Seperate tropes by season?: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

There's a topic brewing about whether to separate the Buffy / Angel pages by season, with a General folder for recurring tropes. I was fine with just alphabetizing the folders, but I can see both sides of the issue - I'd be more comfortable if I saw more articles separating tropes by season.

Proponents say this will avoid spoilers and make the pages more editor/lurker friendly. I said that pretty much all the tropes are spoilers, and more folders means more headaches for editors. We're at an impasse.

edited 10th Jun '11 3:01:38 PM by johnnyfog

Personally, I'm not a fan of soft splits of any kind — they make editing really error-prone. I wouldn't object if the Doctor Who / My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic "shift as many tropes as possible to the recap pages" principle became more widespread, though...

I thought of that. The reply was that more lurkers than editors visit the site.

Basically we're just dueling over aesthetic reasons. I can't come up with any concrete argument against a soft split.

I can think of several for this case:

• People are actually saying we should favour protecting people from spoilers over aesthetic pleasure and ease of organisation/reading. This is ridiculous. Spoiler protection is impossible when taken to that degree, and is certainly not our number one priority for a page.

• It's far harder to see if a specific trope is in the list, becuase you have to search through several lists.

• It's far easier for tropes to be added more than once, or in the wrong order, because of people not reading the whole page. And when the page is as big as this, that's a very real probability.

• The question of when tropes apply in many situations or to many seasons - multiple entries or one covering all? Opinions will vary.

That's a start. Utterly opposed to splitting on this basis.

I strongly disagree that straight alphabetization is better organized. From the perspective of what the tropes actually mean to a work, alphabetical order is practically random. As a reader, its only organizational benefit comes when you know the name of a trope and want to check whether it appears in a work, something you could do just as well from the trope page (either directly or with the "related to" button, as desired) as from the work page. If you're browsing, general tropes give you a better sense of what the work is about than specific tropes, so it makes sense to list them at the top where people will actually see them, and imposing a rough chronology of when the specific tropes happen — as something like listing by seasons does — is more information-rich than listing them in the same order on every works page.

The benefit of straight alphabetization is precisely that it's easier for the editor (it's easier to check for duplicates, less work to determine where to list something, and so on).

I believe we should be catering to readers, except when doing so leads to error. Hence my preference for hard-split over no-split over soft-split (for sufficiently long works pages): editing the wrong page of a hard split is a lot less likely than editing the wrong folder of a soft split. I don't think the duplication thing is an issue; if a trope can be listed in multiple places, there's nothing wrong with just, well, listing it in multiple places.

Anything is better than what the Sailor Moon page does, though, which is useful neither for readers nor editors.

edited 10th Jun '11 8:55:37 PM by Micah

Hence my dilemma.

Essentially it comes down to, "Well, if I need to look for a specific trope, I need to use CTL+F." This comes across as lazy on the editor's part - which is why I can see both sides of this issue.

I am worried about disarranged tropes - but then again, that's a problem for the curator(s), of whom there will always be at least one.

Looking it over I really don't see any useful purpose to being organized that way. Almost all of the tropes can be listed across multiple seasons, so pushing it into season categories is either redundant (listing them in multiple folders), restrictive (insisting they stay in one folder) or misleading (believing they only happen in that season).

The only thing that might make the season-based folders better is if they are for specifically the Myth Arc, Big Bad or major episode plots, but that involves so few tropes I don't see a point in having a folder there either.

As for "What Looks Better for a Casual Reader" if you have to divide the trope list it should be in the broadest categories possible. I would say around 4 different folders: Characters, Episode Plots (like a Musical Episode), Production Tropes (Like Real Life Writes the Plot or Cut Short) and General (anything that doesn't fit into the other folders). Dividing that way makes it fairly clear what goes where and what to expect in each folder, regardless if you are an editor or reader. I've seen people try to divide things by "Tropes used once" and "Tropes used often." Basically I feel you should divide tropes according to what they are and not when they're used.

edited 11th Jun '11 3:02:51 PM by KJMackley

I'm starting to think the best solution would be episode recaps.

The reason the pages is so long is that they're comprehensive episode-by-episode.

If I were a casual reader, and I have been a casual reader on many occasions, I would prefer to be able to browse tropes in chronological order.

