Removing Gushing from the Wiki

In the examples for those tropes. Just like any other trope.

What if there's multiple tropes all based on the same information, is what I'm getting at. Usually most tropes have unique explanations, but reception-based tropes often have the same root info.

Going "See X" can be awkward, as a trope may not stay as the first trope on the list, or you may have tropes on different subpages that relate, etc.

edited 18th Aug '11 9:04:58 AM by Jeysie

I think "see X" isn't too bad, considering that tropes are arranged alphabetically. Although they'd have to be updated for renames, then.

Jeysie, can you give us a few specific examples? I think I agree with you, but I'm not sure because it's hard to follow.

Grabbing some "off the top of my head" things (so please excuse the Fan-Myopia-ness):

A few works with multiple reaction-based tropes: Showgirls, Daikatana, Batman And Robin

Works where reaction had a profound effect on development: Transformers Shattered Glass (as outlined in previous posts), Beast Machines (effectively killed off American-made audio-visual series for TF for literally almost a decade, the fan reaction was so bad, so it's why Transformers Robots In Disguise exists. Also had effect on the development of Transformers Trans Tech, as it initially started out as the planned American-made Beast Machines sequel that got scrapped, and was turned into a completely different American series instead later down the road).

edited 18th Aug '11 11:06:43 AM by Jeysie

I remember reading a while ago one of the mods, maybe even Fast Eddie, saying that the Buffy The Vampire Slayer page pretty much had a model work description, and that has a fair bit of reception summarization.

The description for Adventure Time is rather gushy and would probably need a rewrite as well.

So if ya want to do a critical reception thing put it in the trivia section at the top of the page? or a Critic Reception (NNF) page and link it?

Its really hard to keep critical reception off pages.

Look at freaken Star Trek....

edited 19th Aug '11 1:24:59 AM by Raso

Add Kamen Rider Hibiki to the "needs rewrite due to too much focus on reception and criticism" bunch.

Re: summarizing work's commercial or critical reception in its primary description... how did we determine that that was a bad idea?

I'm all for eliminating bashing and gushing and unverifiable statements about what fans think (as though all fans thought alike). However, I'd contend that modern commercial entertainment is profoundly influenced by commercial factors, and that if tropers are in the business of determining both how and why tropes are used, looking at the work in a vacuum does us no favors.

Also, it'd be kind of weird to have a page on Moby-Dick that kept to "a guy chases after a whale and then everybody dies".

edited 20th Aug '11 2:35:40 AM by Bailey

Ishmael lives, doesn't he?

In all seriousness, chalk me up as one supporting the argument that real-world critical reception =/= fan-based gushing/bashing. The latter isn't really relevant to a work, but I agree that it's hard to separate the former from a work in modern society.

I'm not pushing for a change here, because I don't expect one, but I am going on record as disagreeing with policy on this.

Commercial and critical reception are trivia. Trivia doesn't go on the main page.

My understanding was that links to trivia pages go on the trivia tab and that we decided that when we were separating objective tropes, subjective tropes, and non-tropes. Which makes sense because, for example, Hey Its That Voice is not a trope, and including it on a list of tropes makes the list less useful and the concept of a trope more confusing.

However, a prose description is not a list. I can't see the same logic applying there, since most people would expect to find that sort of thing in a description of a book or film, and it's unlikely anyone would confuse the description text for a trope.

What was the reason for expanding that to include discussion of the work in the description?

Edit to add: Yes, Ishmael lives. I knew that was coming.

edited 20th Aug '11 4:26:05 AM by Bailey

Also, real world critics are still the exact same thing as fans reacting. Just because they get paid to watch and talk about it doesn't make it any less of an Audience Reaction.

But just about everything you can say about a work in its description might be considered trivia. "Rick was played by Humphrey Bogart." Trivia. Tells you nothing about the story. "Won 3 Oscars." Well, that's just like somebody's opinion, man! "Was released in 1941." What are we, The Other Wiki? You can't be bothered to look up Trivia like that yourself?

