Objectivity (and other issues) on TV Tropes Moments pages

Continuing a point from this ATT: there's been some concern about whether Moments pages for this site, namely Funny.TV Tropes, are worth having without running into objectivity issues, as it can encourage Auto-Erotic Troping. The page also currently lists entries and behavior that break wiki policy, such as vandalism, and while these entries do contain a disclaimer not to mimic that behavior, it still indicates such behavior as amusing to our userbase. There's also a massive ZCE issue and a lot of entries are outdated due to the ever-changing nature of images and entries, which especially screws over ZCE as we have no idea what the image/description/post/etc was at the time of the entry- though these can just be cleaned up as normal.

Several people in the ATT thread expressed concerns with keeping this moments page, and some solutions were proposed that would be better suited for the page, such as linking to an appropriate forum thread there and locking the page.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 11th 2020 at 4:05:10 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Auto-Erotic Troping states that users can’t be subjective about their own works. TV Tropes is, collectively, our own work. Plenty of Tropers have probably placed themselves onto the pages.

It's really very Troper Tales-esque. No objections to axing it from me.

What isn't outdated or Auto-Erotic Troping is just... not funny at all. Take the "I Read That As" examples. "Gurren Lagann" as "Queen Latifah"? "Alluring Anglerfish" as "Always Doodling (Scrolling down super super fast)"? These are, at best, in-jokes. But as is the nature of in-jokes, they are not funny at all.

Huh, there's a list of "funny redirects." And I wonder why those are so... funny... (BRB going to the cut list)

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Yeah, that page is just us tooting our own horns. No objection to cut.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Just noticed one of the entries is for Laconic.After Hours...which was recently criticized in the complaining thread for sacrificing succinctness in favor of a random Take That! at an old wiki-run webshow.

This furthers my concern that this page can be used to justify poor-quality/bashy edits and other inappropriate behavior on the sole basis that they're "funny." Hell, I recently did that on that very page.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 11th 2020 at 5:17:44 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

It didn't occur to me, but you're right, there's also a Repair, Don't Respond issue. Rather than fixing these problems, people could just laugh at / complain about / bash / "respond" to them in one of the Moments pages.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I definitely agree that Auto-Erotic Troping should be removed, though perhaps we could only do it to entries which are clearly added by the people for their own edits, and not necessarily the edits of others, so for example a Laconic by me wouldn't qualify if I add it myself, but a Laconic by someone else might? After all, that Laconic ultimately isn't my own work. I don't know, I think "what my colleague did funny when working on X" to "what I did is funny when working on X" is different.

Edited by Piterpicher on Sep 11th 2020 at 11:30:53 AM

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)

Yeah, I admit I’ve engaged in posting a few entries on that page. And I regret it. I will not miss this page if cut.

But nothing on TVT belongs to the people who posted it, ergo everything on this site we treat as being owned by the collective. It's our work and we all own it together.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 11th 2020 at 5:32:59 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I think it's more that the page itself belongs to the collective, but the existence will be ultimately the responsibility of a creator. For example, if I made a funny Laconic page, it'd belong to the wiki, but I'd be thanked for making it or be reprimanded for it if people saw it as offensive for instance. I just don't know if I'd necessarily see the issue as cut-and-dry "this all belongs to the wiki we're using to write about it so it's Auto-Erotic Troping".

Edited by Piterpicher on Sep 11th 2020 at 11:38:25 AM

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)

But it's not just Auto-Erotic Troping. The problems are, in no particular order...:

1. Auto-Erotic Troping
2. Examples becoming outdated.
3. The examples that aren't outdated are simply abandoned. They're never updated.
4. Repair, Don't Respond. Which is to say that tropers don't fix problems on the wiki because it's funny / sad / etc and so they document it in one of the Moments pages and leave it on the wiki.
5. In-jokes being listed despite not being funny at all.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Oh, and it has a massive ZCE issue.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Well, I ain't denying issues like those and that they should be fixed, mainly doubting the AET thing if it's true.

Edited by Piterpicher on Sep 11th 2020 at 11:46:47 AM

Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)

Said ZCE issue is even worse because a lot of those examples are so old, we have no idea what the context was at the time it was listed. If the example is just "The page image for [Trope Name]" and we've changed that image several times in the past decade, I don't want to have to dig through literal decades of edit history for both the Funny page and the trope page to try and find context for the example. It'd be better to just chop every example that's a ZCE referring to something ever-changing on the wiki....which is probably at least half of the page gone right there.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 11th 2020 at 5:46:25 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I have no objections with cutting those pages. As I've said before, they're holdovers of an older, more chaotic time, back when TV Tropes didn't have any standards when all those issues listed were not only allowed, but encouraged. They're not acceptable today.

I also have no objections cutting the moments pages (at least the funny page). The Fetish Fuel and Troper Tales folder can go, especially.

Edited by ccorb on Sep 11th 2020 at 6:55:01 AM

Rock'n'roll never dies!

I don't think it's inherently a problem to have the page. IMO, the problems come when the example:

• Has zero context (usually of the Weblinks Are Not Examples type, "See X" which is a page that has long since changed)
• Is about something the person adding it said/did themselves
• Is based on mocking another user's antics rather than celebrating them

I'm unsure if including stuff (with context) from older standards or breaking current rules is equivalent to endorsing that/encouraging people to do the same in the present— if it's something like, say, conversational comments that used to be NBD. When those rules involve violating Don't Be A Dick or destructive behavior, it's flamethrower time.

I think we have some genuinely good, funny material celebrated in those moments pages, but buried within the crap.

Example of what I mean by good stuff:

(However, that could be relocated to TV Tropes Examples)

Edited by ImmiThrax on Sep 11th 2020 at 8:22:10 AM

Covered in Star Wars Cleanup, Deadpool, and Web Video sand. I'm not coarse and rough, but I get everywhere.

We have forum threads that celebrate funny posts, and if the funny page gets cut, that could pick up the slack.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

And, as forum threads, the rules will be a lot laxer.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

For the record, I never added anything to the Funny page that I did on my own, so I can say that at least some of it isn't own-horn-tooting.

For every low there is a high.

I think having a forum thread dedicated to funny TV Tropes moments is a good idea. I've made a Sandbox about funny what might replace Funny.TV Tropes if we do Example Sectionectomy it.

Don’t we already have a thread like that in Yack Fest?

Yes, it's something like "Entries that made you LOL."

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Entries that make you go "Lol", yes.

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.