In 2013, a CT was passed, the third proposal of which stated that StarWars.com Blog posts may only be listed under an in-universe article's Sources section if they contain "unique canonical information." Here is the exact rule from the Layout Guide:
- Star Wars Blog posts are only listed in the Sources section if they contain unique canonical information. Other Blog posts may be listed in the "External links" section as appropriate.
I wish to modify this, as it has only fallen out of use and largely ignored with time. Since that CT, we have listed many different types of blog posts under Sources, such as promotional material, previews, and other blog posts from staff members and people who have officially contributed to the franchise, such as John Morton, Tim Veekhoven, and Mark Newbold. The "unique canonical information" wording is also pretty unclear; it does not clarify if the blog posts should be removed from Sources if the unique info they have makes it way to other sources.
My proposal is to modify the aforementioned rule to this:
- Star Wars Blog posts should only be listed in the Sources section if they are written by Lucasfilm and StarWars.com staff members or people who have officially contributed to the franchise prior to writing the post. An example is Jenn Fujikawa, writer of many recipe posts for StarWars.com. Fujikawa authored Star Wars: The Life Day Cookbook, released on November 15, 2021, and thus blog posts written by her that were published after that date may be listed under Sources. Other Blog posts may be listed in the "External links" section as appropriate.
The intention of this move is to prevent editors from placing every blog post they see under Sources and cluttering the section, thus creating a clean division between ones that go under Sources and others going under External links.
Word of advice from me: I would avoid citing in-universe info with these blogs unless they're explicitly documenting in-universe info, such as Star Wars Inside Intel, as that's not why those blogs are written in the first place.
Let me know your thoughts and suggestions for improving the proposal below. UberSoldat93 
(talk) 17:43, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Discussion
General discussion
- I fully support this upgrade. As someone who often works with web content, I've been frustrated by the current policy (and I must admit, I've been an offender of the "put it all in sources" for a while). An example of what the update could prevent: back in 2016 an article on SW.com by a freelancer "revealed" the name of Hera's mother as Tislera, an information that wasn't featured on Wookieepedia until it was noticed in 2019, and was unchallenged for half a year before finally been removed after checking with Lucasfilm (with SW.com staff removing it from the article altogether). --NanoLuukeCloning facility 17:37, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
- Support YakovChaimTzvi (he/him/his)
(talk) 22:31, 2 February 2022 (UTC) - I just had a thought: For freelancers who would go on to contribute officially to the franchise, should we list their blogs under Sources if they were published prior to that contribution? UberSoldat93
(talk) 09:22, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
- Good thinking. I would prefer caution: the provision should state that it should be accounted in sources only after an official contribution. An even more cautious approach would be to consider them as sources only if the article is related to their contribution. Do you have some examples to hammer out what feels best? --NanoLuukeCloning facility 11:00, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
- Jenn Fujikawa would be one. UberSoldat93
(talk) 11:10, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
- Ok, so let's use her as an example. She has written more than 100 articles for SW.com since 2015, most of them recipes, with the exception of a Doug Chiang Interview and a report on a Rebels fan screening. She became an official SW author with Star Wars: The Life Day Cookbook (November 9, 2021), so... let's says we proceed by using the date of the first official publication (not perfect, as she could be considered official author from the moment she was approved for writing this book, but at least we can work with the release date) to consider if a SW.com freelance article is either Sources or External Links material: prior to Nov 9, 2021, her article should be classified as External links and only be added if pertinent as per policy (considering most are recipes, we most likely wouldn't list them); on the contrary, articles published past Nov 9, 2021 are to be classified as Sources and always listed, no matter pertinence, removing any subjective appreciation/interpretation. In the case of the Chiang interview published in May 2021, it would go in External links, in the same way than an interview from Variety, Entertainment, Kotaku, etc. Does that seems satisfactory for everybody? --NanoLuukeCloning facility 10:04, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
- Modified the proposal with what I think best addresses the above discussion. Other suggestions would be appreciated. UberSoldat93 (talk) 02:21, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- Switched to Fujikawa as the example in the proposal. Any thoughts on the wording would be greatly appreciated. UberSoldat93 (talk) 11:27, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- Switched to Fujikawa as the example in the proposal. Any thoughts on the wording would be greatly appreciated. UberSoldat93
- Modified the proposal with what I think best addresses the above discussion. Other suggestions would be appreciated. UberSoldat93
- Ok, so let's use her as an example. She has written more than 100 articles for SW.com since 2015, most of them recipes, with the exception of a Doug Chiang Interview and a report on a Rebels fan screening. She became an official SW author with Star Wars: The Life Day Cookbook (November 9, 2021), so... let's says we proceed by using the date of the first official publication (not perfect, as she could be considered official author from the moment she was approved for writing this book, but at least we can work with the release date) to consider if a SW.com freelance article is either Sources or External Links material: prior to Nov 9, 2021, her article should be classified as External links and only be added if pertinent as per policy (considering most are recipes, we most likely wouldn't list them); on the contrary, articles published past Nov 9, 2021 are to be classified as Sources and always listed, no matter pertinence, removing any subjective appreciation/interpretation. In the case of the Chiang interview published in May 2021, it would go in External links, in the same way than an interview from Variety, Entertainment, Kotaku, etc. Does that seems satisfactory for everybody? --NanoLuukeCloning facility 10:04, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
- Jenn Fujikawa would be one. UberSoldat93
- Good thinking. I would prefer caution: the provision should state that it should be accounted in sources only after an official contribution. An even more cautious approach would be to consider them as sources only if the article is related to their contribution. Do you have some examples to hammer out what feels best? --NanoLuukeCloning facility 11:00, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
