Forum:SH:Status articles and lost media

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. C4-DE Bot (talk) 16:56, 31 March 2025 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Status articles and lost media

Hey all. Something that recently came up on the Comprehensive article status review for the article on Hedge Mitchels. The article claims that Mitchels was male, but this info dates to before Wookieepedia decoupled the usage of gender and pronouns used to refer to people - it hasn't been confirmed for the article that Mitchels was indeed described as a male individual and/or the usage of pronouns used to refer to them.

The problem here, however, arises due to the source information about this character no longer appearing to be accessible in any form, so we can no longer confirm it either way. Relevant here is WP:CAN's rule 1: "A Comprehensive article must be well-written and comprehensively detailed." So the question is: does the Wookieepedia community prefer that this Comprehensive article be stripped of its status? (This implies setting a precedent that potentially may lead to a fraction of our articles never being able to formally reach FA/GA/CA status, due to having unconfirmable information from lost media, or it simply having been noted previously that their subjects had been featured in such media.) Or should we perhaps find a way to still allow such articles to reach status?

Personally, I'm strongly in favor of the latter, and would propose simply adding "Note that missing information from inaccessible or lost Star Wars media need not preclude an article from reaching [Featured/Good/Comprehensive]] status." to rule 1 on each of the three SAN pages. Thoughts? Imperators II(Talk) 07:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

  • For the situation where we go the second route, a suggestion has been raised on the Discord server that it also be made mandatory that in such cases a note be added to the Behind the scenes section of an article stating something to the effect of "this article has information X that is unconfirmable due to media Y no longer being accessible". Personally, I think adding such a note to the Mitchels article would work well, but I can also imagine situations where such a one-size-fits-all approach might not, so I'd advise against making it mandatory, at least in any strictly regulated way. Imperators II(Talk) 07:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
    • Perhaps instead of a sentence, it could be a drop-down header in Behind the scenes or Appearances or Sources saying something like “The following sources have become lost or unaccessible, and thus information from these sources is unverifiable at the moment: *Source one *Source two etc…” AmazinglyCool Nightsisters symbol - JFO (talk) 17:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • I'd also be in favor of the latter, as precluding any article that's appeared in lost media from reaching status not only discourages editors from working on those articles at all but could also be an exponentially growing problem. If a new game came out tomorrow with a comprehensive database of planets and then vanished a week later Concord-style before we could get screenshots or document it fully then we'd be stuck in a limbo of no planets being statusable and all current planet SAs losing status. Instead we should present to the reader as much information as is currently obtainable—meaning every effort should be made to search surviving videos or other sources of info on the subject—and clarify if a source could not be checked in the BTS. Telling a reader that a subject was in lost media and so that information is absent from the article is itself useful information to include as part of comprehensive coverage. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:40, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • I would certainly oppose an article being incapable of receiving status simply because its sources are no longer accessible in virtually any form. My thoughts more or less align with those of Ayre, though perhaps a template near the top of pages similar to other content disclaimers such as {{TCWRetcon}} or {{RedactedTitle}} would be a suitable way to help address it. As opposed to putting it in BTS, having a disclaimer template up top also makes it far clearer to readers that the content of this article is potentially affected by inaccessible sources—we can't expect them to scroll to BTS every time (or read it even if they do), but a template makes it abundantly clear from the start. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 10:26, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
    • I'd certainly support a template as well, the BTS would just generally allow more detail on the nature of the lost media, especially in cases like Mitchells where it's only a specific piece of info that's semi-lost. Ayrehead02 (talk) 10:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • I do agree with the policy amendment; far better than doing it anyway and leaving it in policy limbo for those not aware of a specific Discord convo, and ensures consistency going forward. But worth outright pipelinking "lost" in the proposed text to the Wikipedia page for lost media, IMO. To get a jump on the inevitable "it's inaccessible to me personally, because I don't own it, and therefore it's fine, and even though I could buy it, as long as I can say I can't access it it's fine." Essentially, the lost media pipelink would help further define what that means... as there's precautions to be taken because, it can be historically proven that such a thing could/100% will be abused if not put in right.—spookywillowwtalk 17:51, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
    • Ah, very cool, wasn't aware of that article existing; that'd be very fine by me. Imperators II(Talk) 18:41, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • A BTS note seems like the right way to handle it. I also want to second spooky's point as well about safeguards. Wok142 (talk) 18:19, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • I agree with the amendment, but what's stopping someone from just creating an article with only "Character existed" and then nominating that? That doesn't seem like something we would want to happen, but it would technically be allowed. CometSmudge (talk) 18:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
    • It'd prolly be better if you came forward with a more specific example than that - it's not like we don't have any status articles right now with almost no info to them. Iscno system comes to mind. Imperators II(Talk) 18:43, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
      • Right now Fingar Buyon is redlinked on the Uprising page. If someone made an article that was just "Fingar Buyon was an individual who was alive between 4-5 ABY", is that actually okay if that becomes a status article? I guess it's fine if it is, but it kind of feels like a loophole. CometSmudge (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
        • Personally, I'd be fine with that, at least if the redlink was added by a relatively trustworthy editor. It'd be the sum of all information about the subject that we can present the reader with, which is basically what the status article system is as a whole. If we have a problem with an article like that existing then perhaps it's instead the Notability policy we might want to refine, but otherwise I don't really see a reason to put up a barrier preventing the article from reaching status. Imperators II(Talk) 19:40, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
      • In many cases there'll still be info to uncover for that kind of stuff, Buyon has a page on the Japanese wiki for example that suggests he's in the Crypt Prison story mission. I believe there's footage out there of most the story missions so those could be checked and used to expand the article. If someone nominated it as just "Fingar Buyon was an individual who was alive between 4-5 ABY" then it'd be a valid objection to point them toward the information still avaliable. Ayrehead02 (talk) 20:56, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
  • I agree with the concept of allowing articles to reach status without information from no-longer-available sources, but I also think this proposed practice should be codified not only in the status article nomination rules but maybe in Wookieepedia:Attribution as well. Such an amendment could then be linked instead of a Wikipedia article on lost media. Xd1358 (Talk) 21:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
    • What if we have specific pages set up on another website for cataloging whatevers left of specific relevant lost media, and when needed we link to those as a source rather than the media that's now lost? BearInsanity
      • I mean, we do already host Wookieepedia:Star Wars: Datapad screenshots and such here onsite. Another website though? Would require someone to be paying hosting costs when instead we could just keep it somewhere here, on Wookieepedia itself. And hosting it anywhere except for on Wookieepedia itself means that if the person ever paying the hosting left, then that'd go down too, so having it here will always be infinitely better.—spookywillowwtalk 04:41, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
    • Agreed with ecks; sitewide treatment of inaccessible material in a policy would then automatically extend to status articles, which follow all policies anyways. There's also more space to expound on what it all means; as the SAN rules are already quite long, and this'd only make them longer (even if slight). Specifically, the extra space would allow for noting that, even for media widely considered inaccessible like Uprising, for status'-ing, its still expected to make every reasonable effort to salvage what you can. As opposed to just—seeing that something has only a generally inaccessible piece of media as a source—and then putting it up as-is without even trying to poke around (ie, relying on objectors to do the heavy lifting of hunting through the Internet for gameplay, which, really isn't an objector's job).—spookywillowwtalk 04:41, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
    • I don't disagree with an addition to policies - any wording suggestions are welcome. However, I do think it'd be a good idea to still add at least the originally proposed concise note to the SAN pages since this discussion does ultimately stem from that exact wording. Imperators II(Talk) 13:53, 28 February 2025 (UTC)