Trope Description Improvement Drive

^^ No objection here.

I think the description for Guide Dang It! could use a tune-up but I wasn't sure how to go about doing so. In a discussion on Trope Talk, it seems like Guide Dang It!'s description has a number of issues that invite misuse or excessive Walkthrough Mode. Namely,

• The current bullet points don't seem to address issues associated with Guide Dang It!.
• There isn't some sort of section to fend off Walkthrough Mode and the page doesn't reference to it at all.
• The Laconic and description invite potential for less objective entries to classify as Guide Dang It!, even if the game provides hints for a player when attempting to solve something. It can feel less "You'd never figure this out without a walkthrough" and more "I received the hints but they seemed a bit obscure, so I used a walkthrough anyways".

I started a sandbox and tried to clean up the main article's bullet points of examples for things more likely to induce GDI but wasn't sure how to approach the rest of it. Any thoughts?

Edited by YourIdeas on Mar 20th 2021 at 9:55:00 AM

Well, that thread seems to be still active, so I'm gonna bring in a new topic:

Death Is a Slap on the Wrist... The description seems slightly vague on what "slap on the wrist" is?

Could it be more objective if it's "Death will not ever lead to Unwinnable"?

Unlike, as it says, "lost Experience Points, Character Levels, or even most or all of your character's gear", because those things could cause a character to be stranded in an inescapable location surrounded by enemies?

"Death will not ever lead to Unwinnable" is way broader than the trope currently is. The ostensible Opposite Trope, Continuing is Painful, doesn't have to lead to an unwinnable state.

Ooh. Looking at Continuing is Painful...

Ah. Defining that as the opposite makes objective definition clear. A.k.a "slap on the wrist" as "not any harder, or even easier.

I wasn't getting how a death penalty would not make things harder until now...

Talking Typography is literally only a single sentence.

I noticed that Drama-Preserving Handicap is written like it only covers villains while this writing trick should be neutral, applying similarly to good guys and bad guys.

On Peking Duck Christmas, I am considering adding a Last Resort Takeout wick/pothole to:

Would this work?

Edited by Berrenta on Mar 26th 2021 at 11:19:47 AM

Cat Girl currently makes several references to "Cat girl", two words capital C lowercase G, which.......... does not look good.

This change was made by ~Willowleaf 24 a few months ago, "based on the capitalization of the trope name", however we suspect that the trope name is two words not because that's the standard formatting of the term but because it's an ancient trope from the days when people didn't know how to use {{curly}} brackets for one-word tropes.

So, which format do we actually prefer:

1. Catgirl
2. catgirl
3. Cat Girl
4. cat girl

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Mar 29th 2021 at 3:11:16 AM

I prefer "catgirl" as I think that's how it's usually spelled offsite.

....Today I learned there's a Wikipedia page for catgirl. And a canon Wikipedia catgirl.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 29th 2021 at 4:17:41 AM

Having just run through the entire Cat Girl OPE list, and looking up context details for many examples... Yeah, it's usually an improper-noun closed compound.

I always see it written as "catgirl". That's also how Wikipedia writes it, and they tend to be very particular about this sort of thing. And googling for "cat girl" versus "catgirl" brings up more results for the latter; the difference is even more pronounced when adding 'anime' as a search term.

Edited by Twiddler on Mar 29th 2021 at 1:04:01 AM

Whoops, sorry about that! I think I made that change because it had been written both ways throughout the article, and the inconsistency was driving me a bit nuts. I'd sort of assumed that the trope name was the standard that should be used (and hadn't considered that it may itself be miscapitalized).

Like others have said, the one-word spelling, "catgirl" is what seems to be the most common and generally accepted.

I tried clarifying the description to Bolivian Army Ending, but I'm not sure what, exactly, the trope is supposed to entail. Does it always involve an unseen ending, like the Trope Namer suggests?

As originally composed, Bolivian Army Ending leaves the characters facing unavoidable death, then cuts to credits with the implication that they did not survive. There is not meant to be any ambiguity, but it is explicitly about not showing that death on screen.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 30th 2021 at 9:50:46 AM

Right. My issue was with the second paragraph, which did not seem to follow on anything before it. I suspect something was edited there.

You Lose at Zero Trust currently starts by noting the trope's use regarding romantic encounters, before noting in a sentence that it can apply to Alliance Meters or similar. I would like to rewrite the description to make it more neutral, more clearly noting the range of things the trope can apply to initially. Would I be clear to do so?

Sounds like a good idea.

Het Is Ew's description needs some editing. The paragraphs are really long and a lot could probably be moved to an Analysis page.

I don't necessarily hate or love it, but I'm confused why Southern Gentleman is formatted like some sort of nature documentary profile, for lack of a better phrase.

Agreed, that's rather clinical.

I want to make a small rewrite on the description of Ultraman Copy. The line is;

"As First Installment Wins, the original series has become very iconic and commonly homaged in pop culture, as has the titular Ultraman himself."

This is wrong since the first installment in the Ultra Franchise was Ultra Q which doesn't feature a Ultraman.

Edited by WhirlRX on Apr 2nd 2021 at 10:35:54 AM

The Four Terms Fallacy page has an example with three terms. I feel it would fit better if we found an example with four terms to fit the title.

No, that's four.

It's kinda an understandable mistake; the whole idea of the fallacy is presenting four terms such that they'll be misread as three because two of them share one name.

Oh, I see what you mean.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 4th 2021 at 1:59:02 PM