Self-Demonstrating Character Pages

So apparently the self-demonstrating page I created for Charizard was deleted. I could somehow sense that the character articles were getting out of hand, but since nobody really had a problem with it I just decided to run with it.

However, this deletion hints that rules should be in place for self-demonstrating character pages, so does anyone have suggestions for what the rules should be?

I have a few:

• Deadpool has one, no questions asked (even if everyone else's are deleted). Especially Charizard's.
• The character must be able to speak English (or other intelligible languages), except for Rule of Funny (like with Groot's page). Charizard violated this rule. Kyoko's page is fine since she'd be speaking Japanese, for example, which is simply "translated" for reader convenience (largely based on the official subtitles).
• There can be a forum thread where people can post their drafts and suggestions for character pages, similar to the Fanon Pokédex. In this case, new character pages can't be started without being reviewed in the thread. This is to avoid having the wiki oversaturated with pages for characters with boring personalities (like Shu Ouma) or ones with strange speech patterns that aren't for Rule of Funny purposes like Charizard. I can just imagine the chaos that would have ensued if other tropers had decided to follow my lead and create Pokémon Speak pages for about 30 other species of Pokémon.

Any thoughts?

edited 23rd May '14 11:40:21 AM by DarthMegatron

Frankly, I want to know the reasons why that page was cut before trying to read too much into it.

I have no idea myself. But as much fun as it was writing for my favorite Pokémon, it does seem that there should be some rules in place for these pages.

I can explain that one easily; Everything trope description was some kind of roar while potholing what it "meant". It was a giant sinkhole overall.

There was no legitimate meat to the page itself, it wasn't even terribly funny. I think it might've been funny if a troper page set that up as a joke, but as a more legitimate page, it was very weak overall in quality. Just... bad.

I did not throw it on the cutlist, but that was more or less the general reason behind it.

If I'm not mistaken here, I don't think anyone thinks the Just for Fun pages are legitimate pages in any way, shape or form. The name says it all: they're just for fun.

Sure, it might not have been a goldmine of humor, but I feel that as long as it isn't "headachingly" pointless (for instance, if the page is literally just gibberish and a picture of an inverted Scooby Doo for some reason), then the page has every right to stick around. Don't think it's funny? Humor's subjective. I don't think it's all that funny myself, but that doesn't mean other people might've not as well. The taste of a handful of individuals shouldn't dictate the tone of every portion of the site. Many many people create this site's content, and I think that's all that needs to be said here.

Here is the current list of character SD pages.

Other than Deadpool (someone really needs to turn the ComicBook/ page from a redirect into an actual work page), none of them seem problematic. I see no problem in making new ones, as long as it doesn't copy the gag of an existing one. Personally, I think the Charizard case as described (or any Pokemon case involving Pokémon Speak) is a little too close to Groot.

(One of these days, I'll get around to constructing an Elminster page, which ought to be interesting for its own reasons.)

edited 23rd May '14 5:03:30 PM by TotemicHero

I created the pages for both Groot and Charizard; Charizard was mostly for Rule of Cool reasons, but in retrospect, I agree that a page for a character who can't speak intelligibly isn't a good idea (except if it relies on Rule of Funny), due to excessive potholing. So a page for Chewbacca would be a bad idea for similar reasons; the logical extension of this kind of thing would be a page for the shark from Jaws, which would probably be the worst page on this wiki. But a few Pokémon (especially Pikachu), could make for a funny enough Pokémon Speak page, as would a few other characters like Hodor from A Game Of Thrones. (Part of why Charizard's page wasn't that funny was that his speech didn't entirely consist of Pokémon Speak.)

However, there are other pages that have issues. Eric Cartman only consists of one blurb, and Dr Eggman is only half-finished. There's technically no problem for Shu Ouma, but some Guilty Crown fans should try to make the page more interesting.

Though the Jaws thing gave me a couple of ideas:

• A page for the shark from Jaws, meant to be intentionally awful and to parody lame Self-Demonstrating character pages made purely for fanboy reasons. And yes, this is a Stealth Pun for Jumping the Shark.
• A page for Link from The Legend of Zelda, consisting entirely of underscores since Link is a silent protagonist. "______ _________ _____________ ________", etc.

edited 23rd May '14 8:12:56 PM by DarthMegatron

I think that Link one would be less self-demonstrating and more fandom-demonstrating. If you actually give him lines, he'll talk. The same idea would probably work better for someone like Lassie, by having someone else say what she supposedly said.

I don't think self-demonstrating pages have to be funny for everyone. As long as they're actually in-character (in a meta-way, anyway), and have a point. They're in their own namespace specifically to allow for more freedom than the wiki proper.

By the way, there's problems with the fact that self-demonstrating articles tend to be sinkholes, despite being in the Self-Demonstrating namespace (as is the case with at least SelfDemonstrating.The Joker. The fact that he doesn't have a equivalent non-self-demonstrating page does not help).

