TV Tropes 2.0: Database level redesign (Not in active development yet)

So, looking back at the kickstarter page, which of these have been accomplished?

From that page...

• Updated design and navigation. You're using it now, so, check it off.
• Mobile device optimization. Delivered as well.
• Community wish lists. We've done a lot of stuff on the wishlist, but itemizing it all would be a monumental and probably fruitless task.
• Thematic relationships. I'm not sure where this is at. I think the new home page is supposed to deliver a part of that promise, but it's sort of floating around at the moment.
• Database overhaul. This is referring to TV Tropes 2.0, and I've already told you the status. This was pie-in-the-sky from the beginning; we will try to make it happen, but there's no timeline.
• More community content. Frankly, I have no idea what happened to this. It was always dependent on Echo Chamber as well as us.
• New profile and community features. We delivered on most of this.
• Advanced search engine. Well, we got a new search engine. "Advanced" is in the eye of the beholder.
• Fewer and less intrusive ads. Proper Media is working very hard to keep nasty ads away from us, but it's a rearguard battle for just about everyone. We have extensively worked on the ad placement and delivery.
• Translations into other languages. You got me here; I have no idea where this went.
• Real-time troping. I have no idea what this even means.

We've also significantly improved the site's loading times for all users, which helps with visitor retention, which in turn helps pay the bills for all of this work.

Anyway, this isn't the "what happened to the Kickstarter campaign" topic. I'm just telling you that the money went to good use.

Well, it's good to know where we are at in any case.

Just read through this thread to see if the question has already been answered, and I don't see that it has been, at least not in detail: How will the Launch Pad be handled in 2.0? As already discussed in other places there's loads of issues, both major and minor, with the current Launch Pad system- so I'm curious to know how it will be handled in 2.0, if it'll be a radical change or just a few new additions.

The idea is to overhaul it more or less completely. An article in TLP will be a real article from an internal perspective, but with a flag on it saying not to display it on the wiki: no wicks, examples, categories, or indexing will appear.

However, it'll exist internally, and the software will know about it, so that if someone tries to add an example, it'll say, "There is a draft article with this title. Would you like to go there and contribute?" or some such.

Explained in more detail...

Virtual articles

• Every redlink will generate a virtual article.
• The virtual article will only be visible if someone tries to create a link to it, or clicks on a redlink to it.
• The virtual article will capture wicks and examples just like a regular article, to improve crosslinking if/when it is drafted.
• A user may promote a virtual article to draft article status. This will allow them to edit it just like a normal article.

Draft articles

• The draft article will still not be visible on the wiki unless someone tries to link to it.
• The draft article will immediately display all examples that have been linked to it.
• The draft article will automatically have TLP functionality associated with it, such as comments, hat/bombs, and so forth. The precise details of how this will work can be ironed out.
• The draft article will be visible in a public list of drafts. I don't think the idea of a private draft is reasonable, although we may allow their "owner" certain additional privileges.
• Work articles will not require voting to publish. Trope articles will.
• The draft article can be discarded, in which case its status is set to discarded article.
• The draft article can be published, in which case its status is set to published article.

Discarded articles

• A discarded article is treated as a virtual article, except that users trying to draft it will be informed that it has been discarded.
• We can discuss workflow here, such as whether anyone can reopen it as a draft, or whether it requires mod intervention.
• Cutting an article via the Cut List should put it into this status as well.
• All data for a discarded article will be preserved so that it can be recreated if needed.
• We may need a way to hard-delete discarded articles to get rid of content that violates wiki policy.

Published articles

• This is the final, live state of an article where all wiki functionality will be available.
• Publishing a draft article will make all examples visible, will cause it to appear on indexes, will make it available to searches and random walks, and will turn its links blue.

Edited by Fighteer on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:28:38 AM

Interesting! Good to know, thanks.

You might want to make it so that any edit that adds a new redlink would display a warning of said imminent-redlink-creation, asking the editor if they really want to do that. Or maybe follow Wikia(now Fandom)'s example with their approach to hyperlinks: As the user types in the name of the page they're linking to in a small window, the system checks the database to see if a page by that name does exist, and informs the user accordingly.

It would help cut down on accidental redlink creation, and thus on how unnecessary draft articles are created just because someone misspelled an existing article's name or accidentally wrote a Wiki Word that shouldn't be (very common with words that have non-initial uppercase letters, e.g. McNeil).

