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it is a good point tho that they're really common and do often contain relevant info (sure some are just like "i loved this! go read it!" but others contain info on the tone of the story or why someone might like it eg. "goofy comedy that has strong characterization, everyone's voices are just like the movie!") esp. when that info isn't really in the summary
Comments belong in the Reviews section. Though I could have sworn that they used to be allowed.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Comments used to be allowed at first, many, many, many years ago, but they turned into creeper material and editing wars and were subsequently disallowed. Trouble is, like first person language and this troperisms in the Headscratchers pages, they were so prevalent that new editors assumed they were supposed to be there and kept adding them, and there was a big fight over deleting them, or adding them into reviews, and the people who were trying to curate the new rules got burned out and gave up. Thus, the current mess.
Occasionally I use comments for things like "this fic has a sequel" or other Trivia information for the ease of the reader.
Space Battles Dot Com fanworks (now oficial) index in my Sandbox.So, more "concise and infromative" than "detailed and gushing"? That seems like a good compromise, since it would let us retain the relevant, helpful info while trimming down some of the bulk.
As a random example...
- Comments: The extremely unique format of the story is enough to check it out: it plays out as a choose-your-own-adventure story where commenters actively made decisions for the next part, most of which had very impactful consequences. The cast is colorful and very likable, with a couple few characters being extremely beloved by the community that rallied behind the story's decision-making. "We Can Choose the Future" has an especially strong first and final arc, both of which demonstrate the author's willingness to take the story in unorthodox, but rewarding, directions.
- Comments: Unique, choose-your-own adventure format with decisions that were made by the commenters. Colorful and likeable cast. Especially strong first and final arc - unorthodox, but rewarding.
Okay, I’m sorry to revive this topic after like a month, but I’m slightly confused by the consensus on what the acceptable format is: the fanfic recommendations template has no space for comments and apparently they aren’t allowed, but from reading this thread it seems like they are so long as they’re concise and from the original person who made the rec? If that’s the case, is the “comments” section allowed after all, and when editing a page to remove non-original recommender comments would someone have to go through the entire history to see if a comment was left by OP or a different troper?

I've noticed that many, many fanfic recs on the various Fanfic Recs/ pages don't follow the template listed on Fanfic Recommendations. Normally this isn't too bad - just swapping the order of the lines or adding the review button - but it's also pretty common for people to add a "comments" line and provide their (sometimes very long) thoughts and opinions on the fic, when that's apparently supposed to be reserved for reviews.
Since I don't think it's possible to move these comments to the proper place myself, what do we do about this? Delete the comments outright? Message the (active) tropers and warn them that the comments belong in a review, and, if nothing's done, will be removed after X amount of time?
I feel a bit bad deleting all this information outright, especially if it could go elsewhere, but moving it wouldn't be easy and all the comments are really bloating some pages.