I know we don't want to be The Other Wiki, but I'm pretty sure we're not trying to have all work page intros reduced to "Casablanca was a movie. You want more, jackass? You have an Internet, use it!"

But where to draw the line? "Any discussion of commercial or critical success/failure is forbidden" seems like a peculiar place to draw that line.

^ Of course it wouldn't be reduced to "Casablanca was a movie".

It would be reduced to a summery of the story. You know, the part that has tropes, those little things that we're supposed to be cataloging.

Frankly, who acted in it, how many Oscars it won, and the year it was released are all irrelevant information on a page with the primary purpose of taking the story apart into its individual tropes.

Actually, I think the year it's released is the one thing there completely relevant to it's tropes. As tropes change and evolve through the years, dating a work helps identify which incarnation the trope was in at the time especially with tropes that have since become Dead Horse Tropes.

edited 20th Aug '11 12:47:24 PM by shimaspawn

Also I think how it was received is helpful for tropes such as Vindicated by History or even to show something that uses a trope that was unpopular at the time and how it was received. But there is a way to write it without seeming gushy. For example, instead of "No surprise, this wonderful work was adored by critics and made eleventy jillion dollars and deserved every penny of it" you could just say "This work had critical acclaim and made eleventy jillion dollars". Besides, if you want to talk about the other wiki, even they put how well something was received in the summary of movies.

edited 20th Aug '11 12:58:47 PM by wuggles

True. However, real-world critical reaction differs from subjective fan stuff in that it can been proven true, whereas some troper claiming "lots of fans hated/loved when X happened in show Y" really can't.

I don't know if that's a significant enough difference, but it is a significant difference nonetheless.

It is definitely significant. If somebody says "many fans love episode X", one would have to trawl through craploads of pages on messageboards to get a good idea if it's true. But, if somebody says "critic A loves episode X", they can simply prove it by linking to the review. Although, perhaps this kind of stuff is more suited for Wikipedia. Maybe.

@ Muninn (and also in general):

Tropes pertain not just to what is present in a story, but why such things are present in a story. Did they Leave the Camera Running in that one scene to create a sense of lingering dread, or to pad the length of a film? I might not know, but if the film was shot on a budget of $500, I at least have a hint. Was that totally unrelated scene included as a Red Herring, or was it foreshadowing something that was cut out for an un-story-related reason? Was the ending a Sequel Hook or merely a case of And the Adventure Continues? And so forth.

Also, on the subject of critical reception, in addition to it being demonstrable, it almost always has a concrete economic impact of the development of a franchise. So it's not really just another audience reaction; it's an external cultural factor, like the year the work was made, which influences the tropes that will occur in its sequels/future installments/imitators. Even if we don't care about the opinion itself, we should care about its impact.

edited 20th Aug '11 8:52:25 PM by Bailey

Or you could count the sales figures.

Cause, not everything that gets panned by critics disappears. Generally, if there's sales, there's sequels.

edited 20th Aug '11 9:46:52 PM by Deboss

So, we can talk about a work's commercial reception but not its critical reception? Or am I missing something?

Also, critical response can impact ongoing works and franchises in ways beyond the binary earned-enough-to-receive-a-sequel-or-not-issue. In the gaming industry, for instance, games with single features or elements that received overwhelming critical scorn are unlikely to leave those elements unchanged in subsequent installments, because unliked features mean lower metacritic scores, and scores affect sales.

Edit to add: just re-read part of the thread and it looks like you said commerical reception wasn't appropriate for the description a minute ago, so I'm not sure what you meant with the above post.

edited 20th Aug '11 10:26:57 PM by Bailey

The commercial reception also doesn't matter. Because it's not part of the work. I'm just not sure why you want to clutter up a synopsis and trope list with worthless crap a quick google search can turn up.

"Clutter"? It's a sentence or two, at most!