Wiki Development Project: Namespace Cleanup and Configuration

Now if it's beyond the scope of this project, fine. I'm not saying you have to start it now, but

It's the same reason Bollywood films don't need their own namespace, an index and useful notes are quit enough, even if they(as to be expected) have their own tropes, are an incredibly distinct sub type, a different category of film or something. Between Lucha Libre, "Sports Entertainment", football and football? Mexican television certainly doesn't look like what comes on here. Telenovelas and Genre Anthologies mean incredibly different things to different countries and audiences too, you wouldn't want Las Tres Marias in the same sentence as The Twilight Zone unless you were making a point along those lines. Luckily, as tropes website, we're already in a perfectly fine position to let tropes demonstrate that. The mediums these works use are not incredibly different, they are not so distinctly categorized as to not both be found on the same animation networks or bookstores(Tenchi's harem antics lead into The Time Squad finding an evil George Washington, you better believe it. Astro Boy in A(or T if by Author) and Sandman in S(or G)). I might make that lucha libre page, index, exotico really needs it's own trope page(as do several other topics I'm procrastination on) but not the namespace I'm not making even if it stays free.

"Hollywood Animation", that's clearly the entirety of western animation and comparable to Anime, a term shared by several languages that's literally shorthand for animation in most of them, thus making Hollywood animation a type of anime...or do you mean Japanese animation, which like Western Animation being Hollywood is all made in Tokyo, except when it's in Nanto (P.A.Works Darker Than Black, Blood+, The Professor Layton movie), or Kyoto (Full Metal Panic a Haruhi Suzumiya animated adaptation) or Saitama (Ajia-do worked on Transformers Animated-a Japanese company doing American animation, can you believe it-and Izetta The Last Witch) or hey, wasn't Mainframe somewhere in Canada? They did Reboot, a Shadow Raiders adaptation and Beast Wars(which a Japanese company continued). Are they Hollywood?

What I'm trying to make clear is that there isn't a clear cultural divide that justifies splitting the animation medium anymore than film or live action tv. What I think there are, are marketing gimmicks that combat xenophobia and the Animation Age Ghetto. But that's just my opinion. These being of the same medium is fact. Ultimately, live action actor needs a unified name space too, the whole way we're set up is an artifact from the wiki's days of strictly covering television but animation seems like the place to start since there is already an animation namespace. Then comics since they are closely tied to animation. If comic is too "western", sequential art or something, you get the idea, even if we aren't ready to do it.

For the Tropes A to D case, how about we make an "Examples" namespace, and make the page Examples/CastleTropesAToD?

edited 8th Jun '17 12:19:16 PM by Zuxtron

new favorite thread

On the topic of Web Original:

• Web Original/ (344): Too broad and simultaneously too nebulous. Could be split into any of the already existing "Web X" namespaces, or add new ones. I think this namespace ought to be "closed" status at least. Some of these aren't on Namespace:
  • Webcomic (2934)
  • Web Video (1494)
  • Web Animation (543)
  • Website (388)
  • Web Series/ (4): I can't really tell if this is supposed to be Web Video or if this is supposed to be the Internet equivalent to Series/ (e.g. WebSeries.Permanent Roommates).
  • Web Game/ (2) and Web Games/ (1): This brings up the question of how to keep plurals "Closed" without needlessly inflating the list.
  • Web Serial Novel/ (1): Nearly all of the pages on Web Serial Novel are namespaced into Literature/, so maybe make this one a closed namespace and just move the one already there to Literature/?

There are a few namespaces that are technically media or could be useful, but should probably be cut and made "Closed" editing status.

• List/ (1): I have seen this come up three or four times, and I've also seen it come up in the Main/ namespace with the word "List" in the title. I think this namespace should be added to the list as "Closed" editing status.
• Manual/ (1): While this may be a type of media (the one page right now doesn't look like it), I think this could be added as "Closed" editing status.
• Newsletter/ (13): This hasn't been updated since 2010. I think it could be "Moderator Create" status in case somebody wants to start it up again.

There are a few media namespaces that are relatively small (<40) right now, and I think we could have a projects thread to monitor or expand them, but I'm mentioning them here because I think these ones could be kept as "Open":

• Art/ (6)
• Script/ (14)
• Myth/ (35)
• Manhua/ (28)
• ARG/ (15)

Concerning the Tropes A To D/ namespace (and other such namespaces), would it be easier to leave the pages relatively as-is but create the Trope Examples/ namespace? Thus, have TropeExamples.Castle and then link Castle.Tropes A To D. Or something like that...

RE post : That would break the link to Castle. If it's Examples.Castle, then it wouldn't break the link. I think this namespace could be page typed automatically as "examples," since right now they're automatically made "subpage."

Concerning the MLP namespaces, there's already a clean-up effort for that here in short term projects.

New question: Would it be possible to add a new page type to namespaces that are for trope examples? Or is that a different thread. I'm thinking that it could help to differentiate them from the subpage type.

edited 8th Jun '17 1:33:55 PM by WaterBlap

We have an 'examples' page type already. It's precisely for those hard-split subpages.

