Real Life section maintenance (New Crowner 19 Feb 2024)

Yeah, The Svengali is definitely a trope we should not apply to real people.

On ATT, kuruni raised concerns about all tropes in the villains index being NRLEP.

Should we make all villain tropes NRLEP by default and if so, why?

I'd support making villain tropes NRLEP by default. We have enough issues with troping real people and the ROCEJ, can you imagine the shitshows that would erupt calling real life people villains?

I already said I agree with that proposal in the ATT thread, so I'll mention that here as well.

Edit: See below.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 8th 2018 at 5:40:21 AM

Funny.Doug Walker was cut for "Documenting YMMV items for a creator", but it included funny moments from Disneycember/DreamWorks-uary, Sibling Rivalry/Real Thoughts, and his vlogs. I think it should br restored, or at least merged with Funny.That Guy With The Glasses.

We've previously agreed on no blanket statements like "all tropes from this list are NRLEP". Some villain tropes may not be exclusively for villains, since for instance criminals can be included. Those we sometimes allow.

Each trope needs to be examined separately. We default on allowing examples, and only disallow them if there's a problem.

What about narrowing it down to the main trope in the query, Goldfish Poop Gang? Currently, it doesn't have a real life section, and the deleted example was mainly a ROCEJ violation (especially because the Westboro Baptist Church is in the Permanent Red Link Club because its page was attracting arguments and complaining).

Upon further inspection, it doesn't look like that trope is particularly problematic; in particular, it only has one Creator/ wick and it's for someone who voiced a member of a Goldfish Poop Gang. Other villain tropes might be worth looking through at some point, but this one seems to be limited to in-universe examples, despite not being IUEO either.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 8th 2018 at 9:09:00 AM

An additional reason for not making a blanket statement for any list is that we don't necessarily want to be "gatekeepers" so much as we want to be "the clean-up crew." The mods have, in the past, expressed concern that this thread (specifically, that is) has perhaps too much control over the culture of the wiki and the site in general, and that was when we were more of a "clean-up crew." Making ourselves gatekeepers would, imo at least, be a step in the wrong direction.

I agree with Duck's "each trope needs to be examined separately," but I would phrase it as a rememberable slogan: "Each trope it's own" or something like that, like "Ain't broke, don't fix," but concerning the "individuality" of every trope.

That all said, we do have tropers who vote along group categories, like a non-problematic "sex trope" being made NRLEP because it's a sex trope, or a non-problematic "villain trope" being labeled the same because it's a villain trope. I remember this being an issue with a recent crowner vote (i.e. an anonymous vote).

Yeah, I take back what I previously said after seeing that the main trope brought up on ATT doesn't seem to be problematic, despite being classified as a villain trope.

My previous post was intended to say I'm against adding the NRLEP restriction to Goldfish Poop Gang; my reason for singling it out was because a specific example of it was what started this conversation.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 9th 2018 at 9:10:30 AM

There's also a difference between tropes where Real Life examples are problematic (complaining about real life people, contentous, etc) and Real Life examples that just aren't valid examples. The former is a good reason for making something NRLEP, while the latter is a reason to... cut the example. It's perfectly ok to remove bad real life examples without banning the whole section.

Since Goldfish Poop Gang involves an ongoing narrative (hero repeatedly encounters villains, and it's Played for Laughs), I have a hard time imagining how that could happen in real life, as real life lacks that narrative structure. The only way I can think of this working is if the trope is used to portray real people in a nonfiction work that that still has a narrative. Do examples from biography, literary nonfiction etc. get placed in Real Life or in Literature?

Is the real-life section on Self-Harm okay?

On the one hand, it seems so common as to not be particularly meaningful. On the other hand, I feel that if someone puts themselves down because they hurt themselves, seeing a list of other people who've done it in the past might help them to understand they aren't freaks for doing it. IDK, I don't think it's "broke" so to speak, but I see how it's a concerning section.

If there are no real life examples of a trope then I don't think we need to take action. Ain't broke; don't fix. That said, tropes can be launched without allowing RL examples, or they could be brought up here right after launch to discuss it.

I'm heavily on the side of not disallowing examples unless it's by definition breaking our rules. If it just so happens that all examples break the rules, but they don't by the trope definition have to, then that's a reason to delete the examples, not disallow them completely.

The funny part about not being gatekeepers is that there are other tropes that have far worse threads in that direction.

Goldfish Poop Gang is about a specific role in a work, and I don't think that can apply to real people. It's also talking down on them, since they're comic relief characters. All in all, I don't think we should allow RL examples for that trope.

I cleaned up the generic "examples" on Self-Harm and the weblink. I don't think the trope as it's used is problematic for RL examples. It might be an uncomfortable topic, but it's neither gushing nor condemning.

Another vote to make Goldfish Poop Gang NRLEP.

Self-Harm mostly reads like a Useful Notes or informational page than a trope page. There are a lot of different possible narrative reasons for it, many of which are unrelated- e.g. The Penance, Sex Is Violence, being an Empty Shell, because you Feel No Pain, ritual cutting (I couldn't find a trope for this but seems tropeworthy). As written, I'm not sure it's even a real trope.

—- To clarify my previous post, I'm somewhat against categorically making Goldfish Poop Gang NRLEP, but I am in favor of culling bad real life examples.

Edited by naturalironist on Dec 9th 2018 at 9:00:53 AM

It serves a narrative purpose, so it's a trope. It might be a wide supertrope for all the various reasons characters do it, or it could be an expression of other tropes, or something else, but it's no doubt tropeworthy.

I don't know if Clipped-Wing Angel has been brought up, but that's got a Real Life folder. Something about stars. That's very much a shoehorn, if I'm not mistaken.

The folder containing nothing but misuse sounds more like a reason to just cut the real life section instead of adding the NRLEP restriction. A while back, Fighteer cut the real life section of It's A Small Net After All because it was all misuse, but it didn't become NRLEP.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 11th 2018 at 4:46:21 AM

Removed it.

On the Tearjerker page for Coco, there's this entry:

• Coco came out shortly after the Weinstein effect started and at the height of the Me Too movement, where several much respected and famous actors and other film/television industry big shots were accused of sexual harassment and abuse. Several of them were found guilty, which destroyed fans' passion for them and their work. While the movie has been in production since the early 2010s, seeing Miguel and both the Lands of the Living and Dead lose all respect for de la Cruz once his crimes are exposed seems eerily relevant for a time period where the same thing was happening to fans of several real-life celebrities. Even worse is that John Lasseter, Pixar founder/CEO and hero to many aspiring animators, was revealed to have a history of sexual misconduct barely a week before this movie was released in the United States, causing fans to lose respect for him as well.

Does it still count as a real-life example that should be removed?

I think that's more a topic for the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment thread (here). That said (and because I don't want to play "red tape, green tape"), the entry could probably be cut as it's only tangentially related to the movie itself and it concerns a hot button political topic at the moment.

Edited by WaterBlap on Dec 11th 2018 at 9:28:36 AM

Yeah, I think that should be cut. Tearjerkers are for stuff in the works, not outside them. And it doesn't even read like a tearjerker in the first place, since it's more about complaining about real people not being good people.

Cut. Not only is it meta, it might violate the ROCEJ.

Is MonsterClown.Real Life OK? A lot of the examples are shoehorning anyway, but I think John Wayne Gacy should be kept even if we decide it shouldn't have any other real life examples, since who's going to disagree that he's evil?

I'm ok with it. "Person X killed people" or "person x created a media scare" is an objective fact which doesn't seem controversial if person x isn't a politician. Plus I think the growing popularity of this trope has a lot to do with real life events. The Juggalo entry is questionable though.