The result of the debate was Oppose proposal to vacate content from Legends articles relating to The Clone Wars and Rebels and move said content to equivalent Canon articles. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 05:18, October 19, 2016 (UTC)
It seems to me that some pages, like Pong Krell for instance, have virtually empty Canon pages while they have Legends pages that contain everything that should be in the Canon page.
So my suggestion is simple in theory: We scan the website for pages of show characters from the 2008 Clone Wars TV show and Rebels (which are Canon according to Disney) and if they have Legends pages that contain info that should be on their Canon page we put the info where it should and change any links that will lead to the Legends pages. That way the wiki will be more accurate.
If you agree with me please vote for this, if not then that's fine too. Thank you for taking your time reading this.
--TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 16:20, October 4, 2016 (UTC)
Support
Oppose
- I've chosen to vote on this (and this is partly in response to the comments below) because I'm understanding, based on this discussion, that this proposal intends for us to vacate content from Legends pages and move them to their Canon equivalents. While the desire to populate lacking Canon pages is noble, this is not the way to go about it, for more reasons than can be explained practically in this singular vote, chief among them being the sheer impossibility of dividing TCW Legends content (yes, it exists, as has been explained on that talk page) from TCW episodic Canon content. The only way to populate Canon pages is to write them fresh, no matter how unpleasant of a task that may seem. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 17:51, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- I have to concur with Toprawa and Ralltiir. Much as it sounds tempting to cut and paste content from legends pages and shift them to their Canon equivalents, it would be the lazy way out. As a regular contributor to Wookieepedia, I find it more rewarding to write things from scratch than simply copying and pasting the material into the Canon versions and vice versa. I personally worked on the Canon versions of the Jar Jar Binks, C-3PO, and the R2-D2 and can attest to that. Perhaps, we need more programs and campaigns to get Wookieepedians, especially new contributors, to expand the Canon Clone Wars articles. That would be a more rewarding endeavour than copying and pasting. Most of us have other commitments so it's hard to put all out energy into Wookieepedia. But, copying and pasting is the cheat's way out and akin to plagiarism. Andykatib 18:38, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- AV-6R7Crew Pit 18:44, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Exiled Jedi (talk) 22:40, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Clearly based on a misunderstanding. We've had this discussion many times on talk pages before. Absolutely not - we need to keep doing things the way we are now, even if it may take us a while. For all the reasons already said. ProfessorTofty (talk) 18:10, October 6, 2016 (UTC)
- --Lewisr (talk) 18:12, October 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Brules
Chat 18:29, October 6, 2016 (UTC) - Ayrehead02 (talk) 17:23, October 7, 2016 (UTC)
- Cade
Calrayn 21:04, October 7, 2016 (UTC) - Rakhsh (talk) 21:07, October 7, 2016 (UTC)
- Imperators II(Talk) 15:12, October 8, 2016 (UTC)
- NoahR9
Chat with me! 06:01, October 9, 2016 (UTC) - Sol PacificusFirestorm 00:07, October 14, 2016 (UTC)
- Inclined to agree with what was said above. Corellian Premier
The Force will be with you always 00:37, October 14, 2016 (UTC) - Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 13:39, October 17, 2016 (UTC)
Discussion
- There's no need for a consensus track for this. That is the basically the official policy for creating Canon pages. Canon pages must be created to remove all references to Legends material and cannot just be copied from the Legends page. <-Omicron(Leave a message at the BEEP!) 14:33, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Well then, can look at Pong Krell's pages and tell me how that happened? --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 18:32, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- The reason we can't copy/paste articles from Legends is twofold: One, it can be considered plagiarism, and two, it's bad to have duplicate pages for SEO. For these reasons, Canon pages must be written from scratch, even if a thorough Legends page exists. Since the reboot was fairly recent, many Canon pages have yet to be written. Additionally, we can't have a single page for topics appearing in both Canon and Legends, because there is usually information unique to both. - Cwedin(talk) 17:41, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- I understand where you're coming from and I appreciate you seeing my side, but Legends pages like Pong Krell's seems to be filled with nothing but Canon material. The only thing that isn't Canon material that I can tell is the links to the Legends pages, which can be easily fixed. As for the writing from scratch part of your