Inspired by this thread
, I've noticed that this wiki doesn't have a dedicated cleanup thread for negativity.
As we all know, Complaining About Shows You Don't Like, Creator Bashing and other negativity isn't desired on the wiki, except in a few selected areas like reviews and several Darth Wiki pages (and even then, with limitations). And yet, it's one of the most common sins wiki contributors can make.
So, if you find a page, TLP or discussion whose content seems like a straight-up insult or any other bitching - including complainy soapboxing -, you might ask here for help with removing said content.
The sandbox for this project is located at Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining.
Edited by MacronNotes on Apr 27th 2022 at 5:36:47 AM
On the Character Rerailment page:
A perfect example of how this trope can lead to a Broken Base is the case of the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout. When introduced in the first game, the Brotherhood were essentially a bunch of xenophobic jerks who claimed a vaguely noble origin/ideology of "protect the Wasteland from people abusing the technology of the past", but who were pretty clearly shown to be just douchebags who wanted to hog the best tech for themselves and use this to bully those around them. This is emphasized in the second game, where they have lost their stranglehold on the supply of advanced technology and so are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the goings-on of the world around them. Then came Fallout 3, where the Capital Wasteland Chapter of the Brotherhood had abandoned essentially all of the original Brotherhood's teachings and instead set themselves up as futuristic knights, striving to protect and defend the good people of the Capital Wasteland. Though it was called out In-Universe that this isn't the traditional ideology of the Brotherhood and the "Outcasts", Brotherhood members who left the Chapter rather than abandon their traditions, became an interactive minor faction in their own right, many older fans bitterly complained about the change, even as newer fans found them quite interesting. Fallout: New Vegas attempted to rerail by showing how other Brotherhood Chapters elsewhere were still following their old traditions... slowly dying out in the process. Finally, in Fallout 4, the Capital Wasteland Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel re-emerged after having merging their former leader's philosophy with the philosophy of their roots... which lead to some fans of their depiction in the previous game complaining about the perceived Character Derailment.
Alright, first of, to me this examples comes of as saying that Fallout's Brotherhood of Steel is a zig-zagging case of Character Rerailment. Which right there is a red flag as YMMV tropes cannot be played with. Even putting that aside this example is just a salty Wall of Text on what is support to be a mostly positive trope that just goes on and on about the different interpretations of the Bo S. I would like to delete this example for the reasons I stated. Maybe it can be salvaged as case of a Base-Breaking Character for Fallout's YMMV page or an example of Depending on the Writer, but even then I believe it would have to be trimmed down and rewritten.
Edited by TBJack on Dec 3rd 2022 at 7:40:08 AM
Beware, I live!In fairness I haven't seen it, but https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/BlackChristmas2019
seems to be non-stop complaining about "the feminist message".
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Go ahead and cut that whole mess. The BoS isn't a character, it's a group, and the various games have shown that different members have different ideas about the group's stated goals.
And, as you say, you can't play with YMMV the way the entry seems to want to do.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meMega Man II for the Game Boy might need a look. The Main description contains a paragraph regarding the game's development and quality ("This game was released..."), as well as a few likely unnecessary digs at the game here and there, the trope list also contains some knocks against the game's quality, and similar digs can be found on other pages that mention it, such as the description for Mega Man 2. ("...widely considered to be on the opposite end of the quality spectrum").
Your melody still remains in this room and it ringsIt's better. I'm not sure how necessary the "Boy is it different..." in the first paragraph is, since aside from the story (which isn't even properly conveyed within the game itself), the contents of the game aren't really "weird", per se. It might just be another jab.
Your melody still remains in this room and it ringsThis has been added to Narm.RWBY, but it just seems to be a rewrite of an Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole entry that was previously removed for complaining
(the troper responsible for that entry tried to restore the entry here
and here
, but the thread felt that focussing on plot holing a public-domain fairy tale isn't really possible).
