Synopsis namespace not thriving

I have no idea how "summarizing a work" and "providing work pages for episodes in serial works" are the same thing.

Think of it as "summarizing one large work" vs. "summarizing smaller entries in a serial work".

A trope list is not a summary. It's just not. And nothing says that recap pages have to be long synopses.

Recap/ pages are works pages. Synopsis/ are subpages to works pages.

I don't think there's a benefit in merging the two.

Then you'd rather the Synopsis space sit gathering dust and not thriving?

This is quickly devolving into "We should do something." "Should we do something?" "We should do something." "Should we do something?"

I said nothing about trope lists. And most Recap/ pages I've seen actually do involve long summaries of what happened in the episode.

@Twentington: Well, it was you in the first place who said "we should do something." And my opinion is that we should do nothing.

Edit: By the way, this is already the third thread on the very same topic you started: [1] [2] Why start new threads on an old topic? Is it because the old threads did not go the way you wished for?

edited 25th Aug '13 1:54:41 PM by LordGro

The serve the same purpose, even if done a somewhat different way. Except, as pointed out, some Recaps are just summaries too.

They should be merged, since there's no significant differences among their purposes. Having rules for how specific ones are done is fine. But the different namespaces are just plain redundant now.

I love how everyone is treating this like the only options are "merge the recap namespace into synopsis" and "do nothing".

One issue not brought up is that recap pages don't have the "certain tropes go here and not on the main page" aspect that character pages do. I don't see a good way to enforce that rule for both character pages and recap pages simultaneously, and I'm not sure how you could classify something as a "work page" unless that rule was in effect.

I'm beginning to wonder if the reverse idea might be better: clean up the recap pages to match a certain standard, and then move them into Synopsis/.

Synopses don't need trope lists. They just summarize a work.

In works with episode Recap/ pages, episode specific tropes go there.

Those tropes are just a summary overall of the events. It's the same overall thing. They may be done in a different way, but they both summarize the events of the episode or season or series.

So no, they are only different on a very technical scale.

Definitely don't see a need for a separation anymore.

I'm against the exclusive trope lists on recap, since it makes finding tropes harder for people who aren't familiar with a work. Having to comb through the recap pages episode by episode is not my idea of fun. Plus, all the recap pages will confuse Google (I've seen this before with several subpages showing up in front of the main work page on searches), which makes navigation harder. Cutting the exclusive trope lists off of them will reduce page views, thus dropping them down the search rankings and making the main work page easier to find.

So I've kind of moved to the merge camp, although I think it needs to be managed a little more carefully than some of the other people have said.

Eh... I've rarely seen a page without a note telling where the tropes are, and it's an easier solution than a merge.

It doesn't really matter if you say "episode specific tropes are on the recap pages" if the person in question doesn't know the episode name, the episode number, or the season number of whatever episode had the trope they are looking for. (And the latter two aren't always used in recap page titles, as I noted before, meaning they have to go by episode name only.)

Most of these items land on the main trope lists. Which happens with character tropes or franchises too.

Also, removing Recap/ trope lists looks like a different discussion than fixing Synopsis.

edited 25th Aug '13 2:16:51 PM by SeptimusHeap

@Irene: What would be the advantage of merging the two? It's true only a small number of works currently has a Synopsis/. But new synopses, recaps, whatever will not miraculously appear if we merge Recap/ and Synopsis/. The amount of actual content will stay exactly the same, whether they're merged or not.

Then why it is so important to merge them? It's not a huge problem that Synopsis/ is a small namespace. It would be nice if more tropers would write synopses/recaps, but we can't force them, can we? It hurts nobody if there are few pages in the namespace, and a merge won't in any way increase the number of synopses/recaps.

edited 25th Aug '13 2:22:54 PM by LordGro

The issue is underuse of Synopsis. We can fold Synopsis under Recap, change Recap to be a little closer to Synopsis and fold Recap into Synopsis, or we can merely encourage more use of Synopsis and do nothing else.

Recap has problems as a namespace too (multiple different uses where there probably should not be), and if it's possible to kill two birds with one stone, I'd do it. So I'm in favor of any solution that handle both (and if we're doing a merge, we ought to be handling both).

A merge would solve neither namespace's problems. The problems will stay the exact same.

If there's enough of something visible, more people will check it out. So if Synopsis alone doesn't draw enough attention (a problem Recap may have), then merging the two of them together will. Furthermore, to facilitate the move, we'd have to come up with some guidelines for the shared namespace, which would help stop the worst of Recap's problem of being used for too many different things. So, yeah, I'm not sure I see how you can say it won't solve the issue.

If you have alternative answers, fine, but I'd prefer a single unified solution that addresses both.

It looks to me that the problem was the Name Space for individual episode work pages being named a synonym to Synopsis. A short description of the episode could go on the Synopsis page, and the Recap page could be treated as an actual work page, but, I think the misuse occurred because "Recap" means synopsis. So the full solution would need to include renaming the recap Name Space.

Or not having individual episode work pages. Others have suggested they may be more trouble than they're worth.

I think originally, Recap pages didn't have trope lists.

While it's Name Space and not Name Space, I could see a rename. As for removing the trope lists ... actually, I am kind of blanking. I've never encountered a problem like that.

Because the last two threads failed to reach a consensus, and nothing ever got done because no two people could agree on a single thing.

That's all I'm looking for, is something to be done. There seems to be more voices this time saying that the problem exists, but once again, literally everyone has a different solution.

I wonder if this is actually a problem that can/should be fixed by anything going beyond "Please add more synopses, people".

I think "pimp out the Synopsis space more, so people know it friggin' exists" is also a feasible idea.