Talk:Lightsaber combat

Kolar: mis-directed link
Hey, there's a link in the Form IV section for Kolar, but it redirects to Kolara, a city in South India. In the absence of a page about Kolar, I guess there should be a disambiguation page or something.rmagill 19:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, it doesn't matter. Agen Kolar has not been confirmed to be a practitioner of Form IV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.181.151.173 (talk) 16:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Makashi is both not tiring and tiring?
It is described as being very elegant, powerful, and requiring extreme precision, allowing the user to attack and defend with minimal effort, while his opponent tires himself out.

The biggest flaw in Makashi is that it will not hold off heavy attacks, such as from Shien/Djem-So (Count Dooku got extremely tired while fighting Anakin Skywalker in the Episode III novelization but not in the film) or from multiple enemies/attacks. The reason being for that is that Makashi is about speed and accuracy, not about strength.

Seems a bit inconsistent... but maybe not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrsilver (talk • contribs)


 * At some point soon, I'll start looking over the seven forms and try to wring some consistency out of them; I've saved them for last because I am certain they will be the hardest to clean up. Unlike most of my recent efforts, there's quite a bit on the seven forms.  -- GJD 15:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup Discussion
For those paying attention, this article has recently survived an AfD with a "no consensus, but cleanup" result. In the next day or two I will put on this talk page my suggestions on cleanup, with a header for each cleaning topic, and will give it five days of discussion (if it's enough time for an AfD discussion, it's good enough here); presuming nobody gives a good counterpoint to my suggestions, I will follow through five days after the signature after each suggestion. This article has been up four times now for deletion-let's try to arrange it so we don't have a fifth time; it's gotten ridiculous as it is. -- GJD 11:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Identified what I think are the three (maybe four) most obvious cleanup issues. I feel that the various lightsaber forms should be looked at, but I expect that those require edit help as opposed to the wholesale slaughter I'm proposing below.  The key principle I'm trying to adhere to is the one espoused in the Star Wars Wikiproject:  "the WikiProject discourages extreme details".  -- GJD 13:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Jedi Information Section
This entire section seems unnecessary. It is likely that the entries for the character within will have a notation indicating their preferred lightsaber form. A single example for each form probably suffices for this article, and would be included in the descriptions of the forms. The section as it stands has a large amount of bias (for example, "great master" "greatest master"). My feeling is to remove the entire list of Jedi on this section; I am still undecided on whether or not to keep the first paragraph. -- GJD 13:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * As per above, removed the listing; I've kept the first paragraph for now, as the section may be suitable to move other related info concerning the training into. -- GJD 15:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Moved the paragraph to the Training section. That section will need a bit of cleaning/rewrite, I think, but the info seems to belong there.  With that, the Jedi Information section is empty and has been removed.  -- GJD 15:46, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Stances and Body Zones Section
I am inclined to remove all of this from the article, as per "Wikipedia is not a How-To". If a reader wants greater detail on this, they can go to Wookieepedia[], which doesn't have the same kind of restrictions that Wikipedia does. -- GJD 13:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to say the same on the section on Maneuvers and Marks of Contact. -- GJD 13:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Got rid of the maneuvers and body zones. A little uncertain at the moment about the stances; leaning towards losing them, but willing to keep at least a sentence on each if someone can provide sources.  Ditto for the Marks. -- GJD 15:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Misspoke there-maneuvers are still around, pending fact-checking. -- GJD 13:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The maneuvers seem to be game-mechanics from Star Wars Galaxies. I expect to remove them, pending other published sources showing up to support their existence.  -- GJD 14:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Removing maneuvers as per above. -- GJD 15:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Marks of contact seem to be sourced in that "Fightsaber" article in Star Wars Insider; all the same, my thought is to reduce it down to single sentence descriptions. -- GJD 19:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Decided to leave most of the descriptions in, since they are sourced; I've moved the section under Lightsaber Basics, though, as it seemed like it made sense to do that. -- GJD 15:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Mark of contact: Mou Kei. Only reference I could find that could even remotely be valid was from a Sony Online Entertainment page for the game Star Wars Galaxies (Located ). The Wookieepedia references references Star Wars Galaxies, and the SWG wiki references Wookieepedia. My inclination is for this to go, but not sure on justification. -- GJD 13:50, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Followed my inclination. There is still a reference to Mou Kei in another Mark of Contact, but I slapped a citation needed tag on it to give someone another chance to show a source other than a gaming web site. -- GJD 15:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Removing the Stances at this time. When even Wookieepedia is voting to delete this from their wiki, it's a sure sign that it's not sufficiently sourced for Wikipedia. -- GJD 14:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

