There is a lot wrong with some, or maybe many, or maybe all of the troper tales pages.
Just axing the whole thing is tempting, but there are a goodly number of them that are fun, rather than a hassle. I Call It Vera, for example, works without being creepy and has some fun entries. The TT pages seem to be useful for RP stories, for another example.
There have been calls to spin the TT namespace off into an utterly independent site with no TV Tropes identifying marks. There have been calls to curtail groups of pages (like Fetish Fuel) from any TT pages.
Troper Tales has always served as a "honey-pot", something to attract a nuisance away from the good stuff, and some folks have expressed a fear that without it, the bad old days of "This Troper" in the main articles could creep back.
What, if anything, should we be doing about Troper Tales?
Edited to add: Please note, the discussion has moved on from considering any wholesale deletions. Please look the discussion over before chiming in.
edited 4th Feb '11 7:21:16 AM by FastEddie
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
BobbyGvigilantly taxonomish
from England
Since: Jan, 2001
They don't really bother me because they're easily ignored, but I feel that something should probably be done, because they're sufficiently obnoxious to drive people away from Getting Known.
I would not object to a total deletion or removal to another site, though I think a compromise like deleting the most egotistical or creepy pages might be all that's needed.
Get rid of Fetish Fuel entirely, move Troper Tales to its own site and have the occasional thread in the forums for some of the more useful stuff like 'Recount how shit/well you did at your last D&D game'.
e: This doesn't really stop the creepy topics on the forum itself, although it's better than an entire section dedicated to it.
edited 1st Feb '11 9:41:16 PM by HarryMiste
Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is no "big lie", there is no "system". The universe is indifferent.
shimaspawnfrom Here and Now
Since: May, 2010Relationship Status: In your bunk
Yeah, I don't agree with moving them off site, or axing them all. I think we just need to keep an eye on them and if they go bad they get axed. We have a way to flag mods to a page now.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
-Philip K. Dick
My general inclination would be to identify which articles are really causing the problems, and deal with them on an individual basis.
Of course, if during that process we find that it truly is the majority of the TT pages that are part of the problem, a full-scale deletion might be in order. I'm just hesitant to believe that is the case based on the complaints we've seen on select pages, as that might be a case of sample bias.
As far as the "honey-pot" issue is concerned, the deletion of IJBM came with a surprising lack of waves. However, I think it would be easier to identify and take care of people posting IJBM threads in a forum where they shouldn't, as opposed to people posting incorrect examples across 150,000 articles.
edited 1st Feb '11 9:45:10 PM by Meeble
Visit my contributor page to assist with the "I Like The Cheeses" project!
I bet that when Fetish Fuel is axed the forums are going to be flooded with angry comments or stand-in topics. Not that the latter doesn't already exist, but I bet they'd grow.
Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is no "big lie", there is no "system". The universe is indifferent.
@Meeble, if you want to go that route, finding what pages are problematic, we're already poking around in TT. I can say something to the effect of "Flag pages, give decent reasons" and that might make that process a lot easier for you.
Truth be told I'm just up for deleting the whole thing, but as has been said there are goons willing to help with this.
shimaspawnfrom Here and Now
Since: May, 2010Relationship Status: In your bunk
^^^^How would you even police that? It's a quarantine for stuff that shouldn't be anywhere on the site at all (except Fetishes), and I don't know why it would be if there was no invitation to post it.
Remove Fetish Fuel! For the love of God in heaven remove Fetish Fuel or at the very least make an empty, no examples page.
As for Troper Tales either get more mods on the job, post alerts and warnings about writing creepy content could result in bans, and encourage the users on this site to contact their local mods if something on those pages seems iffy. My personal favorite idea suggested though was Harry's. Simply move it off site and link to it. Everyone wins that way.
@Ninja: As I said, that's just my initial leaning. If consensus goes that way, the help would certainly be appreciated.
I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to them being deleted, as I personally have never gotten any value out of them. I just don't want to make a hasty decision if it truly is only a small minority of pages that are really causing problems.
Visit my contributor page to assist with the "I Like The Cheeses" project!
@ Meeble - And it really wouldn't be too hard for us to do it. We're already mowing through mocking all of them, might as well flag them while we're at it.
^^Said small minority could either be retooled or simply sent to the Permanent Red Link Club.
I have thought about Fetish Fuel getting cut down to a "no examples, please. This just defines the trope" page, though. (Not saying I support that fully)
edited 1st Feb '11 9:52:07 PM by AnonymousUser
HarryMisteCurtain Call
from Dark Side Of The Moon
Since: Dec, 2009
So I think the vast minority have agreed: Fetish Fuel goes.
The next question is who's going to set up the Troper Tales website? Should it be hosted on TV Tropes webspace but otherwise unaffiliated or is someone else going to host it? unless we're going to nuke it and i support that option as well
edited 1st Feb '11 9:53:34 PM by HarryMiste
Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is no "big lie", there is no "system". The universe is indifferent.
