Hoax: The Tale Of Dragonfly

The Tale Of Dragonfly and The Prehistoric Crisis both seem to be blatant hoaxes. Googling the former turns up 0 hits outside TV Tropes, and googling the latter turns up only a blank wiki on the work (which says it won't be released until 2012). I sent both to the cutlist because the works obviously don't exist, but Fast Eddie declined it saying "we don't have a policy on hoaxes; what matters is if they demonstrate tropes".

That's silly if you ask me. If the work's obviously a hoax, then how is anyone going to know that they demonstrate tropes? Anyone can add literally anything since the work doesn't exist. Let's get rid of these.

Agreed. At the very least this should be moved to Unpublished Works; something that doesn't actually exist shouldn't be on the main wiki, even taking into account There Is No Such Thing As Notability.

The Tale Of Dragonfly isn't a hoax or unpublished. It's here

edited 9th Sep '11 12:15:07 PM by Madrugada

So that's why I couldn't find it. Because it's not actually called that.

Moved to Dragonfly The Next Guardian. What about the other one? It doesn't even exist yet.

About the policy: That's the way it will continue to be. We have no interest in being an "authoritative source" for a single thing. Hoax, not a hoax, as long as it demonstrates tropes, we have a home for it.

Wait. Can a work demonstrate a trope without actually existing? I realize that this particular work does exist, but hypothetically speaking?

Sure, why not. For example, I just clicked "Random" and got My Nayme Is. So here's an example:

• In Freddy Fartweasel's Revenge, Freddy meets a mad scientist whose assistant has legally changed his name from Igor to Eegore to try to stop people from calling him "Eye-gor".

I have to say that I'm a little uncomfortable with allowing this sort of thing willy-nilly, though. But I must admit, it would probably make finding examples at YKTTW a whole lot easier if you can just make them up. :)

I have to agree that the wisdom of allowing pages on and wicks from works that don't actually exist at all, is questionable.

Fast Eddie: If the work doesn't exist, then anyone can pull any tropes they want out of their ass (including Ass Pull, of course) and throw them on the article. The work doesn't exist; why not say it's actually about mutant otters? Or ninjas? Or ninja mutant otters? Because it doesn't exist, so we can say whatever the hell we want.

I realize we're a lot looser than The Other Wiki, but we have to draw the line somewhere. Allowing a hoax work to stay is lying, And That's Terrible.

Yeah, I'm afraid that stance makes no sense at all to me. Why would we ever keep a work page for something that doesn't exist even in an Unpublished sense? Fake works should always definitely be cut, IMHO, as should examples from works that definitely don't actually exist. We're not trying to turn into Fiction Press and host original fiction, are we?

I mean, it's not even trying to be a verifiable source or anything. It's that when you read a work page or a particularly interesting example and think you'd like to try the work in question or find out more about it, it's going to be just a teensy bit irritating to find out the work doesn't even exist.

Never mind what happens if the person who made up the nonexistent work out of thin air gets a trope wrong somehow during their joke attempt. Kind of a wee bit hard to correct it, unless there's someplace I can sign up for telepathy powers...

Madrugada: Care to beat some sense into Eddie and just cutlist this all?

I thought we weren't supposed to do speculation on works. If the work hasn't been released, how can we see tropes (beyond what's in the commercials)?

^^ Unfortunately I'm not in any position to "beat sense into him" as you so optimistically put it. All I can do is point out that a work that doesn't exist at all can simultaneously contains no tropes at all and every single trope that exists, whether we've got a page for it or not. Which is a paradox, and paradoxes make the universe implode.

So it's like wave function collapse as applied to works? The list of tropes doesn't exist as a single possibility until you get to observe the work.

Isn't that... basic logic that we describe tropes on things that actually exist?

Have we run off everyone with a sense of humor? Literary farces have a long tradition.

The only issue with a hoax would be if it were to be shoehorned in at level comparable to something like Doctor Who or Avatar The Last Airbender. Little chance of that, though. The number of people participating would be much more finite.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to catch up on my Ichiban no Tempura viewing.

edited 9th Sep '11 9:27:55 PM by FastEddie

Uh, no, I have a sense of humor, thanks. It just doesn't involve lying to people on what's supposed to be an informational resource. There's plenty of ways to have fun and be funny without encouraging people to put fake stuff all over the site.

(I really hate the "don't you have a sense of humor" argument, BTW, as if putting serious thought into something well and having fun/being funny are mutually exclusive things.)

edited 9th Sep '11 9:39:28 PM by Jeysie

I'm with Jeysie. Whoever made this page is LYING. Which is not good here.

Well, I have to admire Eddie for managing to keep his Betamax machine in working order, if nothing else. On the other hand, I disagree with his suggestion that the number of Doctor Who fans is infinite. It only feels that way! :)

Seriously, I get what he's trying to say. A lot of people have been yammering about verifiability lately, but we don't care about that crap. We're here to illustrate tropes. Who cares if an example is real, as long as it's a good example of the trope? Still, I think hoax works should be treated, in general, like unpublished works. If they have a works page, it should be on Darth Wiki, and you shouldn't be able to launch a new trope without three published examples. We might also want to discourage shoehorning or too-zealous entry-pimping for hoax works, but other than that, I'm ok with his position.

Edit: as for "LYING", let's not forget that a synonym for that is "fiction". Which is what this whole site's about!

edited 9th Sep '11 10:58:34 PM by Xtifr

^^Did you miss this post above?

Yes, hoaxes are lies. Well constructed lies, like every other work of fiction.

Also, yes, we should make sure the joke doesn't get run into the ground, if we should ever have a hoax work, but categorically forbidding them is just stuffy.

edited 9th Sep '11 10:54:01 PM by FastEddie

So...treat it like a meme page? It's allowed as long as it doesn't get out of hand?

I just think it's bad precedent. We're not FictionPress, we're in the business of writing about fiction, not hosting it. And I fail to see how fake examples help the wiki in any way when there's no shortage of existing fiction to catalogue and use as examples. And it means we're knowingly feeding people false information, which is jerkass, not funny. And it makes it harder to check and make sure tropes are being used and illustrated accurately.

It's not "stuffy" at all to disallow them, it's being honest and trying to do a good job of providing information. Quite frankly, if someone honestly can't think of ways to have fun and be funny without making up false info, it's them and their lack of creativity that's the problem, not the wiki and its guidelines.

I was under the impression that Unpublished Works go on Darth Wiki.

As was I. Any Unpublished Works.

edited 9th Sep '11 11:47:24 PM by nrjxll