On Yack Fest and Recent Events

I'd think that would help. Maybe, in the short-term, have the mods pin a notice saying to report all rule-breaking posts/rule-breakers? This would help encourage reporting.

Pin a reminder for people to report problems? Seems a trifle patronizing, don't you think?

Plus we have plenty of reminders already

"TV Tropes is only interested in hosting a friendly, civil forum.

Check out the rules. We do enforce them"

Most notably

I mean, sure, but some of the YF and FG regulars think you shouldn't report posts, as they think reporting posts leads to a thread lock.

Edited by Playing_with_boy on Jan 21st 2021 at 8:35:55 AM

That's why I feared reporting Tabby. As much as I considered hollering posts like "hi."

Context helps. It's unclear why a post containing only "hi" would merit a thump. This is the fundamental reason why everything blew up, lest we forget. Everyone just assumed we'd know the whole story.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 21st 2021 at 11:39:42 AM

I agree the report button could be more visible, instead of being hidden in the hamburger menu. I blame the general design trend of making everything a phone app, regardless of whether it is actually mainly used as such.

Unfortunately its not something we can just do readily. And to be honest, the forum designers seem to mostly just do their own thing and do not readily take user input.

Like it or not, the forum layout is not likely to change any time soon. We work with what we have.

I'm starting to become a bit more ambivalent about unlocking the Trash Heap. At first I was opposed, but I guess I can see the value of a dumping ground for your random thoughts.

I don't like the TANG, though. A thread whose sole purpose is to encourage people to spam it as fast as possible?

Trash Heap, while it does allow for random thoughts, does have a more lax atmosphere than Random thoughts and thus can allow even more random thoughts. People have been concerned about Random thoughts turning into Trash Heap 2.0 anyway.

I say good riddance to Anti-Necro. While I met many of my friends there, it still led to a traumatic experience or two in the end.

Edited by TheWhistleTropes on Jan 21st 2021 at 12:45:04 PM

Alright, so I question the existence of the Shameless Self Promotion thread. Looking at the content, many users are using it to promote and advertise their own material, which I really don't know if whether or not it violates TV Tropes' advertising rules.

Isn't that more for the wiki itself? I think dedicated threads for sharing your own work are fine, like some of the fanfic and other writing threads.

The reason I'm asking that is because I've seen quite a few threads on Writer's Block that got instantly locked for self promotion.

I'm pretty sure that violates the rules, yes. No shilling allowed.

Yes, I think the Shameless Self-Promotion thread is fine as long as it is contained mostly within that thread. People can promote elsewhere, but that should be where the primary promotion occurs.

What do they promote, exactly? Perhaps the rules distinguish between promotion for profit and promotion for free art and such.

The self-promotion rule is as much to keep people from spamming the forums with threads to shill their work as it is to prevent advertising as a general principle. If there's a topic specifically for that sort of thing, it's fine. However, commercial links are not allowed. This means no Amazon store pages, no Kickstarters or GoFundMes. The tone should make it clear whether the user is sharing or selling.

"OMG my book finally came out on Amazon" is one thing. "Go buy my book on amazon.com/mybook" is completely different. There should be no begging for reviews, either. "I need as many people as possible to upvote my fic..." is right out.

Also, no drive-bys. If someone posts there for the first and only time and simply drops a link to their work, please report it as spam.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 21st 2021 at 2:11:43 PM

Since we're reorganizing, I figure it would be a good idea to take a look at the herald greeting and see if it needs twerking. Obviously the reference to the Trash Heap should go, but anyone else want to offer any input?

I'd say some grammar fixes are in order.

I am not referencing the Trash Heap because I still do not know whether it is to be locked, unlocked, or nuked. But if I were to, I would put it in between the Troper Updates sentence and "Having knowledge...from there!"

With the reference to OTC I think it’d be better to characterise it as the place for focused discussion more than serious discussion. So something like

Edited by Silasw on Jan 21st 2021 at 8:01:27 PM

I could improve that somewhat:

Edited by TheWhistleTropes on Jan 21st 2021 at 4:22:12 AM

I really wouldn't characterise OTC as a debate club, debate clubs are for arguing and ‘winning’, OTC is about discussing.

If you have to use an analogy I’d say a book club vs a bar is closer.

Edited by Silasw on Jan 21st 2021 at 10:18:39 AM

I think OTC wants to have debates in spirit, if not always quite in practice.

Debate clubs are formalized competitions with rules to ensure an even playing field. OTC is not as formal as that.

And a ping-pong club? Forum games may be like that, but in general the right side is not just for playing games. I’d say it’s for socializing and informal conversation, whereas OTC is for more serious discussion.

I don’t think we need to take the analogies too far.

Edited by GnomeTitan on Jan 21st 2021 at 12:20:06 PM

I agree with SilasW, "book club vs. bar" is a much closer analogy.