Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Palpatine/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Palpatine

I'm nominating this. It is a comprehensive article, which is well-written, referenced, sourced, picture-ied, discussed etc. I've implemented most of Peer Review's suggestions, and I really see no reason why Palpatine couldn't be a Featured Article; it would be pretty neat- AFAIK, our first Star Wars FA. --Maru (talk) Contribs 04:51, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

The additional material was really unnecessary. It was a good, though bloated, article beforehand. Today's changes have largely succeeded in making it fatter with poor grammar and a variety of short, choppy sentences in the opening segment. - Anon

I feel I should note that the preceding comment is from an anonymous user's whose removal of references and other edits to Palpatine I've reverted several times now now. --Maru (talk) Contribs 06:14, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Peer Review: Wikipedia:Peer review/Palpatine -maclean25 11:37, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose - Is it not possible to fork this article out? It's so long, 100 kilobytes, and looks very text heavy. - Hahnchen 16:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
• Object Impressive, but much too long. It needs a good copy-edit to get it down to a decent size. — Wackymacs 18:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
• Object per above. Article is three times as long as it should be. Jkelly 21:28, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Could you two point out specific areas of bloat? --Maru (talk) Contribs 04:13, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Comment. For ideas on how to trim the article without sacrificing any important information, see articles that make heavy use of sub-articles like Charles Darwin. It's slightly unusual to do so with a fictional character, of course, but hey, I'm all for it. Sub-articles let Wikipedia please both the people who only want the basics on a figure and the ones who want all the nasty little details. Best idea since sliced bread and templates, I says. -Silence 21:56, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

• A division between film and expanded universe material would be a great start. - AWF

I'm not sure that's possible. I suppose one could divide by sections, and anything that is not a movie-section would be EU. But EU would inevitably contaminate (or vice-versa) the movies- how on earth could one possibly explain the opening of Episode III and General Grievous without drawing on EU knowledge of Grievous and the events of the Clone Wars micro-series? etc etc. --Maru (talk) Contribs 04:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• That's why I suggest that we do just as you say: have one article for each of the six Star Wars movies he had a major appearance in, if there's enough information to justify making a new article. Then have a separate article for "EU" stuff in general, or something similar, again depending on how much noteworthy information there is (obviously not everything currently on the "Palpatine" page is noteworthy, like the move-by-move battle description; this is a science fiction movie, not a world-famous chess match or a Civil War battle), and mention the EU stuff on the movie pages only where it's directly relevant. Anyone have any problems with that idea, at least as a starting point for cleaning up this page? (The only people I expect to have any strong objections are the "fancruft" police who will demand that this page be scourged of information. :) But even that will be much easier to do once it's subdivided into different articles which can be individually checked for relevance.) -Silence 22:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood me: I was saying that splitting by movie was not a good idea because Palpatine as a subject cannot be easily split that way. It is not a natural way to divide and categorize (albeit the current chronological, then subject, system is not perfect, it is a lot better than splitting by movie) by canonicity, because most people do not care about "Palpatine as solely an EU character" or "Palpatine as solely a movie character". Indeed, the meat of my previous statement was that the fundamental flaw of dividing suchly may be simply that it is impossible to divide the information that way- that the movies have come to inextricably be supported and explicated and borrowing from and nestled within the EU, that there is little relevance to the EU/movie distinction anymore, that effectively the prequel trilogy is simply EU in another medium. Grievous was just an example. But anyway, the battle descriptions you denigrate are largely gone: there has been a lot of editting on the article to try to address the concerns adduced here. --Maru (talk) Contribs 22:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Regardless, the current system is unacceptable. Little effort seems to have been put into Wikifying most of the Palpatine page, or properly moving sections into new satellite articles (in fact, the new attempts to move the article into new subarticles seems amazingly rushed, with absolutely no effort put into setting context for any of the articles, and the abrupt moves shattering numerous footnotes). The more I read this article, the more I feel that it needs at least three or four "cleanup" tags, not Featured Article status. "Palpatine becomes Chancellor" violates WP naming standards of using gerunds (it would be "Palpatine becoming Chancellor"), and is much clumsier than Palpatine's Chancellorship or similar. The liberation of Naboo needs the "the" removed from the title, and doesn't seem significant enough for its own article right now anyway. The article topic "Palpatine as a ruler" also doesn't make any sense; why is "Palpatine as a writer" a subsection of this? This article has lots of great information, but its presentation is a true mess; it will probably take months of work to get it to acceptable quality. -Silence 23:11, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry. That would be my fault. I'll fix it tomorrow.--User:Jedi6 November 27, 2005

