Wikidata:Property proposal/is part of canon

From Wikidata
Jump to navigation Jump to search

‎is part of canon[edit]

Return to Wikidata:Property proposal/Creative work

   Under discussion
Descriptioncanon status for this creative work, episode or fictional entity in it's respective narrative universe
Representscanon (Q53815)
Data typeItem
Domaincreative work (Q17537576)
Allowed valuesinstances of canon (Q53815)
Example 1Radioactive Man (Q1953829)→The Simpsons canon (Q124206593)
Example 2Treehouse of Horror VII (Q1087745)→unknown (not part of any known canon)
Example 3Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (Q17738)→Star Wars canon (Q3648466)
Example 4Star Wars: Rebel Assault (Q55259)→Star Wars Legends (Q3551295) (canon should probably have its own item)
Expected completenessalways incomplete (Q21873886)
Distinct-values constraintno

Motivation[edit]

This proposal is an alternative proposal for Wikidata:Property proposal/Canonicity.

  • This is a subproperty of part of (P361).
  • The subject of this property must be a work (Q386724).
  • The object of this property must be a canon (Q53815)
  • The property may be used in reference statements, if the object of the reference has no wikidata item. For instance if it is merely a url.

The truthfullness of statements should be evaluated using references. Conflicting statements of non-work entities should be ranked with

Preferred rank preferred
reason for preferred rank (P7452) → at least one source is considered canonical (Q106831793) (example)
Deprecated rank depricated
reason for deprecated rank (P2241) → source is not considered canonical (Q124173200) (example)

Non-conflicting, statements should not be qualified with any canonicity evaluations. Instead a reference statement with stated in (P248) should be present. The object of stated in (P248) should itself have a is part of canon statement. This way a user can query which statements are relevant for a particular canon.

A statement without a reference statement should not be considered canonical – Shisma (talk) 09:16, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

 Comment Why are we not allowed to use this on fictional entities?--Trade (talk) 02:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

you could qualify almost every statement of a fictional entity with with whether it is canon or not but that would be:
  1. a lot of work
  2. a lot of redundancy
because the question can be answerd purely on the fact if the information is taken from a work that is part of the body of a canon or if it isn't. thats why I propose only qualify conflicting statements with existing properties. It is a common misconception that an information or statement can be canon. A canon is a collection of works – Shisma (talk) 08:10, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I literally said nothing about statements Trade (talk) 14:50, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand. do you have an example? – Shisma (talk) 15:42, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ah, you mean like a character? – Shisma (talk) 15:55, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah Trade (talk) 16:09, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
so you mean statements like:
Professor Moriarty (Q283111)is part of canoncanon of Sherlock Holmes (Q2316684)
I think it would be more correct and straightforward forward to say:
Professor Moriarty (Q283111)present in work (P1441)The Final Problem (Q228119) + The Final Problem (Q228119)is part of canoncanon of Sherlock Holmes (Q2316684)
But I'd be fine with the former too. Other opinions? – Shisma (talk) 16:39, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support, an important property for fiction.--Arbnos (talk) 14:00, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support I have a slight preference for this one. But Trade's proposal has the advantage that it is possible to make it explicit that something is not part of a certain canon (using canon status:non-canon, restricted to the canon using applies to work (P10663), for instance). With this property we can only express that something is not part of a certain canon if we are complete with respect to that canon. We can use <no value> if there is really no canon this work belongs to, but couldn't there be a Simpsons-Sherlock-Holmes-Crossover that is considered part of the Simpsons canon but not part of the Sherlock Holmes canon? (I could not think of a real example and I'm not sure if this is a likely scenario). How would we express this? - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 12:47, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I suppose proving that something is not part of any canon is like proving that something doesn't exist. Maybe it is part of my headcanon that I published on my entirely irrelevant weblog in the late 90s. There would also be an infinite number of works that are not part of a canon. For instance: every Episode of the Simpsons is not in the Sherlock Holmes Canon. I'd say we can add unknown if we don't have a complete catalog of canon items. – Shisma (talk) 16:59, 13 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    In general you're right. I was just thinking of cases where one would expect that a work is part of a canon but it is not. E.g. for every episode of The Simpsons (Q886) it may be expected that it is part of The Simpsons canon (or I would expect that), but Treehouse of Horror II (Q2376730) is not. It is somehow more interesting that an episode of The Simpsons (Q886) is not part of The Simpsons canon than that it is part of the canon. It is somehow similar to does not have part (P3113) - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 08:03, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Valentina.Anitnelav: you mean like not found in (P9660) (opposite of described by source (P1343))? – Shisma (talk) 13:00, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, or like this (depending on how you think of the relationship between a canon and its "parts"). On the other hand I think my Simpsons-Holmes-expample (where we could not use <no value>) would be very, very rare. Probably we can just forget about it. - Valentina.Anitnelav (talk) 15:34, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    No, lets keep in mind that is not part of canon could be useful in the future for edge cases – Shisma (talk) 16:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Weak support - Weak support. Preferring Trade's proposal. My focus (admittedly I've been on a bit of a wiki-break lately due to IRL priorities) around here has been with works such as the Touhou Project, where canonicity can be fuzzy at times, thanks to the series mostly being the work of just one developer. The first five games in the series were made for the Japanese PC-98 computer in the late '90s. After the PC-98 was discontinued around the turn of the millennium, the series "started over" with 2002's Touhou Koumakyou: the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, featuring Reimu and Marisa (the deuteragonists) but none of the other characters from the PC-98 games. Only two PC-98 characters (Yuuka Kazami and Alice Margatroid) have ever reappeared in a later Windows game, with both having been redesigned to some degree. When asked about the PC-98 games' canonicity, ZUN (the sole creator) has stated multiple times that (paraphrased) "PC-98 canon applies as long as Windows canon doesn't conflict with it." However ZUN doesn't always section everything off, and the fans are left with "Is this still canon or is this decanonized?" type-of-questions. (For example, Yuuka Kazami had a big mansion-esque building in Touhou 4 (a PC-98 game). She (eventually) reappeared in Touhou 9 (a Windows game)... just in a big flower field, with no sign of a mansion. Did it get removed (decanonized) and replaced with the flower field? Did we just not see it in Touhou 9? Who knows! So would "stuff" (I use the term loosely) discarded in such a manner - never outright stated to have been decanonized, but partially overwritten and otherwise not brought up again - be considered part of a "canon of X" item, or do they not? Or would they be part of a separate "canon of X (old)" item? -- Kurzov (talk) 17:28, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know any particulars of this franchise. But here's my interpretation and how I suppose the proposed property would apply: There is apperently a work that "is part of a canon" and another work that is "(only partially) part of a canon". Sorry for repeating myself: this property is only concerned with works, not anyone's interpretation of what can be seen in them. In short, i'd model this with the qualifier: nature of statement (P5102) partially (Q100349848) –Shisma (talk) 19:18, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    We could probably use an item named "loose canon" for this. Trade (talk) 02:41, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Wikidata:Property_proposal/is_part_of_canon&oldid=2112843846"