How should we go about cleaning up misplaced examples?

The above is basically a remark of my own, from this thread. It seems like a lot of users, even those who have been here for a while, still seem to think animated movies go in western animation. So long as this misconception is common, it will cause a lot of misplaced examples to be added.

I was originally going to make this thread specifically about animated movies in the western animation sections, but I figured when in doubt it is better to be more general, so my question is, how should we go about cleaning up misplaced examples?

EDITED IN: Note that I'm referring specifically to examples placed in the wrong sections, not "misuse" in general. (That would be too broad.)

edited 1st Dec '11 6:07:04 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Have you seen misplaced examples on pages with Film — Animated categories? If not then we'll just need to aggressively create that one on every page we can, possibly adding comments on pages without one.

Yeah, unwritten rule number one: follow all the unwritten procedures. - Camacan

I don't think that's a good idea. In practice films often incorporate aspects both of live action and of animation. Movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit do so very obviously, but even ones like Avatar blur the line with their heavy use of CGI.

I myself think a better solution would be to encourage use of animated movie screenshots as page images of the film subpages of frequently viewed tropes. That way people coming across those images would get the idea. I'm not saying it's enough on its own, but I think it'd be a start.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

I think this is related to two issues:

1. If any works are still on the Main namespace, migrating them to their medium namespace, might make it a bit clearer what works belong where.

2. Some pages have folders for things like Mythology and Religion, or Other, or whatever. Some pages have Traditional Games, some have Card Games, some have Tabletop Games, some have none of those or multiple game sections. Until recently I, for example, was unaware that there was any standard for what things go in what medium, and didn't know that Mythology and Religion have no namespaces and therefore aren't standard. I'm still not clear on the namespace thing, so now I just work around whatever folders a page already has.

Some possible solutions include:

A. Special Efforts devoted to specific facets of 2. For example: we are going to eliminate the Mythology folder from every page that contains it, and move their examples to the appropriate sections. Next, merging Card Games and Tabletop Games in all folders.

B. Rename Western Animation to Western Animation TV. Right now, "Western" suggests the primary comparison is with Anime and Manga and that section seems to combine both film and TV. So it's unsurprising that people conclude Western Animation has the same setup. I realize that's more migration work though.

C. Put the standard folders/A Cs on every trope page, even if they're empty, and use Special Efforts to eliminate the invalid folders/A Cs. Then it should be much clearer what is and is not a valid category.

edited 6th Dec '11 4:24:07 PM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

"It seems like a lot of users, even those who have been here for a while, still seem to think animated movies go in western animation."

Well perhaps it shouldn't have a name that, by definition, includes all form of animation in the west. It's the same as any trope name that makes a trope seem broader than it is. Plus most uses of the term are in media categories, which don't actually link to the work pages, so most users might not even know there is a Western Animation page (which I didn't even know of until a few minutes ago when I searched for it).

Also, why does Western Animation not include films?

edited 6th Dec '11 4:30:40 PM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Putting empty folder/ACs on a page just looks tacky. I wouldn't be against leaving them commented out, though.

Yeah, unwritten rule number one: follow all the unwritten procedures. - Camacan

For that matter, why does anime? Seems like we should have the same standard for animated films regardless of where they come from - I don't really care which it is, but I'd prefer it be the same.

Yeah I think that may be part of the confusion.

Adding them, but commenting them out, seems like a good idea. Another possibility: head each example section with a list of the appropriate categories, commented out.

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

I think the idea of "Film — Animated" came from the fact that some tropers were putting things into Western Animation while others were categorizing them as Film(this still shows up). Anime movies never had that problem.

On a side note, does anyone else think "Animated Film" looks better?

Yeah, unwritten rule number one: follow all the unwritten procedures. - Camacan

I do. I think we'd be much better off moving things to Animated Film and Animated Series.

Fight smart, not fair.

This. Just make Western Animation a Super Medium.

edited 6th Dec '11 11:14:17 PM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

I've seen anime films that weren't adaptations of series in the Films - Animated namespace occasionally, actually.

edited 6th Dec '11 10:01:08 PM by nrjxll

Animated TV shows in the West tend to fall into two clumps: the Animation Age Ghetto clump (kids' shows) and The Simpsons clump. Both orbit near each other because they don't take themselves too seriously and tend to be drawn very simply.

By contrast, animated films tend to be closer in spirit to their live-action counterparts, though The Movie of an animated TV show is iffier, and the shorts of the Golden Age Of Animation are often repackaged for airing as a TV kids' show, even though they were originally released in theatres.

From the perspective of the West, all Anime & Manga is so weird, because of the Japanese cultural difference, that there isn't much difference between them - and my impression is that one of these Japanese cultural differences is that there really isn't much difference between TV shows, OV As, and other movies, and maybe even manga, due in part to the lack of an Animation Age Ghetto, with far more variation within media than between them.

This may explain why the media are grouped as they are, rooted in the bad old days when we didn't need as many hard-and-fast "rules", and to some extent even in the days when this was still TV Tropes.

edited 9th Dec '11 1:15:50 AM by MorganWick