Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Multi-Unnamed Characters page idea
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 17:27, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
I brought this up some time ago and it was dismissed but I sense the winds of change in this direction.
As you are of course aware, we have multiple Unidentified Individuals pages for select characters (there have been more in the past but they have been frequently deleted on the whim of the others. So I suggest this:
In the style of Memory-Alpha, we have a single group of Unidentified Characters page placed into categories: for example, Galactic Senate, Rebel Alliance Pilots, Imperial Navy Officers and Enlisted, Resistance Fighter Corps, Unidentified Starships etc.
In this way, we have unidentified individuals in one place. Also, if a writer and/or illustrator is looking for official Star Wars content like characters who have never been named, planets or moons that have never been named, starships and vehicles, weapons and technologies, they have the perfect place to go for that.
This would take a lot of effort but I believe it is a perfect solution to assist in identifying unused content throughout the entire Star Wars universe. And for those concerned about mixing Canon/Legends content, I'm aware of that but think about it, Wookieepedia is the official Star Wars Wikipedia and yet we have dropped so much.
So I propose this once more in a bid to streamline and make this online encyclopedia into a first class system.
` Noash Retrac (talk)
- I could not disagree with this idea more. This prevents us from providing accurate appearance lists or infoboxes for many characters, and will remove multiple status articles. Moreover, I don't see how having unidentified individual articles hurts the wiki in any way. Also, we are neither official nor affiliated with Wikipedia, and I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say "we have dropped so much." VergenceScatter (talk) 02:14, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Follow-up question, what do you mean by "I sense the winds of change in this direction?" VergenceScatter (talk) 02:18, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- I also agree that this idea is unnecessary. I'm not really a fan of the system that Memory Alpha has at all, and I don't believe it would be suitable for Wookieepedia. While we do have a not-insignificant amount of unidentified pages for subjects that don't really have enough information to deserve them, our notability standards and Trash Compactor system are suitable to handle those. Combining unidentified subjects onto individual pages would be unwieldy and would result in comprehensive information being lost, particularly when some of our unidentified subjects have extreme lengths of detail. It's also much easier to have separate pages with regard to Appearances lists and navigation in general. For the purpose of grouping unidentified pages, we have numerous subcategories within Category:Unidentified subjects. Zed42 (talk) 02:33, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- No thanks. Something not having a name doesn't make it any less deserving of an article than something that has a name. Many non-conjecturally-named articles are shorter than many conjecturally-named ones. It's really simple for creators to just go to the unidentified categories to see lists of unidentified topics. Besides, we don't cater to creators. They have their own internal databases at Lucasfilm for that sort of thing. And I'm also not sure what you mean by "make this online encyclopedia into a first class system." We're already the most comprehensive and well-written fan encyclopedia on the internet. While I'm all for finding ideas from outside this wiki, and I've done so myself with my own proposals, we by no means need to catch up to anyone else. And the lack of comprehensive "Appearances" and "Sources" sections for each of these topics in a single article is a definite non-starter for me. MasterFred
(talk) 02:36, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Then I propose having the Appearances and Sources in them as well. Everything we need and it shouldn't be that difficult or unwielding. There are tons of unnamed characters and ships that need somewhere for an official writer/illustrator to go to and find for future identification. Noash Retrac (talk)
- That's a no from me. I share the same opinions as Zed and Fred, this idea is completely unnecessary.DarthRuiz30 (talk) 03:28, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Then how will new writers/illustrators be able to find pictures of unnamed characters or ships? Not everyone has the patience to look through EVERY screenshot of EVERY film or TV series. And considering we have multiple Unidentified Individual pages for every clone trooper and battle droid in TCW but not for every background rebel/resistance pilot in the films, why not put them all together? Noash Retrac (talk)
- Again, we don't cater to writers. It's pretty easy to find those characters without such pages, and most writers aren't spending their time looking for old characters to name anyway. VergenceScatter (talk) 03:35, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Wookieepedia's main target audience are the fans, not the writers/illustrators. Sure, we may have some influence when it comes to Star Wars media, but it has never been solely about the writers. This idea is promoting a gigantic, incomprehensive list of virtually everything that has yet to be identified in this universe, the Appearances and Sources sections would be beyond incomprehensive since you'd have thousands of subjects in one page, all of which do not appear or are mentioned in the same appearance/source. Erebus Chronus (Talk) 03:39, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Absolutely, per VergenceScatter. Wookieepedia is for the Star Wars fan community. It is not a rollodex for writers and artists. This just seems like you are asking Wookieepedia to revamp how it does things to cater to those who want to create fan fiction and fanart. - JMAS
