On the "Fanfic Recs" namespace

On another Wiki Talk thread dealing with the use of content warnings on the Fanfic Recs namespace, Fighteer, myself, and a few other tropers temporarily derailed the thread to discuss the existence of the "Fanfic Recs" namespace.

Several arguments were made, both for and against the namespace's existence. Some said that the namespace should be grandfathered in since it has been around for a long time, that the namespace is legitimately helpful for finding fanfiction due to the large amount of poor-quality fanfiction, and that the namespace is similar to other namespaces that we still keep such as WMG and Headscratchers.

Others, however, expressed opposition. Arguments against were based around things such as the lack of "recommendations" for any other form of media, the belief that TV Tropes is a place for cataloguing tropes and works and not recommending them, and a general belief that the namespace is out of place on TV Tropes.

Per a request from Septimus Heap not to derail the previous topic, this thread has subsequently been created to continue the debate about the existence of Fanfic Recs. Please share your thoughts and arguments for or against the namespace in this thread.

The OP expresses my argument well. I think it's time to divorce ourselves from the portions of the wiki that are about fan experiences rather than cataloging tropes, which is the primary mission of the site.

The "fan experience" portions, such as WMG, Headscratchers, Fanfic Recs, and to a lesser extent Fridge, entertain people but create a lot of clutter and spawn conflicts that are outside the scope of what we as moderators really want to be dealing with.

Some of these areas would work better on the forums anyway. For example, there is no reason why people can't engage on speculation (WMG) in the forum topic for a work. Similarly, if someone wants to ask for fanfic recommendations, they can use the Fan Fiction forum.

I'd like to take a firm stand against "mission creep".

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 14th 2021 at 5:19:16 AM

I don't mind Headscratchers and WMG since they're at least about the work, but Fanfic Recs always seemed really weird to me. And this is coming from a person in the middle of writing a fanfic!

On a semi-related note, there's also a TRS-prescribed reworking of Fanfiction Archives. I've already taken care of the deadwood and merged the content into a single page, but if we're not referring to external links, not sure if that page should remain standing.

Now for the topic of FanficRecs/ itself, I have no horse in this race, I'm fine either way.

EDIT: Still have no horse, but I'm in favor of keeping. See page 5.

Edited by GrafVonTirol on Sep 25th 2021 at 8:30:18 AM

We already have a Fan Works namespace, which is quite neutral.

That being said, I don't really have a position. I will suggest that we keep Headscratchers and WMG, though.

I'd like to take a firm stand against any of this move-to-the-fora nonsense. Forums or threads are not searchable nor in any way accessible from the work pages.

My bigger concern with the forums is duplicates, especially with WMG and Headscratchers.

Fanfic Recs already has a thread, though, IIRC.

My bigger concern, which mostly applies to Headscratchers and WMG, is the risk of people discussing the same theories and questions endlessly.

Doesn't Fanfic Recs have a thread though?

We can table the Headscratchers and WMG discussion for now. I just know that if we go about deleting Fanfic Recs, someone will say, "But what about [X]? Isn't that also off-mission?"

I think we should hold off on discussing WMG and Headscratchers for another thread at another time.

Our focus now is on the Fanfic Recs namespace, so let's keep discussion at that. I am seriously debating announcing this thread in ATT because deleting a namespace would be a massive and potentially highly controversial move that I think needs some more input. Thoughts?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 14th 2021 at 6:06:27 AM

I'm in favor of keeping it. As others on the content warnings thread have stated, it's legitimately helpful for finding good fics in a sea of bad ones, and also just nice for fics that, while good, wouldn't really substantiate their own work pages, like a oneshot or a drabble series.

We could use a crowner, of course.

A crowner typically comes later,give it a page or two before you decide to call for one

What Crossover-Enthusiast said. I use Fanfic Recs because it recommends good fanfic without me having to sift through all the bad ones to find them. Even if it is a bit off mission, it's ultimately harmless because it can't attract complaining like other pages. There is a bit of Natter with the comments, but I think that has more to do with the template rather than the namespace itself.

Edited by RainbowPumpqueen on Sep 14th 2021 at 8:24:36 PM

I advertised the thread in ATT. We'll see what people think.

