Forum:CT:Live-action sentient species notability

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The result of the debate was Support Votes 1-2. —spookywillowwtalk 23:02, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

After discussion on Discord following on from all the great work MTrac has been doing on species recently, I think it'd be a good idea for us to expand the Sentient species portion of our notability policy to allow for pages to be made for any sentient species that appear in live-action. Unlike the hundreds of one-panel species seen in comics, we know each of these species has significant BTS info, even if it's not been revealed yet, and most of them appear in dozens of sources surrounding the media they appear in. Having a page to add these sources to as they're released rather than waiting till the species inevitably becomes notable by our current standards makes having a comprehensive appearances and sources list far easier and avoids someone having to check back through every source released up to that point.

I'd initially planned to simply include all live-action species in one vote, but MTrac has pointed out that a lot of the TV shows include many unnamed humanoid species achieved through make-up rather than creature shop costumes. These are likely less notable than the costumed aliens, who are more likely to be recognizable and re-used, and so I'll be splitting the vote into two parts to allow people to exclude the shows if they wish. These both seem likely fairly straight forward options and I don't think there's that many points to debate over, so I didn't feel a SH was necessary here. There are certainly similar discussions to be had about animated films and shows and even video games, but I think that's a bigger discussion to be had separately and so ask the discussion here be focused on just live-action.

Vote 1

This vote is on allowing articles to be made for any sentient species appearing in a live-action film. I'd propose adding the following bullet point to the bottom of the Sentient species section of the Notability policy (difference in bold): 

*An appearance in a live-action film.

Support

  1. Ayrehead02 (talk) 21:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  2. Andlaw99 (talk) 21:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  3. OOM 224 22:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  4. I do kinda wonder about the wording not allowing for cut content that didn't appear in the finished version of live-action film or media, but meh. 'Cause some stuff may very well appear in a featurette or something that isn't the film itself...—spookywillowwtalk 22:36, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  5. JMAS Jolly Trooper Hey, it's me! 22:39, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  6. Wholeheartedly advocate for this! - MTrac1000 (talk) 22:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  7. Dr. Kermit(Complain.) 23:06, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  8. Mor9347 ForPipadaLogo-UserImage (Talk) 23:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  9. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 23:37, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  10. Fan26 (Talk) 23:45, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  11. Editoronthewiki (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  12. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 04:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
  13. Imperators II(Talk) 07:26, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
  14. Darth Soda CIS roundel (Talk) 15:00, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
  15. Labyrinthine G0B-L1N (talk) 02:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
  16. Sanathestarr (talk) 12:54, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Discuss

Vote 2

This vote is on allowing articles to be made for any sentient species appearing in live-action TV in addition to those appearing in live-action films. This vote is only relevant if vote 1 passes. If vote 1 fails the results of this vote are moot. If this vote passes then I'd modify the bullet point from vote one as follows: 

*An appearance in a live-action film or live-action series.

Support

  1. While I see MTrac's point about the humanoid species, I still think they're prominent enough to be notable and relatively low in number. Plus there's also been a lot of new full-costume species in recent shows that I think justifiy this addition. Ayrehead02 (talk) 21:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  2. Andlaw99 (talk) 21:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  3. OOM 224 22:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  4. —spookywillowwtalk 22:36, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  5. JMAS Jolly Trooper Hey, it's me! 22:40, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  6. I do have my reservations, but I'm not vehemently opposed. I can drop my thoughts in the "Discuss" section below. - MTrac1000 (talk) 22:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  7. Dr. Kermit(Complain.) 23:06, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  8. Mor9347 ForPipadaLogo-UserImage (Talk) 23:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  9. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 23:37, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  10. Fan26 (Talk) 23:45, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  11. Time to resurrect Gorian Shard's species article Editoronthewiki (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
  12. Yasen Nestorov (talk) 04:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
  13. Imperators II(Talk) 07:26, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
  14. Darth Soda CIS roundel (Talk) 15:00, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
  15. Labyrinthine G0B-L1N (talk) 02:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Per MTrac's point in the discussion section. imo would be much better to do this on a case-by-case basis that a mass vote. Sanathestarr (talk) 12:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

  • As mentioned above, I am a bit hesitant when it comes to the series as it seems there was a lot less "intention" when it comes to background designs, especially from individuals like Brian Sipe who oftentimes seems to just slap a random prosthetic on an actor or paint them a bright color an call it a day (ironically I'd say this would be better suited for 3D animated background aliens as there HAS to be intention when creating the designs). As someone who's gone frame-by-frame through most of the current live action series, there are a lot of background designs that share common elements like these or these where it's nearly impossible to tell if the similarities are intentional, or if that wasn't even a consideration in the team's mind and they were just tasked with creating another generic background alien using the same props they had on hand. So I think there is a certain level of discretion that will be required with every blue human with no distinguishing features or orange humanoid with facial spikes, and I definitely don't think every green-skinned person should immediately be duck tested as a Mirialan or similar cases. It will ultimately have to come down to a case-by-case basis I guess, and I'm more than willing to help with what screenshots and info I've collected, but we will just need to come to a general consensus regarding some of the more haphazard-seeming ones, as well as ones where it's a toss up whether they're just decorated/scarred/masked humans or not (maybe we should include something about there has to be reasonable certainty that they're not Human)? - MTrac1000 (talk) 22:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)