Warriors Wiki talk:Books

Suggestion: Making article lengths more uniform
One of the biggest differences between older book articles such as A Dangerous Path and newer ones such as The Sun Trail is the length of the plot summaries. The former has a word count of 923, while the latter has over double that, at 2303 words. One of the newest books/featured articles, Thunder and Shadow has 7275 words. That is insanely inconsistent for books that are all about the same length in terms of pages and word count, and I have a hard time believing 1/7 of the events happened in A Dangerous Path than any more recent books.

I think this inconsistency really detracts from both article quality and doesn't look as professional to readers on the wiki. I know when I go look on a wiki for a book summary, I don't care to read 11 Word-document pages of text for a book summary. This is especially true when we have the chapter subpages for this very reason. Since such long summaries are written anymore, we'll also have these articles go unfinished for a very long time.

Additionally, if you read these summaries they often have small events that have little to do with the plot. I hate to keep picking on Thunder and Shadow, but here is a paragraph from that book summary:


 * "Violetkit gazes across the den, watching Grassheart's kits sleep. She recalls sadly that she and Twigkit used to sleep like that, but was now stuck next to Pinenose. The black-and-white kit thinks the queen tries her best to be patient, but knows that her paws itched to be out with the warriors. Violetkit wishes she could be in the apprentices' den, knowing it would be impossible as she's only three moons old. The she-kit spots eyes shine through the nursery entrance, and comes outside to find Needlepaw waiting for her. The apprentice tells Violetkit they're going on another night adventure, with Sleekpaw this time. They leave camp, and the kit wonders if they're going in the right direction as they head further into the forest. Needlepaw catches a mouse, so she and Sleekpaw share it while Violetkit declines. A long-furred gray tom pushes his way through the bracken, along with a black she-cat and a silver tom. Needlepaw greets the rogues calmly, but Violetkit blurts out that they must be the ones who attacked WindClan. Darktail introduces himself and states that the Clan provoked them, and not the other way around. Violetkit says that Pinenose said they shouldn't be by the lake, but the rogue leader scoffs that that sounds greedy. Needlepaw and Sleekpaw support that claim, with Rain adding that they're going to grow fat from good hunting. The cats question why the kit is in ShadowClan, but Violetkit mews that she doesn't know. Needlepaw scorns Rowanstar, and the she-kit wonders if all of the Clan she's been living with view her as a rogue."

To contrast, here is a paragraph from the A Dangerous Path article:


 * "During a Gathering, the Clans learn that ShadowClan has a new leader, Tigerstar, the exiled former deputy of ThunderClan. He accepts several rogues into ShadowClan, many of which are former cats of ShadowClan who were driven out with Brokentail, including former deputy Blackfoot, and promises that he will make the Clan great. After the Gathering is over, Fireheart, the ThunderClan deputy, tells about Tigerstar to the rest of the Clan, and all cats are shocked. They fear an attack from ShadowClan, but the days pass, and everything is peaceful. ThunderClan is surviving, but all warriors are overstretched; they spend a lot of time hunting, patrolling, and rebuilding the camp after the recent fire."

The latter is short, concise, and a summary of what happened, instead of a retelling. While all those things definitely happened in Thunder and Shadow, they are not necessarily important to the plot or the reader, who would likely just wish to remind themselves of the major events of the book. Longer and more detailed events, such as conversations and individual actions, are better off in chapter subpages or cliffnotes.

Here would be my suggestion at how the events in that paragraph would be written to match the style of older articles such as A Dangerous Path or Sunrise (1200 words):


 * "After Twigkit and Violetkit's separation, Violetkit finds it hard to sleep worrying about her sister and the Clan's view of her. Needlepaw coaxes her into another night adventure with the apprentices. While they are out in the forest, they run into Darktail and his rogues, who reveal that they are the cats that attacked WindClan and say they have no intention of leaving. Needlepaw and Sleekpaw support the rogues and scorn Rowanstar."

My suggestion is that Project:Books puts a soft limit on the word count for each article plot summary. These would provide solid guidelines for uniformity and consistency between the book articles, and allow articles to be completed faster after the book's release. My suggestion would be 1200 words for regular arc books, 1700 for super editions (Bluestar's Prophecy, one of the more eventful ones, has around 1455), and 1000 for novellas.

