On the subject of Notifiers (and how to improve them)

I'm, uh, gonna give this one a bump because the concept of a Wall of Text notifier was brought up here, and it reminds me once again that this thread keeps getting close to almost making progress before dying every time.

I think it would work as a "please keep the examples Clear, Concise, Witty, in that order" reminder.

That idea might work better than my original one.

Of course, we'd need space. I still suggest doing a few things, some old some new:

• Getting rid of "Test". I have no idea what the point of it is.
• Merging the YMMV and Trivia ones into a more standard "wrong namespace" notifier, which could also work for things like Flame Bait and Disambiged tropes.
• Possibly get rid of "Thanks!", as again, you could just use the blank one to write an actual thank-you message.
• Maybe merge crosswicking and indexing, as the two pretty much go hand-in-hand???
• Mis-Play could be converted into a more general "trope misuse", as that's way more common than someone just using the wrong Playing With form.
• And then, with the space we have, adding not only the Wall Of Text notifier, but also others, such as one for trope-slashing and one for bowdlerization / running a text-replacement plug-in (which I felt like we actually had at some point?).

I think that probably came about from people frequently misusing "subversion" or "deconstruction". Not sure how common that still is.

I'm not saying it isn't common, but it just seems less common than a general misuse notifier would be helpful for.

Sometimes I want to shout at people for improper formatting that leaves the page displayed/indexed incorrectly.

Okay, so I deleted test and thanks because those were unnecessary. I am not sure about touching anything else right now so I'll leave the other suggestions until I get more feedback.

Edited by MacronNotes on Feb 18th 2022 at 5:18:11 AM

I am 100% on board with a trope slashing notifier at least.

And even if we don't do it by merging other notifiers, a more generic "not a trope" notifier would be extremely helpful to deal with people using disambigs, useful notes, and indexes as tropes.

x2 That could probably be merged with Example Indention for a catch-all How to Write an Example notifier.

I've actually used the indentation notifier for trope-slashing in the past. A more general one might also cover things like potholed trope names.

and Might not be a bad idea actually.

Maybe a general warninig for inappropriate use of tropes links, which includes potholing tropes in example list and hiding behind spoiler tag.

The spoiler one is already covered by, well, the spoiler one

So, an ATT thread about the thanks notifier not existing anymore haha

So, thoughts:

• I agree with making a "not a trope" notifier. I am not sure about merging YMMV and Trivia into it because they have their own subpages but I guess there is a way to merge everything cleanly.
• Agree with merging indexing and crosswicking together.
• A misuse notifier could be useful. I don't remember the last time I saw someone use the mis-play notifier. No objections to broadening it to cover misuse
• I don't know about giving trope slashing it's own notifier instead of just merging it with a broader notifier buut it's a huge issue and I don't remember the specific administrivia article that mentions it.
• A Wall of Text notifier isn't a bad idea.

How to Write an Example:

That's still common practice, IMO, and I'm on board a trope-slashing notifier if room permits.

Draft for that one:

"The [[article]] example you added combines two tropes combined on the same bullet. This is what we call "trope-slashing", and we're only allowed to have one trope per entry. Please either delete the unfitting trope or move it with context to another bullet in the correct alphabetized order, and take a look at How to Write an Example for more information."

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 25th 2022 at 3:44:13 PM

Looks good.

I'll draft something for "not a trope" and maybe Wall of Text when I have time. I think we have at least two empty spots left over from the old thanks and test notifiers sooo maybe we can merge index and crosswicking to get another one as you suggested.

~Willowleaf24, like it says on page, the notifiers at Sandbox.Issue Helper are copied as-is, meaning Not A Subversion (still is) and This Troper were linked to Main/ namespace instead of Administrivia/. I appreciate using curly brackets elsewhere though.

Whoops, my brain isn't working today. I'm undoing that edit now.

Here's an idea for a general "misuse" one, if we just want to change Misplay and not make a brand new one-

"The [article] edit you've made is incorrectly using a trope. Please read trope descriptions before adding examples, and feel free to stop by Is This An Example to double-check if you need more help."

I like the concept, but not a fan of "read that again" approach and prefer that people who would send these notifiers explain the trope definition manually or encourage other troper to do so after reading.

Should probably append to the message anti-Edit War measures, like "reply to this post if you have questions" or "page me in the mentioned forum".

I mean, that's the ideal, but it would only work if we expect everyone to also explain what they got wrong, which defeats the point of using a pre-written notifier to begin with. All of them just tell you to go read the administrivia page, and since this doesn't have one...

Besides, it's better advice than just "here's what you got wrong this time". You don't learn anything if you aren't told how to fix problems in the future.