As your friendly neighborhood Admin Team, the gang here at TVTropes HQ is always working to improve the site.
Many of those improvements begin with suggestions posted right here, on the Community Wishlist. Is there a feature you really want on TVTropes? Post it.
Is there something we could be doing better? We want to know. Do you think we look fat in these pants? We were totally afraid of that. See a bug? Report it.
Important things to know:
- We're all about that content-creation life! The top contenders for our attention are ideas that'll create more content, like the video uploading feature, or speed up launching new pages. On the flip side, design or layout tweaks won't be our top priority.
- Help us dig through the goldmine of old wishlist items! If you have an old request gathering dust or spot one you're totally on board with, give it a bump and a like. There's a treasure trove of 6+ years' worth of ideas just waiting to be rediscovered. Items without enough love may not make the cut and will be closed.
- Was your wishlist item locked up without an explanation? It was most likely disapproved or just too big of a task versus the benefit it would ultimately have. Time is precious, and we want to focus on updates with the biggest bang for the buck. Don't be discouraged though! We appreciate every idea and we're always listening.
Make a Wish:
closed Notifier that sends a link to an ATT thread instead of an edit?
Based off of this discussion here it seems like sending people links to ATT reports is going to become a standard part of the process. However, I know that me and other people get anxious when it comes to unscripted confrontation, and it's part of why I have trouble sending such links to people. My thought is that if there was some way to send people pre-written notifiers directing them to such threads, it would take a lot of the pressure off.
I don't know if this is possible coding-wise, however I believe it would help a lot to make the new rules easier for people to follow. So, if it is possible for this to be set up, I think it would be a good idea.
closed Make the difference between ! and !! more noticeable.
Header One
Header Two
Maybe it's just me, but it's hard to notice the differences between the two when they're used on works. It sometimes leaves me wondering if it's even needed.
Edited by Retlocliveclosed Automate page renames/moves
The way page moves occur is through a simple sequence:
- Create a new page, with the same content as the original page
- Do the same for any subpages (if performing a rename, and not a move)
- Search related pages for the appropriate wicks and update them
- Ask mods to move relevant discussion pages (if applicable)
- Replace original page contents with redirect to new page
- Put old subpages on cutlist (if applicable)
This seems like a process that could be automated. Since the mods are able to move the discussion pages without manually recreating them, that would suggest that a utility of some sort already exists, and it's just a matter of altering the connected/parent page.
As there is not much complicated editing, automating the process should be relatively easy, and the proposed utility might do the following:
- Create a new page, with the content of the old page
- A direct move could also be performed, without needing to create/blank old pages
- Move subpages (if applicable)
- Cache a list of relevant pages/wicks
- Process the pages on the cached list, performing a search and replace for the relevant links
- Move discussion page
- Set up redirect at the old page, pointing to the new one (if applicable).
The site already has the ability to do a good many of these functions, since it is able to determine related pages/links, and the page moves are relatively simple functions using editing, which is already performed by the SYSTEM user.
It also already grabs the wicks, and is able to determine which corresponds to which new page. Since updating wicks is the most time-consuming aspects of page changes, even just automating it would significantly speed up page renames.
To prevent abuse, the utility could be either limited to mods, or operate on a similar page to the cut-list, where users propose a page move/change, the changes is reviewed, and if approved, the move takes place.
closed Add a "search by trope" function to the search engine.
Let's say you're looking to start a TRS or image Picking thread for a specific trope, but you need to make sure you aren't covering redundant ground/want to see why certain things are the way they are. The search engine famously sucks, so it's common knowledge that you should instead google something like "TV Tropes blah blah blah forum." However, not only is this something a newer troper isn't as likely to understand, it's not a perfect solution anyway cause it doesn't account for stuff like Pot Holes.
One thing the search engine is good for is the "search by user" function, which at least in my usage seemed to work fine, so how about similar functionality for tropes? You input the Wiki Word for a trope/article/whatever, and the search engine will only output results that link to that page. I understand that this would be redundant for trope searching considering that related pages exist, but I don't see why it couldn't just be a forum exclusive search funtion.
closed Is it possible to standardize headscratcher threads?
Some, like the Futurama thread, are really confusing
closed Section that shows off big Just-For-Fun projects and other notable fun trope related things
I heard that apparently the owners what tropers to think big about suggestions, so I'll try. I couldn't think of any additions to the more work side of things that weren't just minor fixes and weren't already mentioned.
Y'know that part of the sidebar that showed fanmade content about TVT like that webcomic which explored tropes in the form of comic strips, or that TV show? How about that, but instead for projects within the site? CM, MB, Trope Pantheons, Self Demonstration for both characters and tropes, maybe even Encounters if that starts up again!
Other things included could be popular forum games about tropes, like the one where you guess which trope page an image belongs to or the more well known Crappy Image Pickin' where tropers pick out joke images for tropes. In terms of pages, there are many Just-For-Fun pages out there that are filled with many jokes.