External Links Section
Concerning the Wookieepedia links-it's really unnecessary and extra clutter to have links to each form and concept listed; in the AfD, users kept fixating on those links as if they were being quoted as references, and this may make it harder for them to perpetuate the fallacy. A single link to Lightsaber Combat on Wookieepedia is sufficient-the links there are sufficient for going into further depth on the subject. Removal of the other Wookieepedia links is probable. The other links are solid enough to keep, I think. -- GJD 13:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * As above, removed the excess Wookieepedia links. One link is just fine.  -- GJD 15:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I feel that "New Series of Lightsabers", *Jedi Archives—Danva, Joclad (mentions that Joclad Danva uses the two lightsaber Jar'Kai technique), *Lightsaber Techniques, *Jedi fighting styles, and "Lightsaber Combat Guide" from Stage Combat at MgrCentral (note, it copies this article word for word). should be removed. It did not seem to go to the location.24.254.21.174 17:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Good call. Feel free to ditch any of the external links that lead to dead links!  -- GJD 17:38, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Known Practicioners
I've gone through and removed the lists of "known practicioners" for various forms and techniques from the article; many of them are referred to in the appropriate section, and the article isn't really a list of who practices what. The goal is to avoid excessive detail, and transcribing every instance of every Jedi who ever used various forms/techniques will cross that line fast. Hopefully this will also prevent the average vandal from coming along and just tacking on a favorite character (published or not) onto a convenient list. -- GJD 15:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Tràkata
I have all but 2 of the sources listed for tràkata and there is no mention of this is any of them. I don't know about anything in the NJO series or Tempest because they're are the ones I don't have. Does anyone have a proper source for this? -- I need a name 15:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a new one to me too. I haven't started an examination on the "forms" section of this article yet, but I was willing to hold off judging this one until I could confirm for myself if this did or didn't exist.  I can find lots of references to it on Google...but none of those led me to a published source.  As Shatterpoint seems to be describing the technique according to the reference, I'll take a peek at my copy to see if this is true.  I do expect to remove the various examples, even if I do confirm its existence-only one or two examples are really necessary.  -- GJD 16:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * From what I've been able to see, nobody can point to a single source that describes the activity that makes up Tràkata AS "Tràkata". Therefore, I'll give the 5 day waiting period from this post-if nobody can produce an ACTUAL PUBLISHED SOURCE that NAMES Tràkata (as opposed to describing the act without naming it), this section is going bye-bye.  -- GJD 11:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No sources have been produced; therefore, the section is being removed as per above. -- GJD 14:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Apparently it's being (or has been) introduced into the Star Wars canon in the Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook: Saga Edition, so any necessary information should be in that. -- I need a name 20:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, Trakata is (finally) mentioned in the aforementioned rulebook. But even there it only rates a sentence or two, not nearly enough to make a subtopic out of.  At best, it might rate a sentence under "other forms", but that's about all. -- GJD 19:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Warning: High-traffic
Got linked to at reddit.com. Front-paged, I think. Vandal alert! Add to your watchlist for a day or two, guys. Goyston talk, contribs, play 02:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up. Fortunately, we have lots of folks in Wikipedia happy to revert vandals!  -- GJD 03:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge Dicussion for Ataru article
Probably a moot point, as that article is undergoing an AfD which I suspect will end in deletion. This article already covers Ataru sufficiently, and is in the process of cleanup. I've already put in my support for deletion for that article, but if it survives AfD we'll figure out what to do with it. Don't bet the farm, though.... -- GJD 03:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The Ataru article has been deleted, so the merge is no longer an issue. -- GJD 12:26, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Should it be in the category "Swordsmanship"?