^ And the main question going through my mind is why? What benefit is there to knowing that an Abandoned Warehouse shows up in season two? Even something more spoiler-ish like a Heroic Sacrifice in season five, all it does is bypass spoilers and tell the reader what is happening anyway just by knowing something will happen that season.

I can kind of see why some people would like it, but I just don't see it being more useful than the other organization methods suggested.

The plot changes radically between seasons. New characters, new conflicts, new plot points, new Big Bads, everything is new. It's exactly like splitting the tropes between a sequel and the original. Nobody objects to our splitting the Star Wars films onto six separate pages, do they? We've always been allowed to soft-split sequels. Different seasons are, functionally, from a narrative standpoint, sequels.

Other people have already said it; the organization of a page has to serve two masters. 1) The editors. 2) The readers. I think the needs of the editors must be met; there's no reason to organize these pages in such a fashion so as to make the work of the editors more difficult. Unless it better serves the needs of the readers.

We have spoiler tags for a reason, but rarely do they come with any indication of when the spoilered event occurs. Take The Atoner as an example. It comes up with unsurprising frequency in Buffy.

Season one gives us Angel, atoning for the evils of Angelus. Season two gives us Giles, whose stuffy tweedy persona is his attempt to atone for the damage caused by his teen rebellion, which segues into his desire to atone for how Jenny was injured by his past catching up with him. Then we also get Jenny atoning for how her secrets could have kept Angelus locked, but didn't because she didn't share info with the Scoobies. Then season three gives us Angel again, with a fresh bout of guilt to atone for after the back half of season two. Then season four gives us Something Blue, the end of which has Willow atoning for about two minutes. Then season six has Buffy attempting to atone for her reaction to the garghkl fashmnik. And season seven gives us Willow atoning for the end of season six, and Spike. Oh, and Faith.

Seriously, that's a lot of wangst.

Suppose you're watching the show and you're in season two. You didn't read the spoilered stuff because you know that something as important as Angel's atonement would be in there. But what about Giles's backstory? That's a subtle enough bit of character information that it might not necessarily be in there already. So you read it and, thanks to incautious editing (we tend to just tack things on as we find them, not necessarily in order), Angel is first and Willow is second. Holy shit, the end of season six just got spoiled big time.

And a lot of the time, strive as we might to avoid it, the second bullet point under a trope is discussion or clarification or development of the previous bullet. The first example of atonement will be Angel. Will the second one be further discussion of that or will it mention Giles?

I think the needs of the readers have to come first, and a great many tropes, even if they don't necessarily have what might be considered spoilerific information, inform a great deal of the story that's occurred. A character crawls into the bottle in season four, the first three seasons show what drove him there, learning that he's The Alcoholic when you're in the middle of season two and what drove him there at the end of season three? That takes a lot of the sting out of the character development.

Having separated Buffy's crowning moment pages and at least one other show into seasons, I know the work involved (several hours) and how much more difficult it makes finding tropes (not much). That said, organizing tropes first chronologically by season then alphabetically within the season makes it easier to read the tropes, because it mitigates the difficulties attendant in avoiding spoilers, and not just the big, spoilered things like a Heel–Face Turn, but the less spoilered, but still significant things like story arcs and character development. It's a few hours work one time that, once finished, makes things marginally harder for editors and a hell of a lot better for readers.

edited 16th Jun '11 8:09:17 PM by surgoshan

Use Example Indentation In Trope Lists to sort by season:

• The Atoner
  • In season one, Angel blah blah blah.
  • In season two. Giles blah blah blah.
  • In season three, Angel blah blah blah.
  • In season six, Willow blah blah blah.

Duplicate entries of the same trope on the same page is redundant and I don't see how duplicate entries makes it easier for the reader. In the current organization there are maybe a dozen tropes in the individual season folders that are unique solely to that season, they were organized by the entry given and not whether it only happens in that season (which would require a much more dedicated fan to sort it through). Like I said before, there isn't that great of a difference in tropes used between the seasons.

If you have tropes like The Atoner (which pops up quite frequently) how is the page as it is currently organized actually benefitted if you have both a seasonal and multi-seasonal list? It's trying to do both at once and is thereby fighting itself, at least according to the "better for spoilers" argument.

Now if there was some major division between the seasons like frequent retools or cast changes like Power Rangers I could get behind that. But even still I would suggest seperate pages. Dividing up the trope list in a single page is just a tricky task.

