Forum:SH:The Great EU Purge (New Canon;Legends discussion)

seriously are we not going to talk about this? Jennifer Heddle the Senior Edditor at Lucas Books said "It's all non-canon, but it all exists as a resource that could be used down the line."

This is kind of an important topic to dissucss since we now know the plans --DarthJon (talk) 14:38, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * It is indeed time to take our heads out of the sand. We now know for sure that the EU as we know it is a completely separate continuity from the nine films, The Clone Wars, and Rebels, and now is the time to discuss as a community and figure out as a community how we're going to proceed. Do we, for example, split Luke Skywalker into two articles (a canon article and a "Legends" article)? Do we relegate "Legends" to the Behind the scenes sections of characters/planets/situations/etc. that originated in the films? We have just over four months until the first book of the new continuity is released, and we need to figure out a gameplan before that time. Everyone's opinion is valid, and anyone with an idea is welcome to throw it out there.

My proposal is to tag EU-exclusive articles as "Legends;" possibly an image in the upper-right corner like we currently do with non-canon articles. Articles on things from the films could be split into two --- eg, Luke Skywalker and Luke Skywalker (Legends). Info from Episodes I - VI would be present in both articles. Quinlan Vos, for example, would have stuff from The Clone Wars and his Episode III namedrop in both of his articles, but everything from Dark Horse et al would be exclusive to his "Legends" article. We can ask VIPs on Twitter for clarification on stuff like TCW promotional material and sourcebooks, the films' visual guides, etc. Thoughts? Menkooroo (talk) 14:59, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * On the IRC people are talking about using tabs, each article will have a canon tab and a Legends tab. No idea how that will work for things that only exist in Legends material, or for things that only have *names* in Legends material. For example the many races, planets, technology etc. that are seen in the movies and Clone Wars but have only ever been named in the Expanded Universe. Strictly speaking that means they don't have names in canon yet. --Multiversity (talk) 15:12, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * That's a good question. Is M'iiyoom Onith still canonically the H'nemthe M'iyoom Onith? Or is she "Unidentified pointy-nosed cantina patron?" Also, a couple of anons were discussing this on Talk:Expanded_Universe. I was beaten to the punch with the two-article suggestion! Menkooroo (talk) 15:17, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd say using names from non-canon sources for canon concepts/characters/etc. until overriden by a canon one is fine. Especially that some of the names, while not appearing in the movies/shows were named behind the scenes while the movies were being worked on. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 15:25, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Articles with no canon name but named in Legends could simply have a message box at the top saying e.g. "this has no canon name yet, so the article uses a SW:Legends name" (and as we see with Rebels using the Lasat race, it's likely that more often than not the Legends name will be used if available) JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 15:25, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * That's probably the best option. I think examples like Korriban/Moraband where the names don't match will be few and far between. --Multiversity (talk) 15:29, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, for every Moraband, we have several examples like Twi'lek or Coruscant where the name originated in the EU and was subsequently used in the movies/TV show. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 15:42, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * What about characters like Darth Plagues? In the canon all we know is that he was a sith lord who mastered keeping people alive.  We don't know what race he was, when he was live or if he was even Palpantines master.   --DarthJon (talk) 15:26, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, that's exactly the sort of thing we're talking about. If a decision were adopted where the main article only included information from the main canon and nothing from the Expanded Universe, then the main article would probably return to something more like this. But all of that is up in the air at the moment. ProfessorTofty (talk) 15:33, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Given the new canon policy, pretty much the only available options are either this or keeping Legends information in the main articles until directly contradicted by the new canon (this way we'd throw away most of the post-ROTJ info from main articles, but keep most of the stuff from e.g the Old Republic era, which is not likely to be contradicted in the new movies). JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 15:36, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Another interesting point I just thought of: Presumably The Clone Wars would have to be considered part of the Legends "canon" in the same way the OT and the PT are - not officially labeled as Legends but taken as part of the background for the Legends stories. So for example in Legends continuity Korriban is still also known as Moraband as well as Korriban, whereas in canon it is now only known as Moraband. --Multiversity (talk) 15:46, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, what about The Clone Wars tie-in media - are novels, comics etc. based specifically on TCW part of Legends or part of the new canon? 16:05, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's something on which we should definitely seek clarification. Things like visual guides --- of both the films and TCW --- would give us species and character names for a lot of background characters, etc, etc. Jennifer Heddle has been really cool so far about answering questions which she's able to answer. If we keep up a good relationship with her, she could be a fantastic resource for how we're going to proceed. Menkooroo (talk) 15:59, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Given the new definitions of canon, there are pretty much two ways to go forward - either separate Legends information entirely from the newly defined canon, or treat Legends info like S-Canon info in the past - part of the main articles unless directly contradicted. Also, could the information possibly still be kept within the same articles, but with some javascript button that could be used to hide all Legends info and display only stuff that is marked as canon? JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 16:05, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Wellll, Legends info isn't S-canon --- it's non-canon. Heddle made that explicitly clear in some of her tweets. Menkooroo (talk) 16:14, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Example: in the Moraband article, you'd have "Moraband is the original homeworld of the Sith", with a button that would either hide or display the information marked as "legends". Would this be doable? This way we would still have one article on each topic (aside from maybe some post-ROTJ stuff) instead of having several. