Not Tropeworthy: Franchise Actors

Franchise Actors.

There are lots, lots, of Useful Notes pages that are nothing more than indexes of all the actors that have appeared in various franchises. Dallas Actors, if you want to know everyone who ever appared on the various incarnations of Dallas. Philip K. Dick Media Actors, for anybody who's ever appeared in anything based on a work by Philip K. Dick. Shakespeare Adaptations Actors—scroll down and you'll find that both Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren were in a movie version of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1968, which is a true fact.

There is also a Useful Notes index for Dancers, which is—people who have danced.

Or to get another perspective, go to the Creator page for a busy character actor, like James Remar, which I had occasion to edit a while back. Look at all the indexes Mr. Remar is on.

I kind of feel guilty about impugning something that other folks obviously cared about and spent a lot of time on. On the other hand, all of these Useful Notes indexes are useless and should be cut.

Cut.

Cut. Despite being called Useful Notes, they don't live up to their name.

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

Cut. Useful notes are meant to help creators learn about different subjects. These are just... notes.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Going to make work for whoever is doing the cutting. I guess I could just make a request for the Franchise Actors index of indexes and add detail in the notes.

Cut.

I was just coming here to make a similar request (like having it as part of something along the lines of Just For Fun or Sugar Wiki). I understand it's not really Useful Notes, but it does make plenty of actors and their credits a lot easier to find.

I can't deal with these forums; they anger up the blood too much.

Cut UsefulNotes.Franchise Actors and subpages.

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I think each work page should be crediting the main Creators in the description. I think every Creator page should be listing the works they've produced, and indexing works that they are the primary Creator for. I think Character subpages are all linking to their live-action/voice actors.

With all of that, I don't think the wiki about how stories are told needs to be more of a resource in finding obscure actor credits. Other wikis that are focused on acting credits are a better resource for it.

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To expand the primary discussion topic, Useful Notes has several Creator pages indexed. Isn't this redundant with the Creator index? The Main.Actors index seems acceptable, but I don't understand why it is indexed under Useful Notes.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Jan 23rd 2019 at 11:55:25 AM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I agree that these pages are redundant with lists of creators on works pages and lists of works on creator pages.

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

Agree that these Francise Actor indexes are redundant with information that is already on works pages, creator pages, or the other creator indexes that we have. Some of these creators are in 10+ indexes- that seems like too much!

There are a few related indexes that seem useful for actors that tend to a particular genre or time period, but are in Useful Notes for some reason: Scream Queens, Notable Silent Movie Actors. I would suggest we keep these, but move them to Main.

Dancers seems like it's trying to be analogous to other creator indexes like Actors, Mangaka, etc, but most of the people listed have only a vague connection to dancing. I would suggest we move it to Main and take an axe to it to only include people who are primarily known for dancing (not sure how we'd make that call).

Edited by naturalironist on Jan 24th 2019 at 5:13:41 AM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

I agree with cutting these.

Related: We also have a bunch of indexes for video games that are available on various digital distribution services (like Steam, GOG.com, etc.). I think those are every bit as unnecessary as these actor indexes and should be cut as well. I started a Wiki Talk thread about them a while ago, but discussion stalled and it went nowhere.

I'd say something along the lines of "have been paid to appear on stage solely for their dancing ability". We want people who are celebrities because of their dancing, not people dancing because they're celebrities.

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Publishers: I remember that thread. I'm okay with us cutting stuff like "these games are available on this console", but I want to keep lists of "this Creator owns the rights to publish this game". It gets confusing because stuff like Mario is both published by Nintendo and appears on Nintendo consoles.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I'd be okay with having developer / publisher indexes.

We seem to have a consensus. I will be making a request on the Cut List tonight to cut everything indexed on Franchise Actors.

"I kind of feel guilty about impugning something that other folks obviously cared about and spent a lot of time on. " Yes you should because I'm one of those people. I and many others have spent literally hours of our lives creating these indexes and if they're cut, all of that will be for nothing. I think these indexes do have a purpose because a lot of the franchises listed contain some more obscure installments that the general public might not be aware of. It helps to have a place people can go to find out about them since they may or may not have their own TV Tropes page. So needless to say, I am firmly against cutting these indexes. I know I may be the odd man out in this thread but I hardly think consensus has been reached after only a few days. I don't see why you're all in such a hurry to get rid of something that has been around for over a year and that is updated on a fairly regular basis.

Edited by LarryMullen on Jan 25th 2019 at 8:25:08 AM

You're not alone. I don't want them cut either; I've created five different franchise indexes myself, I was thinking about creating a few more (for Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick media) and am very appreciative of the time you have spent helping several of the pages flourish (including my Law & Order page). I've suggested that it could be relocated to Just For Fun or a Sugar Wiki instead of outright cutting it all, but it doesn't seem that anyone is for this option.

