Embarassing crap on the wiki

@1105: We don't need to document anything. That approach would free up a lot of time for a lot of people.

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

I'm not going to participate in this discussion, but the idea of nuking a valid trope makes me want to slam my head against the wall. Zettai Ryouiki is far from unsalvageable, unlike O Ring Orifice was.

Back to the matter of fanfics, are recommendations tagged NSFW acceptable? Characters aren't below our recently specified age, but is the fic okay when it's tagged NSFW or should the rec be zapped?

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

Recs can be for NSFW stuff. As long as the description is clean and any sex happens between no one younger than a 16/16 and there is no Statutory Rape.

Quest 64 thread

A trope is a trope, but has no one considered that it might simply be better to not document some tropes?

Sure, that sounds like heresy since it's our job to be Awesome by Analysis, but consider this: What is the purpose of analyzing tropes?

To enrich our minds about the building blocks of stories.

So, if we analyze a trope, it should serve that function.

However, some tropes are not there for that purpose, if you really examine the trope's purpose.

The trope may be a trope, and it may describe the building blocks of a story. But that is not what it is really being used for. It's being used for sexual satisfaction.

A good deal of tropes in certain indexes fit this definition. The examples on the page are not about studying the trope and how it relates to a work, but to further sexual fantasies and create a miniature database of sexually gratifying works.

Somehow I don't think this was how the wiki was meant to be used, trope or not.

Eh. Some works consciously count "sexual gratification" as among their goals.

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

The purpose of fiction is whatever is decided by the creator, the audience, and/or any outside observer...and each group can decide on different purposes individually. It's an elitist presumption to say that the "purpose" of fiction is to do any one thing at the exclusion of the other things it can be used for. Nor are any of those things mutually exclusive; a sexually stimulating trope can provoke thought about why it's stimulating or what positive/negative effects it can have individually or socially.

edited 3rd Apr '12 5:33:49 AM by KingZeal

What specific criteria would you have us use to determine which perfectly legitimate tropes we nonetheless exclude? Why those criteria?

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

What Zeal said. This is more than a little elitist. We don't judge tropes and their worth in our articles. If it recurringly happens in fiction for a reason, we document it.

And this is coming from someone who is a stuffy academic.

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

I didn't say the purpose of fiction, I said the purpose of analyzing tropes. The wiki is academic in nature but not in tone.

Troping may be what we do, but it is better that we don't document a few tropes so it doesn't harm the wiki than document every trope, even those that would cause severe harm to the wiki.

You guys are right. This isn't wikipedia. Wikipedia has set standards and requirements. Here you can just sit down and edit.

We don't have an effective way of policing the entire wiki due to No Such Thing As Notability. If the situation gets bad enough, I wouldn't be against a "No sex tropes" rule.

No sex Tropes. Period. Seems a little reactionary. But I would be open of a No Example, Please policy on everything that can't be shown before the watershed.

hashtagsarestupid

No Prudishness. It's right there in the name. It's very frustrating because I was and still am fully in support of No Lewdness No Prudishness, but just as I predicted the prudishness is popping up anyway. Making a "no sex tropes" rule would be absurd, and would destroy a huge chunk of the site. I hate to make alarmist slippery slope arguments, but once you start going down a road like that, it does start getting icy.

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

Knee jerk reactions of nuking something prematurely is specifically something we are trying to avoid. It's pathetic.

I've said it before. If a page is clear of creepiness for a good while, it will stay that way, since most examples Follow the Leader. Case in point: Legal Jailbait was a mess two months ago. I've cleaned it up, watchlisted it and it's been fine. No pedophilia gushing for two months. So, instead of measures of actively shutting down stuff just because they may attract creepiness, why not try helping instead?

Damn fucking straight Martello.

edited 3rd Apr '12 7:26:41 AM by lu127

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

Same difference. A work of fiction is essentially an organism made of tropes.

Literally any trope will "can" harm the wiki, and getting rid of the most troublesome ones will only make the next ones the next battlefield. For example, we nuke Troper Tales, then the creeps who used that to soapbox their issues will move on to Sex Tropes and Porn Tropes. Then those get nuked. So, they move to Fanservice Tropes. Then we nuke those. So they move on to Gender and Sexuality Tropes.

And that, in my opinion, will be the day Tropers Law stops being a joke and becomes reality.

Blah blah blah, thanks for sharing. Maybe if people would stop perving all over the tropes, we wouldn't have to have this conversation at all.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Yes, well that goes with out saying.

hashtagsarestupid

@Lu - that's the broken windows policy, and yes, it works. Even with non-perv stuff. I've been watching some of the military and firearms related pages after cleaning up massive amounts of natter and other nonsense, and guess what? People are getting the picture that More Dakka isn't a place to make absurd "Ork jokes" and write all examples in bold, italics and ALLCAPS with multiple exclamation points and potholes to Beyond the Impossible and Up To Eleven and whatever else.

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

It depends on the example in a lot of things hell some Girls With Headphones are considered Fanservice. (I am serious google it its huge)

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

We're not nuking fanservice or sexuality tropes en masse. -_-

edited 3rd Apr '12 7:38:28 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

People being idiots should not get in the way of what we are trying to do. Shima*

has cleaned up and sometimes locked a bucketload of problematic stuff. Those articles look fine now.

Also, I dunno if this is the right time, but I think we would benefit if we redirected every new account to the list of editing tips and Dont Be Creepy on their first edit. At least that way, nobody can claim ignorance of the rules.

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

Yeah. And if people stopped being mean, there'd be no war and crime.

That attitude doesn't help anything.

This might be a bit extreme, but it occurs to me that we could make it so newer accounts can't edit pages we've determined are problematic, giving them a chance to absorb the rules and culture first.

^^ I'd suggest sending them to TV Tropes Customs rather than No Lewdness No Prudishness. More policies covered in one place.

edited 3rd Apr '12 7:45:24 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Maybe something like Wikipedia's semi-protect policy, but for new accounts rather than anons? Seems doable for me. And I agree about TV Tropes Customs.

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

Seems like we agree that newer accounts should get a redirect to one of our administrivia pages either way though, right?

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

I thought there was already a message for new accounts asking them to take a look at that?

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

I can't say, since I don't remember, but I'd be in favour of changing "asking" to an automatic display of the rules. You will see many editors who really won't bother even going to that page. We get the "I didn't know we had rules!" thing twice a week.

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