Forum:SH:Years, dates and chronology

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Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Years, dates and chronology

I have noticed a variety of inconsistencies on Wookieepdia regarding dates, calendars, and years. I would greatly appreciate any feedback on these sources, and would like to be able to develop a consensus on certain topics. For most of these things, I have an opinion on which is the "right" way, but it is much more important to me that these topics should be standardized. This is a long last, and any feedback would be helpful.

Main points actually about dating and time

  • Age. Imagine a source says that a character (Susan) was 40 years old in 20 BBY. Would we say that Susan was born "in 60 BBY" or "around 60 BBY". Furthermore, suppose an event took place when Susan was 25 years old. Would that event take place "in 35 BBY" or "around 35 BBY"? We have articles that do both, (Wilhuff Tarkin, Reath Silas) I personally prefer the "around" phrasing.
  • Template:Year/Canon. I think this should have an "era" parameter, similar to the legends template, except not auto-filled. I think it would be beneficial to note to the readers that 232 BBY is in the High Republic Era, or that 5 BBY is in the Imperial Era in the infobox.
  • Layout of the canon year articles. For canon year articles, it is general practice to say that "# BBY, also known X, Y, and Z in dating systems x, y, and z." I think this adds unnesecary clutter to the article, and that we should stick to the Legends SA precendet (13,000,000,000 BBY, 55 ABY, 81 ABY) to just list the alternate dating systems in the infobox.
    • Also a minor nitpick, we shouldn't say "the following events occured in x BBY". The article is on the year, not a list of events that occured during that year. Per the aforementioned precedent, we should say "x BBY is a year", because an article should clearly define its subject in the first sentanct.
  • Layout of events and eras. There is no current standard practice on how articles on how galactic eras should be done. In addition, the standard precent for year articles (Events, Battles, Births, Deaths) is not used in status articles, and while I would be fine having that as a precendent, an "aftermath" and "prelude" section of some sort would be useful. For both years and eras, there is nothing in Wookieepedia:Layout Guide/In-universe about them, I think it is high time to add a section for years and eras.
  • Dates of works. For works that take place of a short period of time (ie not Thrawn or Catalyst), then we usually date the work to take place "in" a year that a specific event in the work takes place in that year. IE we say that The High Republic: The Fallen Star takes place "in" 230 BBY due to the fact that the Destruction of Starlight Beacon took place in 230 BBY. Yet for novels such as Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising, which features the Mission to Batuu, an event that took place in 19 BBY, we merely say that Chaos Rising took place "in and around" 19 BBY. I personally am in favor of the whole novel taking place "in" the year, but a standarized practice is needed.
  • What is the "real" calendar in Star Wars (Legends)? Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded uses a 10-month, 5 day a week calendar while other, more recent sources use a 12 month calendar (The New Essential Chronology, The Essential Atlas). My assumption would be that the 12-month calendar would be the "correct" one becuase it is the most recent, yet the article body on Galactic Standard Calendar uses the 10-month version.
  • What is the "real" calendar in Star Wars (canon)? Star Wars: Build the Millennium Falcon 61 Guide to the Galaxy: Galactic Time and Dates uses the same system as Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, but Star Wars: The Ascendancy Trilogy uses the 7 day a week/28 day a month system.[1] As Ascendancy is more recent, a narrative source, and De Agstoni products do not have the firmist foundation as canon, it seems to me like the 28 day a month calander should be observed, but this is not the current practice (Phorsa Gedd). Some other minor things that would suggest a twelve month calander is that, per Catalyst, the Erso's spent a year on Vallt. In chapter one, which is at least 4 months after their arrival, Jyn is said to be expected in 2 months, and Jyn is 6 months old when they leave Ballt. This is not a strong argument at all, but just for completeness, there is a lot of referencing to 3, 6, 9, and 12 months versus to 10 and 5 month periods, which would suggest a based 3 calandar. I don't have a list to give, but a plan to construct one.
  • What is 0 BBY (canon)? It is a "period of time" that is not actually a year. Yet it uses template:Year/Canon and is in category:years.
  • What is 0 BBY (Legends)? I am completly at a loss here. Does 13:1:9 take place in 0 BBY or 1 BBY (it is listed on the 0 BBY/Legends page)? What GrS dates does 0 BBY cover? The page for 1 BBY and 0 ABY say that they are from 34:3-35:2 and 35:3-35:2, respectivley. Where does that leave 0 BBY?
  • When did the First Battle of Geonosis/Legends actually take place? Our article on it says it took place in 13:5:21 almost three months after the start of 22 BBY in 13:3" Yet, according to the The New Essential Chronology, the end of the Battle of Atraken took place 11 months after the Battle of Geonosis, in 21.1 BBY (22 BBY), which would be impossible if the BOG takes place almost three months after the start of 22 BBY. A detailed inspection reveals the TNEC is based on the assumption that the BOG takes place at the very start of 22 BBY, when it actually does not.

