Ask The Tropers - Television Tropes & Idioms

Appeals to the troper hivemind...

If you want to propose a new trope, use YKTTW; if you're looking for a particular trope, try Lost And Found. For a discussion on a particular topic, head over to the forums

instead.

New items at the top, please.

Meta Four: Regarding Not Using The Zed Word, would there be any objections to making the current title a redirect to Not Using The Z Word? I think it's just a little condescending to spell out the pronunciation of the letter Z.

Citizen: Not to mention that's not the way "Z" is pronounced, at least not in America—and that's all that matters. =P Not that I gave it much thought, but it never came to mind that "zed" was supposed to be a phonic spelling.

Narvi: Any ideas on how to better filter wick searches? Whenever I body-search for The Imp, I keep getting Spot The Imposter as well, so I really have no idea how many wicks The Imp has. I mean, I checked all the media in the actual article, and there are only about four or five mentions, so I still put it in the Needs More Wicks page, but still... pretty annoying.

Fast Eddie: Some code is in that may do the trick. It's actually a little too strict, though. It looks for " TheImp " — with the spaces on either side. Formulations like {{The Imp}}'s will be missed. I'll keep chipping away at it.

Rogue 7: I'm gradually getting used to it, but any idea how long the markup-only recent changes view is going to last?

FastEddie There is still a script in the wild that is hitting the site with history requests on every article over and over. A soon as we find a way to block it, we'll be able to afford the processing power to go back to formatted history. We've knocked it down from ten times a minute to around 3 times per minute. Shouldn't be more than a few days before we identify every IP involved.

Large Blunt Object: Just a couple of things.
1) Would it be possible for the "support/defence" thing in the new cut list tool to take the form of links, rather than buttons? It would make tabbing to the relevant discussion pages much easier.
2) You can get the number of times a particular page is linked to, but is it possible to find the pages that have the most outbound links on them? No particular reason, I'm just interested.

Fast Eddie: 1) That's in. 2) Right below this there is a report that does that for the top 1000. Unless you mean the number of links from this wiki to other sites. Something would have to be written to discover that.

Large Blunt Object: 1) Thanks! 2) So looking at that, does that mean, as a completely random example, Warhammer 40000 has links to 836 different pages on it, or 836 separate links, or what?

Fast Eddie: It means that there 836 links to it on the wiki. That's a link count, not a page count.

Large Blunt Object: Ah, right. What I meant was, is there some way of counting the links to other pages on one page? For example, to quickly and roughly see how many different (wiki-worded) tropes a Work page has, or how many examples a Trope page has on it?

Fast Eddie: No. Put that on Wiki Tech Wish List. I'll get to it when I have time.

Seanette: I know you're busy, Eddie, but any chance of updating Word Wicks? The current info is about five months old. I'd do it myself, but don't know how.

Fast Eddie: I ran a thing that does something a little different. The old Word Wicks counts the number of articles a title is used in. This counts the use of each article title. I think this gives a better view of how useful a title is, or, in some cases, how abused it has been. Here are the top 1000 titles, in terms of use: right here

hade0011: hey all y'all tropers, I'm a cartoonist whose life was destroyed by this page. I'd like to produce t-shirts which show trope names and funny drawings of them, for example some epelectic trees or such. who do I have to ask if I'm allowed to do so/have to sell my soul for that/etc. ??? thanks in advance

Fast Eddie: Do your art. If it works, we'll even market it through the wiki.

Adam850: There's that license down at the bottom of the pages, but that's probably not any problem to making t-shirts. Sounds cool.

hade0011: great. the license says i should link to this page, so i'd print www.tvtropes.org somewhere on the shirts. now i 'll start to doodle.

Epiblast: I uploaded images to a few articles before noticing that, according to Images In Wiki Pages, aside from just having an account, which I did, one is supposed to ask an admin for uploader rights. I was not aware I was supposed to do this. Should I remove the images I uploaded from the articles in question?

Tanto: Go here

and upload your images to TV Tropes, then add those to the entries in question.

