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Actually, draft creators can (and often do) add a hat. It's one of the many fundamental flaws of the hat system.
Especially an older draft like that (where it not having accrued five hats over the years is incredible), care should be taken when you're launching. Five hats doesn't mean "ready for launch! SMASH THE LAUNCH BUTTON" it means the bare minimum of the first step of approval.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.That's however the other side of the coin: 5 hats doesn't mean 'ready for launch! SMASH THE LAUNCH BUTTON!' Likewise 5 bombs doesn't mean 'it has no merit, it's garbage! SMASH THE DISCARD BUTTON!'
Bombs and hats offset each other. And sadly, hats and bombs have not been very reliable lately.
You're right on that. Of course it would be better to have more than 5 hats; I'd be glad to have more than that and I'll leave my draft in the TLP still for some time. However, if it will keep floating there for too long after I'll have finished it, because I won't receive further suggestions, comments or hats, I'll settle with 5 hats and launch it.
My question was whether it was legit for me to add the fifth hat myself or I had to wait for someone else to do that. Since the latter happened, this specific problem is solved.
Edited by gc10I've added my fifth hat before when I sincerely believed I was ready to launch, but I don't do it very often.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wallgc10, the draft you linked has only hats and no bombs. You somehow interchange "bomb" and "hat" in the discussion, which is confusing. ;-)
However, a trope that has been buried in TLP for a long time and hasn't had much discussion despite being bumped, and somehow getting the hats should not be launched ASAP. It's possible that a draft with 5 hats and very few comments has some issues (e.g. insufficient description, very few examples, not the best name). It's been demonstrated that tropers use hats, among others, for "I like this idea; I think it's tropeworthy."
That said, I sometimes hat drafts earlier than when they're absolutely ready for launch, too, mainly when I want to balance unfair bombs. Bombing articles without saying why is very frustrating for trope sponsors. Getting hats feels nice, but honest feedback (either positive or fair criticism) is even better.
^ My bad, I wanted to write "hats" in both cases. I corrected it.
Is it true that it would be better to receive actual feedback from comments, either positive or negative. But frankly, I had to bump the draft twice in different days, therefore it was in the first page of the TLP and I didn't received a single comment, no bombs at all but three hats, while all the other drafts were actively discussed on. Clearily, a draft in the first page just for two days doesn't mean much, but if this is how is going to happen every time, the only imperssion I can have is that a dozen of people read my draft and just think "he can do whatever he likes with that, I don't care" (especially because, as I said, I still have 0 bombs, which makes me think that while the draft may not be perfect, there simply is no reason not to launch it as it is).
Honestly, if this continues for a long time, I can't see a problem with me taking care of the draft completely on my own and settle with 5 hats, since the rules allow that. But of course, I'd like a lot better to receive feedback, either postive or negative. I'll keep my draft up for at least a couple of weeks anyway.
Edited by gc10^ Common thing to do is write a temporary note in the working title or the laconic; something like launch soon or launching this weekend.
It's usually a moment when people realize it might be their last chance to have a look at the page. Often you receive first serious feedback at this stage, and then obviously any problems should be faced and the discussion should be resolved.
If nobody reacts (i.e. no further feedback, no more bombs, perhaps even a few more hats), then it's perfectly acceptable to launch it.
Launching drafts as soon as they reach the minimum number of hats stealthily, without any indication of intending to launch them, is actually frowned upon. Some pages have been unlaunched because of this despite the fact that technically no rules were broken. It's much simpler to fix the trope in TLP than having to take it to TRS or Trope Description Improvement Drive.
Just my two cents.
Edited by XFllo

Few days ago I grabbed a very old draft, Barbarian Tropes
, which has right now 4 hats. I'm basically done with it, I just have to discuss whether to reorganise the tropes present there and whether to add only a few more. Theoretically, nothing prevents me to add the fifth hat and launch it myself when I'll feel it is ready, but I'd feel like that would be "cheating" on the rules of the TLP, since if I had started the draft from scratch I wouldn't have been able to add a hat; like if I forcibly launched a draft with still 4 hats. Is it better for me to wait for a fifth hat by a third part, or what I'm saying was already done in the past without consequences?