Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Star Wars

WikiProject: Star Wars (edit or watch this box)

Here are some tasks you can do, as organized by WikiProject Star Wars:

• Copyedit/extensive work:
• Assess: Rate articles from Unassessed Star Wars articles and Unknown-importance Star Wars articles.
• Tag the talk pages of Star Wars-related articles with the {{WikiProject Star Wars}} banner.
• Expand: Mara Jade, Secrets of the Jedi, Ambush at Corellia, Assault at Selonia, Showdown at Centerpoint
• Requests:
• Stubs: work on stubs in articles in Star Wars stubs
• Notability: Articles with notability concerns, listed at WikiProject Notability
• Other: See the things to do page

Kiner Music - create two separate pages for the siblings, or one article for the duo?

Kevin Kiner's children Deana & Sean work together under Kiner's Music (formerly Kiner Brothers) for various Star Wars properties. Based on their IMDB pages, they exclusively work as a duo. Would it be best to make them a page together (under Kiner Music), or give them separate pages?

I do not want people to confuse Kevin Kiner with Kiner Music, which is separate…since their father works on additional properties.

However I do not think there's enough information on them each individually to warrant individual articles. I believe it would work best as a duo article. Is anyone working on a page for them? Squiddyonwiki (talk) 09:41, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Is there enough information and reliable sources to justify a page for the two of them? If so then that would be a logical first step, no need to try give them individual pages if all their work is together. The same is done for famous writers and directors who work together. - adamstom97 (talk) 10:54, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Character pages

Hello! I've been doing a lot of work editing pages for Star Wars characters, and I wouldn't mind a little help. Some of the pages are in pretty bad shape. If you're interested in helping, let me know! Wafflewombat (talk) 02:48, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

New leading image for Rey

Another request for you all!

I started a talk page discussion about a new leading image for the Rey page, but after two weeks nobody has responded. I was hoping to hear from other editors before boldly uploading a new image. Would you mind giving me your thoughts?

Thanks! Wafflewombat (talk) 04:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Insufficient assertions of notability on multiple articles

@Wafflewombat: @TAnthony: Hi, just wanted to create this thread for both raising awareness and to be able to point to it with the "more sources needed" templates. Just to get ahead of it, Princess Leia was mistagged by me, so that removal was perfectly A-Okay. For the others, namely Darth Vader, Han Solo, Count Dooku, Chewbacca, Admiral Piett, Obi-wan Kenobi, Nien Nunb, Wedge Antilles, Luke Skywalker, Grand Moff Tarkin, C-3PO, and Darth Maul. I also added the notability template to Quinlan Vos, Tobias Beckett, and Saw Gerrera. Now, this doesn't mean I think they aren't notable - I would be surprised if Saw Gerrera wasn't - but as it is, I think it is fair to still question it, whereas questioning, say, Obi-wan Kenobi as someone who knows Star Wars is honestly a pretty ludicrous thing to do.

In the above articles, they all either have a complete lack of reception or have very little reception for how significant of characters they are. Vader and Piett, for example, having the same number of citations in reception is quite telling of this. I don't think this is a condemnation of any one editor or group of editors as much as it is that there is not the expectation that they need to worry about it. After all, no one is going to say that Darth Vader needs to be merged for not being notable enough. It's just an unfortunate case where, because Admiral Ackbar is a tougher sell, editors will put effort into that over the obvious ones. That's something that a lot of us at WP:VG are guilty of with our characters.

With that said, I don't have as much experience source searching for characters outside the video game space (I actually have a rudimentary tool for that: User:Cukie Gherkin/Source searching), so it's more of a slow go for me, and I'd have to figure out what film websites are good places to check for sources. If y'all can give me a nudge on that, that'd be fantastic. I don't know that I would actually be writing in any sources (don't know if I could really fit it in my schedule), but I would be fine doing the research so y'all have it at the ready. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 19:56, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this thread. In terms of finding film sources, I have found this tool helpful on occasion. Also, I've found it useful to browse through existing WP pages for sources. For example, most of the Reception section on the Yoda page was derived from sources on The Empire Strikes Back.

Due to various factors in my life, I'm not able to do dedicated research and article expansion at this time; I'm mostly doing copyediting and source-checking. But if you want to find some sources and save them for later use, that would be great.

