Tropes thematic sorting in a work page

First, I apologize if there is an existing topic about this. If any, I could find it.

However, I sometimes find the alphabetical sorting of tropes in a work confusing, as lists all tropes in a work equally, while some tropes are "background events", other are plot relevant, other are plot foundations. There are also plot tropes, setting tropes, etc. We already distinguish character tropes and single episode/season tropes from the main page, so I hope we can find a more functional way to lists tropes in a work.

Some pages do break the tropes into Plot, Characters, Setting, and other distinctions, and then alphabetically list them there. There's no reason to not do this with every page AFAIK, but it's something that should probably be hashed out in discussion before doing to make sure that the tropes are categorized properly.

See Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Gunnerkrigg Court, and Neon Genesis Evangelion for examples.

edited 30th Jun '14 3:59:54 AM by Willbyr

The problem there is that someone who isn't familiar with the sorting of the examples or the hierarchy of tropes may not know where to insert examples, so will put them wherever. This kind of sorting would be better handled in the underlying code, with examples treated as data elements with meta tags and presented interactively according to the user's desires. Of course, we're about as far from that as we are from sending a manned mission to Mars.

That, and it makes searching for specific examples harder, and not just for newer tropers. The same trope can end up in different sections on different work pages based on how it gets handled.

For example, take the Deadpan Snarker example on the Gunnerkrigg Court page. It's not in the Characters section (where you would expect it), but instead can be found under Meta.

Not particularly sussed by this suggestion. For one thing, thematic sorting is likely to create controversy about where a given trope fits, with examples being added to the (in some people's eyes) wrong section. We've already having problems with one of the thematic splits (Dungeons & Dragons) because that page has to be split due to size concerns but the current sorting scheme isn't well suited to that.

I think it probably works better on pages for video games, like Dwarf Fortress or Touhou. There is a much clearer division between "characterization and story" and "game play mechanics".

The easiest way to demarcate tropes is by what index(es) they are on. Not that I am recommending this, of course.

Uhm... I sounded naive, didn't I?

However, some considerations: 1. The examples posted are exactly what I had in mind. But why they are sorted? Are they part of an experimental project or what? 2. The flexibility of tropes is a trouble. However, I reasonably believe that mostly the tropes fits their index. The idea of starting from videogames sounds interesting. We'll treat problematic pages later, when tropers'll have familiarity with the thing. 3. Maybe we could work on the index system. Tropes that ie are on Characterization Tropes Index will be automatically listed on that category. Is that possible? Why is not recommanded?

edited 4th Jul '14 11:04:28 AM by BlackInkT

1) They are sorted that way because the tropers who wrote the page sorted them that way.

2) Just because a trope is on an index does not mean it will get used that way by any given work. Conversational Troping and other meta gags do exist.

3) Last I checked, this site's programming is handled by 1.5 people, and they have far more important projects on their plate, like the page creation/namespace revamp.

I say we get a crowner going and vote on this. I don't think it will be settled otherwise. For my vote, I find sorting them by narrative/meta/whatever to be too confusing for its own good. We're having trouble splitting TabletopGame.Dungeons And Dragons due to this weird way of doing things, and I've always been hesitant to add things to similar pages.

Ok for the crowner.

We don't need a crowner. The best way to organize a trope list is alphabetically. Nothing else has ever worked. Let's don't spend any more time trying to force thematics to work.

The policy has been and still is to list them alphabetically.