Forum:SH:Clarifying the Appearances section in the Layout Guide

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. Tommy-Macaroni 18:00, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

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This proposal is to clarify the requirement that the "Appearances" section of IU articles be sorted by in-universe chronological order. Basically, it will codify what we already de facto do, but the "letter of the law" allows us to interpret differently.

Why?

The Layout Guide currently says the narrative sources in the "Appearances" section of in-universe articles should be sorted in order of in-universe chronology. However, there is some ambiguity in that. A few examples where multiple sortings comply with a reasonable interpretation of "in-universe chronology":

• Kylo Ren appears in Star Wars Battlefront II. Sorting that game as 32 BBY or 34 ABY on his page's appearances section both comply with the text of the current policy. The earliest in-game events are 32 BBY, though Kylo Ren's appearances in the game don't predate his birth, of course!
• Padmé Amidala appears in the 19 BBY portion of the novel Thrawn: Alliances, whose "present" is set in about 2 BBY. Padmé died in 19 BBY, so clearly she did not appear in 2 BBY; however, the novel's timeframe is 2 BBY.
• Year articles! Many articles, such as 50 BBY, denote events that are only mentioned in sources set in other timeframes. Others, such as 0 BBY, are mentioned in many sources set at times other than that year. Clearly, we can't count all mentions of a year as occurring in that year for sorting purposes.
• Some sources, such as the novels Phasma and Battlefront: Twilight Company have chapters set years prior to the main events.

This policy would clarify these cases, and some others.

Also, if we ever create a "master appearances" database, it will be much easier to use the format of "<source> is set in <date>, so sort it that way in all articles it's listed on" than "<person> appeared in <source> in <appearance date> so we need to sort <source> in <person>#Appearances as <appearance date>."

Specifics

The Layout Guide currently says:

The proposal is to replace the bullet

• Should be sorted in order of in-universe chronology

with this text:

• Should be sorted in order of in-universe chronology, with earlier sources listed before later ones.
  • Use the timeframe of the beginning of the source's "main events" (defined below) for this purpose.
  • For sources that take place in a short timeframe, sort by the beginning of the source's events.
    • For example, Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope should be sorted by the time of the secret mission to Tatooine, rather than the Royal Award Ceremony following the Battle of Yavin.
  • For sources that span large timeframes in-universe, use the timeframe of the beginning of the source's "main events" (defined below) for this purpose.
  • Even if a subject appears in a source at a date different from its main events, sort the source by the time of its main events in the "Appearances" section.

and add the following after the bulleted list:

For the purposes of ordering the narratives chronologically in the "Appearances" section, a source's "main events" is defined as follows:

• For sources without prologues, epilogues, flashbacks, flash-forwards, interludes, or multiple interwoven timeframes; the main events are the events of the narrative.
  • Example: Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope takes place in a short time period, with no prologue, epilogue, or interlude.
• For sources with prologues, epilogues, flashbacks, or flash-forwards, we consider the "main events" to exclude those segments of the narrative.
  • Example: Queen's Shadow has a prologue set in 32 BBY, an epilogue set in 19 BBY, and main events set in 28 BBY. Sort Queen's Shadow as 28 BBY in the Appearances section of articles; even those which were only mentioned or only appeared in its epilogue or prologue.
• For sources with multiple timeframes, a timeframe labeled as "now" or "present" shall be considered to form the "main events" of that narrative over other timeframes.
  • Example: Thrawn: Alliances has a timeframe labelled "then" taking place in 19 BBY and a "now" timeframe taking place around 2 BBY. The "main events" are considered to take place in the "now" timeframe. Therefore, even though Padmé Amidala's appearance in that novel takes place in 19 BBY, Thrawn: Alliances should be sorted as 2 BBY in the Appearances section of her article.
• For sources whose main events span a large time frame, even factoring in the above two stipulations, we use the earliest chronological point of those “main events” for this purpose.
  • Example: Rebel Rising, which begins c. 13 BBY and ends 0 BBY. Sort the novel as 13 BBY in the Appearances section. (Jyn's time in prison on Wobani prior to the end of the novel is considered a "flash-forward" for this purpose.)
  • Example: Star Wars Battlefront II, which portrays events ranging from 32 BBY to c. 34 ABY. Sort the video game as 32 BBY in the Appearances section; even on articles such as Ben Solo (who was born in 5 ABY).

