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 mods 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 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 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 doesn't currently work. 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. However, there's been some staff conversation (Feb 2024) about what a new technical solution might look like, so we'd advise against deleting these from pages, at least until we have a decision as to whether it'll be fixed or replaced.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 8th 2024 at 10:49:13 AM
Am I a weirdo?
I'm obviously strongly opposed to morality for The Bluebeard and Black Widow because they're tropes of objective actions. As for Human Furniture Is a Pain in the Tail, War Jay made a valid point that the description seems to at least imply that it's limited to non-human characters, so it might be okay to crowner. For Operator Incompatibility on the other hand the laconic is the only place that suggests it's limited to non-humans, and laconics are notoriously unreliable. As such, the example about CAPCHAs and the blind seems valid.
As for crownering tropes with multiple reasons, War Jay makes a valid point. It encourages crownering tropes with weak arguments, forcing people to knock over multiple crappy arguments rather than just one. In short, by crownering a trope with multiple reasons, you're suggesting that you aren't sure about the validity of at least one of them. Just throw your strongest argument out there and leave it at that.
Going through some of the other contentious examples, for Fantasy-Forbidding Father, I'd like to establish the definition we're using for "characterization" before crownering more tropes on those grounds. The real life section as is doesn't look too problematic. Our Zombies Are Different and Emotion Eater seem acceptable to crowner on "impossible in real life" grounds, and I withhold judgement on the others until we come up with proper crownering reasons.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
The Enforcer
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Operator Incompatibility's description also explicitly states that it's a science fiction trope. Here it is.
"In Speculative Fiction, as in Real Life, technology is designed with certain unquestioned assumptions: The user has the normal number of appendages, is within a certain generous range of sizes, can withstand so many G's of acceleration. The user can shoot lightning from her hands, or commune telepathically with computers... just like everyone else in the builder's species. But not everyone is a member of the builder's species, and that's where this trope comes in.
In certain settings, Finagle's Law ensures these assumptions will cause disaster. Sure, sometimes it's a bonus, or even a built-in feature, that the alien saboteurs can't use the Artifact of Doom properly, but usually it's just a pain.
If a piece of technology only works for one specific user, that's Loyal Phlebotinum. This trope may involve Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements."
Also, all of the trope's examples are fantastic in nature: either humans using alien tech, non-humans using human tech, or kinds of Phlebotinum that require specific DNA to function. This is the only "fictional" example that's not fantastic, and it's basically still a real life example.
- Became an issue for Warwick Davis when he appeared in one episode of Top Gear. He has extensions so that he can operate the pedals of a car but he only has a set for an automatic (accelerator and brake, no clutch) and the "Reasonably Priced Car" is a manual. Richard Hammond's attempts to cludge together a work around were... less than optimal.
It's too old to have an original TLP to go back to, but given that the description and literally every single example except the RL examples refers to fantastic situations, it appears to me that Operator Incompatibility is explicitly a fantastic trope, making the RL examples misuse. I wouldn't object to expanding it to include mundane disabilities and differences in body type, but based on all available evidence, that's a definition of the trope problem and would need to go through TRS.
they/them pronouns. Look at my Neocities.
The Enforcer
In regards to the tropes Miss Conduct brought up:
- Our Zombies Are Different: Impossible; things that are named "zombies" or a fungus taking over a still-living ant are not the revived dead.
- The Bluebeard and Black Widow: I'd support crownering them as Gossip, being murder tropes. Notable historical examples will probably have fictional works about them we can trope and a list of "these people murdered their spouses" doesn't really help us do anything with describing storytelling.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Gossip as a family issues trope.
- Operator Incompatibility and Human Furniture Is a Pain in the Tail: See my post above. I don't object to expanding OI to refer to mundane disabilities, but based on all evidence, that'd require changing the working definition of the trope. HFIAPITT is definitely impossible.
- Monster Clown: Morality; it's a villain archetype. It could use a Truth in Television blurb in its description and / or an analysis page explaining the influence of notorious IRL serial killers on the trope, though.
- Talkative Loon: Stereotype about mental illness.
- Emotion Eater: I'm the one who brought this up, but impossible.
