All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XXIV

[robkelk]

Just updated the Golden Globe Award navboxes... at least, the four that we have (Best Film: Drama, Best Film: Musical or Comedy, Best Actor: Drama and Best Actress: Drama). Anybody want to take a swing at creating any of the other twenty-three navboxes? (List here)

[Black Aeronaut]

It occurs to me that we need to tweak "How We Do Bans Around Here" to account for moderation and to make it clear that bannable actions don't need to actually make it to a publicly visible wiki page to count as violations.  Anyone care to propose some draft language to that effect?

For consideration:

We have been using Moderation for new tropers' posts since early 2021; some edits are not immediately visible when they are made. However, this does not change the fact that the edits have been made; an edit that violates the wiki's Terms of Service or other rules is still subject to these rules, whether it is in the Moderation queue or the publicly-readable wiki pages.

That's better than anything I came up with.

Concur, Rob did good work on that.

Thanks.

With three mods in agreement, I'll add it to the page, then.

Forgive me if this is already in there somewhere, but...

You may want to add in a simple (Okay, make that "succinct and well-worded") "But Why?" to that.  Because we all know that there's going to be people who will push the envelop just because they don't understand why it's important to follow the rules.  And there will be a lot less frustration to go around when you can point to this and say, "This is why we're giving you this infraction."  They'll either get the message right away and amend their ways, or continue to be an issue.  In which case, you know pretty well right away that they're going to continue to be a thorn in your side.

"But why is it so important even if the edits are not publicly viewable right away?" you may ask.  Simply put, our time is valuable.  And wasting our time with edits that are in violation of our very succinct and clearly posted rules and guidelines is very much not appreciated.  The moderation queue was put into place primarily to prevent drive-by vandalism and spamming by advertisement bots.  It was, by no means, ever meant to be a system to keep newer users in check at the time it was implemented.  That is merely a side effect of the moderation queue, and a desirable one as it prevents edits that could cause us problems, legal or otherwise.  This means that the moderation queue is a safety net for us, not you.  Please respect our staff by abiding by the rules and guidelines.

Please also note that our rules and guidelines are always evolving to better convey what we feel is conducive to the wiki as well as the community that is involved in it.  Edits that violate the spirit of our rules, if not the exact wording, could still have you being infracted.  Rest assured, however, that we will welcome any politely worded and sensible suggestions to amend our rules and guidelines.

(Also note: this does not mean that you should suggest changes to the rules because you feel that yours is a special case that needs exempting.  What we mean is that we will welcome suggestions that promote a better understanding of the rules.  You are thusly forewarned, once again, to respect the administrators of this wiki by not wasting our time.)

Likey?  No likey?

[robkelk]

It occurs to me that we need to tweak "How We Do Bans Around Here" to account for moderation and to make it clear that bannable actions don't need to actually make it to a publicly visible wiki page to count as violations.  Anyone care to propose some draft language to that effect?

For consideration:

We have been using Moderation for new tropers' posts since early 2021; some edits are not immediately visible when they are made. However, this does not change the fact that the edits have been made; an edit that violates the wiki's Terms of Service or other rules is still subject to these rules, whether it is in the Moderation queue or the publicly-readable wiki pages.

That's better than anything I came up with.

Concur, Rob did good work on that.

Thanks.

With three mods in agreement, I'll add it to the page, then.

Forgive me if this is already in there somewhere, but...

You may want to add in a simple (Okay, make that "succinct and well-worded") "But Why?" to that.  Because we all know that there's going to be people who will push the envelop just because they don't understand why it's important to follow the rules.  And there will be a lot less frustration to go around when you can point to this and say, "This is why we're giving you this infraction."  They'll either get the message right away and amend their ways, or continue to be an issue.  In which case, you know pretty well right away that they're going to continue to be a thorn in your side.

"But why is it so important even if the edits are not publicly viewable right away?" you may ask.  Simply put, our time is valuable.  And wasting our time with edits that are in violation of our very succinct and clearly posted rules and guidelines is very much not appreciated.  The moderation queue was put into place primarily to prevent drive-by vandalism and spamming by advertisement bots.  It was, by no means, ever meant to be a system to keep newer users in check at the time it was implemented.  That is merely a side effect of the moderation queue, and a desirable one as it prevents edits that could cause us problems, legal or otherwise.  This means that the moderation queue is a safety net for us, not you.  Please respect our staff by abiding by the rules and guidelines.

Please also note that our rules and guidelines are always evolving to better convey what we feel is conducive to the wiki as well as the community that is involved in it.  Edits that violate the spirit of our rules, if not the exact wording, could still have you being infracted.  Rest assured, however, that we will welcome any politely worded and sensible suggestions to amend our rules and guidelines.

(Also note: this does not mean that you should suggest changes to the rules because you feel that yours is a special case that needs exempting.  What we mean is that we will welcome suggestions that promote a better understanding of the rules.  You are thusly forewarned, once again, to respect the administrators of this wiki by not wasting our time.)

