Talk:The Beginning of Goodbye (series)

Suggestion to consolidate works in this series

An editor has started a discussion at Talk:The Beginning of Goodbye about whether or not that page is redundant. At Fanlore, we generally only have one page for fanwork series, or the most notable work in a series, with links to the individual fics on that one page. As The Beginning of Goodbye is not the only work in this series with it's own page, I moved the discussion here.

I'd suggest blanking the pages for individual works in this series, and turning those pages into redirects that link here. That way if an individual work is linked on Fanlore, it would send someone to this page. Also I'd suggest adding external links to this page, so it links to every part of the series. Do editors agree? --Auntags (talk) 12:27, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree to this good plan. --MPH (talk) 12:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

As there are no objections, I'm going to consolidate the pages. --Auntags (talk) 22:34, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I didn't see this discussion happening until now, but I spent a lot of time on the pages of the individual works and didn't think they were redundant, as there was plot summary information that wasn't on the main page. I was a little sad to see all of that work gone. Would you be willing to restore those pages? I'm also very new to Fanlore and I'm still getting the hang of it. Thank you. --Dishwater-blondë

Hi Dishwater-blondë, I'm sorry you didn't see either of these discussions before the changes were made. The plot summaries are still available in the edit history of those pages. You can save a personal copy of your work by accessing the edit history. Let me know if you need help with that.

At Fanlore, we generally do not include such detailed plot summaries on pages related to fanfiction. We often include the summary, but it isn't essential. I blanked the pages rather than moving content here, because I felt all the information on those pages can be found by following the links to Ao3 and reading the fics. (See what content should I add to a fanworks page?) As a result, I don't not think such detailed plot summaries belong on this page. If you disagree, you're welcome to add an Attention Gardeners template to this page, and other gardeners will weigh in with their opinions, and we'll go with whatever the majority decision is. --Auntags (talk) 09:10, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I've just been informed that plot summary info is not generally included on Fanlore pages about fics, but as the author of these fics who put a lot of time into writing the plot summaries for Ten Thousand Pounds of Feathers, Finally Anew, and Hold Your Breath and Hope for the Best, I would like to see those pages and their information restored. If you would be willing to restore them, I could also include more content as listed in what content should I add to a fanworks page? - which by the way, does include "relevant characteristics such as plot" - in order to further justify their existence. Thank you. -- Dishwater-blondë

I agree with Dishwater-blondë, the two pages are not redundant, and there was a ton of relevant info to the fandom on the page that was removed that is a loss to the community. It's disappointing to see that valuable information and fandom history disappear. --ShadowMayura (talk) 23:53, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not a Gardener, and I haven't been here long, but from what I can see in the history of the pages is that they are in fact missing the impact on the fandom. Why not add reviews/comments/recommendations to them instead of blanking them out? Maybe there's art that goes with that series? It wouldn't delete Dishwater-blondë's hand work and would add value to Fanlore. I mean each story in The Draco Trilogy has their own page, so the precedence is there. Alternatively, why not copy those plot summaries over to the series page to preserve the work put into them?--Roamingcataloger (talk) 04:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Ironically, I'd consider this to be hostile editing by the Gardeners themselves. --ShadowMayura (talk) 04:02, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable throwing around the hostile editing label in this case, since it's a matter of people understanding the situation differently. I went through the hostile editing policy and the help pages on fanworks, as well as the intro to Fanlore FAQ. Nowhere did I find a mention that

we generally only have one page for fanwork series, or the most notable work in a series, with links to the individual fics on that one page.

. If that is the case, does it impact Fanlore's "no notability" rule? Should it be codified?

I think this conversation would benefit from additional voices, so a consensus can be reached. --Roamingcataloger (talk) 07:49, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Okay. So first of all, Dishwater-blondë, you are correct that plot summaries are a relevant type of information to include on a Fanlore page - what Auntags was trying to convey is that it needs to be proportionate to other information on the page. It is the equivalent of having a great deal of canon information on a page about a book or other piece of media - while the plot summary is relevant, Fanlore's focus is ultimately on the fannish response to and activity generated by the work. As an example, the page for Draco Dormiens contains two summaries for the work, both of which are just a paragraph long.

