Misused: Broken Base

I know submitting a YMMV trope to the Trope Repair Shop is probably bad form, but I keep seeing this trope on YMMV pages being used to describe everything that is even a minor point of contention within a fanbase. The trope page defines Broken Base as "a civil war among fans of a particular series" (emphasis mine.) We either need to redefine the trope or clean up the examples.

For starters, this is especially noticeable on the YMMV pages for episode recaps.

Disagreement ≠ civil war.

edited 18th Jan '14 11:04:25 AM by Scolipendra

Fixed the tag. Will comment later.

While we're at it, I'm of the opinion Base Breaker can fairly easily be rolled into Broken Base.

The cause and effect of base-breaking are not mergeable.

And to be honest, given that this is a YMMV page, I don't see the "fan disagreement" examples as an issue. Opinions on how significant the conflict is are going to vary, naturally.

If this is YMMV, why not just expand it to "points of contention within a fanbase deemed significant enough by a troper in that fanbase"?

Clean it up.

YMMV itself can be anywhere from " minor disagreements" to "all-out flamewars". But a Broken Base must be severe— it's when the fanbase is strongly divided in their opinion of some aspect of the work, such that both (or all) sides cannot be satisfied/appeased at the same time. The Base Breaker is the aspect causing the divide. Broadening or mergin Broken Base to include Base Breaker weakens it considerably.

Sounds good to me, Maddy!

It has 2,917 wicks and counting, so it'll take a lot of work, but I'll get started! :)

I seem to see this used when the opinions, judging from what else I've seen (which admittedly don't tend to include actual forums but do include other places on the wiki), are pretty uniformly negative.

Generally there's negativity involved, in that one side thinks the work would be better with more of <this thing> and less of <that thing>, while the other thinks there's too much of <this thing> and not enough <that thing>, yes, but a Base Breaker can be phrased in a kind of neutral way.

For instance, Skill-based reality competition shows (Top Chef, The Amazing Race, Project Runway) — the ones that have who stays or goes based on performance rather than having a strong social element with the other competitors deciding — generally have somewhat of a Broken Base, and the Base Breaker is whether the emphasis should be on the skill or the drama between the competitors. That's a neutral way of explaining the trope in use.

edited 18th Jan '14 7:09:18 PM by Madrugada

But does bring up a good point: does the existence of a strong negative opinion, on its own, necessarily indicate the presence of a strong positive opinion?

Nah. If you need to rely on implications for an example to work, it's a bad example. Much like citing The Chick for men.

So, shall I start a thread for this in Long Term Projects? The wick count is rising by the day.

edited 21st Jan '14 8:08:06 PM by Scolipendra

I don't see how a wick cleanup can work here. This really is a case where there is a spectrum between "civil war" and "disagreement" and trying to pin down a dividing line is going to be a hassle. Plus, again, it's YMMV so I am not even sure if we should try to pin down a dividing line at all.

Then maybe the best thing to do is just to expand it. I mean, it's YMMV; there's not a lot of harm to it.

Disagreements aren't base breakers, could be literally two people who think something sucks which isn't really grounds for a broken base.

That literally only works if we start making large-scale screenings of fanbases' opinions. The whole reason why YMMV is usually held to a "it's an opinion" standard is because there is no other reasonable standard. So still no.

Yeah, what was I thinking. Fine, let YMMV be a place for fringe opinion.

Just so to be clear, my previous post wasn't meant to "out-shout" you. If it came off like that I apologize for it.

It's OK Sep, just don't think I'll ever get YMMV tropes like this.

Heh, you're not alone. I'll settle for mastering the Main/ tropes. That's enough for a lifetime, anyway.

Perhaps I should stay out of YMMV. It's got the Darth Wiki skin for a reason :P (nothing against Darth Wiki's skin though).

Ah, Darth Wiki, the last bastion of the complaining nobody actually wants. Anyway, I've got nothing to say regarding the trope itself, just needs widening so widen it up. I'm sure it'll be back here soon once someone notices it really is just complaining.

edited 23rd Jan '14 12:28:54 AM by treelo

Tropes about complaining are going to attract a certain amount of Hate Dumb by their very nature, so unless it really gets out of hand I think we should just ignore it.

If the trope is simply "a few people have a different opinion about something," then just about every aspect of any work could cause a broken base. If that's the case, there's no purpose to having the trope at all. Just about nothing gets completely universal acclaim or scorn.

I think YMMV tropes, in spite of being subjective, are supposed to represent some significant portion of the population's opinion. If any troper can put include any trope just because they personally feel that way, no matter how ridiculous their rationale, there's no point to it. YMMV tropes are supposed to describe common reactions to the work, not be a sequence of mini reviews.

So, I think the Broken Base trope should be limited only to instances where there's an actual, major, well-known division in the fanbase of a work.

Clock is set.