All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XXIV

[Bob Schroeck]

Because I was just reminded of the search problem again, I have created a Phabricator ticket for it. Let's see what happens.

[GethN7]

Burnator has yet to make an edit that is not terrible. If they weren't copy-pasting, their grammar has been horrible.

WDStudios started off a bit rough at first, but has adapted well and made some good edits. If they keep that up, I say we auto-approve them.

[robkelk]

Burnator has yet to make an edit that is not terrible. If they weren't copy-pasting, their grammar has been horrible.

I've already called them on grammar once. If they do it again, I'd support invoking "Refusing to learn from honest mistakes, or repeatedly making the same honest mistake after it's been pointed out" and giving them a warning that they're at risk of a tempban.

WDStudios started off a bit rough at first, but has adapted well and made some good edits. If they keep that up, I say we auto-approve them.

Agreed. Some of their changes are big, so it's time-consuming to see that they're also good.

[Bob Schroeck]

Burnator has yet to make an edit that is not terrible. If they weren't copy-pasting, their grammar has been horrible.

I've already called them on grammar once. If they do it again, I'd support invoking "Refusing to learn from honest mistakes, or repeatedly making the same honest mistake after it's been pointed out" and giving them a warning that they're at risk of a tempban.

Anyone who claims to make grammar fixes but can't spell "grammar" is not someone from which to expect much of value. I second this proposal. We need to make it very clear that we're not joking about quality we want in edits.

WDStudios started off a bit rough at first, but has adapted well and made some good edits. If they keep that up, I say we auto-approve them.

Agreed. Some of their changes are big, so it's time-consuming to see that they're also good.

Yes. They're shaping up well.


In other news, no reply yet to my ticket about the search DB error, other than it's been triaged to "normal" priority.

[Bob Schroeck]

Someone called "TheCarlosfieldParadox" just posted in the wiki forums asking if Cloverfield was a trope. I answered him seriously, but I'm betting we've got a potential troll here. His account was "created automatically" some six minutes before he posted, which suggests he came to us from another Miraheze wiki. Which is no guarantee of anything.

[Bob Schroeck]

Because I was just reminded of the search problem again, I have created a Phabricator ticket for it.  Let's see what happens.

Okay, apparently we're not the only ones suffering.  Our ticket and another have been rolled into a single new ticket called "Search issues caused by rebuildtextindex.php data too long error" -- a PHP script is failing because something feeding to it is handing it a string too big for it to handle.  They're debating what to do about it now.

[GethN7]

Because I was just reminded of the search problem again, I have created a Phabricator ticket for it.  Let's see what happens.

Okay, apparently we're not the only ones suffering.  Our ticket and another have been rolled into a single new ticket called "Search issues caused by rebuildtextindex.php data too long error" -- a PHP script is failing because something feeding to it is handing it a string too big for it to handle.  They're debating what to do about it now.

Oh boy, as someone who has managed his own MW installs, that probably means there is either some corrupted data or the cache is gagging trying to cash a check the tables can't write. John has proposed a decent end-run solution that should bust everyone over the hump if it works though.

[robkelk]

Ugh.

Over an hour of work cleaning up "Alternative Character Interpretation/Oral Tradition", and it still isn't in good enough shape to safely add this example...

<sigh>

[robkelk]

A project for somebody. Not me!

It's been a decade since we forked from TV Tropes, and we still don't have a description of Live-Action TV. (The page redirects to the category; the category refers to the page.)

Somebody needs to write one.

For the sort of things that should be in the description, compare with Category:Literature and Category:Tabletop Games. (Do not compare with Category:Radio, because that description is a stub.)

[robkelk]

Got another one of these... I know there's a trope in this web comic, but I don't know which trope it is... Anybody recognize it?

[Umbire]

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.

Not like those're mutually exclusive, it's copyright trolling after all.

Also hi, I'm still alive.

[robkelk]

I'm having trouble getting this video on Commons to show up on ATT. (Which is why I deleted the page that I just created.) If anybody else wants to give it a try, it should go on "Elephants Dream/Source"

[robkelk]

Refresh my memory, please...

In which forum or talk page thread did we decide to start moving trope descriptions from Trope pages to Category pages? (For example. "Action Girl".)

Because if we never formally decided to do that - if it was just a mod thinking that it should happen - then we should undo it until the Tropers tell us it's okay to do it.

[GethN7]

Refresh my memory, please...

In which forum or talk page thread did we decide to start moving trope descriptions from Trope pages to Category pages? (For example. "Action Girl".)

Because if we never formally decided to do that - if it was just a mod thinking that it should happen - then we should undo it until the Tropers tell us it's okay to do it.

Some tropes are mega tropes for a TON of subtropes and related tropes. Since Category pages have the ability to automatically sort most of that built-in, a lot were moved to the Category pages to take advantage of this built-in MW feature.

MW Category pages are the functional equivalent of TVT index pages (and we do require those due to the layout of a trope wiki). I haven't moved any recently, but they've been fairly effective for the larger categories with many subcategories for sorting, so I'm not inclined to do anything unless we hash out any objections and if we have better alternatives.

