Awesome Music and dead links.

Awesome Music pages attract dead links near universally due to the fact that uploads of music on YouTube are extremely volatile and channels that upload tracks tend to not last long. Go on any awesome music page and there is a good chance that at least a fourth of the links are dead. Make it half if it’s on a game made by Nintendo. I personally think that this issue, especially with just how frequent the issue is, should make it so that links to songs should not be allowed since they are very prone to becoming useless and reducing the quality of the wiki. Would this be something to start a wick check for and put the trope in the queue for TRS?

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Sep 20th 2022 at 12:11:12 PM

Our general policy is that media links should be to first-party/licensed content wherever possible. Rips and reuploads should be avoided precisely because there is no guarantee they will remain valid.

which generally leads to the problem that a lot of media, especially video games, do not have official sources for their music and unofficial rips are the only way to listen to them. awesome music tends to lead to a lot of Weblinks Are Not Examples violations anyway, so even if that wasn't a problem i feel like the issue of low-context examples is reaching a tipping point anyway

Does this trope warrant being taken to TRS? If so I will get cracking on a wick check. Also are we even allowed to link to unauthorized uploads of copyrighted music?

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Sep 21st 2022 at 12:06:56 PM

You know, I wouldn't mind saying "no links allowed", not only because of dead links, but because of the risk of linking to copyright-violating content, which could (potentially) get us in legal trouble.

I support a wick check. Although it would take a lot of work given how many wicks there are.

Not just Nintendo, but many other companies have music on YouTube removed such as Square-Enix (Square-Enix's Final Fantasy for example has many dead links).

Edited by Nen_desharu on Sep 21st 2022 at 1:04:18 PM

I'm sorry, I missed where people are entitled to illegal sources of content. Even if you seek this sort of thing out privately, TV Tropes should not be a party to it because we have legal and ethical obligations.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 21st 2022 at 1:29:18 PM

I feel like this goes back to the massive ZCE issue Awesome Music has. If you can adequately describe the music and why it's awesome, do you even need a link?

Ok. If I start the wick check this would be my first time submitting something to the Trope Repair Shop. Should I do it or should I not start with something this huge of an undertaking?

If you want to do it, you don't need to do it alone. You can submit it to the Wick Check Project to let others (like myself) collab on it and help you get the ropes.

Up to you. If you want to start with something smaller, like a Not Thriving trope or another trope with relatively few wicks, you can do that, but if you want to do a huge project first, that's fine as well. My first TRS thread was Genre-Killer, which had 50 wicks, so I didn't start that small either. It's ultimately your call.

EDIT: is right, you can go to the Wick Check thread and get help as well.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 21st 2022 at 1:42:30 PM

I’m aware I wouldn’t do the wick check alone. I haven’t done them because I don’t appear to have the ability to bold text on mobile (where I mostly use the site) and I don’t know how to type on a keyboard. Is it a good idea for me to start the TRS thread for a trope this huge as my first one?

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Sep 21st 2022 at 1:45:14 PM

Like I said, it's your call. If I were in your position, I might wait on doing it as my first thread, but a good way to start would be to make the wick check, plop it in the Wick Check thread Jay mentioned, and maybe if there's a smaller trope you want to do first bring that in first. But like I said, it's totally on you—if you're concerned enough about the trope that you feel something needs to be done, go ahead and do it.

If you know how to change text color or something, then you don't need to use bold text. Any way you can separate your comments from the main text would be fine, and you don't need to comment on everything anyway. I usually don't.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 21st 2022 at 1:53:28 PM

I brought it up in the thread so a wick check can get started. I probably won’t handle it myself but I will help. I could possibly collaborate on the opener and propositions to fix the trope. The issue I have on mobile is that I can’t bold text without copy and pasting. My phone’s keyboard doesn’t seem to have the right characters. I still have a wick check on Audience Alienating Premise that I started a while back but never made much progress on. Maybe I could start with that or just take Simpleton’s advice.

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Sep 21st 2022 at 1:57:17 PM

my reply wasn't meant to defend that behavior so much as explain why it happens. if there's no official source available, people will invariably link an unofficial one, since awesome music pages tend to encourage linking to what you're talking about. it's part of a greater issue to me — it encourages bad examples, even if the links are to legal sources

As far as I know, Awesome Music is nothing but a collection of "I've found this re-upload on youtube and think it's cool". The page description even encourages it.

I'd prefer to forbid links and reformat it to "Track name - Cool because reasons", but I'd rather wait for the wick check and TRS before thinking deeper about it.

Awesome Music is supposed to be about soundtracks in works. It arose as part of the old "crowning moments" system in which people would vote for their favorite moments in works. The same idea was applied to music, funny scenes, and so on.

"Hey, this music is awesome" as a general statement is out of scope. Just like Awesome Moments, all Awesome Music articles should be attached to an existing work article, and the examples should describe why the music is awesome without making someone click a link.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 21st 2022 at 4:45:36 AM

1. The Zero-Context Example/Weblinks Are Not Examples problem is quite tangential to the actual scope of the OP. If an entry doesn't say why the music is awesome, comment it out link or no link.
2. If a link is dead, just remove it. This applies to any area of the site, not just Awesome Music. No need to ask for permission. Perhaps a project - this one seems ripe for a necro if there isn't a more active one.
3. I don't think we should forbid links to examples off the bat, but I do agree keeping it to official uploads makes it less likely that they'll die in the future.

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 21st 2022 at 4:03:16 AM

I don't think it's a tangent, I think it's a symptom of the overall problem — because people don't know how to describe music, they link it, and this leads to the issue of the links being dead or breaking copyright. If people could write the examples well in the first place, links wouldn't even have to be there at all, making the entire point moot.

Also allowing Links practically encourages laziness and ZC Es. If links are decided to still be allowed, I think they should not be allowed to be a part on the main example and should instead be linked alongside an actual entry. For example “The Candy Man is awesome and stuff - Link”

I'm saying Weblinks Are Not Examples is tangential because it's not exclusive to Awesome Music/. Look at any old webcomic page and you'll find the same problem (except it's like, "[[url here this page]]" instead of "[[url here listen]]"). The policy for dealing with it is the same everywhere, there's no need for a powerwashing of Awesome Music specifically. should always be the case.

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 21st 2022 at 9:56:43 AM

The main problem with Awesome Music isn't the links — it's the links in lieu of context. Back in the wild west days of 2009, most of Crowning Music of Awesome was literally just links with no context whatsoever.

Right, all I'm saying is that Awesome Music has been called out in the past as something hard to contextualize, and if we can resolve that issue somehow then the link issue will be resolved by proxy.

All it really goes back to is that the link overusage is a serious issue with the trope, and one that leads to other issues like the dead link thing. I'm just trying to pinpoint why it's such a problem for Awesome Music in particular so we can find an answer and avoid this being a recurring "thing".

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 22nd 2022 at 4:34:13 AM

I believe

1. It's describing a media content, and like Personal Appearance Tropes, it's hard, and easier to just point at it instead of giving any thought.
2. It is a recurring problem, more tropers see it done this way and assume it's the way to go, do the same, and it spirals out of control.