Clean out the gratuitous Understatement references

Brought up in the Trope Repair Shop, we need to take out the in-jokey Understatement references. People are using it to make any given example "witty" rather than actually using the trope.

It's is extremely excessive, by early calculations there is a 95% misuse rate in that regard. But don't worry, the actual number to fix seems to be less than 9,000 (about 8700).

{Note, as of 12:30 am September 19th, the tally is down to 4228; We've gotten over halfway.}

{Note 2: as of 8:37 pm September 29th, it's down to 2412}

{Note 3: as of 6:16 Am October 3, there are 1868 wicks remaining. If the original assessment of ~90% misuse turns out to be correct, there will be between 800 and 900 good wicks left when we're done.}

{Note 4: As of 2:50 pm, October 6th, there were 1079 wicks remaining.}

{Note 5: as of 8:58 am on October 10, there were 729 wicks remaining. The entire list had been scrubbed. 111 of that 729 are those that a software glitch counts even though the page it's supposedly on no longer exists.}

{Note 6: Fast Eddie has modified the wick counter so that it no longer counts the dead namespaces "JBM" or "Crowning *". This killed off 75 of the phantom wicks remaining, for a final tally of 655 good wicks remaining of 8700+ original wicks}

Cleared Punctuated titles starting with:

• Completed!!

Cleared unpunctuated titles starting with:

• A-Z!

edited 21st Oct '11 8:54:57 AM by Madrugada

I'll take everything starting with Un-

• Legitimate examples: 4
• Fixed: +50 pages
• Main/Understatement found in: 8677

Other issues:

• Troper Tales/Understatement appears as a link in the related search, but it doesn't exist
• Fishsicles/Unfettered
• Headscratchers /United States Of America

edited 31st Aug '11 7:32:39 AM by peccantis

The Three Hundred and Four Kids entries are artifact listings. I've been over all of those pages and all their subpages and can't find a wick on either one to Understatement. The Avatar The Last Airbender one is a valid use.

The Punctuated titles that start with a number or A are done..

And we've dropped the number below 8700!

edited 31st Aug '11 7:33:32 AM by Madrugada

Punctuated "B" is done.

Everything beginning with U is done. 8600 broken!

Main/Understatement found in: 8596

edited 31st Aug '11 8:29:40 AM by peccantis

Punctuated "E" is done. The one in Earthbound is valid.

Unpunctuated "Z" is also done.

8566 remaining

edited 31st Aug '11 8:55:45 AM by Madrugada

I took a swing at the unpunctuated A titles, stopping at Film/Alien because I'm heading offline for the weekend. Most of the other namespaces (YMMV and such) in the segment I took a swing at but are still linking are bugged wicks.

edited 31st Aug '11 11:18:11 AM by Nohbody

Working my way through the other namespaced entries:

• FanFic.Aeon Natum Engel: valid use.
• Quotes.Alien: valid use

edited 31st Aug '11 11:36:15 AM by Madrugada

Yeah, that was intentionally untouched. I just zapped the sinkholes, doing a bit of de-nattering of the remaining text at times.

Currently: 8457 wicks remaining. 300 down.

edited 31st Aug '11 11:52:36 AM by Madrugada

Currently picking up in the unpunctuated A section, just finished with All Just a Dream.

One thing I'll note is that it's actually worse than just a sinkhole - it's a sinkhole that's not even getting used properly. Like when someone sinkholes the word "extreme". Considering that word inherently means to the greatest extent, it literally cannot be understatement. It can only either be accurate or overstatement. So far, I'd guess that around 30% of what I've removed was both a sinkhole and misuse of the word.

True dat. And then there are the ones that are not only sinkholed to what is clearly not an understatement, but the whole link is in italics, or worse, bold.

Incidentally, when I hit a works page on the list, I'm checking all of its linked subpages at the same time. It's faster.

edited 31st Aug '11 12:25:10 PM by Madrugada

Ugh... I can't put any more time into this for now - I cleared through the unpunctuated trope names from A- to Al- - the next on the list for me would be Amagami.

One thing that's causing my mind to melt out the ears is that I'm fairly certain that part of the problem is that people don't understand what some words mean. Seriously, people, "incredible" literally means "unable to be believed." It's a Latin-derived synonym for "unbelievable." Something outrageous enough to defy belief cannot be understated.

Sigh... it makes me want to create a sister page for You Keep Using That Word to show people what certain words actually mean to prevent misuse on top of misuse, like here.

I'm much tired with the instances where the phrase used, or the format employed, clearly indicate a sarcastically understating tone, and that's potholed to Understatement.

I did Amagami to Angel (something like 43 entries). Looking at all these things back to back I see that you have to go out of your way to use the trope like that. "He was just a little angry" isn't inherently superior to "He was very angry."

And it's so much easier to type "He was very angry" than "He was [[{{Understatement}} not happy]]."

I did Angel to Angst? What Angst?. I noticed that same problem when I did my wick check. People deliberately write their examples to be understatements so they can pothole to Understatement rather than just writing the example normally.

And they could also say

• He was... angry.
• He was "a little angry".
• He was angry, to say the least.
• He wasn't [(exactly/too/very)] happy about it.
• He was very, very angry.

"The A" through "The B" taken care of.

Punctuated D and F done. Some empty hits there. 8200 broken.

edited 1st Sep '11 2:39:12 AM by peccantis

Unpunctuated Y and X done

The only correct use as a trope was Film/X-Men

Let's see... looks like I'll pick up after Angst? What Angst?, which would be... A Nightmare On Elm Street.

Yes, I've also seen quite a few examples where people deliberately write so as to sinkhole to Understatement rather than just write a normal example. I'm not sure if that or the lack of caffeine is making my head throb, but regardless, I feel like more coffee is the cure.

Down to around 8100 articles... making progress, everyone.

EDIT: If I die during this, I want everyone to know cause of death will be "aneurism from trying to clean sinkholes out of all the various subpages labeled 'Anime'." I'm an otaku too, but man, seems like half the editors in the section don't understand good editing practices, formatting, or spelling.

EDIT 2: And why are there sinkholes to Understatement in any of the subpages to Large Ham? Isn't that completely antithetical to the concept? Why are people doing this? Why did I volunteer to help with this? Can I go in a corner and weep now?

edited 1st Sep '11 8:30:02 AM by 32_Footsteps

Punctuated V done. 8083 remaining.

edited 1st Sep '11 8:16:21 AM by Madrugada

Okay, cleared through unpunctuated An-... which means all of the Anime/Anime And Manga examples from tropes split into subpages. Next up would be Ao No Exorcist.

Down to 7977.

Punctuated from W to Y done.

edited 1st Sep '11 9:29:10 AM by peccantis