In a nutshell, I think trope and work pages should move away from the format of "description of thing, followed by comprehensive list." Instead, main pages should present a smorgasbord of things: trope name, laconic description, slightly more detailed description, between 5-10 prolific examples, deeper analysis of the trope and its relation to other tropes, demonstration of common ways this trope can be Played With, etc. Comprehensive lists of examples and works should be relegated to subpages.
Before I continue, I will address the fact that I hardly ever participate in the upkeep of this wiki. I know it's probably a major faux pas to suggest a radical change in wiki policy to a wiki I don't really contribute to anymore. Nevertheless, I'd like to put forth my proposal, because I would like nothing more for All The Tropes than for it to leave the shadow of its pregenitor and come into its own as a distinct entity. I hope that you will take the time to consider my ideas, and possibly even agree with one or more of them.
I believe that we should take steps to restructure the content of the wiki in order to further differentiate All The Tropes from TV Tropes. In its current state, the wiki is little more than a clouded mirror of TV Tropes, with increasingly outdated content. But with a simple change of presentation, it can become something greater. Note, I am not suggesting any change to the actual content; no censorship or restricted topics or anything of the sort. Just changes in how the currently existing content is presented.
TV Tropes is designed as a browser narcotic, drowning people in minutiae to stave off boredom, and shoving the more meaningful analytical content into subpages. TV Tropes is primarily motivated by ad revenue, and this structuring of content is conducive to wiki walks, which expose users to more ads, and make TV Tropes more money. All The Tropes, by contrast, is a not-for-profit project motivated by the desire to educate and make information freely available. The unfriendly design that we've inherited from TV Tropes only undermines these functions.
In the case of tropes, the main page should strive to give the reader a crash course on all the essentials of the trope, structured in a way that each section imparts greater understanding without threatening to overwhelm with minutiae too early. To that end, the main page of a trope ought to be structured as follows:
- Trope name
- Subpage menu
- Image (if applicable)
- Laconic description: The essence of the trope in 70 characters or less. Important for helping the reader judge if the topic on this page is of interest to them or not. A quote may be used here, if and only if it encapsulates the trope more elegantly than a quarter-Tweet could.
- Abstract: A paragraph or two expounding upon the laconic description. While not to the extent of the laconic description, the abstract should remain as straightforward as possible, and avoid tangents or inside jokes. A new reader should be able to read these paragraphs, and feel like they've got a solid understanding on how the trope is played straight.
- Examples: A list of 5-10 examples, all from highly popular works, covering as many forms of media as possible. 95% of all readers should be able to recognize at least one example, and relate it to the abstract above. Not all examples have to be written; in the case of primarily visual tropes, an image gallery should be substituted. Below this short list, a link to More Examples should direct the curious reader to the comprehensive catalog of examples, images, and quotes that tropers have collected.
- Deeper Analysis: Now that the reader has expressed interest in the trope, learned about the trope, and connected the trope to at least one familiar example, they're ready to go deeper. This is the section which gets into the weeds, discussing its place in the cultural zeitgeist, implications unfortunate and otherwise, etc. Breezy language, weird asides, inside jokes, and the like are encouraged here. If a trope has an especially large amount of ideas to unpack, this section should limit itself to about 5 paragraphs, and then link to an Analysis subpage at the end of the section, where there's more liberty to go into great detail.
- Playing With: Here is where we list generic examples of how the trope can be exaggerated, subverted, or otherwise modified. Only the most obvious ways in which a trope can be played with should be listed on the main page. Particularly wild or meta ways of playing with the trope, such as Deconstruction or Zig-Zagging, should be relegated to the Playing With subpage (linked at the end of the section). Exceptions should be made on a case-by-case basis; for example, you can't describe the Humongous Mecha genre without touching on Deconstruction.
- Just For Fun: This is where the trope page is allowed to go completely off the rails, with humorous quips, haikus, headscratchers, and whatever other irreverent things tropers come up with.
- Related Tropes: Finally, to cap things off, a list of relevant tropes should be provided for further reading, including but not limited to supertropes, subtropes, and sister tropes.
This is just one way that a trope page could potentially be organized. Work, Creator, and Useful Notes pages could also get similar treatment.
Anyway, that's the end of my long-winded ramble. I really do hope that at least one of my ideas is received well, or at the very least I hope I've sparked at least one person's interest in giving All The Tropes a distinct identity from TV Tropes. @Labster @Looney Toons @GethN7 @Robkelk @QuestionableSanity @Derivative @SelfCloak