Do Show Within a Show works belong on JustForFun/ pages?

~Purple Eyed Guma moved WesternAnimation.The Itchy And Scratchy Show to the Just for Fun namespace. I think this should have been discussed first, and might need undoing.

Itchy & Scratchy is a Show Within a Show in The Simpsons. It is true that most pages for Shows Within a Show go into the Just for Fun namespace, but I was under the impression I&S was an exception since, as noted here, entire episodes are seen on The Simpsons, so it can be troped as its own work.

It's like The Ugly Barnacle again, but not quite as infuriating.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Except The Ugly Barnacle was just a one-off gag from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Something Smells", so not really comparable to The Itchy & Scratchy Show. The latter is surprisingly well-developed with its own lore for a Show Within a Show.

Hence why I called it "less infuriating".

The issue with Ugly Barnacle is that for a brief time it was in the Literature/ namespace. The argument being that the entire story was told to us, so it was technically a tropable work.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The page for The Ugly Barnacle makes things up, while I am pretty sure the Itchy & Scratchy page sticks to what is actually shown on screen.

ETA: Also it looks like some of the Itchy and Scratchy subpages were just cut without moving the contents. NightmareFuel.The Itchy And Scratchy Show has a cut reason of "Subpage for JFF; already covered by NightmareFuel.The Simpsons", but looking at NightmareFuel.The Simpsons, there's nothing there.

Edited by Twiddler on Jan 26th 2022 at 4:37:09 AM

I wouldn't be opposed to something like a special namespace for when these things appear and are tropeable but I personally don't like the idea of them being divorced from their parent work's page. So like InternalShow.The Simpsons. There is enough content for it to be troped but it isn't its own work, strictly speaking. Whereas other pages like the Ugly Barnacle were totally made up by tropers and so should strictly be in JFF.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I think WesternAnimation/ would be fine for Itchy and Scratchy if it only contains tropes that actually appear in the Show Within a Show. The reason so many people were in favor of moving The Ugly Barnacle to Just for Fun was because the page was basically a fanfic based on a one-off, three-sentence joke from a single SpongeBob episode.

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

Something that I want to add, Angry Dad got moved there as well.

I have to disagree with this move. If there is enough material on a Show Within a Show to trope it separately from the main work, it needs to go to its own medium namespace. This seems to be yet another instance of JustForFun/ being used as an insinuatory dumping ground for stuff that someone feels doesn't squarely fit into other namespaces.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

If that's the standard of JFF that people are applying to genuine tropeable shows within shows now, something is not right. Vague policies at play that need checking, maybe?

Definitely an unclear policy, as part of the problem with "The Ugly Barnacle" was that I had cleaned the page of all the jokes, then another user (who didn't even post in that ATT) reverted my edits.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I actually agree with Water Blap—an "/InternalShow" namespace might be a good idea. There has been discussion about JFF becoming too broad lately, so a namespace like that might help.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jan 27th 2022 at 11:51:39 AM

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

Or InternalWork/, if it needs to be more encompassing, but I've always advocated for it and certainly will now.

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

"Internal Work" is better IMO.

Maybe we can get some more opinions on it? Maybe a mod could chip in with their thoughts?

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

Two of us (me and crazysamaritan) have commented...

I don't like the idea of making a special namespace because it diverges from the namespace-rule-of-thumb "one medium~one namespace". Works within a work can be in different media, usually but not always in the same as the "host" work.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Yeah, but I feel like this is probably the exception worth having due to their "internal" thing.

Edited by Piterpicher on Jan 27th 2022 at 6:24:21 PM

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

Oh sorry, I meant specifically on that proposal. If that was what was commented out I apologize.

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

I dislike the proposal of a dedicated namespace for three reasons:

1. The namespaces are ideally clarifying what medium/format the work is in. There are things which could be done to improve our efforts in that direction, but "Internal Work" is neither a medium nor a format. It is a step away from that goal.
2. Some works begin as a SWAS, getting their own series afterwards. The Simpsons is a classic example, there's also Dexter's Laboratory, which has its own SWAS, just like Simpsons does.
3. The reverse of the previous point; works that begin as stand-alone publications, but future installments show up as a SWAS of a different series. I can't think of any offhand; think of Fully Absorbed Finale for how that could happen to a work.

The suggestion is useful only for separating the SWAS from stand-alone publications, much like the Fanfic and Literature separation is purely cosmetic when both types of work can appear in the same places (vanity presses don't check copyright). This is the sort of separation that is better served by an index instead of by a namespace.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Jan 27th 2022 at 2:16:00 PM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

4. A dedicated namespace feels redundant with its parent work.

I made the WesternAnimation.The Itchy And Scratchy Show cuts with the reasoning:

• Similar JFF Show Within a Show works have tropes that are made up by the troper community. So this must be another one of them.
  • JustForFun.Daring Do
  • JustForFun.The Hash Slinging Slasher
  • JustForFun.Sadie Killer And The Suspects
  • JustForFun.The Dancing Cavalier
  • JustForFun.Sugar Rush Speedway
• The Western Animation namespace + all the subpages suggest this is a real show when it isn't.
• Corollary: If WesternAnimation.The Itchy And Scratchy Show doesn't consist of made-up tropes, why isn't it on The Simpsons, under a "Tropes found within Shows Within a Show" subpage/section?

This is a good point. If it is a self-contained internal work, why aren't all the trope examples on the Simpsons article?

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 27th 2022 at 2:49:45 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

By that logic, the "Season Zero" episodes should all be troped under The Tracey Ullman Show because that's the parent work. I think that skit/anthology shows (broadly speaking, this is the most common situation) should be allowed to spin off SWAS works into their own pages. I also think it important that the description clarify how the work was published and the parent work indexes the child work. This is the same sort of relationship I think derivatives in general should be treated by their parent franchise.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If we do it that way, then it should use the same media category and namespace as the parent work.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

In this case the SWAS is the same medium as its parent work, but there may be cases where they differ, e.g. an animated segment in a live-action show, like the original Simpsons skits on Series.The Tracey Ullman Show

To clarify I wasn't suggesting a separate namespace like InternalWork.Itchy And Scratchy but a separate subpage tied to the parent work. So I&S would be under InternalWork.The Simpsons. Since we have other trope subpages that use the work's name like how Trivia/ or Monster/ are subpage namespaces. Using the logic that Show Within a Show is a trope rather than, say, a genre.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I'm a bit late in replying to this since it was posted while I was taking a break, but:

Not only that, but the user who reverted it asked on the discussion page if you had permission to do that, and since you did, it ended up being a Rhetorical Question Blunder.

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