Forum:Temporary forums/Categories for stories without summaries

Opening Post
I think this is fairly self explanatory. A lot of stories on this wiki, be they prose, audio, or comic, don't have real summaries. It's something we're often criticized for, be it fair or unfair. One way to help this issue is to create categories for stories without plot summaries so that we can better track where work needs to be done on this wiki.

In my mind the question becomes "which categories" and "are they visible or hidden"?

explicitly says that we should refrain from making categories hidden without good cause, but these categories are explicitly for wiki editors to use as bookkeeping. I'm unconvinced that there's good reason for them to be visible. Maybe since Category:Maintenance isn't exactly a thing most people are aware of, making it so there are more ways people can stumble across it is a good thing? But I think this is a marginal benefit, a lot of things would have to line up for these categories being visible leading to additional people seeing these lists.

That leaves us with what categories. Quite frankly, should we just have "story without a summary"? "Prose work without summary"? "DW prose without summary?" "VNA without summary?" There's levels of specificity here that we can delve into, and I believe precedent wants us to be as specific as possible. I can see arguments both for and against. (For: It makes it easier to find the specific area you want to work on. Against: It obscures precisely how many stories don't have summaries.) Overall though I think specificity is a good thing here though.

I think this proposal is a relative no-brainer. It's just something to make our lives easier, but is weird enough that it probably needs a forum thread.

As points of technical implementation, might I suggest that the relevant category (Category:Works that need summaries or w/e) be in Category:Articles with sections in need of expansion, and that this issue is big enough that it's given its own section on T:TO DO. I think those are small ways in which this policy could be made most useful. Najawin ☎  07:58, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Discussion
I wholly support this proposal, as I have felt for a long time that the wiki is incomplete without these, and frankly some lack plots as well, but I’m not sure if there should be a seperate thread for that or not. And I can’t even add anything in myself because I have no idea what these works are about.

As for the name, I suggest the last thing you said, Category:Works that need summaries, as that is broad enough to cover them all, as I feel dividing them up in TV, audio, prose and so on will just be too confusing for the wiki. Danniesen ☎  14:46, 25 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Seems like an excellent idea, having a system of sub-stubs is a great way to encourage editing. OS25🤙☎️ 14:51, 25 March 2023 (UTC)


 * I think categories like Category:Short stories that need summaries, for example, would be good. We can divide based on medium, not series. And some may be more willing to do a plot summary for a short story or television story than a full novel or video game, so some sorting can help that IMO. We could also perhaps modify and it's ilk to check if #Plot has anything more than to be added, and if not, for it to add the category.  15:02, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

I support this proposal. Given that this category would mark an article as incomplete, i.e. a "stub", maybe it should be named following the existing format for subcategories of Category:Stubs. Category:Summary stubs, perhaps.

I've mocked up a template,, which would we could put in an empty "Summary" or "Plot" section. It shows up as "to be added", just like the current placeholder text, but it also sneakily puts the page in the summary stubs category, whatever we end up calling it. Another upside is that it would allow us to make sure the placeholder text is standardised across the wiki. – n8 (☎) 17:52, 25 March 2023 (UTC)