Forum:CT:Notability Policy: In-Universe Subjects

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The result of the debate was No consensus. JangFett (Talk) 13:54, September 1, 2013 (UTC)

Okay, let's try it and see how it goes. A flood of minor redundant articles continues without end, with such gems as Jedi Mickey's lightsaber (directly violating established consensus on lightsabers), Unidentified red planet (Indiana Jones's system) (we have deleted a non-canonical Mars before) and my personal favorite Unidentified dancer (no comments). Before taking dozens of them to TC at once, a line has to drawn somewhere. LOST-Malachi (talk) 07:46, August 17, 2013 (UTC)

In-universe subjects

The following guidelines will help determine whether an in-universe subject (character, location, device etc.) requires a separate article on Wookieepedia:

  1. Any subject that was given a unique name, nickname, alias or callsign in canon should be given a separate article, regardless of its relevance or importance within the given source.
    • This is the criteria most obviously helpful to the readers, since most users of Wookieepedia would search for articles based on canonical name.
  2. Any subject that was given a notable role in the narrative should be given a separate article under a conjectural title.
    • The rationale for this criteria is that the subject that played a role in the narrative was consciously created for the story by the author, just went unnamed, and non-trivial information about it can be given to the readers. For example: Connor Freeman's father, Palpatine family starship, Unidentified Gibbela species.
  3. Any subject that appears in more than one source (excluding reprints and re-releases of previous works) and can be clearly identified as being the same with little to no room for ambiguity, should be given a separate article.
    • If two or more separate works feature the same unnamed character, creature, vehicle design etc., it means an author deliberately decided to reuse a pre-existing element of canon. In this case, even if both appearances remain extremely minor, an article on such subject would provide valuable information to the reader.
  4. If a subject is only given a passing mention in the narrative, with no context or description, it should not be given a separate article.
    • For example, if a character in a novel has a conversation with an unidentified Devaronian patron in a cantina, the Devaronian can have a separate article. If, however, it is mentioned that "over a dozen species were present in the cantina, among them a Zabrak, an Ortolan and a Devaronian", then the Devaronian should not have a separate article, as it would be extremely uninformative.
  5. The article must pass the "duck test". If it looks like a bantha, sounds like a bantha, smells like a bantha, moves like a bantha and acts like a bantha, then it is a bantha and not an Unidentified bantha-looking creature.
    • When dealing with visual sources, be aware of the concept of artistic license: hundreds of illustrators worked on Star Wars at different times and no two of them share the same vision, style and technique. So if a creature, a species or a starship has only minor differences from a pre-established subject or there is otherwise room for ambiguity, it is generally safe to assume the deviations from an established canonical design to be artistic license and not a totally separate but unnamed animal, race or vehicle.

These five basic rules received no objections in SH. They basically describe the established common practice and are for the most part enforced already. Very few existing articles would be subjected to merging/redirecting/deletion based on this rule alone, somewhat defeating the purpose of drawing a line. And now for the big treat: LOST-Malachi (talk) 07:46, August 17, 2013 (UTC)

6. If a subject only appears in a visual source in a single crowd shot or in the background and plays no role in the narrative, then it should not be given a separate article.

  • Comic book artists, video game designers and animators of TV series use background characters to establish required setting and atmosphere for various locations. However, most of the time these characters are not mentioned in the script and play absolutely no role in the story. Such characters are also almost never revisited in later sources and depending on design may even be indistinguishable from other characters of the same species. Having separate pages for every background character in every visual source ever published would clog the Wookieepedia with thousands of minor articles that would give no information to the reader.
    • A notable departure from this rule concerns the live-action movie characters, which should always be given a separate article as long as they can be distinguished from others (such as identical-looking clone or stormtroopers). Movie crowd scenes with multiple background extras such as Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina or Jabba's Palace have been the subject of scrutiny by both fans and licensed authors for years, with many minor characters receiving names and biographical details decades after their first appearance. A crowd scene in a single comic panel will never generate the same level of interest, however, and the individuals depicted are unlikely to ever be revisited, so all information on them would come from a single picture, making a full article redundant.

