This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
I notice that all the XKCD zealots made sure that all the negativity-themed tropes were removed.
Working Title: xkcd: From YKTTW
- Theogrin
- While I do applaud your restraint, is there a reason to add it to YKTTW before just tossing it on here?
"Currently appears to be in the middle of Hype Backlash"? This is new to me. What's going on? - Terminus Est 13
Noaqiyeum: Same here. In which circles is this occurring, exactly?
For starters, the Something Awful forums, where it's the second-choice "terrible webcomic" whenever they need to mock something. - Dan 9410
Mike: See also: "XKCD: Overrated"
I'm not sure two websites count as backlash, but okay. I'll take your word for it. - Terminus Est 13
It ain't a hype backlash. - N
xkcdsucks blog does specifically state that the main reason he hates on xkcd so much is because he feels it's so overrated (FAQ question 6). And while most people wouldn't feel that way, that blog alone represents a sizeable enough populace to warrant the trope applying here. After all, if the xkcdsucks blog is large enough to be part of the Hatedom trope, then surely the reason why it exists is large enough to be a part of the backlash trope! - Plasma
I can't think of a way to work it in as a trope, but worth mentioning. Randall did a talk at Carnegie Mellon University while I was attending. The sheer size and enthusiasm of audience was like unto your average rock concert. -Fuzzy Boots
Can someone explain to me how the sub thing involving the hat counts as "Submarine Fu"? I've looked at the comic several times, yet I fail to see how it's any different than any other time a submarine bursts up through the ice to surface. - Space Jawa
Because he did it in the middle of a lake being used as a skating pond. These are seldom lakes that connect easily to the ocean. The submarine fu is more or less 'how the fuck did he get the sub there in the first place' - Drunken Grognard
ITS NOT A HYPE BACKLASH, XKCD GOT A LOT WORSE OVER THE LAST 100 COMICS OR SO. ALL CAPS BECAUSE I AM SHOUTING.
Inkblot: It's an honor to meet you, BRIAN BLESSED.
Ezekiel: Am I correct in assuming that the TV Tropes crash just a minute ago was related to the link from XKCD?
Bluetooth The Pirate: Odd little addendum to our mention in the comic. The Alt Text mentions Cracked as the second-biggest time sink. This wiki extensively links to various Cracked articles, a trend I've noticed a lot lately.
K.o.R: Wonderfully random, but this week's University Challenge had the comic as the answer to a starter question.
The title ought to be changed to XKCD or xkcd as that is the proper format. Does it need to be moved to an entirely new page or can the page title be edited?
Redstar: May I ask what is so wrong with including this line: * Jumping the Shark: While some have noted a sharp decline in actual humor in the strip for awhile, general consensus among the hatedom and is that XKCD jumped the shark with strip 631: Anatomy Text. The comic features a realistically-drawn breast and vagina (with anus) that is clearly NSFW, but was not and still has not been given such a warning. Notwithstanding the risk of being fired from your job, the comic is also extremely bizarre and is only funny with some knowledge of the concept of Wikis/encyclopedias. Many have suggested improved ways to tell the joke, and theorized Randall only told it this way because of his apparent obsession with sex.
Janitor: The article is not about anyone's opinion about xkcd, it is about xkcd's use of tropes. See, this wiki is about tropes, not opinions. Please feel free to write a review if you need to vent your opinion. That's what the Reviews feature is for.
Redstar: Tropes are opinions. Many articles feature a "Jumping the Shark" trope and no one complains about those. And this isn't my opinion. I don't hate XKCD, nor do I even dislike it. This is just the general consensus among the hatedom, and I even stated in that text that that is what the hatedom thinks, not everyone in the world.
Janitor: About 180 articles out of our 35,000 articles reference Jumping the Shark. We haven't pulled them all out, yet because many of them are valid mentions of where the show/work references the phrase. Has xkcd referenced Jumping the Shark? That would be a valid entry. Not that it matters in this works entry, but tropes are certainly not opinions.
Redstar: Many tropes could be considered opinion. There's no way to gauge "Nightmare Fuel" of anything, but people still list it. Tropes are not always hardcoded, and I've enjoyed reading opinion-based tropes most of all. If anyone disagrees, usually they follow with a rebuttal, not delete the whole thing. It's a valid opinion and one commonly held among many people.
Janitor: References to the subjective articles (like Nightmare Fuel) get deleted as rapidly as we can from the real articles. For the reason that you gave: They start conversations in the page (natter) that we don't want.
Redstar: If that's your mentality, than tropes will never be listed at all.
Janitor: I assume you mean the subjective articles. Yes, that is the hope. We'd rather have the real tropes.
Redstar: All tropes are subjective to some degree, so what's the point in having them at all if you can't list them? Frankly, I thought this wasn't supposed to be The Other Wiki. Apparently that's changed.
I Like Crows: Backing up a bit, but does it count as a Jumping the Shark if the people thinking so were part of the hatedom to begin with?
Arrow: It doesn't help that the Jumping the Shark trope is only supposed to be legitimately identified with plenty of evidence gathered years after the fact, when people can say with absolutely no question that it wasn't just a premature Ruined FOREVER. Comic 631, where people claim it jumped, wasn't even eight weeks ago.
Redstar: Yes, Jumping the Shark typically is something attributed much later, but the term is still thrown around and still carries some of the same meaning. If a significant portion of fans attribute one particular strip as that moment, and stop liking the comic because of it, then it's a Jumping the Shark moment for them and the trope still applies.
To clarify, I've read the blog where most of this discussion takes place and many of them, the blog creator himself, continue to like XKCD but simply believe it isn't as good as it once was. They aren't explicit haters, though they may come off as it from time-to-time. To really put this in perspective, a typical discussion on a XKCD strip merits about 50 comments, sometimes going up to 80, sometimes as low as three. Strip 631 received 267 comments, and, having read through them all, many of them were from XKCD board regulars that disliked the strip so much they actually went to the "opposing team" to share that opinion.
I Like Crows: That makes sense. The way the entry was originally written, the line "general consensus among the hatedom" made it seem like a case of Complaining About Shows You Dont Like. I'm still not sure if it's a true Jumping the Shark though if they just disliked it. Did those regulars keep reading the comic and posting on the XKCD board?
Redstar: I'd say at least a third stayed on at the XKCD board, while another third moved over to the hate-blog, and a final third stopped reading and posting anywhere altogether. This is only from those who posted on the blog, though, but an influx of over 50 new posters and breaking them up in that way is fairly telling.
With some thought, though, labeling that strip as the Jumping the Shark moment does seem a bit harsh, without such widespread consensus. Perhaps putting it under RUINEDFOREVER is a fair compromise, since it at least grants negative opinion, but does it in a pseudo-mocking way?
Arrow: I'm perfectly fine with seeing a Ruined FOREVER entry for it.
Jonny Angel: Those who religiously guard against any negative statements against Xkcd should hop on over to, I dunno, the Inheritance Cycle article or sommat. Either remove all the negative tropes from there (even the "according to many detractors" ones, as that's what's being done here), or just be content that a lot of people don't like Xkcd.
Fighteer: Look, guys. We aren't crazy about NPoV like That Other Wiki, but we do have something called the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement. It means you don't heap vitriol on a work unless it's so universally hated that there's no chance of the page devolving into an Edit War or Flame War. People don't like xkcd. People also don't like The Bible, Lord Of The Rings, Lost, etc. That doesn't give them a License To Whine on the works page.
Jonny Angel: Gotcha, so the solution is to religiously scrub negative tone out of the Inheritance Cycle page every time someone adds it or reverts to it, eventually causing people to succumb to the "let's just avoid putting negativity on here" rule? Or, if the counter to that is that I'm only one person versus numerous xkcd fans, the solution is to get a bunch of Eragon Fans to help me out?
This kind of selective protectionism is silly. Are certain attacks on xkcd going stupid, exaggerated, and worthy of scrubbing? Of course. I chuckle when I think of the time someone tried to add Randall to the Complete Monster page. But what's wrong with noting- and not even in a particularly vitriolic or biased way- that a certain strip is the one that really got a lot of people into the hatedom or solidified the attitudes of uncertain kinda-haters?
Janitor: We're just not interested in opinion comments in the works pages. Please feel free to write a review. You do that by clicking the link at the top of the page.
Jonny Angel: And yet we're content to leave a weakly-worded disclaimer on the Eragon page and stuff it full of opinion comments anyway. Double standards are the raddest!
Wild Knight: Ahem. I wrote that "weakly-worded" disclaimer and it has, in my humble opinion, done the page a lot of good.
Jonny Angel: Course it has, and good on you for writing it. Yet despite the good it's done, it hasn't eliminated the negativity, and there's still plenty of stuff on that page (at least last time I checked) essentially written from an anti-Shurtugal perspective. The point is not that your disclaimer was useless, but that the attitudes towards these two works on this wiki are still waaaay different.
Taelor: Regarding the To Be Lawful or Good example, am I correct in assuming that the intent was to link to this
strip?
The Recreator: Given that Comic 710 hasn't been released yet, I would say "yes".
Dracosummoner: So the prime-number haiku strip got a "Did Not Do The Research" flag, huh? No wonder that strip confused this troper for so many reasons he couldn't quite articulate.
