General issue: trope specificity versus example creep

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed this but TV Tropes suffers from an intractable conflict that touches almost every page: on the one hand, we have trope page creators who want to add ever-increasing numbers of increasingly specific, but often similar and overlapping, tropes and trope pages. On the other hand are the thousands or possibly millions of people who don't read the trope description very carefully, and who feel compelled to expand every trope's example list to include everything which that trope page might possibly remind a person of, even if they are "aversions", "inversions", "played with", or just examples of some other closely related but mutually exclusive trope. Unfortunately, TV Tropes doesn't really have a good way to combat the example-adders. Any kind of note saying "no, that's not an example, and here's why" would violate the site's anti-natter policy, but without such a note on the example list, there's nothing to stop some other clueless idiot from adding the same bad example ten seconds after it's deleted.

Most of the blame for this lies with the example-adders, but the trope-page-adders are far from innocent too. I still don't see why "Insane Troll Logic" and "Moon Logic Puzzle" are different pages, or how the difference between them is anything other than subjective opinion.

How you want to deal with this is up to you. I don't really spend enough time on this website to take the lead on any kind of project.

Since this is about the wiki in general, maybe this should be in Wiki Talk or Trope Talk?

Yeah this should be in Wiki or Trope Talk.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 14th 2021 at 7:20:00 AM

Hollered a mod to move.

Not sure that the holler went through, but I see the request here and have actioned it by moving this to Trope Talk.

Well, the example adders might not be aware of the existence of the more specific trope (especially since newly launched tropes don't always gain fast traction, especially if there are more than one trope launched within a short moment), and simply add the entry they have on the closest trope under the idea that Tropes Are Flexible.

Note that being mostly a lumper, I don't always think the newly launched trope are really necessary.

I've definitely noticed that tendency, too. Especially when a new launch is a subtrope or split, there's gonna be examples added under the original trope, especially since most of the pre-existing examples won't be moved over until someone notices them.

WDS's point is also true. People don't read descriptions. It's a proven fact. Most misuse on the wiki comes from people taking a title or laconic at face-value. That, however, doesn't contribute to the lumping problem moreso than it does general trope-decay, since people are more likely to completely get the trope definition wrong than to broaden it or use it in place of a more fitting trope.

Admittedly, I'm a lumper too, but only to a certain point. I'm all for splits that seem natural and different from the original trope, especially missing subtropes and missing supertropes. What I'm against is splits on a purely technical and minute level, where the only difference is a minor detail that doesn't really alter the meaning or use. That's when I start to question the point of the split.

WDS, one thing you mentioned is that we can't add notes because of the natter policy. Technically we can, but they'd have to be in the form of commented-out editors notes, that are only visible on the edit screen. They pop up from time to time if people keep adding misuse of a specific trope, just to say "hey, don't do this, thanks".

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 30th 2021 at 11:41:20 AM

You're supposed to put an example under its most specific trope, yes, but the thing about supertropes is that they make these examples merely imprecise rather than actually wrong. If I put an example under Pimped-Out Dress rather than Battle Ballgown, then hopefully someone will eventually notice the problem and move it. But it's far, far better than putting it under Sharp-Dressed Man and calling it subverted because it's gender-flipped.