The Databank Argument

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2046
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The Databank Argument

Post by 2046 » Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:22 pm

Remember how folks used to whine that since the official site's Databank had EU info available, that that somehow made it canon?

Well, the StarWars.com site's been redesigned. The Databank is gone, replaced by an Encyclopedia. And in that Encyclopedia, the EU is virtually non-existent . . . it's all the films and TCW only, so near as I have seen.

So much for that claim.

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Praeothmin
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Re: The Databank Argument

Post by Praeothmin » Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:36 pm

That's not totally true, RSA...

Sometimes, when I used a Databank article to counter a Warsie claim, the immediate response was to say that the Databank wasn't reliable...
Until that Warsie needed it for his side, of course... :)

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2046
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Re: The Databank Argument

Post by 2046 » Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:59 am

Indeed.

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: The Databank Argument

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Sep 16, 2011 12:57 pm

Dang. We knew how unstable it was. There is a problem in understanding the difference between publishing on Internet, which is bound to disappear faster than one thinks, and publishing on paper, with official editions.
Many fans will keep using whatever piece of the databank's numerous iterations they have saved, but what value do these sources have when the company that maintains it shows that it doesn't see it as necessary.
See, they didn't even pack it up in some archive that they'd spread on Internet. Nope, they just erased it. As always, we see that the ephemeral nature of the database always made this source extremely unreliable.
Mind you, the only reason why people still pay attention to books which aren't published anymore is because they still own them and many of these books have not been destroyed.
But in theory, if all WEG guides were to be ruined for some reason, what would we do?
People would say oh but they've been scanned! Right, but what is the difference with merely saving all the pages of the databank?

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