No Periods, Period was supposed to cover the phenomenon whereby periods don't show up or get mentioned in ficion. The article contains hundreds of examples in which periods do, in fact, show up or get mentioned in fiction.
This is the exact problem we had with Nobody Poops, and we voted near unanimously to strip all aversions from the page. We should do that here too.
Except No Period Period takes the problem up to a whole new level. It not only invites users to list every reference to menstruation they can think of - it begins by trying to categorize the "aversions" into 6 types, explaining each with up to four subpoints.
This page seems to think that it's a page for Periods, rather than the omnipresent trope of no periods. Or it thinks it's an index for unwritten tropes about periods.
Should it be?
I absolutely despise tropes that say "This Never Happens" and then goes on to list scores or even hundreds of examples of it happening.
Sounds like this needs to be turned into an index for tropes related to signification uses of menstruation in fiction.
Wow, it's like the missing supertrope was actually written into the middle of the article.
I think this needs a cleaned up description. — And no examples, this trope is really only obvious in the aggregate.
Unless we can find some examples of lampshading no one mentioning periods, maybe we should send Menstruation Taboo back to YKTTW. Because it's nowhere close to omnipresent - thousands of works mention menstruation, though only when they have reason to so the page would be kind of pointless unless we have examples of some kind.
Meanwhile, the hundreds of wicks pointing to No Periods Periods all seem to want to link to Menstruation Occurs. Maybe we should leave No Periods, Period as a redirect for or Menstruation Tropes index, and split the current examples into separate pages.
I do not get the whole "A setting with werewolves contains a brief reference to "times of the month". This connection is sometimes explored. " thing but umm yeah.
Period Talk Around Males: girls bring it up to make guys uncomfortable or drive them away for Girl Talk time. Occasionally they do it in a public area and such. (Seitokai Yakuindomo has girls asking to borrow a pad and have it get tossed over guys heads leading to funny in episode 1... it only gets worse from there for The Only Sane Man.)
I like that idea. It also greatly reduces the risk of contributors including, say, casual references to periods and saying that it's an "example." (Of what, exactly?)
That's a good list. Menstural Menace, curiously enough, is not about PMS mood swings (which is in YKTTW right now). It's about menstrual cramps as a psychic indicator or trigger of supernatural stuff.
No Periods, Period is being misused for pot/sinkholes pretty much every time periods in any flavour are mentioned on the wiki, so a wiki check / clean-up will be needed.
This should be renamed, so it stops becoming an alternative pothole instead of what it should be.
edit: found the trope I wanted. Is still easily mixed up with Wall of Text?
I'd like to propose that this trope page be redesigned so that only aversions, subversions, justified examples and other non-straight examples are listed. This seems to be one trope that is so close to being universal that the exceptions are more noteworthy than the straight examples.
Aversions/subversions of what? Of the absence of periods? That's how it is now. But since "no periods" is anything but universal, that left us with hundreds of examples of plots involving periods.
And, "someone has a period and something happens, " is not a trope in itself. "Someone has a period for a specific narrative reason" can be a trope, though, if you add what that reason is in the trope description.
Page Action: No Periods Period
22nd Mar '12 6:26:51 AM
What would be the best way to fix the page?
At issue:
No Periods Period is ostensibly about the absence of periods in fiction but instead tries to list all appearances of periods in fiction.
(The following options are mutually exclusive. Feel free to add your own mutually exclusive options.)
11 (yeas:12 nays:1) 12.00 : 1
Keep as a page about the absence of periods in fiction. Delete aversions. Create a a new index/supertrope called Period Problems.
3 (yeas:7 nays:4) 1.75 : 1
Convert to a supertrope called Period Problems and create subtropes for examples where possible.
-2 (yeas:2 nays:4)
Keep as a page about the absence of periods in fiction. Delete aversions. (We did this with Nobody Poops.)
-3 (yeas:3 nays:6)
Repurpose as a page listing all appearances of periods, leaving the examples as they are.
-4 (yeas:1 nays:5)
Convert to an index about periods and create subtropes for examples.
-5 (yeas:1 nays:6)
Do nothing.
Arguments in favor:
The page isn't doing any harm, threatening governments, causing civil unrest, etc.
Arguments against:
It's still a big confused mess.
Any page about the lack of something is functionally equivalent to Averted Trope.