We don't have a codified policy about when we have a page for a series versus each fic in that series (though we can look into giving more detailed guidance about that) but it is a similar question to whether anything should have a separate page on Fanlore - meaning, is there enough material to fill out a whole page? This doesn't mean just plot information but fannish activity, fan comments, derivative fanworks, and so on. If there is enough of this type of material for each work to warrant separate pages, then it makes sense to have them - otherwise, it makes more sense to give each one a section on a broader page about that topic (in this case, the series). This is the same as how we approach pages of all types on Fanlore.

I hope that makes it clearer - to sum up, the plot information should be a short summary, and the main focus of each page should be on fannish activity and impact, with details about the work's content mainly there to provide context. But if you're confident that there is enough material about the impact of each work on its own to warrant a standalone page, we can separate the pages out.

--enchantedsleeper (talk) 14:07, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable throwing around the hostile editing label in this case, since it's a matter of people understanding the situation differently.

I'm not; I've seen it thrown around for extremely minor edits where things were removed in error. This was an intentional deletion of thousands of words. --ShadowMayura (talk) 15:47, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't have much to say on the discussion itself since the gardeners and admins have already addressed everything. Though, I figured since Shadow was still suggesting it was hostile editing that maybe I could help explain hostile editing a bit more. For an edit to be hostile it has to be hostile. What had happened was a group of gardeners believed the page(s) could be organized better, had a discussion on it, made an agreement, and then acted on what was agreed upon a week later, when no further comments were added. That doesn't fall under hostile editing. No changes were made to deliberately spite anyone. There's more info on what's considered hostile at Fanlore:Hostile Editing Policy. Patchlamb (talk) 17:41, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

In that case I've been wrongfully accused of hostile editing by gardeners themselves in the past because they've hit me with that term for things that were 100% in error and not deliberate or spiteful, but that's another matter. What it comes down to is there is a lot of information on those pages that are now gone, and it shouldn't be. The pages were still a work in progress, and there was more that could have been added regarding fandom impact instead of removing them entirely. It seems so weirdly targeted since it obviously wasn't doing anyone harm for it to exist. --ShadowMayura (talk) 19:29, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi ShadowMayura,

I'm sorry that you feel as though you've received warnings that were unfairly given to you. That was not the intention of our gardeners; they are not here to target anyone, but to make sure that Fanlore runs smoothly and without issues. We acknowledge that the term "hostile editing" carries connotations that might not seem fair when applied to an honest mistake, and will consider using a different term for problematic edits that were more minor or may have involved a misunderstanding.

The content that was removed from the pages is not lost; as Auntags mentioned, it is still there in the edit history and can be retrieved at any time. However, it did contain an excessive amount of detail regarding the plot of these stories (as you said, the plot summaries were in some cases more than 1,000 words long). Unfortunately, this kind of detailed blow-by-blow of a fanwork's plot doesn't belong on Fanlore; a couple of paragraphs of plot summary is fine, but the overwhelming majority of the page content should be about the fanwork impact - fan comments, derivative fanworks (e.g. responsefic, fanart or podfic), discussions about the overall series, meta, etc. Therefore, even if we restore the individual pages for each fanwork, the plot information needs to be greatly slimmed down. We're happy to help you do so if needed.

I've created sub-sections for each fanwork under the Reactions & Reviews section and added some fan comments there to get things started. Please do continue adding this type of information to the page, and if we think that the series page is getting too long, we can split it off into individual fanwork pages again.

Fanlore is a collaboratively edited wiki, and so in editing it we all do our best to try and find a compromise between how we think certain pages should be. We will often unintentionally step on each others toes while doing so. I apologise if you haven't always felt like our decisions on this subject made sense, but I hope this has helped clarify them and that you will assume good faith from us while we try and work to make the wiki even more awesome. --enchantedsleeper (talk) 09:59, 5 October 2020 (UTC)