All-Purpose Policy and Meta discussion: Administrivia.Trope Repair Shop

If I'm understanding correctly, they're not advocating skipping or ignoring ZCEs in the wick check, but rather to include them and keep checking wicks until "total wicks checked" minus "ZCEs encountered" equals "minimum number of wicks needed". So while it may make the check more time consuming, it's not skewing the results — only increasing the sample size proportionately to the percentage of ZCEs.

Edited by Twiddler on Apr 26th 2021 at 10:35:09 AM

I really should be in bed, but I'm gonna quickly address this. I'm not actually talking about ignoring, exactly. The ZCE shouldn't be left out of the results, I just think it skews the calculations for correct/misuse because a ZCE doesn't fit either category. To use a made-up example, Trope X has 200 wicks, so 50 wicks to check. I randomize fifty pages and find 25 correct use, 15 misuse, 15 ZCE, and 3 indexes (multiple wicks per page). I add 25 and 15 to discover that I only have 40 wicks, so I need to check more pages. After a few more random wicks, I have 7 more correct, 4 more misuse, and 2 more ZCE.

My results are 32/51 correct and 19/51 misuse (not counting ZCE or indexes), plus 17/68 ZCE (not counting indexes). Neither ZCE nor indexes contribute to establishing the meaning used by the wiki.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

That makes more sense then. It sounded like you were suggesting we skip the ZCEs entirely. Like, we don't even categorize them.

It sounds like both versions might technically skew the results, but I was more uncomfortable with the idea of pretending they don't exist, which is what I thought you meant. Now that I understand your point better, it makes a lot more sense.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 26th 2021 at 1:39:47 PM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

If that's the case, then I misunderstood the post, and I apologize for the mistake. Either way, I did link directly to that post in the Outdated Pages thread for convenience's sake, so my mistake isn't all posters in that thread have to go by without taking the long way around to TRS.

Edit: Double ninja'd, but the clarification does sound better than what I originally thought was being discussed.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 26th 2021 at 12:46:50 PM

You can't always get what you want.

I think I misunderstood things with wick-checking for TRS, I was well-intentioned.

See How to Do a Wick Check. Also feel free to check out the wick checks listed in my signature's sandbox.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Thank you.

I think Overtook the Series was problematic, but used 2011 standards rather than now, which was my mistake here.

Closed down the crowner that was awaiting a hook on Author Existence Failure. We already have a crowner category for renames, so use that instead of the standard Page Action.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

~Piterpicher

Regarding the Ace Of Spades thread: It used to be a disambig, but was converted into a trope in 2019. So it's not really old enough to be hit with "not thriving".

I can't find the draft itself anymore, but I can vouch that it had a TLP draft before "launching" — I made Playing Card Motifs so I remember thinking "I have to comment it'll be a subtrope of that". (I can't vouch if it had the required 'hats' unfortunately or if it was launched with mod approval as it's not in the list of launches.) The launcher ~Dr Sleep has been inactive since '19 though.

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 29th 2021 at 11:56:15 AM

I see. Well, feel free to close the thread then.

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)

Consider it done.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

How backed up are we? I'm considering making a thread for Stylistic Suck to get that out of the way, but I don't want to make a new thread if we're too full.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

91 threads....Maybe we could knock out the "not thriving" ones?

There's a lot of starred threads too.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

We can knock out Screw This, I'm Outta Here really soon, we just need to finish the description drafting.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Makes me wonder if we should create a project thread to deal with all those wick-starved tropes.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

It would help a lot, but some of them may be less cut-and-dry than others. Maybe we could focus on some specific ones though, like how there are many Advertising Tropes that have a low wick count due to how few ad campaigns have pages on the site.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

We've discussed it before, though Septimus was opposed to it.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 29th 2021 at 1:07:44 PM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I think if we take a specific genre of tropes that have similar issues that cause them not to thrive, like the Advertising Tropes, then it would make more sense to knock them out in one thread. After all, we just did that with the forum tropes.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

True, but admittedly, I found that thread to be a confusing mess and had no idea how to really contribute half the time .

A cleanup thread would be more apt, but might not be allowed.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

What about the low-wick tropes that aren't Advertising Tropes? Should we have a project thread to deal with those, likely as a short-term project?

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

What would a project thread entail? Finding ways to crosswick them?

Can you cut without TRS though? I read "project thread" as in long-term project, not TRS.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 29th 2021 at 2:02:36 PM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Or cutting them.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Yeah, I am not going to give my blessing to a thread that can cut tropes without some previous TRS effort. And frankly, a more general statement, I'd like if folks spent less time checking wicks and more time cleaning them. It really seems like a lot of energy is being used to justify threads rather than resolving them.

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

I mean, you can clean wicks in the process of checking them. But if you do both at once, then you can recognize those certain patterns that may warrant TRS. If you just clean them, you miss the pattern.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 29th 2021 at 2:34:30 PM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

But...what about the Appearance Tropes thread, and similar ones?

And is there actually a problem with doing a bunch of Wick Checks? It's better to have these things lined up and ready to go so we can produce threads at a quicker rate when other threads closed, and with more evidence and care put into them to boot. We're not making the checks to justify the threads; we do the checks and make the threads when we've confirmed that an issue exists. I think you've got it backwards. (I also tend to just get super burned out cleaning wicks, but wick checks are more fun because I can bounce around, rather than just going wick after wick after wick down the list, hence why I do more wick checks lately. But again, I do them because I realize tropes have issues and I want to determine the severity of the issue, not to justify a thread existing.)

Granted, I think we could all spend more time cleaning out wicks, but with only so much of us pitching in, those of us who make an effort get burned out faster. I'm doing some wick-clearing tonight, but I'm not sure my effort's making a dent (another reason I prefer checks- because I feel like I'm actually doing more than just a tiny drop in the bucket).

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness