Many tropes allow Real Life examples because they are fun and can sometimes be useful to understand the idea behind the convention. This policy describes what is acceptable for such examples and what is considered problematic. Certain tropes have been proven to have problems with some types of real life examples while not having a problem with others. Such partial bans may involve any real person, living or not, or any real institution, organisation, political party, nation, etc., existing or historical — in other words, real people or things.
Real Life Troping is the broader policy, describing the difference between what we consider "Real Life" and what we consider a story with the potential for tropes. To summarize; tropes only exist in relation to a story with creative intent. Because real life isn't a story being told to an audience (at least not any that we know about), it cannot be said to include tropes. The Real Life folders on trope pages are not really examples of tropes; they're amusing trivia about how reality and storytelling are related.
The "Real life" media category doesn't include works about real life, like a biography or a documentary. In those cases, examples describe that work's perspective on "real life", which is usually a lot less ambiguous than what "real life" really is. Any such examples belong in their respective media category instead.
To provide a little more guidance on these trope examples:
- If a certain type of Real Life example is forbidden, don't try and hide them under some other media category. Yes, we can trope someone else's judgment regarding those subjects, but only if that judgment actually appears in something we can call a "work". Otherwise, it's just a collection of random artists' opinions. And especially don't attribute such judgment to large groups of disparate, unidentified people (e.g. "this mindset is prevalent on Reddit and Tumblr" listed under Web Original).
- Be aware of your own biases when dealing with tropes like this. Some people can't fathom that anyone can think differently than they do, and they also tend to overstate the importance of this site and what's on it, so they end up expending a lot of time and energy trying to get the wiki to conform to their version of reality. Don't be one of those people. There's a reason why starting an Edit War is a bannable offence.
- If you can properly trope someone else's opinion about a Real Life person or thing that appears in a work, attribute it to that person. And even if you do, please be mindful of the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment. This only works if we trust people to use their common sense.
- Reality TV and stuff like it is a funny scenario here. Yes, the subjects are real people, but participants are very much characters in a work, which is sufficiently edited (often misleadingly) to be separate from their lives outside the work. These characters should only be listed as examples for things we see them do in the work, not offscreen and should be worded to focus on that.
- We have Useful Notes articles about a lot of real life things, which are particularly subject to the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment where these tropes are concerned. If we can't easily come up with an uncontroversial way to include the trope in the Useful Notes page, it shouldn't be included. We can leave describing the details of whatever abhorrence the subject is a part of to The Other Wiki's "neutral point of view" and "due weight" and the rest of its immense policy on this kind of thing.
Compare In-Universe Examples Only, where examples must be within the same "verse" as the work being cited (Real Life counts as a "work" in this context), and No Real Life Examples, Please!, where real life examples are completely forbidden instead of only forbidden for certain subjects. See Keep Real Life Examples for tropes that have been discussed for NRLEP or SRLEO but deemed their Real Life sections not being problematic enough to remove either partially or completely. A trope cannot be both SRLEO and Definition-Only, as D-O pages do not allow any examples, regardless of medium.
NOTE: Please consult the Real Life section maintenance thread
if you want to propose adding a trope here.
Pages where certain Real Life examples are not allowed:
- Oppressive States of America - No examples past the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s; overlaps with NREP.
- Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Examples relating to politics, business, law, religion and the adult film industry are prohibited.
- Safe Word - No sexual examples.
- The Von Trope Family - Intentional invocations only.
- X-Pac Heat - Professional Wrestling examples only, and only when the reaction is witnessed with a filmed live audience.
