Rename; named after a work: Sidetracked By The Gold Saucer

I can come up with a couple points against keeping the name, based on the arguments.

Yes, the "sidetracked by" part does give a hint as to the trope. However, unless you are familiar with Final Fantasy VII (and it's a good rule of thumb to never assume that a given person is, in fact, familiar with the game, or that everyone who played it remembers every single part), it doesn't give a description of what, in fact, you're being sidetracked by. Is it minigames? Is it a sidequest? Is it some sort of gallery that opens up in-game (hey, I've been distracted by those more than once, and I figure I'm not the only one)? Yes, it gives a hint as to what causes the player to get sidetracked, but it's still not clear.

Now, for the issue of decent amount of use, 133 articles total is not particularly grand, given that it is a fairly common video game trope. And several of those are redundancies (for example, with Brave Fencer Musashi, 'Dragon Quest IV, Final Fantasy VIII, and Pokemon''). I would argue that it is underused, given the circumstances.

Finally, I'd like to note that, although it was brought up that there is no misuse, nobody has actually done a wick check. It's just been assumed that there's no misuse. That might still be true, but one should be conducted before the claim is made.

At any rate, though, I think the lack of clarity and the fact that the trope isn't as healthy as initially presented is reason enough to rename even if there's no misuse.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Nobody said there is no misuse.

Why are redirects seen as a lame consolation prize?

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

The lack of misuse is stated in the crowner.

I don't know why redirects are seen as a lame consolation prize - probably the same reason bringing some consistency to naming conventions is also resisted.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

The added redirects almost certainly address the alleged problems. Without being a huge headache.

The crowner says there is no evidence of misuse. That is true. Feel free to present some. The misguided assumptions are that there is, not that there isn't, though.

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

@ Arha

"You can't be distracted by a minigame area if there is no minigame area to be distracted by."

Except it's NOT "distracted by a minigame area". It's distracted by ONE OR VARIOUS minigames, which doesn't have to be restricted to an area (like Triple Triad). The trope DOESN'T need a Golden Saucer, but you can be distracted by one, and in fact is easier to be distracted the more minigames there are, something that DOES happen in a Golden Saucer. How you can't understand this is beyond my comprenhension.

And the crowner is wrong in two points:

• "The related trope, Golden Saucer, is being renamed." They are only related in that they have to do with minigames and that they draw the name from the same source. It's like saying that if we rename Your Approval Fills Me with Shame we also have to rename ...And That Would Be Wrong because both come from The Order Of The Stick and both have to do with disapproval.

• "The 'Gold Saucer' part of the trope does not have anything to do with minigames." The Gold Saucer is a minigame zone, so yes, it has to do with minigames.

I'm calling a mod because the crowner has false statements that unjustly support one of the options.

EDIT: Though seeing how the crowner is going it might not even be needed.

edited 23rd Jan '12 4:26:17 AM by DrMcNinja

There are no heroes left in Man.

@Arha: Just because two names are similar does NOT mean one was necessarily derived from the other; that is a logical fallacy. They may or they may not, but the mere relation between them is insufficient to confirm which is the case.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Honestly, when I first saw this trope name, I thought "Gold Saucer" sounded like the name of a casino. And then I instantly thought of the casinos in Pokemon and Sonic The Hedgehog 2. So I say, mission accomplished.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

^^ Once again, I didn't actually claim that. In fact, I find the question of whether one is named after the other irrelevant. The question as I see it is whether or not we should take two tropes that are named after the same thing and change them both for the sake of consistency.

Also, I'm actually insulted that people are claiming I gamed the crowner. If I was inclined to do that, I wouldn't have given the position I disagree with the arguments that were presented in the thread. Nor would I have said that people are free to bring up issues with the crowner in the thread. My listing of arguments and evidence was merely a summation of the thread intended to prevent edit warring over the crowner which is extremely likely to happen whenever people get to arguing. People ignored that and simply edited the crowner without discussion anyway, so if you want to assume bad faith you should look at the people who did that.

That's a problem that can happen in every crowner, being edited after people have voted. That's why I prefered to call a moderator, to start over again.

There are no heroes left in Man.

That's why I prefer not to have any pros or cons in the crowner at all. They're always slanted one way or another. It's better for people to just read the thread.

Or, failing that, only list the pro/con reasons that are on the Trope Renaming Guidelines.

edited 23rd Jan '12 10:55:41 AM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

I don't think people are actually likely to read the full thread. If there are no pro/con arguments people are going to just say 'Eh, I like the name' or 'The name sucks, let's get rid of it' regardless of any arguments or evidence that has been presented.

Oh, and just for so we can keep track of the numbers, it was 4:2 for a time, then 7:7 and is now 9:7.

edited 23rd Jan '12 11:48:42 AM by Arha

When it's 50+ pages of thread, or 10+ pages of two posters going back-and-forth, that's very much TL DR territory. This thread has nothing on the former, but seems to have attracted some of the latter....

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Crowner at 12:9

Moving rather slowly, so I imagine it won't get consensus. Still, needs a few more days.

As it's gotten two votes in fifteen minutes, I'm going to give it a little longer. It's still moving.

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

My assumption, without reading it, is that the trope is about people who get sidetracked by bizarre, out-of-the-blue occurrences, like sudden UFO sightings.

Am I right?

Anyway, I personally object to "no evidence of misuse" in a crowner because it implicitly assumes that misuse is required to rename; it certainly isn't. Misuse is one of many reasons a trope could be renamed. Putting 'no evidence of misuse' in the 'con' side is like putting 'name is not excessively long' or 'name isn't incomprehensible gibberish' or 'isn't the exact name of a work' there — it doesn't answer the reasons people are giving for a rename, it sidesteps them by changing the subject to an unrelated discussion.

edited 25th Jan '12 10:22:10 PM by Aquillion

No, you are incorrect. This is about being distracted from the main game by minigames.

As for no evidence of misuse, I'm finding a number of examples just on a quick wik check of this trope being used for any straying from the main plot of a game.

edited 25th Jan '12 10:33:50 PM by shimaspawn

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

EDIT: This was posted the same time as the above, so I hadn't seen it, but independently noticed the same thing.

Actually, has anyone actually checked for misuse? I'm finding some, now that I've glanced over the trope, seen what it meant, then checked its wicks.

Crutch Character: Potholes it randomly to what appears to be an unrelated reference to a casino.

Wreaking Havok and Fallout 3: Misuse it to refer to anything in the game that's fun and distracting, rather than just minigames. The reference in Signature Scene looks like this, too.

Chain of Deals: Uses it to refer to a game mechanic integrated into the main game, rather than a minigame...

There's several more in line with the last two, basically confused over how broad it is — a lot of wicks just seem to use it for anything distracting, which is exactly what you'd expect given the problems with its name. Just like people are saying, the "distracted by..." bit makes sense, but the "golden saucer" bit is totally opaque, so it often seems to get used as a generic "this is distracting" trope rather than "distracted by a minigame."

edited 25th Jan '12 10:43:37 PM by Aquillion

"...it implicitly assumes that misuse is required to rename"

Evidence of misuse is an extremely important variable, it is perfectly reasonable for "nobody has given any actual evidence that the name might be causing misuse, just hypotheticals and conjecture so far" to appear as a Con. Not a single one of the Pros or other Cons are required to rename or not, why should that criterion be applied to "no evidence of misuse"?

I would be extremely irritated that was removed, but it would take like 20 yes votes and zero no votes for consensus, so whatever.

Oh I see, it was removed because some evidence has been given, not because an individual thinks it shouldn't be there. Sorry.

edited 25th Jan '12 11:48:33 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Yes, it has been removed because evidence of misuse has been found. That's a good reason for it. More importantly it's misuse directly tied to the name which makes it doubly bad.

edited 25th Jan '12 11:44:10 PM by shimaspawn

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

I think the added redirects may address those problems. Other stuff can be done to clean it up also, stuff besides renaming. I thought changing the name of a page is like a unique exception across the whole wiki, whose attitude is normally all about progressive refinement, but not in the case of trope names because changing names generates instability and renaming should be avoided if there is any other way to solve the problem.**

If that is not still true, please tell me.

Redirects Are Free. And Awesome.

k

edited 25th Jan '12 11:56:37 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

The claim no misuse was proven should only included as a con for a rename if a wick check showed no misuse. If nobody checked for misuse this is a neutral fact and not a con. Otherwise it would be Ok to write no correct use was proven as a pro.

Redirects don't fix misuse, only under use. Most people will never see the redirects as they are only listed on the related page and thus they will do nothing to fix the issue.

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

They do, though. People might link/pothole the alternate name. Or find it (or skip it!) that way searching. Under some circumstances you see them when you're looking at the page. Redirects are kind of a mini-name.

edited 26th Jan '12 12:12:38 AM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

But none of that will fix the fact that this is the main title and the main title encourages misuse. Moving a trope isn't that hard. I've done a lot of them.

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

My own impression has always been that trope names are subject to progressive refinement, since otherwise we'd be stuck with whatever name the random person who started the page decided on. It's a bit more work to change a trope name, but hardly crippling (especially for one like this, which, honestly, doesn't have a lot of use), and ultimately it's just a matter of finding one person willing to go over the wicks — and we plainly have plenty of people willing to do it for this trope.

I know some people disagree, but I don't feel that there should be too much inertia for trope names. I think people drastically overestimate the difficulty and disruption of renaming them — even if it's decent in terms of averages, a hundred wicks or so is really nothing overall. And the magic of redirects works both ways — even if some people keep using the old name, redirects will catch it!

I've always, personally, felt that "this name is better" or "we can do better" is, itself, a valid reason to rename. It doesn't usually move people because it's hard to prove objectively, but it's a good enough reason to rename if we can reach a broad agreement on it — it's silly to suggest that a mere hundred wicks locks us into a bad name.