Forum:No original research

No Original Research?
I'd like to open a discussion on the "No Original Research" part of current Wookieepedia policy. The policy can be found here in full, but the relevant part is this:

It qualifies this by saying:

I'd like a clarification on what constitutes what. The context for this is various bts comments could be placed into, or removed from articles. I'll illustrate with a few examples.

Some bts comments draw attention to possible connections between characters with the same names, such as the comment on Astraal Vao's page. It notes she could be a descendant of Mission Vao or Griff Vao from the Old Republic period. This certainly strikes me as a plausible theory, especially since Astraal's appearances were published after Mission's, and so is likely deliberate by the authors.

However, other connections may not be so clear. As one example, I added a bts comment suggesting that Wade Vox could be connected to a "Vox" that posted in Cynabar's Fantastic Technology: Droids. The computer game featuring Wade Vox did come out later than CFT, yet the mention of Vox in CTF is so minor as to make it unlikely that any deliberate connection was intended. However, given the timing of both and some other characteristics, it strikes me as plausible that in-universe they could be the same person. As a fan, I value these notes in the bts sections, so long as they are clearly portrayed for what they are&mdash;possible or likely connections, rather than established conintuity. If such connections were presented in the main text, they would of course be fanon.

Another example is that of Platt Okeefe from the WEG sourcebooks. The later source, Coruscant and the Core Worlds, described a character Barthos Okeefe, who is also from Brentaal, and from a notable family, such as Okeefe was. I'm currently writing Okeefe's article and intend to mention this connection in the main text, although it has not conclusively been made in a published source.

I think an argument could be made that some of these connections are only "straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data" and so are valid under the current rules.

Any thoughts on what constitues "original research"? --Eyrezer 01:18, 4 April 2007 (UTC)