Recap Cleanup

In a similar vein to Character Pages, Recap Pages are a near-constant source of problems and controversy. One of the biggest issues we have with them is that there's not a lot of consistency with how they're made. Some have images, others don't. Some are fleshed out, others are a mess of redlinks or even plain-text, with no actual recap pages to speak of.

In addition, there's also been debates about spoilers and what sort of tropes belong on them, whether or not they need their own YMMV pages...and let's face it, for the most part their quality is about as poor as any 2012-era work page, except many are a lot newer than that, just tucked away where very few people will see them.

So, after ages of considering this thread, I finally broke down and made the damn thing. Without further ado, let's get to work.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Okay! Should I continue my query about Recap.Glee here or have it remain on Ask The Tropers?

Wherever you want. Crossposting can help solve the issue faster, so might as well listen to people from both spots.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I've had this problem for a while, but the King of the Hill recap page doesn't index pages anymore. It used to for a while but someone did some edits on the page and it stopped indexing. Several people have tried to fix this, to no avail.

Edited by MatthewLMayfield on Jan 11th 2021 at 10:12:09 AM

I'd made a separate thread for Glee because it's been bugging me for ages but I kinda let it die...

Our first order of business should be to agree on a style guide. For example, I think we can all agree that Steven Universe S3E3 "Same Old World" has too much description, and that Steven Universe S4E9 "Three Gems and a Baby" doesn't have enough, but what should the standard be? One paragraph? Two?

I'm not opposed to recap pages having Trivia or YMMV subpages, but I think they should have a minimum of three examples on them. Otherwise, what's the point of having it? Just put your one Hilarious in Hindsight example on the show's main YMMV page.

As for spoilers, I think we should follow the usual "don't include spoilery details if possible, but you are allowed to tag them if it's necessary to the example" policy, with the exception that spoilery things that happened in a previous installment can't be tagged. I think it's reasonable to assume that anyone who looks at a recap page for episode 5 of a series either already knows what happens in episode 4 or doesn't care about spoilers.

I don't really have a strong opinion on images. Title cards are fine (if a bit boring), promotional artwork or posters are fine, and I guess screenshots of a Signature Scene are fine.

I think a two sentence minimum and three paragraph maximum would be good for Recap pages. We are not here to give the entire episode plot, but also we can't just plagiarize the TV Guide descriptions.

I don't mind small YMMV pages for Recap pages. We don't enforce a minimum on YMMV items for main pages. And the practical point of Recap is to avoid clutter on subpages, so if the main page already has a massive YMMV subpage, it would help to move some examples to Recap subpages, just as we should do for Main pages.

Agreed about those spoiler policy ideas.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 11th 2021 at 1:23:46 PM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I don't know if I'll get very involved in this thread, but I thought I'd bring up that the Glee Recap pages had a dedicated page in the WebOriginal/ namespace (WebOriginal.TV Tropes Glee Recaps) at one point. It was cutlisted per this ATT query for Auto-Erotic Troping. Have these Recap pages been problematic in the past?

Edit: I copied and pasted this into the Glee Recap cleanup to save time typing (I'm not completely awake at the moment, otherwise I'd probably put more work into it).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 12th 2021 at 2:07:59 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Is it allowed for recap pages of single episodes to have a WMG subpage? Episode 6 from WandaVision just got a WMG subpage and it seems really unnecessary to me. The examples on the page are not really specific to the episode, but are just speculation about future episodes. I think it can just be folded into Wanda Vision's main WMG page.

If most entries aren't about the actual episode, then it can just be merged, no questions asked. Very few episodes will gain enough entries to get a WMG page, so I'd say we shouldn't do it even if it's not forbidden by default.

I'm back!

Adding Recap.American Horror Story to this project because the recap subpages are far too detailed, reading like short novelizations instead of highlighting the main points of the episode.

---

Recap.Rocket Power only has a list of episode names.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Something that I'd like to have clarified: Are recap pages supposed to have trope lists, for things that only appear in a specific episode etc? I'm probably not going to have time to do much cleanup, but when doing other stuff, like crosswicking, I'd rather not make things messier...

Yes, otherwise there's not much point, or at least that's how I interpret it.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Yes. A Recap page with no tropes is considered a stub. The point is to list tropes that pertain strictly to that episode.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 14th 2021 at 9:28:11 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

& Thank You! That's not documented anywhere that I could find. (Definitely not on Administrivia/Namespace, which is where I would expect it, and "Episode Guide" on that page just potholes to Recap, which is more of an index of recap pages.)

The page numbering for Recap.Schitts Creek is inconsistent. Seasons 1 and 2 use the "S[Season]E[Episode]" style of numbering while Seasons 3+ use the "S[Season][Episode]" style of numbering. To double the confusion, the latter episodes are not written as, say, "S301," but "S31." Should the pages be migrated to a more consistent style?

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Yes, IMO.

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

Recap.Spooky Month only has redlinks and isn't indexed. Since the series only has about 17 minutes worth of content, I think it's fine to stay on the main page, so can I cut it?

Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢

Cut.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

It's on the list.

Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢

(continuing from here)

Past posts from Fighteer have said or implied that summary-only recap pages are fine: [1] [2] [3] [4]

I've been wondering about the various pages on Recap.Asterix - most of them have excessively lengthy plot summaries. I'm considering splitting them off into the Literature namespace, rewriting their descriptions to be shorter, and repurposing the Recap page solely for the longer summaries (much like the former Synopsis namespace).

I am admittedly a little hazy on whether individual books (comic or otherwise) in a series should stay in Recap/. Fellow Franco-Belgian comic Tintin has a similar recap page for each installment, whereas others give each installment a page in the same namespace as the overarching series. Harry Potter is perhaps the most familiar instance, though there's been a recent initiative to split off Goosebumps's tropes into individual book pages. (In fact, this was what got me considering this question in the first place.)

Is this idea worth considering?

Edited by BlueGuy on Mar 30th 2021 at 12:55:29 PM

Pinball cleanup thread

It'd be the ComicBook/ namespace, not Literature.

I've considered myself whether the Tintin and Asterix Recap pages should be moved to ComicBook/. (The Tintin page titles would also have to be corrected in that case.) Tintin was originally serialized in magazines before being published in book form, as were the first 20 volumes of Asterix. That might be a case for Recap/, if we treat them like story arcs. But then, the pages for arcs/runs of western superhero comics seem to use ComicBook/. Plus the later Asterix books would be better suited for ComicBook/ since they were originally published as books, and it would create an inconsistency if the earlier ones used Recap/ and the later ones used ComicBook/.

Okay yeah, I think I've convinced myself. I'd be on board with moving both series' Recap pages to ComicBook/ and moving any longer summaries to the appropriate location under Recap/ (or keeping them there, as the case may be).

For the Tintin Recap pages, since they would need the titles changed, would it be better to have the old titles redirect to the new Comic Book page, or the new Recap page?

I knew about the ComicBook/ namespace; I just couldn't think of a comparison outside of Literature/.

Getting back to your question, I think it'd be better to redirect them to the equivalent ComicBook/ page, since that'd be where the tropes contained on the former Recap/ page would be.

Pinball cleanup thread

Recap.Pixar Shorts: Everything here needs to be cutlisted as these are standalone shorts that have their own pages with tropes. To add insult to injury, I'm pretty sure the descriptions are plagiarized from this wiki. (EDIT: Actually, I think those descriptions are from Wikipedia, but the point is there's copy/pasting happening.)

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 26th 2021 at 6:03:29 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.