So over 10 years ago or so, we used to have a newsletter called Trope Report, which covers all of the changes that happened on the wiki weekly. I have been nostalgic for it recently so I thought of it and it seemed to be a fun way to inform tropers about the changes going on around the wiki.
The sandbox for the project can be found at Sandbox.Trope Report Dummy Edition and the sandbox for ideas/plans can be found on Sandbox.Trope Report Ideas. After a new issue is published, revert the Dummy Edition back to a template using the text on Sandbox.Trope Report Template.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 8th 2023 at 1:16:11 PM
This is exactly what I am saying. Don’t overthink it...
Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 14th 2020 at 8:28:47 PM
That'd be fine by me. I guess I'm gonna be the co-author/partner for Work Spotlight.
Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)By Java, I don't mean the island (I don't think they've actually developed any mobile games), but the language for the semi-primitive little games you'd play on your old as frick phone with actual buttons, Java Platform Micro Edition (J2ME for short). But yeah, that could be interesting.
Edited by Piterpicher on Nov 14th 2020 at 11:18:20 AM
Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)Considering you put Polish, Java, and Japanese together, you can see why I thought it was the island/culture and not the coding language.
Edited by crazysamaritan on Nov 15th 2020 at 10:40:08 AM
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.Maybe this is a dumb idea but maybe we should do a mock newsletter before we go live officially? As a test run?
Macron's notesSure. I need to get familiar with the system anyway, considering I joined the site long after Trope Report went defunct.
Some good ideas about work spotlights here. I second having a separate category for all the following:
- Non-English work spotlight
- Frequently-redlinked page
- Older work spotlight? A work that’s at least 20 years old
- New media/web original work spotlight? Could help boost Tv Tropes’ role as a way people get into new works since these have a low barrier to entry. I think this also plays into Piterpicher’s idea of highlighting things to bring in traffic. Plus, fanfics, role plays, and some types of web video tend to be low quality pages that need more improvement
I like the idea of having targeted features for the work spotlight - it’s more interesting than just cycling though the media categories, and we should still be able to cover all the namespaces with the ones I’ve suggested. Having targeted concepts also protects us from fanboys who might get mad if we cycle through the categories and it takes us a year to get to visual novels or whatever.
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"A dummy edition is a great idea, for us to kind of familiarize ourselves with the topics and get the writing styles down.
All right, since there have been a couple yays for the following I've added 'em to the sandbox:
- New Work
- Obscure/Older Work (should these be separate?)
- Works that Need A Page
- Non-English Work
Other thoughts on these?
- Web Original Work (fanfics, roleplays etc)
- Creator Spotlight
And thoughts on the time limit for new vs. old? 1 year was suggested earlier for tropes. What about for works? I'm not sure if 20 years is too big or not.
(Editing to add that I posted on ATT about this; felt it was warranted since we have concrete categories now)
Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 15th 2020 at 11:36:15 AM
How many people should sign up for each category, max?
Also, another possible section idea: a spotlight for shows with subpar or incomplete Recap pages. I know we may end up making a Recap cleanup project, but generally saying "hey, this show's recap page could use some love" might help?
Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 15th 2020 at 6:44:10 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Was thinking 2-3 contributors per section.
I don't know about a whole section for that, unless it's a specific cleanup under projects.
That could probably go under "Ch-Ch-Changes"; X is a new project thread launched in the long-time/perpetual forums. I think it might be appropriate now to mention that the old newsletter doesn't look like it was designed to be a "call to action" page, but more of a "Hey, these are new policy changes that you may have missed and while you're here, check out these articles that you might enjoy."
That said, it doesn't mean that this version can't be a call to action... I dunno. Most newsletters have to worry about self-funding and we aren't going to be concerned with that. That drastically affects how much our EIC (Synch) needs to worry about appeal.
I do remember a mod saying the reason they don't use the bulletin feature for these calls to action things (around the time of Hair Decorations cleanup — Macron would remember better) is because they don't want to alienate people by having announcements be full of "work to do". I think the same principle should apply here, although like with works, there's no reason we can't plug more than one project at a time.
Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 15th 2020 at 2:11:52 PM
Yeah, the mods said that they don't want to the bulletin for cleanups because there were concerns about fatiguing people so it's done rarely. I think the newsletter would be more received if it's more on the casual, informative side and there will multiple things to look at besides things that need more manpower.
Edited by MacronNotes on Nov 15th 2020 at 6:34:36 AM
Macron's notesYeah, since I signed up for the "project bulletin" section, I'll try and limit how many I plug per issue. Maybe one LT/P or Short-Term project and 2-3 TRS discussions per article? Of course I'm not the only one in that section so we'll see how it works out, but we can easily limit ourselves to what we deem the most important projects each month, or the ones that need some extra manpower.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure PurenessI have an idea for a potential Category:
Image of the issue!
This would take the best image that was produced out of Image Pickin' throughout the past month, or however long these issues go on for. Maybe it'd be an image for something that used to be BUPKIS or No Pic, it's evokative of the trope in a way few images could be, or it'd just be hilarious. It'd be used as the page image for the Trope Report. I'd be willing to volunteer to find images, as I frequent Image Pickin'.
Edited by Kappaclystica on Nov 15th 2020 at 9:21:24 AM
Should we have a similar one for videos? Maybe one about unrated ones? A lot of videos get ignored for being from more obscure works or being attached to less popular tropes. A "Recent Videos" spotlight section could be cool- and it'd also help weed out ones we need to remove.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure PurenessFor the record, my personal pick for this month would be the one on ArtifactTitle.Live Action TV.
Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 15th 2020 at 12:53:35 PM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Yeah, that'd be mine too.
Thanks. I was really proud of that one since I love the show a lot
I personally have little interest in the video feature but I do know a lot of tropers are really involved in that, so if y'all are willing to work on it then we could definitely try it out. It's something that would help a lot for inclusivity.
For images, my only concern is if it gets dated and the image is eventually removed or replaced, but I guess we don't dewick Archives, so it should be fine.
Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 15th 2020 at 6:08:24 PM
Should we like, try to center some of these newsletters around themes? I feel that would be at least interesting to try. Maybe the first newsletter we do could be themed around the revivial of the repoet itself?
and the public won't dwell on my transmission cause it wasn't televised.We can post the image in the newsletter to brighten the page up, too.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.If there's gonna be an image in each issue, I'd recommend making a cover. Not necessary an original piece of artwork, more like what Progressbar 95 used for its news bulletins: This for example.
As for making each issue themed, not really a fan of that. I don't think there are that many magazines that actually do themes, the only real one I remember was a magazine for Scooby-Doo (at least, one that was released in Poland). It's likely that we'd either run out of ideas or turn issues too gimmicky, where our wide pool of topics benefits from variety. However, it may be nice to note stuff that happens on certain holidays or if we get a milestone, like 750K articles.
Edited by Piterpicher on Nov 16th 2020 at 5:28:05 PM
Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)Let me know when the dummy draft starts. I'm open anytime.
Alright, I got the gist of it. Thanks. I think I can handle promoting entirely new tropes.