Unclear Description: Furry Fandom

A neutral page with neutral tropes as examples would be nice

What do you mean by neutral? The tropes on this page that are said to apply to people in the fandom are all sweeping generalizations without any basis provided.

edited 25th Mar '12 2:59:18 PM by ThatHuman

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I want to have tropes that are like Image Boards or Yiff- real things that happen in the fandom and less like Small Name, Big Ego or Special Snowflake Syndrome , which just seems like complaining about large groups of fans.

I can stand behind that. There's nothing inherently bad with a trope list, and neutral tropes do a good job of describing stuff concerning the fandom. I don't see it any differently than pages for actors and other people.

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

Well, actor pages are for specific people. The pages can be clear of what they're talking about when discussing things. With this, it's just sweeping generalizations. How would we know whether or not a trope entry here is correct?

edited 25th Mar '12 3:25:56 PM by ThatHuman

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Well, it's not cut and clear, but I don't think that's a good reason to cut everything. Mainly, I think it's important that it doesn't offend anyone. Lumping people together or saying people tend to act in a certain way is bad. Small Name, Big Ego and Troll can probably be cut. On the other hand, Vocal Minority does play a huge part in how people view the fandom, so it is important to a page about the fandom.

I do think many of the animal tropes can stay, for instance, like Our Centaurs Are Different, Non-Mammal Mammaries, and Animal Stereotypes, which all describe tropes that are important to the fandom, and how they're used.

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

Well, that last bit are tropes describing well, works by the fandom, not the people themselves.

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Neutral tropes? What's that suppose to mean? Name only and no description? It was completely pointless to make a Trope Repair Shop Discussion about this page.

They are useful in describing the scope of the fandom, since furry fandom is not specific to one genre.

They're vague generalizations about actual people, and it's not gonna be easy for most of us to check if the entries are true.

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What are?

Stuff like Small Name, Big Ego.

See post 19 on the previous page for more of those entries that say "furries in general are pretty much always this" or suggest that "if you're a furry, then you are X". The only entry like that which even mentions how anybody would come to such generalization is Everyone Is Bi, and that entry proves itself wrong. It says "[a]ccording to the 2009 Furry Survey, just over 40% of participants are straight," which means a lot of furries are not bi.

edited 4th Apr '12 10:29:12 PM by ThatHuman

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That stuff is getting cut. The anthromomorphic tropes and stuff were what I was talking about, along with the fandom's distinctive Vocal Minority. No character attack stuff.

Wow, almost half of furry fandom is straight? That's amazing.

Point is, all those generalizations about actual people have no way of proving themselves right, and the only such entry that has any sort of "proof" proves itself wrong. And that Rousseauwas Right entry on the page (also purportedly about actual people in the fandom instead of the works produced) looks like misuse. Rousseau Was Right is "people are good by default", but the entry says "good people exist".

edited 4th Apr '12 11:23:33 PM by ThatHuman

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Is that the point? Who is claiming we should continue to make unfounded generalizations?

Anyway, just glancing at it, about 3/4 of the tropes listed as "furry fandom includes" need to go. But stuff like mentioning the Hatedom and linking the relevant tropes and indexes to what they are a fandom of is relevant.

The "Simply happens to like stories with animal characters" part has got to go.

Liking Looney Tunes does not instantly make you a furry. Playing video games with anthropomorphic animals in it does not make you a furry. Also, the whole second paragraph reeks of self-justification for feeling hurt or mistreated, especially the final sentence.

Should we just delete the very long and incredibly hard to reorganize intro (including the inane "levels of furriness") and just put up a very simple definition until we come to a better conclusion?

edited 5th Apr '12 9:01:20 AM by Anzua

Liking Looney Tunes does make you a furry, if a casual and peripheral one. That is not the thrust of the article, but it is true and that statement should remain.

You don't find anything wrong with telling people what they are and/or what they're not?

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The broadest definition of "furry" is "person who likes Anthrophomorphic Animal stories". So under that definition, any fan of Donald Duck or Tom And Jerry is automatically a furry. You can object to being associated with the other connotations of the term, but that's a valid usage of "furry".

Calling someone a pedant is an automatic Insult Backfire. Real pedants will be flattered.

Well, considering that fandoms tend to be something people would intentionally associate with, not something other people tell you you're part of...

I really don't like how the second paragraph in the description tells people who they should hang out with, honestly.

edited 5th Apr '12 11:56:46 AM by ThatHuman

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Yeah, that's a general quibble with fandoms of all kinds, the distinction (if any) between being a fan of something and being part of the fandom for that something.

Calling someone a pedant is an automatic Insult Backfire. Real pedants will be flattered.

I don't know if that quibble is just a definition issue but this bit in the definition is basically telling people what to do:

Basically saying "if you like X, you must hang out with [group]". It's like I were to tell fans of giant robot shows that they should hang out with Transformers toy collectors or something.

edited 5th Apr '12 12:03:57 PM by ThatHuman

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I don't see where that's "telling people what to do". It could be written more generally, but the point is that most people who identify as furry fans are perfectly nice to hang out with, not "all furry fans must offer to draw pictures of other people's avatars".

Calling someone a pedant is an automatic Insult Backfire. Real pedants will be flattered.

Thing is, it's worded in a way that says "if you like [work],you should hang out with [fandom]". Not "[fandom] has nice people to hang out with".

edited 5th Apr '12 12:07:10 PM by ThatHuman

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