Not Tropeworthy: Sarcasm Mode

I'm seeing a lot of potholing to this article to mark sarcasm. There's even a message saying "DO NOT POTHOLE TO THIS ARTICLE".
But it's not working:

"Sarcasm Mode found in: 5144
articles, excluding discussions."

It's not a trope, and it's just causing problems. I say we cut it.

The only problem is that it does have a lot of inbounds.

edited 1st Aug '12 6:53:20 AM by TropeEater

I'd be happy to edit out Sarcasm Mode potholes on wikipages in my spare time.

Meanwhile, a firmer message could be made about this problem. Not necessarily everyone has actually read the page; I for one just saw people throwing it around on the forum, which is how I got potholing.

Sarcasm Mode is a device used in storytelling. It's a trope.

It's also listed on Pothole Magnet, but it's not a very bad one in that regard.

Marking text in a non-standard way to indicate sarcasm is a storytelling device. It's used in comics as well as literature. It is a trope.

That said, the potholing is the problem, not the trope.

Potholing this on the wiki: Bad. Potholing this on the forums: Bad.

edited 1st Aug '12 7:05:49 AM by AnotherDuck

Potholing it in the forums is just as bad. In fact, it may well contribute substantially to the misuse, since most people who pothole it do so without using any form of text change to indicate that what they said it sarcasm.

When do comics, literature or other stories use "sarcasm mode"?

Routerie, italics is pretty usual for marking sarcasm via metatext.

edited 1st Aug '12 7:32:01 AM by peccantis

If the forum misuse contributes to the wiki misuse, then it will be an uphill battle to fix the misuse (excluding draconian and improbable means such as a mod going trough the fora and editing/thumping any post featuring such a sinkhole).

Wiki-side, while I usually delete such wicks, I am not quite decided if a cleanup is worthwhile. The wiki seems to have some manpower issues recently, and unlike in Understatement potholes are usually correct even if meta.

^^^ Routerie: Here, for one, and it took me about three minutes to find. The bold face type indicates sarcasm. She's replying to Tarvek telling her that she's beautiful.

edited 1st Aug '12 8:31:10 AM by Madrugada

When you pothole to Sarcasm Mode, the bluelinking makes it stand out from the rest of the post - sure it's still the same font face and size, but the color makes it look unusual and to us Genre Savvy forumgoers, that makes it just as valid (in spirit) an example of employing the trope as italicizing or bolding would.

edited 1st Aug '12 10:09:09 AM by Stratadrake

Stand out, yes. Identify it as sarcasm? No. Sincerity Mode looks exactly the same.

I'd be glad to see the wicks purged as was the case with Understatement, and will help out as far as possible if consensus is to do that.

Sarcasm isn't limited to just the formatting - bold, italics, and colors are perfectly valid formatting choices for any kind of emphasis^note (and I have never linked that article before). Choice of words matters too - a character going sarcastic will tend to be over-dramatic, contradictory/ironic, or OOC.

And at least Sarcasm Mode being potholed for meta-examples is actually consistent with the definition of the trope, which is something that, say, If You Know What I Mean could not say.

edited 1st Aug '12 10:46:10 PM by Stratadrake

I think it's a worse problem that tropers are relying on these kinds of tags while writing the examples, rather than the misuse itself. Examples should be clearly written in themselves, and not rely on potholes. It doesn't mean you can't add humour in them, but not at the expense of clarity. Potholes can be used for additional information, but not for necessary information to understand the example. If you really need to explain something, you might as well use the actual Wiki Word (or a slight variation).

edited 21st Nov '16 1:27:13 PM by AnotherDuck

For a few months, I've been making sure that any new potholes that appear on the related-page are removed.

Um... I thought the whole point of the page was so tropers could indicate sarcasm by potholing the text to the page. In fact, looking through the page's edit history, the note on the page telling you not to pothole was added in 2011 by a random troper, then deleted and then re-added by another troper. We shouldn't have a few random tropers deciding site policy.

I also had the impression this was a deliberate pothole magnet. Maybe because I've never seen it linked anywhere but the forum. The 2009 version even seems to be recommending this (albeit somewhat sarcastically).

edited 3rd Aug '12 10:02:08 PM by Xtifr

I've seen Sarcasm Mode potholed to things that are not sarcasm, and I delete them. I should probably delete more of 'em.

I think the key questions here are whether a) Sarcasm Mode is about general sarcasm and b) if the potholes are usually sarcasm.

I don't see the point of running a large-scale cleanup here if most potholes are still sarcasm. We have only so much manpower here and it's not as harmful as e.g Understatement.

Sarcasm Mode is not simply "Something was sarcastic." anymore than Understatement is "Something was an understatement."

I think over-reliance on potholes says something about the level of writing skill that gets employed on the wiki...

and it's not something good.

Maybe just make a Special Efforts thread like we have for Understatement?

edited 4th Aug '12 7:02:04 AM by ThatHuman

No, it's just hard to show sarcasm on the web.

^ No more difficult than it is in print, and most authors who employ it don't need to resort to marking it in any unusual way.

At least they don't resort to something like:

note:character is being sarcastic, which is pretty much what the potholes are.