Lumper Vs. Splitter

Lumper Vs Splitter is an interesting topic. Which side would you take?

Personally, I could take either side depending on the situation.

For example, let's say there was a trope page with 10 examples for each part of media and Real Life. In that case, I would take the lumper's side, because it's not too hard to edit and add examples.

As another example, let's say there was a trope page that had 100 examples listed in at least one folder. In that situation, I would happily take the splitter's side, because it's quite painful to scroll the list, and try to find the appropriate part to edit and add examples.

The way I see it, both sides are quite valid.

I'm a splitter, because that way we can have more examples, more specialized tropes, more room to analyze the difference between similar ways a trope can be played, and it lets us have more pages.

Lumping is efficient, but sometimes not as accurate and detailed as splitting.

Also, all the mods are lumpers, so of course I'm a splitter.

I prefer lumps to splits, do you know how hard it is to repair split cables? At least lumpy ones still work.

I'm a lumper, because there comes a point where splitting things too fine becomes detrimental.

It depends on how different the divergent flavors are.

Back when I was more involved on the wiki, I got the ball rolling on splitting the Video Wills page, which at the time was The Tape Knew You Would Say That under the Video Wills title, with about a third of the examples as just video wills that don't talk back.

I seem to recall another incident involving BearTrapBeds and related Murphy's Bed tropes which I was involved in one way or another. I forget which side I was on then.

Slightly off-topic, but wouldn't a Splitter say that we would need pages on "lumpers", "splitters" and "lumper vs splitter"?

Not all the mods are Lumpers, By the way.

I'm another lumper. Kaleidoscope Hair doesn't need dividing into "hair color changes symbolise an unstable personality", "hair colour changes symbolize vanity", "hair color changes symbolize rebelliousness", and "hair colour changes symbolise a need for disguise". Splitting too much creates duplicates and stubs — although with lumping there's a risk of not-tropes occuring, it's easier and helps tropes thrive.

Madrugada: Name one that isn't, and I'll believe you.

Me.

I actually don't adhere to either philosophy completely. Some tropes are better served by being split, others could be at least as clear if they are lumped.

edited 9th Nov '12 10:10:28 AM by Madrugada

How about the Glurge page as an example?

The laconic description says "Tastes Like Diabetes meets Fridge Horror and/or Unfortunate Implications."

It sounds simple enough, but...a number of the examples listed on the page do not have anything even close to TLD. So what would you call a fictional work that doesn't have TLD, but has FH and/or UI? Sounds like some splitting may be called for!

Or...would it be split into pages like TLD meets FH, TLD meets UI, and TLD meets FH and UI? We have a conundrum here!

Very few people are universally one or the other. But, yes, I'm another example of a staff member who's inclined towards splitting.