While this may seem like I'm giving the Project an idea for more work, as I believe we should trim down or rewrite some of these detailed plot summaries, but I think it would be healthier in the long run as it transfers the bulk of the work to the Chapter Subpages and it wouldn't get even farther behind nearly as quickly. Additionally, some of these article paragraphs could simply be copied and pasted into the chapter subpage they appear in as they are that detailed.

Thoughts? 8:41 Fri Feb 23 2018

Please note that I am not arguing these limits would be set in stone, but guidelines for article writers. If a plot summary requires more or less than that that would not be an issue as long as it remains a concise summary. The idea is consistent article lengths. 8:52 Fri Feb 23 2018

I think the difference is that the articles you pointed out - one was written a long time ago while the other one was very recent. I really do not think that it is necessary to trim the articles because that would require a lot of going back and editing and some people edit differently than others. I also do not think chapter subpages being slow to complete has anything to do with the article length, so I have to disagree as I think it is fine the way it is. 09:10, February 23, 2018 (UTC)

Honestly, it's a detailed plot summary, and I think that some of the older ones are too short if anything. They're supposed to be more detailed than the cliffnotes, and include what happened in the book. Some summaries like Sunset have even been marked for expansion for quite a while. Standards have changed, and I agree with Icy that the difference in editing styles between then and now and between different people makes that difference. Having limits would be a constant checking of making sure to stay around them, instead of fully focusing on putting out the best summary possible for the benefit of the wiki. And tbh, the chapter subpages aren't really related to this. They're slow to be completed because 20 chapters per book adds up, with how this project is relatively small, though improving. Most people work on subpages regardless, even though there are main articles to do and if people wanted to write main pages they would. They're just longer and kinda tedious lmao. (also biased because I'm the author of TAS's summary and I love it but ;-; ripp)

This is not just articles written a long time ago, its not until the later books of the Dawn of the Clans arc did this length creep start to occur. The Last Hope's article was written in 2012 and a very busy book and only had 1700 words. A strong majority of the book articles we currently have at gold status are written at this length. And this is not a style issue. Style would be how people word the articles or structure their sentences. This is a formatting issue and that's something that the wiki has tried to be as consistent as possible about.

Wikipedia sums it up very well when it comes to plot summaries:


 * "An encyclopedia article about a work of fiction frequently includes a concise summary of the plot. The description should be thorough enough for the reader to get a sense of what happens and to fully understand the impact of the work and the context of the commentary about it. The summary must be concise because Wikipedia's coverage of works of fiction should be about more than just the plot. Plot summaries that are too long and too detailed can be hard to read and are as unhelpful as those that are too short. Finding the right balance requires careful editorial discretion and discussion."

That's the issue I'm bringing up with the length of these articles. Yes they are detailed plot summaries but they aren't play-by-plays they are summaries. Readers on the wiki when using those articles aren't really concerned that Gray Wing picked a mouse from the fresh-kill pile as they are the important events of the book and the sequence they occur. I bring up chapter subpages because that's what belongs in those articles: incredibly detailed summaries of the chapter and the smaller aspects of the story. These longer articles detract from the purpose of the chapter subpages as well.

I'm not saying that the articles are badly written by any means, but they are difficult for our readers to use and wildly inconsistent. A word guideline would help us keep things consistent (and would be a suggestion, not a rule) but it could also start by making them comparable in the first place. 13:56 Fri Feb 23 2018

Still, I stick to my opinion. I do not see anything wrong with the style length as they are now. It is a detailed plot summary, nothing more. If people want to edit and remove the smaller details, that is fine by me, but in general I think it is a waste to go through it and remove things just so they are a consistent length. 23:32, February 23, 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree with Icy. There isn't really anything wrong with the current style.

Like Icy said, if people want to edit and remove some of the smaller chunks that aren't too important, that'd be cool with me, but otherwise I think they're fine. 03:18, February 24, 2018 (UTC)

Alright, now that I can comment without having to deal with work... I get where you're coming from, Breezey. I get pretty distracted when I see long articles and summaries. But, at the same time, I'm also really impressed with how far this place has come in terms of article content. I know I personally would rather larger article summaries. While I don't think describing every event (such as Gray Wing picking a mouse to eat; that's unimportant) is necessary, I'm also not sure that skipping things is good either.

We could delegate all of the more in-depth stuff to the subpages (since those were the original reason I coined the idea), I don't like the idea of chopping an article's summary, especially when it does say "detailed plot summary" on the article itself. The newer articles and their summaries are fine as they are. It would be good to have some kind of "style guide", as long as it's not forced on articles we currently have. Removing some information would be fine, as to cut down on irrelevance, but all in all, I don't seem to have much of a problem with the newer articles being longer.

