Needs Help: Long Runners

What needs help on this page is the example sorting, I think.

The only division is by length of run, so everything is lumped together. There are subpages for "Video Games", "Print" (which is supposed to include comic strips, manga, magazines, newspapers, and comic books), "Book Series", and Webcomics; but those pages are listed on the main page after Long-Runner Line-up, Long-Runner Cast Turnover and Long-Runner Tech Marches On, making them harder to find.

Because of this, there are manga, book series, radio shows, comics, animes, movie franchises, revues, cartoon franchises, individuals and individual characters, and plays all clumped together on the main page, even if they should be (or already are) on one of the subpages.

Besides that, many of the examples on the main page don't identify what media they're in; don't give dates, or give dates "XXXX-present", which is a violation of Examples Are Not Recent. Some are for an entire franchise, (for instance, starting with a manga, then also counting the run of the anime, or counting a book series that spun off into a TV series together.)

So My suggestions:

First: make the actual media-defined subpages clearly marked, separate them from the three tangentially-related pages that aren't actual subpages, possibly even moving them to a new namespace LongRunners/Whatever instead of Main/LongRunner{Media}.

Establish some sort of basic template for entries. Something like

Name // Brief description of it // Date started-Date ended if it's ended/ "Present (2016)" if it's still going on // Notes about hiatus, uncancellation, restarts, reboots under the same name, number of episodes, editions, volumes, whatever, and so on.

Yes, that still means we're using "recent" but it also means it will be easier for someone to notice that it's not still ongoing if they're reading in the future, and will make updating those that are still running easier.

I'm not even sure I want to get into the sorting on the media subpages.

"Book Series" is divided by genre, then within that category it's strictly alphabetical, putting series that ran 10 years with ten books above those that ran 16 years with 180 books ahead of those that have been running steadily for 70 years or more.

The Webcomics page is pretty well-organized, divided into Ongoing and Done/Abandoned, then within those categories by the year it started, then alphabetically.

Print is only divided by type, with manga, comic books, and comic strips all in one folder, again with many of the examples not identifying which it is.

edited 23rd Dec '16 12:30:45 PM by Madrugada

Opening this and bumping it.

I think Long Runner is one of the cases where alphabetical organization detracts from the goal. Longest to Shortest is best, although it is more difficult than Oldest to Newest.

The big problem with that is some are still going while others are not. It could require sorting a lot

I do have major issues with the examples though, some examples are franchises or characters which get rebooted and yada. I wouldn't call Mickey Mouse a Long Runner for instance, the character is older than TV but he not a long runner like say the Guiding Light which has been continuously airing every week for 72 years.

edited 6th Jan '17 12:07:08 PM by Memers

I don't see much profit in weekly updates, but yearly/perpetual I do admit. But as a wiki, we sort of expect that, don't we?

[Edit: the above was written as response to an earlier form of the above post. I think Mickey Mouse is a character not a work, and should be disqualified on those grounds.]

edited 6th Jan '17 12:13:05 PM by crazysamaritan

Well sorting by alphabetical is easy, everyone knows the alphabet. Cant say the same for knowing every series in existence but meh.

The issue I have with the actual examples on the page though are far more important. Contiguous Series and such really are the only justifiable examples and not franchises with breaks, characters and such.

edited 6th Jan '17 12:26:25 PM by Memers

It will requitre a lot of sorting. And I agree that franchises shopouldn't be all listed together, especially if they span multiple media —except in the case where the change in media resulted from a change in technology, for instance, a radio serial that became a TV series but didn't change the basic plot or characters — some of the soap operas, comedies and adventure shows would qualify there.

I think that characters can be long-runners, though. As long as Disney is making new works with Mickey Mouse, he should count, even though none of those new works are the same format he started in— short animations. Of course, that might mean making a new category for Characters...

This is such a mess...:(

If you don't know or can't be bothered to look up the information, or can't do the math to figure out where in the list it should go, you've (that's generic "you", not you, Memers) shouldn't be adding the example.

Reading the whole thing it seems like the Literally Older Than Television section and super heroes have the most problems with that.

