Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31035787-20150525070040

Greetings Yogscast Wikians.

As you all know, the Yogscast has a huge assortment of series, spanning across many games. Some of these only went for a few episodes, others became hugely popular, and having episode guides about them on the Wiki is of course a must.

I am happy and content of the way members of the Wiki are putting an effort into episode guides, and I see one or two appear every few days, with a well written list of episodes linking to the right videos. However, I believe there is an important theme of episode guides lacking — the plot summary.

The Problem?
Whether it's a TV show, movie or some other series, they usually have plot summaries. Long or short, good or bad, a plot summary is preset most of the time. On the Wiki, we don't have plot summaries on episode pages. Yes, there are one or two sentences describing who did the series and occasionally why they did the series, but we have never created an episode guide where there is a proper plot summary describing what occurs in the series.

Now, this isn't really a problem with short series, say, for example, Papers, Please by Lewis and Simon. There are only a few episodes so the plot isn't all that important. But with series like Tekkit and Shadow of Israphel, it's not easy to know what happens in the series unless there is a plot summary. People who haven't watched a series and want to know what happens in it would be greatly benefited if we had a plot summary on each and every one of our episode guides.

In addition to this, there is strong emphasis on characters' history at the moment and introducing the character page layout. It would not be plausible to have the summary of the series using the history of the character. People looking for a summary can just go on the episode guide, and if they want to know what happened to a specific character that appears in the series, then they go to respective character pages.

Quite simply, episode guides are a bit short at the moment and lack substance.

How Is It Written?
So, how is a plot summary written? As quoted from Wikipedia: "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."

As you can see, writing a plot summary isn't all that difficult. You do not need to write from tip to tail explaining each tiny detail in the episodes. All that is needed is a broad overview of the plot. For example, if I were to add the events from "Voltz — The Bomb" into a plot summary, it could simply be as "Sips and Sjin accidentally set off a red matter explosive while testing for efficient ways to mine resources. It immediately began to consume the world around their base. Ridgedog spots the explosion and tries to stop it, but was unsuccessful. He contacted Lewis, Simon and Duncan regarding the situation, and Lewis was able to halt the black hole through an anti matter explosive."

Now, that summary was somewhat rushed, but you get the idea of the length they should be. A single episode over 30 mins in length can be compressed into a paragraph. So it would be possible to fit all content in two 15–20 min episodes into a single paragraph, depending on what they do during the episode.

What Can Be Done?
I strongly suggest for the introduction of plot summaries in episode guides. They are a convenient way for people who haven't watched the series to get an idea of what it is about, as well as a recap for those who have already watched it without the need to watch the videos again. The Wiki should have all relevant information, and this is one. Plot summaries do not need to be long, only clear and concise. Therefore, I believe writing a few paragraphs on each series should not be too much trouble. We can decide to only write once a series has finished or on hiatus, so we don't need to update it constantly, or just "write as they go," updating every time a new episode is released.

Leave your opinions on this topic below. If the majority agrees for the introduction of plot summaries, we can begin work immediately.

Signed,  