All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part II

[Tennie]

This is just my idea, but assuming we do decide to keep the TVT archives (which I, personally, support), it'd be best to give it a name such as, say, "TV Tropes MOW Archive" or somesuch.  The archive for MOWs acquired on ATT should be kept separate and named as such.

[Labster]

MOW pages: @GethN7 just run a bot to delink all user pages for
now?
[context needed]: no
comments?
I've started on the policy pages, as
promised, but I quickly hit upon an elephant.  Look at Spoiler
Policy, scroll to the bottom.  Is it a bad thing that
I like the "cancerous" example much better than the "good" version
directly above it?
The elephant in question is
natter.  I actually like the snarky fan
commentary aspect of the website.  Naturally, TVT had three
redundant policies on natter, which were redundant and numbered three:
Conversation in the
Main Page, Justifying
Edit, and Thread
Mode.    None of them are bad all
on their own, though they have varying levels of
condescension.  It's almost as if it was the culture behind the
'anti-natter brigade' that was driving the reductionism, rather than
the policy itself.
I took a crack at a replacement
here. 
I went with Thread Mode as the name because I've grown to hate the word
"natter" and I'm used to the name from Ward's Wiki.  The only
remaining question for me is if we want an even looser policy. 
Like, is thread mode on the main pages an OK thing, so long as people
feel free to come along and refactor later?  I'd really like to
avoid the Stop Having Fun Guys culture, but it's not like a style guide
should hurt all that much.  I hope.
-- ∇×V

[GethN7]

As for the stance on "natter", I agree with vorticity's position on this and support his proposed changes, unless anyone has any objections.

As for the MOW pages, I could probably delink them as specified. It will still leave a lot of red links to other TVT specific stuff lying around, but I could do that.

[Bob Schroeck]

Is it a bad thing that I like the "cancerous" example much better than the "good" version directly above it?

Not at all. I rather prefer it myself.

I took a crack at a replacement here.

I like it. You've got a little redundancy between the second paragraph and the "Where Thread Mode Is Okay" section, but that's easily enough cleaned up. As for a looser policy, I'm for it, as long as the "refactoring" was handled a bit more regularly than "catch as catch can"; perhaps by a "superuser" type with an assigned responsibility. The problem then would be detecting pages that needed it.

As for MOW, I think Tennie has the right idea. Keep the old archives, but start a new MOW page (and counts) for ATT.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

I've put up an initial version of a page on http://allthetropes.orain.org/wiki/Censorware]Censorware, if anyone cares to look and comment/revise.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Seraviel]

Added first example (A subversion.)
-People may die, but ideas are forever. Je suis Charlie.

[Bob Schroeck]

Ah, that was you. I really didn't intend for examples, but then I just went with it and added all the necessary decor for them.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Tennie]

I just want to say this:

Yesterday I was browsing ATT when I noticed that there was a new entry on the "Notable References to All The Tropes" page; it's the one about the "Project after" forums and their rather negative reaction to our existence.  I took one look at the thread, and I had flashbacks to SA's TVT mock threads (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few veterans of those threads participating in that thread).(1)

However, they seem to be of the opinion that certain pages on certain works that were banned on TVT should stay banned, perhaps with the only mention (if that) of such works being somewhere along the lines of "This is bad and you should feel bad for looking it up."  Necessarily, I disagree, as it could do us some good to have those articles point out why those works are bad (preferably in a relatively clean/not creepy way, an accusation that was made to TVT (IIRC) when it still hosted those articles.).

We would do well to rebuff many of their claims in other ways.  Does anyone have any ideas on how we could (at least conceivably) counter them?  I'm willing to hear.

(1) Be aware, that thread, like most other mock threads, may not be safe for work, mind, and/or blood pressure.  I cannot yet substantiate whether the criticisms have any leg to stand on, and would appreciate some analysis of those claims from those of us here who are made of sterner stuff (or at least stern enough to see whether they're blowing things out of proportion or not.).

[GethN7]

I read that thread. Mostly, it's just a bunch of SA styled "troping websites are evil incarnate and filled with perverted pedophile nerds who obsess over stupid crap and certain things don't deserve to be talked about", and frankly, stuff like that makes me laugh and facepalm.

Okay, they don't like tropers because we make pages for certain things and make a ton of lists about it. So what?

Wikipedia hosts a page on "Kodomo No Jikan" (which they also hate and the SA mock threads call "The Anime That Must Not Be Named"), but I have yet to see anyone hating on Wikipedia simply for informing the world what the manga/anime is about, and to pretend certain things don't need to be discussed (even if doing so is legal) because some people feel it's immoral is absurd, and one of the reasons I'm disgusted with what TV Tropes has become.

