TVTropes culture and behavior norms

Totemic: That is a also a response to a wall of text which likely makes more then one point that can't be addressed in a single line. But it is possible to do it without quotes in that case.

Who watches the watchmen?

593 may have been a little childish (only a little). But no worse than "trolls do this, therefore anyone who does this should be treated like a troll."

I hope the three-quote limit won't be enforced technologically, or on the right-hand side — it's one thing to say multiple quotes have no place in serious discussion, but that shouldn't make a difference where serious discussion isn't being attempted. For my part, even on the right side I'm willing to try to remember not to quote unless I need to highlight a specific part to reply to it; if my reply is to the whole post I'll just link, if I remember.

But since the norm on Usenet, every other forum I know of, and every blog I read that doesn't have threading is to quote, don't be surprised if I forget after fifteen years.

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

Second time I've seen that term recently: what is the "right-hand side" of the forums supposed to be, anyway?

Yack Fest mostly.

Who watches the watchmen?

Left-side is more formal and important, center is about media, and right-side is informal and relaxed.

I don't know if that's what Eddie was getting at, but from my experience threads with a lot of people quoting each other are prone to degenerate into a verbal exchange of blows instead of fruitful discussion.

Basically people get locked in back-and-forths where It's Personal and they have too much pride to say things like "I see, I misunderstood you then" or "well, let's just leave that matter alone and find a practical solution" or "I concede the point" even when the situation clearly calls for it. Contradicting someone else is much easier and much less productive than saying something on your own.

Obviously constant quoting is neither necessary nor sufficient for this to happen, but it encourages it and is symptomatic of it.

edited 6th Jun '11 4:17:36 AM by TripleElation

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to

Than ain't fault of quoting, that is fault of arguers.

This is once again what bugs me in Tv Tropes and what I belive to be source of problems around here: de facto versus de jure, where de jure goes against de facto.

Well, of course in the end, it can all be traced back to posters. Nobody has ever been personally attacked in a forum by a quote box. I'll try to make myself clearer.

Multiple quote exchanges are much more likely to pop up in a back-and-forth exchange of rebuttals than otherwise. Therefore, when I see one of those, I deem it much more likely that what I'm seeing is people playing "crossfire" rather than constructive conversation. It's not a sure thing and certainly not something to pass final judgment by, but there's a correlation. That's what I mean by saying that they are symptomatic of that problem.

As to them encouraging that kind of behavior, my reasoning is that 1. any behavior inspires more behavior like it; 2. It is much easier to be contrary and act out "You're wrong" "No, YOU'RE wrong" table tennis while using quote format than it is to do so without quote format; 3. People have in them the innate tendency to lapse into the above behavior; and 4. People are not automatons in vacuum, and innate tendencies will come out if the environment makes it convenient for them to.

Therefore, in a forum rife with people quoting each other back and forth- even initially for good reason- the format will likely bring out the worst in some posters that would've been kept in check otherwise, which in turn will inspire more of itself, creating a nasty feedback loop. I believe I've seen this mechanism at work firsthand in these forums and others. (Compare: GIFT)

I'm certainly not saying we should ban quoteblocks or anything, but it seems some people are arguing that there is absolutely no harm in using them extensively — which I believe there is.

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to

You know, those same reason can be used jsut about everything.

Careful to not make this a self demonstrating example :P

Who watches the watchmen?

Yeah, sorry, Triple Elation, but I've seen all the behavior you mention occur just as frequently in thread-mode forums or other places where quotation is technologically infeasible.

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

I'm just dropping through to say I agree with Triple Elation in all respects.

Ladies and gents, this is the wall-of-quotes in action, except they're quoting only one person.

edited 6th Jun '11 6:55:46 PM by chihuahua0

Gah.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

Looks like we now know Eddie's Kryptonite Factor.

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to

I agree that is a lot to quote, but I want to point out that sometimes you need to cut wall of text to answer key positions or correct certain parts. Still picking a post apart piece by piece is a little extreme.

Still, I am going to stand by my words and say that "quote trolling" is much rarer than legimate use. At the point quotes are used for trolling, thread itself has failed.

Only at the point where the wall-o-quoteblocks first appears.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

Just something on executive decisions...