argument I see little point if all the info has been written already but it's on the wrong page. If there is any Pong Krell Legends material then by all means keep it there and move the Canon stuff to it's rightful place, if not then I see little point in why there is a Legends page for him at all. If I am wrong in any of these points, especially the last one, then feel free to correct me. --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 18:32, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- I respect and understand your suggestions and arguments. But I think the best way is to start Canon versions from scratch. Perhaps, it could be a brilliant opportunity for you to establish your credentials by expanding the Canon versions of articles like Pong Krell. That's the spirit of Wookieepedia: originality, hardwork, and accuracy. I see Wookieepedia as a recreational pastime for practising my writing and analytical skills. Another solution would be to encourage Wookieepedians, especially new users, to expand the Canon versions of Clone Wars articles. Andykatib 19:10, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Edit: A lot of people have been confusing my idea for plagiarism. What I'm suggesting isn't technically plagiarism, it's taking their work and putting it where it should be to correct their mistake. I can see where people are getting confused but isn't writing down basically what they wrote with a few minor changes and then deleting their hard work worse than moving it? --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 20:32, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Good point, thanks very much for raising this question. Technically, we as Wookieepedians don't legally own our contributions due to the collaborative nature of Wikia and other Wikimedia projects. Interestingly, Wikipedia does have page dealing with Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. I have read through it and the gist is that some copying and pasting is permissible in certain circumstances but that it is generally discouraged. This is a tricky area and perhaps other more senior Wookieepedians could advice us on this matter. But, it's always safest to start from scratch. With the Clone Wars, it should not be too difficult since many of the videos are available on DVDs or YouTube. Alternatively, I use the episode summary and the Legends article as guides for writing the Canon article. Andykatib, 22:38, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Also, if I am reading your comment right, you're basically saying why have a Legends page for things that are Canon. However, if you look at our Canon page, you'll see just what we consider as canon. Therefore, even if the character appeared only in the Clone Wars cartoon, there is still many sources and information that comes from other things that are no longer considered canon. That's why we adopted the Canon/Legends tabs so that we could differentiate them. <-Omicron(Leave a message at the BEEP!) 01:07, October 6, 2016 (UTC)
- Edit: A lot of people have been confusing my idea for plagiarism. What I'm suggesting isn't technically plagiarism, it's taking their work and putting it where it should be to correct their mistake. I can see where people are getting confused but isn't writing down basically what they wrote with a few minor changes and then deleting their hard work worse than moving it? --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 20:32, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- I respect and understand your suggestions and arguments. But I think the best way is to start Canon versions from scratch. Perhaps, it could be a brilliant opportunity for you to establish your credentials by expanding the Canon versions of articles like Pong Krell. That's the spirit of Wookieepedia: originality, hardwork, and accuracy. I see Wookieepedia as a recreational pastime for practising my writing and analytical skills. Another solution would be to encourage Wookieepedians, especially new users, to expand the Canon versions of Clone Wars articles. Andykatib 19:10, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- I understand where you're coming from and I appreciate you seeing my side, but Legends pages like Pong Krell's seems to be filled with nothing but Canon material. The only thing that isn't Canon material that I can tell is the links to the Legends pages, which can be easily fixed. As for the writing from scratch part of your argument I see little point if all the info has been written already but it's on the wrong page. If there is any Pong Krell Legends material then by all means keep it there and move the Canon stuff to it's rightful place, if not then I see little point in why there is a Legends page for him at all. If I am wrong in any of these points, especially the last one, then feel free to correct me. --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 18:32, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- The reason we can't copy/paste articles from Legends is twofold: One, it can be considered plagiarism, and two, it's bad to have duplicate pages for SEO. For these reasons, Canon pages must be written from scratch, even if a thorough Legends page exists. Since the reboot was fairly recent, many Canon pages have yet to be written. Additionally, we can't have a single page for topics appearing in both Canon and Legends, because there is usually information unique to both. - Cwedin(talk) 17:41, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
