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in: Consensus track archive

Forum:CT:New canon policy

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Forums > Consensus track archive > CT:New canon policy
This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record.
The result of the debate was Support. JangFett (Talk) 03:15, May 5, 2014 (UTC)

Now that Star Wars has a "new canon," Wookieepedia needs to update its Canon policy. Just in case anyone has missed any of the news since Friday, April 25, the following now applies to canon:

  • The Expanded Universe is non-canon and is now under the new "Legends" banner
  • The official canon is now the six Star Wars films, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and just about everything new that comes out from this point forward (with a few exceptions)
  • The new canon officially begins on screen with Star Wars Rebels and in print with the aptly named novel A New Dawn, which will be released on September 2, 2014

These facts and the statements made in the following proposal come from these two StarWars.com news articles and from comments made by Lucasfilm senior editor Jennifer Heddle on Twitter. You can peruse all the things she said here.

I have rewritten our Canon policy page, which was in desperate need anyway, to reflect these changes. I invite everyone to read the draft here. I will preface this by saying that I have made no major changes overall, besides the introduction of the "new canon" and rewriting everything. This proposal operates on the basic assumption that Wookieepedia is going to divide its articles, in some form, into "Canon" and "Legends." That is a forthcoming discussion, and I ask that everyone please refrain from going off on that discussion tangent here. Please reserve that discussion for that appropriate forum. Everyone, I'm sure, also understands that we're facing a lot of changes to how we do things in the weeks and months ahead. I know we're all upset about the EU, but I ask that everyone please approach this objectively and without emotionalism.

Perhaps more so than any of our other policy pages, this Canon policy is a living document. It can, and certainly will need to be, updated and revised as we move forward. Heddle herself has said that the canon status of everything isn't crystal clear right now, and there are certain things they haven't even figured out yet (this is all explained in the proposal). As they make decisions and announce updates, we can update this policy as needed.

I will now summarize the changes in the proposal:

  • The page is now divided into two sections: New canon and Expanded Universe. Each section describes how its respective canon system works and provides a solid overall frame of reference for what sources are now new canon and what sources apply to the EU.
  • The New canon section devotes a subsection specifically to the comments made by Heddle in regards to the canonicity of certain EU sources. For example, there is EU material that is still ongoing, and she admits they haven't fully determined everything yet. Once they do, this section can be updated.
  • The EU section begins by laying out the Holocron continuity database's former tiered canon hierarchy system, which you can also read about in our Canon article. This system is now defunct in lieu of the Lucasfilm Story Group.
  • The section after that details how the old canon system still applies to our Legends articles. In short, we're not changing how we write our Expanded Universe articles. The idea that higher canon trumps conflicting lower canon in the EU still applies. I've laid out a more simplified explanation of the tiered canon hierarchy, since it has the potential to be confusing. Again, this isn't changing anything, but is only simplifying the explanation to help our editors understand the relationship between what I've termed Cinematic canon and Expanded canon.
  • The only significant departure here is that we're basically shedding the "ambiguous canon" tag. Now that all of the EU is non-canon, calling something in the EU "ambiguous canon" is pointless. So we will simply document that material as normal without any declarations of ambiguity.
    • I'm just clarifying this last point that it's not my intention to delete the Ambig canon tag, but we are shedding it in the sense that we're not declaring anything to be ambiguous canon from this point forward. I instead plan, as discussed below, to rework the Ambig templates to instead identify relevant unlicensed material as such, on jSarek's suggestion. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 20:20, April 28, 2014 (UTC)

That's about it. There's quite a bit here to digest, so I'm happy to answer any questions and clarify anything that needs it. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 02:13, April 28, 2014 (UTC)

Support[]

