Remove entries containing "This Troper"?

I couldn't help but notice that a lot of entries containing the phrase "This Troper" also show other forms of bad writing, such as needless hyperbole, natter, etc... more to the point, I think the reason for this is that, well, those who use the phrase "This Troper" in an entry don't know what they're doing, because if they did, they wouldn't have used it in the first place.

So, I was wondering if there is some means to program something that would scan this site for lines that start with asterisks and include the phrase "This Troper" and automatically delete them once detected. (And of course, whether or not that is reasonable; I'm only mentioning it because to me it sounds efficient.)

edited 30th Jun '12 9:05:35 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

Disregard, misunderstood the post.

edited 30th Jun '12 9:16:37 AM by strawberryflavored

Might this be better suited to Tech Wishlist? As it is, this is a good idea — valid things which were to get cut would probably get back onto the page eventually, it would get the point across that This Troper isn't allowed, and almost nothing that includes that phrase is worth anything. Eddie is able to get a list of all pages containing a certain thing (see the hottip-to-note thread in Special Efforts), but I don't know if he'd be willing/able do it for this, as you can also just search for the term yourself, through Google or through CTRL+F on every page you edit. If it were to happen, I'd recommend leaving out pages in TearJerker/, Funny/, and so on, as they're the most likely to have valid stuff so they should be cleaned by people.

Scripts have a bad habit of causing the whole site to lag and bad things, if I remember correctly.

* Sorcerer's Apprentice music *

Inferno: From the few experiments in the past with said scripts I would dare say that is correct.

A Special Efforts thread could be made to go through each page and index, and remove its use, as well as clean it up in general.

Sometimes we won't know who originally posted it, but if we do, we can link to their username instead of "This Troper" being used.

Actually, we don't want to link their user name either. We're not hosting troper tales. We shouldn't have any first person on the main.

But there are some places - Headscratchers and WMG - where some amount of first person is tolerated.

Or has that changed?

And on Headscratchers, WMG, and Gush—the only places first person is permissible—no form of "this troper" should appear; any first person should be first person (i.e. I, me, etc.).

If I may ask: What scripts are you talking about, and when did this happen?

I've seen some use of first person on some Fridge pages. I didn't remove them because I thought they were to be treated like Headscratchers. Is this correct, or should I remove the first person on them?

@FELH: They're referring to a form of "hunter" script bots, which in this case would automatically hunt down specific words or phrases (like "This Troper") added to pages and correct them. What Eddie found out was that, given the number of pages and edits we have, such a bot eats a ridiculously huge amount of bandwidth, potentially bringing the wiki servers close to the crashing point.

Also, I think it's near impossible to program one to respect the English language, so it also creates a swarm of grammar errors.

edited 30th Jun '12 7:23:51 PM by TotemicHero

I just kinda remove the part with This Troper.

Perhaps, if possible, Fast Eddie could come up with a script of all pages that contain the phrase "this troper" - and we could make this a "special efforts" project, and go through them, one by them.Of course, the one problem with this is that there are probably still some users adding "this troper".

For pages that actually link to This Troper, there is also this.

Occasionally, I'll go through the pages in the TearJerker.Music index - but it's getting to be too big for one person to handle alone.

edited 2nd Jul '12 2:51:01 PM by movie007

All the actual links to This Troper are either meta stuff (either Administrivia or wiki-related Just For Fun) or Fridge pages with a warning not to use This Troper, with the possible exception of a handful of bad uses that have crept back in. I know this because I just finished going through all the This Troper links about a week ago.

"I just kinda remove the part with This Troper."

That teaches them nothing. It only encourages them to continue doing this and making all the sensible editors more and more enraged and overworked. They need to be punished for it. They need to know that this is not allowed. They need to know better, and reprimanding them is the only way, short of posting more warnings than the scant rotating tip.

edited 25th Jul '12 10:15:32 PM by Kuuenbu

Oh.

"That teaches them nothing."

Making This Wiki better (by removing the This Troper part) is more important than teaching anyone a lesson.

To be honest, I sort of agree with that guy. What we need to be fighting is the idea that "This Troper" is acceptable, not individual uses of it.

Fine—I don't mean teaching lessons is not important, just less—but "they need to be punished"? Seriously? If anything about this site makes you feel rage, do something else. That is a bad attitude.

edited 25th Jul '12 10:37:04 PM by rodneyAnonymous

I said I "sort of" agree with him (or her). Punished, no. But anyone known to have added a "This Troper" entry should be natterfied, or something similar.

Anyway, what I'm really objecting to is what I read as the implication that all we need to do is eliminate uses of "This Troper", instead of trying to fight the mindset behind it.

edited 25th Jul '12 10:29:46 PM by nrjxll

Considering what "punishment" amounts to, I will have to disagree with the idea as well.

If we're looking for phrases to search-and-destroy, how about "arguably a subversion"?

edited 25th Jul '12 10:59:40 PM by abk0100

Disagreeing here as well.

We can just simply remove it, figure out what other parts of the example need to be removed, and leave it there. If they actually try to edit it back in, then "Edit War" would be a reason to ban them(most likely temporary) and does it better.

Many of those entries are from way back before it wasn't a rule to not use it.