Fixing zero context examples

Because Weblinks Are Not Examples, period. You don't send people around the wiki for your own convenience, in short.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Linking only to an article is sloppy, lazy and plain uninteresting. The whole point of a trope list is to give a presentation of the trope. Giving it no context defeats the whole purpose of the list.

It isn't even so hard. Give them some context by saying how they appear in the narrative. It's not rocket science.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

But tropers are ABLE TO READ AND UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES why a trope fits with something simply by going to that tropes' page!! What, these tropes don't have links to their own pages!!?

Read my post. And there are 100 times more readers than tropers, to set that straight.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Are you completely missing the point? Readers are the point, not tropers alone.

Second, it is bland and uninteresting to simply get a link instead of a short fun writeup of what happened.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

But something like Alliterative Name under Pinkie Pie really can't have a description without being boring, repetetive, or unnecessary. Should it say

• Alliterative Name: Pinkie Pie.

or

• Alliterative Name: Yep.

or

• Alliterative Name: Pinkie's name is based off P being an Inherently Funny Letter, showing that she's fun and the life of a party.

None of these are good; Viewers Are Morons, Word Cruft, and Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory respectively. I don't see any option other than blank.

edited 14th Nov '12 1:50:32 PM by Telcontar

That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.

Exactly. i can't help wondering if many of these rules contradict each other.

What they said, also there's no guarantee that zero context example is even correct. It's not as if tropers haven't misused tropes before and that's hard to detect and repair without context.

Not every trope (very few in fact) are as simple as Alliterative Name.

I can't tell the examples on Hot Librarian have enough context. Is the "prim and prudish" bit an important part of the trope or it is fine if the examples just talk about character's attractiveness?

edited 14th Nov '12 2:00:38 PM by captainpat

@82: Only 1% of all Zero Context Examples fall under that, so I don't see what this matters here - an one-in-a-hundred exception isn't particularly important and can simply be exempted. Also, none of the deleted examples in Wreck-It Ralph would suffice.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Just so I'm clear — is wiki policy to delete them, or to move them to Discussion?

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

Yea, the fact that those examples are comment confused me, I move most zero context examples to the discussion page.

I've seen both discussion move and outright deletion - methinks that if the editor has enough time and good mood, they move these to discussion, while editors on a wick cleanup run delete them to save on time and to make it clear that such examples are bad.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Here's what's wrong with

• Alliterative Name: Pinkie Pie.

There's more to the trope than "The name starts with the same letter." There's what naming them like that does:

"Giving a character an alliterative name is one of many ways a writer can make a name more interesting and catchy, which in turn makes the character more memorable to the audience. This is especially important in works with Loads and Loads of Characters, where extra help is needed to differentiate between them. "

edited 14th Nov '12 2:42:46 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

^I can't see how to write a good example from that, tough.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

An Alliterative Name is not a name where both names begin with the same letter. It's about the same sound, which means you need at least one syllable.

Also, Alliterative Name is exceptionally broken as a trope, so it's not the best of examples to bring up to support your point.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

Maddy: Does that mean it should say something like "Pinkie Pie's alliterative name makes her more memorable, since she's the only pony in the Mane Six to have one."?

Lu: Not quite sure what you're getting at with the first part — "same sound" doesn't necessarily mean a whole syllable, as far as I'm aware, and unless the trope is so broken (which is possible) that even the page quote and laconic are wrong, Pinkie's still an example.

With the second part, good point. It came to mind since I'd seen Shima comment it out for Pinkie.

That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.

Generally I find that most tropes that you can't give an example to aren't really tropes. There has to be something interesting about the example. If you can't say anything about how a trope contributes to a story either:

a) You are misusing the trope.

b) The trope is broken and/or not a trope at all, so thus needs to go to TRS.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

The fact that Pinkie Pie is the only one of the Mane Six to have an Alliterative Name is worth mentioning. It's what makes it likely that her name was deliberately made alliterative in order to add some information about the character to what the audience is told.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Shima and Maddy: Those things make sense; thanks!

That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.

Can I get a second opinion on Hot Librarian?

The biggest issue with Hot Librarian is that it's reached the bit in the great cycle of tropeness where it's so ingrained in public conciousness, that all they need is the illusion of initial primness to get the trope across. A Prim and Proper Bun, a knee length skirt, a blouse with a stand of pearls, a pair of glasses, and her personality never needs to be shown before she turns on the sexy.

But she still needs that superficial primness.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

So as long as the character has the looks, personality or gives off that aura it's good?

What about when the explanation is in sub-bullets? Because on Characters.Friendship Is Magic-Animal Companions, Expy got commented out, but it had two sub-bullets of explanation that now look like they're sub-bullets of Disembodied Eyebrows (which has no explanation of its own on that page other than being listed as Disembodied Whiskers).

edited 15th Nov '12 10:05:44 AM by Whatshisgame

I was doing a lot of pages. If something had subbullets that I missed, go ahead and fix it. Those count as an explanation. I tried to catch all of those, but I admit to being human. It sounds like I hit the wrong line by accident. I'll switch it around.

edited 15th Nov '12 10:18:57 AM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I think every single example on Sesquipedalian Smith is zero context.

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.