The Encounters namespace, should it be revived in some way?

Some tropers over at ATT have been talking about the Encounters namespace, and one suggested moving the talk over here, so I've decided to start the thread. Please forgive me; this is my first forum thread starter.

Encounters is an obscure, very old (created in 2010!) namespace only accessible through Wiki Vandal, Flame Bait, and Edit War, and I find the concept of a text-based TV Tropes game to teach newbies what not to do a very interesting one.

Several pages there, such as Hyperboloid and Parabomber, are the only source of information on their topic. Thus, I'd like to either make the namespace more notable, or add their information onto pages like Troper Types.

Edited by ARandomPage on Feb 24th 2022 at 2:09:02 AM

I'm nore into moving the namespace, since the less there are the better, sort of. Administrivia/ or Just for Fun/ are where something like that would be made nowdays. I think something like that would be useful to recreate for educational purposes.

Also I've talked about encounters with specific tropes, but it's more about how to proceed about each policy violation, maybe two concepts could be merged into a general wiki behavior guide of some kind.

I might've been the one to start the "let's revive Encounters" hype train because of my ATT post, and I still stand by my interest in doing so, though admittedly IDK how it would work.

I'd try to sort of copy the style of the Encounters we already have if I had to add a new Encounters page. However, I don't know if there are any more disruptive troper types/policy violations (the first new encounter that came to my mind is Kid Editor).

Edited by ARandomPage on Jan 15th 2022 at 5:36:54 PM

I'm thinking of using my troper page to create my own hypothetical Encounters scenarios. Should I do this?

Within your space you're free to experiment however you want. Sandbox.A Random Page is probably more convenient for it.

Well I'm all for reviving it. JFF might work.

I used A Random Page to create my own Encounters scenario! It's language is much less detailed and more Beige Prose -y than the rest of the Encounters pages, though. Doesn't help that I made it in a few hours.

In other news, I added the Spoiler Fog page to the Encounters index.

Edited by ARandomPage on Jan 15th 2022 at 10:00:45 PM

I've added some information to Troper Types which mostly came from Encounters. Now the information is not doomed to obscurity, though my edits do look like they need some help.

One idea I had was that it could become a CYOA sort of deal where each option leads to a link that leads to a specific page for the game, which wouldn't be linked anywhere else (save for Related/ pages obviously). But that might be a little complicated and space-waste-ish.

Agreed. I wonder if somehow it could be integrated into a layer in The Troper Tree kind of game (imagine a The Modding Tree game based on us) where if you answer properly, you get some kind of multiplier? but it's a pretty ambitious project, one I've been thinking of but are not sure could handle.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 16th 2022 at 3:16:13 PM

Well in my idea if you answer improperly your character would die a comedic death or get sent to the underworld (Edit Banned) or something. Whereas correct answers would move the plot along, get you the Golden Ending, or even just give you a powerup or something.

That's more of a MacVenture sort of game. (though an MV is less linear, the death thing brought that one to mind)

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 16th 2022 at 3:16:55 PM

A policies exam page disguised as a Chose Your Own Text Adventure?

Maybe? Like I said, my idea is a Choose Your Own Adventure style thing with branching paths and multiple storylines to go down, even after you've already learned what to do and what not to do. IDK either of the games you're comparing this to so I can't say how similar the ideas are.

Edit: Yes, basically.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 16th 2022 at 9:16:08 AM

I like WarJay's idea. Very creative, gets the point across, and potentially comedic as well.

Another idea—maybe in the EB underworld, you have a chance to escape, only your ability to do so is based on something related to ban appeals? Like if you are rude, you instantly die, but if you agree to try to change, you get another chance? You get two to three tries, and by try three you can't revive. Basically a kind of continue screen that teaches you what to do if you are suspended.

Just throwing something out there, if my idea sucks let me know.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jan 17th 2022 at 1:05:18 PM

And there can be a "ban evade" option that instantly ends the game.

I like that

Whoa. I thought this thread would die out, but here we are... ok, your suggestions sound nice. I'd like to keep the current format in some form, but Encounters is obscure, so most tropers won't know about Old Encounters if we create a new style.

Might I suggest using either your Troper or Sandbox pages (eg. Tropers/A Username or Sandbox/Any Username) as a concept for your ideas? I've done so myself.

If your Sandbox or Contributor page becomes too big, well... folders exist for a reason.

Edited by ARandomPage on Jan 20th 2022 at 4:49:20 PM

I just thought of a new idea, a sort of anti-Encounters detailing good behavior/troper types on this site. For example, there could be a page for, say, The Other Troper.

I have a lot of ideas for how a potential CYOA-story could go, but I'm a bit nervous about making fifty bajillion sandboxes for everything.

Since only non-mods have posted here so far, I think we should see if any of them agree or disagree with this revival.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 22nd 2022 at 3:52:30 PM

/sigh

The purpose of the Encounters namespace was to provide a "training course" for new tropers, with the idea of encouraging or requiring them to go through it. Eddie kicked it off a little while before he sold the site and it was never developed to anything like completion.

Having the "game" exist entirely in the form of wiki links is about the minimum possible level of effort, and it would be much better if it had some kind of code support, but allocating development resources towards it seems very unlikely.

Honestly, it'd be far easier if someone would just script it up on another site. I'd also love to see different entry points for different courses. For example, if someone comes into Edit Banned for indentation, we tell them to take the indentation course and come back when they've gotten it right.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 22nd 2022 at 5:25:07 AM

I don't think I can directly help with this, but I can suggest Twine as what it's created in. Seems like it'd work well for this.

Hmm. I'm not sure if a mod is even going to consider posting here. I don't think people would be fine with TV Tropes launching their own weird game thingy on another site. While I LOVE your ideas, they seem too far-fetched, so I'm afraid there's no reviving Encounters.

However, back in the ATT thread, a mod said they might look into this after the holiday. Not sure what happened after that.

Encounters itself was created years before Eddie left, and it just... died out, somehow. Even it's index was incomplete and was left unfixed for over 10 years before I finally added Spoiler Fog to it.

We can always just not make it a game and leave it as a FAQ guideline article. Or we can use a lot of folders and spoiler tags.

Edited by Amonimus on Jan 23rd 2022 at 8:51:44 PM