Improving YKTTW

Well, not every weak description is also a weak definition. It's often the case that a trope will have a description that's clear, but also pretty short and not really fleshed out. Those sorts of drafts would want examples as much as any draft with an awesome writeup.

Likewise, there are tropes with strong, clear definitions where you simply can't come up with a good name. (Painting the Fourth Wall and Narrow Escape are historical cases of this phenomenon, off the top of my head.) Those want examples too.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Then let's us distinguish a poor definition from a poor description so that the latter doesn't stop examples coming in

About the name, that's why we should try alt-titles crowners.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

We do actually have some more specific Predefined Messages for definitions: Is This Tropable (for concerns of People Sit On Chairs or Too Rare To Trope), Should We Have This One (for concerns of, like, Complaining or Ridiculously Similar Trope or The Same But More Specific or The Same But More/Less or whatever), Do We Have This One (for concerns of straight duplication—although hopefully the OP brings these to Lost And Found first).

The biggest class of definition issue that doesn't have tags associated with it would be defining the borders of a trope to make it either a supertrope or a subtrope. Sometimes a proposed trope has a mix of broad supertrope elements and narrow subtrope elements, and it ends up looking like it's trying to be both a specific subtrope and the broader supertrope all at once. The YKTTW process should hopefully hash it out to one or the other to avoid the problems associated with Missing Supertrope Syndrome. This is the one where examples can be dangerous to add, because if it gets narrowed, some of them are going to be correct and some aren't, and the sponsor isn't necessarily going to know the difference.

How about Definition Contested for a tag?

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Yes, providing that people don't add*

examples while the definition is contested.

Anyway, should a Definition Contested tag be run through YKTTW first? After all, if the tag option wins the crowner (and it has a large swing), I think that all Predefined Messages asociated with YKTTW will become tags.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Hmm, come to think of it, we do have a lot of Predefined Messages. Let me work up a quick list of ones that would make good tags.

Existing Predefined Messages

• Do We Have This One
• Early Development Phase
• Is This Tropable
• Needs A Better Description
• Needs A Better Title
• Needs Examples
• Needs an Index
• Needs A Redirect (maybe?)
• No Launching Please (I guess this would mostly be for tropes that have made a lot of progress but still need work in a specific area before they can be launched)
• Should We Have This
• Up For Grabs

Currently nonexistent, but would make good tags

• Definition Contested
• Launching Soon
• Per Trope Repair Shop

Did I miss any?

edited 26th Feb '12 1:30:38 PM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Needs A Redirect probably should be "Discard" since Redirects Are Free, but everything else spot-on.

In fact, we might want to think about icons for given Predefined Messages since icons are better than text in YKTTW (they need less space, they can be placed on the collapsed YKTTW and the YKTTW list) and the alternative-forum view seems to have support as well (and we already have icons in TRS).

ETA: No, nothing's missing AFAICS.

edited 22nd Feb '12 2:30:14 PM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Picture Contested, as I've been on the giving and receiving ends of that. It is an important thing so that it would avoid just doing the same thing in image picking after launch.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

So, the revised list would be:

Existing Predefined Messages

• Do We Have This One
• Early Development Phase
• Is This Tropable
• Needs A Better Description
• Needs A Better Title
• Needs Examples
• Needs an Index
• No Launching Please (This would mostly be for tropes that have made a lot of progress but still need work in a specific area before they can be launched)
• Should We Have This
• Up For Grabs

Currently nonexistent, but would make good tags

• Definition Contested
• Launching Soon
• Image Contested

Now, two other things:

1. Do we use icons for them and/or add some tech functionality?
2. What about the other options on the crowner? How are these enacted upon?

Also, if the tag option wins (and it has surely a strong support), who puts the tags up? The sponsor, and after two months of no sponsor activity everyone can do it?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Could Be A Redirect might be a little more constructive than Delete if we are wondering Is This Tropable?

Anyone who can edit the draft should be able to add and remove tags. So, anyone.

As far as icons...I guess that's up to Eddie. I have no idea what the icons could possibly look like to express these things visually.

I don't know about "Image contested" since very few drafts have images, and if a draft does have an image, I'd assume it's up for discussion by default (since all images on all pages are susceptible to replacement if a more popular image is suggested).

edited 22nd Feb '12 6:34:29 PM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Images are not required for a trope to be launched.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

It's for when a pictures has been put in the OP, and others call on it for not showing the trope well.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Thread Hop: There should be a tag for YKTT Ws that are related to a Repair Shop thread. Ideally it would also handle the link-back to said thread, and something to indicate that there's a pre-existing agenda behind it, please read the salient points before contributing thank you.

(Why yes I've been burned by that before. Such as YKTT Ws for a split where people point out that the YKTTW is already covered by the trope we're splitting.)

edited 22nd Feb '12 8:25:27 PM by Elle

Even when I put a great big bold statement with a link to the TRS thread and a summary of the reason right at the top of the YKTTW, I still get dumbasses who post "we have this one" or "a trope with this name already exists and it's a duplicate of this one!"

People don't read. It's a sad fact of life.

edited 22nd Feb '12 8:35:01 PM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Yes, I think the biggest issue is people scanning the list, rather than reading each unique item. I know it sounds a little strange, but maybe what is needed are elements that make it harder to skim.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

Do you mean scanning the whole ykttw list? If so, then it might be matter of making the look of the page not look like a wall of text, as that just makes people inclined to be selective.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Read That Again is a good Predefined Message for when people do that.

As far as skimming the list, the current system kind of forces you to do that because it's really long and there's no support for tabbed browsing.

edited 22nd Feb '12 8:52:58 PM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Agreed. I think that's one thing a forum view would be better for. I would rather there not be an expanded version on the main as I think that's a big part of what encourages the lazy drive by attitude.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Yeah, I also like an optional forum view. That would mean that we could only edit our own posts (for compatibility reasons), but it would still be a good thing. And the laconic lines should appear as the thread titles.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Well, I can separate the draft from the list pretty easily. Making it so that the "show draft" button is a link to another page, one that can be opened in another tab. Fairly simple change, in fact.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

I'd argue that the main view needs to basically embed the permanent pages.

Jumping off this, has there ever been a case where a description was changed, quite reasonably, in such a way that an example that was perfectly reasonable before doesn't belong now?

Perhaps Definition Contested (or Needs Defining, which would be more appropriate if the OP himself wants a trope to be fleshed out from a vague idea) would block Needs Examples from appearing. Should We Have This One and Do We Have This One would do the same; Is This Tropable would not because if the concern is that it's Too Rare To Trope, it very much does need examples.

What does Early Development Phase say that can help us calibrate this train of thought?

We could use color coding and/or icons to represent different stages of YKTTW evolution? That may be one way to enforce divisions in addition to text people didn't read.

This dumb walrus thing is the most recent one...some minor tweaks were made to narrow it and some examples were deleted. It's still People Sit On Chairs—I haven't been able to convince the sponsor to discard it—but if you imagine that it's a real trope, it would answer your question, I guess.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

It occurs to me that No Launching Please could deactivate the Launch and Discard buttons for everyone except the OP unless he hasn't been around for two months (or just everyone).

I'd support that idea, if sponsors are kept in the long-run, of course. Less fixing, later, if something isn't launched a mite too soon.