Great part of the problem of awareness in TRS is that key part that was stated above - we won't know we have a problem with a rename until the rename process actually happens. There is a whole logistics and psychology issue about problems not being problems until they are problematic, and at the end of the day, the only way to handle that bit of human design is to... well, design for humans.
With that I mean, facilities should be in place so that at least people who think they can / are going to care, are able to do so. (People who don't know they can care are IMHO not a priority, since they can be addressed easier by social working than by technical working)
Blog idea is good to attract people towards the wiki procedures and helping them build familiarity with how things are done. Plus I guess the blog format would be more inviting for people, hence also working on the social aspects of awareness and participation.
Watchlist is good, but if I had to add every trope whose name I like to watchlist, then I wouldn't have room for the other things I am watching, and it'd soon become an utter mess. Plus it mostly only covers the wiki side of things. I'd suggest an alternative or complement to the watchlist as an operational watchlist. For example, getting a notification of the sort of "TRS thread started for Trope X", "Crowner for Trope X was added", that kind of stuff that is more tied to the forums. Getting also an history of such events would be a good addition, as I see a relatively hard to address question is "didn't we already have a thread on Procedure Y? What ever happened?".
Of course, all sides need to contribute. There is not much gain in making everyone more aware of things that are changing and inviting them to participate if next time there is a change people care about the administrative answer is "deal with it".
edited 26th Mar '12 10:23:28 PM by SilentReverence
Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?Well, for starters, bigger tropes (ones that see more usage) are going to be more contentious. I'd much rather save big announcements for those cases than just make people aware of a random few TRS threads of varying importance. Common sense. If you rename a trope that people see everywhere on the wiki, they're going to take notice. Then when someone complains, even if they have a good point, we already changed all the wicks. People don't always watchlist widely-used tropes.
Since TRS doesn't give any priority to tropes with more usage, you can't pick out widely used tropes from amid the volume of TRS threads. Nor can you tell if a page is seriously being pushed for a rename or if the thread is going to stall out.
Sideline: I frequent TRS, and I didn't know that What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome? was being renamed because the thread was running for over a year, under the title "Need example cleanup:". That was before the new tagging system, but I don't think "Misused:" will be any more informative. I don't particularly mind the rename, but I felt embarrassed that it passed by without me noticing.
We're not just men of science, we're men of TROPE!
Regarding that, it appears the mods now change a thread's name to "Rename -insert date here-" after the single prop is accepted and while the Alternative titles crowner is running.
Well, that's what I try to do, anyway. If the focus of a thread has shifted, then I think the thread's title should reflect it.
I don't think we have an "official policy" on it, but maybe we should. And have people holler when the thread's title should be changed, because I can't keep up with all the TRS threads.
edited 27th Mar '12 7:25:33 AM by ccoa
Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.I think we have a policy of adding a note about a crowner switch in the name: "Misuse in wicks: YMMV"—>"Misuse Alt-names Crowner 14/3/12: YMMV" for example.
Also, I've suggested to add a note on the discussion page whenever TRS decides to cut something. Madrugada said that it was a proposal small enough to implement without discussion and that she was going to note it in the place that describes how to run a TRS thread, but I am not aware of any such place - other than the Cut Masters, anyway.
About people becoming aware of a TRS decision: In [1]
it was proposed to mark the wicks to a page getting a TRS thread somehow so that people can see such decisions going on.
I know about the crowner switch, but I think the thread name should change, too. If we're now talking about splitting or renaming rather than about an ambiguous name and the evidence of such, I think the thread title should reflect it.
I've also been adding TRS threads to the discussion page after an action is completed on that page, so that it can be referenced a little easier later. I've only been doing it for successful actions right now, but maybe it should be done for unsuccessful ones, too.
edited 27th Mar '12 7:46:29 AM by ccoa
Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.Different coloured stars representing different types of crowner, enabling you to see at a glance from an index, if a crowner has changed (just please don't use a red/green switch as y'know colour vision issues). That means the icon changes automatically, so you don't have to worry about someone forgetting to get the thread title changed.
I still think that a split of the TRS would be the best way, to have one workshop for non-rename issues, and one for renames only (just make it so that an article can only be open in workshop at the one time). If someone brings an article to TRS, then it gets looked at to see if non-rename options are possible and if consensus is rename is needed it gets passed on to Rename-Workshop for the usual single and multi-prop crowners. It would prevent rename issues getting lost in the hurly-burly of the still crowded regular TRS and allow people who only want to participate in rename threads or vote on rename crowners to see them easily.
It makes the big rename changes visible instantly. Even I wouldn't be able to claim I wasn't aware if rename proposals were all grouped together, one click and there they are all nicely listed. The sort of place you could pop into just once or twice a week. The other thing, with the once or twice a week level of participation figured in, would be extending the minimum run time of single prop crowners to be a minimum seven days. Again, if I've had a week to vote, and they are all in one place requiring just one click to see them all (nicely listed), even I couldn't complain I hadn't had a chance. And I hate renames (but we all know that).
edited 27th Mar '12 10:17:05 AM by CrypticMirror
I've often felt that the fear of disputes over what is deserving of a Wiki Headline is a red herring - at least on Wiki Talk, you'll generally know a headline-worthy thread when you see it when it discusses some sort of significant wiki-wide change - and I think this fear leads us to err on the side of too few Headlines rather than too many (I don't know that the aforementioned TRS thread ever made the Headlines). TRS is thornier because not everyone cares about the same tropes, but establishing some inbound link thresholds might be helpful.
Over a thousand wicks seems like a good point to at least consider "should this trope really be renamed based on a thread with the same five or six people plus a Silent Majority of 15-20 on the crowner?" It doesn't matter if the trope is misused, biased, named opaquely, and is obviously bad for the wiki in every way. We can't take it for granted that no one will be upset.
I'd be fine with announcements or the "recent TRS activity" idea being used regardless of the 'importance' of the trope, as long as the alert is made about a major action being considered or taken on the thread, not just any new thread or latest post.
While on that topic, I think I've seen this discussed before, but what about having a "zeroth post" for TRS threads that can be edited by anyone to explain and update the status of the thread? I'm guessing this is a contentious subject, since some people don't even like explanations on crowners because they don't want people to skip reading the thread itself. Still, that's the easiest way to make ongoing threads accessible to people who want to join the discussion.
We're not just men of science, we're men of TROPE!That's why I suggested a summary of threads with >100 posts and a record of crowners opened or closed. Is that still too broad?
edited 27th Mar '12 8:00:11 PM by MorganWick
Look, the activity of TRS is of very, very little interest to 99% of the people who visit the wiki. Making it look like there is a constant state of war on every page of the wiki is not in our best interest. It doesn't make anything better.
Wiki Headlines aren't a good play. We need to keep things in perspective. The issues dealt with in TRS are not life threatening. They are only important in terms of guiding the wiki in the direction we want it to go.
Goal: Clear, Concise and WittyI agree on the first part. That's why calling the attention of the 1% who are in condition to care (have an account, do edit, etc) earns us something, IMO. Hence why I suggested watchlist tools (only logged-in users can use them). Does not make sense to call the attention of the 99% if we can not offer them anything.
Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?I like Cryptic Mirror's suggestion in @9. The 99% of wiki browsers or whatever who don't visit the forums wouldn't know or care at all, whereas those who care about renames would be able to see all renames quickly and easily.
Could we put a link to the next Trope Report in the wiki headlines whenever one comes out? That way, people could see what's changed if they feel like it.
One Piece blog Beyond the LampshadeWe first need the actual Trope Report to come out. It's irritatingly irregular.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanIf you're talking about just the next one that comes out from right now, what changes, exactly, are we alerting people to that way, why weren't they in the headlines to begin with, and why are we waiting for the (as mentioned) irregular Trope Report to come out to alert people to changes that could be weeks in the past by the time it does?
If you're talking about headlining every Trope Report, well, they're supposed to come out weekly, and I don't know we need to alert people to the "changes" listed in the current most recent one.
A headline to alert people to Trope Report's existence may be a good idea, if we know why we want people to know about it. As I said in the OP (and the original thread), Trope Report is more focused on reporting what's already happened, when we have an issue with people knowing what's happening.
Isn't there a section of the Trope Report that details major ongoing TRS threads?
I like the idea of a feed below the headlines listing the most recently posted in TRS thread, with just the trope name and a link.
One Piece blog Beyond the LampshadeActually that wouldn't be much needed since we sorta already have it
... except it's spewing out XML errors.
EDIT: Strange, it's spewing errors when called from the forum, but not from the wiki or opened separately... anyone else seeing this behaviour?
edited 30th Mar '12 11:28:08 AM by SilentReverence
Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?
The wiki's RSS. All it needs is one for the TRS forum and bam, you already have your weekly, daily, hourly, minutely report of what threads are having activity.
Me. I have the New Articles feed on my Google Reader, although it's way too much to peruse casually.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

One of the many issues that was discussed in the recent TRS thread
was the lingering gripe of people not knowing when major changes are about to happen. Although the discussion on that petered out without really coming to any sort of resolution, I think it did raise some important points that could point the way to a breakthrough.
Although people have long complained about not knowing when major changes are being discussed on Wiki Talk, the challenges TRS poses seem to be an order of magnitude greater. It's impossible to know what discussions will strike a particular troper's fancy - there was a suggestion that we could institute a "TRS watchlist" so that people wouldn't have to watchlist pages they didn't care about every little edit to just so they could get a heads-up when something like a rename was discussed, but I don't think that's feasible, because someone may not even know they like a name that much - it may not even occur to them to stick it on the TRS watchlist - until the name is challenged. Really, it could be every single trope on the wiki they come across that they might be interested in.
The best approach then is really just to hang out on TRS all the time, but the vast majority of TRS threads are things that troper won't care about and that they don't feel they want to get involved in anyway, and they won't always pick up on what's being discussed from a thread title - especially now that putting proposed solutions there is frowned upon. Speaking for myself, after a thread gets beyond a certain size I tend to ignore it because I don't want to lose hours of my life scrolling through pages and pages of discussion - which just so happen to be exactly the sort of threads on controversial issues that most demand input. And people don't actually look at the most popular pages that much, where they would see the TRS banner, as evidenced by the fact that a lot of the most-linked-to tropes on the wiki tend to have surprisingly rampant misuse, especially the pothole magnets.
The potential breakthrough that emerged over the course of the thread was the notion that Trope Report could be used to alert people to major changes. But that doesn't seem to be what it's doing, even when it actually comes out. A lot of it seems to be really frivolous
, and even when it does report on actual changes it does so after the fact, when we need to let people know about them while they're still going on so they can participate. The most recent issue only mentions the TRS thread at the very bottom, like so: "[T]here has been talk about changing a thing or two in regards to Trope Repair Shop. Time and Trope Report will tell if anything comes of it though." The thread was already 20 pages long at the time, which would seem to warrant something more than a sentence and a half at the end of the newsletter saying that there's a thread and something might come of it. I don't know if reporting on important threads while they're still going on is even what Trope Report is supposed to do; re-reading the TRS thread, there actually wasn't much in the way of anyone clearly referring to Trope Report as anything other than reacting to changes that have already happened, certainly not before I butted in.
Given this state of affairs, I suggested a blog or wiki page for alerting people to current events on the forums, including:
Earlier in the thread, several people also brought up a number of related ideas that basically amounted to putting new TRS threads or opened or closed crowners in the Wiki Headlines, or in a Wiki Headlines-like "ticker" in the sidebar.
Are any of these viable ideas for solving the seemingly intractable problem of letting people know what's going on here?