Forum:CT Archive/Canon/noncanon

As the last CT on this was closed with no consensus quite a while ago and it's recently become an issue, I feel I ought to bring this topic back up. The problem is that currently, cut content, noncanon material, and so-called "ambiguous canon" -- a fanmade and fanon category of canon supposedly defined by the fact that it could, someday, be referenced and thus have tiny elements of it made canon -- is all included inside the main body of articles alongside canon information.

While it is distinguished by bracketing tags, the fact remains that this information is not canon. Cut content is not canon -- it's cut -- infinities material is not canon, explicitly. "Ambiguous canon" is material which is not canon but might someday become it. Moreover, it's broken into two categories. There is Tales canon, which was all published under the Infinities label, minus certain select stories which have been canonized; as such, they no longer fall in the ambig category. There are also stories which have had select elements referenced, canonizing only those references; the story as a whole remains noncanon unless we are told otherwise. The second category is that of unlicensed material written in certain magazines. This, quite simply, is not canon. It's not licensed.

Now, there's nothing wrong with including this information in articles. We'd be remiss if we didn't. However, including it alongside canon information in the main section is a horrible idea. It's just an island of noncanon in a sea of canon, surrounded by ugly tags, which adds nothing to the reader's understanding of canon and only detracts from it. By placing this in the main section, it interrupts the flow of an otherwise canonical article. An article which could have flowed from one canonical event to the other now has to interrupt itself to explain something which frequently does not fit with the surrounding events in that timeframe. In order to properly contextualize it, it's required to go into OOU detail which does not belong in the main body. Without that context, the canonical paragraph before it, in order to flow as anything more than a muddled mess, has to transition into something that did not happen. The paragraph after the information then has to transition out of something that did not happen. Quite frankly, it dumps a pile of shit inside the article and expects you to work around it. I don't know how an article like that could possibly be FA'd; this is simply incompatible with our standards of quality.

Now, there will be a vote. In order to avoid confusion, it will be in four parts, with for and against votes for four topics. No more options may be added. If you want this stuff in the BTS, in its own section -- we'll deal with that later once it's decided if we keep in in the main space or not. It's very simple. Havac 03:12, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Remove cut content from main article body

 * 1) Canon is canon, and this ain't canon. Havac 03:12, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Remove Infinities content from main article body

 * 1) This is the most brain-numbingly obvious one. If it's under the Infinities tag, it ain't canon, and it ain't got no place in a canonical article. Havac 03:12, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Remove ambguous Tales content from main article body

 * 1) If it hasn't been canonized, it -- guess what?! -- isn't canon. Havac 03:12, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Remove ambguous Polyhedron, etc., content from main article body

 * 1) Don't look like canon from where I'm standin'. Havac 03:12, 27 October 2007 (UTC)