All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part VII

[GethN7]

There were some database issues on the backend that affected other wikis besides our own, those issues are now resolved, all issues should be dealt with.

Social Profile works fine now, users can either use that or the standard wiki page, their call. I have put in a request to add a bunch of other related extensions for SocialProfile now that that has been fixed, and I'll cover them as they go online and are fully functional, and there is a reason for this:

SocialProfile is a MediaWiki agnostic spinoff of a lot of Wikia specific features meant to encourage user growth and interaction, and they are being implemented to attempt to use them to provide us a boost to our membership and interaction. This also closes a gap we have with TV Tropes, which has already implemented some of these features in their own way.

The WikiForum extension is also stable, and it will work with uploaded avatars, so if any user uploads an avatar (they can still use the basic userpage), it will hook into the forum automatically, and speaking of the WikiForum, I was considering making it the third itineration of our forum system should it prove stable enough (with the Flow version preserved for fallback reasons), and I would like opinions on this and for the other admins to give their own evaluation of the WikiForum extension before I proceed further, which can be found here:

http://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:WikiForum

If these features prove more trouble than they are worth, for whatever reason, I will get them removed again, so I ask both users and admins provide me feedback on them. More information on SocialProfile can be found here, for those who wish to examine what it does for themselves and so be able to offer further suggestions on settings and related extensions:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SocialProfile

[Labster]

Most of the stuff on Special:WantedFiles looks like it's using InstantCommons, and is thus a known bug in Mediawiki.  Its annoying Wikipedia admins too, which means it will get solved eventually.
I didn't realize that the Data Protection Act language was UK specific, because one of our users from the UK wrote it.  As we have no data in the U.K., I've removed it from the policy.  We would fall under a similar law in the Netherlands so all of the surrounding language survives -- and I'm starting to wonder if most of the suckage in the EU is all England's fault anyway.
And if you're an admin, take a look at a category, and click the Edit All button... fun stuff.  Let me know if you have any problems with it.
-- ∇×V

[Bob Schroeck]

And if you're an admin, take a look at a category, and click the Edit All button... fun stuff. Let me know if you have any problems with it.

Oh, yeah, that'll be useful!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Black Aeronaut]

Hey, Bob! I've noticed a grievous travesty. Ruthless People is not on the live action films list for Gambit Pileup (a shame we can't use the title Thirty Xanatos Pileup - that was far more evocative).

I'd do it right now, except that I can't think of something hilariously witty to say about it. :p

[robkelk]

Policy decisions, please.

The most recent revision to More Dakka removes the "No Real Life Examples, Please" note and adds a real-life example. It was followed up with the most recent revision to No Real Life Examples, Please.

These are anonymous edits, and I recognize the IPv4 address as belonging to the Government of Canada. (It is, in fact, the gateway to the network I use at the office - but I didn't make this update).

Do we let this stand?

I'm also tempted to put a one-week ban on the IP address with the reason "Anonymous edits from government networks are discouraged. Please log in to make changes." Good idea or not? (If we decide to do this, it should be my name on the block.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[GethN7]

Policy decisions, please.

The most recent revision to More Dakka removes the "No Real Life Examples, Please" note and adds a real-life example. It was followed up with the most recent revision to No Real Life Examples, Please.

These are anonymous edits, and I recognize the IPv4 address as belonging to the Government of Canada. (It is, in fact, the gateway to the network I use at the office - but I didn't make this update).

Do we let this stand?

I'm also tempted to put a one-week ban on the IP address with the reason "Anonymous edits from government networks are discouraged. Please log in to make changes." Good idea or not? (If we decide to do this, it should be my name on the block.)

I'd strongly agree, please do as you suggest Rob.

Also, speaking of policy questions, I brought this up to Labster on the "Eye Scream" talk page, would like to address it here to get a consensus of opinion.

