Needs Help: Scandal Gate

You know that Flame Bait scandal that is taboo on the wiki? Well it's on obvious example of this trope and someone did the obvious thing. It has me wondering, Should we make the page In Universe Examples Only? (If it doesn't have one already, The tropenaming scandal should have a Useful Notes page if it)

Also "Potential Flame Bait" should be in the listing reasons

edited 13th Nov '14 3:41:31 PM by MorningStar1337

I'm not entirely sure what you're suggesting here? Are you asking if it's okay to add Gamer Gate as an example? or saying that if we aren't going to, we should make the examples In-universe Only?

I wouldn't be averse to that; looking through the Real Life folder, I have to wonder how many of those "examples" are actually widespread names for scandals, and how many are what someone or a small group of people called them. I don't recall ever hearing the Whitewater thing being called "Whitewatergate", the Iran-Contra affair being called anything like "Irangate" or "Contragate" or the flap over the Duck Dynasty thing "Duck Dynastygate".

In fact, since there's a link to Wikipedia's "List of "-gate" scandals" in the introduction, I don't see that we nee a Real Life folder there at all.

edited 14th Nov '14 5:57:44 AM by Madrugada

Scandals are pretty close to gossip in my mind.

It also kind of feels like if there's a scandal of any scale, there's a pretty high likelihood that at least one reporter will use such a name in an article somewhere, which would be enough to qualify for the trope. That's also what the description actually says, with different words.

The easiest solution would probably be to bring it up in the Real Life section maintenance thread, although I'd wonder what that would do to the examples masquerading as non-real-life examples.

I don't really buy "potential flame bait" as a reason unless there's been actual disputes about it. There is a bit in the history about the recent one I don't want to mention, but the page itself looks relatively clean. Not sure how to call that.

All in all, I don't see that there are any solid reasons to put it as In-Universe Examples Only, but there are several smaller ones, and I'm not sure I see any value of it on the page as-is.

So you're suggesting making this NRLEP?

Honestly, I don't see the point to it. The Gamergate issue has nothing to do with the trope itself. Modifying the trope to distance itself further seems like an unnecessary concession.

No, I'm not asking if its okay to add Gamer Gate as an example. I already got the answer the last few times I made GG questions in ATT.

Fair enough I'll ask about it there.

Paraphrase of the opinion I wrote in ATT:

The Scandal That Shall Not Be Named is a taboo subject, so it shouldn't be included for that reason alone, unless and until the hubbub dies down and site policy is changed to accomodate it.

Otherwise, I see no reason to exclude Real Life examples. Scandal Gate is a naming trope, so there's no reason to get into in-depth discussions of the scandals listed. The name and a BRIEF explanation of the scandal it's referring to should be sufficient. The page-long discussions of TSTSNBN were excessive even if the topic weren't taboo; something like "Scandal Gate: A [Subject]-related scandal that arose in [Year]" should be sufficient, maybe with a link to the appropriate wikipedia page for those who want more information.

Again, it's a naming trope. The only relevance that more in-depth details could have is limited to what makes the name appropriate.

The only detail that would need to be included in a hypothetical write-up of TSTSNBN would be the fact that it's centered around the gaming community. That's it. Any further details would just devolve into Flame Bait and would be totally impossible to write in a way that someone wouldn't take as being biased. And even that is too much right now, for reasons of the aforementioned topic ban.

I don't think it's a reason to make it NRLEP, but The Other Wiki provides all the info we need.

What's wrong with that?

Fictional examples of Video Phone, for instance, are outlined on The Other Wiki's own page on the subject. Heck, that entire wiki page itself is far more in-depth than our own writeup. Would anything that's already mentioned in that Wikipedia article be deemed as equally unnecessary to us, as well?

If there's a problem with information that can be found on The Other Wiki also being outlined here, we have a massive index of our own that's dedicated to listing all the topics/information/examples/etc. that are covered on both websites. There's plenty for us to try scrubbing through, if any of our site content is believed to be that redundant or unnecessary.

edited 17th Nov '14 9:25:57 AM by SeanMurrayI

Why shouldn't this trope have a Real Life section? This is a thing that happens in real life. That section certainly should be carefully maintained and inappropriate examples deleted. For example, "Whitewatergate" was not a thing. That big nothingburger of a fake scandal was called "Whitewater". "Duck Dynastygate" is not a thing.

Simply Googling either "Whitewatergate" and "Duck Dynastygate" returns articles, sources that refer to both of these separate events by those given names.

To share a few...

• Whitewatergate defined on Wiktionary
• Whitewatergate as the headline for a Baltimore Sun article from 1993
• Whitewatergate again mentioned in a headline from The Independent in 1994

"Duck Dynastygate" turns up fewer references from more obscure sources but has been called such nonetheless...

