Real Life section maintenance

Honestly, I cannot recall the last time I saw a quick-fix TRS thread actually happen. It seems constantly bogged down.

If this thread is closed and people are to bring problems to TRS, which category would that be?

I kinda agree with that, but if there aren't that many, it might not be a huge problem. TRS threads do require more mod attention, so can the mods handle that?

edited 1st Sep '17 1:38:32 PM by AnotherDuck

[1] and [2]?

@Duck: "Needs Help" would probably the first title to consider. Or "Complaining" and "Misused" if these problems are occurring.

Would de-emphasizing the crowner help any?

If someone is willing to do it, we could also go through Keep Real Life Examples periodically and discuss changes to those pages (not every page on that list every time, since that would be unnecessary for "maintenance" issues).

If it does turn out that this thread should get closed, I propose that we discuss (or just create using what's already informally established) an Administrivia page for real life sections (similar to the stickied comment at the top of this thread rather than No Real Life Examples, Please!) so newer tropers can reference that when considering bringing something to TRS for RL section issues. And if not an Administrivia page then a few extra bullet points to the "When to create a Trope Repair Shop thread" in the Welcome to TRS thread. I just mean something for people to reference.

I remember from the TLP reform discussions that "bureaucratic" means different things to different people around here, so I'm honestly not sure if what I just proposed was a bit too "bureaucratic" or if that'd be fine as far as bureaucracy was concerned.

edited 1st Sep '17 5:15:26 PM by WaterBlap

It might, but I am dubious. These kinds of "people looking for stuff to do, even when it does not need to be done" issues do not simply go away with subtle approaches.

If this thread is closed, No Real Life Examples, Please! would indeed need to be edited to point to TRS as the place to bring up issues.

Creating an additional Administrivia page would indeed be bureaucratic. Too many policy pages are too many.

As an initial approach, might it be worthwhile to keep this thread, but have the crowner be to decide on "send to TRS" rather than "add to NRLEP"? The thread could then provide a initial screening so other tropers can help catch suggestions that really just need a cleanup of general examples and shoehorning or that aren't a problem before they get thrown into TRS, and if a TRS thread is deemed necessary, it would provide a forum to assist in assembling a clear explanation of the problem before it goes to TRS.

It seems like TRS has a notorious enough backlog that making that the next step (rather than just cutting the section and adding it to the NRLEP list) would encourage people to consider the other cleanup and maintenance options more seriously before they vote.

I dunno, seems a little bureaucratic to me...

Fair enough.

However, I will note that as a troper, if I find something that seems problematic, I'm much more comfortable bringing it to dedicated thread like this to get feedback from other tropers on whether it is indeed a problem and what should be done about it than attempting to start a TRS thread based on just my own perception of the problem (or for that matter attempting a unilateral cleanup of something that just needs cleaning, unless it's a matter of objective and unambiguous wiki policy). Maybe that's the desired outcome—if this thread is perceived as too eager to cut Real Life sections, then forcing people to go through TRS would discourage people from attempting to do that unless it's truly an unsalvageable mess. However, removing the obvious thread for "low-key" report-and-discussion also makes it more difficult for tropers to get community input on pages that need cleanup but aren't yet at the "kill it with fire" stage, which seems like a loss for wiki quality.

I gotta second this. TRS just does not feel like the right place anymore to take relatively minor issues because of how much of a pain it can be, and we do need something to cover that ground.

TRS itself sees a great deal of "Slash-n-Burn"/"Just cut it" mentality too. I doubt we would see much of a change in how often RL sections get nuked over there.

TRS does not do slash-and-burn as frequently. It'd be much less backlogged if it did.

Minor issues can be simply fixed by editing as well.

Comparing it with other threads, such as the Trivia thread, this one doesn't have nearly the same slash and burn tendencies towards cleanup efforts, and that's about actual TRS issues that should really need their own TRS threads. This is to a much more significant degree about cleanup that wouldn't require TRS normally.

The low threshold for entry is bad for overeager problem seekers, but good for tropers who're just uncertain about editing. I've done it enough that I can do significant edits without having to check with five other people, but a lot of tropers hesitate to delete even one example even if it's clearly misuse. The thread is also good for smaller problems, or bringing things to attention to those who are more experienced. It's often not even a real problem, but that's for the discussion to find out.

If it's put to TRS, all that judgement would be up to moderators. That judgement either takes time, or it makes for crap decisions.

