Seconded!

I heartily agree, nor do I think this should be a subjective trope. I don't think the fact that, for example, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom if the Opera is not a Pragmatic Adaptation is exactly subjective; it's an extremely liberal take of the work. However, whether the result is poorer than the original source material is highly debatable, so in a lot of circles I'd really not be comfortable with calling it 'decay'. Not that it can't be described that way, but as was said, it just sounds negative.

I really think this trope should be split off into a 'Liberal Adaptation' trope, and then keep 'Adaptation Decay' as a subjective counterpart for works that lose their strength in adaptation, if we must.

I thoroughly disagree that the word "decay" must be negative. It refers to a certain amount of unavoidable loss of content in the transfer from one medium to another, and it is not necessarily bad but is often viewed as bad (just as it's easy to perceive negative connotations in the otherwise neutral word "decay").

Also I think this trope article is pretty firmly wedged into TVT canon by now, so good luck getting people willing to change it!

The examples aren't only about plotline loss, but plotline change as well. Many examples are mostly of "they massively changed the original" type, not "they removed many plotlines of the original". Say, that example:

"..."Rosie" had transformed from a gentle family comedy to a detective show starring chimpanzees..."

Is clearly not about "unaviodable loss".

Yes... I do realize what 'decay' is meant to apply to in this case, and I agree, however, that doesn't change the negative connotation that it has. The definition of 'decay' that people are most familiar with is 'to decompose; to deteriorate; to decline in quality'. If you don't read the 1000-word article on the page, what are people going to assume it means? Even the picture emphasizes the negative angle of this trope.

Further, if people don't view this as negative, why is this a Subjective Trope? There are many adaptations that are too different from the source to be considered merely pragmatic or distilled, and if what is subjective is where you draw that line, then shouldn't Adaptation Distillation or Pragmatic Adaptation be subjective as well?

If it's worth it and explained well, I don't think splitting this trope would upset the TVT community. As far as I know, in the past they have changed things for the sake of clarification if they felt it would better the wiki (i.e. Spikeification to Badass Decay). I just feel really strongly that there should be a non-subjective trope for adaptations that take a lot of liberties with the source so that people could link it on a work's page, etc. Plus, Adaptation Decay would still exist, after all. It would just be used for what most people actually understand it to be.

To many pepole were using the trope as "worse than the original". The Trope Decay was so bad, it was just easier to redefine the trope. It's kind of a bummer, but there are a few tropes about necesary adaptation changes, like Pragmatic Adaptation.

It was the problem of the poorly-chosen title, not the nature of the trope, it seems.

then shouldn't you remove the links of related tropes that you have in the page? As they have very little to do with the new definition now.

Though it the removal of this trope is a pity as there are plenty of adapted material out there that bear little to no resemblance to their original work.

Dismissing a work over someone else's opinion of it ensures you'll miss on a lot of things you might enjoy.

I think that the reason why people refrain from calling Pragmatic Adaptation is because the description of the page itself, assumes that any differences between adaptations and the original medium were for entirely logical, understandable reasons, and that any complaints about those changes are from the Fan Dumb. It doesn't cover changes made in adaptations for entirely illogical reasons for instance taking a story that was originally for an older audience and dumming it down to be for little kids, or adaptations that simply bear no resemblance to their original source, with no reasonable explanation as to why.