Needs Help: No Real Life Examples Please

Looking at the list, it seems that most of the tropes are related to evil, sex, and things that don't exist in real life. I think that, instead of going #-Z, we should put the tropes in different folders, similar to Double Standard having Sexist against men/women/either/in delivery and non-gender related.

Here we can have these folders: Calling People Villains, Sexually Innapropriate, Impossible In Real Life, Real Life is not Written, Too Contraversial, and Other. (These catagories are based on what is in the Index)

Or alternativly, make this a stock warning and not an index. Either one is fine.

It must be hard enough having one massive list spanning 7 folders to curate already. Now you're asking for at least six times that many (if not, at least six separate indexes). One list and one index, I believe, can suffice.

edited 16th Sep '12 4:01:03 PM by SeanMurrayI

I see no harm in reorganizing the page into tighter lists. It would certainly be a more useful organization method than folders named "E-H" and "T-Z."

Only curators would have to pay more attention to the page. It's more work than just monitoring one alphabetized list. With this in effect, we'd have pay extra attention to which sublist new items are added to and pay extra attention to ensure that items are added to their most appropriate sublist.

Not to mention that several items already on the page are there for more than one reason. How would we decide which singular list something with with multiple qualifiers belongs on? Or will the same trope be added to multiple lists? Mind you, on an index, items only need to be added (and only should be added) once.

edited 16th Sep '12 4:38:19 PM by SeanMurrayI

I'm not curating the page, so maybe I shouldn't talk. But seeing as every entry already must states a reason for inclusion, it doesn't sound very hard to make sure each goes into the folder corresponding with its stated reason.

If tropes must not go into multiple folders, put each into one applicable folder. Any one applicable folder. It would still improve on the current page.

I agree with the idea of putting it into different categories, so that we won't have to put the reasons why the trope doesn't allow Real Life examples.

Putting the same entry in several times breaks index navigation, and is generally frowned on.

Grouping them might make it easier if you want to read through the list, but who does that? Having the complete list be alphabetical makes it much easier to find a specific trope, if you want to see why that trope is marked NRLEP. Changing it to being grouped by type would benefit few and be a negative to most, I suspect.

Here's my question: Why does this need to be an index at all? Can't we just have the page describe the rationale in general and encourage any disputes to be taken to the discussion page? (Despite the fact that No One Reads The Discussion Page...)

^Maybe because of the index bar.

The Index Bar comes after page or section designation.

Again, Why does No Real Life Examples Please need to be designated as an index as opposed to EDIT: just a stock Predefined Message? EDIT 2: Even the OP allows for the removal of the index portion as an alternative.

edited 18th Sep '12 12:03:01 PM by DonaldthePotholer

I'll concur.

Above all, this page should exist as Administrivia and outline the meaning behind what is intended to function as a Predefined Message. Maintaining a record of which exact tropes are affected to this page's established guideline is peripheral to the chief purpose of the page.

edited 18th Sep '12 4:20:02 PM by SeanMurrayI

^ On the other hand, with the reasons provided as currently, it does (or at least in theory could) cut down on people asking why RL examples are prohibited.

Of course, the same could be achieved by putting the reason on the respective trope pages, too, and do the suggested change to an Administrivia page. As a bonus, those actually interested in the trope will see it, and the rest won't have to see something they don't care about (not that seeing it is a particular hardship, mind you... ).

edited 18th Sep '12 4:32:08 PM by Nohbody

That's another idea I (the OP had. Making this an Adminstrivia page instead of an index. The reason should be listed on its own page.)

It would actually be more useful to explain why Real Life examples are prohibited directly on the pages that are prohibiting them.

A number of people who ask, "Why?" are people who first come across tropes that contain this message in the page description without an explanation. Then, they take the issue to that trope's discussion page. People shouldn't be expected to click the link to No Real Life Examples Please then scour the page for an explanation for much of the same reasons why Weblinks Are Not Examples.

Moreover, organizing the page by explanation (instead of by trope) would make it harder for those who would click a link to No Real Life Examples Please in order to find a page's explanation for carrying this message, anyway. If they obviously would not know what the explanation is for a trope page stating this, how would they be able to find where the trope they are looking for is listed (and how would it be easier than scrolling a single alphabetized list)?

edited 20th Sep '12 11:50:15 AM by SeanMurrayI

Eddie's already ruled that out. Messages about the prohibition of real life examples belong in the source code, not the page itself.

I don't think that most readers will care about why we don't allow so-and-so examples somewhere. Put the notices in the source and call it a day.

Why? More people would have an understanding of the reasons why a page carries that message if it was explained right on the page that they would already be reading, especially if they wouldn't otherwise know how or where to find that information in the first place and suddenly start asking otherwise pointless questions on discussion pages.

edited 20th Sep '12 11:58:56 AM by SeanMurrayI

Because "no real life examples" is a message to the editor, not the reader. The editor needs to know what's not allowed. The reader doesn't. Messages to editors belong in the source, not the published page.

Then why do we even have a page for this at all, let alone wicks? If this only needs to be seen when editing a page, why have any acknowledgement of this message being made on main wiki itself, anyway?

edited 20th Sep '12 12:05:17 PM by SeanMurrayI

We have a page called natter. And Word Cruft. And others. Documenting a policy (or how-to guide) is a different thing than putting a page-specific policy on a trope or work page.

You didn't answer my question. If this is different than general "policy", why outline it like general policy and even allow this to exist as a Wiki Word that can be (and is) put all over main pages on the wiki where people, apparently, shouldn't be reading it, anyway?

edited 20th Sep '12 12:35:47 PM by SeanMurrayI

For one, having a page and having a message in the page text are different issues.

For two, we can have this page for the same reason that we have Conversation In The Main Page or Example Sectionectomy.

I am not sure if we need the index here. I find it hard to imagine the worth of an index whose common characteristic is only that its pages don't allow certain examples.

On the other line, NRLEP notes don't belong in the description - unless you want to prevent the trope from being used in RL examples offpage.

You STILL haven't answered my question. For the third time, I'll rephrase myself, "If this is a message that is intended to only be readable when editing a page so that only editors ever see it and readers on the main pages for which it's believed irrelevant do not, why does this page have over 550 wicks and appear on the main articles that you have been saying they're not intended to be appearing on?"

edited 20th Sep '12 2:19:56 PM by SeanMurrayI

Because until now, people thought they should actually put it on the text, not the source. We're slowly cleaning them up. And some of those wicks are in the source code of pages too. Wiki words in the source still show up in the related list.

You were talking about the page previously:

In theory, this message should only exist for editors. This only works if RL people don't get troped on the wiki because otherwise NRLEP will be ignored in these trope lists.