Fact Checking Thread

This example from the Real Life section of ApocalypseHow.Class X 3 sounds really dubious, especially the last sentence. And it would actually belong under Class X-4.

• Mathematician Roger Penrose dreamed up the "Thunderbolt" or "wave of death" (technically, a gravitational plane wave exhibiting a strong nonscalar null curvature singularity), a particular kind of gravitational phenomenon which propagates at the speed of light (so you'll never see it coming) and effectively destroys spacetime itself in a narrow volume of space from where it started to the cosmic horizon 47 billion lightyears away, conceivably spaghettifying entire galaxies in the process without warning. Apparently a collapsing Black Hole could conceivably generate such a thing.

That's a bad sinkhole to Techno Babble, which is a trope for meaningless words that sound like technical terms.

I moved it to the correct trope, removed the sinkhole, and determined that the last sentence is incorrect.

Some issues on the Trivia.Danny Phantom page.

First is the information that the show went over budget. Under Executive Meddling

Also

This is based on a forum post here. First thing that is suspicious about that post is that the animation for the show was done by a company in South Korea, called Rough Draft, specifically because it was cheap. Also the last line is blatantly false, Butch Hartman is credited as having worked on storyboards for every Season 3 episode, as well as director for them, and as writer for five episodes (six if we count the season finale as two episodes).

This has also been added to AdoredByTheNetwork.Nicktoons page.

Secondly, the claim that Steve Marmel, the main writer, left the show due to creative differences with Butch Hartman, creator of the show, I have not been able to find any reliable information on why Steve Marmel left the show, or Nickelodeon for that matter.

Last, what plans Steve Marmel had for the show had he stayed on board. Under What Could Have Been.

here

Edited by Rhonin on Oct 6th 2020 at 11:52:03 AM

^ If the last entry can only be traced to an anonymous forum post, cut it.

Yeah, if forum posts are the only source, cut.

Are any of these legit?

YMMV.Steven Universe Future:

• Fanon: In order to explain why Cherry and Angel Aura Quartz are both voiced by Kimberly Brooks, in addition to how they could even exist in the show's world, some headcanon that they are both successfully modified Jaspers. Or, since Carnelian isn't a Jasper, yet is still voiced by Brooks, that Cherry and Angel Aura also came from the Beta Kindergarten, with all the Gems from the same Kindergarten sharing a voice actress.
  • Watermelon Tourmaline is a natural cluster fusion of a red/pink and a green tourmaline. This explains why she has four arms, despite being shown with only one gem in "Change Your Mind". That goes hand in hand with the idea of her being a Crystal Gem.
  • Bixbite's gemstone is actually her middle horn.
  • Crazy Lace Agate's components are commonly thought to be a Jasper and an Amethyst. More specifically, some think her eye component is "Tiger's Eye (Jasper)", who was briefly mentioned in "Made Of Honor", with the nose component being the Flower Monster from "Back To The Kindergarten", due to the similar gem shapes and Flower Monster being purple like Amethyst.
  • All of the shown uncorrupted Gems (with the obvious exception of Jasper, the Nephrites and potentially Cherry Quartz) are former Crystal Gems. That is used as an explanation for why some of the Gems are still shown to be bubbled, besides the idea that they didn't have the time to uncorrupt all of them. Some also speculate that Water Bear was a Homeworld Gem, explaining her absence.

This seems so minor I doubt most of this isn't just the opinion of one person — The only think I can easily verify is Crazy Lace being comprised of a nondescript Amethyst and Jasper (lots of fanart for that), but that bit about it being Tiger's Eye and that one monster needs to go.

This is on Disney Plus:

• Executive Meddling: The reason why The Muppet Show has not been included, as well as the fact that the whole The Muppets franchise does not have its own section, on the service has been guessed that Disney President Bob Iger has wanted little to do with the property since he did not acquire it during his time in charge.

That appears to be speculation, so I'd cut it.

This is a minor issue, but Metroidvania has a list of alternative names for the genre at the bottom. Some of them I have heard of, like "Igavania", but others seem questionable.

Like, "Metrovania" just seems like a typo, and I never once, ever, have heard anyone refer to the genre as "Castletroid". A quick search just brings up similar lists of "alternative names for Metroidvania" (and this fan-made box art) but no actual instances of people using them.

Trivia.The Joker War.

• What Could Have Been:
  • By all accounts, it seems that, if not the swan song for Batman prior to the abandoned "Generation 5" initiative, then it was meant to be the swan song for writer James Tynion IV for the title as he was told that he would be writing until issue #100. From his account, things changed and he was made new head writer.
  • Tying into this, it's rumored that Joker War was initially conceived as the final confrontation between the original Batman and the Joker, as the altered timeline brought about by 5G and Dark Nights: Death Metal was supposed to retroactively age up Bruce (foreshadowed by the glimpses of an elderly Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle seen in Tom King's Batman (Rebirth) run) and lead to a new character (purportedly either Luke Fox or his brother Tim) taking over as Batman. With that in mind, the Batwing story in Joker War Zone seems like it was plotted as a Poorly Disguised Pilot to set up the debut of this new Batman.

Saying it seems to as opposed to Word of God confirming sounds like Speculative Troping which isn't allowed. Should it be cut if not confirmed?