Maru: you do understand that StarWars.com has two different articles on Palpatine, correct? Under his entry, they have "film" and "expanded universe," each a distinct piece written for its own purpose (hell, they even have two more for "Darth Sidious"). As far as Palpatine's abduction is concerned, the opening crawl of the movie explicitly states what happened. You don't need EU material to explain it anymore than you would for the article on Revenge of the Sith. These are very poor justifications on your part. - AWF

What is right for SW.com is not necessarily right for Wikipedia. And a bare mention in the crawl does not explain and justify Grievous' entire stoyline or influence. It is your justifications which are sounding weak here. --Maru (talk) Contribs 16:21, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

StarWars.com was used as an example. It's actually quite simple to divide information provided by film from information in EU material and I'd certainly be curious as to why that "isn't right" for Wikipedia. As far as the Chancellor's kidnapping is concerned, I'd also be curious as to how so many who saw the film had no trouble grasping this concept. There are millions worldwide who have never read a Star Wars novel or viewed the Clone Wars micro series for themselves. - AWF

• Yes, and you may even want to try having one Palpatine page for each Star Wars movie he played a major role in, considering how much information there clearly is to pass around. More room to grow, anyway. If you do decide to try our suggestion, then once you've decided what satellite pages to make, I'd consider moving most of the information there, and summarizing it on Palpatine with an average of 2-3 paragraphs for each section and a link to the main article using Template:Main. Also, of course, you should make sure to keep the satellite pages in good condition along with the main page; too many articles develop a large quality difference between the top page and the sub-pages, it's best to avoid that if you want to get Palpatine Featured in the future. I think the satellite pages idea is a good one. Even if it ends up being decided that the pages are too trivial and should be deleted (which I'd oppose), the process of making them and creating summaries for them will let you end up with a good, much shorter page anyway. So it's probably the best course of action regardless of what the decision ends up being. -Silence 02:33, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

How would the footnotes work? --Maru (talk) Contribs 04:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The same way they work in Hugo Chavez, an article that is very long, very heavily footnoted, and uses a large number of satellite articles. How else? -Silence 06:05, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Object:
  1. Too many fair-use pictures. I'd suggest getting rid of Image:Movie4 bg.jpg, Image:The Seduction of Dooku.jpg, Image:PalpyLightning.jpg, Image:Lord sidiyas.JPG, Image:Vaderrots.png, Image:Palpatine Ep6 DVD 6.jpg, Image:Swhde16 bg.JPG, Image:Empire.jpg, [[: and moving either Image:Palpatine1.jpg or Image:Emperor Palpatine DVD Empire Strikes Back.jpeg up to the infobox.
  2. The fair-use screenshots need to indicate which movie they're from on the image description page.
  3. The fair-use images that remain need to have fair-use rationales.
  4. Get rid of the blow-by-blow descriptions of combat. This is an encyclopedia, not a novel. For example, the third and fourth paragraphs of "Palpatine becomes Emperor" could adequately be summarized as "When Yoda confronted Palpatine, the two fought to a standstill, and Yoda fled".
  5. I'm sure there are other things that need to be fixed.

  --Carnildo 07:39, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is very hard for me to do, being a Star Wars fan and having editied this article myself before. But, my reasons are:

1. It's been said before, and I'll say it again: length. Length, length, length. Unfortunatly, when you split up an article it isn't much use as featured.
2. I agree with the above user that the article goes into too much detail with the fight scenes, but that's not it. The article gives a detailed synopsis of all of Star Wars. The article should be focusing on Palpatine and him alone. Touch, but do not elaborate, on the other incidents. To use the above example of the Yoda vs. Emperor fight, how about this: Yoda confronts Palpatine, and they fight thier way into the Senate chamber. At this point, both combatant lose thier sabers, so the fight continues with other Force powers. Eventualy, Yoda escapes, and Palpatine orders clone troopers to try to find him, to no avail. Palpatine senses Anakin is in danger. Palpatine goes to Mustafar, where Anakin has suffered severe injury at the hands of Kenobi and the lava. Palpatine rescues his apprentice and gives him his distinctive breathing suit.
3. I do not think this article uses too many pictures, but if you need to eliminate some, sacrifice the less canonical ones from sources other than the movies.

