Lostpedia talk:Episode Manual of Style (proposed)/Archive 01

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This archive covers discussion from approximately January 25th to February 3rd 2007.

Post any replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary.



The Episode pages are some of the first places that excited new users go on Lostpedia, which makes them each nearly as important as the main page as far as creating an impression. However, there are several schools of thought existant among even the regular editors, which makes consistancy nearly impossible. Here's good a place to discuss the pros and cons, vote on Episode-page specific issues, and find compromises that work for everyone. Nickb123 has created a good start, and hopefully through active dialogue we can refine it to find the solution that works best for Lostpedia as a whole. -BearDog 16:59, 25 January 2007 (PST)

Contents

It's all in the details

One of the major inconsistencies is in the level of detail employed in the synopses. Some editors are nearly reformatting the transcripts, and others are using just a paragraph or two to cover the main plot of the entire episode. Any thoughts on how we can define the "right" amount of detail, in a way that would make sense to someone new? -BearDog 16:59, 25 January 2007 (PST)

I think some of us want absolutely no detail whilst I personally want a good degree. Certain parts of the episode are in minor details, and its a travesty to not include certain things. I know Santa put about the Sun scenes in the Pilot being possibly irrelevant to the synopsis, but to me its an important arc for her, and her looks towards the others shows her isolation from the group. Basically, I'd like it if everyone could look at an example article I just rewrote Pilot: Part 2 - this is exactly the level of detail I think is needed under realtime events (flashbacks were very short in this ep, so I went into a higher than usual level of depth on them). Does anyone think detail on the realtime events of this ep should have been more or less? If so, we still disagree on how far we should go. I must add though that Lost Wikia use about the same detail as I've done in the Pilot rewrite, so maybe our competitor should be taken into account. --Nickb123 (Talk) 04:03, 26 January 2007 (PST)
Meh. I say Meh to Lost Wikia. It's a fine site, and it looks like their editors have worked hard on it, but Meh. The episode pages read like soccer announcing. "Fullback to half back. Kick to the outside. Stolen. Keeper blocks." I kept expecing scenes to end with "GOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL!!!!!". They almost have to go into that level of detail, because they don't have any episode transcripts. But I've gotten away from the point. Aside from relying on analagous extremes ("No detail" vs. "Transcribing the transcripts"), how would we go about describing an adequate amount of detail, so that a reader could do it themselves? Would it help to categorize storylines somehow? Break it down to:
  • Full season arcs for the entire group
  • Full season arcs for individual characters
  • Major arc from the episode
  • Minor plotlines that arise and are resolved within a single episode.
Then we could discuss how much time to spend in the synopsis on each type. I don't know how well that would work, but it might be easier than trying to explain ambiguous concepts of detail. What do you think? -BearDog 09:53, 31 January 2007 (PST)
  • Nick makes a justification for the Sun scene that I find plausible. I believe an earlier iteration of the synopsis was the culprit, as it simply mentioned Kate's bikini scene, which in contrast is not plausibly important to a synopsis. At any rate, this one scene is not the issue because that is a question of implementation of policy. The policy is important: That less important transcript-level details are omitted. If we occasionally disagree on what is significant, that is part of being a wiki community, and that is fine by me. (Also, the pilot episode was somewhat of a odd example, as its plot and scenes were composed in a very different way from the more structured storylines and episodes that followed-- in other words it seemed to have a lot of 'irrelevant' scenes that were simply there to set the tone-- Shannon screaming, Charlie almost getting hit by falling airplane piece, turbine man, Locke standing and staring, etc.) -- C¯ _Santa_ ¯T 14:00, 2 February 2007 (PST)
  • One more note: By definition "detail" is mutually exclusive of "synopsis". In other words, detail simply does not belong in a summary/abstract/synopsis. The transcript provides better detail and "dramatic retelling", and we do host the transcripts. A synopsis should not be a paraphrased transcript. However if a detail-laden narrative (i.e. paraphrased transcript) was created as a separate section, or a separate article, it would (obviously) be redundant to the transcript; readers of the encyclopedia certainly prefer to read the transcript as it would be more accurate in both detail and dramatic presentation. Therefore in light of our hosting the transcripts, further detailing of episodes are not necessary anywhere else, especially since the "cultural references" and "recurring themes" section exist outside the synopsis to exactly for the purpose of pointing out any important details that are missed in analysis.-- C¯ _Santa_ ¯T 14:26, 2 February 2007 (PST)
  • Agreed, cautiously. I'd also like to see synopsis that are more general, as an overview of the episode. My only concern with relying on "trivia", "cultural references", and "recurring themes" for details, is that they may over-run the articles- the way theories used to. This might especially be a problem for the current season episodes, as it's often impossible to tell how important a detail will prove until the end of the season, or longer in some cases. I'm also not convinced we (as a detail-oriented community) could actually do it. Is there some acceptable middle ground; or better yet, a method for guiding what types of details make the cut? -BearDog 15:14, 2 February 2007 (PST)