I think we need to regulate Self-Demonstating character pages so that we could control them better.

To be honest, I do not see any problems with Self Demo articles at all. Now, if they are the only page on a more important character that's a problem, but the fix is to create a work page for them, not to screw around with the Self Demo one.

The joker is already on Characters.Batman Rogues Gallery, Characters.DCAU-BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesRoguesGallery, Batman: Arkham Series – Rogues Gallery (Asylum), of course SelfDemonstrating.The Joker and a few other pages. The Joker doesn't need a general non-selfDemonstrating page.

edited 24th May '14 9:24:01 AM by m8e

I'd say having a self-demonstrating article is kind of irrelevant to having a real wiki page for the character, and vice versa. However, if you do have the former and not the latter, there's probably material enough on the former to create the latter if you really think it's necessary to create one. And if there's a work page with a character page and the character is there, it's not really necessary for a single character page just because there's a self-demonstrating page.

Then why is SelfDemonstrating.The Joker a common sinkhole, of all places?

SelfDemonstrating.Deadpool also tends to be potholed quite commongly, but at least his article's more bearable, due to his nature as being a Fourth-Wall Observer, and him commenting about himself on stuff like this is very in-character for him.

And then there's pages like SelfDemonstrating.Lex Luthor and SelfDemonstrating.Doctor Doom, where they portray characters as describing themselves and their roles in the comics, despite them normally not being fourth wall aware at all. (And, checking their respective related to pages, they are also sinkhole magnets.)

edited 24th May '14 2:48:57 PM by KarjamP

A big problem is that many of these Self Demo pages don't have a proper page on the character attached. They need them since these characters are usually franchise-like enough to justify a work page.

Just created a page for Pikachu, because unlike Charizard, it does run on Rule of Funny (partly due to how annoying Pikachu is to many fans, and also with the page being based on its Uncyclopedia article).

Well, that didn't end well. (You can read the details in Ask The Tropers.)

I think we're basically going to have to require these pages (or possibly any Just for Fun page) go through the Sandbox namespace and getting peer reviewed before making it onto the main wiki. (Alternately, we could take them through YKTTW, but I'm not sure that as it is YKTTW is built to handle humor effectively and correctly.)

Does anyone know where I can find discussion about Groot being deleted? I don't intend to restore the page, but would like to know why it was deleted after all and/or if there are new rules being established.

edited 20th Jun '14 4:29:40 PM by DarthMegatron

Was that the one with nothing but the word "Groot" over and over? Not sure why anyone would miss it.

Humor isn't real easy to make rules for, but I think it is safe to say that anything requiring more than three repetitions of ... anything ... runs out of funny on the fourth rep, then starts heading into negative territory from there on.

I think one such page wouldn't be too bad, as long as it was kept short, which Groot honestly wasn't. And then you made two other pages with a similar gag, which made the whole thing look too pushy. (The old saying of "never tell the same joke twice" comes to mind.)

In regards to managing humor on the site, I wonder if a P5-style committee might be in order. Between Stingers, Self-Demonstrating pages, Just for Fun pages, image captions, and so on, that's a lot of material that contributes to any sort of humorous informality we want. It seems like we do need some way of setting some guidelines or reviewing these things for problems.

I doubt that a few pages by one editor (because that is basically what is going on here) are a good reason for a bureaucratic fix like another 5P panel, and I doubt even more that other humour things on the wiki are managed poorly as is.

True, an official panel might be too much. I just thought having an established method of dealing with people raising complaints about the site's humor (because it has happened before, trust me) wouldn't be a bad thing. Maybe an established thread in Long Term Projects could work.

There will always be people who are confused by anything other than just-the-facts-Ma'am articles. There will also be people whose sense of humor just doesn't work. This is why we're not all comedians and we don't all go to comedy clubs.

It might be a good idea to take future Just for Fun stuff to YKTTW first. Being funny is hard, but we can't just give up trying.

Would pages for Pokémon Speak characters be acceptable if:

a) they use Translation Convention (such as in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon), or

b) the page assumes that the character can type in English if it doesn't contradict canon? (For example, the Pokémon anime established that Pokémon can communicate in human language if given the appropriate outlet, such as possessing/mind-controlling a human like a Yamask and a Malamar did at one point)

In these cases, the article text would be in English, while there would be a few "vocalizations" in Pokémon Speak to show the character's actions, reactions, etc.

For example:

Pika, pika pi ka pikachu... *goes up to keyboard*

(We Pokémon can type in human language! Are you surprised?)

or

I am Groot.

(I can fully understand if you can't grasp the nuances of my species' vocalizations, for our vocal cords harden at maturity.)

edited 23rd Oct '14 11:18:17 AM by Darthrai

No. We are not here to host your fanfiction.

Uh-oh, look what popped up...

edited 19th Nov '14 9:59:25 PM by Darthrai