"A consensus" on this site requires a supermajority, and if there's a lot of people involved, you're not getting a consensus 90% of the time. It's why the TT rename is not EVER getting a consensus, and the reformat will only happen, conversely, because Fast Eddie hasn't asked for one. I'll be the first to admit that I'm part of the reason why we never get a consensus; I'm a card-carrying member of the They Changed It, Now It Sucks! club, and it's very rare that I see a change to the wiki that I like. I know I'm not the only one. (Conversely, any change that even gets started usually starts with people who have a problem with the status quo.)

Now, one way to free up dialogue would be, on important issues, to eliminate the Single Proposition. If the mods or admin step in early enough and say "this must change, keeping it as it is is not an option," brainstorming might be freer and less politicized and we might get something done. This is, if I'm not badly mistaken, how we got the last Troper Tales fix through; Eddie said up front that Fetish Fuel was getting bulldozed and the creepy sex stuff was getting weedwhacked, and we the users spun FF off into its own wiki and worked out the rules for the Great Pruning. Conversely, there wasn't much genuine brainstorming done on the Thirty Xanatos Pileup rename, because there was no consensus that it needed changing, which led to one individual (that I know of) going rogue and changing it unilaterally, and now Fast Eddie deciding that the name will be Gambit Pileup (leading to yet MORE edit warring).

So that's my theory. The users will be more able to be constructive on issues where the administration has a problem if we know that Admin will not accept the status quo as an option.

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

I disagree.

Consesus in our case refers to majority, as in 2:1 situation. Also, if we make admistration able to get in and say "screw you, we do it this way" it creates already present resentment towards admistration. See conversation about Troper Tales. Majority has already gone in and voted against the rename(atleast it was when i last checked), despite admistration call to change it.

This is how it shoudl work, admistration makes decision and presents it to people. People then have voice in matter. Change of format is going to happen, that is no doubt, but rename has met opposition and admistration has wisely decided to back down and get the opinion from tropers.

Technically speaking, 2:1 is a supermajority. A simple majority would merely require a net positive.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Mandemo: Not quite lad. The way it works is sometimes there is a change they want us to weigh in on and put it out there for us to discuss and possibly vote on. There are plenty of instances where a change was made with minimal to no input from the populace as a whole.

Fast Eddie also maintains the right over ride our consensus if he so chooses. He may or may not do that with Troper Tales. I find it unlikely that he will because there is well, one choice in it and I am assuming the mods or Eddie himself put it there.

Sometimes Eddie does not care about the group consensus or backlash if he feels the decision needs to be made. (see oh so many events). That is the whole reason some of us have been pushing for him to at least air the changes he wants to make ahead of time so we can discuss and possibly see if we can make a lasting fix to the problem at the user level.

The way it should be is that if the change really needs to be made and discussion and voting will not fix it that Eddie can fix or change as he sees fit. As it stands he is nice enough in most cases to lay it out for us to see and discuss about said changes. We just would like that to happen more often.

edited 7th Jun '11 1:04:58 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Yes. I think changing the name of Troper Tales is necessary, though not sufficient, to solve the problem*

, but changing the format neither necessary nor sufficient. I suspect the format change was a unilateral decision because while I am far from alone in opposing it, the people who believe it won't help at best are but one faction, with knee-jerk opponents of change being larger, so while there wasn't going to be consensus on changing it, it wouldn't necessarily be for a valid reason. The downside of that is there's been no opportunity for people with a legitimate objection — "it won't work" rather than "I don't like it" — to state our case.

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

Well lets see how the new format works.

Who watches the watchmen?

The administration already have this authority. When Fast Eddie wants something done, then it is done.

Which is why I suggested that there be more openness in dealing with stuff like strikethrough misuse (Fast Eddie handled that matter very poorly, in my opinion, acted without data and caused way too much collateral damage) and other problems that exist. The Troper Tales reformat is something being done more or less right.

edited 10th Jun '11 8:24:03 AM by Ramidel

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

The spirit of "if it ain't broke"*

strongly prefers that fixes to the current format be tried before a new one is implemented. It's not about whether the new format works — sufficiency — but whether the current one can work, whether the new one is necessary.

The child is father to the man —Oedipus