Epiblast: I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. I'd already uploaded the images with the media uploader when I asked this question; what I wanted to know was a) whether I still needed to ask for an admin's permission now, and b) if so, should I remove the images I'd already uploaded. It's possible that I've misunderstood Images In Wiki Pages as well, but I'd just like to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong.

Tanto: That's likely a holdover from the days where you couldn't just use the Media Uploader — you had to request a separate account before you could even access it. These days, though, the Uploader accounts have been folded in with Getting Known, so you shouldn't have any problems.

Epiblast: OK, thanks.

Fast Eddie: Please review and comment on the new index and navigation

scheme.

//later: While you are it, bestow massive destructive power to a troper here

Fast Eddie: We had another asshole go through WMG and delete stuff. The list is here

. That IP has been blocked, of course. A hand with restoring would be appreciated.

no-genius: Is there any reason why there isn't an index of TV Shows/Films/Anime/Literature/Music, etc? Or is it that just nobody can be *bothered* to do it? (If that's the reason, I'm not judging - I can't be bothered either.)

Tanto: Um... what? Series, Film, Noteworthy Anime, Literature?

Adam850: Works should have it all.

djkates: Any particular reason that many of us will make major changes to an entry without saying anything on the discussion page? I'm not talking about just adding an example or ten, I'm talking cutting entries that look like they fit, major formatting changes, that kind of thing.

Large Blunt Object: Because it's not required?

Robert: It might be be required, but it does oil the wheels. If Ann makes a major edit without explanation, and Bill disagrees, that can lead to trouble. If Ann gives an explanation, that at least helps keep the debate constructive, and can avoid it altogether.

Seanette: I agree that it's only polite to explain why one just hatcheted a lot of time and work put in by other posters. At least the explanation offers a possible route to salvaging all that effort (such as rescuing RL examples over to a Troper Tales for that trope).

Fast Eddie: That's now in. See the edit page field "edit reason:".

djkates: Cool! Thanks. That should, hopefully, help out.

Seanette: How can we correct the title for Opionions Equal Complaining, which is misspelled?

Fast Eddie: It's awful murky. It would be easier just to cutlist it.

Seanette: Will do, with suggestion that it be re-launched correctly spelled.

That Other 1 Dude: Why is it that some people are adding what's basically an article without example or a body (basically the word "Examples" and the medium headers) after the end of articles?

Fast Eddie: Where do you see that?

That Other 1 Dude: Quite a few. I wrote this after removing one from Fridge Brilliance. However, the only other pages I remember this happening in were Flanderization and The World Ends With You (yeah, it's not even limited to trope articles)

Fast Eddie: I spy only That One Boss example pages in the database. I should run the process to split those off to a ThatOneBoss/ section. //later: Woops. Also seems to be happening in Genre Motif. //later still: Those have been moved.

Ninjacrat: That Other 1 Dude: I think it's people accidentally clicking the Add Media Categories Template button and not realising, because it has no visible sign it did anything. Can't blame 'em.

Inkblot: What are the most linked-to tropes on this site? Besides Take That and Dis Continuity.

Fast Eddie: You mean internally? We call those "wicks." The last time we ran a report to count them, the results were like this.

If you mean linked to from the rest of the web, that answer is here.

Citizen: "Note: Some titles are common words and will have inflated numbers. 'God', for example, might be counted as a refererence to the entry even when it is used in a phrase like "a lesser god". 'Dragon' is another. " <— Could this be done a better way, or is it just too much of a pain? Like, counting wicks to a page only when an actual link to it is interpreted, rather than a simple body search like this apparently is.

Reaver121: I would like to add a Dead Baby Comedy page to Troper Tales. However, the examples I would give can be very offensive (racism, death, sex,...) so I would add a warning and place the examples between spoiler tags. I think that will be safe enough but I would like a second opinion.

Ninjacrat: If you want to talk about yourself, why not try a blog?

Reaver121: I thought the whole point of Troper Tales was that you talk about tropes that you experienced yourself or that you see in people around you. Most entries there are about the tropers themselves anyway as far as I can see. Or I am seeing this completely wrong ?

Ninjacrat: That's not wrong. But if you're worried that your stories aren't appropriate for the wiki, the obvious soultion is to not put them on the wiki. Much simpler.

