current canon and the EU together would be a disservice if there were another reboot. Besides which, I don't know how feasible it would be --- how would A New Hope: Infinities fit into the same Luke biography as the rest of the EU? There needs to be a separation there.

 

Personally I think there should be multiple new tabs - LEGO, Infinities, etc - but there doesn't seem to be much of an appetite for that right now.

 

There's already a dishonesty to pretend that all of Legends actually works as a single continuity. There needs to be more separation than there currently is.

 

Action figure packaging info is canon, just as action figure detail is. Some species' or character details are only present on the action figures.

Even with all the retcons over the years, EU remains consistent within itself.

 

Wait which is it? Is it consistent, or does it need retcons?


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EVERY fictional universe uses retcons, without exceptions. Doesn't even have to be a shared universe, single-author series use them just as often. Doesn't stop the material from being internally consistent and valid.

On the unrelated note, you know what's very funny about the current state of Wook? Many NuCanon/Legends articles only differ in the capitalization of certain words. Obviously, capitalization was always all over the place, depending on the medium, editorial choices etc. However, when cases such these arise in new media, Wook treats them as alternate spelling, resulting in Legends articles without /Legends suffix. Quite hillarious, really.

 

Pablo no longer interacts with fans on Twitter in any meaningful way (and who could blame him) but I wish I could ask him the question "is action figure packaging info canon." In my imagination his response would look something like this:

Spoiler

 

Even the "new canon" (which is much younger) has already had a few patchups here and there. Would you say it's not consistent?

 

"A few patch ups" is a different thing than the number of stories that were told and retold (Who stole the Death Star plans? What happened on Ord Mantell?), stories that were completely ignored for decades (Marvel Star Wars), stories that need a guidebook to tell you what ACTUALLY happened in them cuz they've been changed and rewritten so many times since (like anything about Ruusan, all the married Jedi that popped up in the Bantam years, Ki-Adi-Mundi in general).

My point isn't about little notes here and there, it's that Splinter of the Mind's Eye Luke is NOT the same man as Marvel Star Wars Luke, let alone the Luke being written by novelists and comics writers thirty years later in that same time period. Pretending they are weakens the individual works for the sake of an imagined continuity.


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Ah, yes. Forgive me for momentarily forgetting how badly executed the EU was as a whole.

 

Let's give the new canon at least a few more years before we revist this question again.