  1. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 02:13, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  2. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 02:17, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  3. IFYLOFD (Enter the Floydome) 02:17, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  4. Absolutely. This is what we need best as our new policy considering what we know as of now. Also, it's a good basis for the other incoming proposals and changes regarding this recent crisis. Winterz (talk) 02:19, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  5. SFH 02:53, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  6. I absolutely hate this situation, but we need to have something in place. Supreme Emperor (talk) 02:54, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  7. Looks good to me.--Exiled Jedi Oldrepublic crest (Greetings) 02:59, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  8. Feels more like a dusk than a dawn. :/ MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 03:03, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  9. Trip391 (talk) 03:07, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  10. CC7567 (talk) 03:26, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  11. JangFett (Talk) 03:31, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  12. JorrelWiki-shrinkableFraajic 04:11, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  13. Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 04:22, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  14. With some nitpicks, to be covered in Discussion. jSarek (talk) 04:31, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  15. As sad as it is, we have to face the reality: the end of the universe as we have known it.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 05:24, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  16. Though I'm with jSarek on keeping the ambig tags for unlicensed materials like Challenge. Menkooroo (talk) 07:04, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  17. In hope that some elements will return to canon. Commander Code-8 Felicitations malefactors! 08:54, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  18. Alexrd (talk) 09:32, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  19. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:43, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  20. Well done, Tope and everyone else who has been involved. 1358 (Talk) 10:08, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  21. QuiGonJinn Senate seal(Talk) 10:25, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  22. Looks good... well, as good as it can. 501st dogma(talk) 11:47, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  23. No other choice. Clone Commander Lee Talk 11:51, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  24. Very well put together, Toprawa and Ralltiir. I am of the opinion that we should clearly label anything technically in the "new non-canon" category that was published under the "Infinities" label or otherwise declared non-canon while Lucasfilm was still independent so as to not create confusion with the new Legends N-canon that kind of is S-canon but actually is C-Canon. It's business as usual with the EU, in other words, while a separate, sort of movie purist universe gets its own little corner. --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 13:58, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  25. Very nicely done. I imagine that things will get confusing in the days ahead, so it's good that we're getting the head start on this. Good work.—Cal JediInfinite Empire (Personal Comm Channel) 14:02, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  26. In terms of the "Ambig Canon" - there is no such thing now. It's not "Ambig Non-Canon" or "Ambig-Legends." Its all been lumped in with one another since they dropped the EU-Nuke. Sir Cavalier of OneFarStar(Squadron channel) 15:47, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • As far as its in-universe "truth," yes. As far as it being officially licensed by Lucasfilm, no. I think that's a distinction worth making. jSarek (talk) 16:54, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  27. Lord Dreist (talk) 16:50, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  28. Inevitable. Gal-icon OLIOSTER (talk) 17:06, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  29. grunny@wookieepedia:~$ 17:39, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  30. Yes, good, let's not all go insane. "Legends" is business as usual, and we're not putting a paragraph about how Darth Vader briefly turned into a pig into the main body of his article just because DisneyLFL is a bunch of evil greedy assholes who should all die in a fire and burn in hell. -- Darth Culator (Talk) 18:47, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  31. Jinzler (talk) 18:51, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  32. Good that we're staying on top of this. Corellian PremierJedi symbolThe Force will be with you always 18:59, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  33. With the change of ambig to unlicensed, this looks good. Green Tentacle (Talk) 19:15, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    A significant chunk of my world was shattered with that announcement, but crying in a corner isn't going to help anyone. It's time to start preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. JethLordMasterYing yang copy (Xia Order) 08:25, April 29, 2014 (UTC) (Vote struck per policy: See fourth bullet under "Additional provisions" -- JangFett (Talk) 23:20, April 30, 2014 (UTC))
  34. The first of many policies which will have to be updated between now and the end of 2015. I look forward to seeing quality articles on purely new canon sources! —Silly Dan (talk) 17:14, April 29, 2014 (UTC)
  35. Coruscantfan (Talk) 03:49, April 30, 2014 (UTC)
    Manuccij (talk) 05:13, April 30, 2014 (UTC) (Vote struck per policy: See fourth bullet under "Additional provisions" -- Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 05:15, April 30, 2014 (UTC))
    Imperialles 14:26, April 30, 2014 (UTC) (Vote struck per policy: See fourth bullet under "Additional provisions" -- JangFett (Talk) 15:02, April 30, 2014 (UTC))
  36. Rakhsh I'll support this, but let's see if the we can prevent the EU from ending up as non-canon. We can try talking to Lucasfilm, right?--Rakhsh (talk) 18:44, April 30, 2014 (UTC)
    Support! Despite some inconsistencies and blatant retconing for no reason, the powers that be have used as a resource for projects such as the Prequels and the Clone Wars. I mean, the Official Site links here. If we want some of the EU preserved, the best way to do it is to continue to provide the Story Group and future authors the resources they need to draw upon.Purpilia (talk) 20:58, April 30, 2014 (UTC) (Vote struck per policy: See 2nd bullet under "Additional provisions" -- JangFett (Talk) 23:19, April 30, 2014 (UTC))
  37. Ressor (talk) 22:06, April 30, 2014 (UTC)
  38. The-Boy 10:51, May 1, 2014 (UTC)
  39. So it begins. -- Riffsyphon1024 12:51, May 1, 2014 (UTC)
  40. I guess I should finally support this wonderful proposal drag myself kicking and screaming to support something that is utterly stupid but which is nonetheless the best way we can deal with this disaster that we have been forced into. :P
    Master JonathanJedi symbolCouncil Chambers
    06:08 UTC SunMay 4, 2014
  41. [sings]It's the end of the wook as we know it...[/sings]Manoof (talk) 01:18, May 5, 2014 (UTC)