- Hollywood Hype Machine: Celebrity gossip, but given that it looks like it's pretty heavily being used as an actor trivia trope, I agree that this is probably a TRS problem.
Edited by NonexistentYeets on Aug 12th 2023 at 10:23:24 AM
they/them pronouns. Look at my Neocities.
Hates Everyone Equally only has two Real Life examples, but both of them seem quite troublesome. One of them is a stereotype about the military (and, as we all know, real life stereotypes are not allowed on this Wiki), and the other is about how people use 4chan to make racist comments. Are these ROCEJ violations? Thanks!
The Enforcer
Those also both aren't proper examples. 4chan isn't a discrete work or person whose actions can be troped and the stereotype one is general. Just cut them.
In other news, I removed the examples that definitely weren't proper from Becoming The Mask and moved the ones that were unambiguously on the wrong trope to the relevant tropes. I'm temporarily keeping the ones that belong on Method Acting or Lost in Character in my sandbox because those tropes both have pretty hefty RL sections available and I want to make sure there aren't duplicates before I add them. I'm going to make a trope talk thread to ask about what to do with the examples about actors who played friends / romantic partners sharing those emotional dynamics in real life, because I'm pretty sure it's not Becoming the Mask, but I'm not sure what other trope it fits on.
Edited by NonexistentYeets on Aug 12th 2023 at 10:36:07 AM
they/them pronouns. Look at my Neocities.
Am I a weirdo?
By quoting the description, you've done a very good job of arguing my point. Speculative Fiction is mentioned, but in the same sentence as (and given the same weight as) real life. Assumptions like the number of limbs the user has (as is mentioned in the description) impact people in real life just as much as they do in fiction (e.g. a one-armed person would have quite a bit of trouble driving a stick shift car unless it had been specially adapted).
Edited by CompletelyNormalGuy on Aug 12th 2023 at 7:35:52 AM
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
The Enforcer
I totally agree that the trope could be expanded for IRL disabilities and probably should be since right now, the strictly fantastic ones are kind of redundant with Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements. That's not how it's being used, though, since literally all of the examples except the RL ones and Top Gear are fantastic in nature.
Edited by NonexistentYeets on Aug 12th 2023 at 10:42:04 AM
they/them pronouns. Look at my Neocities.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
TRS, assuming a wick check doesn't pick up non-fantastical examples.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
The Enforcer
Either way, I don't think that OI warrants crownering upon thinking about it since we're dealing with definition issues and "tech assumes everyone has the same number and functionality of limbs which produces issues for folks who don't" is absolutely a thing that exists. The description could absolutely use a rewrite, though, since other than that brief Real Life wick that Completely Normal Guy mentioned, the entire rest of it talks about fantastic species and powers.
they/them pronouns. Look at my Neocities.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Anyway, I still fail to see how murder is "gossip". Crime records are public. People know who these killers are. It's not gossip to report on something that factually happened. note
The morality issue is debatable. I don't know if "murder tropes" are inherently the same as "villain tropes".
Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 12th 2023 at 10:47:09 AM
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Am I a weirdo?
Any trope about objective actions should not be considered a morality trope.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
The Enforcer
Monster Clown doesn't read to me given the description as just "person dressed like clown murders people", though, it's about the concept of clowns being evil as a group and characters that look like clowns almost always being evil. Also, it's already got an Analysis page pointing to John Wayne Gacy, which could be easily expanded for other notable clown-costumed serial killers.
"It's startlingly uncommon to find clown characters who are genuinely good. More commonly, writers tap into the fear: the Monster Clown is a classic villain. Expect the Monster Clown to parody humor, with classic jokes becoming deadly; acid in the plastic flowers pinned to their lapels and joy buzzers with fatal amounts of voltage, among other things. If they work in a circus, it'll be a Circus of Fear. Likewise, also expect them to crack dark jokes while killing them and laugh maniacally. Sometimes, a Monster Clown just LOOKS like a clown, and doesn't do what clowns normally do, like tell jokes or work in a circus or go to kids' parties. If there is a clown in a work that just looks like one, it's almost guaranteed that it is a Monster Clown. Because, you know, you just don't go about dressing like a clown without doing anything clowny."