Likey?  No likey?

Hmmmmm... If we start explaining why particular rules exist, will some people expect that they're entitled to have us explain why all rules exist?

More importantly, will the disruptive influences point at the given explanation and attempt to rule-lawyer their way out of an infraction, thus wasting our time anyway?

Beige Prose is the standard for documentation because it's straightforward and direct. Add extra text and one adds more points where that straightforwardness can be lost in unintended ambiguity.

[Bob Schroeck]

With three mods in agreement, I'll add it to the page, then.

<insert "thumbs up" emoji here>

[Bob Schroeck]

"But why is it so important even if the edits are not publicly viewable right away?" you may ask.  Simply put, our time is valuable.  And wasting our time with edits that are in violation of our very succinct and clearly posted rules and guidelines is very much not appreciated.  The moderation queue was put into place primarily to prevent drive-by vandalism and spamming by advertisement bots.  It was, by no means, ever meant to be a system to keep newer users in check at the time it was implemented.  That is merely a side effect of the moderation queue, and a desirable one as it prevents edits that could cause us problems, legal or otherwise.  This means that the moderation queue is a safety net for us, not you.  Please respect our staff by abiding by the rules and guidelines.

Please also note that our rules and guidelines are always evolving to better convey what we feel is conducive to the wiki as well as the community that is involved in it.  Edits that violate the spirit of our rules, if not the exact wording, could still have you being infracted.  Rest assured, however, that we will welcome any politely worded and sensible suggestions to amend our rules and guidelines.

(Also note: this does not mean that you should suggest changes to the rules because you feel that yours is a special case that needs exempting.  What we mean is that we will welcome suggestions that promote a better understanding of the rules.  You are thusly forewarned, once again, to respect the administrators of this wiki by not wasting our time.)

Likey?  No likey?

Hmmmmm... If we start explaining why particular rules exist, will some people expect that they're entitled to have us explain why all rules exist?

More importantly, will the disruptive influences point at the given explanation and attempt to rule-lawyer their way out of an infraction, thus wasting our time anyway?

Beige Prose is the standard for documentation because it's straightforward and direct. Add extra text and one adds more points where that straightforwardness can be lost in unintended ambiguity.

Rob makes a very good point -- we want to allow as few opportunities for rules lawyering as possible in the "How We Do Bans" page. However, it might be a good idea to keep this explanation somewhere else where it can be pointed to as needed.

[Bob Schroeck]

On another topic entirely, how much longer are we supposed to wait before we can search on arbitrary phrases without a database error? It's been, what, almost two weeks now?

[robkelk]

I think it's time to copy the error message and raise a Phabricator ticket, the next time you get one of those errors.

[robkelk]

Just updated the Golden Globe Award navboxes... at least, the four that we have (Best Film: Drama, Best Film: Musical or Comedy, Best Actor: Drama  and Best Actress: Drama). Anybody want to take a swing at creating any of the other twenty-three navboxes? (List here)

I had a bit of time before my first meeting of the day. The honorary awards now have navboxes. (It helps that one of those two awards only has three recipients so far.)

Next up should be "Best Director" and "Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy", because I've re-sorted the Golden Globes page to include the existing navboxes on the lists of awards and those two are squeezed between navboxes at the moment.

[Bob Schroeck]

Do we have this anywhere? I can't remember ever seeing a trope page for it: The hero is trapped, his back to a cliff, or the edge of a skyscraper roof, and the enemy has him surrounded. Then his backup or rescue suddenly rises into view.

[robkelk]

Do we have this anywhere?  I can't remember ever seeing a trope page for it:  The hero is trapped, his back to a cliff, or the edge of a skyscraper roof, and the enemy has him surrounded.  Then his backup or rescue suddenly rises into view.

If the rescuers are named characters:

Mal: Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?

Or, if it's the nameless extras rescuing the good guys, The Cavalry

[Bob Schroeck]

Definitely a subtrope of The Cavalry -- but it's not the rescue that's the key to the idea so much as the arrival, coming up from behind.

[GethN7]

Definitely a subtrope of The Cavalry -- but it's not the rescue that's the key to the idea so much as the arrival, coming up from behind.

Heroic Rear Arrival would make a good name if we don;t have the trope already.

[Bob Schroeck]

I'll draft something up while I look to see if we have it already.

[robkelk]

... but it's not the rescue that's the key to the idea so much as the arrival, coming up from behind.

Either Dynamic Entry or Your Door Was Open, depending on whether the rescuers make their presence known immediately?

[Bob Schroeck]

I think I need to actually write this up, because I have such a clear image of what I mean in my head, but I'm utterly failing at a quick, informal explanation.

[robkelk]

Aargh... Used the "edit every page in this category" setting on the mass-edit page, and MediaWiki claims that none of the pages in the category exist... And then it claimed they don't exist when I gave it a list copied from the category. So no bot run to replace "Category:Wild Mass Guessing/Webcomics" with "Category:Wild Mass Guessing/Web Comics".