I feel that a couple of clarifications are needed here, and I may build a FAQ for the header post just to keep them from continually coming up.

• We are not removing any media namespaces in this project. That's not the point of the exercise. We want to make sure to identify and keep those. Now, we can have separate discussions about whether Manhua, et. al., are worth keeping or merging, but that's way out of scope for what we're trying to do here.
• We do want to do something with all the work-namespace subpages. However, merging them all back into single articles is not possible because most of them were split for size to begin with.

There are several ideas that have been proposed for examples subpages. In the end, we'll have to choose one style and stick with it.

• The current system, wherein we create a namespace for the work and then title the subpages TropesAtoD, and so forth.
  • Pros: Current system, no changes needed.
  • Cons: Requires a namespace for each work that must be maintained and set to type 'examples'. Subpages not associated with the parent article. Subpages show up as Tropes Ato D rather than the name of the work.
• Make TropesAtoD, et. al., the namespace and keep the work name as the title.
  • Pros: Preserves title, makes association of subpage with work simple.
  • Cons: Major effort to transplant all the subpages. May be difficult to manage all the different alpha-split namespaces.
• Put the split in the article title — e.g., Series/CastleTropesAtoD, preserve the namespace.
  • Pros: Does not require the creation of new namespaces.
  • Cons: Can't independently configure default page type to 'examples' rather than 'work'. Subpages don't associate with the parent. Major effort to transplant all the subpages.
• Like above, but make a separate namespace for examples splits — e.g., Examples/CastleTropesAToD.
  • Pros: Only needs one namespace instead of dozens or hundreds. Can set page type to 'examples' for this namespace.
  • Cons: Subpages don't associate with the parent. Major effort to transplant all the subpages.

edited 8th Jun '17 1:47:07 PM by Fighteer

FYI, I re-folderized and updated the pinned post so it doesn't eat so much of the page.

I thought it said in the first post that this is the thread for discussing what the Editing Status (and other attributes) of the namespaces should be.

Now that there's a FAQ, I can see that my suggestions for cutting X or Y isn't what we're talking about. So, I guess my next question (and it could maybe go in the FAQ) is: Are we discussing any media namespace at all (i.e. their attributes as described in OP)?

edited 8th Jun '17 2:31:12 PM by WaterBlap

One of the things we're addressing in this project is the automatic typing of articles in each namespace.

Also, the FAQ specifically states what we want to focus on first. If you really want to go to the effort of reorganizing the media namespaces, that's up to you, but I'd prefer it be a distinct project.

edited 8th Jun '17 3:18:03 PM by Fighteer

The trope namespaces at the very bottom of the list with only one page in them (e.g. Disney Death/, Heartwarming in Hindsight/) seem particularly unnecessary. If only one section had to be split off to keep the page length reasonable, then either there's a better way to split it or something needs trimming.

... I would totally keep Dan Brown though because it's Shaped Like Itself and that amuses me.

edited 8th Jun '17 9:13:37 PM by InsanityPrelude

I'm wondering if the Madman Entertainment namespace should be kept around, since it has only six articles.

That namespace seems particularly unnecessary. Why in the world are we indexing licensing companies, anyway?

As amusing as DanBrowned.Dan Brown is, it feels a bit unnecessary.

edited 9th Jun '17 6:25:08 AM by Fighteer

That was a length and readability split — the Dan Browned one, that is. His books are so bad about it and there are so many of them, it made up almost half the page before it was split off

It's all my fault, Fighteer. I created the Madman Entertainment/ namespace because they release so much stuff (especially in the anime field) that I realized it would take several pages to list it all. Oh, well—I brought that namespace into this world, and it looks like I'll be taking it out.

This begs the question: How should the pages be renamed? For example, should MadmanEntertainment.Anime And Manga become Main.Madman Entertainment Anime And Manga?

P.S. If we can index TV networks, movie studios, etc., then I see no problem with indexing licensing companies.

edited 9th Jun '17 7:21:18 AM by MarkLungo

The move to Main makes the most sense.

RE DanBrowned.Dan Brown: Would splitting the Literature folder off from the page and merging it with DanBrowned.Dan Brown in order to create DanBrowned.Literature be a solution or just unnecessary?

