Forum:Removal of Short Summaries

Based on a discussion in Forum:Rules for Chapter Notes, I believe we should remove short summaries from all chapter articles. Possibly episode articles as well.

With the current format, I don't see why the chapter notes section, which hits all the highlights of the chapter, serves any different purpose than the short summary. The only difference between the two is a paragraph structure vs. a bulleted list. I think we can end a lot of stub arguments by removing the short summary section as well.

Since episodes have a different layout, I could see the purpose of short summaries there. But I think episode articles need more changes and that might need to be a separate discussion. 18:59, March 24, 2016 (UTC)

Discussion
I believe the discussion was in the form of one comment, but here it is for those of you who missed it:


 * Should we change the names of the sections? At the moment, we have a short summary and a long summary. Now, a summary is usually by nature short, and the long summary is literally everything that happens, so it isn't actually a summary at all. Why don't we go with something like Summary and Synopsis? I'm not suggesting we change how these sections work, at least not right now, just change the naming scheme.

I think keeping a summary to two or three sentences, for example, Chapter 709 could be summarised as "The Block D fight concludes with Bartolomeo as the victor. Meanwhile, Thunder Solider tells Franky a little of Dressrosa's past." There's certainly no need for any more than this, but then again this is usually just what's in the chapter notes now anyway.

Broken sig goes here

I would support having a single summary that is between short and long. Basically, it would only cover the important details of the chapter but not make them just vague generalizations. Narutopedia does this and Bleach Wiki kind of does this. It would also make it easier to go back and update the numerous chapters and episodes with no summaries or poorly written ones.

However, I'd oppose only having a short or long summary in the way they are now because both have strengths and issues that complement each other. Kaido King of the Beasts (talk) 22:45, March 24, 2016 (UTC)

I like the idea of having the long summary be the only summary followed by the chapter notes; the former works for people who want to refresh their memory, and the latter for those who want to see if a specific plot/character point was introduced in that chapter without having to read through multiple paragraphs. Plus, the short summary usually doesn't cover all the chapter notes stuff.--Xilinoc (talk) 23:03, March 24, 2016 (UTC)

Not 100% relevant, but I've learned in classes this semester that summaries should strive to be 1/4-1/3 the length of the original work. This gets tricky with a manga, as it mixes image and words. I feel like our "long" summaries are closer to that length than the short ones.

Not as an editor, but as a reader here, if I want to quickly know what happens in a chapter, I check the chapter notes. The short summaries are too inconsistent to let me know what happens. 01:20, March 25, 2016 (UTC)

Chapter notes > short summary 04:06, March 25, 2016 (UTC)

I support both being left in but if that doesn't work then Nova's rename idea works just as well. SeaTerror (talk) 16:17, March 25, 2016 (UTC)

Redundancy is the key word here: Short Summary, Chapter/Episode Notes, and Long Summary. Do we really need so many summaries? 16:53, March 25, 2016 (UTC)

What Jopie and the others said. Also, do we want to move the chapter notes section up? Change the name maybe? Just thinking ahead here. 12:35, March 26, 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we need to change the layout for chapters much, other than removing the short summary. Episodes should get a similar layout though, as the "anime notes" section seems to be just for chapter vs. episode trivia, or anime errors. They should also have a plot-based notes section, in addition to the trivia/errors. 12:42, March 26, 2016 (UTC)

It isn't redundant since a short summary is describing the plot in like 3-5 sentences while chapter notes are only for important notes and important impact. SeaTerror (talk) 19:54, March 26, 2016 (UTC)

Well, let's restrict this discussion to just chapter pages for now, we can talk about episode pages in a separate section. If we do remove the short summaries, the chapter notes are going to need to be more comprehensive.

11:43, March 27, 2016 (UTC)

Most chapter summaries are already incredibly short so it would be bad to remove a short summary from them. SeaTerror (talk) 15:07, March 27, 2016 (UTC)

As someone that has read most chapters of the series, I only use the notes to identify key events in the chapter. That's what they do currently, and adequately. If someone that has not read OP wants to get an idea of everything that happened in the chapter, why not just skim the long summary? Chapter notes do NOT need to become more comprehensive, as we just had a forum to make them less comprehensive. 23:14, March 27, 2016 (UTC)

Keep them in. It serves as a synopsis, while the long is an in-depth recap. Some people want the big picture while others want details. The short summary is for the big picture types. The notes only pin-point events while the summaries give better descriptions. To remove it would be to undermine the people who just want to know the basics of what happened. 23:32, April 8, 2016 (UTC)

No matter what happens, short summaries will still be written here for Template:Current Events, so what's the use in not having them in chapter pages too? Kaido King of the Beasts (talk) 03:21, April 9, 2016 (UTC)

Kaido has a major point here. Even if we delete the short summaries, they'll have to be written anyways. Also, I would be against the removal of long summaries, simply for the fact that details, often skipped in the short summary and sometimes the chapter notes, can still have a large impact on the story. It should still be possible to track this information somewhere in the chapter article. 12:17, April 9, 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure we can alter the current events template to work without short summaries. 01:15, April 14, 2016 (UTC)

I may not be the most appropriate person to take a stand here. Despite the fact that I've been a user of this wiki for 3+ years, I'm just a casual contributor and don't even have the minimum number of edits to vote. Still, I think I'm allowed to post my opinion in this section, and I'd like to share it as I think my case could serve as an example of the habits of the audience this wiki targets.

I usually come here every Thursday to learn of the events of the latest chapter. I first check the homepage to read the short summary, and if the chapter looks interesting, I go to the article and read the chapter notes to get more details. I don't usually read the long summary. If the chapter definitely interests me, I go and read the chapter itself; if it doesn't, I don't even read past the short summary, but simply leave and come back the next week. Thus, I wouldn't like the short summaries to be removed, as they are a key part in my weekly routine and I think they serve the purpose to inform the readers of the plot of the latest chapter in a very comfortable and summarized fashion, something that the chapter notes and the long summary can't exactly fulfill.

Besides, I also noticed the same point that Kaido said. The short summaries are still needed for the homepage, so removing them from the chapter page layout will not mean less work for you. If any, it will mean more work as you will have to remove them from the 800+ current chapter pages, and it doesn't seem to provide any benefit in return.

So, speaking from the perspective of a simple reader of the wiki, I'd ask you not to remove the short summaries.--Manuel de la Fuente (talk) 18:53, April 21, 2016 (UTC)


 * BTW: If you want to avoid the need to copy/paste the short summary from the chapter page to the homepage, you can ask the Wikia Staff to install this extension, and the summary could be automatically transcluded from one page to the other (see Transcluding sections by headings). We do something similar to transclude the chapter summaries between several pages on the Attack on Titan Wiki; though we don't use that extension because it doesn't seem to work well on the new forums, but you use the old forums so you shouldn't have that problem.--Manuel de la Fuente (talk) 19:10, April 21, 2016 (UTC)

Poll Discussion
Let's poll it, but try to keep discussion about the issue going in the section above. Leaving active discussion template there for once.

In terms of the poll, I'm leaning towards 1 week test, with a two week poll, given low voter turnout recently. This is an important issue. I'd also say poll separately for chapter/episode articles. We'll deal with the idea of renaming sections in a post-poll discussion. 14:17, April 8, 2016 (UTC)