Let's Improve the TLP

Well, that's a little tougher to judge then. Maybe it really was reactionary and a part of them saw this draft as not worthy of being launched (who can blame them, there are only five examples and people have found the definition questionable). Still, almost 50% of hats came later, so I can't really believe this wasn't affected by people thinking this topic's worthy/not worthy of a page rather than launchable/not launchable in any way.

Edited by Piterpicher on Nov 22nd 2020 at 10:15:58 AM

I didn't realize until now that Just Launch It Already! got retooled into a cautionary page. A bit embarrassing since I had to pothole it to see that it's now about not potholing it...but it's probably for the best.

I have a question about this sentence on "Just Launch It Already":

Would a pothole to Who Will Bell the Cat? be helpful or distracting?

I think it could go either way.

Would the ability to delete TLP drafts come in handy? We already have a mechanism to create drafts, and I know that TLP runs off a database^note Back when it was YKTTW, Fast Eddie talked about rebuilding it through SQL queries after the Great Crash, wiring up a query to delete drafts doesn't seem all that outlandish.

(I'll point out that the admins are only focusing on emergency fixes until COVID blows over, whenever that is, so it's not likely for the time being.)

Edited by SilverCrown on Dec 1st 2020 at 6:53:44 PM

Put my "grey cells" to work again and came up with a slightly better version of the (possible) Engineer interface for TLPs. Basically, I removed the bottom bar's "Launch Pad/Launches/History/Discards" and replaced it with the different engineer tools (the specialized tools only, to save space):

Let me know what you think of this part. I don't think we need a double nav schema on both the top and the bottom: the bottom can be used for the engineer bar. This way, I also think it helps by providing quick access to the tools in case an unlaunch is needed (or anything else comes up.)

(I know it came out a bit squished, but the intent should be obvious enough.)

I can't remember if it's been brought up before, but I think part of why we get so many stubs is because of the small default size of the text box. It took me until this year to realize I could expand that box. A lot of people might get so annoyed with it that they don't want to write a lot of text, or they may think the small default text box indicates that TLP drafts should start small.

Yeah, it's a very valid point. I've always realized that the box could be expanded but I also realize that not everyone knows that.

Maybe it's just me and it's not a problem that anyone else has, but I have noticed that it's actually pretty damn difficult to get a trope going AFTER it's launched.

Allow me to explain:

I have noticed that the biggest influx of edits in a trope page happens when a Trope remains in the Newest trope entry in the main page, which makes a lot of sense, editors see a new trope, think of something they have watched/read/played fits that trope, click the link and add the example.

However, the sheer amount of tropes launched EVERY DAY makes it very hard for a single trope to get much going, since the range of visibility is extremely limited and is at best half a day of visibility. While it's possible to get a new trope going through crosswicking, if that first impact doesn't land it can really make a new trope that may have gotten a lot of Hats kinda fall flat on its face.

Does anyone else think this, or is it just me?

I wouldn't be opposed to replacing the "Newest trope" section with a list of "Today's new tropes" or something like that.

It's not just you; there was a whole thread about that issue, though I don't recall it reaching any particular conclusion...

Not just you.

In fact my newest trope was up for about one hour before it was buried under a new launch, and this was after my launch overshadowed the day's other new launch (which I did lowkey feel bad about). It's barely been touched since launch. On other days, if I launch at a good time, my trope is up for several hours or even a day, getting an influx of edits.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 15th 2020 at 7:12:45 AM

I feel like in general editors are more willing to use the "Ol' Reliable" tropes we've had since pre-2015 rather than any new tropes. And I don't say that in an "how dare they!" kinda thing, most of them probably don't know these tropes even EXIST.

It kinda forces the ones who sponsor TL Ps to "play politics" as I like to call it, strategically picking out when and how a trope is released to maximize its popularity, but to say it's difficult is an understatement.

