Ask The Tropers

The problem with non-fictional sports shows is that, since they're not scripted, they lack a tropable narrative.

^To expand a little on that: tropes are devices used by a storyteller. Most talk shows, and most sports programming, aren't scripted which means that there isn't a storyteller who can use tropes.

The show doesn't have to have fictional content. It can be a re-telling of real-life events, such as a documentary film, but then there's still an author who uses tropes when telling the story.

That doesn't make any sense. There's the obvious fact that those pages already had trope lists proving the above to be a falsely applied standard, as watching any of the shows would display. But that aside, it is literally the job of newscasters, sportscasters, and hosts to make a narrative of events as they happen and convey it to the (generally live). Again, with that standard, you might as well write off improv and all nonfiction media.

There are plenty of tropes used by non-fiction that don't have to have narratives, too. What separates these shows from Late Night, The Daily Show, Judge Judy, Chopped, The Price Is Right, Whose Line Is It Anyway? (which even has a recurring segment about sportscasters, since those tropes do exist)..., the Panel Show genre, the variety show genre, the edutainment genre, series based on standalone entries like Dropout's videos...

Whose Line Is It Anyway? is a series of improvised skits designed to produce a narrative result. And shows like Judge Judy show Judith Sheindlin presenting an exaggerated persona of her role as a judge (I guarantee you, she wouldn't have acted like this in an actual courtroom). The same holds for wrestling, which is scripted to an extent and isn't a true sport. There's a clear fictional element to things like this, expressed in varying degrees of subtlety.

Real sports don't operate this way. There's no intentional narrative element here like in wrestling.

You are aware Inside the NBA and Sportscenter aren't the actual sports themselves, right? That would be like saying Last Week Tonight is actually last week. Have you actually watched the shows or familiarized yourself with them at all?

I listed every example that I did because I at least watched some of all of them, and can draw clear parallels. And in the case of what would happen in an actual courtroom, you don't have to tell me. I'm an attorney myself. I can assure you Barkley's persona on the show is an exaggeration, and Ernie Johnson isn't actually The Godfather.

As for your wrestling example, are you aware of Talking Smack before it was canceled (and uncanceled, and possibly canceled again)? That's based on a sports talk show format.

And once again, why just sports talk shows? Are all other talk shows on the chopping block?

^ There's no specific targeting of sports talk shows, in general the site's community has been reappraising what works can be considered "tropeable", and thus non-fiction works are now under more scrutiny, and this happens to include talk shows like these. Pages on reality shows and wrestling haven't been cut, but they have to be scrutinized since they mixed scripted and real events, and we don't want to be troping actual lives.

^So all other talk shows are next, then?

And why haven't reality shows and game shows been cut if that's the standard, then?

^ ...yeah, that's how this reappraisal works. We aren't cutting everything in the genre, but we are being more careful in what we do or don't trope. A Let's Play, for example, now requires a certain level of narrative to get a page since you can't trope someone just playing a game without any real narrative there.

And as for why reality shows and game shows haven't been cut, it's a case-by-case basis since there are elements in some works, but not others, that can be troped. The page Real Life Troping is a good rundown of the current standards for troping shows like these and others.

That sounds like some people just cutting the genres and works, that have previously been established as being tropeable, because they don't like them in particular. Or on the case of talk shows, understand the narrative of the show and the performances being discussed, apparently.

^ Plenty of tropers enjoy wrestling, reality shows, and Let's Plays, so this isn't a targeted thing. It's more just the site's community trying to find a rigorous standard for what is or isn't tropeable. Just because "the site's always done this" doesn't mean it can't be questioned or reappraised. Please read the aforementioned Real Life Troping article if you want to know the reasoning better.

wanderlustwarrior, I think you might be observing this as more personal in nature than it really is. The site is just vying to be less sensationalist about actual personal lives of people beyond entertainment, and the approach to media that skirts the line is being handled with the understanding that real people are not tropable and should be off-limits for the sake of maintaining quality — there are a billion reasons why we log No Real Life Examples, Please!, including issues of inviting controversy, moralizing, or just being generally invasive.

