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amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#1: Oct 9th 2022 at 2:02:21 PM

In the Trope Repair Shop thread for Turtle Power (which is now an index redirect), it was brought up that there are multiple index lists for the collection of tropes on the site that are too short / don't seem to have enough tropes to warrant their existence. Specifically, this was brought up in the discussion of many recently created Animal Tropes indices, like:

...though I'm sure there are plenty non animal related indices that also have small lists.

The main concerns are about redundancies with other indices (i.e. they are an unnecessary split to existing indices), though general index bloat is also another issue to take into consideration (the small size in of itself shows the grouping is unnecessary).

So questions for this thread to discuss:

  • do others see this as an issue to address?
  • how small is too small? what number is/should be the cut off?
  • does this apply to all indices of this size or just indices that have a clear Parent Index that it can merge into?
  • If they are a problem, what standards should be written and implemented to stop the creation of further small indices?

A possible solution would be to enforce the 10 examples / 12 wicks requirement for indices and cleaning up those that don't fit. I once asked if those requirements also apply to index drafts as well and was told, not really. This raises the question of whether they should apply, with the 10 examples being interpreted as "10 tropes / works on the list"

Edited by amathieu13 on Oct 9th 2022 at 5:03:55 AM

Piterpicher Veteran Editor IV from Poland, for real (Series 2) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Veteran Editor IV
#2: Oct 9th 2022 at 2:45:06 PM

I think it should be eight tropes/works on a Main/ index minimum (so 2/3 of the wick requirement for tropes). It shows there's a topic to group while still not feeling too stubby, and IMO issues from small indexes are not as severe as ones with small tropes.

Edited by Piterpicher on Oct 9th 2022 at 11:46:34 AM

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)
amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#3: Oct 10th 2022 at 9:33:32 PM

I guess I don't see why we need to change the requirements for indices. It's far easier to just enforce the rules we already have rather than create and enforce a new one.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#4: Oct 10th 2022 at 9:57:01 PM

I've never seen the point to these indices, either.

OTOH, I also think we're really bad at enforcing superindex / subindex rules, because in theory most indexes should be smaller than they are if we would just stop putting tropes on every possible index instead of just the applicable sub-index (which is what we're supposed to do, much like how supertropes are only used if no subtropes apply).

But yeah, for any index that 1) isn't a superindex to anything and 2) can be safely merged back into the parent index with no issues, then they should really be much bigger to matter.

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