I want to join Something Awful now

Malkavian · 2011-08-03 00:18:33

"It does kind of bug me that we don't have many people knowledgeable in
the analysis of fiction on the forums. We have a shitload of math,
physics, and computer programming guys, but the representation of the
Humanities is pretty much limited to me, Taelor, Zephid, and Bon
Sequitur."

Well, considering how anyone who dares claim that their English teacher might have actually had a point about Lord of The Flies gets yelled down, can you blame them?

Miijhal · 2011-08-03 00:18:59

When you're a goon, let them do what they can, you've got no-one around, you're a foruming man.

RocketDude · 2011-08-03 00:29:14

@Shlapintogan: And here is the part where I try (and most likely fail) to play Devil's Advocate for TVTropes:

Security Holes: Have apparently been fixed. Admittedly, I'm surprised that it took the site so long to react to spam attacks and such, which doesn't say much for proactivity.

TRS: They're trying to reduce the backlog.

Moderation: Personally, I'd like it if Eddie got someone to replace him as admin and Eddie just focused on coding the site, but that may not happen. I wouldn't say he's drunk on power, but I'd like to see a different admin around or something. Also, I agree that some things tend to sneak by the moderation, but I wonder if it's just people not blowing the whistle on everything, if we're talking forums only. Admittedly, some WTH-worthy decisions are made, but some (like Strikethrough) tend to get reversed.

Troper Tales: I'm really indifferent on this. Yeah, it may full of nasty stuff, but I think the only thing that could convince Eddie to get rid of it would be to get every non-forumgoing user to agree with the removal of it, which is nigh-on hopeless considering the ratio of forumites to non-forumites.

Hugbox: I like to think that it wavers between being that and being closer to the opposite. As with the whole gushing issue, like some others have said, it's really more that bashing is more noticeable.

General lack of effort on part of the userbase: Part of this is fear of moderation and part of it is plain laziness, it seems.

Underrepresented works: That is sad, but I can kinda understand why a page for a DOS game released in the early 90's is much smaller than a page for some TV series that ran in the 2000's for 3 years. In other cases...yeah, I can concede that.

Problem people: It does seem to take quite a bit to get rid of someone whom trouble seems to follow, I'll admit.

Public relations: There was that whole thread in Wiki Talk about the Alexa reviews, but This Troper tends to get dismissed since it picks on individuals and SA is hard to take seriously for Eddie. Sure, SA is massive, but there's too much of a disconnect between it and TVT. Ignoring it isn't the way to go, though, but you'll have to tackle with Eddie on that, which is also hopeless since he's the admin.

Trope Of The Week: No comment besides this: Am I the only guy on IJBM 2 that actually likes it?

Engrish_Ivy · 2011-08-03 00:39:06

Fast Eddie should step down, but given the quality of his coding, he'd be better off giving that job to someone else as well.

RocketDude · 2011-08-03 00:40:26

^Maybe, but I don't hear of many offers to assist in coding.

Mind you, Eddie should take the Ross Scott approach: Make a post or something asking for help with something.

Miijhal · 2011-08-03 01:00:10

"Security Holes: Have apparently been fixed.
Admittedly, I'm surprised that it took the site so long to react to
spam attacks and such, which doesn't say much for proactivity."

Just a heads up, those bugs were there for MONTHS. This wasn't the first time he knew about them. There's an entire page in the Sandbox of Solstace posting as other users using the same exploits months back. And the worst security hole (the one that could have resulted in TvTropes being sued, were it to be exploited) was intentional.

MillerCross · 2011-08-03 01:03:54

It's been bugging me that the password changes has been reset.

Shlapintogan · 2011-08-03 01:04:14

The fact that they were there in the first place is bad enough. It's worse that they were there for as long as they were.

Ponicalica · 2011-08-03 01:15:19

Every problem on the site would be fixable if someone less incompetent than Fast Eddie were at the helm.

Engrish_Ivy · 2011-08-03 03:27:13

I like how, when you use the title search when not registered, the captcha is always the same word.

MillerCross · 2011-08-03 03:43:24

Ploughed?

DarkDecapodian · 2011-08-03 05:36:36

@ last page: Bastard spawn of humanities and sciences reporting.Not that it means anything, since cataloguing is a big part of my current job description.

