Proper Use of Comment Tags

Some problems with the use of comment tags on the wiki have come up recently, most notably on this ATT thread and in the unreleased work page cleanup thread. The responses we've gotten from moderation have been non-committal, but the problem doesn't seem to be going away, so I thought it was time to reach a proper consensus on it.

For those who aren't aware, comment tags are when two percent signs (%) are used to begin a line. This causes the line to be hidden on the live page, only visible when someone edits the page or view the page source.

The most common use of comment tags is to hide Zero Context Examples. The idea is that since ZCEs are such a common problem on the wiki, it's unreasonable to expect everyone who wishes to clean them up to be intensely familiar with every different work that requires cleanup. However, it's also not ideal to delete entries outright that might be salvaged by adding context. By hiding these entries, we are sending a message to future editors: "Hey, this entry is not okay as written, but if you're familiar enough with the work to know whether it's a valid example or not, please add context if so or delete if not!"

More recently, this same use case has been used on work pages for unreleased works. We have some new and relatively strict guidelines for what may be troped about a work prior to its release, and using comment tags to hide entries that don't adhere to the new policy seemed like a preferable alternative to mass-deleting entries and/or cutlisting a large number of pages that could conceivably be made acceptable with some work.

I also often see comment-tagged notes at the top of a page instructing editors to consult the Image Pickin' thread or the Page Quotes thread before making changes to those elements.

Less commonly, I've occasionally seen comment-tagged notes inserted into pages in alphabetical order where a trope would go that has been decided by consensus not to be a valid example, but has been persistently re-added by several different tropers. This is often accompanied by a link to a forum or ATT thread where consensus was reached. As long as people are willing to read and abide by the note (not a given), this is often a preferable alternative to locking an entire page just to deal with one contentious edit.

These latter two uses seem helpful and unproblematic, but some problems have arisen with the former two.

In the case of commenting out ZCEs, the theory is sound, but it often results in pages with more hidden than unhidden tropes, and they often stay that way for years. This strikes me as suboptimal, creating a cluttered editing environment.

More pressingly, in the course of cleaning up Speculative Troping and Zero Context Examples on works pages for unreleased works, I have noticed that several tropers have habitually taken to adding trope entries that most definitely do not adhere to the policies governing such pages, with comment tags already in place.

While there is no specific rule prohibiting this, it strikes me as a blatant attempt to make an end-run around the rules against Speculative Troping while staying just barely within the letter of the law.

The spirit of the policy is, "Experience the work, decide what tropes apply, and write up a trope entry with full context." It is not, "try to guess a priori what tropes apply to a work you're excited about but have not experienced, write up your best guess at a trope entry with partial, absent, or invented context, and then find out later whether your guess was right."

I propose that this behavior be made explicitly against the rules. I further propose that such pre-hidden entries can and should be deleted on sight, and the tropers who make such edits be PM'd with a link to this thread so that they understand why this is a problem.

The problem with excessive, cluttered page sources with hidden ZCEs is less pressing, but I think that it would be good to allow hidden ZCEs to be deleted after a reasonable waiting period, say a year. I don't think this is such a big deal as to warrant a dedicated cleanup effort, but it would be nice to clean up such long-term hidden entries in passing as I see them (which is largely how I handle ZCEs now anyway).

Thoughts?

Edited by HighCrate on Jun 24th 2019 at 9:44:44 AM

I really wish I could discover where the idea you reference came from so I could find a way to make it go back there, with extreme prejudice.

It has never in the history of our wiki been acceptable to add pre-commented example to articles. That's it, that's the rule, done.

The only time it is acceptable to use comment tags to hide examples is while cleaning up an existing article, to encourage users who see those invalid examples to fix them.

We could add this to How to Write an Example, if it isn't already there, but it falls under the basic principle that an example either is or is not valid. There is no in-between. If an example is speculative, does not fit the trope, has insufficient context, or is factually incorrect, it does not belong on the article. At all. Ever.

In my case, it comes from moderator SeptimusHeap in this ATT thread, where he wrote:

This has been done for some time. We don't have a specific rule against it so it ain't forbidden but the people who do so should be asked to write out proper context.

When I asked for clarification, e.g. does that mean I'm good to delete pre-commented entries on sight, I received silence.

In any case, it definitely strikes me as one of those things that was never in the spirit of the rules, but no specific rule was ever set down in writing against it just because nobody ever really thought about it until recently.

Edited by HighCrate on Jun 24th 2019 at 10:17:28 AM

I say commented-out examples should never be deleted unless they're outright wrong or from a leak. I don't think there should be a waiting period to delete them, because it's possible someone familiar with an obscure work could find an old, neglected trope page on it and expand it, and the commented-out ZCEs would help with that.

I agree. The principal behind hiding them in the first place is that someone who knows the work may come along and save the page; outright deleting these examples is counterproductive, and defeats the purpose of hiding them at all.

I have no love for ZCEs; they're a plague upon the wiki. But they're one of the few big problems that can be fixed with enough time and and interest, not through deletions.

