Condemned by History cleanup thread

No, if it has to say, better for it to stay as-is. I'm just not convinced that it should stay. But since I'm apparently the only person who feels that way, like I said, ultimately I'll abide by the consensus.

Actually, the lack-of-syndication thing is the only reason I voted fence on HIMYM. Otherwise, I'd be a solid cut vote. I haven't actually seen any evidence that that people have decided to dislike earlier episodes just because they failed to stick the landing. And it makes no sense to me—but I realize that people often do things that make no sense. Personally, I'm not much of a sitcom fan, but the ending made zero difference to my opinion of the show.

On the other hand, syndication may not be as reliable a metric as it once was, since non-traditional distribution channels are growing in importance. Also, it may simply be that the creators want more than the distribution channel is willing to pay because they disagree on the amount of backlash—which would not demonstrate that the backlash has reached the levels necessary for this trope. Merely that there's disagreement on how large the backlash is.

As an argument for cutting, I note that the actors continue to be popular, and that Neil Patrick Harris's character continues to be a source for image macros and the like. If the backlash were as severe as some are suggesting, I don't think that would be the case.

Overall...yeah, I think I have to switch my vote to cut on HIMYM. I've talked myself into it—but only after hearing no convincing arguments from the keep side.

eta: since this is a "bashing" trope, we should always err on the side of cut. If further evidence comes in, we can revisit a question, but if there's any doubt, cut should be our default response. So, basically, I have doubts here, and therefore...

edited 10th Oct '16 1:02:04 PM by Xtifr

I'll go ahead and vote cut for HIMYM based on .

That brings the tally to:

• HIMYM
  • Keep: Largo, Larkmarn, Phi, Spino
  • Cut: Crate, Laptop, Willbyr, Xfitr

Should we give this a bit longer to see if we can break the logjam?

Personally, I'd say keep HIMYM because of how badly its finale hurt it in the eyes of the viewers. It was a well-liked show for a long time, and the ending soured it for a huge portion of the fanbase, mostly because of the whole "by the way, the mother's dead" thing.

And it doesn't help that Values Dissonance was very unkind to it. The finale baaaaaaaaasically went ahead and said "a woman's purpose is to have babies. Duh." Which led to some impressive Unfortunate Implications. And a lot of that could have been overlooked if the finale didn't double down on it.

Seriously, the show was so obsessed with the Babies Make Everything Better trope that even earlier episode are incredibly uncomfortable now.

Personally I think the How I Met Your Mother example should be cut.

Like Xtifr, I haven’t seen enough evidence that people are unable to re-watch the series just because of the ending.

Plus I wouldn’t have thought a series that was Deader Than Disco would still be showing double-bills of episodes twice a day on E4.

Two examples I'm a little uncomfortable with are Austin Powers and Soul Eater (not just because I like them either). The former is still shown on TV occasionally and never got that big of a backlash. The main reason a fourth movie hasn't been made is more because of Mike Myers being unpopular than the franchise itself.

As for Soul Eater, the manga might have gotten a slight backlash but the anime is generally considered to be really good (and still popular with AMV people). Doesn't help that it's a Cult Classic to begin with. I'm also a big fan of the series and haven't seen that big of a backlash (at least for the anime).

Finally AM Vs are still too popular to be Deader Than Disco (not sure if we've discussed this one) and are still made in the dozens today. Same with character tributes.

I say cut Soul Eater. It still has a significant fanbase who thinks fondĺy of it despite the finale.

This is the current HIMYM tally:

• Keep: Fox, Largo, Larkmarn, Phi, Spino
• Cut: Anddrix, Crate, Laptop, Willbyr, Xfitr

We did say that we'd cut an example if a consensus couldn't be reached, but since people on both sides appear to feel strongly about the issue & aren't throwing in their votes lightly, I'm inclined to give it just a bit longer.

edited 13th Oct '16 8:45:42 AM by Spinosegnosaurus77

I seem to recall that I either added the original HIMYM example or heavily edited it at some point. Regardless, the way I feel about that example has generally stayed the same.

The show got a huge backlash from that ending, which I believe is largely (though not solely) to blame for the "How I Met Your Father" script not getting picked up. Attempting to recreate the concept of a show which had just done the same thing for nine years and resulted in a large amount of critical backlash is something CBS wasn't willing to do (nor any other network, apparently).

That being said, the connection is a bit tenuous. I can see why people would want to delete it, if only for the fact that series is still fairly recent. Not sure I have an concrete answer for you on which way to go.

I agree, cut Soul Eater. We haven't gotten around to DeaderThanDisco.Film yet, we can discuss Austin Powers when we do.

As for DeaderThanDisco.Live Action TV, it seems like the big points of contention right now are American Idol, HIMYM, and Glee, and those have been logjammed for a while.

I'm willing to back down on American Idol, although I'd feel better about it if someone more knowledgeable than I am would trim its entry, which right now is a freaking three-paragraph essay of which the middle paragraph is a Wall of Text.

HIMYM I'm still pretty firmly "cut" on.

The Glee entry just plain doesn't describe DTD. It describes Seasonal Rot and/or Jump the Shark. I cannot in good conscience support its inclusion unless someone sees fit to fix this.

Since we've reached something like consensus on the vast majority of cuts, in 48 hours I'm going to move the Sandbox page over. We can keep discussing the contentious examples and reinstate them if necessary, but past a certain point, it's better to do anything than nothing. If nothing else, maybe making the cuts will bring more voices into this thread who can break the logjam.

edited 13th Oct '16 11:43:47 AM by HighCrate

Oh man, the film section is going to take a while...

Keep HIMYM in my opinion.

It's definitely a mess. Most of them are either about Award Snub or describing films/actors who just aren't popular/well-remembered any more.

We're gonna have a field day with the actors and directors…

Is Trump DTD yet? After that tape came out last week something related to him is bound to hit that status: Billy Bush? The Apprentice? Trump Organization? Is he going to get the Savile/Cosby treatment? It's too soon to tell but I got a feeling.

I'm not sure we want to go there.

I'm very sure that we do not.

Jimmy Savile and Bill Cosby weren't/aren't current, highly controversial political figures prior to their scandals.

Trying to include anything related to Trump on the DTD pages would be a clear violation of the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment.

I haven't been in this topic for a while, because I haven't really had enough knowledge to vote on the stuff that's been talked about. I'll vote cut on HIMYM and keep on American Idol and Glee.

Never mind the fact that thinking this will really affect Trump is wishful thinking. The man's powered through dozens of things that, for any other candidate, would have put him in the ground and kept on chugging.

This is seriously, seriously not the place for this conversation.

Yes, we have a perfectly suited US Politics thread in On-Topic Conversations for this topic.

There also needs to be a bit of time to see if the backlash sticks, or if it's just a temporary setback, no matter the example. The first reactions of just about anything are usually much more extreme than the more lasting opinions, and this is about lasting opinions.

I'm pretty sure that Trump's not DTD yet, seeing as he's... well, a current presidential candidate.

While it's very possible that he will become DTD in the future, we won't know for sure until we see whether or not the (rather large) backlash against him sticks, and how much it affects him. I'd say it's best if we wait this out for now.