Questionable example and alot of bitching: Network Decay

Network Decay has problems. First of all, ALOT of the examples come off as incredibly bitchy and whinny. Some of the examples are more questionable... Does a channel getting bought, re-branded with a completely different name and programing even count as an example? Heck, even with the change in ownership, does a channel being completely rebranded count as an example?

The Major Shift That fit folder is also curious, as it feels more of a "Network Decay, only we don't bitch about those" folder.

edited 22nd Jun '11 7:24:12 PM by Ghilz

Perhaps we should just go along with the Example Sectionectomy after all? I mean, the name alone gives the impression that this is a negative trope and, with people, they're take any chance at complaining and run with it.

Thing is, some, even most, of the examples are Valid. Like the MTV one, though verbose, is valid (and flagrant, as it is literally in the name). So this is why I am hesitant to simply cut.

Yeah, this could be reworked.

We should rename it. Network Drift?

Wait, that's already a redirect for it. That makes our jobs easi—

Darn.

edited 22nd Jun '11 7:22:45 PM by chihuahua0

Eh, that's not that many wiks to change and as long as we keep it as a redirect we won't break the inbounds.

I seriously think we should go out and change all the various "decay" tropes to something like drift.

Agree. Do you think we should create a Special Efforts thread for it?

Yup.

I like Drift. Drift is a far less negative word, but it gets across that it's not the same as it was.

Drift is a good word. Netural, and the process is often gradual.

Didn't we already have a crowner and thread on this?

We should probably make a Special Efforts for the various decay tropes and ask Eddie.

As long as the super successful redirects are still around, it make sense to me.

edited 23rd Jun '11 5:18:11 AM by FastEddie

Having added examples (the Muchmusic / Muchmoremusic, YTV and 102.1 The Edge ones) before, I agree that this page could use some tweaking. "Drift" is a good substitute for "Decay" - a sizable number of the examples are under the "Slipped" folder.

edited 23rd Jun '11 12:08:46 PM by crazyrabbits

IIRC, some tropes would make less sense if they changed to "Drift". I've mentioned in the past that when Adaptation Distillation was created, I thought it looked a lot like Adaptation Decay Done Well.

Most of the "decay" tropes, in my opinion, actually fit their negative connotations - quite a few are YMMV pages complaining about my favorite character not being awesome anymore (which is a whole nother issue, but that's neither here nor there). It's Network Decay that's the major bugaboo, and really, as far as I can tell, the only reason we're talking about this (the last thread mentioned "channel drift" as another pre-existing term).

To take a firmer and more substantial example, Trope Decay indicates a bias towards the original intent of the trope. Trope Drift implies (in a way not really present for the others) the exact opposite: that trope meanings can "drift" with the wind and quite possibly should be allowed to. Do we really want to send that message?

But wasn't Adaptation Decay created to be value-neutral? I've seen several folks claim that when discussing the whole family of Decay tropes.

It was supposed to be value neutral I think. Why people thought decay wasn't a Take That! is beyond me.

Well, the word decay usually has negative implications in a non-scientific context.

Well, part of the problem I had with Adaptation Distillation at the time was that I thought Adaptation Decay was value-neutral. It might benefit from a "drift" renaming, though discussion of the implications would be warranted (not merely value implications either; among other things, its effect on the question of whether it's about the changes in a single adaptation, or the changes that take effect over the course of many adaptations). But there are other tropes that might not benefit.

So here we are moving towards renaming Network Decay in order to make it more neutral. But I see a bunch of tropers creating a whole Network Decay namespace regardless of this thread.

NetworkDecay/Radio etc, more here currently. Does anyone know what is going on with that?

Not a clue. If it's just whining or something, I suggest cutting the pages.

As far as I can tell, someone just split the examples off into subpages to make the main page less bloated. It's possible they didn't read this thread.

That's easily fixed.

Edit: if the rename goes through.

edited 13th Jul '11 8:40:59 AM by Deboss

I'd go with changing the Decay tropes to Drift... and as far as Adaptation Decay & Adaptation Distillation goes, they should be merged into a new Adaptation Drift trope, unless there is a reason why they should be different tropes besides the fact that one is negative and the other is positive.

There is an objectiveness to Network Decay and a more neutral name might help to remove any of the vile.

edited 13th Jul '11 6:00:38 PM by GameGuruGG

I think of distillation as being something that compresses the plot points from the original, not necessarily improves them. It's just common for people to think of high plot density as a "better" than low plot density.