Forum:CT:Articles about Insider articles

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The result of the debate was OOU Star Wars Insider articles will not be merged into parent magazine issue articles; {{InsiderCite}} will remain unchanged. Toprawa and Ralltiir 04:14, January 9, 2010 (UTC)

After a testing shot at the SH, I present to you yet another one of my crazy ideas. The exact proposal is:

  1. Merge all pages about OOU articles from the Star Wars Insider into the pages for the magazine issues they appeared in.
  2. In order to preserve the existing sourcing, change the {{InsiderCite}} template to make the article's title lead not to a separate page, but to a subheading on the page for the Magazine issue, where the content would be moved.

Important notes:

  1. The purpose of the merge is to combine smaller articles (which do not have substantial content anyway) onto one page to better illustrate the content of the magazine issue. The main targets are articles about simple interviews (When Artoo Met Wicket) and articles written entirely from OOU point of view (Inside the 501st).
  2. The merge will not affect any IU-articles from Insider. Pages for both fiction stories (Death in the Catacombs) and IU reference articles (Order 66: Destroy All Jedi) should stay the way they are, because they have significantly more content even if from nothing but the "Appearances" section. The information, however, may still be replicated on the page for the magazine issue under a subheading, with the interlink to the main article provided.

And that's it, the reasons I came up with it are explained in the SH thread. Please consider them and leave your vote. MauserComlink 01:49, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

Support

  1. MauserComlink 01:49, December 24, 2009 (UTC)
    —Master Jonathan(Jedi Council Chambers) 12:47, December 24, 2009 (UTC)
    So long as no information is lost, just re-organized. Dangerdan97 21:44, December 24, 2009 (UTC)
  2. Absolutely. QuiGonJinn Senate seal(Talk) 19:21, December 25, 2009 (UTC)
  3. Agreed for the smaller lesser articles, though I feel that reference articles like "The History of the Mandalorians" should remain intact. -- Riffsyphon1024 08:45, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
    • That is presumed and deliberately stated in the proposal. =) MauserComlink 09:59, December 26, 2009 (UTC)
  4. ToRsO bOy 15:50, December 27, 2009 (UTC)
  5. Jedi Kasra (comlink) 20:14, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Meh. Toprawa and Ralltiir 22:19, December 28, 2009 (UTC)
  2. I'm not clear on what is being proposed here. We're supposed to redirect any OOU Insider articles, but then we're also supposed to keep articles like "Order 66: Destroy All Jedi", which is an OOU article? The wording needs to be made clearer before I can support anything. ~ SavageBob 06:01, December 29, 2009 (UTC) It's clearer now thanks to Mauser's comments below (thanks!), but I still believe it's better to keep these articles on their own pages. Wikis are not paper, and it's more helpful for writing other articles. ~ SavageBob 17:47, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
  3. Per above and Bob below. Grunny (Talk) 06:36, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
  4. Per Bob. If you're going to merge one "insignificant article," then you might as well just merge them all into the issue and be done with it, which is not the way to go. CC7567 (talk) 06:54, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
  5. Per Bob. --Skippy Farlstendoiro 11:00, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
  6. Per all of the above. - JMAS Jolly Trooper Hey, it's me! 13:15, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
  7. The line between articles written from IU and OOU viewpoints isn't always as clear as people like to think. Moreover, OOU Insider articles are STILL official Star Wars products, and shouldn't be treated like red-headed stepchildren just because we have more use for IU articles. We need to treat both kinds of articles equally. Also, per Bob. jSarek 01:18, December 30, 2009 (UTC)
  8. Meh. -- Darth Culator (Talk) 01:20, December 30, 2009 (UTC)
  9. Per jSarek. Nayayen...TALK 12:52, December 30, 2009 (UTC)
  10. Jonjedigrandmaster (Jedi Beacon) 15:56, December 30, 2009 (UTC)
  11. Bob makes a very good point. —Master Jonathan(Jedi Council Chambers) 20:27, December 30, 2009 (UTC)
  12. Grand Moff Tranner Imperial Department of Military Research (Comlink) 15:05, December 31, 2009 (UTC)
  13. --Xd1358 Talk 07:30, January 4, 2010 (UTC)
  14. Bob and jSarek make excellent points on this. — Fiolli {Alpheridies University ComNet} 18:49, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
  15. Reconsidered, plus, it should be mentioned that a small number of larger articles is more of a strain on outdated browsers and computers than more and smaller articles (I type this from a work-imposed IE6 window). Dangerdan97 23:32, January 8, 2010 (UTC)
  16. IFYLOFD (Floyd's crib) 03:21, January 9, 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Please do not create any additional vote-splitting options without consulting me first. Thank you. MauserComlink 01:49, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

