Real Life People Cleanup Project

You'll note I didn't say that you have a political agenda. I said that I wanted to avoid even the appearance of one, which I've seen on various other sites. There is a trend—and this is just a part of Western culture in general—to say "we can't call real people evil. But Stalin and Hitler, that's okay." Both of them are so infamously awful (and there's so little debate about the subject) that they've effectively become a shorthand for evil, in a way that say, Milosevic or Augusto Pinochet have not, and I was concerned that would be the case here (given that the rule against troping real life people has been here as long as I can remember, but so to has that Adolf Hitler page. I was unsure if an exception had already been made for him, and would not have been shocked if it had). I'm glad to see that isn't the case.

Question—when we're talking about how they are portrayed in other media, does propaganda qualify? Because if so, most of the evil tropes aren't going to have to be cut, given how Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Mussolini, et al have been portrayed in enemy media.

I'll note that if we're serious about getting all troping of real life people off of the UN pages, this is going to be one Hell of a clean up.

edited 12th Sep '13 1:23:50 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I think I owe this thread an apology for the confusion on terminology (the "what qualifies as troping RL things" one) that happened earlier.

As for calling real things bad or evil - we do have an unwritten policy against that, for several different reasons. You'd be better off here at contesting it, and I don't think it will change.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I'm not out to contest the policy. For the most part, I agree that it's a good thing, given how utterly moronic people can get when it comes to politics (here comes President Evil on [insert president you don't like] page), even if it does become a pain when dealing with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Milosevic, Franco and company. Right now I'm just trying to figure out where the policy ends and troping begins. We've been saying that pages should only discuss how the characters are portrayed in their own works, or those of others. My question is—does, for instance, Allied propaganda in WWII qualify as a work? If so, most of the page on Hitler isn't liable to need changing.

edited 12th Sep '13 2:06:19 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

The question is whether Hitler's page is the correct place for documenting that. To my knowledge, the answer has usually been considered "No".

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

See this quote here: "The article for the person him/herself should avoid tropes about them as a person. It should only discuss tropes appearing in (a) their own work — speeches, books, whatever; (b) tropes appearing in fiction where they feature as a character" makes it sound like it might be the place to do it. If it isn't, that's fine by me, but I think there is a miscommunication going on somewhere.

That is one of the unwritten policies we have here. You'll notice that the Hitler page doesn't cite Complete Monster, for instance.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Couple of things—first of all Complete Monster is a trope that literally cannot be applied to real people. It would require you to have no redeeming features whatsoever, and there's no human being, however vile, who has none. Everybody has at least one Pet the Dog in them.

So if you're using that as an example of why we shouldn't let people list other "evil" tropes like President Evil or Axe-Crazy on his page, I disagree, since he actually qualifies for those but not for CM. If you're using that as an example of why we shouldn't allow media portrayals (which do tend to go towards the CM route) on his and other UN pages, I don't disagree. I'm not trying to challenge policy. I'm trying to figure out what the heck it is.

I was using Complete Monster as an example because you participate in its cleanup thread. And we do have a standing policy of not applying Evil tropes to RL people or things, and tropes having such sections are getting them phased out. Complete Monster is NRLEP for this and some other reasons, including the one you cite.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Obviously, any NRLEP tropes cannot be put on trope pages for real people. Even someone like Hitler wasn't a Complete Monster.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

They can be added as fictional examples.

I know that a lot of those "evil" ones are getting phased out. I don't necessarily agree with the policy, but I'm not out to change it.

Robin Olds: Does he have any mentions in fiction? (Aside from the namespace being wrong)

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Other than being featured on Badass of the Week, nothing comes immediately to mind, though I think he may have been mentioned in passing in Without Remorse. Wouldn't swear to that one, though, as I've not read WR in ages.

Thanks to Google I know he was featured on an episode of the National Geographic show War Heroes of the Skies (for which there's no page here at present), first season, 5th episode. Didn't even know the show existed before now, so obviously I haven't seen it.

edited 11th Mar '14 7:22:17 AM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Three aint enough man I say five!

I will be so glad to get these pages on the cutlist where I find them, thank you. But rule of three applies to story telling tropes. Tropes are tools, and real people are not, so the standard does not apply to them. It should be higher.

That's why he wants you to have the money. Not so you can buy 14 Cadillacs but so you can help build up the wastes

New page to discuss, with two related pages:

• Main.Henry VIII
  • Main.Anne Boleyn
  • Main.Jane Seymour

These pages came to 'our' attention in the "YKTTW Crash Rescue" thread. About four tropers chimed in, and we were evenly split between including the wives as folders in Henry's page, and moving them to their own pages.

Obviously, His Majesty needs to be moved to the Useful Notes namespace, as an Historical Domain Character. In my opinion, the wives are so rarely seen without the king, that I feel anyone who would be using/looking up the wives would also be going to his page. So I want to include all of the wives as folders on his page, and allow the individual work pages to mention which wives are present.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I concur.

Sharon Stone was just created recently, but some parts of the trope list seem questionable for a Real Life person.

~nirao01 needs to check out Creator Page Guidelines: They're adding a lot of good pages, but need help distinguishing between "fictional tropes applied to real people" and "tropes they use".

Indexing should be done soon after page creation, and they don't seem to besetting the page type.

~~ to my previous post, do I have enough consensus to change?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Just saw the message. I put the "Most of his/her roles" after the trope I added and only put ones that the actors/actresses themselves acknowledge (e.g. Woody Harrelson's Dark and Troubled Past and being a collector of Nice Hats). As for the indexing, I usually index the pages I created together in one click and always get glued while typing, so I'll do my best to remind myself to index them immediately.

That's good to hear about the indexes, but I already said the examples are mixed between good and bad. For example, on Sharon Stone...

• Everyone Loves Blondes: One of Hollywood's premiere examples.
• Statuesque Stunner: She stands 5'8 and a half.

The first is a ZCE, and the second is not allowed at all.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

OK, I'll fix it. As for the Statuesque Stunner, I just locked it. Honestly, I don't really get why it's under NRLEP since a). The page itself says it's for an attractive woman who stands at least 5'8 and b.) it's a given fact that, even stating without gushing at them, said descriptions apply to majority of those actresses. What I'm trying to say is, can you guys reconsider it? Just asking.

Follow up: What if I add the description to Statuesque Stunner that "it applies to her characters" or "her height is emphasized in most of her roles"? Will that do?

edited 23rd Apr '14 8:27:06 AM by nirao01

Neither of those fits the definition of Statuesque Stunner.

It is not "attractive woman at least 5'8" tall". It is misreading the first half and missing the second half. A 6' woman who is the shortest character (aside from children) does not qualify. A 5'5" woman who is the tallest character doesn't qualify unless the second half comes into play.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

UsefulNotes.Bill Clinton has a trope section titled "The following tropes are related to America's forty-second president" and another section "Media tropes." Should the first section be cut? or trimmed? I don't mean "because of its title" but because it seems to be specifically for tropes that apply to the actual person rather than how he is portrayed in media.

edited 17th May '14 6:20:01 PM by WaterBlap

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

To be more accurate, the second section is examples of his appearances as a character in media.

Yes, the trope list should be cut. It is rather awful actually, just how personal and in poor taste many of those are. Especially since a number of them are No Real Life Examples Please tropes

Practically all of the pages for the U.S. presidents have this problem:

• George Washington
• John Adams
• Thomas Jefferson
• James Madison
• James Monroe
• John Quincy Adams
• Andrew Jackson
• Martin Van Buren
• William Henry Harrison
  • The second section on that page.
• John Tyler
• James K. Polk
• Zachary Taylor
  • Small section
• Millard Fillmore
  • Small section
  • EDIT: I cut this one already.
• Franklin Pierce
• James Buchanan
• Abraham Lincoln
• Andrew Johnson
• Ulysses S. Grant
• Rutherford B. Hayes
• James Garfield
• Chester A. Arthur
• Grover Cleveland
• Benjamin Harrison
  • Small section
  • EDIT: I cut this section, too.
• Theodore Roosevelt
• William Howard Taft
• Woodrow Wilson
• Warren Harding
• Calvin Coolidge
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Harry Truman
• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Lyndon Johnson
  • There are two sections for tropes here. One is labeled as tropes that apply to him in media, but they read as though they apply to him in his real life. The other section is clearly labeled as trope applying to him in fiction.
• Gerald Ford
• George H. W. Bush
• I already mentioned Bill Clinton, but courtesy link anyway.
• George W. Bush
• Barack Obama
  • Same issue as on Lyndon Johnson's page. The first section seems to be about tropes applying to him in his real life rather than any fictional portrayal.

EDIT: I went ahead a cut the ones in Fillmore's and Harrison's articles, since they were small and none of the tropes were applied to a fictional portrayal. The articles themselves may still need fixing, though.

edited 19th May '14 9:15:07 AM by WaterBlap

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty