Not tropes: Shipping Tropes

Shipping is not a trope, its an Audience Reaction. Should we rename this to Types Of Shipping?

Or perhaps Ways To Ship?

Or call it the oh-so-generic (but accurate) Shipping Index.

Shipper on Deck? The Matchmaker? Those are totally tropes. Most of the audience reactions are still Fan Fic tropes anyway. Whatever.

Why do we even need a shipping index? Its not a story building block, its a bunch of subjectives that cause Conversation On The Main Page that aren't even useful to know.

I say we move them to the Darth Wiki and use them for them comedy pages.

edit:not all of them of coarse. I'm talking about Die For Our Ship, One True Pairing And the Like, shipper on deck can stay.

edited 6th Jun '11 8:46:32 PM by Cider

-uses Darth Wiki hammer on you-

Well, if we're discussing other options besides renaming, then my vote is to exterminate with extreme prejudice.

...But, sadly, I doubt that's an option.

I'd be happy with that considering the subject matter.

For god sake, we are not going to delete this. Can you give a reason for it to go?

edited 6th Jun '11 9:26:24 PM by nuclearneo577

I say no. Shipping is a large concept that should be categorized like any other set of audience reactions. I wouldn't mind if you guys went all Example Sectionary on them.

Yes, I'd be all for the elimination of most of these.

Darth Wiki parody pages would actually be my second choice if no one else thought to get rid of them.

Why are people all of a sudden so trigger happy about deleting large pages that don't do much harm?

The Index Full Of Stupid And Everyone Who Does This Should Be Killed?

Just because Shipping is Serious Business doesn't give you guys the excuse to gloss over a large aspect of fandom. It's not like these pages are causing any problems.

edited 6th Jun '11 9:41:43 PM by chihuahua0

That sounds good too.

Shall we get a crowner going?

edited 6th Jun '11 10:02:28 PM by SpellBlade

Fandom is only tangentially related to the goal. I honestly wouldn't have so much of a problem if they hadn't taken over a perfectly good word.

Amen. Shippers are near the top of my personal list of Acceptable Targets anyway, but what really bothers me about them on this site is how so many perfectly legitimate tropes like Going Down with the Ship had their names appropriated for lame puns. It's been getting better lately, but of all of the "loaded trope words" listed on that YKTTW, this is the one that gets to me most.

As far as the crowner, what type are we looking at? Someone earlier raised a legitimate point that there are some actual tropes in here, like Shipper on Deck.

Also a valid point.

edited 7th Jun '11 12:25:29 AM by nrjxll

Shipping is trope in fanfiction.

This. This is why these tropes should stay.

Well, my reason for - only half-seriously - advocating cutting the shipping-related stuff is simply because I find shipping risible and the source of far too many Edit Wars. In case anyone missed it, though, this is what I would prefer, not what I think should actually be done in terms of the site's rules. The genuine issue at stake was whether the index should be renamed from Shipping Tropes as most of what's on it are not, in fact, tropes, but rather audience reactions.

Except that most pages there are written as tropes, their example lists specifically excluding personal shipping preferences, and only accepting written examples from fan works.

For example, look at Crack Pairing. If you personally ship Gandalf with Optimus Prime, that's your own business, and an audience reaction. But if someone writes stories about Gandalf shagging Optimus Prime, that is a trope used in a work, as objectively as it gets.

The page is written about the latter, so maybe "crack pairing" is an audience reaction, but "Crack Pairing" is a trope.

edited 7th Jun '11 2:24:21 AM by EternalSeptember

Just disliking a trope isn't a reason to cut it. I don't like Naughty Tentacles or Rape as Comedy, among other things, but they exist and should be catalogued.

Sure, everyone hates shippers, but that doesn't mean they aren't allowed to have an index.

We aren't cutting these. If the index is incorrectly titled due to them not being "Tropes", then let's rename it. Cut out all the hyperbole.

edited 7th Jun '11 9:59:26 AM by Fighteer

Right, everything between post 3 and this one has been off topic.