"Most Common Mistakes" page?

Would it be a good idea to make an administrivia page about the most common mistakes new editors might make? It'd give a brief description of the problem and link to the main administrivia pages for those issues, and while I know all those pages do a good job of covering the issues already, they're spread out and that makes it hard for someone to learn all the things to avoid doing. Meanwhile, pages like Text-Formatting Rules and How to Write an Example are large and could easily be skimmed. This page would be intended to be a place to send new editors, along with the Welcome to TV Tropes page, instead of having to link a million separate pages for them to read.

So? Good idea, bad idea? I know ZCEs and indentation would be mentioned, as well as a brief overview of how page-making works, because those are major issues people always seem to run into.

1. Sounds good.
2. FAQ? There's already this.

Edited by Twiddler on May 21st 2020 at 12:32:10 PM

Man, I didn't even know that page existed. It's so skimpy and consists of nothing but links to other pages. Hell, we could even retool that into this concept if we had to. Not doing much good as-is.

I think a "common mistakes" list would still be helpful. It'd be easy to link to, and knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do / how to do it. It could co-exist with an FAQ for a multi-angle approach. An FAQ could also touch on common mistakes, but a specialized list would be more focused.

Maybe it could be a subsection of an FAQ? IDK.

Edited by Twiddler on May 21st 2020 at 12:45:26 PM

IDK; part of the issue is that the FAQ page itself has been in the corner collecting dust for several years. People won't just start linking to it even if we did spruce it up; so for the sake of linkability, a new page might be more helpful.

Well, the FAQ should probably be retooled either way. (And it could be linked at the top of ATT!) I guess trying to integrate it with some other hypothetical list might be putting the cart in front of the horse at this point.

A new page might get more traffic, tbh. People looking to improve their troping ability and knowledge might go to a page titled Common Mistakes List or something similar, but they probably would not think to go to a FAQ. I think we could make a separate page for common mistakes and link to it on the FAQ, at least.

The current FAQ, as is, doesn't seem particularly helpful to anybody (it doesn't give many answers), so I wonder if the outdated pages thread could tackle that one.

Agreed that we should have a Common Troping Mistakes (probably the best title that won't get mistaken with a trope, but I wonder if there'd be mistakes not quite related to troping) page, just to help. Also agreed that the FAQ page should be improved by the Outdated Pages thread.

I think we should organize this hypothetical page by area of the site. So, wiki editing, TLP, the forums, ATT. I don't think it needs to specifically be about editing, since that would mostly be formatting and leaving edit reasons. Making a page, launching etiquette, and the like would fall under the domain of TLP. IDK it just seems like it would be more helpful to have a page on general etiquette in specific areas.

Also, I brought up the FAQ to the outdated pages thread.

Hmmm, okay. Since the idea has support I'll make a draft.

Not now though. Too tired.

So if someone wants to beat me to the punch, feel free.

There was a previous attempt to do Common Editing Mistakes that looks like it fizzled out.

I support the idea, though, as well as an FAQ for various sections of the site.

Right. First we should try and decide how the page will be formatted and what issues will be covered.

I know we need to mention:

• ZCEs
• Indentation
• Issues creating work pages or work subpages
• If we add TLP, common issues there include:
  • Rogue Launching
  • Stub drafts
  • No laconics (drafts require one or edits don't save)

What else?

Where to take issues that aren’t covered here or that you want to discuss further— ATT or the relevant forum.

• Confusion over CamelCase versus braces. (e.g. combining the two, or linking {{Like This}} when camel case would work just fine.)
• Not knowing about custom titles and making pages with the wrong capitalization.
• Pages in Fan Fic/ instead of Fanfic/ (and other miscapitalized namespaces, but that's probably the most common one).

I also suggest these:

• Putting normal tropes on YMMV (since that's been done with Hypocrite in the past).
• Unexplained deletions (i.e. no edit reason).
• Slashing tropes (as far as I know, it's not an issue that quite falls under indentation).

To add to the first bullet point, "Putting normal tropes on the YMMV/ subpage because it's the given troper's opinion or, conversely, putting Audience Reactions on the main tropes list because it's the given troper's strongly held opinion." I've seen both of these, remarkably.

To add my own observations:

• Writing or responding to WMG/, Headscratchers/, and Fridge/ entries as though it were a forum post.
• When making a Headscratchers entry, writing both the question and the response as though you are two different people, effectively sockpuppeting but with the same account. Headscratchers are meant to be born from genuine confusion, so you shouldn't have both the question and the answer. A better place to put the "headscratcher" might be Fridge/.

Oh, another thing that happens often is people adding unapproved CM/MB examples, not realizing the tropes need curation and approval first. Similarly, people post uncited Unfortunate Implications examples too.

I've taken a stab at a tentative page format at Common Troping Mistakes.

Format-wise, consider the top two entries ("Poor Grammar" and "ZC Es"). The rest is just brainstorming and scratch draft.

As always, feel free to add, change or discard things. I claim no ownership of the sandbox and it's little more than a proof of concept as it is.

Nice start! I like the formatting you're going for, it's better than just a dry list of "Here's a thing, don't do said thing", and reads more like a proper discussion.

I like it a lot too; I added a section on Example Indentation.

How's this for an outline/to-do? Based on the suggestions on this thread and my own ideas

• General Errors
  • Spelling/grammar
  • ZCE
  • Indentation
  • Natter (not as widespread as it was, but probably worth noting)
  • Sinkholes
  • Incorrect spoiler handling
• More specific misconduct
  • Putting things in the wrong subpage (eg. Trivia and YMMV in main)
  • Unexplained deletions
  • Complaining
  • Edit warring
  • Unapproved additions to CM/MB
• TLP
  • What can and can't go in the TLP (People try to make redirects through TLP sometimes, and at TLP discard we nuked lots of Administrivia, for example. Also, people automatically spamming a work page with Work Pages are a Free Launch is my new pet peeve, although it's allowed.)
  • Putting out a bad-quality first draft (stubby, badly formatted, no examples, etc.)
  • Known bugs with drafts - no-laconic-no-edit, special characters - although this is less a 'mistake' and more an annoying thing that you learn with experience
  • Rogue launching/discarding
  • Stealth launching
• Other things to do with page creation
  • Namespace errors
  • Custom titling - less a 'mistake' and more an 'FAQ' item
  • Not crosswicking
• Images - Image Pickin
  • Ignoring IP notes
  • Changing images without discussion
• Further questions not answered here?
  • General questions - ATT
  • Discussing specific trope/s - Trope Talk
  • Discussing wiki policy - Wiki Talk
  • Changing something about a trope - TRS

Edited by Synchronicity on May 26th 2020 at 3:48:10 AM

Sounds good to me. If we need to add more afterward we can.

Added a Natter section, what do you think?

Looks good to me.

Thanks.

Think I'll try to flesh out the TLP section a bit later as that's the area of the site I probably know the best; add sections on stub drafts and stuff.

Not sure if "More specific misconduct" is the right wording. It's probably better as "Wiki Editing Errors" or "Wiki-Side Errors," as subpages, deletions, edit warring (etc.) are usually just on the wiki proper. Though even "Specific Errors" or "More-Specific Errors" would also be better. That said, "other things to do with page creation" could likely be lumped with those wiki-specific errors.

As for custom titling and the "further questions not answered" section, we do have a FAQ, which has a sandbox here if you'd like to contribute to it.

Edited by WaterBlap on May 27th 2020 at 1:35:06 PM