Outdated Administrivia Pages

NVM, misread

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 11th 2022 at 9:35:01 AM

Probably would be better to ask the upcoming works cleanup for input first before drafting changes here, but:

Eh, it's a sandbox used to keep track of a project. A perpetual one, but still a project. I can take it or leave it.

In theory one should only be made if it's long enough. In practice this does not stop the tropers, especially for big franchises, so just follow the pre-release citation policy.

If the work page already exists, then yeah.

I don't play video games a lot so I don't know what a public beta is. I will pass on this one.

In theory, yes.

No. They are best for descriptions only, but not for tropes. "Always assume the creators are lying at all times" is one of guiding principles of future works troping.

No. Demo playthroughs with big media outlets are part of the promotional rollout. But you cannot trope a review without a demo playthrough.

They should not, and people are very annoying about this. I've cut one the day before it came out and people made a stir. But them's the rules.

Yes.

Yes.

This is very broad, pass.

Not for the work they are reacting to, but if the reacting channel/figure has a page, then it can under that page (since the "video" is a finished product from their end).

Moments pages should only trope what is in the work, not any creator or fan shenanigans, and I don't know why the troperbase is bad at grasping this.

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 11th 2022 at 9:55:46 AM

Yes. Now, there is a possible exception here for "early access" games, which are paid products despite still technically being under development. The point is that early access counts as a public release since anyone can, in principle, play the game. The difference between early access and public beta is something that I will leave up to the pedants since I don't really feel like having that argument.

When a product is in early access, the trope article must say so and it must be understood that all examples referencing content that is changed prior to official release should be updated or removed. We discourage tagging examples with things like "in version 0.4.2" because it's distracting and not helpful to anyone playing the current version of the product.

A wiki article should be written in historical present tense, meaning that it should reflect what someone reading, watching, or playing that work today would experience.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 11th 2022 at 10:53:40 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Immediate pushback:

On the contrary; if the trope exists in version 0.4.2, but we don't know if it exists in version 0.5.3 and the current game is in 0.9.1, then "in version 0.4.2" is correctly written because it doesn't engage in making assumptions about future versions of the same work. The example doesn't have to be updated just because version 0.5.3 changes things.

That isn't historical present tense; that's just present tense. Historical present means that you are writing about things in the past. Things that already happen/happened. "The main purpose of the historic present is to [...] talk about events as if they were just happening right now." Trying to make examples about what "someone [...] playing the work today would experience" quickly runs afoul of Examples Are Not Recent because it makes the editor obsessed with keeping the wiki "up to date". We aren't trying to be "first with the news", we're trying for accuracy. Better to forget to add it at all than to add false information.

Writing should be done from the perspective of someone ten-twenty years in the future, working on the incomplete historical documents that inform them of things up to our present day (or whatever the editor has access to), which is still decades in the past. Using present tense brings an immediacy to the writing of examples, but it shouldn't be mistaken as actually being the present day. Juliet isn't currently using a dagger to kill herself, she was never a real person and the story was written centuries ago, but we write "When she realizes her Love Interest is dead, Juliet takes a dagger to kill herself" because we want the immediacy of "what is happening in the work in that moment". That immediacy isn't taken away just because we specify which chapter or episode or software version the example is from. It doesn't lose it's impact just because we specify the Act/Scene that Juliet dies, it just makes it easier to verify the accuracy of the example later.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

To clarify, what I am saying is that writing about a work's past development is not relevant. Our articles should always strive to reflect the current experience of a work. Where multiple, publicly accessible versions exist, examples must clarify which version they are about, but otherwise that information is trivia.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Outright cutting tropes from previous installments prior to certain updates feels unfair and misleading. Most of the time, such a thing can be publicly verified via patch notes, and at one point, the material did publicly exist, so why would we act like it doesn't? Past version notes aren't any less distracting than, say, episode titles.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 11th 2022 at 5:20:37 AM

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

Plus, some demos become unique works in their own right, and shouldn't just be ignored for not being the canon product. Take the Pokemon Gold and Silver Spaceworld Demo, for instance, which has a ton of unused mons.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I guarantee you that most people playing a video game care far less about previous patch notes than viewers of a show care about episode titles. Even so, that's an insane analogy.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Wouldn't the content cut from the final work count as What Could Have Been instead?

