[sort of a] committee post: new floating category [and a template!]

[aethel]

The Wiki Committee has approved "Tropes & Genres" as a new floating category (a top-level category with no subcategories, like Fanworks and Glossary).

The idea is to group together all the pages that discuss genres, tropes, and trends within fanworks (all types of fanworks--fanfic, art, vids, etc.). There will be a lot of overlap with the Glossary category, but some trope pages are not fannish terms (cyberpunk, unicorns, Animals in Fanworks, Rape in Fanworks, etc.). So this category is also designed to fix the problem of miscategorized and uncategorized trope/genre pages.

Example pages to go in the category: Story Tropes, Slash Tropes, Animals in Fanworks, Cats, Undercover in a Gay Bar, Constructed Reality, Bodyswap, Hurt/Comfort, Slash, Gen, Het, Tentacles, Landscape

Pages that should NOT be included: fanwork formats like Podfic, Fanfiction, Zine, Vid, etc. These belong under Fan Activities


I have created a template to go with the new category. I've had some feedback already, but the template hasn't been used yet, so please let me know if there are major flaws, etc. I tried something new that can be easily changed even after the template is in use: a row containing some pre-programmed links to pages that would otherwise be linked manually in most trope pages (e.g. Story Tropes).

Comments

[ratcreature]

I see that unlike Glossary it doesn't have synonyms anymore, but some Tropes have multiple names ("Fuck or Die" and "Mate or Die"), or different names in different fandoms, without it being "related tropes".

[aethel]

good point. I will add a synonyms field.

[ratcreature]

I also have to say that if this is a "trope and genre" template, but the template only says "trope" and standard links only to the fiction overview articles, but not to equivalents for fanart or vid genres it looks rather ridiculous (a landscape or a still life is not a "trope"). Also it privileges fic on every non-fic genre page, just rubbing it in how fic centric the wiki's outlook is.

[aethel]

That is a problem. Are there non-fanfic overview pages for genres that we could link to? One possibility is to create a separate template for genres, or to separate the templates by medium and add links to an overview page for art genres, vidding genres, etc. Or just add lots more links, like this Wikipedia template, except less scary.

[ratcreature]

Well, I don't think anyone has made an overview article of vid or fanart genres, beyond what is mentioned in the main articles, not even a list like the story tropes page is at present. Which is I guess because of the fic-centric nature I mentioned. But while merely having one and not yet the other feels incidental, codifying it in the template like this as if to give fic primacy feels somewhat different to me.