Big Things Happening on TV Tropes

@Bisected: Thanks for the link; I didn't realize there was a separate thread for it.

@SeptimusHeap: I'd guess that they would classify any of the more subjective pages where people discuss works with a discussion tag, which is what I based that on. Natter is obviously discussion, Awesome/Heartwarming/Tear Jerker/Nightmare Fuel/Funny pages are closer to discussions than tropes lists, and WMG & Headscratchers are people discussing fan theories and things they find odd. ...Not sure why I put Fridge in there, I didn't know where it'd fit, and just guessed. xD

It's not about shoving all of those to a discussion page, it's about making it easier to separate trope lists from the fun stuff. If they sorted it like that, you'd still be able to pick & choose what to display, it'd just be for making it easier to find each type of thing instead of having to sort through a long list of entry types and/or having to go through 5 or 6 pages to see everything about a work/trope. (More specifically, it'd make collapsible checkbox lists for individual entry types viable, to make choosing what to show easier than it would be with one large list that either takes up more space or has to be scrolled.)

(And of course, this isn't official, I'm kinda just posting what I think would be the best way to handle things in a relational database instead of the current page database.)

Thus speaks the Omega Metroid! ...Or something like that.

YMMV items are not discussion at all, and we don't use them for that purpose, either. So that would not work. They are like tropes more than anything else.

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

Okay, then just add a "Subjective" or "YMMV" type tag for them alongside Example/Trope, Index, Discussion, and Other, and associate their category tags with it instead of Discussion.

edited 11th Jan '15 4:02:56 PM by OmegaMetroid

Thus speaks the Omega Metroid! ...Or something like that.

@1052: None of the things you mentioned, with the possible exception of Fridge, go on YMMV pages, and natter is not okay on YMMV pages.

Most likely, tropes, YMMV stuff and Trivia will lumped in one big category and further subdivided/flagged as YMMV, Trivia, FlameBait, trope etc.

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

Back at 864 peroyomas asked on 2nd Jan 2015 whether there was a size chart for the variety of the Kickstarter shirt rewards available. I asked via the FAQ on Kickstarter about a week ago, but I finally just guessed and submitted my response.

Should we maybe start a Kickstarter thread to house questions like this? I'm guessing that the Kickstarter stuff is getting lost in all the other content that's part of the Big Things Happening.

I've noticed that some YMMV pages have a different warning now: "This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list." instead of "Please don't list this on a work's page as a trope. Examples can go on the work's YMMV tab." Does this mean that tropes like Replacement Scrappy can no longer be listed not even on YMMV tabs?

Also, the Somewhere an X is Crying line no longer have their unique "Please don't list this on a work's page as a trope" banners that didn't have the "Examples an go on the work's YMMV tab", supposedly because we didn't want people listing Somewhere an X is Crying, not even on YMMV. Has this changed?

Somewhere An X Is Crying was LONG ago changed to Artistic Licence - Y, where X was the profession and Y the subject they studied.

Keeper of The Celestial Flame

A few tropes still have the Somewhere an X is Crying name though, such as Somewhere, an Equestrian Is Crying.

My main concern is that there are now two different YMMV banners and it's confusing me.

edited 15th Jan '15 8:48:41 AM by Twentington

The old banner on the YMMV page was more clear if less concise...I'd prefer it to be switched back, or changed to something like "This is based on opinion. Please only list these examples on the work's YMMV tab."

edited 15th Jan '15 8:00:01 PM by Willbyr

Willbyr: Sounds like a good idea to me.

Who watches the watchmen?

Sorry, forgot about the forum... again.

@MorganWick: Exactly. The most appropriate one-word blanket tag I could think of for all of those pages was "Discussion", and the second-most appropriate was "Subjective" or "YMMV". Neither of the second-best ones actually work, because they conflict with actual YMMV pages. I was hoping pointing that out like that would get my point across, but it seems it was completely misinterpreted as me saying to just shove all of those pages onto the YMMV page. Not sure how anyone would get "YMMV is a discussion page" from "the pages where people talk about works are subjective, so if you don't want to call them discussion because you think discussing works isn't discussion, just call them 'subjective' or 'YMMV' because it's based on peoples' opinions" (both paraphrased), though.

@SeptimusHeap: Yes, that is what I said. In my suggestion, I said that entries from trope pages, work pages, YMMV pages, Trivia pages, and similar pages would be given an Example/Trope type tag, and then type tags would be used to specify exactly what kind of trope or example they were.

