Move the big folder?: Gun Accessories

Normally when a page description is this long, I dump all of the excess stuff in a Useful Notes, which I think might be a good idea here, but it's got a folderized list of things, so is that acceptable?

Why not?

Yeah, that's too long. Either we have a Useful Notes page or there are waaay too many Internal Subtropes.

So everything under the goodies be moved to Useful Notes?

That's the current plan for me. I'm actually planning to just copy and paste the entire section in UsefulNotes.Gun Accessories. If you'd prefer to organize a different way, feel free.

Okay, moved the section and added a link to the Useful Notes page.

Thanks, I totally spent over a week researching all that in depth so you could shunt it off into a side page nobody will ever bother to read. It's in a folder already, nobody has to click the button to open that folder. 4 likes for a relatively low-activity page and nothing but praise for the article suggests people liked it just fine as it was before.

edited 25th Apr '11 3:04:03 AM by EvilestTim

We try not to put mile long descriptions on the trope page when they don't have to do with the trope itself. If you get the irresistible urge to write an essay on this sort of thing, it belongs in Useful Notes, or failing that, blogspot.

And I resent the implication that nobody reads Useful Notes pages. Stats on UsefulNotes.Gun Safety:

edited 25th Apr '11 6:20:19 AM by Deboss

They do have to do with the trope itself; they're explaining what the accessories are and what they do, for people who are either curious or trying to write an example without knowing what the thing they're writing about actually is. It's a technology-related trope, a nice well-researched list about the technology makes for a better page, educates people, and is in a folder so people don't have to read it if they don't want to. As I've noted, for such a quiet page it has four likes and a couple of people have praised my work on it both on and off the site. I'd call that consensus, and what you're doing (removing the list after all of one person has actually agreed with you) not consensus; myself, the talk page guy, and four likes makes six people for the current version.

I've never seen the point of useful notes pages anyway; if they're that useful, they belong in the main article. If you're shunting them off because you don't think people who want to read the article want to read the notes, then it's pointless having a useful notes page at all since you're admitting the logic behind it is that nobody wants to read it. The only exception is when the topic is a general one which doesn't have an attached trope (eg swords).

I remember a time not so long ago when people were happy when someone put a lot of work into a page rather than being vaguely condescending about it and suggesting they fuck off to blogspot.

edited 25th Apr '11 7:27:59 AM by EvilestTim

And this is the precise purpose of the Useful Notes pages: to provide information on subjects that are related to tropes, but not a part of the trope itself.

The thing is that the list you made is a factual explanation of an aspect of the trope, rather than elaboration on the trope itself. That stuff goes in Useful Notes. The trope itself is all the little goodies attached to the gun, identifying the proper types of goodies is something for the Useful Notes page. It also allows for direct references from other pages, should they be useful links (I believe under barrel grenade launchers have their own page).

You also seem to have weird views about the Facebook like thing. It stays on the page, regardless of changes. So calling it an argument against having the list is completely out of left field and makes no sense.

"I'd call that consensus, and what you're doing (removing the list after all of one person has actually agreed with you) not consensus; myself, the talk page guy, and four likes makes six people for the current version. "

1)The only votes that actually count for this sort of thing are the ones in TRS (that is the way it has always been), so there is only your vote on your side. That, by the way, is why the big TRS banners show up - so that the interested parties can find out what is going on and express their views.

2)There are now 3 people in favor of the move.

3)If you feel 6:2 is sufficient to win, then 3:1 the other way surely must be as well (same ratio).

4)Despite your assertion, nobody has a problem with the work you put in. It just belongs in a different spot.

5)Facebook LIKES don't tell us why they liked the page. Or when. Or who did it. For all we know one of them is the guy on the discussion page. As such, they have little to no meaning.

6)The guy who expressed his appreciation in the Discussion page would probably have liked it just as much if it had been in Useful Notes.

edited 25th Apr '11 5:20:30 PM by Zyffyr

Actually, the page represents the consensus of fifteen editors (ie, everyone other than deboss, my other account and troacctid), a sixteenth on the discussion page, four people who like it on facebook, and 189 people who've been linked to it and haven't felt the need to change it. I have this strange suspicion 209 is a larger number than 3 for purposes of establishing what consensus is.

