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TLP Crash Rescue - Fixing prematurely launched TLPs and pages

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Prematurely launched pages and pages that weren't fully fleshed out at the point of launching, are a big problem. Since these usually share several problems at once, this thread is aimed at re-running them through the TLP for fixing - the usual fix - or cutting them if they are too bad.

Problems this thread deals with include bad names, not enough/bad examples, unclear description, etc.

For the interested, here's a list of recently created pages. Launches

Note: Please do not request a mod to unlaunch drafts that don't have any issues besides lacking a launch notice/24hr launch notice. While 24hr launch notices are mandatory, there are a few exceptions to the rule. If you see a draft's sponsor launch a TLP without an announcement, it's best to remind them of our TLP Guidelines first. If they continue to repeatedly launch drafts without a launch notice, you can report them on Ask The Tropers or the TLP Community Issues thread.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 24th 2023 at 12:24:55 PM

Coachpill Taxidermy (he/him) from Gen Z Since: Aug, 2022 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
Taxidermy (he/him)
#12401: Dec 7th 2024 at 7:53:54 PM

Someone else came in and pointed out the overall negativity, which I adjusted to improve

I'm assuming this is referring to what I said about the trope almost "being defined in the negative" (correct me if I'm wrong). Tbf I was kind of unclear so I get why you took it as negative in the mood sense; what I meant was that it seemed kind of like a trope that's defined by the non-appearance of something. I still maintain the main issue with the draft was that there wasn't really a line between when Kwanzaa would be distilled down to a non-specific cultural thing and when it would be explored in detail. As amathieu said the former of these is just a thing that happens, but the definition seemed to be about both, which made it feel complicated in addition to the Wall of Text.

Your goateed philistine is sashaying towards us. | 🧱
Nethilia Girl Gang Disaster (she and zie) (Life not ruined yet) Relationship Status: A gay little love melody
Girl Gang Disaster (she and zie)
#12402: Dec 7th 2024 at 9:16:23 PM

"Kwanzaa exists, black people celebrate it" is not a trope. This is correct. I get that people are saying that. That's never what I was going for.

"Kwanzaa, in media, is represented by black people in the Winter Holiday montage" is a type of trope. It is saying "this holiday is where the black characters are shown to "go" during December Holiday Montages." Depictions that make is so the Black Characters are disconnected from any other winter holiday going on at all.

This has the following types of depictions:

1a) As part of a winter holiday montage, where it's shown alongside other holiday,s but the black characters stand in for Kwanzaa. This is probably the most ways it's seen in media: your group of diverse characters are in a Winter Holiday episode. Alice talks about Christmas in a general way. Bob is Jewish and talks about Hanukkah. Carlos is Mexican and talks about Christmas from a Latin American Perspective. Denise who is Black talks about Kwanzaa and often does not bring up anything about Christmas because that's not her part in the show. Eric talks about Christmas. Whether the Black character does anything for Christmas or that's seen isn't relevant, because their part in the staging is to represent Kwanzaa. This is like the Puzzle Place depiction.

1b) A detailed "day in the spotlight" episode, the way other holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Valentine's Day gets. The main point of the episode is to show Kwanzaa, and it's done with the black characters. This is the Rugrats example (even though that one doesn't really talk about the holiday in detail). This one doesn't happen often as a whole episode to itself; it's most of the time 1a.

1c) A quick blink-pass where the black people stand with or by the symbols, and then the rest of a holiday episode moves on back to Christmas. This is what the "Molly in Denali" example is. The Black Family is there in the "there's so many other holidays" clip, then the Jewish character puts up a Menorah, then the plot focuses on Christmas and doesn't go back. The black characters are just there to remind/inform the audience to be inclusive.

"Kwanzaa is represented as a punchline/mere diversity points, and shown with/represented by Black people", is also a trope. It is saying "Media doesn't talk or care specifically about Kwanzaa, but it's still tied to Black people." This has the following types of depictions:

2a) Shown just to cover it as part of the three-holiday coverage, the "ChrismaHanuKwanzaakah" style. There's a depiction in Clone High where King Kwanzaa, Santa, and "Dreidelstein" are all made to state their holidays are too specific and give them up for a general winter holiday, but I haven't seen that show enough to comment on it.

