Forum:Temporary forums/Subpage policy
Draft 0.03, cobbled together from miscellaneous talk pages without regard for tonal consistency.
Topics: subpages; page length; relevancy; spoilers
Introduction
For a long time, I've had a "Policy" section on my user page listing a broad array of concerns and suggestions that I have. It's taken me a long time to realize, but many of these could be addressed by a singular policy: the establishment of a proper use of subpages on this wiki.
I do not believe forums are necessary to enact this policy! Tardis:Changing policy specifies that the forums – which we have been without since November 2020 – are required for changing policy. However, rather than changing how we do things (besides renaming some purely marginal pages such as lists of appearances to take full advantage of wiki formatting), this proposal merely clarifies another, existing option: the longstanding precedent of Doctor Who Magazine/1985. It will bring us closer to FANDOM best practices and our goal of serving readers without detracting anything from any current policies or practices.
Prior art
- "Short and long pages on Fandom"
- WP:SPLIT
- WP:SPINOUT
- WP:SPINOFF
- "Articles on Fandom"
- "Categories and Navigation on Fandom"
Proposal
When a page grows too big, consider splitting it into multiple pages or subpages!
Subpages
Subpages are usually only meant to be linked to from their root page and navigation templates. For instance, Twelfth Doctor - list of appearances is only linked to from Twelfth Doctor and {{Doctor appearances}}, making it an obvious candidate for a subpage. This is the {{Main|/subpage}} + Summary method.
Subpages should be named after top-level sections, which have headings formatted with ==, such as "Biography" or "Plot". There should never be in-universe subpages: for instance, if the section Twelfth Doctor#Continued adventures with Clara were deemed too big, we would move it to [[Twelfth Doctor/Biography#Continued adventures with Clara]], not [[Twelfth Doctor/Continued adventures with Clara]].
Alternately, FishTank suggests, "A character's narrative in a television season could be placed into "Character/Season 1" with detailed plot points and spoilers in that article." There's an appealing logic to this as well, and it lines up with our current use of subpages at Doctor Who Magazine/1985 et al.
Separate pages
Since subpages are meant to be primarily linked to from their parent page, if you want to move material off of a page and think it might be relevant to or linkable from other pages as well, consider whether it would be possible to split without using subpages. This is an art, not a science, and experienced users should use their best judgment to decide how to group content together into logical topics.
For instance, I created The Doctor's early life and The Master's early life to cover conflicting accounts of their origins when First Doctor#Life on Gallifrey and The Master#Early life and exploits became too unwieldy. Other examples include pages for broadly-defined eras in the Doctor's life, such as Exile on Earth, and pages for specific events, like Operation Mannequin for the events of Rose.
Following this principle, the solution to the length of The Master is splitting it into pages for incarnations, not simply hiding material in [[The Master/Biography]] or "incarnation subpages" like [[The Master/War Master]].
Summaries
After creating a subpage, link to it from the root page with {{main}} and replace the copied text with a shorter summary of the information, emphasising details which are most likely notable to the not we. In practice, this usually means TV information, although it can also include especially notable content from other media.
Fandom's Editor Experience suggests, "The base article could then replace a long section with a spoiler-free summary with the most important points."
Leads
In the same way that the {{Main}} + Summary method involves writing a summary of the subpage, a lead paragraph should be a summary of the page's contents. It should contain all the information most relevant to casual audiences.
As an example of a lead done right, the other night I wanted a quick refresher on Stanley Kubrick, and by skimming the first few paragraphs of his Wikipedia page on my phone, it was trivially easy to find his death date and most notable works within seconds.
As an example of a lead done wrong, right now you can't answer the question "what episode did the Twelfth Doctor regenerate in?" without scrolling 277 paragraphs down Twelfth Doctor!
Applications
Subpage-like pages
Many articles on this wiki are already written like subpages. Our 1000+ lists of appearances are perfect examples of subpages in both purpose and execution:
- when a page section (the infobox list of appearances) grows too large and unwieldy, it's moved to a separate page;
- the new page is titled in reference to the core page ([[Character name - list of appearances]]); and
- the core page retains a summary of the most important information (first mention, first appearance).
The only problem is that … well, they're not actually subpages! We've been using a dash instead of a slash for no reason. Twelfth Doctor - list of appearances, to name of one of many, should be moved to [[Twelfth Doctor/List of appearances]].
You might ask, "Why would subpages be better than the status quo? What are subpages, anyway?" Well, you're on one! Because of the slashes I've built into the title of this page, it's a subpage of both User:NateBumber and User:NateBumber/Sandbox, and as a result there are links to those pages at the top of this one, just below the title. This is great for navigation. Fandom's Editor Experience team explains,
Google understands that subpages have a distinct parent relationship with the base page. […] These subpages have a natural method to get back to the base article: they're linked from the top of the page!
