Discussion Administrivia / ExampleIndentationInTropeLists

The editing tips thing doesn't link to this properly since it's still pointed at the original pre-move target.

Is this ok:

• Trope: This trope happens extensively throughout the work. Some notable examples:
  • Near the end this trope is exaggerated.

Can I suggest a change on the right example of Super-Trope-Sub-Trope sorting? The idea behind it can be found in this ATT, and as a troper noted, our current right example is technically violating ZCE and Weblinks Are Not Examples (since this is discussion page, I didn't check with Get Help with English yet, so it probably need grammar clean up)

Right

• The Big Guy: Dave is 7 feet, 300 pounds, and wrestles bears.
• The Chick: Alice keeps the team together.
• Five-Man Band: George, Bob, Dave, Charlie, and Alice work together as a team.
  • George is The Leader of The Team.
  • Bob is The Lancer. He is George's best friend, but also his rival for Alice's affection.
  • Dave is The Big Guy, a 7 feet, 300 pounds guy who wrestles bears.
  • Charlie is The Smart Guy who invents all the team's gadgets.
  • Alice is The Chick who keeps the team together.
• The Lancer: Bob is George's best friend, but also his rival for Alice's affection.
• The Leader: George leads The Team.
• The Smart Guy: Charlie invents all the team's gadgets.

The Badass tropes are being scrapped or altered, so we need a new trope to illustrate this pattern: Right

• Badass Grandpa: Bob has grandkids and still kicks ass.
• Little Miss Badass: Alice is 9 years old and takes out grown men.

If more applicable subtropes apply, listing the parent trope (Badass) is not recommended.

Wrong

• Badass: The show has a lot of badasses.
  • Badass Grandpa: Bob has grandkids and still kicks ass.
  • Little Miss Badass: Alice is 9 years old and takes out grown men.

Why is the Super Trope-Sub-Trope organization method here done that way? The two examples for "wrong" would not actually be a problem assuming the rule was just specified that's how it's organized. Then if you want to find the subtrope, you just go to the Super Trope's place in the alphabet. The "right" examples seem to just create an abundance of redundant explanation.

The whole "no organization of tropes and subtropes" thing makes work pages harder to read.

How should these rules be applied on Headscratchers pages? They're not really like most trope pages, but aren't included in the list of discussion spaces.

The use of headers within an examples list seems to have been depricated, save for the various forms of Playing with a Trope^note with examples usually folderized by medium within those headers and the listings of examples of an Interactive Trope, separating the later into interactive and non-interactive media. The common convention is to use folders instead, due to their collapsability. I propose removing the last sentence in the referenced paragraph and, at the end of the Trope Page sub-section, adding the following:

Also, in the Super-Sub Sorting Section, there should be an allowance for if an example is either generic relative to the primary trope or is of a rarely seen subtrope to discourage Square Peg Round Trope. e.g.: Just a plain old Badass in a work which also has a Badass Normal and a Badass Bookworm in a work which does not occur in a World of Badass.

Finally, since this page deals in lists of examples, a word on how to handle an example that applies in general to a medium, genre, or a significant subset of either should be added. What I mean by that is the case where "Trope Variant A" is applied in most works of a genre, (and/or may well be a Necessary Weasel of a subset,) and Work B applies "Trope Variant C" regardless of whether or not it also applies "Variant A". Examples where Work B doesn't apply the trope at all or Subverts it would be relocated to the appropriate header.

Is there any possibility of discussing the merits of the rule on "Composite Tropes" such as The Team, or Five-Man Band and its villainous counterpart?

The indented version of this particular type of trope has several advantages, and its popularity across the wiki (despite the rule) stands as testament to its effectiveness. The Five Man Band has a particular set of subtropes, and without specifying which are in play for which characters, very little information is actually conveyed by the example.

It just doesn't make sense to have an entry declaring a group of characters to BE The Team without explaining HOW they do so - it borders on being a Zero Context Example:

• The Team: Tom, Dick, Harry, Lisa and Sean.

Adding "work as The Team" or "are a five-man band" or somesuch is redundant and unhelpful. This entry is just a list of names without context or use. You'd have to comb through the entire page just to learn how this example applies, and no sense of relationship is conveyed; The Lancer example might convey that Sean is The Lancer to Tom's Hero, but if Lisa is The Chick, her entry either has to a) contain the entire list of names AGAIN, or b) rely on the reader having memorized the list given in Five-Man Band. Whereas:

• Five-Man Band:
  • The Hero: Tom
  • The Big Guy: Dick
  • The Smart Guy: Harry
  • The Chick: Lisa
  • The Lancer: Sean

Basically, the indented form is a very effective way of organizing the information about how the "composite trope" is being used, and NOT using it leads not only to poorly-conveyed relationships, but also to a completely uninformative example under the supertrope's entry. Additionally, this can now occur:

• Five-Man Band: While the main characters don't really ever work together, the military squad that appears in Epsiode 5 fits nicely;
  • The Hero: Tom
  • The Big Guy: Dick
  • The Smart Guy: Harry
  • The Chick: Lisa
  • The Lancer: Sean

This way, characters who fit the respective subtropes within their groups can now be acknowledged as such even when their role in the overall story is too minor to warrant their inclusion as a primary trope example. Also, when you have Loads And Loads Of Characters a Retool, or a Long Runner, you might have more than one Team:

• The Team:
  • The show simultaneously follows two military units in different time periods: Reaper Squad in the present consists of:
    • The Hero: Tom
    • The Big Guy: Dick
    • The Smart Guy: Harry
    • The Chick: Lisa
    • The Lancer: Sean
  • While in the far-future, Bouncer Platoon features:
    • The Hero: Sean
    • The Big Guy: Evelyn
    • The Smart Guy: Bob
    • The Chick: Steve
    • The Lancer: Adam

Keeping track of the relationships between these two sets of five characters could be extremely frustrating, requiring many redundant re-statements of each team's members in each separate entry. This way, all of the relevant information is conveyed up-front.

Now, simply listing the various subtropes is certainly a Zero Context Example, but naming each subtrope and which character (or whatever) applies to each seems necessary to give the entry any context at all. And I'm not advocating the simple supertrope/subtrope indented lists, like the example for Badass; but those aren't built around relationships, they're simply ideas which are generally related. When it comes to an example which requires the relationships between various characters and their archetypes to be understood, the bulleted system is clean, efficient, and effective - and again, already widely used in spite of the prohibition here.

I'm not seeing a difference between the first "wrong" and the "right" that immediately follows it.

This may have been mentioned before, but how does one format song quotes?

This isn't really clear on how to handle sequel series listed under the same trope. Here, I'll use Friendly Tickle Torture as an example. Which is correct?

• The Alice and Bob Show:
  • Alice tickles Bob for stealing her pudding in Episode 3.
  • In Alice and Bob Are Back, Bob returns the favor and tickles Alice to wake her up.

Or is it

• In The Alice and Bob Show, Alice tickles Bob for stealing her pudding in Episode 3.
• In Alice and Bob Are Back, Bob Returns the favor and tickles Alice to wake her up.

Hi. Please clarify this, are bullets are banned now? How about multiple examples?

For instance this trope:

• Signature Scene
  • Season 1
    • Bob proposes to Alice.
  • Season 2
    • Alice and Bob got married.

Is there a page explaining colon indentation after a quote? If not, this would likely be the page for it.

Hi everyone, I'm new to TV Tropes. I've read the page in Administrivia about how to indent example pages, but I'm wondering what to do when an example shows up with the same character across both a work and its sequel.

I apologize if this has already been addressed, but I looked and couldn't find it. Thanks!

How should tropes like Combo Platter Powers be organized? I've seen people organize them like this:

• Combo Platter Powers
  • Healing Factor
  • Nigh-Invulnerability
  • Super-Speed
  • Super-Strength

Summary of post: Headers are appropriate for some pages, but not for Works pages; Characters and Recap pages could be useful in those cases.

All right, I'm confused.

In the section on Third Bullet Levels, it's said that a Header is an acceptable solution. However, I find that valid only in the case of Trope, Audience Reactions, and Trivia item pages. In these cases, the Medium can be subdivided between "Genre/Creator/Work that uses this Trope extensively A", "Genre/Creator/Work that uses this Trope extensively B", ..., "All other works in this medium".

However, on a Works page, this just doesn't fly. Actually, it shouldn't "fly"; a works page should list general or significant instances where a Trope is used. If the examples get so convoluted that the list of examples takes up a whole page height, then something's gone wrong. If the list on the works page goes like:

• Trope
  • Trope Tan
    • Episode 1
    • Episode 1 again
    • Episode 3
    • Plot-Important Episode 7 usage
    • Not used often after Episode 15
    • Used the Trope in a justified manner in Episode 77.
  • Alice used it in Episode 50, to Trope-Tan's confusion/annoyance.

Then what should happen is that most of Trope-Tan's examples would go into the Characters page under Trope-Tan, leaving the main works page like this:

• Trope:
  • Trope-Tan did this several times early on, (cite an early example, (Could be the Episode 7 example if either it's not that spoileriffic or a Late-Arrival Spoiler,)) but stopped after the first season. %5Here leave a note about the other entries being on the Characters page
  • The Alice example with Trope-Tan's response.

Now, going back to the Tropes page, if a work has instances as I've described above, then the example should read thusly:

• Work Of Trope:
  • Trope Tan did this quite often early on, [give some typical non-spoiler examples].
  • Alice did this in Episode 50 when... (Note: If it's spoilerific, then leave it off.)

