Removing complaining, bashing and other negativity from the wiki

From YMMV.MPD Psycho:

• Audience-Alienating Premise: While a detective series about a detective with MPD could work (look at the Layton Brothers), one filled to the brim with Squick and Nightmare Fuel, some of which is perpetrated by the protagonist? Yeah, no.

On one hand, I think this example is a stealth criticism. After all, both the anime and manga industries are famous for their exaggerated use of gore and blood along with naked women. This series doesn't seem much different from something like Elfen Lied.

On the other hand, I think it may have a point. According to another entry on the YMMV page (What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?), this manga was published in a Shōnen magazine for years. Trying to put something like One Piece together with images of mutilated corpses doesn't sound like a good idea.

Thoughts?

Edited by SoyValdo7 on Mar 7th 2023 at 6:07:59 AM

Valdo

Shonen is pretty broad, not every example is like One Piece. Attack on Titan is shonen, also.

And yes, that example is just straight up complaining and poorly so. The whole "trying X? Yeah, no." Is just bad writing, and in this case pearl-clutching. "The protagonist commits gory violence. Oh no!"

AAP requires there to be some proof audiences were turned off. Seeing as how MPD ran for sixteen years, clearly there was a committed audience.

The what do you mean it's for kids example might be worth staying, as MPD Psycho eventually switched to a shonen and seinen magazine. But the AAP one should just be cut.

Also the entry itself admits the premise isn't the problem. Maybe if it was Angst Aversion?

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I think that's just one troper who didnt like it. We dont know if there is an actual faction of people that didnt like it for those reasons.

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

A lot of "X would never work" examples are just people complaining about ips that have already worked. Its one of the reasons Too Bleak, Stopped Caring is full of examples whining about incredibly successful and long running works.

Too many people mistake "too dark for me" for "too dark, period."

2x Does AAP have to reflect a general opinion, though? A long time ago, I remember seeing someone asking this about YMMV in general somewhere on this site, and a reply said that some YMMV tropes have to reflect a general opinion, while others can be a troper's own personal opinion as long as it doesn't go into complaining/bashing territory. Which one does AAP fall under?

On a semi-hiatus from this site due to being busy with other things (may contribute here and there, but nothing major).

Audience-Alienating Premise specifically requires evidence that it wasn't successful, i.e. reviews or a box office flop.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

I think having a What Do You Mean, It's for Kids? entry is probably valid. MPD Psycho started off in a shounen magazine, but has often been sold in Western countries as a seinen because of the content. The story and reading level is considered a bit unusual for typical shounen works, so a legitimate element of surprise does exist for this work regarding its association with shounen labels.

Having said that, however, I think the What Do You Mean, It's for Kids? entry on the YMMV has the opposite problem to the AAP entry — it's both gushing and ZCE, so needs rewriting to be a proper entry.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Mar 8th 2023 at 7:08:53 PM

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.

It's not just that entry, the whole main page and the YMMV have the same problem, a sign that they were written a long time ago. I had to delete a lot of bad indentations and ZCE.

Valdo

While I was cleaning up YMMV.The Legend Of Heroes Trails Of Cold Steel, I saw this entry, and I feel like it's complain-y, but I would like other thoughts:

• Porting Disaster: The launch of the much-awaited NA version of Cold Steel IV on 27 October 2020 has been met with many complaints regarding the inability to even download the game in soft-copy format while physical copies suffered from constant shipment delays. There's even a thread dedicated it. Other lesser known complaints consist of unexpected changing of voice actors and poor localisation for the players that did obtain their copies of the game. Not surprisingly, much of NIS America's goodwill has been destroyed with this incident. It is speculated that Sony was also partly responsible for the mess due the launch being around the same time as the rolling out of the updated Playstation Store.

She/Her | Currently cleaning N/A

Cut everything after "Not surprisingly"

Valdo

Done!