Elbeem · 2011-08-03 08:19:32

I've seen it mentioned in several places that the wiki as a whole or Fast Eddie in particular does not listen to criticism. However, looking back, I can think of very few instances where criticism has not been taken into account, with changes made by the community to try to address the issues. Just off the top of my head, things that have been changed in direct response to outside criticism include:

Troper Tales (modifications started in December, numerous pages cut or cleaned up, efforts currently ongoing.)
Japanese Trope Titles/Incrompehensible Titles In General (Renaming efforts have been ongoing for a long time, some well-entrenched examples recently renamed or in the process of renaming.)
Too Many Anime/Fanfic/Webcomic Examples To Scroll Through (Push to replace AC system with Folder system has resulted in thousands of folderized pages where anime/whatever examples can be skipped with one button click.)
Too Many Context-less Anime Pictures (Image Pickin subforum created, Just A Face And A Caption Policy implemented.)
Too Much Sexual Audience Reaction Stuff (Fetish Fuel wiki spun off into its own subforum, pages like Lolicon, Shotacon, and Ryona given example sectionectomies.)
Shoe-horned Examples (Multiple Special Efforts threads for clean-up, standing policy that such examples can be removed.)
Natter (Ongoing efforts to reduce Conversation In The Main Page, editing tips system implemented to attempt to disuade such edits.)

As I said, those are just some examples off the top of my head of things that have changed thanks to outside criticism. I'm sure I can come up with more if I think on it for a while.

Now you may argue that those changes did not go far enough or fast enough to appease all of our critics, which I will concede. However, I think it's unreasonable to expect TVTropes to immediately acquiesce to all criticisms without some kind of consensus-building amongst the community to get agreement that something is in fact a problem that should be addressed, and exactly what to do about it.

So with that in mind, what are some examples of issues where the community has just refused to take criticism into account?

@Miijhal: In regards to what you've said about negative opinions, I will remind you that they have not been completely banned from the wiki, but instead moved off of the main page and into the YMMV section. The same can be said for positive opinions as well. Further, you are allowed to write negative reviews as long as those reviews have actual content beyond "this works is bad and you should feel bad for liking it."

The problem that necessitated this shift was that people were using the main pages as their own personal soap boxes to declare that a particular work was terrible. And not just for Pokegirls, but really anything that someone had a bug up their ass about. This caused massive edit wars, flame wars, and amusingly enough given the context of this post, external criticism.

Nova · 2011-08-03 08:21:54

A lot of it is talking about the way the staff seems to just... dismiss any criticism when they learn it is from Something Awful.

AHR · 2011-08-03 08:24:25

The removal of all subjectivity from the wiki, especially negative opinions of works, is frankly part of the reason the site has become so creepy and unpleasant. For example, treating outright racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic works as being simply works with tropes that portray certain groups of people in a negative light, instead of as highly offensive, doesn't paint a nice picture of the site.

This kind of confuses me. I don't really see how this is done on tv tropes, and I would love examples. I am hugely paranoid when it comes to sexism, but if every series that I thought was sexist had a huge warning about it, I am pretty sure people would complain.

I mean, we have tropes that do apply to bigotry of all forms. What do you want? For the works to be deleted? For them to be shamed? Their own special little section? A huge ass disclaimer on top of every work deemed to be offensive?

Who would be the one deeming them offensive? Is it all right if it's justified in universe? If the author themselves has stated that was not the intentional message? If it was written with the knowledge it was offensive?

If you want your subjective opinions on the series to be heard, we have a review section.

Shouldn't it be up to the reader to come to their own conclusions? I don't really recall a series being given "weight" in any means, except in the sense it is given tropes.

I mean, take the article for Cerebus the Aardvark.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Cerebus

It covers both. It covers all the neutral things he did, the positive things he did, and the negative things he did. All in all, nothing wrong with it, from a "weight" perspective, I suppose.

MillerCross · 2011-08-03 08:24:56

Too Many Anime/Fanfic/Webcomic Examples To Scroll Through (Push to replace AC system with Folder system has resulted in thousands of folderized pages where anime examples can be skipped with one button click.)

the criticism often pointed out here is not that they're just "too many". It's that their the majority and outshadow other forms of media.

I don't agree or disagree.

So with that in mind, what are some examples of issues where the community has just refused to take criticism into account?

Everything related to the This Troper treatment, Eddie's gun-ho attitude of "I do whatever the fuck I want and I have consensus always and I'm the only one who understands the wiki" as well as general unpredictableness that makes it hard to deal with him.

Kino · 2011-08-03 09:00:30

@Malkavian: I used to be an English major; way back in the day.

@Shlapintogan: I should post that somewhere.

@Miijhal: Yo

Elbeem · 2011-08-03 09:01:55

@Cygan: "A lot of it is talking about the way the staff seems to just... dismiss
any criticism when they learn it is from Something Awful."

The first point on my list was specifically in response to Something Awful members who were willing to come to Wiki Talk back in December and discuss their opinions on why they felt Troper Tales should be changed. Further, given their admitted use of hyperbole to get laughs at the site's expense, can 100% of the blame for such dismissals really be laid on the moderators? After all, the community has already shown that it is willing to listen when SA criticisms are given in a productive manner as opposed to sprinkled throughout posts intended to take the piss.

@Juan_Carlos: "the criticism often pointed out here is not that they're just "too
many". It's that their the majority and outshadow other forms of media."

