Category talk:Retconned material

Creation
For pages and redirects about material that was retconned "out" of canon in a remastered release. - 00:50, January 15, 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think something like that would be helpful, along the lines of the unreferenced material cat. 31dot (talk) 00:56, January 15, 2013 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea. -- Capricorn (talk) 11:03, January 15, 2013 (UTC)


 * I like this idea. Definitely useful. -- sulfur (talk) 20:02, February 4, 2013 (UTC)

How should we use this
Do we just want to add this to pages, in which case it should be hidden, or do we want this to "replace" the cats already on those pages? - 23:25, April 1, 2013 (UTC)
 * I would suggest replacement, since the subject matter of these articles was retconned out. 31dot (talk) 23:37, April 1, 2013 (UTC)

I could have sworn that we discussed this before, so I spent so much time looking for that discussion that I forgot what point I was going to make when I found it. :P - 00:36, April 2, 2013 (UTC)

Found it. I think replacing the current categories is the best idea, but we should have separate pages for retconned stuff then, as this category would look weird on a page where the retcon is only in the background section. - 18:58, April 2, 2013 (UTC)


 * That makes sense. 31dot (talk) 19:50, April 2, 2013 (UTC)

Retconned but canon
Would you all completely reject the idea that retconned stuff would still be treated as canon, but with a banner on top of the page similar to mirror universe or alternate universe, that states something like: the "information on the page is not part of the current continuity". Instead of the real world pov way these are treated now. --Pseudohuman (talk) 17:24, April 21, 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm concerned, this material is canon, just that there is no reasonable way for it to not be in conflict with other material, so these pages are explaining the conflict between our sources, in accordance with the the policy, which can't be done "in universe", hence they are real world articles. Another banner could be created, but the POV would remain. - 18:05, April 21, 2013 (UTC)

I know and understand the policy. My point is that if we think outside the box a bit and treat at least to some extent retconned info in the same way as we do with alternate timeline info, then there is no conflict and retconned canon could also be part of the in-universe database. But we had that long debate over this five years ago, so i'm not really expecting anyone has changed their mind on this. Just checking, and hoping. :) --Pseudohuman (talk) 00:29, April 22, 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm open to ideas with this, but I imagine that the number of pages other than these effected might be the deciding factor here. What exactly do you have in mind? - 17:13, April 22, 2013 (UTC)

Well basically, what I had in mind was that there would be separate pages for stuff like planets and people that only appear in the original versions and for the stations and starships that are significantly redesigned for the remastered releases.

Planets would include articles like the Medusan homeworld (that didn't appear in TOS-R "Is There in Truth No Beauty?") and an article for Vulcan sister planets (for these and these that didn't appear in the Director's edition). There would be pages for Mudd's freighter, Klingon scout ship (23rd century), Woden (DY-100 class), Space station (K-class) (that was redesigned as Starbase 6 for TOS-R "The Ultimate Computer"), Aurora (space cruiser), and USS Melbourne (Nebula class) (without the unnamed Nebula ship).

All pages would be written from the in-universe pov, but with a note on top that "this was replaced with -link to new version article-". I would look like somewhat similar to how there are different timeline versions of things now. The most recent latest additions to canon still form the "main continuity" and the original versions would just be canon from a "previous continuity". So there would be no conflict and it would make our position more neutral, since the way the articles look like now is as if we are saying that the remastered stuff is making the original versions non-canon, which I think is not even the producers intent, but rather that they are just providing us with an alternative take on the episodes.

I don't really have a clear vision on how this would look like exactly and I know this seems like it could make things a bit confusing, and this does require some thinking outside the box. In any case, I'm not interested in dragging this out in a huge fight again, but if there is support for this type of solution now then I would be all for it. :) --Pseudohuman (talk) 07:10, April 23, 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that's actually pretty similar to what I have in mind, with one major difference, because there are two pretty big issues with your suggestion as I see it.
 * First, the Melbourne thing. What you've suggested isn't actually neutral between the two, because only the name of the Nebula-class ship was retconned, not the ship itself. This would be so much easier if the ship had been replaced in TNG-R, but you indicated there weren't any changes like that (and we would still needing a similar remastered change to the DS9 episode anyway). We could have all three entries and still do what you're suggesting, but there has to be an unnamed Nebula-class ship for there to be an Excelsior-class Melbourne, since both were seen more or less together.
 * The other problem would be the all other pages affected by having both sets of info be in-universe. An in-universe DY-100-class Woden has major, IMO negative, implications for the DY-100 class page, unless we would also have a "retconned" class page as well, which seems like over complicating the issue in a whole different manner. The "this, but also this" problem would just get messier with each page that is affected, which is the whole reason the polices allow us to just choose one when two things conflict like this.
 * All that said, let me make you a counter proposal with what I've been thinking about: pages in this category, or sub-categories, are still valid information/canon, they just aren't in-universe anymore as far as the rest of the site is concerned. I see no reason that a page for the DY-100 class Woden couldn't be written like every other article here, with an "in-universe" section and then appendices; the only difference would be that all incoming links to that page would be from real world sections of articles or background notes. The DY-100 class page wouldn't cover that version of the ship in in-universe, it would have a bg link to the page where that info would be. This is why a new banner for these pages would be perfect, because they don't have to written as real world articles, even though I think that might be easier overall.
 * So far, the Melbourne page has not been a good example of this though, because of the history involved. For example, I think all the other articles that link to it still have too much info about the retcon directly on them. This happened, in part, because I expected a much bigger reaction to anything having to do with the Melbourne, and because I'm not sure if any of what I've just written was fully thought out yet. I just knew if we could find a solution to the most problematic "retcon" of them all, the rest would be pretty simple by comparison. - 19:24, April 23, 2013 (UTC)