Alright, there are a lot of star wars fan sites out there, ranging from the amazing to the horrible, and from the informative to the rediculous. I personally have a site that does star wars fan comic books and fan D20 material, as well as some short fiction, though the comics are what we try to showcase. Anyway, I just notice that there seem to be a lot of people out there who want to have a star wars fan site, but don't really have any focus for it. I mean, there are probably over 5,000 star wars fan sites that just have a few of the webmaster's fave star wars images and maybe some sound files. While that is all well and good, there are a lot of sites that SHOULD be out there, that arent. So if you are interested in making a star wars fan site, maybe just browse this thread for ideas before making another generic star wars media site (not that there is anything wrong with that).

1.) Obscure character focus sites. I think these are always fun. Granted, they don't do much that your more standard media fan site does already, but they have a unique slant and focus. Some sites that come to mind are the one for the Ice Cream Man, Porkins, and Wedge. However, there would seem to be plenty of popular obscure characters without their own tribute site. Setting up one of these sites is fairly simple, and whats best is that it helps the rest of us out a bit, in that it expands the library of images available on a google image search. These are fairly low maintenance sites once they are set up. I am shocked there arent a ton of these for all of the background characters.

2.) Technical Commentaries. Obviously there IS a site called the star wars technical commentaries, but I dont believe it updates at all anymore. I am surprised someone else didnt pick up the reigns and continue the work that site started. Similarly, there arent really any sites that go into star wars technology and science. The technical commentaries site tried to explain star wars phenomena in real world terms, but there hasnt been a site that examined the galaxy scientifically on its own scientific terms. Either type of site would be welcome. Obviously to make this site work well youd need to know quite a bit about science or engineering or whatever like curtis saxton did, but hey, there has GOT to be a science brain out there who is a hardcore star wars fan.

3.) Mapping sites. Obviously www.nav-computer.com is the best galactic map site on the web. No question. But there isnt really a site that deals with a lot of maps of various planets. I would love to have a site like this that takes what we see in the essential guide to planets and moons and turns that into a map of alderaan. Or a deck by deck map of an imperial star destroyer by combining the technical manual, cross sections, and WEG RPG material. I mean, an Imperial Star Destroyer site with a map like this, images of the interior and exterior, maybe a list of all the named ISDs and their captains, that would be an amazing site in of itself. I am SHOCKED there isnt a site like that out there already. Obviously you need a bit of artistic/photoshop talent to pull off a site like this, plus quite a bit of reference material, but still, seems like there should be at least 1-2 more mapping sites out there.

4.) Holonet News. They don't do the holonet news anymore in the insider or online, so I am surprised someone hasnt cloned the site and created their own holonet news/Imperial holovision. Its like a new twist on a fan fic site/fake news site. Where are my daily show/colbert report fans? Again, shocked this isnt already done.

5.) CGI animated or traditional animated adaptations. Granted, this isnt something anyone can do, itd take a team of people. But how awesome would it be to have an animated adaptation of the thrawn trilogy, or some of the clone wars novels or even comics. There are quite a few animated features in the fan films section of TFN, Im surprised none of those groups thought to adapt their fave star wars novel or comic or even video game. Honestly? If someone played through lets say, KOTOR, or Republic Commando and recorded it, and edited it down so it was more like just watching one long cut scene, I'd watch that. Not sure of the legality of that, but itd be fairly easy to do, and entertaining for people who dont have the time to play through a game but want the story of it.

Alright, thats all off the top of my head. But on the flip side, there are some things id suggest staying away from. Now, just because I would suggest to stay away from it, doesn't mean it can't be done and work beautifully. There is an exception to every rule.

1.) General Encyclopedia. Bob Vitas and wookiepedia really have this sort of thing locked down. Id hate to see someone work that hard for something that redundant. Of course, if it was a star wars encyclopedia for something very specific, then maybe it would be awesome. Like, a Mandalorian Encyclopedia specifically, or something.

2.) A forums site. There are so many of these. I think the TFN boards are by far the largest aside from the official ones, but the swrpgnetwork.com forums are also big, galactic senate forums, and others. I mean, having A forum on your site is one thing, having a site built around the idea of having star wars forums is a bit redundant with all the official and big unofficial forums out there.

3.) Link site. A site with no actual content, but just a bunch of links to other sites, sometimes even other link sites! These are maddening. Should your site have links to other sites? Yes, but it shouldnt be the FOCUS of a website, IMO.

4.) Han, Luke, Leia, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Vader, or Padme fan sites. I know earlier I said a character site is a great idea, but these characters have a thousand fan sites already. Give the community something NEW. The Ice Cream Guy fan site popularized that character to the point where hasbro put him on the poll for the fan choice figure. He has made an appearance in the creaturecantina webstrip (funny, BTW). YOU could do the same for some other obscure character!

5.) Timeline site. Having a good timeline for star wars is good, important, neccesary, and done. There are like 4-5 big timeline sites that just go into everything, which is great. But we don't really need any more timeline sites, IMO. There are a lot of great ones out there already that stay up to date. If you just have a hankering for timelining, then maybe contact one of those sites and offer to help them out. Unless you think you have an amazing new and improved way to display and organize the timeline information, the community probably doesnt need any more timeline sites. However, if you are doing a character/vehicle niche site, like an ISD site or a wicket site or something, putting up a PERSONAL timeline in reference to your character/vehicle/etc would be a good thing to do, IMO.

Anyway, if anyone else has any other unique niches that they wish were seen more of on the web, or if you have another type of site that there are already a thousand of and for some reason people keep making them, add it to the list.

Also, if you actually make a site based on one of these ideas, let us know about it here!