Not Tropeworthy: Home Video Distributors

Spinning off from this long-term project per mod response since it and the crowner are about deciding on changes.

Home Video Distributors is an index containing a few dozen pages made in the Creator namespace. This is about the index and the pages found on that index, not just the index itself, for consistency across the various pages.

The basic problem is that these are not creators. They do not create works; they manufacture and distribute physical products containing works created by others. Some of them are the home video distribution branch of a company that does create works— but those have (or could have) their own creator pages. Others have more problems detailed below.

Home video distribution is a relevant topic to this site since it involves how media gets out into the world, so it could be worthwhile to have a Useful Note about it. If so, we'd need to determine what content it would include. For instance, it could include a history of home video distribution and distributors that changed the industry.

Distributor pages full of details

Aside from not being creators, there are other problems on these pages. They don't just describe the company or provide a works list; they have multiple folders full of "Notes" with catalog numbers for each individual release, technical specs, differences in packaging, and more. They list works that don't have pages on this wiki. Some pages have tropes about their packaging or copyright protection. A few of these pages have been on TRS before, but the actions discussed/voted on either weren't carried out or may have been undone over the years.

This isn't the entirety of the index, just the pages with all the extra info. They look like they belong to a very different wiki for video tape collectors. One that gets many inbounds (Magnetic Video) gets them from precisely those kinds of sites.

Content examples

Other distributor pages on the index

I suggest considering most of the indexed anime companies separately from whatever's decided for the other pages since most are not just distributors; they have creative roles like translating, dubbing/subbing, etc. I've marked the ones that are just distributors (based on their descriptions), and which have subpages.

(A related discussion, not re: home video but similar concerns: Do we really need a list of what games are available on digital distribution services?)

(Further examples, the rest of the index, and other expansions)

Edited by ImmiThrax on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:05:07 AM

It's a bit too early to ask for a crowner, but bumping for discussion.

Thanks— never done TRS before so I have stuff to learn!

I think this would be bettter as either a Useful Notes article, or an index.

Maybe Useful Notes, but no to making it an index. Very few of the listings are formatted as wicks, so making it an index wouldn't be as simple as adding index tags; how easy it would be would depend on how many listings have pages.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 24th 2020 at 12:57:25 PM

Home Video Distributors is already a non-alphabetical index. Some of the pages on it are only indexed there and nowhere else. And some of the pages on it are, themselves, indexes (of works distributed by that distributor).

Make a Useful Note, assuming someone is interested in writing about its history and big-name distributors?

As I said in the cleanup thread, these home video distributions do not deserve pages since they do not function as content creators. They are either third parties distributing someone else's work or arms of already existing companies with pages (e.g. the Disney distributors). I believe there is precedence for cutting in the gutting of video game distributor pages awhile back.

All we need is a page called UsefulNotes.Home Video Distribution to cover the historical aspects of the topic.

Edited by Karxrida on Aug 24th 2020 at 12:19:27 PM

Yeah, I don't think we need all of these pages with unnecessary technical details. They can be condensed into one Useful Notes page.

You know, I honestly wonder if maybe we should add a "distributor" namespace.

I was thinking the same thing; otherwise, I'm considering moving the dumped text to a dedicated wiki on Miraheze.

Moving the content to a dedicated wiki sounds like an excellent idea to me. I saw it was an idea several years ago regarding Disney distribution, but did that get started? Anyway— with a different wiki, all the info that's been gathered would have a home and could grow there. There seems to be an interest in it among the collector community and media history buffs so it would have an audience; it's just not information that really fits with tropes.

If we go that route, I suggest we include a link to the wiki in any page that results from this discussion, so those in the community wondering what happened will understand things better, especially early on in such a transition.

You mean "content is deemed outside the scope of TV Tropes and has been moved offsite to blahblahblah" in the cut reason?

I wholeheartedly agree with this, considering the subject is really a useful note.

As far as "what to do if things are cut"/"if we make a Useful Note"— would it make sense for something like Magnetic Video (gets a lot of inbounds) to become a redirect to that?

I share the thinking that this is Really a Useful Note. (Probably should've created the thread as that)

Makes sense, since it's one distributor.

Well, whatever we end up doing with these pages, I'll create the dedicated wiki at the start of September.

Based on this discussion plus the ones from prior years, it seems Useful Note and cutting the pages is the way to go.

Just wait until I've moved everything to the dedicated wiki, I don't want to have to do everything from memory. Migration should take about two weeks from 1 September, when I plan to start the migration.

Sounds like a plan! We can start working up the Useful Note in a sandbox while you migrate.

Started the sandbox to begin collecting and drafting things up.

I've just drafted a tree regarding how the dedicated wiki shall be structured.

Excellent! I'm going to copy descriptions over to the sandbox; the editing and whittling down of said descriptions into the useful note can come later. I won't be copying over the various accumulated film lists and details, however. When you have what you need from a given page, could you list it here so we know it's ready for the cut/change into a redirect?

Sure.