Tropability standards

It's probably just me not quite understanding the proposed guidelines fully, but could someone give me an example that would be acceptable under these proposed guidelines? I think I'm just having trouble in how we're going to differentiate an opinion piece vs a tropeworthy example.

I really support keeping pages for creators that analyze tropes thoroughly. They usually either reference TV Tropes directly or even inform our pages as stated before, so I think it would help showcase what these tropes are about if we include their analysis as an example of Conversational Troping, or even make a new "playing with" page of Trope Analysis / Analytical Troping (NTBCW the Analysis/ namespace, but related in spirit).

I think Sarah Z would be a good example of what we could keep. When I was drafting Alternate Self Shipping, someone gave an example from her video on the Once-ler fandom, which analyzed why the self-shipping came to be in that particular fandom, which also helps inform other similar examples on the page by proxy.^{The example in question for context:} invokedDiscussed extensively in her video about the history of the Once-ler fandom, which famously had people shipping the Once-ler with AU versions of himself. Sarah explains that this came about because, while the Once-ler was a seriously popular character on Tumblr at the time and people wanted to ship him, there was no one from the source material to ship him with; Ted and Audrey are children and, as they puts it, "people weren't quite freaky enough to ship him with the Lorax yet." This, combined with the fact that the movie has the Once-ler change from a starry-eyed innocent to a greedy Corrupt Corporate Executive so quickly, it felt like two different characters, made the fandom split the character into two; the original, sweet Once-ler, and the evil version they nicknamed "the Greed-ler." Sarah then goes on to describe how this led to the creation of thousands of alternate Once-lers in the fandom, most of which bore practically no resemblance to the original character. In her analysis, Sarah suggests that part of the appeal may have been that the Once-ler was a sort of Gateway Character for sympathetic, tragic, and oddly appealing villains. Most of the fans were young teens, and he appeared in a children's movie, plus he was presented as likable from the outset and was redeemed at the end, so you didn't have to feel bad or "justify" liking him. The ship then came from people wanting to explore shipping dynamics like Foe Romance Subtext, Dating Catwoman, Mind Game Ship and Angel/Devil Shipping, but, because they were quite young, weren't familiar with media that actually contained those elements. So they did it with the Once-ler, because it was safe and familiar.

To contrast, a channel largely based on opinions, such as a WatchMojo "Top 5 examples of this trope" video, would have no worth being listed as it's subjective in nature and usually doesn't go into much analysis beyond repeating examples already listed in the page. However, a video of that type that also helps offer insight into the "best" usage of the trope may be worth listing, though that doesn't mean the creator themself gets a page if they don't make enough thorough analysis of at least two other tropes.

In-universe audience reactions should also be analyzed case-by-case. If a Caustic Critic just makes insults about an Ethnic Scrappy he hates, that's likely not unique enough from the character's own Ethnic Scrappy entry to count. But if he talks at length about why the character became an Ethnic Scrappy, that's interesting context for the Ethnic Scrappy trope page, and could be worth mentioning.

My rule of thumb is basically, "Does their discussion of the trope have something to offer that the actual trope examples for the works can't do on their own without losing comprehensibility?"

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 14th 2023 at 7:24:55 AM

I'm of the opinion that a Discussed Trope can be as good as it played straight when a work's content is considered, as long as it's an actual usage of the trope and not just a presence.

I like the proposed guidelines

Those guidelines sound good to me too.

"It avoids the problem of arbitrarily deciding whether an analytical piece can have its trope analysis listed on TV Tropes... based on whether its creator bothered to create a mouthpiece character who can arguably be deemed "sufficiently fictional" (or, worse, isn't really related to the analysis itself)." I very, very, very much agree with this also.

(Link to the Web Video thread for reference.)

I'm familiar with almost none of the review channels being discussed so I probably can't effectively decree which ones do or don't count.

Basically "it shouldn't have to pass TLP, but if it doesn't say anything worth mentioning in Analysis/ or SoYouWantTo/ then it shouldn't be an example". ^note UsefulNotes/ deliberately excluded.

(My perception is that the problem with Web Video and Let's Play work pages has much less to do with whether they discuss tropes, than with tropers failing to distinguish people from fictional characters and treating whatever their favourite reviewer says as authoritative.)

Things keep reminding me.

Is Notability, Verifiability, Tropability good enough for Administrivia/?

I don't see why we can't have pages for things with no singular creator. That rule is listed in the Administrivia page but I'm unsure where it originally came from.

If we can have Norse Mythology and Arthurian Legend, why shouldn't we have pages for Slenderman and Cthulhu Mythos? None of those pages are causing a problem— they seem to be in perfectly good shape, and are being regularly edited and cleaned. There's no problem here that would be improved by implementing this rule

Edited by Tremmor19 on Mar 17th 2024 at 3:26:32 PM

Good point. The point in the policy is that we need to be sure who've made the work and where it came from. This doesn't apply to Mythology, so that's a contradiction. There's also been a move to turn certain creepypasta into Urban Legends if their origin is unknown.

At least for Slenderman and Cthulhu, we do have original creators we can track as the source, even if many derivatives have been created since.

Mythology and fairy tales are trickier, but not insurmountable: Verifiability could include having groups of people that either believe in them or still retell them.

What do you all think about adding to/merging the contents with There Is No Such Thing as Notability?

The Sandbox.Notability Verifiability Tropability already partially includes There Is No Such Thing as Notability, so merging the two would be natural down the line.

Edited by Amonimus on Apr 22nd 2024 at 7:24:49 PM

Could we elaborate on:

Into something like:

Maybe "make an appearance in the work itself by at least being a Discussed Trope"?

That definition is redundant and possibly misleading.

If a Let's Play, review, or reaction contains content from another work, that content is not tropable. It belongs to the original work, not the derivative one. If a fanfic incorporates a character from an original work, any tropes associated with that character do not become part of the fic by association.

Only content that is original or transformative in the derivative work may be troped.

Example:

1. Deadpool says "Holy shitballs" in a movie.
2. I review the movie, and that scene is included in the clips that I use.
3. You cannot list Unusual Euphemism as a trope example for my review.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 22nd 2024 at 12:55:46 PM

Forgive me if this is the wrong thread to be asking this, but where do we stand on the tropability of non-published non-fiction essays and political manifestos? I recently discovered that Industrial Society and Its Future (aka the "Unabomber Manifesto", aka the essay that a domestic terrorist extorted news publications into publishing) has a page and also had entries under Audience-Alienating Premise.

When I brought up in the AAP cleanup thread over whether or not it would be valid to leave up, it seems consensus is leaning towards cutting the entire work page, and pages other similar works like Mein Kampf because they're not exactly "works" with a definite audience and more just political/philosophical espousing. I personally think they sound cutworthy, but wanna know what the standard is on that before calling it.

Edited by number9robotic on Apr 22nd 2024 at 1:46:08 AM

Well, Mein Kampf is most certainly published, so I don't think we can apply that criterion. It has plenty of verifiability. Looks like someone already brought it up in the correct thread, so you could move the conversation over there.

I have generally been of the opinion that non-fiction, non-documentary works that do not discuss tropes directly are off-topic for the site. The idea, I suppose, is that manifestos and screeds like these are "quasi-fictional" in that they include a lot of lies, delusions, and manipulations, but that is a serious stretch.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 22nd 2024 at 4:53:35 AM

For me, if they're anything, they're Useful Notes. or something to put in Referenced by..., and get a Useful Notes if they get big enough or something.