Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Articles on fan topics
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. Advanced Jedi Training Droid 6 (Talk to my master) 01:05, December 6, 2014 (UTC)
Yesterday, I created an article on Star Wars Reads Day, only to have it deleted without notice or process. I could understand if the article was obviously junk, but I think I was reasonably justified to think that an article on an officially licensed Lucasfilm program would be allowed for three years would be allowed. So the article isn't allowable, but one on some loser with a website that spread a bunch of lies about Star Wars, or one about a Darth Vader hot air balloon is? If there's not an existing standard, then there needs to be. If the ultimate decision is to move these articles to Fanpedia, I'm fine with that. But so long as articles like that are allowed to exist, I can't see any obvious reason why a page about something like Star Wars Reads Day should be disallowed. ProfessorTofty (talk) 23:57, October 14, 2014 (UTC)
- The notability of fan projects is a much larger question that we're not going to be able to answer in one Senate Hall thread. It's both a question of practicality (Where is the line drawn? Is anything allowed?) and of politics (What will be the reaction of those fan projects going to be if we delete their entries after, in some cases, so many years?). Since Tofty specifically asked me to chime in here, I'll instead focus just on the question of Star Wars Reads Day.
- I don't think the Darth Vader hot air balloon or SuperShadow are the right comparisons here. I'm going to make a comparison that may seem a bit extreme and ridiculous at first, but that actually will underline the point I'll ultimately make. The right comparison to Star Wars Reads Day is Star Wars Celebration. Star Wars Reads Day is an officially run event. Not an officially sanctioned event, but an officially run event. Lucasfilm puts Star Wars Reads Day on, much like it does for Star Wars Celebration. The only difference between them is scale. So the way I see it, if Star Wars Reads Day doesn't warrant a page, then we also need to delete the pages about Star Wars Celebration. Otherwise, barring something I'm missing here, this was an inconsistent decision.
- Obviously deleting the pages about Star Wars Celebration is a ridiculous idea, but I think that makes my point about Star Wars Reads Day for me. So I agree with Tofty in that Star Wars Reads Day, as an official event that very much fits into the theme and spirit of Wookieepedia, is a perfectly valid page for Wookieepedia to have. It is not a fan project or topic. - Brandon Rhea(talk) 21:11, October 16, 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks, Brandon. And thank you for enlightening me; I didn't even know we had those articles about Celebration. Interesting reading. ProfessorTofty (talk) 21:43, October 16, 2014 (UTC)
- I'm coming in a few days late here, but I disagree with Brandon. Celebrations typically provide new BTS material and occasionally new pieces of continuity (Stewjon and Braconner Bakiska, anyone?), which means those pieces of information need to be referenced, and those references need to mention the Celebration and preferably link to the article on it for context. So in that sense, the Celebration articles belong here because the events they cover produce material useful to Wookieepedia. (Side note: I don't know if that holds true for all Celebrations, particularly earlier ones, but it would be inconsistent to have articles on some and not all, so if one is covered, all should be for the sake of consistency.) Star Wars Reads Day, on the other hand, is, despite Lucasfilm sanctioning, nothing but fan activities, and it does not produce information useful to Wookieepedia. As such, the proper place for it is Fanpedia. —MJ— Comlink 06:00, October 21, 2014 (UTC)
- I can see your point, though Star Wars Reads Day does include official participation by a number of top authors from the series, though I suppose that's not necessarily relevant to any new information or continuity. If it's really felt that it's something that should be on Fanpedia, then that's fine, but if that's the case, then it's time to start talking about the sorts of things that should go on Fanpedia, which something like that hot air balloon would certainly seem to fit. We have a {{Merchandise}} tag that's used for articles that need to be moved to the Merchandise Wiki. Perhaps it's time to contemplate a Fanpedia tag for things that need to go there. ProfessorTofty (talk) 08:22, October 21, 2014 (UTC)