Doing the other bot run now, to replace link(s) to "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" with link(s) to "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy". The system gives me 50* errors if I give it more than 50 page names at a time, so this is going to take a while... Good thing I budgeted five hours for the task.

[robkelk]

Saw Bob's comment on "Talk:Scunthrope Problem", and thought maybe we should have a cleanup party - pick a particular subcategory of Category:Pages Needing Cleanup and offer a custom badge to anybody who cleans up at least three pages listed on the subcategory. (Hey, the attraction of a custom badge/barnstar/graphic works on Wikivoyage...) What do folks think?

[robkelk]

Aargh... Used the "edit every page in this category" setting on the mass-edit page, and MediaWiki claims that none of the pages in the category exist... And then it claimed they don't exist when I gave it a list copied from the category. So no bot run to replace "Category:Wild Mass Guessing/Webcomics" with "Category:Wild Mass Guessing/Web Comics".

Doing the other bot run now, to replace link(s) to "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" with link(s) to "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy". The system gives me 50* errors if I give it more than 50 page names at a time, so this is going to take a while... Good thing I budgeted five hours for the task.

The 50* errors lead to the situation where the edits were done but the database wasn't fully updated, so the pages are still showing as using the redirect. The only fix appears to be to make anopther edit to each page still on the list... which is roughly half of the pages. <sigh>

Strongly recommend we don't do any mass edits for a while.

[Bob Schroeck]

Saw Bob's comment on "Talk:Scunthrope Problem", and thought maybe we should have a cleanup party - pick a particular subcategory of Categoryages Needing Cleanup and offer a custom badge to anybody who cleans up at least three pages listed on the subcategory. (Hey, the attraction of a custom badge/barnstar/graphic works on Wikivoyage...) What do folks think?

That's one way to motivate people to do the unsexy maintenance tasks that have been building up...

[robkelk]

Aargh... Used the "edit every page in this category" setting on the mass-edit page, and MediaWiki claims that none of the pages in the category exist... And then it claimed they don't exist when I gave it a list copied from the category. So no bot run to replace "Category:Wild Mass Guessing/Webcomics" with "Category:Wild Mass Guessing/Web Comics".

Doing the other bot run now, to replace link(s) to "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" with link(s) to "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy". The system gives me 50* errors if I give it more than 50 page names at a time, so this is going to take a while... Good thing I budgeted five hours for the task.

The 50* errors lead to the situation where the edits were done but the database wasn't fully updated, so the pages are still showing as using the redirect. The only fix appears to be to make anopther edit to each page still on the list... which is roughly half of the pages. <sigh>

Strongly recommend we don't do any mass edits for a while.

All done... finally, and with a couple of breaks in the middle.

[RMH999]

A Bug in Early Creative Commons Licenses Has Enabled a New Breed of Superpredator  
by Cory Doctorow

Don't know if this might be an issue for the All the Tropes wiki, but thought I'd pass it along after I read it.

TL;DR - Copyright trolls going after people with pre-4.0 CC who make minor textual errors in the CC writeup.  Or it could be overblown and the author is going into a rant after they hit him.

[robkelk]

A Bug in Early Creative Commons Licenses Has Enabled a New Breed of Superpredator  
by Cory Doctorow

Don't know if this might be an issue for the All the Tropes wiki, but thought I'd pass it along after I read it.

TL;DR - Copyright trolls going after people with pre-4.0 CC who make minor textual errors in the CC writeup.  Or it could be overblown and the author is going into a rant after they hit him.

In this particular case, the author is one of the people who created the original CC licenses. He knows what he's talking about.

As for ATT... we have the "fair dealing" exemption to protect us, since we both actually do analysis of the works that we list and make an active effort of ensuring misinformation does not appear on the wiki. (If we didn't do both, we might not qualify.) But it's still worth checking what we do have.

* robkelk takes a quick look, and realizes this won't be a one-day task

Who owns the "Mechanical Boy Pino" bot? I see an upload by this bot citing CC BY NC SA 2.5 that doesn't provide an attribution.


EDIT: Category:CC BY NC 2.5 Images is all xkcd - I don't see Randall Munroe suing us, since we make a habit of attributing xkcd in the capitalization that he prefers.

[robkelk]

I used to have so much patience... Somebody else, please deal with this change that "Burnator" wants to make. (The edit reason is "add A LOT of exaples" - yes, that is a copy-and-paste.)

[GethN7]

I used to have so much patience... Somebody else, please deal with this change that "Burnator" wants to make. (The edit reason is "add A LOT of exaples" - yes, that is a copy-and-paste.)

It's my birthday, but I don't mind being tagged in, I'll deal with that.

https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Topic:Wp3g9cr30nk9bvz8

[robkelk]

Thanks, Geth.