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What to do about (New crowner swapped in 8/2/12): Nightmare Fuel

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CrypticMirror Cryptic Mirror from Scotland Since: Jan, 2001
#651: Feb 8th 2012 at 1:05:52 PM

[up][up]Yeah this is classic "we didn't like the result so we'll vote until we get the one we do like" combined with "shhh tell no one so only the right sort vote". The usual from TRS really.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#652: Feb 8th 2012 at 1:09:39 PM

I voted for keeping both namespaces since YMMV pages are already cluttered enough that having yet another above-average Natter Bait Audience Reaction like ANF on them is not a good idea and because HONF and ANF are conceptually different.

EDIT: To clarify what I am talking about.

edited 8th Feb '12 1:11:37 PM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Martello Hammer of the Pervs from Black River, NY Since: Jan, 2001
Hammer of the Pervs
#653: Feb 8th 2012 at 1:10:38 PM

Before we all start panicking, and especially you, Cryptic, let's all take a look at the new crowner options and what ccoa has proposed. This is not supplanting the winning option from the last crowner. It's a further step to solving the issue. That winning option was not the final solution, just the first step.

And Cryptic, with how involved you've been in this thread, you are TRS, so you might want to be careful about what you're saying.

[down]Like I said.

edited 8th Feb '12 2:08:58 PM by Martello

"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#654: Feb 8th 2012 at 1:23:02 PM

Oh, for god's sake. I already explained this. Can we read before we start spouting accusations?

This crowner will not supplant the last crowner. It does not change anything that crowner decided to do.

This crowner is only what to do about the Namespaced NF and HONF pages that are attached to work pages. NOT the main pages. It even says "namespace" on the crowner everywhere.

We have nothing to do with it no longer being in the headlines. This constant barrage of "OMG conspiracy!" attacks is getting old, fast.

Can we stop with the attacks now? And would everyone who voted after failing a Reading Comprehension Check please take a moment to think about your vote now that it's been explained? (Not change, if you don't want to, but at least consider it now that you have the facts)

edited 8th Feb '12 1:26:42 PM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
hotrods4ben Browncoat Reaver Since: May, 2010
Browncoat Reaver
#655: Feb 8th 2012 at 2:37:55 PM

A bit off topic: the message that got stuck on all the ANF pages is badly typo'd

You're talkin' a lot, but you're not sayin' anything. — Talking Heads, 1977
LMage Since: May, 2011
#656: Feb 8th 2012 at 2:38:49 PM

[up]

That...

Is my fault.

-head desh-

edited 8th Feb '12 2:39:06 PM by LMage

Martello Hammer of the Pervs from Black River, NY Since: Jan, 2001
Hammer of the Pervs
#657: Feb 8th 2012 at 2:42:59 PM

Protip - use Firefox (which has native spellcheck including the red underline) or write things out in Word before you paste it into the browser. So basically, use Firefox.

"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
AlexSora89 Myself, as drawn by me. from Piedmont, Italy Since: Oct, 2010
Myself, as drawn by me.
#658: Feb 8th 2012 at 2:43:37 PM

Okay, lemme catch up with the news...

Yowza, so another crowner is open to voting, but the link to the discussion has been removed? That's not a good idea. Sure, anyone can look for it, but given the forums being hard to browse is the reason behind me not being quite fond of the "Take It To The Forums" rule, I think letting more people aware of this would be generally a wiser decision.

However, it's nice to see that someone agrees with my huge wall of text. For those not in the know, I'm alluding to how YMMV "items" (a derogatory term that implies - or, more realistically, seems to do so - we're planning to get rid of them) are actually tropes.

Maybe a Tear Jerker is more of an audience reaction, but the Complete Monster, as the-troper-whose-nickname-I-can't-quite-remember-right-now-but-whom-I-still-want-to-thank-for-his-slash-her-support said, is a trope.

We all should remember that what made the wiki as great as it is today includes YMMV tropes - that is to say, Subjective Tropes - too. I know how eager anyone seem to be about getting rid of them as soon as possible, implying they outlived their usefulness, but it really isn't. On the contrary, imagine what would happen if we didn't have them anymore.

Most of the "big ones" among YMMV tropes - near-omnipresent ones such as Crowning Moments, Crowning Music, Funny Moments, Tear Jerkers and Nightmare Fueling moments basically mean "oh, Tv Tropes!" on the net. If anyone has seen some "Series X - Nightmare Fuel" fan videos on Youtube can recall how many top comments boil down to "okay, who's here from Tv Tropes?". Imagine if we didn't have them at all, imagine having a separate wiki for them, or, even worse yet, imagine that Wiki being hosted on the near-un-browsable Wikia.

As I said in my speech-esque post, not all tropes are simply tools or mere objects, as devices of storytelling have the right to be alive too. The "alive tropes" I'm talking about are the YMMV ones, the same that are based on the emotional interaction between works, their objective tropes, their subjective tools, and the subjective perception every viewer-slash-fan has of them.

And also as I said before, this is just my opinion. However, I have to remind everyone that, despite now people proudly claim "oh yeah, we'd never miss YMMV", that time can be cruel as it passes by. (I still miss Troper Tales, and even strikeouts...)

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!
ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#659: Feb 8th 2012 at 2:53:23 PM

Those things you listed - the moments, tearjerker, etc - are all reactions. Mary Sue and Complete Monster are tropes, though, just very subjective and contentious tropes.

edited 8th Feb '12 2:54:39 PM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
AlexSora89 Myself, as drawn by me. from Piedmont, Italy Since: Oct, 2010
Myself, as drawn by me.
#660: Feb 8th 2012 at 3:37:44 PM

I... I just hope I never have to see a "complete cut of audience reactions" thread. Or even worse, seeing just that happening without the thread.

Because yeah, sometimes there's this or that thing that doesn't quite fit the wiki, but most of the Permanent Red Link Club has no right to be sealed there.

Also, I consider audience reaction as tropes as they are elements present in a work. Their subjectiveness is debatable sometimes (don't think about that sentence too hard, just keep reading), as, for example, Tear Jerker is something the authors were clearly aiming at in a work, and so is High Octane Nightmare Fuel by definition.

For example, I've just seen the most recent movie adaptation of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. The sequence with the animatronic puppets can be described as "animatronic puppets sing an eerie tune about Willy Wonka, only to melt as soon as the fireworks burn too close to them". Potholing that sentence to High Octane Nightmare Fuel is only natural, and I don't mean that trope is a Pothole Magnet (even though it is, and even then, considering it is a Wiki Trope we can say that Tropes Are Not Bad, not necessarily as least). I mean that without the NF articles, as well as without that very pothole, that article (and even the wiki!) wouldn't be the same. It would feel unnatural to say that sentence without the pothole.

That's another aspect of the whole "We are not Wikipedia" (I know, Tropers Law, but, other than that article being a derogatory term meant to make fun of that reasoning, the disclaimer about us not being Wikipedia is on the main page of the site) thing, in that, as mentioned in I-don't-remember-which-article-anymore, "[Wikipedia's] chillingly scholastic*

tone when describing unspeakable horrors makes it very unsettling to read". Instead, our potholes give a Lampshade Hanging about something being scary, and that means we acknowledge we're handling something that scares some people. That doesn't only soften the horror we're dealing with, but also makes the whole site friendlier towards its userbase, or, in other words, more human.

Maybe I'm reading too much in all of these changes, but because of just about everything I've said-slash-written on this topic so far, that's why I just think the wiki should stay as it is. I hope you can understand my concerns.

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!
troacctid (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#661: Feb 8th 2012 at 3:40:58 PM

Alex is right—there are quite a lot of YMMV items that are tropes, not reactions.