She/Her | Currently cleaning N/A

I found these entries in Sweet and Sour Grapes:

• This is a huge problem on Full House, especially in later seasons when the writers began focusing on Michelle. But the seeds were there from the beginning:
  • In one Season 2 episode, the main cast ends up stuck in an airport on Christmas Eve, and their airline loses the luggage containing the girls' presents. Everyone complains about this, but Jesse inspires everyone to change their minds by pointing out that Christmas is based on feelings, not material things...and then he starts comparing the items in the airport to material things (a vending machine becomes a Christmas dinner, for example). To make matters worse, the next day, the real Santa Claus shows up and uses his magic to make the lost luggage appear, so the girls get their gifts anyway.
  • A similar treatment became even worse later in the show: Jesse notices that Stephanie and Michelle are being especially greedy one Christmas season, so he promises them a great gift. The gift turns out to be their spending time volunteering at a local homeless shelter, so they can get an idea of how lucky they are. Unfortunately, not only do the girls still get a good pile of presents, we never see them volunteering — they just come home and talk about what an eye-opening experience it was. That's all kinds of wrong.
  • In "The Day of the Rhino," Michelle sends away for a toy advertised by Rigby the Rhino, a Barney Expy. When the toy turns out to be much smaller than advertised, she, her friend Denise, Joey, and Stephanie all travel to the mall during a Rigby performance and angrily protest. It seems as though they're unsuccessful, but Joey encourages Michelle to take heart: she may have been ripped off, but her good deed has kept other children from making the same mistake. Seconds later, the doorbell rings — it's Rigby, and he's so touched by Michelle's protests that he's decided to give everyone who ordered a toy a free large doll, starting with her.

With things like "a huge problem", "Even worse", and abundant italics, the entries seem a bit too complainy. Is it me, or should they be rewritten to be more neutral? Also, I think the second entry assumes that just because the girls weren't shown volunteering on-screen, they had to not have volunteered at all, so what should I do about that?

Edited by BigJimbo on Mar 9th 2023 at 8:25:30 AM

The entire thing is mostly complaining and nitpicking. I say cut it.

Edited by DongwaChan on Mar 10th 2023 at 1:01:42 PM

I agree to chainsaw that.

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

Found on New Powers as the Plot Demands, which I commented out for now.

• Hawk and Dove. Holy crap, Hawk and Dove. Geoff Johns likes them so much that one of them will just have whatever powers they need for the plot to work. Army of unstoppable zombies? Well hey, Dove just happens to have an anti zombie laser inside her. Boyfriend dies? Dove can totally hear ghosts all of a sudden. Dove's in trouble? Hawk just happens to have the ability to sense when Dove's using her powers even though he's never had that power before. Sigh.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

I think you did the right thing and I think you should double down and delete entirely as soon as you more consensus.

EDIT: Found an example I want to bring up

EDIT 2: This entry is from Alternate Foreign Theme Song

• Up until the end of the 2000s in Italy, pretty much every anime got at least one if not more (especially the ones airing on any Mediaset channel) and they are usually very catchy.
  • Italian singer Cristina D'Avena is famous in Italy for performing alternative theme songs for hundreds of different animes in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. Seriously, if you hear an Italian opening from those years sung by a woman, it's most likely Cristina D'avena. Her "spear counterpart" was Giorgio Vanni (famous especially for the Pokémon and Dragon Ball theme songs). While the lyrics of their openings are mostly Italian, you can expect a lot of random Gratuitous English everywhere.
  • In the 70s and 80s the group "I Cavalieri Del Re" (The King's Knights) has perfomed many theme songs related to anime, from the Time Bokan series to Kimba The White Lion with the most popular being the Tiger Mask and The Rose of Versailles (Lady Oscar) openings.
  • However, in later years, Italy began to move away from this trope, and the opening, if dubbed at all, is a rough translation of the original, with worse results.

That last natter line is so complainy and unneeded that I want to remove it.

Edited by AegisP on Mar 10th 2023 at 5:48:29 AM

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

I think it's safe to gut that line.

---

This one from GoldenEye is minor, but I still think leans a tiny bit into complaining.

• Hollywood Hacking: Like you wouldn't believe. Still, it was 1995, and some of it can be attributed to Technology Marches On.

This is a zero context example, and I hope it can be cut for that reason. On top of that, I actually think GoldenEye is an aversion of Hollywood Hacking; the computer stuff is obviously simplified, but is reasonably grounded in both its presentation and the skillsets of the film's IT-savvy characters.

Edited by Dramatic on Mar 10th 2023 at 3:07:49 AM

Remove the complaining bits, then comment it out for being a ZCE.

This example on Let's See YOU Do Better! has been bugging me for quite some time now (particularly the note).

