Cleaning Up Lengthy Character Descriptions

That's also good! I'll add them in.

I cleaned up Characters.Honkai Impact3rd and Characters.Gushing Over Magical Girls.

Another gacha game to clean up is Characters.Dragalia Lost, where every playable character has their elemental types, rarities, unit types, weapons, and debuts listed, which can get very long if they have alternate versions.

Characters.Blue Archive has sections that lists the age, birthday, height and hobbies for each character.

Characters.Bungo Stray Dogs has a "Personalia" section for each character detailing their ages, blood types, height, and more.

Edited by Excessive-Menace on Oct 28th 2023 at 8:29:11 AM

Pardon me if I'm misunderstanding some parts here, but I guess I should've replied sooner... as this thread was created by another troper because of my ATT query.

I don't understand why the "biodata" parts had to be cut wholesale, TBH. Sure, there are info listed on them that aren't necessary, but there are some lines that may still be relevant. Ideally, it should've been a case-by-case basis on which lines are important depending on the game or work of fiction.

For example, these were all deleted from Characters.Fate Grand Order Merlin

Yes, the ID can go because a mere number may hold no meaning, especially to those who aren't familiar with the work, and Command Cards make no sense to those who never played the game... but at least the Origin and First appearance lines could've been kept. Origin helps the reader determine which "real-life" mythology is the character based from, and First appearance states where the character first appeared within the fictional "verse" (Nasuverse to be specific here). If anything, having links to Arthurian Legend and Garden of Avalon may encourage the TV Tropes reader to branch off from Merlin's page to those other pages on this wiki, just like having a link to Merlin's voice actor was considered "fine".

This cleanup thread was created and the How to Create a Character Page was updated as a result of my ATT query, but it looked like there was some misunderstanding. I was mostly focused on how exactly should the wiki handle the wall-of-text paragraphs and sentences that included gameplay-related info. Nowhere did I mention in the query that the "biodata" part can be problematic (When I brought up Characters.Genshin Impact Fischl as an example of how very lengthy the Genshin character descriptions were, the "parts" I mentioned were specifically three paragraphs and one line, I never raised a question on the "Rarity" and "Element", etc. parts).

I'm not sure if "hasty" was the right word to describe the creation of this clean-up effort and the admnistrivia rule update... but if we're going to delete the biodata parts wholesale from character folders/pages just like what happened to Merlin's page... this actually opens up a whole new can of worms or questions that may complicate this very clean-up effort in the future.

At first, this seems like it would just affect video games and Gacha Games, but what about other forms of media and entertainment? Surely some pages have "biodata" as well.

• Take a look at a Virtual YouTuber or Lets Player page like Characters.Hololive Fubuki Ch, for example. There's a Fanbase name listed in every hololiver in order to have a simpler way of saying that their fanbase has an official name, instead of having to insert a Trivia Fan Community Nicknames entry on every character folder.
  • Does this mean the clean-up thread is going to suggest moving all these Fanbase name lines into the Fan Community Nicknames trivia item? I can't guarantee that those who actively manage the hololive pages on TV Tropes would agree with this.
• For example in Films, the titular Indiana Jones has an Appearances line in his folder, listing every work he's appeared in. This is an example on why deleting the First appearance line from Fate/Grand Order Merlin's page is questionable, as it listed the first fictional work he's appeared in as well.
  • Does this mean the clean-up thread is going to delete the Appearances line from non-video game character pages as well?

These are just two cases where deleting the entire "biodata" section may not make sense, and it's better to leave some relevant info apart from the actors. Are other forms of media going to be included in the scope of this Lengthy Description Clean-up Thread? As of now, this thread seems to be focused on video games.

Are this clean-up thread's requirements and the How to Create a Character Page already finalized? Or are they going to be updated again for consistency's sake?

Edited by DanteVin on Oct 29th 2023 at 2:53:15 AM

Thanks for expanding my point, I owe you

Yeah, I really don't like how "extreme prejudice" this is handled... I'm all for trimming descriptions but this is going too far, like cutting the tree at the trunk instead of the branches

I agree with trimming down on gameplay info on headers and such, but erasing all of the biodata from things also makes things feel barren, especially if it prevents someone from searching up info. In the case of FGO, just yesterday I had to go to an another site just because I wanted to know who was the artist of one particular character because that info was trimmed out. Good thing that I have the other wikis in my favorites, because the removal of The Wiki Rule from the Trivia pages means that I can't find the wikis in this site. Mind you that FGO is one of those games with several guest or uncommon artists, so not crediting them feels like disservice if you're going to credit the voice actors.

