Forum:Temporary forums/Subpage policy

From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference

Introduction

For a long time, the "Policy" section on my user page has listed a broad array of my concerns and suggestions. Over the months and years, I've come to realize that many of these could be addressed by a singular proposal: the establishment of a proper use of subpages on this wiki.

Tardis:Changing policy specifies that the forums are required for changing policy, so given their longstanding absence, our admins might be inclined to put this proposal on the back burner. But this is not a change to how we do things; it is merely a clarification of another, existing option – the longstanding precedent of Doctor Who Magazine/1985 – in a way that allows it to be applied to more pages. In fact, not only does this proposal detract nothing from our policies or precedent, it will allow us to enact existing policies which are currently not enforced!

As a result, forums are not necessary to enact this proposal. Given how it will clearly bring us into much closer alignment with FANDOM best practices and our goal of serving readers, my hope is that it will be swiftly approved to open these possibilities for our editors and readers.

Proposal

It's simple: when a page grows too big, consider splitting it using subpages!

When to use a subpage

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.

Subpages should be named after section headers, usually those with headings formatted with ==, such as "Biography" or "Plot". Subpages should never have in-universe titles: for instance, if the subsection Twelfth Doctor#Continued adventures with Clara were deemed too big, we would move it to a section on Twelfth Doctor/Biography, not Twelfth Doctor/Continued adventures with Clara.

These are some examples of subpage names, as proposed in the "Applications" section below:

Alternately, if you think some material represents a self-contained idea that other articles might want to reference as well, consider splitting it without using subpages. For instance, when conflicting accounts of the Doctor's origins on First Doctor#Life on Gallifrey became too unwieldy, I created The Doctor's early life. Other examples include pages for specific eras in the Doctor's life, like Exile on Earth, or pages for specific events, like Operation Mannequin. This decision is an art, not a science, and experienced users should use their best judgment to decide how to group content together into logical topics.

Here are some examples of how not to use a subpage:

Moving material

Once you've identified a lengthy section and the new page that will hold it, cut the section's contents and paste it to the new page. Include any subheadings, images, galleries, footnotes, and infoboxes that are inside that section. Subheadings should be adjusted upwards: for instance, === subheadings should become ==s.

Writing a summary

After moving material to another page, you have to fill the gap on the root page. Fandom's Editor Experience team explains the {{Main|/Subpage}} + Summary method in this way:

When a basic article becomes long enough, it could have long chunks that could reasonably be split into their own independent articles. … The base article could then replace a long section with a spoiler-free summary with the most important points, linked by a context-link hatnote above it (such as {{Main|/Subpage}}).Isaac Fischer [w:c:community:User blog:FishTank/Categories and Navigation on Fandom#To be clear [src]]

In effect, link to the new page from the root page with {{main}} and replace the copied text with a shorter summary of the information. Just as a lead paragraph summarises the contents of its page, this summary should give a broad-strokes overview of the subpage's contents, with a particular emphasis on details which are most likely relevant to casual audiences. In practice, this usually means TV information, although it can also include especially notable content from other media.

For instance, Tenth Doctor#Appearance is a lengthy section that details each of the Tenth Doctor's various clothing and hairstyle changes. If this information were moved to a subpage, the summary left behind would describe his primary television outfits and briefly mention any particularly prominent non-television appearances, such as a costume worn for an entire comics run or Big Finish boxset.

Note the Editor Experience team's emphasis on a summary being "spoiler-free". While this might not be possible in some circumstances, ideally a new fan should be able to read through the summary of a character's biography without having the experience of the television show being totally spoiled for them. For example, a summary of Twelfth Doctor/Biography might mention that his travels with Bill, Nardole, and Missy concluded in TV: The Doctor Falls during an encounter with an old enemy, without explicitly spelling out that enemy's identity or the circumstances of Bill's fate. Like a lead paragraph, a well-written summary should "lead" its readers to want to learn more, whether that means clicking through to the subpage or actually experiencing the stories in question.

Applications

There are a number of disparate problems that this proposal will solve. This section discusses those problems and the motivations for this proposal.

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:

  1. when a page section (the infobox list of appearances) grows too large and unwieldy, it's moved to a separate page;
  2. the new page is titled in reference to the core page (Character name - list of appearances); and
  3. 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 are subpages better than the status quo? What are subpages, anyway?" Well, you're on one! Because of the slashes in the URL 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!Isaac Fischer [w:c:community:User blog:FishTank/Short and long pages on Fandom [src]]

Additionally, a subpage can also be linked to from its parent page with only a partial title: 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" functioning just like subpages, with most of them already linked from story or series pages with {{main}}. Their form should follow their function: 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. These are the low-hanging fruit when it comes to integrating subpages onto the wiki.