Reaver121: Ok. I'll let it drop then. I hadn't really expected any opposition but I can see your point.

Seanette: Probably just Failed A Spot Check, but I can't find the index markup for Troper Tales (specifically, I just created the Troper Tales for Geeky Turn On).

Fast Eddie: All taken care of. It wasn't on the index list.

Seanette: Cue customary gushing adoration. (grin)

Seanette: How did "random item" take me to a non-existent item? (Specifically, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacrossMissleMassacre

. I tried to nominate this for cutlisting, since this is a misspelled version of Macross Missile Massacre, and was told it didn't exist.)

Fast Eddie: The table that services randomitem hadn't been refreshed in awhile. Thanks for the report. It's freshed-up now. Have to automate that refresh, when the current script-kiddie wars die down.

That Other 1 Dude: Does anyone know why random edits of different pages end up instead completely changing the Home Page?

Citizen: That's a problem I associate with pages with stuff like "é" in the title (not using the new punctuated title thing), but I take it that's not the "different pages" you're talking about.

Kizor: Can I request a set of instructions for removing the "subjective trope" header so that I won't have to bug someone else about it every time? I'm set to cleanse Transformation Trauma, but can't find out how the header is supposed to come off.

Fast Eddie: It is based on the index markup. Transformation Trauma is on the Nightmare Fuel index. Take it off that index to remove the banner.

Kizor: Don't think I can. Aw. But thanks for the explanation.

Shay Guy: Out of curiosity, what are the most-watched pages?

Fast Eddie: Here are the top 10:

Silent Hunter: Nice one, thanks!

Fast Eddie: No problem. I'm not sure that means much about the popularity of any title. More like a measurement of "...of those who maintain a watchlist." There are 18876 watches set, by a total of 673 tropers.

Citizen: Seems like low totals, given the number of watchlists.

Fast Eddie: Well, the method of counting is correct. It probably indicates that troper interests are less "clumpy" than a person might guess, or that there are differences in how people use the watchlist. One or two people have more than a thousand items on their watchlist, around an eighth have more than 300, and the average among the remainder is around 20. Probably some correlation there to the number of articles written by the individual.

Jisu: Has anyone else noticed someone without a contributor page going around editing entries for Tokyo Mew Mew and doing nothing but removing Minto/Zakuro relationship-related entries and changing the canon names to the Tokyopop names?

Looney Toons: Am I the only person borderline squicked by the banner ad for the Shuffle Volume 6 Ender Box which proudly proclaims, "Includes Sia's Panties!"? No, Do Not Want.

Jisu: I've been thinking about this, and I've come to a conclusion as to why they did that (although it does stick out). The marketing for SHUFFLE! has always been about the harem, the gags and the fanservice, and it's worked so far; what was expected to be a niche title is, while not on the level of Dragon Ball Z, still a pretty major title for the company. However, volumes four and five were when It Got Worse, swapping out pantyshots for Dysfunction Junction. FUNimation probably wants to reassure the fans that they'll finish off the series just as it started and nobody is going to Murder The Hypotenuse or anything; see "You asked for it. You got it. Here's your happy ending". Advertising fanservice brings SHUFFLE! back to what it used to be.

Micah: If we're splitting Crowning Moment Of Awesome up by series anyway, is there any reason why mecha anime have to remain separate from other anime?

Narvi: Is there a particular reason why we can't filter for Narm examples in the Recent Changes page? Everything else seems to be present. Just not Narm.

Fast Eddie: That's in.

Gemmifer: Fast Eddie, the Ho Yay page doesn't show the Subjective Trope tag. aMybe you made a little mistake when you added it? Of course it's not that important, it's just me, I really want for it to be there.

Fast Eddie: It just need to be added to the Subjective Tropes index.

Gemmifer: Oh, I see.

Ninjacrat: I've been deleting the 'truth in television: this troper once...' examples where I find them. Apart from anything else, leaving them in place inevitably bloats them up to massive page-consuming eyesores. But... I feel really bad about it. People obviously want to talk a lot about how not only themselves but also their dog are Cloudcuckoolanders.

