This forum needs a thread to list searches on terms that we've previously done cleanups on, so we can occasionally re-check them and police any incorrect usages that have built up since the initial cleanup thread(s). There were a few links to Dropped a Bridget on Him that I had to clean up earlier, so let's get started with that.
I'll add links to this post as they're mentioned, and bring in others from threads in SE as they're closed up.
- Dropped A Bridget On Him
(Disambig page)
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel
- I Got Better
- Understatement
- Discontinuity (Disambig page)
- YMMV and Your Mileage May Vary
- SugarWiki.MostTriumphantExample and Main.MostTriumphantExample
- Subculture of the Week (redirects)
- Motion Capture Mecha (redirects)
- MOTHER (redirects)
- Main.AndTheFandomRejoiced and SugarWiki.AndTheFandomRejoiced
- DarthWiki.RuinedFOREVER
- Dead Baby Comedy
edited 24th Feb '13 4:49:23 PM by Willbyr
Yeah, I've been seeing questionable wicks for this as well.
Zzzzzzzzzz
Understatement —11 for 11 were bad. That's depressing. I can't spend any more time on it right now,but I'll keep nibbling away.
Butterfly Queen
I'll start knocking out the A's as soon as I wake up. People still misuse Understatement despite the fact the note (that was once bolded) has been the page for a few years. So, I assume either they ignore it, don't read the page, or misuse it because they saw a sinkhole of it and thought it was okay.
Dove
I think people just use it because they don't want to write a massive paragraph explaining the exact context of how awful and horrible (or whatever superlative) the thing from the work in question was, so they write a simpler, shorter explanation and essentially "tag" it with understatement. Like It Makes Sense in Context. Is that really such a bad thing? It keeps examples a lot pithier.
The "understatement" page says "your attempt at an understatement either works or it doesn't, don't bother to sinkhole" but the whole point is that the examples are written for people who haven't seen the work and wouldn't know something was an understatement unless it was potholed as such, right?
I'm sure there's a better explanation of why this particular sinkhole is so terrible on the original cleanup thread — could someone point me to it, if you'd rather I not ask about it here?
Butterfly Queen
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Understatement is only supposed to be used when a character makes an understatement in-universe in a work, not when a troper themselves makes an understatement in a example, description, wick, whatever.
Dove
I get that that's the rule, but as long as those don't go on the examples page, what exactly is so wrong about people using it as conversational shorthand elsewhere on the Wiki? Like, does it actually cause problems to have imbalanced crosswicking, or is it just annoyingly untidy?
"Annoyingly untidy" is an understatement. See? I didn't need to use a wick to express my point. They're not necessary and therefore misuse as emphasis. See? I didn't need to write some big, long and exhausting paragraph.
Another problem is that the wick lists become polluted with troper ticks rather than genuine examples.
FUROR APOCALYPTUS! MAGUS CALAMITOSIS!
stating something is an Understatement removes the point of it being on the page.
Understatement has grown to 1111 wicks... I want to cry. It's been cleaned up twice to about 500 wicks and it's keeps growing back like hydra. I'm sure more than half of those wicks are sinkholes.
edited 24th May '14 4:43:52 PM by MacronNotes