SlaaneshAnti-nonsense
from Over there
Since: Jan, 2010
Don't bother to say "all of them". Name specific Troper Tales pages that should be axed. An "UP" Vote means you think it should be cut completely. A "DOWN" vote means it should be kept.
"I don't care for this page" is not a reason to cut it. "This page is unsalvagable. Kill it with fire" is.
PLEASE bullet point pro and con examples if there are more than one.
Cut: Neither of the examples shows the trope. They are a spam e-mail and boasting about penis size.
Cut: There is zero reason for this to exist unless it became a comedic page itself mocking spam and entertainment examples. Seeing as it isn't funny... and is an ego trip it needs to go
Keep: Has only 2 entries. At this point, there's no telling whether it'll be a dick-measuring contest or not.
131
(Yeas:145
Nays:14)
10.36 : 1
Shotacon
Cut: Has only one example now, but could turn problematic due to the subject nature. Note that shotacon is different from Cute Shotaro Boy in that little boys are being fetishized in the former.
Cut: If the lolicon page was cut, this should be too.
95
(Yeas:107
Nays:12)
8.92 : 1
Noble Bigot
Cut: As seen from the history, might encourage racism with the excuse of "I'm really a nice guy though so it's okay".
88
(Yeas:100
Nays:12)
8.33 : 1
Raging Stiffie (No, seriously. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR DICKS.)
Keep: Needs to be redefined, the creepy hatred removed, but could be a valid place to express childfree beliefs... although there really is a rather significant difference between child hatred (i.e., what the article is about) and wishing to remain childfree.
Cut: Any examples that don't involve child hatred would be by definition not examples on the trope. Since we don't want child hatred and we don't want off-topic examples, it's hard to see what possible good examples this page could have.
Does Not Like Men (devolved into a massive flame war and was already a way to show off misandry)
Cut: removing the misandry.
Keep: COULD work if cleaned up and watched.
Cut: This page is misandrous by its very definition. There aren't many ways you can say "This tropette hates men" without being a spiteful shrew.
Keep: But if a troper met someone who was like this (without names of course), it would be valid.
Cut: If He Man Woman Hater gets cut, so should this.
A Groupie is willing to do edit work and curation to keep things calm.
Cut: For exactly the reason mentioned above. These diapers need to be taken out to the trash. Only one example which is actually pimping an off-site ficlet. Yeah, nobody's gonna miss that one.
Jerkass (Either whining about whoever someone doesn't like, bragging about being an asshole, or both)
49
(Yeas:63
Nays:14)
4.50 : 1
Nietzsche Wannabe
Cut: An empty page would be as nihilistic as you can get. Talk about meta! Which is why the page should remain but emptied out and locked.
Cut: When even the main page insults it, you know this thing needs to go.
49
(Yeas:74
Nays:25)
2.96 : 1
Brilliant But LazyCut: Low wattage on the brilliance side but high on the laziness.
Cut: Shows less brilliance and more unwarranted self-importance.
Keep: Giving props to people that aren't yourself that fit this might work better.
Keep: there is no need nor source for "high wattage" on the brilliance side, considering that laziness does not have a social bottom threshold. Unless you can factually get a respectable amount of people with over 300 IQ points (whatever those are) to periodically show up in that page, the page is by mere statistics going to be skewed towards the laziness.
48
(Yeas:55
Nays:7)
7.86 : 1
Acceptable Ethnic Targets (Excuse for racism.) Cut: All valid examples would be "I have such-and-so nationality" which would be on the main page anyway.
47
(Yeas:54
Nays:7)
7.71 : 1
Acceptable Religious Targets (Flame bait for religions & atheism.)
Cut: Acceptable Targets doesn't need troper tales.
43
(Yeas:48
Nays:5)
9.60 : 1
Pani Poni DashCut: It's an empty (and not a vandalised/blanked) page. Just Cutlist it. Don't lock it.
42
(Yeas:49
Nays:7)
7.00 : 1
Foot Focus (The trope is the camera focusing on somebody's feet, and real life isn't filmed. Plus, we really don't want to hear about your fetish, yo.)
Keep: what authorizes you to say that we don't want to read about a certain Fetish, if that is the place for it?
Cut: This isn't the place for it for 2 reasons: 1) That's not even what the trope is about. As stated, it's about the camera focusing on one's feet, not getting off on it. 2) We're not here talk about tropers' sexual tastes. That's what kicked this whole thing off in the first place.
41
(Yeas:48
Nays:7)
6.86 : 1
Rape As Comedy (bargepole-like problematic, obvious reasons) *Cut: Purely Dude, Not Funny!. Only one giggle-worthy entry on the whole page, that "oak tree" story.
Keep: There is little to no Black Comedy on the page, and most of it is video game lingo and memespouting.
41
(Yeas:55
Nays:14)
3.93 : 1
The Unfair Sex (tends to turn from legitimate attempts to point out injustice into misogynistic ranting)
Keep: Psychotic streaks? You mean the one with the giant discussion about it? We can remove that. I will be willing to keep future ones away.
