This is a Senate Hall I've had the intention to make for probably well over a year at this point, but for one reason or another I just never got to it.
Anyone who's been around in the past few years is probably familiar with the outcome of Forum:CT:LEGO Star Wars articles from three years ago. For those who are not, the wiki allowed for the creation of /LEGO subpages, particularly for subjects who originated in LEGO content but have since been referenced in fully canon or non-LEGO material. This includes subjects such as Kordi Freemaker, R0-GR, and... carrots?
It's that last one that finally motivated me to make this thread, but it's not only about that, I assure you.
To be frank, there are a few issues I personally have with the /LEGO subpages. It's not so much their existence itself, but the effects of their implementation and the manner in which they are implemented.
The first is the manner in which LEGO media operates with respect to one another and the greater Star Wars canon. While LEGO has created media for Star Wars since Legends was the primary continuity, they have continued to release them well into the Canon continuity. As with the Jedi Academy series of books, a large number of LEGO media (particularly TV/streaming) has followed a general continuity, from LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace onwards. This includes media such as LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles, LEGO Star Wars: All-Stars, and LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures. There are characters shared across these series and specials that are depicted frequently, such as Jek-14, Yoda himself (though he is non-applicable here), the consistent group of younglings/Padawans (what they're called is inconsistent, beside the point), and Noga-ta (or, as he's known in LEGO, Rusty). The characters as depicted in media released cross-continuity are not separate depictions—they are the same characters, following a generalized, continuous (albeit loose) story. Jek-14/Legends is entirely meant to be the same character as Jek-14/LEGO, not a separate depiction of the same character. The same applies with the (non-canon) attributes of Noga-ta and Rusty—though Noga-ta/Rusty is a bit unique in that he does have an explicit, fully-canon Legends counterpart, whereas in Canon he is solely in LEGO media.
The second—and, in my opinion, more imporant—issue is the manner in which these /LEGO subpages are found. As pretty much all of you likely know, Wookieepedia is affected by something called SEI (Search engine integrity). In short, the /LEGO pages will not take priority over the primary canon pages when they are applicable. Rowan Freemaker is going to show up in search results before Rowan Freemaker/LEGO—it doesn't matter to Google if the /LEGO page has the majority of the content or not.
The third is that the loose requirement of "subject needs to have existed in LEGO first" is a bit too... well, loose. With characters and the like that exist primarily within LEGO, this isn't much of a complaint, but... Carrot/LEGO? Really? Does a carrot really qualify for having a subpage? Carrots as a subject aren't even entirely original to LEGO—they existed prior in the Legends continuity. Carrots are obviously not the only possible example of this, but cases like this are relatively few in number overall and I feel it's good to refine things to prevent further cases like this. (One might argue Noga-Ta/Rusty is applicable here, but as the "Canon" LEGO version is his sole Disney-era appearance he doesn't have a /LEGO page.) Edit: This one is basically already solved; Carrot/LEGO apparently exists contradictory to the policy, as it wasn't created for LEGO, just (canonically) originated in it. Disregard this particular gripe.
The fourth and final issue is the mainspace pages—the variants of these LEGO subjects that happened to come into existence in full Canon media after they came about in LEGO stuff. This one is more of a nitpick than anything, but it feels... strange to have small, almost entirely empty pages representing subjects who have all of their content on a subpage. That being said, the way it was before the subpages existed—articles with empty infoboxes and the vast majority of the content in the BTS section—was not exactly desireable as well.
I am going to be forward in stating I don't have a clear solution or idea for any of these issues. But, I feel that it's worth bringing this forward so it can be discussed among everyone, as I feel that solutions for these things (at least, some of them) do exist. Thanks all. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 17:49, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
Discuss[]
- Yeah a similar case I was thinking about recently are pages like Bob (Jedi) and Bob (Jedi)/Legends, or Rebel Friend and Rebel Friend/Legends (which is a GA). We split these pages into non-canon Canon and non-canon Legends, even though there's not really anything to distinguish the Canon/Legends versions of the characters. Just feels weird to have seperate tabs imo. Rsand 30 (talk) 18:02, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
- I do agree with merging a lot of the character pages but I will say that Rebel Friend is kind of a weird example to pick since a lot of the LEGO Star Wars games don't necessarily follow a strict continuity and frequently re-adapt events covered in previous games.JM1998 (talk) 16:41, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
- As the one who proposed the LEGO pages three years ago. I can say that the original intention of the LEGO pages was to move the article-sized BTS to another location where it could be better appreciated and formatted. For those unaware, before the /LEGO article, we basically had two articles on a single page, one in the main article with canon information and another in the BTS with LEGO information.
