Shall we consider text where somebody is talking to a character/company/person/whatever Natter? Exhibit A, this text, discovered on the YMMV page for the Simpsons episode "Jazzy and the Pussycats: " Sure Lisa, your brother discovering hidden talent in what was previously your "thing" totally means he is taking that thing away from you. What's stopping you from treating this as a friendly rivalry & putting in some extra effort to try & get ahead again ? And even if your brother does end up outshining you in this one field, it's not like you aren't a child prodigy with flair for several other fields." Even if they have a point, this is absolutely unacceptable, I consider it Natter. If you agree, fine. If you disagree, I won't mind.
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YES. I make an effort to reword this whenever I come across it in an article. At the very least, it feels like Word Cruft.
One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.
Is there a list of pages where Natter is actually not frowned upon?
"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Hide / Show Replies
No, because it would be empty. Ain't no such kind of page.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
The page is locked, so I can't fix it myself, but I've noticed something in the fourth paragraph. It talks about "This Troper", which has been added to the Permanent Redlink Club, so it no longer works. Would an admin be willing to repair that? My suggestion would be to restructure the sentence to end in something like "or anything involving first-person references". Also, is there a better place to put requests like this?
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This Troper is a deliberate redlink — click on it and the page actually exists. It's better to have it there than merely focus on first-person, since technically it's third so some might think the notice doesn't apply.
Edit requests to locked pages go here
, by the way.
Oh, I see! Thank you for getting back to me, Telcontar, and for the forum link. I'll definitely keep it in mind for if I do see something that needs modification. Have a good one!
Sorcerer in training
Does anyone know why the programming kicks up a natter warning when simple copyediting is being done?
For example, I just fixed a formatting error where the person had remembered }} on the end of the word group, but forgotten {{ at the beginning. I added the {{ so the formatting would work and the }} wouldn't be hanging out there all lonesome. When I checked 'history' (because someone else had the page checked out initially, and I wanted to see the change), my entry had a natter alert.
This occurs with fixing actual misspellings (alternate real spellings stay put), fixing typos such as mistyped or swapped letters, formatting issues, or loose, hanging, and out-of-context words. (Accidents from previous edits?) The only requirement seems to be that the entry edited happens to be wordy.
At the very least, such a situation calls for judgement when using the 'natter alert' button.
I admit there's at least two occasions where I should have born the no nattering rules to heart, and I was justly called on it. I'm trying to be better, and will try and listen to being told I've slipped, taking correction in the positive spirit it's meant.
Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett Hide / Show Replies
You mean the natter-fy button? That always appears in the history. It's not a program, it's a button you can press to send an editor an automated PM to let them know their edit was natter.
There is no programming that recognises natter to give you warnings—only editors can do that.
Edited by lu127 "If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
No matter what edit I make, I get a notification about natter. Can some one explain why? I repair instead of replying, don't put coversations, and I give reasons for edits.
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You might take it to Ask The Tropers (does that place still exist?) or the forums. Or you could PM whoever is notifying you.
This has got to be like the 5,000th time I forgot my email or password...
It does still exist, albeit in a different format to a year or two ago. Sending a PM is also a good idea, asking the person to explain just why it's natter.
The natterfier gets misused for other issues because people see it's a stock PM and send it when an edit has any trouble, or occasionally is fine. There's a thread in Tech Wishlist to expand it to a veriety of P Ms for things like indentation, natter, formatting, word cruft, or something else.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
It's not necessarily natter, but considered bad style.
Edited by LordGro Let's just say and leave it at that.
Saying YMMV is inherently argument in a lot of cases, and in other cases it invites people to share their view.
If you feel the need to preface your entry with "Not really an example, but..." then you know in your heart it's not an example. Don't add it. The word "arguably" is often used to shoehorn in non-examples, and "YMMV" is another way of doing it.
Edit: Wow, never gotten ninja'd on a discussion page before!
Edited by Telcontar That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
InformationWantsToBeFree
What is the origin of the term "Natter"?
Please join these multinational petitions against ACTA. Sign up now. Every voice counts. Hide / Show Replies
Question: I recently added an example to something as another bullet, as a different example from the same work. I started it with "There's also...blah blah blah", and a few hours later, I got a message telling me not to natter, with the "There's also" part edited out with everything else the same.
Is starting an example with that really considered natter? I thought natter was more having a conversation about an above example and contradicting it or adding unnecessary info about the same example, I wasn't aware that just having a few words of lead-in would be considered natter, especially when I've seen dozens of examples with that on various pages.
Not that I'm particularly offended or anything, I'm just curious for future reference.
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I wouldn't class it as natter. Technically, it's unnecessary words (Word Cruft), but in my opinion such a small thing simply adds flow to the page. It might have also had incorrect Example Indentation; if you're adding another instance from the same work, then you have to put the original and the new on second-level bullets, not just the one you're adding. You probably got the natter PM because it's conveniently by every edit, even when it isn't the issue. There's a project to turn it into a selection of messages for a variety of stuff, which should help prevent people getting natterfications when their edit is fine in that respect.
