Pages Needing Wiki Magic criteria/problems

Recently, in the ZCE cleanup thread, I found a newly-created stub page. After sending notifiers to the troper who created it, I was PMed back a request to simply place the page on Pages Needing Wiki Magic and to not do anything else. I told them no, and also told them to add context to entries, but it got me concerned about Pages Needing Wiki Magic.

The page, once called "Needs Wiki Magic Love", has been through TRS twice because it was being placed on pages as a request for other editors to effectively do all the hard work that would otherwise be required for writing work pages, and became what it is now to curb the misuse and problems. As the PM conversation showed though, it may still be suffering issues.

The ZCE cleanup thread participants noted that the requirements for the page are a bit loose and not well defined. As Amonimus noted:

War Jay 77 agreed, and I'm starting this thread so we can work out the criteria needed to place a page in Pages Needing Wiki Magic. Hopefully this will also help work out the misuse problems the page has suffered in the future. So, let's begin. What is the current criteria? What should it be?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jul 14th 2022 at 1:51:23 PM

If possible, I'd prefer to not list articles at Pages Needing Wiki Magic and let it just be an index of more specific categories. If a page needs multiple types of help, it can just go to multiple subpages. It's confusing to use the parent page for "multiple issues" and I've seen many people being annoyed by this organization.

The only issues that don't have own pages are "needs (better) description" and "needs alphabetization", for the former of which Alphabetically Ordering Examples Clean Up can work.

For Works Needing Tropes I recommend setting a limit of about 5-15 tropes to be here. If more than 15, it's a good work page, if less, there's a chance it's a cutworthy stub.

Yeah, I think part of my issue is that I'm not sure what the purpose of that page is when we already have the subpages.

Well, that and a lot of works on it don't seem to actually need help.

I think Works Needing Tropes increasing the need from 10 to 15 would be very poor. The page is already lengthy, and the amount of pages that would need to be added if the threshold was increase would rise quite a bit, and sometimes, you just can't find more tropes for a work than what's already there and have to get over it. If anything, I'd drop it to having fewer than eight at this point (since the minimum is three, it's more than enough, even if I still think that's too low instead).

Agreed with the proposals on Pages Needing Wiki Magic.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jul 14th 2022 at 8:13:34 PM

I'll be honest, I've missed that it already says "10" and just gave an approximation. My intent was to forbid listing works with no trope lists and just cut them by default.

Edited by Amonimus on Jul 14th 2022 at 9:17:16 PM

Yeah, that generally works. Though I think the creators needing tropes list may also not be necessary, since you generally only need a list of works they've made or roles they played. If there's a tropes list that meets Creator Page Guidelines, it's nice, but not mandatory.

Very slight bump as I wanted to suggest that, if we are able to establish criteria, we could maybe then create a cleanup thread for Pages Needing Wiki Magic.

I think one might already exist actually.

Looked around in Short-Term and couldn't find one. When I get a chance I'll check Long-Term.

IIRC it was a thread devoted to beefing up these pages and stuff.

Found it. Assuming this thread comes to a decision we'll probably end up using that.

Bumping. The issue came up again in an ATT query. I'll ask again: what should this page's criteria be?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jul 25th 2022 at 8:59:56 AM

If we aren't going to remove pages listed on Pages Needing Wiki Magic, would putting a time limit of some sorts prevent people from creating a page only to add it to the index (or it's sub-indexes)?

Not super confident on a timeout idea, there's a risk of problem pages not getting on a radar at all. May support it if discussed further.

On relevant note, I'd like the idea of tropers not being allowed to add pages they've made. If they can identify the issues, they should resolve them while still in editing mood.

Edited by Amonimus on Jul 25th 2022 at 4:11:50 PM

Not allowing Tropers to add pages they made sounds like a better idea.

I like that idea myself. We'd have to monitor it constantly though.

What if it was locked to prevent frivolous additions in the meantime?

Mmmaybe. Also may serve as a free advertisement of the thread.

So, should we lock now, or wait for more consensus?

I am fine with locking but I would like more opinions. Maybe we can advertise this thread in ATT?

I was considering suggesting that. I'm on board with that idea.

Let's crowner "Lock Pages Needing Wiki Magic and subpages until the discussion reaches a cobclusion regarding them?" and advertize.

I thought we were only talking about locking Pages Needing Wiki Magic at the moment?

I don't see that specified, so we can lock just one page in that case.