Lost in Space
You are in the right place, almost. If you are proposing a radical overhaul to a trope or a trope serving as an index, then you need to use Trope Repair Shop
. That has a limit on active topics so you may need to help resolve some existing ones before you can fit your request in.
Do not arbitrarily remove examples without at least soliciting other opinions. That will get you banned.
edited 31st May '13 11:49:52 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Like I said, I won't do anything because there's really no standard on this wiki other than "the admins approve/disapprove of this". But it's not arbitrary, it's simply restricting the term "slice of life" from being all-encompassing to only encompassing shows that actually don't have conflict, drama, comedy, horror, action, etc at their core. To give an example, Arthur is set in middle school (or primary school, I have no idea) and it's a very easy-going show, but every episode features some sort of conflict which is resolved with an educational message, so it's an educational show, not a slice of life show, even though it features a slice of the characters' lives.
Or Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Yeah, it deals with someone's personal life, but that's not "slice of life". There's plenty of conflict and drama in there.
The examples suffer from a vast misunderstanding and take the meaning of "slice of life" to encompass anything involving personal life.
Lost in Space
I don't think you understand how we're using the term. We use "Slice of Life" in this sense to mean webcomics that are primarily about people living their daily lives. It doesn't mean they can't have drama, any more than Real Life can't. It just means that the purpose of the comic is to observe characters living their lives, as opposed to other themes like gaming, space opera, heroic fantasy, etc.
edited 31st May '13 12:01:49 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
No, the other one.
In other words, it's not an all-exclusive term. You can mix it with other things. It should still be a main feature, though.
Check out my fanfiction!
That's what I said. And yet, "Rival Angels" is listed as one of the examples when it's clearly not a slice of life comic. See, you're saying it's "observe characters living their lives", but that's not what it is. Every work of fiction with characters is about observing characters living their lives. This is why the examples page is filled with so much irrelevant stuff.
Lost in Space
That's why I suggested a Trope Repair topic. If it's getting lots of misuse, then we need to determine if there's a problem with the description or just with people misusing the term.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
The description is adequate, even though it's a bit sloppy. What's wrong is that people just apply the line of reasoning "well, it's about the characters' lives, it must be a slice of life show," which is wrong for the simple reason that that is not the meaning of "slice of life" any more than a show featuring a character doing an action is an action show.
Lost in Space
If you don't want to wait for TRS, and you think that there's nothing wrong with the description, then your other option is to start a wick cleanup thread in Short Term Projects.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
...meaning I can't just fix the page by myself right now?
Lost in Space
No. We don't operate unilaterally. Get consensus.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I won't remove any examples until whatever procedure that needs to happen happens, but I'll add a couple of lines explaining that "slice of life" as a genre is not the same as "slice of life" as a storytelling technique or "slice of life" as literally a slice of a character's life. That much should be clear.
I'm pretty sure all those examples were added to the page "unilaterally", but then again I'm not a frequent contributor so how would I know.
No, the other one.
There's nothing wrong with removing singular examples on your own if they're wrong. When it comes to a larger cleaning operation, getting consensus is best.
Check out my fanfiction!
Lost in Space
The risk here is of starting an edit war over your redactions. Single examples are usually added by editors in good faith and may be contested in the same manner. Removing large blocks of examples can cause hurt feelings and recriminations unless you can demonstrate a consensus.
edited 31st May '13 1:05:56 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I've tried explaining the difference between the literal meaning of the words and the trope.
"What separates slice of life as a genre from the literal meaning of the phrase (which would encompass nearly all fiction) is the emphasis on the very moment, with the intent of focusing the audience on that moment rather than using that moment as part of a narrative. For example, a story about hilarious roommate hi-jinx may depict the mundane life of roommates, but these mundane events are usually the set-ups and punchlines of jokes or part of the conflict between the characters, which takes away their slice-of-life-ness and cements them firmly in the realm of comedy or drama."
Hopefully this explains why Napoleon Dynamite, Clerks, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and pretty much 90% of the examples (while depicting a slice of some characters' lives) don't actually fit the trope/genre.
I just noticed that "slice of life" is used interchangeably on TV Tropes with "diary-style/personal/highschool/modern-coming-of-age" story... Maybe a site-wide cleanup is in order.
So, despite being told the wiki operates by consensus, the policies say nothing about this matter, and a Google search led me to this page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1318608964055696600&page=1
So... how do I achieve this consensus? On Wikipedia it's through discussion on the article's talk page, so that's what I've done here. And assuming I get consensus for this one article, what about the systematic misuse of the term "slice of life" across TV Tropes? How do I get consensus to change that?
