I'd like to discuss several pages I've noticed over the past few months that I believe would be better off merged with other articles, split into their own separate articles, or that content be migrated from one page to another. I will try to be as comprehensive and detailed as possible in my arguments, so please bear with me.
One of the first examples of pages that ought to be merged or split are the ones covering the units from Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds and its expansion The Clone Campaigns. It is my opinion that the nature of Galactic Battlegrounds' gameplay (units going from light-> heavy/fast-> advanced) means we ought to consider how the articles regarding the game's units are handled.
On the one hand, some of the units are quite clearly different from one another even if they may be related, like the Trade Federation/Legends S-AAD and S-HAAD; on the other hand, dividing them is likely to end up with the wiki having two or three articles that are effectively identical in content, with only the image and a line of text - if that! - to differentiate them.
That kind of needless redundancy can easily create clutter, stubs, and orphaned articles, which I would really like to avoid. I believe that if everything about a subject can be collected in a single article without turning it into a bloated mess, then doing so would be a good thing for the purposes of reducing the amount of clicking and article hunting that users need to do.
Another reason to merge some of these pages is that many pages have already undergone such treatment:
- Stormtrooper Recruit and Repeating Stormtrooper merged into Stormtrooper/Legends. Only Armored Stormtrooper remains a separate page.
- Dewback trooper/Legends: all pages merged.
- Mobile artillery: this is the first example of a merger that may have been unnecessary and/or inaccurate. As you can see from the images on the page, the mobile artillery from Star Wars: Force Commander and the basic artillery from Galactic Battlegrounds might have enough resemblance that they could be the same vehicle, with the latter simply possessing an armored skirt.
- Heavy artillery platform: another example of a possibly-unneeded and inaccurate merger. Unlike with the mobile artillery, the two-barreled unit from Galactic Battlegrounds is quite clearly not the same model as the one from Force Commander.
- Scout (Galactic Empire): an example that exists in both lists due to the light and heavy Imperial Scout Frigate being merged while the Advanced version is still its own page.
- Gungan Missile Trooper: merged, but needs a better image to show both models.
- Lerraa: image shows both the regular and heavy Lerraa.
- Kaadu Cavalry: merged, but needs a better image to show both models.
- Gungan energy catapult
- Raaptur
- Cerrabore
- Gungan Bomber
- Gungan Fighter: merged with the Aiwha/Legends article, without even a picture or mention in the article. If someone else doesn't fix that, I probably will.
- Rebel trooper/Legends
- Tauntaun Trooper
- Missile Trooper (Rebel)
- Rebel combat speeder: notable for being merged with the vehicle from Star Wars: Battlefront, despite the latter being a Gian speeder with an enclosed crew cabin while the Galactic Battlegrounds unit is clearly a different vehicle entirely. I honestly have no idea if these should be separated or stay merged.
- Rebel attack tank: like the AT-AT and its heavy version, there is no in-game difference between the regular and heavy attack tanks aside from their stats.
- Prowler
- Javelin
- Missile Trooper (Royal Naboo Security Forces)
- Tuskcat Trooper: needs a better image.
- Steadfast (tank)
- Naboo energy catapult
- Mobile Missile Launcher
- Beetle droid
- Multi-Troop Transport/Legends: like the Rebel and Imperial assault mechs, there is no visual difference between the regular and heavy MTT.
- Droideka: merged with the Heavy Destroyer Droid, but no image of the latter in the article.
- Energy Pummel (Trade Federation)
- Bowcaster trooper
- Dragon trooper
- Sentinel (Wookiees)
- Kas tank
- Battle Scythe
- Cruiser (Wookiee)
- Berserker
- Catapult (Wookiee)
- Energy Pummel (Wookiee)
- Orray trooper
- NR-N99 Persuader-class droid enforcer/Legends
- Geonosian Warriors: merged into the Geonosian/Legends article.
- Corporate Alliance Energy Pummel
- Clone trooper/Legends all line variants merged.
- Blurrg trooper
- Anti-Air Clone Troopers: merged into the Clone heavy trooper article.
- GAR Energy Pummel
Examples of pages that could possibly be merged into one, provided the admins give their blessing:
- Imperial Missile Launcher Trooper and Imperial Armored Missile Trooper.
- Heavy All Terrain Armored Transport: despite the name, there is no in-game difference between this model and the regular AT-AT aside from the stats. It could be using denser armor plating or something, but I'm not sure if it ought to be merged or kept as its own page.
- Scout (Galactic Empire) and Advanced Scout Frigate (Galactic Empire): both pages use the same image.
- Destroyer (Galactic Empire) and Heavy Destroyer (Galactic Empire).
- Missile Destroyer (Galactic Empire) and Heavy Missile Destroyer (Imperial): both pages use the same image.
- Energy Pummel (Galactic Empire) and Heavy Energy Pummel (Imperial): both pages use the same image.
- Bongo Light Scout, Bongo Scout, and Bongo Advanced Scout.
- Bongo Behemoth and Bongo Advanced Behemoth.
- Bongo Missile and Bongo Heavy Missile.
- Fambaa sonic cannon: could possibly be merged with the Fambaa/Legends article since the wiki doesn't have an article on the Gungans' shield generator, which is a distinct unit in Galactic Battlegrounds.
- Light Scout (Rebel Alliance), Scout (Rebel Alliance), and Advanced Scout (Rebel Alliance): all three pages have the same image and little variation in the text.
- Hunter (aquatic vehicle) and Heavy Hunter: both pages use the same image, and their fellow Rebel watercraft have already been merged.
- Artillery (Rebel Alliance) and Heavy Artillery (Rebel): the second page really has no reason to exist.
- Energy Pummel (Rebel Alliance) and Heavy Energy Pummel (Rebel Alliance): the regular pummel actually uses the heavy version's picture, so it's not like this isn't half done already!
...soooo, I reached this point and then realized that I had probably given more than enough evidence for my arguments re: Galactic Battlegrounds and should probably let the moderators and administrators decide the merit of my arguments. I've got others I'd like to talk about, like the civilian and Imperial Gozanti freighters, the E-11 stub articles, and whether or not the Sandspeeder/Legends and Armored Airspeeder articles ought to be merged with the regular T-47 airspeeder/Legends article, but they can wait.
I'd also like to thank User:NanoLuuke for directing me to the Senate Hall in the first place. Until he did I wasn't even aware of its existence. --Valiran (talk) 18:35, April 30, 2020 (UTC)
- As someone whose whole time on Wookieepedia consists of editing articles from Galactic Battlegrounds I think this is the right way to go, given that we've already done that with the trooper unit articles and the relevant unit changes are only stat and cosmetic based. Commander Code-8 Hello There! 08:31, May 1, 2020 (UTC)
- I don't know if I should give you my congratulations or my sympathies, so I'll settle for both. The thing about these articles is that some of them, IMO, don't really need to exist. I'm all for redundancy in a wiki when it makes things easier to find and reduces the amount of hunting and clicking users need to do, but these redundant articles are effectively the opposite of that. And it's not like this is limited to just units from a video game, either; there are a couple of stub articles for modified E-11s that could probably stand to be merged into the main article, while the sandspeeder and armored airspeeder articles could probably be merged into the T-47 article since they're both modifications of the original vehicle like the snowspeeders on Hoth.--Valiran (talk) 18:49, May 1, 2020 (UTC)
- I'm happy you took the time and the space to demonstrate your point here, that way, one can easily see that two fractured method are used regarding units variants from strategy video games. I agree a decision is needed to reinforce cohesion. I'm not sure which way should be better, as I would like too for an admin to weigh his experience on the matter at hand. --NanoLuukeCloning facility 12:38, May 1, 2020 (UTC)
Well, it's been the better part of a month and there's been no further discussion on the topic, so I think I'll list some of the pages that I believe should be merged in order to find out what the wiki's veteran members think of it. I make these suggestions for the sake of reducing the amount of hunting and clicking users will need to perform to find the information they're looking for, as well as the amount of categorizing and organization that editors would need to perform.
- Merge into E-11 blaster rifle/Legends
- E-11A blaster rifle and E-11A1 blaster rifle: Both of these "articles" aren't even a single paragraph, meaning we could make them redirects to the E-11's 'Variants' section without losing anything once we're certain what little information is found there has been migrated.
- E-11b blaster rifle: This article may or may not be worth keeping around. The last paragraph is basically parroting the original E-11's stats, while the first two could probably be condensed into a single paragraph without losing any details. The image could be added to a gallery.
- E-11 electroscope: Maybe, maybe not. The article is a stub for a dedicated modification that only appeared in one game, so I think it can be merged without losing anything if the image is put in a gallery, but I wanted to get feedback on the ideat.
- Merge into T-47 airspeeder/Legends
- Armored Airspeeder: This is a stub about a unit upgrade that only appeared in Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds and its expansion pack. We could merge this into the main T-47 article without losing anything and put the image in a gallery.
- Sandspeeder/Legends: A larger article than the Armored Airspeeder's, but it's still a modification of the existing craft that could be added to the main article as part of a 'Variants/Modifications' section that detailed how the Aqua/Snow/Sand/Swamp/Sky variants differed from the base model.
- Merge into T-47 airspeeder
- Snowspeeder: This is a very short article with information that could be covered in the T-47's main article, which is also rather short and could use some beefing up.
- Merge into Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery
- Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery-Anti-vehicle laser, Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery-Concussion missile launcher, Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery-Ion cannon, and Self-Propelled Heavy Artillery-Mass-driver cannon: Every single one of these articles merely parrot information from the SPHA's main article and only differ in the primary weapon listed and possibly their sentence structure. Merge these, for heaven's sake!
- SPHA-F: Unlike the other articles listed above, this one differs in content thanks to being a variant developed by the Empire, appearing over a decade after the others in Star Wars: Imperial Handbook: A Commander's Guide, and being singled out for comment by Leia, but I think the information could be merged with the main article with no lost information.
- Merge into Pummel
- Energy Pummel (Galactic Empire), Energy Pummel (Rebel Alliance), Energy Pummel (Trade Federation), Energy Pummel (Wookiee), GAR Energy Pummel, Corporate Alliance Energy Pummel Heavy Energy Pummel (Imperial), Heavy Energy Pummel (Rebel Alliance), and Heavy Corporate Alliance Energy Pummel: This is just like the SPHA variants, only worse; nine separate articles that essentially say the same thing over and over and over again with hardly any variation between them. Put the images in a gallery in the main article, transfer any information that isn't already there, and then turn these articles into redirects!
I have no doubt that more will come later, but that's what I have for now.--Valiran (talk) 13:36, May 23, 2020 (UTC)
- Pummel merge is complete. If there are any objections, please raise them here or on my talk page.--Valiran (talk) 06:19, May 26, 2020 (UTC)
Discussion
For starters, it would be very helpful if you reorganized this list using either bullet points (*) or numerals (#) for ease of navigation and leaving comments below each item. Right now, the dashes make the list very hard to navigate through and follow. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 03:26, May 27, 2020 (UTC)