Brainstorming way to tweak TLP draft ownership

experienced that myself

One thing I do want to bring up is that, every once in a while, a draft gets put on hold pending actions elsewhere on the site. For instance, the draft for Tiebreaker Rule is on hold until Sudden Death goes through TRS. These cases are exceptional, but for something like this, a wait over two months makes sense.

I usually don't encourage tying TLP progress for a draft to TRS progress in a thread or vice versa, because sometimes either side will stall for some reason and the other will be affected because of it. I remember when Phone Booth was in the process of being cut, pending the launch of a more tropeworthy equivalent (I think it was Anonymous Public Phone Call), but the sponsor said they were in no hurry for launching it because they wanted to fine-tune absolutely everything, which drastically stalled the TRS thread (and the problem with the thread backlogs wasn't yet a major issue back then).

Therefore, even though the efforts in one part of TVT can be motivated by the decisions taken in the other, I don't think there should be any mandatory constraints as to what's done in a part and how quickly.

That's pretty much why the Trope Idea Salvage Yard has become a TRS dumping ground when it was originally designed for the discard thread. Sending drafts out into the aether with no willing sponsor means they die immediately, and it takes the pressure off, as ensuring that the TLP creation is an optional thing it allows the TRS to proceed regardless of what happens in the TLP.

Good point. Placing a draft in On Hold status should freeze it in the state that it's in until the hold is lifted, and if it's not in U4G status, then the 2-month timer should either reset once the hold is lifted or start back up from where it was when the hold was placed.

Also paging ~badtothebaritone properly to this thread because I'm pretty sure pinging in OPs is broken.

Oh, don't worry, I've been lurking the whole time.

As far as the "holding drafts hostage" thing goes, I don't see why that would be an issue when you can just report whoever's doing it.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Apr 17th 2023 at 3:11:06 AM

Any further thoughts before I kick this to the admins?

I think you're good!

No objections from me.

I was going to ask something else (namely about whether or not the idea of adding a planned launch timestamp as I suggested in my first post in the thread), but I think by now it's too late.

I also had an idea but decided it's not related to ownership, so I think it's fine.

So, I talked with kory, and the code won't allow changes as drastic as what we came up with. Kory will try to come up with some tweaks that can approximate a few of the changes. I'll keep you posted if he doesn't.

Let me break this down as I get it:

• At minimum:
  • Alongside "Proposed By: <user>" and "Last Edited By: <user>" add a field "Sponsor: <user>".
  • When a draft is created, Sponsor will match Proposed By.
  • A moderator can edit the Sponsor field.
  • The "Launch" and "Discard" buttons are available only to the Sponsor. Every other user will see a text message.
• At best:
  • The Edit button is only available to the Sponsor. (possibly not needed)
  • Drafts can have the "Up For Grabs" button, visible only to the Sponsor.
  • Pressing "Up For Grabs" will remove the user from the Sponsor field, leaving it blank.
  • If the Sponsor doesn't edit the draft in 2 months, the "Up For Grabs" will trigger automatically.
  • If a draft doesn't have a Sponsor, a "Become Sponsor" button will be visible for everyone with obvious effect.
• Extra, also Up for Grabs doesn't say previous sponsors can challenge who gets to be the next sponsor, so I'm unsure if this is needed.
  • Draft will have hidden "Pending Sponsor" and "Last Sponsor" fields.
  • If anyone presses the "Become Sponsor" button, that user becomes a Pending Sponsor.
  • The "Become Sponsor" button becomes invisible for everyone if there is a Pending Sponsor.
  • This will generate an automated PM from the Pending Sponsor to the Last Sponsor user.
  • Drafts will have a Challenge button visible only to the Previous Sponsor when there is a Pending Sponsor.
  • If Challenge is pressed, the Previous Sponsor becomes the Sponsor and the Pending Sponsor is removed.
  • If Challenge is not pressed in 3 days, the Pending Sponsor becomes the Sponsor.

Kory has repeatedly said that he's not very familiar with how TLP works, and we did ask a lot at once for this set of updates, so I've rephrased it in a step-by-step way that should sound simple for a programmer.

Posting because the adoption system was brought up.

Edited by Amonimus on Jun 6th 2023 at 8:34:27 PM

That's a good breakdown.

The only thing I'll say is that I disagree with the "only the sponsor can edit" idea, sometimes other people need to make minor edits, and the sponsor allows them to. It's not disallowed, it's just rude to make large edits.

Yeah, I don't mind people fixing grammar or anything.

...have we abandoned the notion of TLP drafts being actual drafts that anyone can edit the same as wiki pages, at least under the current version of TLP? Admittedly I haven't kept up with the various TLP meta-discussions in recent years...

Kinda, yeah, mostly because sponsors are expected to take a lot more responsibility for their draft's quality now and if editors alter the description in a substantial way, add unapproved examples, change the title, etc, it's not just rude, but can very easily result in the trope suffering problems it wouldn't have had otherwise. Of course, once the trope goes up for grabs it's a different story, but while there's an active sponsor, large and unilateral changes are frowned upon.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 8th 2023 at 12:50:01 PM

So that means the sponsor will have to watch for typos too.

The last trope I sponsored had a couple (plus an example with a flawed writeup), and I gave permission to a fellow troper to fix them; that's gonna be the last time it seems. Hopefully the ones commenting below the draft will be kind when pointing out minor mistakes instead of... well, you know.

Edited by MyFinalEdits on Jun 8th 2023 at 1:18:42 PM

Well, that's why I argued that sponsors should not be the only ones allowed to edit. But fixing grammar mistakes is the exact opposite of the sort of edits I was referring to in my last post; those fixes are often welcome and aren't causing any harm.