I'm still uncomfortable with the templates you've added to the various pages. I feel they are misleading and inappropriate, and will confuse editors. I understand that a template doesn't exist for "this article needs more content to demonstrate notability", but I don't think that's a justification for using a template that states a falsehood: that the existing content on the page is unsourced. Wafflewombat (talk) 23:54, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The only better template to use would be notability, since Darth Vader does not demonstrate notability at present. There's also sources exist, but that's reserved for cases where sources are shown to exist, not where they are believed or even known to exist. I believe that having no template is worse than having this template, and I believe that the fact that so many characters who are considered among the most iconic in films have virtually nothing arguing why on their pages is proof of that. Considering the fact that the templates also link to discussions that lead here, the confusion should be minimal. By having these cleanup templates, the problems with these articles are more evident to editors who may be under the impression that the articles do not have issues to address. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 23:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from on this. I don't agree with the conclusion that the templates should be used, but I will accept their presence 😀 Wafflewombat (talk) 00:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Wafflewombat, I know you have been diligent about excising poor sources and "unnecessary" content in your recent SW character overhauls, but I'm wondering if some of the cultural influence/impact sections you've removed in articles like Darth Vader, Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi may have some useful content asserting notability of the character. Also the existence of merch may help in this regard in some cases.— TAnthony^Talk 02:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've been combing through those Cultural Impact sections, and I did find two tidbits that I restored on the Vader page. I've recognized my tendency to remove content a bit too hastily, and I am now revisiting the previous versions of every character page I've edited, to see if there is content that can be restored 🙂 Wafflewombat (talk) 02:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I do worry that you were being too haphazard with deleting content. Looking at Darth Vader, for example, a lot of the cultural impact that you removed seemed pretty significant, and was from largely reliable sources as far as I can tell. It's certainly not as dire a situation as I thought. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 05:10, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Please take a look at this thread. The removal was the opposite of haphazard. I asked for a peer review from an experienced editor, who recommened that the entire section be scrapped, calling it "atrocious". I agree with this assessment. It's a massive pile of trivia. We need secondary sources that state "Darth Vader is notable because X". A bunch of pop culture references is not acceptable. The key is finding sources about Darth Vader that assert his notability.

As WP:PROPORTION says, articles should treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. "On the subject" is the key: for the Cultural Impact section of Vader, what matters is how sources on the subject of Vader treat his pop culture appearances—not how sources about his appearances treat Vader. Wafflewombat (talk) 05:26, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly do not agree with many of the removals, hence why I added the content back. A lot of the content was not good, and I removed much of the bad content. Reading the peer review, there was content removed erroneously, such as the discussion of Darth Vader's psychology. The appropriate action would be to create an "Analysis" section and discuss the contents of the article in greater detail, not removing the content outright. Furthermore, the more appropriate - and simple - process would be to discuss what should be removed, not re-added, and why, especially since multiple editors feel you have removed content that ought not to be removed. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 06:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Are you open to discussing each item in the section line-by-line? I don't know how to proceed otherwise. Wafflewombat (talk) 06:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I mean, that's the most sensible course of action. There are many avenues that can be taken; for one, research can be done into whether the political context of Darth Vader as a figure has any greater discussion, such as through scholarly works. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 06:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Alright, I'll start with the insects. The peer reviewer said:

"What follows is a random assortment of references in media without any sourcing to back up that these are significant ones, let alone the most significant ones. A species is named after Vader—sure, species named after popular culture items are a dime a dozen. The same thing applies to astronomical objects, by the way."

The important thing here is that the sources cited for the insect names are not sources about Vader. As I mentioned before, cultural impact must be measured by how much weight is given to the subject—in this case, species named after Vader—in reliable, published works about Vader. Otherwise, we are doing original research. We are claiming that because Vader reference X exists, then it means Vader is notable. We don't have the authority to decide that. We have to rely on secondary sources to tell us what is notable. I did not understand this for a long time. Only after the peer review and another conversation with the reviewer did it "click" for me. Wafflewombat (talk) 07:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:GNG does not argue that significant coverage must come from articles about the subject. Furthermore, it would strike me as strange for an article about Darth Vader to not mention that his name is a part of these things' etymology. It does not necessarily need to contribute a significant degree to whether Darth Vader is notable, but not being an assertion of notability is not to suggest that mentioning it gives this fact undue weight. The only reason the naming of these two organisms is mentioned is because the secondary sources cited saw fit to mention them. In this, for example, the author did not list every name, it deemed Darth Vader one of the names of interest for their reader. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 07:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

In the WP:GNG, it says "Significant coverage addresses the topic directly and in detail..." The articles about the insects don't discuss Vader in detail. Wafflewombat (talk) 07:29, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This does not speak to whether they are invalid for inclusion on Wikipedia, merely whether it can be used to assert notability. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 08:29, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'll try another approach. There is an essay titled Wikipedia:"In popular culture" content. I've linked to the Content section, which states that a cultural impact section "should contain verifiable information with sources that establish its significance to the article's subject." I realize an essay is not an MOS page, but I would appreciate it if you could take a look. I would say that the insect articles do not establish the beetles as significant to the topic of Vader.

