Ask The Tropers

Disagree. When does Useful Notes ever need to provide advice for writers? And besides, Flash has done a great deal in various aspects in media, especially in animation, webcomics, and web series. Since this wiki generally focuses on media and storytelling, I don't see a reason to cut it.

Eh. Typically I'd say "cut" but the Useful Notes page does say that it's for things useful for writers and about things "related to its creation and distribution in some way".

Good Lord, why do we have Useful Notes pages for software programs?

This page is a weird case, because it's also a de facto index for Flash-animated works.

We have plenty of pages for flash games on here, so having a useful notes page for Flash itself is relevant.

Wait...

UsefulNotes.Bees

UsefulNotes.Lotus Position

UsefulNotes.Cat Communication

Actually, maybe we do need to do some cleanup. I'm beginning to wonder if we should have some official approval thread like for Complete Monster?

^^No. We should not have useful notes pages for software. TV Tropes is about storytelling and the tropes therein. It is not a computer programming or software design instructional guide.

^ It's relevant to TV Tropes because of the large amount of animation (both homemade and professional) created using it.

I also disagree if the software is related to media creation.

But again, we could hash out official policy in a thread.

Let's take a scroll down the Useful Notes page.

• Bitcoin
• Kmart
• Wal Mart
• Hat Shop — all about hats!
• Interacting with Persons Different Than Yourself
• Muramasa and Masamune — two old-timey Japanese samurai or something
• Meditation — these aren't even properly alphabetized
• Nudism — nope, not clicking on that at work
• Otherkin — uh, people who identify as animals

That's just in the Culture folder. Although, if you think that a wiki devoted to how people use storytelling tropes in fiction should also give a how-to guide on driving a car with a manual transmission, Driving Stick is for you.

The wiki is for tropes.

Although I guess we could have Useful Notes pages on Microsoft Word because people use it to write stories, or the iPhone because you can film a video on it, or all makes of camera because they can be used for pictures and videos. Film stock...paints and brushes...

From what it looks like, a Useful Notes cleanup might be needed. But my stance on the Flash page hasn’t changed. It is simply a software that has proven to be essential in various parts of media.

I would say any major software that is highly instrumental in media and/or content production can have Useful Notes pages. Flash is one of those software for the reasons already listed.

I thought we could merge Adobe Flash, Toon Boom, etc. into a page called Digital Animation that describes each software and then has an index of digital animation tropes (if any such tropes exist). We would not merge the examples of shows for each software.

True, but not relevant to what TV Tropes is for.

The Flash page should stay. The flash software platform is essential to Flash Animation, a style/technique which was very influential for The Millennium Age of Animation. Flash was essential for the democratization of video game and animation production in the 2000s, and enabled the creation of new genres such as Motion Comics. With Flash being officially phased out next year, I think this article will become more useful with time as people become less useful for what it is.

The Adobe Flash article could use a shift in focus from the technical side to the media side, though.

The listed reasons for the Useful Notes are:

I definitely think a page on Flash fits with 2. We have Useful Notes pages for video game consoles and film techniques, and I don't see how this any different. Technology enables what styles, tropes, and techniques are possible in a work, and I find it useful to understand what's going on behind the scenes.

What's your opinion on the page Mozilla Firefox?

^ Seems questionable, it’s not involved in the creation of (or depicted in) any world that I know of. I wouldn’t object to a cut.

I do think useless useful notes are much less of a problem for the wiki than bad trope or work pages, and personally am disinclined to spend a lot of time trying to fight the Law Of Wiki Expansion. However, some useful notes pages are definitely more aligned with our goals than others.

We definitely should clean up Useful Notes, there's no doubt about it— but I think Flash should stay simply because it fits the Useful Notes definition provided on the page. I get the purpose of having notes about software and distribution— it can help creators just as much as learning about accents and fighting styles can.

Firefox can get the boot.

I wish this wiki had a "bangs head on desk" emoji.

I wonder whether Useful Notes should require the TLP process, how flawed the latter can be.

^ Yes, I think TLP should be required for Useful Notes. Only work pages should be free launch, and even work pages could use some help at times. (Lately, I've seen so many pages with entirely ZCE.)

Also, Interacting with Persons Different Than Yourself — who writes this stuff, and why? And who reads it, beside me? :-D :-D :-D Ok, I had a great laugh, but this page should be burned with fire.

I've been using Firefox since the pre-1.0 days, and even I don't understand why it has a page.

Alright, I'm going to try to create a thread and crowner in the short-term projects forum.

EDIT: Thread here. Crowner here. Requested they be hooked.