Took me way too long to assemble this, but back when I was revamping the Unidentified species (disambiguation) page, I attempted to introduce some level of standardization into the "unidentified sentient species" article title pool as that's sort of become my niche. I noticed various naming methods and formats have been utilized throughout the years, however, I'm quite fond the of the current naming conventions we seem to have naturally fallen into over the past couple of years, and tried my best to bring everything else up to that standard.
I can't remember exactly who, might've been spookywillow, but I spoke to someone who recommended I maybe come up with some guidelines for unidentified species status articles for the future (to prevent users from having to go through the annoying name change process to maintain a degree of consistency after the fact), and so this is what I've put together based on how everything sort of seems to currently work, as well as input from some of y'all as well. I'll list my fleshed out logic first and then put a much more simple breakdown of the priority at the bottom, so feel free to skip down. Anyway, here is a collection of all the soft sort of "rules" I’ve observed and attempted to enforce in regards to these pages over the past few months:
- The word “sentient” should not be included in the article title as that is already an understood since we currently use the term “species” for sentients, while terms like “creature,” “animal,” or “organism” go to non-sentients. (Semi-sentients seem to be a case-by-case basis depending on the level of sentience they actually display.) By this logic, the word “species” SHOULD always be present.
- There seems to be one exception to this rule I've noticed, being "[Existing sentient species] precursor species" articles, being titled like that regardless of sentience status presumably as we know they will eventually achieve sentience. Direct ancestral ties to other species should be the highest priority for conjectural naming, though they're few and far between anyway. Example: Abednedo precursor species
- If a species is indicated to come from a specific location, the article title should be structured: “Unidentified [world/city/system/etc.] species.” This should be the main priority for naming a specifically sentient species’ article if at all possible as it generally has the chance of being the closest to their actual species name. Example: Unidentified Sarumo species
- If a home is not specified (or if only one incredibly prominent named member of the species exists), then the article title should be: “[Character name/Title treated as name]’s species.” This should take priority over physical descriptors and parenthesis in titles. If multiple named members of a species are introduced at the same time, it is up to the author’s discretion to either pick one of their names to serve as an article title or use a physical description instead. Example: Gorian Shard's species
- Next priority is going to be a physical descriptor over anything in parenthesis, as in: "Unidentified [description(s)/classification/language-speaking] species." Of course, titles should stay as concise as possible, and really no more than 3 individual descriptors should ever be required. (Hyphens can be used to more accurately describe features. E.g. "Unidentified tall horned species" would be a tall species with horns, while "Unidentified tall-horned species" would be a species with tall horns.) Example: Unidentified large grey humanoid species
- The next lowest priority would be using a location in parenthesis, such as: “Unidentified species (Planet/Moon/City).” These are used when members of this species have first or only appeared in this specific location, but are not indicated to originate from there, and there are no good descriptors that can be used in the title (whether the design is bland or the necessary descriptors have already been taken). Example: Unidentified species (Nevarro)
- Lowest priority is to list anything else within the parenthesis, as this is not ideal but sometimes necessary. This can include something they produce, a person’s name they’re associated with, an event they’re tied to, a company, a war, ship, etc. This is really only to be used from non-visual sources where absolutely no other information is given about a species, and would simply be: “Unidentified species (Concept).” Example: Unidentified species (Nes Ukul's sacrifice)
- Only on rare and nigh unavoidable occasions should these methods be hybridized, and should be discouraged otherwise. The only ones I can think of are some of the Endorian species and possibly the holocircus performers from the Holiday Special when I get around to them. Probably only relevant going forward for planets that have multiple unidentified native species. Example: Unidentified Endorian felinoid species or Unidentified green species (hologram circus)
- The term “race” should never be used in place of “species,” unless direct sources only ever use the term (and even then, that’s questionable). I can personally only think of one instance from an old guide (maybe a second linked below), so it shouldn’t be applicable from this point onward. Example: Unidentified primitive race
- Just the title “Unidentified species” and “Unidentified sentient species” shouldn't be assigned to one species and should probably instead redirect to the disambiguation, which I believe was discussed regarding other non-descript article titles as well recently. (In general less descript titles should try to be saved for less descript species, though that's sometimes hard to avoid.)
