Is There Really A Point To This? (New Crowner Jan.18): Ralph Wiggum

Your YKTTW shows an actual definition (The Ditz thinks George Washington is a recent singer, The Whatever We Are Naming This thinks he's a toaster.) That's not YMMV. Making a YMMV will remove all chance of noting that trope. If someone wants a YMMV Really Dumb trope, they should YKTTW - and they'll be rejected mercilessly.

Anyway, I do think that the fact that we went to ten pages arguing over what this trope means does show it needs a rename. It does have heavy misuse — it's meant to be distinct from The Ditz, yet its examples had extremely massive amounts of overlap with that trope. Overlap between tropes that are meant to be mutually exclusive is a clear form of misuse.

That, if nothing else, would be enough to justify renaming this trope to make its distinction from The Ditz more clear.

edited 2nd Jan '12 11:37:43 PM by Aquillion

A YMMV tag, I think, would make it distinct enough.

My YKTTW doesn't exist anymore, so that's completely irrelevant. And if you wanted to say me something about the YKTTW you should have said it in the page of the mentioned YKTTW, not here.

I think we need a new crowner here to decide whether (1) to YMMV, (2) to rename, or maybe (3) to cutlist. Except for the third, those options are compatible with the previous crowner, which just defines the term.

A non existant trope, that is. Because that's what we've been arguing: there are no examples of "dumb character that makes other dumb characters look smart". What we're saying to YMMV is the trope as it is right now. We can't do a trope like the one the crowner asks us to do. I tried but it's just not feasible.

I should have commented on that YKTTW, but I think it's really a matter of fixing the current trope. Anyone who wants a Dumb And Dumber page can YKTTW it separately, but that has nothing to do with The Ralph Wiggum, and as you point out, it doesn't appear to exist as a trope at all. Forgets How To Sit also shouldn't get a separate YKTTW because it's the current The Ralph Wiggum page — minus all the bad wicks, bad examples and bad description.

I don't think we should seriously consider making the page YMMV. It "solves the problem" in the way that, say, relaxing our ban on pedophilia would have "solved" troper tales, but it doesn't actually improve things. It would leave us with a page dedicated to people This Troper thinks are dumb but that follow no actual trope. Maybe that's what we have now, but we don't want that. I'm particularly confused by Sean's comment that resigning this to YMMV will distinguish it's definition from The Ditz. The distinction will be... The Ditz is objectively ditzy but The Ralph Wiggum is however dumb you want him to be, your mileage may vary?

I made it trying to help, the YKTTW was Up For Grabs and it tried to go by the crowner's decision, as it clearly explained "to put it with an example, Dumb Beyond Limits thinks George Washington is a toaster". I'm not very good when it comes to explain things, so if no one helped withe the YKTTW then it's not my fault that it wasn't good.

And I'll say again, because people don't seem to get my point: I DON'T care about what is done with the page, as long as SOMETHING gets done. If I asked about how can we make it YMMV is because it was the only proposition made then. If it were for me I'd say cut it. YMMV for "the epitome of stupid characters" didn't seem bad, but all I care about is deciding what to do and do it as soon as possible.

edited 3rd Jan '12 4:54:24 AM by DrMcNinja

I think you did an admirable job of combining the trope's actual definition that you unearthed (toaster v singer, would have trouble surviving in real life) with the one the crowner supplied, but the two aren't actually compatible. Compromise always fails !

The thing I noticed is that there is simply no way to make a trope about the crowner's decision, that's why the YKTTW was doomed to failure and I discarded it. Because to have a character as described in the crowner we would need either a comparation between Ralph and Ditz made by other character in the work, or Ditz lampshading how stupid is Ralph. And I have never seen an example of that.

Are we making a decision about this or not? This thread is over a year long, come on, there's a problem here, can we adress it?

What I personally want to do with the trope is a) cut it, or b) at least give it a less horrendous name. And neither of these are options.

I'd like to do either of those as well. Or move it to Sugar Wiki or make it YMMV.

The winning definition makes perfect sense to me, I don't get the big deal.

It's hopelessly subjective.

And there are no examples of that.

I can think of a bunch of examples, it doesn't seem all that subjective to me. It's common in comedies. When all the characters tend to be kind of dumb or silly there will be one or two characters who are way dumber, and there so the other characters use them as the Butt-Monkey to look/feel smarter. Charlie of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Caboose and Donut of Red Vs Blue pop to mind immediately.

edited 10th Jan '12 1:50:36 AM by NoirGrimoir

Fine, YKTTW that. Maybe examples exist. But that has no connection with the article as it exists now.

Check the Dumb Beyond Limits YKTTW that I discarded if you want, it may be of some help.

Exactly.

In The Ditz's present form, to follow the crowner would involve a purge of nearly 100% of its current examples and wicks (I've only been able to spot two examples on the page that are already written as comparisons to other stupid characters in the same work which could stay), a completely rewritten description, and a new name. It would be like cutting one page and making an entirely different one with only the vaguest of connections to the original page.

edited 10th Jan '12 5:00:18 AM by SeanMurrayI

Then what is this going to be then?

Can we just agree to slap a YMMV tag on this and be done with it?

The only person in this thread who was ever really vocal against doing that sort of thing (and for reasons which never really made much sense) is no longer posting in this thread. Does anybody else have a reason why that shouldn't be done?

No objections here.

Okay, but it would still need a definition. What's the subjective definition going to be?

I think that it was "the epitome of stupid characters".