Oppose[]

Per unaddressed points below: (a) the proposed policy does not adequately reflect that Legends is equivalent in stature to the defunct S-canon; (b) Wookieepedia has no precedent for segregating S-canon material from the rest of canon, and therefore has no precedent for doing so with S-canon's equivalents; (c) Wookieepedia has no precedent for segregating EU+film canon from film-only canon pre-2014, and segregating Legends continuity from Cinematic "one canon" is therefore a deviation; (d) said deviation must be explained and addressed in the new policy, i.e., why the "two canons" were never segregated in the past; (e) with film-only canon having existed for Wookieepedia's entire duration, and film-only canon having viewed EU+film canon as "not canon" but "used as a resource," the identical nature of this extended relationship to Legends material must be addressed, e.g., EU was always considered "not canon" from the perspective of the film canon, and this is reflected in changes made during The Clone Wars, etc. The proposed policy is therefore a drastic departure from the wiki's SOP, and the reasons for this departure must at the very least be addressed in full; currently, the proposed policy treats this deviation as if it were SOP, which is problematic and misleading.—Winchester 327 Comlink » 15:27, April 28, 2014 (UTC) (Vote struck per policy: See fourth bullet under "Additional provisions" -- JangFett (Talk) 15:37, April 28, 2014 (UTC))
I'd prefer an EU wiki. That's where I stand at the moment.-Boba fett 32 (talk) 19:54, April 28, 2014 (UTC) (Vote struck per policy: See fourth bullet under "Additional provisions" -- JangFett (Talk) 19:56, April 28, 2014 (UTC))

Comments[]

  • In the "Reliable resources" section: The following identifies reliable, officially-licensed sources of information for Expanded Universe material. ... All Marvel Comics and Dark Horse Comics published prior to the Lucasfilm declaration of April 25, 2014, with specific exceptions as noted by Lucasfilm, such as the Star Wars: Rebel Heist and Star Wars: Legacy Volume II series. This is confusing --- it reads as if Rebel Heist and Legacy Volume II are exceptions noted by Lucasfilm and are not official Legends material. Maybe you meant to note those two series in regards to material published after April 25? Menkooroo (talk) 02:33, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I meant that to say those are examples of things published after April 25 but are still Legends. I've made an attempt at clarifying. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 02:41, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm personally in favor of a holding pattern until "A New Dawn" is released. We simply don't have much to go on at the moment without any works under this new policy. Rod (talk) 03:02, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • That's why this is a living document. We can make changes as they are announced. It does us no good to sit on our hands for six months. And we actually have plenty to go on, according to what Jennifer Heddle has said. We know basically what the new canon is and what it's not. That's a very solid starting point for us. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 03:05, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
      • We have the statement, true, but not how it's going to work in practice, which is why I think we should be cautious. Rod (talk) 03:07, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
        • "That's not how it's going to work in practice." You have nothing to base that on. Meanwhile, this policy reflects statements issued by Lucasfilm's senior editor. Our current Canon policy page is simply unusable right now. It needs to be updated. And I'm proposing we update it according to what we know at this point. Again, we can make changes as we learn more. This is a good thing. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 03:11, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
          • I agree it's now most likely unusable. Which is why I'm in favor of using it until the first work in the new continuity appears, seeing what that work contains, then putting the new policy into action accordingly. Rod (talk) 03:42, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
            • Like I said, sitting on our hands for six months isn't going to do us any good. Everyone is eager to figure out how we're going to begin dividing articles between Canon and Legends, and that's a decision we're better off making sooner rather than later. And this policy is the first step so we know what an Expanded Universe article is now that its content is non-canon. We're still going to be writing EU articles in the interim, and our New Canon articles are only going to increase and expand as more Rebels info comes out and the first books hit in July, so we need to have this all defined in a clear-cut policy now. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 03:50, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
                • Very, very fair point. I'll concede; it's definitely best to plan ahead rather than just have all the stuff dropped on top of us at once. Rod (talk) 04:12, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
      • Not to mention that there will be plenty of promotional material and other medias that will need to be recorded here long before the novels or Rebels come out. Winterz (talk) 03:14, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  • I feel like EU-established names, establishing the same character in multiple scenes (Nova Stihl as Navy trooper in conference room and leading stormies chasing Han on Death Star for example) and fates of characters seen in a doomed movie location (example Imperial dignitaries all being established by Star Wars: Galactic Files Series 2 as all being killed in Death Star II's destruction) should be incorporated into the "canon." Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 04:24, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • For the latter example I think of the old Databank entries for characters like Cassio Tagge, Conan Antonio Motti and Tiaan Jerjerrod, all established in their Movies sections to have been killed during their respective Death Stars' destruction, though none of those three's fates were obvious in the films alone. Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 04:28, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • I disagree. Those are the sort of things that we only solved with resort to the EU and they've made that clear that it's not canon any longer so we can't assume that information unless it is canon. Remember Darth Maul? Everything in the EU pointed out to him being dead and then Lucas/Filoni felt like claiming he had never died and since EU being what the undervalue that it was, had to re-structure everything. Let's not do the same mistake, specially now that the sources are not even considered canon. Winterz (talk) 04:32, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
      • Would the old Movies sections to the original Databank entries be considered canon sources though? Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 04:34, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
        • No, not unless we receive word on that subject. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 04:38, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
          • Disagree; I see no reason that Disney would make such a small, arbitrary change as, say, naming Ree-Yees something different. Thoughts? Rod (talk) 16:30, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
          • Then the EU is truly dead... Hanzo Hasashi (talk) 04:41, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  • First, while the Ambig tag no longer makes sense in the context of canon, it DOES make sense to distinctly label articles on topics from unlicensed sources. The distinction is no longer one of canon, but one of officialness, and (possibly) one of legality for authors drawing on those materials. Secondly, the article mentions SotME as the start of the EU. I think that, it's generally regarded as having begun either with "Star Wars 7: New Planets, New Perils!" (the first non-adaptation Star Wars story) in 1977, or with Heir to the Empire (and the decision to make a coherent and unified universe ... boy, does that sound familiar) in 1991. I think that sentence could probably just be generalized to avoid trying to define a sticky, and now moot, point. Otherwise, I think this is a well-written and well-handled approach to the situation we have been presented, and I think it might even be worthwhile to delete and redirect Canon to it, since that article has never ceased to be a clusterkriff of poor writing and poor coherence between differing interpretations of what "canon" means/meant. jSarek (talk) 04:50, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm going to echo Rod's original misgivings about implementing anything yet—with a caveat. It's my personal (i.e. easily fallible) understanding of all official statements, including Jennifer Heddle's tweets, that this situation is identical to what was once considered S-canon. We never segregated S-canon from our articles so long as it didn't conflict with higher canon; at worst, it was given an "ambiguous" tag. Furthermore, there were always two canons (films + TV + word of George and others), but we never reflected this... why? The Databank did. Why are we jumping to "Cinematic canon" now? Or if it makes so much sense to, why were we so incorrectly biased toward EU + film canon being the only canon all these years, ignoring the film-only canon? Remember Ryloth. The Clone Wars timeline disclaimers. Heddle has used the term "not canon," but she has defined this in terms identical to S-canon. (I know S-canon is defunct; I'm saying Legends is functionally identical, not one and the same.) I am not saying the proposed canon policy is a bad one. I'm saying implementing it is premature. (Drafting it is not.) And I'm saying that treating Legends any differently than S-canon would have been treated is a fallacy nine years in the making, based on all the definitions we've been given. I feel like all anyone is seeing here are the words "not canon" and not the meaning of the words surrounding them. At best, we have a grey area here: non-canon defined in S-canon terms. Something that could very well be cleared up in an upcoming statement; Heddle has been frank, and her use of the term "canon" might not mean the same to her as it does to us. Holding off on new policies for now seems best to me, outside of having a place to dump new-canon and apocryphized material until it's time for said policies—or tell me we handled S-canon wrong all this time, and this was a long time in coming, which is possible. Winchester 327 Comlink » 05:58, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • The difference is that S-canon was considered fully canon on its own unless contradicted by a higher source. The Legends stuff is explictly non-canon unless referenced by a new-canon source. So they are not functionally identical. Also, this is not the same as the "two canons" (movies and movies/EU) that we had before, in that we only have one canon now, and everything else (i.e. Legends) is completely non-canon.
      Master JonathanJedi symbolCouncil Chambers
      06:05 UTC MonApril 28, 2014
      • Also, as I understood it, the story group now has liberty to change things we are used to. If they decide that Han and Leia are not married, then in the new canon they are not, but in Legends stuff they still are. This might lead into two completely different timelines.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 06:10, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
        • If S-canon was considered fully canon, then the text in the canon article is incorrect. Possible, as it's not sourced: "The materials are available to be used or ignored as needed by current authors. This includes mostly older works, such as much of the Marvel Star Wars comics, that predate a consistent effort to maintain continuity; it also contains certain elements of a few otherwise N-canon stories, and other things that 'may not fit just right.' Many formerly S-canon elements have been elevated to C-canon through their inclusion in more recent works by continuity-minded authors, while many other older works (such as The Han Solo Adventures) were accounted for in continuity from the start despite their age, and thus were always C-canon." Functionally identical to Legends status. No two ways about it. But is the article inaccurate?

