I collected data in the
beginning of this project that portrayed the difficulties of becoming a member
of the TVTropes wiki. That difficulty is represented in the two data sheets
below: the first is an introductory section about posting edits on the TRS “Trope
Repair Shop” (a more in depth space for editing on the wiki). The second is
from a conversation between a few participants of the site. And the third piece
of data is an example of my contributing to the site. My focus is on the
affinity space, sponsorship, and constellation of literacy activities concepts
at work within TVTropes. I also want briefly to touch on the ideas in
communities of practice, spatiality, and code mashing. This analysis will focus
on a discussion of the data collected earlier mostly with a small ending
section on a new data sample, and specifically on portions of each screenshot
that refers to the above-mentioned concepts.
The data collected on the welcome
to TRS page represents interestingly the spatiality and sponsorship concepts.
Spatiality and sponsorship are closely tied,
and I discuss both because I want to delineate spatiality and sponsorship as
different concepts. Spatiality I see as the site itself and its use of
sponsoring activities. Spatiality is the pushback and orienting of users either
in positive or negative ways by the space being used such as the need for
certain literacy practices outside participatory motivation, while sponsorship
is the individual use of authority and influence on participants by affinity
group members of higher standing. “Cutmaster-san” is a moderator (noted by the
“M” shield under his name), and made this welcome page to orient editors to the
specific practices of the wiki. He makes statements rather than suggestions,
which both limits pushback from editors and gives positive reinforcement to
tropers hoping to fix problems. For instance, Cutmaster-san writes, “we only
allow preselected names” for new threads “in order to force people to state the
problem” and not get “overly-dramatic” or presumably unclear titles. While
spatiality and sponsorship has within them an issue of pushback against users
in negative ways, this example shows a clear positive orientation as well.
Cutmaster helpfully points
users to several areas of TVTropes that will guide them. A good example of this
is under the “when to create a Trope Repair Shop thread” heading: “First off,
read the What Goes Where In the Forums and the Projects Directory for topics
that have their own threads.” This simple statement does a lot of things. It
obviously acts as an orienting piece because Cutmaster-san follows a standard
TVTropes affinity language practice when he hyperlinks the other sites in the
sentence, which directs users to helpful tools and forums. Cutmaster-san
orients readers by stating the need
to understand the practice of the community before jumping in. Not just the general
site TVTropes either, but the specific practices in this particular forum as
well. Also, this example uses the sponsorship concept that is closely related
to spatiality; sponsorship is the moderator trying to simultaneously stop bad
practices and encourage good ones through use of language that is sometimes
commanding (“Keep in mind that the forum rules apply here just as much as
anywhere else”) sometimes accepting and supportive (“Please take time to read
these, it can avoid embarrassing errors and complaints later on”).
Cutmaster-san seems to understand the role of sponsorship and does not abuse
the privilege and simply hand down rules. Rather, he supports the main page
statement about the wiki being a place to discuss tropes without judgment and
without fear of cyber bullying in a community of practice.
The community of practice
discussion in Wenger is helpful in looking at the welcome page. It is helpful
because Cutmaster-san represents a minor leader in the community of practice
that negotiates meaning for the tropers as a whole and ensures the joint
enterprise will continue to thrive. As Cutmaster-san lays out the reasons for
posting threads on the TRS forum, we can see Wenger’s three principles at work.
Helpfully, the bullet list represents certain types of practices and changes, such
as the attempts in the first few to categorize tropes correctly and enforce the
use of clear language when editing trope pages. Note the attempt to rename
tropes, redefine them, and decide whether they are in fact tropes or just
“Useful Notes.” Cutmaster-san and the community of tropers strive for
improvement to the wiki by users, and that creates a cohesive community of
practice, even though sometimes deliberation is necessary.
I want now to discuss the
second data sheet because it represents the personal interactions and
deliberations that take place on the wiki, and therefore is better suited than
the welcome page to code mashing, constellation of literacy activities, and
affinity space (as well as community of practice).
This forum post is an
attempt to put into action one of the instances laid out in the welcome page.
Catbert is attempting to initiate change to a discussion page because
“expressing personal opinion on creepiness is not what the discussion page is
for.” The second comment is a moderator exercising authority to nix the
comment, saying “seems valid to me. Discussions are all about personal opinions.”