Somewhat unrelated points relating to appearances

  • Simliar to how time is treated, should we list every story for appearances purposes for the artile Standard day, Nanosecond, Standard minute, Millennium?
  • I really strongly feel that we don't need {{Po}} tags for galactic eras as well as for individual days. For example, technically every StarWars.com article that has a picture of a High Republic book cover would count as a Po for High Republic Era. Also, sinces Taungsday appeared in the mandalorian, any pictures of scenes from that day are technically a Po for taungsday. for This is clearly not the intent of policy, but the way policy is worded right now should be changed to make this case clear.
  • In addition, I don't think we need to be {{Video}} any sources for Time. Technically every trailer that occurs is a Video of time. While i understand this isn't standard practice, I believe it should be codified in policy, as the current policy on appearances ("even the smallest mentions of given subjects") should be changed to clarify this point.
  • I think we should use (Approximate date) in the appearances/sources sections of year articles that mention them. For example, 18 BBY doesn't technically appear in Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good, only around 18 BBY appears. This would help distinguish from stuff where 18 BBY actually appears, such as Ahsoka.

Conclusion

If you read the whole post, I congradulate you for your dedication. Your feedback is most appreciated in working towords standarizing practicing relating to time on wookieepedia. My primary goal here is not to defend or promote one veiwpoint as the "correct one", but see what the Wookieepedia community decides is the best approach to use in order to make our handeling of time consistant across Wookieepedia. -ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 23:19, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

  • I'm impressed by the breadth of your post here ThrawnChiss, but you've raised over a dozen points which, while grouped by a theme, are all pretty distinct discussions. If folks have differing points of view on all of them then this thread will become pretty impossible to follow fairly fast. In future I'd suggest splitting the different topics into different posts. Keeping things simple and separate hugely increases the chance of a topic getting enough input to be resolved. I can answer your first point fairly easily atleast: If we're told a characters age then we should always use "around" for their birthdate. This matches real life, where if someone was 40 right now, they could have been born in either 1982 or 1983 depending on if they've had their birthday yet this year. The only exception is if we're told a characters age on their birthday. If someone turned 40 today, we'd know that they were born exactly 40 years ago in 1983. I'll try and address some of your other points in future, but it's also worth noting that in just over a month we're getting a reference book all about time in canon, so might be worth saving a lot of the canon discussions until we see what new info that reveals about eras and the like. Ayrehead02 (talk) 23:38, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
    • I'll split in to more posts in the future, thanks for the advice. I am well aware (and extremely exited) for Timlines' upcoming publication, but the majority of my points aren't specifily relating to dating specific events, they are more about how we interperate the source material and present the information. (We know that Timelines dates events previously dated to 0 BBY to 1 BBY, but I'm fine to just chalk that up to an error.) In regards to the age point, I agree that it would be nonsensical to say they where born "in" that year based on the exact same reasoning you provided, but some articles have had that phrasing in the past. (For everyone who views this post after I made this edit, the Wilhuff Tarkin article now uses the "around"/"c." phrasing). ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 23:56, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
      • I mean for what it's worth, most status articles that have passed in modern times always default to around/c. for age dating (unless a character's age is specified in relation to years since/before the Battle of Yavin itself), and anything that's not a SA has a large chance of never being scrutinized. Unrelatedly to that point, agreed about the definitions of a year varying: Star Wars: The Galactic Explorer's Guide also lists anything from 360-370 local rotations as a year, varying by planet.—spookywillowwtalk 00:03, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Regarding 0 BBY/ABY, it looks like Star Wars: Timelines will change how it's treated anyway. Rsand 30 (talk) 00:11, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Suprisingly, this is very clear. Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil states that 3 days (2*1.5 days) is four less than a week, and Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good mentions how three weeks -1 day is 21 days. The 4 weeks in a month is based on the fact the the Grand Migration is both a month and twelve weeks
  2. ↑ This is so tangential I didn't want to include it in the main body, but I am very sceptical of the claim the Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know uses 365 and Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know has 368