Additionally, a subpage can also be linked to from its parent page via only partial urls: if you're on Twelfth Doctor, the link [[/List of appearances]] will take you to [[Twelfth Doctor/List of appearances]]. It's even more powerful than the pipe trick!
Our lists of appearances aren't our only subpage-like pages. We also have almost 100 "galleries", most of which are already linked to from story or series pages with {{main}}. BBC New Series Adventures covers should be moved to [[BBC New Series Adventures/Covers]] without hesitation. I'm willing to bet that there are more examples, too.
Story summaries
We're notorious for our lack of plot descriptions. A solid majority of story pages on this wiki show their plots as to be added. This is understandable: few editors actively enjoy typing out lengthy plot descriptions, and those who do often hold themselves to extreme standards of detail. But these to be added tags, many of them 15 years old or older, are a problem: according to Fandom's Editor Experience team,
Stubs do provide a bad experience because the readers and search engines that encounter them are left wanting more and an incomplete page (even if it is marked incomplete) has not been proven to "attract editors from the reader base to add to or expand the page" as was once assumed. Every day that a stub exists and remains incomplete is a day that bad experience persists.
Subpages offer us a way out. Rather than marking thousands of story pages as stubs just because they lack lengthy plot breakdowns, we should put these breakdowns (when we have them) on "Plot" subpages. This wouldn't even require a change to our preload templates! It would look something like this:
Summary
A brief, non-spoilery teaser that someone could use to check if they're interested in a story. If a publisher's summary is provided, this is where it would go, in which case the section is called "Publisher's summary".
Plot
- Main article: [[Story (dab term)/Plot|Story (dab term)/Plot]]
A short synosis that someone could use to get a gist of a story or remind themselves of the plot. For an example, see Silver-Tongued Liars (short story)#Summary.
Unlike our full plot descriptions, which tend to provide enough detail that you could use one experience the story without actually experiencing it (!), these shorter plot synopses could be written from memory without any editors needing to take notes on every aspect of a story, with all the pausing and relistening that entails. Not only would they make our pages less likely to appear unfinished, their length would also make it easier for readers to access other sections on the page. All the while, readers interested in nitty gritty plot details would still be able to easily access that information (when available) by clicking to the subpage via {{main}}.
Biographies and leads
In Thread:264489#9, Shambala108 ruled that the biography sections on pages of "highly-recurring characters" should only have 2-3 sentences per story. This ruling was widely ignored – I do not think it has been enforced on any page anywhere – and I believe that many, myself included, did not understand it at the time. But I have come to see the wisdom in Shambala's approach.
We can use Twelfth Doctor/Biography to cover the character's biography in maximum detail while Twelfth Doctor#Biography gives a briefer overview focusing on major appearances.
Our purpose as a wiki is to cover DWU-related stories and concepts as they exist, in whatever way will best serve DWU fans: the not we, who are often browsing on mobile, without Ctrl+F or familiarity with our citation formatting, and for a limited period of time. The reason we have rules like T:NPOV is because long ago we judged they were the best way to serve DWU fans as a wiki, not because promoting non-TV content was one of our priorities. T:NPOV does and should not prevent us from serving our readers based on a realistic assessment of what information is most relevant.
Peter Capaldi's difficulty in finding relevant information on our wiki invites us to rethink our method for writing leads. Realistically, TV information should be surfaced in leads, such as at The Beatles and Musée d'Orsay; by the same principle, much of the non-TV information in sections like Tenth Doctor#Appearance should be relegated to subpages.
Comments
If you have any feedback on this proposal, please feel free to add comments here or embed them in the text above with <ref> tags. I reserve the right to incorporate, reject, and/or remove anything added to this page. – n8 (☎) 15:41, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
I really, really like this proposal. It makes a lot of sense and seems like it would improve the experience both for the editor and the reader. I hope to see it implemented at some point soon. Bongo50 ☎ 16:21, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you, and thank you for pointing out that ~~~~ doesn't work in <ref> tags! I've updated my instructions here accordingly and fixed the typo you noted. – n8 (☎) 14:33, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
- I think it might be worth deciding whether or not the first letter after the "/" should be capitalised because it does matter: User:NateBumber/Sandbox =/= User:NateBumber/sandbox. I think this should come down to where the slash trick will be used most often: places where the first letter should be capitalised, or places where it shouldn't. Do you have any thoughts? Bongo50 ☎ 15:30, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
