Note: If a newly launched trope was already given a No Real Life Examples, Please! or Limited Real Life Examples Only designation while it was being drafted on the Trope Launch Pad, additions to the proper index do not need to go through this thread. Instead, simply ask the staff to add the trope via this thread
.
This is the thread to report tropes with problematic Real Life sections.
Common problems include:
- Conversation on the Main Page
- Flame Bait
- Squicky content
- Impossible in Real Life
Real Life sections on the wiki are kept as long as they don't become a problem. If you find an article with such problems, report it here. Please note that the purpose of this thread is to clean up and maintain real life sections, not raze them. Cutting should be treated as a last resort, so please only suggest cutting RL sections or a subset thereof you think the examples in question are completely unsalvageable.
If historical RL examples are not causing any problems, consider whether it would be better to propose a No Recent Examples, Please! (via this forum thread
) for RL instead of NRLEP. If RL examples are causing problems only for certain subjects, consider whether a Limited Real Life Examples Only restriction would be preferable to NRLEP.
If you think a trope should be No Real Life Examples, Please! or Limited Real Life Examples Only, then this thread is the place to discuss it. However, please check Keep Real Life Examples first to see if it has already been brought up in the past. If not, state the reasons and add it to the crowner.
Before adding to the crowner:
- The trope should be proposed in the thread, along with reasons for why a crowner is necessary instead of a cleanup.
- There must be support from others in thread.
- Any objections should be addressed.
- Allow a minimum of 24 hours for discussion.
When adding to the crowner:
- Be sure to add the trope name, a link to where the discussion started, the reasons for crownering, whether the restriction being proposed is NRLEP or LRLEO (and in the latter case, which subject(s) the restriction would be for), and the date added.
- Announce in thread that you are adding the item.
- An ATT advert should be made as well (batch items together if more than one trope goes up in a day).
In order for a crowner to pass:
- Must have been up for a minimum of a week
- There must be a 2:1 ratio
- If the vote is exactly 2:1 or +/- 1 vote from that, give it a couple extra days to see if any more votes come in
- Once passed, tropes must be indexed on the appropriate NRLEP or LRLEO index
- Should the vote fail, the trope should be indexed on KRLE page
Sex Tropes, Rape and Sexual Harassment Tropes, and Morality Tropes are banned from having RL sections so tropes under those indexes don't need a crowner vote.
As per Real Life Troping, we never trope unscripted real life sports — so sports tropes where RL examples would only apply to those scenarios don't need a crowner vote.
Crowner entries that have already been called will have "(CLOSED)" appended to them — and are no longer open for discussion.
After bringing up a trope for discussion, please wait at least a day for feedback before adding it to the crowner.
NRLEP tag:
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800
LRLEO tag:
%%The following restrictions apply: [list restriction(s) here]
%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13350380440A15238800
Notes:
- This thread is not for general discussion regarding policies for Real Life sections or crowners. Please take those conversations to this Wiki Talk thread
.
- Do not try to overturn previous No Real Life Examples, Please! or Limited Real Life Examples Only decisions without a convincing argument.
- As mentioned here
, the consensus is that NRLEP warnings in trope page descriptions can use bold text so that they stand out.
- The [[noreallife]] tag no longer works. This is a deprecated tag that was introduced many years ago — originally, it would have displayed a NRLEP warning banner when you edited the page. Per word of admin
as of 2025, any replacement for this system will not use markup, so these tags can be removed.
- If a newly launched trope was already given a No Real Life Examples, Please! or Limited Real Life Examples Only designation while it was being drafted on the Trope Launch Pad, additions to the proper index do not need to go through this thread. Instead, simply ask the staff to add the trope via this thread
.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 3rd 2025 at 6:31:00 AM
We can discuss the Game-Breaking Bug issue further here.
I agree. But this discussion has proved the basic point that actual, genuine tropes are in the narrative on purpose.
Edit: Reminds me we need to make that apophenia page.
Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 21st 2020 at 6:49:32 AM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallBringing back up Fratbro since I seemed to have brought it up at a bad time the first time. The real-life examples present seem to fall under gossip and stereotyping, what with describing people as hard partying drinkers with the connotation of slobbishness and irresponsibility.
Oops, fixed.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Nov 21st 2020 at 7:49:27 AM
My musician page
You mean Fratbro, right? It seems rather gossipy, including a potentially libelous statement about David Cameron. Also, the first violates Examples Are Not General. Add it to the crowner.