I wouldn't mind getting an account there and discussing why they hate tropers/troping so much and feel its so worthy of scorn if they'd like, and I would be willing to keep an open mind regardless of my own views (their registration captcha seems to be broken ATM though), but for the most part, their views don't trouble me, as they are entitled to their opinions.

Regardless, I'm convinced I should feel no guilt for allowing the discussion of tropes and all works of fiction that contain those tropes, and thus I politely reject the assertion I should be ashamed to discuss certain matters because others want me to be ashamed for doing so.

[Jinx999]

The trouble is when you confuse the name with Kodomo no Omocha, which is somewhat different.

[Tennie]

why they hate tropers/troping so much and feel its so worthy of scorn

That's pretty much the thing that's been bugging me about their criticism of TVT, ATT, and the like: I don't exactly understand why a website about tropes and the community surrounding it could be the target of such scorn(1), and would like to hear the reasons for that.  I'll admit that I don't have the will to go in there and ask (however innocently) those questions, an I'm pretty sure I'll get flamed out of there lickety-split.  If anyone else wants to try to prove me wrong on that and get some kind of relatively civilized conversation going on that subject, then I would really appreciate hearing the responses, and see what their ideas should be on what a troping website should be like.  Of course, ATT likely won't use their suggestions, but I would recommend that they ought to try their own hand at running a website about tropes based on their ideas for it, and see how that turns out.  Who knows, maybe it could make for another competitor to TVT and ATT...

(1) Okay, so there could be certain...elements...of the community that tend to be rather bad apples, so to speak.  But I'm a believer in the idea that the strength of a community can be gauged by how well it handles the effects of its darker sections.  In ATT's case, I would like to see its community be able to handle potential problems with relatively minimal drama (unlike what happened with TVT.).

On a different, and somewhat more lighthearted tangent:

The trouble is when you confuse the name with Kodomo no Omocha, which is somewhat different.

You know, that'd make for one hell of a Crossover That Should Not Be!

[Morganite]

Some of the people on that form seem to not understand the idea of "pages for more popular works will have more stuff on them".

Necessarily, I disagree, as it could do us some good to have those articles point out why those works are bad (preferably in a relatively clean/not creepy way, an accusation that was made to TVT (IIRC) when it still hosted those articles.).

My first reaction was "How exactly is that our job?" On the other hand, it's something people could certainly do on review pages. (Uh, are we going to have those?)

But in the general stuff-on-the-works-page sense... what is the point? It reminds me of the rape trope renames, where they seemed to be stumbling over themselves to not sound like they were endorsing it, when the very idea that they ever could have been is ludicrous. If a work involves ~whatever~, it's going to be right there in the description and/or tropes listed. Anyone who doesn't already get that ~whatever~ is a bad thing to do in real life isn't going to suddenly get it due to anything we can do. And if someone does get that, but still enjoys fictional works which contain ~whatever~ for reasons that may or may not have to do with it containing ~whatever~, I don't give a rat's ass. They don't ping my "I should be worried by this person" radar anywhere near as much as the person who *does* obsess over other people's taste in fiction.

-Morgan. Kodomo no Lotte no Omocha no Jikan?

[Tennie]

Some of the people on that form seem to not understand the idea of "pages for more popular works will have more stuff on them".
[...]
the person who *does* obsess over other people's taste in fiction.

From what I can tell, they (or at least a sizable portion of them) seem to be rather elitist about fiction, apparently thinking that only truly important/influential.innovative works (e.g. the literary cannon and certain films like Citizen Kane) deserve to be viewed and talked about.  To them, the fact that pop-cultural works on troping sites get larger lists than works of the type that I mentioned apparently pisses them off greatly.  Now, normally I would say that they could simply add on to those lists themselves, but considering that that idea seems to be anathema to them I've come to figure that they'd rather pretend that pop culture not exist at all.

To them I would recommend that they try their own hand at making and running a troping/analysis site, and see how that goes.

Now, I have had a hypothesis formulate for a while.  Based on some observations I've come to wonder if they ate also nerds themselves, who want to be seen as being "better" than the (stereo)typical nerd types.  Thus they start championing those literary works that most people have to read in K-12 and college, and belittling other nerds as being [insert negative nerd stereotypes here(1)] in order to "show" that they are superior to "those damn crazy nerds".  Of course, this probably doesn't describe all of them, but probably does describe at least some of them.

(1) Apparently, the stuff they accuse us of being include being perverted, pedophilic, dumber/not as well-rounded as we should be (in their eyes, anyway), prone to making things up in order to make us sound more awesome than the "losers" that we "actually" are, and stuff like that.  Now, yes, there likely are some truths to those, but not anywhere near as much overall as they like to claim.

