What it says in the title. EDIT: Link to auxiliary sandbox page
Some trope descriptions suffer from problems. Some possible ones:
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!. A paragraph starts explaining element X of the trope, then it wanders off to explain element Y. Two paragraphs after that we're back at element X again. Nary a conjunction is in sight.
- Too long. Stuff that should go in analysis, or maybe in another trope, or maybe nowhere, going in the main space. Too much scrolling required before you can get to the examples.
- Fan Myopia. Some "this is how it happens in WRESTLING!" dissertation is taking up half of the page on a trope about white t-shirts. We already have a thread on that one
- discussion about the general phenomenon goes there, specific candidates to deal with go here.
- General lack of balance and order. Something is emphasized at the expense of the other aspects of the trope, even though it has no right to be. Consequences of the trope come first, then related tropes, then a mention of the Trope Codifier, then common scenarios where it comes into play...
- Failure to answer the fundamental question up front: What is this trope? Not what it "might" be or what can "possibly" happen - what is it?
- Not enough meat. Juicy stuff is missing, like: When is the trope likely to turn up? Why would an author use it? In what ways does the audience often react? Which tropes are related to it and how?
- Spelling and grammar issues.
- The first line which makes honest-to-god sense is below the fold. e.g. Example as a Thesis that makes you go "huh?" instead of "ooooh".
- Bad Writing. Purple Prose, pitching the trope, Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma.
- Egregiously Fan-Myopic quote.
- Jaywalking.
Bring up trope pages here so we can work on them. If no one does in a while, I'll try to dig something up.
edited 22nd Sep '11 10:48:59 AM by TripleElation
Closing the TRS for Magic Missile (aka Projectile Spell) might have been just a wee bit premature because nobody tweaked the on-page definition to reflect the latest discussion
on it. So I did just that. Treating spells like projectiles also means we can mention stuff like Taking the Bullet or Bulletproof Human Shield because it can happen.
edited 23rd Jun '13 7:25:46 AM by Stratadrake
An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.Yeah, there were no real objections to it, but the page itself claimed the distinction was of critical importance, meaning the definition was bad:
Especially when fireballs are one of the most iconic forms of projectile magic.
edited 23rd Jun '13 7:28:40 AM by Stratadrake
An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.Slow-Motion Fall is a bit unclear. Is this about people getting knocked down to the ground, being dropped from a great height, or both?
Can I get someone to pop into my latest YKTTW, Walking Fishbowl
, and offer some advice? Description feels really, really lean right now.
Also, the discussion on the rename of In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You to Russian Reversal was shut down prematurely IMHO before the description was cleaned up any. I did a bunch of work on clearing it (clarifying that it counts even if Soviet Russia isn't involved and shoving references to the meme into the example section).
edited 23rd Jun '13 11:06:30 AM by StarSword
Trust me, I'm an engineer!Double Standard is written exclusively about double standards based on sex and gender expectations.
ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NOI just hacked off a big chunk of Our Wormholes Are Different into Analysis and rewrote it to be a lot more concise and to the point.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I hope I'm just missing it, but what the hell is a splat ?
An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.It would seem like a term derived backwards from "splatbook", which is a rules supplement to a tabletop RPG. I suppose I could have it the wrong way round, but I am more familiar with "splatbook" than I am "splat". By simple language rules, a "splat" is a character archetype, class, kit, or similar construct for an RPG, and a "splatbook" is what contains it.
I don't really know that we need an article defining the term, as it's not a trope so much as a definition of a thing that contains tropes.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
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Not all double standards are sex-based, though. If it's exclusively for those only, then the name is misleading.
"Splatbook" was coined as a pronunciation for "*book", with "*" standing for the large range of words that tend to be attached to "-book" when making RPG supplementals (e.g. sourcebook, guidebook) as well as idiosyncratic names (e.g. clanbooks and tribebooks for World Of Darkness). See here
for more info.
That's right. Splatbook is a constructed word, and splat is a back-formation from it. I would redirect splat to Splatbook. Except that we don't have that. Seriously?
edited 29th Jun '13 10:46:45 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I could have sworn we had Splatbook, but I'm probably misremembering Splat. Anyway, anyone mind if I just switch them, and redirect splat to splatbook?
And on the description note, I feel like it should say something about crunch and fluff (for the record, currently Fluff redirects to WAFF).
edited 29th Jun '13 11:58:01 AM by Discar
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.For the record, Splat's article does mention the origin of the term from "splatbook", and in turn briefly explains the etymology of that term.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.There's the minor problem that the definition of Splat is about splats, and mentions splatbooks only for reference's sake.
I imagine that if you were to do a search, you'd get a lot more hits for "splatbook" than "splat".
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"And a lot more relevant ones, too.
An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.I'm finishing a YKTTW left Up For Grabs and could use a hand filling out the description. Current title Merger of Souls
.
@782: No, I had proposed the changes and was waiting for a second opinion.
edited 1st Jul '13 9:50:27 AM by StarSword
Trust me, I'm an engineer!Here's my revision to the first line of Splat so that it will make sense when it gets swapped to Splatbook.
The term comes from White Wolf games. Practically all of their Storytelling System games have a variety of character types, with a variety of names for these character types, and lots and lots of books about these character types, "tribebooks," "clanbooks," and so on. These came to be known as "*books," or "splatbooks."note
Does that work well enough, or are the changes too minimal?
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Are you sure the etymology is from White Wolf? I recall hearing the term used to refer to D&D's various handbooks as far back as 2nd edition, although it may have been after the fact.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Also, "Super Sentai" Stance needs a description of what the trope is.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman