Tardis:Forum:Temporary forums/Archive/Subpages 2.0/Plot

Tardis Wiki is notorious for its lack of plot descriptions. A vast, vast majority of story pages have plot sections that say to be added. This is understandable: few editors actively enjoy typing out these lengthy breakdowns, 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 the 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."Short and long pages on Fandom

Subpages offer 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 won't even require a change to our preload templates! It will 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 goes, in which case the section is called "Publisher's summary". In rare cases where publishers have given many different summaries, such as PROSE: Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, perhaps this section might have a {{Main|/Publisher's summary}} link, or the extra summaries can be presented on [[/Plot]].

== Plot ==

Main article: [[/Plot|/Plot]]

A short synopsis 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 full plot descriptions, which tend to provide enough detail that one could experience the story without actually experiencing it, these shorter plot synopses could be written from memory without any editors needing to pause or relisten to take notes on every aspect of a story. Not only will synopses make our pages less likely to appear unfinished, their length will also make it easier for readers to scroll and access other sections on the page. All the while, readers interested in the nitty gritty details can still easily access that information when available by clicking to the subpage via {{main}}. – n8 (☎) 20:40, 14 March 2023 (UTC)