Forum:Long Summary Trimming

Hello anyone. In two different occasions (at first in talk:episode 682 and then in talk:episode 384) some users agreed in the necessity of trimming summaries that are too much long because of the addiction of useless sentences. Now: in both cases there was a discussion. For sure it is useless to start the same discussion every time. Should we start the final one here?


 * 1) The first thing I'd like to understand is: there is a majority who believes that it is a problem? Or the mass believes that quantity always means quality?
 * 2) If the first answer ends with the ammission that some trim may be needed, we should discuss about what should be trimmed. I have an opinion but I'll wait till the first question is solved.

Bonus question: is this forum horrible? Yes, because I don't know how to create them. --Meganoide (talk) 22:14, March 23, 2015 (UTC)

Discussion
Quality over quantity, right? If trimming text improves the quality of it. Then there shouldn't be a problem with it. People are just out to cause pointless arguments. 23:08, March 23, 2015 (UTC)

Well, I do think that we shouldn't have overly descriptive summaries. However, removing this much is going too far, in my opinion. 09:23, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

The ironic thing with the edits on that article is that the article can now qualify as a stub. SeaTerror (talk) 09:50, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

No it isn't. Meganoide (talk) 11:34, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

Alright, look. The way I see it, not all articles can have the same standards applied to them for length & level of detail. For example, compare Luffy's history/plot section to that of, say, Wanze. For Luffy, it would be ludicrous to go into the same level of detail as, say, a long chapter summary does because his page would be VERY long, and for a main character like him, it only really needs the super-important/generalized details. For Wanze, though? He appears in one arc for a few chapters, and that's it: he's a minor character at best. Thus, it makes sense to go into much more (but not completely full) detail for his history section because it won't make the page overly long, and it can only help contribute to the reader's understanding. When it comes to chapter and episode articles, it seems pointless to reduce the paragraphs to generalities: while I understand not putting in every last details about the boots and the cats or whatever featured therein, describing each scene should be fairly detailed, and in the case of episodes that add in filler stuff to an otherwise canon scene, that stuff should be described in greater detail than the little blurb it gets in the "Anime Notes" section.

tl;dr people are allowed to trim summaries, but first they should evaluate whether or not it needs trimming based on what kind of page it is and what details are actually important.--Xilinoc (talk) 14:12, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

So, in a few words, you admit that some page may need to be trimmed. Thank you. --Meganoide (talk) 14:16, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

For some pages maybe like history of a character and stuff. However when it comes to episodes and chapters sometimes having longer summeries helps those that remembers something but can't say it in words then look on here. That's why there is a short summery then a long one. I think trimming shouldn't be demanding on everything, unless there is a way to put into words what's already done. Caring16:) (talk) 15:30, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

Of course people should be allowed to trim summaries. What this forum needs to do to solve the problem is talk about the kinds of things that should or should not be trimmed. That is the only way to prevent future edit wars and talk pages.

One of my biggest problems is that reviewing these long summaries takes so much time for me... I have not been able to go over it with a fine-toothed comb, but I've given it a good skimming or 5.

But looking at the 309 summary, I think that while most of the cuts made are valid, there is still information that was removed that should be kept.

Here are a couple notes I have:
 * Long summaries should avoid exact quotations. For one, they probably aren't good translations. Secondly, entire conversations should be paraphrased into one or two sentences. There might be a couple very important quotes here and there (Robin's "I want to live", etc) but pieces of conversation do not reach that level.


 * Attack and DF names don't need to be linked/mentioned all the time. We can just say that "Robin attacked ___" and don't have to say "Robin used the Hana Hana No Mi and used (move name) on ____"


 * Long summaries should try to follow the order of scenes in the chapter/episode. In the 309 summary, Meganoide cut it so that all mention of Luffy vs. Lucci happens in the last paragraph. In reality, this seems to not be the case, as there were shots of the other SHs (like Nami, for example) who continued to fight Marines. I get that sometimes trying to keep stuff in order might break the flow of paragraphs, etc, but the point of the long summary is also to help people find moments in the episode, and if content is out of order, this becomes much harder.


 * Long summaries should NEVER allude to the fact that they are from episodes/chapters, whatever. In other words, they shouldn't break the 4th wall and say things like "the next scene cuts to" or any mention of "panels", etc. They need to stay in-universe.

So those are a few of my notes on long summaries. Anyone else have thoughts about specific pieces of content to avoid/should be kept? That's what this discussion needs to be about. 15:41, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems fine to me.--Xilinoc (talk) 15:51, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

Whatever you do, don't touch the one in Chapter 663. I'm serious. It is my baby. But yeah, if sentence seems superfluous or out of place, take it out. 15:57, March 24, 2015 (UTC)

JSD, the "putting all the scenes together" thing is just a coincidence. I can't remember exactly, but probably the other parts of the fight between Lucci and Luffy were only dialogues and random fists/kicks. It would have been useless to say "they continue their fight". --Meganoide (talk) 14:39, March 25, 2015 (UTC)

Well, I haven't seen the episode in question in some time, but depending on the dialogue and the events of the fight, those small scenes could be important enough to still include. But again, that depends on what happens, and I do not know the exact situation.

Does anyone else have anything to add about possible notes on how long summaries should be written? If not, we can close this discussion in a couple days. 21:04, March 30, 2015 (UTC)

The one mentioned especially has to be fixed again since it is no longer a long summary. SeaTerror (talk)