• Duck Dynastygate in Advertising Age
• "Duck Dynasty Gate" on some conservative blog

edited 17th Nov '14 10:43:07 AM by SeanMurrayI

Well, I am old enough to have lived through the Whitewater scandal, and virtually no one said "Whitewatergate". And just because some guy on a conservative blog wrote "Duck Dynasty-gate" once does not make it a real thing that more than a dozen people really said.

Or, to borrow from the first line of the article in The Other Wiki,

"The Whitewater controversy (also called the Whitewater scandal, or simply Whitewater)"...not "Whitewatergate".

Actually, if the threshold is as low as "there's a Google hit somewhere", I have to change my opinion. Cut the Real Life section, make this NRLEP.

edited 17th Nov '14 10:48:38 AM by gallium

My point isn't that "there's a Google hit somewhere". My point is that these terms have indeed been used to name these given events, despite your insistence that "virtually no one" uses them.

If you're not personally familiar with these events under those given terms, that's beside the point because these terms were still used.

Plus, I highly doubt the readership of a paper like The Independent counts as "virtually no one". And Wiktionary certainly wouldn't have a definition of the term Whitewatergate referring to the same scandal, if it wasn't notable.

edited 17th Nov '14 11:08:45 AM by SeanMurrayI

The line between real-life and in-universe looks a little murky here too. The anime examples look like they're all real life examples hiding out in the wrong folder; They're all about distribution of the works, not an occurrence in the works themselves. The other folders have a a spattering of this, too: Expendablegate, Lexicongate, Derpygate, Frozengate, Sporegate, and more. It definitely needs a clean-up.

I'm sorry, but you are just not correct. "Whitewatergate" was not the prevalent term. It was not even a commonly used term. And it is not what the scandal is called now, as the article at Wikipedia shows.

I now see what the commenters above are getting at. You could put every post-1973 scandal in the world in the Real Life section, apparently, as long as somebody somewhere once added "-gate" to the name of said scandal. And then there's the originally mentioned problem with That Current Scandal.

I was wrong above. No Real Life Examples Please.

edited 17th Nov '14 11:07:49 AM by gallium

"As Wikipedia shows", Whitewatergate is a redirect to that same article; see for yourself.

It's a term that is in use, and it refers to this very subject. Period.

edited 17th Nov '14 11:09:40 AM by SeanMurrayI

Yes, it's a re-direct. Because most people didn't call it that.

"It's a term that is in use, and it refers to this very subject. Period."

No and no.

edited 17th Nov '14 11:10:13 AM by gallium

A-yup. If we're going to put the threshold for inclusion at "someone, somewhere appended "-gate" to a word that was somehow somewhat relevant to the scandal," I'll go for In-Universe Examples only, or NRLEP.

I think some people are forgetting this site's standards for inclusion. Merely "someone, somewhere" is the extent of notability needed, not "prevalent" or "most people".

One obscure blog viewed by five people, including the troper, can count for any example. Because of that standard, Real Life examples are often going to be meaningless to us, as well as being covered by other wikis.

edited 17th Nov '14 11:50:09 AM by crazysamaritan

No such thing as notability applies to whether a work is notable enough to be used as an example.'' The trope under discussion is not simply, "someone, somewhere, once used this term". It's "a widespread pattern of naming."

Then we're going to have to rein it in, if not make it NRLEP, which is in effect a PRLC membership card handout for this page and another similar page. Perhaps a moderator note at the top of the page that makes clear what the standards for inclusion are should suffice?

edited 17th Nov '14 12:59:01 PM by ryanasaurus0077

Maddie, you've phrased it like you disagree with me, but we agree on everything that counts here.

What does "PRLC" mean? "Purge Real Life Content"

Oh yeah, forgot about that.

edited 17th Nov '14 1:30:21 PM by MorningStar1337

Permanent Red Link Club, for those that didn't understand just from the phrase "membership card handout".

The thing about "a widespread pattern of naming" is that that still holds true even if it's just one person who at one point uses the convention. There doesn't need to be a widespread pattern for that particular scandal, but for all scandals combined. Patterns, as far as tropes are concerned, are not internal to each example. There are some exceptions, but this isn't it, since the trope doesn't say it has to be a widespread use for that particular scandal. It's about a pattern of naming for scandals. Plural.

However, that also means the only thing that makes something not an example is not enough exposure, since the more people who know about it, the higher the probability of it being called something-gate approaches one. It's ends up being just a list of notable scandals, for whatever definition of "notable" you want to use. As such, I think Real Life examples aren't notable as a whole.

In other words, I'm still not opposed to making it No Real Life Examples, Please!, or preferably, In-Universe Examples Only.

I still don't see the point in making it NRLEP. Between There Is No Such Thing As Notability and the fact that "-gate" is very frequently used in media or news, I still just don't see the point in limiting it.