Needs Help: Acceptable Targets

This was recently brought up in ATT (by me) with this thread. Previous TRS efforts include this 2011 effort and this 2010 effort. The articles are YMMV based on the 2010 thread, but there wasn't a crowner (but that was seven years ago).

There are a number of problems with the Acceptable Targets pages (hence the plain "Needs Help").

1. Whether or not these are YMMV articles. There were two arguments in favor of this, both of which originate from the 2010 thread.
   1. Argument 1: "Which groups are acceptable targets and which ones are not varies from ... culture to culture. This 'trope' does not describe how reality is portrayed in fiction ... , and it doesn't describe our social reality itself in a way that on any level approaches being objective or neutral."
   2. Argument 2: "[These pages] should be treated equally to Unacceptable Targets. At present, Unacceptable Targets is considered YMMV... Whatever standards we agreed on, they should apply to both camps equally."
2. Some entries (e.g. individual politicians rather than political parties) and pages (e.g. Acceptable Political Targets) seem to inherently break the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment. The hive mind must discuss and decide whether to cut/ban such pages/entries.
3. Some of these pages seem to list "every group under the sun," which may make them effectively meaningless as far as articles go.
4. Weird, arguable, or just silly speculation. For example, the oppenents of the KKK on Acceptable Political Targets are labeled as being "Among by all leftist and centrists with some right-wing groups" when nowadays that group is almost universally opposed. And centrists are labeled as the opponents to the Occupy Wall Street movement. And the list goes on. This sort of thing was added relatively recently to the page, and it seems to be a unilateral decision.
5. Massive grammar and parabombing problems (esp. on Acceptable Political Targets and Acceptable Hard Luck Targets).
6. Natter and Word Cruft issues (esp. on Acceptable Political Targets and Acceptable Hard Luck Targets).

The grammar and relatively minor stuff is why I brought it up in ATT, and the relatively short discussion there led me to TRS.

Note that I do not agree with either of those two arguments in favor of making this YMMV. I'm just reporting what the arguments were (and linking to the original comments) for the sake of this discussion.

edited 30th Aug '17 11:23:25 AM by WaterBlap

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

As a moderator has given the go-ahead to make this thread, I'll open this for discussion.

I can get behind a cleanup effort, maybe a cut on the pages with ROCEJ issues.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

I think this and Unacceptable Targets should be limited to In-Universe Examples Only without the YMMV status they have now. Limiting examples to portrayals within works seems like a good way to limit complaining and controversy in the case of Acceptable Targets and its sub-categories.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

(for WaterBlap) I going to say, I half sorry for [most of all] recent mess up on Political Acceptable Targets, I just did only for my job or somewhat my political beliefs and for some are like 2 and 4 aren't part of mine edits.

-1 (for GastonRabbit) Maybe go right ahead, but warn this may go backfired in some point of future and especially in the current political environment.

edited 2nd Sep '17 9:23:04 PM by Franco-America2018

Putting "acceptable targets:in universe" into the Google site search gives 97 results, so for that page it may be enough material to work with.

For the other pages, I didn't check. I also wonder if the various Acceptable X Targets are better described in an Analysis page for all the potential manifestations and why they are acceptable targets.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

In some cases, in-universe examples aren't even labeled. I've seen examples on works' YMMV pages that actually refer to portrayals within the works themselves instead of anything fans said.

Making this an objective in-universe-only trope wouldn't override current Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment rules.

Edit: I should probably explain why I think in-universe examples shouldn't be treated as YMMV examples. The idea is that the YMMV pages are for subjective material, but whether a work treats something as an acceptable target is something that either happens or doesn't happen, rather than anything that's up for debate.

edited 3rd Sep '17 3:17:52 AM by GastonRabbit

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I think it's fair to say In Universe Examples Only and YMMV are mutually exclusive, and I support the change to IUEO.

