Grand WMG Reorganisation

Following a thread in Wiki Talk, it has been agreed that the Wild Mass Guessing pages need to be reorganised. Individual pages will now be divided into several categories of guesses, which are described below, but first I wish to establish a couple of points which everybody is going to ignore anyway, but it makes me feel better.

1. Just because a category is empty does not mean that a guess must be formulated to fill it. This project is aimed at sorting the existing guesses, not generating new ones to fit into categories.
2. If a single aspect generates a disproportionate, or just very large, amount of guessing, it can be given its own section, such as shikai in Bleach and Pinkie Pie in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
3. The nature of some pages will obviate certain sections. For example, a fanfic page by its very nature will not have an Impossible Crossover section.
4. Real-world info can be cited in support of any guess, not just those in the Meta section. The Meta section is for when the guess itself pertains to the real world.

WMG superpages have been given Sorted and Unsorted headings. As of this post, everything is listed as Unsorted. When you properly organise a page, move its listing on the superpage from Unsorted to Sorted.

Anyway, here are the categories:

Meta

This is for specualation about real-world events and behind the scenes info.

Future

Ideas about future events in the story, how the plot will progress, and what revelations will appear in future episodes. Note that this includes speculation about what will be shown in a promised flashback; even though the events of the flashback occur in the series' past, the episode in which it appears is in the real world's future.

Plot

Ideas about the true nature of various events that have already happened (eg Alice was behind the attack on Bob's house)

Characters

Alternate Character Interpretations, speculation as to characers' true natures and motives.

Setting

Speculation as to the nature and history of the setting.

Plausible crossovers

Crossovers which are not canon, but could possibly be due to the works sharing a creator and/or copyright holder. For example, Indiana Jones taking place in the same universe as Star Wars (both created by George Lucas and owned by Lucasfilm)

Impossible crossovers

Crossovers which cannot legally happen. For example, Indiana Jones taking place in the same universe as Buffy The Vampire Slayer (George Lucas and Lucasfilm vs Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy)

Right, I'm off to start sorting the animes out.

edited 24th Sep '11 9:36:45 AM by VampireBuddha

Ukrainian Red Cross

I propose that once each page gets Sorted, that the date of sorting be noted (i.e. "Sorted as of 9/24/2011"). This way, we can see which pages may need to be rechecked (after 3-6 months). Once rechecked, change the "Sorted as of" date to the review and (if needed) repair date. Alternatively, if a page has suffered massive categorization decay, it should be moved back into "Unsorted" (and the date reference removed).

Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.

Ooh, that's a good idea.

Although I would reccomend using Eastern format (ie, 2011/09/25) to avoid confusion.

edited 25th Sep '11 5:03:12 AM by VampireBuddha

Ukrainian Red Cross

YYYY/MM/DD is the ISO standard.

Yeah, unwritten rule number one: follow all the unwritten procedures. - Camacan

You could also go with the "25 September 2011" or "September 25, 2011" format.

Unless we have something against words.

edited 25th Sep '11 11:52:09 AM by MangaManiac

I like Sept. 25, 2011 or something along those lines. Write out the month because with international tropers, using iso standards is confusing as not everyone knows the same ones.

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

Some pages (such as the WMG.Pokemon Ash Father one) already had a crossover section due to the fact that I split them a while ago.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

1. When, for some reason, a page doesn't have guesses to fit all categories (but such guesses could be added, unlike the Fanfic example in the opening post), should all the category headers still be added or should the guesses just be sorted into those categories that apply and no other headers be added?
   1. When a page has few enough guesses (three, say) to make sorting seem pointless, should it still be sorted?
2. Some pages (e.g. Death Note) have already been sorted, but according to another system (usually one that makes a lot of sense for the page in question). Should these be moved to Sorted without further sorting, or should the inevitable "other" sections be sorted into the categories of this thread first?

1: Only add categories for which guesses have been written. If someone later comes and writes a guess for another category, they can add the heading themselves.

1a: Yes, do add categories for very short pages. It will make things easier down the line.

2: In that case, add the categories listed within the existing section. Taking the Death Note page as an example, the Mello and Matt section stays where it is, but the guesses within could be sorted into Characters, Plot, and Impossible Crossovers.

Ukrainian Red Cross

So categories can be added multiple times on a single page, given it's under another header? Just want to be sure I've got it right.

Yes, if the page is already divided some other way.

Ukrainian Red Cross

More notes about the "possible crossovers" idea: if the crossover is its own work for the purposes of this wiki (Freddy Vs Jason, Super Smash Bros) should there be a separate category for them? There are, or at least used to be, a shitload of EarthBound and Mother 3 crossovers on the Pokémon pages.

edited 7th Oct '11 12:27:06 PM by bwburke94

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Could you give me an example?

Ukrainian Red Cross

Perhaps the "Plausible Crossovers" should be changed to "Plausible and Official Crossovers" to cover this case. (EDIT: After all, a key conditional in the list is the sharing of "a creator and/or copyright holder".")