Labster reverted the Eye Scream edit on the category and returned everything to the main page, citing he didn't like using category pages for hosting that content. I, however, prefer to do this for pages that serve as trope subpage indexes since Category pages automatically keep track of all subpages much more efficiently than doing so manually, not to mention prevents cloning all that automatic work manually, and with the simple addition of an added Inputbox template to the Index Trope pages, new pages can be created and added to these same pages for adding and updating the indexes on the fly.

If there are compelling technical or other reasons why this opinion is in error, please let me know, because I'd prefer to get a consensus on this before it becomes a contentious issue.

[Bob Schroeck]

Whoever made those edits is a regular reader of the wiki, at least the recent changes page because they used the phrase "control freakery"; they're probably also a TVT refugee, if only for the dig at Feddie. Which means they almost certainly have an account (or should) and should be using it.

I agree -- impose the ban. As for the changes... revert. Anonymous editors don't get to change policy.

As for the category/content issue, let me think about it. It rubbed me wrong the first time I saw one such implemented, but I've gotten used to them. Still, I'd need to actually stop and think on the matter before offering an opinion.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

Whoever made those edits is a regular reader of the wiki, at least the recent changes page because they used the phrase "control freakery"; they're probably also a TVT refugee, if only for the dig at Feddie. Which means they almost certainly have an account (or should) and should be using it.

I agree -- impose the ban. As for the changes... revert. Anonymous editors don't get to change policy.

Done and done.

As for the category/content issue, let me think about it. It rubbed me wrong the first time I saw one such implemented, but I've gotten used to them. Still, I'd need to actually stop and think on the matter before offering an opinion.

It's always seemed a bit odd to me to put an article on a category page, but different wikis do things in different ways.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Labster]

I mainly brought up the category thing because it annoys me, and since I'm essentially the structural architect of the wiki, I want to know why people are ignoring my structure.
My main argument is that it's Square Peg Round Trope, insofar as you're taking something that's supposed to be an index and using it as a content page.  The main advantage is that you get automatic tracking of new pages.  But what really are you tracking?  Not trope subpages, as it groups everything else in.  Also by default, you include the main page category, which means you get a recursive category.  That's not really awesome.
The other way to do auto-updating is to use the {{subpages}} template.  Not only does it track new pages, but it doesn't have to repeat the name of the work every time.  And it's very easy to customize -- we could wrap it in CSS to put it in columns.  Or we could make it strip out known subpages like recap or quotes pages -- which is definitely not something we want to do with category pages.  The only downside here is that new page won't be added immediately, but might take a few hours or a page purge -- just the way our caching works.
But if we use redirect tropes we end up with a bunch of tropes that don't get the correct link color, which makes that less useful.  Plus it makes subcategories less useful.  To find a trope in a category, you don't know which part of the page to look on.  I've spent a lot of time on making the categories work, and I feel like things have gotten worse instead of better since I stopped working on them.
The argument about InputBox is meh, because there's already an extra way to create new subpages in the Create New part of {{trope}}/{{work}}.  More attention, sure.  Do we need to clutter up the wiki with reminders on how to edit the wiki?  I thought that was TVT's game.
Also Geth -- super cool how you brought up a private concern in a public forum without telling me, or presenting any of my opinions.  Thanks a lot man.
-- ∇×V

[GethN7]

I mainly brought up the category thing because it annoys me, and since I'm essentially the structural architect of the wiki, I want to know why people are ignoring my structure.

My main argument is that it's Square Peg Round Trope, insofar as you're taking something that's supposed to be an index and using it as a content page.  The main advantage is that you get automatic tracking of new pages.  But what really are you tracking?  Not trope subpages, as it groups everything else in.  Also by default, you include the main page category, which means you get a recursive category.  That's not really awesome.

The other way to do auto-updating is to use the {{subpages}} template.  Not only does it track new pages, but it doesn't have to repeat the name of the work every time.  And it's very easy to customize -- we could wrap it in CSS to put it in columns.  Or we could make it strip out known subpages like recap or quotes pages -- which is definitely not something we want to do with category pages.  The only downside here is that new page won't be added immediately, but might take a few hours or a page purge -- just the way our caching works.

But if we use redirect tropes we end up with a bunch of tropes that don't get the correct link color, which makes that less useful.  Plus it makes subcategories less useful.  To find a trope in a category, you don't know which part of the page to look on.  I've spent a lot of time on making the categories work, and I feel like things have gotten worse instead of better since I stopped working on them.

The argument about InputBox is meh, because there's already an extra way to create new subpages in the Create New part of {{trope}}/{{work}}.  More attention, sure.  Do we need to clutter up the wiki with reminders on how to edit the wiki?  I thought that was TVT's game.

Also Geth -- super cool how you brought up a private concern in a public forum without telling me, or presenting any of my opinions.  Thanks a lot man.

First off, my apologies, I should have showed you more discretion and consideration towards your views here, and for that I beg your forgiveness, Brent, this was not intended as a slight against you.

Also, to be honest, you make a very compelling case, especially with how it plays merry hell with redirects, that is a definite minus, and your solution does have a much great degree of elegance to it. And the InputBox thing, again, compelling argument there, I did not consider that, and I own myself an ass on that.

With that in mind, I withdraw my objections in light of the compelling arguments you have presented, and my fellow admins are inclined to believe my ideas on this were not entirely correct anyway.

In short, I would be happy to do things the way you suggest whenever we have the subpages template you came up with set up in an ideal fashion for what you have in mind for it's use, and I'll be happy to fix my own mistakes on this as well.
 

[Labster]

You don't have to apologize that much, man.  I'm just a little more annoyed than usual because I had two parents have surgery in the past two days.  And I probably need to call a vet for the dog tomorrow too.  Also there's a surprisingly amoral oompa-loompa poised to take over the U.S. presidency.
If anyone does have a good reason to keep category-tropes, since we're already talking about it in public, go ahead.  That is what my email asked for, anyway.
-- ∇×V

[GethN7]

You don't have to apologize that much, man.  I'm just a little more annoyed than usual because I had two parents have surgery in the past two days.  And I probably need to call a vet for the dog tomorrow too.  Also there's a surprisingly amoral oompa-loompa poised to take over the U.S. presidency.

If anyone does have a good reason to keep category-tropes, since we're already talking about it in public, go ahead.  That is what my email asked for, anyway.
 

Thanks for your understanding, Brent. My prayers go with you and your family.

And as for "surprisingly amoral oompa-loompa" posied to take over the US presidency, I'll reserve my political opinions here for reasons of discretion, not to mention I've made mine clear to you elsewhere, but I understand entirely, regardless which candidate you are referring to.

Also, I have reverted a few of the categories I worked on and tried your template idea, and even in it's unpolished state I think it's a far better idea than what I intended and plan to default to that unless anyone has objections.

[robkelk]

If anyone does have a good reason to keep category-tropes, since we're already talking about it in public, go ahead.  That is what my email asked for, anyway.

Do we have any way to take a straw poll on ATT itself? My opinion is that we should let the people who actually use and contribute to the wiki have a say in how it's laid out.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[GethN7]

If anyone does have a good reason to keep category-tropes, since we're already talking about it in public, go ahead.  That is what my email asked for, anyway.

Do we have any way to take a straw poll on ATT itself? My opinion is that we should let the people who actually use and contribute to the wiki have a say in how it's laid out.

 

I agree, Rob, that would be a good idea, might want to look into putting up a site notice to a forum topic where people can give their opinion on the matter.

FYI, for the time being, I'm still reverting most of the time I did things my way (except for a few categories like the Index Index for obvious reasons), because I've noticed it definitely clears up the redirect issues, but I did notice a new problem.

While the subpages template works great for trope examples subpages, we need another template for all pages in a category, and it will definitely need some sprucing up with CSS, ideally a laying out of the pages in column view with a page scroll feature like is done on the actual category pages, and a collapse tab needs to be added for both templates if at all possible for easier navigation.

[robkelk]

If anyone does have a good reason to keep category-tropes, since we're already talking about it in public, go ahead.  That is what my email asked for, anyway.

