Not Tropeworthy: Sarcasm Mode

Why would we ever make an article on the wiki as a pothole magnet?

Oh, it must be because it's impossible to pothole to nonexistant articles. Such is the limitation of wiki software.

Because it's fun?

Where's the added fun? People can pothole just as well without the article existing.

And also to pull away sinkholes from other tropes. Incredibly Lame Pun started as this and the breast tropes might benefit from such a technique as well.

Here, I just say to create an actual trope Sarcasm Metatext and keep this one as a Pothole Magnet to discourage misuse of the latter.

I could get behind that.

Although I'm not sure what you mean for the breast tropes. Do you mean a pothole magnet for characters with big breasts? Because the mods are pretty set against that.

Not the topic here. And it was a mod who originally made the suggestion.

Bump

Probably crowner time, I would say.

There is going to be sarcasm, both in the wiki and in the forums. Even if Sarcasm Mode is killed. The deliberate pothole will make it easier to differentiate what's sarcasm and what's not. I'm a non-native english speaker and I find it very useful. The other option is to clean ALL the wiki from every kind of sarcasm... ever. And make it a guideline in writing tropes and examples "sarcasm is not allowed". If you ask me, that would make the wiki less fun.

The trope (marking online text to show sarcasm) is a valid one and deserves a new home, with a new name. Most of the wicks are not for the trope, and rather to differentiate sarcasm. So I don't think the cleanup will be very hard.

Has anyone thought, that if we take this solution, T Vtropes itself will be an example of whatever the new sarcasm mode (the trope) is called? I find it funny ^_^

Agree with , even if I prefer "not worth the workload to break it" to "makes less fun"

Removed the DO NOT POTHOLE claim in the trope page.

Bump.

I tried to create a less divisive version of the "Do not pothole" part, because we can't have people pointing out every single time they're being sarcastic.

Any decisions yet?

Wait, why not? The difficulty of intuiting the intended meaning in a medium without an inherent or consistent way to mark inflection or communicate body language has been well-noted. The prevalence of sarcasm can be a problem, but not the identification of it.

The wiki is not supposed to convey the attitude of the editor, it's okay to be a little "breezy" but unless it is being used in fiction you can remove the sarcasm and the example entry works perfectly fine (even better) without it.

Well I don't know I've always felt that the addition of the pothole when using sarcasm accentuates the humor. I know I find it much funnier when people mark their sarcasm than when they don't.

The point is that examples don't need sarcasm at all (except in direct quotes).

I find it funnier when they don't, and some people miss it.

I don't think it's wrong to do it, but often an indication that the example can be written in a better way.

edited 11th Oct '12 5:49:10 AM by AnotherDuck

I find both it and Sincerity Mode to be quite useful on the forums, but I agree that they shouldn't be used that way in examples.

nrj: Ah. That makes sense.

I think we should keep this trope. I actually like it when this is used in the wiki and forums. We shouldn't remove it.

We have more important things to take care off, and the original warning that started this thread was added unilaterally. This isn't hurting anything terribly. I am locking up.