Keep This could only be passable if limited to RP or fictional examples ONLY.
Keep It could serve for discussion that originates in stuff like, say, Guantanamo, if an adequate person brings it in andif it is moderated/watched/something. I mean, I'm sure more than one Troper has had a neighbor picked up for "conversation".
Cut: Animated Trope. Can't even occur in Real Life, so any example would fall under Fetish Fuel. *Cut: Even though Real Life examples could be argued to illustrate the trope, it's a little creepy to have a page that only consists of people discussing how they stare at boobs. *Cut: While not solely an animated trope, real life examples are inherently problematic to talk about.
Keep: We don't have a generic trope for boob bouncing and not all examples in the main trope are animated; issues with Trope Decay don't need to go here.
Keep: Any female who has ever gone out without a bra knows this trope very much occurs in real life. There are currently no examples of Fetish Fuel.
37
(Yeas:89
Nays:52)
1.71 : 1
Fetish FuelCut: Shows up in children's media due to its nature, gets really creepy at times.
Cut: Since it's one of the largest and highest-traffic TT pages, not only would be one of the most difficult to curate, but it attracts so much negative attention that it's one of the major reasons this crowner exists in the first place. Since squick is subjective, we can't say "anything too squicky gets axed".
Cut: It's not even what the trope is about! The trope is "Gee, that probably wasn't supposed to be hot but it totally was", not "Here is a list of things that arouse me."
Cut: People have moved the entries to a Wikia space. Anyone who will miss it can go there.
37
(Yeas:44
Nays:7)
6.29 : 1
Would Hit A Girl (See Wouldn't Hit A Girl.)
Keep: Has many entries that are legitimate cases of sexism/lack thereof
Keep: Half of the examples (and there's only four to begin with) are clearly roleplaying characters. This page has had plenty of time to get out of hand, and it hasn't really.
33
(Yeas:66
Nays:33)
2.00 : 1
Incest YayCut: Remember what happened to Brother Sister Incest?
Keep: It didn't happen with this one yet. The yay tropes aren't about actual sex, but teasing, so most of the entries describe harmless, if little bit awkward innuendos and flirting.
Volunteering to curate: Hershele Ostropoler and Vorpy
33
(Yeas:45
Nays:12)
3.75 : 1
Crapsack World (Basically Complaining About Places You Don't Like)
33
(Yeas:39
Nays:6)
6.50 : 1
Stalker With A Crush (As some people have said on the page, these guys need help.)
Keep: There's plenty of examples of stalkers tropers have known. It's when the stalkers are the ones writing the examples that it gets creepy, and usually they're accompanied by several other Tropers calling them out on it.
31
(Yeas:37
Nays:6)
6.17 : 1
Comic Sutra (Disgusting sex acts you never wanted to know about.) Cut: This is and can only continue to be entries that are basically "I fell for this Schmuck Bait oh and look... now you did too."
All Love Is Unrequited (Huge bitchfest over how "I'm the right one for her/him dammit!")
29
(Yeas:43
Nays:14)
3.07 : 1
Girl On Girl Is HotCut:Girl on Girl Is Hot is specifically "female-on-female titillation". Any troper tale that isn't an aversion/subversion is going to be Fetish Fuel But More Specific. If Fetish Fuel needs to go then so does this Girl On Girl Is Hot.
Cut: Do we really need a dozen "Girl on Girl indeed hot!" me-too entries that say the exact same thing - especially when the main page discusses its application in real life anyway?
Keep: Can be kept out of the disturbing and sociopathic areas with Curation. Judging from the page, there is more self Lampshading and self evaluation of how they acted online as opposed to "I am dark and evil and want everyone to die because they were mean".
Keep:: There isn't any anti-humanity, blatantly negative or hostile contributions anywhere, just people talking about how they used to think in the past.
Keep: If people are waiting, they're not doing anything creepy
Keep: Most of the entries are about two teenagers already in a relationship. Can be easily monitored by prohibiting entries about unrequited affection.
Keep: Most of the examples seem to be neutral towards women but negative towards the guys they go for instead. Could be salvaged with curating.
Cut: Most of the examples are aversions under the nature of "I used to be like this, but now I'm smarter". Single Woman Seeks Good Man is the trope they're looking for.
Keep: The badly placed examples can be zapped. There are still many examples left to illustrate the trope.
Keep: There's one example currently and it's about someone with what is presumably a birth defect.
Keep: There aren't any on the page right now, but this could be used for tropers who use this trope in their art or have a specific character who lacks nipples/genitalia.
Man I Feel Like A Woman
Cut: Does NOT happen in real life. Also slips into fetishistic fantasies after the first few entries.
Keep: Does, in fact, happen in real life. And is pretty okay when not used as a dumpster for boob fetishism. The other entries were curated.
Keep: Not that bad. Mostly transexuals talking.