I think Slice of Life is a story outside of the traditional three act (or arc) structure, that is set-up, confrontation, and resolution because Real Life doesn't have conflicts that work up to a climax, it just has things that happen.
Since the discussion has been open for over a week without any replies, does that mean I can assume consensus and remove all the examples that I've noted?
I am not sure, personally. I'll have to read over that.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Zzzzzzzzzz
@naoi No. You're proposing a rather severe redefinition, narrowing the scope of the page considerably. That's a TRS (Trope Repair Shop; a whole section of the forums specifically for major changes to trope pages) matter, not one that should be decided on the discussion page of the trope.
You'll need to wait for a TRS slot to open up, then make a thread and state your reasoning clearly concisely and as persuasively as you can manage in the opening post.
edited 11th Jun '13 1:38:37 PM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Just as a note: There are two slots open ATM, but we'll need a good argument in favour of a proposed change.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
The reasoning is already noted on the page: "What separates slice of life as a genre from the literal meaning of the phrase (which would encompass nearly all fiction) is the emphasis on the very moment, with the intent of focusing the audience on that moment rather than using that moment as part of a narrative. For example, a story about hilarious roommate hi-jinx may depict the mundane life of roommates, but these mundane events are usually the set-ups and punchlines of jokes or part of the conflict between the characters, which takes away their slice-of-life-ness and cements them firmly in the realm of comedy or drama."
If you want further information, you can look up Slice of life on The Other Wiki. If you take the term literally, then every piece of fiction that depicts someone's life is "slice of life", however the term is actually much more specific. For example, Seinfeld isn't slice-of-life; the point of the show isn't to examine the little moments; all the little moments in the show are set-ups or punch-lines for jokes. Slice of life necessarily requires that the work focuses laboriously on the little moments in order to examine them in and of themselves, not as set-ups for comedy or conflict or horror or what have you. Porn, for another example, is not slice of life on its own. Sitcoms aren't slice of life on their own. Autobiographies aren't slice of life on their own. Slice of life has a precise meaning, but the Slice of Life entry broadened it to the point of meaninglessness. Ulysses, on the other hand, is slice of life because the entire book examines each and every moment in and of itself, not as a part of a narrative (comedy, tragedy, drama, horror, etc).
Will post the same at the trope repair shop. Let's see how TV Tropes handles it.
Seems like the forum filled up before I had a chance to post this:
Slice of Life is currently so broad that it lost all meaning. Every work of fiction that literally deals with someone's life is eligible to be listed in the examples and cannot be removed without a discussion here, on the trope repair shop (see previous discussion here
and here). This is somewhat like listing all works of fiction with music as musicals or listing all movies where the characters perform actions as action films. It's too damn literal, man.
How to fix it: narrow down the meaning of Slice of Life so that it only includes works of fiction that focus laboriously on the little moments in order to examine them in and of themselves, without them being used as part of a narrative (comedy, drama, horror, autobiography, and so on).
Further information available on the Slice of life article on The Other Wiki.
Bad examples:
- Seinfeld; and sitcoms in general. It isn't slice-of-life; the point of the show isn't to examine the little moments; all the little moments in the show are set-ups or punch-lines for jokes.
- Porn. Definitely a slice of someone's life, but it's not "slice of life".
- Biographies, journal-style movies and comics, actual journals, and so on. They literally present slices of someone's life, but that's not what "slice of life" means.
- Arthur, and other educational shows. Same as above, they may depict the characters' lives but that doesn't make them "slice of life".
- Simulation games...
- more
Good examples:
- Ulysses. Tiny, insignificant moments are examined in and of themselves without regard to any greater narrative.
Guess I'll have to wait. Days, months, years, who knows.
Experience has taught me that any major changes go much more smoothly if you get the admins' approval before doing anything. The topic at hand, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SliceOfLife
Like the guy on the discussion page says, simply having a few "slice of life" elements does not make a show a slice of life show. Batman The Animated Series is a show about a slice of Batman's life but it's not a slice of life show. There's some serious problems with a trope if it can apply to every single work of fiction.
The key characteristic of "slice of life" is lacking drama or comedy or action. From The Other Wiki, "...our purpose is not to create laughter, but thought." So if a show has a clear purpose of having drama or comedy or action, it's not a slice of life show in essence, even though it may have slice of life elements.
Under these conditions nearly all of the examples on the trope page are invalid and should be removed.