That being said, I do think the older ones can have their articles expanded. We should, as an encyclopedia, be focusing on our content, not whether or not we meet a word count (which would hopefully never be set in stone) or something along those lines. I've always loved more detail in articles, and I'd hate to see most of that go. The same goes for character articles. Detail is best, imo. Doesn't make your suggestion wrong in any way (I DO LIKE IT), but I just don't think it would be the best thing right now, and sorta feels like backtracking, in a sense.

Whether a soft word count limit is the best way to resolve this or not is debatable. I wouldn't be against it, and I could definitely see it working, especially if was more like what wikipedia uses: a very generalized idea of the average length of an article, used more for reference of around what should be aimed for, rather than any firm rule, and varying depending on what type of media the summary is for. Within wwiki, I could see that being used as a set of average lengths for main books, super editions, and novellas. They could be used similarly to wikipedias, to give writers of the summary a general idea of what to aim for, but also as a reference point during nominations for silver or gold, to aid in determining whether the summary needs beefing up or trimming down. However at the same time, I could also understand why some users might be opposed to focusing on word counts.

Regardless of the solution, I absolutely agree that the summaries these days are adding in far more detail than necessary, and becoming ridiculously long. They've gotten to the point where, for me personally, they no longer serve their purpose. I can no longer look at a summary to get a summarized version of the major things that happened in the book, and I certainly wouldn't be able to find anything in them if I ever had to look in them for more specific information.

The main problem as I see it is that the summaries aren't actually summarizing the story; they're paraphrasing. Because of this, more often than not, I feel like I need a summary of the summary I'm reading when I look at the more recently written ones on here. I think it would be very beneficial to the articles if the project made a very clear distinction between the two, and consistently encourage summarizing over paraphrasing, especially for articles that are being nominated for silver/gold. A list of suggestions and guidelines could be added to the style guide, such as minimizing/removing epithets, excessive/unnecessary adjectives, insignificant events, and minor details. I think if the summaries consistently started actually summarizing rather than paraphrasing, and issues with length would likely be resolved, however a specific average summary length guideline could still fit in with this well if desired.

I think wikipedia's entire page on the topic (as well as the pages linked in the 'See More' section) would be a great reference to use on how to handle the problem, as I've yet to find any wikia that do things better than wikipedia itself. It's worth reading thoroughly for anyone participating in this discussion.

Additionally, I wanted to give an example of a well summarized articles on wwiki, next to a heavily paraphrased one. The following are two summaries for characters of similar importance in similar length books. Note the difference in length, and how much more concise Yellowfang's is, while still including everything of importance that happened in the book. This isn't to say Yellowfang's summary is perfect, but there is still a clear difference in how these summaries were written and how they read. I've read Into the Wild many times, and I wouldn't say there's anything significant missing from that summary, yet it still manages to be drastically shorter (and therefore more readable) simply because it was written with a different goal in mind.

Summary vs paraphrase.

Several people have given the go-ahead to trim down articles already, and while that's good and I will definitely participating in that, I think the problem needs to be addressed by the project itself. Otherwise any summaries in the future will continue to be excessively long and unreadable, and probably get worse over time, and the quality of the articles will suffer for it.

I also want to be clear that any time I refer to quality, I'm not talking about how good the writing is, I'm referring to how usable it is as a summary for the purposes of the article. I don't want it to seem like I'm criticizing the writing of any of the authors of these summary sections, that's truly not my intention.

What is being "trimmed down"? Because if it's anything I've written, I'm telling you now that I will just undo it. The articles that I've written and nominated are things I'm very proud of. Quality or not, we need to keep in mind the work that goes into these. I don't want to see every article "trimmed" based on this. It seems more like this is going to be done regardless of what we're talking about. This should be an optional choice and I don't want to see it being done unless we come to an agreement.

I'm in the middle with this. On one hand, trimming down the longer summaries will make things easier to read. I prefer summaries that are quick to the point and effectively summarize what happens, although not insanely short like A Dangerous Path. Then again, the articles do say "detailed plot summary". So why I don't think insanely long articles are the way to go, I think a summary around The Sun Trail's length is a good length for normal book articles. After all, there are the chapter subpages one could go to.