Current template for naming conventions in descending priority:
Species they evolve into if possible > Location of origin or home if possible > Prominent member if possible > Brief distinct physical descriptor is possible > Associated location of appearance if possible > Linked concept if nothing else available
An example of said template in action:
Adnerem precursor species > Unidentified Banas species > Faiza's species > Unidentified furry diminutive species > Unidentified species (Ghorman) > Unidentified species (Vagaari captives)
TL;DR: For status articles, "Sentient" and "race" shouldn't be included in an article's title if at all possible, while "species" should. There should be a priority in how we name to best convey a species lore and make their articles easy to locate, with related species and locations of origins being highest, and associated concepts being the lowest. Hybridizing the naming conventions should be a last resort, and less-descript titles should be reserved for species with the least amount of info surrounding them if possible. Unidentified species/Unidentified sentient species should redirect to the disambiguation page.
(Currently, according to this standard, I believe only 3 statused species articles would still be in need of name alterations:
Unidentified sentient race, Unidentified avian species, and Unidentified Uro arachnid
As I'm not incredibly familiar with the status article side of Wookieepedia yet, I'd love notes on what works here and what doesn't, what should and shouldn't be enforceable, or if this whole idea is a bunch of malarkey and not worth the time to put more thought into or would set a negative standard. Any notes are appreciated, as well as what maybe we can could condense or cut if this is worth pursuing and further. Thanks for your time if you read, and extra thank you if you've contributed to the large amount of awesome unidentified species articles we already have!
- MTrac1000 (talk) 21:09, 13 June 2025 (UTC)
Discuss
- Just to briefly point out, status-article specific rules don't generally exist. If this were to be a thing, it would apply to every species page on Wookieepedia and be in the naming policy. Though I'm not sure on the exact points, I did peer over this with a friend and noted that it does steer slightly into instruction creep IMO; a couple lines or recommendations could probably stand to be added, but that's a lot. I also strongly disagree with that "species" is always by-default referring to a sentient species. Very often in both continuities a non-sentient creature will be referred to as a species, and the ideal of conjecturals is to try to reflect what the source text says as much as we can. So that seems like a somewhat arbitrary restriction on being able to refer to some subjects by the closest thing they're noted as in-universe for those cases.—spookywillowwtalk 00:30, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
- Totally fair! And yeah, I've been taking notes for months so this is sort of just everything I've accrued vomited onto one page, but if there's anything even remotely useful in here, let me know and we can toss the rest! As for the species-sentient thing, that's good to know, I guess I've never come across any that weren't specifically the precursor ones mentioned above so I assumed that was kind of the existing trend, but not at all concrete (though I do still believe "sentient" makes titles unnecessarily long). Thanks for the input! - MTrac1000 (talk) 00:51, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for putting this together, a very swell effort! I do believe we should strive to eliminate the "race" terminology that SW sources unfortunately have (and apparently still are, disappointingly) used to refer to species - in both of the linked examples on this page, the article's subject is clearly a taxonomic group distinct enough to at least be a species if not a higher-order grouping. As for using "species" exclusively for sentient ones, I (I believe per Spooky above) think that in Star Wars, the science fantasy franchise that it is, surely an organism has cropped up by this point somewhere that's only referred to as a species, without more specific taxonomic information and no implication it's a sentient one either. Imperators II(Talk) 14:37, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe I'll have reason to create a sentient and non-sentient section on the disambig someday (though my hope is to see a reduction in the number of unidentified species pages rather than an increase, wishful thinking I unfortunately suppose). But in the meantime maybe we can move forward with something to go ahead attempt to prevent "race" from being used in titles. Thanks for the reply! - MTrac1000 (talk) 13:48, 19 June 2025 (UTC)