Thirding Crossover's take. It's a little off mission in the sense that our mission is "these are tropes that happen in works", but this is still a site that ultimately chronicles fanon as well as the objective canon, and it's not bad that a site for fans can point to some other stuff created by fans, especially those works not comprehensive enough for a full work page. I can't even think of another site's function that recommends fan works for a particular fandom in such an organized way as this. I wouldn't be opposed to cleaning the pages up, though, to update the markup and figure out the comments stuff.

Personally, I think wanting the wiki to be nothing more than listing tropes in works is a boring and oversimplified perspective. There are genuinely off-mission things but at least these pages are a discussion of fictional works, many of which feature certain tropes, and help showcase fanon trends as well.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 14th 2021 at 7:32:59 AM

You actually make a good point. I've been thinking it over and I'm changing my vote to keep. By Fighteer's logic, we would have to chuck reviews, the Pantheon (of which I know he has also called for gutting), maybe even the entire non-wiki specific forums. Those are all technically off-mission. Should those also be gutted?

I still want to sort out the issue of "we don't have recs for anything else" though. Maybe broaden Fanfic Recs to Media Recs? Although that could get dicey and edit war-y. Any other ideas?

I also support a "Fanfic Recs cleanup" assuming such a cleanup does not already exist.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 14th 2021 at 7:54:31 AM

Nah, I think it should remain Fanfic Recs. Fanfiction and fanart showcases fandom interactions with media, which is relevant to the wiki. We don't need to broaden to Media Recs and start a shitshow, especially since people would probably fight to be the "first" to recommend something.

Yeah. Fanworks are inherently more niche, so in most cases someone seeing a fic rec is gonna be "oh cool new fic!" and not "I wanted to recommend that!!"

I'm also in for keeping the Fanfic Recs pages, for the reasons others have stated. I'm fine with the "off-topic" parts of this wiki, such as these pages and the Pantheon. We're not Wikipedia; while we do have standards, not everything has to be serious. At its core, this site isn't serious in general. I am in favor of making a Fanfic Recs cleanup, though.

to expanding it to Media Recs as well. I think part of the reason why Fanfic Recs pages exist in the first place is because it can be hard to find good fics due to much of it being bad, and unlike stuff such as films, books and video games, there's not many dedicated places for recommending fanfics.

Edited by jandn2014 on Sep 14th 2021 at 8:26:24 AM

Just gonna jump in to agree with everything expressed for the exact same reasons, no real need to elaborate further since it's explained so well

Alright, yeah, the "Media Recs" was a dumb idea, I'll admit that. I'll accept that result.

I looked through a few pages of Long-Term Projects and I see that there appears not to be a Fanfic Recs cleanup. Would anyone (with more knowledge of the namespace and its problems than I) be willing to start the cleanup? It would likely go in Long-Term if it were to be created.

My issue with a lot of the so-called "off-mission" stuff is that each section seems to have its own set of rules, and those sets of rules often conflict with (if not directly contradict) each other. The rules of the site can be confusing when multiple sections follow completely different rules.

By way of example, there's a policy that TV Tropes doesn't host original work or ideas for such — thus, we got rid of Fanfic Ideas/. But "original work" is exactly what Pantheon is, and in all honesty, that's what WMG is in practice a very significant amount of the time, when it isn't straight-up shitposting.

Don't get me wrong; I don't have it in for these sections and I'm largely indifferent to their existence. The only times I interact with them are during TRS cleaning or page moves (though I admit I have at times resented the extra work of cleaning pages I consider superfluous, if not utter nonsense).

But I do think that TV Tropes has a problem with trying to be everything to everybody. We got people who want TV Tropes to be Wikipedia, IMDB, Know Your Meme, Archive Of Our Own, Rotten Tomatoes and/or Metacritic, and so on all at once, which I don't think strengthens the site so much as it just weighs it down with stuff that has to be monitored and maintained, which is a problem when there's so few people willing to help maintain it.

"More stuff" doesn't necessarily make a site better; it just makes it a site with more stuff. There's nothing wrong with being really good at just one thing, especially if the alternative is being good at one thing and being mediocre to bad at many others.

The Pantheon is grandfathered at this point, tbh. With the amount of content it has, it could easily be split off into its own separate website.

That's another discussion entirely, though.

Ehh, I'd meant to make that point about WMG more than Pantheon.

I don't really know what Pantheon is or what those Pantheon people are doing ^note they sure do a fucking lot of it, though, but at least it involves tropes which puts it well above most WMG. :P