We have exactly those things in mind. I'd even love some sort of interactive autocompletion feature when someone is entering a wick.

One thing I'm wondering now is what happens if people start creating multiple virtual drafts for the same idea but under different names? I'm guessing the one that gets turned into a draft and published is the official one, but then what of the other ones?

We'd need the ability to merge them. This is already one of the proposed functions for 2.0, and will be much easier since wicks can be updated automatically.

By default, merging two articles will cause the merged article's title to become an alternate title of the target of the merge. Thus, anyone trying to link to it in the future will get redirected automatically.

Edited by Fighteer on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:52:44 AM

That sounds pretty cool actually.

Yes. I'm also thinking of a wick syntax that will trigger the autocompletion. Sort of like how using an @ or # in many apps causes them to suggest mentions or tags. Like, for example, if you type {{, the software will know you're making a wick and will start suggesting matches. If you type [[, the software will do the same but then know you're making a pothole.

If you type a Wiki Word, the software should prompt if it's invalid, asking if you meant to create a wick. If you say no, it should escape it automatically so it doesn't redlink.

This suggests much greater dynamic interactivity than we have currently. There would need to be an alternative, low-bandwidth version that would check syntax only on save, rather than while editing.

Edited by Fighteer on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:57:19 AM

I'm guessing real-time troping is organizing a show's tropes by first episode to last episode or organizing a movie's tropes by first scene to last scene (as opposed to the alphabetical order we currently have). That would be a cool way to sort the tropes on work pages.

Since the "what's glitching" thread was closed, I'll drop this here: if you make a new wikiword to a page (that exists) it shows as red until that page is edited.

Are there any plans to update the name space creation system on the site, especially as it relates to subpages?

Currently all subpage link names replace the higher tiered link names in the URL. For example, Mad Scientist's main page is https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadScientist and the subpage for Anime & Manga examples for the trope are on https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MadScientist/AnimeAndManga. The "Main" namespace is replaced with "Mad Scientist" as that is now the higher tiered page.

This doesn't become a problem until we look at Sugar Wiki and Darth Wiki subpages. Main SW and DW pages are separated form the main site because of their namespace. However, subpages are not due to the tiered link creation. For example, Gushing About Characters You Like is properly on Sugar Wiki but the Western Animation subpage appears with the same formatting as the main site because its link is technically no longer in sugar wiki because of the namespace replacement https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CharacterGush/WesternAnimation.

Clearly this is a big change to make so I wanted to know if there were any discussions about it/plans to changes to it

Edited by amathieu13 on Feb 15th 2022 at 9:14:16 AM

We can solve that specific problem by assigning Sugar or Darth Wiki formatting to individual namespaces. But yes, overall we need a better sorting system. Namespaces are clunky. There is absolutely no schedule for TV Tropes 2.0 so you should not anticipate any such changes.

Nice necro.

A way to solve it would be turning subpages into literal subpages and use a Work/ namespace instead, as currently they are pretty much pages with the same partial names that we use to link between each other. But there are no plans for doing anything 2.0-related or coding in general in foreseeable future, so I wouldn't hope for anything for now.

Edited by Amonimus on Feb 15th 2022 at 5:37:01 PM

For now, I'd recommend making a list of subpages that need a SW/DW style and posting it somewhere like the Locked Pages thread so they can change it.

Doesn't it take admin coding?

Maybe? Fighteer's wording sure made it sound like it isn't, but I think there was a case when mods changed style themselves (TearJerker/, I believe)... Know the Staff only says "namespace-specific controls".

Edited by Piterpicher on Feb 16th 2022 at 9:59:10 PM

The style of certain namespaces can be changed by moderators using the Namespace Config tool that's linked on Administrivia.Namespace. You can see that Sugar and Darth Wiki are marked as such on that page.

Edited by MacronNotes on Feb 16th 2022 at 6:17:16 AM

Okay, thank you for explaining. ~Amathieu 13, sorry to bother you, but you can have what you wanted with those namespace styles.

I actually tested the style function on the AwesomeMusic/ subpages just now and it doesn't doesn't look like it works anymore (it was called deprecated style on the page so probably should have paid attention to that). Hopefully, that gets fixed someday. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Also, the namespace list on the config page is just a small sample of the namespaces we have now since I assume the list was made years ago.

Edited by MacronNotes on Feb 16th 2022 at 6:49:25 AM

If only it was as simple as lists for Trivia, YMMV and Flame Bait.