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Should we have guidelines for subpage splitting length

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Synchronicity (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#1: Oct 17th 2022 at 2:31:55 PM

As seen by this LTP thread, people making too-short subpages with only a few examples is a common problem. Dunno what drives it — perhaps own works getting their page is a badge of honor, or their favorite trope looks cooler if it has more medium subpages?

Since finding these tiny splits has turned into a game of whack-a-mole I am wondering if we should lay down some guidelines to be put on How to Split a Page

Some ideas:

  1. No hard splitting until the too-long page warning appears on the page
  2. Similar to the Character Specific Pages rule, 40,000 byte count (could be abused with bloated examples)
  3. Example minimum, eg. 10? 20?
  4. Do nothing and just cut down on this behavior slowly

Thoughts?

badtothebaritone (Life not ruined yet) Relationship Status: Snooping as usual
#2: Oct 17th 2022 at 2:33:48 PM

Ten examples sounds like a good splitting point.

[down] That might be better, actually.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Oct 17th 2022 at 4:36:57 AM

MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#3: Oct 17th 2022 at 2:36:12 PM

I am fine with 1. I think having a specific byte count guideline might be helpful to some people but it think it just resulted in people splitting solely because of byte count while ignoring what the rest of the page would look like after the split.

As for example count, I'd go for 15.

Edited by MacronNotes on Oct 17th 2022 at 5:39:04 AM

Macron's notes
Piterpicher Veteran Editor IV from Poland, for real (Series 2) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Veteran Editor IV
#4: Oct 17th 2022 at 2:56:29 PM

15 examples sounds like a decent threshold. WhatCouldHaveBeen.Harvester has 15 examples so far, and it seems to be decent length (though the page contents don't take up even 2/3 of the screen on a 1440p monitor with Wide Load enabled, just so people know).

Edited by Piterpicher on Oct 17th 2022 at 11:56:59 AM

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)
Amonimus the "Retromancer" from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the "Retromancer"
#5: Oct 17th 2022 at 3:04:15 PM

I'm equally fine with either "if total page size is over 200? kbytes, hard-split just one largest media folder" or "hard-split any media folder with over 15? works".

For tropes, personally, if there are 10 or more examples of the same trope on a work page (multiple second bullets), it already feels like it disrupts the reading.

I'm not confident in applying Character Specific Pages logic since that thread chronically has issues with it.

Edited by Amonimus on Oct 17th 2022 at 1:07:15 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#6: Oct 17th 2022 at 3:05:51 PM

Character Specific Pages also already have their own specific rules so I think we can let those be.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
underCoverSailsman Peeks from Under Rocks from State of Flux Since: Jan, 2021 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Peeks from Under Rocks
#7: Oct 17th 2022 at 3:10:55 PM

See also previous discussion on this topic.

That one kind of went off in the weeds.

Firmly in favor of:

  • Only split on or very near page warning.
  • Split off only largest media folder or two. Should very rarely end with a trope subpage under 30-40 entries.

Amonimus the "Retromancer" from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the "Retromancer"
#8: Oct 17th 2022 at 3:13:30 PM

Ah, since there's already a fresh thread on the same topic, is there a need for this one?

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#9: Oct 17th 2022 at 3:54:25 PM

Hmm, I can definitely see merit in the idea of making it so that there is some needed minimum when it comes to subpages, I have seen some really unnecessary ones. But I am not sure I really like the idea of there being some minimum number, especially ones higher than 10-15 and I am seeing some suggestions going as high as 40, which is far too much. I see some similarities to the Character Specific Pages rules, but the thing with that is that it is only for one specific type of page.

The thing for me is that tropes vary widely in terms of example length. Some tropes are very simple and require only like one or two lines to fully explain, others are more involved when it comes to explaining. To use one example of a trope I know very well, the dreaded Complete Monster trope. The examples for those characters, while we do try to not go overboard in terms of length and cut back when needed they still tend to need more explanation than most tropes do just due to how complicated the criteria is. So pages with less examples than usual become more justified in my eyes as it is holding a lot more content than another simpler trope with only like 10 examples might.

You can also flip this the other way. For a trope like Big Bad we could end up with cases where it technically has enough examples for a page but all the examples are really short as they aren't much to explain other than "Is the main villain and the conflict causer".

Again, I do think there should be some minimum standard on this to prevent the really unneeded subpages from getting through. And hey, if some Complete Monster subpages end up having to go as a result it's not the end of the world. But I feel like that having a minimum number of examples isn't really the best way to handle it mostly due to how much variance there is in terms of pages.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on Oct 17th 2022 at 3:56:22 AM

FoominBlue Since: Jan, 2001
#10: Oct 17th 2022 at 8:48:18 PM

Yeah, like... some examples are really long and super detailed. And that's great, but it can really stretch things out and make it hard to tell, like, what's worth moving onto its own subpage.

It'd be really nice having some kind of guidelines for easy reference. I've been doing a lot of alphabetizing examples lately, and trying to split off the longer example lists into their own pages. But what are good 'cutoff' points? I try to focus on the ones that have the most examples...

underCoverSailsman Peeks from Under Rocks from State of Flux Since: Jan, 2021 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Peeks from Under Rocks
#11: Oct 17th 2022 at 9:12:26 PM

Please let me clarify something: When I mentioned 40 examples, I intended it to be descriptive, not prescriptive.