Also, should every namespace with "Main" in its title be undone or moved to something without the word "Main" in it? I'm asking because it makes it impossible to find the pages in that namespace through conventional means. Right now, this includes The Main Characters Do Everything (in the query list for TheMainCharactersDoEverything.Live Action TV) and Main Characters (which is part of the MLP subpages at MainCharacters.My Little Pony The Mentally Advanced Series Characters).

edited 10th Jun '17 9:30:48 AM by WaterBlap

i think the Referenced by.../ namespace really needs a cleanup. as it stands, it's pretty confusingly organized; the name isn't all that clear to its actual meaning, and most of the "media" subpages (like Animated Film) are just index links to "work" subpages, unlike any other trope. that also leads to some pretty empty pages that only have a few examples in them: continuing with animated film, the How to Train Your Dragon and Megamind pages only have one work on both of them, for example. there's also some redundancy within the namespaces used, with Animated Film, Disney, and Western Animation sharing several pages between themselves. basically, even though it has over 200 subpages, a lot of these are pretty empty and redundant. they'd probably best be cut and redirected to other pages (i.e., the media pages)

"most of the "media" subpages (like Animated Film) are just index links to "work" subpages"

Ohhkay. One of the tenets of the wiki is you don't make people wander around the wiki (or off site) to find out everything they need to know about why the Alice and Bob meet Elvis example is on that specific page. That needs cleanup, somehow. Maybe a short-term projects thread to figure out the details.

The other stuff sounds like it could be condensed down to media pages.

I advise that we should not take the namespace cleanup as a reason to make major other rearrangements of the page content.

right, right, i figured this would be the best place to bring that up but it looks like i misinterpreted the original post a bit. i think i'll write up a project thread in the future to see about fixing things up. sorry for popping in there

Okay, per something I just saw in ATT:

Apparently when some people are splitting trope pages, they use Live Action Film. Others use Live Action FilmS. But the namespace for non-animated films is just Film.

I think that can stand to be tightened up to one label.

The problem with using "Film" is that it's a work namespace. If you also use it for trope subpages, then the system won't know which default page type to assign. You cannot (well, should not) have a trope subpage namespace that duplicates a work namespace. That's the reason we've been using the trope as the namespace for those things.

Maybe we could do some kind of hybrid namespace... FilmTropes or something like that. But it still doesn't address the work-specific trope subpage issue. It's a colossal mess. Consider all of the following:

• Badass.Lord Of The Rings

Current system, uses trope as namespace. Shows up in header bar for Lord Of The Rings.

• LordOfTheRings.Badass

Bad — Uses work name as namespace, doesn't show up in header bar for Lord Of The Rings, does show up in header bar for Badass.

• Examples.Lord Of The Rings Badass
  Examples.Badass Lord Of The Rings

Consistent namespace, but doesn't show up in header bar. Requires sub-indexing.

• Badass.Film

Current system, uses trope as namespace, but doesn't show up in header bar for Badass, requiring a sub-index.

• Film.Badass

Bad — Uses a work namespace and will look to the system like a work page. Does show up in header bar for Badass.

• FilmTropes.Badass

Doesn't conflict with work namespaces, requires one for each medium, does show up in header bar. Hard to remember?

• TropesFilm.Badass

Same, but with slightly different lexical order, will alphabetize better, less intuitive.

• Examples.Badass Film
  Examples.Film Badass

Uses one namespace for all subpages, but doesn't show up in header bar for Badass, requiring a sub-index.

edited 12th Jun '17 6:24:48 PM by Fighteer

Not directly related to this topic, but still tangential to it, I noticed that this whole project might be a good opportunity to clear up a bit the standard when hard-splitting tropes which have too many examples.

For now, the namespace used in "TropeName/", with the page name using the media category, but with some variations. For example, movies may be put in "Film" or "Films", or split further into "Animated Film(s)" and "Live-Action Film(s)". And that's just to top of the iceberg.

Besides streamlining the namespace, agreeing on the proper media hard-splitting names used would be nice.

Edit: Missed Candi's post above, which is the same subject. I disagree putting everything under "Film", as on tropes pages that aren't hard-splitted, movies already largely separated into media folder "Films — Animation" and "Films — Live-Action". Hard-splitted pages should follow similar guidelines.

edited 12th Jun '17 7:39:24 AM by StFan

We should strive to make the medium subpage titles consistent. But if it's not a namespace issue, then it's not going to affect this project. I want to shy away from making major changes here; there just aren't enough resources.

Edit: Another problem with using the same namespace ("Examples") for all trope/work example hard splits is that it will break the YMMV/Trivia/etc. custom bullets unless it's manually set to "a subpage" depending on which trope is at play.

edited 12th Jun '17 12:25:16 PM by Fighteer

Ah, okay, I get it.

I have thoughts:

A handfull of works that are part of a larger series or franchise have had their own namespace spun off. It started with Disney because before we were using media namespaces "the Disney version" often took over the page of the work the Disney one was based on. (To my knowledge it's been kept mostly to the Disney Animated Canon but there was nothing stopping someone from listing, say, the film of The Swiss Family Robinson there.) On the other hand you have a big self contained series such as Discworld that doesn't have issues like that but its maintainers saw fit to namespace it.

Now I don't mind series getting namespaces but it sounds like in the future any series that would want to go the same route would have to go through administration and maybe that's a hassle they'd like to not have. You could grandfather in the old stuff and not permit new ones or you could just move all of them back into the respective medium namespace and TBH I don't see a reason not to.

Thoughts?

If we were being strict about namespace control, we'd make things like that go back into Film and/or Western Animation and put the studio or series name in the title.