(07-31-2026, 02:57 PM)Labster Wrote: ...

One thing I've been thinking about was trying to kill Category:Index Index which is generally useless except for keeping pages off uncategorized reports.  We have Template:Main, which could easily add a category.  But it would make more sense to do some organization, like "Work tabs" or "Creator tags" or something like that for each page type (please help me name this), otherwise we end up with a slightly more complicated Index Index.  We could do this from Template:Main, right?  We have the technology.

So I think I would go about this with Bucket, again.  There's no easy way to check the categories of another page from Lua, though maybe DPL could do it.  Just save the name of the template used on the main page, and we can look it up with a cheap indexed query.  But then, if we have this... all of those subpages with the wrong template on them I indicated before... I could make them just work?

Quote:User talk:Robkelk
Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Latest comment: Wednesday at 22:02:00 by Doug in topic Request to enable $wgVisualEditorEnableWikitext

(07-31-2026, 06:19 PM)robkelk Wrote:

(07-31-2026, 02:57 PM)Labster Wrote: ...

One thing I've been thinking about was trying to kill Category:Index Index which is generally useless except for keeping pages off uncategorized reports.  We have Template:Main, which could easily add a category.  But it would make more sense to do some organization, like "Work tabs" or "Creator tags" or something like that for each page type (please help me name this), otherwise we end up with a slightly more complicated Index Index.  We could do this from Template:Main, right?  We have the technology.

So I think I would go about this with Bucket, again.  There's no easy way to check the categories of another page from Lua, though maybe DPL could do it.  Just save the name of the template used on the main page, and we can look it up with a cheap indexed query.  But then, if we have this... all of those subpages with the wrong template on them I indicated before... I could make them just work?

Anything that frees up an editor to do things other than grunt work is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.

(08-01-2026, 07:16 PM)MilkmanConspiracy Wrote: This review?

(07-31-2026, 05:33 PM)MilkmanConspiracy Wrote: Can you tell me more about the work tabs and creator tabs idea?

In favor of icons, mainly because many wikis follow the naming format of "FranchiseName Wiki", and when you have two or more wikis that use that exact format, or barely distinguishable names, it makes a parenthesis required. It's still probably good for accessibility to use parentheses in such cases, but the icons help identify at a glance.

I did another pass and made sure to add alternate wikis where missing from my earlier additions. Sometimes the best wiki is on fandom, and sometimes it’s hosted elsewhere.

In any case, I really like this feature.

Looney Toons Wrote:So I was going over an edit to Barbie (film) just now and I realized that I couldn't find a way to access the very problematic review that it got two years ago. Does the new work template not include reviews any more?

Quote:The purpose of a review is to provide literary criticism, not to rant. When writing reviews of works strong opinions are fine, but they should avoid naked hatred and be rendered in a civil and dispassionate manner. For this rule, "naked hatred" includes, but is not limited to:

1. Overly negative language (the exception is if the work has clear and demonstrable moments of transphobia, homophobia, racism, ableism or sexism that is supported by the text and normalized).
   
2. Name-calling that is abusive, slanderous, or excessive.
   
3. Not using moments in the work to back up your statements.
   
4. Any negativity that does not directly criticize points in the work but exists for the sake of attacking the work.
   
5. Using the review to attack – or praise – someone or something that was not involved in the work.
   

Violations of the rule will be handled on a case-by-case basis, depending on the severity of the violation. In general, a formal warning on the first instance, a temporary ban on the second (and maybe third) instance, followed by a permanent ban for a contributor who cannot keep his reviews from dripping with hatred and vitriol. However, the wiki staff reserves the right to make more dramatic responses in more extreme cases, such as an October 2024 review which stepped right up to the line of libel and spat in the face of the creator on the other side.

Reviews which violate this rule are also subject to deletion at the discretion of the wiki staff.

Quote:So long as it is done in a dispassionate manner, it is acceptable to reference other works of the creator of that specific work, outside sources of information, and/or rival works as a point of comparison or to establish repeating themes, issues, or well executed points that relate to the work being reviewed.

Potential examples, using Alan Smithee as an example name.

1. Director Alan Smithee again leans into theme of X, as he has done in the original and the prequel.
   
2. Following rival series Y, this game has added support for crafting mechanics, a popular design choice for games released in that console generation. A lack of N feature hinders the experience, and is a feature I hope they patch in following the example set by the rival series Y.
   
