Do recap pages mirror/reciprocate, or hard split from mainpages?

We don't have a unified rule for this. Recap pages are not meant to take episode-specific tropes, but they do in some cases. Usually works that get enough interest to have devoted recap pages are very popular on the wiki, hugely trope overdosed, and use a wide variety of tropes depending on the episode. Their main works page is hard to navigate due to interspersed episode-specific and more general tropes. Some works pages have tried dividing tropes in different ways.

Note that Doctor Who, which is very popular, Trope Overdosed, and has very detailed, trope-listing Recap pages that are commonly referred to in trope examples, has not needed its Series page to be split alphabetically. Avatar The Last Airbender doesn't have as developed a Recap section, and does have a split. Futurama and Bleach, other big Trope Overdosed TV shows, lack episode recaps, and need alphabetical splits. Many works without episodes to recap nor other convenient story-based split-points also need alphabetical splits.

So maybe there's merit to using recaps this way. But it's not policy, except on certain pages that have chosen to organize it that way. For now, put the example on the main page, redundancy be damned, so we don't lose track of them and can deal with them later. If the episode-specific tropes clog it up and we have to split the page, that's what will happen.

I personally feel the method used on the Doctor Who page makes things LESS accessible to the more casual fans, instead of more. I much prefer alphabetized subpages that hold all the tropes, a la Warhammer40000. I mean, it's good that they link to recap pages. But I don't feel that they're accessible enough to be used as a primary trope depository, or even a secondary one. Too many pages to open to see all the tropes.

I'll second battosaijoe on accessibility, for a different reason. The buttons for YMMV and the character sheet are nice and big, highly visible with bright logos. The pulldown subpages menu where recaps are kept is less obvious. I'd like to see the word "subpages" in a brighter color like the buttons, because my eyes keep passing over it like they would a greyed out premium option in a freeware utility.

edited 2nd Apr '12 8:29:14 PM by Aiguille

Well, it's no big deal to make recap pages more accessible and visible if we wanted to. We don't because they currently hold no official purpose.

I'll agree that it is inconvenient to have a trope example link to a Doctor Who recap page instead of the Doctor Who page. Again, it comes down to the fact that this is not how recap pages were intended to be used. If it were, we'd have some kind of policy or method for linking to both the main and the episode recap.

It is a big deal, though. Don't forget this site has exactly one coder, and he's got a LOT on his to-do list right now, and that's without IRL concerns. Making Recap pages more accessible probably wouldn't be high on that list.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against tropes on Recap pages, although, as you said, that isn't their purpose. However, I do believe that all tropes concerning a work should be on the main page on the work, with links to recap pages as necessary. In fact, what with the recap namespace's current underusage, I'd say that it's even more important now to have them all on the main work page. Once (if) they become more widespread and we put forward official policy on them and their organization, then we can consider using them as secondary trope depositories.

Is there any reason that trope pages ought to link to recap pages? (It's annoying because recap pages often use systematic titles in place of titles people actually use.)

edited 19th Apr '12 7:04:14 PM by Prfnoff

I'd say mirror, not split from.