On the subject of pre-release work pages

Do trailers, press releases, and other promotional material not count as publications?

The point of Unpublished Works is that the work can't be accessed in any form by anyone other than the author, which means that no one can confirm if a trope does indeed apply to it, and therefore no one could edit it other than the author, which is why the page is restricted to Darth Wiki instead of a normal article. It's also used near-exclusively for works that are completely imaginary and exist only in a troper's mind, with no plans of ever releasing them.

If a work is unreleased but has a trailer, there is more evidence of their existence than a Darth Wiki page. Anyone can watch the trailer and determine that some tropes are going to be in the work.

Trailers, press releases, and other promotional materials are not the work itself.

It's not uncommon for works that ended up never getting released to still have some promotional material out there somewhere.

By that logic, one could argue that we can't trope a TV show until every episode has finished airing, since one episode is not the whole work. Promotional materials are not the whole work, but they do contain part of the work, and we can see which tropes apply to that portion.

Also, if we were to accept that unreleased works count as unpublished works, and applied Work Pages Are a Free Launch as it is currently written, that would mean that these works ARE allowed a page on Darth Wiki. Which wouldn't solve the issue that unreleased pages currently have, since tropers would still make speculative edits on that page. The only difference would be that once the work is released, we would either lose all of the pre-release page's edit history and discussion pages when copying it into the appropriate namespace, or mods would have to manually move it to the new page. That, and subpages would not be allowed, which would mean more work for us to move character tropes to the character sheet. It wouldn't solve anything, just add more work for everyone involved.

I wouldn't have an issue with these pages if they weren't magnets for shoe-horns and misuse and speculation. YMMV especially should go since, while yes there are audience reactions that could be mentioned, they can also be mentioned after the work is officially released— and keeping the pages around are a headache, because YMMV pages are the worst in terms of speculation and warring AFAIK.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Until there's evidence that well-made pre-release pages outnumber the bad ones, I don't think they're worth the headache of maintaining them.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 26th 2019 at 9:00:46 AM

Also, if we were to accept that unreleased works count as unpublished works, and applied Work Pages Are A Free Launch as it is currently written, that would mean that these works ARE allowed a page on Darth Wiki. Which wouldn't solve the issue that unreleased pages currently have, since tropers would still make speculative edits on that page. The only difference would be that once the work is released, we would either lose all of the pre-release page's edit history and discussion pages when copying it into the appropriate namespace, or mods would have to manually move it to the new page. That, and subpages would not be allowed, which would mean more work for us to move character tropes to the character sheet. It wouldn't solve anything, just add more work for everyone involved.

Who said anything about copying or moving Darth Wiki pages to the main wiki? Let people do whatever they want on Darth Wiki, and start fresh once people can actually, you know, watch the movie before troping it.

Edited by HighCrate on Feb 26th 2019 at 6:07:46 AM

Shouldn't it be the other way around? If there's evidence that there are more poorly-made unreleased work pages than good ones, deleting them all is unjustified.

If we have a page full of perfectly good tropes on Darth Wiki, why wouldn't we use its contents when the work is released? Just because it's on Darth Wiki, doesn't mean that anyone can do anything they want.

Edited by Zuxtron on Feb 26th 2019 at 9:11:19 AM

Right, I said it the way I did because so far the evidence I've seen points to the bad outweighing the good. I'll change my tune if given reason to believe this isn't a problem.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 26th 2019 at 9:11:30 AM

Are you sure that it's really MOST pages that have these issues, or is it just that the pages with issues get brought up more often in Ask The Tropers and become more visible than the good ones?

I'm not, which is why I'm saying that if these good pages present themselves I'll change my mind.

If we have a page full of perfectly good trope examples, then by all means, move them over.

If, as seems more likely, we have a page full of Speculative Troping and premature complaining, then let it stay on Darth Wiki while the main wiki starts fresh.

My problem with the Darth wiki thing is that it sort of brushes the issue under the rug. The problem would still be happening, just in a different corner of the wiki.

If we have to have these pages, they should be made with as many valid, provable tropes as possible, and then locked immediately.

It's already happening; we have an index of Darth Wiki pages that are specifically not published yet. Your post reads like you're advocating we Cut List all of those pages.

That's different; Unpublished Works are, as far as I know, troper works that aren't yet published. Typically only one person works on an unpublished work page and since it's usually their work they know everything that's factually in the work itself. If they can't be verified it's inconsequential. Not so with these works- they have many people who work on them adding speculation and shoehorns out of hype. Unpublished Works don't cause problems, but these pages do. Lumping them in with the other Darth Wiki pages treats them like they're the same thing.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 27th 2019 at 3:13:59 PM

Well, I admit I could be off base here and if I am please let me know, but I would assume that Unpublished Works, typically being projects for individual tropers to trope their brain stories, aren't going to cause problems because the pages aren't intended to be, well, actual work pages— they're more for fun and don't get in the way. I can't see many problems coming from these pages considering the entire point is that they're works that don't yet exist, so we're just troping someone's imagination, and nothing can be verified. That's the entire point of them.

However, moving some page like, idk, Spider-Man Far From Home to Darth Wiki won't fix the problems that occur when it's a real page, besides that subpages can't be made. It's an actual work that people will be excited to trope ASAP, so in comes tropers posting anything on the page in the midst of the hype. It doesn't do anything to prevent this from occuring, it just shoves it to a different corner of the wiki where there are lower standards.

Well, it's not entirely accurate to say that Unpublished Works articles never cause problems, but when they are maintained solely or primarily by their authors, the problems they cause are confined to a different area of the Venn diagram.

