Commuting On A Bus seems completely redundant to Demoted to Extra. I propose copying its examples to DtE and cutting it.

IP thread where it came up.

Agree with merging.

Support merge

Copied examples from COAB to DTE. Many duplicates. Going through them somewhat more carefully, I think I understand the intended meaning ("Put on a Bus temporarily because the actor is pregnant or ill or something"), but that is still The Same But Less, DTE covers it. COAB can be cut.

edited 12th Feb '12 4:57:28 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Back in that IP thread, I suggested that Demoted to Extra should be for when the character hasn't gone anywhere, but we don't see them as much, and their character doesn't do anything important anymore.

Then we Commuting On A Bus would be when a character really does leave the place where the show is set - maybe they get promoted or transfered or get their own apartment - but they still visit a couple of episodes every season.

For examples of what Commuting On A Bus would be: Jack Harkness on Doctor Who only made a few appearances after he left the main cast. Jack O'Neil on Stargate SG-1 got promoted and moved away, but he came back 3 or 4 times over the next 2 seasons. They were both important in every episode they appeared in, so you wouldn't call them "extras, " they just weren't with the main cast anymore.

edited 12th Feb '12 5:11:56 PM by abk0100

That seems like a specific kind of Demoted to Extra. (Don't get hung up on the word "extra" in the title, it means only "more important to the plot -> less important to the plot".) Many actors live somewhere other than where a show is filmed or set, probably most. If COAB is to be a subtrope of DTE instead of cut, the distinction should be much more clear.

edited 12th Feb '12 5:17:25 PM by rodneyAnonymous

But I'm saying they could be just as important to the plot, if only in the episodes that they appear.

It's the difference between "demoted to extra" and "demoted to recurring guest star." You wouldn't call a character an extra when half an episode is devoted to them and they're the reason half the viewers tuned in.

I'm fine with a name change though.

edited 12th Feb '12 5:22:16 PM by abk0100

If I am confused it is partly because the examples variously refer to the physical location of actors and characters alike :) And various other criteria. It is a mess. Dunno, every example fit more or less seamlessly into DTE, I think the distinction (if there is one) should be much more stark.

So COAB is less frequent but not less important?

edited 12th Feb '12 6:38:23 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Now that I think about it, there are even 2 different causes of the tropes.

Demoted to Extra usually happens with The Artifact or characters that the writers just stopped caring about. It's kind of a lesser version of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. (Like Cyclops in the page picture. Still at the Mutant school, but the writers were busy thinking of cool things for Wolverine to do.)

Commuting On A Bus usually is caused by an actor having to leave the show, but instead of killing off the character or having him move across the world, they put the character somewhere that's still accessible, and they bring him back once in a while if the actor has time.

edited 12th Feb '12 5:32:36 PM by abk0100

I think Demoted to Extra is supposed to be when a major character becomes a supporting character in an adaption, and Commuting On A Bus is for within the source material, although Trope Decay and all that.

Concur with the merge.

Disagree with a merge. I think posts 5 & 9 summed up the distinct differences nicely. And though I'm a proud FORK, I think this is one instance where a name-change might do good, but only after cleaning up the description and seeing how that rolls.

Disagree with a merge, and dislike the idea of a rename. The basic ideas are distinct enough that these are worthy of being separate tropes. From what I can tell/based on how they are used, Commuting On A Bus is for characters who are relegated to a recurring role: they are placed in a position in the plot where they are still accessible, but a bit more distant from the goings-on/other characters than they were in the past, so the story revisits them (or they revisit it) every now and again. Demoted to Extra, on the other hand, is for characters who are hit with Out of Focus and stay that way for the rest of the story/series — whereas Out of Focus on its own is a temporary state. The Bus Came Back is for characters who make a single additional appearance after having been Put on a Bus, as a "guest star" of sorts — this is why it also has the variations Back for the Finale and Back for the Dead.
For the sake of comparison, examples of each:
• Commuting On A Bus: Asakura Ryoko from the Haruhi Suzumiya series, who appears infrequently after a certain point in the story, but on several occasions — it's actually stated outright that she can appear only in "special circumstances".
• Demoted to Extra: Amane Misa of Death Note, who does next to nothing in the series' second half, despite being an important character earlier on in the the series.
• Out of Focus: Ishida Uryū of Bleach was Out of Focus for most of the "Lost Substitute Shinigami" arc, spending much of it hospitalized. He returns after recovering.
• The Bus Came Back: Konan of Naruto, who briefly reappears in Amegakure after having vanished for parts unknown a while earlier in the series. Also qualifies as Back for the Dead, as she's killed off during said appearance.
(Yeah, I'm an anime fan.)
Anyways, that's my opinion. Admittedly, though, I didn't take into account a fairly important detail: According to both of their pages, Out of Focus is for characters who lose importance with a work, and Demoted to Extra is for characters who lose significance between works — they are similar in nature, but completely different in practice. At time of writing, the pages say the following:
Out of Focus: "When a sequel or adaptation shoves characters Out of Focus and removes their plot importance, it's Demoted to Extra."
Demoted to Extra: "We have a member of the supporting cast. They're important to the plot. Although, like any other minor character, they fall Out of Focus at times. Then comes the sequel, or the adaptation, or The Movie, and... hey, where'd they go? They weren't completely written out, but they just weren't good enough to keep what importance they had in the original."