In a nutshell, basically a place that shows off the more fun side of TVT.
closed Pop-up Preview
I wish, when hovering over a link, rather than merely the link as we have now, a pop-up preview of the first (shall we say) 300 characters of the linked article would appear, granting a quick summary to what the commenter is referring, as is done on Wikipedia.
closed Pronouns field for profile
(This idea was already suggested here back in 2018 but the thread was closed, thought it could be worth bringing up the idea again)
Was thinking it could be a good idea to add a "pronouns" field as a profile option, so people know right away how to refer to each other. Ideally this would be a fill-in box, letting people freely add stuff like multiple pronouns in any order or neopronouns without each option having to be requested and manually added. Of course, if anyone abuses this (as pointed out in the old thread) to make unfunny jokes like "attack helicopter" or "nor/mal" or whatever, this could just be reported and the user in question given a warning - to make it clear to them that this is for listing your actual pronouns and not transphobic "jokes".
(And yes, people can put pronouns in their title/signature if they want people to be aware, but I imagine most people would rather use these spaces for other things)
Edited by Zanreoclosed Follow a Forum
Thought it'd be convinient to watch not a thread, but an entire forum Topic (TRS, Image Pickin, Wiki Talk, Trope Talk, On-Topic Conversations...) for new threads, and getting a notification with email when someone creates a new thread in the topic. Because I regularly check the above mentioned forums for new discussions.
Edited by Amonimusclosed Banner for Definition-Only Pages
Definition-Only Pages is for pages that shouldn't have examples listed. However, some, like Eight Deadly Words have the YMMV banner, which misleadingly states:
To avoid this, Definition-Only Pages should have their own custom banner, which overwrites YMMV and Trivia banners (but not Flame Bait). It could have a message like this, which is already written on most Definition-Only Pages:
closed Display whether a page has any discussion
It would be nice if the button for the discussion page changed in some way to indicate that there's something there
closed Make Discussion pages more visible
Since these are important for finding and resolving problems with the pages, aside from the forums, why are they barely visible? Perhaps they should...
- Have a counter with the amount of comments posted, like a certain other wiki does, or like how we do in the Reviews pages. Even if you don't follow the page, you'll know there's at least something new posted.
- Don't hide it under the "More" menu on work pages at all.
- Have own Follow button and separate the updates in the Following list from the main page edits.
- Let users delete own posts (may not be as good of an idea because users can't delete own query and forum posts either)
closed Timestamps for Tropes
Specifically this is for Trivia Tropes but this could be extended to any Tropes.
Being able to timestamp trivia that belongs to certain scenes, e.g. improvised moments, excessive retakes, directors remarks, nepotism cameos, expensive sets used in just one scene, props that went missing after a scene, rewritten scenes during a writer's strike etc.
This would be fantastic because though the scene can be described, it can also help to pinpoint the exact scene for re-watchability and re-enjoyment.
closed Allow bold and italic formatting inside potholes
The way it is now, if you want a pothole where part of it is italicized/bolded and part of it isn't, you have to make a separate pothole for each part, like so: [[AbandonShip The crew flees the doomed]] ''[[AbandonShip USS Stevenson.]]''
If you could bring the apostrophes inside and only have to link it once, that would be nice to have. [[AbandonShip The crew flees the doomed ''USS Stevenson''.]]
closed Make it harder to delete an account
As far as I know, clicking Delete Account in the profile shows a simple yes-no prompt, and the yes button causes the account to be lost immediately.
Such important account action really should be more secure and require either/all captcha/password/email confirmation.
Edited by koryclosed Placeholder text in Image Pickin/TRS to prevent mistakes
So that newbies can easily avoid mistakes of putting "Suggestion for Lorem Ipsum..." in Image Pickin' titles.
Have a placeholder saying
This would lessen the need to holler a post and inform the mods about correcting IP/TRS thread names.
Edited by AudioSpeaks2closed Purge the votes on a TLP draft after a certain period of inactivity
One of the problems with the TLP is the inertia a bad first impression can leave. Early bombs can make a launch unsalvageable even if the kinks getting ironed out, and this applies even to drafts that have totally left the public eye.
If a draft with 10 bombs and 4 hats gets brought back up after everyone has forgotten about it, then it's basically a fresh draft that needs 11 hats instead of 5. I think that after an extended period of nobody editing or commenting on the draft, the votes on it should be automatically wiped so it can get a truly clean slate. I'd suggest either 6 months or a year as the threshold.
closed Bullet that shows when a non-YMMV Trope is on the YMMV page.
This is kind of unrelated to everything going on at the moment, but this would be a really useful feature for spotting non-YMMV tropes that are mistakenly posted to the YMMV page. Considering we have the same for the reverse, it seems reasonable to have this as a helpful edit tool as well.
closed Give some indicator that you're about to double post
I've been double posting by accident a lot more recently. It would be cool if there was some prompt that let you know if your next post would be a double post and cancel it if it were accidental.
As discussed in the Hiring mods (now locked) and Appeal to the moderation threads in the forums, it would be a great relief to our hard-working moderators if certain users were entrusted with limited versions of the mod team's tools.
This would spread out the grunt work among a larger portion of the site's users, lightening the mods' hefty workload.
The following powers come to mind when it comes to things engineers could do:
Not every engineer would necessarily have all of these powers. And of course, such powers would only be granted to active, trustworthy, long-time users who have proven themselves to hold the wiki's best interests at heart. Abusing these privileges would lead to them being immediately revoked.
Edited by Zuxtron