I still think you can do it...there is still good in the article...--HereToHelp (talk) 13:52, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• There are no "less canonical pictures." They are all in the same continuity. The Wookieepedian 06:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Wrong. Take a look at the information on Star Wars canon, right here on Wiki. The ultimate form is considered "G-canon," meaning the content of film. Expanded Universe material is considered secondary and void altogether if it contradicts any material provided by Lucas himself. - AWF

1. • Oppose - The entire article is under a spoiler warning except for the first sentence. This is carrying the concept of spoiler warning to a ridiculous extreme. It should be quite possible to create a non-spoling lead paragraph, at the very least. Furthermore, the basic facts of Palpatine's biography are common knowledge to practically anyone who cares to read this article. Balcer 05:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem has been fixed so I withdraw my oppose vote. Balcer 19:17, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• Actually, I disagree. Numerous articles have only the first line or two non-spoilered, and then have an immediate spoiler tag that continues for the whole article. It's impossible to write about the details of a fictional character without giving away spoilers, and even the most basic elements of Palpatine's character can be considered "spoilers", since his very identity is one of the big mysteries of Star Wars. I agree that it's a bit silly (if the entire article is a giant "spoiler", then how can we use a spoiler-warning when really bad spoilers appear in the article, to warn off people who know the basics but not some important details?), but it's also quite standard. -Silence 05:39, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, if you consider certain factoids non-spoilers, then I could remove the spoiler warning: a fair summary/introduction. If Palpatine's dual identity as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious is not a spoiler, if taking over the galaxy is not a spoiler, if who kills him and when and where, is not a spoiler, I would be glad to move the spoiler tag further down. --Maru (talk) Contribs 06:37, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I would simply like to have something like what we have in the Luke Skywalker article, for example. A few sentences at least to indicate the importance of Palpatine as a character. I stand corrected though. The spoiler warning can be carried to even greater extremes: consider Anakin Skywalker.

The reason I am sticking to this point is simple: if this ever becomes a featured article, the lead of the article will be put as an abstract on the Main Page. And surely we cannot put a spoiler warning on the Main Page (at least I have never seen that done). Balcer 07:31, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• Nah, that's nothing to worry about. If we included this on the main page, then we wouldn't worry about spoiler warnings, because our concern would be giving people a taste of the article's info so they'll want to learn more, not protecting people from the very info that we intend to tease them with. I see no problem with having a spoiler warning for almost the entire article itself on the page, and no warning at all on it's main page if it ever appears on the main page, especially considering that while a spoiler warning on an article stays forever, a main page appearance is only a single day's event, and thus shouldn't overly influence the content of every FA article in existence.
• Oh, and I've fixed the Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader articles, in response to your point about the "soft redirect" silliness. :) Let it never be said that Silence isn't an impulsive (and compulsive, and perhaps even repulsive) editor! -Silence 09:18, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• Object mostly on length concerns which other people raised above. The EU material should also be better separated from the film material (the cultural awareness gulf between the movies and the EU is really, really big). I do not have high hopes for this article right now, even though I'd like to see a Star Wars article of high standards to which we can then compare the others. Please note that I condensed the Yoda-Palpatine fight scene description as Carnildo suggested (in fact, using Carnildo's words verbatim), and the old description is now back. See this diff. I don't have the time or the patience to wade through the entire edit history, but I would like to offer my personal opinion: just because "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia", we are not freed from the obligation of making it a legible one. Oh, and just to provide a bit of information, remember what David Brin says: The whole Luke-Vader-Emperor scene in Return of the Jedi is IRRELEVANT! It makes absolutely no difference to the success of the rebellion. The only characters who matter a bit in the actual plot climax are the wookie and Lando!" [1] Anville 12:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Anville, from an EU viewpoint Brin is wrong; that objection has been rendered moot by the retconning/addition of Battle Meditation- in essence, the TIE fighters were empowered by the Emperor, and had he not been distracted/killed, would certainly have smoked Calrissian (as you will notice they were doing quite adequately till they crashed themselves). That also goes for the fleet- the Rebel fleet would defintely have been pulped by Executor and associated vessels had the sudden withdrawal of Battle meditation not led to Excecutor crashing into the Death Star II and the fleet panicking. --Maru (talk) Contribs 18:04, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you have any basis or source for this? What information ever claims that the Emperor was using "Battle Meditation?" (Especially considering that he was occupied before the battle began to even take place). Frankly, it sounds made up on your behalf. - AWF

Heir to the Empire. Thrawn Trilogy. --Maru (talk) Contribs 13:08, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• That's why that scene had to happen in the last movie, not the first one. It requires that you care about the specific characters involved to have any tension, since the fate of the universe doesn't in any way rest on what happens in that sequence of events. :) -Silence 12:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)