Hey, it's me! 03:40, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Hello, thank you for your interest in the wiki and its page policies! However, I do not believe such a radical change is necessary. Our current unidentified policies enable us to link each specific character in a piece of media's appearance section, allowing for an easy look into who appears in what. If someone wants to find the clone trooper officer who served on Kamino, they simply need to look for Unidentified clone trooper officer (Kamino), or they can look into the appearance section of "Fugitive". Having all unidentified clones, for example, on one page would, in my opinion at least, make it harder to find each specific clone, as you would need to go through the list, while we currently give each character individual focus. Also, I feel like a massive article of unidentified characters would look daunting to edit. I understand that other wikis have other policies, but I believe our current unidentified policy is the best for Wookieepedia's purposes. --Editoronthewiki (talk) 04:05, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- I second many of the counter arguments presented here, and so I disagree with this proposal. These unidentified articles can be easily found through our category system, finding an individual subject would be difficult, and it would also disrupt many pages. Instead of linking, for example, [[Unidentified Clone Commander (Geonosis)]] in an article, we would have to do something like [[Unidentified individual#Clone Commander (Geonosis)]] to direct the reader to the relevant information. It's very unnecessary, and for the purposes of this wiki I simply don't think it will work. Despite many disagreements to your proposal, please don't let that discourage you from presenting ideas and engaging in conversation. Just because there is an abundance of disagreement on this proposal, it doesn't mean that there will be for anything else you may propose. I encourage you to visit our Discord server :) --Vitus InfinitusTalk 06:10, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- We have individual pages for every unidentified character because they are their own characters. The Wook is written almost entirely from an in-universe perspective, and grouping the characters together makes no sense unless they're part of an in-universe organization. Categories suffice in this situation. Also, Wookieepedia is not an official source of Star Wars information by any means. While Star Wars cast, crew, and writers use Wookieepedia for research sometimes, it has never been officially endorsed by Lucasfilm or Disney, and Wookieepedia is meant to serve as an encyclopedia, not a sourcebook. This is a fan wiki run by fans for fans. Per Vitus, though, just because a lot of us disagree with this idea doesn't mean you are unwelcome or your ideas as a whole are unwanted. If you have suggestions or ideas, you should definitely feel welcome to share them! - DFaceG (talk) 06:13, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Per Vergence and the many others. Wok142 (talk) 06:21, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- No thank you, per all the excellent points made here. Imperators II(Talk) 06:22, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Per the rest here, the idea might work for other places but I don't think this change is necessary here at all. On a trivial side note, Wookieepedia was originally founded because Wikipedia put lots of Star Wars subjects into lists instead of separate articles (per here). Braha'tok enthusiast (Hello there) 06:53, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- So if I want to know more about the unnamed rebel delegates in ROTJ? Or the various rebel pilots? Thinking as an ordinary fan and there is nothing on them, what would I do? Those articles existed a long time ago and then ended up gone. - Noash Retrac (talk) 07:04, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- That depends on how notable said characters are. If the articles no longer exist, they didn't meet our Notability policy. DFaceG (talk) 07:22, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- While I think that pages for multiple unidentified characters do make sense on some wikis, generally with a smaller number of sources to cover, I am in agreement with others here that they aren't really a good fit for Wookieepedia, partly given the sheer scale they would require even for specific groups like senators. That said, if you wanted to put together a proof of concept, you could always make a workbench to test it on. I have also previously wondered about our coverage of unidentified film characters, most specifically because when they do eventually get named it can become overwhelming for a user to have to go back through every source previously released to search for appearances and such. Preferably, these lists would be built up as the sources were released. I've not got any proposals or anything planned for this at the moment, but would be interested to hear if anyone else had ideas for alternatives. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:27, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- I'd also be curious to see a workbench of this concept. I'd be all right with it as an addition to our having individual articles for unidentified subjects, but not as a replacement, as the lack of an identification doesn't mean they aren't distinctly described as a unique subject in other ways. And even for identified subjects, when they aren't identified in the film itself, I've been left turning to the Discord to ask "who is the character in this scene who does this?" when I've gotten tired of slogging through every unfamiliar name in the entire list of Appearances or the categories that apply to the character. IIRC there have been some initiatives before to match IDs to characters and/or people who portray them? I haven't personally been live-on-the-Wook when we first get an ID for a previously unidentified subject. Immi Thrax