I didn't want to argue with the 2010 arguments until there was some response, so here's why I think these tropes should be changed from YMMV:

The current Acceptable Targets article describes a term rather than "our social reality" or "how reality is portrayed in fiction," but the concept isn't really a Fan Speak concept. If it were truly a Fan Speak concept, then it should be YMMV, but that's just the perspective from which the article was written. The concept is not inherently or necessarily a Fan Speak term but rather a trope that happens to be described as though it were merely a fan speak term.

Moreover, the fact that cultures vary from one to another is a tautology and is not helpful here. You might as well say that Kick the Dog is YMMV because some cultures wouldn't consider such-and-such action to be cruel but instead good. That wouldn't hold water for Kick the Dog or anything else.

A third response (to the first argument at least) is that we're not here to describe reality but rather to describe media and portrayals of reality. Describing reality is typically trivia rather than YMMV, and is generally considered objective anyway. If we're going to change or clarify anything, such changes/clarification should be from the perspective of media and portrayals of reality, rather than trying to describe "our social reality." That is, if given the choice between defining a trope as "describing media" or "describing reality," we should choose to describe media. We're not a politics wiki or wikipedia, and I don't think we should try to be.

The article, as-is, does not try to describe something in media, and the lack of consistent work examples supports this. I think the description(s) itself needs tweaking.

Moreover, the decision to make these YMMV was pre-mature. Only three people in the 2010 thread agreed it should be YMMV, and the one person who voiced dissent did not react to their discussion.

For the second argument, I don't think either of these articles should be YMMV. I agree that they should be IUEO.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I guess.

And think, Can we put all real life examples from all Acceptable Targets pages into Useful Note or Analysis version of Acceptable Targets?

edited 4th Sep '17 10:47:14 AM by Franco-America2018

Bumping because of this ATT thread about Acceptable Religious Targets. Should we make a separate thread for that or should this cover these articles overall? That thread was locked so I can't ask there.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I may start a separate query about it.

I still stand by what I said about limiting these tropes to portrayals within works.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Question, what exactly do we mean by In Universe Examples Only in this case?

Do we mean works that discuss and specifically label groups as acceptable targets (like how Zero Punctuation mentions that no one will ever complain about brutalizing Nazis), or works that blatantly consider a group as acceptable targets (like a work having a lot of jokes at the expense of Jews, for example).

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Also bumping because of this ATT thread about Acceptable Religious Targets. To clear the air about something said on that page; I am not antisemitic (despite what Julian Lapostat was trying to paint me as, and the less I say about Nubian Satyress the better); I merely wanted to mention a few examples of negative treatment that Judaism has gotten in the media and wanted to discuss why (the articles say why every other religious view has a negative perception media, but tip-toes around Judaism. I don't understand why Judaism has been treated so poorly in media and I was curious as to WHY so much has happened to Jewish people; hence I wanted to list some reasons. "Saying why some people attack others is not saying that those others should be attacked or that the reasons are valid".

On that note, after reading the above points, I was going to make a separate thread for Acceptable Religious Targets, but I see the problem is more widespread. Water Blap, you were on that ATT page I started, what do you think should be done?

edited 13th Nov '17 3:10:54 PM by SkidTroper

Hi everyone.

I don't think you know what bump means, considering this was already the first open thread...

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Since I'm being asked directly, let me start by saying i is no authority

I'm not sure what would be the best course of action. I'm wondering what the value we get for having these pages. I realize we have quite a lot of inbounds, but I question if those inbounds are worth the trouble for every Acceptable X Targets.

Also, about the putting down Judaism thing... I don't agree with your reasoning. You're saying that "the articles say why every other religious view has a negative perception media, but tip-toes around Judaism." This is demonstrably not correct. As I mentioned before, the section on Scientology is blank, for example. You seem to be biased toward the issue that you care about and don't seem capable of seeing the page's terrible quality for what it is... which is wretched across the board.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I did point out in a conversation with the moderator on the Edit Ban page that I suspect why the Scientology section is blank is some fear of a lawsuit from Scientology, and I have had an extensive debate with Julian Lapostat about the atheism section as seen here https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/remarks.php?trope=Main.AcceptableReligiousTargets (when Julian posted on ATT, he omitted a lot of what I said on our debate there).