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 16:08, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * As for avoiding having multiple articles on one subject --- Green Tentacle is currently working on a mockup of a tabbed system. He's given me permission to link to it. But you can see it in the Recent Changes (or "Wiki activity," as I believe it's called in the default Oasis skin) too. Menkooroo (talk) 16:19, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Hold on, are we definitely sure everything is non canon? That isn't what I got from the official announcement, it only seems to confirm post-ROTJ stuff isn't main canon now. Anything pre-ROTJ might still be canon surely, I mean the latest TOR update was done with the Story group and so presumably is new canon not just legends, which by extent might mean all of TOR or at least some other parts could be. Did I miss another statement or announcement that definitely said all EU except the Clone Wars TV series and Star Wars Films are not canon? Ayrehead02 (talk) 16:11, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Apparently Jennifer Heddle is unsure about TOR at the moment. She has specifically mentioned pre-ROTJ stuff as being non-canon --- see Tope's collection of her tweets here (Tope, hope you don't mind me linking to that --- I saw it in the recent changes so I figured it was cool). "Q: What about the Kenobi novel, and other pre-Original Trilogy material? JH: Legends." Menkooroo (talk) 16:14, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * She specifically said that KOTOR is Legends now, for example. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 16:18, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Looks like she did say that the reference books for the movies and TV shows are still "there unless something new contradicts it" JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 16:21, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * As for the pre-ROTJ stuff, she says that while it's now part of Legends, "We don't consider it "erased" it's still there. As long as nothing new directly contradicts it, it's there to be used". This means that while not officially part of the new canon, any stuff set before the movies can likely be thought of as something akin to the old S-Canon - it's not likely to be changed without good reason, and is likely to still be referenced in future media. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 16:23, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Could we actually ask Leland Chee? He's mentioned he's a fan of the Wook before so if we reach out to him in this time of chaos and ask kind of how we should proceed he might give us some ideas? Like are named film characters still named, e.g the various rogues gallery articles from SW:Insider. Should we mark everything not in the films as Legends? Etc. Ayrehead02 (talk) 16:30, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * I say we ignore Lucasfilm entirely. There's no reason to make drastic changes to our articles simply because of their business decisions, which essentially amount to a bratty new kid walking into a sandbox full of intricately designed castles, and knocking the whole thing down. Thankfully, Disney can't force their policy on this wiki in that way. Adamwankenobi (talk)
 * The wiki has always adhered to canon as defined by Lucasfilm. There have been drastic changes made to articles because of newly released content in the past too. JagoAndLitefoot (talk) 17:28, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Those drastic changes resolved around solving issues like the retcon of a small quantity of material like the death of a character. This announcement however, comes to cause colossal changes if we go ahead with it since it defies our very existence. All the 110,000 articles here will be affected by it. Hell, even the naming of articles will have to be thought through as most naming was given in the now-considered non-canon. Winterz (talk) 17:32, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * In the name of all things that ever were good if but slightly, don't make a new EU Wiki. That would be the death of Wookieepedia and the EU (wish I was exaggerating). Just come up with a tag that says "This article incorporates both canonical and 'Legendary' information" or something, and slap it onto everything on the site. Every time a contradiction explicitly occurs, move the offending info BtS. Nice, easy, simple, painless, elegant. --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 17:37, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * It will affect them all, but mostly just in the form of adding a legends tag, which can be done by a bot. The only articles that cause issue are understandably those that appear in both the new and old canon. In terms of Clone Wars, a lot of the characters new to it are pretty much exclusive to Clone Wars anyway and won't need huge amounts of change. That means really only the stuff from the films will need to have hugely drastic changes made which is probably only several hundred or maybe a bit over a thousand articles. To be honest a lot of stuff effected needed rewrites anyway like Luke and Han and stuff. While it will be a lot of work to change these I imagine that it can be done, with those uninterested in the new stuff just continuing to work on the Legends stuff unaffected. Ayrehead02 (talk) 17:43, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * I looked at those tabs Green Tentacle tested, and they look as a viable solution to be. It might work.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 17:48, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Make a new Wiki&mdash;"Wookieepedia Legends" or some such&mdash;and move all existing Wook content there. Keep the main Wook URL dedicated, as always, to the canon Star Wars universe. Start again from the ground up keeping in mind only what's now considered to be canon by Disney/Lucasfilm. Pain in the ass, but we all knew it was coming, so may as well bite the bullet now. &mdash; DigiFluid(Whine here) 17:49, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * No. 1358  (Talk)  17:53, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * That would strip Wookieepedia of everything that makes it so great. I fear that this is what we would end up looking like. Adamwankenobi (talk) 17:56, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah I don't see a whole new wiki as being the solution. The tabs seem viable as Dionne Jinn said so hopefully that system will work. Once we get a bit more information it will become clearer what the best solution is though I guess. Ayrehead02 (talk) 17:57, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * That April Fools' page is creepy. Like a vengeful #%$&ing ghost. Yeah, tabs would be another solution. Old Databank-style. Although that's for later on, I think. Tags (with a 'g') would be best until things become clearer with the first releases of the new canon. --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 18:07, April 26, 2014 (UTC)