(talk) 10:27, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Something similar to List of battles doesn't sound bad. And also I think this concept would be best for characters that take part in certain scenes/sequences or are based at the same location (example: the Cantina aliens from A New Hope), just to differentiate it from the many categories we have. Braha'tok enthusiast (Hello there) 12:24, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- These are the sort of things being proposed Immi https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Unnamed_individuals https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Unnamed_fictional_characters Lewisr (talk) 13:25, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- So taking separate articles and smooshing them together on one? Noash Retrac, I'm not sure how close to Memory Alpha you have in mind, but if it's like those, I'll have to say: yikes. If you were thinking more like a table that would link to the individual articles, rather than compiling entire articles on one, maybe? Immi Thrax
(talk) 13:47, 22 May 2021 (UTC) - I'd be in favour of that, correlating the Unidentified Individuals into an article of just the list so they'd be easier to find. And perhaps adding more, particularly as we identify actors to go with unnamed characters and even starships. - Noash Retrac (talk) 13:57, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- I'd say the idea of linking the individual articles in a list as sort of a navigational method is something that could be considered (Merging the individual articles is a no no for me if they're notable enough for said article :P). If we're talking actors, I'd say if their characters aren't notable enough for an individual article, they can be listed in the list as "character played by X," I doubt there'd be much more info to add on them if they're not notable. But that's just my take on the idea. Braha'tok enthusiast (Hello there) 16:00, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- We already have pages that link individual articles in a list as a sort of a navigational method: Disambiguation pages. While many just list titles of articles, when writing or expanding them myself (e.g. Luke Skywalker's starship, Arhul), I've endeavored to include a brief one-sentence summary to help users find the right starship or dude named Arhul. Going even further, putting that information into tables with small thumbnails (where appropriate) would definitely help users find what they're looking for. jSarek (talk) 10:45, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
- I'd say the idea of linking the individual articles in a list as sort of a navigational method is something that could be considered (Merging the individual articles is a no no for me if they're notable enough for said article :P). If we're talking actors, I'd say if their characters aren't notable enough for an individual article, they can be listed in the list as "character played by X," I doubt there'd be much more info to add on them if they're not notable. But that's just my take on the idea. Braha'tok enthusiast (Hello there) 16:00, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- So taking separate articles and smooshing them together on one? Noash Retrac, I'm not sure how close to Memory Alpha you have in mind, but if it's like those, I'll have to say: yikes. If you were thinking more like a table that would link to the individual articles, rather than compiling entire articles on one, maybe? Immi Thrax
- These are the sort of things being proposed Immi https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Unnamed_individuals https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Unnamed_fictional_characters Lewisr (talk) 13:25, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Something similar to List of battles doesn't sound bad. And also I think this concept would be best for characters that take part in certain scenes/sequences or are based at the same location (example: the Cantina aliens from A New Hope), just to differentiate it from the many categories we have. Braha'tok enthusiast (Hello there) 12:24, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- I'd also be curious to see a workbench of this concept. I'd be all right with it as an addition to our having individual articles for unidentified subjects, but not as a replacement, as the lack of an identification doesn't mean they aren't distinctly described as a unique subject in other ways. And even for identified subjects, when they aren't identified in the film itself, I've been left turning to the Discord to ask "who is the character in this scene who does this?" when I've gotten tired of slogging through every unfamiliar name in the entire list of Appearances or the categories that apply to the character. IIRC there have been some initiatives before to match IDs to characters and/or people who portray them? I haven't personally been live-on-the-Wook when we first get an ID for a previously unidentified subject. Immi Thrax
- Would this apply to articles with conjecture titles, as they're not identified in any Canon source? If so, then then pages like Dogfight over Geonosis would have to go to a proposed page of unidentified subjects. And if not, how is that any different from pages like Unidentified battle (Darth Vader), which is also an event that is never named in any Canon source? They're both unidentified events, but one has a title based on known information (the dogfight over Geonosis was a dogfight over the planet Geonosis), and the other is just called "unidentified battle" because all we know about it is that it was a battle. Ramsay Sanders (talk) 14:29, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Strong no from me. We exist to document everthing in a comprehensive and fully sourced manner, and a giant unweildy list is the opposite of that. Supreme Emperor Holocomm 22:30, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
- Per Imp :P JediMasterMacaroni(Talk) 04:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
