Characters/Rugrats and search engines

This is a thread which deals with one of our new problems - popularity in search engines. Did you know that according to Alexa, we are #4757 in global traffic and engagement and we lost 1.13K places in the last 90 days? In July, we had 2383th place. By the end of previous year, we had 2061th place (with some other fall previously, but we'll find out what that was later). To put it simply:

They state that "rugrats characters" is a term that brings about 0.26% of search traffic. By comparison, #2 is "tv tropes" at 0.17%, #3 is "all might" at 0.16%, #4 is "tvtropes" at 0.12%, and #5 is "south park characters" at 0.11%.

I want to bring attention to keyword number one: "rugrats characters". On August 11th of previous year, Characters.Rugrats was split to Characters.Rugrats Kids, Characters.Rugrats Adults and Characters.Rugrats Others. To compare inbound counts: Characters.Rugrats brought 23385 inbounds, Characters.Rugrats Kids brought 37, Characters.Rugrats Adults brought 24, Characters.Rugrats Others a measly 2 (I know the subpages have only been made in August, but this is still noticeable, see SP example later). Obviously a page which is just three links ain't going to be too popular, especially a short one which has been split so suddenly. By comparison, Characters.South Park was split a long time ago (October 2012), and even new split pages are more popular than Rugrats (Characters.South Park PC Principal, which is the newest, was created in October 28th, 2019 and has brought 64 inbounds. That's about 4 times as effective as Characters.Rugrats Kids.) This needs to change. Fast.

I call tropers to take part in a white-hat optimization quest, as I feel like we should back in the top 3000 by the end of the year at least. Proposed ideas:

• Merge Characters.Rugrats. I intend to merge it tomorrow, plus I feel like it would be uncontroversial. The page wasn't even that long. I estimate about 250 KB and 800-900 lines, when the page limit is typically 540 KB. I'll put a note on the discussion page, of course.
• Improve examples on Characters.Rugrats. There are Zero-Context Examples. Remember, just using an adjective or several is not proper context.
• Improve tropes linked to from Characters.Rugrats. Clear up ZCEs on them, alphabetise, fix typos, crosswick those examples, etc.

If anyone wants to take care of Characters.My Hero Academia All Might and Characters.South Park, they probably can, but those pages already seem well-maintained. Additionally, I don't have the premium plan on Alexa so I probably can't help as much as it would be possible and it's likely that the admins know how popular we are, but we have little contact with them. To sum up...

A troper's gotta do what a troper's gotta do.

Edited by Piterpicher on Feb 10th 2020 at 1:43:49 PM

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

Sounds good to me...

Though this could've all been done as part of the Character Page Cleanup thread, y'know.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Well, this is also meant to improve pages related to it. Make stuff it leads to better to further attract readers, you know. For example, I have started alphabetising Identical Twin ID Tag in a private document, as one of the subpages (soon a full page) links to it. Is there a page you'd like to help with?

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 2nd 2020 at 8:29:38 PM

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

Ah, gotcha. I'll look into these pages later then.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Finished alphabetising Identical Twin ID Tag. I'll probably go after First-Name Ultimatum next, though this one will also involve ZCE hiding.

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

Characters.Rugrats has been merged. Someone added an image and a trope example (albeit an aversion), cool. Though I've found a different trope which can be used without an aversion and changed it.

Fixed alphabetisation on First-Name Ultimatum and hid a bunch of examples with no context. Most of these seem to be Say My Name anyway...

Next up, Believing Their Own Lies.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 4th 2020 at 5:42:36 PM

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

That example I added on Characters.Rugrats has been deleted. I guess it just didn't fit the trope, though it's still better than an aversion. Another example has been added, this one seemingly legit.

Believing Their Own Lies is now alphabetised. I can't see any other problems with it otherwise.

Next up, Afraid of Blood.

We've had a mild rise to 4753th place not long after the merge, but now we've fallen to 4782th place! Why is no one interested? Please, help...

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 6th 2020 at 6:28:34 PM

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

I want to, just that every trope page I've checked so far is either too big or too misused for a simple cleanup. This is a big undertaking and it'll require dealing with pages like Adorkable, misused as all hell...

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Is there anything simpler? Two Girls and a Guy, maybe? That page is mostly alphabetization and ZCE hiding... Which by the new Zero-Context Example page is heavy ZCE hiding.

Or Senior Sleep-Cycle? That one seems pretty easy.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 6th 2020 at 6:40:51 PM

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

Senior Sleep-Cycle is done; unsure about what would constitute a ZCE when it comes to Two Girls and a Guy and prefer to do everything in one big cleanup (so once I can hide the ZCEs, I'll do the alphabetization at the same time).