          And this is the same as the "two canons," functionally, just not semantically. Just because we are told Legends is not canon does not mean it no longer has its own internal canon; all that's occurred here is a shift where the territory of the G- and T-level material has been expanded to cover the whole timeline, rather than just the film periods, the three years of the Clone Wars, anything they reference, and miscellaneous declarations. Because the expansion was absolute (didn't leave an "untouched" patch, e.g. a particular year BBY) it can semantically be called the "only" canon, the new "one universe," but this is mechanically no different than the EU ever was to the film-only canon. It's the same relationship.

          Dionne Jinn, I see it the same way as you. But that just describes S-canon, or, in a more general sense, retcons. Two timelines is one way to look at it, but apocryphal stories vs. updated continuity is another; you could read the old Marvel comics and consider them a timeline, since they are cohesive within themselves. Winchester 327 Comlink » 06:27, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  • Regarding the reliable sources in the Legends section, what about Star Wars (Dark Horse 2013)? Like Legacy II, it's an ongoing series that has been going on since before the announcement, but still has a few issues left, so I'd assume it should also be noted as an exception. QuiGonJinn Senate seal(Talk) 10:25, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • That's a good question. I didn't include Dark Horse's new Star Wars run because, unlike Rebel Heist and Legacy II, that wasn't something Jen Heddle specifically addressed, so it's unclear. But it almost certainly would be Legends, and I'm sure we can ask her. I'll try sending her a question about this and will post anything I find out. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 16:55, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  • I would think while this is all ongoing, there could be two ways of dealing with this. In the article for someone like Luke Skywalker, the sections of EU material would just be marked at start and finish in a tag like the ambiguously canon tag, but that says "this is part of the Legends continuity" or something similar. But for less important articles for, say, the Motti and Tagge examples, they are movie characters but we don't really know what's canon yet. For some of these that will not be immediately rewritten, I'd say a "placeholder" tag at the top of the article marking it as including elements of "Legends" would be a good idea. --JMM (talk) 12:44, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • It will take some time to sort everything out, so I agree that we are going to need something to signal the articles that need attention regarding a change of this magnitude. It isn't something that can happen overnight.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 12:59, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  • Acknowledged canon books (i.e. interconnected with the 6 movies.) is a first, so, it's not proper to describe them as "new canon". --Tythonian (talk) 18:17, April 28, 2014 (UTC)

Ambig and other things[]

jSarek has some good points, so I thought I'd start a new section for discussing this. He writes, "while the Ambig tag no longer makes sense in the context of canon, it DOES make sense to distinctly label articles on topics from unlicensed sources. The distinction is no longer one of canon, but one of officialness, and (possibly) one of legality for authors drawing on those materials."

