Cleanup: Artistic License tropes

So we renamed the "You Fail" tropes and all that, but there are still a few issues with these tropes. Not their names - their names are fine. It's just that I noticed the "you fail" naming pattern is still used in examples on the AL pages and in work pages. Up until about a week ago, Artistic License – Linguistics still had the "you fail" naming pattern all over it.

Can we discuss what needs to be done with these tropes? I haven't had time to go through all of these tropes and pick apart all their problems, but I know that there are still issues with some of the older ones having their old name used instead of the AL one.

If you want to talk about whether they're tropes or trivia, see the trivia thread.

Current (4/28) topics:
Real Life examples on the main page, analysis tab, or...?
Artistic License – Nuclear Physics cleanup: Real Life examples

I have not had the time to do a Wick Check.

Some that I can list off just at a glance:

• Artistic License – University Admissions: Needs A Better Description; few wicks despite a lot of examples
• Artistic License - Astronomy: Redirects being wicked
• Artistic License – Awards: Few wicks despite the number of examples; example section could use organizing
• Artistic License – Religion: Redirect being wicked
• Artistic License – Statistics: Redirect being wicked; example section could use organizing; few wicks despite a lot of examples
• Artistic License – Music: Types Are Not Examples (and I'm not familiar with music so I'm put off to change the name without asking); example section could use organizing; few wicks despite the number of examples
• Artistic License – Military: Example section has a lot of indent strangeness and it might need to be better organized because of it
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Redirects are being wicked; few wicks despite the number of examples
• Artistic License – Martial Arts: Redirect being wicked; few wicks despite the number of examples
• Artistic License – Law: "This should not be listed on a work's page as a trope." then why does it not have a banner as one of the not-trope pages? Given the "this isn't to be listed on work pages" there is a surprising amount of wicks from work pages. Also, redirect is being wicked.
• Artistic License – History: Redirect is being wicked (over 100)
• Artistic License – Biology: Redirect is being wicked (over 600)
• Artistic License – Chemistry: Redirect is being wicked; and for some reason it's wicked from one of its redirects?
• Artistic License – Economics: Redirect is being wicked (over 100); few wicks despite number of examples
• Artistic License – Engineering: Example section could use organizing (indents); could use a better description (no mention of Artistic License – Cars?); redirect being wicked
• Artistic License – Geography: Example section could use organizing; redirect being wicked (over 100)
• Artistic License – Geology: Redirect being wicked; description could use help

As the discussion goes on, I'll organize this into the specific problems that are being handled.

edited 28th Apr '13 3:58:22 PM by DunDun

This sounds like a Short Term project, though. I'll ask for a move.

About the wicking; muscle memory, perhaps? It may be wise to cutlist the inboundless redirects.

edited 26th Apr '13 9:07:11 AM by SeptimusHeap

Thanks, I wasn't sure whether it was LT or ST - just that it wasn't TRS.

Anyhow, given that some pages have overlapping issues:

• Crosswicking looks like a good way to work with wick-poor pages.
• With respect to what you call "subpage", I assume you want "The Same, but More Specific". I do not really think any of these are TSBMS.
• When the redirects are being wicked, dewicking and cutlisting are the preferred solutions.

I use the word "subpage" because the Traditional Christianity page is referred to as such. If you look on the Artistic License list, TC isn't listed, though it is listed in ALR. It might just be that the example section got too big and so they moved it, but what I mean is that there is so much overlap between TC and R that it's a subtrope. Some of the others are so general, i.e. Physics, that other AL pages fit into them but are enough to be separate, i.e., Nuclear Physics.

I've been dewicking the redirects; I don't have time to do all 800+.

I haven't cut-listed redirect pages yet because I don't know just how old and unused they are.

Ah. I assumed you wanted TSBMS because that is a problem; subtrope or subpage aren't problems so they would not need cleanup or fixing (and thus wouldn't need to be mentioned here).

The main reason I mentioned them was 'cause I thought it'd be rude/obnoxious/not-a-good-thing to do something like that without mentioning it. I'll edit the OP later when I have the time (I am already procrastinating important things).

The plan at the beginning of this project (before it got lost and forgotten) was to make the Artistic License_X pages into indexes with examples.

That is, they would be first an index of all tropes that were specific types of Artistic License "errors" — The Perry Mason Method would be listed as an Artistic License – Law trope. So would Perp Sweating, Accusing The Witness, Conviction by Contradiction and so on.

Then the page would also serve as a "catcher net" for examples of Artistic License in the depiction of law and legal procedure that didn't fit any of the existing tropes. These non-troped examples would be serve to help us identify any missing tropes — when the same use of artistic license shows up repeatedly often enough, in different media and genres, it would be spun off into its own trope. The number being kicked around at the time was between fifteen and 25 examples, from at least three media as a minimum before we declared it a new trope.

Part of the work was done on some of the pages. Then the project fell off the radar.

edited 26th Apr '13 10:48:14 AM by Madrugada

The plan at the beginning of this project (before it got lost and forgotten) was to make the Artistic License_X pages into indexes with examples.

That is, they would be first an index of all tropes that were specific types of Artistic License "errors"

Then I think we should either just clean up the wicks and cut the useless redirects or that as well as convert them into actual indexes.

I'm not sure why these tropes haven't been identified as trivia, though. It has to do with the author misusing or misinterpreting (purposefully or otherwise) concepts and facts for the story. It's not about the storytelling but about the real life facts the author changed for the sake of the story. I've mentioned this in the trivia thread, but I might as well mention it here, also.