-- YakovChaimTzvi (talk) 22:54, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Lingering questions I have

• Should we add or modify a bullet point in the proposal for cases like Rebel Rising and Dooku: Jedi Lost, whose main events take place significantly earlier than what is nominally the present? The main events of Dooku: Jedi Lost start prior to 90 BBY and are told through Dooku's in-universe journal, even if its "present" is Assaj Ventress reading it during or just before the Clone Wars. Rebel Rising has interludes that I would argue are flash-forwards to Jyn's time on Wobani, until the past converges into the present in the last couple of chapters. In any case, a reader would recognize the "main events" of Rebel Rising as not all taking place in 0 BBY.

-- YakovChaimTzvi (talk) 23:32, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

• I think it would be the easiest/most objective (and still accurate, too) to just stick to going with 13 BBY for Rebel Rising and 90 BBY for Jedi Lost. Imperators II^(Talk) 07:16, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I prefer that as well. Do you think I should add a bullet to that effect? Something like "Sources whose main narratives are presented as in-universe media such as journals or recordings are considered to have main events dated to the IU narrative”? — YakovChaimTzvi (talk) 13:33, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Eh, I feel like that potentially opens up a new can of worms, i.e., that of whether some sources, such as IU journals and such, should be classified as Appearances or Sources. I'd avoid going into that for now. Imperators II^(Talk) 08:08, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

• I'm definitely okay with moving the "sort chronologically" bullet to the end of its list so the paragraph/bullet list that defines "main events" immediately follows it. -- YakovChaimTzvi (talk) 23:01, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Good idea! Imperators II^(Talk) 07:14, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
• RE something like Thrawn Alliances, the Clone Wars era stuff would count as a flashback right? Since the main story is in the present during Rebels, so we would just put Padme for example in the 2 BBY placing just with a flashback tag. Didn't do that initially when I went through the book, but happy to go through and correct at some point. Another book with multiple eras is Last Shot, pre Solo, before ANH and then 7 ABY, I'd say the same would apply here, since the main story is in the 7 ABY time. I think we could combine your 2 separate points about sources with prologues etc and then the sources with multiple timeframes into a single one Lewisr (talk) 23:07, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I think we could too, but I'm a little hesitant because I think more of Thrawn: Alliances takes place in 19 BBY than 2 BBY. I haven't yet thought of a consistent way to codify "Rebel Rising starts in 13 BBY but Thrawn: Alliances starts in 2 BBY" without a separate bullet, though if anyone can think of one, please let me know! (A better example for that point might be Battlefront TC or the Battlefront II game, since they have non-contiguous bursts of time; though maybe it could still be combined). -- YakovChaimTzvi (talk) 23:22, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Extremely good job on the wording of this proposal! Nothing jumps out at me that should be changed, imo the number of the bullet points on the different examples is good as is. Imperators II^(Talk) 07:18, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Personally I don't think it should matter which era has more, the main story is still in 2 BBY and I think it should be placed for that time period rather than 19 BBY. Lewisr (talk) 19:29, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
• I think ordering appearances by the subjects chronological appearances needs to be considered as well. Using the Battlefront II example, is it more useful to our readers to see it first in the list or to see when Kylo Ren chronologically appeared? But then that adds another layer of complexity with video games because there's often a lot of subjects that don't appear in a story capacity and can't be placed anywhere cleanly like weapons or lore entries, which would be fixed by establishing the earliest or main story event as their place. Commander Code-8 ^{Hello There!} 10:46, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
  • At the end of the day I'd prefer for the readers to consistently see the same sources sorted in the same position in Appearances across every article instead of us having to constantly explain "why is source A in position M on page X but in position N on page Y?". Imperators II^(Talk) 11:10, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    • I agree with Imp, and that's how I always try to go about things, keeping it consistent and as best in the same place that I can get them Lewisr (talk) 19:29, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
      • Happy with that logic now, that was one part I hadn't considered. Commander Code-8 ^{Hello There!} 10:22, 8 July 2021 (UTC)