Covert PervertPro: The page is people talking about how they are perverts. Problem is an inherent part of the trope, so this can't be fixed by curating.
Con: No problems a vigilant Wiki Curator can't fix. (no curators at this time)
21
(Yeas:32
Nays:11)
2.91 : 1
Deadpan Snarker (tends to turn into a back-slapping contest for smug, unfunny dicks)
Cut: dick measuring contest Full of "Subversion " and "averted by this troper"
Keep: Hardly any dick-measuring to be seen (though some "prudisher than thou" mentality) Simple aversions/subversions can be cut by a curator. The "victim of this trope" stories illustrate the trope even better.
Cut: The trope is "There are no therapists." There are, in fact, therapists extant in reality. *Keep: There are therapists, but not everywhere. As per the main page - Japan doesn't suffer those with genuine psychological issues well. Jake Adelstein's Tokyo Vice provides a firsthand account of the Japanese perception that those who claim insanity are either faking it or beyond cure, and as such are to be outcasts or locked up.
KEEP: I had a Keep example in here earlier that was deleted. While there may be therapists extant in SOME PARTS of reality, that is taking an overly literal reading of the content. In other parts of reality there are no therapists, no GOOD therapists (and anyone who's ever dealt with a bad therapist or psuedotherapist can testify to how horrific the results of that can be: bad therapy is WORSE than none), or no therapists being utilized. And there are situations in which therapy is, sadly, incredibly inadequate or has to be very careful to cause more good than harm.
Kids Are Cruel (Another page that seems designed for complaining and sympathy grabs)
Keep: Page is not a bad idea, but could use more examples from people who are no longer kids themselves.
Keep: There are no examples talking about anything sociopathic, illegal or going into extreme detail why evil turns them on. Mostly just humorous chatter.
The Immodest OrgasmCut: We do not want to hear about tropers' sex lives. Particularly not the girlfriend who goes "FUCK YOU FUCK YOU" or that incident with the midget.
Keep: Most of the stories are plausible, and some of them are kind of cute.
Keep: None of them are in the beyond inappropriate/creepy range.
Cut: A lot of the anecdotes are about young girls being abused/sexually harassed because they developed earlier than their peers. They're really sad, but that's not exactly what the trope is.
Cut: Tropers waxing philosophical about how preeettty they are. Though it has clearly been established that a vigilant Wiki Curator can fix cancer, world hunger and man's inhumanity to man, this might be one of the very few things even they cannot save. Then again, others would have it that this page too has, (everybody together now...)
Keep: No problems a vigilant Wiki Curator can't fix.
Madden Into Misanthropy (Move along Nietzsche, Jr.)
KEEP: If kept out of "This is why I hate humankind" territory and kept in the "You people are driving me crazy!" category, the examples can be led into a different direction.
Willing Curators: Vorpy
17
(Yeas:32
Nays:15)
2.13 : 1
Heroic Sociopath
It's all in the name. However, character examples could stay.
Cut: creepy real life examples
Keep: Valid non-creepy RPG examples. We don't have other pages for Table Top games.
shimaspawn will curate it and keep the non-gaming creepy examples off.
Brains And BondageCut: Both juicy sexual details and tropers waxing about how O SO SMRT they are! What's not to like?
Keep:
Since almost all the Troper Tales give credentials for their smarts, they can't be accused of not being smart enough to qualify for the trope, unlike many of the intelligence tropes on this crowner.
Community-building
Nothing that would be out of place on the main page aside from being a troper tale — as wth fictional examples, they're all "X is smart and kinky" with evidence
Screw Yourself
CUT: An anatomically impossible act. Page quickly degenerates into "This troper had a dream a few years ago where he was making love with his character from Phantasy Star Online". Also don't miss the story about the Navy Cadet Unit.
15
(Yeas:28
Nays:13)
2.15 : 1
Omnicidal Maniac
Cut: flagrant insanity, and We have pages for Troper Works, so we don't need troper tales for that.
Keep: Should be available for role-playing characters, and examples in tropers' own works.
Keep: It does not always apply to angsty teenagers with a keyboard. Animals can be Omnicidal Maniac traits as well.
Cut: Again, we have pages for troper works, and for Real Life, show me an animal that wants to destroy the world sometime. Also, to whoever deleted my previous reason supporting a cut, please don't do it again.
Volunteering to curate: Amp
15
(Yeas:22
Nays:7)
3.14 : 1
Creepy Sexy (fetishism)
Cut: We don't want to hear about your sex lives or your fetishes, especially not like this.
Keep: Since the trope is about the coat, not the badass, anyway, the latter can and should be removed.
Volunteer to curate: Hershele Ostropoler
14
(Yeas:23
Nays:9)
2.56 : 1
Fetish RetardantPro: It's the opposite of Fetish Fuel, much like getting your hand stuck in a meat grinder that's going clockwise is the opposite of getting your hand stuck in a meat grinder that's going counter-clockwise.
Con:
Nothing offensive if sex itself isn't adjudged offensive.
