Sacred Cow needs love (one wick), and probably a redefine. You hear about it all the time in the context of "the updated version of the game kept this clunky mechanic due to tradition." It clearly skipped YKTTW as well. Re-YKTTW it, and deal with the relation to Unacceptable Targets in that discussion.
Yeah, when I saw Sacred Cow, I thought it was pretty redundant to Unacceptable Targets in a way. Looking at its YKTTW entry, the Wiki Magic didn't really go too well for Sacred Cow there and it was launched too hastily. (you could say the same for Unacceptable Targets, but at least it got some Wiki Magic love after it was launched, in comparison to Sacred Cow which was pretty much abandoned.)
Also, this and Sacred Cow were in YKTTW around the same time of each other, and it was mentioned in the YKTTW of Sacred Cow that these two tropes should be merged. I'd say merge it too. Scratch that, after looking at it for awhile, reworking the description of Sacred Cow would be better, which i did.
edited 28th Aug '11 2:05:00 PM by Gundamforce
Sacred Cow seems to describe fandom-based stuff within a work of fiction that's not to be criticized whereas Unacceptable Targets are real-life groups/individuals that are immune from criticism
Someone recently edited part of Unacceptable Targets to link to a trope called Sacred Cow. I hadn't heard of that trope before, but it seems to perfectly cover a subset of what UT has - for lack of a better word - sprawled over. At the time of UT's launch, the concept was still pretty vague, but it ended up being written up and filed as a comedy trope. Currently, the examples themselves refer to mocking, insulting, or even genuine criticism. Sacred Cow, however, seems to be specifically about immunity to criticism.
The question is, should we carve up Unacceptable Targets and move the criticism examples to Sacred Cow, or rewrite it to be a Super-Trope for any kind of taboo subject (with Sacred Cow being a Sub-Trope, apparently), or leave it alone before the whole thing becomes a can of worms?