Forum:SH Archive/Tense issue

Currently, our Manual of Style states that "All in-universe articles should be in past tense, per the quote above," "Writing in-universe articles in past tense properly relates the timeline of that universe with our own perspective," and "Despite this, do not include phrases like "his ultimate fate is unknown" or "what happened to the ship after that is a mystery."

Now, when writing an article, I put everything in the past tense. Things like "it appears that" or "it is not known" would be "it appeared that" and "it was not known" (presuming it wasn't OR or whatnot) etc. This is how I think it should be on all articles.

Are we writing from a set time in the Star Wars universe? I don't think so. If so, then articles on concepts or, say, the Force would be written partially in the present tense ("the Force is this magical thing"). Is that desirable? The novels tend to do it this way&mdash;for example, in an otherwise past-tense portion of Destiny's Way, the sentence, "But space is three-dimensional" appears.

I'd like to add something to the effect of "Everything, with no exceptions, is to be written in the past tense in IU-articles. Articles are not written from a fixed point in time in the SW universe" to Manual of Style.

This isn't a vote; I'd like to start with a discussion, since I know some people disagree with me.

Relevant links: brief Inquisitorious discussion (near the end), relevant comment, and Tirog, an article which contains present tense which would not be allowed under the proposed new rule. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 19:07, 3 August 2008 (UTC)