The only time I think I've ever deleted a ZCE is when a page was a no-context stub that had to be cut. Otherwise... Just leave 'em in purgatory.

The issue is not whether one can delete ZCEs that have been hidden with comment markup. The general answer on that is no, but there's a discretionary component. If it's been hidden for months, nobody has fixed it, and you know that the example is not valid, go ahead and cut. Nobody'll miss it.

It is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever okay to add a brand new example with comment markup in place.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 24th 2019 at 1:48:36 PM

Keyword being "not valid". That's only something somebody who knows the work would know. In that case, said person is in the position to fix the ZC Es in general, which does include removing invalid information.

One can't just go to some random low-context page and make the assumption that a ZCE example is invalid, unless it's somehow blatantly obvious just from the other tropes (like, a character with tropes such as Jerkass, The Sociopath and Slasher Smile is very unlikely to also be a Sweet Baker).

That is correct. Don't delete it just because it's commented out. If you know it's incorrect, then it should indeed be removed.

The only ZCEs that should get an insta-cut are if they are incorrect or misused in addition to being a ZCE. The example I usually like to give for this is character tropes pertaining to only one character when a Characters/ page already exists.

Agreed, those can also be deleted.

Yeah, essentially misuse in any form can absolutely be deleted, but a lone ZCE is not necessarily misuse in and of itself, so should not be deleted just because "eh, nobody'll miss it".

Obviously if you're familiar with a work and know for a fact that an entry is invalid, it should always be deleted. That has nothing to do with how much time has elapsed: if it was added two days ago and commented out yesterday, if you know it's invalid, it's not going to get any less invalid over time.

Still, there comes a point where, no, I can't prove with absolute certainty that it's invalid because I'm not familiar with the work, but let's get real. This commented-out entry has been sitting here gathering dust for literally a decade. No one's come to fix it in all that time, and on the off chance anyone ever does come across this page, they'll just have to decide on their own that the trope applies and add it from scratch, because the commented-out entry that reads:

• Trope Or Work Name Here: Bill is this in spades. And how!

...isn't doing anyone any good any more.

Edited by HighCrate on Jun 24th 2019 at 3:02:23 AM

But what good does deleting it outright do? The pages with the least-likely-to-be-saved ZC Es are for real obscure works that may not have been touched since their creation. While yes, it's unlikely anyone will come along and fix them, who will be editing the page to be bothered by said hidden ZC Es in the first place?

On a work page, sure. But there are also trope pages that are cluttered up with hidden ZCEs from obscure works.

True, but deleting a ZCE just because it's from an obscure work, and thus less likely to be fixed, kinda runs afoul of No Such Thing as Notability, because you'd have to assume that the work is so unknown that nobody would ever find that ZCE and give it a fix.

No Such Thing as Notability refers to every work's right, no matter how obscure, to a page, as long as they're someone out there with the knowledge and motivation to make one.

Here, the exact problem is that there apparently is no one with the knowledge and motivation to make a proper entry, so why should we continue to let the improper ones clutter the page source?

Edited by HighCrate on Jun 24th 2019 at 3:30:52 AM

What if there is someone with that knowledge and motivation, but they've not yet joined the site?

The only case I can see for deleting ZCEs, beyond the ones already stated (trope misuse, stub page cut, etc), is if a page gets way too long to edit properly, and deleting the ZCEs will cut down on page length.

One potential benefit to keeping hidden ZCEs around is that they're useful when wick-checking for a trope. A mass amount of ZCEs points to major problems with the trope itself; removing those wicks on an assumption they'll never be fixed just makes it harder to realize when a trope is suffering.

I'm pretty sure that commented examples don't generate related links.

Do they not?

-Checks-

No, they do. I just tested it with Revealing Continuity Lapse on a sandbox page— wick showed up just fine.

Weird.

What I meant was that a trope that has more Zero-Context Examples than Properly written examples is probably occurring because of an issue with the trope itself. Say, if all of the ZCEs for Appearance Tropes were just deleted outright, would we even have recognized that the tropes themselves were the cause of the problem- that there even is a problem at all?

Sure, this isn't always the case, but it can easily be a very obvious symptom of a bigger problem. And yes, I'm talking about misused tropes, not bad work pages. Those are always just the result of laziness or inexperience.

I was under the impression that it was ok to delete commented out ZC Es when a work is renamed or redefined, and I have been doing so while doing wick cleanup for various TRS projects. Is that not the case?

I don't see that much of an issue with commented out ZC Es or examples for unrealeased pages. Viewers don't see them, and it is easier for editors to expand on ZC Es than to think of tropes that apply entirely on their own. As for unreleased pages, it is a fine balance between people who want to add tropes based on trailers etc and those who are afraid of "speculations" (though, seriously, last time I've seen all those commented out examples added to "Infinity War" page on the release date, 95% of them turned out to be correct).

Of course, blatantly wrong examples should be deleted rather than commented out.

Edited by Asherinka on Jun 27th 2019 at 10:46:07 PM