Examples of writing issues to address

  • Examples of too much detail:
    From an earlier iteration of Live Together, Die Alone. If you want these details, read the transcript.
    1. "Desmond is sitting at the table in the Hatch, on which is a gun and a book. He finishes a bottle of alcohol, and opens the Dickens book. Upon opening Our Mutual Friend, an envelope falls out. It's a letter from Penelope that was written before he entered prison. It explains..."
    2. "Eko is working in the hatch, carving on his stick. The lights flicker and he gets up to investigate, finding that a fuse has been removed from a circuit panel and crushed on the ground. He hears the lockdown countdown from the speakers and rushes back to the computer. He does not make it, and we see that Desmond has triggered a false lockdown by manipulating wires to keep Eko out of the control room as Eko is set on entering the numbers. Eko pleads with Locke, and the fourth flashback begins."
      Example of how to rewrite: "As they had planned, Locke and Desmond tricked Eko into leaving the computer room by triggering a false lockdown, then rushed in and locked Eko out."
    3. "Kate tells Mr. Friendly (through the gag in her mouth) that she knows that the beard is fake. Mr. Friendly does not understand, so Ms. Klugh says, "She says she knows the beard is fake, Tom.", accidentally revealing Mr. Friendly's first name. A relieved Mr. Friendly takes the fake beard off and mentions that it is itchy and uncomfortable. Annoyed that Ms, Klugh revealed his name, he reciprocates by revealing Ms Klugh's name, "Bea". She remains impassive. The same boat that was involved in Walt's kidnapping pulls up and "Henry Gale" gets off, barefoot. He greets the meeting party and asks Friendly why he is not wearing his beard in an authoritative tone and seems to be the one in charge here. He says to Michael, "Alright, let's take care of business, shall we?"."
  • Examples of depending too much on transcript dialog
    1. (See Kate/Mr.Friendly/Ms Klugh scene above)
    2. "Inside the control room, Desmond comments, "I think your friends just blew themselves up, brother." The two talk, and Desmond asks Locke, "Is the reason you're letting that clock there run all the way down to the very last tick -- is it because you need to look down the barrel of a gun to find out what you really believe, John?" Locke replies, "I looked down the barrel of the gun and I believed. I thought it was my destiny to get into this place. And someone died -- a kid (Boone). Because he was stupid enough to believe that I knew what I was talking about. And the night that he died for nothing, I was sitting right up there, all alone, beating my hand bloody against that stupid door -- screaming to the heavens asking what I should do. And then a light went on. I thought it was a sign. But it wasn't a sign. Probably just you going to the bathroom." "
  • Examples of following the broadcast scene-by-scene, breaking continuity of synopsis storylines
    1. "Sawyer asks what the plan is. Jin spots the rock formation with a hole in it that marks the Others' camp, and Sayid prepares to go ashore. Back at the camp, Charlie and Eko enter the Swan."
      The preceding part of the same Jin/Sun/Sayid storyline (where they are sailing on the ocean and see the 4-toed statue) is four paragraphs ago. The following part (where Sayid climbs up the cliff and investigates the fake village and hatch) is separated four paragraphs forward. This single narrative spans nine discontinuous paragraphs of the synopsis. This storyline should be summarized contiguously, and not separated as the broadcast was, since the synopsis is a summary of plot, not a dramatic retelling.
  • Examples of irrelevant detail that should have been omitted (transcript paraphrasing)
    1. "Out on the ocean, Sayid, Jin and Sun are sailing. Sun is sick over the side of the boat. Jin arrives and says she shouldn't have come on the boat with them. She tells him it's not seasickness. Jin says he knows."
    Etc. If you disagree that these examples represent poor writing, please comment below. For examples on how I would (and did) rewrite these sections, see the current version of the article. For details on addressing these issues, see the subsection "Suggestion on episode style" below. -- C¯ _Santa_ ¯T 14:22, 2 February 2007 (PST)

Tense tension

Lately there have been a few discussions (1, 2) taking place, about whether episode synopses should properly be written in past or present tense. If you have any further insight that hasn't already been mentioned in those discussions, please feel free to include it here. -BearDog 16:59, 25 January 2007 (PST)

Why is the nav bar at the top?

