Character Specific Pages - misuse, and potential updated guidance

If I understand right, the number that triggers the real "too long warning" was bumped up

It seems like the divide here comes down to technical concern vs size preference

Edited by IkeaHan on Feb 22nd 2024 at 9:09:15 AM

yes, it was around 250k, but it’s gone up to 300-500k. Sometimes though, pages can trigger it at a lower amount, so 250k is a good base.

It also forces people to not just split things off willy-nilly. Waiting for a longer page may be annoying, but so is having to merge improperly split pages back because of people being overeager. Higher bars means it's easier to deal with.

Sure. Here's the "too long" levels though:

• 200k-300k: "quite long"
• 300k-400k: "so long"
• 400k-500k: "too long"
• 500k+: "way too long"

There.

totally agree with Warjay. And thank you Absoluterainbow

Edited by lexii on Feb 22nd 2024 at 6:17:02 PM

In that case, I rescind 150k as my alternative.

Ok im coming around to 250K. I still think this will impact smaller pages that don’t get as much traffic but I’m willing to acquiesce.

I mean, page splits aren't necessarily something to strive for. They exist more for keeping things organized and readable; sort of like how even smaller work pages won't even warrant character pages to begin with.

do we then have broad agreement? Looks like we might!

If we have an agreement then I think we're ready to holler.

Great - we only had one “no”, but that’s been civilly chatted through, and so I think we are ready

Any page can have a character page if people are willing to put in the work, same with splits. This is mainly the results of people lazily splitting g pages and launching CSP’s without putting in the proper work first.

I’m still iffy on the changes broader impacts but I’m willing to try on a trial basis. If there are issues we can tweak from there. Maybe we’ll have to lower later anyways but I’m ok with trying 250K.

Well, not exactly, see character pages are only supposed to be made when there's content to split off. Same with these CSP pages. Less trafficked works aren't at any disadvantage because splitting pages isn't an inherent good thing to do — it's just a way to handle length. If they don't get enough tropes and attention to warrant splitting, it's not the end of the world by any means. It's just the status quo.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 22nd 2024 at 2:30:32 PM

Also the idea is that once we implement the changes, we're gonna go through existing CSP and merge pages to be consistent with the new rules.

is there an official ruling for this? Or is this just what everyone’s informally decided? Because to me it sounds like it’s a counterintuitive way to run a wiki and stifles creativity. How are character pages not their own thing? We trope the contents of works, why not the characters in those works? But I’m a huge proponent on screw the status quo so I may be biased a bit. I’m also pro splitting so there’s that

I would still like an idea of what’s going to happen with multimedia CSP’s, like Marvel Comics: Cyclops.

As it stands, How to Create a Character Page says nothing about any restrictions on creating Characters pages — and, in practice, we know that many tropers rush to create them as soon as a work's released, when the work page is barely more than a stub.

There are guidelines for creating CSPs, yes, but for other Characters pages the only rules currently applied are that we must have a work page first, and that every character must have at least one trope.

Revisiting that guidance would be a much wider conversation, and currently beyond the scope of this thread.

It's probably more of a heavily agreed upon restriction than an actual rule (any conversation about character page creation will almost certainly involve people suggesting to wait until there's an actual split, and we merge stubby ones back all the time). Like we can't stop people from making a character page right away, but it's completely unnecessary to do so — for the same reason as why we want to stop people from rushing to make splits of those character pages.

That said, it is worth noting that the Administrivia page was kinda just made one day in 2019 by a troper who isn't a mod. I'm not that surprised if it turns out that it needs a trip to Outdated Pages.

Ultimately though, my point is literally just that if the main concern is "smaller / less popular pages are disadvantaged", that's just not really relevant logic when discussing splits, which are hardly ever an actual requirement and get merged back all the damn time for being rushed and small.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 22nd 2024 at 3:11:10 PM

Hey Mrph1 - interesting, I never knew that, to be honest.

Regarding the topic at hand in this thread, we have now achieved thumbs-up/agreement from all tropers, so on that basis, are we ok to action the new guidance?

Edited by lexii on Feb 22nd 2024 at 8:14:18 PM

Personally, I think it might be best to have a Crowner vote to settle it. For policy changes it's usually worth an ATT post to bring people who might have missed the discussion to the thread, and a Crowner ensures we have the usual rules about achieving consensus etc.

We don't always need something that formal, though - I'll double check with the mod team and come back with a view.

Brill, thank you (and if this helps, I'm not sure that we're changing policy as such, just using new wording to more clearly present the existing required policy for tropers considering creating a CSP).

Edited by lexii on Feb 22nd 2024 at 9:14:33 AM

What will the crowner look like? Just a basic "approve/disapprove"?

Okay so here is what I am thinking 250k max and a 150 k minimum. That way it is more rare and we don't have to merge back as many pages.

Edit: I just saw that this was already suggested.

I think a crowner is a good idea.

Edited by Bullman on Feb 22nd 2024 at 7:43:05 AM

Yeah, I think the problem with that, as stated previously, is that people would only use the lower limit and we'd be back in this situation again, which is why others are more for sticking with one number limit.

I'm not against these guidelines. While I'm not madly in love with them per se, and I do love the idea of some characters having their own pages, I think from a pragmatic viewpoint, these changes make sense, and in a way, I am genuinely glad about these changes. If users want characters to have their own pages, this might even motivate them to work harder for it, and of course, I've seen my fair share of pages that regardless of whether I want them to or not, technically speaking have questionable justification to warrant their own pages (at least for now, that could change over time though). That said, I do still have some questions though.

1. Can sandboxes at least stay up? Since they are not finished, but more foundations to be built upon, and they are a decent thing for users like myself to have as a workspace. Also to add to that, maybe the pages that are currently such but will need to be put back could be converted into sandboxes (although technically users could easily make them themselves of course)?

2. For such pages, should we split into further groups after putting them back if the sheets have enough with them, and also how much further do we need to split for Character-Specific Pages? At the most, it seems like some that have 250k+ byte counts and Character-Specific Pages links might benefit from being broken down more first, and (for the time at least) putting the Character-Specific Pages back.

3. What happens if a character (not a page, a single character) has a 250k byte count? And to follow that up, what if a page with 2 3 or 4 characters exists, and all 2 3 or 4 characters have 250k byte counts? Do they all get their own pages, or does one of them stay behind to prevent it from just being a glorified link page?

Those are my questions for now, I'll be sure to let you know if have any other concerns.

Edited by Bluedeadredemption on Feb 22nd 2024 at 9:34:46 AM

1. I believe so, though perhaps with the stipulation that they are active sandboxes (that might be something more for the abandoned sandbox thread though). Not sure about creating new sandboxes though, I don't think it's necessary unless someone currently shows an interest in X character and even then, they'd need the belief that the character can grow to the size needed for a solo page.

2. I'm not quite certain with the wording of this question but I believe the answer is yes? Pages can and will be restructured once the new terms are agreed upon. I know Street Fighter is already being planned for restructuring and I've stated that Dragon Age character pages will need to be reorganized once consolidated.

3. They get multiple pages split alphabetically by tropes as they were in folders on the page before split, like The Critic. As for the second part, IMO, they would all get their own pages and the host page would be nuked unless it serves as the main characters page index for that work.