This rewrite by a different troper avoids mentioning plot holes and does make a token effort to allude to the Narm requirements for a serious situation to be unintentionally funny (one person cleaning an entire hotel), but it's using the same arguments and the same complaining as the previous entry, additionally misrepresenting the differences between Cinder and Cinderella's stories (if anything, Cinder's doing less than Cinderella). As mentioned previously, Rhodes' poor decisions are objectively troped because it's intentional by the creators (the show's most consistent theme is that no-one is perfect, good people can make bad decisions, and even the gods have made mistakes).
- The episode Midnight reveals Cinder's backstory, while intended to make her seem more sympathetic, it's so over the top that it becomes outright silly, due to the writers taking the story of Cinderella in exaggerating it to ludicrous extremes. Cinder was adopted by a woman known only as Madame who forced her to clean and maintain an entire multi-story hotel by herself while barely feeding her. Her plight was noticed by a Huntsman named Rhodes when Cinder tried to steal his sword to murder her adoptive family and he decided to train her so she could become a Huntsman herself in another seven years along with gifting her the sword. Instead, Rhodes returns to the hotel one night and finds that Cinder murdered her step-sisters and is in the process of strangling her stepmother to death, shocking him and causing him to attempt to arrest her. Besides many fans laughing about how it's outright impossible for one person to clean a hotel that's at least five stories tall, it's also pointed out that Rhodes should have absolutely expected Cinder to kill her family. He knew she wanted her abusive family dead and gave her both a weapon and training in how to use it then just left her with her abusive family rather than contact the authorities.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 4th 2022 at 4:02:49 AM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.I've brought this up before on the Wall of Text thread and got completely buried, but the BrokenAesop.Video Games entry for Zap Dramatic is a massive Wall of Text that's filled with complaining. As someone who knows basically nothing about the games outside of what this site says about them, I'm at a complete loss on how to handle them.
- Zap Dramatic's games are intended to teach players how to negotiate with people. In this regard, it fails spectacularly, with its bizarre and improbable characters and events. Winning the game doesn't seem like a matter of one's skill in negotiations, since there's generally only one highly improbable, incredibly specific situation that's considered successful that can usually only come from one or two conversation paths. Among others:
- Ambition in particular seems to excuse Ted's atrocities just because he's the supposed victim of an immoral wife. Despite the fact he tried to blow up an office building and essentially commit a mass murder as soon as his wife and kids disappear. This is made worse by the fact that, despite all the evidence he gives you to suggest otherwise, he's canonically considered sane, which is treated as if it means he is somehow not responsible for his own actions. The full explanation is that Ted, at the time, was under the influence of a drug that made him act that way; the sanity call was from people trying to use current sanity as evidence that the previous insanity was caused by something else, since it's no longer present. But then it falls apart all over again as Ted continues to do extreme things like beating the player character to death for no reason whenever you fail the interview with him in the third part, escaping police custody multiple times across later parts (even if people behind the scenes are deliberately letting him out - but even that's to pin their own crimes on him, because they know he'll take the option every time and then act the part of an insane murderer all on his own), and holding you at gunpoint because he's "got nothing to lose" ("nothing" including his still-missing children whose disappearance inspired those atrocities), all while in his normal state of mind. Add to that, he doesn't express any real regret for his past actions while under the drug, even going so far as to try to justify them as things anyone would have done at the time.
- The games often fail in their goal to teach you about negotiation, in the fact that nobody really comes to an agreement on anything, and you're mostly just telling people what they want to hear, or offering decisions that really make no sense. Episode 9 even allows you to sit back and let someone else do your work if and when you fail to complete it on your own a few times.
- "The Suspicious Cop" is about trying to talk your way out of a speeding ticket. While a lot of people find themselves in such a situation (albeit without the caveat the game feels the need to add about you driving a friend's car that turns out to have an illegal substance in it), the game seems to suggest that the best way to get off the hook is "start crying uncontrollably." That's appeal to pity, at best. It's certainly not negotiation. The game also suggests that police are apparently allowed to murder you on the spot for any transgressions - in this case, trying to flirt with them, implicitly because you're also playing as a male - which, especially a decade or so after the game came out, is exactly the wrong sort of message you want to send about how to deal with the police.