- Well then, can look at Pong Krell's pages and tell me how that happened? --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 18:32, October 5, 2016 (UTC)
Making sense of what is Canon, Legends, and non-Canon
For the benefit of BlackDemon1996, I have attached a chart of my understanding of the Lucasfilm Story Group's classification of Canon and Legends. Based on what the Story Group said, they regard the six George Lucas movies and Dave Filoni's The Clone Wars as the "immovable objects" of the Star Wars universe. Basically, everything is built around them. There are some unclear areas like LEGO Star Wars. But I hope this chart explains why the six movies and The Clone Wars are used by both the Canon and Legends timelines. Please note that this is completely unofficial and is basically just my interpretation of their statement. Andykatib 02:12, October 12, 2016 (UTC)
Forgive my stupidity, but for some reason, I find that I'm having a little hard time understanding your exact proposal, TheBlackDemon1996. By the first two comments under Oppose, you mean that we should cut and paste Legends content over to the Canon pages? From what I initially understood, I assumed you meant to copy & paste (not cut & paste) the content of Legends articles onto the Canon pages that need completion and remove any links to Legends articles. I was especially confused when you said "What I'm suggesting isn't technically plagiarism, it's taking their work and putting it where it should be to correct their mistake". What or how do you mean by "putting it where it should be to correct their mistake" if not through copy & pasting)? I'm sorry, I feel like I'm the only one here who is having trouble understanding your proposal. >_< Might be rather moot, as I agree with the others that preferably all content should be originally written even between a Canons and Legends article. Sol PacificusFirestorm 02:27, October 12, 2016 (UTC)
- The CC-BY-SA license under which Wookieepedia operates explicitly allows copying of any Wookieepedia content so long as proper credit is given. And within Wookieepedia, the edit history of the page copied from is still available on the site. So there are no legal or ethical hurdles to copying content within Wookieepedia. (Wookieepedia started out by copying content from Wikipedia. And several extant Wookieepedia pages have word-for-word duplicate content with one another. So copied content is a noble part of our history and current status.)
The practical matter remains: most Legends articles on subjects that also exist in canon contain Legends-specific material that would be inappropriate on a canon page, so blindly copying the entire page would result in inaccuracies. But selective copying of passages that are common to canon and Legends would a good way to get canon up to speed more quickly. The wording would diverge over time as the articles are edited, making the SEO issue a temporary one. Those who enjoy writing pages from scratch are still free to do so, replacing copied content with newly written text. So a proposal more limited in scope might have a better chance of gaining traction.
If you wish to pursue this, BlackDemon, my advice is to hash out your proposal in the Senate Hall before bringing it here. This will allow potential problems to be addressed before a vote. One big problem with the current proposal, as others have noted, is its vagueness, and getting a focused wording before coming to CT would help your cause. Asithol (talk) 16:28, October 15, 2016 (UTC)- Any solution to this question cannot involve copying. First, in order to fully satisfy the CC-BY-SA license, one of two things would have to happen: 1) the edit histories of the pages would have to be merged, in order to get the original authors on the Legends page into the Canon edit history, and that's an overly-complicated process; or 2) each Canon page with copied content would have to include a link the Legends edit history, and that looks weird on articles. So on the copyright front, copying isn't a practical solution. Remember: the CC-BY-SA license doesn't give ownership of the content to Wookieepedia. Wookieepedia, as an entity, owns nothing. The content of each edit on Wookieepedia is copyrighted (to the extent that CC-BY-SA allows) to the author of that edit.
Even if that wasn't an issue, though, that still leaves SEO. You said it would be a short term issue, Asithol, but that's not really true. The copying isn't going to be changed in any meaningful way on most pages—relying on the community to quickly do anything on a large-scale is generally not a safe bet. It's still going to be largely duplicate content, and that carries heavy SEO penalties. Even if it did get changed over time, Google ingests changes pretty immediately. The SEO penalties would happen pretty quick. We'd then be relying on the content eventually recovering its SEO, but even a short term SEO loss is not worth it.
