Talk:Klingon prison planet

Rura Penthe
Having already written this, doesn't the allow us to refer to this as Rura Penthe, since that's what it was intended to be? To quote policy: The only exception to the exclusion of production or reference material not seen on-screen from the main body of an article is for naming items or people that were seen on-screen but not referred to by name. So, based on that, we should be able to have this info at Rura Penthe, yes? --From Andoria with Love 06:05, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Though I really disagree with myself I have to say No. Yes it was intended to be Rura Penthe but it was referred to as a Klingon prison planet and that's not an asteroid. Once the deleted scene is restored in the DVD version all is good though. &mdash; Morder 06:22, 20 May 2009 (UTC)as per the writers,

Yes, but despite that contradiction, it was still meant to be Rura Penthe. Strike that: it was Rura Penthe, lol! We will just have to note the contradiction, as we do with all contradictory information. Assuming others agree to move it, that is. :-P --From Andoria with Love 06:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It also depends on how you define production material. The comic is not production material, it is licensed merchandise, basically. An interview with a writer is not production material. A script is, sure, but here there comes the problem Morder said about calling it a planet and not an asteroid, or something. I'm actually getting somewhat concerned with how we've extended "production material" in dealing with this movie. You remember how loath many were to asking Mike Sussman about "The Briar Patch"? That was in a case where they actually even called it "The Briar Patch," here we don't even have something that good. --OuroborosCobra talk 06:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * One problem with considing this Rura Pente is that the world seen in the deleted scene does not match the appearance seen in or, as it doesn't look at all like a frozen asteroid.  The climate looks temperate. --Vern4760 17:06, January 19, 2010 (UTC)

Redux
While interviews and the comic may not be production material, the deleted scenes are, and they clearly say "Klingon prison planet, Rura Penthe." Just because it was an asteroid in ENT, a planet now, and an asteroid again in ST VI doesn't mean that there's unexplainable contradiction either. One would expect that, as a mining operation, the prison "Rura Pente" might need to move from time to time. For all we know, this planet is in the same system as the asteroids. Hell, the whole system could be the prison! While we don't need to put in all this speculation I'm spouting, we can't just pretend this wasn't Rura Penthe. - 13:44, January 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * But if we just added all the information to Rura Penthe without making sure the reader gets the whole context, we will be "creating canon", something we should try to avoid. Basically:
 * "Nero attacked Rura Penthe in 2258" (and variants of it) would still be a non-canon statement, while
 * "Nero attacked a Klingon prison planet in 2258. BGinfo: This planet was intended to be Rura Penthe." (note how the term Klingon prison planet does not link to any article anymore) would be completely "canon" without creating the need for another article (this) that doesn't contain much valid information.
 * -- Cid Highwind 14:00, January 23, 2011 (UTC)

First, I don't think I suggested changing all the links, or not having this redirect to Rura Penthe. That should remain the same, simply because it's easier to link. Second, we call the Enterprise in the film a Constitution-class ship, even though under what you just said, we invented that. No context is given beyond one bg note, and if that is enough to overcome all the "invented" canon we have there, why have a separate page here? We know this is Rura Penthe, just like we know what class the Enterprise is. - 14:31, January 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * No, but you argued that the two now separate articles should be merged into one, right? The difference between this and the "Constitution-class" example is that, there, we might have a "less-than-absolute-canon(?)" name for a single canon entity. We've just added a name.
 * Here, we would use the same name for possibly two different entities. We're not just adding a name, but we're claiming that two entities (which may be different) are one and the same. This is more severe than just adding a name. It's rather similar to the Daedalus class case, where I've argued more than once that we shouldn't make a connection that, "canonically", really doesn't exist. I'm sticking to that. -- Cid Highwind 14:46, January 23, 2011 (UTC)

I still fail to see how something that was on screen can be less than canon if there is no canon information contradicting it. That said, making this Rura Penthe (planet) and the other one Rura Penthe (asteroid), similar to the whole Delta Vega thing, is better than another standalone unnamed article, which is what we have right now, even though the descriptive title was said on screen. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that this was suppose to be the Rura Penthe, where Delta Vega was not suppose to be the Delta Vega, but that option is still much better than this. - 15:04, January 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * I think we might be missing each others points here - so, without further ado, my point stated precisely:
 * Yes, the information about this prison planet can be merged to the article "Rura Penthe", there's no necessity for a second article. However, this merging must not result in any claim that the unnamed prison planet actually was called "Rura Penthe" in - because it wasn't. Wherever this article is referenced from a ST2009-article, it needs to be done in a background comment explaining how the prison planet was intended to be Rura Penthe, and mentioning that this reference did not make it on-screen. -- Cid Highwind 15:53, January 23, 2011 (UTC)