I can't deal with these forums; they anger up the blood too much.

Why aren't you making pages for these works?? Why are you making a list of people instead of describing their roles??

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UsefulNotes.Law And Order Actors is useless because it is redundant with Characters.Law And Order, which should include all of the actors already. That's where we want the information.

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1. Why isn't every movie directed by Stanley Kubrick not a Red Link yet? His page indexes the films that he's the primary Creator for.
2. Why are you thinking of listing actors from Killer's Kiss in an unrelated part of the wiki instead of making Characters.Killers Kiss and including the actor's name in the description of the character?
3. Heck, why aren't Jamie Smith and Irene Kane wicks to their pages?
4. Why did you list Kimberly Elise in a random part of the wiki instead of making Characters.Why Did I Get Married for the ten main characters?
5. Why haven't you made Film.Meet The Browns instead of listing Angela Bassett and Sofía Vergara on a page with no tropes?

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We want TROPES, not acting credits. IMDB is a serviceable database that we don't need to duplicate. TvTropes has a different goal; we show how creators use tropes in storytelling. Which means we want actors linked to their tropes, not to each other.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Right; the solution here is to make pages for the more obscure works. I apologize for wanting to cut what is clearly a labor of love, but we need to put the wiki first- and the wiki doesn't need these indexes.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

These indexes serve no purpose.

We don't learn anything by seeing a list of everyone who ever appeared in a Stanley Kubrick movie. To find out about Stanley Kubrick on TV Tropes, you go to his page. Then you go to the pages for his works. Then you follow the Creator pages on each individual work page to find out about Kirk Douglas or Malcolm McDowell or whoever. If you want more about Stanley Kubrick on TV Tropes, don't make a list of actors, make a work page for Fear and Desire or make Creator pages for Irene Kane or Shelley Duvall or Sterling Hayden.

Edited by jamespolk on Jan 25th 2019 at 12:21:10 PM

"These indexes serve no purpose."

If you can point to elsewhere on the Internet where you can find indexes like these, then I'll admit they serve no purpose. Until then, I maintain that they should stay.

It's not the purpose of TV Tropes to include indexes like these, though— especially not under the guise of Useful Notes, which as I said before exists for a specific purpose.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I'm kind of unclear of why one should make a new trope of something that may not be contributed to by anyone other than one troper for it and may eventually be subjected to something along the lines of being too rare to trope and running the risk of being deleted due to inactivity. Case in point, I've made or contributed to several pages where it seems likely that I will be the only person who puts tropes there and them being deleted are among my biggest fears. Is creating tropes that will ultimately sit idle the more desirable contribution?

Also, I've attempted to do submit in other ways: I tried to submit a Complete Monster, launch a trope, ask/request for the repair of a trope or removal of an image. Unfortunately, these all went nowhere. I finally contribute something that I wanted to write up for the longest only for it to look suspect. Why question my addition of an actor's page but not creation of a subpage for an existing work? What does Kimberly Elise have to do with Why Did I Get Married?? She wasn't in that film. Admittedly, some of these works you listed I may not be a huge fan of/never heard of. Also, I have created character/funny/Nightmare fuel/etc. pages for other works that do hold my interest.

I also wanted to know what your opinion is of the suggestion of relocating the indexes instead of outright deleting them. I noticed some dislike it being a Useful Note while some consider the indexes pointless (if not both). Would it be less of a pet peeve if it weren't a UN?

Lastly, I was only contemplating the creation of new franchise pages. Obviously, I'm not going to go through with it if it'll just be deleted within two days.

Edited by Erin582 on Jan 25th 2019 at 3:07:46 AM

I can't deal with these forums; they anger up the blood too much.

New trope? We're talking about work pages here. They don't get cut unless they're stubs or in violation of the P5 rules. Frankly, I'm confused as to what you're talking about.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I frankly think the goals of TV Tropes might be a tiny bit narrow if they don't allow for the existence of indexes like these. If TV Tropes allows for creator pages, I don't see why it can't allow for a variety of creator indexes beyond the ones like "comic actors", "voice actors" and the awards they win.

Also, no one has given me a satisfactory explanation for why they need to be cut now. You all had a whole year to call for them to be deleted and you let them stand. I think the "consensus" was reached many months ago and that consensus is the indexes are perfectly legitimate and should be allowed to remain.

It's not like people are automatically aware of every single page that gets created on the wiki. People just didn't notice these indexes before, that's why they were "allowed" to stay.