Hello there! I've created this thread as a follow-up to my question here on the creation of a yellow "unlicensed" banner for the {{Top}} template. I agree with NanoLuuke that the unlicensed content on Wookieepedia should be seriously discussed and re-examined.
My point of view on this matter is that those unlicensed sources are unfortunately little more than published fanon. In other words, fanon created to be sold in fanzines.
Sometimes these magazines claim to use the Star Wars brand name with the authorization of LFL, WEG, Jeux Descartes, or some other company. Sometimes they say something along the lines of "Most game names are trademarks of the companies publishing those games. Use of a trademark to identify a product commented upon in this magazine should not be construed as implying the sponsorship of the trademark holder, nor, conversely, should use of the name of any product without mention of trademark status be construed as a challenge to such status."
Some of these sources have been written or illustrated by authors who also worked on official Star Wars content (such as "Forbidden Fruit"), but that does not make them canon.
I suggest that we only keep on Wookieepedia the unlicensed content that has officially made its way into canon (such as G'aav'aar'oon, the Senex system, the Sumitra system, the Class VI bulk freighter, etc.). Their first introduction in an unlicensed source should be listed in the BTS section only, with an external link for reference (the website RPGGeek is quite useful).
As much as it pains me, that means removing a ton of content from Wookieepedia (such as Kyrouac). I guess that some of it can be moved to the Star Wars Fanon wiki so that it was not created for nothing.
You may fire when ready. —DKS MaXoO (talk) 19:30, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
Discussion
- The fact so much of it made it to official material shows that these works were influential to the early creators. I think if we're going to cover it partially, we should cover it fully. Rather than delete the works and their subjects, I'd rather see us implement a banner for Unlicensed media and works that only appeared in unlicensed media. NBDani
(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 20:03, 22 November 2024 (UTC)
- Tolkien Legedarium is deeply influential to Star Wars. Dune cycle is deeply influential for Star Wars. Kurosawa is deeply influential for Star Wars. Flash Gordon and pulp fictions are deeply influential for Star Wars. There are THOUSANDS of works out there that have influenced Star Wars creators. Yet we are not making articles for those medias. I really don't see why we should provide this courtesy to those works, when others much more influential works would not be featured on Wookieepedia in the same manners. Also I'm very cross with that argument, because if you applies the same logic to Supernatural Encounters, which was influential regarding items such as Ampotem Za and Typhojem (and possibly who knows what in the future), then that would open the floodgates to cover that topic without limit on Wookieepedia... NanoLuukeCloning Facility 13:23, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
- It's not relevant at all to compare Star Wars publications—which, I might add, got referenced not only in Legends but in Canon as well—to non-Star Wars ones. Imperators II(Talk) 13:38, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
- Tolkien Legedarium is deeply influential to Star Wars. Dune cycle is deeply influential for Star Wars. Kurosawa is deeply influential for Star Wars. Flash Gordon and pulp fictions are deeply influential for Star Wars. There are THOUSANDS of works out there that have influenced Star Wars creators. Yet we are not making articles for those medias. I really don't see why we should provide this courtesy to those works, when others much more influential works would not be featured on Wookieepedia in the same manners. Also I'm very cross with that argument, because if you applies the same logic to Supernatural Encounters, which was influential regarding items such as Ampotem Za and Typhojem (and possibly who knows what in the future), then that would open the floodgates to cover that topic without limit on Wookieepedia... NanoLuukeCloning Facility 13:23, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with your accensement of the situation, DKS MaXoO. I've always been bothered by our attitude toward this type of content, something that is deeply rooted in the early stages of Wookieepedia (a time when Fanon was not even yet forbidden). Unfortunately, I've never found the time or urgent motivator (like with Supernatural Encounters) to proceed to a deep-dive, and try to gather as much info as possible to proceed toward the creation of a consensus. And like I said on Forum:SH:Unlicensed Sources back in 2023, that's not really a one-person job anyway. Some reseach by former editor Immi is still compiled here. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 13:23, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
- FWIW I agree with Dani's reasoning. I't be more useful to the reader (and possibly even to creators, as well; see my above comment) for us to cover this material, and tbh I don't see why Wookieepedia can't become a one-stop resource on all things Star Wars anyway. If we wanna talk about historical Wookieepedia attitudes, then "it must be forbidden" for sure is one. Imperators II(Talk) 13:38, 23 November 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for linking Forum:SH:Unlicensed Sources, I should have checked whether this issue was discussed recently. Ayrehead02 made an interesting point in there when he said this:
We should not forget, however, that our coverage of unlicensed/fanon stuff may induce some sort of observer effect. Things that originated in unlicensed material, such as the M-300, are more likely to pop up again in licensed sources if they have an article on Wookieepedia.—DKS MaXoO (talk) 03:49, 25 November 2024 (UTC)"I'd agree that for the unlicensed RPG material specifically I think it benefits the readers more for us to keep it given how frequently stuff from it has popped up in official sources. Clearly authors and LFL consider it something valid to pull from for new work in some regard, and if we remove our coverage of it then I think it's incredibly unlikely anyone is going to notice the origins of these things when they do reappear. When writing up M-300 I certainly wouldn't have known about the origin if not for our page on it."