OK, that makes more sense, yet at the same time less. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that we should merge the articles, but only have the XI articles link in from a bg note. That seems overly complicated when we could just keep this as a redirect and have it point to the appropriate section on the Rura Penthe article, with the bg note there. That seems far similar, and allows for more natural linking. - 17:10, January 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * But if we did that, what would be the big difference to keeping the articles as they are now?
 * Things that would stay the same would be: two different titles, with all articles linking to Klingon prison planet and all others linking to Rura Penthe; us needing to keep attention that no one links to the article(s) using the "wrong" title - including accidental "maintenance fixes".
 * Things that would change would be: the reader ends up in a subsection of another article, with the subsection claiming that the subject it talks about may be a different prison planet than that of the main article - whereas before, the separate article explained what it could explain, and then made the potential connection in a background section.
 * I'm not convinced that the suggested change would be so much better than what we have now. It would be a trade-off between "a little bit" of content duplication and "a little bit" of reader confusion (of the guy who ends up reading the middle portion of a potentially unrelated article).
 * -- Cid Highwind 18:30, January 23, 2011 (UTC)

The way I see it, according to policy, this is Rura Penthe either way. It's an unnamed planet, since only the description was used, and we have tons of production information saying that this is Rura Penthe, despite whatever contradictions there may be, so if someone can't be bothered to read a bg note explaining the how and why behind the name, that's simply not our fault, as we have done everything according to our policy, and then some. - 23:27, January 23, 2011 (UTC)


 * That last statement reads like: "Yes, the proposed change would make our content less clear, but we don't care as long as it adheres to a policy, then.". That would be a terribly arrogant - and ignorant - thing to say, so I hope this is just a misunderstanding again.
 * For what it's worth, our one "holy cow" should not be our policy, but what's defined as our goals: "definiteness, accuracy, accessibility". If a canon connection between some "prison planet" and "Rura Penthe" has not been made, then it is not more accurate and more accessible if we merged the two different articles without letting the reader beware - and if we let the reader beware, the whole point of why we're actually merging the articles becomes moot. -- Cid Highwind 11:47, January 24, 2011 (UTC)

My last statement should have read: We can do everything reasonable to to remain as definitive, accurate, and as accessible as possible while following our policies, and someone can still refuse to read a simple bg note and get the wrong idea.

We have a policy, for very good reasons, and we should follow it. Yes, the film never used the name, only the description, and we should state that in a bg note, but that doesn't change the fact that this was meant to be Rura Penthe in the film, and is Rura Penthe according to a plethora of production sources and our own policy. You yourself have said that "neither voting nor consensus can circumvent existing policy", and I don't think I'm trying to twist the letter of the policy to disregard the spirit here, or that Shran was for that matter, so why should we just throw out the policy in this case? - 14:11, January 24, 2011 (UTC)


 * The "spirit of the law" (and I have actually been there when the policy was changed, so I might know at least a bit about that) was and hopefully still is to avoid having "unnamed" articles if a better name is available from production sources and if using that name is "safe". This works in the case of, for example, Livingston, because the name has never been used in any situation where it could have been a reference to Picard's fish but wasn't necessarily one (imagine Worf stating: "Guinan served Livingston-sushi tonight. It was delicious." - we probably wouldn't take that to necessarily mean Picard's favourite goldfish was sliced into pieces).
 * The same would happen here. We would merge information about klingon prison planets which "might" be the same but do not "need to" be the same, which is beyond simply naming an unnamed object, and thus beyond the "spirit" of that policy. Add to that the fact that the resulting merged page, with a redirect (to be used for a good number of incoming links) to a subsection of it, wouldn't really be that much cleaner than what we have now, and I still don't see the pressing need to do that. -- Cid Highwind 14:39, January 24, 2011 (UTC)

I hardly think 8 more links compared to the 203 Rura Penthe currently has is a good number, but that's not really the point. Currently, there is relevant information to this article there, and not here, because it's about Rura Penthe. Copying that information here just further duplicates it, making a larger "mess," and would make the background section, where everything says this is Rura Penthe, larger than the article itself. Having all the information on this subject in one location would be cleaner than what we have now, and we don't have any pressing need not to have it that way. - 16:07, January 24, 2011 (UTC)


 * Well - apparently, none of us is able to convince the other. I still believe that the current layout (minor content transfer back and forth notwithstanding) is the better one - not "although it circumvents policy" but exactly "because it doesn't". Let's wait for further opinions and, in the meantime, not attempt any merge. -- Cid Highwind 18:14, January 24, 2011 (UTC)