Edited by Makir on Dec 15th 2020 at 1:14:02 PM

Yeah, that's the thing. It's a vicious cycle. New tropers mostly copy what they've seen from the pages they've read which most likely involve at least one of the Overdosed Tropes. They use said tropes when making their own work pages and edits, not realizing that there may be other tropes that fit more or leaving out newer tropes simply by not realizing they exist.

The most popular tropes are getting wicked nonstop and continually get bigger and bigger. The newer or more obscure ones barely grow at all in comparison. It's a gap that increases every day.

But, this isn't a problem with the TLP itself, it's a problem with the wiki's general editing populace.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 15th 2020 at 7:16:55 AM

^ I think a fix could be done with the TLP itself, possibly increasing the amounts of days requiered to launch a trope, though in the end that would only be a bandaid fix.

The real fix would be creating a list of the top-five newest tropes instead of the single Newest Trope highlight.

By the way, if you wanna play a drinking game: press the Random Trope button and take a shot any time you get a post 2015 created trope. You will not drink much,

Increasing the wait time won't do anything. It's very rare for people to actually launch on the 3rd day. Most people wait at least a week.

If the Featured Trope rotated more often, maybe somehow prioritizing tropes that seem underperforming without an obvious flaw to cause it, that could possibly help. (Currently the switch is made manually, so the mods would somehow have to find these tropes, leaving us in a Catch-22 Dilemma, but... it's a thought, y'know?)

And, as mentioned, the "Newest Trope" could be changed to a list of every trope launched in the past X amount of time.

Anyway, shouldn't we take this discussion to the other thread? This isn't a TLP-related issue more than it is a wiki-wide one.

Agreed

Bumping this since there's a lot of other minor fixes the TLP could use as well. A lot of them can be found just by searching "TLP" on the wishlist.

Has the Launch Delay been lowered? It hasn't been 3 days since I started my "Number of Objects" Title draft, right?

It's only been two?

Mar 10th 2021 at 10:26:10

4:50:46 PM 12th Mar '21

...

Also, At 1:13 hats, do I really need to wait a day to launch? Well, I should sleep anyway, so no big...

I know this thread hasn't been updated in a bit and I'm not sure if someone else has already mentioned this but I think having some kind of slate cleaning when adopting drafts would be really useful.

Heavily bombed and then abandoned drafts that are later picked up because there's an idea to be salvaged in there are hard to move forward anyways since the bombs seem to ward away people from contributing in its discussion as it looks like consensus is already against it. On the flipside, heavily hatted and then abandoned drafts that are later picked up wards away criticism of a draft's faults either in conception or in relation to existing drafts since it appears like consensus is already for moving it forward. Different sponsors who may take the trope in different directions in addition to new tropes being added, old tropes being removed or reconceptualized in the interim makes the hats and bombs meter far more static than dynamic, but there's no good way of indicating that currently.

This isn't to say that a reminder of the old meter isn't useful in figuring out just how much work needs to be done on a draft, but it's a shame when good ideas get buried under old bombs and potentially an issue if weaker drafts get pushed forward due to old hats.

Edited by amathieu13 on Oct 4th 2021 at 2:57:44 PM

For the bomb issue, that's why Trope Idea Salvage Yard exists. If an idea is good but the draft is unworkable for one reason or another, we discard it and save the idea/draft-link, so that anyone can attempt to recreate the failed draft.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 4th 2021 at 2:59:23 PM

This is a quality of life thing that I think can be implemented today:

Can we add How To Create And Launch TLP Drafts and the list of helpful forums and pages (TLP Adoption Drive, Trope Idea Sounding Board, Trope Idea Salvage Yard, TLP Workstation Thread, and TLP Discard Project) to the blurb at the top of the TLP? If not the resources, then at LEAST the Sandbox page since it includes the resources listed as well?

I have to keep searching for these things when I want to check something and it'd just be a lot easier if they were right there when you go to the TLP

The mods haven't even moved it to Administrivia/ yet, presumably because they don't think it should actually be split off of TLP Guidelines.

I'm pretty sure that blurb requires admin work anyway.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 8th 2021 at 1:59:46 PM