For this reason, the policy specified that the subject had to come from any LEGO media in order to receive a page. This would avoid the problem we originally had of having pages like Eye/LEGO or Color/LEGO.
Now, again we get to something like Carrot/LEGO, which technically falls under what's written in LEGO's notability policy, but the intention was always that LEGO pages should only be for items that were created exclusively and originally for some kind of LEGO media. Like Kordi, Rowan, Zander, Zoh, Nal Kapok, Tibalt, etc.
I think we could look at a way to specify that only subjects that originated or were created for LEGO could have a page. This would avoid having things like Carrot/LEGO or Coal/LEGO. DarthRuiz30 (talk) 20:14, 22 June 2024 (UTC) - Not sure if this would make it easier, but perhaps we do the same as other canon and legends characters. We have non-canon page sections on characters such as Anakin Skywalker, Sabine Wren and Ahsoka Tano to name a few. Perhaps, merge the Lego related pages of characters such as The Freemakers and Jek-14, with their Canon counterparts. Then people can find the Lego information on Rowan Freemaker and other primarily Lego characters.StarWarsFan327 (talk) 12:55, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
- On the subject of continuity, I would suggest keeping the spilt between (non-)Canon and Legends where relevant, such as Jek-14. Keep in mind that some characters from the Original Trilogy and The Clone Wars have very similar Canon and Legends counterparts. In the instance of Jek, he's shown getting a normal arm in "A Farewell To Arm," whereas he's back to having a cybernetic arm in "The Maker of Zoh." To improve issues surrounding notability, I would suggest a minimum word length to constitute a separate /LEGO article. Maybe 250, or 1000? Those are the minimum lengths for a Good or Featured article, respectively. Cyborg Commando (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
- There are continuity issues and retconning among the LEGO Star Wars shows and specials but I'd argue that it's only to the same level that those things are present in Canon and Legends, since the intent still seems to be continuing Jek-14's story rather then a reboot. It's also worth noting that pre and post canon reset isn't so much of a clean break for LEGO as you'd think, as LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales is after the canon reset but stylistically it has much more in common with Padawan Menace and Yoda Stories then it does Freemaker Adventures or All Stars.JM1998 (talk) 16:46, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
- A bit late to the convo, but I may have a suggestion. I'm putting aside the ambiguous canonicity of the LEGO timeline pre and post-canon reset. We could maybe add an additional button at the header, which redirects the reader to its respective LEGO article on the same subject. (Maybe a small red brick next to the Canon/Legends banner) I'm aware that this doesn't eliminate the need for a subpage, but at least it makes navigation much simpler for readers unfamiliar with how the subpages work; currently, you'd need to scroll down to even know about the LEGO subpage. Bonzane10
17:09, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have to agree with Bonzane, having a clear visual user interface in the tab aimed at LEGO subpage could make a great improvement in matters of accessibility to /LEGO pages. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 16:16, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
- An issue I've encountered related to the topic is that pages detailing LEGO characters which have Legends and Canon pages is that these Canon pages are required to detail their topics as simultaneously canon and non-canon. While the Canon and Legends split may necessitate that some pages are "non-canon to the canon continuity", having to describe how certain characters moved from the non-canon sphere of the Legends era to the non-canon sphere of the Canon era is confusing and at times self-contradictory if phrased in certain ways. On an unrelated note, I feel certain characters (by which I exclusively mean Quarrie, though I am sure there are or will be others,) who warrant LEGO pages due to signficant involvement in a piece of LEGO media, even if that media is not where they debuted. PipMcGee (talk) 07:13, 15 July 2024 (UTC)