Edited by Amonimus on Apr 11th 2022 at 12:27:03 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I was comparing the way they're listed in articles. Saying something is exclusive to a specific version of a game is no worse than saying a trope is exclusive to an episode (Recap pages aside).

I just think it's silly to act like we can't list a trope for any past accessible work. What if a game (like an MMORPG preparing to shut down) stripped down and removed entire minigames in an update? That would wipe several otherwise totally valid trope entries from the page even though many fans will absolutely remember that the game existed, and there's likely to be archival footage that it existed.

I'm specifically talking about post-release updates. And in the case of demos, the demo sometimes is its own product with its own intended design, and is a final work in itself. It'd be silly to act like Ash-Greninja is an example of What Could Have Been when it appeared exclusively in a demo of Pokémon Sun and Moon and was compatible with that final game.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 11th 2022 at 5:31:14 AM

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

In post-release content, it may be valid to discuss things that were in previous versions of the game, but pre-release content changes should be considered Trivia up until the moment the "release" version of the game comes out.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Yeah, I was under the impression that we were talking about post-release updates. More and more games are adding content after their initial "full release" nowadays. But I think if the game is in active development and is still available to audiences to play, I see value in listing tropes for whatever is available, even if it's later adjusted to be past-tense.

It doesn't feel like What Could Have Been when it was actively released as the initial version of the product, even though we know it can change down the line.

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

Nowadays it's not uncommon for games to be in Early Access for years, and some generate a pretty large following like that. I think early access games are notably closer to fully released games than they are to demos.

I think if a trope comes from a publicly available version of a game (even early access), it should be allowed to stay; if the content forming that trope is removed, it should be made clear in the example; whether that needs to be an exact update number or just a more vague "previously" is also up to the pedants I guess.

The best comparision is probably Defunct Online Video Games; we don't delete their pages once they're shut down.

Yeah if anyone is curious, one of the beta works I was talking about was Disney Mirrorverse, which was in Beta in the Philippians in 2020 and is finally coming out this year. It already had a trope page when I added it to Future Works.

There’s also Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, which is gonna be a whole thing when the beta starts this year.

Sorry, for bringing another topic but does Please No Natter belong in Administrivia/? Maybe it's just me but doesn't seem "professional" enough to be on the namespace and it's not informational. Just pictures of troper faces + do not natter messages. It seems to be a relic of older times.

Macron's notes

Worth to keep, but not as policy page, so JFF perhaps.

Edited by Amonimus on Apr 12th 2022 at 8:10:13 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I agree. Cut or move to JFF.

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

I personally prefer cutting it completely, but if others would prefer a JFF move, oh well. It doesn't belong in Administrivia/, either way.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Personally I think having pictures of older tropers' faces on here is kind of weird and pointless, and it doesn't actually say anything about natter (ironic that a page condemning pointless additions is mostly made of a different kind of pointless addition) but I guess they consented to putting their faces on that page?

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

At this point, such a page is probably interchangeable with any other wiki issue. Please Don't ZCE, Please Don't Speculate, Please Don't Link to Piracy, Please Don't Edit for Your Agenda, etc. That's why I lean towards cutting.

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

^^I am pretty sure they put the images themselves years ago. I still think it's weird to hold onto them even if we move it to JFF.

I am fine with cutting.

Edited by MacronNotes on Apr 13th 2022 at 5:47:13 AM

Macron's notes

It's sort of amusing as a very weird relic, but I can't see much JFF value out of it beyond the initial "Oh, that's kind of silly".

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

OK, considering how the conversation went since my previous post, I'm considering cutting Administrivia.Please No Natter tomorrow (April 14; mentioning this since it's already April 14 across the Pond, but it's still April 13 here in the US), since pretty much everyone agrees that it doesn't belong in the Administrivia category regardless of where they stand on whether it should be cut or moved to Just for Fun, but cutting is the preferred option of the two.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 13th 2022 at 9:00:43 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

What I don't like about the page is that showing faces on the internet can be dangerous. I wish we could contact people who've added them and ask them to save their photos locally and remove them, but doesn't look like anyone is active.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

another question about the Creating A page for an upcoming work, what counts as WOG? It specifies what is allowed but it doesn’t specify what is not. Like for Kingdom Hearts IV, does a magazine interview with Tetsuya Nomura discussing gameplay mechanics count or not? Is it advertising or WOG?

Edited by BigBadShadow22 on Apr 14th 2022 at 10:24:24 AM