Usefulness of separate pages

When I'm expanding an article, I often use the "what links here" button to find odd references to the subject that people might have forgotten to add to the "Appearances" or "Sources" list of the article I'm expanding. If we merge these Insider articles to one huge page without an "appearances" list, they become black holes when "what links here" is used. Now, to anticipate a rebuttal to my point, most of these short, OOU articles don't have "appearances" lists, I know. But I'd argue that they should—If Warwick Davis mentions in an interview that he thinks Princess Leia is is favorite character and that he's afraid of MSE droids, then there should be an "appearances" list for his interview article that lists Leia Organa Solo and MSE droid as having been mentioned in the article. Those are potentially useful BTS bits for someone who is expanding either of those articles. In short, I guess I'm saying that 1) we've been lazy and haven't done appearances lists for many of these pieces, but 2) that doesn't mean they won't ever have appearances lists, and therefore 3) merging them will remove this potential utility and prevent editors from finding these nuggets of information that could potentially be useful when expanding or writing articles. ~ SavageBob 06:11, December 29, 2009 (UTC)

  • Like I thought, it all comes down to having an appearances section. To address your question above: Order 66: Destroy All Jedi is ab article written from IU point of view unlike various random interviews, having an appearances section for cross-referencing is what makes it worth its own page. Now, whether interviews and other entirely OOU articles should have an appearances list - in my opinion, absolutely not! By your logic, if Filoni mentions Cad Bane in an interview, he should be added to the Appearances section for the cross-referencing of OOU information and that would warrant a separate page for the interview. But is we go with that, we might as well create pages for every other interview with a Star Wars cast or crew member ever - whether they were published in Insider of Vanity doesn't make too much difference. There is a big difference here: Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous is a valid IU-source, just as A Two-Edged Sword is a canonical IU-story. Having separate articles for them is necessary not only because of the Appearances section, but because of their overall significance. Contrary to that, Master & Apprentice is a simple interview, just like the ones appearing in various other media, including Internet - should we have articles for every of them just because they mention canonical thing in OOU context? And how about things like Skin Wars: The Force in the Flesh - what IU significance does that have? If he pages for those articles, we might as well have a page for every time some magazine makes a poll of "20 coolest villains ever", in which Vader takes seventh place. Whatever info is present in such articles, will be most likely classified as excessive trivia by our standards, because we are most interesting in canonical IU info and things related to it (like character development and cut stories), but not in its place in the popular culture. MauserComlink 13:23, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm not bothered by a surplus of articles that may not be fleshed out properly (yet); Wikis are not paper, and we don't have to worry about space constraints. As for whether Vanity Fair or whatever articles that may mention something from Star Wars deserve articles, that's a different story: those articles, unlike, say, "Who's Who in the Max Rebo Band," are not wholly dedicated to Star Wars. On the contrary, an interview with Warwick Davis that appears in Insider can be assumed to have at least a significant amount of Star Wars content. If there happens to be something in Insider that is not Star Wars related (like a "making of" piece on the new Indiana Jones), by all means deny that piece a page here. (As for "Skin Wars," I haven't read the article. But if it says something like, "80% of people who get Star Wars tattoos choose to get a tattoo of a ronto," then that's something I'd like to see pop up when I click "What links here" on ronto so I can consider that factoid for inclusion in the article. If it's not linked, that decision is taken out of my hands as expander of the ronto article.) In short, if there's significant Star Wars content, I still believe we should give it a page here to allow for the "What links here" to work properly. ~ SavageBob 17:44, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
      • Well, contrary to that I'm a deletionist and think that it would be better for the Wook to have fever bigger and more complete articles that more of smaller ones (considering the content is the same). I do respect your opinion, but have to add that currently none of those articles in question can be used for cross-referencing via "What links here" simply because they don't have any content beyond "{{PAGENAME}} is the articles from Insider XXX that discusses blah-blah-blah". MauserComlink 22:07, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
        • No problem; I certainly understand the desire to want to clean up shop a bit with these. Hopefully (should they be kept separate) people will begin expanding them properly! ~ SavageBob 22:51, December 29, 2009 (UTC)