  • I'm fine with labeling things as unlicensed. We have three ambig templates: Template:Ambig, which is what we use at the top of all our articles; Template:AmbigNew, which isn't a template used on any article but which I think is close to what you're looking for; and Template:Ambigstart/Template:Ambigend, which partitions in-line text. So I figure we can just keep using two of these three templates but reword them:
    • Template:Ambig can say "This article contains information that originated from an unlicensed Expanded Universe source. This article's subject originated in a source that was released outside of the Lucas Licensing process, and its licensing status was never confirmed by Lucasfilm Ltd." We can even move this to "Template:Unlicensed."
    • Template:AmbigNew, which is unused, is basically redundant now, so we can just speedy delete it.
    • Template:Ambigstart/Template:Ambigend can say "Warning: The following section contains information from an Expanded Universe source that was released outside of the Lucas Licensing process, and its licensing status was never confirmed by Lucasfilm Ltd." And Ambig/end can say "Unlicensed information ends here." We can move these two to "Template:Unlicensedstart" and "Template:Unlicensedend."
    • And we can tweak the wording in any other similar templates that include some variation of the term "ambiguous canon."

Any objections? And as for the Expanded Universe statement, you're right that it technically began with Star Wars 7. Would you be ok with the sentence reading "The Expanded Universe, which technically began in October 1977 with the Marvel comic Star Wars 7: New Planets, New Perils!..."? We do strive for perfect accuracy, after all. :P Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 17:33, April 28, 2014 (UTC)

  • I personally like this option better than tabs; it's easier to remove if something gets recanonized, for instance. Rod (talk) 17:43, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • Just to clarify, this specific ambig discussion has nothing to do with tabs. It concerns only unlicensed sources. The division of Canon/Legends articles is a discussion for another forum. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 17:45, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
  • This is good Tope, as it would prevent the sudden merging of the hundreds of articles that were labeled "Ambiguously Canon" into confirmed "Legends." Using the term "Unlicensed" would continue to provide the proper separation of information that was not licensed or confirmed by Lucasfilm. Are you going to cross out and change the last point in your summary?--Richterbelmont10 (come in R2!) 18:08, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure I need to explicitly do that. That last point just says we won't be declaring anything "ambiguously canon," which is still true. We can just change these ambig tags to "unlicensed" outside of this proposal. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 18:12, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
      • The last point currently states: "The only significant departure here is that we're basically shedding the 'ambiguous canon' tag. Now that all of the EU is non-canon, calling something in the EU 'ambiguous canon' is pointless. So we will simply document that material as normal without any declarations of ambiguity." This suggests that any material previously categorized as "Ambiguously Canon" will be documented "as normal," and that the "Ambiguously Canon" tag will be deleted. This seems to imply that all "Ambiguously Canon" articles will be merged into "Legends," with their "Ambiguously Canon" tag simply being deleted. This is not the case.--Richterbelmont10 (come in R2!) 19:44, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
        • I think you're misinterpreting that line. It's not my intention in this proposal to delete the Ambig Canon tag, but we are shedding it in the sense that we will no longer be declaring anything ambiguously canon from this point forward. We will still be incorporating what was previously known as ambig canon into Legends articles, but now we'll be identifying that content as "unlicensed." So it's true that the ambig templates will no longer exist, because we will instead rename them as "unlicensed." With this understanding, there's nothing in that line that is incorrect. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 20:03, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
          • This is excellent, and covers all of my concerns, including concerns I didn't realize I had until you addressed them here. I have no objections, and change my vote to "Support" ... oh, wait ... ;-) jSarek (talk) 21:55, April 28, 2014 (UTC)