3. In an interview linked here, Director Alan Smithee explains that this artistic choice was done out of respect for their deeply held personal conviction of Z, which gives that moment in the movie greater attention to detail then other scenes, increasing its impact.
   
4. According to this report linked here, ''Example Work'' was riddled with executive meddling, and one can see potential influence from this in example decision which detracts from the work.
   

Anti-Examples (Would not fit):

1. Hack "Director" Alan Smithee resorted to this trope yet again in his movie, yet again proof of his utter incompetence as an artist.
   
2. This game is just a clone of X, because the developers clearly don’t have an original thought in their heads. Rival game Y is better in every conceivable way, and it’s so clear I don’t have to explain why.
   
3. I just couldn’t enjoy the work knowing that director Alan Smithee is a believer in Z. (Where Z isn’t an exemption listed in point 1.)
   
4. Director Alan Smithee is artistically bankrupt and a fraud for allowing executives to call the shots and do ____.
   

(08-03-2026, 12:43 PM)Labster Wrote: Like most of the world these days, we've run headlong into "paradox of tolerance" territory. In order to be tolerant, this stuff must be intolerable.

Quote:I was trained to be tolerant of everything except intolerance.
—U Thant, View from the UN (1978)

Quote:Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
—Jesus, The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:12, NKJV)

Quote:Take It Elsewhere.
—SJGames forums policy on off-topic posts (at least during the 1990s and 2000s)

(08-03-2026, 01:30 PM)robkelk Wrote:

(08-03-2026, 12:43 PM)Labster Wrote: Like most of the world these days, we've run headlong into "paradox of tolerance" territory.  In order to be tolerant, this stuff must be intolerable.

That's hardly new.

Quote:I was trained to be tolerant of everything except intolerance.
—U Thant, View from the UN (1978)

So, yeah. What do we do?

Quote:Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
—Jesus, The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:12, NKJV)

If they claim to be living by "Christian values", then they should have no issues with being called the same things that they call other people. Unfortunately, most of the people who claim to be Christian nowadays do not actually follow the teachings of Christ. We have to go secular here.

Quote:Take It Elsewhere.
—SJGames forums policy on off-topic posts (at least during the 1990s and 2000s)

Tolerance does not require complicity. Those posters' desire to exercise their freedom of expression does not create a requirement for us to lose our freedom of assembly... which includes freedom to not assemble. We can tolerate at a distance.

Quote:the argument starts with Jeff Bezos is a liberal

Quote:I don’t deserve credit for noting this would be an issue because it was already a clear legal point: “AI”-generated work is not copyrightable, so if you have any “AI”-generated work in your material you open the door to legal issues. But also, the concern here is slightly different: The issue appears not to be that “AI” material isn’t copyrightable, the issue is that “AI” is trained on copyrighted material, so prose generated from it could be contested by the original copyright holders.

Now, from a practical point of view this could be a stretch to prove unless the “AI” farts out entire paragraphs of prose unaltered from its training material (which, to be clear, it can do and has done), and those end up in the finished book. But if you’re a lawyer for a publisher or a film/TV production house, even the hint of possible legal entanglement is enough to raise the shields. It’s already in contracts for both film/TV and for publishing houses that the author attests their work is wholly original, so, again, any hint that anything is other than that brings things to a screeching halt. As we have seen.

–John Scalzi , Another Reason Not to Use “AI” For Your Writing, July 31, 2026

(08-04-2026, 09:16 AM)robkelk Wrote: As long as we're setting policy... In order to protect the wiki from legal challenges, I propose that AI-generated content be specifically banned from All The Tropes.

Quote:I don’t deserve credit for noting this would be an issue because it was already a clear legal point: “AI”-generated work is not copyrightable, so if you have any “AI”-generated work in your material you open the door to legal issues. But also, the concern here is slightly different: The issue appears not to be that “AI” material isn’t copyrightable, the issue is that “AI” is trained on copyrighted material, so prose generated from it could be contested by the original copyright holders.