Then again, trimming it down could waste all of the hard work the writer of the article put into it. In regards to the inconsistent summaries, it all comes down to the style of the writing. Some may describe every single detail that happens, while others just summarize it. However, cliffnotes are there to help summarize what happens in the book, and the detailed plot summary is more of an expansion of that, being more detailed as well.

In conclusion, I just think we should leave it as it is, and expand the older articles. Writing styles vary among people, and I'd hate to see hard work get erased. Plus, we don't really need a word count limit. It's never been a thing, and why implement one now? 19:45, February 24, 2018 (UTC)

Agreeing with Skye in that it depends on what "trimming down" articles means. That could mean a lot of different things. True, perhaps we don't need to include minuscule details, but I feel like some of the older articles could be expanded as well. (in any case, if the project comes to a consensus on this, I'd very much like to "trim" my own articles if we're being made to do that) AND, if we do add a word suggestion of some sort, I think they should be quite a bit longer than what was suggested here.

I know I talked about this in discord already, but I just want to say something as a reader of the wiki that hasn't read certain books and needs summaries on them.

I haven't read any of the latest arc. I've been really wanting to find out what's going on plot-wise, and would really benefit from reading a summary of those books. As it stands right now, the summaries for the four latest books would take me well over an hour to read, probably even two hours if I'm being realistic. For a little perspective, I could probably get through around half of TAQ's actual book in that time. I, nor anyone I know, would invest that much time in reading a summary. So for me, as someone who actually needs to read the summaries of these books, the ones on the wiki are useless to me because they're paraphrased rather than being summarized. And I have known several people within the fandom who read the wiki but don't edit it who have had this same problem. Some have had to resort to asking other fans on tumblr what happens, because the wiki summaries aren't serving their purpose.

This isn't to criticize the quality of the writing in any way, I see absolutely nothing wrong with the writing quality and the authors of the articles have done a great job on that front. But good writing is not inherently a good summary. The section could have been written by J.K Rowling, and that still wouldn't have guaranteed it was a good summary the book. To truly be able to serve their purpose, summaries need to be a broad, condensed overview of the events of the book, rather than a play-by-play of every move the character makes in every page/paragraph of the book.

I completely understand where you guys are coming from and why you would be resistant to changing these summaries that you put so much time and effort into writing. Writing is art, just the same as drawing, and I certainly know how easy it is to get attached to chararts on here and not want them to be changed. But if the writing is so long that they're unusable as actual summaries and therefore will hardly be read by anybody, ask yourself, is there really a point? Wouldn't you rather condense your writing (or if you would prefer, have someone else condense it), and have more people in the fandom be able to read and benefit what you wrote? Shouldn't that be the goal of your writing? To be helpful and usable to the readers of the wiki who want or need a summary of the book?

I fairly neutral on the subject of whether a soft word count limit would be the right solution for this or not, and can see why some would be opposed to such a limit, but I do strongly believe that these sections need to work towards truly summarizing the events of the book, rather than paraphrasing them, so that they can be usable to the readers of the wiki.

I just wanted to write this from the perspective of a reader of the wiki rather than an editor, as I think sometimes it's easy to forget that just because the editors don't have a problem with something, doesn't mean the readers don't. As writers of this wiki, and people who probably know more about the series than anyone in the entire fandom (probably more than even the erins), it's easy to to lose sight of the purpose of these types of sections and the reason why some readers need it, as you aren't the type of people who would ever really need such a summary. How you address the problem is ultimately up to you, but you can't claim that there isn't a problem just because you don't have one.

If we do end up trimming the summaries, I'm fine with that. If the wiki is being used less and less for catching up on summaries, then that could potentially be problem for the wiki as a whole. Many people do not have the patience to read such a long summary, and longer summaries can hurt the wiki more than it can help. Plus, slow readers would end up spending more time reading the summary than they need to. However, I still retain my stance on expanding the older articles to the degree of The Sun Trail, mainly because it still does say "detailed plot summary". 18:36, February 25, 2018 (UTC)

Reiterating my point. I feel there is no need we should restrict writers to having a word count, it is not like we are writing an essay for school or something. If they want to trim their own work, that is all right, however, I feel establishing a guideline that has everyone going back to count the words and trim it is unnecessary when there are other things that should be focused on. Older articles could be expanded if need be. 00:00, February 26, 2018 (UTC)

