Misused: Tear Jerker

Going to have to agree with that.

That said, OP, fixing examples written like they are about X to be about X instead of Y is a free action.

They have a point. Provide evidence of misuse, or the thread will be locked to open space for something that actually needs to get fixed.

edited 5th Mar '13 2:34:19 PM by Ironeye

Septimus Heap - I do know what emotions are. A lesser man would have reported you for that post.

The point I am making is that emotional reactions are subjective. One man's sense of sadness is another man's sense of happiness. Especially with works deliberately trying to create bittersweet emotions which happens in almost every story ever written. The main point I have been expressing (although I feel as though people are deliberately not trying to understand) is that even if we have clear definitions about what a "Tear Jerker" moment and what a "Moment of Heartwarming" is we are still going to end up with two mega-articles where 50-90 percent of the examples overlap.

Redundant.

So if we decide to execute this tedious task of looking over every-single-example, when we find endless examples of these not-quite-one-or-the-other moments do we ensure they are on both lists?

OK, Ok, I'll take that back.

The point is that Tear Jerker and Heartwarming Moments are completely different emotions, so merging them is not an option. After all, these pages are about the reaction, not the thing that causes them. And your post honestly did sound like you were treating them as the same. Guess there was some bad miscommunication.

And I still like to see some evidence that there is misuse.

edited 5th Mar '13 2:45:37 PM by SeptimusHeap

First you need to persuade a consensus of the people interested that we should undertake "this tedious task of looking over every-single-example". You need to provide some proof that it's misused, not simply a case of mileage varying with some people finding a complex moment more sad, and therefore a Tearjerker, while others find the same moment more Heartwarming.

Back here. Note to self: Never trope half asleep.

Has anyone objections at pulling Heartwarming Moments from the causes of Tear Jerker list? As-is, it's just creating the confusion mentioned in the OP and it doesn't really make sense anyway.

No.

edited 6th Mar '13 3:02:07 AM by AnotherDuck

Do that.

Yes, do that.

While there's a thread open on the subject, should we discuss Tearjerker's huge Real Life page? It contains a lot of legitimate content about media coverage of tragedies. But it also contains bits like:

• Hearing your grandmother wish out loud that she was dead, after three strokes, will do it to you.
• Arson. A bit worse than accidental fires because these fires were set intentionally.
  • There was a string of church arson cases in Texas around February of 2010.
• Witness Protection. In order to protect an individual whose life is at the mercy of, say, The Mafia or other organized crime, the government not only grants the witness a new identity and home, but said witness is never allowed to communicate with people from their past ever again.
• Cynicism and jadedness. The fact that some people can read this entire page, all the heart-wrenching things written here, and feel the slightest bit of apathy for those involved is incredibly sad.
• Dealing with a family member or friend with Alzheimer's or Dementia.
• People who can't express, or even feel, sadness in a "normal" way.
• Being born in a loveless marriage and having the feeling that life would be better if you weren't born.

To filter out troper tales and rants, what if we delete them and rename this section "news coverage"? As I think I wrote elsewhere, we collect tropes about media, we (perhaps) can collect tropes about real life, we (perhaps) can collect audience reactions about media - but audience reactions to real life have nothing at all to do with our goals

edited 6th Mar '13 6:34:16 AM by AmyGdala

Real Life pages have their own topic in Long Term Projects.

Also, did the removal.

edited 6th Mar '13 7:04:20 AM by SeptimusHeap

I wanted to write that something that resembles tropers' tales can (and should) be deleted. I admit though that the whole page feels weird. I don't much like the style of most entries and some are not written as examples.

• "My name is Daniel Pearl. I am an American Jew."
  • Qutes are not examples. (I'm a European Non-Jew, fairly educated I think, and I don't get it.)
• This (link). Just this. The folklore aspect is fascinating, admittedly, but it really drives home how harsh life is for these children.
  • Web Links Are Not Examples.
• [x] Syndrome. Has anyone even SEEN the picture on the Wikipedia page?!
  • No, I have not seen it, and you don't explain why it is sad. All incurable diseases are sad.

... and so on, and so forth.

However, this really is a problem of that one page, not of the subjective trope. I really would not mind having this deleted. The subpage for Olympic Games tear-jerker is OK, though some of them I would prefer to see in heartwarming moments. But subjective is subjective.

edited 6th Mar '13 1:30:49 PM by XFllo

Any progress?

The problems you listed are Weblinks Are Not Examples and Zero Context Example. If you think it's a major problem, start a thread in long term projects (I recommend making it for all the moment pages, rather than specific to Tear Jerker), but that's not a problem for here. I'm calling for a lock.