G'day CS,
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More importantly, there seems to be a more general problem with articles going into all sorts of detail before ever summarizing the most significant points of the article. Anything that contributes further to this really should be removed or relegated to one of those non-templated, non-policy, non-guideline writings.
Hmm, in this thread I'm finding myself agreeing with a few people with whom I normally would not agree. This can't be allowed to spread, surely!
I find the most disappointing plot summaries are in our /Doctor Who/ articles. Wikipedia /Doctor Who/ coverage, in general, is simply fantastic, especially when compared to, say, /Star Wars/, or /Gundam/ (is it /Gundam/?). However, the plot summaries are just plain useless.
Don't get me wrong, they're usually quite well-written, and it's obvious the /Doctor Who/ junkies have sunk awesome amounts of time and effort into putting in a long, detailed summary for every single episode. But here's the thing: if I miss an episode, and want to find out what happened, I *can't*. It's just not do-able. Can't see the forest for trees, in essence. I can find out that the PM said, "My Doctor is back!", but I can't find out why, because I'm too busy reading things like, "The PM said, 'My Doctor is back!'" As for looking at old episodes which /Who/ fans tell me are classics and trying to work out why, well, forget it.
We want a common ground for plot summaries between "blurb" and "description of every action in the story". A lot of summary-writers get caught up in retelling the story in brief, in story order. This makes it (relatively) easy to isolate spoiler warnings, but not to give the reader a decent overview.
Let's take, oh, say, /Citizen Kane/. What if we had fifteen long paragraphs describing the action of the film, ending with: "And they throw it into the fire, never realising that Rosebud is in fact the name of the sled." Now, we can bung a spoiler warning between the main summary and that sentence, no worries. Problem solved. Now nobody will ever have /CK/ ruined for them by Wikipedia, at least not without fair warning. Of course, anybody hoping for a quick summary of the film so they can be reasonably conversant in it (enough not to look like a moron at posh dinner parties, say) is what we in the business call, "fucked", but at least the people editing the article enjoyed their exercise.
Compare that with a discussion of what happens, in the past tense, with a view towards making it accessible for those who know nothing about the film but want to know what the plot is ...
Cheers,