We shouldn't add things to this discussion because they might, hypothetically cause a problem, but if you find a trope with clearly bad RL examples, then yes, that's a reason to bring it up.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I don't see how Bald Black Leader Guy is a problem, TBH. It's not like White Gangbangers, which I felt was already potentially too controversial for examples because it is a crime trope, not to mention too common, and I'd argue still needs to have general examples cleaned up.
Bald Black Leader Guy may be too common, but otherwise, I do not see any problems with the real life examples.
It is literally people of African descent in a position of authority.
I take it Soft-Spoken Sadist can stay off the crowner, since it seems nobody has added examples since they were cut.
So it does.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Nov 22nd 2020 at 7:28:10 AM
There is a problem with the Bald Black Leader Guy Real Life examples, but it's that they're mostly ZCEs
I just took a look at The Savage Indian, and now I'm wondering why that page still has a Real Life folder.
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If it matters, Americans tend to refer to native peoples as Native [nationality] (such as Native American or Native Mexican; the latter is also used in Spanish according to Wikipedia) rather than First Nations (I'm pretty sure that term is more common in Canada). Obviously, calling them Indians is considered racist in both the US and Canada, so the real life section shouldn't be doing that.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 22nd 2020 at 12:53:33 PM
I got a rock for Halloween.Why is Darker and Edgier in Too Controversial? I thought it'd be in Narrative, Characterization, and Plot Tropes.
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
Didn't we used to label tropes with the reasons why they're listed as NRLEP? I'm guessing it was put in Too Controversial because of ROCEJ issues with referring to more recent years as Darker and Edgier. I'm just guessing here; I don't know if I even saw that discussion.
Re: Lethally Stupid. Does anyone else want to weigh in on whether it should have RL examples
? If so, should we consider adding it to the crowner?
There's only one real life example at the moment, and since it's referring to technical terminology and not specific people fitting into those categories, I don't see a problem with that page.
I still think the Lethally Stupid example is too general and kind of a shoehorn (since it refers to technological damage, not the chaotic levels of stupidity displayed in the trope).
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Then it can be removed for being a general example. That can be done without making the trope NRLEP. It's a Small Net After All previously had its entire real life section cut due to trope misuse, but it wasn't made NRLEP because of that.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 22nd 2020 at 2:13:31 PM
I got a rock for Halloween.![]()
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Actually, no. A majority of the people in question prefer "American Indian" to "Native American." (As something that should come as a surprise to approximately none of you, it's mainly white people who decided it was racist.)
Fair enough. I was already aware of the tendency of white Americans to refer to black people as African-American even if they aren't American.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 22nd 2020 at 2:16:35 PM
I got a rock for Halloween.![]()
I assume it's a case-by-case thing. Sherman Alexie insists on using "Indian" for example, but the Native people I know use Native or indigenous for their communities. But that's all besides the point. It's a stereotype trope either way - the terminology is the least of our issues.
Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 22nd 2020 at 3:16:08 PM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
I don't think anyone has a problem with the trope name being applied to fictional examples. I survived participated in the Hot Gypsy Woman TRS thread, which was a mess.
I didn't know that certain First Nations people were ok with being called the "I word". Then again, I'm an Ashkenazy Jewish Male and don't have so many First Nations friends, so I am not as familiar as I want to be with what terminology is and isn't acceptable outside of the fact that the term "First Nations" is commonly used to refer to them, because it seems like the least offensive terminology.
Additionally, I guess we don't need to crowner Lethally Stupid after all.
Crown Description:
Vote UP to cut real life examples; vote DOWN to keep. Anything marked DONE has been resolved. In order for a crowner to pass:- Must have been up for a minimum of a week
- There must be a 2:1 ratio
- If the vote is exactly 2:1 or +/- 1 vote from that, give it a couple extra days to see if any more votes come in
- Once passed, tropes must be indexed on the appropriate NRLEP or LRLEO index
- Should the vote fail, the trope should be indexed on KRLE page

It's not YMMV, since it is objectively present and anyone who knows how to can exploit it. There's no element of subjectivity. The reason it's not a trope is that it's not intentional.
Also, most such bugs are patched out, so they would end up in Trivia anyway as no longer present in the finished work.
Good Bad Bugs is properly an audience reaction, which don't rely on intentional content.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 21st 2020 at 6:46:13 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"