Wikipedia talk:Source your plot summaries

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A friendly question

@Theleekycauldron: I too have long felt that the way we handle plot summaries could be improved but I don't know how. Relying so heavily on primary sources does encourage original research, but relying only on secondary sources for plot summaries is likely to leave many articles with holes. I'm curious what you mean by "sourcing" plot summaries – do you mean sourcing them to e.g. specific pages of a book (still relying on the underlying primary source), or sourcing them to secondary sources (e.g. other reviews that summarize the plot)? Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:16, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, KevinL! I do mean with secondary sources – over time, I've come to feel that the best way to prevent cruft is to look to sources to see what's important, what's discussed. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 19:05, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A friendly suggestion from someone who thinks this would really impair our coverage of topics

For me, there is a reason that we don't ban primary sources and those reasons apply to plot summaries as well. That said, I would be intrigued to see how Game On (The West Wing) would look Theleekycauldron if written according to the style advocated by this essay. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:12, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49: I would actually be fine with a mix of primary and secondary – but I've been told that if something relies on PLOTSOURCE, it can't then mix in secondary sources. If it's all one or the other, I think that many articles would benefit from switching.

A lot of my old West Wing articles are suuuuper crufty – see The Supremes (The West Wing) for this at its unabashed worst :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 20:23, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This essay suggests using 100% secondary sources so yes I would be curious to see how you actually apply it at your highest rated article with a plot section especially because in this case we could have a before and after comparison. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:29, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]