Talk:Maul

Equipment
I'm currently working on finishing this page, and am curious about an equipment section. As someone who isn't that familiar with notability guidelines here, what would peoples' thoughts be on including an equipment section that includes two sections: one with Maul's double-bladed lightsaber, and another with the darksaber? Would those be notable enough, especially with the darksaber mostly having belonged to Pre Vizsla during the show's run (Maul only had it for 2 episodes + Son of Dathomir)? The double-bladed saber could be notable, but at the same time I may be looking at through through an out-of-universe lense. - 01:09, May 23, 2014 (UTC)

Maul's Childhood
Where does that picture of Darth Maul as a child come fro is that still a canon source or Legends? Matt Seay (talk) 05:01, May 25, 2014 (UTC) Okay thanks, that is what I was thinking. Matt Seay (talk) 05:10, May 25, 2014 (UTC)
 * It comes from Star Wars: Darth Maul—Son of Dathomir, Part One, a canon comic adapted from unproduced Star Wars: The Clone Wars scripts. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 05:05, May 25, 2014 (UTC)

chest tats/markings
Should it be noted that the canon version of mauls chest tattoos/markings (not sure what they are in canon) are nearly identical to those in the Legends continuity which showed them first in the old Darth Maul comic? Or have I failed to note an important piece of concept art from the Phantom Menace that depicts them? I think this is important to note... not sure... ralok (talk) 04:28, June 26, 2014 (UTC)

power and abilities ?
can someone tell why is this info is in maul's power and abilities section ?

''--- His skills paled in comparison to Sidious, however, even after Maul declared himself the true Lord of the Sith. During their encounter on Mandalore, Sidious easily pinned Maul to a wall using the Force, bested him in lightsaber combat, and captured him. It was just before this capture that Maul experienced Sidious' power over him and begged for mercy.--- ''

This is more like ---Sidious wankery--- more than Maul's power info, this is ridiculous, Maul did a very good job against Sidious, kicked his torso and blade lock etc. Yet this become more like Sidious's power and abilities section, I did some additions here yet Brandon take it back. And I didn't add any non-canon info here, I only add from TCW episodes and Son of Dathomir. --Marco 1907 (talk) 16:14, November 25, 2014 (UTC)
 * Powers and abilities sections should be balanced; the quoted text showed a weakness against another opponent, whereas in almost all other duels, Maul had been the victor or at least brought it to a stalemate. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 16:25, November 25, 2014 (UTC)

I didn't see any info about Mace kicking ass of Sidious's in his power and abilities section, nor Vader's defeats in his own section, why is this info exist Maul's power and abilities section then ? --Marco 1907 (talk) 16:30, November 25, 2014 (UTC)
 * The Sidious and Anakin pages are not very good. One page's content does not affect the other; one page doing it one way does not affect the other. The Darth Maul page was written to be balanced and to cover the relevant info; I can't speak to the other two pages because I did not write them. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 16:32, November 25, 2014 (UTC)

Image
Should we update this page with an image of Maul from TCW instead of from TPM?? Policy is to use the most recent (chronological-wise) appearance of the character, and since Maul's return in TCW is over ten years since the events of TPM I'd say that warrants a new main image for him. Cevan (talk) 19:16, March 8, 2015 (UTC)
 * We've always favored live-action over animation whenever possible. And in this case, Maul from TCW looks exactly the same as Maul from Episode I, so I don't see a need to change it. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 19:23, March 8, 2015 (UTC)
 * What about Hera Syndulla's page then? The cover for "A New Dawn" is clearly made to look realistic and like it's live action. The book takes place only six years before Rebels as opposed to Maul in TPM and TCW which was over ten years, and Hera looks the exact same. Cevan (talk) 19:28, March 8, 2015 (UTC)
 * Because she's primarily an animated character, and there isn't an actual live-action image of her. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 19:32, March 8, 2015 (UTC)
 * To expand a bit more, there's no actual policy that I'm aware of that says we must use an image from a character's most chronologically recent appearance. That's true sometimes, but not always. Live-action should and generally does trump everything else. That's long since been established. You can see that on every Legends page for a major OT movie character, despite the fact that almost all of them went on to be depicted in various Legends stories decades after Episode VI. Almost all of them have more "recent" looks in those EU stories, but we don't use those images. We use the live-action ones. Live action should always take priority so long as live-action accurately depicts the entirety of the character. The current image of Darth Maul does. It's an iconic shot, it's a well-framed shot, and is the best infobox-worthy Darth Maul image that's out there. -  Brandon Rhea (talk) 19:58, March 8, 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah alright then; thanks for the clarification, Brandon! Cevan (talk) 20:11, March 8, 2015 (UTC)