2b) A one-off joke or dismissive mention, which is treating it like a punchline. This is a jab at Political Overcorrectness most of the time, leaning on the idea that "see, not even Black people give a shit or know." This is the Smosh example, where it's brought up by a white executive to be politically correct and the black guy in the office is upset to be tied to it and doesn't know what it is.

These can overlap. The Futurama depictions have one representation where it's the third part of a Holiday Episode, represented by the Conrad family as the most prominent black family on the show. But it's also the third holiday style and joke style, when KwanzaaBot is shown giving the traditional gift of a book titled "What The Hell is Kwanzaa?".

These have meaningful work depictions and representations beyond "it exists and is celebrated". This is what I was trying to do the whole time.

Edited by Nethilia on Dec 7th 2024 at 9:26:52 AM

I focus on obscure 1990s or graphic Middle Grade Literature novels and dolls. (She or zie, not they.)
amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#12403: Dec 8th 2024 at 11:43:55 AM

  1. re: "Kwanzaa, in media, is represented by black people in the Winter Holiday montage" and "this holiday is where the black characters are shown to "go" during December Holiday Montages."
    • Like I've said, what you're describing isn't an episode trope. Episode tropes are specific and exclusive to episodic mediums and stories in which the expected formula is deviated from to focus primarily on the topic being highlighted. Beach Episode is an entire episode that characters spend on the beach doing beach activity. Halloween Episode is an entire episode that characters celebrate Halloween and is themed around it. As you defined it, Kwanzaa Representation would often not be the main idea/theme of the episode nor does it have to even be in an episodic medium. For example, say there's a Rom Com film about a couple that has a Second-Act Breakup around Christmas, after which the main lead crashes his Token Black friend's Kwanzaa festivities to cry and mope. That would fall under what you're describing even though it isn't an episode and is only a brief moment.
    • At best, this is, as Coachpill said, something between Informed Judaism (another trope that is having its tropeworthiness re-evaluated) and Everyone Is Christian at Christmas. But as written it's worse than both. The blackness of the characters celebrating is rarely if ever in question, so it fails to even do the one thing that makes Informed Judaism tropeworthy. And Everyone Is Christian at Christmas is tropeworthy because it's about characters who are known in-universe as being part of other religions celebrating Christmas despite that. Black characters who are noted to be African-American in-universe celebrating Kwanzaa doesn't count, which several of the examples fall under. Also, note that Everyone Is Christian at Christmas is distinct from Christmas Episode / not an episode trope.
    • If what you want is a Trope in Aggregate about black characters being separated from the main non-black cast to celebrate kwanzaa, all examples need to focus on black side characters or black main characters in a majority non-black cast, so examples like WesternAnimation.The Proud Family don't qualifynote . But right now, the scope of the draft intentionally includes all of the above, which means the possible specific meaning it's trying to highlight is lost, thus creating a chairsy "Kwanzaa is celebrated" page. Even the name suffers from the issue: representation = "shown in some way" so "Kwanzaa Representation" just indicates that "Kwanzaa is shown in some way".
    • If what you want is an actual Kwanzaa themed Holiday Episode, then only examples similar to The Proud Family one counts, i.e. it's the main topic of the episode and/or the main backdrop for that episode's events
  2. Intention =/= outcome. Few people ever intend to make drafts that are People Sit on Chairs, but them amounting to that when both the written definition and examples are fully taken into account is a huge part of why TRS has a never ending stream of work to do (so much so that we created an entire separate thread just to evaluate whether existing trope pages are actually tropeworthy or not).