I do think it's weird that we have Legends pages for subjects like Pong Krell purely to list things like pre-2014 magazine articles. I think we should be judging whether there needs to be a Legends page for film and TCW content based on story content, not random sources (aka is there Legends story info that would necessitate a Legends page for this subject?). So I do think we should sort this question out at some point, which is why I'm not voting oppose here—because I don't want to make a future CT harder to pass. But, that being said, this CT doesn't provide the right answers for this question, which is why I'm not supporting it either. - Brandon Rhea(talk) 16:57, October 15, 2016 (UTC)- This is not really the forum to debate the details of the CC-BY-SA. But I'll point out that Wookieepedia's founders, in consultation with Wikipedia (which also uses CC-BY-SA), populated many initial articles with text copied from Wikipedia (see, for example, the very first Luke Skywalker edit summary). I do not believe the founders of this community committed wholesale CC-BY-SA violations, but you can take that up with them if you disagree. A few are still around.
"Any solution...cannot involve copying" is true only in a tautological sense: enough people believe it to be true that consensus will tend to reflect it. And I'm not saying that that consensus is a bad path, just that it's not the only one. Asithol (talk) 21:07, October 15, 2016 (UTC)
- I feel like, if nothing else, this whole thing has made clear that a lot of people who are new here still don't entirely understand how we handle this whole thing. We ought to consider seeing if there's some way we could make it clearer. ProfessorTofty (talk) 21:35, October 16, 2016 (UTC)
- Well if you feel that way either vote here or start your own vote. I happy with anything that will improve any site. --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 00:23, October 17, 2016 (UTC)
- Brandon: Upon further research, it appears that the {{Wikipedia}} template was created to document the initial copying from Wikipedia (and not even used in every case; Luke Skywalker lacks it). This suggests a mechanism to credit the history if copying content within Wookieepedia ever achieves consensus. Tofty: Agreed; having a Wookieepedia Guideline spelling out our current position (and the reasons for it) would be immensely helpful as a central place to point for questions about this. Asithol (talk) 19:01, October 18, 2016 (UTC)
- Well if you feel that way either vote here or start your own vote. I happy with anything that will improve any site. --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 00:23, October 17, 2016 (UTC)
- I feel like, if nothing else, this whole thing has made clear that a lot of people who are new here still don't entirely understand how we handle this whole thing. We ought to consider seeing if there's some way we could make it clearer. ProfessorTofty (talk) 21:35, October 16, 2016 (UTC)
- This is not really the forum to debate the details of the CC-BY-SA. But I'll point out that Wookieepedia's founders, in consultation with Wikipedia (which also uses CC-BY-SA), populated many initial articles with text copied from Wikipedia (see, for example, the very first Luke Skywalker edit summary). I do not believe the founders of this community committed wholesale CC-BY-SA violations, but you can take that up with them if you disagree. A few are still around.
- Any solution to this question cannot involve copying. First, in order to fully satisfy the CC-BY-SA license, one of two things would have to happen: 1) the edit histories of the pages would have to be merged, in order to get the original authors on the Legends page into the Canon edit history, and that's an overly-complicated process; or 2) each Canon page with copied content would have to include a link the Legends edit history, and that looks weird on articles. So on the copyright front, copying isn't a practical solution. Remember: the CC-BY-SA license doesn't give ownership of the content to Wookieepedia. Wookieepedia, as an entity, owns nothing. The content of each edit on Wookieepedia is copyrighted (to the extent that CC-BY-SA allows) to the author of that edit.
....Translation? --TheBlackDemon1996 (talk) 20:18, October 18, 2016 (UTC)
- BlackDemon, I already have voted here. I voted against the proposal because I don't feel it's a good way to address the issue. Regarding your latter point - there's no need to start a vote regarding I said. I'm not proposing a new policy, I'm simply suggesting we lay out better exactly what the existing rules are. Perhaps if I have a chance, I'll work up a draft. ProfessorTofty (talk) 21:41, October 18, 2016 (UTC)
- BlackDemon: since your "....Translation?" appears to be directed to me, can you be more explicit about what you'd like me to elaborate on? I was responding to the last posts Brandon Rhea and ProfessorTofty made. If my meaning is unclear, referring to their respective posts might give you enough context. If you're still confused, I'm happy to elaborate if you ask a specific question. Asithol (talk) 04:56, October 19, 2016 (UTC)