Tropes sorted by seasons?: Angel

Uber Geek has re-sorted the tropes on the page by seasons, before keeping other tropes by alphabetical order. This is... odd. For one it gives the page two distinct sorting methods, and for two, makes it all the harder to see if something is listed.

Is this some new normal procedure's no one's ever mentioned before? I have not ever seen tropes sorted this way.

EDIT: Buffy The Vampire Slayer has been given a similar sorting of seasons, character tropes^

edited 31st May '11 1:21:58 AM by Ghilz

It's not a standard thing, but it seems like a good idea. The unsorted tropes should just be in one folder, though.

Incidentally, the page is getting long enough that it ought to be split.

But why not do it alphabetically rather than by seasons? It makes it easier for people who don't know the show to find the tropes.

edited 31st May '11 1:23:07 AM by Ghilz

True, but on the other hand, sorting by season makes it easier for people who're only partway through, because it makes it easy to dodge spoilers (for example). Also, it's the way they're already sorted, so it's convenient.

No, They were sorted alphabetically until a few hours ago. Look at the history. Plus, should we aim to be consistent for all works? Is alphabetical the way to go, or seasons?

edited 31st May '11 1:26:12 AM by Ghilz

Buffy The Vampire Slayer page is the same way but much better put together.

I like alphabetical better especially since the show is in syndication which means a lot of people are watching it out of order on Bravo. People catch an episode here or there, they have no idea what season it is. Guess, and then you end up with tropes all over the place duplicated.

It basically makes the page formatted in such a way that it discourages casual fans from editing it.

Not counting that it assumed anyone editing the page KNOWS by heart what season episode X is in.

Exactly. It discourages anyone from editing the page unless they're a truly hard core fan. It's not user friendly.

edited 31st May '11 7:44:24 AM by shimaspawn

Buffy The Vampire Slayer is just as bad because it's needlessly hard to edit.

The only time I really see sorting tropes by season working is if it's very complicated plot and knowing what order the tropes occur in is just as important as knowing that they happen.

I dislike all folderisation for work pages except alphabetically.

The only other good one I can think of is when they're divided by things like "setting" "plot" "technology" and shit like that. I think Warhammer 40000 was supposed to be sorted that way.

No, Warhammer 40000 is split by specific lines first and then anything general is just alphabetized and split into three more pages. They changed it because the plot, setting, tech, organization didn't work.

edited 31st May '11 11:29:24 AM by shimaspawn

My bad.

So, can we agree the folders are dumb and should be put back to alphabetical order?

I am all for saying they should be alphabetical.

It works for all the other pages and there's nothing special about Angel in this regard.

Is there a way to revert the edit without doing it all again by hand?

Nope.

..fuck.

I've been splitting many pages by season, including Buffy's sub-pages (horror, awesome, tear jerker, funny, others). The thing is that I've been to several TV Tropes pages on shows I've been following and there's no way to tell what a spoiler is talking about just from what trope is being covered. Among other things, trope titles are always vague, and there are so damn many of them that it's becoming increasingly impossible to know all of them.

Unless a show is pure fluff (I dunno, SNL maybe?) it's going to have spoilers, and unless the troper hiding the spoiler makes it a point to say what point in time he's referring to (very rare) or is a master of prose who can indicate exactly when he's talking about without saying "this occurs in season blank episode blank", then there's no way of knowing and if you're partway through a show...

Netflix, hulu, dvr, tivo... Timeshifted viewing is becoming more common and even with that, we're talking specifically about a show that is necessarily only viewed after its run has been completed.

I think that ease of organization should take a back seat to avoiding spoilers. We're all here to enjoy television, and spoilers ruins that more than having to keep things tidy.

We have spoiler tags. And that kind of organization makes the pages a bitch to edit coz there's neither rhyme, reason, or logic to the organization. It's a bitch to find tropes where you don't know where someone's listed them on the page. Seriously, worst organization method ever. As mentioned above, it also relies on the flaw that the viewer knows what season he's in.

We still gotta fix the Buffy page.

And no offense, but if your goal was to prevent spoiler, you have seriously half-assed it. For example, Your folder for "Character Tropes" includes spoilers for the series finale (Oops!). Several of the early season folders contain tropes with description mentioning the future seasons. (Season 2 Shock Party has a Season 5 reference)

Some tropes are listed twice, with the exact same description (Look up Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique)

While I could agree with the idea, had it done cleanly, it's not the case. What you've done is make the page a mess and done nothing to make easier to avoid spoilers.

Do I dare ask what other show's you've "sorted" this way?

edited 3rd Jun '11 2:36:49 AM by Ghilz

YES, move this discussion to the Buffy page.

I mean, it's the flagship article of tvtropes, yeah? No wonder so many people are confused about what folders are used for. It sets the wrong example.

Why sacrifice ease of use for avoiding spoilers? So I guess we're going to be slaves to spoilers forever, now that you can stream? By that logic, tvtropes should be abolished. Every single trope that's listed is a spoiler of some sort.

edited 3rd Jun '11 10:35:16 AM by johnnyfog

And Surgoshan has just gone and given "The treatment" to Friends too.

How I Met Your Mother has also been re-organized by season.

EDIT: Since he had not gotten too far on Friends, I undid it, so that one is fixed.

edited 3rd Jun '11 11:21:18 AM by Ghilz