Okay, I know that applying a brand new organizational system to the entire wiki would be a crazy-big project, that would require a lot of people and a lot of time. But I'm still interested in sharing the idea with you. Who knows, maybe something productive will come out of this thread.
I'll probably need to make a Google Doc for this. I'll make one if people start suggesting enough things.
The Dewey Decimal System allows people to discover books by searching by topic. Before such a system came about, you either had to know the title of a book, or know the name of an author that frequently wrote on the topic; otherwise you were SOL. It seems to me like troping is currently in a similar state of disarray; if you don't Know That Thing Where..., all you can do is fumble around through web searches, or find one that's close enough, and do a wiki-walk. And we all know how those turn out...
Categories do sort tropes and works to some degree, but without a numbering system, they have to fall back on sorting category and trope/work titles alphabetically. TV Tropes attempted to implement a Relationships system to connect related tropes, but hardly anyone uses that.
But enough of my rambling. Let's get to the good stuff.
My first draft for the code found on every trope, work, and creator page looks like this: [Kind][Number Code][Country of Origin Code (if applicable)]
First are the Kinds of things. Examples of Kinds of things are:
- Tropes
- Works
- Franchises (for properties that appear in/as multiple distinct types of works, like Star Trek, or Superman.)
- Creators
All tropes would be prefixed with a T. So for example, the trope “Big Bad” would be classified under code T123.45 (assuming you need four sub-categories just to narrow down to that trope, which you probably don't.) Likewise, all works would be prefixed with a W. The Ren and Stimpy Show would go under something like W987.654US. The US at the end indicates that it was primarily conceived/animated/aired in the United States (assuming I didn't make a Critical Research Failure...). Franchises and Creators have similar code structures, beginning with F and C, respectively.
Okay, so how would we sort tropes?
...Unfortunately, I really don't have an idea for where to start with that. There's A LOT of tropes, and A LOT of categories. This is the part I need the most assistance with.
Fortunately, my idea to categorize works is slightly less ill-conceived. Here, I suggest a way to sort all works into ten basic categories:
- Live-Action (TV, Film, Web Original)
- Animation (Anime, Western Animation, Web Animation)
- Sequential Art (Comic Books, Manga, Newspaper Comics, Webcomics)
- Static Art (Painting, Sculpture, Crafts, Billboards)
- Interactive Media (Computer Games, Video Games, Visual Novels)
- Games and Toys (Tabletop Games, Low-Tech Toys)
- Literature (Published Books, Fan Fiction, Mythology)
- Audio Works (Music, Sound Effects, Radio Plays)
- Live Events (Sports, Theater, Professional Wrestling, Puppet Shows)
- Real Life (Useful Notes)
These categories then split into subcategories, and sub-subcategories, and so on until each work can be categorized uniquely. Live Action and Animation, for instance, would be broken down into genres (Action, Comedy, Horror, etc.) Each category and sub-category would be represented with a digit from 0-9. If you know the Dewey Decimal System, then you know the drill. If not, then ask someone who's better at explaining stuff than I am.
By the way, sub-categories do not include country of origin. For example, Anime and Western Animation works could fall under the same number code. Country of origin definitely has a huge influence on the work, but I think that not categorizing by country can open your eyes to just how universal and transcendent tropes can be. Besides, that's what the Country Of Origin Code is for.
One major stumbling block is in dealing with works that don't neatly fit into one or the other. Well, that's precisely why I want more people to get involved: so we can argue over classification. For instance, Who Framed Roger Rabbit could be classified as either Live-Action or Animation. I myself argue that it's Live-Action; it's not about the animation so much as it is about the way the human actors interact with the animated characters and environment. Others would disagree, and that's exactly why it'd be a terrible idea for me to attempt to classify things on my own.
Franchises can be sorted in a manner identical to works, using the medium of the primary entry or series of entries. For instance, Doctor Who is a Live-Action work first, and a novel series, radio play series, and toy franchise second.
Creators would be sorted by profession; that is, author, actor, director, musician, athlete, etc.
This is by no means a fully-baked idea yet. I want to flesh this out as best I can. And even if the idea of a Decimal System goes nowhere, I hope it at least spawns other ideas for how to refine the art of troping.