Edited by Telcontar That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
I know this is official policy, but it still makes me sad. I cannot possibly be the only person who found natter to be the best part of this website back in the day - it's where all the good jokes lived.
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I agree 100%. I absoltuely LOVED the way that unlike Wikipedia, which was going for a single editorial voice like an actual encyclopedia, TV Tropes seemed more like the product of a horde of people! Many voices, all for the same goal, but with dissention and conversation.
It was exactly like the work of the indexers at the Imperial Library in "The Originist", a short story written by Orson Scott Card that took place in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe. Taking the media works of society, and crossreferencing, writing notes to each other, commenting here and there, discussing with each other via text how everything fit together. And it was amusing and enjoyable.
Truly. We lose something as a community whenever someone's words are edited to cover up dissent. This isn't an encyclopedia; we're supposed to be providing insight on the media and entertainment we've come into contact with, for those who have not yet had the privilege (or pain) of doing so themselves. Necessary, then, is subjectivity and dissent. That doesn't mean we should discourage consensus. But, god, it's like watching the Wikipedia Deletionist debacle all over again. Eventually we're going to have a handful of power users who dictate what and what isn't allowed here, based on their personal preferences or misguided "objectivity". And that will suck.
Believe me, what most people saw wasn't a collective of information- they saw a schizophrenic jumble of pages contradicting itself, obsessed with the smallest things, and spouting tired, old stuff repeatedly. There was no fun to be had in reading entries that went like
- It was present in this
- Actually, no it wasn't
- Well, it was justified because so and so
- MEME!!!!!!
- Well, it was justified because so and so
- Actually, no it wasn't
And there are YMMV pages with their own tropes where you can describe what you thought was awesome or not so awesome. Trying to clean up pages does not mean we're snuffing out opinions at all.
Edited by AzureSeas
I loved the natter, too - but I understand and accept it was a moderator's nightmare. And it was hard to read down some pages in a reasonable amount of time. (I also miss Troper Tales, very much - same reason)
But I still love the site. I'm glad that the WMG and Headscratcher and Discussion pages are still free.
"Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
I also miss the discussion, but I do understand the issue with too much. We are a collection of sites which should be promoting discussion and analysis of narrative on an interesting manner that should spread across the site, because people are pretty intimidated by the forums and rightfully so.
Also, adding to what Azure Seas said, natter also makes way more difficult to understand trope examples, since there's the entry explaining how the trope is applied, then a below point with a justifying edit about how it isn't an example of that trope (when it should be repaired if the example isn't such) and then another one extending the discussion and then the original entry becomes a mess.
Edited by AMNK
Pittsburghmuggle
I was thinking about a quick Alice and Bob bit at the end:
- Bob: So what's conversation in the main page?
- Alice: This is
- Bob: Are you sure?
- Alice: Absolutely.
- Bob: Okay.
- Alice: Absolutely.
- Bob: Are you sure?
- Alice: This is
Octagon
Is using the word "arguably" already natter?
"Do you always talk to random strangers at the streets? Get a life!" - a random stranger, Exit Fate Hide / Show Replies
I'd say no. I'd say you're going too far to always assume that any starting phrase is always natter. It's a good rule of thumb, but sometimes those phrases are used to help explain the previous point. While they arguably need to be rephrased, they do not need to be outright deleted.
I'd also say that not all jokes are natter. There are plenty of times where humor is appropriate. I'd actually like to see a page devoted to knowing when that is, rather than lumping it all here.
The way to tell if something is natter is whether it responds to the previous point as if they were talking to them. Or if they are encouraging responses. To be conversation, there has to be an element of actual conversing between two or more contributors.
Edited by BigT Everyone Has An Important Job To Do
No. Never has been, never will be.
"Stealing is a crime and drugs is a crime too BUT if you steal drugs the two crimes cancel out and it’s like basically doing a good."
"Self-demonstration"ness in this page is already covered by Thread Mode.
Doctor Where
Is the end of the quote messed up or was the typo in the original? There's a question mark instead of an apostrophe.
Well that was like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole where "mole" is defined as "Cthulhu". -Count Dorku Hide / Show Replies
It appears that way to me too; as "didn?'!'?" rather than "didn't!" The original source isn't typoed, just here.
Then I'm fixing it.
Edit: Wait- never mind. Looks like I can't. Guess we'll have to wait.
Edited by JBridge There's no space in the name.
Bully in the Alley
Could an admin add a link to Word Cruft somewhere on the page? Since there's a link here from there, it's safe to say it is a subtrope.
"The only way to truly waste an idea is to shove it where it doesn't belong."
Unknown Troper: Hey, guys? On top of the bit about starting off Natterish edits with "Actually ..." can we also make a mention of "To be fair ..." as well? I see that one a lot here on TV Tropes, even more so than "Actually ..."
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The trope "Our Dragons are different" shouldn't be "No Real Life Examples", because many other "Our Monsters are different" tropes include real life examples, why is it different to the dragons? And also, I'm really able to see real life examples on this trope, like, the Komodo Dragons should be included on this trope, the Draco Volans, the sea dragon fish(the one that is related to Seahorses), the prehistoric Quetzalcoatlus, these are examples that should be included on "Our Dragons are different"