I would also argue about the character's alignments since you can see them in each character's profiles, but character alignments are Flame Bait so shrug.

As much as we have had our... debates on the direction of character descriptions in Honkai: Star Rail, I can agree that what just happened lately went a tad too far. I don't mind trimming down on biodatas and descriptions (I have just finished my first edit of descriptions for the Traveler and playable Mondstadt cast of Genshin Impact when this happened), so long as we keep the "essentials" at the very least, especially if they strongly feature in promotional materials (for non-video game examples, in sports manga/anime like Slam Dunk and Haikyuu!!, height, weight, and position; in idol franchises like The iDOLM@STER and Love Live!, birthday, height, weight, and BWH).

At minimum, if the work has an official biodata, we should add them too here

As far as I'm concerned, there is no good need for biodata. I may have once said that I wouldn't mind info relevant to troping, but since then I've come to believe that there is no such "essential" data that should be separate. If some information aside creator links can't be handled by tropes or description, then there's no need to add it. We're TV Tropes and not the X Fan Wiki. If people feel listing character's height / blood type / likes enchances the page, its a sign they're missing The Goals of TV Tropes.

Re: Origin. Could easily be in the first sentence in a description.

Re: First appearance. Mmm, for large franchises like Batman it may be worth to keep. Maybe First Appearance could use own talk regarding its scope.

Re: Appearances. I honesly never saw the point of this information, especially in MCU. I'm not sure linking to work pages of a large franchise is needed if the character is recurring.

Re: Vtubers. It's a general habit of people using the pages as Hololive Wiki 2, aside the constant issues with Real Life Troping. Yes, using Fan Community Nicknames would be more appropriate and the rest doesn't really belong.

Re: Official trivia cards. That actually sounds like a solid case for own new trope and would solve the majority of issues on this topic.

Re: Branching off / using other sites. The internet is a free country and every wiki has its own speciality. But we don't support free advertizement of other sites (We've purged The Wiki Rule), if people need extra info they can google it or add it to Fandom.

Edited by Amonimus on Oct 28th 2023 at 9:41:03 PM

But then the issue of video games, in particular live-service ones like gacha, is its own can of worms. For one, gacha games tend to heavily advertise "essential" details about playable characters such as their Rarity, Element, Weapon Type, Role, etc. (many of which also tend to be the very first things players will see on the UI), both in promotional material and social media accounts (e.g., Facebook, Twitter/X, and YouTube). The dates of their first appearances can also be reconsidered, given that the live-service format of gacha games means they are regularly updated, which can easily throw new and/or returning players into confusion, especially if such updates contain heavy story spoilers.

As for the idea of "official trivia cards" as its own trope, that kinda denigrates the "essential" details into just another trope lost in the list's alphabetical order (especially if they cover dozens of tropes), so I am not too keen on that; whenever possible, they are to be given a place of honor.

Also, the Fandom is not always a viable option. God, I cannot reiterate how many times my browser crashed out due to its tons of video ads driving up memory usage, even if I switch to mobile view. Then there's the little controversy over AI-generated answers which caused several Wikis to move to independent platforms, such as that for Arknights.

I fear that this little decision could escalate into a significant exodus of tropers, or even birth rival sites.

> Re: Official trivia cards. That actually sounds like a solid case for own new trope and would solve the majority of issues on this topic.

Like, making it into definition-only like The Wiki Rule?

Edited by Ner0014reN on Oct 29th 2023 at 12:57:21 PM

I really don't believe readers need to know about a gacha fighter's rarity or class in a separate paragraph to know about their role in the story or common attributes.

And I'm aware about Fandom Org's controversies, which is why that statement was general. If people need these stats so badly they'd leave otherwise, IMHO it really is their personal problem. Whenever the choice was between user retention and reinforcing standards, TV Tropes always picked the latter. But this specific line of thinking should probably needs a comment from the mod team.

Not sure about def-only, I was thinking of a parallel to Bonus Material that would allow listing character bios in the example list proper, though only in reference.

Also, do we have enough understanding to actually do any cleanup or the topic should be moved to Wiki Talk for now?

Edited by Amonimus on Oct 29th 2023 at 11:11:50 AM

What if people really want the functionalities of TVTropes but within the context of a particular work and all its minutiae? At this point, you may as well convince the admins to create spinoff websites (like, say, "fategrandorder.tvtropes.org", "genshinimpact.tvtropes.org", or some such).

