Do we really need Headscratchers for tropes?

Sounds like as the exist they are a problem and we already have something that does the job elsewhere and better.

Permission to use fire >:3

Who watches the watchmen?

A flaming chainsaw?

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

It's a flamethrower.

Can we just go ahead, and then put the two-liner I proposed one page back in the entry of Headscratchers.Tropes?

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

Ridiculous. Cut them all. Headscratchers is for belated observations on story points. It's not about bitching about random stuff, like food, or the weather, or tropes.

And that's different from Fridge Whatever... how, exactly?

It's not, really. The talk about merging them is going on somewhere else, I believe.

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

^^^^ Suggestion, not inquiry.

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

Not different at all. And never meant to be. We created the Headscratchers section (originally called "Just Bugs Me") for examples of Fridge Logic. The Fridge Logic page directs people there. Later, we added Fridge Brilliance and Fridge Horror, so we made the separare Fridge subpage.

edited 17th Jun '12 10:43:19 PM by Routerie

I'd say the main difference is Headscratches asks for the information, while Fridge Logic does not.

Which means we'd have to either make a thread for every series for Headscratches to get more information or leave it there. It does the job fine right now.

Fridge Logic is more like a trope listing(not literally, but it works in the way of giving information and explaining why. Questions aren't generally asked). Headscratches is the extra much like Analysis and plays a different role.

As for Tropes having Headscratchers... yeah, no. If they can't even get a Fridge Logic page, it's not needed there either. It's atleast justified for works.

Quest 64 thread

Haven't heard of any such talk in progress. AFAIK it's come up mostly in passing. Any links?

Rhymes with "Protracted."

No, there is no talk going on here. We'd need to make a new Wiki Talk thread.

Also, can we go ahead and cut the current trope headscratchers?

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

I'd say yes and Fighteer said "let us be killing them" earlier on. Where's the crowner on this (I assume it's in a TRS thread?)

edited 19th Jun '12 2:58:24 AM by TheOneWhoTropes

Keeper of The Celestial Flame

If it is in the TRS, I haven't seen it. This is a lot of crap that needs to be removed though.

"@[=g3,8d]&fbb=-q]/hk%fg"

Alright, I've made a crowner to get a formal decision.

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

If the decision passes, can we put this into Headscratchers.Tropes and salvage some content over to Analysis/?

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

I'm more worried about the possibility that it won't pass.

edited 21st Jun '12 1:02:52 AM by nrjxll

Not all the pages are for complaining, but if this section really is completely redundant to Trope Talk, I'd support this measure.

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

It's redundant to Trope Talk and is prime for random Troper Tales popping up. I had to cut three pages because of that.

edited 21st Jun '12 8:03:50 AM by lu127

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

I just wonder if some of the Headscratchers materials could be salvaged into Analysis. That's my only qualms with a complete cut.

Yeah okay.

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

Yes. In fact, you can go right ahead, I'd say.

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

If you can find worthwhile material, sure, you don't need permission to move it to analysis.

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

I looked at the first handful of tropes pages, and while there's a small bit of salvageable material, it's so surrounded by Natter, Troper Tales, and Word Cruft to the point where that nugget of analysis is like Finding A Needle In A Haystack.

I'm for scrapping them now that I know that it's basically just another name for .

edited 21st Jun '12 9:36:25 AM by DarkConfidant

I think that if we/you delete the Headscratchers/Tropes pages, there needs to be a better replacement than the Tropes Talk pages. The problem inherent with Tropes Talk is that it is 1: A forum format, which is built in a chronological order with the only subject ordering being the separation of threads by title, and 2: not directly connected to the pages, so there's no way to tell if there even is an existing Trope Talk thread for a given trope without searching through the forum section and risking false negatives (which in turn lead to redundancy).

Personally, if we could somehow make an in-wiki Trope Talk section (or something like that), and have the Headscratchers/Tropes pages redirect to the new namespace, that would be great. It would keep all of the functionality of the current format while reducing the confusion and lack of caring that led the pages in question to their (not generally as bad as the above posters make it sound) current state. Basically using an automatic process to make sure the Headscratchers namespace icon doesn't appear at the top of tropes pages, but the icon for a new namespace with a more trope-ready theme of the Headscratchers format (i.e., the already-in-place redirect system combined with already-in-place functions for the namespace/page lock-and-redirect effects). Personally, I don't want to bother, and I don't think the change would be worth it, but I think the possibility that it would be worth it (as with the JBM->Headscratchers change) would be worth the bother of changing instead of any of the other options (including being better than doing nothing). I would rather vote for making the namespace change to preserve function and dissuade improper use than vote for doing nothing or any of the other options given.

Using Analysis as a replacement: Analysis is really an exposition thing, kind of like graduate papers instead of an open forum (in my experience, at least, and from what I understand their purpose is in the first place). While Headscratchers is more for asking "What's up with X?" and getting responses, and thus encouraging understanding of what actually is up with X, Analysis is more of a place to say "Here's what I think is up with X!" even when nobody asked, just because the author of the analysis thinks it would be good for interested people to read (which in all but one or two of the many cases I've seen has been true, in my opinion).

Using Discussion as a replacement: That discusses the page itself, not the topic of the page (a container versus content question). Keeping to the grad papers vs. open forum metaphor, it's more like an open committee overseeing the aforementioned forum in case a fight breaks out or someone wanders in and starts ranting about some unrelated subject under a thinly-connected facade.

In both cases, Headscratchers/Trope has a purpose that the other does not, and the other has a purpose that Headscratchers/Trope does not. My motion is to replace, even if it's a replacement in name only like with JBM->Headscratchers, rather than merge or remove.

Edit: Additionally, may I add options to the crowner for "Merge Headscratchers for Tropes with Discussion Pages for Tropes", "Merge Headscratchers for Tropes with Analysis Pages for Tropes", and "Rename Headscratchers for Tropes Something More Neutral, I.E., Trope Talk, Trope Discussions, or Something Not Quite So Similar To An Already-Extant Thing"? If not, would one of the people in charge of the thread please add them, a subset or superset of them, or something like them? I feel the single-option ballot promotes a bit of bias. Not a lot, but enough to skew the vote.

edited 28th Jun '12 3:03:23 AM by JET73L

Headscratchers.Tropes as it is has been hijacked by people posting personal anecdotes. They are far removed from their original purpose, and thus unsalvageable.

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