Forum:CT Archive/Tab system

With the recent announcement regarding canon within the Star Wars universe, the entire Expanded Universe has been relegated to the status of "Legends." As we currently understand the situation, the new canon consists only of the six films, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and any future material published from this point forward. As far as we know, this includes the StarWars.com Encyclopedia, though there are some exceptions like Star Wars: Rebel Heist, other ongoing comics, and the Warfare Author's Cut.

As is clearly evident by the ongoing CT, Wookieepedia is against the idea of splitting the wiki, and thus Wookieepedia will continue to cover both Legends and new canon material. In order to achieve this, we have developed a system of tab templates and subpages that will separate Legends material from the new canon. This CT is composed of several votes, each of which addresses part of this proposed system.

Vote 1: Tab system
Articles on subjects existing in both new canon and Legends will be split&mdash;one continuity tab will remain on the page, while the second continuity will be shifted to a subpage named either X/Legends or X/Canon. Canontab, a template that is built into Eras, will feature links to both the canon and Legends versions of the article.


 * For articles that have different names under the two continuities&mdash;for example, Moraband and Korriban&mdash;the tab template takes parameters as to which page to link to. In the case of Korriban, the Moraband redirect will be turned into an article covering only the information presented in the new canon.
 * With this system, articles of a specific continuity will link to other articles of their respective continuity using pipelinks.
 * At this time, the old publishing eras do not apply to the new canon as far as we know, so they will not show up in a canon article's Eras template. However, if we learn otherwise or a new set of eras come into play in the future, the template can be amended to allow them.

Here are example pages for each situation:
 * Kanan Jarrus &mdash; Canon article.
 * Hero of Tython &mdash; Legends-only article.
 * Luke Skywalker &mdash; Legends version of the Luke article.
 * Luke Skywalker/Canon &mdash; Canon version of the Luke article.
 * Korriban &mdash; Legends article with differently-named Canon article.
 * Moraband &mdash; Canon article with differently-named Legends article.
 * Star Wars: The Old Republic &mdash; Real-world and Legends publishing era.
 * Star Wars Rebels &mdash; Real-world and New Canon only
 * The Tale of the Aiwha Pod &mdash; Real-world and Legends, but no era info.

Support

 * 1) Cade  StupidRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg  Calrayn  00:06, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 2)  Clone Commander Lee  Talk 00:08, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 3)  IFYLOFD  ( Enter the Floydome ) 00:09, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 4)  JangFett  (Talk) 00:13, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) --  Darth Culator  (Talk) 00:14, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Those tabs are freakin' HUGE. Winterz (talk) 00:24, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) *They were a lot bigger originally. Cade  StupidRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg  Calrayn  00:24, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) **Yeah but it's hard to focus on the article when those huge letters are staring at me. It's distracting actually, so I think they should be rather.. more "delicate." One would notice them passively and they wouldn't distract. Winterz (talk) 00:33, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 9) ***They have to be a bit large in order to catch the attention of the lowest common denominator, I am pretty sure. --Imperialles 00:35, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 10) This is clearly the most practical and visually appealing option. It effectively keeps all information collected on a single page, which in turn keeps things more manageable. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:45, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 11) Absolutely. Corellian Premier Jedi symbol.svg Force will be with you always 01:29, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 12) Makes the most sense in this senseless situation.&mdash; Cal Jedi Infinite Empire.svg (Personal Comm Channel) 02:16, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 13) A good solution, but a shame that it's the only option being presented. Its development should have been more transparent and with more user input. Menkooroo (talk) 02:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 14) R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 02:35, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 15) EU shall always be superior. Supreme Emperor (talk) 03:00, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 16) Per Winterz. I'm not sure exactly what's gained by having the tabs bigger than the title, but it's certainly not enough for me to oppose the idea. JorrelWiki-shrinkable.pngFraajic 03:05, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 17)  Exiled Jedi  Oldrepublic crest.svg (Greetings)  03:48, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 18) This makes the most sense in the long run. To me at least.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 04:24, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 19) Adamwankenobi (talk) 05:31, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 20) MasterFred Commerce Guild.svg(Whatever) 08:24, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 21) Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 22) I like it. And the size is good enough to warn the common reader about the tabs existence. Alexrd (talk) 10:46, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 23) 1358  (Talk)  11:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 24) 501st  dogma ( talk ) 12:33, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 25)  QuiGonJinn  Senate seal.svg(Talk) 14:54, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 *  CC7567  (talk) 14:59, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) -- SFH (talk) 16:08, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Green Tentacle (Talk) 16:46, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
A minor aside: I worry that placing the new Canon/Legends graphics in the Eras template makes it look a bit messy and/or overcrowded. I feel the proposed system looks much better in the examples where there's no eras present (such as the Kanan Jarrus article). I wonder if it might not be time to get rid of the old Eras in the template (do we even know if they are going to be used by future publications?), and instead show only these new canonicity graphics. I realize that is a discussion for another time; merely stating the point. --Imperialles 00:26, May 3, 2014 (UTC) As an aside... Cade, could you please import the Wookieepedia Oasis CSS sheets to your wiki so that we can view how exactly the things will look in Oasis as well? We have to remember that 99% of our readers don't use Monobook. 1358 (Talk)  11:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the graphics in the eras template look great, even in my tiny laptop resolution. They're not overcrowding in the instance that several eras are listed, such as with Luke. There's a lot of white space up there, and the gold Legends banner, especially, does probably the most visually dynamic job, more so than the tabs even, of clearly designating a Legends article from a Canon article. Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:45, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * To clarify, my issue was not regarding these new graphics&mdash;which are indeed both visually distinct and serve their purpose well&mdash;but rather with the era icons. Merely an aside, and something that can possibly be discussed in the future if Disney decides to drop the eras from future publications. It's completely fine for now. --Imperialles 00:55, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure they can be dropped from the Legends articles at this point. Unless we want to discard of everything that organized the EU content, the Publication Eras should remain. If Disney wants to keep using this method or not, that is now irrelevant to the ones used in Legends material. Winterz (talk) 01:02, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Turns out that there's some Wikia bug that's not loading the CSS for Oasis on my testbed, so there's nothing we can do for that. However, here's an example of how the tabs look in Oasis. Cade  StupidRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg  Calrayn  16:42, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