We still label them as subjective because, well, they're subjective—we just can't get people to agree on what is and isn't an example. Sometimes the lines are hard to draw, and the trope turns out to be problematic in practice. The subjective banner, in these cases, is there for reasons of pragmatism.*

Of course, there are still quite a lot of Audience Reactions that aren't tropes at all.

edited 8th Feb '12 3:41:54 PM by troacctid

ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#662: Feb 8th 2012 at 3:57:42 PM

^^ Not to derail too much, but, yes, you can aim to evoke an audience reaction in a work. How the author goes about getting that reaction is a trope of some kind: Heroic Sacrifice, Go Out with a Smile, Lonely Piano Piece, One-Woman Wail, Downer Ending, and Please Wake Up are all tropes. How the audience reacts is an audience reaction, natch, and is not under the direct control of the creator. He may be aiming for Tear Jerker, but got Narm or just indifference instead. It's not directly present in the work, but rather a reaction to something that is.

I hope that clarifies the difference a bit.

For the record, I have no problem with audience reactions being cataloged on this site. Some of them, like Draco in Leather Pants, are more relevant than others (since that one shows up in fanfiction, and thus a work, and not just a fandom/audience), but I don't mind even the silly ones like Crowning Music Of Awesome. I would just like them to stay relatively clean and not be a constant drain on our manpower and source of contention and problems.

edited 8th Feb '12 4:08:16 PM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
troacctid (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#663: Feb 8th 2012 at 4:01:51 PM

Well anyway, I support just renaming the NightmareFuel/ namespace to AccidentalNightmareFuel/. Fast Eddie has a tool to rename whole namespaces in one stroke, right? That should make it relatively painless.

If it weren't already split, I'd support having Accidental Nightmare Fuel and High Octane Nightmare Fuel together in one Nightmare Fuel namespace, like we have with Fridge/, but given that we've got hundred of pages already split, it's really not worth the extra work to merge them.

AlexSora89 Myself, as drawn by me. from Piedmont, Italy Since: Oct, 2010
Myself, as drawn by me.
#664: Feb 8th 2012 at 4:05:00 PM

[up][up] That's good to hear. This site - as it is now - has lots of potential to me, as it touches a lot of topics regarding fiction, and the more-freely-user-based, therefore-not-too-serious approach it uses makes it great for fresh, interesting and overall fun reading hours.

Without YMMV and everything that helps it being as it is, the site would ultimately become kind of... dark, gray, gloomy, you name it.

[EDIT: green arrows added. No relation with Green Arrow.]

edited 8th Feb '12 4:21:39 PM by AlexSora89

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!
PulpoOscuro from a heavy wooden chair Since: Jan, 2011
#665: Feb 8th 2012 at 4:30:34 PM

I was going to contribute an argument, but you've already covered everything I want to say, so... agreed.

Also, I think I said that thing about Wikipedia. Small world...

Martello Hammer of the Pervs from Black River, NY Since: Jan, 2001
Hammer of the Pervs
#666: Feb 8th 2012 at 4:42:22 PM

Ok, your last post before this one was very well thought out and reasonable, even though I completely disagreed with almost all of it. Let's not ruin that by going the whole "cutting Nightmare Fuel will ruin the wiki" route. Not good for the credibility, and also we all know it just isn't true. The casual feel of this place would not leave with all the not-tropes, and nobody's trying to cut it at this point anyway. How about we stick to the actual issue at hand and leave our emotional hyperbole out of it, shall we.

"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
AlexSora89 Myself, as drawn by me. from Piedmont, Italy Since: Oct, 2010
Myself, as drawn by me.
#667: Feb 8th 2012 at 4:56:01 PM

Agreed, Martello (or should I say Hammer? Guarda che me n'ero accorto!). Anyway, getting emotional is a part of me - so try not to mind that, as difficult as it may be. The fact I'm showing it on the forums (and on the forums only) is because the possibility of losing not all our fun, but still a huge chunk of its source, in favor of some kind of Serious Business really makes me upset because I'd miss it, and I guess I'd not be the only one. The fact it's "just something virtual and/or a site thing" does little, next-to-nothing to soften the fact I would still miss it.

