General Page Quote Discussion:

I like the first line of the one from First Lord's Fury:

Invidia: Terrible, isn't it? On a scale of one to ten, ten being the most revolting and one being almost edible, I believe that rating this recipe would require the use of exponents.

Actually, a lot of the ones on the quotes page would work as a page quote if they were abridged.

Luke: P-Professor! There's smoke coming off this tea! Layton: We may have created something that was never meant to be.
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, if you screw up on the tea minigame

King Dedede: There's a word for this here stuff, and it ain't "food"!

Kirby Right Back At Ya, "The Big Taste Test"

Yosuke: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!? I mean, what kinda—*cough cough* Curry's supposed to be like "really spicy" or "kinda mild"… This just stinks! And it's gritty too! It's somehow both gritty and slimy… And it's got squishy parts in it... It's so frickin' nasty I can't swallow it! Chie: Well it just didn't mix too well... but it does offer a wide variety of textures...

Persona4

edited 27th Aug '14 2:11:02 PM by Madrugada

I like the first one best.

I read the Invidia one to my son. He laughed his head off. The others didn't get such a reaction.

Personally, I think the Invidia one is wonderful. Pithy, funny and so very clear on how horrible the "food" is.

Eh. Personally it only struck me as an odd combination of cheap hyperbole and clinical delivery. It's definitely pithier after being shortened though.

Art-Style Dissonance doesn't have a quote. Would this work, if it was formatted correctly?

They look like they should be swinging goddamn mallets at each other; not contemplating the meaning of life and death.

- Hazzeludas, BWCW review of Jack (NSFW)

edited 29th Aug '14 10:33:52 AM by Jinxmenow

Ok, so I'm seeing a great crusade taking place where potholes are removed from page quotes "As per site policy". Yes, I read What To Put At The Top Of A Page, but... really? No exceptions? It's really necessary to remove a pothole to Lampshade Hanging in a quote about a comedy trope (Giving Up the Ghost)?

I'm not objecting to that policy (well, part of me is, but the part that knows there's not a damn thing I can do about it, isn't,) I'm just trying to fully understand what purpose it brings.

Part of the reason is that quoted text can't have potholes, so quotes (being more or less faithful reproductions of other material) shouldn't have them either.

Wait, wait, wait. Quoted Text?

So the thousands of quotes of characters from video games, movies, novels, tv series, etc across the whole site, who's quotes are used to add emphasis for trope entries (or even are the trope entries themselves) aren't allowed to have potholes either? How does that make ANY sense? Why are we doing this now, after half a decade of having no significant issues with it?

edited 29th Aug '14 4:49:18 PM by DRCEQ

A few months ago, I personally brought up at least two quotes that only seemed to apply because they were potholed. Once the potholes were removed, they didn't mean squat in relevance to the trope. That's bad editing and quote selection.

There's also the wonderful (sarcasm) All Blue Entry quotes, which is just a pain to read. I noticed that particularly on some work pages.

In my opinion, what Septimus is getting at is that a quote should have meaning and relevance in its own right, without needing to be potholed to "explain" its meaning to readers. Potholing quotes down in the examples to work pages or relevant tropes is not the same as having a page header quote that should relate to the trope or work on its own, without assistance.

As for When Life Gives You Lemons..., how about this by the Powerthirst entry:

"When life gives you lemon, you find a new life."

This feels like the most pithy example of this trope. Well, the original quote had "God" in the place of "life", but you know...

edited 29th Aug '14 6:12:54 PM by dRoy

Is it OK to change a quote like that?

Going back a bit, I think the current quote on Lethal Chef is funny. I'm against changing it.

If there was an original quote, than someone changed the old quote somewhat to a new twist, and we're quoting that someone, than yes, because it's still a quote.

It's sort of like on Animaniacs, when Slappy Squirrel pulled a new twist on the old xylophone gag. Instead of playing the song wrong until the villain got teed off, she played it correctly -and the dog blew up in his hiding spot. As she said, "Old gag. New twist."

Replacement Goldfish's current quote doesn't look liek the trope. Some quotes on the quotes tab look better.

Re: Potholes in quotes. There's also the simple fact that if a quote is meant to illustrate a specific trope, potholing it to five other tropes dilutes the basic purpose.

Agreed. I personally think the Penny Arcade and the Alpha Centauri ones are the most descriptive.

Well, I could see how quotes on TROPE pages shouldn't have potholes, but don't you think that work pages should be referencing the tropes they reference?

Bitch Alert's quote doesn't really explain the trope.

Most of the time, the potholes you see are pointless. Things like Lampshade Hanging, Title Drop, Conversational Troping are potholed all the time despite it being pretty bloody obvious from the context.

Things that actually provide extra context for the quote (potholing a character trope, for example) can be handy, but rarely necessary, and if you need them to understand the quote it's probably not a very good one to use out of context. A similar argument could be made for things like Sarcasm Mode, although there might be situations where that one would get a pass.

Every now and then I see a good quote than genuinely benefits from having a pothole in it, but the vast majority don't.

edited 2nd Sep '14 8:48:14 AM by johnnye

Re: Potholes in quotes

Clarification: Only the *page quote* is forbidden to have potholes. Other quotes (as part of examples, or on the Quotes/ pages) may have potholes. Whether the potholes are good is another matter. The "no sinkholes" rule applies universally.

On the subject of work page quotes, I don't see the point of potholing tropes that are also on the page list -and if they aren't on the page, they're either irrelevant or should be put in the list. (Properly filled out.)

Two work page quotes I remember especially unpotholing were The Order of the Stick and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. OotS had a crapload of really obvious tropes potholed (The Archer, The Hero, etc.), which were already listed on the relevant character pages and, at best, were spoilers if someone's never read the work, and at worst, needless clutter.

The MMPR one was potholed from here to next week into an All Blue Entry (not allowed), and the potholes did nothing but refer to the show, which is what the description is for anyway.

To me, potholes anywhere are for clarification and reference, not to be plonked in wherever they might apply just because they can. One of the earliest entries I read on TV Tropes was a "Bob does this major thing to Charlie and Frank and Charlie's girlfriend" type of entry (I don't remember the actual names). By itself, meh. But the Bob part of the entry was potholed to four villain tropes, including Corrupt Corporate Executive, and Charlie and Frank were potholed to a couple hero tropes. The potholes added clarification without having to add two or three more lines to the entry. Pure art, to me.

@Lord Gro: Thank you for the clarification.

The quote in Rated M for Manly is instead some blatant Testosterone Poisoning. There are many quotes on the tab for a potential change.

Also, we didn't arrive at a conclusion for Canada Eh, eh?

edited 5th Sep '14 11:27:21 AM by Elbruno

Lethal Chef still hasn't reached any decision, but it seemed that the Invidia quote has the most support. Is it alright to replace it with that?

^^ Nope, Canada Eh hadn't been concluded, not a lot of strong support for any of the options.

^ Hadn't chimed in on it yet, but the Invidia quote for Lethal Chef has my support for what it's worth.