That is all well and good, but we do have policies about what goes into creator pages. Seems to me that a lot of the material was removed for violating these policies; we'll need a good reason to restore them.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
The problem was that it wasn't up to site code. The edit reasons give a full writeup, but basically, the problem was that we don't add personal tropes on Creator pages any more (a policy that came into play partially because so many actress pages were taking a turn for the horrifying). Not only that, but many of the tropes were either badly shoehorned in, No Real Life Examples, Please!, or both, and we have an ongoing project to remove excessive gushing from the wiki
which, let's face it, ninety per cent of this page was.
The page could use a bit of expansion, sure, but the chainsawing was cleanup, not vandalism.
Edited by 86.144.99.243 What's precedent ever done for us?
Could not reply until now, and Septimus and Iaculus have beaten me to it. But as it was me who axed most of the trope list, I figured I might explain the reasons for the cuts more in detail:
- One of the most important of our Creator Page Guidelines is that creator pages do not collect "tropes" about the creator (only about the creator's works). Many entries on this page ("Child Prodigy", "Jewish and Nerdy", and others) violated that rule.
- This also applies when tropes are used to sneak in opinions about creators or their works ("Insufferable Genius", "Single-Issue Wonk", "It's All About Me" come to mind).
- I also cut many examples for being Zero Context Examples, i.e. trope entries with insufficient explanation how they apply (e.g. "Talking Your Way Out: The AI-box experiment" tells you exactly nothing if you are not familiar with the experiment to begin with). This also applies to examples that rely on weblinks to provide context, which goes against Weblinks Are Not Examples. A lot of entries were cut because of that.
- Finally, there were major problems with Square Peg Round Trope (also known as "shoehorning"). An 'example' like "Fanboy: Isn't one, but warns against being one" isn't actually an example. We also usually do not collect "aversions" save for very prevalent tropes (see Averted Trope).
- The Trivia entries are still there but have been moved to the Trivia subpage.
I assure you that allegiations of any kind had nothing to do with it. I'd also like to add that relevant information on the creator, their opinions, general description of their work and themes etc can go (in fact, should go if it's relevant) in the page description, i.e. the running text above the trope section.
Let's just say and leave it at that.
For the record, the relevant information on creator pages is found at Creator Page Guidelines.
What's precedent ever done for us?
I would like to raise the point that this article is simply creator worship and/or ego stroking by Yudkowsky or one of his fans. How objective is it really, given that it only focuses on making him look like a science hero supergenius, without mentioning his... heh... autobiography, and makes no mention of his many detractors saying he's kind of rubbish?
Edited by 79.115.178.240 Hide / Show Replies
I made a complete cleanup. Should be fixed now.
Let's just say and leave it at that.
Can I get this page restored, please? As an author I've put shoutouts to a number of tropes in my works - I have been a friend to TV Tropes for quite a while, though One Of Us is an exaggeration since I don't actively edit - and I rather liked my TV Tropes page the way it was. No pockets were picked, nor legs broken thereby, nor did I solicit it; it was a genuine creation of Tropers.
Please also be aware that Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality has a large, active Internet hatedom, and allegations about me should be considered with a skeptical eye accordingly.
Edited by 76.102.84.197 Hide / Show Replies