Community-building
May be salvageable if kept free of Fetish Fuel-style TMI, anything overly explicit, general uncalled-for nastiness, and people primarily bragging about themselves.
Potty Failure (Ew.)
Cut: This is a TV Tropes page where people get together and share the various ways, times and circumstances in which they shit their pants. Somewhere, Trope-Tan is crying.
Keep: Come on, there's a reason people find toilet humor amusing. Keep: Squick is subjective. In any event, this crowner is intended to address TT pages that attract creepy or otherwise undesirable posters, not "posters who have had accidents"
Volunteering to Curate: Agent0042
Perverse Sexual Lust (Same problem as Fetish Fuel.)
Cut: We don't need to know about which cartoon characters tropers want to pork. Nobody cares.
Keep. It's a free country, and if people want to admit they have an attraction to a fictional character, let them.
CUT: Wangst, ego-stroking, and a really disgusting salad toss.
13
(Yeas:21
Nays:8)
2.63 : 1
Draco In Leather Pants
Cons: It's not about IRL events, but personal shipping preferences, that were originally driven there from main shipping tropes.
Cut: No reason to exist besides the above, and more than a little depressing to read.
13
(Yeas:20
Nays:7)
2.86 : 1
Break The Cutie (Excuse to fish for compliments and sympathy.)
Almost entirely comprised of people making fun of how actually having the page would be really creepy. Just "almost" becuase there's that "This troper is writing a fic about Sonic The Hedgehog masturbating to Blaze, much to Amy's horror, to the point that Amy is Driven To Suicide" bit.
As of now, there aren't any actually Troper Tales on the page—and if there were, no one wants to hear about your date.
Con: Actually pretty funny except for that creepy fan fic guy. Has some jokes about the funny ads people saw on the page, for example. Mostly free of genuine masturbation anecdotes, except for one blink-and-you'll-miss-it minimalistic comment and the aforementioned creepy fan fic guy.
Volunteering to curate: Hershele Ostropoler, even if people are starting to wonder about him.
CUT: Past the creepy sex stuff is a random list of actors and singers whom the troper swoons over that's not very interesting to anyone else
13
(Yeas:21
Nays:8)
2.63 : 1
The Reason You Suck Speech (A lot of people fantasizing about what they wish they'd said to bullies and generally trying to make themselves look cool.)
Con: Won't be problematic if we limit this to people reporting what people had said to them or what they overheard someone saying to someone else. Plus a couple of truly pathetic entries received some hilarious MSTing.
Wouldn't Hit A Girl (Disturbing aversions posted that would fall under Would Hit A Girl.)
Volunteering to curate: FrodoGoofballCoTV
See possible curating example here.
13
(Yeas:22
Nays:9)
2.44 : 1
Karma Houdini (The second entry at least borders on sociopathic.)
Con: Remove last entry and make notification page is about Karma Houdini that you've seen, not done.
Keep: No problems a vigilant Wiki Curator can't fix. Gay people do exist in real life though, and there is nothing wrong with listing RP examples if people want to.
Cut:(Ego-stroking on how Badass and dangerous tropers think they are)
Keep: (Psychotic Smirks appearing in places where violence is not part of the situation, like a video game or bowling)
12
(Yeas:25
Nays:13)
1.92 : 1
Coitus UninterruptusPro: Yet more of that endless artifact of fascination that is Tropers' sex lives. No, thank you.
Con: Nothing explicit or self-declared badassery currently. Hershele Ostropoler is willing to keep an ye on it to keep it that way.
CUT: Almost nothing but ego-stroking and creepy responses, and potentially fetishistic/sexual. (Fetish FuelBut More Specific?)
11
(Yeas:18
Nays:7)
2.57 : 1
Im Not Pretty (Looks like an excuse to fish for compliments.)
11
(Yeas:30
Nays:19)
1.58 : 1
Awful Truth (Excuse to fish for compliments and sympathy.)
(Keep:sure its depressing, but there isnt anything nsfw on it,which is the main argument against TT, Nothing a curator cant handle,nothing strictly wrong with people needing sympathy )
Volenteer to curate: Dontcallmewave
Pro: Nobody cares about your mental condition or how small you are.
Con: Actually highlights issues of discrimination and prejudice and is in tune with the actual trope page mission. Needs a ton of cleanup (especially the constipated dude, man, TMI) but I'm going in to clean it up now.
KEEP: Just curated and organized page. Removed a lot of the BAWWWWW stuff, sequestered stuff that couldn't be removed to skippable sections (e.g. people upset with Aspergers people can skip that part).
Requires superhuman powers, therefore, impossible in real life
Keep:
Could validly apply to rps, and other personal media that doesn't fit on the main page.
The non-canon speculation and fanwanks would be moved to the WMG or YMMV page for the appropriate work. Troper Tales is for personal experiences with the trope.
