Allowing Zero Content Examples on character pages

I find this no "Zero Content examples" policy annoying on character pages as sometimes the trope alone is sufficient enough. It makes for a lot of boring ": Yep, this character sure is that trope". I can understand the policy on works pages but it just makes for busywork here.

Give me one trope where "Character: Trope" is interesting enough to work on its own. I'm sorry, but I can't think of a good example so I have to ask.

If it wasn't for abuse, Zero Context Examples would've been allowed everywhere.

Examples on characters subpages are exactly the same as examples in the main article; the only additional context offered is the name of the character they're associated with. Otherwise they require exactly the same level of explanation as an example anywhere else on the wiki.

@ Septimus One example, whenever an animal character has Team Pet in their trope list. It seems self explanatory to me. What am I supposed to put there otherwise?

The same level of detail you'd use explaining the Team Pet trope anywhere else on the wiki. Give us details. Meat. Some way for a person who doesn't know anything about the show to understand who this character is and why they fill that role.

edited 18th Dec '13 11:16:21 AM by Fighteer

What is "Character X is a Team Pet" and why should we care? Also, how do we tell that it's correct use if we are doing a wick cleanup?

What Fighteer said. Remember, you might know perfectly well who is what in terms of characters and their tropes but you're writing for people who don't.

If the example of avoiding a ZCE is "Yep, this character sure is that trope", I don't think you understand what a ZCE is, because that totally is. It's not a question of how many words are there, it's a question of how much information is there. Just answer the question "Why does this apply to that character?" even if the answer is short.

e.g.: An Ice Person: Bob uses cold-themed superpowers.

(Which is kind of lame, but it's better than nothing, and maybe someone will improve it later.)

edited 18th Dec '13 9:10:33 PM by rodneyAnonymous

I'd say the thing is that we should be told how this is unique. What kind of creature is the Team Pet? What is the pet's role in the team?

Basically, pretend you're trying to explain the character to someone who has no clue who the character is.

From a practical perspective, it's also notable that new editors often learn by imitation. Taking the zero-tolerance approach here is important if we want to steer folks away from poor style. Even if there are cases where the context isn't necessary, history has taught us that the internet hive mind is very, very bad at judging them accurately.

A cock roach pet of main character character creatively named bugs. It has become something of the team mascot and is loved by all of the five man bad.

• Happy Birthday to You!: Bugs actually showed visible displeasure at the awful birthday song the five man band sung for it.
• Kick the Dog/Eat The Dog: Villain of the week broke into main character's locker, stole bugs and threatened to eat it to lure her into an ambush. Then tried to eat bugs anyway,
• Team Pet
• What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Alpha bitch thinks bugs is hideous and much of her dislike of main character stems around bugs.
• 0% Approval Rating: When main character was in alpha bitch's girl posse, none of them approved of bugs presence around them but had to put up with it because main character was captain of the softball team.

Huh ... are you offering that as an example of Zero-Context Example? Some entries there are, at least.

Granted, team pet's description probably needs a little help (first it says it can be a little girl, then it says the human version of this it is tag along kid) do you really need more explanation as to why bugs is the team pet, looking at the description and what was already written on the nearby tropes?

Yes. It's a bad idea to have an entry depend upon another entry, as it a) requires the reader to go to that other entry and b) it hinges upon the other entry not changing. Also, most tropes (other than, say, Plot and Conflict) don't get described in work page descriptions.

Never write an example expecting that the audience has already read the Trope description or the work description. Why? One reason is that the example should be crosswicked, and appear on both pages. If you don't do it, someone else might come along and do it for you. But that doesn't mean they'll change the example when they crosswick it. So the example must show the work and the trope.

You actually demonstrated exactly how Context is a tool in your post. The only problem was that you thought the context belonged in the description:

• Team Pet: A cock roach pet of the main character is creatively named bugs. It has become something of the team mascot and is loved by all of the five man bad.

It goes a bit further than that. Examples are supposed to be, if not near word-for-word matches, functionally identical on both the trope and the work pages. If the example is too different, then you risk losing key points of clarity.

The net effect is that any explanation of the trope in a work page's example has to be basically separated from the actual example context (the rule of thumb is that someone can use copy-paste to move the full-context example around without touching the trope definition bit and with minimal changes). This can be done either by using commas, colons, semicolons, or just sticking in another sentence.

Ultimately, this isn't a big deal with most examples, but it might push more complex examples that require extra explanation anyway past the acceptable length. We do want to try to avoid having longer than two or three lines per example, after all.

That's true. There are some cases where an example can have more explanation on the trope page than on the work page simply because of the added context needed; I try very hard to avoid redundant explanations for similar tropes whenever possible.

Okay, let's try this one then.

• Braids of Barbarism
• Tribal Face Paint
• Wild Samoan: He at least spoke a real language and did not eat fish but he still had the hard head, the propensity to destroy everything in his path indiscriminately and refused to wear shoes.

Between the picture and the listed tropes there should be enough clues to tell any given reader why they apply. I agree they should not exist on a trope page on the main tab (as in Wild Samoan/Braids of Barbarism/Tribal Face Paint: Umaga just Umaga would not be acceptable but when they are all together on a page and there is an image displaying them they are no longer "Zero content".

Those are still not acceptable, because they don't describe how they apply. Those are not just personal appearance tropes; they must have some meaning with regard to the character's actions or presentation, and that's what needs to be discussed in the example, not just the mere fact of having face paint or braids.

edited 6th Jan '14 7:12:10 AM by Fighteer

Also, who knows that the image is going to stay the same?

• Cyclops

If you are going to include an image based on Umaga you would have to go out of your way to find one where that was not apparent. (Like an image of his foot or a close up of his crotch, which makes me think such an image would be immediately rejected)

The point being, it is not zero content when the rest of the page goes on to provide content. Examples on trope pages might already mention the image, if you are going to change that image it is something to look out for. Work pages are more focused in their content (since it all ties into the same work) and character pages more so than work pages (for the same reason).

I'd say put something like "see character image" but we've had so many tropers misuse personal appearance tropes for just the appearance.

Also, I don't think that sending people to search for context elsewhere on the page is a good idea.