I was thinking that this article could be placed in the category "Swordsmanship", though I am not sure if that would be good, after all, lightsaber combat is a fictional form of combat. What do you think? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MCTales (talk • contribs) 15:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
 * I'd go with no on this one. A brief review of the category seems to show exclusively real forms of combat; as you say, this article is a purely fictional style of combat-even if some of the moves are based from various disciplines (I suspect anyone trying to do any of this in real life would find themselves in a very bad way).  If there were a category for fictional combat styles, this would certainly fit; I think that such a category would likely be too narrow to show up on Wikipedia, though.  -- GJD 16:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Examples for forms and styles
At this point, the article doesn't really need extra examples for the various forms and combat styles. Most of the sections have two or three examples. The article should not become a list of examples-otherwise we start violating the stated goals of the wikiproject, which includes avoiding excessive details. If a section for a style has only one example, then go ahead and add your example to it, but if it's already got a couple, it doesn't need more. -- GJD 15:15, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Failed GA
This article has failed the GA noms as it has a very in-univers perspective. If you feel that this review was in error fee free to take it to WP:GA/R. Tarret 23:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * How would you go about fixing that? —Disavian (talk/contribs) 23:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * See here. Quadzilla99 23:46, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Odd. I was a tad surprised to see that someone had apparently nom'd it for GA status (which is really funny given it was very, VERY recently up on AfD); on the other hand, following the links above, I see no discussion of this article as a GA nominee. Who nominated it? -- GJD 23:40, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nevermind-I misinterpreted the links. The article probably has a long way to go to get to GA status; personally, I'm happy if the work put into cleaning up the article keeps the deletionists off of it for a while.  -- GJD 23:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I nominated it, as I think it's a pretty high-quality article. Obviously not GA status yet, though. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 00:04, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I'll leave it to others to get it to GA status. I've done pretty much all I wanted to do with this article-clean out most of the unsourced junk, trimmed off excessive details, straighten up the references.  I've got maybe three  tags to deal with in the next month or two, and that'll be that.  It should make it rougher for individuals to throw up another AfD with "cruft" and "OR" as their reasoning.  -- GJD 00:58, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Plo-Koon did not invent Djem-so!
It is clearly stated in Darth bane: Path of destruction that Bane himself used form IV, or Djem-so four thousand years before Po-koon and the Republic even existed! Get your facts strait! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.6.5.53 (talk) 01:54, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * In spite of the incredible lack of civility in the above statement, the above anon does have a point in that there's no apparent source indicating that Plo Koon was in any way responsible for the development of the form. I'll give it a few weeks to get sourced, before removing that portion of the statement. -- GJD (Talk to me|Damage I've done) 02:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * As nobody has come to source the above statement, and as I have been unable to find a reliable source either, removing the statement about Plo Koon being responsible for the form. -- GJD (Talk to me|Damage I've done) 13:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Um, no
The sources for almost every category are crufty as hell and synthesis to boot. I would strongly urge those folk working this article to roll up their sleeves and find some better sources for these "forms." I wil check in a while. No new sources will mean removal as unreliably cited removals as well as synthesis-based removals. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  22:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I waited three weeks. No sourcing means no inclusion. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  18:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Removed Info