Curator: shimaspawn
9
(Yeas:26
Nays:17)
1.53 : 1
Genius BonusCut: Hey, making obscure references means I'm smart. Let me tell you about this time I referenced Haruhi and Freelancer and nobody else understood me because they are stupid. (This is a paraphrase of a real example.)
Cut: This one time, someone made an obscure reference, and naturally, I was the only one who got it in the whole room. I can tell because nobody else shouted out "Hahaha! I got that! I'm so smart!"
Keep: Will probably be fine when the hammer comes down on ego-stroking.
Keep: serves its purpose being here, when used well, can be used to add some free education. Paraphrasing a complained in the forum thread, "the possibility of attracting occasional bad examples doesn't make the page unsalvageable because bad examples can be removed".
9
(Yeas:16
Nays:7)
2.29 : 1
Yuri FanCut: More Fetish FuelBut More Specific. We really don't need to know what you get off on.
Keep: Most of them are harmless, and Curation could help get rid of the "bad ones"
Cut: If Yaoi Fangirl gets cut, so should this.
Willing to Curate: Feinoha
Pro: Illegal activity in the US and some other countries and boasting.
Pro: This is TV Tropes, not "I do drugs all the time am I cool yet?" tropes.
Con: Not all possible drugs are illegal and it is not the point of this Wiki to make a statement that Drugs Are Bad. If we want that, there's a Drugs Are Bad troper tales page. Needs example cleanout but can work. I'm working on it right now.
Con: Not all description of personal experience is "am I cool yet" bragging.
Boobs of Steel
Pro for cut: Potential for a lot of ego-stroking, basically "I kick ass and have large boobs" in one page.
Con: Hasn't had creepy examples so far.
Cut: How "accidental" these are come into question, and it's just creepy. Not enough entries that are simply funny anecdotes.
Keep: There are plenty of good, legitimate examples that shouldn't be thrown out with the bathwater.
9
(Yeas:10
Nays:1)
10.00 : 1
Het Is Ew
Cut: Bigotry in action. Two wrongs don't make a right.
8
(Yeas:27
Nays:19)
1.42 : 1
You're Drinking Breast Milk
Pro: Please stop milking this fetish.
Con: Currently has only one example, and it's legitimate. There is no mention of the fetish on the page.
Besides, the trope is accidentally drinking breast milk. Not fetishizing it.
Keep: The trope isn't inherently sexual, no reason that the TT page will be once the single bad example is deleted. It's not ego-stroking, sociopathic, or sexual.
Cut: Without locking, no point in keeping a page with no good examples. Can be recreated later if someone has a good example.
Keep: The above mentioned disgusting entry no longer exists and has been replaced with a more simpler example.
Casual KinkPro: TMI. There are some aspects of troper lives we just do not want to hear about, and this is one of them.
Con: No visible problems currently, no potential ones a vigilant curator can't fix.
Volunteering to curate: Hershele Ostropoler
Teacher Student Romance
Cut: Mostly hypothetical lusting for handsome teachers.
Keep: Also some interesting examples of how this occurs IRL if it's an actual anecdote. Could be kept if fantasy scenarios are purged.
Volunteer for curate: Insanity Addict
Love DodecahedronCut: If I wanted directions, I'd look at a road map.
Keep: Some amusing examples between all the boring A-B-C-etc. tripe. Could be salvaged if an encouragement to flesh out the details (such as using fake names if at least to make it easier to read) is posted at page top.
5
(Yeas:20
Nays:15)
1.33 : 1
Wouldn't Hurt A Child
Cut: Disturbing aversions posted.
Keep: They have since been removed and the page is being monitored.
Volunteering to curate: Troacctid, Losing Streak
Fanon DiscontinuityCut: Might as well be renamed License To Whine: The Page.
Keep: many entries are funny, people say not to just bitch.
Keep: it serves its intended purpose being in Troper Tales and not, say, Trivia. At most it needs cleaning.
Cut: Nothing but ego-stroking. The only entry about someone else is "My friend has very big brown eyes, therye pretty". Also, check out Miss Mary Sue in the fourth bullet.
Keep: Has the potential to be talking about other people and to have examples that don't seem made up completely.
Ethical SlutPro: Largely aversions that reflect rather poorly on the people posting them.
Con: No problems a vigilant curator can't fix. Has already been cleaned up and is being watched.
Volunteering to curate: Troacctid
Some Tropers have participated in theatrical plays.
Narrative conventions can be and are projected in real life. And when it happens, it can provide some metaphysical or hillarious moments worth of sharing.
Against Keeping:
We have pages for Troper Works, so we don't need troper tales for that.
CUT: Sex TMI about a Porn Stash (which should go on that page were it to not be zapped for being underage)
1
(Yeas:7
Nays:6)
1.17 : 1
If It's You It's Okay
Might as well be merged with "Even the Guys Want Him", because that's what the examples are (they share the same flaws)
0
(Yeas:19
Nays:19)
I Have Boobs You Must Obey
Keep: The current page is perfectly healthy and being monitored. It contains amusing anecdotes that aren't disturbing or anything.