Vote 2: Banners
Vote 2: Users from Jedipedia have created a set of banners that will be used in the tab template; these were originally designed for use in the Eras template to display "Legends" or "Canon" depending on the page. I propose we implement these in the Eras template. The images are shown below, and are also visible on the test pages from the first vote.



The Eras template will be tweaked so that Legends will display by default on all pages, though including "canon" as one of the parameters will display Canon instead. The template will also not display either banner on real-world articles (other than video games, novels, etc) or non-mainspace articles.

Support

 * 1) Cade  StupidRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg  Calrayn  00:06, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 2)  Clone Commander Lee  Talk 00:08, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 3)  IFYLOFD  ( Enter the Floydome ) 00:09, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 4)  JangFett  (Talk) 00:13, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Legends > Canon. Winterz (talk) 00:21, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) "Canon" is the objective naming option. The nomenclature used by Lucasfilm and Del Rey is "official canon" and "true canon" to refer to the "new canon." Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:45, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) Absolutely. Corellian Premier Jedi symbol.svg Force will be with you always 01:29, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) Long live EU Legends!&mdash; Cal Jedi Infinite Empire.svg (Personal Comm Channel) 02:16, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 9) Menkooroo (talk) 02:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 10) Per Culator below. tis the "New Canon" Supreme Emperor (talk) 03:00, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 11) JorrelWiki-shrinkable.pngFraajic 03:05, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 12)  Exiled Jedi  Oldrepublic crest.svg (Greetings)  03:48, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 13) They look awesome. And I like the fact that the Legends banner is the more striking one.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 04:28, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 14) Adamwankenobi (talk) 05:31, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 15) MasterFred Commerce Guild.svg(Whatever) 08:24, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 16) Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:29, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 17) Alexrd (talk) 10:49, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 18) 1358  (Talk)  11:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 19) 501st  dogma ( talk ) 12:34, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 20)  QuiGonJinn  Senate seal.svg(Talk) 14:54, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 *  CC7567  (talk) 14:59, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) -- SFH (talk) 16:08, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) Green Tentacle (Talk) 16:46, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

 * I cannot in good conscience support this as long as the non-Legends tab is simply labeled "canon." Legends is the true canon. "Canon" is the New Coke of canon, and thus should be labeled New Canon. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 00:14, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * With the recent announcement that the film novelizations are part of this new canon, this idea of "one unified canon" is already starting to fall apart. The old tier system is creeping back in. Adamwankenobi (talk)
 * What is important, I think, is that it is made clear this is a decision made by Disney after it purchased Lucasfilm. "Canon (Disney)" would be the most accurate solution, but I can see how it wouldn't make for a good "banner". Keep in mind that we should not be sidetracked by fickle corporate decisions in documenting this extraordinarily rich fictional universe; think more about posterity and less about today's corporate decisions, which change at the speed of capital stock. --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 02:54, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * What about "Legends" and "Saga"? --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 14:25, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Our terms should always mirror official usage where ever possible. --Imperialles 14:27, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * My first impression was that "Canon" was boring. But I don't like "New Canon" since it won't be "new" for very long. I also thought that "Saga" sounded better, but Imperialles makes a good point about that. "Canon" is official. "Saga" is not.-- Richterbelmont10  ( come in R2! ) 15:25, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Could we use a more "Star Wars" font for the tabs?-- Richterbelmont10  ( come in R2! ) 15:27, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * I think this is a minor appearance issue that can be fixed later. The banner font can be tweaked at a later time; this is just for approving the banners as a whole. 1358  (Talk)  15:34, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