Anyway... your point is still kinda valid, despite the differences between our respective perceptions of the site.

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!
GameGuruGG Vampire Hunter from Castlevania (Before Recorded History)
Vampire Hunter
#668: Feb 8th 2012 at 6:24:05 PM

Just to be clear... Nightmare Fuel is getting a disambiguous page while Accidental and High Octane are remaining, right?

Wizard Needs Food Badly
LMage Since: May, 2011
#669: Feb 8th 2012 at 6:26:00 PM

[up]

Does indeed seem to be the plan.

I am worried that if we don't lump them all under a single namespace in this case it will only lead to more headache down the line.

Noaqiyeum we must dissent (it/they) from across the gulf of space (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
we must dissent (it/they)
#670: Feb 8th 2012 at 7:04:38 PM

I'm of the opinion that merging ANF and HONF together is ultimately inevitable as long as we don't nuke the entire thing before that (which is, happily, clearly not a viable option), so I'm happy to allow modest changes to improve.

Of the options listed, though, it seems clear that the chief problem is that people are conflating the 'middle ground' NF with either ANF or HONF. So I can't understand how any solution that keeps NF and either of the others will serve to fix anything - either merge both in Nightmare Fuel or properly differentiate them between Accidental Nightmare Fuel and High Octane Nightmare Fuel.

ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NO
MegaJ Since: Oct, 2009
#671: Feb 8th 2012 at 7:44:10 PM

Ugh, the crowner options. Putting the "accidental" didn't change anything, it's not going to change now. And what's with works having BOTH namespaces?

Martello Hammer of the Pervs from Black River, NY Since: Jan, 2001
Hammer of the Pervs
#672: Feb 8th 2012 at 8:12:26 PM

@Alex: Mi dispiace, non ho visto che sei dal Piemonte. Sei l'unica persona qua che ha capita che Martello e l'italiano per "hammer." Sono un mezzo siciliano, i miei bisnonni erano di San Fratello in montanga, vicino Palermo.

And for the benefit of those who parlano solo inglese, I totally understand and approve of your attachment to the site. I feel the same way, but apparently we just see the place differently. If you can convert that passion - and I think maybe you can - into keeping the nightmare pages clean and free of natter and other nonsense, then I can get behind this new solution. I can honestly say that I'm glad to see so many unfamiliar faces involved in this thread that also seem to be committed to keeping these pages valid. I was the same way with some of the more questionable breast-related tropes - some people thought they needed to be cut for various reasons, but other users along with myself have kept them valid by careful watching and curation. Unfortunately, the nightmare pages are so much larger, and are going to need that much more work. I guess we'll have to see how it goes for the next few months or so.

edited 8th Feb '12 8:13:15 PM by Martello

"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.
BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#673: Feb 8th 2012 at 8:21:35 PM

Is it OK if I go over some of these pages with a fine comb and try to correct some spelling and at least reword examples that are written in first-person?

Do not obey in advance.
shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#674: Feb 8th 2012 at 8:23:16 PM

Yes, that is more than all right. It might also be a good idea to make a Special Efforts thread for the cleaning. It's a lot easier when there's a collaborative place to work. The Complete Monster clean up crew has had a lot of success with that.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Martello Hammer of the Pervs from Black River, NY Since: Jan, 2001
Hammer of the Pervs
#675: Feb 8th 2012 at 8:24:37 PM

Man, you fresh-faced kids coming in here and asking if it's okay for you to start curating these pages are warming my heart. And the thing is both black and cold, so that's not easy.

"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.

SingleProposition: NightmareFuel
12th Jan '12 4:22:56 PM

Crown Description:

Vote up for yes, down for no.

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