Natter and Subjectivity: Strawman Has A Point

It's natter-ridden, it's full of political and religious opinions in violation of the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement (the Jack Chick section stands out), and and it's massive. I really don't know what to do with this, but I suspect it may need MAJOR cleanup or to be cut entirely.

I'd say cut it. There's a line between YMMV and unnecessary Flame Bait/natter attractor combo; this crossed it a while back.

edited 3rd Mar '11 3:39:04 AM by halfmillennium

*looks*

Kill it!

No good can come from that.

...Actually, the more Flame Bait-y subjects tend to be removed. From what I've seen, its fairly tame, and I certainly don't see any natter.

Don't agree with cutting. For now, I'll leave it at that.

I have never seen a problem with this topic. A page should only be cut if the page becomes completely out of control where most of the examples are done poorly. An example is discontinuity where it quickly went from reasonable examples to basically a bunch of people complaining about anything they could get their hands on. While I do see some natter it's not any worse than most pages. While several pages seemed to have lost their reason for existence (the fandom rejoiced is basically just about posting any announcement that you like) this page has kept the examples on topic.

I just checked, the only two examples that really have the problem you're talking about is Jack Chick (which is in the wrong section) and Civil War, I don't recommend such a drastic option for only two examples.

edited 3rd Mar '11 5:15:18 AM by CharredKnight

There's certainly natter there, and by its nature it's a breeding ground for arguments. Making the main page example-free and giving it a Troper Tales page might be a good idea. At least that way the natter and disagreement is where it should be.

edited 3rd Mar '11 5:08:13 AM by halfmillennium

Yeah, I agree with Charred Knight. Just edit/ax those two bad examples.

There's natter and 'the above is wrong' paragraphs all over the page. With most pages a simple cleanup would be enough to resolve that, but this page by its nature invites it. If there's any use for this page, it needs rewriting to discourage that.

That's kind of exaggerating the natter, Comicbook, and Films could use a cleanup but that's about it. If we deleted every page that could be considered controversial than we would have to delete the Darth and Sugar wiki, and a ton of other pages.

edited 3rd Mar '11 6:14:55 AM by CharredKnight

Just from a quick check, I found natter in Video Games, Live Action TV and Theatre. It's fair to say there's a significant amount of it.

I didn't suggest deleting any page that could be considered controversial.

edited 3rd Mar '11 6:30:10 AM by halfmillennium

Right now I agree that just cutting a few bits of natter woud clean it up fine, but if things do ever get out of hand, shifting examples to Troper Tales might work well...

I don't think this should be removed, just needs to be cleaned.

Cutting a page is the last resort, when it is completely and utterly unfixable or unnecessary. Strawman Has a Point is neither of those.

So, what, general cleanup, include something to discourage natter?

We should probably make the point about Justifying Edits bold and separate or something.

^^ Yep. Just like any other page would get.

Yes, what it needs is cleanup and curation. If worst comes to worst, the most we'd need to do would be an Example Sectionectomy, but I think there's enough good examples buried in there that it won't be necessary.

Strawman is a flat character (or less) made to stand for a stereotypical set of exaggerated beliefs right?

Well those stereotypes are based on something.

Which means every strawman will have an IRL counterpart with more or less similar beliefs, which means that every strawman will have a point if you look from the right place.

It's not just that they're a stereotype, it's that they're meant to be argued against and knocked down.

^^ No, the strawman doesn't have to be flat. What makes a Strawman is that the position he is presented as holding is established solely to make it look bad, or so that the author can knock it down easily. And while there may be real life analogues to the Strawman's position, that's not important to the work or the trope.

The point of the trope is that what's intended by the author to be seen by the audience as a clearly weak or undefendable position turns out to make more sense than the position the audience is intended to agree with or sympathise with.

The clearest example is the movie I Am Sam: the hero of the movie, and the character that the author clearly intends the audience to support and sympathize with, is a mentally-challenged man who can barely function in society ion his own, but who loves his young daughter and wants to raise her himself, rather than allowing her to be fostered (adopted? I forget, but it really doesn't matter) by a well-educated, caring couple.

The Strawman is the Child Services worker who is "trying to separate the man and his daughter — oh noes!".

The problem is that the CS worker makes a lot of really good points about how much better off the girl will be with the other family, and Sam (the father) doesn't come off as a particularly capable father. He loves her, yes, but she's pretty much raising herself.

The end result is that the audience tends to sympathize with and support the wrong character. The Strawman Has a Point.

edited 3rd Mar '11 6:22:34 PM by Madrugada

I really like this trope, and I think lots of people think about Strawman Has a Point. I think axing this is like going after a fly with a sledgehammer.

But yes, the natter could use a cleanup so a flyswatter would suffice.

edited 3rd Mar '11 6:37:58 PM by pittsburghmuggle

I think it would probably be best to clean up all the Natter lock page and have entries go though the forum.

Too extreme. The page isn't particularly nattery- a lot of the indents were just adding examples in the same series. Just cut out the existing natter or bad examples and leave it be.

Reading through the page, one consistent problem I am noticing is that certain examples are not so much "The Strawman has a point" But "I don't care how that argument was resolved."

For example

• In Justice League this once happened to the writers. During "A Better World," Batman and his Mirror Universe counterpart are having a battle/argument in the batcave. League!Bats is arguing that freedom is worth preserving, even at the risk of harm, while Lord!Bats argues that by taking away freedom they have ensured security. Initially, League!Bats was supposed to win the argument, but when they wrote the Armor Piercing Line, "[W]e've made a world where no eight-year-old will ever lose his parents because of some punk with a gun," for Lord!Bats, the writers could not think of any counterargument that League!Bats could give. Despite the writers own intention of having League!Batman win they had to re-write the scene to have Lord!Batman win since there really was no adequate response. In the end League!Bats shows Lord!Bats the world he created, in which an elderly couple got brutally arrested for some minor infraction and notes that mom and dad would be proud of the world he created.

What's the point supposed to be?