Vote 3: Default page
With the tab system, one of the continuities will be relegated to a subpage. This vote is to determine which continuity will occupy the primary name (i.e. Yoda) and which will occupy a subpage (i.e. Yoda/Legends or Yoda/Canon).

Either way, the following will be added to the Manual of Style's section on naming articles: (note that the stuff in italics will be decided by this vote)
 * 'If a topic exists within both the Legends continuity and the official Star Wars canon, the "Legends/Canon" material should be covered by an article at the topic's title, while the "Canon/Legends" material should be covered at a subpage entitled "Canon/Legends''".

Please take into account the following factors:
 * Choosing "Canon" as the default page will necessitate the moving of the majority of the TCW and film pages.
 * These Canon pages won't all be created right away; we can't move the pages and then wait for people to fill in the canon pages. Better to create the canon pages as subpages.
 * The sheer amount of content on our Legends pages will be far superior to the small Canon pages, at least for a while after this process.
 * At a later date, when the site's coverage of canon subjects is to an extent where they can be showcased, we can reverse the decision and move Legends material to subpages.

Legends as default

 * 1) Cade  StupidRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg  Calrayn  00:06, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 2)  Clone Commander Lee  Talk 00:08, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 3)  IFYLOFD  ( Enter the Floydome ) 00:09, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 4) --  Darth Culator  (Talk) 00:14, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) Winterz (talk) 00:25, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:45, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) Sure. Corellian Premier Jedi symbol.svg Force will be with you always 01:29, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 8) Support with emphasis on that last bullet point. As much as I despise the new canon system, I think there will come a time when we will need to accept it as the proper "true" canon.&mdash; Cal Jedi Infinite Empire.svg (Personal Comm Channel) 02:16, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 9) "Please take into account the following factor: Choosing 'Canon' as the default page would suck. So hard." --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 02:28, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 10) This is the most logical choice. Supreme Emperor (talk) 03:00, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 11) But only until we actually start getting information on "New Canon" stuff. Once that starts happening, I'm all for a rebrand. It's too bad we can't make it a user-preference thing. JorrelWiki-shrinkable.pngFraajic 03:05, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 12) Per Cal.-- Exiled Jedi  Oldrepublic crest.svg (Greetings)  03:48, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 13) Only until there is enough canon material to make a decent article.--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 04:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 14) Adamwankenobi (talk) 05:29, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 15) In response to Menkooroo: So, basically, for the next five years you want all our articles to default to pages that have no content, not because we're too lazy to add it, but because that content simply doesn't exist because there hasn't been enough information released to write long detailed articles on? I'm not seeing how that's constructive or professional at all. MasterFred Commerce Guild.svg(Whatever) 08:25, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 16) *Well, no. The claim that the pages will have "no content" isn't an accurate one at all. Seven films and six seasons of a TV show are already in the bag for the new canon, and new material is coming out as early as September. Where's this "five years" figure coming from? I believe that the professional thing to do is to keep canon information as default rather than non-canon info, as AlexRD says below. IMO, the length of the articles is immaterial. Menkooroo (talk) 13:05, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 17) As per many above where this is temporary. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:34, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 18) For now. It will take a long time until the Canon versions have gained some actual content, but until then, I think it's the best approach to feature the Legends versions. 1358  (Talk)  11:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 19) How about forever? :D I'll support putting new-canon first tab-wise when we actually have some new-canon info..... 501st  dogma ( talk ) 12:28, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 20) I wholeheartedly support any rule that officially justifies hiding the new canon as far back as possible. We might tolerate the new canon, but that doesn't mean we have to put it on a shiny pedestal. Too bad it's only a temporary measure. QuiGonJinn  Senate seal.svg(Talk) 14:54, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 *  CC7567  (talk) 14:59, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 1)  Richterbelmont10  ( come in R2! ) 15:34, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) We don't really have much of a choice. "New canon" is just too small at this point. Once we start getting more "new canon" information, we should shift our default to the that. However bitter that pill will be. -- SFH (talk) 16:08, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