Edited by amathieu13 on Dec 8th 2024 at 12:51:55 PM

mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#12404: Dec 9th 2024 at 9:42:30 AM

This discussion would benefit from staying in the draft's comments so everyone can see the tropeworthiness discussion in one place.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#12405: Dec 9th 2024 at 10:14:59 AM

I didn't unlaunch it since I want to be sure there's a problem beyond one troper; if people agree it needs more discussion, I will

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#12406: Dec 9th 2024 at 10:31:10 AM

[up][up]I mean, the point of me posting here was to hopefully get second opinions (in either direction) from others who weren't involved in the initial back and forth and so far only the 3 people who were involved in the draft discussion towards the end have commented, more or less reiterating the same points they made on the draft.

Edited by amathieu13 on Dec 9th 2024 at 10:31:44 AM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#12407: Dec 9th 2024 at 10:37:16 AM

Yeah, that's the rub. Wherever we have the debate, it's just the same voices. I'd weigh in but I'm kinda just finding myself neutral, I haven't looked into the trope closely enough to really judge and don't want to be biased right now either way. If it gets sent back I'll try and weigh in more, though.

I know that in the past, trying to get attention from people on ATT has helped. Saying "hey, we're deadlocked" and inviting people to the discussion.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#12408: Dec 9th 2024 at 1:15:01 PM

Alright, adding in my own two cents as someone who didn't really pay attention to the draft:

  • The trope description is, in fact, really long, and this definitely reads more as like "UsefulNotes/Kwanzaa" over describing a narrative phenomenon.
  • Boiling everything down, the way the trope is structured is basically "this is a holiday that exists. It's sometimes written well. It's usually not," which does scream to me as having tropability problems on account of being chairs-y.
  • Speaking of, it's rubbing me off the wrong way how much this trope is taking a moral stance on representation being "good" or "bad" — the point of tropes is that they are themselves pattern-based narrative phenomena that don't have inherent quality attached to them, and with the amount of "here's how discussing a holiday is done correctly, here's how it's done offensively and badly" seems more like the priority of the trope page is to prescribe how to write instead of documenting a pattern.
  • The fact this is about Kwanzaa representation as a concept and not something like a Holiday Episode also reads as being far too broad for what should be a singular narrative trope. Tropes about an "episode" in specific reads as being a particular metric in which the overall concept is to be explored narratively — the way this trope is right now seems to enable anything from "Kwanzaa is observed as the main conceit of an entire work" to "Kwanzaa is mentioned literally once in a work that otherwise has nothing to do with it", a breadth that is so massive that it renders the trope almost inherently meaningless beyond "Kwanzaa exists and it probably has no plot bearing."

So yeah, this is a very flawed trope right now and I don't think should have been launched. It really needed to be reigned in to describing a more specific phenomenon than the one it did, and the way the page is just currently written right now does a very poor job establishing that (if anything, the Wall of Text obfuscates what it's actually about).

Edited by number9robotic on Dec 9th 2024 at 1:34:39 AM

Thanks for playing King's Quest V!
CanuckMcDuck1 PEPSIMAN from Japan Since: Sep, 2023 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
PEPSIMAN
#12409: Dec 9th 2024 at 2:03:15 PM

I think Recording Your Crime was stealth-launched, since there was no warning or preparation listed on the TLP page, and it currently has a terrible screenshot as its image with the black bars still included.

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Dec 9th 2024 at 4:03:32 AM

Do not mess with creatures which you do not understand.
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#12410: Dec 9th 2024 at 2:04:34 PM

Stealth launches are passable if the rest of the draft is fine. Is there anything else wrong aside from the image, which can just be handled at IP?

As for Kwanzaa Representation, looks like I should send it back. I'll do that now.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
CanuckMcDuck1 PEPSIMAN from Japan Since: Sep, 2023 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
PEPSIMAN
#12411: Dec 9th 2024 at 2:11:11 PM

[up]Image Pickin’ is currently full, and personally I think a bad image should be resolved before a trope goes live so it isn’t someone else’s problem.

I think the image was added by someone other than the launcher, since they couldn’t find a good quality version of said image. It apparently comes from the Simpsons episode "This Little Wiggy".

