When To Rename A Trope

The When To Rename A Trope guidelines should probably be stickied in this forum, since they directly relate to the task at hand. Yea?

edit: Due to page repair action, the guidelines were rewritten and are now located at Everything You Wanted To Know About Changing Titles. Ironic, I know.

edited 4th Sep '10 11:50:21 AM by SomeGuy

Say, er, how do we rename a trope? Do we like launch a new article with the same content and the new name? For that matter, how do we delete the old article?

You're right for the most part AOD, but you don't delete the old article - you put one of them redirect markups on it.

No, I don't know what that markup is.

[[redirect:NameOfTrope]]

If the old title does merit deletion (say, if it's misspelled), then you nominate it on the Cut List.

@M4: Point taken.

This post was thumped by the Merciless Hammer of Doom

edited 18th Mar '09 9:42:32 PM by [AOD]

This post was thumped by the Stick of Post Thumping

All right, looking at the "General Guidelines for Rename" thread by ccoa, I'm suggesting an overhaul on this page. I'll rewrite the guidelines and paste them into the original post, adding stuff that has come up in the other thread. We can then Cut List the When To Rename A Trope page, since as this is now forum discussion, there's no need for a page on it for the wiki proper.

Any objections? We only really need one sticky for these guidelines and this one is already here.

edited 19th Mar '09 11:01:04 AM by Some Guy

Keep the page. It's fine the way it is.

There's no need to Cutlist the page. Doing that assumes that everyone who might ever be interested in the renaming policy is going to know to look in the forums for it.

The Ptitles thread is currently having a lively discussion in which people are defending massive renames on the grounds they think it a good change.

If this stands, you can forget the rename process. No one makes a change they think bad.

Straw man. We are currently celebrating Rissa's heroic efforts to make the wiki seem less illiterate. Come on in, it's a party!

edited 7th Apr '09 5:27:23 PM by FastEddie

Let's see if he claps for further heroic efforts to improve the wiki — ones he doesn't like

@Goldfritha: I think you're just trying to pick fights where nothing needs to be fought about. Best to stop that.

Why is a trope called "Waif Fu"? Sounds to me like it should be called something like "Lightweight Heavy Lifter" or "Heavylifting Featherweight"...

I'm starting to get the feeling that we're becoming too technical. We're losing alot of the wit for names that are so...I don't know how to put it. Alot of the rename suggestions are starting to sound the same and emit the same emotion. What ever happened to the feeling of seeing an interesting meme that you had no idea what it was about, clicked on the link and then said, "OH! That's what it meant." Sure some of the names can be a little confusing but that's what the article body is for. If that's the part that's causing more confusion, then its the body that needs to change. And if the examples are not right, they need pruning.

What would be nice is a function that would allow someone to see what pages link to a page to see if those pages are misusing the original page.

That's what the "related to" button at the top of every trope page does.

A little procedural problem: Suppose a work was the Trope Namer before rename, but no longer so after rename. Should I remove all reference that the work is a Trope Namer?

Yeah. That's simply cleanup. Same for if the page image gets changed and one of the examples refers to the old one.

It occurred to me recently that the google search engine is so radically different from the old one that some of the information in this page is out of date. When I wrote that line about redirects being preferable, that was back when you could use the primary search engine to find redirects. As far as the search engine goes redirects are pretty much worthless now except for the sake of broken links. Are there any objections to me rewriting that part of the guidelines?

Why do you say redirects are worthless? Asking the Google search for "Inevitable Eruption" brings up the main Chekhov's Volcano page as the very first hit. "Cosmic Horror" brings up the Eldritch Abomination page as the first hit. "Kanrinin" brings up Landlord as the first hit.

All you have to do is use quotes around your search terms.

In other words, yes, I object to changing that section, because it does still apply.

edited 11th Aug '09 9:03:13 PM by Madrugada

Agreed; it still very much applies.

Sadly it looks like now we're just renaming tropes for the sake of renaming them. It should be for a name that doesn't accurately describe a trope. For example Boring Invincible Villain was fine. It described everything perfectly and gets to the point.