• Robbie Daymond, voice-over artist for Tuxedo Mask in Sailor Moon and Peter Parker in Marvel's Spider-Man, rather arrogantly responded to some fans on Twitter discussing the state of modern-day animation for younger audiences with this.
  Exodus: I don't want anything shut down or cancelled for the most part. I want more quality in cartoons put out. Most new ones have terrible art styles and crude dumbed-down humor. It's terrible for adult watchers and insulting to child watchers. Kids are very intelligent nowadays.
  Robbie: Then go make your own.
  Kith 0241: As much as I agree with the rest of your statements, this one feels like it comes from as much a place of ignorance/backlash as those you're tweeting against. To oversimplify it, you don't have to create art to critique or criticize it. So by someone giving their opinion, then getting the response "go make your own" - well for the average person, that's not even a possibility. It just feels ignorant and petty to me.
  Robbie: Why? We’re all average people. What separates us? My statement wasn’t a putdown, it was a challenge. You can choose to be insulted by it or rise to it.^note Robbie doesn't seem to understand that the average budget for one episode for an animated series costs $600,000 to $700,000, so many won't have that type of money at their disposal to "rise to" his challenge.

I'm not necessarily defending Robbie (and in retrospect he seems to be completely unaware about connections or the fact that animation is really fracking hard to learn) but this just feels like putting words in his mouth. "Rise to the challenge" does not mean "show me your TV-quality cartoon right now". I have reason to believe a voice actor as prolific as him would not be that ignorant.

Came for the tropes, stayed for the cleanup.

I really dont like that Robbie Daymond entry. The wiki shouldnt say someone said something "Arrogantly" or whatever and to attack people like this is a no no, and if it isnt it should be.

EDIT: Found another bad apple that is a combo of Examples Are Not Recent and General Example. Again its from Alternative Foreign Theme Song anime section.

• Nowadays, this has for the most part fallen out of practice.

Edited by AegisP on Mar 10th 2023 at 5:51:32 AM

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

Is it just me, or does this entry on the YMMV page of Velma feel overly bashy of the show's critics?

• Opinion Myopia: The series was nigh-on universally panned in the online cartoon fandom, and didn't do much better critically, which sparked many borderline-conspiracy theories in its aftermath when it was reported to have debuted with exceptional numbers—many calling it "a show for no one" or claiming that the series could have only owed its viewership to Bile Fascination. The truth is, the online cartoon fandom isn't actually a very large demographic, and for general audiences, most of the things they complained about were either nonissues (many people know Scooby-Doo, but the widespread opinion of it is that it's a cheesy franchise meant for kids, making the lack of resemblance to the source material fairly palatable) or outright selling points (Animated Shock Comedy, though something cartoon fans are increasingly weary of, happens to be the only form of the medium many adults will watch). Add in a decent amount of marketing, a well-known comedic actress in a major role, and being placed front-and-center on the service on the day of its debut, and any idea of "hatewatching" bumping up the numbers to any significant degree becomes fairly absurd.

I know we need to be neutral and I do feel that some of the entries in the page could probably be cut (particularly if they're stating similar reactions under a different entry), but I don't know about this one, since it feels like it swings too heavily on the other side.

Edited by Edgar81539 on Mar 10th 2023 at 6:54:25 AM

I know there are people who genuinely like it, but yeah that one seems a little biased.

God, that YMMV page is a mess, though... anyone up for a Velma cleanup?

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 10th 2023 at 9:55:40 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I think I can help. For starters, the Ass Pull entry could probably be condensed since many of it is mostly Headscratchers or Fridge Logic territory rather than describing an Ass Pull (of which only the the reveal of Fred's mom being the killer would count.)

Designated Monkey, Catharsis Factor and Diagnosed by the Audience can also be cut to only their starting sentences without focusing on specific events.

They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot has some overly general examples, while Unintentionally Unsympathetic is verging on Wall of Text for the Velma section.

Edited by Edgar81539 on Mar 10th 2023 at 7:03:21 AM

On YMMV.Sixty Five:

• Memetic Mutation: Many dinosaur fans have (with varying levels of sincerity) accused the writers of being fans/ripping off Primeval, between the four legged tree climbing dinosaur in this film (similar to season 4's Tree Creeper) and the Death Angels from their previous work similarities to the Future Predator.

Not only is this complaining, but it's also the "comparisons = memes" misuse. Should I cut it?