Trope Report Revival

I might want to add one of the short-term projects to my section as well, though I'll also see what ~gjjones adds first.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Can someone link to where we're filling these sections out again? I can't seem to find it.

and the public won't dwell on my transmission cause it wasn't televised.

Trope Report Dummy Edition for the sandbox.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

Sandbox.Trope Report Dummy Edition is the draft page for a prototype issue.

Edited by Piterpicher on Nov 17th 2020 at 10:57:19 AM

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

Criticisms (this is prefaced with the statement that CTRO ~Synchronicity gets final say, I'm just being picky)

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Trope/Article Changelog
The first line (linking Renamed Tropes and Trope Epitaph) should be re-written to be more casual instead of a statement of fact. Perhaps it could be the intro paragraph of the section? Expand and make more friendly or self-deprecating.
Some of the links go to specific posts. They should be rewritten to either send the reader to the first post or to a relevant mod voice in the thread.
I like that the Personal Appearances thread was linked as well as TRS threads.

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Pages Needing Help
Can't effectively criticize myself, can I? So here are specific questions I'd like to know; Is the division of Trope/Work/Creator a good one? Is the order right? Is the "question as introduction" format too trite, given that I'm establishing it as something that I will probably be doing nearly every time? If so, how can I improve it?

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New Tropes
I don't think the date is important. As the "new trope" entry, I think "this year" or "recently" would work fine. This is going to be a topical/dated newsletter, right? Unlike the regular wiki which tries for timelessness, this is a periodical that has Present Day stamped firmly on the cover.
Also "eliminate the ambiguity factor that lead to" should be "eliminate the ambiguity factor that led to" — use the past tense "led", not the present tense "lead".

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Older/Obscure Work Spotlight
Doesn't talk up the work as something tropers should be interested in. "Expanded on this date" doesn't really say much about why another troper might want to add examples for another episode. This reads more like a summary of the edit history within the past year, not an encouragement for more people to watch the cartoon.

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Works That Need A Summary
Darn near perfect. I don't see any improvements to be made, only style changes.

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Image/Image Caption of the Month
I was hesitant about both image and caption, but if its presented in this format (two images, one with and one without a caption), then I like it. This also makes me ask the CTRO; how do want to handle attribution? I don't know the way the original newsletter was handled, but here's my guess; the original editors just PM'd the CTRO and they put the page together offline, launching it on the day of. Some of the time they included a wick to the editor who wrote the column, but not always. How do we/you want to handle it this time around?

Edited by crazysamaritan on Nov 17th 2020 at 5:13:43 AM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

What about Projects?

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

suspicious fry gif

Alright... Project Spotlight
I think the first line would work better as an introduction to the column than as part of the bullet for one of the projects. "Colour Tropes" is a good bullet and what I would want to see from this section. AAA could use some more work because TRS threads are more linear and it wouldn't be a bad idea to summarize the thread after linking to it, much like Ch-ch-ch-changes does. Stylistically, I'd want it to mention how long its been since a rename was decided, but that isn't a "must have".

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Good idea. I'll update it soon.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Thanks fo the feedback! Um, I am not super good at being witty so not sure how to write introduction to my section. I will fix the links though.

Macron's notes

BIG POST INCOMING

Glad to see progress on this — I actually was typing up guidelines and sample writeups last night but Data Vampires ate them and I've been on my feet on and off today. I haven't responded 'til now as I wanted to get all this out in one go, so I'll be criticizing after the fact as well, building on crazysamaritan's.

Guidelines I remember from my vampire-eaten attempt:

• Writeups don't have to be long, and like everything keep them Clear, Concise, Witty. I'm envisioning 3-4 ish sentences. The older Trope Report entries were longer but they also had much fewer categories and I pretty much assume Viewers Are Goldfish by default.
• Include a brief summary of the page/forum effort and why you chose it (Was it criminally underrated or did it deserve its Oscars sweep? Has it been sitting at the bottom of Short Term Projects for three months?). Note that this is not necessary for Changelog, which should just announce the changes.
• All featured works/pages will be subject to our personal biases, but try to avoid putting in too much gush. Write it like you're pitching it to your favorite aunt on Facebook, or something equally friendly but detached.

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Now:

• Changelog is good as is. I too like the link to Trope Epitaph and Renamed Tropes. TRS Wick Cleaning is another good thing to link. (We should link all three, I think).
• Trope Spotlight and Works that Need a Page: I agree the dates aren't important. Otherwise I like the entries.
• Obscure Work Spotlight: This reads too much like a summary of the edit history. Ask yourself: what's the appeal of this work? Why should tropers want to look into this work and then expand it?
• Pages Needing Help: This is good. I like how you've integrated pitching the work and laying out the current problems with the pages. One little nitpick: I find Haim's birthday awkward. As for "question as lede", I will almost certainly be doing this all the time as well, so no objections from me on that end.
• Projects: Gotta say, WarJay, you must've read my mind since my sample writeup for Projects sounded pretty much like this But I think crazy brings up some good ideas.