Similarly, if a particular episode has several notable instances and that episode, or the season or Story Arc that the episode is part of, has a Recap page, the details of those examples should be listed in that Recap page. If these are the only instance of the show using the Trope, then it may mean that the trope should not be listed on the works page itself. A comment may be left in the appropriate place:

• 5* Trope: Used extensively in S2 E33 Episode Name, see the Recap page. Do not decomment.

I think we need to rule on how you handle multiple examples from a series. I think it's generally accepted that:

• Series Title 1 has ....
  • In the sequel, there is ....
  • And in Series Title 4, we see...

is wrong, while:

• Series Title has several examples:
  • Series Title 1 has ...
  • In the sequel, there is ....
  • And in Series Title 4, we see...

is right. Is that correct? Can we document it here?

It's kind of funny that this page isn't locked, what with it's instrumentality in the integrity of the wiki's indenting practice.

I think something should be added to the page that indicates that this applies not just to trope lists, but also to works lists. I know that when I was new here, I read the page and understood what was wanted for works pages (which have lists of tropes), but I was very unsure whether or not these rules also applied to trope pages (which have lists of works). Adding a sentence or two at the top to clarify would probably help avoid a lot of further confusion.

I find this article really confusing.

I understand that the gist of it is that there should be more than one item at any given indentation level. That's fine.

But the article is messy. The Right/Wrong alternation in the first section is confusing; it starts with a Right that has no corresponding Wrong, then alternates Wrong/Right pairs that aren't explicitly grouped.

And the first mention of Thread Mode is in an explanation of a Wrong example—the introductory paragraph explaining what Thread Mode is and why not to use it doesn't appear until the end of the page.

The Trope Description section assumes that the reader has read the "works page" section, which the reader may not have done if they're not interested in works pages.

The Trope Description section also doesn't contain examples, and says things like "Singles on one bullet and multiples on two"—which doesn't make any sense by the usual English use of the term "bullet." Apparently in most of this article, "bullet" means "the asterisk that you type to indicate an indentation level in a bulleted list in wiki markup" rather than "the little circle that marks the start of a new item in a typeset bulleted list". That may be obvious to an experienced wiki editor, but it's confusing to a newbie.

And finally, the note at the bottom says "These are the rules of English, folks." That's just weird. For example, it's not a rule of English that you shouldn't have a third level of indentation because that indicates a discussion rather than a list.

But even the idea that you can't have only one item at a particular level of indentation isn't exactly "the rules of English." I would say it's more of a generally agreed-upon stylistic choice.

In short, this article could really use editing/cleanup. I would do it myself, except that I'm not entirely sure what various parts of it mean or why they're there, so I suspect I would mess things up.

Another potential guideline: "Each 2nd-bullet item should be a logical extension of a Main Item (1st Level). Likewise, any justified 3rd-bullet items should be a logical extension of the closest 2nd-bullet item that is above it."

So often, I've seen example pages where it seems like a 2nd-bullet item was written to clarify a 3rd-bullet item (or sometimes another 2nd-bullet. Granted, I sometimes engage in multiple-3rd bullet threads, but seeing Alternating Bullets expanding on the same point just irks me.

Also, there may need to be some clarification to the converse. Whenever a single work exhibits the same Trope in two different ways, they need to be expressed as two separate bullet points. Merely correcting a single 2nd-bullet by just using the "new paragraph-same point" markup doesn't always work.

Perhaps we should also have a diagram of what each bullet should represent: (I violate the policy here on purpose for demonstration purposes only.)

• On Example Pages, this is where the Work goes. On Works Pages, this is where the Example goes. (Single General Example of the Trope in action also goes here)
  • Individual Example (If a multiple characters/settings/unconnected episodes, etc. commonly exemplify this Trope, a general example for each character/setting/episode/etc. works here. A singular Most Triumphant Example for the same would also go on this line with paragraph breaks if necessary.)
    If there is only one of "generally accepted justification" or Word of God on the subject, then it that is placed here following a paragraph break. (Same with a singular example with a singular Fanon explanation/Word of God, except this would then be on the 1st level.)
    • If there is at least two of a Most Triumphant Example, a generally accepted justification, or direct Word of God on the subject, only then should the third bullet be used.

If there are multiple prevailing theories on the use of a Trope with a work/character/setting/etc., then these should go in that work's Wild Mass Guessing page. Multiple Words Of God still (each) merit their own 2nd/3rd-level point. This should be the only time that a 2nd-bullet point be used when it's not an example.*

When a Trope is explored in multiple facets and when those facets don't have their own individual headers*

Basically, pattern each work's/character's example/trope with (only) the relevant items from the Playing With template.

Oh, and when there is a character page, move all examples of a Trope pertaining to the character to that page. If it is not a Spoiler Trope, a general reference to the character may be kept on the main works page.

Man, start by talking about a Pet Peeve and I end up attempting to codify the whole practice further.

EDIT: Edited to remove Red Links

EDIT 2: One More Thing: Make Sure To Tell People To Press The Return/Enter Key Following The Backslashes!