Do genre indices require context?

Seeking clarification:

@shimaspawn put on the Mod Hat in this YKTTW for the "Kart Racer" video game genre, saying that it could not be launched because the vast majority of examples had no context. Okay, fair enough.

I went over to the Fighting Game page to try to get some inspiration for how entries in genre pages are usually given context, only to find that literally none of the entries on that page have any context whatsoever.

Confused, I went to the Fighting Game Discussion page to ask what the deal was. I was told there that Fighting Game is an index, and that index pages don't require context the way trope pages do.

I went back to the Kart Racer YKTTW and reported my findings in Fighting Game and suggested that Kart Racer should probably also be an index. @shimaspawn put her Mod Hat back on and said (direct quote), "Just because a page does indexing doesn't mean it's not still a trope. This page has a definition. It has a defined trope. ...The existence of other poorly written pages does not give this one a free pass."

Okay, that also seems to make a certain amount of sense. So judging from that, the Fighting Game page, since it both functions as an index and has a trope description, also requires context for its entries and it's just that no one's taken the time to add any yet. Cool beans.

So, based on that, the correct thing to do would be to add context to all Zero Context Examples on the Kart Racer YKTTW before launching, and also add context to as many of the ZCE entries on the Fighting Game page as possible, right?

Still, that would be a semi-major action to take on a large and established page, so I wanted to double-check that I was going about this the right way, so I first asked @shimaspawn on that same YKTTW thread for clarification, and when I received no response, brought the question to Ask The Tropers. There, I got the following response from @Fighteer:

"There is nothing stopping an article from being both a trope and an index; however, genre tropes like Kart Racer should function as indexes. Indexed articles are permitted to have context; typically this is done with a soft line break after the bulleted item. However, this is not normally done for work indexes, only trope indexes, and the context is the laconic of the trope."

Okay, so now I'm getting two different answers from two different mods. According to @Shimaspawn, everything with a trope description needs context for its entries, whether it's an index or not. According to @Fighteer, context is optional for indices of tropes, and genre indices of works do not get context.

After waiting a couple days to let the mods figure it out among themselves, I asked if a decision had been made. I was told by @Septimus Heap that there had been no official decision and that he recommended that I take the question here, so here I am.

I honestly don't feel strongly one way or the other, I'd just like figure out what the rule is so that Kart Racer and a couple of other nascent genre pages on YKTTW can move forward. What's the process for figuring this out?

edited 28th Oct '15 9:30:01 AM by HighCrate

I'm not really sure what context you could post for a genre page. For example:

• Mario Kart 8 is a racing game where everyone is in a go-kart. It has items that you attack other racers with.

That's just restating the page description, and it's kind of word cruft-ish, too.

edited 27th Oct '15 10:21:51 AM by videogmer314

Yeah, I mean, theoretically there could be some talk about which genre conventions are played straight and which ones are tweaked, Played With, Downplayed, taken Up To Eleven, etc., and for some examples that might be pretty interesting, but for a lot of others it would just be a long list of "X, Y, and Z genre conventions are played straight."

Especially in a genre like Kart Racer, where so many entries really are just Mario Kart clones with different licensed characters.

This is exactly my reasoning. Genre indices, like medium indices, platform indices, creator indices, etc., are inherently context-free. It is not necessary to justify why a work belongs, since it should be patent. These are "above the line" tropes in that they go in an article's description, not in its example list, and are used to index it.

edited 27th Oct '15 11:57:21 AM by Fighteer

I should add that all the entries do have some context in that they list the source work (or if the game is based on something original), since even the Trope Maker has a source work.

I'd like to point out that there was a similar question a while back in regards to Title Tropes and Zero Context Examples. It was eventually decided Title Tropes would be one of the few exceptions to needing to be fully explained simply because the work's title provides all the context. Maybe the same can be said for straight-forward genres like Fighting Game, Kart Racer, ect. Otherwise, as already pointed out, one would simply be stating the same description over and over again.

Genres are technically tropes in that they define the look and feel of a work even in spite of not defining stories themselves. That's probably why Shimaspawn had put down a red flag in regards to Kart Racer examples not being fully explained.

edited 27th Oct '15 1:51:03 PM by KarjamP

Yeah, there's not a lot of room for context when any relevant context is either in the work's title or the name of the trope in question.

