Marvel Cinematic Universe Index Headers

This post is regarding the recently added index headers on the various Marvel Cinematic Universe movie and series pages, added by user Lapsem.

This troper unilaterally made the decision to add these to the top without consulting anyone about it, and as a result, moderator GastonRabbit suspended them. And for what it's worth....I apologize for playing my part in this as well. I honestly had no idea these were added in without consensus, and I actively contributed, cleaned them up, and added them as well. Moronic me should probably spend more time here, but...better late than never I guess?

Anyway, Lapsem's actions notwithstanding, what he did isn't necessarily a bad idea. He went about it the wrong way, so I'm starting this thread so we can go about it the right way.

Exhibit A◊: The current site index system. It is, to put it mildly, a rat's nest. It display the pertinently information, mostly, but it is a clutter of both indexes, categories and subcategories.

Exhibit B◊: Lapsen's index. Simple, clean, not too big (though Phase 4 does get a bit...distended), concise, easy to navigate, and right up at the top.

When you go to a certain characters page, for say Bleach, or Lost, you have the same index right down at the bottom for all the various characters, and character page compiles, yet why do we also have indexes for them right at the top?

Because the index becomes a rat's nest when you have a bunch of categories, subcategories, and individual characters/character compiles. Those character indexes being at the top help keep everything simple, accurate and easy to navigate.

Same basic principle here. The MCU is more unique than your average franchise in that they have a lot of projects. As for this typing, FORTY-THREE released. 43. That's...you know, on the largish side. And the current indexing system only displays the previous, current, and next, among a whole bunch of other stuff, let's be frank, most people won't bother to wade through, whereas this particular approach takes up a fraction of that space, and displays far more with regards to the projects of a given Phase.

Hence, I propose that we keep these, improve them if we can (Come, suggestions!), and add them to any that may be missing. Mind you, I'm not justifying how Lapsem went about this, but I am acknowledging that he stumbled on a pretty good idea that I think we should adopt.

As wrong as Lapsem's actions were, I think their index is a pretty good idea.

Honestly not a fan. It looks really ugly and it seems weird to link it for works like say secret invasion and guardians 3 which have nothing in common. You can and plenty of people do watch only a few of these.

I'd say, given the high complexity of the various phases of the MCU, having a quick reminder of what works belong in which phase, and in the proper chronological order to boot, isn't a bad thing. The redundancy with the recap or franchise pages isn't a problemn, redundancy is fine. So I cast my vote in keeping them.

I mean it's not perfect and definitely has flaws, but IMO the current index on the bottom of the page looks way uglier and messier to navigate than Lapsem's index.

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Aug 1st 2023 at 8:05:03 PM

I'm not a fan of these either as they seem unnecessary to me.

Generally, I've been indifferent towards the top indexes. That said, with how expansive the MCU has become and how inconsistent its interconnectivity has been for the most part, I'm not sure if it's worth making a categorizing index for each phase. The main franchise page kind of does that already.

It seems unnecessary to me, given that there are already indexes at the bottom and on the main page.

Yeah this. Like of a phase. A lot of have nothing to do with each other. And you could watch several like what if or quantamania without the need for their previous works like loki to know what's going on.

Please note, tropers Matthew Wayne and Ghilz have started removing the headers from some MCU pages without waiting for this thread to resolve.

Yeah, not good behavior either.

For the record this thread didnt exist when i removed them before people say "I didnt wait for the thread to resolve" it's because I cant read threads no one's written yet.

Anyway, the nature of linear time aside, The pages already have a giant fugly header telling people that these movies being sequels in the same universe will contain spoilers about previous movies and that's unavoidable. Adding a second header I find only makes the page even uglier. If you want to add that, shove it to the bottom of the page. Not the top. There's 0 reason this needs to be at the top of the page.

The counterpoint is the search bar exists. I suspect the vast majority of readers just, ya know use that to find the movie pages rather than navigate to MCU and travel a list of movies to find The Incredible Hulk or something.

On top of that, each page's description already links to the MCU page. So if you want the full list, it's there. It's an equal number of clicks having to use this header to move between phases as going to the mcu page.

Character pages have a stronger use case because they are characters from the same work so you will want to move between pages back and forth alot when character 1's trope A mentions character 2 who is on a different page and you maybe wonder if he's got related trope B. Especially with works with a ton of characters where one wont commit the cast of hundred to memories.

Edited by Ghilz on Aug 3rd 2023 at 1:00:17 PM

It also looks really weird to reference like different shows and films together. We don't index like that normally at all.

I honestly thought that they looked well-made and pretty, as far as indexes go. I liked the ease of being able to jump around to any MCU page from any MCU page, if I wanted to for whatever reason. I like indexes, I like that they were divided by phase to keep mantainence easier, and I also really dislike TV Trope's automated index system a lot.

That said, I agree that it was mostly superfluous. It's just a slightly quicker way to page-hop. If the majority of people don't like the indexes, I'm not so attached that I'll fight to keep them around.

i like it, though i dont have a strong opinion. i think the aesthetic is nicer and its nice that its not mixed in with 10 other indexes

"If the majority of people don't like the indexes, I'm not so attached that I'll fight to keep them around."

I probably should have specified earlier, but this is honestly my sentiment. I think they're a good idea and a nice addition - hence this thread of course, but if the people are against it, I'd 100% be okay with it. I'm not gonna fight tooth and nail over this, of all things lol.

Not to mention, this is one of those things that can easily be removed later down the road if, for any reason, it proves cumbersome for some. It isn't like the total Prefers Going Barefoot overhaul that's been proven a pain to implement, and cannot be walked back, even though some are starting to see now that it might not have been the best idea. X_X

Edited by VindictorWes on Aug 3rd 2023 at 2:27:21 AM

Accidental Pun alert!

The thing about the current index system is that it's basically a Wall of Text that's hard to read.

Edited by Diamondeye218 on Aug 4th 2023 at 4:50:51 PM

Oh damn, it was!

Anyway, how many votes are needed before things move one way or another? How long do we need to wait?

So far: : 6 : 4

I might as well chime in that I like the look of what Lapsem did. I can see why people might find them ugly, but I don't get why it warranted a suspension.

Edited by VampireBuddha on Aug 4th 2023 at 1:12:30 PM

That wasn't the sole reason behind their suspension. They were suspended because they had history of doing unilateral changes without consensus.

Anyways, I don't find the headers to be necessary because we have indexes but I don't care too much either way.

Edited by MacronNotes on Aug 4th 2023 at 8:18:01 AM

They seem redundant since we've already got the indexes, and since we lack templates, it means that every time a new movie is released, it means having to manually update each individual one for a given Phase, so that's a from me.

For redundancy and the headache that updating them will become whenever a new media is released.

Perhaps the indexing system could be useful for book series like The Stormlight Archive if the individual entries are long enough to warrant their own work pages.

(x7) Yeah that's pretty much my main gripe with it too. There's a reason many will just Wiki Walk or search for tropes/works instead of actually using the index to travel.

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Aug 5th 2023 at 10:01:46 PM