 * Can I suggest that we keep "Legends" material as the default pageload for articles, requiring new-canon to be one click away? I'd like to see the millions of lines of text that are EU-exclusive remain as idiot-proof to access as possible. Why? Because, although Lucas Story Group folks are as knowledgeable on the EU as anyone here and generally have a great relationship with the Wook, other Lucasfilm employees have a history of skimming articles (see The Clone Wars) and incorporating select few things, then changing canon on the rest.

Basically, I'm saying: if future author/screenwriter/director of this/that is new to Star Wars, we might lose COPIOUS amounts of EU material simply because, those (few? Numerous?) times they browsed Wookieepedia rather than bugging Lucas Story Group 30 times a day, they were too lazy/confused/ignorant to click the "Legends" tab.

I know this seems strange and trivial, but please, this would statistically save quite a huge amount of EU information over the years. It's a little manipulative, but it's also just a default viewing mode we're talking about.  Winchester 327 Comlink » 18:58, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's fair to call the Story Group knowledgeable seeing as all they managed to do is find Select All > Delete. 1358  (Talk)  19:02, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Amen to that. We should be the ones consulted on EU knowledge. Winterz (talk) 19:07, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * I wish that were the case. Anyway just in terms of content the legends tab being the default makes more sense at least for now since most new canon pages will be tiny and uninformative. Greententacles test page is a pretty good example of this. Ayrehead02 (talk) 19:12, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Not that this is the place to discuss it, but we probably owe Story Group our thanks for the existence of the EU at all after Disney. Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo are certainly among the most knowledgeable fans in the world, and have done a lot for us over the years! Chee maintains all EU information possible in the Holocron, so there was no deletion. My guess is LSG was formed to help save the EU and make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Winchester 327 Comlink » 19:22, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Although there will almost certainly be some contradictions between, say, episode 2-13 of TCW and Episode VIII's novelization or something. 8) Luckily, this will come under the heading of "continuity error" rather than whole stories written off wholesale. Anyway, I agree with Winchester and Ayrehead above, and I like the tab idea better than forking the wiki. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 20:01, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

If the Legends tab thing is going to be the policy going forward, what will that mean for contradictions in what was previously EU content? As far as we know there doesn't seem to be any requirement that all Legends material be considered to be consistent with other Legends material. Previously we could count those contradictions as errors that needed to be written around to portray a consistent narrative, but now they could just be seen as inherent to the nature of the source material itself. Why should it matter if one "legend" contradicts another "legend"? There's also the question of whether previously non-canon material (like the old Marvel comics, or the LEGO games) are also Legends. If so the Legends label may be better thought of as a collection of disparate stories than a separate consistent timeline or universe.--Multiversity (talk) 20:34, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * The rule with canon before yesterday was generally "if it is contradicted by a more recent source or a higher-canon source, the latter takes precedent," right? So wouldn't the same still hold true for all Legends material, with April 25, 2014 acting as the cutoff date for updating the Legends canon? Existing contradictions would be permanent, rather than awaiting official word/revised timelines.  Winchester 327 Comlink » 20:59, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * But we're not living before yesterday, we're living now. New Legends material isn't going to be produced, but the concept of Legends itself is a part of the current canon policy. Personally I don't see that there's any reason to think that past canon policy applies to either Legends or new Canon material. Unless we consider the past canon policy itself to be Legends, which it may well be. --Multiversity (talk) 21:06, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Cutoff date might vary, actually, since there are still some ongoing Dark Horse comics to be included, and SWTOR might be part of both canons. &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 21:07, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Another question about the tabs -- would it be possible to have users select in their preferences which tab comes up first? E.g., perhaps by doubling the number of skins, with users selecting either "Monaco-legends" or "Monaco-new canon"? &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 21:07, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think so. And Monaco hasn't been around since... 2011? 1358  (Talk)  21:09, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Monobook, then. 8) &mdash;Silly Dan (talk) 21:13, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to be a bit off-topic, but what you were just talking about wasn't resolved: I think it's important that if we go with the Tabs approach, which, I think we should, we mustn't give viewers the impression that Ledgends is an official multiverse-starter, or canon, as it is not. We should put something in the ledgends tab or on the homepage to specify that Ledgends, no matter how much we want it to be, isn't Canon, and that the EU canon is now technically invalid. I do prefer the tabs approach, though, as it seems to make the most sense and be the most informational.