...Now that I think about it, our disagreement may have stemmed from me not being clear on exactly how I decided which type to classify each page as. Here, let me try again, I'll attempt to be clearer (and more long-winded, since I've refined the idea some more):

There are four main types of tag: Parent, Type, Category, Context-Specific, and Context-Specific 2 (general tags, used differently by each type). Entries can be given other context-specific tags whenever it's appropriate. Parent is used to identify which entry a point belongs to (or entries, in the case of crossposting); a 2-asterisk point has a 1-asterisk point as their parent, for example, and 1-asterisk points have a Description as their parent. Type is Description, Example/Trope, Index, Discussion, or Other, five broad categories that roughly cover every page and every point on the wiki (if necessary, additional types can be added). Category is used to further sort entries. Below, I will list each type, along with its associated categories.

Pages are automatically generated when loaded. Each page defaults to showing the appropriate content based on its namespace, or you can choose to mix and match from a list at the top of the page; you can also select what you want shown or hidden by default on your profile, and if you want child points collapsed or expanded. [For example, Main pages default to showing Trope Examples and their child points (child points not tagged Trope Examples are collapsed by default, only showing what type of entry they are (natter, character tropes, YMMV tropes, etc.), and can be expanded by clicking them). Awesome pages default to just showing Awesome entries, with child points expanded by default. And so on. You can choose to show a work's main trope list, character trope list, and YMMV trope list on the same page; or to show its Tear Jerker and Trivia entries on the same page; show everything but Funny or Fridge entries (with main tropes collapsed by default); and so on. You can choose to show a trope's anime and western animation examples, but no other examples; you can choose to show all of a work's tropes that start with Q, V, X, or Z, but not A, E, or Y; and so on.] Further mention of pages generally assumes you chose to stick with the standard view.

[Note that multiple-asterisk child points default to having the same type and category tags as their parent point. This can be changed while editing them.]