The two issues go hand in hand, and there's really not anything that can be done policy wise to enforce changes in that regard that wouldn't be more trouble than they are worth. We could either limit examples to certain "approved" types of media, which would violate the core principle of the site (No Such Thing As Notability), or we can disable volunteer editing and restrict it only to those who will add examples from approved media, which would kill the growth of the site.

"Everything related to the This Troper treatment, Eddie's gun-ho attitude
of "I do whatever the fuck I want and I have consensus always and I'm
the only one who understands the wiki" as well as general
unpredictableness that makes it hard to deal with him."

I will grant you that Eddie can be touchy on some issues. I'm certainly not going to attempt to White Knight him, as there have been several decisions of his that I strongly disagreed with, the removal of the This Troper article being one of them. However all of the items I mentioned in the above post were either done with the approval or at the behest of Eddie, sometimes as the result of reversals of his previous decisions. This shows that he can and does take criticism into account, albeit not always in ways that the userbase agrees with.

Nova · 2011-08-03 09:06:23

Further, given the admitted use of hyperbole to get laughs at the sites expense, can 100% of the blame for such dismissals really be laid on the moderators? After all, the community has already shown that it is willing to listen when SA criticisms are given in a productive manner as opposed to sprinkled throughout posts intended to take the piss.

I cannot blame them for that.

However, I do find it annoying when any valid points they make are brought up outside of that thread and are immmediately dismissed once they hear it is from Something Awful.

While I do not expect them to regard the thread with an impartial stance, I do expect them to listen to any valid points that are brought up outside it, even if the points were made within this thread.

Ponicalica · 2011-08-03 09:08:36

«I like how, when you use the title search when not registered, the captcha is always the same word.»

That decision actually doesn't bother me. You only need reCAPTCHA or the like if you've had to deal with targeted spam attacks.

Elbeem · 2011-08-03 09:10:21

Can you give me some examples of that, Cygan? I don't doubt your word, I would just like to see the context of the conversations in question.

MillerCross · 2011-08-03 09:11:14

I will grant you that Eddie can be touchy on some issues. I'm certainly not going to attempt to White Knight him, as there have been several decisions of his that I strongly disagreed with, the removal of the This Troper article being one of them. However all of the items I mentioned in the above post were either done with the approval or at the behest of Eddie, sometimes as the result of reversals of his previous decisions. This shows that he can and does take criticism into account, albeit not always in ways that the userbase agrees with.

Like I said, unpredictable. You don't know how he's gonna react. Which is why, either out of apathy, fear, or laziness or whatever, many people who could argue their points better don't.

The two issues go hand in hand, and there's really not anything that can be done policy wise to enforce changes in that regard that wouldn't be more trouble than they are worth. We could either limit examples to certain "approved" types of media, which would violate the core principle of the site (No Such Thing As Notability), or we can disable volunteer editing and restrict it only to those who will add examples from approved media, which would kill the growth of the site.

You asked a question. I just gave you an admittedly not-so-good answer.

Nova · 2011-08-03 09:12:15

I will try to dig up some examples.

Juan, I think you were there too?

It was a while ago though, like two months ago. In Wiki Talk, if this helps.

I will go search now.

vacasama · 2011-08-03 09:15:41

I think the way the atmosphere is TvT does in a make it more difficult to actually make large scale changes on the part of individual users. I've seen some tropers get banned for doing what they thought was contributing to the site. Unless those kind of changes to the wiki have the express backing of Eddie/mods, I think some people just a little paranoid about making mass edits.

MillerCross · 2011-08-03 09:16:25

> Wiki-Talk

> Me

I don't remember such a thing. >

(I only remember me participating in the re-estructuring of the Tales and on Nakama's rename. And both of those are RTS. Although, it could be the Names thread that ended up causing the Nakama rename...)

^It's mostly because Bans are supposed to be a way to tell an editor that he's doing stuff without telling others and that's bad.

I think I should mention here that PMs exist.

Elbeem · 2011-08-03 09:17:05

@Juan: No, I agree that it is a legitimate complaint. It's just not one that there is an easy fix for. The folder system that allows people to skip things like that is really the best compromise we've been given.

Nova · 2011-08-03 09:21:34

I don't remember such a thing. >

Over Messenger. You were telling me that it probably wouldn't be the best idea to bring up Something Awful at all? Or was it someone else?

MillerCross · 2011-08-03 09:21:47

I think the variety problem can easily be fixed with a Special Efforts thread where we call out of the woodwork the people who constantly complain about the lack of said variety to edit and create pages as needed.

^Sorry, Cygs. I really don't remember that.

Try looking through your post history?

Nova · 2011-08-03 09:27:09

My post history is too extensive -_-;

Elbeem · 2011-08-03 09:30:21

Juan: That's an excellent idea.

Off-topic, but people referring to Cygan as "Cygs" has ingrained the mental image of him or her being a chain-smoker in my mind. ~_~

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