The Superman example talks about how he appeared in Action Comics 1 and such which would be a Long Running Character (NNF) but the example neglects to mention that Action Comics currently has 966 contiguous monthly issues that is the long runner here.

edited 6th Jan '17 12:37:11 PM by Memers

We're seeing the "comic book characters treated as a work" causing problems over here, where we don't have a good guideline yet.

Stated my opinion over there but for here its really gotta be works themselves.

Long Running Characters could easily be a trope in of itself, like the character has been in existence for X amount of years and has appeared in so and so many different series or works and not just remakes. Like Sherlock Holmes is over 100 years old and has been getting works made about him throughout that entire time.

Mickey for example has been going since Steamboat Willie and most recently has House Of Mouse series along with a bunch of Disney jr series.

That's why I'd rather see another subpage or folder for Long-Runners /Characters rather than saying they don't count at all.

The page is best organized by length of run. Everything that's lasted 10 years, everything that's lasted 20 years, etc. IOW like it is now.

I agree that long-running characters should be taken off the page. Mickey Mouse is not a long runner.

I agree, characters shouldn't count. This about works, not characters. The page image of superman gives a bad example even if characters were allowed. Given all the reboots and continuities, it is not the same character, and it certainly isn't the same continuous work.

I don't know what to do about the older than television section. It's not hurting anyone, and the amount of works which would count are limited.

I still believe sorting them based on media would be the best. If not, then the works inside those "length" folders could be sorted by media.

As for characters, are we only counting "characters used exactly as what they were from the very start within the same continuity" (meaning no reboots, You Don't Look Like You or different interpretations etc) or "the character being used a lot without regard to how they're used"? The latter doesn't seem too tropeworthy.

Imo Long Running Characters would be those characters that have been in works and such consistently over x years and not in just 1 series. Reboots, domain characters, and written by other writers would count imo.

Stuff like comic book characters, Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Mouse. These characters are typically more famous than the works they appear in

Publications like Action Comics are what count as the long runners, they might reboot and such over time but it's still the same series of comics that's been going on for 80 years.

Most of the examples of Older Than TV are just not this trope and should probably be sorted into time sections.

edited 9th Jan '17 5:35:32 PM by Memers

I have another suggestion: given that it's all about works that have been around for long, can this be considered Trivia?

I think we agree on that mostly. In the context of characters, the characters themselves are not long runners if there's a reboot/etc. But I also don't think the work itself is the same if it reboots or changes in such a way it might not be considered the same work.

On second thought, the Older Than TV section is unique because the entire media industry changed after the introduction of television. I think it's meaningful for a radio work to survive TV, but also go on for a number of years. However, looking at the examples, if an example doesn't fit the trope at all by time definitions, then yes, they should be deleted/moved.

That's a great point. Why isn't this trivia?

Its almost always linked in the description and not listed as a trope, I dont think it is even really trivia.

10 years takes up a third of the page - which is not exactly short. Perhaps the 10 years tropes should be removed for 20 years and up?

10 years is a long time for some media that have to keep going consistently without much interruption in production like TV Shows and Web Content.

Also agree that it sounds like Long Running Character for characters that have been around a long time and used in many differnt works could be it's own trope.

Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, A Myriad of Classic Cartoon characters, several Comic Book stars....

edited 28th Feb '17 4:14:49 PM by shoboni

Is there a reason why you folks want to change the inclusion criteria? Because bluntly speaking, with all the uncompleted wick cleanups in TRS I can't see how that would be worthwhile.

I agree that the media-specific Long Runner pages should be put into a Long Runner/ namespace (e.g. LongRunner.Book Series). These media-specific pages aren't fundamentally different from the basic trope; they're just media-specific like Action Girl.Literature. Another question to address is whether or not to list any examples on the Main/ page at all. Thereby organizing the examples completely by Media-Type > Year Started > Alphabetical (or media-specific organization, such as number of installments for books).

The criteria, such as the age of the work, seem fine — especially since there wasn't a wick check demonstrating that there's misuse or a vast majority being ten-year runners. Ten years is a long time, and — if I'm reading this right — it shouldn't be split off into something like Medium Runners or, y'know Average Length But A Couple Years Longer Runners.