Cut: This is one of those pages where some would consider a "perfectly healthy" tale a contradiction in terms.
Volunteering to curate: Troacctid
0
(Yeas:0
Nays:0)
The crowner is not the place for you to post your opinion. That's what the thread is for.
For cutting: A flame war waiting to happen, and many small ones have already happened.
For Keeping: I am patrolling the article as we speak, and will only allow civil respectful entries to be added. All of the bad edits, arguing natter and disrespect have been ripped off the page. This page is no longer a problem.
Cut: Obvious. Yet more ego-stroking and sexual TMI.
Keep: You don't have to, and probably don't need to, go into the TMI details to share funny stories of how this happened in your life or R Ps. The majority of examples are tame and aren't "I cause this all the time"-ego-stroking.
0
(Yeas:0
Nays:0)
The crowner is not the place for you to post your opinion. That's what the thread is for.
Cut: Shipping preferences and ego-stroking. Could become Flame Bait as well.
0
(Yeas:0
Nays:0)
The crowner is not the place for you to post your opinion. That's what the thread is for.
-1
(Yeas:0
Nays:1)
shoddy internet connection (requesting deletion)
-1
(Yeas:0
Nays:1)
Never mind, turns out the page didn't exist in the first place.
-1
(Yeas:10
Nays:11)
My Girl Is A SlutKEEP: Has only a few entries, can be redefined to have the slutiness removed and be a valid place to express sentiments of girl promiscuity and for victims of polyamory to speak out, COULD work if cleaned up and watched, doesn't have many examples and hasn't gone bad yet so any reason to cut it is just speculation, a lot of it is funny, "illegal" is culture-dependent and arbitrary and it's not the job of the wiki to enforce the law, should be available for roleplaying characters. The current page doesn't seem to have any issues, and the issues it does have are nothing that a vigilant Wiki Curator can't fix.
Volunteer to curate: Hershele Ostropoler
-1
(Yeas:17
Nays:18)
Badass Creed (Ego-stroking. Can definitely benefit from being limited to "mainstream" examples, like: Family motto, military unit, and so on.)
Pro: A list where girl tropers list which celebrities and fictional characters turn them on. Here's this, then thereeeeee's the TV Tropes site mission.
Con: Below the list of celebrities is a list of personal examples that would make a decent TT page if patroled for egostroking.
We have pages for Troper Works, so we don't need troper tales for that.
Con:
They don't need to happen in Real Life to have Troper Tales about them. The page can and should contain examples that occur in role-playing games or Troper works.
Things that look a lot like narrative conventions can happen in real life.
-2
(Yeas:11
Nays:13)
Dude, Where's My Respect?
Con: Only one example that's obviously a parody. Not good, but still not reason enough to ax.
-2
(Yeas:24
Nays:26)
Awesome Moments In Military ServiceFor deleting: Ego-stroking. Potential for sociopathic boasting about killing other people.
For Keeping: Quite a bit of it is praising other people instead of ego stroking. Sociopathic boasting can be kept in check via curation.
Volunteer to curate: Dontcallmewave
For deleting:(Ego-stroking, also, a Troper Tales page when there's no main page. Why?)
For Keeping: Quite a bit of it is praising other people instead of ego stroking, and ego-stroking examples can be curated out. And as for the second argument, its a subpage, since the CMOA page got too big.
Same problems as the Give Geeks a Chance page, it's basically a spot to brag about being a woman on the internet and receive all that geek attention.
Contentless, there is nothing interesting about most of the anecdotes beyond "I am a woman who plays video games."
Keep: The page is currently lacking both sexism and flame bait and shouldn't be cut while it doesn't have any.
-2
(Yeas:18
Nays:20)
Awesome Moments Of Standing Up To BulliesFor deleting:(Ego-stroking, also, a Troper Tales page when there's no main page. Why?)
For Keeping: Quite a bit of it is praising other people instead of ego stroking.And as for the second argument, its a subpage, since the CMOA page got too big.
Volunteer to curate: Dontcallmewave
-3
(Yeas:20
Nays:23)
Caught With Your Pants Down
Pro: Choice entry - "[..] Once I thought [my sister] was asleep on the couch, and I somehow managed to avert this by hiding under my blankets and putting my clothes back on after performing autofellatio."
Con: The above example is followed by a discussion of the anatomical possibility of the act itself, which is quite chucklesome.
Con: Explicitness can be toned down, hilarious dialogues kept. Gonna volunteer for curating(Insanity Addict).
-3
(Yeas:12
Nays:15)
Coitus EnsuesKeep: NEEDS to be limited to fictional examples- preferably the "I once saw this movie" type rather than the "there's this RP I'm in" type- but the first few examples demonstrate this one is redeemable.
-3
(Yeas:5
Nays:8)
Groin Attack
Cut: A large amount of entries are glorifying violent/unnecessary attacks on innocent boys.
Cut: Many examples aren't strictly groin attacks
Keep: Nothing a decent Curator couldn't solve.
