Personal Space & TV Tropes

Hey, fellow Tropers!

You might remember me as the guy who created those Echo Chamber videos for TV Tropes a few years back. Or you might not. After all, it was a while ago.

I’ve been told that TV Tropes would like to start supporting and showcasing Troper-created content. You’ve seen the frontpage comics, and you may have heard the podcast, or maybe you’re one of the Metaguards who played The Wall Will Fall back in 2012. Or maybe you’ve got an awesome webcomic of your own that you’re looking for a home for. I’ve always felt TV Tropes was a community that should have something for everyone.

I’m honored to tell you that TV Tropes has offered to help support my project, Personal Space. It’s not about tropes. It’s an independent scifi series, starring cast from Battlestar Galactica, that happens to have been created by Tropers. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomrpike/personal-space-a-science-fiction-webseries/

We’ll be embedding its Kickstarter campaign in the showcase for a couple of days. You’ll probably see some ads for us around the site. Frankly, I’m humbled. I’m told this red carpet treatment may be possible for other Troper projects in the future.

There will soon be a place to come forward with your ideas. Until then, please enjoy Personal Space. I have worked on it for two years, and I’d be honored if you’d check it out.

Thanks, guys! It feels good to come home.

This looks like something I would watch. Keep up the good work!

The series looks cool and all, but I can't help but feel that promoting it this way is technically an abuse of your position. I mean, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the average troper doesn't exactly have the ability to hijack the TV Tropes announcement feed in order to advertize their own work, which gives the select few who actually do (i.e. you and the small handful of others who possess administrative privileges) an unfair advantage.

Not really a huge deal, at least to me, but just something to keep in mind for the future.

edited 26th Apr '16 9:39:10 PM by BrokenEye

This might surprise you, but I totally respect where you're coming from. That's one of the reasons I created this thread.

I was not an administrator or moderator of TV Tropes when the site agreed to help me out. I had to ask someone to sticky the thread for me. This promotion has been in the works for years.

Then, a couple weeks ago, I was asked to head up an initiative to promote the works of Tropers. We're developing some other Tropers' projects now, and you should see some results in not too long. If you have projects of your own, I strongly encourage you to send them my way! If you want my email address, send me a DM.

This site gave me a voice and a platform after I answered an ad in the sidebar. Nobody in the administration knew who the heck I was. That's how entertainment is supposed to work. I am thrilled that I'll soon have the opportunity to do the same for other Tropers.

Hmm, I'd have to see it in action, but that actually sounds like it might be something I can get behind

I am detecting a strong sense of community apathy against this site's webring. In addition, amongst those that are not apathetic, some resentment due to lack of community participation in the process.

I do not envy the person whose job it is to oversee the support and advertising of troper projects. If you want this to be a thing, you have your work cut out for you. It will probably also be a thankless role, and one with a near impossible objective.

That is a really negative way to look at it. You're just giving recognition to tropers you feel deserve it, celebrating achievements in the community and inviting others to support these endeavors, if they so wish! I see nothing wrong with that. Like the "Featured" page of a story writing site.

I take it back. It won't be a thankless role. As demonstrated in the above post.

And the below post. No need to apologize.

edited 2nd May '16 4:36:33 PM by war877

Sorry, I just meant to say that I think that it is a feature worthwhile doing, even if it may not include all tropers' works, at least it can shine some light on a few notable projects that might need a boost in attention.

I'll admit without any hesitation to being one of those feeling both apathy and resentment about this entire thing. I've mentioned the lack of oversight and community responsiveness as an issue more than once already in the short time that this thing has been prominent.

edited 10th May '16 2:28:38 PM by nrjxll

What do you mean? Resentment about their own projects not getting recognized or something along those lines? I guess I can understand that...

No. I don't have any projects (at the moment). What I don't like is having other people's foisted on me with apparently no community input whatsoever. We have, or at least we used to have, a Troper Works index that people could go to of their own volition and look at. That seems a lot better than just shoving anything somebody asks to - even things that have already caused controversy like that "Twisted Tropes" comic - in people's faces.

edited 9th Sep '17 8:38:20 PM by YasminPerry

What is this thread if not a way of seeking community input? And the Kickstarter itself is a way to let the community decide whether the project goes forward or not.

