The result of the debate was No consensus, insufficient voter participation.
Anıl Şerifoğlu (talk) 11:34, 4 September 2023 (UTC)Hello everyone, I hope you find this acceptable as it is my first consensus track proposal.
I was planning on tackling all space station pages with a cleanup in mind as I finalise the Star Wars Galaxy Map page but have met some resistance by altering Template:Space station. Thanks to User:Spookywilloww for explaining the ramifications of altering the template and pointing me in the direction of creating this consensus track so we can get the ball rolling.
Mako-Ta Space Docks and Sunspot Prison are clearly depicted as being located at or around a star(s) and I'm sure there are others here on the Wook that need addressing.
A "star" parameter is needed in the Template:Space station to clearly indicate space stations that are located in orbit around a star or at a fixed location near a star. The "system" parameter is not appropriate in this scenario as it is too vague, particularly when it comes to binary systems with two stars or those with more. A star is it's own entity/location and not classified as a planet. I propose that "star" be added to the Space station template. The system hierarchy has already been established by the template:
|region= |sector= |system= |planet= |moon=
I propose changing it to
|region= |sector= |system= |star= |planet= |moon=
It seems to me that the "star" parameter was simply overlooked or an accidental omission when the template was created. User:Imperators II has suggested: "It'd be much better to instead have one central field titled "Orbited body" or something to that effect instead of a laundry list of all possible objects that could be orbited" but I foresee this as too simplistic. It does not give readers an immediate indication as to what type of object the space station is orbiting as our current template does. It could also become cluttered in future if any space stations have peculiar orbits around multiple objects.
Look forward to hearing your thoughts! LadyNeret (talk) 02:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Support
Oppose
- I’d actually agree with Imp’s original idea of consolidating plant, moon and Star into a single “orbit” field; in fact I was gonna ask him in the bot requests channel if he wanted me to do that earlier, just got distracted by date night and Baldur’s Gate. There isn’t a scenario (to my knowledge) where all three options (Star, moon, planet) would be simultaneously populated (give or take when something moves) because you only orbit one thing regardless of what that thing orbits. Cade
Calrayn 04:58, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry, maybe I haven't made my point clear. It's not about populating all three options. I can however think of a situation where we would. If the station was at an equilibrium point between a Sun and stationary Planet and stationary Moon; or between only two of those three options. Not common but entirely possible. I'm thinking ahead and broadly. If we limit it to one parameter we're forcing users to click on to another page to glean information that the template as is currently provides. If say it's "Orbit" parameter only and the system's Sun and primary planetary body are named by the same name it's going to force the reader/user to click that parameter to go to that page just to determine whether the article is talking about the sun or planet. Otherwise we're going to have to also write the the descriptor in parenthesis following the listing in the "Orbit" parameter. LadyNeret (talk) 06:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
- Not everything has to be in the infobox. For example, we don’t explain what the Jedi are when we list the Jedi Order in the affiliations field; the introduction and the body of the article are where the description of what kind of thing the station is orbiting should go, as the descriptor for the object when we state that “station X was in orbit around the <star/planet/moon> Y”. Cade Calrayn 16:25, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
- Not everything has to be in the infobox. For example, we don’t explain what the Jedi are when we list the Jedi Order in the affiliations field; the introduction and the body of the article are where the description of what kind of thing the station is orbiting should go, as the descriptor for the object when we state that “station X was in orbit around the <star/planet/moon> Y”. Cade
- Sorry, maybe I haven't made my point clear. It's not about populating all three options. I can however think of a situation where we would. If the station was at an equilibrium point between a Sun and stationary Planet and stationary Moon; or between only two of those three options. Not common but entirely possible. I'm thinking ahead and broadly. If we limit it to one parameter we're forcing users to click on to another page to glean information that the template as is currently provides. If say it's "Orbit" parameter only and the system's Sun and primary planetary body are named by the same name it's going to force the reader/user to click that parameter to go to that page just to determine whether the article is talking about the sun or planet. Otherwise we're going to have to also write the the descriptor in parenthesis following the listing in the "Orbit" parameter. LadyNeret (talk) 06:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
- Tbh if a station is established to orbit a fixed point in space other than a celestial body I'd argue we shouldn't be populating these fields at all. And to me at least it's far more likely that in the future SW depicts (if it hasn't actually already) a station orbiting an asteroid or another type of object other than star, planet, or moon. I also disagree with this: "It could also become cluttered in future if any space stations have peculiar orbits around multiple objects." - putting, what, potentially two or three items in a bulleted list is far from being cluttered. Imperators II(Talk) 06:56, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that it should honestly just have a singular "orbit" field, rather than separate fields for star, planet, and moon. I don't think there are really any cases where a space station is orbiting more than one of those simultaneously, and for cases like the DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station, its multiple orbits can simply be listed chronologically. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 18:28, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
- Rakhsh (talk) 20:23, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
- Per Imperators
Anıl Şerifoğlu (talk) 23:57, 18 August 2023 (UTC) - Fan26 (Talk) 00:06, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
Discuss
- I'd suggest expanding on Imp's idea, combining into one field the celestial body the station orbits and use Template:C to denote the type of body it orbits E.g. "=Coruscant (Planet)" This is especially helpful for shared names (like where the system, planet and star share the same/similar name).
As to your point about scenarios where a station orbits two bodies, we could simply use bullet points to list both bodies. ℳÅℕ☉❂Ⅎ he/him/his 11:25, 30 August 2023 (UTC)- This also provides flexibility for weird things that stations may orbit, such as stations that orbit a black hole or a celestial skull or alien creature! ℳÅℕ☉❂Ⅎ he/him/his 11:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think as well you can update this CT to provide the options for people to vote, and let everyone know via their talk page that you've done so, to allow some sort of resolution. Instead of "Support" and "Oppose", you'd simply list "Option 1-3" with the explanations of what they are (being your suggestion of having separate star/planet/moon fields, Imp's of having a combined field, and mine of having a combined field using C to specify the nature of what is being orbited) ℳÅℕ☉❂Ⅎ he/him/his 11:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)