7. If a subject only appears in a single illustration in a visual source, with no context or other information provided, it should not be given a separate article.

  • Sources such as roleplaying sourcebooks and card games often feature illustrations which are not meant to represent any character in particular, but rather members of specific species, organizations or game classes. Unless a caption tells us more, little specific information can be gained from a single picture: the allegiances, circumstances and even time periods of the events and characters depicted can only be gained from assumptions and speculations. Additionally, an article is of no use to the reader if it simply describes what is depicted on the illustration and nothing more.
    • When linking to such objects from other articles, it is best to link to an image directly rather than linking to a new separate article which merely describes the same image, essentially being an overblown caption.

Support Rules 1 through 7

  1. LOST-Malachi (talk) 07:46, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  2. It's time for some Spring cleaning. As Proposed Rule #7 says, "an article is of no use to the reader if it simply describes what is depicted on the illustration and nothing more." I also like the description of such articles as: "essentially being an overblown caption." A lot of users, including myself, have been guilty in the past of creating useless articles like Unidentified H'nemthe patron, Unidentified Kel Dor Sith Lord, Unidentified Herglic (chop shop), etc, etc --- articles that amount to nothing more than a description of a picture and, to be honest, contribute nothing to the Wiki. Sure, Comprehensive articles are nice, but let's keep our efforts focused on articles that are actually of use. Menkooroo (talk) 12:27, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  3. —Silly Dan (talk) 14:50, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  4. Square peg, square hole. The creation or deletion of any article on this site should not be subject to a user's feelings on that individual day. Standards and policy exists for a reason, and this is solid policy. (Also, I'm tired of seeing the little vanity pages glorified captions like the ones listed by Menk above.) Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 21:31, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  5. While Tope has some great points, I have to agree with Trayus, especially the comment that "[t]he creation or deletion of any article on this site should not be subject to a user's feelings on that individual day." If users are left to use their own judgment, a TC in January might result in a delete outcome when a TC on the same article in July might end in keep because a different set of users is voting. That will result in horrible inconsistency, and nominators will never be able to figure out whether people will generally agree with them or if a flood of keep votes will come in from left field on the basis that "it's interesting". We need a set of hard and fast rules sooner rather than later, and this is a good set. The beauty of a wiki is that we can always tweak the rules later in another CT if a need to do so arises. —MJ— Council Chambers 00:21, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
    Can I just note that this is exactly what happened with Wookieepedia:Notability of fan projects (proposed, amended, amended, amended, amended)? —Silly Dan (talk) 14:12, August 19, 2013 (UTC)
  6. JangFett (Talk) 00:30, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
  7. I fail to see why we should disregard a well-thought-out, perfectly reasonable set of notability guidelines in favor of some vague, undefined, case-by-case notability "policy" that consists solely of TC decisions (many of which adhere to these guidelines). I'll spare you all my rant on how useless many of these articles on unidentified subjects are. Grand Moff Tranner Imperial Department of Military Research (Comlink) 13:44, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
  8. I was only borderline on the productivity policy, but I believe these policies are important enough that I needed to vote — so I got some editing done. As has been said before, if we at least have the policies in place, they can be fine tuned later. I don't see how implementing these policies would cause any major disruption to the wiki, unless somebody was trying to make a point. - Esjs(Talk) 07:53, August 19, 2013 (UTC)

Support Rules 1 through 5 only

  1. As it stands, I have concerns about the last portions. We're here to document everything about the Star Wars universe, and these articles have a place here. We are offering a service to our readers, I believe, when we say, here's an alien here that existed in the universe. In the SH thread, it was brought up that some articles don't link to anything in the mainspace. So, let's find an applicable place for them. And as Tope says below, we do have the Trash Compactor process if something is particularly out of place. Corellian PremierJedi symbolThe Force will be with you always 19:06, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  2. I'm of mixed feelings on rules 6 and 7, but the first five seem sound to me. The first three are affirmative rules which are already universally followed, and the fifth is just a straightforward application of established duck test practices for which we already have consensus. That leaves the fourth as potentially controversial, but I fully agree with it. jSarek (talk) 00:40, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
  3. I still think there's no harm in allowing stuff that would be deleted in Rules 6 and 7, but these 5 I agree with fully. ~SavageBOB sig 20:01, August 21, 2013 (UTC)
  4. I remain of the hyperinclusionist faith, that if an individual, place, or thing exists in the GFFA, and that can be shown to have some unique property about it in the setting of the GFFA, then it deserves an article. I support the current five rules that are in place. Everything else should be on a case-by-case basis. -- Riffsyphon1024 19:52, August 22, 2013 (UTC)