- "The Track Meet" is a simulation about teaching sports ethics, where the protagonist has fallen below the GPA requirements to stay on the team and the player's goal is to handle it ethically... and the game doesn't give you an option to do so, instead requiring a player to spy on their teammates and engage in a lie of omission just so that they can confess to it later.
- Whenever you argue with an adult, you're scolded for being disrespectful, self-centered, and making excuses, no matter what the subject is or even if discussing it at the time is appropriate (you get scolded for being late to class because the teacher stopped you to scold you about the other stuff), because respect for your superiors means not questioning their judgment or talking back to them, ever. But if you don't correct the coach when he neglects to suspend you from the team because of your slipping grades, you get a game over for trying to dupe him. Even if you manage to get a good ending, the coach rewards you for your integrity by skirting his own rules to allow you to stay on the team while everyone else who had your same problem got cut. So "integrity" means you should never butt heads with anyone with more authority over you unless they owe you a punishment, but that definition only applies to you. Authority figures are welcome to break whatever rules they want in order to play favorites because their integrity cannot be challenged.
- The Negotiator episode "The Raise" has a mouse spontaneously talking to you, and if you listen to the mouse, you get a game over. The game tells you that you shouldn't listen to mice, because mice don't talk. Weird, but somewhat valid... But then this mouse appears once again in "Sir Basil Pike Public School", being the main dispenser of advice. And once you hear the talking mouse, you don't have the option to excuse yourself because you're suddenly hallucinating. It's meant to teach you not to be distracted by outside, irrelevant things, no matter how tempting or urgent, and to pay attention to the other person's reactions, but... as the game says, mice don't talk. If you go to work and have been under a lot of stress, and you start having visual and auditory hallucinations when you talk to your boss, it's probably best to end your negotiation and go see a doctor.
- There's also how you even win the negotiation. The mouse wants you to talk about wanting a raise, so you instead win the negotiation by... never actually talking about why you came into his office. In order to succeed, you have to remain completely off-topic and only discuss about your boss's love life, with that leading him to asking you to write a speech for him to give at an anniversary dinner for a lump sum payment of $1500. The game awards you for realizing that your boss doesn't value you enough to give you an actual raise, which is fair enough given all the losing routes end with you getting fired on the spot, but the winning route barely hints at this being how your boss sees you at all, considering he's asking you to write a speech for his anniversary. In addition, while this does give you enough money in the short-term to pay for your cat's surgery, it ignores the more long-term reason for why you wanted a raise; you can no longer maintain your current standard of living, and a one-time bonus isn't going to help with that. It could be justified if it was implied that that the player character was going to use the success of this new speech to buoy a later negotiation, but that isn't the case either, so the end result is that you scheduled a meeting with your boss to get a raise and failed to get him to even consider giving you one. It is also possible to propose taking a web design class, in which case your boss states that he will consider giving you a raise in six months if you manage to bring in extra business with your new skills. This runs into the opposite problem: you're on the path to getting the extra income you were looking for, but it won't do anything about your cat's vet bills.
- In Sir Basil Pike Public School the author gives us his take on stranger danger.
- The game was made to teach children about bullying... but there's not a lot of bullying in the game, and the player can even be rewarded for making fun of another kid's stutter. Granted, this only earns you Persuasion Power, and the guidance mouse explicitly tells you that cheap victories can just as quickly become defeats, but still.
- The boys' storyline outright encourages bullying. First, there's the stolen bike plot, where you gain persuasive power and become the leader of your peer group by shoving Dave off his bike, taking it for yourself, and making fun of his stutter when he confronts you. Then there's the actual bike recovery plot, where it's revealed that the bike really wasn't yours, but you actually lose Persuasive Power and your leadership if you admit you made a mistake and apologize; if you refuse, there's nothing anyone can do about it, so you keep your position. The mouse says cheap wins can become losses, but they never actually do; the only way to actually lose is to treat a smaller, weaker and handicapped boy with respect.