You mentioned that current ambig tags would be converted to unlicensed tags. What would this mean for stuff like Star Wars Tales, which were ambiguously canon but were licensed? Could we convert the ambig tags on those sources to some sort of "licensed Legends ambiguous canon" tag? After all, the Expanded Universe was designed as a self-consistent entity beforehand and it could still be of interest to have some tag indicating that these were ambiguously canon before that, rather than stripping the tags out entirely. -Thunderforge (talk) 02:42, May 1, 2014 (UTC)

S-canon equivalence, inconsistency with Wookieepedia SOP[]

  • As I was saying: Per unaddressed points below: (a) the proposed policy does not adequately reflect that Legends is equivalent in stature to the defunct S-canon; (b) Wookieepedia has no precedent for segregating S-canon material from the rest of canon, and therefore has no precedent for doing so with S-canon's equivalents; (c) Wookieepedia has no precedent for segregating EU+film canon from film-only canon pre-2014, and segregating Legends continuity from Cinematic "one canon" is therefore a deviation; (d) said deviation must be explained and addressed in the new policy, i.e., why the "two canons" were never segregated in the past; (e) with film-only canon having existed for Wookieepedia's entire duration, and film-only canon having viewed EU+film canon as "not canon" but "used as a resource," the identical nature of this extended relationship to Legends material must be addressed, e.g., EU was always considered "not canon" from the perspective of the film canon, and this is reflected in changes made during The Clone Wars, etc. The proposed policy is therefore a drastic departure from the wiki's SOP, and the reasons for this departure must at the very least be addressed in full; currently, the proposed policy treats this deviation as if it were SOP, which is problematic and misleading.—Winchester 327 Comlink » 19:53, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • And for good measure, the opinion of Mr. Zahn, since mine apparently means squat no matter how clearly I state the evidence: [1]—Winchester 327 Comlink » 19:55, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure if you've noticed but the EU has been trashed and so has its previous "Canon hierarchy," therefore we intend to reform it ourselves since it's not like anyone else is going to do it and we need some structure for it. LFL itself has stated that there's only one cohesive canon now which makes the series somewhat in the same class as the movies. Also, the entirety of the EU was never considered non-canon by official sources until last week (April 25) and that announcement alone ought to confirm it for you. As for Zahn's post, it's just an opinion and he has no active connections with LFL or regarding what they say about canon. Ultimately, no, your words are being considered but you can't expect yourself, an inactive contributor, to mandate how we, the bulk of the active contributors, do stuff here. The proposal is on the table and it's open for refutal to anyone with a valid vote who shares your opinion or rather just wants oppose to the majority's choice. Thanks. Winterz (talk) 20:13, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
        • You sound absurdly biased, wounded and opinionated, meanwhile I present facts that are being ignored. Winchester 327 Comlink » 20:15, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
          • All right, let's cool it down. Your comments are not being ignored, Winchester, and calling others out doesn't help. To be fair, no one will read them if you verbally attack others. JangFett (Talk) 20:18, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
            • (since Jang beat me to the warning) Obviously people will have varying opinions — you've stated yours. The majority seems to approve of Tope's draft though, as evidenced by the vote above. 1358 (Talk) 20:19, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
              • "To be fair," Winterz wasn't exactly personable and was clearly provoking me. But then, he's an active contributor. Fairly said, Xd. I'll keep myself scarce unless my points are actually addressed, but I think it's obvious they weren't considered since there was no real discussion. Winchester 327 Comlink » 20:26, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
                • The warning is for both of you. Don't always make yourself the victim, Winchester. We've gone over this before: They are not immune to policy. JangFett (Talk) 20:35, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
      • Unfortunately Zahn's word isn't much good in this case, I'm afraid. As much as I respect and admire him (he has written some of my favourite books after all) he is currently not part of the story group, which means he has no authority to say what is canon and what it not. I think I understand where he is coming from with that statement but at the moment what ever he thinks is just his personal opinion, not the official view of LFL, and as such we can't run with what he says.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 05:50, April 29, 2014 (UTC)
    • On topic of Legends being equivalent to S-canon as you claim, I do not think such comparison is warranted. The current situation is in no way similar to what was with the whole S-canon vs C-canon distinction. S-canon stories were still, for all intents and purposes, set in the same universe as C-canon. Writers were just not required to reference them, because of the number of contradictions with the newer source material. S-canon was "this might have happened, but we don't know for sure." Legends, on the other hand, can be described as "this definitely never happened, until we state otherwise." If something was referenced from the S-canon source, that subject kept its previous S-canon story alongside any new C-canon elements. New canon stories are going to explore time frames previously documented in the EU. The setting of the new movies thirty plus years after ROTJ already invalidates everything from The Truce at Bakura to the latest issue of the ongoing Legacy series. If they do decide to reference something from that time period in the new canon universe, it's not going to be the same thing. If, say, a Mara Jade would appear in new canon, it wouldn't be the same Mara Jade from the EU, since she would have an entirely different backstory. Why? Because Thrawn Trilogy never happend, neither did the Yuuzhan Vong war, and so on. Now, could they have settled on declaring only post-Episode VI sources apocryphal? Definitely, but they've explicitly stated that everything is Legends now. Even if it's something set in the pre-ROTJ period and there's technically no reason to call it non-canon, as there's no contradiction to the new sources, it's still Legends now according to LFL. QuiGonJinn Senate seal(Talk) 21:07, April 28, 2014 (UTC)
    • The situation sounds most comparable to how Tales #1-20 were handled. Officially N-Canon, but the stories still exist for anyone who wants to make use of them. Yet even if one is referenced in a newer source it doesn't necessarily make the whole story canon, just the specific element that has been used, as there may still be conflicts with other parts of it. DC Comics has used the same approach for their numerous continuity resets in the past. QrazyTyger 03:25, April 29, 2014 (UTC)
    • Canon means something is supposed to be respected in the future. By its definition as optional, S-canon never fit that criterion. And no evidence exists for the myth that it was valid until contradicted. S-canon has been mishandled by the Wook from the start, and should have been treated equally as N-canon, for the practical difference is nil. In other words, this whole debate has little to do with Lucasfilm, and everything to do with Wook tradition. If the Wook had treated S-canon right from the start, there would be no bones about this. Legends is supposed to be treated the way the Wook has always treated N-canon. For even N-canon can be referenced, it just has no power to constrain future works. Just like S-canon. Just like Legends. -anon
  • Does this new policy affect Expanded Universe media that takes place before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Star Wars: The Old Republic, etc.? Additionally, why can't people protest the decision to make the Expanded Universe non-canon? As much as there needs to be a more comprehensive continuity, it just seems inconsiderate to disregard most or all of the EU. Even if they legally have the right, it doesn't make the decision right.--Rakhsh (talk) 18:33, April 30, 2014 (UTC)
    • Yes. As of right now, only the six theatrical films, The Clone Wars episodes and film, and (per Del Rey's twitter post today) the seven movie novelizations are still canon. Everything else, even post-TPM, is gone. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 18:35, April 30, 2014 (UTC)
      • What about pre-Episode I?--Rakhsh (talk) 18:46, April 30, 2014 (UTC)