That was supposed to be a grammatical correction asterisk, I forgot how to make those. Sorry about the mess, I'm sort of new.--Conner itsatrap (talk) 21:31, April 26, 2014 (UTC)conner_itsatrap
 * Legends, sorry I didn't sign.--Conner itsatrap (talk) 21:29, April 26, 2014 (UTC)conner_itsatrap
 * What Winchester 327 said ought to be Wookieepedians' #1 priority going forward: KEEP EU MATERIAL VISIBLE AS %&#@!!! If it gets buried now, it will not be accessible when it's most needed. --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 22:09, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Jennifer Heddle said that it's all retconned. It should certainly be available, but shouldn't be left where it is, because it isn't canon. Take that as badly as you will, but this site is NOT you, and this site must remain objective!Conner itsatrap (talk) 22:18, April 26, 2014 (UTC) I don't dislike that idea, but I prefer the Tabs because that way it wouldn't be mixed in with the canonical information. The Tabs would provide disambiguation, which I value quite highly.Conner itsatrap (talk) 22:47, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * As a fan site, we aren't obliged to follow Lucasfilm/Disney's every whim. Adamwankenobi (talk) 22:24, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * But we're not just any fansite, we're linked on the official starwars.com encyclopedia, and trusted by a million million fans! And even if we were just another fansite, we should still take things the way they are.Conner itsatrap (talk) 22:35, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * The fact that it isn't canon doesn't mean it shouldn't be accessible. Maximize its accessibility and stick a tag on top that says "This article incorporates information from 'Legends' sources", with a link to the canon or Expanded Universe article explaining the new Lucasfilm policy. --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 22:38, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Tabs would be optimal (Databank nostalgia is strong with this one). In the old starwars.com, I only ever read the EU tab because the film tabs were just a boring recap of the films. So it could actually help EU visibility if there was a barren wasteland of a page with canon information and a treasure trove of a page with EU information. The process would take forever, though. Tags would be useful for now. --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 22:54, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if this is a stupid question, I really haven't posted that much, but are tags the things that come up like "sorry about the mess," "I'm sorry, the article you're searching for does not exist," etc.?Conner itsatrap (talk) 23:20, April 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Like the ones here, directly below the disambiguation box. Right? --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 23:40, April 26, 2014 (UTC)

I'd vote for a holding pattern for now: leave it in unless it's explicitly out. Like, for instance, if Luke shows up with a new wife in the ST we cal slap a Legends tag on Mara, but until then leave her where she is. Keep in mind the official blog, which is knowledgeable in the ways of the retcon, is still running, so we may well get some, as TV Tropes puts it, "arc welding." Rod (talk) 01:28, April 27, 2014 (UTC)
 * I think there are a few people here who haven't accepted the truth yet. The EU is explicitly out. The starwars.com announcement, coupled with Jennifer Heddle's tweets, have explicitly confirmed that. There's no wiggle room. It's our job as a site to reflect this, not to pick and choose what we as fans think is still canon. Our "canon until proven otherwise" policy needs to do a complete one-eighty --- all previous EU is now non-canon until proven otherwise.

If we do end up using the tabs solution, I'll be a strong advocate for making official canon the default tab and Legends the secondary one. As has been pointed out above, we're one of the largest and most professional wikis out there, with a gigantic readership, links from starwars.com, constant references made to us by SW VIPs, etc, etc. We have a choice before us: To continue striving to be the #1 fan resource for documenting SW canon as dictated to us by Lucasfilm, or to turn into a group of bratty kids who don't like having their toys taken away. I really hope the choice is an obvious one to everybody. Menkooroo (talk) 02:23, April 27, 2014 (UTC)
 * True, we ought to play our cards carefully, lest we go from respected corner of the fandom to whiner central overnight...Rod (talk) 02:52, April 27, 2014 (UTC)

Tabs or no tabs?

 * Cade Calrayn has cooked up a revised version of what the potential "tabs" system could look like. Check it out here (the links aren't part of it; this is just what the tabs themselves could look like). What do you all think? What does everyone think is the most feasible idea at the moment? Tabs? Two separate articles for every movie character/battle/whatever? Hopefully no one really wants to split into two wikis altogether. Feel free to keep throwing out any and all ideas. Menkooroo (talk) 03:17, April 27, 2014 (UTC)