Another passage reads, "In determining whether a reference is encyclopedic, one helpful test can be to look at whether a person who is familiar with the topic only through the reference in question has the potential to learn something meaningful about the topic from that work alone." What this would mean for our discussion is: Can someone who is familiar with Vader only through the insect articles learn something meaningful about him?

The essay continues: "Another good test [in determining whether a reference is encyclopedic] is whether the item would be sufficiently useful to include in the article even if there were no special "in popular culture" type section. Absent the cultural impact section, would the insect articles have a home in the article?

No pressure to respond right away; I know you're tired 🙂 Wafflewombat (talk) 09:18, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I feel like there's a bit of a backward order of operations here. If the article is trying to establish Vader's broad and lasting popularity as an iconic figure, how would an encyclopedia establish that? A careful selection of the ways that he is invoked and referenced as a character and a symbol across fields helps established that he is broadly iconic. So, yes, the insects would have a home in the article in any portion that discusses his lasting cultural status as a recognizable cultural figure: people think of him to name insects after, which suggests a level of iconicism. It's the same for him being used in memetic politic rhetoric, and so on and so forth. The purpose isn't to include every single reference to him, but to present a breadth of cultural moments and uses that demonstrate his enduring popularity and cultural recognizability.

Cukie is correct in that sources do not need to discuss the subject of the article in detail for information contained in them to be meaningful to include. The issue here too is "In popular culture" is often about real-world subjects and avoiding curating sections that are every passing mention of that subject in fiction. The thing about, like, insects is a single sentence mentioning that this character is commemorated in a scientific field through this establishes a non-fictional and non-media interaction with a fictional subject. The essay is more relevant for "don't include every single passing reference to Darth Vader in other television shows, unless that instance is in some way highly significant". ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 18:59, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for joining this conversation. One of the articles about the insects states:

"The entomologists also named some of the new species after their wives and a former wife, Pocahontas, Hernan Cortez, the Aztecs, the fictional "Star Wars" villain Darth Vader ("who shares with A. vaderi a broad, shiny, helmetlike head"), Frances Fawcett (their scientific illustrator) and the Greek words for "ugly" and "having prominent teeth" and the Latin word for "strange." Many of the other names they used for the recently described beetles were derived from various geographic locations, such as California, Georgia and a few states in Mexico, and for various distinguishing features they discovered on the beetles."

Scientists name species after everything, as illustrated above. Are the entomologists' wives cultural icons, because they had species named after them? Wafflewombat (talk) 19:27, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This is deliberately obtuse. One is named after an entomologist's wife because she is their wife, and another is named after Darth Vader as a nod to his visual appearance, which suggests enduring popularity as a fictional character. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 19:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry for my deliberately obtuse phrasing ☺️ Wafflewombat (talk) 19:40, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

TenTonParasol, you appear to be working backwards from the assumption that the article should demonstrate that Darth Vader is iconic (If the article is trying to establish Vader's broad and lasting popularity as an iconic figure, how would an encyclopedia establish that?). That's not actually a given—it's true if and only if sources explicitly make that point. I haven't looked at the overall literature on the topic, but it does indeed seem likely that they would do so. They would then also, presumably, back up that assertion with some kind of evidence (indeed, perhaps through A careful selection of the ways that he is invoked and referenced as a character and a symbol across fields). Those are the sources we need to base such a section on, not our own intuitions about what would be good to include. As WP:MEDRS says: Cite reviews, don't write them. The same principle applies here (and everywhere, really). TompaDompa (talk) 20:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I feel like we aren't necessarily in disagreement there because I do agree that a section should and would be oriented around and based on such sources that do explicitly make that point and that the significant bulk of such a section should draw from there.

