Administrivia / No Real Life Examples, Please!

For many tropes, having Real Life examples can be fun and sometimes even informative. However, this particular trope should not have any examples from Real Life. Note that a work portraying real life is still a work—such examples are about how the work portrays real life, not about real life itself. What happened in a certain conflict according to a certain movie or book is usually far less ambiguous than what really happened in that same conflict.

Let's talk about what we mean when we say Real Life Examples. We mean saying that a person who is living or has lived, or an existing (or historical) institution, organization, political party, nation ... let's shorten that all all up and say 'real thing or person' ... a real thing or person should not be listed as an example of a trope.

In general, we trust people's common sense and ability to follow the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment. A trope is marked "No Real Life Examples, Please!" when we want to make sure that we are not saying the real person/thing is the example. Someone external to the wiki might be trying to apply the trope as descriptive of the real person, though, and as long as we can cite and link to where they made the attempt (attribute it, that is), then the trope can be listed. With attribution.

For example, let's say a Christian, a Muslim, and a Sikh walk into an internet café.^note The barista says to them, "What is this, a joke?" All three of them start editing TV Tropes, and they all start adding Real Life examples to Scam Religion. The Christian adds Islam and Sikhism, the Muslim adds Christianity and Sikhism, while the Sikh adds Christianity and Islam. Then they suddenly all feel outraged with TV Tropes, for having their own religion listed as being a scam. Meanwhile, someone adds Church of Happyology, and more badness ensues. The big point here is that our three religious people have all presented the other religion as the example.

In a Useful Note page about one of the religions, though, Scam Religion might be listed as being attributed to the religion elsewhere, by a source we can attribute. It would also be great if we could also find an attributable statement of an opposing viewpoint and make sure that both statements stay on the page. There is a reason Edit Warring is a banning offense. One person trying to impose their viewpoint as the wiki's viewpoint just can't be tolerated.

Compare In-Universe Examples Only.

If you wish to discuss additions and/or removals for this list, see this thread

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On this wiki, the markup [[noreallife]] will display a prominent "No real life examples" warning whenever the page is edited.

^note This policy statement was redrafted in January of 2016 to clarify the intent. The former version was being interpreted such that it was nearly impossible to deal with any controversial topic.

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Pages where Real Life examples are not allowed:

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