Story summaries

Tardis Wiki is notorious for our lack of plot descriptions. A vast majority of story pages have plot sections that say 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 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.Isaac Fischer [w:c:community:User blog:FishTank/Short and long pages on Fandom [src]]

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 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 would synopses make our pages less likely to appear unfinished, their length would also make it easier for readers to scroll and 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}}.

Other realities

Doctor Who is notorious for its inconsistent treatment of time travel mechanics, and nowhere is this more apparent than in parallel universes and alternate timelines. What do these terms mean in Doctor Who? There are as many definitions as there are fans, and each one has a counterexample among our valid sources. Despite this, the wiki persists in different treatment of different types of different realities. T:MERGE semi-arbitrarily proclaims that "Continuity of consciousness is key", meaning that in cases of ongoing stories like Doctor of War, editors are left in limbo for months or years until they can see how (or if) the timeline resolves. This policy has led to nitpicky and counterproductive distinctions, such as the idea that Moira (The Pilot) wasn't a recurring character in series 10 because it was technically Moira (Shadow World) who appeared in Extremis. And all the while, the proliferation of split pages with strange dab terms means that many articles now bear {{counterparts}} below their infoboxes, increasing the glut of obscure material which readers must now scroll past to find a page's actual contents.

To our admins' credit, many of the more creative page splits – for example, Third Doctor (He Jests at Scars…) – have been diligently merged back into their originals, and Talk:Susan Foreman (Prologue: The First Doctor) provided a much-needed clarification that not all versions of characters from other realities deserve separate pages:

As a rule of thumb (there are exceptions, of course), if there's no more to say on the separate page than what can already be stated on the prime version's "Alternate timelines" subsection, it's not worth creating a separate page for the alternate-timeline version.Scrooge MacDuck [Talk:Susan Foreman (Prologue: The First Doctor) [src]]

Scrooge's explanation hints at part of the reason we began splitting these pages in the first place: a page covering all of a major character's appearances in all realities (main and other) would simply be very lengthy!

Tenth Doctor/Other realities – not [[/Alternate timelines]], as the section is currently called, but a title inclusive of parallel universes and pocket realities – would provide the space for this coverage. It would have room for separate sections discussing the character's appearances in alternate timelines, parallel universes, and other alternative constructs. Such a subpage would also provide a more suitable home for specialized templates like {{Tenth Doctor counterparts}}. It wouldn't remove the need for or existence of separate pages for many alternate versions of characters, but it would go a long way towards alleviating the pressure which has caused all this muddle in the first place!

Subpages might not be the silver bullet that solves this problem once and for all, but they do offer a more consistent path for addressing the issue.

Other validities

Death Comes to Time, which is currently invalid, depicts an alternative fate of the Seventh Doctor and Ace following Survival. We're meant to recognise these names: within this story, Ace is the same character who we met in Dragonfire, and her actions are shaped by her experience in The Curse of Fenric and other stories. This background is assumed as understood.

Now read our article for Ace (Death Comes to Time). There's no mention of her shared roots with regular Ace; in fact, there's no citation of any story besides Death Comes to Time itself. If you read the page in a vacuum, you could come away thinking she was one of Dan Freeman's original characters! To an extent, this is understandable: it would be very silly to duplicate half of Ace#Biography on two pages. But there's a better way.

Many pages for characters and concepts which appear very briefly in invalid stories, like George W. Bush, feature a "Behind the scenes" subsection called "Information from invalid sources". This is better than the Ace (Death Comes to Time) approach, since it establishes a clear link between the valid and invalid topics, but we understandably haven't chosen this route when it comes to major characters from invalid stories, since it would be cumbersome to cover that much material in a behind-the-scenes section.

You should know what's coming by now: in this case, Ace/Invalid sources, decorated by a helpful new template:

A journal of impossible things . . .

This subpage documents information about Ace from invalid sources. It complements the main page and assumes familiarity with the valid appearances.

In Ace#Behind the scenes, a subsection called "Information from invalid sources" briefly will list or recap Ace's more prominent invalid appearances, with a {{main}} link to the subpage covering Ace-related material in these invalid sources in maximum detail.

For those who dare to dream, this template-based approach would also unlock a new solution to another old problem: our coverage of concepts that originate in invalid stories but are referenced in valid ones. Right now we either shove most of these pages' material in their "Behind the scenes" sections, like on Canisian, or we jam our fingers in our ears and pretend we don't understand the obvious connection, like on Man with a bent nose. Using the above template on "invalid-first" pages like these – not on a subpage, but on the original thing! – would enable much better coverage of not just the Minister of Chance and friends but also crossover concepts like the Vivaldi inheritance from Mine All Mine and Sandra Mitchell from Children's Ward.

