Pages with medium-specific subpages and page pics

Per Fast Eddie, if a trope page has medium-specific subpages, then pics should go on those pages and not the main page, to keep the main page "medium-agnostic". See [1] and two posts later for reference. If you come across one of these pages, I'm going to say you've got free reign to move the pic to the appropriate subpage unless there's already a pic there; in that case, we can debate which one would work better in this thread. If/when you move a pic, please tag both the main page and subpage with this thread link. Thanks!

edited 11th Jan '12 3:59:43 AM by Willbyr

What if the only image among the Main and all its sub-pages is the page image on Main?

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

I was wondering about the same thing.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

This should really be on the "When to start an IP thread" list.

...which, I notice, has been removed from this forum again. Sheesh. Why can't we keep the single instruction page for this forum stickied in this forum where it belongs?

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

In regards to and , I'd say go ahead and move the pic.

Yeah, this probably should be put on one of those instruction pages as well. This issue's popped up in a couple of recent threads, so it seemed best to put up a general thread about it rather than having to keep bringing up the same points in separate threads. I agree that that particular thread should be stickied in here as well. *shrug*

I tweaked the wording in the OP slightly. rodney, I replied back to you.

edited 11th Jan '12 4:01:36 AM by Willbyr

Tropes with a lot of examples get split into separate medium pages. In a sense, these are the most popular tropes. The maximum possible benefit of seeming medium-agnostic is tiny compared to the enormous cost of not having an image on the Main page, which is the only page of that trope that many readers will ever see.

For some tropes, where most or all of the sub-pages have an image, this makes some sense. For most, where all the pages have one or a few images between them, this is a dramatic decrement in quality. (Not to mention if a trope is "too successful" it loses its image.)

edited 11th Jan '12 7:16:07 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

I have to say I find it peculiar as well. I'm all for giving different media and fandoms equal shares in the spotlight, but robbing especially popular tropes from page images seems to me as sacrificing a more fundamental priority.

Rodney puts it well: "if a trope is "too successful" it loses its image", I've never thought of it that way before.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

I hadn't thought about it that way either...both arguments have merit.

So is it safe to assume that this is just another guideline and not a hard and fast rule?

So far, yes, although I mentioned to Eddie that he might want to step in and say something about it while we were PM'ing over something else.

Well, we don't have to worry about the popularity of the popular tropes. They are already popular. We want medium-agnostic main pages for these because we do not want to signal that they are about one medium or another.

For instance, when some non-anime fans come into an article and the first thing they see is an anime picture, they figure it is about anime, and mash the random button again. If we leave the words there to make the initial impression, that wrong first impression doesn't get made.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

On the other hand, images can also be visual aids that are helpful in understanding the trope at a glance. Also, pages that are frequently linked to off-site are likely to be a newbie's first impression of the wiki, so there's definitely upside to making it look as nice as possible.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

edited 12th Jan '12 9:03:39 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

I'm not sure many people, in most cases, will make that "anime/TV series/webcomics only" jump. But if that's the concern, we can give more weight to "real life"/"others" images, which will give the same effect.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

That's their own fault for jumping to conclusions.

Then again, it's not the only reason to make said main pages medium-agnostic...

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

What are the others?

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Fan competitions over which medium gets two pictures.

Fight smart, not fair.

Ah yeah, I have those two in mind. Is it that bad though? Even then we can use real life/illustrations/other somewhat neutral images.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

One problem with this new rule is that some tropes are so hard to indicate that removing main pages' images would likely leave one subpage pictured and the rest imageless. Karma Houdini comes to mind.

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

Where should the page image on Heroic BSoD go? Video Games?

Where should the page image on Demonic Spiders go? Shoot 'em Ups?

edited 29th Jan '12 10:03:21 AM by FinalStarman

I'm not crazy, I just don't give a darn!

Hmmmm...interesting. For Demonic Spider, I'd say leave it there since it's a video game-specific trope. For Heroic BSoD, since it's a Visual Pun and not a true medium example, I'd say leave it and come up with valid examples for the subpages.

... the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to doubt that this rule is necessary. If we disproportionately have anime pics, is it because of bias in favour of anime, or because anime disproportionately tends to provide good pics?

And what of the idea of using real-life examples for the main page images in such cases? Many articles have a No Real Life Examples rule attached to them, but even for articles on the borderline of it, are real-life examples as page images more acceptable or less than having other kinds of real-life examples?

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

Real Life images are fine for pages with No Real Life Examples.^[1] As for the first part, about the medium-agnosticism—it doesn't matter whether there is a bias toward anime pics or if they happen to provide good pics. As Eddie said, people see an anime/manga/animesque game image and assume it's a Japanese thing. Works great for tropes that are exclusive to Japan, like Yamato Nadeshiko, but not for tropes like The Three Faces of Eve. And if a specific medium/art style gets a lot of page images, that is a bad thing, no matter how well they demonstrate the trope, because this site is not supposed to look like it prefers one medium over another. (I'm looking at you, webcomics.)

Which brings me back to Heroic BSoD. The image has a clear slant toward eastern drawn media, even though it's Video Game art. It screams of specific medium/style, regardless of what medium it actually is. It is not medium-agnostic in the least.

I'm not crazy, I just don't give a darn!

Is that the fault of those who add those images, or of readers who jump to conclusions?

As for webcomics, again, perhaps it's that they just tend to be better for demonstrating the trope. (The combination of speech balloons with the visual elements... and the Genre Savvy style of some specific webcomics like XKCD and VG Cats... come to mind.)

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

It's all about the readers. Who cares if they're wrong?

About webcomics, not all images have to be, "We're lampshading it!" or, "Let's discuss a common video game occurrence that has a TV Tropes article," or, "Let's copy-paste TV Tropes' description of this thing!" or, slightly less commonly, "It's funny because Large Ham." That is what the majority of webcomic images tend to be, and, as Image Pickin keeps finding them, the majority of images tends to be. It gets old, it gets repetitive, it makes the site look more and more like a webcomic. It's actually more helpful to find an image that's a more subtle or creative use of the trope and doesn't look like it came from this website.

I'm not crazy, I just don't give a darn!