As some users have suggested in the past, there may be merit in coming up with a standard format for tag wikis (and, more importantly, excerpts) for series tags. That is, tags like naruto, madoka-magica, etc., but not tags like anime-production, theme-song, etc.
I have posted an answer containing one, and encourage other users to discuss this proposal, as well as make their own proposals if they think mine doesn't work.
I propose that excerpts for series contain the full name of a series in Japanese (romanized; there's no point in tossing kanji/kana in there - yes, I know I'm responsible for adding a fair bit of unnecessary Japanese text to the excerpts; I now realize that was stupid). They should also contain any official English localizations of the name and any common ways of referring to them that aren't necessarily official. The names should be ordered from most used to least used.
A reference to an author/director/producer is also helpful to situate the excerpt in context. In most cases, we need not include any other information.
So, for example, here are how some of these would work:
Now, there are some excerpts that will need additional disambiguation or references to other related tags. We should do so while still maintaining economy of space:
What I'm basically getting at here is that we don't need all this cruft like "...is a shoujo manga series written by such-and-such" or "...consisting of 13 volumes and 42 episodes plus 3 OVAs" or "...in which John Q. Protagonist fights the demons and saves the world" - for the most part nobody needs that information to pick the right tag.
I'm not as concerned with standardizing the wikis as I am with standardizing the excerpts, because the wikis frankly aren't that important. As long as they don't grow into enormous unmaintanable monstrosities, whatever, you know.
A few series tags may need to have some clarification about where they should be used (FMA, Raildex, Dragon Ball, and so forth), for which a sentence or two should suffice. Other than that, the only thing I think ought to be a mandatory feature of a tag wiki is a link to the Wikipedia article for the series - or, when there is no such article, a link to the next-best resource, which might be ANN or MAL or something.
Other than those basic requirements, I think that we should allow the tag wikis (but not excerpts) to develop organically - the tag wikis for Naruto, FMA, One Piece, and Bleach all seem like perfectly reasonable ways of approaching this - one piece of promotional art, a brief summary, a listing of related media, and links to relevant Wikipedia articles.
If we can agree on this, I'd be happy to go through the series tags and 1.) reformat the excerpts per my proposal; 2.) leave the tag wikis mostly untouched except to add Wikipedia links where they are absent; and 3.) cull any cases of plagiarism found in the tag wikis.
Update 2 May 2014: I have basically implemented this proposal for tags with few questions, but will leave tags with 6 or more questions untouched; see here for more details.
Space Brothers (Uchuu Kyodai)
– Hakase
Apr 28 '14 at 2:39
Here's how I think tag excerpts should be constructed:
Most widely used title (alternative/short title) is a genre by author / studio + media. Short plot summary.
Examples:
Neon Genesis Evangelion or just Evangelion, or Eva, is a sci-fi mecha anime by studio Gainax written and directed by Hideaki Anno. The world will end if Eva pilots can't stop the Angels from reaching Lilith, protected by NERV corporation on Tokyo-3 - the last stronghold of mankind.
Cowboy Bebop is an anime by studio Sunrise. It's a sci-fi adventure comedy set in a futuristic world, about bounty hunter crew ("cowboys") who travel on their starship Bebop, hunt wanted criminals, eat scrap, philosophize and solve mysteries.
Ghost in the shell is a futuristic seinen cyberpunk manga by Masamune Shirow adapted into several movies and anime series. Motoko Kusanagi, the agent of Section 9, and her crew investigate cybercrimes.
My vision of tag excerpts' purpose is to allow users to definitely identify anime/manga without the need to look further into the tag's wiki. I also think that tag wikis do not serve the purpose of identification, but as a cool place to collect all interesting information about a work.
