CM/MB Policy and Thread Culture

I am against some of the supposed problems being problems.

Competition is not necessarily a negative thing. If it does not lead to people adopting methods that lean on/involve making the product worse, mobbing, aggression or criminality to gain an edge, then it should be fine as a motivator to strive better. Considering how well these pages have been doing, it worked well so far.

And the concept that it's insular and divorced from the rest of TV Tropes being a problem is preposterous. If your part involves something very specific or you're not interested in things outside of it, nobody should force you to it. Do people in my city care that I'm mostly either at home or at work and the only thing they see of me is 99% of the time just walking down the street from work to home or vice versa, not taking part in social activities (especially with non-workers)? Sure, I may be lonely and some of them look at me oddly, but it's a small price I've paid for providing the products I do. I think this is motivated putting too much emphasis on the community aspect on TV Tropes and not enough on the product.

That said, if the sandboxes are cut and the info about who submitted what CM and MB is put more on tropers pages, where it's not really part of the main wiki, I think it would be mostly fine. And if the amount of hollers and ban evader paranoia needs to be cut down on, then that's fine too. And I'm speaking this as someone who does not take part in those threads (maybe made posts once or twice, but no substantial contributions). But if it's thanks to the current model that we've reached the impressive level of performance (more than tripling in size and product over the course of these five years I've been here) we're at right now and the problems are not serious (as I quote, "not a super high level problem"), then I think it should be mostly kept as is. Keeping things organic all the time is not a good thing.

(sorry if some parts are outdated, this thread is moving fast and I mostly need to explain my position)

Edited by Piterpicher on Oct 7th 2022 at 11:04:22 AM

Echoing what Fighteer said, a cleanup thread that simply adds examples is not a cleanup thread. The CM page is monstrously huge, dozens upon dozens of subpages, and subsubpages.

Admittedly I might be biased since I have a backlist of about twenty characters I wanted to get to, but if you care that much isn’t there a way to just monitor new posts and either consider the en yourself if you know the work or reach out to someone else if you don’t?

Kinda true; trope is supposed to be exclusive and yet it's one of the BIGGEST tropes with most examples.

Edited by emperors on Oct 7th 2022 at 5:04:14 AM

Sandboxes being moved to troper pages...Mods, would THAT be okay?

I agree with what @Ravok said.

Also, the CM and MB tropes have a very strict definition and a lot of times a discussion is needed before an example can be approved.

If we allow everyone to just edit as they want, the pages would have a lot of bad examples and there would be edit wars between people who disagree on certain examples. This is why we need threads where we discuss every proposed example before it gets approved.

However, I do agree with removing most of the sandboxes except To-do list, Dates and Drafts.

We will also need some rules about behaviour on the threads because I agree that sometimes the attitude can become very negative.

Edited by WatTambor on Oct 7th 2022 at 12:06:43 PM

At what point is it impermissible to add new examples to a trope?

It was determined a long time ago to keep it going specifically to vet examples. I have to say I disagree enormously with the idea there shouldn't be go aheads for that. The tropes were locked and remained locked for a reason, and remain some of the most popular despite that.

But the point was the bad examples were cut. Now it's largely grown to vetting and removing the bad examples that slip through, or get invalidated.

Like, we're acknowledging the tropes are popular...why would there be a moratorium on adding examples? It doesn't seem to be an issue with any other trope, considering all the examples throughout media.

Edited by Lightysnake on Oct 7th 2022 at 2:05:20 AM

I’ve been actively trying to fix the sandbox issue by unchecking “does indexing” on all I can find. They shouldn’t be visible to the average reader, nor should they create index bloat.

Most thread regulars do things outside the threads, and they’re welcoming to most newcomers. But I do feel the threads need to be more accessible to the average reader, and that includes cutting down this little sub-wiki we’ve made within the wiki, and which I admit I’ve contributed to. The only strictly necessary sandboxes are the swap ones, Drafts, Dates, Formers (in case someone relitigates), and maybe To-Do Lists. They definitely shouldn’t be moved to JFF, either—that’s a reader-friendly namespace, which you can’t even say about Sandbox/.

Got more to say, but I’ll say it later. I’m fine with whatever we do. Looking forward to the reboot, if that’s what it comes to.

I never saw the need for most sandboxes myself, even in a Just for Fun context. I don't want to disparage anything, but it sounds like the kind of hobby I would do off site, and would have no bearing on this site. (I don't know if I put it in the right words).

As for overzealous hollering, I also agree we be more cautious (even in the case of a ban evader who just won't take a hint). But we should promote a more welcoming environment for new comers. When all is said and done, these thread are not supposed to be this clique.

I think a few of us get ahead of ourselves, as it makes for what should be a harmless hobby, and a way to contribute to the site. I never really thought of it as "Consuming Media to Fish Out these tropes"; the way I see it you consume a piece of media, and if it has an example, it has an example. If not, than there's nothing to bring up. I never really saw it as a competition or anything.