Also, I did a wick check on Operator Incompatibility. It's definitely being used as a fantastic trope about alien species and phlebotinum. Even the mundane Darkover example about handedness still refers to different species.
- Arknights Others: Slightly downplayed, but the team suffers from this twice over. Every one of them is a Long-Range Fighter both by training and necessity, and unfortunately for them, most Terran ranged weapons (with the exception of grenade launchers) are unusable by people from Earth.
- Marrion Zimmer Bradley: In The Colors of Space, humans need to be in stasis to use the FTL drive. Or so the aliens who invented the drive claimed.
- Chanur Novels: The hani ship has recessed controls usually operated by the hani's retractable claws. Tully has to come up with a work-around.
- Heechee Saga: The vessels left behind by the alien Heechee have V-shaped seats which are uncomfortable for human crew.
- The Madness Season: The eyes of humans and Tyr respond to different frequencies of light. Because of this, all of the helpful labels that Tyr spacecraft use are completely invisible to humans.
- Call of Cthulhu: Terror from the Stars. Mi-Go fire their Lightning Gun by grasping it and altering its electrical resistance. Humans have to clip one of its wires.
- Dredd: Subverted. While she gets captured by Kay after a momentary lapse in concentration and she looks to be in utter terror when brought in front of Ma-Ma, she escapes on her own when Kay tries to use her Lawgiver on her. She subsequently rearms herself, kills a few Mooks and actually rescues Dredd when Lex has him dead to rights.
- Nikolai Dante: Anyone who hasn't got their geneprint coded to the Huntsman 5000 that tries to fire it ends up with the bullet turning around and hitting them in the face. This includes telekinetic psychics that aren't even physically firing the weapon themselves.
- Judge Dredd: The fact that a Judge's weapon can only be used by that particular Judge or someone sharing that Judge's DNA becomes a plot point.
- Tropes M to P: The Judges' DNA-encoded Lawgiver cannot be used by anyone else. Unlike the 1995 movie however, they explode and can tell if a clone sibling is using it, since in the comics clone Judges are common.
- Game Theory (Lyrical Nanoha): The glyphs on the Garden of Time give anyone who looks at them headaches, which Yuuno theorizes is the result of them being intended to interface with engineered mental structures that the Alhazredians would have had but no one else does.
- GaoGaiGar: A relatively minor one: Seeing how the series likes to point out the flaws with its tropes, then make them work anyways, you may wonder why Mikoto's a fairly standard operator pre-Zonuda, but then it hits you: GaiGar, GaiFar, :and Genesic GaiGar don't have keyboards in their cockpits during Fusion, so they need someone on the other end to calibrate the GaoMachines for the current situation, and even if they did, the pilot still wouldn't be able to operate the other GaoMachines from within the Mechanoid until after Fusion (Fusion only allows direct control of the mech they're piloting, and neither Galeon nor PhantomGao have a way to remotely control the other Machines. The pilot literally can't activate it themself. This begs the question of whether this is standard, or whether it's because the usual pilot's not from the Green Planet. Going by what we see in the first few episodes of FINAL, it's likely that people from the Green Planet can execute Final Fusion without an operator, it's only Guy that can't.
- Darkover: In The Heritage of Hastur, the Sword of Hastur is protected by two force fields. Only a telepath can pass through the first one, but only a non-telepath can pass through the second one.
- New Jedi Order: The New Essential Guide To Vehicles and Vessels mentions that the Skywalkers modified the bridge airlock on the Jade Shadow so that it could only be activated from outside if one used the Force to operate the internal mechanisms.
- Tropes Nto R: With the exception of the replicator wand in "Onion Trade", Gem technology (most obviously Warp Pads) can only be activated by gems and lays dormant otherwise. It's unclear if this is a deliberate feature or accidental, but the result is ancient-looking high technology sitting around the Earth unguarded for thousands of years without any human reverse-engineering.
