Forums: Helping Hand > Canonicity: A minor revision
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The Forgotten Realms, as well as the amount of lore both surrounding and relating to it, is huge. In order to present readers with the most useful and relevant information, and make the wiki manageable, a line has to be drawn with what content should be included.
Thus, I would like to expand on the following canon policy: Everything Ed Greenwood writes and says regarding the Forgotten Realms is canon, unless or until superseded by published material from TSR or WotC.
These are the proposed changes:
- Published works surrounding the Forgotten Realms where Ed Greenwood is a primary author should also be included as canon. The term primary author would be defined as a lead designer or lead writer, or otherwise being credited for the full book. This change would make works such as The Border Kingdoms canon.
- Ed Greenwood's contributions within published works surrounding the Forgotten Realms should be included, such as lore-related forewords in sourcebooks.
This revision is just to make sure the Forgotten Realms wiki remains informative and manageable. The thread surrounding this revision is not a place to debate what is canon and what is not, or any other changes to the existing canon policy. In your world, canon is what you make of it.
Please provide feedback on the above revisions. Thanks!
I entirely agree with this revision. It is important to be clear that the wiki can only consider works that have been published in some form, and only those in which Ed is actually credited as a relevant contributor.
Regarding Ed's claims published in other media, such as Twitter or forum posts, I would go further and explicitly mention them in the canon policy, in order to avoid ambiguity and misinterpretation going forward. Something along these lines:
- Claims from Ed Greenwood related to the Forgotten Realms posted in his Twitter account or by his proxy Candlekeep Forum persona "The Hooded One" are considered canon as well, unless they are contradicted by any form of officially published work.
In other words, they would be lowest in our canon hierarchy, below even video games, novels, and AL content. Hopefully this should avoid conflicts with future or past published work.
I agree with both of these changes! Ed's tweets are so fun to read - it would be nice to be able to incorporate them into the wiki.
―
Ruf (
talk) 19:04, May 15, 2020 (UTC)
Agree with the above. Additonally, it might be prudent to make a general citation template for Ed's tweets and forum posts, one for each. Maybe even make it so that it adds a quick note along with the citation about its position in our canon hierarchy?
I agree with above, the wiki can claim that someone else might write up interesting notes and insights onto the settlements of the Border kingdoms, but I don't think WOTC will turn their head in that direction for a long time, this version is pretty canon and works, so why try and change that?
On a slighhtly related note, Keith Baker's probably going to be releasing Exploring Eberron in a few months or so, so the time to discuss general orginal writer authenticity claims is probably now, quite a few of this wiki's regulars work on the Eberron wiki pretty regularly.
I agree with the changes but want clarification on the proposal for Ed's posts (Twitter, Candlkeep) and the like. The word "superseded" in the current canon policy implies official material only overrides Ed if it is published after his posts. The proposed policy appears to say that officially published material always trumps Ed's writings regardless of which was published first. The only instances where this change would be noticeable is if Ed posts something clarifying/contradicting official material after its publication. Under the proposed policy Ed's clarification/contradiction in those circumstances would not be canon.
I agree with Possessed Priest's proposal. There is definite value in delineating exactly how we should deal with the different categories of works Ed has contributed Realmslore to. I imagine works such as
The Border Kingdoms would be akin to third-party licensed adventures and the like. However, the change implicitly kiboshes Ed's Candlekeep and Twitter posts, perhaps by intent. These are (generally and often) off-the-cuff posts by Ed where he spins a yarn on the spot ("Oh, they were actually the same dragon all along!" and the like).
However informal these posts are, however, I do still think they constitute Realmslore that is worth keeping track of. Thus, I think Sir Whiteout's proposal is appropriate: we do not exclude forum posts and tweets, but still treat them as "lower" canon to reflect their off-the-cuff nature.
@Regis: A citation template would be a great idea.
@Adoxos: Ed is often wrong or in conflict with older sources, hence the wording. That being said, there are times when he deliberately conflicts with established lore to fix contradictions and the like. I'm not sure how we can word things to avoid the former and still allow for the latter. Perhaps a case-by-case basis is best for some of these cases.