Sorry for the relative wall of text, but this was something that I needed to get off of my chest for a while.  It wasn't so much what they say about us so much as it's why they would say such things that's been bugging me for some time.

Kodomo no Lotte no Omocha no Jikan?

...That is so much a Crossover That Should Not Be that it makes me want to hide in a bunker and wait for the danger to pass.

[GethN7]

Okay, while I'm waiting for Orain to install MW 1.22 [official release] (so I can add some more features), I've finally managed to figure out how to fix a ton of misplaced trope/work templates, but I'm going to have to make a request:

Please, do not fix them manually (or move them/delete them from categories) for a few days, and here's why.

Due to the horrid tagging system used by TV Tropes (which parsed badly despite Vorticity's best efforts thanks to FE's utterly obtuse wiki trails tag system), the result on ATT does not look too pretty since a lot of the categories don't even have a consistent naming scheme, and I'm currently adding all the work page specific categories to a big list so I can parse out all the appropriate pages with the right templates, and while I know seeing the wrong template might be annoying for awhile, I plan to fix it all in one big bot job in a day or two, so please bear with me.

NOTE: I do not prmise this will get EVERYTHING. Some categories like Analysis and Quotes I left alone since many of those are trope pages and I couldn't parse out those pages from the list, and I may wind up accidently parsing some trope pages if they got miscategorized.

[Labster]

Anyway, I've been away on a business trip for the last couple of days.  The wiki failed to collapse without me.  In fact, it even got edits.  Fighteer may call us a troll site, but we're still going to be here next year, still editing.  That makes me happy.  Anyway, a few comments on what you've been talking about:
I don't think it's possible to avoid being made fun of.  A large portion of the site is going to be gushing about stuff you love, no matter what the policy is going to be.  People edit the pages of works they like.  It's going to be mostly self-selection on the part of users.  And that's okay.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, anyway.  Cataloging popular works are as important -- in fact more important -- than gathering data on "good" works.  Popular culture influences how society thinks more than great works of literature do.  The great works have their place and do influence culture, but even Shakespeare wouldn't have survived unless he was popular.  For the first time in the history of the world, the thoughts of the common folk -- not just the rich and the educated -- are being documented and preserved as part of the corpus of human history.  So the intelligentsia can complain all they want at our overcoverage of Negima or analysis of poorly drawn porn, but I'm going to be too busy listening to "Call Me Maybe" on YouTube to care.
How the heck are people confusing "time" and "toy"?   They sound even less alike in Japanese.  Reordering the crossover name as Lotte no Kodomo no Omocha no Jikan would make more sense (and possibly a viable plot).
@GethN7: Hey, Wiki Trails are a perfectly serviceable documentation feature.  It's only the hack to turn them into categories that's horrid.

target of such scorn(1)

brent% man scorn 1No manual entry for scorn

I think I have a good name for a new shell utility.  Maybe something along the lines of Perl::Critic.
Anyway, I'll try and change the table markup to mediawiki-style tomorrow.
-- ∇×V

[GethN7]

I'm still running a bot to fix a lot a pages (it may take an extra day or so due to the scale of what I have to fix), but in the meantime, I wanted announce something:

I joined the discussion at the Project After forums about TV Tropes.

I went in with the objective to be civil and respectful of other people's opinions, and to my surprise I found out the PA guys are mostly disenchanted with what TV Tropes has become and hope for a better alternative. Granted, I did not entirely agree with all their opinions, but some of their arguments are quite persuasive and I am seriously considering amending our policies to reflect them.

However, that has yet to happen (as I would rather consult with you guys first), but if anyone else would like to join the conversation there, I ask you please go in with an open mind and show them the same courtesy I decided to show them.

If you would like to follow the point where my posts begin, start here:

http://www.projectafterforums.com/index ... t&p=224528

[Tennie]

You know, I found it actually refreshing (for once) that, underneath the bluster about how tropers are bad, they are actually genuinely concerned about the quality of a website about tropes!  Now, I'm not likely to join anytime soon, so I'll remain in the peanut gallery (at least for the time being).

Now, if you can, you might want to consider what might happen if you try the same thing with SA's mock thread.  I, personally, would expect it to backfire horribly, but then again, I also expected the same thing to happen with Project After (which, judging by the replies, hasn't happened thus far (knock on wood)).  Maybe, just maybe, you could prove me wrong again...Or at least I'd hope so, anyway!

[nylor]

Been buried up to my neck at work for a while, but I updated a couple of the promotional threads I'd made with the revelation that TVTropes now claims they own anything anyone posts there irrevocably. Anyone posted at rpg.net? I could throw something together over there this week, if it's allowable with their policies..

[GethN7]

Guys, I have some great news!

After a lot of edits, a lot of swearing, more edits, more swearing, even more edits, pausing to gargle some bleach to wash out my mouth, then yet more edits, I've finally got some working CSS style sheets for all of the available skins we have for the Darth Wiki, with Sugar Wiki to be following soon after. (and any other CSS style sheets we may require)

The reason I spent so much time cursing is because I had to make sure all the skins would look readable yet have the dark scheme associated with the DarthWiki, and I even managed to get the notoriously problematic Monaco skin to play nice.

After some more tests and tweaks for readability, I plan to roll out the release candidate version of the Darth Wiki skin.

Also, I plan to set up an automatic page boilerplate system so creating new pages won't require so much typing by hand, and there is an extension for it, and if I can't get that, I'm working on a non MW extension alternative, but either way, I plan to make creating new pages a lot easier.

Also, I'm tweaking the edit tools box that you can see by default at the bottom of the edit window on most pages (got all the bugs ironed out too ) so you can place the most commonly used templates and markup by simply clicking a button, so that should be easier as well.

All these features are still being tweaked on my localhost test wiki for now, but soon, I will have working versions of all the above to make your editing experience even more simple than before.

[Bob Schroeck]

Very cool!

On the subject of boilerplate and all, do we, or will we, have a category/markup for creators separate from "work"?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[GethN7]

I could easily set up a boilerplate for creator pages.

[Labster]

We should have a markup separate from work. I had tried to do {{creator}}, and managed to completely screw it up on import. That said, I have no idea what should be on that page menu. You can take a look at Template:Work, see how it works, and make a Template:Creator if you have any ideas.

Table parsing is coming along, but it's complicated, of course. Pretty much every page needs to be checked after the fact to make sure it worked.
-- ∇×V

[GethN7]

Also, Vorticity has amended our copyright page to make things very clear concerning what we can and cannot do in regards to TV Tropes.

http://allthetropes.orain.org/wiki/All ... Copyrights

However, after reviewing Creative Commons and speaking with a concerned ATT editor, I'm fairly sure TV Tropes has no legal right whatsoever to rob the creators of content of any right to relicense content on their own terms, so I don't believe we have any reason to deny editors the right to relicense their own edits on TV Tropes to ATT, since that is an unalienable right granted by Creative Commons, so TV Tropes insisting creators no longer have that right strikes me as flagrantly illegal, and I see no reason we have to legally obey that new clause on TV Tropes, since it's blatant violation of Creative Commons, and according to the CC website, any illegal contravention of creator's rights by a licensor (TV Tropes in this case) means that the license restrictions are automatically terminated and no longer applicable to the licensee (the editor(s) in question).

This editor has requested we reconsider this matter, and I believe we should as well.

[Tennie]

Now, IANAL and I don't know low likely it actually is, but if FE does decide to sue us, then we should be able to prove that what we are doing isn't "technically" illegal.  If any member here is a lawyer, he/she ought to consider being our attorney in such a case.  If not, then it would do well for us to get a lawyer who's quite proficient on the operation and use of internet creative licenses and the like.

Nonetheless, I am running some scenarios regarding the conclusions of such a trial and the implications for them.  For example, say that our actions are indeed found to be illegal.  Or that TVT's rewriting of the relicensing rules are found to be illegal.  What could be the end results of either scenario?
Would we have to fold up shop and crawl back to TVT in the first scenario?  Would FE actively resist the second scenario's ruling to detrimental results?

Does anyone else want to take a stab at guessing other scenarios/implications?

[Labster]

Okay, I did revert that policy change, but only for now. I need to decide on a strategy here. There are really three options to considering the content ownership issues from TVT:

(A)ttack: Start sending the DMCAs of their clearly illegal content ownership policy. There have been several CC license violations here, enough to terminate their license.
(R)etreat: Just let them claim ownership, and go off and do our own thing.
(I)gnore: Just pretend their idiocy isn't happening, and represent the actual facts of what the TVT copyright situation is, regardless of what Eddie and Fighteer think they are.

All of these actions have consequences, and the dialog box only has these three options. Unless people see something else.

The problem with Attack is that it can quickly lead into a MAD situation, where we undermine everyone's license to use the copyright -- we might get far enough along to destroy both sites, or at least huge chunks thereof. Because TVT never asks consent ever -- even for the CC-BY-SA we use, this is a possible outcome.

The problem with Retreat is that we're ignoring our own author's rights -- and everyone else's. I never intended my pages to be licensed under a noncommercial license, and they're distributing it that way anyway.

The problem with Ignore is that the situation doesn't really go away, and the copyright issue get even more thorny with time over at TVT. People will be completely confused, and the situation may escalate anyway. And we're still not asserting our rights.

Anyone have advice on this, moving forward?
-- ∇×V