- Thanks also for pointing out this page. Interesting quote by Jason Fry found in there:
I think it's also important to know where to draw the line between relevant and irrelevant unlicensed sources. For example, the Backstab magazine did not introduce anything that has made its way into canon. Also, none of its authors ever made licensed Star Wars work (with the exception of Aleksi Briclot who drew variant covers for Marvel Comics in 2015). We could at least find and weed out these sorts of unnecessary sources from Wookieepedia.—DKS MaXoO (talk) 03:49, 25 November 2024 (UTC)"No, not canon. For the Atlas, we discussed these ambiguously canon works with Lucasfilm, and agreed to treat as canon the planets/star systems introduced by authors who had done licensed Star Wars work elsewhere. However, the other information in those articles is not treated as canon, and nothing in the articles by other authors is treated as canon. The Casus Belli material would fall under this last category."
- Here is what I would agree on, and it seems a fair compromise to me regarding Imp/Ayre objections: If a work within this specific corpus (excluding things like Supernatural Encounters) had given birth to something in Canon/Legends, then 1) give (or rather pick) the document an article 2) give an article to the subjects from that document that exist officially, but delete any item that do not 3) allow the document page to have a full appearances section, but provides only links to items subjects from rule 2. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 16:07, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
- So what you're proposing would be us essentially providing stunted articles on these topics. Media articles that would have incomplete App templates (which I would not blame any visitors to those pages for wanting to expand) and IU articles that would be underlinked (which I would not blame any visitors to those pages for wanting to link). I fail to see why we should employ such contrived measures only because some of us do not want to see certain material covered on this encyclopedia. Whom exactly does such exclusionism benefit anyway, I have to ask? Imperators II(Talk) 16:53, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- Fanon, no matter the prestige which goes with it because it has inspired authors or was made by authors who also contributed to Star Wars at some point, is still fanon, I thought this was made clear with Supernatural Encounters, and if a media can clearly be identified as outside the official licensing, it should not be featured extensively on Wookieepedia. I'm sorry we have such a disagreement on this topic, but I'm afraid that someday we're going to have to resolve this through a vote process. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 18:52, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- So what you're proposing would be us essentially providing stunted articles on these topics. Media articles that would have incomplete App templates (which I would not blame any visitors to those pages for wanting to expand) and IU articles that would be underlinked (which I would not blame any visitors to those pages for wanting to link). I fail to see why we should employ such contrived measures only because some of us do not want to see certain material covered on this encyclopedia. Whom exactly does such exclusionism benefit anyway, I have to ask? Imperators II(Talk) 16:53, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
- Here is what I would agree on, and it seems a fair compromise to me regarding Imp/Ayre objections: If a work within this specific corpus (excluding things like Supernatural Encounters) had given birth to something in Canon/Legends, then 1) give (or rather pick) the document an article 2) give an article to the subjects from that document that exist officially, but delete any item that do not 3) allow the document page to have a full appearances section, but provides only links to items subjects from rule 2. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 16:07, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