Instead of enforcing a word count, perhaps we could add a guideline to not include very minor details in the plot summary? I don't necessarily think there should be a word count, but I do agree that we should at try to shorten them a little bit. The main problem with this is that what is "minor" detail and what is a "major" detail is at the discretion of the writer. For example, the writer might believe something is a major detail, but someone else might think it's a minor one. We probably would still have to trim some of the articles, like some want, but we wouldn't have a word count, like others want. We could still expand older articles, too. It might work, but it might not. 21:41, February 27, 2018 (UTC)

We don't necessarily need a word count, but perhaps we could pick an article as a sort of standard to base other articles around? One with its summary, cliffnotes, subpages, etc. all done and put in the style guide as well. 21:45 Tue Feb 27 2018

I mean sure, a style guide would be nice, but if it's a standard then it'd only work for main arc pages, unless we're picking ones for the se's, novellas, manga and such respectively. I still stand by that I think some of the older ones could be expanded, but The Sun Trail seems like a good in-between the short and long ones

Arc Pages
So this is an idea I've had brewing for a little while. Basically, I think we really should have pages to summarise each arc of Warriors so that users don't have to jump from page to page if they just want a quick summary of what goes on in each. I'm not sure there's anything else that needs to be said on the matter. It's something we could benefit from, I believe.

I've got a small, messy mockup of what could be on each page here. Feel free to point out any possible changes that could be made, and if anyone wants to help with creating an infobox since I can't that'd be great. 07:22 Mon Feb 26

I fully support this idea. I’m surprised we don’t do this already.

I'm inclined to this as a concept, but I'd like to see what the finished product might look like as well, before totally jumping on board. I feel like it would really be great for all the purposes listed... if we can complete them all in a timely manner, which is dependent on what the finished product ends up being.

Also, was this the kind of template you said might work? Took from the proposal section.

I really like this idea, but I would like to see what a full, completed page would look like. 21:44, February 27, 2018 (UTC)

I like the idea and the template. I just think we would have to agree on what makes an event/a character major enough to be under Characters/Major Events. 23:23 Tue Feb 27

Here's a draft, basically completely done took all day If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know.

Really nice job, Spooky. I have a suggestion: perhaps the image in the infobox could be all six book covers instead of just the first book cover? I'm not sure how that will go, but it's worth a try. 00:46, March 1, 2018 (UTC)

Oi, I did think about that, but unless you want me to use a box set picture (which generally there aren't many high quality ones), using a 6-way-switch would be really hard, but possible if it's needed.

Hmm, I think a box set picture would be the way to go. The 6-way-switch should probably be used as a last resort.

Yeah six way switches are terrible. Added the box set; I’ll be shrinking that image when I get off of mobile and such^^

A little late, but I think this is a great idea. 02:23, March 1, 2018 (UTC)

That draft looks incredible Spooky, thanks so much for taking my idea and making something so great! If pictures of the box set images are low qual, do you think it'd be possible for someone to volunteer their time to create an image for each arc with all six book covers? For in-progress arcs we could just use the first book's cover until all six are out to avoid having to update the image every few months. If anyone has a better idea or thinks we should stick to box sets, or would be willing to actually make those images, I'd love to hear/see what you think. 22:52 Thu Mar 1

Berry when you say an image with all six book covers do you mean sort of like what the first 6 books look like on the main page's 'The Books' section? If so, and if everyone else thinks that's a good idea, I could make the images. 23:12 Fri Mar 2

That does sound like a good idea^^ If someone ends up making it, lmk and I'll add it to the draft.

I'm a little late to this but the image with all six book covers is what I meant. But a box set image would work too. 02:30, March 3, 2018 (UTC)

April FA
We're kinda running short on stuff to FA but... I was thinking maybe Spottedleaf's Heart (yes, I know it's a v cringy story, but we're gonna have to do it eventually) or Looking for Newleaf.

Both seem good, maybe do Spottedleaf's Heart since it's one-year anniversary is in April? Looking for Newleaf's probably older though, so I'm not sure.

SH. We gonna need to do it at some point, and it's the one year mark.

I agree with SH. 02:21, March 1, 2018 (UTC)

It's a good time to do SH, plus it'll get it out of the way in the future. 18:33, March 3, 2018 (UTC)

The Sun Trail/Chapter 18 ~ Silver Nomination
it is finally here --

Dark River/Chapter 15 - Silver Nomination
17:35, March 4, 2018 (UTC)