- Shining Force: Implied; Gong is first seen chopping wood with an axe, but when he joins the Force, he leaves behind his axe and fights exclusively bare-handed. Supplementary materials state that Gong is a half-giant, indicating his hands might be too big to use axes in combat as effectively as dwarves; thus, he would only use them for tasks where they are specifically required (i.e. splitting wood).
- Star Wars Legends: Races: It's stated that Ssi-Ruu paddle beamers (and other technology) are utterly incompatible with Human technology due to their unusual life-force powered energy cells.
- Atomic Robo: Since he's a robot with non-human fingers, Atomic Robo can't operate a touch screen at all. In one scene, he's actually seen complaining to Steve Jobs about how useless the iPad is to him - and attempts to justify further research by stating lots of people are coming back from overseas with Artificial Limbs. Later, when Robo has to answer a call on a smartphone, he literally can't, for the same reason.
- EV Nova: United Galactic Federation: Due to their intended operators being nearly three meters tall and having two thumbs per hand (the other one being where the pinkie is on humans), Varellavite starship cockpits have to be modified for most species. Same goes for ships built for the tentacled Ta'cural'th, the spider-like Lanvar-Ozians, the base 14-using Klavarese, the taloned Balcrusians, or any number of other species.
- X: Khaak ships can't be boarded in TC, probably because of Operator Incompatibility: as per the encyclopedia, individual Khaak are only 80 cm tall (the average humanoid is about twice that).
- The Pentagon War: Workstations designed for Centaurian use will have 360-degree video displays, surround keyboards, and pedals that accept input from the biological wheels in the user's feet — but will never, ever have a 3-D display.
- Star Trek Enterprise S 03 E 18 Azati Prime: When walking Archer through the controls of the Insectoid ship, Travis notes how hard they are to operate, and Archer suggests that they're probably made for a pilot with compound eyes.
- Muundeis Adoptables Dos: The Boxor actually can't be piloted by most of the Pantheon's deities due to the size of the cockpit. As such, besides Matoran (of which there are none) and maybe Turaga (those who used to be the Toa Metru), the only races capable of piloting it are halflings, goblins, dwarves, those who can downsize or shapeshift to the appropriate size, and other similarly-diminutively-sized entities. This also unfortunately includes children, which neither Nuparu nor Whenua are receptive to and will be quick to stop, and both worry the GUAE may desire to copy the design just for that purpose.
- Darkover: Noted in The Forbidden Tower: Terrans, who are usually right-handed, often have trouble using implements designed by/for Darkovans, who are usually left-handed.
- To the Stars: Dangerous technology will only work for authorized users.
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension: Buckaroo has some difficulty flying the Red Lectroid Thermopod thanks to this.
- Liaden Universe: Val Con trying to fly a Yxtrang ship.
- The Truce at Bakura: Dev's ion paddle beamer is custom-built for him as he cannot use the standard Ssi-ruuvi ones.
- Atomic Robo: I read the example for Operator Incompatibility and wondered why Robo didn't just use the tip from a commercially available iPad stylus.
- Character Archetypes: not Shielding (listed as one of Jaller's portfolio tropes under The Toa Inika)
Edited by NonexistentYeets on Aug 12th 2023 at 11:10:30 AM
they/them pronouns. Look at my Neocities.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I was referring to The Bluebeard / Black Widow, to be clear. Monster Clown I think yeah is morality to a degree since it's got some personality to it.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
The Enforcer
Re: Operator Incompatibility, I'm going to be on vacation this coming week so might not get to TRS'ing it for a while, but given how it's being used and the categories, here's what I think would work to deal with it and its RL examples.
- Expand Operator Incompatibility, under the same name, to refer to characters have trouble using technology built for / by someone with a different body plan than them, for both different species and mundane differences in body parts or functioning. Keep the real life examples. Rewrite the description and laconic to be less speculative fiction-centric.
- TLP DNA-locked tech as its own trope, since it doesn't fit the spirit of being a matter of body plans or things only some species have. Since DNA exists, if this is a thing that exists, said trope stays KRLE.
- Tech that requires specific fantastic traits or body parts to work, but isn't an issue of body type (e.g. the Steven Universe example that only Gems can activate Gem tech, but there's nothing physically preventing non-Gems from doing so) gets merged into Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements.