With the success of namespace-ing, would it be a good idea to make a 'Let's Talk About Meeee!' (or 'Truth In Television', or 'Personal Anecdotes') namespace?

Or failing that, a more firmly-worded suggestion to not do that, please.

Kizor: I expect we have one of those, and it's called the forum. Though I occasionally paste such examples to the relevant discussion pages and ask tropers to discuss the issue there.

Ninjacrat: People keep saying Take It To The Forums, and people keep on... Not Taking It To The Forums. We need a new approach.

I guess the technological solution would be make a 'Chat about in the forums!' icon at the top of every page which links to a thread named after the trope, autocreating it if necessary. But that would be trickier.

Fast Eddie: That's pretty much what the discussion button is for. Not to the forums, but to the discussion page. We've been battling this natter problem for quite a while. I think people are doing it because they see other people doing it, so they think it must be okay. I guess a thing that might help is remove these bad precedents whenever you see them.

One thing I have to force myself to remember is that natter-ers are usually new and won't understand the frustration that leads up to some (to them) random dude on the Internet landing on them like a ton of bricks just because they countered a point in an article list. So the trick is to kick that nasty natter onto the discussion page diplomatically.

Ninjacrat: I've been fighting natter for six months now. Without trying to sound self-aggrandising, a back-of-the-envelope calcualtion says I'm singlehandedly responsible almost 50% of all deletions. I know my way around natter. (And yes, I do try to be politely helpful to obvious new vistors, even though the largest chunk of natter is produced by regulars who seemingly ran out anything to say ages ago and treat the wiki like a surrogate social life. Which is frustrating.)

This specific behaviour is qualitatively different, though. While most forms of natter can be prevented by deleting or editing forms that attract them, the desire to describe oneself in terms of tropes is invariant: it spontaneously reappears in any trope that supports it, regardless of how may times it's deleted. It's been independantly reinvented dozens of times. There's a clear demand for a place to do it. Rather than playing whack-a-mole for (maybe) the total lifespan of the wiki, it seems a better idea to channel the behaviour somewhere safe.

(Also, as hinted above, it's significantly more soul-crushing to delete cheerful, outgoing natter than the usual braindead 'ACTUALLY the previous troper is WRONG BECAUSE...' kind. At the very least, someone else going to have to take up the mantle, because I don't have the heart.)

Kizor: Well, I Call It Vera says: Real Life (Personal examples of naming things should be directed to the discussion page.)

Ninjacrat: Hm! But does it work? People never used the discussion pages to wildly mass guess or vent what bugs them, even though those were wildly popular behaviours once they got a formal place to do it. Discussion is almost universally used for bread-and-butter organising. It's easy to say 'people should talk about themselves in the discussion page', but if they consistantly aren't, we need to go to Plan B.

Fast Eddie: WMG and It Just Bugs Me, that is, wild theories and nit-picking did use to clutter up articles. Both can be entertaining and both have (largely) moved to places on the wiki where people can find them. Asking people in I Call It Vera to move personal anecdotes to the discussion page has also worked. There is something here, in formulating a Plan B. When encountering natter, the question should be "Where does this belong?" and the answer may not only be "On the discussion page" or "In the bit bucket."

For example, the "I named my BB gun 'Bowser'" items from I Call It Vera could be directed to ICallItVera/TroperTales. Any trope that is catching a number of anecdotes could have an AnyTrope/TroperTales page. Redirecting such stuff has worked pretty well for Crazy Prepared.

Another class of things that make up this thing we call natter is the "Actually,..."/"Wasn't it really more like..." stuff that turns into an inline debate. That started on day one of the wiki, with the remarks being right in the article, so we made the discussion pages, which drew it off. Now that we have YKTTW to knock an idea around with before it gets launched, there is a lot less of it directly related to the trope. Now we see it happening primarily in the examples.

I think we're seeing is the result of people thinking "I'm not going to go through registering on a forum just to correct what this nut said about Star Trek episode 9 costume colors. I'll just remark on it here. I'm too polite to just correct/delete it."

Maybe our anti-natter messages should be more positive. Like: "See a factual error? Cool! Move it over to Discussion!" and "Got a personal story related to the trope? Cool! Put it in AnyTrope/TroperTales."

