Topic on Category talk:Trope Workshop

Proposal: No new trope candidates from anyone until the Trope Workshop has fewer than 15 candidates

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Summary by Robkelk

The proposal failed, but the number of tropes in the workshop was reduced by the normal processes over the following fifteen months.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

Eighteen months ago, we had 40 candidates in the Trope Workshop. In order to reduce that number, we instituted a rule that no one person could have more than three trope candidates in the Trope Workshop at a time. We grandfathered in the existing trope candidates.

Unfortunately, it appears that some people (no names) have chosen to interpret "a trope was just launched" as "a trope was just launched, so now I can propose a new trope candidate". Thus, while we quickly dropped from 40 trope candidates to 30, we have been sitting close to 30 candidates ever since then.

In order to make another attempt to reduce the number of trope candidates, we instituted a rule that any trope candidate that was untouched (other than minor housekeeping edits) for six months would be summarily deleted. This was taken as "a trope candidate was deleted, so now I can propose a new trope candidate".

It looks like we need to be more strict in order to clear the backlog.

I am thus proposing that we limit the Trope Workshop to fifteen candidates total, with no grandfathering.

As to which fifteen get to remain in the Workshop... the ten that we inherited from TV Tropes cannot be returned to their proposers', so they have to stay. I'll have RANDOM.org put the list of the other eighteen trope candidates into a true random order, keep the first five in the Trope Workshop, and move the other thirteen to their proposers' sandboxes -- this gives a candidate proposed by the newest Troper and a candidate proposed by a founding admin exactly the same chance to remain in the Workshop. As we launch (or reject) tropes, I will pull candidates out of the sandboxes in the same order that they appear on the random-order list -- which will be posted here in its own thread for transparency -- in order to bring the count back to fifteen. Trope candidates that are currently in sandboxes will be added to the end of the list in random order. After that, it's "first in, first out": brand-new candidates that do not currently exist on the wiki will be added to the end of the list as trope proposers bring their candidates' sandbox pages to my attention.

(I am aware of approximately two dozen tropes that a founding admin wants to write, but has not started work on. He has not created sandbox pages for these ideas, so they do not get to be added to the list here.)

If we finally get to the point where the waiting list is empty and there are fewer than fifteen candidates in the Trope Workshop, then trope candidates will be allowed to be submitted directly to the Trope Workshop until there are fifteen candidates in the Workshop again. Whenever the Workshop has fifteen candidates, the list will be in effect.

Pinging the usual folks that I ping, and anyone with a current trope candidate, for comments: @Agiletek @Bauerbach @GentlemensDame883 @Goo Monster @HeneryVII @Jlaw‎ @Kuma @Lequinni‎ @RivetVermin @Umbire the Phantom @Utini501 @Labster @Looney Toons @GethN7 @Robkelk @QuestionableSanity @Derivative @SelfCloak

HeneryVII (talkcontribs)

I'm okay with that.

Looney Toons (talkcontribs)

I'm okay with that, too... but I'm going to propose launching One-Dollar Retainer because (conflict of interest admitted), I believe it's ready to go.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

As long as you don't replace it with anything, launching a trope reduces the number of tropes in the Workshop ... which is exactly what this rule is intended to do.

Toe-Tapping Melody already has a proposal to launch, as well.

Agiletek (talkcontribs)

Disagree. A hard number of "15" expects, and to a degree ensures, user population only remains stable at best.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

I don't see how. We aren't limiting the number of tropers, and the majority of active tropers do not propose new tropes.

Looney Toons (talkcontribs)

It's not like it's impossible to change should circumstances require. It only needs a proposal just like this one.

Looney Toons (talkcontribs)

Oh, we should also go through everything and see if there's anything that qualifies for deletion under the "abandoned candidate" rule.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

I'm going through the old tropes from TV Tropes and seeing whether any of them can be "launched", as well.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

I found four. Now to wait for votes about them.

I also found one to delete. Nobody cares enough about Spell My Name with a "The" to put in the work (over the last nine months) to save it, so I've tagged that one as a candidate for speedy deletion.

Looney Toons (talkcontribs)

Mm. I may have to do it, as I'm doing up a work page for a story with two characters subject to that trope. I'd rather not lose it.