Oppose most or all of the rules

  1. After watching umpteen different attempts at this, I've come to the conclusion that it's foolhardy to try to create any kind of single, overarching notability policy that tries to comprehensively cover everything or most of everything, because it's inevitably going to restrict more articles than it should and do more harm than good. Everyone has their own unique idea of what notability means, whether you fall on the deletionist or the inclusionist ends of the spectrum. To be quite honest, this proposal scares me, because I believe it comes from a brazen deletionist perspective of what Wookieepedia should be. There are always going to be exceptions to any notability rule, and when we start to fall on the side of the fence of restricting articles by default instead of allowing articles by default, then I think we're doing ourselves, but more importantly our readers, a tremendous disservice. It's always better to have too many potentially questionable articles than it is not enough valid ones, and I feel that this policy seriously jeopardizes that. I think it's better to allow the TC process to be the governing factor here in determining what articles may need to go than it is a single notability policy that in my opinion will never be perfect. I believe that as a community we already have a fairly solid, generalized grasp of what articles should never exist (Stormtrooper 47275, Han Solo's left boot, etc.), and that should be our de facto notability policy, which allows the flexibility of case-by-case self-determination instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 18:30, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
    • As an aside to this, I'm not intending to suggest that I don't believe a notability policy should ever exist. I just believe that the less comprehensive we try to be with this, the better. Maybe a list of a few generalized guidelines instead of a policy of hard-and-fast rules would be better. And yes, I understand that this proposal presents itself as a set of "guidelines," though I believe in reality it would effectively prove to be quite more hard-lined than that. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 18:30, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
      • No Han Solo's boots maybe, but there's Vette's slicing boots. And when there were attempts to question the notability of such articles in TC or SH, the result was "Let's work out a defined policy first", which is exactly what I did, but when it comes to voting, the result is suddenly "Nah, TC works fine". I would also like to add that rules 1-3 specifically define stuff that should stay, and that's easily 99,8% of all current articles. LOST-Malachi (talk) 06:58, August 19, 2013 (UTC)
  2. I'm gonna have to agree with Toprawa on this. As I stated in the SH thread, every user has their own ideas about what is and isn't notable. What one user finds useless, another may find interesting and worth reading. If someone feels an article shouldn't exist, they are welcome to TC it. Supreme Emperor (talk) 18:41, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  3. Per Toprawa.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 19:10, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  4. Per above. I'm not opposed to having more "defined" restrictions on notability, if you will, but notability is an issue that needs to be treated on a case-by-case basis. I see no reason why the TC currently fails to address that issue. CC7567 (talk) 19:12, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
    • What makes TC insufficient is that in many cases the results create no precedent and have no follow-up. Just this year there was finally a consensus reached on minor lightsabers, but when Jedi Mickey's lightsaber was created, nobody acted to delete it on sight based on that consensus. Some written rules would really help, please suggest yours if mine do not suffice. LOST-Malachi (talk) 06:58, August 19, 2013 (UTC)
  5. Per above. Personally, I find many of our articles that are not considered notable under this policy to be a hell of a lot more interesting than articles like Thresh-ahantu Azuloz, which is written about a character who is literally only mentioned once as a name. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 20:50, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
    • I would also like to point out to the current, existing, approved and working Deletion Policy. Do you know what the current criteria #1 for notability is? Goddamn Google Test. Based on the current policy, in good standing since at least 2006, I can immediately request the deletion of at least half of ALL conjecturally-named articles (including definitely notable ones), because the Google search of the pagename returns Wookieepedia pages only. And maybe I should do just that. Face it, my current proposal is a lot more open and democratic =) LOST-Malachi (talk) 06:58, August 19, 2013 (UTC)
  6. I have to agree with the above. I can only see this opening a can of worms.—Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 21:20, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  7. Although I originally said that I supported 1-5, having thought about it I feel I'm not comfortable with rule 4. Ayrehead02 (talk) 10:58, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
  8. Sigh.—Tommy 9281 Sunday, August 18, 2013, 13:50 UTC
  9. Oppose all. Anyone who has a {{User hyper}} template on their userpage should oppose this. I mean do you guys want to overtake the Marvel Database Wiki or not? Fe Nite (talk) 17:48, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
    • Overtake in quantity only to fall behind in quality? Not at the cost of having utter garbage like Unidentified dancer (that leg gives me nightmares now). If you really want to gain on them, you should do what WoWwiki does and make minor stub articles on every uniquely-named SWTOR item. Nobody even touched those yet, I'd estimate there are at least 5,000 if not 10,000 unique weapon and armor pieces alone. And that's the point already stated in SH: working on minor, unnamed, unnotable and redundant articles takes time, manpower and effort from writing on notable and uniquely-named subjects. LOST-Malachi (talk) 06:58, August 19, 2013 (UTC)
      • Mauser, that's exactly what you're doing with the locations and characters from the game. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 15:30, August 19, 2013 (UTC)
        • Of course, but not items. Even severely incomplete list of unique SWTOR items scares me. LOST-Malachi (talk) 19:59, August 19, 2013 (UTC)
  10. IFYLOFD (Enter the Floydome) 22:32, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
  11. Trip391 (talk) 22:35, August 18, 2013 (UTC)
  12. I was just going to oppose rule #7 but CC's comment sure put some light in my eyes. This is a thing we should be deciding on a daily and more specific basis. Winterz (talk) 13:57, August 19, 2013 (UTC)
  13. Rule 2 is too vague (what is notable role in the narrative?) and I flat-out don't like Rule 4. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Talk page) 22:56, August 25, 2013 (UTC)
  14. Although I'd love to kill all of the billions of unidentified TCW articles, I sadly must go with what I feel as right. 501st dogma(talk) 00:36, August 26, 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