On an unrelated side note, why is the description on Title Tropes in all italics?

I do hope you are joking. I really do.

edited 27th Oct '15 2:26:06 PM by TotemicHero

Hold on. I've got a perfect compromise. I can't believe I didn't think of it before. How about this: after every entry, we put the words "And how!" as context!

That's pretty win-win, right?

I don't think genre tropes need context, unless some clarification is needed (such as if it's not obvious from a cursory glance or if there are unusual elements), or if the genre lends itself to many variations (like Science Fantasy).

Come on. The proper term is "full stop".

Coming to a full stop is generally not conducive to being a good kart racer, though.

Unless it's your opponent.

I'm just not convinced that Kart Racer is a genre and not a trope. I've run into far more games where it's a stock minigame than the whole game. Yes, there is the classic Mario Kart and its clones, but the trope is really common outside of those games.

There's also the fact that there are things to mention about how the trope plays out. How many opponents do you have? What sort of power-ups do you get and what do they do? Are you stuck to one course or are there short-cuts? What percentage of the gameplay is it? Do you race in actual go karts? Or do you race in some weird equivalent like golf carts or jet skis or clown cars or law mowers?

edited 28th Oct '15 10:46:16 AM by shimaspawn

All of that is above-the-line stuff. If there are mini-games within the main product, that would go under the Mini-Game trope.

Just throwing out there that Racing Minigame lists "I Can't Believe It's Not Mario Kart" as one of its three main "flavors," and there's also the Wacky Racing trope for story examples. No matter what else is decided here, there are plenty of examples that would belong in one or both of those places but would not belong in a Kart Racer genre index because they are not full video games.

@13 — to illustrate why I feel this is a genre trope; those questions should all be answered in the description, even if we didn't have this index. A genre index should be to help interested parties in finding similar works, and therefore minigames wouldn't count as an example, nor would movies or books. I can perhaps see a tabletop game imitating the design, but that's a rare exception that might need explanation, not a common element of the index itself.

Wanting a more comprehensive look at the way things are currently done, I decided to do a quick analysis on how the pages indexed on the Video Game Genres index are treated. Much like a wick check, I took a random sample of 50; finding that the random sample did not include some large and important genres like Western RPG and Sports Game, I added those, for a total of 58.

I did not look at any of the entries under the "modifiers that can be applied to the genre of a game" heading or the "distinctive ways a game can be marketed or categorized" heading, only the main genre list.

I placed each genre page that I examined in one of four categories based on the amount of context (if any) its entries contain:

• None: The vast majority of entries are just a title, with no other context whatsoever.
• Optional: Context appears to be treated as optional; while many entries are just a title, a significant number have some amount of text, mostly identifying significant variations on genre conventions or hybrids with another genre.
• Partial: Almost all entries have at least some text, but most would fail the usual "someone unfamiliar with the example should be able to tell if it's a legit example" standard used on trope and work pages. It is unclear whether context is treated as being required.
• Full: Almost all entries have full example context that would meet the usual standard used on trope and work pages. A few entries may have zero or insufficient context, but no more than usual for a comparable trope or work page. Context appears to be treated as required.

Here are my findings:

• Action-Adventure: None
• Metroidvania: Partial
• Stealth-Based Game: Optional
• Survival Horror: None
• Action Game: None
• Platform Game: None
• Cinematic Platform Game: Optional
• Elimination Platformer: None
• Beat 'em Up: Optional
• Hack and Slash: None
• Spectacle Fighter: Optional
• Fighting Game: None
• Mascot Fighter: Partial (most only mention what franchise(s) the characters come

from)

• Platform Fighter: None (with the exception of a handful that explain that they are

minigames, which are likely Not An Example and should be moved to Mini-Game)

