Forum:CT:Real-world biographies

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The result of the debate was include biography even if it doesn't relate directly to their work in Star Wars. —Xwing328(Talk) 00:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

As of late there has been some discussion about whether or not we should include a biography on real people even though most of that information will not relate to their work in Star Wars. For example, should an article such as Mark Hamill have extraneous information that doesn't relate to his work with Star Wars?

Include biography even if it doesn't relate directly to their work in Star Wars.

  1. Cull Tremayne 23:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  2. .... 23:52, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  3. —Silly Dan (talk) 00:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  4. tzzA 00:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  5. This user supports going a little easy on the non-Star Wars-related material, however. Gonk (Gonk!) 00:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  6. Wait, you mean these people had lives outside of Star Wars??? -- Darth Culator (Talk)(Kills) 00:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  7. Adamwankenobi 00:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  8. Per Cull. - Lord Hydronium 01:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  9. JMAS 01:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  10. Ozzel 03:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  11. jSarek 04:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  12. Though Hamill's article doesn't have much not related to SW. -- Riffsyphon1024 04:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  13. Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Audience Chamber) 04:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  14. --Doquis(HoloConference)CzerkaCorporationLogo-KOTOR 16:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  15. ATATatarismall.png 00:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  16. Jedimca0 (Do or Do Not, There is No Try) 14:33, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  17. Tentative support —Xwing328(Talk) 20:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  18. StarNeptuneTalk to me! 21:10, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  19. LtNOWIS 08:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
  20. If we have an article, then we have a friggin' article. Havac 05:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
  21. Info on one's other work, still focus on SW. -Fnlayson 03:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
  22. Skippy Farlstendoiro 09:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
  23. Per Gonk. BambookidX 05:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  24. Almost all possible real-world bios deal with people for whom Star Wars was a small part of their life; if we eliminated the rest, only people like Lucas, Ben Burtt, Anthony Daniels, etc. would have detailed bios. Even John Williams has only spent a small fraction of his career on SW. CooperTFN 23:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Only include information on the person that relates pertinently to Star Wars, otherwise axe it.

  1. Otherwise we end up with pages like Burl Ives. —Jaymach Ral'Tir (talk) 10:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  2. That page is a mess, IMO. Chack Jadson 19:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  3. We're a Star Wars wiki, not an actor/writer/whatever wiki. Evir Daal 08:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
    Stake black msg 20:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Include full biography for people with major SW roles, and short/only SW-pertinent bios for people with smaller roles (i.e. have common sense and don't write something like the Angus Mcinnis article)

  1. Based on last few comments. Don't know if anybody else will like this enough to change their vote at this point, but that's my two cents. Wildyoda 01:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  2. I think this is a wise position. --Eyrezer 08:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  3. Green Tentacle (Talk) 08:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  4. KEJ 09:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  5. Like candy! Darth Maddolis 09:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
    Atarumaster88 Jedi Order (Audience Chamber) 15:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  6. Jorrel Wiki-shrinkable Fraajic 15:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  7. This would get the best of the 2.Jedipilot94 19:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  8. Craven 14:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
    After careful consideration... yeah. Gonk (Gonk!) 17:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC) Stricken following clarified understanding of FA rules Gonk (Gonk!) 00:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  9. Not as if this vote made any difference now, but define "major." Who decides which person had a major role in the creation of SW? I think Obi-Wan's hairdresser made the finest job of everyone, if it hadn't been for him/her, Obi-Wan would have looked ugly, people would have been discouraged to watch Star Wars, the saga would have been an economic disaster, and we all would forget such a thing as "Star Wars" ever existed in the next five years to come. Notice my sarcasm. :) - TopAce 20:33, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  10. Stake black msg 20:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Comments