Do we have any way to take a straw poll on ATT itself? My opinion is that we should let the people who actually use and contribute to the wiki have a say in how it's laid out.

 

I agree, Rob, that would be a good idea, might want to look into putting up a site notice to a forum topic where people can give their opinion on the matter.

FYI, for the time being, I'm still reverting most of the time I did things my way (except for a few categories like the Index Index for obvious reasons), because I've noticed it definitely clears up the redirect issues, but I did notice a new problem.

While the subpages template works great for trope examples subpages, we need another template for all pages in a category, and it will definitely need some sprucing up with CSS, ideally a laying out of the pages in column view with a page scroll feature like is done on the actual category pages, and a collapse tab needs to be added for both templates if at all possible for easier navigation.

That's a template that I would steal... er, copy with attribution for the freebie wiki. We already use "Template:div col" there for column layout; we might want to leverage that for layout on ATT instead of re-inventing the wheel.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[GethN7]

Do we have any way to take a straw poll on ATT itself? My opinion is that we should let the people who actually use and contribute to the wiki have a say in how it's laid out.

 

I agree, Rob, that would be a good idea, might want to look into putting up a site notice to a forum topic where people can give their opinion on the matter.

FYI, for the time being, I'm still reverting most of the time I did things my way (except for a few categories like the Index Index for obvious reasons), because I've noticed it definitely clears up the redirect issues, but I did notice a new problem.

While the subpages template works great for trope examples subpages, we need another template for all pages in a category, and it will definitely need some sprucing up with CSS, ideally a laying out of the pages in column view with a page scroll feature like is done on the actual category pages, and a collapse tab needs to be added for both templates if at all possible for easier navigation.

That's a template that I would steal... er, copy with attribution for the freebie wiki. We already use "Template:div col" there for column layout; we might want to leverage that for layout on ATT instead of re-inventing the wheel.

I concur, Rob, good idea.

[Bob Schroeck]

Well, glad to see that that's all more or less worked out without me having to worry about tiebreaking or something. Especially since by the time I got onto the wiki today the changes were already in progress.

I suppose it's all been very server-intensive somehow somewhere, because I've been having some the worst load times and whatnot today that I've had in months, not to mention every other page save resulting in a bogus "lost session data" error.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[GethN7]

Well, glad to see that that's all more or less worked out without me having to worry about tiebreaking or something. Especially since by the time I got onto the wiki today the changes were already in progress.

I suppose it's all been very server-intensive somehow somewhere, because I've been having some the worst load times and whatnot today that I've had in months, not to mention every other page save resulting in a bogus "lost session data" error.

 

Yeah, that was likely all of my intensive efforts to undo all the category stuff I did, sorry Bob, should be done for now. ~.~

And speaking of weirdness that causes issues, I'd like to explain some nitty gritty for those who do/don't want to make use of the SocialProfile extensions user page

Here is mine for an example:

http://allthetropes.org/wiki/User:GethN7

All wiki markup will work fine for the most part, but I DO NOT recommend trying to fit Userboxes on there anywhere, they don't fit well. The Babel extension language boxes screw up on the social page as well, likely because the parser CSS for the extension is overrided by the social page CSS.

Also, all changes done to the social page will not register in Recent Changes, since they are changed in a menu not unlike the user preferences menu, done apparently for discretion reasons since you can toggle certain information to be visible to certain users only there.

And, due to a weird quirk of the extension, all users now have two User spaces, User and UserWiki.

For example: User:GethN7 would be my old userpage before the SocialProfile extension was added.

UserWiki is a clone namespace that is initially blank but functions just like the user namespace, and it's where I ported my user boxes, and is accessed by clicking the "wiki userpage" option when the SocialProfile page is toggled on. It is identical to the regular user namespace.

And, while I know we have a basic policy imported from TV Tropes on user pages, since we've got the SocialProfile page option added, I was wondering if we shouldn't draw up a more formal page on what is and isn't allowed in user spaces and user profiles (only users can edit their own SP page, while technically anyone can edit the User and UserWiki spaces).