Hi everybody. What is the history behind having the episode navigation bar (one of these templates: Template:Season3nav, Template:Season2nav, Template:Season1nav) at the top of every episode article ? They take up a lot of room, but maybe there is a good reason for it? For most articles, the navigation templates (e.g., Template:Nav-Others) are added at the bottom.-- Dagg talk contribs4 8 14:28, 2 February 2007 (PST)

Suggestion on episode style

Lost Soul asked me about images in Live Together, Die Alone, and I wanted to note to him that the changes go beyond images, then realized that this content belongs on this talk page. Therefore please see summary below, as well as the problems we are trying to correct in the section above: #Examples of writing issues to address

    1. Overall synopsis: Be very conscious to summarize:
      • throw out all small detail
      • do not follow the transcript
      • do not follow dialog back-and-forths
      • and do not follow action-by-action
      • summarize the end result of scenes, not each scene's opening, development, conflict, climax, and denouement.
    2. Overall synopsis: past tense (subject to consensus on a separate talk page)
    3. Overall synopsis: attempt neutral encyclopedic descriptions of events.
    4. In flashbacks: one paragraph per scene, (and concise, neutral, and past as above.) This is because flashback narrative is non-continuous; each flashback is generally at a completely separated point in time from the preceding or following flashback.
    5. In realtime: Combine any continuous storylines, even if they are broken into separate scenes in the actual broadcast. Minimize jumping back and forth between which story you are summarizing. Usually there are only a few discrete parties of characters, so this is relativey easy to do with some thought. Note in the current version of Live Together, Die Alone, how Sayid/Sun/Jin's storyline is combined when possible, even if the actual broadcast inserted Desmond-flashbacks or cut to the happenings of Eko/Locke/Charlie/Desmond or Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Hurley/Michael.
    6. Images: One representative small thumbnail for each scene rendered above in Flashbacks & Realtime.
-- C¯ _Santa_ ¯T 14:38, 2 February 2007 (PST)
Couple of initial points - I think doing realtime separating it into character stories (there's normally about three arcs happening in one ep) is good, but problems arise when they inevitably cross over with scenes involving everyone, or confrontations between two different arc characters colliding. This could prove problematic. Secondly, I prefer images how they are normally rather then from Live Together, Die Alone - as we have a lot of issues with users on widescreen laptops, meaning images are more spaced leading to huge text gaps. Less is definitely more to prevent this, so I think we should keep the old image method. --Nickb123 (Talk) 16:12, 2 February 2007 (PST)
  • Addressing each point:
    1. Scene and character crossover: Agreed 100%, regarding cases where a story thread needs to be broken, so that the prose may jump to a parallel thread which later merge with it: In these cases the narrative must be broken. Otherwise, keep narrative together, minimizing breaks when possible. (Also overnight-to-morning transitions may sometimes merit being broken.) However, just estimating, in current episode articles, I'd say 4/5 of the cases where narrative are broken are altogether unnecessary, and these should be fixed.
    2. Image thumbnails: The difference in our opinions probably comes from the fact that the images are not merely there for layout issues to break up the text, but to illustrate each scene directly to facilitate perusal of the synopsis. However, of all of my above proposals, I feel the least strongly about the suggested use of images, and don't feel it's intrinsically tied to the other suggestions. I also agree that there may be unresolvable browser rendering issues between laptops and widescreen displays.
    -- C¯ _Santa_ ¯T 19:55, 2 February 2007 (PST)
I think it could work nicely. The storyline crossovers might not even be too bad, since they could be told from the pov of the characters they include. If things get redundant, then they can be glossed over in the later retellings. -BearDog 17:18, 2 February 2007 (PST)
  • As I said to Santa, I think this will work very well. We need a definitive format for episodic articles; they are all different: some use portrait promo images, some use small landscape screencaps, some use a mix of both, some have loads of pics, some have a few here and there. And that's just the images; the synopses vary too - some ridiculously short, a few ridiculously long. We need to set a standard here, and Santa's proposal will almost certainly do that. So, basically, I have just said, in a very long-winded way, that I agree with Santa. --   Lost Soul   talk  contribs  05:56, 3 February 2007 (PST)
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