Are Pot Holes discouraged? I got a message that seemed to say so, but I see them all the time on this site.
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There are potholes that are undesirable, yes - see Sinkhole for some of them.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Potholes can be found in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening by entering the Pothole Field, which you can do by entering Richard's Villa and pushing a table over to the side. Richard won't let you do that until you complete that feather quest for him though.
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There seems to be a glitch with this. Over the last few days I've tried to put a pothole in, but it comes up as [[*insert TV Tropes article here* *insert text to be displayed here*]] both in the edit screen and on the page itself. What's going on?
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You've been including a HTML character of some kind after the link (as in, doing [[WikiWord&XXX; display text]]). Having punctuation, a HTML character, or something like that in the link means it isn't parsed as a link so it doesn't work as a pothole. I fixed the one on Characters.The Lucifer And Biscuit Hammer for you by rewriting the whole pothole using standard keyboard characters only.
Edited by 70.33.253.44 That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
Odd. Punctuation never used to screw it up. The one I'm trying to fix is on the Humanoid Abomination page and reads "Jenova is a planet-eating alien parasite with the in-series nickname "Calamity from the Skies", but in all of its appearances barring boss fights it takes the form of either a naked female humanoid with blue skin and a whole lot of Body Horror or that of the main antagonist Sephiroth, who himself was infused with Jenova's cells as a fetus and later [[Hijacking Cthulhu merges with it]] and attempts to become its successor." I don't see any HTML text in that one, so I have no clue how to fix it.
Edited by 69.172.221.6
Nope, same as the previous one; there was [[HijackingCthulhu‎ merges with it]]. The character, in that case, was the left-to-right mark
, which is an invisible character, so that could explain why it can't be seen (funnily enough) on the finished page or even the edit screen. (I found it by looking in the page history.) Again, try rewriting the pothole from scratch (possibly in a plaintext editor like TextEdit or Geddit to prevent any stray bits of HTML and then pasting that in).
Why this is happening for you is a mystery.
Edited by 70.33.253.44 That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
I would like to pothole "viewers who compulsively click" to Schmuck Bait
It should be noted that Cracked potholes to all the source articles. And it's better that way.
I think we could make a game using potholes. You guess where the pothole leads and then click it to find out if you're right. If you are right, you get a point and then try to find a pothole on the new page, and you keep going until you get one wrong, then play passes to the next person, or if you're playing alone, you deduct a point and pick another random article. If the current article has no potholes, then you go to another one at random until you do find one. Also, mistaking a link that actually is a page name for a pothole results in either play going to the next person or a lost point.
Why was this deleted?
- Encyclopedia Dramatica uses it a lot to point out sarcasm, such as linking "emotional depth" to the Emo entry.
- "Harmless and consensual", where "Harmless" was potholed to "Murder" and "Consensual" to "Rape".
The page seems to be a Self-Demonstrating Article, even though it's not supposed to be one. See the end of the description, specifically, the part that says you're not going to be going anywhere for a while.
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I think that it can be mentioned that Pot Holing can also make the reader click on the link because they are interested in the words that are highlighted, only to realize that it's an article that they are not interested in (or have already read).
This article needs to have a "See also" link to All Blue Entry, especially since it is not a Self Demonstrating Article. I fail to see why it not being a self demonstrating article is reason to lock the article from editing, however.
Pot Holes, as described in the intro paragraphs, are exactly how the HTML hypertext concept was designed to work from day one. It seems weird to gripe about blogs and wikis using the HTML as it was designed to be used. Maybe there's some other angle to this that I'm not getting from the description?
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To clarify a bit: you're supposed to add links in such a way that your original sentences flow correctly, and there's no particular requirement that the title of the linked page appear in the original page.
(The worst crime, however, is linking text like: _here_ _click here_ or _this page_. Doesn't just kill your SEO, but it unfairly hurts the SEO of the linked site as well.)
Why can't I edit this thing? Anyway... I want to add that pot holes are basically an invitation to Wiki Walk. Also that they become less effective at distracting you (fortunately) the longer you spend on TV Tropes. In other words, the more you let this place destroy your life, the easier it become to read. Not exactly sure how to put it down because it mainly applies to this wiki only.
I am deeply upset by the fact that the text "those things in the road" doesn't pothole to I Thought It Meant. Is there a reason for why it doesn't? I was about to add it when I noticed that the article is locked.
Edited by DJfrog99