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Characters.Rugrats had Anti-Hero and Anti-Villain to Angelica's folder added by BCP 21 Omni Z 9 which were both hidden for no context. He seems to add ZCEs on other pages as well, just saying. Plus an uncontroversial edit to another folder.

Taken care of Afraid of Blood. I'm currently have more time to do this, but regular weeks may not allow me to clean stuff up easily.

Thanks for help. We may take care of Two Girls and a Guy later if needed. Next for me, Lonely Rich Kid. For you, maybe Know-Nothing Know-It-All? They're similar size (I'll make a list of cleaned up pages in the top post).

We're now at #4774. The fall no longer seems as nasty, but we should work to make it stay that way.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 10th 2020 at 8:20:36 PM

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

I've been thinking about this and though I do agree it's a good idea and the cleanup work is necessary, wouldn't we then also have to clean the other pages these trope pages connect to, for a chain of clicks that always lead to worthwhile pages? This is why my new goal is to clean 3 pages a day, be them trope pages or work pages, because cleaning these pages is a good start, but won't really achieve the proper result unless we go above and beyond,

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 10th 2020 at 3:08:27 PM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

This is a fair point. I have considered cleaning up pages further down the line from Characters.Rugrats. Unfortunately, trying to go to further would likely result in too many pages, and this clean-up becoming too general/long-term.

There are 635 instances of "*" (and 46 instances of "**", and 1 probably wrong instance of "***") on Characters.Rugrats. Let's round down actual tropes to 600 as some may apply to multiple characters. If we take 600 tropes and assume all are Healthy by 4+ year Wick standards (some may be in lower or higher categories, so I'll go with the low-middle point), we have 56-277 examples per page (lowered to 50-270 as some may be indexes or compares, but let's just go for 110 as 270-50/2 is 110). Of course, many works will be linked to multiple times on different tropes, so let's quarter it. 110/4=27.5, let's round it down to 27. 600*27=16200. We'd have a roughly estimated total of 16200 works to check (reminder: TV Tropes has 470425 articles and 78985 pages in the "work" type), which is about 20% of our total works. And that's if we go down only one sub-level.

Now, I have considered alternative chain methods.

1. Start from Characters.Rugrats, clean Trope 1 it leads to, clean Work 1 which Trope 1 leads to, clean Trope 2 which Work 1 leads to, continue. (CR->T1->W1->T2...) It's probably the simplest idea (assume a different editor selects a different chain with different pages), but chains we select may be very unlikely for actual readers to follow. We're only picking one chain each where there could be numbers bigger than decillions possible.
2. Start from Characters.Rugrats, clean Trope 1, Trope 2, and Trope 3 it leads to, clean Work 1, Work 2, Work 3 which Trope 1 leads to, do the same with different Works for other Tropes, clean Trope 1-1, Trope 1-2, Trope 1-3 which Work 1 leads to which aren't Tropes already cleaned, continue. This goes for a more covering, but also exponential, approach. Amount of pages exponentiates, like 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, 2187, 6561... By Work 1-1-1-1, we would have cleaned up 2187 pages. By Work 1-1-1-1-1, we would have cleaned up 19863. By Trope 1-1-1-1-1-1, we would have cleaned up 59049. Probably a bit too much.
3. Start from Characters.Rugrats, clean Trope 1, consider Work 1, Work 2, and Work 3 it leads to, pick the worst of the bunch, clean it up, consider Trope 1-1, Trope 1-2, and Trope 1-3 which it leads to, pick the worst of the bunch, clean it up, repeat. This method is very narrow like the first, but at least it considers a pool and picks the worst looking page. However, considering what to pick next also takes time, but maybe this is still better than other methods.

So, I don't know what we could do. My methods are either fairly narrow or far too encompassing for a simple cleanup.

Also, Characters.Rugrats should be cleaned as well. I'm considering hiding ZCEs or adding images to characters as a start. If I find a safe and reliable way to watch the English version, maybe I'll start expanding the page myself. As a test if I know what's context, these examples are ZCEs (the first three of the page):

• The Ace: He's good at everything.
• Badass Adorable: He's only one year old, and is very courageous.
• Bald Of Awesome: Since his hair hasn't grown yet, he only has a few hairs on his head.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 10th 2020 at 9:51:26 PM

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

Characters.Rugrats keeps being expanded by Deadpan Fly 2. Luckily, his edits seem to have no obvious flaws.