I disagree. TRS has a strong tendency towards cutting over repairing in my experience. That's one reason I don't bother with it as much, and put my efforts elsewhere.

edited 3rd Sep '17 1:07:08 AM by AnotherDuck

OK, it seems like there is little support so far. The crowner should probably go away though, it more than the thread itself seems to be the source of the issues.

I feel like openly discussing things in this thread has helped cut down on eager beavers' cutting RL sections. But at the same time, not everyone participates in the discussion part of the thread.

As someone who used to tally votes in the YKTTW crash rescue thread, I can say that getting people to voice their opinion in a clear way (e.g. actually voicing their decisive, actionable opinion of "cut" or "do not cut") is kind of like pulling teeth. I would hesitate before getting rid of the crowner. Though the Complete Monster thread seems to have mastered the art of voting in the thread itself. That may be because it is dedicated to a specific trope, which neither this thread nor the crash rescue thread are.

What I meant before about de-emphasizing the crowner would be to take it out of the title and to shorten the description within the crowner, and then to include something in the crowner stating that the decision needs actual discussion in the thread rather than just an introductory comment and the crowner vote.

edited 3rd Sep '17 7:00:32 AM by WaterBlap

I think this thread is useful, though I myself do not often have time to paricipate. I usually bring a trope or an issue when I spot something that bothers me.

I see how that crowner is a problem — some people only vote and don't voice their opinions in the discussion. Will we have enough people here to reach a consensus?

Complete Monster is awesome, lots of people are dedicated to that clean-up project. Others — like Creator's Pet or The Scrappy have fewer people participating and the progress is much slower. At least that's how I remember it from about a year or two ago.

Anyway — I would be for having this discussion opened. As for the crowner, I am undecided. I fear we would not have enough people to voice their opinions.

If we're still looking at individual pages, Glory Days could probably use a cleanup. The trope is about a character peaking early in life. Most of the RL examples seem to be entire cultures feeling nostalgic for earlier eras. Is this misuse? There are also some examples of creator troping slipped in to the other sections.

I don't think that tropes holds for countries. People have opinions about their glory days, but for countries, that's what other people of their nation did. It's not what they did. I'd say the same about sports teams.

I already removed one bad entry from the film section that was basically "this filmmaker never made another film that successful again." The film in question was "Gone with the Wind", which even the removed entry admitted it would be hard to outdo.

I plan on taking a look at the RL section later, but that would probably best be done when I am not at work because it's a mess.

Anyone else has an opinion about cultures (including sports teams) on Glory Days? We could axe a lot there, but I'd want some kind of consensus.

That example sounds like Tough Act to Follow, which is related, but not the same.

I'm not sure if you can trope cultures. You can trope cultural stereotypes, but that's a different thing and also rather sensitive. For example,

• The Scrooge: All Scotsmen are misers.

In the example at hand, an entire culture longing for its glory days seems like just such a stereotype to me. That doesn't mean it can't have some basis in fact, but then it's not really the culture as such we're troping, but a cultural phenomenon that exists in that culture, or maybe a sub-culture, or perhaps a political movement . I'm not sure how such an example should be written to avoid becoming too general or descending into cultural stereotyping.

I saw some really iffy generalizations, like an entry claiming "nearly all Englishmen" long for a return to an earlier era.

So, as Maddy brought up in a completely unrelated thread rather than here where it actually matters, Right Through His Pants and Right Through the Wall were never discussed. Does anyone have an opinion on those pages, or are people just eyeballing them and voting without explaining why?

I voted to make NRLEP because they are sex tropes, and Right Through the Wall has one or two gossipy entries.

Right Through the Wall only has four entries in its Real Life section. For that reason, I don't think it's even possible for it to have enough examples to have a problematic example section. Just cut the problematic examples (the two general examples and maybe the others). I don't think it's even eligible to be on the crowner.

Right Through His Pants is the same thing, except that folder needs to be changed to "Real Life" rather than "Truth in Television."

Neither of those tropes should have been put on the crowner, imo. That is, I don't think they should be made NRLEP since their RL sections are so small.

edited 8th Sep '17 9:39:08 AM by WaterBlap

Honestly, I'd zap the boxer shorts example on Right Through His Pants as the other two have historical and industry-relevant context respectively, and I'd leave the first and third examples on Right Through the Wall, although the link in the first example is bad.

edited 8th Sep '17 9:46:35 AM by Willbyr