The following entry in Historical Hero Upgrade has both abysmal grammar/wording problems and several facts I can't verify. I hope to solve the latter here first. I'm not knowledgeable about Mahatma Gandhi and I have failed to find any online corroboration for the issues the original troper refers to, except perhaps one. Here's the entry:

• Mahatma Gandhi's almost certainly time this. The messy nature of Indian independence and it's pretty filled status afterwards has resulted in glossing over his more unsavory aspects. The man himself seems to have held some pretty racist views such as chiding black people for trying to get independent status like Indians, his misogynist attitudes to the point of beating his wife for not cleaning the latrines despite her ill health and his luddism towards technology which pushed the industrialization of India back decades and dismantled much of the industry needed while simply letting himself benefit from those same things.

Best I can tell, Gandhi was heavily prejudiced against blacks when he was a young man in South Africa, though it's not clear to me if he was so after the time he was there. The other issues aren't anything I've been able to verify. In fact, I've seen articles that suggest Gandhi was not a Luddite.

Could someone who knows more than me on the subject help out here?

Thanks!

Edited by BoltDMC on Oct 21st 2020 at 2:33:14 PM

While I'm not certain about the specific incident they cite, Gandhi being a misogynist is something that has also been discussed frequently. Though I'm not sure if this whole entry would pass the ROCEJ.

On Bokurano, the following warning exists just before the trope list:

Be warned: there is a faked 'translation' of the novels (actually based off someone's fanfic) circulating the Internet. As a result, exercise extreme caution when adding novel-specific tropes. See the discussion page for details.

The warning appears to be from 2010 or around that point, and the discussion referred to is an extremely hostile Flame War (which I declined to read in further detail for the sake of my mental health), leading me to question both its relevance and its factual validity. Additionally, Googling the so-called fake translation in question returns zero hits aside from the discussion and what looks like an archive.org scan of a novel called Bokurano: Alternative, which might be what they were referring to, but I'm not sure.

I haven't really read or seen Bokurano, so is it possible that someone more well-versed than me can fact-check this statement for validity and/or relevance?

Edited by TrocyteV on Oct 21st 2020 at 1:11:11 AM

^^ Good question regarding ROCEJ. I'm pretty sure the people discussed here are all dead, so the question of libel likely isn't an issue. But that may not be the point anyway. One could well wonder about all the entries in the first folder, marked "Media in General / Common Persons," frankly.

Troper wingedcatgirl has issues with the whole folder anyway. I cite them at this ATT thread:

==

"This particular historical figure frequently gets a Historical Hero Upgrade" is not an example, and that entire folder should be burned with fire. y'know as opposed to burning with oreos

And the page has two quotes, because of course it does.

==

If they're right, that's a concern, and the whole folder may have to go. Should I take this to the Trope Repair Shop and start a new thread? Let me know.

I still want to replace the entry with something that has accurate information and doesn't sound like it was written by a two-year-old, at least for now. I had suppressed it with an editing explanation, and another Troper unsuppressed it a couple days ago and hasn't responded to a PM about the issue. Haven't gotten the go-ahead from anyone at ATT to suppress it again (I don't want to Edit War). This will at least solve the immediate issue.

Edited by BoltDMC on Oct 21st 2020 at 4:29:32 AM

Personally, I don't think we would need TRS to remove general examples, but I'm not entirely sure on it when there's that many of them.

I agree with limiting the trope to specific depictions, not general public memory. But I'm also unsure if that needs TRS. Should we get a ruling from a mod?

^ I'm fine with that. If I get the go-ahead, I can cut the whole folder, but I want a Moderator's blessing before I do.

Among other things, I won't have to rewrite the Gandhi entry, which would be great.

Do we contact a Mod directly, or just wait until one stops by? No idea what the protocol is.

Edited by BoltDMC on Oct 21st 2020 at 5:56:28 AM

Found this on the trivia page for The Jungle Book (1967) (questionable part has been highlighted):

• End of an Age: Meta-example. This is the final Disney animated film to fully involve Walt Disney himself (along with actress Verna Felton, who died alongside him), and at one point was intended to be the Grand Finale to the Disney Animated Canon altogether before Walt was convinced to greenlight The Aristocats prior to his death.

Is that last part true? I’ve looked through plenty of histories about this film and haven’t seen anything else suggest this idea.

Edited by harryhenry on Oct 25th 2020 at 11:10:26 PM

I've never heard that before. Walt Disney suddenly died shortly after production.

I'm concerned about this phrase also:

"along with actress Verna Felton, who died alongside him"

The wording is poor. That only holds if they perished in a car wreck together or something similar.

The image caption of The High Queen claims that The Accolade shows Guinevere knighting Lancelot, despite there being no source or evidence that the two characters in the painting were intended to be those two.

Edited by Albert3105 on Oct 26th 2020 at 8:35:55 AM

Brought up at the caption repair thread. I'd think the easiest solution is to genericize the names, but I'll wait for a response there.

I encountered this sentence about the Big Rip, where dark energy literally tears the universe apart, while cleaning up natter in the Real Life section of ApocalypseHow.Class X 4:

Strangely, this acceleration would still continue until it reaches the speed witnessed during the inflationary period of the Big Bang, allowing the creation of new particle-antiparticle pairs from the vacuum energy, just as it did originally. In this scenario, again, the destruction of our Universe potentially brings about the birth of a new much larger and potentially much richer Universe. Or maybe even bajillions of them.

Edited by LaundryPizza03 on Oct 27th 2020 at 1:02:54 PM

Recently, the following paragraph was added to the description of Roguish Romani:

Does anybody feel qualified to confirm or to refute this claim?