Part of the work was done on some of the pages. Then the project fell off the radar.

I'm all for picking the project back up if others are, too.

edited 27th Apr '13 4:20:10 PM by DunDun

I agree that it needs to be finished. About all that was done consistently was that a new Artistic License X page was made for each of the old pages. Not all of them were even moved completely. Wicks were not changed, redirects were not made, examples were not sorted, new subtropes were not spun off...

I also agree that these should all be flagged to go on the Trivia pages. The specific subtropes are tropes and can stay on the main pages, but "the author got this wrong" isn't.

I think that that factor, combined with the simple number of pages that need to be dealt with, means this needs to stay in Long term/Perpetual. It's not going to be a short-term job.

So, I'm in for helping out. How do we want to do this? My suggestion is that we pick one and finish it off completely, then move on to the next.

edited 27th Apr '13 6:10:13 PM by Madrugada

Artistic License – Nuclear Physics is a big mess; the related page A Nuclear Error is a smaller but all too similar one. I added the redirect Suitcase Nuke in the hope that it will become a trope someday. Another potential trope to split out of this mess, Nukes Always Detonate, has just been entered on YKTTW.

A Nuclear Error is Artistic License Nuclear Politics. Not even close to Artistic License – Nuclear Physics.

The description of Artistic License – Nuclear Physics is way too long and needs a lot of material taken out to.

Otherwise, I agree with Madru's logic and with making this Trivia.

Unfortunately, they do overlap as currently written, since they both try to cover so many bases at once.

Which parts do overlap.

A Nuclear Error might need a clearer name, then. The current one sounds like it could refer to errors in nuclear physics just as easily as ones in nuclear politics.

So are we starting with Artistic License – Nuclear Physics? If so, I'll add it to the thread title.

Also, I just nuked the whole Real Life section on Artistic License – Nuclear Physics for two reasons: 1) Real Life doesn't have an author to employ Artistic License, and 2) all the detailed essay-ettes, while fascinating, were completely irrelevant to the trope.

Hmm, if "employs artistic license" is a requirement for this "trope", then it might not be Trivia at all...

We might as well start with either Artistic License or Artistic License – Nuclear Physics. But I'm not very familiar with NP, so...

To me, there are two things to qualify for the actual concept of artistic license:

• The portrayed information has to be false given the context of reality.
• "deviation from fact, form, or rule by an artist or writer for the sake of the effect gained"

Obviously, if the information is true, it's not artistic license. The second qualifier is one of the definitions of "license" and emphasis ought to be put on "by an artist or writer for the sake of the effect gained".

I think we should keep the actual concept in mind for these tropes/indexes/trivia pages/whatever.

I think it's still trivia because it's about the people behind the work and not the characters or methods within the work.

edited 28th Apr '13 3:54:08 PM by DunDun

That is an overly literal application of "license". What you are going for would essentially require us to show that the inaccuracy was deliberate, and a) this makes little sense even for subtrope purposes (tropes aren't always deliberate) and b) it's hard to limit a thing like this to deliberate examples.

The meaning of Artistic License is "I know this is wrong but I'm going to do (say, draw, paint, whatever) it this way anyway because it looks (sounds, feels, whatever) better within the work.

To quote the Other Wiki: "Artistic license (also known as dramatic license, historical license, poetic license, narrative license, licentia poetica, or simply license) is a colloquial term, sometimes euphemism, used to denote the distortion of fact, alteration of the conventions of grammar or language, or rewording of pre-existing text made by an artist to improve a piece of art."

It's trivia because the fact that it's wrong rarely has any narrative impact. The thing has narrative impact, but the wrongness doesn't.

edited 28th Apr '13 1:22:46 PM by Madrugada

I broadly agree with Septimus's last post. However, it's worth pointing out that Science Marches On (and Technology Marches On) is something separate. I've seen plenty of examples that seem to confuse the two over the years (and it's something I try to clean up when I can).

This gets tricky, because sometimes you need to check the dates to determine which one you're dealing with. One of Isaac Asimov's early SF/mystery stories was based on the notion that Mercury always keeps the same face towards the Sun. Because of when he wrote it, it's Science Marches On, but if someone wrote a similar story today, it would be Artistic License Something. But, as Septimus points out, in the latter case, it would not matter whether the author actually knew that Mercury's day and year have different lengths.

ETA: And I'm going to have to very mildly disagree with Maddy's last post. Artistic License is about putting the needs of the story above the facts of the matter. "I know this is wrong" is not necessarily part of it. The author may not know or care what is actually right or wrong. The important part is that the author is ignoring reality for the sake of the story.

(But I'm not disagreeing with Maddy's conclusions. Just one minor detail of the premise.)

edited 28th Apr '13 1:26:43 PM by Xtifr

Which is why simply noting that "creators commonly get this wrong" (which is what the Artistic License pages are) is Trivia.

We have a different thread for discussing whether it should be trivia.

edited 28th Apr '13 1:48:57 PM by Lophotrochozoa

Science Marches On and simila are a problematic category. I am not sure what I would qualify them as.

Also, I strongly disagree with @21. For one thing, a) none of the examples of all these pages are more than "this is wrong" and b) as a Content Policy discussion veteran I am not seeing anything good coming from interpreting pages according to the linguistics of their names.

Anyhow, my idea with Artistic License – Nuclear Physics's description is to move all RL items to the Analysis/ page and leave only a list of common errors in place.