  • I'm of the opinion that if we're going to have an article on a real-life person that we may as well try to have as much verifiable information on them as possible. I don't think that an article Ian McDiarmid that just says that he played the Emperor in prequel trilogy and in RotJ is beneficial to this encyclopedia as a whole and seems unprofessional, even if the information can be found elsewhere like Wikipedia. Cull Tremayne 23:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • It seems to me it should should focus on what a Star Wars fan would specifically find interesting, of course. For example, an actor's article would pay more attention to small Star Wars roles, or other science fiction roles for that matter, than a Wikipedia article on an actor's entire life would. Despite this, a Brock Peters article that doesn't mention To Kill a Mockingbird or a Paul Reubens article that doesn't mention Pee-Wee Herman would be useless. —Silly Dan (talk) 00:19, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Or a Burl Ives article that didn't mention...uh...hmm. Got me there. .... 03:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Agree with above, however I still have a problem. Which is that we should have some sort of limit. Look at Angus Mcinnis, an article for a minor part in a movie that mentions EVERY other MINOR PART in every other MINOR MOVIE he's ever done. I think a good chunk of this could stand to be removed. Can we add a "have common sense and link to IMBD" clause here as well? Wildyoda 04:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree that is overkill. Doesn't he have a Wikipedia article? -- Riffsyphon1024 04:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
      • That's not even a biography. That's just one random fact after another with no format whatsoever. As most already know, this relates to an article like Burl Ives, who's role in Star Wars is minor at best, but having a biography on him shouldn't be something that is looked down upon or removed. I agree that Hamill's bio has little that does not relate with Star Wars, but do we need to know who he's married to? Or how many kids he has? Or that he worked on Broadway? Or that there was a TV special regarding the damage to his face? That info isn't related to Star Wars, but it is something that would be put in a biography, and therefore I think stuff such as that should stay. If we have an article on a real person, we should want to have a biography about said person. Notice, this doesn't relate to an article like Angus McInnis, which is just random facts listed one after another without any semblance of appropriate style. Cull Tremayne 06:20, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Cull, I agree, but only to the extent that the person in question is notable in SW. Mark Hamill obviously deserves a full, detailed write-up, fuller than Wiki's if we can manage it. Burl Ives, not so much. Gonk (Gonk!) 16:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
          • But Burl Ives won an Oscar...that's more than GL ever achieved! .... 01:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • So now we have to decide what constitutes as a minor contribution to Star Wars or who is notable in Star Wars? Who's contributions are more worthy so to speak? I just don't get this at all. When Wikipedia's policy has always been, "Why do we need so much information on Star Wars?", we've always responded with, "Why not?" Dan Madsen is relevant to Star Wars, so why shouldn't information on Dan Madsen be added to this encyclopedia? Who's going to come up with a method for determining who is and who isn't relevant enough to have information added about them? Cull Tremayne 19:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
    • That's why I added the "common sense" clause. I'm talking about when the article on the actor is longer than the article on the minor character they played for 6 minutes of screen time when they aren't a particularly notable person anyway. Wildyoda 19:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Isn't this a little similar to the "Additional FA suggestion" forum?--Doquis(HoloConference)CzerkaCorporationLogo-KOTOR 20:55, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Bad, bad, bad, because now we have to toe the notablitity line, which is very, very fuzzy. Stupid idea. .... 22:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
      • The problem with the McInnis article isn't really that he wasn't a big part of Star Wars: it's more that it's a poorly written article. —Silly Dan (talk) 22:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Exactly. If you spruced up the article, I don't see why we should have to cow tow to an inferior Wikipedia article, and I don't see why we shouldn't feature him, since we have an article on him. .... 23:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think that "common sense" can be implemented here. It's not really a black and white issue. Cull Tremayne 23:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia copies

That's what's going to happen. How original are we going to be? Besides, if it's not related to Star Wars, then I see no point! Stake black msg 20:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

  • All of these people *are* related to Star Wars. Though I think a FA policy against articles composed primarily of text from other sources might be in order. jSarek 06:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I was referring to content unrelated to Star Wars in these articles, not by the people themselves. Stake black msg 16:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, if we're only going to deal with their Star Wars work, what's the point of having the article at all? What's the context? .... 09:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
        • And to add to that, why would we copy Wikipedia when we can make our own? As far as I know, none of the articles on Star Wars actors over there are in any kind of good shape. Burl Ives certainly wasn't. .... 09:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
          • I checked the real world persons category, which must be thousands of people. Stephen Colbert, Samuel L. Jackson, Ian McDiarmid, Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley are all Good Articles, but that's it. All the others are "B-class" or worse, per their Assessment Scale, or don't even have articles. -LtNOWIS 18:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
            • Take Claire Davenport's article for example. Wikipedia's version of it just stinks. —Xwing328(Talk) 00:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
              • That said, if Wikipedia does have a better article, we're allowed to copy it. -LtNOWIS 01:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
                • It should require substantial modification before we let it be a Featured Article, though. Featured Articles should reflect *our* hard work, not hard work that was done by others elsewhere and handily imported here. jSarek 04:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
                  • Let us not forget wookification. -- Riffsyphon1024 04:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.