Fan Fiction and Web-based works that would normally cross properties that normally would not be crossable would stay in the "Implausible" folder.

In the event that an extant crossover (Official or Fictional) creates a grove, it can get its own subfolder as current.

EDIT: Also:

My view is, if they have folders, make the sub-cats, but if there are only a few guesses in a particular sub-cat within a folder, then that sub-cat should be moved back to the overall Category. If this leaves only 1 category of guesses within a folder with enough examples, then it should become a sub-cat of the respective category. We don't need a dozen folders with three headings each containing only one or two examples.

I mean, this system is designed to reduce the need for such (non-standard) subfolders anyway, right?

edited 8th Oct '11 9:27:28 AM by DonaldthePotholer

Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.

I feel if the work is a crossover, then for all intents and purposes they should be regarded as the same continuity for that page and not put into the crossover section. Because otherwise pretty much all guesses will be in the crossover section.

This would be a bit of a problem. When people add a new Wild Mass Guess, they add it to the very top or very bottom, not caring about whether it is a plausible crossover or not.

All tropes ultimately come from Real Life. So Real Life should be troped as well.

Is this a problem that's turned up since the WMG reorganization started - that is, have people added guesses to the wrong category - or is it only a description of what people tend to do and are likely to keep doing?

In any case, making the categories folders may help on long pages and/or in severe cases. That way, at least there's no chance of people missing the category header.

edited 13th Oct '11 4:32:24 AM by Antheia

That's a good point. Right, folders it is from now on.

Ukrainian Red Cross

Other problems :

1. A theory that's related to previous theory, but is of the different category. For example:

With lots of explanation that makes it easy for this to be believed. On the other hand... Which proposes that the complete opposite is also true.

• Corollary proposing a similar theory.

In this case the "Theory related to above theory" proposes an Impossible Crossover, which means the two will be separated, and "On the other hand..." would point to the wrong theory.

2. Some pages, like those on "Fan Fic", "TV Tropes Wiki" and "Other" are pretty much entire Crossover sections. I'm looking at Time Lord, the section about bad theories, etc. (The "People" section is one big Character section. It's also noticeable there that some categories are overlapping.)

By the way, If the Real Life page is still going to be arranged, I would propose something like adding "Politics", "History" and "Philosophy" folders for well, politics/countries/nations, history and philosophical speculation (read:anything about morality, meaning in life, and theories about existence as a whole), respectively. Although like the Death Note example, it's possible to have a folder and a subcategory isolating the Crossovers from the other guesses in that folder (but wouldn't adding "character" and "plot" under a specific character folder like "Mello and Matt" be redundant?).

edited 14th Oct '11 4:56:01 PM by memememememe

All tropes ultimately come from Real Life. So Real Life should be troped as well.

1: Seperate them, and slightly rewrite the second one. Basically, replace "On the other hand..." with "Related to theory Q above..."

2: Fanfic WMG pages, by the very nature of fanfic, will not have Impossible crossover sections. As for the rest, if all the theories are impossibl crossovers, just add the heading and have done with it.

3: Your proposal for the Real Life page is a good one, and should be used.

Ukrainian Red Cross

And another head scratcher: What's the point of distinguishing Plausible from Impossible Crossovers? Like how I said something about people rapid-firing wild mass guesses to the top or bottom of the page, almost no one will care about the legality of the crossover (George Lucas and Lucasfilm vs Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy) as long as they can add "X is a Time Lord". The Impossible title also destroys the "What if" purpose of these guesses.

All tropes ultimately come from Real Life. So Real Life should be troped as well.

I don't really see why the distinction exists either, but as long as this results in the crossovers being put in their own section(s), I don't really see why it's a problem either.

Incidentally, I also don't quite agree that fanfic precludes such a thing as an "impossible crossover" either.

edited 25th Oct '11 1:36:39 AM by nrjxll

Plausible crossovers might possibly happen, and it's possible that the person who wrote them really meant it. Impossible crossovers cannot happen, and are only added for silly fun. That's a pretty important distinction.

Fanfic does indeed preclude a crossover from being impossible, because fanfic isn't bound by the need to stay within copyright.

Ukrainian Red Cross

Suppose we had a guess that actually made sense and is possible In-Universe but cannot happen legally. Illegal Crossovers perhaps, but not really impossible? The impossible title seems more of a discouragement.

Also, the requirement for legality. Fan fic isn't bounded by legality, so why should Wild Mass Guessing be?

All tropes ultimately come from Real Life. So Real Life should be troped as well.

There's an inverse case too: Legally possible crossovers that would seem very plausible if not for the fact that Word of God says the universes are completely separate and unrelated. Death of the Author or not?

(What all this boils down to is really: why are crossovers either "plausible" or "impossible"? Surely some must be possible, but not necessarily plausible? Possible/impossible, or plausible/implausible, seems like a more logical distinction.)

edited 7th Nov '11 7:55:41 AM by Antheia