For a list of bad laconics, see Sandbox.Pages Needing Better Laconics.
For generally accepted guidelines for laconics, see Sandbox.Laconic Wiki Template.
Today I found out an interesting fact from troper Ironeye:
Don't ever make the mistake of using the Laconic version as the canonical trope meaning—the laconics are often written by people who don't actually understand the drop. In this case, the laconic only corresponds to one possible cause of Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy.
The Laconic Description for DIAA states as follows:
The thing is, these descriptions are supposed to make it easier to understand what the page is about. If they can't be accurate as well as short and sweet, then there's a problem.
So for starters, what would be a better description for DIAA?
Edited by MacronNotes on Jan 29th 2023 at 6:23:45 AM
The laconic for Magic Versus Science is pretty much just a synonym of the trope name. I'm not actually too sure what this trope is about. The definition that I thought the trope indicated is covered by The Magic Versus Technology War.
World's Toughest Milkman
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Wow, that is really unclear, and the laconic is terrible!
My best guess is something like "a tension between scientific and magical explanations", but that's only a guess. The page image suggests Justifiable Skepticism, but I don't think that's the trope.
(Looking at the Image Picking thread
which chose that page image, they don't seem to have discussed the trope in any detail. They simply replaced an xkcd image which didn't mention magic with one which did, with almost no discussion.)
Personally, I think this either needs to visit the Trope Description Improvement thread or possible even TRS. It isn't even till the middle of the second very-long paragraph that the description even starts to hint what the trope might be, and even then, it's pretty vague.
Bumping this. Attention Deficit Creator Disorder has a reference to YKTTW which is now Trope Launch Pad but I don't know if it would make still sense after a rename.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
In my experience, YKTTW is still used in short-term for Trope Launch Pad. If so, than that laconic seems alright.
The laconic for Love Transcends Spacetime is just a rejoinder to the trope name that explains nothing. Does anyone have any better ideas?
"Love is so powerful that it can ignore the physical rules of the universe."
Way better. ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Changed.
The laconic for Straw Fan is entirely reliant on potholes/sinkholes, which really doesn't add up. Stalker with a Crush + Take That, Audience! + Unpleasable Fanbase + Fan Dumb + Love Makes You Crazy? What the hell?
Isn't that trope just "a character meant to mock and demean fans of the work"?
Zzzzzzzzzz
Pretty much. I changed it to something closer to that.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Is it okay for the laconic to have potholes?
Zzzzzzzzzz
Ideally, no, they shouldn't. Laconics should be able to stand alone. Sometimes it's difficult to write a clear laconic without a pothole, but that's really rare.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Elder statesman
In addition, my understanding is that potholes in Laconics are supposed to go to other laconics, not to the unabridged versions.
Bigotry in the name of inclusion is still bigotry.
I thought subpages don't normally get wicked in other pages, really. So if you have to add potholes, it should go to the main trope page and not the Laconic or Quotes or Haiku or anything of the like.
Elder statesman
There's normally no reason to pothole to most subpage types, but the Laconic wiki is supposed to be self-contained. That's the theory, anyway.
Bigotry in the name of inclusion is still bigotry.
Blapper of Water
Laconic.The Butler Did It and Laconic.The Dog Was The Mastermind say the same thing with the only difference being that one is for murderers and the other is for the Big Bad.
The description on The Butler Did It makes the trope seem like "Literally the butler was the killer all along," but that seems weird to be that specific for a trope. (There might be a missing supertrope, but I don't see any particular misuse, so I'm not suggesting making a supertrope — hence why I'm here asking about the laconic.)
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
Zzzzzzzzzz
The Butler Did It is supposed to be "Literally, The Butler, or some other member of the household staff) did it, it usually being either murder or theft." It is not a general "least likely suspect" trope.
The Dog Was the Mastermind is "The Big Bad turns out to be a character who is never seriously presented as a possibility."
I've fixed both of those.
The Butler Did It is unusually narrow, but it's also been a stock mystery trope for ages — or at least treated as though it was one, even though there aren't really a lot of examples of it before 1928, when SS Van Dine published his list of rules for writing a mystery, which specifically codified " #11: A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person — one that wouldn't ordinarily come under suspicion."
edited 25th Mar '17 12:08:02 PM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Blapper of Water
I figured it's been on the site for that or a similar reason, but it's good to know.
Speaking of old tropes and old pages, the laconic of The Sheriff is literally just an outdated word for "sheriff" and it's been that way for a while. I'm tempted to replace it with "Literally the sheriff, usually a good guy," but the description seems too jumbled to unilaterally make a call I think.
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
Zzzzzzzzzz
Fixed it. Good?
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
The Unknown
Looks pretty good, though I added some line breaks.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Blapper of Water
Laconic.Evil Knockoff redirects to Laconic.Evil Copy Disambiguation Page. None of the other "evil copy" tropes do this. Shouldn't Evil Knockoff have its own Laconic/ page? Or should the tropes' laconics be consolidated? I think it should be all of them or none of them.
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
Zzzzzzzzzz
Fixed that. Evil Knockoff now has its own Laconic. Every trope that has a Laconic should have its own. I didn't look to see whose bright idea that was. I'll check in the morning.
edited 31st Mar '17 2:19:03 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Someone called Alex Sora 89 made the disambig, though they did it on Feb '12, so I'm not sure if it's worth messaging them about it.
"In distress", my ass.
I'd say that unless the individual has a history of ignoring any pointers about inappropriate or otherwise sub-optimal behavior, it's always worth dropping them a line. They may simply not know what isn't acceptable, if it's not one of the issues spelled out in a wiki rules page.
(I don't know about the troper du jour's case, though, and haven't the time to look it up.)
All your safe space are belong to Trump
It is indeed uncomfortably long.
"Situation in which either the consent of one of the parties is ambiguous, in universe or from the reader's perspective."
edited 7th Jan '16 7:31:57 AM by Westonbirt
Unfortunately, the trope creation process is rarely capable.