Umbire the Phantom (talkcontribs)

Yeah, I'll see if I can't contribute something to that as well and make up for my absence + my contributing to the reason we need this proposal.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

And I see that many of those trope stubs that we inherited from TV Tropes could have been launched months ago if people had bothered to pay attention to the Trope Workshop process. (One of them has even had the same proposal made three separate times, but never gathered three votes.)

Yes, I am upset about this. Yes, this current proposal remains open for discussion, even if we clear all of the old TV Tropes trope stubs from the list. This appears to be the only way to get people to care about trope candidates other than their own.

GentlemensDame883 (talkcontribs)

Not sure about this one. Think I'll abstain on it.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

I am going to let this discussion run for at least a week, since it is a substantial change to Trope Workshop policy.

I'll also point out that it takes less than a week to launch a trope candidate, if it's ready. Please do not abuse this loophole.

Jlaw (talkcontribs)

My concern here is that it may contradict the rule that a user can propose three different trope workshops at a time. Maybe that rule can be rewritten to say that within the 15-trope workshop cap, one can only have three workshop pages proposed?

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

That was what I was thinking... Of course, it allows five people to flood the Workshop with three tropes each. I'm counting on people being sufficiently mature to avoid doing that.

Jlaw (talkcontribs)

Apologies for doing that; I thought I was following the rules. But yes we'll avoid flooding.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

You were following the rules. I'm just proposing a rule change... which isn't guaranteed to actually happen.

Umbire the Phantom (talkcontribs)

Inclined to disagree, but only because I believe we can solve the issue of backlog without having to enforce something like this just yet.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

It's been two days into the week that I promised to let this run, and we're already down to 20 entries in the Trope Workshop. Three of those are sandbox pages.

Which means that, if we can decide what to do with two more tropes and then keep the number of tropes in the workshop at 15 or less, this rule won't need to be put into effect. (And I know one of the current tropes is just waiting for a third vote to launch. No, I won't say which one here; the whole idea here is to get people interested enough in trope candidates that other people proposed to work on them...)

Jlaw (talkcontribs)

Okay. Which tropes do you think would need the most TLC to get them out of the workshop?

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

I would start with Kuma's trope candidates. Now that Kuma has had a professional prereader go through them, somebody should double-check whether anything else looks odd ... or if they're good, propose they be launched.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

We're approaching the end of the week that I promised this would run... and we're still over 15 candidates, so I made the random-order list.

And it looks like one trope that only needs a third vote to launch will be one of the tropes sent back to the proposer's sandbox.

This would be a horridly ironic thing to have happen - a trope candidate that is literally one vote away from becoming an actual trope would have to wait until after tropes that need work have cleared the Workshop, and then start the "can we launch this" process all over again.

Umbire the Phantom (talkcontribs)

Which one needs the third vote, @Robkelk?

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

As mentioned up at the beginning of this thread,

Toe-Tapping Melody already has a proposal to launch, as well.

Umbire the Phantom (talkcontribs)

Bet, giving it a look over before I weigh in.

Jlaw (talkcontribs)

Thanks so much since that one is mine!

I think Fantastic Tribulation is ready, as is Heartbreaking in Hindsight. Thoughts?

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

It would be best to have the "vote to launch" discussions on each candidate's talk page - that way, they won't get mixed up.

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

We're approaching the end of the week that I promised this would run... and we're still over 15 candidates, so I made the random-order list.

Toe-Tapping Melody and Adaptational Weakling have been launched, which brings us down to below 15 tropes in the workshop.

Lucky trope candidates - Toe-Tapping Melody was 16 on the random list, and Adaptational Weakling was 17.

Jlaw (talkcontribs)

And I am grateful for that. While I want to add a version for Defiant Captive or Adaptational Personality Change, trying to avoid flooding the workshop. When should it be okay to add entries again?

Robkelk (talkcontribs)

Since this rule didn't pass - the vote was two in favour and two against with one abstaining - the rules are still the same as they were two weeks ago: No more than three trope candidates per person.

My preference would be to hold the workshop to somewhere between ten and fifteen candidates at a time, since having more means many candidates sit ignored for months. But that's just my preference.