Generally speaking for a trope to be a trope on not just chairs it needs to have a meaning that is more than X plus Y or "this person has this thing". If there is really nothing more to the trope than beard-plus-badass that might be a problem with the trope, rather than the zero content policy (in fact, all the badass tropes are under review because of this issue).
Editing suspensions are not a punishment, they are a way to immediately stop the bleeding and send an unmistakeable "come talk to us" message.
For the Badass Beard example you gave, examples are usually works, so a truly zero (like 0%, not just "too low") context example wouldn't even tell the reader which character fits that trope. Entries should be useful to people who haven't consumed the work. "In <work>, <so-and-so> eats nails and sports a thick beard" is way (way) more useful than nothing but the name of the work, or even the name of the work plus the name of the character. If you think there are cases where a ZCE is good enough, you don't understand why ZCEs are bad. (BTW the policy is not "understand why it's bad", it's "don't do it".) All examples should always have some context; if it's repetitive then at the very least the entries are poorly written, though maybe the article itself has some Not A Trope problems for TRS to look at, too.
edited 23rd Jul '14 10:26:02 AM by rodneyAnonymous
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
With the badass beard example, this was on the character page under the applicable character entries, not on the work page without any examples of characters.
Ok. Still. Why and how does it apply? Assume the person reading has no idea about the work.
edited 23rd Jul '14 10:40:06 AM by rodneyAnonymous
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
Also, entries that don't explain how they apply are boring. Few want to read a bulleted list with no content.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
How does it apply? The character is capable of handling themselves in dangerous situations, hence, badass, and they have more facial hair than would count as Perma-Stubble or Badass Mustache.
That is not the common usage of badass, for one thing. For the other thing, you need to say what kind of beard it is. For the third thing, "Badass + beard" is not enough to make that trope.
Yeah, these are roughly the reasons why we don't accept these examples.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Zzzzzzzzzz
A Badass Beard isn't simply "Character is badass and has a beard". It's "Beard as an indicator that he's badass."
So the context is "How does his beard indicate that he's particularly badass?" If you can't answer that question, then it's not a Badass Beard — it's a beard on a badass, but it's not an example of the trope.
edited 23rd Jul '14 11:05:37 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
So for the past couple days I've been filling out the character page for [1]. A whole lot of trope entries have been marked out due to them not having any context.
With several tropes I can understand this, but certain tropes are, after all, Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Do we really need context for things like Badass Beard or Beard of Evil? The name of the trope is rather self evident, isn't it?
I'd rather not have to read "He's badass. He has a beard." next to every badass beard entry on every applicable character on the wiki, but that's just me.