[robkelk]

Refresh my memory, please...

In which forum or talk page thread did we decide to start moving trope descriptions from Trope pages to Category pages? (For example. "Action Girl".)

Because if we never formally decided to do that - if it was just a mod thinking that it should happen - then we should undo it until the Tropers tell us it's okay to do it.

Some tropes are mega tropes for a TON of subtropes and related tropes. Since Category pages have the ability to automatically sort most of that built-in, a lot were moved to the Category pages to take advantage of this built-in MW feature.

MW Category pages are the functional equivalent of TVT index pages (and we do require those due to the layout of a trope wiki). I haven't moved any recently, but they've been fairly effective for the larger categories with many subcategories for sorting, so I'm not inclined to do anything unless we hash out any objections and if we have better alternatives.

That answers "why".

But I didn't ask "why".

For obvious reasons, I don't have a lot of patience with deflection debating tactics at the moment.

Please answer the question that I actually asked. It can be answered with a single URL.

[GethN7]

Refresh my memory, please...

In which forum or talk page thread did we decide to start moving trope descriptions from Trope pages to Category pages? (For example. "Action Girl".)

Because if we never formally decided to do that - if it was just a mod thinking that it should happen - then we should undo it until the Tropers tell us it's okay to do it.

Some tropes are mega tropes for a TON of subtropes and related tropes. Since Category pages have the ability to automatically sort most of that built-in, a lot were moved to the Category pages to take advantage of this built-in MW feature.

MW Category pages are the functional equivalent of TVT index pages (and we do require those due to the layout of a trope wiki). I haven't moved any recently, but they've been fairly effective for the larger categories with many subcategories for sorting, so I'm not inclined to do anything unless we hash out any objections and if we have better alternatives.

That answers "why".

But I didn't ask "why".

For obvious reasons, I don't have a lot of patience with deflection debating tactics at the moment.

Please answer the question that I actually asked. It can be answered with a single URL.

Rob, I don't have a photographic memory, so I cannot recall the exact timestamped moment for you, but I do remember the issue was discussed at one point, either here or on the wiki itself (I believe it originated here, check previous threads). All I can say for sure is that it was discussed and we agreed on the discretionary use of those for certain pages. That was not an attempt at diversion, because I legitimately cannot recall the exact moment.

If you object to this practice, I am not opposed to a review of it for something better. However, it has proven technically useful to our needs and just because the exact cause of it cannot be identified to the exact second for your liking does not mean the issue was not brought up, discussed, and implemented after contemplation, whether or not you specifically remember when this happened. I would respectfully suggest you do not immediately assume the worst of others over a matter that is not clear, it does nothing but stir ill feelings and does nothing to resolve the matter of your inquiry.

[robkelk]

You're deflecting again, this time with an ad hominem attack.

You are pissing me off.

Stop it.

* robkelk takes deep breath, releases it slowly

If the discussion took place here, then it needs to be repeated on the wiki so that all of the tropers have a say, as per Rule 1 of All The Tropes:Policy for Wiki Staff.

[Bob Schroeck]

Rob, as someone coming into this from the outside and seeing the entire thing at once... you're coming across very angry and aggressive about this with no real explanation why.

There were design and architectural decisions -- like this one -- that were made when the admin staff were the user base or at least the majority thereof. I cannot see that this invalidates those decisions, but if the subsequent growth of the userbase does invalidate them for some reason that raises two points:

One, we already have a mechanism in place for changing established ways of doing things on the wiki.

Two, if we need to get new consensus on decisions made before the current userbase were users we're going to a) need to do a lot of "renewing" decisions right away, and b) be doing this on a regular basis. It seems like a bad precedent to set -- I feel like it's going to lead to running referendums every few years as the userbase turns over.

[robkelk]

I am currently living in a city under a state of emergency because of people who want to replace the legally-elected government. Of course I'm on edge and angry.

I will table (Parliamentary meaning, not Congressional meaning) this... for now.

[robkelk]

What's the in-universe equivalent to Man of a Thousand Voices? (That trope is Real Life only.)

[Bob Schroeck]

I don't think we've ever declared any trope "real life only". There's certainly nothing on that trope that says it can't have a "fictional/in-universe" section as well as a "Real Life" section -- IIRC we have more than a few tropes with examples divvied up like that. I'd say do it that way -- demote the existing example sections to "===" headers under a "== Real Life ==" heading and create a new "== Fictional ==" section under which to put in-universe examples.

[Bob Schroeck]

On a different topic entirely, am I the only one irritated by Burnator's profane objection to a Japanese trope name?

[Umbire]

On a different topic entirely, am I the only one irritated by Burnator's profane objection to a Japanese trope name?

Oh where to even begin with that.

[Bob Schroeck]

On a different topic entirely, am I the only one irritated by Burnator's profane objection to a Japanese trope name?

Oh where to even begin with that.

Heh.  I began twice before I was satisfied with what I wrote.

[Umbire]

Also I've been logged out again and I can't remember my password, so I'll be resetting that whenever I can be bothered to return to editing.