I have also sent out some friend requests, please let me know if you got confirmation emails, especially you two, Bob and Brent, want to make sure that feature works.

[robkelk]

Radical change of topic:

It's over nine thousand! Links to disambiguation pages, that is.

Do we want to mention this to the Users?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

All wiki markup will work fine for the most part, but I DO NOT recommend trying to fit Userboxes on there anywhere, they don't fit well.

Hm. Hadn't thought to move them off my userpage anyway.

And, while I know we have a basic policy imported from TV Tropes on user pages, since we've got the SocialProfile page option added, I was wondering if we shouldn't draw up a more formal page on what is and isn't allowed in user spaces and user profiles (only users can edit their own SP page, while technically anyone can edit the User and UserWiki spaces).

Yeah, that's a good idea. We should probably put a post up about it on the forums and start generating a consensus.

I have also sent out some friend requests, please let me know if you got confirmation emails, especially you two, Bob and Brent, want to make sure that feature works.

Received and replied.

On the topic, I noticed when reading the extension docs you linked a dozen or so messages up that there's some kind of point system in there. Do we have that activated?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[GethN7]

All wiki markup will work fine for the most part, but I DO NOT recommend trying to fit Userboxes on there anywhere, they don't fit well.

Hm. Hadn't thought to move them off my userpage anyway.

And, while I know we have a basic policy imported from TV Tropes on user pages, since we've got the SocialProfile page option added, I was wondering if we shouldn't draw up a more formal page on what is and isn't allowed in user spaces and user profiles (only users can edit their own SP page, while technically anyone can edit the User and UserWiki spaces).

Yeah, that's a good idea. We should probably put a post up about it on the forums and start generating a consensus.

I have also sent out some friend requests, please let me know if you got confirmation emails, especially you two, Bob and Brent, want to make sure that feature works.

Received and replied.

On the topic, I noticed when reading the extension docs you linked a dozen or so messages up that there's some kind of point system in there. Do we have that activated?

I purposely left the point system out at the time I first requested the extension because I wasn't sure how much hassle it would be, was worried it would cause some database crap (more than we had when it first came on), and I considered it a contentious feature I felt we needed some consensus of opinion on, given unlike the other features, you don't have an option to use it or not.

And Rob, sure, leave a secondary sitenotice below the one I made annoucing that to our wiki if you want.

[GethN7]

Recently, I found out my grandfather, who had advanced mesothelioma, passed away after he coded after a chemotherapy session, and needless to say, my family and myself are more than a little shook up over his loss.

I myself long prepared for this possibility, and am dealing with it somewhat better than my other family members, but I must ask everyone to forgive me if I must step back from active duty for the next few days to be there with my other family members who are understandably more distraught.

I will try to be around as frequently as I can, but I cannot guarantee anything, and I will announce when I'm ready to perform more regular duties.

There is a matter that came up concerning a block Rob implemented on a Canadian IP (I was contacted by the editor, awaiiting a response), and I will still handle that ASAP, but that aside, I beg everyone's understanding due to this sudden event if I'm not as available.

[robkelk]

Geth, I feel sorrow for your loss. It's never easy losing a loved one.

You have more important things to do than tend to a wiki. We'll hold the fort until you feel up to coming back. (And if you think it's a good idea to send that editor my way, you cam mention that I'm the only Kelk in GEDS - the editor will know what that means.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[GethN7]

Geth, I feel sorrow for your loss. It's never easy losing a loved one.

You have more important things to do than tend to a wiki. We'll hold the fort until you feel up to coming back. (And if you think it's a good idea to send that editor my way, you cam mention that I'm the only Kelk in GEDS - the editor will know what that means.)

Thank you, Rob. I have sent them information to get in touch with the other admins to discuss this further, but given the circumstances, I adovcate they must create a formal account, explains themselves, and promise to discuss these matters from now on bare minimum.

[Bob Schroeck]

My sympathies, Geth. Don't worry about us or the wiki, be with your family.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.