Trope Description Improvement Drive

1. Fair. I took the "let's make sure we all understand the rules" as condescending, which I guess was Poe's Law at work.
2. I agree with everything in that paragraph. Example as a Thesis is bad wiki writing and it does, as you say, cause misunderstandings and confusion about the definition of a trope.
3. I really, honestly don't have a "position". I was more concerned with establishing what the definition actually is than with rewriting it. And in point of fact, when I saw that you were rewriting TRW to remove references to its characters being villains based on the idea that it's not a villain trope, my comment about GPG was not meant to say "No, you're wrong, because it says they are a GPG, and that trope is Villains," it was meant to say, "Hey, we might also want to take a look at GPG, because that trope is Villains."

In any case, I've mildly irked the moderators before by having the opinion that "Changing a trope description" (whether a small change or a total rewrite for clarity) is not the same as "Redefining a trope", so I'm not powerfully inclined to comment on whether any given rewrite is an actual change to the definition of a trope. I only meant to point out that if TRW is not a villain trope, then GPG is worth looking at because of where it's indexed.

EDIT: Although, someone has now pointed out (I think in the RL thread because I don't see it here) that there's no real reason for TRW to say that it needs to be the Goldfish Poop Gang in the first place, which would make that whole line of reasoning irrelevant. If the reference to GPG is removed, then that's the last vestige of villain-ness cleanly removed from TRW; problem solved.

edited 17th Mar '15 2:34:02 PM by SolipSchism

It's thing about the way a well-built index works... A thing doesn't have to be in only one index, especially when you have indexes inside indexes. If I were indexing, say, a cookbook, I would put "Fudge" under "Chocolate" as well as "Candy, Confectionery", even though fudge doesn't always have to be chocolate: it can be peanut butter, or maple, or Irish Cream and still be the confection called "fudge".

GPG is always, by definition, an antagonist. It is usually, but does not have to be a "Villain", which is a subtype of "Antagonist", just like fudge is usually, but doesn't have to be a chocolate confection.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

The whole point of this thread is that "Changing a trope description" is not the same as "Redefining a trope".

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I've had disagreements about that in the past, but I'm not arguing that point here today. It looks like a good rewrite.

for the Team Rocket Wins rewrite.

Okay, then to narrow down on another part of this debate:

This rule indicates that a trope does not have to always match the index in order to be listed on the index. Supertrope says indexes are of tropes that share a "common element", and this trope does not share the "common element" of being villainous characters.

There seems to be a bit of grey area in the policy here, which should be nailed down in a thread dedicated to it, rather than trope descriptions.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Yes, it does share the common element. It just doesn't always have to share that common element but it often, even usually, does.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

By that logic, the following tropes belong on the Green Tropes index: Fiery Redhead and Satiating Sandwich. Because redheads are usually a Significant Green-Eyed Redhead, and sandwiches usually have lettuce in them. It's a common element that is usually present.

It also has nothing to do with the trope itself. With the assumption that being a villain has nothing to do with Team Rocket Wins, the indexing procedure seems to not fit a consistent pattern.

(edited because I can't spell fiery)

edited 18th Mar '15 5:36:44 AM by crazysamaritan

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

At some point 2-3 years ago that seems to have been "pushed out" of the rather long history log of the article, Four-Temperament Ensemble has had its description rewritten from this — where the fourfold model was outlined, then the alternate fivefold model's modifications that split one of the temperaments into two, with a new name for its old position and the old name going to the new central temperament — to a different writeup where 1) only the fivefold model is considered in terms of definitions, and 2) a new name was invented for the central temperament that appears almost nowhere else (one which isn't even a real word, and is actually an improper neologism anyway^note "Leukine" is supposed to represent "white blood cells" as a humour, yet it's etymologically Greek leukos (adjective, meaning "white") + English-from-Greek-through-Latin -ine. It doesn't make sense to add -ine to a word that was already an adjective, as it's used on nouns to make adjectives.). I propose we restore the old organizational structure and names while incorporating as much of the added info since then as applicable. It would not change the actual definition, but it would make the article flow better and fix the current paradox of the trope's namesake being seemingly ignored in favor of its successor for no good reason.

edited 21st Mar '15 4:07:16 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Honestly, as that White Blood cell bit was added by some random troper to shoehorn in a favourite example it should just be purged from the trope with fire and any example that uses it or has five characters with it. Random redefinition for purposes of shoehorning is not allowed and if I knew who did it, they'd be getting a wiki ban.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

... Wow, searching for the article's history page in the Web Archive actually worked. The culprit is one troper named The Bagel. Edit reason: "Supine" is named after a sleeping position which is irrevelant to white blood cells, so leukine is the more generally accepted name. Take note that said edit reason is attached to his second edit, whereas his first edit was reason-less and involved changing Supine's associated bodily fluid from "tears" to "white blood cells".

And I don't know about favorite example, but I do know that the original edit by The Bagel changed a lot of examples from Supine to Leukine.

edited 22nd Mar '15 2:59:40 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Huh. Well, it seems like it's been just a couple of random tropers degrading a trope no one was watching too hard. Well, I'm working in cleaning the page up.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

If you need help, Bassball_Batman posted interesting stuff on the trope in the discussion page over the past 2-3 years.

edited 22nd Mar '15 6:10:34 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

He seems like he wants to just make up his own system for classifying characters that doesn't really have much if anything to do with tropes, especially not this one. It's interesting, but it's the sort of stuff that led to the trope decay in the first place.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Straw Feminist says not to expand the definition but it's confusing. In a number of examples the supposedly feminist character isn't proven wrong or mocked. In one the other characters even agree with her. By what the page says aren't those wrong?

Yes, please remove misuse.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Huh. The last time I saw that description it was a touch longer than that.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I'm pretty sure that no trope should have a description that's a single sentence. That's just asking for about a dozen different kinds of misuse.

Also, the history shows no significant changes to said description, dating back nearly two years. So either you haven't been on the page in that long, you're misremembering, or the Eddie of Fastness snuck it in there with his mad skillz. And given that I think I've been on this page before (I recall the image), I'm pretty sure it's not the first two.

edited 30th Mar '15 11:48:13 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Actually, there was

which was removed April of last year.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I don't think any trope should have a description that's a single sentence either. The fox's system could be used to expand it.

To be honest, Straw Feminist really needs a TRS thread.

Why a TRS thread? We can improve the description here without making it cover new examples.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Because the description isn't the only thing wrong with it. Either it's really more of a stock character than a straw trope, or the examples need massive cleanup.

So you think the misuse indicates a Sister Trope to the Straw Feminist? Reasonable.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

So do we need to wait for TRS to decide what the description of Straw Feminist is so the examples can be cleaned? Maybe I should take it to Ask The Tropers.