Start My Own? Tv Tropes (or Proper Media LLC) aren't going to spend resources into a tvtropes-style wiki constructor nor can they afford another website with specific differences, but that's more of a question to the management.

Precisely because TVTropes at present does not have the resources to create brand-new sites, I suggest we dial down the whole cleanup and reconsider the process lest this site run the risk of alienating the most hardworking tropers and/or editors—honestly, this whole affair of a wholesale editing without consulting other tropers beforehand, especially those who have been working their asses off in their particular niches, sounds like throwing the baby with the bathwater.

IIRC, even DanteVin, who was an indirect source of this process via an ATT query, thought this was going too far. I for one support their proposal to put the brakes on the mass cleanup and settle down for editing on a case-to-case basis.

Edited by zero5889 on Oct 29th 2023 at 4:57:21 PM

> IMHO it really is their personal problem.

Why do I feel you'd say this sooner or later...

> Not sure about def-only, I was thinking of a parallel to Bonus Material that would allow listing character bios in the example list proper, though only in reference.

That's textbook disservice right there

Honestly, all this so-called "embellishment" are helpful to make the site look more lively and less dry, as long as it's done in moderation (which this thread should've focused on)

Edited by Ner0014reN on Oct 29th 2023 at 2:42:43 AM

While a lot of biodata is ultimately irrelevant to character tropes, adding one or two pieces of information depending on the work shouldn't be an issue.

For example, go to Pokémon: Generation I - Bulbasaur to Parasect and see how every entry contains that character's type somewhere. If you ask someone to tell you about a Pokemon, their typing is probably the first thing mentioned. That seems like important/tropable information to me.

This page needs to cleaned up anyways, but there's way more bloat happening elsewhere. For example, each species name is repeated ~5-7 times before you get to the actual first paragraph (in the folder name, in a header directly below that, and as the caption under each picture. That's not even mentioning how places use the English name, Japanese name, and one or two transliterations). Whereas noting a species type can be just three words.

It's also not helpful to move some information into the description paragraphs or into a trope. Not only would that be less concise, since a few words would be expanded into a mostly boilerplate sentence, but the information is more hidden since it won't always be in the same location.

This decision seems like a knee jerk reaction to Gacha Games and their incredibly bloated descriptions that now universally applies to all character pages. The Administrivia page states that, "A short summary that familiarizes the reader with the character's basic premise will suffice", and for most works a small amount of biodata is needed to describe the basic premise.

Definitely a knee-jerk reaction to gacha games' lengthy descriptions, and as I mentioned above, it doesn't help that their promotional materials and/or official social media accounts tend to heavily promote particular details that, in the context of character pages, can be easily described in too few words to warrant a place in the trope section.

For example, in those of Genshin Impact alone, we immediately get to learn of a playable character's Rarity, Element, and Weapon Type (the three "essentials"), as well as their subtitles and Constellation names (which fit the game's stellar motifs as well as thematically fits each character), and even birthdays (in-game, players get a birthday message from them as well as their specialty dish).

IMHO, it'd be awkward to give all-too-brief, boilerplate descriptions of each character's element (e.g., "His/Her element is X.") when they could be described in the biodata as simply "Element: Anemo" (Blow You Away), "Geo" (Dishing Out Dirt), "Electro" (Shock and Awe), "Dendro" (Green Thumb), "Hydro" (Making a Splash), "Pyro" (Playing with Fire), or "Cryo" (An Ice Person). So goes with weapon types, especially with the deprecation of several weapon tropes: while Swords, Claymores (greatswords), Polearms (spears), and Bows are straightforward, Catalysts are unique beasts (not only do their basic appearances vary, ranging between spellbooks and crystals, but so do the way their wielders use them, such as spellcasting, throwing bombs, or even enhancing their punches and kicks).

This is one of those cases where a little discretion would've been advisable.

Edited by zero5889 on Oct 29th 2023 at 9:26:17 PM

What do you propose a Genshin Impact character listing to look like? One with, ideally, fewer than five items in the stack of stats?

Generally, I care more if the trope list is proportional to the header and maybe to the character's overall importance to the story. What needs fixing sooner are character sheets with characters showing two screens of introductory stuff and five tropes. So, I dunno, pare the fluffiest bits from Genshin, tackle other character pages, and revisit the "how much content should this specific work's character subpage have" later.