BrightBlueInk: I think that would be really good. Until recently I thought discussion pages could only be about organizing and such, and I still have a hard time telling when something fits in the examples and when something should go into the discussion page. It's even more confusing when pages make it seem like the accepted way is to discuss it on the main page.

Freezair For A Limited Time: I think a "TroperTales" namespace would be fantastic. I actually like seeing other's personal anecdotes, and I wouldn't mind a place to put them. I definitely understand that "I'm not going to register for a forum just so I can make one comment and walk away" thing. A dumping grounds would be nice.

Ninjacrat: I've made a small start at Troper Tales; basically just moving over any natter as I come across it. If the Powers That Be approve, I guess they can give it an icon and etcetera.

Fast Eddie: It's on the filter list. Somebody will have to come with an icon suggestion. Please don't just dump all natter in 'Tales. It should be reserved for personal anecdotes and the natter attached directly to the personal anecdote.

Ninjacrat: But of course.

Silent Hunter: Thanks for that. I like the anecdotes too.

Ninjacrat: Re. icons, I couldn't think of an iconic way to represent 'tales', so I took a shot at a crappy pun

◊. That's a cat and its tail, if you can't tell. Use it only if you can't find or make something better.

Fast Eddie. Can't bring myself to install a cat's ass as the symbol for troper. ;-) Somebody will come up with an idea. I'm icon-ed out at the moment.

Looney Toons: Keep the icon and use it as an award for something that goes horribly wrong. That way it'll be a cat-ass-trophy. <grins, ducks and runs>

Cassius335: @Fast Eddie: What about a pen?

Fast Eddie: This may be a way to solve the issue of certain lists that have gotten way too long, but where there is no reason to break it up into separate pages. A new "folder" markup. These cannot be nested, but they may be a vaild approach to a solution.