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Dec 9th 2024 at 4:12:21 AM

Do not mess with creatures which you do not understand.
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#12412: Dec 9th 2024 at 2:12:23 PM

I mean, tropes launch with bad images all the time. It's not inherently a launch-halting issue, just wait for a slot.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Willbyr Hi (Y2K) Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Hi
#12413: Dec 10th 2024 at 8:38:56 AM

Ragin' Wolverine was launched with the wick spelled as is instead of Raging Wolverine and custom-titled to have the single apostrophe instead of that last g. Should this be un-launched and re-launched with the proper spelling?

Edited by Willbyr on Dec 10th 2024 at 10:42:43 AM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#12414: Dec 10th 2024 at 8:46:52 AM

Idk, I think the "g" would be confusing. Custom titling it away would make people misunderstand how to spell the trope, and it's not even pronounced. I think the way it reads now is the correct option

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
TMH-Sir-Iron-Vomit The clown of STEEL from Ichnusa Since: Mar, 2024
The clown of STEEL
#12415: Dec 10th 2024 at 11:56:15 AM

I'm the troper who suggested Ragin' Wolverine's name. It's supposed to be "raging" affected by g-dropping; so, "ragin'".

Oo oo ah ah
StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#12416: Dec 12th 2024 at 11:24:56 AM

I think it's fine, but I added a redirect from Raging Wolverine to catch misspellings.

Trust me, I'm an engineer!
Coachpill Taxidermy (he/him) from Gen Z Since: Aug, 2022 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
Taxidermy (he/him)
#12417: Dec 15th 2024 at 9:39:39 AM

Chicken Hypnosis Gag looks like it was rogue stealth-launched. There was no advance launch notice and it generally seems like it was rushed to fit the current definition.

[down] You're right, my bad

Edited by Coachpill on Dec 15th 2024 at 1:42:12 PM

Your goateed philistine is sashaying towards us. | 🧱
Eggy0 Wizards Don't Own Cats (she/her) (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
Wizards Don't Own Cats (she/her)
#12418: Dec 15th 2024 at 10:40:18 AM

[up] That would be a stealth launch. Rogue launching is when someone else, who had no involvement, launches it instead of the sponsor. The sponsor was the one who launched it.

~Tropers/sailor_otaku0048 You needed a notice at least 24 hours in advance of launching your trope. (I don't know if this ping works, but if I try to use curly brackets it ignores the underscore as a valid character and leads to a nonexistent troper page this ping worked, even if it doesn't link to a page.)

Edited by Eggy0 on Dec 15th 2024 at 9:54:18 PM

ElBuenCuate Since: Oct, 2010
#12419: Dec 15th 2024 at 11:03:55 AM

Honestly, the fact that it was launched with the barest of minimums (literally after three days and only the necessary five net hats) makes this launch feels really rushed.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#12420: Dec 15th 2024 at 11:24:22 AM

I'll send it back, it's underbaked and needs some more time to let it grow.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Eggy0 Wizards Don't Own Cats (she/her) (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
Wizards Don't Own Cats (she/her)
#12421: Dec 15th 2024 at 11:51:25 AM

[up] They also created Quotes.Chicken Hypnosis Gag after the fact, so that should probably be cut.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#12422: Dec 15th 2024 at 11:52:43 AM

...Not sure why they didn't just make that a page quote, but alright

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
ilovewildkratts1 Local Odd Squad Connoisseur from a nice breezy expansive meadow (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Local Odd Squad Connoisseur
#12423: Dec 15th 2024 at 11:55:47 AM

[up][up][up][up][up] ~sailor_otaku0048

Hopefully this ping should work.

Wuewuewuewuewueing my way to the bank.
sailor_otaku0048 Since: Sep, 2015
#12424: Dec 15th 2024 at 12:46:26 PM

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'll fully admit to not having properly read the guidelines on launching new trop pages, so that's on me. I'll try to be more careful next time!

BoltDMC Since: May, 2020
#12425: Dec 20th 2024 at 6:24:45 AM

Looks like this may have just been stealth launched again as Chicken Hypnosis Gag. Were all the issues settled out beforehand? It's a little hard to tell. Maybe it's fine?

If not, that would be the second time it has been launched prematurely, and if so, it might be appropriate to put a hold on the draft.


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