• Description: The first part of any given page (or subsection on pages with multiple subsections, like Characters pages), before any example lists begin; they contain the page's name, namespace, quotes, starting blurb, and picture. Descriptions are tagged as Main Description (start of page) or Section Description (start of subsection). The database would use Descriptions to sort things, linking each entry with the appropriate description. [Descriptions are effectively page names and beginnings; they can be left blank, in the case of pages without actual descriptions. Section Descriptions are associated with their page's Main Description, and used to sub-divide entries on their pages. Works pages would have a Main Description for the work's main page, and all of its subpages would be associated with this one description; Section Descriptions for the work could be tagged to indicate whether they belong on a Characters page, WMG page, or whatever page you want to put them on.]^note Single-bullet points have the appropriate Description tagged as their parent. Section Descriptions have the appropriate Main Description tagged as their parent.
  • Main Description is for the first entry on any given page. Main Descriptions are sorted by name, and don't have any parents; they use the Context-Specific tag to identify what namespace they're for (trope descriptions are tagged as Trope (or Main, both will indicate the Main namespace), work descriptions are tagged by the work's media, franchise descriptions are tagged as Franchise, etc.). The database uses Main Descriptions to keep track of pages, with further entries related to the trope/work/whatever tagging the appropriate Main Description as their parent. Main Descriptions can be left blank, in cases where a page doesn't warrant or need a description. In case of a single name being used in multiple namespaces, multiple Main Descriptions can be associated with a single name, using the Context-Specific tag to identify where to use them (such as, for example, The Incredible Hulk and The Incredible Hulk being tagged as "Comic Book" and "Self-Demonstrating", or Excalibur and Excalibur both having articles with the same name; in the latter case, it allows each one to be associated with its own character trope lists/YMMV/Trivia/Awesome/etc. without having to shoehorn in another disambiguation page). [Note that this doesn't solve the problem of multiple works in the same media having the same name.]^note Context-Specific 2 can be set to "no parsing", if necessary for certain pages. This keeps the database from parsing any Example/Trope entries associated with that Main Description for links (see below). Context-Specific 2 defaults to "parse" for most namespaces, although individual namespaces can be set to default to "no parsing" instead.
  • Section Description is used for any subsection on a page that warrants its own description, such as character bios on Characters pages. Each Section Description has the appropriate Main Description tagged as a parent, and uses the Context-Specific tag to identify which page to put it on (such as Character or WMG or whatever you want), with Context-Specific 2 to further narrow it down if necessary (such as Characters, Protagonists, Antagonists, Supporting Characters, or work-specific character group names if they're on a Characters page). Entries specific to that subsection have that Section Description tagged as their parent.
• Example/Trope: Any entries that belong in: 1) A list of examples on a trope's page, including both examples with potholes to the work in question and examples without potholes; any example without a pothole has the work's name automatically potholed and classified as undefined, unless the work is on a blacklist for content (mainly, if it's in the Permanent Red Link Club, it's not automatically potholed). 2) A list of tropes on any of a work's pages, including its main page, its YMMV page, its Trivia page, and so on; the main requirement for work tropes is that (barring specific circumstances) each entry potholes to a trope page. Category tags indicate what kind of page each entry belongs on. [Child points aren't required to have the same category tag, or even type tag, as their parent. For example, a Work Trope can have a Character Trope as a child, and anything can have a Discussion->Natter entry as a child. I don't believe Example/Trope entries will need a Context-Specific tag, but I may be wrong.]
  • Trope Example is used for examples on a trope's page. Single-asterisk examples list the page's Main Description as their parent, and can also have a work's Main Description tagged as a parent to crosspost them on both pages. 2-or-more-asterisk examples have another entry tagged as their parent, and can only have one parent tagged. The Context-Specific tag is used to indicate which media (Anime/ComicBook/Fanfiction/Film/Literature/Live-Action TV/Manga/Manhua/Real Life/Sports/Theatre/Video Game/Web Animation/Webcomic/Web Original/Western Animation/etc.) the example belongs to. When applicable, all examples are required to pothole to the appropriate work; if an example doesn't contain a pothole, it is parsed for italicised text, which is used to generate a pothole.^note Real Life & Sports examples are ignored by the potholing parser, as are other sections which tend not to have work pages as often. Any blacklisted links are automatically removed by the parser (or just tagged as "DO NOT POTHOLE"), regardless of their Context-Specific tag. Additionally, points can be tagged as "no link", although this should only be used in situations where it's absolutely necessary (such as the entry for wills on Artistic License – Law). Only single-asterisk points are required to have potholes; nested points can, but don't need to.
  • Work Trope is used for tropes listed on a work or franchise's page. Like Trope Examples, they can either be associated with the work's Main Description, or be children of another point associated with the work. They're generally required to pothole to a trope, barring extenuating circumstances.
  • Character Trope is used for tropes listed on a work's character page(s). They're associated with one or more Section Descriptions, depending on which character(s) exhibit them. They're generally required to pothole to a trope.