Cleaned up Lonely Rich Kid. Alphabetisation and ZCEs hidden. Hopefully I'll clean up the next page a bit faster (I admit, I got lazy).

I have received no answer from ~War Jay 77 related to whether there's a better method on developing a better chain of pages or if the three examples I suggested are ZCEs, so plans for changing current activities are halted. If you see this, please respond if you have a better idea and what your thoughts are on these examples (I just want to test if I'm definitely ready for a ZCE cleanup).

Next page for me, Bumbling Dad (because why not?) Know-Nothing Know-It-All and about 600 other tropes still up for takers. Alternatively, I could start adding more pics to unillistrated profiles on Characters.Rugrats (transparent art is hard to find, but I'll use hopefully adequate in quality screenshots instead).

Takers would be especially useful, because we had a steady rise to #4725, but we're now at quite the low - #4806. Darn, these are probably consequences of me being lazy. If we fall under the top 5000... I won't do anything other than be upset. Still, this needs work.

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

Sorry, got distracted with other projects. We still need this to get more visibility, because anything we may be planning is far too ambitious for just the two of us to handle.

All of your ideas seem viable, it's just hard because the big issue is that the entire wiki essentially needs to be cleaned, so no matter how we go about doing so, it's a lot of work and none of it will be very simple, even if we do the simplest possible chain.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I admit, if we wanted to make the project more viable for simply upgrading search engines, we'd have to get really ambitious and effectively work on the whole wiki. Now, tropers sometimes work on one namespace at a time (like that Roleplay/ cleanup), but the whole wiki may indeed be too much. I don't know, maybe editors should set goals for themselves to both avoid overwork and ultimately clean a significant part of the wiki ("I'll clean 100 pages before the year ends in my chain (type 1)" or "I'll clean all pages Drew Pickles' folder links to (excluding the Trope Overdosed stuff)", etc.) That said, I agree that we need to get more editors interested. Should I summon two people Brainulator9 and 𝕋𝕒𝕓𝕤, they seem reliable, as a four-man party would obviously be faster than two, and maybe put a list of cleaners and their work in OP for a sense of accomplishment?

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 18th 2020 at 11:18:27 AM

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

Do whatever you think would help. I do have my own goal of ~3 pages a day, though I've been slacking on it quite a bit...

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

To not seem like a lazy hypocrite, I won't summon anyone until I manage to clean another page within 3 days (that's my goal ATM, I guess). Still, I'll do my best with Bumbling Dad's alphabetisation and maybe a few of those images. We'll see how work goes for us right now.

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

Cleaned up Bumbling Dad. Alphabetisation, ZCE hiding, also some general examples deleted. Hopefully this makes up for my previous laziness.

Next page for me, Doting Parent. Another parent trope the page links to, may as well clean it up.

We've fallen a bit to #4812, but let's not be discouraged. I'll page those two tropers tomorrow after I finish cleanup of another page, as I assume the PTC debate will cool down a bit by then.

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

Alphabetised Doting Parent. The examples on the page were good overall.

Next page for me, Curse of The Ancients. This one is listed on Grandpa Lou Pickles's folder.

We're now at #4840... Screw this, the PTC discussion probably won't be hindered by the cleanup. ~Brainulator9 and ~𝕋𝕒𝕓𝕤, are you two interested in a popularity-related cleanup of pages Characters.Rugrats links to and more? Details in OP and replies.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 20th 2020 at 5:19:05 PM

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

The idea is to clean up all pages Characters.Rugrats links to, therefore cleaning up a bunch of tropes?

Yeah; the idea here is that if the Characters.Rugrats pages are popular, we shouldn't lead people to poorly made pages after they start clicking around.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Yes, that is the idea. And I'm really annoyed that Brainulator didn't even care about the message. He is the Short-Term Projects Herald. He can decline if he wants/has to, but not leave this hanging.

Alphabetised Curse of The Ancients. Examples were okay-ish.

Next page for me, Bald Of Awesome (Grandpa Lou Pickles's folder). Appearance plus trait may equal ZCEs. I'll try it anyway.

I seriously need help, we're now at #4870. If Tabs and the Herald is not interested, I'll consider summoning two other people.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 21st 2020 at 8:40:24 PM

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

This is a massive undertaking. Starting from the lowermost character folder, cleaned up Beary Friendly

Hiding ZCEs is cool and all and thanks for wanting to help, though alphabetisation is also important and probably more time consuming (about 4 times as much work, just saying in case anyone is interested).

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 21st 2020 at 9:01:12 PM

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