The Draftsman of Doom
I suppose I could hypothetically tolerate RL examples of The Bluebeard and Black Widow, but only on the condition that they would be examples which have been forensically or legally verified.
Having said that, both tropes technically are subtropes of Serial Killer, which is itself NRLEP. Make of that what you will.
Feels good, don't it?
Am I a weirdo?
Serial Killer is also improperly listed as a morality trope (as a trope about objective actions, calling Ted Bundy a serial killer isn't calling him evil but merely saying he killed a bunch of people). So, what I make of it is that we're trying to use decidedly questionable precedent to make a decision.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Didn't we try to go through the morality tropes list at some point? There's a lot of issues with it.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
The Draftsman of Doom
When I added Propping Up Their Patsy to NoRealLife.Morality Tropes after I launched it, I did so with the understanding that it usually is a villain who pretends to back up the scapegoat, also taking into account the fact that people usually do assign moral value to the actions of alleged and proven criminals.
Quoth the edit reason:
"As a trope involving the alleged innocence or guilt of a suspect, there is an inherent risk of controversy. Seeing as it usually involves a villain committing a crime and defending the person suspected with ulterior motives, there's the obvious concern about mudslinging (I.E. calling real life suspects villains in cases where they are proven to have stood up for their own scapegoat and been convicted). There is a distinct possibility that people will add unverified stories about people setting others up to take the rap and covering their asses by claiming their fall-guy was innocent."
When I posted in the thread at the time, nobody raised any concerns to the contrary.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Aug 12th 2023 at 12:25:10 PM
Feels good, don't it?
Am I a weirdo?
By mentioning an exception, you undermine what little argument you have. Yes, certain actions are normally portrayed negatively. Yes, people are likely to consider people who do certain things to be evil. It's still a trope of actions. Because of his actions, it is an objective fact that Ted Bundy was a Serial Killer. That alone is proof it's not a morality trope.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Now yes, serial killers are usually villains however because it's an action trope and not a personality or motive trope, such characters become defined not just by the fact that they're a murderer but how and why they're murdering people. That is where the morality comes from. Heroic serial killer characters do exist, they're never not Anti-Hero types at best, but they can still have genuinely heroic motives (a hero that habitually kills their villains technically counts as a Serial Killer).
Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 12th 2023 at 12:42:55 PM
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Angry babby
I think we should move Serial Killer to "too common."
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
This post made me want to get rid of the examples you want to keep even harder.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Nobody here is arguing to keep examples, we're arguing over whether it's correctly slotted as "morality".
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Am I a weirdo?
The examples I'm trying to preserve are all the real life examples that aren't causing any problems. I do this by trying to force the people working to get rid of them to prove that the tropes they want to make NRLEP are actually attracting problematic examples rather than simply relying on sweeping generalizations. Because certain people on this thread have shown a willingness to use decidedly tenuous precedent to make decisions, I often find myself trying to prevent a certain precedent from being established in a decision even if I don't disagree with the end results of that particular decision.
If you want something made NRLEP, show me the bad examples it's collecting. Tell me why you think that's a systemic problem rather than one that can be solved by simply deleting the offending examples and calling it good. Don't just say "It's a trope about murder and murder is bad so we shouldn't have real life examples."
In short, I'm trying to sort the baby and the bathwater. I have no problem with throwing out the bathwater. What I have a problem with is when people say "well there wasn't a baby in the last red bathtub, so there's no point in checking to see if there's a baby in this one."
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
Crown Description:
Vote up to either forbid all real life examples (No Real Life Examples Please) or forbid real life examples for specific subjects (Limited Real Life Examples Only); vote down to Keep Real Life Examples. To add a trope to a No Real Life Examples Please index or the Limited Real Life Examples Only index, its crowner option must meet the following criteria:- Stable 2:1 ratio needed for NRLEP or LRLEO
- Must have been up for a minimum of a week
- If the vote is exactly 2:1 or +/- 1 vote from that, give it a couple of extra days to see if more votes come in.
Hooked a blank crowner as requested. It looks like some things need to be discussed for a bit before being crownered though
Macron's notes