There are definitely major divisions between the seasons in Buffy. Each season contains its own self-contained plot arc with a separate Big Bad who is defeated in the last episode. Then in the next season a new villain surfaces and a whole new arc begins. Each individual season tells a complete story.

There's nothing wrong with duplicate entries of a trope on a page because of sorting. Character Sheets have them in spades and nobody complains. Tropes are often duplicated between sequels. And it's hardly a straight duplicate, since the trope is appearing in a different context each time—it takes up the same number of lines as if they were all under one header.

Spell Blade says it as it should be. No reason whatsoever to do differently than that.

Agreeing with Spell Blade there. If you are hellbent on dividing by seaons, do it that way.

And a third. Dividing it into season in folders or separate pages would be fine for Buffy fans who know which season a particular episode is in, but not for casual readers who don't.

^ That got me thinking that casual readers don't come to TV Tropes to find an episode guide, seasonal folders is forcing everyone to comb through multiple trope lists when they may not be sure how to find what they're looking for (Is it in season 4 or is it in the general list?). The method above allows you to do side-by-side comparisons of the use of a single trope which, truthfully, aligns far better with why I come to TV Tropes, to compare and discuss the way tropes are used. I find that far more helpful than knowing when a trope was used in the series lifespan as most of the tropes being used has little to do with the Myth Arc of a particular season.

"As a reader, its only organizational benefit comes when you know the name of a trope and want to check whether it appears in a work, something you could do just as well from the trope page (either directly or with the "related to" button, as desired) as from the work page."

The problem is you are acting like that benefit is minimal, when it's actually what people who don't watch the show are more likely to look for.

It's not that the benefit is minimal, it's that gearing the work page for that purpose is redundant, since the trope page is better suited for it anyway. Similarly, if you want to read a side-by-side comparison of all the different ways a work uses a trope, you can do that just as well on the trope page as the work page, or probably better as descriptions on trope pages tend to be more detailed than descriptions on work pages.

Things that works pages do that can't be done on trope pages:

1. Getting a general sense of a work you're not familiar with.
2. Finding tropes when you don't know their name ("Is there a trope page for that plot when Buffy and Faith swap bodies?").
3. Reminiscing over a work you enjoyed.

Of these, 2) is definitely easier in the current organization than in a straight-alphabetization system; 1) and 3) might be enhanced, and probably aren't harmed.

I would argue that (3) is actively enhanced because research has shown that we recall experiences sequentially. That is to say, when we recall an event, we view it as we would a movie; we play through events as they occur. It's fundamentally unsatisfying to hear a story in bits and pieces as the author bounces around through the narrative; we prefer it as a coherent tale from start to finish.

Organizing the tropes of a work alphabetically is merely an organizational choice that is entirely separate from the work itself. TV Tropes is a reflection of the work in that it is a discussion of the work and the tools it uses. On the one hand, as a biologist dissects the object of his study he separates and individually exams the organism's parts. On the other, he considers them as parts of the whole, interacting and forming a cohesive and coherent unit.

The consideration of the parts as individual units occurs on the page discussing the trope and providing examples in various works. The consideration of the trope as part of a cohesive whole, integrated within a framework, occurs on the page of the work.

If you want to discuss and describe a trope, do it on the trope page. On a page dedicated to a show, movie, or book, the trope must serve the narrative, as it does in the work itself.

Discussion and description are paramount on the trope page. On the work page, narrative is paramount (reflecting its near absence on the trope page), description follows for clarity, and discussion should be minimal to nonexistent.

As to what Spell Blade said; that's the sort of thing that *should* be done, but almost never is. Spoilers are added casually and continuity rarely referenced. Going through every page and adding that sort of semi-despoilerification would be just as time consuming as simply organizing pages by season.

With the added benefit of:

1. Removing duplicates
2. Not having the shitty work that was done in the Buffy and Friends pages where early season folders have spoiler for later seasons. (Avoid spoilers my ass)
3. Being all around better.

So, if they are gonna take the same amount of time, do it this way rather than by season folders.

Are you suggesting that tropes should just be listed on the work page with no explanation as to why they're there or how they apply, with such reasoning being instead on the trope page equivalent entry?

If so then you're highly mistaken, as explanation should exist on both. Assuming trope names are clear enough to convey themselves well enough, a reader should see an entry on the page and be able to understand what the trope is and how/why it applies. Without having to read the trope page itself.