This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 05:56, February 19, 2013 (UTC)
So, the topic I would like to address here is the issue of Star Wars titles that have been announced, but have not been published in years despite not having been officially canceled. I'm talking about stuff like Adventures in Hyperspace: The Big Switch, Rookies: Day Long Remembered, and a few others. The two pieces of merchandise I've mentioned have not been published in more than two and four (!) years respectively, yet we still treat them as future products for some reason. Rookies in particular was slated to be released on StarWars.com's Hyperspace, which doesn't even exist anymore. Now, to me it seems perfectly understandable that the entire Star Wars publishing process is very complicated, and sometimes things get canceled behind the scenes without public announcements. Therefore, I believe its reasonable to tag such products as canceled, so as not to confuse our readers. However, after checking Rookies' edit history, it seems that people seem to disagree on the matter. I would propose to establish some sort of site-wide deadline for such things. Say if a product has not been published in [X months/years] we consider it canceled. This does not have to be an official policy, IMO, as it would realistically affect only a small number of articles. Discuss :) QuiGonJinn 
(Talk) 17:26, January 8, 2013 (UTC)
- No such policy exists because assertions require citation. If a subject has had no news, it can't have a citation, thus we can't make an assumption. Most we can do is indicate that there has been no news since date x. — DigiFluid(Whine here) 17:55, January 8, 2013 (UTC)
- I have to agree that we can't jump the gun by saying that something has been cancelled when we do not know for certain. Unless something is definitely confirmed as being cancelled, it needs to be thought of as a future product. Perhaps a good compromise, though, would be to create a separate template for products that have not been updated for X amount of years; a template that says while it has not been officially cancelled, it has been a while since its status has been updated. But the problem arises there as to how long we should wait before we put a template on an article, etc.—Cal Jedi
(Personal Comm Channel) 19:34, January 8, 2013 (UTC)
- What I'm trying to say is, sometimes you have to use common sense, even though you can't provide a citation. Come 2025, seeing Rookies: Day Long Remembered still listed as a future product just because we would still have no proof of cancellation would be just silly in my opinion. I do like Cal's idea, though. Maybe we can work something out of it. QuiGonJinn
(Talk) 19:35, January 8, 2013 (UTC)
- Mayhap these are things that could be brought to the people who might actually be in the know? Like Randy Stradley and Jennifer Heddle? Taral, Dark Lord of the Sith -Just shy, not antisocial: You can talk to me!- 19:49, January 8, 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah, it can't hurt to ask. A couple months ago I noticed that there had been no news on the Untitled Paul S. Kemp duology in over two years, so I asked him via Twitter if it was still on. He confirmed that it's still in the works, and I linked that on the article's talk page. Now, specific instance aside, I believe I did say in the first place that we could specify that we'd not heard any news in x length of time. I think that's a happy medium, in the event that we aren't able to get official confirmation. — DigiFluid(Whine here) 20:03, January 8, 2013 (UTC)
- Mayhap these are things that could be brought to the people who might actually be in the know? Like Randy Stradley and Jennifer Heddle? Taral, Dark Lord of the Sith -Just shy, not antisocial: You can talk to me!- 19:49, January 8, 2013 (UTC)
- What I'm trying to say is, sometimes you have to use common sense, even though you can't provide a citation. Come 2025, seeing Rookies: Day Long Remembered still listed as a future product just because we would still have no proof of cancellation would be just silly in my opinion. I do like Cal's idea, though. Maybe we can work something out of it. QuiGonJinn
- I have to agree that we can't jump the gun by saying that something has been cancelled when we do not know for certain. Unless something is definitely confirmed as being cancelled, it needs to be thought of as a future product. Perhaps a good compromise, though, would be to create a separate template for products that have not been updated for X amount of years; a template that says while it has not been officially cancelled, it has been a while since its status has been updated. But the problem arises there as to how long we should wait before we put a template on an article, etc.—Cal Jedi
- Okay, so below is the rough design for a potential template that can be used on such articles, obviously requiring replacement of [X amount of time] with whatever deadline we decide upon. Of course, any suggestions as to the wording are welcome. As I propose, the articles with that template should also be removed from all of the Future product-related categories and placed in a new, special category, something like "Articles with undetermined development status." So, do you guys like this idea, or should I maybe forward this to the Consensus Track? QuiGonJinn
(Talk) 14:28, January 10, 2013 (UTC)
- Looks good, but I'm thinking that it should be clearer that no official word has come from official sources in X amount of time. Maybe something like "Since there has been no official updates on the product within that time, the current development status of the product cannot be determined." But yeah, when we finish tweaking it here, it needs to pass community consensus through the CT before it can be official.—Cal Jedi (Personal Comm Channel) 14:37, January 10, 2013 (UTC)
- FWIW, after tweaking per Cal's suggestions, I would vote in favour of this. — DigiFluid(Whine here) 15:16, January 10, 2013 (UTC)
- I like this idea. I'd also vote in favour. Stake black msg 15:24, January 10, 2013 (UTC)
- I like it also. Any ideas as to what the cutoff time should be? I'm open to suggestions. —MJ— Comlink 18:21, January 10, 2013 (UTC)
- I think one year sounds reasonable enough. We would not want to end up adding this template every time there is, say, a pause between story arcs in a comic series. It should be reserved only for extreme cases. Like, for example, Star Wars: Jedi, Star Wars Adventures and Star Wars: Invasion, which we haven't heard an official word on for 12 months plus. But I guess the deadline is also a subject of discussion in the CT. QuiGonJinn (Talk) 18:35, January 10, 2013 (UTC)
- I, for one, prefer a bit longer date, more like two years. Sometimes, things get left in a closet while they work on something in secret. No word comes out, but they're still working on it. For example, many video games get officially announced, but they don't release new information until sometimes years later. They are still working on the game. It's just that they wanted to announce it right away, and then they wanted to wait.—Cal Jedi (Personal Comm Channel) 20:42, January 10, 2013 (UTC)
- I, for one, prefer a bit longer date, more like two years. Sometimes, things get left in a closet while they work on something in secret. No word comes out, but they're still working on it. For example, many video games get officially announced, but they don't release new information until sometimes years later. They are still working on the game. It's just that they wanted to announce it right away, and then they wanted to wait.—Cal Jedi
- I think one year sounds reasonable enough. We would not want to end up adding this template every time there is, say, a pause between story arcs in a comic series. It should be reserved only for extreme cases. Like, for example, Star Wars: Jedi, Star Wars Adventures and Star Wars: Invasion, which we haven't heard an official word on for 12 months plus. But I guess the deadline is also a subject of discussion in the CT. QuiGonJinn
- I like it also. Any ideas as to what the cutoff time should be? I'm open to suggestions. —MJ— Comlink 18:21, January 10, 2013 (UTC)
- I like this idea. I'd also vote in favour. Stake black msg 15:24, January 10, 2013 (UTC)