  • YMMV Trope is used for subjective tropes that go on the YMMV page, it's kinda self-explanatory. Again, they're generally expected to pothole to a trope. The main difference between it and most of the entries tagged as Discussion is that this is an actual trope list.
  • Trivia is also self-explanatory. It's expected to pothole to the appropriate pages, too.
  • [Remove Extended Example Page, I realised it won't be necessary since the nature of a relational database would allow you to choose to only show a specific type of example, anyways.]
  • [Any other necessary categories.]
• Index: Entries that belong in a list of tropes or works. For trope indexes, the main requirement is that every entry is a pothole to the trope. For work indexes, every entry is automatically potholed unless blacklisted (same as Example/Trope entries for trope page examples). Context-Specific can be used to help sort entries if necessary (such as for identifying each work's media in a multimedia franchise).
  • If Index needs category tags, then they can be used to indicate if an entry is a trope, a work/franchise, or what.
• Discussion: Anything that is 1) subjective (but not explicitly a YMMV page entry) and/or Natter, 2) discussing a trope/work or some aspect of it without explicitly being a trope list, and 3) is NOT part of a list of potholed tropes or works. It'd mainly be used as a catch-all for "discussion, reactions, subjective (but not explicitly YMMV), speculation, fangirling, gushing, commonly agreed on stuff, general thoughts on the work and/or talking about the work, and all that jazz that isn't explicitly about listing tropes or works", because that's not concise. Natter entries go here because they count as discussion; Awesome/Funny/Heartwarming/NightmareFuel/etc. go here because they count as fangirling and/or commonly agreed on stuff; WMG goes here because it's speculation; Headscratchers goes here because it's talking about things that people find odd; and so on. [Again, the main requirement I used is that if it has a list of entries (whether bullet points or otherwise), but they aren't a list of trope examples or tropes used in a work and thus don't necessarily have the potholes an Example/Trope entry would, and if they're discussing some aspect of a trope/work that doesn't have to directly correlate to one or more examples/tropes and how it/they demonstrate(s) the trope or is/are used in the work, then put it here. Nothing tagged as Discussion is required to have any potholes, unlike Example/Trope or Index.]^note Apart from Natter and Fridge, Context-Specific can be used for trope/work-specific subsections, if necessary to sort entries. Natter and Fridge can use Context-Specific 2 for the same purpose. Alternatively, they could all be set to use Context-Specific 2, so it's more consistent.
  • Natter is the most accurate to the "Discussion" blanket tag, and included to make it easier to deal with discussions on the important pages. Natter entries can be associated with a Main Discussion or Section Discussion, or can have an Example/Trope as a parent. Ones with an Example/Trope as a parent are automatically shown on most pages, as a child point to their parent point, but collapsed by default. Choosing to view any page's "Discussion" page will display any Natter entries associated with that page's Main Description, whether they're direct children of the description or if they're children of one of it's other children; they'll be sorted into separate categories if tagged appropriately, such as "Trope discussion", "Character discussion", "Tear Jerker discussion", etc. [If a Natter point is an Example/Trope's child, then the associated Example/Trope will be included in the "Discussion" page for reference.] Context-Specific is used to indicate which page they're linked with, and mainly used for sorting a trope/work's "Discussion" page (for example, a character page's "Discussion" page would expand any Natter tagged as Character, and collapse Natter with any other Character-Specific tag).
  • Awesome, Funny, [1], Nightmare Fuel, Tear Jerker, and any other similar tags are used the same as they are now. They can either be left as-is, or all grouped in a Moments category and subdivided by Context-Specific tags if people want it to be easier to choose which to display. In the former case, the database generates separate pages for each, as usual; in the latter, it can be set to generate separate pages, but will default to putting them all on the same page, expanding the section you want to view, and collapsing the other sections. [Nightmare Fuel and Tearjerker wouldn't need to be associated with this, either, it could just combine awesome/funny/heartwarming moments and leave those two as their own islands.]^note Of course, due to how the relational database would work, this would only change things on the back end. You could have it display all of them on the same page like Fridge entries even if they're not all part of the same category, or display each as a separate page even if they're all under the same category tag, it'd mainly be to make it easier for the database to sort them.
  • Fridge Logic, Fridge Brilliance, and Fridge Horror are still closely linked, like usual. All three are under the Fridge category, with Context-Specific indicating which of the three each particular example is. By default, choosing to show one of the three automatically generates a page with all three, with the one you chose expanded and the other two collapsed. You could also set it to display each on a separate page, if you wanted.
  • Headscratchers is people discussing things they find odd. Nothing's changed.
  • WMG is still speculation, no changes necessary.
  • [Any other "associated with a trope/work but not explicitly a trope/example list" pages I can't think of at the moment could also have their own category, and wouldn't need to be changed.]
• Other is for entries that aren't trope examples, aren't lists of tropes present in a work, aren't index entries, and aren't natter or 'discussion' entries associated with a trope/work, then they go here. Quotes and Laconic entries, for example.
  • Category tags are used to identify exactly what each entry is, such as the aforementioned Laconic and Quotes.