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 – it hasn't 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.

To quote the Editor Experience team a final time,

There's no one ideal length of an article; it should cover all the important and noteworthy points without being so lengthy that readers lose attention. While there is both clear and unclear research on the topic, an informational article should likely take about 7 minutes to read, and be somewhere between 1000 and 2500 words (not bytes). There are legitimate reasons for individual articles with 4000 - 5000 words of prose if they engage the reader and stay on-topic; beyond 5000 words, contributors should review a body of text for opportunities to summarize and break out potentially independent text into new articles.Isaac Fischer [w:c:community:User blog:FishTank/Articles on Fandom [src]]

Here on Tardis Wiki we fall hilariously short of this standard. Our pages Tenth Doctor and Eleventh Doctor are both over 60,000 words long, requiring (according to WordCounter.net) over 3 hours of reading time each – and it would be hard to argue that their prose is especially engaging. No person is sitting down and reading either of these pages in their entirety. And don't even mention The Master!

If Shambala's decision was implemented properly, we would see a dramatic reduction of these page lengths, but two problems would remain:

  1. the matter of what to do with all the material we'd be removing; and
  2. the fact that such a reduction would be nowhere near drastic enough to meet best practices!

Subpages would solve both problems. Biographies which are too long by Shambala's standard can be moved to subpages, rather than deleted outright; and the {{Main|/Subpage}} + Summary method would unlock far larger potential reductions in page length.

As mentioned in my above summary writing guide, TV information should be prioritised for its relevance to the not we. For instance, a summarised form of Tenth Doctor#Biography would certainly mention all of the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones' televised adventures across a few paragraphs, but maybe not all of their non-televised ones, like PROSE: Wetworld and COMIC: The Skrawn Inheritance. However, prioritisation of TV does not mean total exclusion of non-TV stories, and especially notable and well-established eras – for instance, the Tenth Doctor's travels with Gabby Gonzalez and Cindy Wu in Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor – would also receive a paragraph in the summary.

I've received some pushback for this, but 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 is one of our priorities. Our purpose as a wiki is to cover DWU-related stories and concepts as they exist, in whatever way will best serve DWU fans; T:NPOV doesn't and shouldn't prevent us from realistically assessming what information is most relevant to readers.

This guideline has implications for lead paragraphs, as well. Peter Capaldi himself had such a hard time finding relevant information in our article on The Beatles that he ultimately gave up! I've since fixed the issue on that specific page by moving information about The Chase from its 14th paragraph to its 2nd, but applying this approach more widely across the wiki would be huge for general usability.

Miscellaneous other cases

Chris Cwej's Superiors is one of many pages which shoehorn every once-used alternate name into the lead paragraph. These names do belong in the article, but the place for them is a "Name" section, such as we see on many Wikipedia pages; the actual lead paragraph should only mention the two or three more prominent names at most. For some cases where the naming discussion is particularly difficult, however, it might be appropriate to expand it into a subpage. Aliases of the Doctor represents an edge case here; due to its length and the fact that it's mostly linked through redirects, it might qualify for splitting into separate pages for individual aliases, such as Time's Champion and Time Lord Victorious.