I don't know if I'm wording it right, though I'm also echoing what Ravok said - about these being hobby threads for a hobby site - better than I.

I won't get myself involved in this, but as an outsider I'll throw in my 2 cents (mostly for CM).

I stayed out of CM and MB because they were terrifying. Every time I peeked in it just looked like an echo chamber and I felt I would be not welcomed or ignored because I was not already dedicated to the thread. I did witness one of those Villain Wiki raids, and the response also kind of further reinforced my decision to avoid the threads because I was "new".

And another thing, I never had a new example to propose (which is what the thread looked to be most concerned with) so I always felt worried about bringing in examples that looked like they needed help or weren't actually examples. I would support locking the tropes because they still very much appear to be seen as "Bage of Honor" tropes and I don't see that mindset going away overnight.

The problem is that the setup inherently creates a clique. You have strict rules and traditions, posts require a lot of effort, and it's inherently distrustful of outsiders.

With that in place, even if you cleared out the current clique, another one would just spring right up.

I don't think a high barrier of entry, strict rules and traditions, and being distrustful of people who are not familiar with them is inherently a problem either. You could argue surgeons or other complex jobs with relatively high stakes are a clique by that definition as well, but as long as they do the job and don't cause problems to people outside, they should be fine.

Edited by Piterpicher on Oct 7th 2022 at 11:08:16 AM

Comparing surgery to editing a wiki is not helpful.

I am quite against burning it to the ground. It's one of the most popular tropes on the site and this is clearly quite fixable. Some people can get overzealous and there are ways to rein that in.

If the trope itself was now more problematic, that would be a good thing to discuss. But as a longstanding contributor, I would argue the trope is good. We've pruned bad examples and add good ones, and bring in a lot of traffic to the site. People like the trope, and we've done a lot of good with it.

Edited by Lightysnake on Oct 7th 2022 at 2:09:23 AM

Regarding what Hello said: See, that is a problem. We need to be more welcoming to new tropers and not be exclusive (even if it just appears that way). Remember, we were all new tropers once.

Karxrida: The issue there is, fixing mistakes is fine, but they should be mentioned at the thread, if for no other reason than so the entry at the CM page can also be fixed.

Edited by ACW on Oct 7th 2022 at 5:10:03 AM

I will say this; I have been participating for a long time; we are very welcoming of outsiders. I personally believe we should welcome new folks who come in with their proposals (or concerns).

Being able to do a surgery requires lots of experience and other stuff.

With cleanup threads, the user has to know the criteria and how the thread operates.

Not a good comparison.

Edited by Flowman on Oct 7th 2022 at 4:10:09 AM

I mean, for whatever it’s worth, I joined moderately recently compared to some people and I feel like I was accepted just fine

As for reserving works potentially contributing to clique behavior - I’ve never seen a collaboration offer being turned down, so people are definitely willing to work together and share

Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Oct 7th 2022 at 5:10:39 AM

And be much more gentle with newcomers. At long as they give a summary and such. They don't need to have a super detailed ep or anything.

Alright, maybe not a perfect comparison, but I still believe that it should be fine to create a high barrier of entry if needed.

Edited by Piterpicher on Oct 7th 2022 at 11:10:37 AM

And yes, I think being welcoming to new tropers is absolutely what we should do and balance that with any such caution. I've pushed back on the unfriendliness in the past there.

At the same time? We do get brigaded, there is a recurring sockpuppet issue and we do need to deal with that.

Damn this thread got so fast. It's hard to keep up even now. Haha.

I've admittedly slipped up a few times as either going back into old bad habits—though nowhere near as bad as they were a few years ago—or by the means of correcting a Troper—be it new or not—when they do something that's not right. I can back off of course and even still be mindful of when it's the right time to state something interesting or funny—but always still making sure I'm offering something relevant too. Whenever I post, I usually do my best to make sure I'm contributing and I'm a functional member of the threads of course.

While my thoughts on whether or not we get rid of the Sandboxes is really not a relevant factor in the discussion and I acknowledge that—if that's the decision, I'll know it's the one that has to be made and accept it—though I like the idea of somehow preserving them off-site if we have to. Admittedly, it's hard to not be excited for someone in a certain work to count for either trope since each trope is a fun way to view different characters in different works. Of course no matter the split there may be on certain characters, if someone is not given the requisite amount of votes, they clearly don't get listed—and those rules are more often than not respected.

Bad habits with any Troper can admittedly form and my hope is that we each do our best to work on that and can keep things moving and working in the proper way. The fact that so many of us have been around so long even still is definitely a show of making things always work and overcoming those troubles that would makes things difficult.

Also, the thing about checking past media out in every avenue for CM keepers is that many things apply to the standards. It's a very universal trope and it's easy to see why it shows up so often.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Oct 7th 2022 at 2:11:30 AM

I remember when one of the yak fest threads imploded and all the regulars insisted they were very welcoming ... regulars don't have the best perspective on this.