- If your bike gets stolen, don't ask a teacher for help, because he's more interested in showing off how much more clever he is than his students than actually solving the problem; upon being asked to weigh in on the matter, he only attempts to help for about half a minute before randomly turning the conversation into an awkward lesson on the Judgment of Solomon, going so far as to belittle you for answering his question in the manner a sane human being would do so rather than fitting yourself into the narrative he's suddenly forcing on you by acting callously, spitefully cruel solely for the sake of callous, spiteful cruelty. In this anti-bullying game, you get better results by chasing the thief, shoving him off your bike, taking it back yourself, and then making fun of him when he claims you're the thief; correcting a mistake you made yourself punishes you, and involving a teacher requires you to essentially put all your faith in a very powerful idiot who will pick a side ahead of time instead of remaining an unbiased mediator. It doesn't help that Mr. Hartrup is more or less meant to be the same character as Ted from Ambition - and that, no matter what Zap Dramatic wants you to believe, he is one hundred percent pants-on-head insane.
- The stolen bike puzzle itself breaks its own moral because the lesson is not to make assumptions. The bike isn't being stolen, but another kid, whom you've never seen before, is riding an identical bike and taunting you about how you can't catch him as he speeds away from the place where you left your own bike unattended. It gives you the option to look for your own bike first (knowing the other kid will definitely get away if you don't give chase right now), but if you take it, you get a congratulations message about how you're one of the rare few who would see all these things and not assume your bike is being stolen - and then you're told the story can't continue if you don't go through the mistaken thief subplot, and takes you back to the branch to choose to assume the bike is stolen. And, for good measure, it then also assumes that since you didn't react to the first situation in the game with immediate, mindless violence, you're probably a girl and would be better off playing the girls' story, even giving you the option to switch.
- If you decide to play as a girl for the first day, the game at least tries to go in the right direction if you talk to Mr. Hartrup about your friends picking on you, as he'll say you're doing the right thing by coming to an adult for help when you feel like you're being bullied... only for him to immediately turn around and say that he doesn't have time to help you right now, so fuck off and deal with it yourself. And later days, where the player character's gender doesn't matter, only deal with "bullying" in the sense that everyone suddenly insists on pinning the blame for every bad or stupid decision they make from that point forward on you, with you completely unable to object because of shoddy programming forgetting what, if anything, you even involved yourself with and outright ignoring what you actually said or did.
- There's a little aside where you can stand up for a girl being picked on. If you do, you get a colorful animated musical number where you and the girl rock out to her anti-bullying song... which is kind of an amateur emo-rock hate song about how much better she is than the other kids. It doesn't help that if you don't stand up for her, she does the song anyway, and she just dances by herself in a mundane school hallway, utterly submerged in her own imagination and making everybody else kind of uncomfortable. Even before that, the other kids point out that she gets picked on because she's an outspoken braggart who pushes other kids around; in one of the classroom scenes, she actually punches another student for no apparent reason.
- Move or Die is built on the premise of persuading a pair of siblings to make more ethical decisions than they would on their own and ultimately become better people. It falls apart mostly on the basis that the two actively antagonize everyone they meet - the very first thing you see them do in the game is have an argument over whether they missed a turn in which Syd turns off the car's headlights to try to get Wilma to stop and turn around, to which she responds by instead slamming on the gas out of spite - and absolutely refuse to learn from their mistakes, and the game quickly reaches the point where the real challenge is not in persuading them to make better decisions, but in trying to keep them out of the negotiation and decision-making processes entirely lest they immediately get the whole group killed.
Edited by badtothebaritone on Dec 4th 2022 at 11:51:27 AM
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Okay, wait, how was Cinderella doing more exactly? She had to clean a whole mansion, yeah, but only for three (or four, depending on version) family members. Working as the sole staff of a large hotel is way more work than serving one asshole family, and you're going to have to explain in more detail why you disagree with this.
I'll also dispute whether or not Rhodes can even be seen as a good person. Sure, the intent was that he just "made a mistake", but I don't think most people would expect a good person to make a mistake of this scale and to not just go report the fact that someone is being held as a slave. Like, I'm sure the intent was for him to be a good guy, but it's very hard to see him as anything other than an idiot who severely wronged Cinder in multiple ways (before and after the murders). And I think that's why people are laughing at this; because Rhodes is being unrealistically stupid and not at all heroic to a Lawful Stupid degree.
