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
Yeah, obviously the colouring is highly up to personal interpretation, but still, when I try to do the same thing on other media articles, they come out almost all-blue.
And yeah, the second paragraph is definitely a bit weird. I mean, nobody expects a traditionally non-professional web-based medium to make big bucks anyway, do they? I mean, Web Games or Web Video are not expected to make big bucks either, but their pages don't go in detail about it.
Also darn it, tinypic used to allow for direct links. Sorry about that.
I agree it would benefit from a rewrite, if you haven't started one by the time I'm done with my current batch I'll add it to my list.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.I've got the following sandboxes made, either first or second drafts for them. I'd like a bit of feedback for some, since I'm chainsawing away a lot of text in several cases.
- Sandbox.Magic Versus Science
- Sandbox.Improbable Chopsticks Skill
- Sandbox.Dude Not Funny
- Sandbox.Viewers Are Morons
- Sandbox.Going Critical
- Sandbox.Multipurpose Tongue
Can we talk about Administrivia here? I'd like to alter part of Administrivia.Sinkhole (it's not locked but I assume I would need permission to make any major edits) from this:
to this:
Or something similar. I just see this a lot and want to make the problem a bit more visible.
edited 15th Mar '17 12:15:01 AM by Karxrida
You mean just wikiwording Fan Myopia? Sure go ahead. I'm not sure why it wasn't in the first place,
Oh wait, I messed up the c/p; edited it. It's already Wiki Worded on the page.
Basically I want to make it clear that potholing work names within character namesRandom example is bad by putting it in the bolded part so it's more visible. I see that type of sinkhole way too often.
edited 15th Mar '17 12:15:31 AM by Karxrida
Did a few more tweaks. Anyone want to encourage me to swap one or more yet?
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.Psychopathic Manchild has Types A to F in the description, which is way too many types of you ask me.
Can we add a bullet about injecting unnecessary swearing in Word Cruft? Not to sound like a Bluenose Bowdlerizer (hell, I swear like a sailor), but it's a pretty common form of extraneous word usage.
Stuff like "played damn straight in [X]" or "subverted to hell and back in [X]", you mean? I got to find cruft like that from time to time, and I agree that it's annoying (to clarify, the fact that they're added as cruft, NOT that they're swear words). I think that's already covered implicitly in Bogus Intensifiers, though.
135 -> 180 -> 273 -> 191 -> 188 -> 230 -> 300 -> 311Idol Singer description is horribly outdated. Idols are not exclusively female (male idols are a huge trend recently), idols are usually not solo, few works focus on the negativity of the industry, etc.
Examples might also benefit from being split into works that are entirely about idols (e.g. Marginal #4, Love Live!) vs. works that have an idol in them (e.g. Durarara!!).
Same Character, But Different specifies
"A form of Character Derailment in which a character in a long running series gets Put on a Bus. Years later, the writers bring the character back, except... he isn't the same person anymore..."
Except that the image on the same page shows Phoenix Wright and how he changed between Ace Attorney 3 and 4. Phoenix Wright was never Put on a Bus. Should I just go ahead and remove the bit about Put on a Bus?
For that matter, Character Derailment is a Flame Bait trope, and this trope, which describes itself as a form of it, isn't a Flame Bait. I think this part should have some changes as well.
~Wuz - That sentence suggests it is part of the definition, not just the description. I understand this seems a grey area, but this thread does not make definition changes. You could ask in Trope Talk if those are core parts of the trope (in which case, a trip to Image Picking would be required) and rewriting would take place in Trope Repair Shop. If the thread unanimously agreed it wasn't required, that thread could be used to adjust the description. Otherwise it needs to be taken to TRS for a formal verdict.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.Madonna-Whore Complex has a pair of insanely long lists in the description. I've put them in folders for now to avoid page stretching, but that's kind of only a stopgap - I think we need to cut down the length of or remove these lists completely. Suggestions?
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)The description of Humanoid Aliens seemed to give the impression that only examples of aliens that are clearly nonhuman but still share the general body plan of Homo sapiens qualify for the trope (such as the insectoid alien serving as the article image). If that were true, then examples such as the title character of this comic
would be disqualifed due to looking too humanlike in appearance (she's basically an unnaturally white-skinned and white-haired human with a really large tail and digitigrade legs, with her humanlike mouth hiding shark-like rows of nonhuman sharp teeth), but according to feedback for this "Is this an example?" inquiry
, that isn't the case. Thus I believe that Humanoid Aliens is due for at least some refinement of its description; any suggestions on how to word the boundaries of the trope within the description?
I suggest seeing which parts of the "excess" could be transplanted to an Analysis subpage.
I'm...not sure what to say to that, because I don't think that "this list of tropes corresponds with Madonna, and this list of tropes corresponds with Whore" is quite robust enough to qualify as Analysis material. It's just a super-bloated version of something that already is normal for trope descriptions.
I think making a separate projects thread would help that. Whittling down that list to the most salient tropes and then breaking down the list, and then reassembling it into copy for the description. If the lists were acting as indexes, I could understand the need for them, but those lists aren't.
Cross-referencing is usually a free action as long as it does not implicitly change the definition of the trope or of the trope being cross-referenced.
edited 27th Mar '17 11:27:26 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Would Webcomics benefit from a slight rewrite? It seems overly negative about the medium to me.
I mean, the third paragraph is about how 90% of them are crap, the fourth mostly states that nobody expects them to be financially successful, the fifth concludes that most authors do not plan their story ahead, and the sixth is entirely about most authors not being able to meet deadlines and rushing their comic as a result.
EDIT: I tried to color-code the article to make my point more explicit. Basically, blue is what I think is either descriptive or neutral, green is what I feel is positive commentary, and red would be negative commentary. Result here.
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edited 2nd Mar '17 6:58:16 AM by Yugnat