  • About time, but I have a question, Mauser: we had several TCs last year that were dedicated to deleting non notable background extras (mostly from TCW). Would this notability policy override the TCs decisions and delete them as per the nobility policy? Before making any "rash" decision, I would like for you to take a look at them. Some of the characters speak dialogue, but it's pretty impossible to identify a character via dialogue when the camera does focus on the subject talking. In other words, it could be a guess/speculation. 1, 2, 3. JangFett (Talk) 13:35, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
    • Most would pass based on: Having lines, being destroyed on-screen, appearing in adaptations of the episode (though appearances from children books and magazines aren't listed yet). In any case, even if accepted the policy shouldn't lead to mass deletions, rather more TC threads. LOST-Malachi (talk) 15:28, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  • A request for clarification from the admins: if a combined majority votes for the first two options, can we take rules 1-5 as accepted regardless of the balance of votes between the first two options? —Silly Dan (talk) 15:05, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
    • Yes, that's generally how consensus in such cases is determined, i.e. both options are supporting 1-5 so there's consensus for them, but there's no consensus on 6 and 7. Cheers, grunny@wookieepedia:~$ 15:31, August 17, 2013 (UTC)
  • I have some sympathy for what is being aimed at here, but I think there is a lot of water to under the bridge before it is ready. I think one example of where duplication is unnecessary is working on species articles. For instance, where there is one individual that is the only representative of a species: we have both Barrckli and Unidentified_Barrckli, both Wetakk and Unidentified Wetakk. This is a result of the FA/GA/CA nomination process, but seems rather pointless to me. Similarly, I have seen Unidentified Biituian fruit tree nominated as unnecessary. It is true that a user would never search for that, but that may look at Category:Species of Biitu. --Eyrezer (talk) 03:32, August 24, 2013 (UTC)