Other than that, I am sorry Water Blap. After having a proper read of the Acceptable Religious Targets page I realized that you are right; I unintentionally put too much focus on the Judaism section. I will let that matter rest as the whole page has issues; let me repeat I am no antisemitic; I merely wanted to LIST the reasons Judaism has been targeted so much (I was not saying that those reasons are justified or right - they were wrong and unjustified, poor choice of words on my part is what led to that misconception). So I'm forgetting about that section and focusing on the whole page. I had only read the Acceptable Religious Targets page. I did not read the other Acceptable Targets pages and was unaware of it; of course I didn't see it being wretched across the board, I didn't read all of it.

Now I hope that any suspicion of me being an antisemite has been done away with. In light of this, does anyone have any ideas on what page to fix first? If we're going to be doing all of the Acceptable Targets I think we need a starting point, and since the topic has already been raised I suggest we start with fixing the Acceptable Religious Targets page first.

Larkmarn; I raised the topic of the Acceptable Religious Targets earlier on Ask The Tropers, but that thread soon turned toxic and was locked. Then Water Blap pointed out the wider problem of all the pages having issues so he started this thread, and here we are.

edited 13th Nov '17 8:26:28 PM by SkidTroper

Hi everyone.

Regarding what is meant by in-universe only, I meant that Acceptable Targets and Unacceptable Targets should be limited to how a work treats a subject (not necessarily that the subject has to be in-universe, but the portrayal does; as I said before, Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment would still apply), instead of allowing the pages to be used as dumping grounds for things users perceive as acceptable or unacceptable targets.

Edit: Also, the work doesn't have to explicitly refer to something as an acceptable target, it just has to be clear that the trope is present.

edited 14th Nov '17 3:08:14 AM by GastonRabbit

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

(Note that this thread was already around before the ATT thread. Look at timestamps.)

I checked the history and it looks like the information (or lack thereof) for Scientologists, Satanists, and Neo-Pagans has been revised only a handful of times since 2010 (there was a major revision by Douglas Fir in 2015). This isn't just an issue with Scientology but people just not wanting to alter the descriptions...

Regarding IUEO, I agree with GastonRabbit.

edited 14th Nov '17 6:59:28 AM by WaterBlap

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Agreed. I've long thought it weird this was YMMV when some group being Acceptable Targets in a work was really quite concrete.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

To expand on what you said Water Blap; "This isn't just an issue with Scientology but people just not wanting to alter the descriptions..." and some people make a fuss when someone DOES alter the descriptions.

If we're doing Acceptable Religious Targets, how should we handle the Scientology section? Especially since there could be some nervousness about Scientology's reaction making even the moderators tip-toe around that section. Mentioning Scientology's litigious leaders and origins may be relevant information (not to mention the fact that even it's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, joked about the idea of founding it for the purpose of turning a profit).

Otherwise, I think we need to pick an Acceptable Targets page and start working on a consensus. Given the size, this may take awhile so I might I suggest recruiting other tropers? (but being discerning in which tropers we choose; as seen before some don't think it's a problem or have their own agendas for leaving the page as is).

Hi everyone.

I do not believe that follows from the definition of In Universe Examples Only. The work treats the targets of their humour as targets: tautology.

When works ridicule a group, the acceptable or unacceptable opinion is an Audience Reaction. By having a character within the work express the opinion that the group is acceptable as a target, that's an IUE. By ridiculing the group, the work gives their opinion that the group is a member of Acceptable Targets, but the opinion is not present within the work. Poe's Law makes it difficult to say that the creators always intend the ridicule to be seen as acceptable by their culture, but that's why Acceptable Targets is an Audience Reaction rather than an aspect of the work itself.