I think that asking about a "Minimum Size" is backwards, because it assumes that you are doing fairly extensive splitting. Splitting should happen as little as possible. IMO, the questions to ask when wondering if a folder should be split out are these two:

  1. Is the main "parent" page large enough to trigger the "Page too large" warning?
  2. Is the folder that you are considering the largest (by byte count) left on the parent page?

If the answer to either of these questions is "no", then No. Thou Shalt Not Split. If this is followed there should be few, if any, small sub-pages.


Caveat: the above is something that I would apply to Mainspace (Trope) pages.

  • Work pages should go by Question#1, and then balance the tropes as evenly as possible.
  • Character pages seem to have their own subculture, partly because they get complex in large franchises. For smaller series, or limited casts I would still consider those two questions a decent starting point.

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Oct 17th 2022 at 11:13:08 AM

Acebrock He/Him from So-Cal Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: My elf kissing days are over
He/Him
#12: Oct 17th 2022 at 9:51:33 PM

I'm glad to see this thread. I'm considering cutting the short Ho Yay subpages for specific works and merging them into the medium subpage (I'll be doing the absolute shortest after I finish an unrelated wick check. There are some with two examples) so it would be nice to know where the bar is set.

My troper wall
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#13: Oct 17th 2022 at 9:59:32 PM

I feel like we shouldn't set the bar to high personally, but I do for sure understand setting some kind of bar, like the ones with only 2-5 examples, get rid of those.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on Oct 17th 2022 at 9:59:59 AM

amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#14: Oct 17th 2022 at 11:31:11 PM

[up][up][up]Agreeing with everything said here. I actually think 15 examples is far too little to warrant a split, but as underCoverSalesman wrote, if we approach the issue with the mindset of "only split when you get a page warning and when that happens, only split off the largest folder(s) until the warning is gone" you won't really have to worry about example minimums

It's also pretty simple and clear to follow even for new site users

Edited by amathieu13 on Oct 17th 2022 at 2:32:06 PM

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#15: Oct 17th 2022 at 11:37:21 PM

Btw their is one kind of issue which causes splitting.

The page has this problem where it can't take four indentation points.

So something like this.

  • Franchise:
    • Work 1
      • Work 2
        • Example 1

Isn't possible without breaking the site

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#16: Oct 17th 2022 at 11:41:50 PM

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that. We have had issues with that on the Complete Monster side where we have had to make pages due to indentation problems that would occur otherwise.

Amonimus the "Retromancer" from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the "Retromancer"
#17: Oct 17th 2022 at 11:46:53 PM

In what cases would "Work 1: Work 2" ever happen? I also don't think grouping by Franchise is ever needed, but that's on indentation policy.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#18: Oct 17th 2022 at 11:54:46 PM

One example that comes to mind.

This could happen.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on Oct 18th 2022 at 12:01:26 PM

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#19: Oct 17th 2022 at 11:55:33 PM

Oh uh I meant

Something like:

  • Franchise:
    • Book series
      • Individual Book

Edit: [up]Or that.

Edited by miraculous on Oct 17th 2022 at 11:55:50 AM

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Acebrock He/Him from So-Cal Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: My elf kissing days are over
He/Him
#20: Oct 17th 2022 at 11:55:35 PM

Same question as Anonimous

Shouldn't it be like:

?

My troper wall
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#21: Oct 18th 2022 at 12:05:36 AM

What I am mostly trying to say is that every single trope is different, so I honestly don't think setting a hard minimum will be the best approach. Since it could end up causing some problems depending on what trope we are dealing with.

Amonimus the "Retromancer" from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the "Retromancer"
#22: Oct 18th 2022 at 12:08:23 AM

I prefer just

  • Work:
    • In the Episode A...
    • In the Ath Epsiode...
    • ... in Episode B...
  • Sequel:
    • ...
    • ...

with no third bullets.

The need for third bullets is a good signal it may need a soft-split.

Edited by Amonimus on Oct 18th 2022 at 10:33:26 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#23: Oct 18th 2022 at 12:11:10 AM

That is against indentation formatting rules, I am pretty sure.

Acebrock He/Him from So-Cal Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: My elf kissing days are over
He/Him
#24: Oct 18th 2022 at 12:23:39 AM

Reading through Example Indentation in Trope Lists, it looks like how it's supposed to be handled, actually

edit: at least if you leave out the franchise, which isn't strictly necessary to include IMO

Edited by Acebrock on Oct 18th 2022 at 12:24:32 PM

My troper wall
MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#25: Oct 18th 2022 at 3:57:28 AM

Grouping by franchise with three level bullets isn't required. It's just that that's one of the few cases where using third level bullets would be appropriate. Keeping works and their sequels listed separately is fine.

Anyways, this isn't the indentation thread so we should probably stop here.

Edited by MacronNotes on Oct 18th 2022 at 6:59:03 AM

Macron's notes

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