On the Sandbox namespace and its use in projects

At the Tropes Needing TRS cleanup and discussion thread, a discussion about whether or not Tropes Needing TRS should have been moved out of the Sandbox namespace led to me remarking that we need to have a talk about the Sandbox namespace itself and its use for projects. War Jay 77 and mightymewtron agreed, and I decided to start this thread.

Now, as we know, the Sandbox namespace is supposed to be a drafting space, for stuff like TRS threads, TLP drafts, and so on. I believe Septimus Heap has said that the Sandbox namespace is meant to be specifically for drafting things. However, it has been frequently used for things that aren't drafts—things like the TRS Queue, the Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining, and (previously) Tropes Needing TRS and the Trope Idea Salvage Yard.

It has been said that the Sandbox namespace is not the appropriate place to host these pages. But if the Sandbox namespace isn't the right place, what is?

One possible solution to this question has been a proposed "Projects" namespace that would cover things like the aforementioned pages. I remember another proposal from I believe Septimus Heap that Administrivia itself could cover all of these things, as it has done with Tropes Needing TRS and the Trope Idea Salvage Yard. (I, personally, prefer the Projects namespace idea.)

Beyond that, I think it might be a good idea to set some ground rules for exactly what is allowed in the Sandbox namespace, as right now the rules there are a little grey.

What does everyone else think?

Before the discussion starts, I'll just add some context as to why people aren't sure about the placement of TNTRS. Basically, the debate over whether or not all entries need to come with gathered evidence or not made people wonder if moving the page made it too strict and official for what was intended to just be a storage space for people to remember things. If it's in Administrivia/, it adds more weight that isn't otherwise there, and implies that there has to be some level of curation over what is and isn't acceptable. That discussion (over whether or not to curate it and to what extent the curation needs to be) should go on the thread linked in the OP; I just wanted to give some background as to one reason people started questioning it in the first place.

TNTRS was specifically meant to just be a place for people to remind themselves about things they wanted to TRS. Tropes that were controversial topics nobody wanted to officially dive into right away. I made it so that we could note the issues down and come back to them later, rather than discuss the issues ad nauseum without doing anything. As a Sandbox it attracted a lot of use, but that use didn't become questionable until it was moved to Administrivia, at which point more and more people began to wonder if we needed half the things that were on there. And, because it's Administrivia now, we need an entire cleanup effort around it rather than it just being a casual thing.

It does lead to some implications for similar things, such as the queue and Wick Check Project. Making these pages Administrivia/ makes them a lot more serious compared to how they're actually currently used. Project threads use sandboxes all the time, and making them all Administrivia/ would probably add a level of "officialness" to an area that wasn't meant to be an "official" anything.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 3rd 2022 at 9:46:00 AM

Yeah, and I'm glad the queue isn't official. Not everyone uses it, and sometimes threads get created that weren't in the queue (like the ones for Raised Catholic or Spot Of Tea) and that's perfectly fine. If that were moved to Administrivia it would be, in my opinion, an unmitigated disaster.

My thinking is that Sandbox/ is specifically for temporary things. That includes drafts but also wick checks etc. Workpages for long-ongoing cleanup efforts shouldn't be there since they are only theoretically temporary.

I'm actually legitimately curious Sep—where would you say something like the TRS Queue would go?

Honestly? Cut List. I don't think that this idea of letting people claiming priority on TRS proposals is widely accepted enough.

Well, it's not, and never was, a requirement. It was never intended to be, it's just a list for people to use so that they can ping people when a slot opens. No one has to use it.

Does this mean that it will (eventually) be cut? I know mods have used it before, so I'm legit curious.

FWIW I have a backup option if we do cut it—make a personal TextEdit file on my Mac listing people who have brought up wanting to do TRS threads before and what they want to do. That way, it's not officially on the site, but I still have a "ping these people" reminder.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Feb 4th 2022 at 10:43:31 AM

It's a scarcity issue. TRS slots are restricted by design. There is more demand than supply. A system will naturally evolve to prioritize access. We can't (and shouldn't) try to prevent this as long as it doesn't get too burdensome or start forming power cliques.

That said, we could forestall a lot of TRS problems by doing a better job in TLP.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 4th 2022 at 10:42:36 AM

Wait, I'm confused Fighteer—are you for or against the queue?

I don't see any way for there not to be a queue under the current system. I'm not happy about it but I recognize the reality.

Regardless, before we discuss the queue, I think we need to discuss setting some hard ground rules for the Sandbox namespace if there aren't already. Then we can tackle the queue from there—setting rules for the namespace was the original reason I started this thread.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Feb 4th 2022 at 10:45:04 AM

I would like unattended Sandboxes to be automatically cut after a certain period of inactivity, but that requires backend coding. It's also more or less pointless to have namespace-specific restrictions without the formal namespace management system that we asked for ages ago. Someone can always make an article in Sandbox2/, Sandbox3/, etc.

As for the use of Sandboxes in cleanups, that's precisely the intent of the namespace. To manage tasks, there really isn't another that's applicable. We were doing it in Administrivia but that's got its own set of problems.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 4th 2022 at 10:46:53 AM

Would it be useful to create a Project/ namespace for pages that are specifically attached to project threads? Or would that make things too confusing?

Edited by mightymewtron on Feb 4th 2022 at 12:50:29 PM

I wouldn't necessarily oppose it, but we'd need to have guidelines for what that one is used for, too. Would it just be for things like Wick Check Project, TRS Queue, and Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining? Or would we also use it for actual wick checks, the CM-thread fun sandboxes, and Trope Report Dummy Edition?

I like the sandbox/ namespace personally because there's no baggage attached to it. By name, it's already expected to not be a "real" page. It's namespace that isn't public, and thus it works perfectly for the behind-the-scenes project work we use it for. Even if it's not the "official" use of the namespace, I don't see any harm in using it for that.

This is my feeling as well. We don't need to aggressively police the use of namespaces for things like this. Sandbox is good enough.

As for the queue itself, I don't see much of a reason to cut it. It makes the process a lot more fair than it used to be when it was literally just a game of "hope you're in the right time zone". People used to wait weeks while others managed to make several slots in that time. It's in the sandbox namespace because it's unofficial and not enforced, but it gives people a little more confidence in being able to make their thread with less stress about having to check back 24/7.

That's the benefit to having pages like this in sandbox/- by nature, it means that they're unofficial and don't need to be enforced. They're just around for anyone who wants to use them, but there's no stress involved.

I think one of the biggest issues we got from moving TNTRS to Administrivia/ is that everything on that page suddenly became official, despite people mostly just using it casually before. It was given the upgrade without ensuring that nobody continued to treat it like it was a sandbox, so it continued to grow out of control until people finally took notice months later. If it was still a sandbox, I don't think we'd be having any of these "do we curate it" discussions at all.

Since Sandbox/ carries no real legitimacy, everyone knows that those pages are just background pages, optional to use, and don't carry any proper weight. Moving the project ones elsewhere would only seem to cause more stress about how they're used, or attract these arguments about whether or not they "should" exist in the first place.

I will also say Complete Monster has a lot of Sandbox pages that are used more as project ones all of which you can find here. All of these aren't really temporary and all have been around for sometimes years and keep getting used so a hypothetical Project namespace would definitely be better for that.

Sandbox.Poppy Doll And Butterfly Bartholomew exists, is bad, and has a wick from Lilypad Platform.

Animation.Poppy Doll And Butterfly Bartholomew is a thing, given it's the page image of Leaf Boat and if someone can make a description, then Leaf Boat, Lilypad Platform, and Winged Humanoid can be the three tropes.

If Literature wouldn't be better, because it seems like it's an animated adaptation?

I'm... Not sure that's what this thread is for? Do you want this one?

To elaborate on what I've said, an idea popped in my head for Sandbox.Wiki Maintenance or Administrivia.Wiki Maintenance index that'd list:

• Images Without a Source
• List of Shows That Need Summary
• Pages Needing Transparent Images
• Pages Needing Wiki Magic
• Wick Cleaning Projects
• Wick Namespace Migration
• Artifacts 'R' Us
• Pages Incorrectly "Moved" by Custom Title
• Outdated Administrivia Pages
• Alphabetically Ordering Examples Clean Up
• Works Needing Updated Information
• English Localization Cleanup
• TRS Queue
• Web Original Wick Sorting
• Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining
• Derivative Works Namespace
• Ban-Evader Example Rewrites
• ...

Or pretty much any page pinned in the forums that is in effect a public to-do list, heavily edited, and won't be going away in the foreseeable future. I can also entertain moving all those to Project/.

This would also help a bored troper to navigate / find areas to help with, similar to Project Thread Map and Pages With Cleanup Projects.

These pages sound like a good starting point, and I think reviving this thread in the midst of all the namespace-related discussion that's been going on is a good idea, to the point that I was thinking of bumping the thread myself before I saw that you did.

Edit: And regarding the Observations Thread post that revived this discussion, I don't think this namespace would be redundant with Sandbox/ if we go by Sandbox/ being for temporary projects (such as wick checks or drafts for non-sandbox pages) and this namespace being for ongoing projects.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 13th 2022 at 1:25:22 PM

Sandbox/ is in effect free space, so I don't think it has any designated use and many not associated with projects are not treated as temporary. Troper's personal sandbox is one example. Unless we put explicit rules on the namespace.

That reminds me.

In this post in this thread, Septimus said sandboxes should be for temporary projects, so it seems like it isn't universally agreed-upon. That said, with a Project/ or Projects/ namespace (whichever we go with), Sandbox/ could be the reserved for temporary projects while moving long-term stuff to the new namespace, regardless of the current situation (which I don't feel like thinking over completely since I've been sick for most of the month).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 13th 2022 at 1:34:01 PM

Right, there's a lot of confusion about what a "proper use" of the sandbox namespace is.

Re: We could also have Tropes Needing TRS, Current Trope Repair Shop Threads, the Trope Idea Salvage Yard, B.E.R.T. Watch-List and the other B.E.R.T. sandboxes not already listed, etc.

I like this idea.