IUEO would mean someone (be they a protagonist, narrator, side-character, etc) commenting on ridicule within the work itself to be Acceptable.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Actually, Acceptable Targets is an Audience Reaction article because three people agreed to put it on the list. There really was not enough agreement to say "that's why this is an Audience Reaction rather than an aspect of the work itself." Hence why we're asking if it should be YMMV or something else.

I have three problems with this:

1. I think this is missing the point of the concept of Acceptable Targets.
2. I think this is arbitrarily putting restrictions on the concept.
3. I think this disregards the fact that works are created.

1: I'd like to say that the concept here is that "a group is ridiculed and that ridicule is morally permissible," which is not necessarily an Audience Reaction. Moreover, it is not necessarily subjective.

2: I do not see how a character must express an opinion in order to illustrate that they find the ridicule morally permissible. They could illustrate this opinion with an Aside Glance, or with their Body Language, or by joining in the ridicule, etc. Moreover, the concept here does not necessitate a character to find the ridicule acceptable. It could be the narration, or the work as a whole. For example, if the music is upbeat versus if the music is somber. Also, if the work is a satire and utilizing these tactics, then it would obviously be a subverted case of Acceptable Targets, where there's the set up and then reversal.

3: I'd like to remind you that if the characters ridicule a group, then that means the person who created the work wanted those characters to do that. The opinion is clearly in the work if the opinion is expressed or otherwise illustrated by characters within the work.

Again, I think this misses the the point of Acceptable Targets. This is not about whether something is acceptable in India compared to in France. This is about whether the ridicule is treated as being morally permissible, and a creator's culture doesn't have a say in the matter. The specification that this is specific to cultures seems arbitrary.

Also, you could make that argument for literally any trope. You could say that Kick the Dog is "subjective" because what one culture finds morally permissible another culture finds morally reprehensible. That isn't really a valid argument for Kick the Dog, and it also isn't valid for Acceptable Targets.

At first I was going to say that what you said here isn't a tautology. However, it's actually just misinformed. This is not "The work treats the targets of their humor as targets." This is "The work treats the targets of their humor as acceptable targets." That is not a tautology, because a work could just as easily treat the targets of their humor as Unacceptable Targets. The mere treatment of something as the target of ridicule does not entail that the work is saying such ridicule is acceptable.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Morals are always subjective. They may be subject to the Author's views or the Audience views, but they are never Objective Truths.

I'm not sure I understand why you frame this as a disagreement. The characters can illustrate their opinion with an Aside Glance, or with their Body Language, or by joining in the ridicule, etc. The characters are capable of expressing opinions without dialogue.

The trope can, but those would not be In Universe Examples.

Those would be In Universe Examples.

That's almost the idea I was attempting to convey by saying "The work treats the targets of their humour as targets: tautology." The audience can also believe that the work has an incorrect opinion. The distinction between Acceptable Targets and Unacceptable Targets comes from if you are of the opinion that the targets of ridicule are acceptable or not. Subjective, but not the point of my post. My post was about the proposed definition of IUEO for Acceptable Targets.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

(I'm just making a quick response here.)

They really aren't, but the bigger take-away point is that this does not concern "society" or "the audience's opinion." It's about what is posited by the work, what the work presents. What is in the work.

I understood us to be in disagreement there because you said:

• "I do not believe that follows from the definition of In-Universe Examples Only."
• "By having a character within the work express the opinion that the group is acceptable as a target, that's an IUE."

I thought the first bullet informed the second bullet to mean that you were saying that the characters must be expressing themselves in order for it to be In-Universe. I admit that I confused myself a bit by thinking you meant "express" as in "verbally express."

Acceptable Targets is not necessarily about the audience's belief the work has a correct opinion, and neither is Unacceptable Targets about the work being seen as having incorrect opinions. The whole "audience's belief" thing comes from the 2010 thread and three people getting impatient that nobody voiced dissent.

If your point is that the trope shouldn't be IUEO because it's YMMV, then whether it is subjective or not has to do with the point of your post, though?

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Not what I said. Correct; unless the opinion is expressed by characters within the fictional universe, the opinion is part of what defines the universe.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.