Superhero versus Superhero Literature

Original discussion was at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=14292731590A36320000, but that one got closed.

We have an index named Superhero which has examples of superheroes in all sorts of media. We also have an index named Superhero Literature that is just written examples of superheroes (and villains and the people who live in said universes). There's some overlap between the two lists (I always add new books to both indices just in case), but each has some unique entries. Should the Literature section of Superhero point to Superhero Literature? Should the items in Superhero Literature be moved back? Is it fine as it is?

It seems strange to have a Superhero Literature separate from the page and not have a separate page for superhero comics, which are far more abundant. A redirect may be in order.

I don't see the point of having one medium have its own index that's covered completely by another. Is there any difference other than that?

Really, that's about it. There are enough books (and enough comics) to make for their own indices, probably enough films...

We have all sorts of genre-by-medium indexes. Especially for literature. Merging Superhero Literature into Superhero would make the Literature hierarchy inconsistent, because under Speculative Fiction, we have Science Fiction Literature and Fantasy Literature, and Superhero Literature is widely agreed to be separate from both, because that's the only way to avoid endless heated arguments over whether it's SF or F. (Alternate History Literature is separate for a similar reason.)

Yes, the result is that currently, Superhero looks a bit inconsistent, but there are thousands and thousands of similar cases across the Wiki. (I was going to point to Science Fiction as an example, but since the last time I looked, a few years back, it seems that most of the missing by-medium sub-indexes have been created. But Alternate History is still missing a bunch.)

So, yeah, the appropriate thing here is to make more sub-indexes. Things don't happen unless someone does the work. But it's not particularly urgent until the page starts getting too large.

(As for where the examples go: sub- and super-indexes are like sub- and super-tropes. Examples should go on the most specific one, if there's really a full sub/super relationship. Which in this case, there clearly is. Unfortunately, we're much less consistent about enforcing this with indexes than we are with tropes. And frankly, we're far from perfect even with tropes.)

edited 9th Nov '16 12:04:26 PM by Xtifr

So move the contents of the Literature folder on Superhero over to the Superhero Literature page?

That would make sense. Which was basically what I asked about in the first place.

& Yeah, sorry. I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Between the time I started writing that post and the time I finally posted it, I went and looked at some of the indexes, and discovered that they've changed (for the better) since the last time I'd looked. So I edited my post. Probably not very well. Sorry again.

(When I first joined TVT, literature was only indexed by genre, and movies were only indexed by decade. I personally created almost all of the "Literature of the [Decade]" indexes about three years ago. And other people have been creating "[Genre] Films" indexes and the like.)

So, yes, if you want to be consistent with other genre indexes, all the superhero literature should be moved to Superhero Literature.

I was pretty sure that's what you meant, but it never hurts to be certain, and to spell it out simply and concisely.

That would make it neater. Also sounds like general cleanup to me, which wouldn't need a TRS topic.

And make sure there's a link to that index from the Superhero index.

Alright, what's done is done.

I tossed in a more explicit link back to Superhero at the top of the page, as Another Duck requested. But I think we're good here.

So... if I were to go ahead and create pages for splitting out some of the other larger ones (comics, films, webcomics, etc), what do we see as a threshold? 20 items? 10?