So using the tropes properly (which, sadly, almost no one does), the above-mentioned example I gave for Demoted to Extra would be just another example of Out of Focus, because it's within a single work. A proper example of Demoted to Extra would be, say, Koizumi Itsuki of the Haruhi Suzumiya series — he is a main character in the series, but in the movie, he only shows up in the second half to provide Exposition shortly before and after The Climax.

To sum up: This trope isn't anything like Demoted to Extra — it is similar to how people often mistakenly use Demoted to Extra, but even based on that, it is still fairly distinct, as individual examples show. The description does need some cleaning, but there isn't sufficient reason for a merge. Beyond that, the proposed merge seems to be based on the common-but-erroneous interpretation of Demoted to Extra as The Same But More version of Out of Focus, when it is actually exclusive to drops in significance for sequels and adaptations. This trope is also markedly different from Out of Focus. And lastly, the name is fine, fitting well with the other "Bus" tropes.

Though come to think of it, because of the rampant misuse of Demoted to Extra, perhaps its description should be cleaned and clarified a bit, as well. I have to admit, I didn't even know about the distinction until I looked at it more closely for the sake of this discussion, and I've seen it used in place of Out of Focus a significant number of times.

edited 29th Feb '12 10:21:31 PM by Wii

"So using the tropes properly (which, sadly, almost no one does)..."

The name seems like an awkward play on "put on a bus". It only makes sense if you already know what it's supposed to mean, and then only by some effort.

I'm sorry, I don't know what you meant to imply by the quote.

I'll admit the name requires familiarity with Put on a Bus to make sense, but it's referenced in the description and seems to be a widely-known trope, so… eh, it can go either way. And, at least to me, the title made perfect sense — a commute is "regular travel between one's residence and another location, usually work", so it seems to suit the idea of trope (returning to the series regularly/semi-regularly from wherever they went on the "Bus"). I'm certainly fine with hearing out alternate names, if anyone has suggestions. But, either way, I think my point about the merge still stands.

edited 29th Feb '12 11:18:35 PM by Wii

I meant the misuse probably has a lot to do with the name. Shouldn't need to understand one trope to understand the title of another.

I was talking about Demoted to Extra, not Commuting On A Bus. Demoted to Extra seems to be the main problem, as it is all-too-often used when Out of Focus would be more appropriate. The only place I can think of where I've seen it used correctly is… its own page, actually.

Commuting On A Bus does indeed suffer a lot of misuse, but that can be fixed by… well, fixing it, simply correcting erroneous examples when spotted. I think its misuse has more to do with the general confusion between all three of these tropes than its name. In my opinion, the name works. It could certainly be better, (most everything could), so we could change it if someone comes up with something more fitting, but the trope doesn't seem to really need it. A name change could be polish, but I don't think it would be repair.

edited 1st Mar '12 3:54:41 AM by Wii

Voting against a merge. Demoted to Extra usually implies the character has become all but redundant to the series and usually is The Artifact. Characters that are Commuting On A Bus are frequently still a major presence when they do appear, but are no longer appearing every week.

Do we need a Page Action crowner here?

Probably.

I'll acknowledge I'm not familiar with how debates usually work in the repair shop, but no one has yet properly responded to my argument — namely, that the merge is based on the wrong definition for Demoted to Extra, so any action is not only unnecessary, but harmful. Demoted to Extra is specifically for when characters lose importance between sequels or adaptations, and only that. Demoted to Extra is heavily misused as The Same But More version of Out of Focus, but it isn't, and this merge seems to be based on that sort of mistake.

Commuting On A Bus is for when a character is moved to a less-prominent role in their work, appearing less frequently than they used to. Demoted to Extra is when a character loses prominence/significance between sequels or adaptations, and has nothing to do with singular examples — it is meant exclusively for discrepancies between multiple works. Commuting On A Bus is a completely distinct trope. To illustrate, here's a list of the similar tropes and some examples using a hypothetical Work Com:
• Commuting On A Bus: A main/supporting character becomes a reoccurring character in the plot, appearing less frequently but still consistently. e.g: One of the main characters, Bob, is transferred to another department, and is from then on starts appearing only occasionally, whenever the remaining main characters have to deal with that department.
• Demoted to Extra: A main character in a series becomes a supporting character (or similar) in a sequel or adaptation. e.g: Bob, a main character in the series, only gets one line in The Movie.
• Out of Focus: Sometime during a series, a character is left out of the spotlight for some amount of time. e.g: During Alice's story arc, Bob is seen hardly at all.
• Put on a Bus: A character is written out of a series in a way that makes it possible for them to eventually return. e.g: Bob is fired from his job at Work Com Inc., and thusly stops appearing.
• The Bus Came Back: A character makes one (and specifically one) appearance after having been Put on a Bus. e.g: After having been fired, Bob later appears as a guest at Alice's birthday party; he does not appear again in the series.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: A character simply stops appearing, with no explanation given, nor any reaction by the rest of the cast. e.g: Bob suddenly stops showing up for work, and no one ever mentions him again.

So, again, sorry if I am doing something wrong procedure-wise here, but a crowner seems unwarranted, as no one has been able to show why a merge is still a good idea, or even applicable. As far as I can see, Demoted to Extra does have a problem, being commonly misused, but Commuting On A Bus is fine. At the most, we could clarify or expand its description a bit, and fix examples as we see them, but nothing significant is necessary.

edited 30th Mar '12 7:59:17 PM by Wii

What he said.

Clocking due to lack of activity.

Crowner hooked to thread.

Bump for votes.