Some Text describing the contents of the folder

Kamina's introduction in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Followed rapidly by him picking a fight with a giant robot, on foot, with only a katana.
Lagann breaks through to the surface. The fact that the song that plays during the ascent is the same tune that plays during the below-mentioned Giga Drill Breaker should give you a clue.
Viral delivering two No Holds Barred Beatdowns against Kamina in the same episode, quickly topped by the first union of Gurren and Lagann, which involved stealing Viral's helmet.
When Simon and Kamina snatched Thymilph's Dai-Ganzan, now the Dai-Gurren. Followed by Thymilph's epic-level pwnage at the receiving end of the series' first Giga Drill Breaker.
- If anyone, whatsoever, says the words "Giga... Drill... BREAAAAKAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" in this series, Epic Win is going to ensue soon.
Then comes Kamina's death. You could feel his soul ascending into godhood as he said "Farewell, Simon".
Simon getting over his Wangst due to Kamina's death just in time to defeat Guame. His rallying speech and Theme Music Power Up is so effective, you can feel the Wangst demons that Neon Genesis Evangelion inflicted on the genre being exorcised even as he spoke.
- This is accompanied by a Giga Drill Breaker that actually almost tops the previous one in pure awesome.
Nia running straight onto the Dai-Gurren's deck and ordering Adiane to cease her attack. Keep in mind that Nia is a young girl with no weapons and Adiane is piloting a mecha that could crush her in an instant.
Leeron's plan for attacking the Dai-Gunten, an enemy Airborne Aircraft Carrier, with the Dai-Gurren, a battleship with feet, by running up a mountain, jumping what must have been a decent fraction of a mile into the air, and then trying to kick it. It missed. And turned it into a spinning back kick. Keep in mind, the Dai-Gurren just leapt to an altitude where the fall would almost certainly destroy it, just to attack another ship, and it can't fly. Awesome.
- A feat topped later by using a now flight-capable Dai-Gurren to simply stab the Dai-Gunten with its pointed bow.
The entire fight between Simon and Lord Genome can be considered a Lensman Arms Race in Badassery. Every time Simon uses Heroic Resolve to get the upper hand, Lord Genome promptly smack him down again only for Simon to get back up again, more determined than before. The whole thing culminates in Lord Genome beating up Lagann bare-handed, while his head is on fire, followed by Simon using his Core Drill to drill a hole through Lord Genome's chest.
- Not to mention Lord Genome shrugging off a "Giga Drill Breaker" like it was nothing.
Rossiu gets one with just one sentence:
Rossiuo: Open your eyes, Lord Genome!
Simon unleashes the Giga Drill Maximum.
Kittan, channeling the awesome power of Kamina, picks a fight with a Mugan, on foot, with only a shotgun. Not as awesome as Kamina, but really, who is?
Yoko destroying two Ganmen in a matter of seconds with nothing but her trusty BFG and a small hover vehicle.
Simon and Viral's Big Damn Heroes moment is so awesome that the awesomeness of their presense, by itself, causes an entire army to explode.
Arc Gurren-Lagann Megaton Punching an enemy Mugan so hard it smashes a hole in the very fabric of space-time, into which the Mugan falls and promptly explodes. Captain Falcon, eat your heart out.
Simon causes Nia to wake up back to her original self. She suddenly goes from preeching the Anti-Spiral's talk of absolute despair to "Are you coming for me?" with all of the reverb gone from her voice. Not quite the same as all the combat cmoa but this troper still punched the air when it happened.
Simon cuts through time and space, teleporting halfway across the planet just in time to stop Rossiu from killing himself. He tears Gurren Lagann through a wall, ejects himself from the mech, flies forward for at least a good hundred feet, probably much more, at a massive speed, leans back, and channeling the awesome power of Kamina, punches Rossiu in the face so hard that the rubber band holding Rossiu's hair back explodes. It is much more fantastic than it sounds.
Jougen and Barinbou throw Gimmy and Dari's ruined Gulparals back at the main ship, then turn and laugh manically as their Twin-Bouku mecha explodes... with such force an entire Anti-Spiral fleet dies with them.
Boota proves that humans aren't the only ones who can use Spiral Energy.
Kittan pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to release everyone from the Ocean of Despair.
Chouginga Gurren Lagann attacking every single point in time and space simultaneously.
Kamina coming back from the dead for the sole purpose of telling Simon how awesome he is, breaking him free of the Lotus Eater Machine that captured him in the process.
The entire final battle set in Anti-Spiral space. Not posting what happens, it needs to be seen to be believed.
- Two words: Galaxy. Shurikens.

Folder Two

Feedback?

Charred Knight: It would just look ugly having a page with about 10-20 different folders on it before you get to other portion of the page. That, and frankly I don't think that's going to stop someone from stating that Gurren Lagann is so awesome that it deserves its own page a third time.

Tangent128: Well, some mixing up could be used to avoid having too many folders next to each other. I guess a field test is the best way to see if they're effective.

Meta Four: Could you make the folder background a different color? That yellow is really hard on the eyes (especially with the white spoiler text). Maybe just make the background white with a black outline around the box?

Fast Eddie: That's in.

Micah: Training Tropes should probably get replaced in the left sidebar by Skills And Training Tropes...

Ninjacrat: While we're on a namespace-ing roll, would anyone contemplate moving contributor pages to their own category? I know i'm always disappointed when I click on what looks like an interestingly named trope and get a guy's page instead. They're not a part of what you might call the wiki's core mission. And there doesn't seem to be a functional reason for them to be in the main namespace.

Fast Eddie: The functional reason is that when I signed this response, I didn't have to go Contributors/FastEddie. I'm not sure that everyone finds seeing a troper's page as disappointing enough to make signing your name a hassle everywhere.

Ninjacrat: Ah! That didn't cross my mind because... well, obviously. I guess I just don't get the mindset that makes people make pages about themselves in the first place.

Fast Eddie: It's a social thing, for some. For others, it is handy to have a place to keep track of things they've done, notes for future things, and et cetera. Hmm. It might be possible to give links to a contributor's page a different appearance than other links. I'll look into that.

Robert: Mostly, links to contributor pages only occur in places where it's obvious what they are - discussion pages, made of win, fanfic recommendations. The principle exception is the recent edits list, so perhaps a icon for that would work.

last batch removed 10 AUG 08

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