The fact that certain works are being discussed at the pace that they are is precisely because they need the time for folks to discuss the matters-per-work tactfully, and the consensus regarding Inside The NBA ruled that the work itself should not have been because it's a non-applicable work where all the "narrative" trope examples present were all based on misuse in discussing real-life people, not fictional narratives or other forms of performance art. If we wanted to cut talk shows and sports shows on principle because of some general biases you're insinuating exists, they likely would have gotten the axe years ago.

Let's break it down a bit.

For decades. It's on The Goals of TV Tropes. We allow Non-Fiction to a certain degree because some reality shows have a creative process that involves using writing elements.

If someone brings them up for designated discussion, they can be cut. But you may be confused on what the standard is.

There are different types of "narrative". We specifically host artificial narrative, the one that someone came up with. News coverage and most talk shows are not artificial, even if they use some style, they just summarize what real people do. If a show has a type of humor that exaggerates everything or ad-libs over footage, then it has "sufficient amount of non-real elements".

This Is a Wiki. People add pages all the time and don't require permission or establishing if they are tropable or not. Once the Let's Plays accumulated a certain critical mass, there was a forum-wide discussion and everyone agreed that this format is "inherently but not necessarily" lacks creative process. Not the creation process, common elements that someone intentionally adds to make it entertaining.

"Will cooking shows be cut next? Nature documentaries and hosts? Instrumental musicians and albums?"

Yes, I would be quite happy for us to cut cooking shows and nature documentaries, as being off-mission for a site specialising in the use of tropes in narrative.

Songs usually contain tropes or even a narrative, so I don't think pages for musicians are going anywhere.

I'm not sure I agree with the cut reason provided - as stated, we do allow non-fiction works to be troped. There's even a guidance section for non-fiction works on Real Life Troping.

However, looking at these two, the pages clearly had problems. Inside The NBA only had six examples, with half of them troping the presenters as if they were fictional characters (Sixth Ranger, Four-Temperament Ensemble, Heel–Face Turn).

Sports Center had more tropes, but similar issues, including Tomboyish Name and Salt and Pepper (now renamed to White Bread and Black Brotha) applied to presenters.

A lot of the remaining tropes seem to be shoehorns or misuse. We can recover the final versions to a sandbox, if requested — and if there is enough valid content in the shows, tropers could potentially look at relaunching the pages — but they would need to follow the non-fiction guidelines and go via the forums for a consensus that they are tropeable works after all.

Full disclosure - I was the one who cutlisted the sports pages. Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable, Monday Night Football, and Sports Nation are some of the other series I cut.

Personally, even if I knew about the existence of the cooking show pages before reading about them in this query, I wouldn't have cut them cuz I think it's possible to trope some aspects of those - for instance, maybe the "food" aspect of the general cooking shows and the "competition" aspect of the competition shows can be troped.

...I think you just make case that cooking show isn't different from sport. Here, I swap two of your words with sport and it still make as much sense "for instance, maybe the "sport" aspect of the general sport shows and the "competition" aspect of the competition shows can be troped."

The reason I think cooking shows can be troped is that much of what we see are staged. I read an article long ago (Cracked.com, I think) that most of the times they actually cook the dish for the judges before the show and just throw away the crap they cook on screen.

^ I highly doubt cooking shows are staged. Not to mention, I don't think Cracked.com is a reliable source.

We were discussing this in our offsite mod chat a few days ago and concluded that, of the sports-related talk shows that were cut, two that had potential to be brought back were Pardon The Interruption and Around The Horn since their content, while heavily involved with sports, contained enough tropable elements to make for solid pages, provided that some of the examples that had issues were addressed.

This thread's getting a bit long. At this point I think it would be best to take the discussion here.

^^^ "I highly doubt cooking shows are staged."

Then they shouldn't be tropable, just like sport.

"Not to mention, I don't think Cracked.com is a reliable source."

In the present, yes, but as noted, it was long ago.