Move page
As of "Twilight of the Apprentice," he only identifies himself as Maul, as he no longer considers himself a Sith. Should the page be moved to Maul? -  AV-6R7  Crew Pit 02:44, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen the episode in question, but I would certainly say so. Its always been policy that we go with whatever the character is most recently identifying by within the current continuity. If he doesn't consider himself "Darth" anymore, then neither should we, and the article should be moved appropriately. ProfessorTofty (talk) 02:47, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * I would STRONGLY advise not doing that. That's going to do major damage to this page's Search Engine Optimization in two big ways:
 * One, by only being called "Maul," it's no longer going to be identified by the most recognizable name of "Darth Maul." It will fall in search engine results.
 * The Legends page will end up getting the SEO boost. People searching for information about Darth Maul will wind up on the Legends page. They won't find anything about Darth Maul in Rebels, and will find lots of information that does not apply to his canonical storyline. We'll be right back into the situation we were in before the canon/Legends default swap. We will be doing a disservice to readers by moving this page.
 * Please do not move this page until we have had a chance to more formally discuss this. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 02:53, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * I would also disagree. Not only cause of the reason of SEO (which is a big reason) but also because according to Maul himself, he wasn't always known as Maul. We can assume that the name Maul came with the Darth title, which gives reason enough to just leave it as is. Weirdo Guy (talk ) 02:56, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * Tope protected the page temporarily so we can consider our options. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 03:12, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

I support the move. Maul no longer uses the "Darth" title, and the word "Maul" applies to his Sith name anyway. Not to mention that the article about Darth Revan is simply called Revan. I think the same principle can be applied here. DarkKnight2149 03:27, March 31, 2016 (UTC) Some historical context, before I get into my main point. When we made the change that put canon pages into the default namespaces (i.e. moving Luke Skywalker/Canon to Luke Skywalker, and putting the Legends page on Luke Skywalker/Legends), there was a huge risk associated with those page moves. It could've harmed the SEO of all pages involved, and harmed them significantly. Luckily, Google ingested the change well&mdash;something it doesn't always do. The Legends pages took somewhat of a hit, but the key pages - the canon ones - were fine. And the Legends pages are now generally right behind the canon ones in search results, so it all worked out in the end.
 * In terms of SEO (naming policy notwithstanding), Revan is likely just as strong if not stronger than just "Darth Revan." It's a unique name, and it's well-identified with the character. "Maul" is a generic word with no unique association to Star Wars or to Darth Maul's character. The page will take a bad hit if we move it. I'm probably in the minority amongst the community here, but I think those out-of-universe considerations need to trump in-universe ones sometimes. The health and accessibility of our content is vital. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 03:31, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * A quick Google search reveals that our Darth Maul articles are the topic results when one simply searches the word maul. -  AV-6R7  Crew Pit 03:36, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * That's largely because of the strength of the current name, a strength that will be weakened by the page move. Keep in mind too that Google knows your search habits, so it's also feeding you content that's relevant to you. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 03:39, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * A quick Bing search has the Darth Maul article as the 8th result when you type in "Maul". Brules Brules signature.png here to chat 03:46, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * I see your point. When logged out of my Google account, it's comes up as the second result. -  AV-6R7  Crew Pit 03:48, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

This is a different situation. To that end, here is a quick note about SEO. You can't look at what the search results are like now and use that to say moving the page will be fine. That's not how SEO works. When you make a change on a normal website, you keep a redirect in the page's meta information. So if this was a regular website, if we moved Darth Maul to Maul, then Darth Maul would still redirect to it. That change would be ingested well enough&mdash;and the use of redirects and the way we did the canon/Legends switch is why that situation worked out fine.

But on a website like Wikia, where MediaWiki plays a significant role in how pages are structured, it doesn't work that way. You keep a redirect on the page, but not in the metadata. And in this case, we wouldn't have a redirect at all, because Darth Maul/Legends would end up moving back to Darth Maul. We'd therefore have two pages: Maul (the canon page) and Darth Maul (the Legends page). The SEO is going to go to Darth Maul, the Legends page. That's the strong URL. But Maul? Could take a really bad hit, and that's not ideal&mdash;especially not after a major episode where the character returned. The Maul page would be penalized, and whether it could recover&mdash;and how long that could take&mdash;is not something we can guarantee.

Not only that, but as I said before, it will lead to a confusing reader experience. Wikia ran a survey for readers (i.e. logged out visitors) on Wookieepedia not too long ago, just for our own curiosity really, to see how many people actually knew what Canon and Legends meant. It was about 60% or so, if memory serves, that knew what it meant. That's a decent number, a clear majority, but the 40% who didn't know what that meant is a huge number. That means people are going to be landing on the Legends page, not seeing Rebels info, seeing information that has no relevance to the canonical character, and ultimately having no idea what the difference between Canon and Legends is. I say that to counter what would've been a likely response to me here: that people can just click the Canon tab and get the canonical information. Not only is that an inconvenience to readers (the more you make people click to get what they want, the less people will get there), but 40% of readers have no idea what those tabs mean.