In another space, this comment likely would have killed the initial complaint,
but because TVTropes values the tropers as a community of practice, other users
are quick to the defense of Catbert. It is notable that this discussion (at the
time of collection) has no resolution, but the direction of popular opinion
(All except the moderator agree that the comment is invalid) suggests that Catbert
will succeed in removing the arrant comment.
As an affinity space,
TVTropes is for the celebration and dispersal of interesting tropes and idioms
that span many works of art. The audience clearly takes the addition of tropes
and discussion threads seriously, as “Catbert” shows in his voluntary policing
of the site and the use another member has put it to: Catbert’s comment is that
“opinion on creepiness is not what the discussion page is for” because the
bylaws and spatial agreements on TVTropes provide separate spaces for different
types of interaction, and the discussion page within works’ pages (in this case
the work is “Vocaloid”) is strictly for, as “Kuruni” helpfully tells us,
“[talk] about the article itself.” Catbert and the general users are trying to
protect the affinity space from damaging uses, and the moderator seems to be
backed into a corner by the majority.
Another interesting piece
of this data sheet is the use of code mashing.
In Fraiberg’s definition, code mashing is the multi-use of literacy practices
in teaching and research. This definition fits well when looking at TVTropes
forums (and the entire wiki), especially in the use of specialized language in
different forms. HTML language, trope naming, and the specific language of the
site are interesting to look at as keys to understanding the literacy practice
of TVTropes. The HTML coding for hyperlinks to specific tropes, pages, or users
is a necessary literacy practice for being deeply involved in the site.
Further, trope naming and understanding what it means when someone refers to a
trope like “uncanny valley” is helpful in tracking both conversations and
summaries of either works or tropes within many works. TVTropes use of code
mashing is closely tied to the concept of a literacy constellation. The tropers
commenting on this request represent the need for situational language (“mod”,
“troll” and the more subtle discussion of what goes where), formality, and
general literacy practices such as proper reading and writing skills. A constellation
of literacy activity requires, I think, a new piece of data as an example.
I would like to discuss
the constellation of literacy activities on the TVTropes site through analysis
of a data collection from my own activity on the wiki edit section.
The yellow arrow to the
left of the screen represents one of my edits in progress, in which I wanted to
include what I saw as an important trope not yet included but at work in the
novel Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley. The trope is called (All of
the Other Reindeer). There is no need to explain the reasons for my choice
in editing this particular site at this time; what I am interested instead is
the steps I had to take to make this contribution. I had to learn less in fact
than I thought I would in order to make this post because the wiki is
streamlined in adding tropes. As we can see in the example, there are asterisks
next to each trope name to indicate it as a trope. The use of an asterisk
automatically denotes that as a trope, and the hyperlink takes care of itself.
Whereas I thought all levels of trope editing needed html skills, the simple
editing of pages requires one less literacy activity than I originally thought.
That does not diminish greatly the number of necessary skills tropers must
either possess or acquire. In order to make posts, I had to read the general
set of rules for when to edit (data sample 1 is an example), read and
familiarize myself the etiquette (data sample 2), and familiarize myself with
the specific digital literacy of editing practices.
Some of the interesting
practices at work in this data are the tabs or hyperlinks to “show
markup help,” “How
Indexing Works,” the “full list of
editing tips,” and the aptly named “Index Index.” Each of
these links or drop tabs helps tropers learn the tricks of the trade for
editing. Other than these helpful articles, this data exemplifies the
simplicity of the TVTropes site, and emphasizes as well the intense desire the
tropers have for properly edited wikis. The orange box in the center of the
screen in fact changes its tip every time. I had to redo this edit a couple of
times, and when I was making the edit on one, the tip read “The idea is to make
articles in 'Main/' look like they were written by the same person. A person
with a good sense of humor, who doesn't talk about himself with 'I' or 'this
troper', or get in arguments with himself, one who just corrects errors he
might have made earlier without drawing attention to them.” The attempt to
normalize language on the site is ongoing, and TVTropes has a good sense of
humor for the most part, but as we can see in the second data sample, they are
willing and able to suspend or delete accounts that ignore the rules of the
affinity space.