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)
That's a great point. I'm tempted to say we should capitalize it, since most often I think these will be linked with {{main}} rather than in-line. But it could go either way. – n8 (☎) 15:15, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Not a critique on this page, but how come an image from The Curse of Fatal Death is in <div id="article-type" class="type-nc">? 15:54, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
Great question! The design is clearly out of date, seeing as it references the antiquated "non-canon" designation in the class name; I'm not sure it's even being used by any templates right now. My goal for would be "invalid". – n8 (☎) 17:31, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I didn't come to read the new version of this to be personally attacked. Wow. I think splitting off plot summaries is something that could work, but I personally am very strongly against any split of TV/EU stuff, as I am with rewriting the pages to put it into the lead. Obviously this would come up in the forum discussions about it though. :> Najawin ☎ 16:04, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I hear your objection to prioritisation of TV content loud and clear. Obviously it's only a matter which would apply to "TV first" characters with extremely long pages – mainly the Doctors and their companions – so it wouldn't affect the pages which you and I are most fond of editing. But hopefully Special:Diff/3099698 isn't really so objectionable? I'm, uhh, rather hoping this can get done without needing the forums – which is to say, that it can get done ever – so please do respond. – n8 (☎) 17:31, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
I've added sections explicitly addressing these concerns using the examples of Tenth Doctor#Appearance and Tenth Doctor#Biography, btw. – n8 (☎) 19:16, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
I think a better example to illustrate my qualms is Sutekh. This is an article with a substantial amount of EU content that's arguably integral page as we've written it. I cannot imagine that it's acceptable to rewrite this page to focus on the TV appearances of this character, or even what such a rewrite to this page could look like. Thankfully, this is one instance where the issue of subpages to trim excess content doesn't yet seem relevant, but the basic issue here is the same. It seems bizarre to me that, say, Anne Travers, could have her article rewritten to focus on a single story she appeared in on TV - were it to get too long. (Yes I did find a random character that Candy Jar was using, why do you ask?) Or even Kate Stewart, a character that originated in non BBC media, has an extensive life outside of the BBC show, whose rights are owned by someone other than the BBC. Her page is reasonably large. It's 211 on Special:LongPages. Which isn't super up there, but isn't nothing either. (Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart meets two of those three criteria! And his is 38 on LongPages!)
Perhaps it's an ideological issue for me and we'll just never agree. But this change seems counterproductive, in violation of both the spirit and the letter of T:NPOV. It seems like it provides fodder for those in the fanbase who want to relegate the expanded universe material to a second class status (though, of course, I know you don't intend this), which I'm strongly against, and the fact that Doctor Who doesn't do this is part of why I'm here.
But in all honesty I don't think this is the best way to help our users. What is the problem we're trying to solve? We want a way for people to find out what information comes from what sources easily, if they wish to do so, on mobile, quickly, where they might lack cmd+f, without privileging TV sources. Is there a way to do this? I think there has to be - and I think giving up and privileging TV sources is defeatist, no offense meant.
I'd like to propose an alternative. A change to T:BOLD. See User:Najawin/sandbox. I think this change makes it substantially easier for a user to scroll down a page looking for "TV" as a source for a statement. If need be, we might also float a proposal that prefixes be resized slightly. But I think this option is more in keeping with T:NPOV, can be automated by a bot, and serves the not we reasonably well, if not better. (Though I admit the last bit is a matter of ideological debate.) Najawin ☎ 02:45, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Defeatist? Bah! Humbug!
Thanks for explaining your point of view; I really appreciate the outside interpretation of what I've written. I think your disagreement is with the letter of what I've written, not its spirit, and I'll have to spend some time figuring out how to better capture and convey that spirit to avoid any kind of misunderstanding.
For instance: "It seems bizarre to me that, say, Anne Travers, could have her article rewritten to focus on a single story she appeared in on TV - were it to get too long." Yes, that would be bizarre. By "prioritise" I didn't mean "make her TV appearance the focus". I simply meant "a summary might omit her minor appearances in Lethbridge-Stewart short stories,[1] but it should not fail to mention her appearance on TV, however minor". This does not mean that the TV story suddenly becomes the "focus", nor does it have any bearing on the presence of other, non-TV content in the summary, as appropriate. Maybe there's a better word than "prioritise" to capture what I'm trying to say here.
I like your T:BOLD idea, but I don't think it's comprehensive enough to replace this proposal in its entirety, and it rather assumes a reader's familiarity with our prefixing system. Regardless, it might make for a good complement to Bongolium500's innovative source referencing proposals at User:Bongolium500/Sandbox 5! – n8 (☎) 14:54, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Sandbox 5 is actually not up to date; it holds some very out of date early drafts. The up-to-date template currently has its documentation at User:Bongolium500/cite source. Bongo50 ☎ 15:52, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

So I obviously love Bongo's proposal, but I do worry that even with the code cut down massively it might have the same "issue(s)" it ran into before (unless the template-ification gets around this completely). As for T:BOLD, it's obviously nowhere near comprehensive enough to solve all the problems mentioned. Just the plot summary issue alone can't be solved by this. :>
The one part where I can see prioritizing TV stories "over" EU stories in the shorter summaries on the large pages is when you delineate the starting and ending periods for the section. EG, with the Twelfth Doctor could discuss how his adventures with Bill took place between Smile and Extremis, even though this isn't technically true. But I think as to the few paragraphs we use to describe the situation before linking to the larger article, we should reference all media.
Now that I think about it, what you're proposing is a relatively radical change for how casual users will interact with some of our more prominent articles. That's not a bad thing, but it is something that I think we should get community feedback for. Perhaps (God help you) this is something you might want to make a mock up of and float as an idea on reddit or twitter and ask people for feedback, as well as asking their friends and family, to compare and contrast, say, the ease of use and understanding of, say, Tenth Doctor vs the Subpaged and Bolded Tenth Doctor. Najawin ☎ 18:48, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Footnotes

  1. ↑ I know very little about the Lethbridge-Stewart series, but let's assume there are a few stories where she appears briefly or as a background character.
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