Not everyone feels like putting in the effort to change an article. The people who edit TV Tropes is a small minority compared to the people who merely read TV Tropes. Many people also don't care for signing up for a website, and there are lots of editors who just aren't familiar with every aspect of out layout and formatting, and others who figured that doing something might be construed as vandalism and don't want to go through the hassle of going through the discussion page and waiting for a response if it ever comes, or tracking down who made the edit and contacting them.

tl;dr: You haven't displayed consensus, you have at most displayed apathy.

By the way, that is definitely Useful Notes material there.

edited 26th Apr '11 12:50:18 AM by Balmung

Last I checked, apathy (in the form of "offsite links mean people who support it") is plenty of reason for keeping page titles that don't make the slightest bit of sense, so I'd say that's precident for including them here. Regardless, that's still fifteen editors versus three.

One: You didn't count me.

Two: You're assuming support. Ever edit a page solely to add an example regardless of what else was there and without paying attention to most of the rest of the page? How about not being sure if it is okay to edit it? These are reasons why you can't assume that editors after you support your edit. Also, most people are under the impression (generally correct, I might add), that you are't supposed to edit (especially remove from) the description without going through the proper channels.

Also, page titles are a much bigger deal to change. (inbounds, wicks, yadda yadda). (Also, Cowboy BeBop at His Computer has evidently become more or less a preexisting term, or at least a stock example for journalism students.)

More to the point, that content is Useful Notes, not examples, and not necessary to have on the main page. This is not to say I dislike that information (in fact, I do like it), it's just that it belongs elsewhere.

edited 26th Apr '11 1:16:08 AM by Balmung

I just don't buy that; a folder on the page isn't hurting anyone, and I'm sure if it had annoyed anyone it would have been bought up on the talk page at some point within almost a year of that page being up and like that. Arguing that it's only that way because nobody cared enough to change it seems to be assuming all tropers who don't post on the forum are lazy idiots.

Also, I didn't count you because you've never edited the page.

Why would that be a reason not to count me? I want to move it to Useful Notes and I don't want to get in an edit war, nor have I added an example to the page, so I haven't edited it.

Also, the reason for moving it also has to do the fact that that one folder is more than a quarter of the length of the page and is roughly equivalent to a Real Life section taking over a page.

edited 26th Apr '11 1:29:20 AM by Balmung

It's the argument that "this is what we do" that bugs me. It's not what "we" do because of the people who've edited that page, sixteen people (troacctid included this time) have not done it. There's no standard for creating useful notes pages aside from 'make one if you want' that I know of, and I don't see why a section of a page needs to be stuffed in a pointless e-cupboard just because it's explaining the real things behind the trope.

It's not the equivalent to a Real Life section, it's a factual digression in the description. It's happened in a large number of trope descriptions, mostly in the Hollywood X family as well as similarly themed tropes. In almost all cases, the digression was moved to a Useful Notes page, the others were mostly deleted or dumped on the discussion (only if there were contradictions).

I would link you to examples where parts of the description were moved to subpages, but I can only think of two off the top of my head, both were done A)in the TRS B)by me C)with approval from mods. The ones I can remember were Zombie Apocalypse (digression moved to Analysis.Zombie Apocalypse), Snow Means Cold (digression moved to Useful Notes something or other) and Boobs Of Steel (digressions deleted for being unworthy of a Useful Notes page and being contradictory). All should have a TRS that was done and locked. Most had the name "description too long, permission to apply chainsaw" or some such with my reasoning being that we wish to avoid Wall of Text descriptions. While I don't think factual digressions are bad, I think that there is a size restriction that prevents them from taking over the description and that is that they should be confined to A) one (1) paragraph that is B) shorter than the defining paragraph.

edited 26th Apr '11 6:21:05 AM by Deboss

I was likening them more in scale (compared with a bloated Real Life section, not this page's Real Life section), and being somewhat tangential to the trope.

edited 26th Apr '11 8:50:13 AM by Balmung

Do we want to do anything with this or just lock it?

Move it to useful notes. There is no reason not to.

Magic The Gathering and Yu Gi Oh Card Game are two more.

edited 11th May '11 11:38:05 PM by troacctid

I'll go ahead and move it all over to the Useful Notes and then holler.