- Should we cover unlicensed sources that were released online for free? I recently came across EasteNWest, a free French online roleplaying magazine with several Star Wars adventures. —DKS MaXoO (talk) 17:09, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Definitely not, all indications lead me to believe this is a rpg fan-webzine (available for free, made by volunteers, anyone can potentially contribute), and I have no reason to believe they have any legitimacy to be included on Wookieepedia as their work isn't copyrighted to Lucasfilm and we only have an interest for unlicensed materials that is potentially official (or, to extend to Imperators interpretation, who have influenced the canon in any form). NanoLuukeCloning Facility 22:33, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- Should we cover unlicensed sources, such as Casus Belli Volume 4 and Jeu de Rôle Magazine, that were released after the 2014 switch to the new Disney canon? —DKS MaXoO (talk) 17:09, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know. From what I've seen, Casus Belli, under the current owner, accept scenario submission but I've also seen communication that they understand properly copyright law and are trying to abide by it, and thus requires the publisher's authorization. I'm under the assumption that Jeu de Rôle Magazine works under the same principles. However, I'd prefer something factual, and ask those two publication directly (or even Edge Studio France), since they are still active, and it should involves our Social Media Team, as they handle official communication for the editing community. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 22:33, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- Forget to add: failing to obtain any confirmation, we could always check in with Leland Chee, with which we have good relations, but I consider this a last resort solution. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 19:06, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know. From what I've seen, Casus Belli, under the current owner, accept scenario submission but I've also seen communication that they understand properly copyright law and are trying to abide by it, and thus requires the publisher's authorization. I'm under the assumption that Jeu de Rôle Magazine works under the same principles. However, I'd prefer something factual, and ask those two publication directly (or even Edge Studio France), since they are still active, and it should involves our Social Media Team, as they handle official communication for the editing community. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 22:33, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
- Though this discussion is (naturally) mostly about older unlicensed topics, have a bit of a tangent. It does stand to note that in some cases, the magazines themselves claim to be expressly not licensed or LFL directly addresses the issue and clarifies them as not canonical: thus, classing them as glorified fanfiction. But, in that sense, there's still lots of fan magazines today with short stories set in the SW sphere and usually have to include a large copyright disclaimer on the back stating that they are, in fact, using the LFL trademarked material without consent. Meanwhile, WP:N states that "Articles for products explicitly labeled as not endorsed, authorized, licensed by, or affiliated with Lucasfilm should not be created unless they otherwise qualify under the notability guidelines for fan projects." So, while I personally think ambiguously licensed content/never addressed licensing is fair enough, the handful of these mags that are explicitly defined as not copyrighted in any way, shape, or form should be nuked as the fanon it is. Otherwise, unless a grandfathering policy is put into place to only permit ones from the Legends-era authors, someone can then come and make articles for later-era fanon too at will if it's in a printed publication, simply by appropriately labeling it as outside of the Lucasfilm license and claiming that we already include other material that identifies itself as unaffiliated with Lucasfilm as well (which is true). But if we're going to cling to this older fanfiction (again, not the ambig ones, but specifically the ones that define themselves as not affiliated with LFL), then IMO at least it should be defined in policy as only from the Legends era and not past that and WP:N should be tweaked to allow for an exception to "products explicitly labeled as not endorsed, authorized, licensed by, or affiliated with Lucasfilm" with a list of grandfathered exceptions. We're quite honestly lucky that no one's tried to put any of the newer era fiction onsite yet such as Mark Newbold's great but ultimately not sanctioned printed fanworks; the way it stands, anyone could go register a url, print a magazine issue or book with a SW content, and as long as they label its Wook article with unlicensed, then it falls under the List of unlicensed sources' "In some cases they were expressly not licensed…" Which, while Wook does strive to be a resource for SW as a whole, I think moving down the route of essentially allowing people to post their fanfiction—when explicitly known to be fanfiction, via licensing statements—is a detrimental one. But tldr plenty of current SW authors still release plenty of this type of unlicensed fanfic in physical media form today so IMO that doesn't mean they should all get article-ified.—spookywillowwtalk 19:18, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
