Wikipedia plot summaries
Jan. 13th, 2010 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackWikipedia plot summaries seem almost exactly the wrong length. A one-paragraph summary would often be really useful for people who haven't seen the film, but want a general idea of what it's about. A one-sentence summary would be useful for people like that with really short attention spans. These sometimes show up in the opening blurb of a wikipedia article, and are the norm for films on imbd.
A 2000-word summary could describe enough detail that you could refresh yourself of any details you'd forgotten but wanted to check. The average summary is nearly but not quite long enough for that. Longer summaries would be much too detailed for an average reader, but very useful for someone wanting to study the book or film in detail (this is what Spark Notes do).
But wikipedia articles seem to shoot for 500-1000 word summaries, too long to be of much use for someone asking "what sort of film is this?" and just a little too short for someone asking "how did XXXX find out about YYYY in scene 3 again?"
Also, they seem to virulently suck the life from any scene they describe. Inevitably, there's a list of "A does blah, but then B importunes them and they change their mind", with any question of why that was important to the characters stripped away. Presumably that's an over-scrupulous urge to keep the description neutral, even though in most films the emotions are pretty explicit (you might be able to analyse WHY he's in love with her, or whether there was another explanation, but it's normally pretty clear what the obvious meaning is).
Presumably most individual people could write a reasonable summary, but hundreds of them grind the summaries smooth. Maybe it would actually be better to have an explicitly one-paragraph summary, and then a 2000+ word summary on a separate section/page where people can vent their "must add this detail" urges.
A 2000-word summary could describe enough detail that you could refresh yourself of any details you'd forgotten but wanted to check. The average summary is nearly but not quite long enough for that. Longer summaries would be much too detailed for an average reader, but very useful for someone wanting to study the book or film in detail (this is what Spark Notes do).
But wikipedia articles seem to shoot for 500-1000 word summaries, too long to be of much use for someone asking "what sort of film is this?" and just a little too short for someone asking "how did XXXX find out about YYYY in scene 3 again?"
Also, they seem to virulently suck the life from any scene they describe. Inevitably, there's a list of "A does blah, but then B importunes them and they change their mind", with any question of why that was important to the characters stripped away. Presumably that's an over-scrupulous urge to keep the description neutral, even though in most films the emotions are pretty explicit (you might be able to analyse WHY he's in love with her, or whether there was another explanation, but it's normally pretty clear what the obvious meaning is).
Presumably most individual people could write a reasonable summary, but hundreds of them grind the summaries smooth. Maybe it would actually be better to have an explicitly one-paragraph summary, and then a 2000+ word summary on a separate section/page where people can vent their "must add this detail" urges.