Rename: Alien Space Bats

...I'm sorry, what? I couldn't hear the trope description over how completely random that title is.

Okay, I get that the trope is named for an example. I'd never heard of this example at all before; is it really well-known enough that people who just see that title are going to get it? And shouldn't a title reflect the article in some way, anyway? I defy you to tell me how, without the context of the work behind it, the title has anything to do with the trope.

Wait what? I mean seriously what is this thing?

And man I see this mistaken for literal Alien Space Bats like the Mynocks in Star Wars.

How do I do the google search for this again?

So I missed that line. You don't have to be rude about it. I should note that this has few wicks, and though I'm still going over them at least one is definitely incorrect (I'm looking at Break Out the Museum Piece), and several are ambiguous in their usage...

edited 6th May '11 2:25:09 AM by Ezekiel

55 wicks. 1,600 inbounds is rather impressive for such a number.

As for the title ... it claims to be a pre-existing fan term. Which gets 300,000 Google hits (with quotes, otherwise it gets almost a million), a good share of which aren't TV Tropes pages. In fact, of the top three, two are:

• Wikipedia article
• Alt.Wikia article

Hmm, I don't like the name either, but it seems this one may have Grandfather Clause rights. You know what they say about that — document some misuse or you don't have a case :(

edited 6th May '11 6:48:08 AM by Stratadrake

Redirect farming ahoy. Uh...Impossible Historical Change?

I wasn't being rude, I'm not sure how to do google searches for specific texts. I was going to verify that the term actually exists outside of tvtropes lexicon. If it actually is a term used by the Alternate History writers crowd, then it's a pre-existing term. Given the inbounds, I'm inclined to say it's likely, but I'd still like to verify.

However, since Stratadrake found a wikipedia article, I'm inclined to say that it's definitely a pre-existing term.

edited 6th May '11 2:47:41 PM by Deboss

Keep. Pre-existing term is pre-existing.

Well then to answer your question, in the Google query you enclose the term in quotation marks.

It being a pre-existing term, I think what's needed here is some redirects.

And removing the tvtropes site from it?

Suggest Magically Alternate History.

You were using the TV Tropes search bar? Yeah, I was just talking about with a standard Google search.

I was talking about a normal google search as well. Just one where you remove anything from tvtropes site from the search. I know it can be done, I'm just not sure how.

Oh, well... I know you can specify a term in a url with inurl:whatever and I'm pretty sure you can exclude something with not:whatever but I don't know how those interact... give not:inurl:tvtropes a try I guess.

EDIT: No, wait, that's not it, it's -whatever to exclude. So it would be

"Alien Space Bats" -tvtropes
or
"Alien Space Bats" -inurl:tvtropes.

edited 6th May '11 9:24:55 PM by Ezekiel

Okay thanks. So, searchable redirects.

Personally, I tend to simply add -tropes to my search query. Never got the hang of excluding UR Ls from my search....

I would have done -site:tvtropes.org, but I'm not sure if that would have worked.

Anyway. Redirect. Are there any other suggestions? I think I'm going to go for something simple like Fantastic Divergence Point.

If there aren't any suggestions I guess it's time to close the thread.

edited 7th May '11 12:23:57 PM by Ezekiel

How about For Want Of An Unobtanium?

This discussion should be closed; it's clear that no rename is necessary.