 * I have removed the following section from the article:


 * Trivia
 * Nick Gillard is known to have stated that lightsaber combat is essentially "The next stage in modern fencing"


 * for being uncited and trivial. I tend to think trivia - once cited - can be incorporated into the article. Until then, it cannot be re-added.- Arcayne   (cast a spell)  18:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Many more removals are forthcoming, specifically as the article treats these as real combat styles, and not as a developmental fiction developed via citation. The key to understanding why this article needs major overhauling can be found in the end-notes. If someone has to explain a real-life quote about something in the end-notes, then it is crystal-clear that the article is poorly-written. Those citable statements should be included in the article, and not the crufty crap about what form Yoda prefers (a crufty three-layer cake if ever there was one).
 * Expect big changes. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  18:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Warnings were given. Sorry, but the article now faces significant and decisive removals. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  17:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Space out the articles
Now, obviously many people who read up on this page are nerds with fast Internet connections, but there are some people with dial-up connections for whom this page would take several minutes to load. Furthermore, it is one of the largest articles I have read recently. My suggestion is to give each of the lightsaber fighting forms its own page, meanwhile keeping the main "Lightsaber Combat" page up for general information. 24.76.173.231 (talk) 01:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Even better, remove the cruftiness and avoid writing the article froman in-universe standpoint. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  03:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Dooku yoda.jpg
The image Image:Dooku yoda.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --02:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Significant removal of text
As warned and then promised, the article has been scrubbed of a great deal of synthesized information. I would suggest that a number of supplementary articles be created to cover the expansion of the different forms, but be aware that citing a single source isn't going to offer any more protection from removal as it has in this instance. I am quite sure that some of this edit is going to meet with some disapproval by dedicated fans, but with respect, this isn't Wookiepedia. We use more than one source to support statements, and press releases by game companies are simply not going to be enough to fill up an entire article that spans a number of genres. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  21:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, I have cleaned out the references section that noted a lot of text that should be there but rather in the actual article. By reverting the endnote info back into the article, we avoid the in-universe writing style that had significantly marked this article's problems with notability, in-universe and referencing tags. The subsequent edits might very well serve to help avoid the article's sixth nomination for deletion. I will post there, and get some feedback as to whether the article still is an attractive deletion candidate. If it is more in keeping with Wikipedia's policies, I would submit that we discuss any further expansion of the article from its current state, and explore the possibility of creating sub-articles to explore the different forms, etc. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  21:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * great job! starting to look like a real article. --Killerofcruft (talk) 11:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Images
I am thinking that a few better images might be far more effective in communicating the subject of the article than we are seeing. Perhaps some stills of Maul taking on Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn, or the duel between Dooku, Yoda and Annakin. Thoughts? - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  16:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Revert of merger
Whether or not the merger was carried out by a banned user is totally irrelevant. The AfD was closed with the expectation that editors would merge the content from this article into lightsaber. I support that merger. I don't want to edit war over the redirect, so I'll note as much here. Protonk (talk) 05:06, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I am restoring the redirect. 100% of this article's content -- which is the material that AfD settled to keep -- has been merged to lightsaber, and that article has even been spruced up to improve the ref tagging. Additionally, the editor who undid the redirect has made no changes to the article. If User:GlassCobra wants to expand this material for a future fork, I'd suggest starting with the content in lightsaber, or moving this page's content to user space for development there. --EEMIV (talk) 04:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Text restored
Even after this article survived a sixth(!) AfD as Keep, I've no particular issue that some editors felt that this information would have been better presented as part of a greater Lightsaber article and performed a bold merge. Where there is an issue is merging the text, adding the redirect, then later removing the entirety of the merged text from the target article. This is a de facto subversion of the AfD process so I have restored the article to its last known "good" state. - Dravecky (talk) 02:55, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a shame. Lightsaber is worse off for it.  Why didn't you just edit lightsaber to include this information (which actually has a lot of real world context) rather than revert the redirect? Protonk (talk) 03:11, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I took a look and, indeed, it looks like an editor went through lightsaber with a weedwacker and, in addition to removing some cruft, also removed large swaths of out-of-universe, cited material -- much of it originating here. If I can find a comfortable seat and/or a full-size keyboard, I'll work on patching together that article (inc. restoring much of the material merged there) and, then, restoring this redirect. --EEMIV (talk) 03:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I've restored a chunk of the content in lightsaber, and threw in some copyediting and source-checking for good measure. There a giant chunk of Gilliard quotes that aren't cited to a source. I googled the quotes and got only Wikipedia and its mirrors; barring a citation to books, I've removed them. (I'm sure they must exist -- perhaps in some of the behind-the-scenes videos, which at least one quote is cited to?) There is also some material cited to a fan's essay hosted on TheForce.Net; I removed that. I also did not restore the seven styles of lightsaber combat -- although cited, it strikes me just as trivial plot summary. I've read a bunch of EU stuff, and even those minutiae-obsessed texts rarely delve into specific styles, and certainly I haven't seen the in-universe styles the subject of any significant third-party commentary. Anyhow -- despite the only-partial restorating, I think it's sufficient material that we can restore the redirect here. Please give a heads up here in the next few days if there's any objection. --EEMIV (talk) 03:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * That sounds both sensible and reasonable and more than meets at least the spirit of the AfD. Once the relevant lightsaber combat text is properly integrated, I'd appreciate it if a weather eye could be kept on the main lightsaber article as it appears to me to be the focus of a slow-motion edit war. - Dravecky (talk) 10:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

This article's a mess
I tried fixing up the page by removing irrelevant info from each form, but there's just too much irrelevant info, I would be here for the next 15 years. These pages need to be reverted to the way they were about a year ago. Here's a perfect example: "In the game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, Jedi Master Kavar teaches the Jedi Exile Shien if the Exile is a Jedi Guardian, a Jedi Sentinel, or the advanced forms of either." It would make much more sense and be more readable if all this trivia was put under its own section at the bottom of the page, not randomly littered throughout the article. 69.0.90.84 (talk) 07:36, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. I guess folk here can consider this notice: if the article isn't cleaned of in-universe items in one week, it will be cleaned, and somewhat scrubbed of anything possessing even a whiff of in-universe writing. The clock begins ticking down now. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  08:31, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I just redirected it - this was already merged once and then edited down over at lightsaber - why are we repeating the exercise with the same old in-universe shit that we took care of once before? --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:32, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Honestly, its because the content wasn't removed/destroyed/beheaded/shot with a silver bullet/incinerated before having its ashes scattered. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  12:56, 25 July 2009 (UTC)