Let's break the issue down into a few different categories. Feel free to check my analysis and remind me of me any I missed.

1. A work in progress that is documented almost entirely by its author. This work is not available for general consumption, although a small number of other people may be able to see it. This would include most unpublished fanfics.
   • Generally, only the author and a small number of friends can see the actual work, so the number of editors will be small.
   • We have to monitor for abuse of The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours and similar rules.
2. A work in progress that is widely available and recognized. These can include public betas or "early release" games, popular fics that are published before being finished, and so on. It is very rare that a film, book, or TV show will be fully viewable in pre-release. (Leaks don't count.)
   • These may have many editors, including the author(s) — the latter more often for written works and less often for games.
   • Content that does not make the final release may clutter up the article and then have to be forcibly removed under protest.
   • These works may be abandoned and the article left hanging.
3. A mainstream product that is in production or development and has not been made available for public viewing, but for which large amounts of promotional and marketing material exists. This would include most films, TV series, and printed books.
   • These may be furiously edited and there may be strong/divisive fan opinions.
   • As little of the actual content is known, speculation runs rampant and every bit of information is dissected down to the smallest detail.
   • In the rare event of cancellation, the article is left hanging.
   • If we don't have a primary namespace article for these works, people will want to create them and the only way to prevent this is locking.

Our general policy is that only content confirmed to be in the work can be troped objectively, and subjective examples (YMMV, Audience Reactions) may only be based on information that is known about the work, not speculated. But how can we enforce this without ruthless policing of the articles?

I don't think that putting major releases (films, TV shows, games) into Unpublished Works before they are released is a feasible idea, for two reasons.

1. As I said above, people will invariably look for the articles, think that they are missing, and then try to create them. This will mandate locking of all major namespaces anyway.
2. The Darth Wiki articles will still attract all of the same edit warring and speculation that we'd find on the main articles.

Shunting unreleased fics off to Darth Wiki is partly to prevent clutter on the wiki, partly to encourage people not to make articles for fics unless they are published, and partly because they often violate our principle of verifiability: that someone can objectively look at the work to see if what our article says is in it is actually in it.

It seems to me that our solution options come down to curation vs. locking.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 27th 2019 at 2:56:07 PM

I'm inclined to agree if the ban is impossible. I lean to locking, since it prevents a lot of unnecessary work.

Seems like a reasonable analysis.

I'm curious what you mean by "curation" and "locking" in this context. "Curation" sounds to me like "continue on like we have been, which is a PitA and results in a lot of ATT arguments and pages full of Speculative Troping no matter how hard we try, but c'est la vie" and "locking" sounds like "lock the page and disallow edits until the premiere date," but maybe you mean something different?

Our general policy is that only content confirmed to be in the work can be troped objectively, and subjective examples (YMMV, Audience Reactions) may only be based on information that is known about the work, not speculated.

This seems reasonable enough, however I hear a lot of people in this thread and in ATT crying, "But that means we can trope what's in trailers!"

I submit that, since Trailers Always Lie, content that's released in a trailer does not meet the criteria of "confirmed to be in the work."

For example, in Frozen II, the only example that is valid by this standard is Numbered Sequels, since Frozen II is in fact the title of the work. Everything else appears to be based on the trailer and, thus, is invalid.

Everything above the line is factual and can stay.

Edited by HighCrate on Feb 27th 2019 at 3:12:08 AM

I've said that the trope name of Trailers Always Lie should not be interpreted literally. If we see something objectively happen in the trailer, it's pretty much guaranteed to happen in the movie unless it's from a Missing Trailer Scene (in which case all we have to do is add "In the trailer..." to the start of the example).

The tropes on Frozen II that I would say are a bit iffy are Arc Symbol (no evidence that the symbol will be prominently featured throughout the movie), Costume Evolution (maybe the costumes are only worn in a few scenes), No Flow in CGI (the example describes an aversion, but perhaps other scenes will be a straight example), Scenery Porn (again, perhaps the pretty environments are only in a few scenes), and Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You (it's a very quick, out-of-context scene that probably won't be an example in the full movie). Which leaves Audible Sharpness, Determined Expression, Numbered Sequel, Rearrange the Song, Technicolor Fire, and Walk on Water as tropes that are almost certainly in the movie (unless you can come up with an explanation on how they might end up not happening, other than a Missing Trailer Scene). That's six tropes, well above the three trope minimum for a work page to be accepted.

The trailer is not the work. Therefore anything that's in a trailer could be in the work, or it could be a Missing Trailer Scene. Therefore anything that's in a trailer is not "confirmed to be in the work."

Even if the scenes are still in the final film, the exact details can and often do change. The Audible Sharpness could be absent, the Technicolor Fire could be normal fire, the title may change, etc.

Galaxy Quest had a trailer that mixed dialogue from one scene with that of a different scene, which completely changed the tone of the latter scene.

Edited by Primis on Feb 27th 2019 at 5:09:55 AM

&

Exactly.

Aren't trailers themselves tropeable as works of their own, since their editing, contents of Missing Trailer Scenes, objective "X appears and does this" and "Y happens onscreen", etc. can itself be classed under tropes to convey something, regardless of whether they appear in the final product? They seem to fit the Works' Pages Are a Free Launch criteria that HighCrate has earlier stated, since trailers exist and are themselves published works (being concretely existing videos and released to the public after all).

Edited by Albert3105 on Feb 27th 2019 at 6:08:12 AM