Often misused as a trope: Did Not Do The Research

No, it's an index. It's an index with no examples and an explicit message not to treat it as a trope. The message has proved insufficient.

So the question is: how now do we keep people from treating this as a trope? Rename? Redlink?

That's exactly what I suggested. We really need to rename this to sound more like an index. Maybe something like "Failed Research Tropes".

Definitely redlink it, so as for entries using it to have broken links.

Actually, I wonder if there is some means of programming the site to auto-delete any entry that starts with it, though that might be going a little overboard...

Agreed with redlinking.

We could go the route of the "Fa-word" censor and just not accept edits that contain DNDTR.

With so many wicks and inbounds, any rename would need to keep the old name as a redirect, right?

What about Did Not Research This Index as a new name?

Yeah, I like Did Not Research This Index

"Fa-word" censor?

Unfortunately, we'd still have a Did Not Do The Research redirect with tens of thousands of inbounds.

@VmKid

Eddie removed that feature, now you can make an edit to a page that includes the word faggot, most likely because of how extreme it was. Doing the same for a link to a wiki page would just cause even more trouble, because any page with DNDTR linked to on it would be impossible to edit.

edited 6th Nov '11 3:44:20 PM by nuclearneo577

At one point, Eddie installed a filter that'd reject all edits that contained the word "Faggot".

Fair enough.

Question: alright, I see now that DNDTR is a trope about the authors not doing the research.

However, what about the characters failing to do so?

Then it's In-Universe.

OK, we're seriously going to have to decide whether this is an index or a trope. Not even the page itself can decide. First it says "This trope taken Up to Eleven gives us…" then it says "This index has no examples and should not be used as a trope elsewhere. A simple failure of research on one point does not make a trope" (bold removed). I've already read posts saying it's a supertrope and other posts to the contrary. Once we can at least pin that down, then we should do something (or nothing) about the examples.

edited 19th Nov '11 1:35:10 PM by FinalStarman

From what little I know CRE is meant to refer to a moment in-universe were a character makes a very basic factual error or breach in logic that brings into question the overall accuracy of the character's work or argument (e.g. Calvin insisting that bats are bugs from conjecture based on bats being "hair" and "ugly") but it seems to be being used to refer some sort of advanced version of how DDNTR is misused, a subjective attack against someone disagrees with and wants to highlight things the attacker thinks is wrong.

It's a Supertrope that serves as an index.

I agree with this.

I am new here, but a few suggestions:

• Did Not Do The Research is not YMMV. It's too objective; if the author did do the research then, well, Not An Example.
• Moving it to the Trivia tab is a better one. A research failure is something that has no bearing to the work, since changing reality would not change the work (btw, this could be a good definition for Trivia!).
• With respect to the misuse as a trope, moving the items into the Trivia subpage should take care of this. However, take will have to be taken also about Critical Research Failure and other DNDTR tropes.

Good idea. If we want to keep examples of research failures, then they should at least be Trivia. A writer rarely intends to get something wrong.

Exactly. From what I've seen, though, Did Not Do The Research is frequently used on work pages just to point out that the writers missed something. Otherwise Artistic License is typically used.

edited 20th Nov '11 11:50:53 AM by FinalStarman

Unless it's artistic license or Rule of Cool, or because they decided the Real Life version is just wrong in their universe.

edited 20th Nov '11 11:44:27 AM by ArcadesSabboth

I think it would work better in Trivia as well.

I think so, too.

So are we doing anything here?

About the cencoring the word bit...

Sometimes, a troper will know something is wrong, but a trope had not been created for it.

From A Christmas Carol: "Did Not Do The Research: Almost every single adaptation, even the illustrations in the original novella, depicts Scrooge in Victorian nightwear during his travels with the ghosts, even though Dickens explicitly states that Scrooge "went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant." The 1984 version with George C. Scott avoids this."

I'm trying to rewick some of the tropes to a subpage, but ones like this are difficult to place.

Looking through, I get the impression that many wicks to Did Not Do The Research actually should go under Critical Research Failure, which is a YMMV trope.

Perhaps we could rename Did Not Do The Research to Research Failure Index (or some other title indicating it to be an index) and redlink the old name?

I don't know if this is the knock-down reason, but the word "failure" is very negative.