[Also note that certain Main Description Context-Specific namespaces can be set to not parse their Example/Trope entries for potholes, like the Just for Fun gang or Idiot Programming, and individual Main Descriptions can be tagged with "no parsing" as necessary. Alternatively, pages with a Main Description tagged as "subjective" or as part of certain namespaces wouldn't look for example/trope lists, and would have their entries tagged as Discussion instead (note that this would likely require adding another category tag to Discussion).]

tl;dr:

• Description is the main body of a page, or the start of a section on pages with multiple sections. Other entries are tied to the appropriate Description example, and the database checks the Main Description first when building a page. Context-Specific tag identifies what it's a description of. [Generally, one Main Description per page name, although a single name can be associated with multiple Main Descriptions in case a name is shared by pages in multiple namespaces (whether related or not), with Context-Specific identifying the appropriate namespace. Multiple Section Descriptions where appropriate. Everything is linked to one or more Main Descriptions used to index it (cross-referencing posts is achieved simply by associating them with multiple Main Descriptions, which puts them on both pages), with further tags to identify what it is and how to filter it. Can be left blank if the page or section needs no starting blurb.]
• Example/Trope is self-explanatory, used to tag example entries on trope pages or trope list entries on work pages. Entries contain a pothole to the work (on trope pages) or trope (on work pages) that they're for, if applicable. [Includes Main, Anime/Comic Book/Fanfiction/Film/Literature/Live-Action TV/Manga/Manhua/Real Life/Sports/Theatre/Video Games/Web Animation/Webcomics/Web Originals/Western Animation/etc., Characters, YMMV, and Trivia pages, and anything similar.]
• Index is also self-explanatory, and contains entries for indexes. Each entry consists of a potholed trope or work name. All Index entries are automatically potholed.
• Discussion is a blanket tag for any page that discusses a trope/work and/or some aspect(s) of it, which apparently isn't self-explanatory. The main requirement is that people use them to discuss tropes/works or their aspects without necessarily listing any tropes or works. None of them would really need any changes, and they wouldn't all be shoehorned into the "Discussion" pages (Natter would, but the rest would generally be treated the same as usual), it's mainly for the sake of making it easier to choose what you want to show on each page the relational database generates by giving you a blanket "hide everything but the tropes/examples themselves" button. [The database could be set to combine the "Moment" pages ^note Moment of Awesome, Funny Moments, and Heartwarming Moments, and optionally Nightmare Fuel & Tear Jerker. to make it easier to show them, like how the three Fridge tropes are combined on one page or like a Characters page, or it could just treat each as an island like it does now.]
• Other is used for anything that can't be classified by the preceding four types. Only two that come to mind are Laconic and Quotes, but there are likely some I'm forgetting.

The entire point of this post and the previous ones was basically me brainstorming how to set up the relational database, in hopes that it would be useful to the people in charge of making it.

Actually, now that I think about it, you could just rename the "Discussion" type tag to "Reactionary" and solve the entire issue, since most of the different pages are about discussing peoples' reactions to specific scenes and/or the work in general, whether they be amazement, sudden realisation, Confusion, speculation, or anything of the sort.

edited 18th Jan '15 12:18:14 PM by OmegaMetroid

Thus speaks the Omega Metroid! ...Or something like that.

It's not clear to me why you are putting YMMV entries under the Discussion bullet rather than the trope one. They have no commonality with a discussion of any kind.

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

After re-reading the discussion, I realized you never clarified what things Omega considered "discussion" entries you considered to be "YMMV items" or "entries" that shouldn't be lumped in with "discussion" entries, so let me make the point I think you've needed to make: the Moments pages (including Nightmare Fuel and Tear Jerker) are really more "super-subjective" non-tropes than anything else, and natter really isn't more acceptable there than on trope or YMMV example pages. (Which may be why Omega included Fridge: the Moments pages aren't all that different from Fridge, it's just that Fridge isn't as infested with natter so it's not as easy to reach the conclusion that discussion is actually part of its purpose.)

In other words, the pages you're talking about are so infested with natter Omega has gotten the impression that's as much a part of their purpose as it is with WMG and Headscratchers. (That, or because they're explicitly about personal opinion, either out of necessity or as a result of Trope Decay.) Fighteer might disagree, though, when determining what pages he would put under his discussion-like system.

edited 19th Jan '15 12:03:45 AM by MorganWick

The reason why I didn't clarify that is because my statement covers all YMMV items. Maybe with exception of Fridge Logic. None of them accepts discussion of any kind (Fridge Logic gets lots of discussion because editors feel compelled to answer questions) and each of them is structurally like a trope-

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

But it's not clear which ones are YMMV items, unless you're saying everything Omega threw into "discussion" or "reactionary" is, but your description doesn't seem to fit WMG or Headscratchers at all.

WMG and Headscratchers are not YMMV; they don't carry the banner. That is what I am using as a definition. And WMG is not structured like a discussion, either - more like a review.

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

So I hate to keep being a bother about this, but I still never got my verification e-mail, and am still locked out of the dev site until I do.

Although I was able to receive a username retrieval e-mail (was just testing that that'd even work), so I suppose that's a step in the right direction?

Moon◊

nvm

edited 1st Feb '15 6:46:22 AM by Logograph

Not sure if this is the right thread, but the brand new function banner for pages (edit, to do, related, discussion, history) lacks a "source" button. Was that an oversight or was the page source function outright removed from the site?

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

It's now in the sidebar, below the "spoiler" toggle.

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

Okay, but that's an off place to put it considering even just a few days ago it was grouped with the other functions, and always was in the old design. Basically it's a visual variation of Damn You, Muscle Memory!, so it doesn't look convenient for TV Tropes veterans.

But that's just my two cents.

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

Loving the new mobile site, but the placement of avatar quotes is a bit obnoxious,

Also, why does the new Echo Chamber mascot look like Slender Man?

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Sorry for the double post, but I'd like to report a bug. Part of the previous webpage I visited is visible in the far right of the screen◊.

Peace is the only battle worth waging.