Novelizations[]

Per the Del Rey tweet here, I believe film novelizations should be added to the canon list, as Cade says above. Tainb'ocu'chulainn (talk) 20:11, May 1, 2014 (UTC)

  • Also posting this Tweet as further clarification—meaning that only what's seen on screen and is repeated within the novel (i.e. not 100% of each novel) is canon. So for the ROTS and TCW novels in particular, which draw more heavily from the EU than the other film novelizations, only the parts that actually align with the films should be considered canon. CC7567 (talk) 20:15, May 1, 2014 (UTC)
    • "Align" can be read two ways: first, that they are canon where they don't contradict the films, including what was not seen in the film; and then your reading, where only scenes shown in the movie are canon. In the first case, that's how they were viewed previously, throwing out whatever contradicted the finished film, never 100% canon, in which case they should be added to the Canon list. In the second case, they may as well be left off the list because they add nothing. I lean toward inclusion, in general, until we learn more to inform the decision. Tainb'ocu'chulainn (talk) 21:20, May 1, 2014 (UTC)
    • I also read "align" as "everything that doesn't contradict what's on screen". Otherwise what would be the point of the novels being canon if they had nothing to offer outside of what's shown in the movies? It would be redundant. Alexrd (talk) 21:29, May 1, 2014 (UTC)
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