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I've been meaning to ask this as well.

• For page creation, I'm thinking we can basically do what we're doing now: have something like Sandbox.Trope Report Jan 2021 where we put it together where everyone can see, show this to the mods a few days before launch in case any of them have objections, and then launch it in the Newsletter/ namespace the day of.
• (Which reminds me, we should probably show this to the mods once it's done.)
• For attribution, we can (not mutually exclusive):
  • Have a mini "know the staff" at the bottom, with links to our troper pages and what we work on specifically
  • Have attributions directly under the sections, like this.

Creator Page Spotlight

By Synchronicity

• Thoughts?

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I was also thinking of linking back to this thread in the newsletter, in case other tropers want to participate and/or have works they want to pitch.

Also, should the Newsletter/ pages be locked?

Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 17th 2020 at 11:00:29 AM

I think the writing guidelines are good and I agree with attribution and maaybe a know the staff section at the bottom somewhere. And yes I will add a link to the TRS Wick Cleaning page on the Changelong section later.

Also yes to informing the mods once we have everything settled.

What kind of tone do we want for the newsletter? The only on me was much more on the informal witty side. I am guessing we are aiming for something in-between formal and informal? Formal writing is what’s easiest to me.

Edited by MacronNotes on Nov 17th 2020 at 4:41:30 AM

Macron's notes

I always go for formal anyway. If I tried informal, witty writing, my entries will flop harder than a dead fish.

Definitely between informal and formal, but err on the side of formal.

Tangent: someone with more art skills/software than myself should update/upgrade the old banner so that it can be added to the new newsletter.

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I generally don't even try at witty. I'll snag some text from here, News2010-06-10, and News2010-07-02. How's this to start you off?

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No kidding, I keep reminding myself that I don't need to suggest a Isaac Asimov column for my personal pet project over in the Literature forums, so that's why I have a very narrow area that I want to contribute to; Needs Wiki Magic Love. If the article isn't a stub, I don't need to think about it.

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I did a short change. I want to tie whatever creator page I do to the month the issue belongs to, as it's a way to help me judge which page to stump for. That said, I am not perfectly happy with the introduction there, either. I wasn't sure if my problem was the intro or the order in which I've presented them (still not sure).

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Overall, I can agree. My tweak to this is to say we should use Sandbox.Trope Report Sandbox every time, and when showing to the mods you would request the page move to Newsletter.News 202101 (NewsYYYYMM) for the first issue, Newsletter.News 202102 for the second, and so on. We work on one publication at a time so that we don't end up with three or six half-written sandbox pages that get themselves outdated.

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I think that Trope Report (or Newsletter.Trope Report if we decide it should be moved) should link to this thread, but not the individual issues.

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Ah... Moderator? I can easily see arguments that once an official page is created in the Newsletter/ namespace it should be added to Wiki Archives or Locked Pages, but this is an area I'd rather defer to the moderation team.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Added Mobile City to New Tropes. I figured I give Theriocephalus a shout out since they're such an excellent draft maker who's contributed a lot to TLP over the last few years.

I did try writing about Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids in a way based on Trope Highlight (I'm not sure if it was trying to make people read the trope but more mention why it was created as well). Nevertheless, I tried improving my entry to make it more enticing for people to check out the work.

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

The Fiction Science entry in "Pages Needing Help" seems like it would fit better in Trope Spotlight.

The old Trope Report had a line welcoming new members to the forums under the Forumwatch section, I think this would be a nice thing to incorporate.

Does the obscure tropes section have a wick criteria? I was thinking of doing Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom but that has 163 wicks, is that too many?

Edited by naturalironist on Nov 20th 2020 at 3:26:26 PM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

RE: Fiction Science — Why? It's under the NMWL criteria.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Made some changes to the Projects section in line with what Crazy suggested.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So are we doing "Video of the Month" too? The video feature is such a misunderstood mechanic that showing off some well-edited videos may provide a good example for the troper base.

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

My only fear is that it'd just end up being a list of the most popular ones upvoted, which doesn't fit the purpose of Trope Report as those videos are on the top of the list anyway. I'd prefer something that shows off unrated or underrated videos, not the "best" ones.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

That works too. I notice that the videos that are highly rated aren't usually the best examples, but simply the ones from the most popular works. Looking up underrated videos that are good examples of the trope would be a neat challenge. (Though we'd have to rely on the honor system to ensure the writers don't just boost any video they happen to upload.)

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

Your edits were a great improvement, WarJay77.

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Suggested rule(s) for Video Spotlight: a video with less than five votes from a franchise that the editor isn't familiar with that they think illustrates the trope well.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Personally, my favorite video from a work I'm not familiar with is the Overly Long Scream example from Gintama. It's funny as hell and is a great example of this trope being Played for Laughs.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

That idea is good because it also encourages people to look at videos for works they aren't familiar with- breaking out of their comfort zone.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness