Discussion Update Forum set up

As You Know the forums tend to get a lot more activity than the discussion pages unless it's on a really popular trope. I suspect this has to do with the fact that you don't have to put a discussion page on a watch list but can simply go to the "forum" link up at the top to see which ones are active, whereas discussion pages you have to hope somebody is paying attention.

Would it be possible to have a forum style list of discussion pages that have been updated? I think it would be a useful tool for minor rewrites and example pruning/refining. Essentially a TRS lite.

How would this differ from using the discussions filter in New Edits?

Because it would make me look stupid for not knowing how to work that stuff? It's already there, I just didn't know about it.

A neat trick is to make a bookmark of the filtered version of New Edits you are interested in. Saves a step and it being in your bookmarks list for the wiki sort of reminds you to look at it.

Neat. I really should play with the little drop down menus to figure out what all is there.

Perhaps a better trick would simply be making discussion pages somehow more visible in the first place? When you check the forums, you have the advantage of a nicely organized list, and clicking any one brings you a list of topics in newest-reply order. If there's a link for viewing recent comments to trope discussion pages, placing that link somewhere around the forums area (including some kind of form to insert-trope-name and start a discussion) would help discussion pages get more use.

Contrast Wikimedia: Discussion pages are built using normal article architecture in a separate namespace.

edited 12th Oct '10 4:28:58 PM by Stratadrake

We had discussion pages working that way for a while but changed it to a threaded mode to make them easier to read. Anyway, if you're watching an article, you're also automatically watching the related discussion page. Clicking the link on your watchlist highlights the most recent additions so you can clearly tell what they are.

We've talked about crosslinking discussions and forum threads, but for technical reasons this isn't happening any time soon.

Idea: how about adding the discussion filter (i.e. this page) as Recent Discussions under Troperville, like Recently New? Increases awareness of discussion pages and makes getting to the page simpler in one fell swoop.

Good one. That's in.

Speaking of Troperville, how come that toolbar never shows up on YKTTW or the Forums? (Or pretty much any non-article page)

That's the only visible place to locate editing tools such as the Image Uploader, etc....