New Canon as default

 * 1) This is our responsibility as the largest and most professional SW wiki. Starwars.com links to us, SW authors come to us to double-check canon information all the time, and thousands of people browse our content. We as a community may prefer Legends content, but our wiki is for everyone, not just for us. IMO, it's better to do this now than to put it off to an unspecified later date. Given some of the comments I saw in the IRC channel, I don't have a lot of faith that that later date will ever come. Menkooroo (talk) 02:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 2) *I was told that there will be an option to set your own default tab as a personal preference. Couldn't these SW authors (and others) just do that if they wanted to?-- Richterbelmont10  ( come in R2! ) 15:37, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 3) Per Menkooroo. Lucasfilm made the decision. To keep non-canon information (because that's what it is) as default seems to go against the very purpose of Wookieepedia, and is a misleading and selfish attitude towards many readers. Besides, it's only delaying the inevitable. Alexrd (talk) 10:58, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

 * No way that could be made to be a user option somehow is there? Like set in an options page whether you want Legends or Canon pages to load by default, then have Legends load by default for non-logged in users. Probably impossible with MediaWiki, but I really don't know. -- Xell Khaar (talk) 02:54, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, no. We originally looked at a Javascript version of this that would do just that, but that ultimately wasn't working out, so we went with this version. Cade  StupidRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg  Calrayn  16:44, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

Vote 4: Movie subjects
The following will be added to the Notability policy.


 * Subjects that both appeared within new canon material and received names and backstories within material that falls under the Legends brand shall not receive new canon articles until they receive names in material that is considered canon. Thus, the majority of subjects within the six original films that received names and backstories from Legends sources such as the Databank, reference guides, or trading card games will not be given articles for their new canon versions, so as to avoid a proliferation of unidentified subject articles. Once a subject's name is established in a new canon source, whether that be new material or old material that has been designated as canon, it can receive an article detailing its existence in the canon continuity.

Basically, this is done as a practical measure&mdash;the vast majority of subjects within the movies no longer have confirmed canon names, and they would otherwise receive an "Unidentified" article. For example, virtually none of the characters within Chalmunn's Cantina or any of the officers on the Death Star will be permitted to have canon articles until they have been named in a canon source. If we receive word that the Visual Guides, for example, are considered canon, than those characters named within the Visual Guides can receive articles.

Support

 * 1) Cade  StupidRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg  Calrayn  00:06, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 2)  Clone Commander Lee  Talk 00:08, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 3)  IFYLOFD  ( Enter the Floydome ) 00:09, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 4)  JangFett  (Talk) 00:13, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 5) --  Darth Culator  (Talk) 00:14, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 6) I like this idea. I like it very much. Alright, I LUV IT. Winterz (talk) 00:36, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 7) Toprawa and Ralltiir (talk) 00:45, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 8)  Corellian Premier Jedi symbol.svg Force will be with you always 01:29, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 9) &mdash; Cal Jedi Infinite Empire.svg (Personal Comm Channel) 02:16, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 10) Ach. I was really looking forward to renames like "Unidentified Imperial officer (Death Star elevator) [3]". Oh well.... --R5-X41238-G8-R3-3124-D2 (talk) 02:24, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 11) Sure. Menkooroo (talk) 02:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 12) Unidentified stormtrooper 27 (Third column, second from the left) Supreme Emperor (talk) 03:00, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 13) This is good. This is really good. JorrelWiki-shrinkable.pngFraajic 03:05, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 14)  Exiled Jedi  Oldrepublic crest.svg (Greetings)  03:48, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 15) Adamwankenobi (talk) 05:31, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 16) Hopefully they'll have the sense to at least keep all the names. Ayrehead02 (talk) 09:36, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 17) 1358  <sup style="color:#336600;">(Talk)  11:30, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 18) 501st  dogma ( talk ) 12:36, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 19) Nice forward-thinking there. Definitely a needed rule. QuiGonJinn  Senate seal.svg(Talk) 14:54, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 *  CC7567  (talk) 14:59, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * 1) If the "new canon" contradicts the EU sources, then we'll move it. Otherwise, we're going to have a lot of nameless articles of all kinds (characters, races, weapons, planets, etc). -- SFH (talk) 16:08, May 3, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
Will there be some way to note the fact that they appear in both, but only have a name in Legends continuity?--Dionne Jinn (Something to say?) 04:34, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Behind the scenes section? Winterz (talk) 14:46, May 3, 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if you look at my Moraband subpage above, that's basically how we'll treat this. It's how we treat similar situations already - like the Wookiee Dewlannamapia, or better yet the Galaxies snafu that is Chertyl Ruluwoor. Cade  StupidRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit.svg  Calrayn  16:46, May 3, 2014 (UTC)