Entry after entry is "I'm a Deadpan Snarker in a Crapsack World" and musing on the morality of the world has tended to end in flame bait. Almost all of this is just saying "I was a cheerful kid, but that girl who rejected me in high school made me like this but I'm over it T_T"
Choice example: "I am a overly intellectual misanthropist, and the few people who can talk to me without becoming lost in my sesquipedalian loquaciousness find that every word that leaves my brooding mind to slip past my perpetually down-turned lips is so wry, sardonic, and overly well backed up that they have no choice but to bend to my every argument when ever I choose to debate about morality, politics, and the nature of humanity."
FOR KEEPING:
Entries and neither offensive nor disturbing. They simply present the way some tropers, for whatever reason, view the world around them, which is surely not the reason for cutting.
The example given in "for cutting" point of view is not typical. Such rare examples of ego-stroking can be monitored.
Pro: A choice entry: "This troper isn't one, but sure finds them attractive. ;)" as well as one claiming to have doglike Cute Little Fangs. Has a lot of the problems the entries for the Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette trope had before the name change.
Con: Nothing a Wiki Curator can't monitor and fix.
A-Cup Angst
Cut: We don't really want to hear about your unhappiness with your breast size, either
Keep: Sure we do! It's amusing, it's not disturbing or anything, and it isn't hurting anyone.
There are no creepy or vastly inappropriate examples on the page that would merit a cut.
This is not a Fetish FuelBut More Specific page either, after reading the examples. Some people may like it, but that's not what this page is about, making it so that new examples have to consist of more than "I think smaller breasts are hawt", meriting it's keeping compared to other pages.
Nobody even bothers to pretend this has anything to do with the trope, which is about thinking other people have the talent too.
Keep: There are no problems with the page and it contains plenty of amusing anecdotes.
-5
(Yeas:17
Nays:22)
Sadist TeacherPro: Disturbing violent sociopathic undertones.
Con: We can get rid of the problems and there'll still be plenty of room for good anecdotes here.
-6
(Yeas:16
Nays:22)
HikikomoriCon: Subject looks like it has potential if held to proper standards
The Combat Pragmatist (Possibly ego-stroking, but pretty decent potential if we disallow that)
-6
(Yeas:12
Nays:18)
Defeat By Modesty
Keep: Has the potential to be humorous. Currently has only one example, but not reason enough to ax the entire page either. (That was fixed, because I wrote it. —Vorpy)
Volunteering for curate: Vorpy, Chihuahua0
-7
(Yeas:12
Nays:19)
Surreal Horror (If not satire, self-demonstrating.)
Con: KEEP IT! It's like the textual version of Art of Life! A masterpiece, if a sad one
All Gays Are Pedophiles
Cut: This can easily degenerate into people posting homophobic opinions.
Keep: No offensive content has been added to date, and the tone of the article is soundly against homophobic attitudes. Will probably be fine with curation, which there is already a volunteer for.
CUT: Bragging page for personal video game victories. Serves no other purpose.
CON: Video Games exist to have fun. By their very nature that involves telling others of your stories when you preform incredible acts of skill - especially in today's age of internet gaming.
-8
(Yeas:13
Nays:21)
Proud To Be A GeekPro: Lapses into ego-stroking and snowflaking
Con: Plenty of good material there, curation can zap the rest
Keep - Other than the general dislike for Anime-named Tropes, this had no reason to be put up here in the first place. The troper tales are clean and lack any extremely objectionable material.
Cut: Anecdotes... about homosexuality? Or at least anything that may seem like homosexuality? This is People Sit On Chairs. *
Painfully.
Keep: No problems so far, apparently.
-11
(Yeas:14
Nays:25)
Father I Want To Marry My BrotherKeep: This is notExactly What It Says on the Tin (go read the trope). None of the current examples show any problems; they're mostly harmless (maybe a bit embarrassing) tales of childhood innocence. This will obviously need monitoring, but it can work.
vigilantly taxonomish
Curtain Call
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Hm?
likes the cheeses.
Anti-nonsense
There is a lot wrong with some, or maybe many, or maybe all of the troper tales pages.
Just axing the whole thing is tempting, but there are a goodly number of them that are fun, rather than a hassle. I Call It Vera, for example, works without being creepy and has some fun entries. The TT pages seem to be useful for RP stories, for another example.
There have been calls
to spin the TT namespace off into an utterly independent site with no TV Tropes identifying marks. There have been calls to curtail groups of pages (like Fetish Fuel) from any TT pages.
Troper Tales has always served as a "honey-pot", something to attract a nuisance away from the good stuff, and some folks have expressed a fear that without it, the bad old days of "This Troper" in the main articles could creep back.
What, if anything, should we be doing about Troper Tales?
Edited to add: Please note, the discussion has moved on from considering any wholesale deletions. Please look the discussion over before chiming in.
edited 4th Feb '11 7:21:16 AM by FastEddie
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty