After viewing the current trash compactor thread for a certain Ugnaught and talking to others on the IRC I think it's time we at least discuss what we'd want from notability guidelines. This preferably means coming up with a set of criteria that a subject must meet to be counted as notable and considered deserving of an article. These criteria can then be used in future TC threads that come up for articles considered unnecessary including hopefully those concerning real world items found in the Star Wars universe. As an inclusionist I would prefer these requirements to be pretty minimal but even I admit that there needs to be some kind of threshold in terms of notability that an article should meet in order to exist on the wook. Tope made an initial suggestion of articles having to meet one of these three criteria - a) the subject has unique dialogue, b) performs some unique, distinguishable action, or c) appears in more than one Appearance/Source. I would add that if it's named it also deserves an article which seems pretty obvious but for some subjects may literally be all the information available, which doesn't meet any of the above criteria. I am hoping this thread will allow users to give their own ideas for criteria and eventually result in a number of possible guidelines which can be voted on at a Mofference or in a CT. Ayrehead02 (talk) 20:02, June 9, 2013 (UTC)
- I'd also suggest any character appearing onscreen in one of the main (i.e. non-EU) films who can be uniquely identified should be allowed an article, even if they aren't named or given any dialogue. This is primarily because someone might give them a name, whether an official name assigned by an EU source or a fanon name that may have to be marked as incorrect. Nearly all non-speaking stormtroopers, clone troopers, and battle droids can't be uniquely identified (is the 3rd stormtrooper from the left in scene 11 a distinct character from the 4th one on the right in scene 23? Are they the same person? How can you tell?), and wouldn't get articles. —Silly Dan (talk) 21:08, June 9, 2013 (UTC)
- That Sounds like a fair set of rules to me. I was also thinking something will need to be included in terms of what lightsabers, if any deserve their own articles. This could be something like it must have had more than one owner, include a unique part or preform a unique function or something along those lines. Similar to the general guidelines. Ayrehead02 (talk) 21:30, June 9, 2013 (UTC)
- Personally, I was hoping the policy could start with characters and move on from there, but others may have better ideas. User:Silly Dan/Test contains a list of relevant TC threads for character notability (I was going to paste it in here, but it got way too long.) Some of the recurring themes I noticed:
- It's been agreed that omnibus articles on two or more unidentified characters are a bad idea, though some of them have yet to be split, and splitting articles has resulted in a few sets of nearly identical articles which cover very minor characters (example).
- The source of an article matters: movie characters seem to be most likely to be kept, followed by visually depicted EU characters, then all other EU characters. Characters from non-canon sources are deleted, of course.
- Characters who are only inferred to exist are deleted (Revan's parents and a bunch of Contispexes, for example.) A related phenomenon is names which appear as examples which aren't attached to specific individuals: this discussion led to a an article on a name being kept, while policy has been not to create articles on example alien names from Ultimate Alien Anthology and similar RPG books. —Silly Dan (talk) 00:58, June 10, 2013 (UTC)
- Also, there are two old archived CT threads which got nowhere: Forum:CT:IU Notability and Forum:CT:Anonymous stormies. —Silly Dan (talk) 01:06, June 10, 2013 (UTC)
- Personally, I was hoping the policy could start with characters and move on from there, but others may have better ideas. User:Silly Dan/Test contains a list of relevant TC threads for character notability (I was going to paste it in here, but it got way too long.) Some of the recurring themes I noticed:
- That Sounds like a fair set of rules to me. I was also thinking something will need to be included in terms of what lightsabers, if any deserve their own articles. This could be something like it must have had more than one owner, include a unique part or preform a unique function or something along those lines. Similar to the general guidelines. Ayrehead02 (talk) 21:30, June 9, 2013 (UTC)
- Hmm looking through the various examples general consensus seems to be that the name, dialogue or distinguishable rule works pretty well. This would prevent individual articles for entire squads of clones, stormtroopers or droid being created but would still allow articles like the Ugnaught to exist as he is distinguishable. The three Jedi masters could be deleted as from what I can tell (and I may be wrong) they are in no way distinguishable from one another, this then can be used for various game characters that use the exact same model and so are in no way distinguishable. It would also cover lightsabers and other weapons and items although it might be worth adding that ownership by an individual doesn't make it distinguishable. This obviously requires more input as we can't claim agreement from users based on past CT's and such but I imagine most still hold the same opinion. The distinguishably rule may need rewording though. Ayrehead02 (talk) 13:33, June 10, 2013 (UTC)
- What would be your stance on articles like this one? --LelalMekha (talk) 13:46, June 10, 2013 (UTC)
- I was thinking about these kind of articles earlier. Technically they would be covered under distinguishable in most circumstances for example that Dark Side adept in my opinion is a distinguishably unique character who exists in the universe. Other articles like this would also be fine too in my eyes since his use of the crossguard makes him distinguishable from others. This however might not be what the majority of users think and this is why the wording of the distinguishably criteria will be so important. Whilst I say that the Gran's use of a crossguard makes him distinguishable others might then argue that because Clone number 64 (Kamino) stands in the 3rd column of the 6th row of a huge legion of troopers he is distinguishable from the others in that only he stood there. Such articles based on sourcebook example images may therefore come to be counted as undistinguishable. Ayrehead02 (talk) 14:59, June 10, 2013 (UTC)
- What would be your stance on articles like this one? --LelalMekha (talk) 13:46, June 10, 2013 (UTC)