That said, I'm also not sure if a character's entire backstory can count as a single moment.
Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 4th 2022 at 1:56:02 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallThis was in Pages Needing Wiki Magic before cleanup. Feels like it fits here, so it would need double-checking.
- Gene Catlow: Needs a major update in terms of story and the page description also needs an edit in light of controversies regarding Albert and the existance of Tawana that came up after his death (but without violating ROCEJ). More YMMV tropes and a fridge page exploring the implications of the writing would also be good to have.
Question: is an entry complaining when it says "many people see <character> as" and then uses overdramatic language to describe the ostensible reaction? Because YMMV.Billy Dilleys Super Duper Subterranean Summer is quite negative and there are entries like this (bolded for emphasis):
- Base-Breaking Character: The title character himself. Several viewers have criticized the character for his unappealing design, bland nasally voice, poorly-adapted personality, and in some episodes he acts like a total whiny jerk who gets away with everything. While some think that he gets crammed in every episode that does involve more with him rather than Zeke, Marsha, and most of the side characters, to the point where they rarely appear in almost most of the episodes, aside from appearing either minor or supporting role. (Judy has gotten this the worst of them all.) However, some people have grown on the character, no matter how bad his design or voice is, especially after the Season 1 finale.
- Never Live It Down (sub-bulleted): Billy's design, voice, and behavior are highly questionable to the point where he's often viewed as a sociopathic Jerkass who often bullies his friends.
Would this count as complaining? And how does the rest of the page look?
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Dec 7th 2022 at 7:43:08 AM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallIDK about the first bit, but Never Live It Down is misuse.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall![]()
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For the Base-Breaking Character example, I'd replace "have criticized the character for his" with "view him as having an". I'd also remove "no matter how bad his design or voice is" and (if possible) add reasons why people like the character.
As for the Never Live It Down entry, it's misuse since that trope involves a singular moment.
Edited by RandomTroper123 on Dec 7th 2022 at 10:06:17 AM
Where do we stand on excessive negativity in reviews? I mean, they'll always be subjective, but the end of this one (in particular) seems to veer towards creator-bashing.
YMMV.Saints Row 2022 has this under They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- One major point of contention in the game is changing the Saints' gang color from purple to turquoise, especially if the game's site
is any indicator, as the trademark fleur-de-lis is now turquoise as opposed to the usual purple. However, this is only at the start of the campaign as it has been confirmed that they are only turquoise at the start and they'll slowly start wearing purple as the story progresses.
- One major point of contention in the game is changing the Saints' gang color from purple to turquoise, especially if the game's site
This sounds like knee-jerk troping based on pre-release info, and the example should have been cut completely instead of adding additional info saying that the issue was addressed in the full game. The YMMV page is locked, but I'd like a few more opinions before making a request for an edit.
I'd say to cut it.
This
was added to Characters.Sonic The Hedgehog Modern Era Antagonists 2 under the folder for the final boss of Sonic Frontiers a couple of days ago. (Spoilers within, of course)
- Its game could also chronologically be the end of the games' continuity, as not only is The End arguably the overarching antagonist of the whole series (and its most evil and dangerous villain, which is saying something as noted above), but in the many years since their last game, Sega has crippled themselves with their mandates and were likely only able to make this game as good as it is through its open world system and possible grand finale. Time will tell if this is the case.
Alright, I made the cuts and rewrites as proposed; thanks War Jay 77 and Random Troper 123. I tried to salvage the Base-Breaking Character entry as best I could—I don't watch the show so I couldn't add a ton on. I also deleted the other Never Live It Down entry because it was a ZCE. Thanks all.
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
You're welcome.
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I'd cut it because it sounds like speculation and complaining imo.
(x3) I'd at least cut the second sentence.
(x4) I think we're supposed to report reviews which bash the creators, though I believe that depends on what was said. As for where we stand on very negative reviews, I'm not completely sure, sorry.

How does this sound?
Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 1st 2022 at 2:36:15 PM