- I agree in principal, though I think we should have a "sources" list linked from the rule listing the authors who contribute to the blogs and, where needed, the timeframe their articles are to be used. It can be a cumbersome task going through the blog posts, working out the authors, dates of the articles and whether they're an "acceptable" person or not and it was posted in an "acceptable" time period. Manoof (he/him/his) (talk) 03:57, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
- Not a bad idea to have this maintained in a workbench, though I don't agree with linking it on the policy page seeing as we don't do such a thing with other rules. UberSoldat93 (talk) 04:41, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
- Not a bad idea to have this maintained in a workbench, though I don't agree with linking it on the policy page seeing as we don't do such a thing with other rules. UberSoldat93
- Second thought: Blog posts that can be included should also be noted in the Author's Wookieepedia page under Sources, whilst those that are excluded should be under their External links. This COULD be a replacement for the above list once it's in place. I've done John Morton for example, so users would see the author as John Morton, go to his wookieepedia page to determine which blogs sit in which section. Manoof (he/him/his) (talk) 08:58, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
- This proposal concerns the in-universe Layout Guide only. UberSoldat93 (talk) 13:59, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
- Oh yes, I mean that the OOU author article could be used as a guide rather than a separate list of all authors (or in conjunction with?) Manoof (he/him/his) (talk) 03:03, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
- I personally think it should all go under Sources, but that's a discussion for another time. UberSoldat93 (talk) 03:30, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
- I personally think it should all go under Sources, but that's a discussion for another time. UberSoldat93
- Oh yes, I mean that the OOU author article could be used as a guide rather than a separate list of all authors (or in conjunction with?) Manoof (he/him/his) (talk) 03:03, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
- This proposal concerns the in-universe Layout Guide only. UberSoldat93
- A few things:
- One: I think the proposal should be reworded to set the example apart so it's clearer that this applies to people other than Jenn Fujikawa, even if she makes a great example.
- Reworded. Thanks. UberSoldat93 (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
- Reworded. Thanks. UberSoldat93
- Two: How are we determining what exactly constitutes a blog post, as opposed to a lore article from the website which would be worthy of a wiki article? Because, for the most part, there don't seem to be any clear guidelines about this, and there may well be lore articles out there which would merit wiki articles. SilverSunbird (talk) 05:34, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
- Everything under "starwars.com/news" is technically a blog post, including Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare Author's Cut and Star Wars: The Essential Atlas Online Companion, but the proposal aims to define what goes under Sources vs. External links. We should not be taking freelancer lore posts as canon information, as we have already faced an incident where information in a post was proven false and had to be removed. A "lore" article doesn't constitute automatic placement under Sources if it's written by a freelancer; staff members have access to more "inside" information compared to freelancers. However, stuff like Inside Intel, written by a Story Group member, are completely fair game. Hope this makes sense. UberSoldat93 (talk) 05:55, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
- Everything under "starwars.com/news" is technically a blog post, including Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare Author's Cut and Star Wars: The Essential Atlas Online Companion, but the proposal aims to define what goes under Sources vs. External links. We should not be taking freelancer lore posts as canon information, as we have already faced an incident where information in a post was proven false and had to be removed. A "lore" article doesn't constitute automatic placement under Sources if it's written by a freelancer; staff members have access to more "inside" information compared to freelancers. However, stuff like Inside Intel, written by a Story Group member, are completely fair game. Hope this makes sense. UberSoldat93
- One: I think the proposal should be reworded to set the example apart so it's clearer that this applies to people other than Jenn Fujikawa, even if she makes a great example.
- Just wanted to flag Catrina Dennis and similar situations, she's written several starwars.com blog posts and been involved in a few documentaries on star wars. But this looks like she wouldn't have any blog posts noted and, as such, would this result in her article getting removed? Or can we still cover her but her blog posts would simply be considered external links? Manoof (he/him/his) (talk) 13:24, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
- What documentaries has she worked on? UberSoldat93 (talk) 13:27, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
- What documentaries has she worked on? UberSoldat93
Insider
An issue that was brought up in the Discord server: Should we be treating the writers of non-fiction Star Wars Insider differently to those of the blog posts? Let's say someone writes an interview for an issue of the magazine, does that mean that all of the blog posts for that writer published after that interview article should be put under Sources? The trouble here is determining if such magazine articles are more "official" than blog posts. Any thoughts on this matter would be appreciated. UberSoldat93 (talk) 12:56, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
- You know my position, but I'll wrote it down here too: I think we can trust a lot more in the Insider publishing process than in SW.com (whose DNA has been for a long time to mix the line between official content and "sub-official" content). I don't recall us having to doubt anything from the publication. You mentioned Worldwide on Discord as an example of potential concern. And I don't see any problem as, by policy, we don't cover fancreation, and this series of articles self-identifies well enough what it's about. Furthermore, if we were to go down that sloppy slope, where would we draw the line exactly? That seems unpractical. NanoLuukeCloning facility 07:42, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
SWTOR.com
I fully support this improvement. Also, I want to add that in SWTOR.com, blog posts can often result in clustered source sections of TOR-related IU content. Is there a possibility that we could include other official websites/sources and apply them the same measure in this proposal? 
Winterz (talk) 13:54, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
- Maybe in the future, but for now this proposal only concerns SW.com. UberSoldat93 (talk) 14:31, 12 March 2022 (UTC)