• First-Person Shooter: None
• Light Gun Game: Optional
• Rail Shooter: Optional (most of those that do have context are explaining that only a small portion of the game is a Rail Shooter; these may not count as examples and may need to be removed)
• Shoot 'Em Up: Optional (most context only establishes notable deviations from genre conventions, like those that have RPG Elements)
• Bullet Hell: Ubiquitous
• Cute 'em Up: Optional
• Horizontal Scrolling Shooter: None
• Vertical Scrolling Shooter: None (a handful have a very short blurb after the title, but just for interesting variations such as "in this one you ride a Pegasus!")
• Third-Person Shooter: None
• Vehicular Combat: Partial
• Adventure Game: None
• Dating Sim: Optional
• Environmental Narrative Game: Ubiquitous
• Full Motion Video: Optional
• Interactive Fiction: None
• Point-and-Click Game: Optional
• Room Escape Game: Optional
• Visual Novel: None (may be a special case; although listed under the Video Game Genres index, it is noted in the description and treated in most places throughout the wiki as a separate medium)
• Art Game: None
• Breaking Out: Partial
• Card Battle Game: Optional
• Casual Video Game: None
• Minigame Game: Optional
• Party Game: None
• Digging Game: None
• Digital Pinball Tables: None
• Edutainment Game: None
• Endless Running Game: Partial
• Escort Game: Ubiquitous
• Turn-Based Tactics: Partial
• Turn-Based Strategy: None
• Tower Defense: None
• Real-Time Strategy: None
• 4X: Partial
• Sports Game: None
• Racing Game: None
• Simulation Game: Optional
• Western RPG: None
• Strategy RPG: None
• Roguelike: Optional
• Eastern RPG: None
• Action RPG: None
• Rhythm Game: None in the main section; there is another section for "Games which contain rhythm elements" which would count as Partial
• Puzzle Game: None

Totals:

No Context: 32 Optional Context: 16 Partial Context: 7 Full Context: 3

Conclusion: As of right now, the vast majority of video game genre indices either have no context at all, or treat context as strictly optional.

Caveat 1: That doesn't mean that we shouldn't require context on genre indices, just that right now we don't, either because it's not currently the rule or because the rule has been very poorly enforced.

Caveat 2: These findings apply only to genre indices. In the specific case of the Kart Racer YKTTW, there is at least some controversy over whether it should be considered a genre or a trope. If we ultimately decide on the latter, these findings have no bearing on that YKTTW.

Recommendation 1: That we declare that genre indices do not require example text the way that trope or work pages do. So long as it is reasonably apparent from the work page that a work belongs in an indexed genre, it can go on that genre's index without requiring further context on the index page.

Recommendation 2: In the event that Recommendation 1 is rejected, a Project thread be started to add context to those genre indices which lack it.

Recommendation 3: "And how!" shall be declared sufficient context in all cases, but only in the event that monkeys fly out of my butt.

edited 28th Oct '15 2:38:05 PM by HighCrate

Well I put up the ykttw, and I meant to include even kart racing mini games, as well as other works that feature kart racing (Wreck-It Ralp), so I guess it would count as a trope, and require context.

Just the issue is what context would be sufficient? If any of you can contribute to that, it would be very helpful.

How many opponents do you have? What sort of power-ups do you get and what do they do? Are you stuck to one course or are there short-cuts? What percentage of the gameplay is it? Do you race in actual go karts? Or do you race in some weird equivalent like golf carts or jet skis or clown cars or law mowers? What percentage of the work does it take up?

Any or all of those things can give context to how it's used in the work.

Ok I think even some basic research can fill some of those in for most of the entries.

As mentioned upthread, Wreck-It Ralph is Wacky Racing. It's even on the page already, despite lacking complete context.

Racing Game is the genre index equivalent of The Big Race.

Wacky Racing is when The Big Race takes place with abnormal rules, such as go-kart racing.

Racing Minigame covers when a Racing Game takes place as a Mini-Game.

So we don't need an index for go-kart minigames, or a trope page for gokarts. The YKTTW would work best as a page for the go-kart sub-genre of Racing Game.

edited 28th Oct '15 8:23:35 PM by crazysamaritan

Where did I claim it was a genre index in the post you're pointing to? I explicitly wrote that it was a trope.

Yeah, the status of the YKTTW as trope/index has been under debate since ~High Crate's comment in the YKTTW. This thread was created with the premise that the page is a Genre index.

That was more a step in the creation of this. The point of the thread is about genre indexes in general.

Nevermind, got caught within the same misunderstanding in what this thread's supposed to be about than Shimaspawn.

As pointed out, this thread's supposed to be about genres in general, not just Kart Racer.

edited 29th Oct '15 12:39:27 AM by KarjamP