Now, from a practical point of view this could be a stretch to prove unless the “AI” farts out entire paragraphs of prose unaltered from its training material (which, to be clear, it can do and has done), and those end up in the finished book. But if you’re a lawyer for a publisher or a film/TV production house, even the hint of possible legal entanglement is enough to raise the shields. It’s already in contracts for both film/TV and for publishing houses that the author attests their work is wholly original, so, again, any hint that anything is other than that brings things to a screeching halt. As we have seen.

–John Scalzi , Another Reason Not to Use “AI” For Your Writing, July 31, 2026

(08-04-2026, 09:22 AM)GethN7 Wrote:

(08-04-2026, 09:16 AM)robkelk Wrote: As long as we're setting policy... In order to protect the wiki from legal challenges, I propose that AI-generated content be specifically banned from All The Tropes.

Quote:I don’t deserve credit for noting this would be an issue because it was already a clear legal point: “AI”-generated work is not copyrightable, so if you have any “AI”-generated work in your material you open the door to legal issues. But also, the concern here is slightly different: The issue appears not to be that “AI” material isn’t copyrightable, the issue is that “AI” is trained on copyrighted material, so prose generated from it could be contested by the original copyright holders.

Now, from a practical point of view this could be a stretch to prove unless the “AI” farts out entire paragraphs of prose unaltered from its training material (which, to be clear, it can do and has done), and those end up in the finished book. But if you’re a lawyer for a publisher or a film/TV production house, even the hint of possible legal entanglement is enough to raise the shields. It’s already in contracts for both film/TV and for publishing houses that the author attests their work is wholly original, so, again, any hint that anything is other than that brings things to a screeching halt. As we have seen.

–John Scalzi , Another Reason Not to Use “AI” For Your Writing, July 31, 2026

I would like to carve out a very limited exception. AI pictures can be allowed if (A) they are explicitly identified as such, (B) they are the only relevant way to illustrate an article [i.e. they are from a work known to use AI for illustration], and (C) it can be reasonably determined said images are not a deliberate infringement on the copyright of others and/or can be considered fair use/parody.

(07-28-2026, 11:39 AM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: Okay, now that some of my trope candidates have been or are getting launched, what should I propose next? Going through the directory where I do my offline wiki work, I note that the following candidates are ready for primetime, or can be with a little polish:

• Celebrity Name-Dropper
  
• Exotic Clientele
  
• He May Be an X, But He's OUR X
  
• Heinlein's Dictum ("Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes.")
  
• Kabedon
  
• Limited Time of Operation
  
• One of These Days, Pow!
  
• Paint Path (video game trope - diagetic markings indicating the way to go)
  
• Posthumous Homage Character
  
• Pretty People Have Pretty Names
  
• Suspiciously High Security
  
• Syllepsis
  
• X, Thy Name Is Y
  
• You're weird - I'm X, but it's you that's weird
  

Less-complete possibilities:

• God as a Character (AKA "Playing God"). Needs an actual description.
  
• Gone Wonderfully Wrong. Needs one more example for minimum three.
  
• Meeting the Original (isekai trope). Needs one more example for minimum three.
  
• Nomenclature, Military, One Each. Needs one more example for minimum three.
  
• Superheroes Need to Breathe. Description needs to be finished/polished.
  
• World of Beauties. Needs one more example for minimum three.
  
• Worldbuilding Timeline. The description needs a little expansion.
  
• You Had Me at Hello. Needs an actual description.
  

I know Rob has seen all of these as they existed as recently as last week and I'm pretty sure I know a couple of the ones he would choose, but I'm welcoming suggestions from everyone -- including third examples for the ones noted as needing them. And I know some of the titles are a bit... opaque, so feel free to ask me what any of these are actually about.

(07-28-2026, 05:30 PM)robkelk Wrote:

(07-28-2026, 11:39 AM)Bob Schroeck Wrote: I know Rob has seen all of these as they existed as recently as last week and I'm pretty sure I know a couple of the ones he would choose, ...

Just to share with everyone else, I'm using "Syllepsis" in a KanriKyara story that just might see the light of day some time this calendar year, and "X, Thy Name Is Y" in the currently-in-progress chapter of Isekai by Moonlight.

This doesn't mean that I need the tropes to actually be tropes in order to use them, of course.

(08-09-2026, 08:15 AM)robkelk Wrote: What if anything is our policy to linking to off-site analyses? Asking because there's a reasonably good analysis of Kayfabe on CBC's website.