So I think we have three options here, not counting the proposed move:


 * 1) The naming policy can be interpreted in such a way that lets us keep the page names as-is. I rate the chances of this being the final option as unlikely.
 * 2) We can add a clause to the naming policy that says that if a page move would harm SEO, then we don't have to move the page. I think having this flexibility is important in general. If a decision made to reflect an in-universe change is going to negatively affect the discoverability of our content, then that is arguably the wrong decision. I rate this being the final outcome as possible, but I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath.
 * 3) We move this page to "Maul," but keep Darth Maul/Legends right where it is. That means Darth Maul would redirect to Maul. If we can keep that redirect pointing at the canon page, then I think we'll be fine with SEO, just as we were in the Canon/Legends page name changes. I rate this as a more possible option, but it's unprecedented so I honestly have no idea what people will think.

I'm headed off for the night, so I'll see any replies to this tomorrow morning. - Brandon Rhea (talk) 04:05, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * If we are to move the article in the end, I believe that the third option that you presented could make sense. -  AV-6R7  Crew Pit 04:20, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * He says that he is formerly Darth Maul, but that's before he reveals himself to Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka. Maul could easily use Ezra to kill Vader and Sidious (I know he doesn't, but it would be the plan) and become the Dark Lord of the Sith.--Marcuspearl (talk) 04:53, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * The character in question personally identifies himself as Maul (not Darth Maul anymore), so the article should reflect this per the naming policy. It would be similar to how Sheev Palpatine was moved to Darth Sidious after the Databank revealed that the Emperor identified himself by his Sith name in thought and action. Since Maul's appearance in Rebels only applies to his canon version, we can certainly keep his legends article as "Darth Maul/Legends." Ergo, I believe Option 3 is our best choice. JRT2010 (talk) 05:00, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * The third option sounds like the best idea. --LoLuX12 (talk) 05:01, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * My vote goes for the third option. Cevan  IMPpress.svg  (talk)  11:53, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * Option 3 appears to be the lesser of the three evils, so that's where my vote lies. GG, Cap'n B! Nivlacanator (talk)  16:48, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * Option 3 seems to be the way to go. --LelalMekha (talk) 16:55, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * A fourth option just came to mind. Although "Twilight of the Apprentice" is the episode where Maul declared he was no longer Darth Maul, technically speaking he was no longer a Sith in The Clone Wars either. We refer to him as a former Sith Lord and renegade Sith Lord, but under the Rule of Two he is no longer a Sith. That means he is no longer really a Darth in The Clone Wars. That would mean we could also change the page name of Darth Maul/Legends. So we'd move Darth Maul to Maul, and Darth Maul/Legends to Maul/Legends. Per our existing redirect practices, Darth Maul would redirect to Maul. So this accomplishes this intent of the third option as well. Thoughts? - Brandon Rhea (talk) 17:06, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * I personally still think the third option is the best, but I really like the thought you've given into the fourth option. --LoLuX12 (talk) 17:10, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, Brandon. I didn't think about that. It's true that due to the Rule of Two, Maul could no longer be "Darth Maul" in TCW since he technically wasn't a Sith Lord anymore. However, at the time he still personally identified himself as a Sith&mdash;even going so far as to refer to himself and his brother as the true lords of the Sith. Honestly I'm not really sure what we should do in this case. On one hand, he couldn't be Darth Maul in TCW (Canon or Legends) because of the Rule of Two, but at the same time he hadn't personally renounced his Sith identity either. To be honest, it seems like a difficult call either way. Although the naming policy could allow for one to argue that an ex-Sith Lord could keep his Darth title if he still personally identifies himself as such in thought and action, I think it would be easier to follow the Rule of Two. So I'll switch my support from option 3 to option 4 because, as you said, Maul technically couldn't be a Darth anymore by the time of TCW. JRT2010 (talk) 17:23, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * Option 4 feels like a stretch, especially considering that most TCW media includes Darth in his name. Personally, I'd say not to move either page at all, but I'm probably in the minority here. Cwedin (talk) 17:39, March 31, 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd say that we should keep the page here.--Nostalgia of Iran (talk) 17:57, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

Ezra as Maul's apprentice?
We should add Ezra as Maul apprentice, even as briefly, because maul considered Ezra his apprentice.
 * Maul was stating his intention to make Ezra his apprentice, but Ezra was never actually his apprentice. So it would be incorrect to add that information. Good question though, I hope this answered it! - Brandon Rhea (talk) 14:04, March 31, 2016 (UTC)