I was browsing randomly when I saw something on an article that I hadn't seen for quite some time—an era symbol on the top of the page denoting the publishing era of the subject. A quick inquiry on the Discord and I learn that we never fully got rid of publishing eras in {{Top}}, just for in-universe articles. While this should probably not be changed (lest we have five different era symbols at the top of the pages of a lot of articles), there is a particular bit of the template's implementation that I think may be worth changing.
Back when the template was last amended, it was decided that the publishing eras would only be denoted on Star Wars Legends articles. Indeed, the documentation for the publishing eras on {{Top}} reads: '"Legends only." Publishing eras are not denoted for Canon media articles, as, at the time, formal publishing eras did not exist for Canon.
At some point last year (I don't recall precisely when, StarWars.com received an update in which it added the following page: Star Wars Eras on StarWars.com (backup link).
This page outlines a clear, organized list of the distinct eras as they exist within the present-day Star Wars canon, complete with examples of which pieces of Star Wars media lies within each era and brief descriptions of each era.
These eras include the Dawn of the Jedi (likely the upcoming James Mangold film), The Old Republic (404 canon stuff not found), The High Republic (YJA, The Acolyte, basically everything outright labeled "The High Republic"), Fall of the Jedi (Prequels, TCW), Reign of the Empire (Jedi games, OWK, Solo, Rogue One, Andor, Rebels), Age of Rebellion (Originals, BFII, Squadrons), The New Republic (Mandoverse), Rise of the First Order (Resistance, Sequels), and New Jedi Order (likely the upcoming Rey film).
It is with the establishment of this page and Lucasfilm explicitly identifying and organizing these publishing eras that I would like to formally propose the addition of these publishing eras to the {{Top}} template (in a manner distinct from the Legends ones; some may align but the Legends eras do link directly to the in-universe Legends articles for those eras), and the removal of the requirement that the eras only be added for Legends media articles—as Lucasfilm has acknowledged that publishing eras exist for Canon media, so too should Canon media articles receive denotation of their eras. Of course, each era will need an icon image as well, just as the Legends ones do (the icons on the official website would probably do very nicely, and some are already pre-existing on the wiki thanks to some of the Legends eras using them as well).
While the proposal is more or less to add the Canon publishing eras to the template as they are named and listed on the website, it is important to note that, at the time of this Senate Hall being posted, there is no official Canon media within the Dawn of the Jedi, Old Republic, or New Jedi Order eras currently released (though, again, from what we know we will have a film for both the former-most and latter-most of these three relatively soon now). Whether or not that means that these particular eras should be abstained from being added or not I will, of course, leave up to discussion and perhaps an eventual vote.
As a related but tangential matter, hovering over the eras currently states "The subject of this article appeared in the [era name] era." Given the era fields are only utilized for media articles, this text should probably read something more like "This piece of media is set in the [era name] era" or the like (thanks to OOM 224 for that particular suggestion). —Unsigned comment by DFaceG (talk • contribs).
Discuss[]
- Yeah, by this point it feels reasonable to either have the icons for neither continuity or for both of them, instead of just for Legends. Imperators II(Talk) 11:35, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
- Worth mentioning that Timelines also has distinct eras, while not the exact same as the StarWars.com list, it gives us dates for the High Republic (c. 500 BBY-100 BBY), Fall of the Jedi (c. 100 BBY-19 BBY), Reign of the Empire (18 BBY-1 BBY), Age of Rebellion (0 BBY-5 ABY), New Republic (6 ABY-27 ABY), and Rise of the First Order (28 ABY-35 ABY). These exact dates could help us with placements into these eras. Rsand 30 (talk) 17:21, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
- I think this would be a nice addition to the articles. Kyle03 (talk) 21:40, 14 July 2024 (UTC)