You opinion is not the one of the majority of the people on the wiki. It's not an opinion that contributes to the growth of the wiki. It's not an opinion that will help us attract more readers and editors. It's a destructive opinion which is why it's not well liked.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickGuy in White, your method of delivering your opinion approaches trolling. For example, look how far you managed to drive this thread with your particular brand of passive-aggressive attack on the wiki ownership. When you aren't present, it becomes a useful debate over how to engage our users. When you show up, it turns into you stubbornly holding a contrary opinion in the face of nearly overwhelming opposition. Further, you continue to frame your posts with blatant insults towards the mods and owners, ignoring all the other tropers who disagree with you.
In short, you are doing the equivalent of walking into a conversation and screaming at the top of your lungs until everyone listens to you and only you. I've just about had it. I strongly suggest you take a break from this site and go somewhere else that allows you to be as opinionated as you like and where the debating tactics of five-year olds are considered valid.
dontcallmewave, passive insults are still insults.
edited 9th May '11 12:11:46 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Look, it's a simple thing, GIW. You want this wiki to host opinions because they entertain you, correct?
Problem is, that the wiki is not about one person only. think of it like this, the Wiki is a TV show and it has decided to move on a direction you don't want. You either keep watching or you simply move on to another show.
"My life is my own" | If you want to contact me privately, please ask first on the forum.Something to consider, Man In White: There's are a couple of huge qualitative differences between saying "we aren't the place for telling everyone how much you hate something" and saying "You aren't allowed to dislike something". The first is the difference between feeling and telling. The second is the difference between hating and disliking.
We aren't even pretending to say "You aren't allowed to dislike something" — you can dislike or even hate anything you want. You just can't use the wiki to tell everyone how much you hate it. So far, you don't seem to get that distinction: you're insisting that the feeling and the telling are indivisible, one and the same; and that 'dislike' is the same as 'vitriolic hatred'.
edited 9th May '11 12:18:46 PM by Madrugada
I'm really very sorry for causing so much trouble, alright?
I'm just going to try to avoid this part of the forum for now and cool down a bit.
Why I am afraid of fences.
A laudable action under the circumstances.
Guy In White has a point, to the extent that a small amount snark and even bashing kept within reasonable limits can be entertaining.
But. But.
As I've said, if the general population is going to edit, and if people are going to assume that the way they see things being done is the correct way to do things — and they are — it's very difficult to enforce "a little is ok, a lot is bad." First, if all 14,000 (or however many it is) editors each add "a little" it'll become a lot. Second, the amount of any type of content, good or bad, will snowball as people figure they can add as much as they see, and then the next person sees more and figures they can add that much, and so on. When that's snarky but neutral breeziness, it's a virtuous circle and a good thing; when that's bile and anger, it's bad.
So, Guy In White et al., if you don't believe TV Tropes should become an EDish pit of negativity, things really can't be done the way you suggest. And if you do believe that, your opinion carries weight proportional to the number of people holding it, in other words, not much. But you are, of course, free to start a TV Tropes-like wiki that allows negativity. That's the wonderful thing about the Internet.
edited 9th May '11 12:36:44 PM by HersheleOstropoler
The child is father to the man —OedipusI'd give my own response in more detail, but I think everybody else summed it up well. Magrudaga pretty much hit the nail on the head: You're allowed to dislike things, but it has been determined that this wiki (other than in reviews) is not the place to talk about how much you dislike things.
Reaction Image RepositoryActually, all evidence we have shows that bashing something causes it to be less fun for the readers.
Saying "people hate Jar Jar" is not bashing. It may be reporting bashing, but it itself isn't bashing. And yes, saying it is fun for the readers, if the readers want to know things about Star Wars.
Even saying something like "people hate Jar Jar because (list of reasons)" isn't bashing, if you're really reporting what they think and not using it as an excuse to describe what pisses you off about him personally. Audience reactions are useful information. Readers want them and use them.
And they can go to YMMV if they want to learn about what the audience thinks of a work. Simple and elegant.
Also, a person who wishes not to be spoiled by audience reactions can avoid them by having them separate. Let's say I'm a newcomer to the Star Wars universe who doesn't know that Jar-Jar is The Scrappy. Maybe I want to watch the film and not have my opinions of him prejudiced by those of everyone else.
edited 9th May '11 1:15:29 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Look, it's a simple thing, GIW. You want this wiki to host opinions because they entertain you, correct?
Well, I just quoted a post where shimaspawn seems to think that whether something entertains the readers is a valid consideration: "Actually, all evidence we have shows that bashing something causes it to be less fun for the readers." If someone says that opinions are bad because they don't entertain anyone, it's proper to point out that they do.
We don't care for our editors opinions, because this wiki is not about cataloguing opinions. It's about cataloguing trends in fiction. that's all.
If all you're saying is "we ban opinions, because we like to mess with you. We don't care whether that does any good, it's our site after all", then fine.
But invariably it becomes "we don't have opinions here, and that's a really good thing". If all you're saying is that it's your site and therefore you can do as many stupid things as you want, then why are you even bothering to claim that you're doing anything good?
And they can go to YMMV if they want to learn about what the audience thinks of a work. Simple and elegant.
This is disingenuous. YMMV is a user interface design intentionally designed to keep people from reading it. (And just because it's one click doesn't change this—user interface design is funny that way.)
Incidentally, fighteer (or anyone): I would love to know how you'd rewrite our The Phantom Menace article. Jar Jar isn't mentioned, but the article is almost entirely about audience reactions.
To say this was hugely anticipated is a huge Understatement. To say that reaction to the film was mixed is also an understatement.
This was a huge box office hit, but got mixed reviews and was trashed by many fans. This is largely where Star Wars fans became a Broken Base. It's so broken, they can't even agree on whether it's Your Mileage May Vary or Love It or Hate It.
But many haters did warm up to alternate takes on the film, such as the first Lego Star Wars game, and the webcomic Darths And Droids.
edited 9th May '11 1:27:25 PM by arromdee
Because we are? We are not interested in the opinion of a few guys who'd like this wiki to welcome bashing and general opinions. I honestly don't give a damn if the editors on the wiki (dis)liked a work. I want to check out the work and let my own opinion of it grow. If I feel like sharing, I do a review. But otherwise, why would I post my opinion on a wiki?
Wikis are not about opinions. Unless there is an opinion wiki. But apart from that possible scenario, they are only about cataloguing. And we catalogue fiction and trends in fiction. None of those things have the word opinion in there, nor do they imply it.
"My life is my own" | If you want to contact me privately, please ask first on the forum.edited 9th May '11 1:28:26 PM by INUH
Infinite Tree: an experimental storyarromdee, I think you're using anecdata as opposed to data. I have no doubt you can find a handful of people whose TV Tropes experience is enhanced by snark and diminished by its absence* . But is that true of the bulk of readers, of users, of sought-after users? it has been determined not to be.
The child is father to the man —OedipusNo, opinions are banned on main because the site isn't about them.
That just changes it from "it's our site so we can do stupid things" to "it's our site so we can make stupid decisions as to what the site's about". Which is pretty much the same; it still doesn't make bad decisions into good ones. If all you're saying is "it's our site so we can do what we want", this doesn't matter, but if you're saying "it's our site, and it's also good", it does.
And you determined this using your mind-reading abilities?
No, just common sense.

No it isn't.
Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.