I'm making a point about smaller and concisely covered supporting information is does not necessarily not have a place nor is necessarily nor inherently undue, especially if the inclusion goal is to illustrate breadth of, say, homage. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 21:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Would it be okay if we use the example of the insects again? If a Vader-centric source said "Darth Vader is an iconic figure who has species named after him" then we can include that source's reference to the insects. But absent that type of source, what I've been attempting to illustrate is that we shouldn't be including mentions of the insects just because we feel personally that it helps demonstrate his influence on culture. Is this similar to what you're saying, @TompaDompa? Wafflewombat (talk) 21:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Pretty much, yes. It seems unlikely that mentioning species names (I have a feeling that the participants in this discussion do not fully appreciate just how incredibly common it is for species, and for that matter astronomical objects, to be named after popular culture items) would be consistent with WP:PROPORTION. I could be wrong, of course, but we would need pretty strong sourcing to justify including it. TompaDompa (talk) 21:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Our goal should be, above all, to accurately reflect the sources. Illustrating breadth is not an end in itself (but if doing so means that we are reflecting the sources better, then we should). TompaDompa (talk) 21:26, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@TenTonParasol: I want to make sure I understand your most recent comment. Would you mind re-phrasing the last paragraph that begins with "I'm making a point about smaller..."? There are some double negatives and I'm having trouble parsing what you're saying 🙂 Wafflewombat (talk) 21:36, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I am the above-mentioned editor who gave input on the "Cultural impact" section of the Darth Vader article when a request was posted to WT:FILM in early April (link to archived discussion). I was alerted to the existence of this discussion on my user talk page.

With that out of the way: Notability is not a relevant or helpful perspective to take here. The notability is not in dispute, the content is. We have guidance for determining what content should and should not be included: WP:PROPORTION, part of the non-negotiable WP:Core content policy WP:NPOV, which says An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. That is to say, sources on the overarching subject—Darth Vader, or perhaps the cultural impact of Darth Vader—determine what belongs in the article. TompaDompa (talk) 20:44, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Luke Skywalker reception and cultural impact and large-scale Star Wars article removals by Wafflewombat

Just three months ago, the Luke Skywalker article used to have full reception and cultural impact sections, collectively written by many users over a couple of decades: see this April 26, 2024 revision. Since then, a single user, User:Wafflewombat, has made hundreds of edits and removed virtually the entire reception and cultural impact sections and replaced them with a single short paragraph about disappointment in The Last Jedi; see the current July 25, 2024 revision.

I think this change completely and misleadingly downplays the reception and vast cultural impact of this character. It makes the article much worse and incomplete, turning the article into almost entirely in-universe information and removing vital context about the significance of the character in the real world.

I also object, in general, to the very aggressive editing by Wafflewombat on this and other Star Wars articles, frequently wholescale removing and replacing the text of many other users.

—Lowellian (reply) 06:41, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for offering your perspective. If you would like to restore parts of Star Wars articles I have removed, please feel free to do so. But before you do, I would like to respectfully request that you take a bit of time to carefully review the content you are restoring, especially the cited sources. When I removed material, I read through every cited source. Sometimes the text in the article did not accurately represent the source. Wafflewombat (talk) 12:56, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I have to agree. The April 26, 2024 is more accurate and... we should return to it, if at all possible. Other Star Wars pages he has edited includes:

• Star Wars (film) (not as much as the Luke Skywalker page)
• Princess Leia (extensive edits there)
• Mace Windu
• Chewbacca
• C-3PO
• Jabba the Hutt
• Qui-Gon Jinn
• Darth Vader (the entire section for cultural impact was removed, then reverted by another editor)
• The Empire Strikes Back (light editing)
• Rey (Star Wars)
• Palpatine
• Count Dooku
• Obi-Wan Kenobi
• Han shot first (an attempted merger into Han Solo which was later withdrawn)
• Kylo Ren
• Yoda

And that's most of the articles I can gather when looking through this user's edits. There was an extensive discussion about this user in the "Insufficient assertions of notability on multiple articles" discussion above, on this Wikiproject talk page. Historyday01 (talk) 14:18, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I am more than happy to discuss any edits I've made on any page. I would welcome a constructive conversation. Wafflewombat (talk) 14:27, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Tales of the Jedi (TV series)#Two separate shows

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Tales of the Jedi (TV series)#Two separate shows, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. - adamstom97 (talk) 09:55, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003 TV series)#Requested move 6 October 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003 TV series)#Requested move 6 October 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Raladic (talk) 19:42, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Annihilation

I tried to establish the notability for this novel and found 1 source that reviewed it ([1], [2]) and then saw that some store sites and the author's personal site claims the book is on the New York Times bestseller list: [3], which would satisfy minimum notability standards.

But the book isn't actually listed on the NYT site he links: [4] and not on the archived version which lists additional 5 books: [5]. I checked some of the previous and following weeks if he linked the wrong week but no, I don't actually find the novel listed.

So, can anyone find additional reviews or a secondary source for the bestseller claim, or do I send this to AfD, or BOLDly redirect to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic#Novels? Mika1h (talk) 22:46, 24 October 2024 (UTC)