Pokemon types aren't just gameplay data, though. They impact the design, lore, and purpose of a mon — and all of that stuff falls under tropes. IDK about Gacha stuff very much, but personally things that can't at least be considered relevant to the trope list or the narrative presentation of a character does not really belong on a character page.

If you want to argue about loosening these standards, the cleanup thread is the wrong place for it. Cleanup threads aren't for discussing policy, just enforcing said policy and keeping pages in good condition. You want Wiki Talk.

Edit: And ninja'd by a mod

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 29th 2023 at 2:08:42 PM

Yes it's true that clean-up threads are useful for making pages in good condition... But what if the clean-up thread itself has "cleaned up" some parts that shouldn't have been cleaned up?

I think one thing that we have been talking about recently is specifically the decision of this thread to delete the entire biodata block of characters, when at best, some one or two "essential" lines could've been left intact. Not sure where "policy" had something to do with it. This thread is not just affecting Genshin or Gacha Games, or video games anymore. It just seems that Gacha Games are brought up several times because they're the first "type" of fiction on this wiki whose pages are being affected by this clean up thread.

Like I said above, one thing that I'm specifically concerned about is the fact that somebody decided to delete even the "Appearances" lines from characters, for example. But is it justifiable to delete it? What makes it different from listing the character's voice actor which is kept intact? A list of appearances is one line of info that has some relevance, especially if the character is in a long-running franchise or series. Apart from the Indiana Jones case from the Film namespace, see the Superman (The Character), and Arrowverse: Barry Allen character pages for example, which also has an "Appearances" line. Is this thread going to handle removing it as well?

Or if I would re-instate another of my questions... If we're going to justify deleting the entire "biodata" section of Fate/Grand Order: Merlin (it already happened) because of this clean-up thread, for example. Does this mean this clean-up thread is also going to cut the "Birth Name", "Known Aliases", "Species", etc. from MCU: Tony Stark?

There has to be some clarification on the scope of this Clean-up Thread. I bet the "Pages Identified for Cleanup" and "Cleaned Pages" folders used by troper ~Hello83433 on their pinned comment does give off the impression that this thread is limited to video games... but in fact, this is going to affect a lot of Character pages from multiple namespaces because they also have some "biodata" info. This is going to be a very massive "clean-up" that may remove a lot of content from TV Tropes if you think about it.

Edited by DanteVin on Oct 30th 2023 at 3:32:27 AM

Got ninja'd by a mod too haha, but I might as well ask something related to ~Mrph1's reply...

The guideline change on character descriptions happened because ~Hello83433 suggested it so on the Outdated Administrivia Pages thread.

Assuming that the How to Create a Character Page administrivia page became "too strict", is the "Outdated Administrivia Pages" also the place where we can contest the change?

It's like a case where more tropers should have weighed in before the rules were updated... but it seemed like guidelines can change on this wiki just because of 2 tropers agreeing with it. For what it's worth, ~Hello83433 linked my own ATT query as a source for suggesting the change on How to Create a Character Page... but nowhere did more tropers got informed that an Administrivia page update was going to happen. If you ask me, the ATT query itself is not even fully resolved... yet here we are, How to Create a Character Page got updated, and this very clean-up thread now exists.

Edited by DanteVin on Oct 30th 2023 at 3:17:22 AM

But at the moment, having that "biodata" is considered against the guidelines and is thus being cleaned up. That's what makes this an issue of policy and not just overzealous cleanup. What counts as valid info can also be hashed out in Wiki Talk, instead of slowing this thread down by arguing over a rule that is admittedly rather broad and nebulous. People are going to have a different interpretation of what's allowed and what isn't, which will continue to happen unless we're able to hash out a more solid idea of what we want and don't want. If it's ultimately decided that the rule was made too hastily, the decision could also be reversed.

As for this covering more than video game stuff... I honestly think that's fine? The pinned comment to me reads more like it was written based on the current debate, less so about what this thread is "supposed" to cover.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 29th 2023 at 3:09:22 PM

Then this as a cleanup should pause until a Wiki Talk decides what to do with this part of How to Create a Character Page

Edited by Amonimus on Oct 29th 2023 at 10:14:13 PM

I must emphasize that Dante Vin's original ATT thread (or its replies) said nothing about cleaning up biodata, yet this thread added that to the agenda for some reason

Edited by Ner0014reN on Oct 29th 2023 at 3:56:03 AM