As for facilitating future projects from other tropers, I certainly expect the job to be thankful. I know how I felt when I was given the same opportunity.

The site is already forced to host advertisements to stay afloat; if it's trying to take steps so that some of that becomes ads for stuff its users are actually likely to get invested in, stuff that's from and part of the community, so much the better.

Long as it doesn't get as pushy as ads on clickbait sites, and stuff like page-takeovers, popups, and redirects are still things that're actively avoided, doesn't bother me. Hell, the notification leading me here was refreshingly unobtrusive; important enough to not be in the sidebar, but not so impressed with itself that you're forced to deal with it before getting to the page it's on.

TBH, this specific show, I dunno if I'm really interested in, but I'll at least check it out if there's a trailer, and maybe donate for it? Its success could lead to large numbers of more-interesting works popping up that I will get invested in, so there's that on top of any merits I think the show itself might have.

edited 19th May '16 2:24:22 PM by Knowlessman

edited 9th Sep '17 8:39:25 PM by YasminPerry

Ummm

They did ask? :/ And also were previously involved with the site?

And this is a lot less "pushed in our faces" than it could be; the miniheader is tiny, especially compared to Wikipedia's WE'RE GOING BROKE GUISE PLZ HALP thing awhile back.

edited 19th May '16 3:50:34 PM by Knowlessman

The team behind this has been previously involved in official TVT media, the show Echo Chamber and the ARG The Wall Will Fall. I'd say that makes them good candidates for the first test-run of promoting troper projects, and hopefully things like this do open up to more of us in the future as is apparently planned. Also I was kind of surprised to see the banner at first because I almost exclusively use the forums these days and so just saw it on the community showcase sidebar until I was checking something on the wiki.

"The community" is not a monolith, and a good many of this site's past problems have come from trying to make it into one.

Edit: To clarify, I've got nothing against Personal Space. It looks interesting. But I just don't think it's a good idea for TV Tropes as a whole to endorse specific works - particularly when it's not at all clear what actually goes into it or who's involved - and I think this has already demonstrated itself to be more than just a hypothetical matter of principles.

edited 19th May '16 6:18:14 PM by nrjxll

Tv Tropes doesn't have a whole. If you bugged each individual Troper asking what we thought about something, the biggest chunk of us would just ignore it and resent the interruption. If the site's going to do something, which there isn't really any reason for it not to do, it's gonna be the ones in charge who decide it; if they decide they want public opinion on it, they put something in a sidebar or miniheader or something and get maybe thirty-odd people who actually care enough to weigh in on it.

It is true that this is a diverse community—Of nerds who are all very opinionated.

This site is a wiki. It may be a rather unique wiki, but it is a wiki first, and it is a wiki last. And that means that the editors must be the ones ultimately in charge of what happens on the site. That is just how wikis work. This mostly applies to the article content.

But the fact remains. A wiki dies if it becomes closed to the public. Even stuff like the appearance and structure of the site need some editor feedback.

As this is a pilot program, it really doesn't need to be transparent, like at all. But in order to be a fully functional program, at some point, the editors will need to be involved.

Which describes the current situation exactly.

I really like the observation that the community is not a monolith. Tropers have very different tastes in genre, medium, and how involved they want to be in the community. We have Tropers who live on the forums... and we have lurkers who don't even know there are forums.

So any time we provide Tropers with a project some of them might like, almost certainly there will be others who find it uninteresting. We're working really hard to find the right way to reach the right Tropers for a given project, without annoying the rest.

This is a challenge, but it's one that we've gotten better at with time. The new banner design is collapsible, and we're only running it during the campaign's final days. It is the least obtrusive banner TV Tropes has ever run.

Obviously, I hope you like this project, but I don't mind if you don't. Regardless, I hope you'll give the next one a shot.

I do feel like it might have been a good idea to have a thread where the idea of advertising troper works was discussed. And, if there was a thread but I missed it...well, something like that should've been better publicized. I mean, obviously, as aforementioned, the community isn't a monolith, but in the past, decisions that affect the site as a whole have generally been highly discussed beforehand, and the threads in which they were discussed had been highly publicized so that most people couldn't miss it and so that everyone could potentially have a voice in the discussion.

I know the site has always been half-jokingly referred to as a "benevolent dictatorship" as far as the site's top moderation staff goes, but there is usually some degree of community input and democratic discussion.