Misused: Divide By Zero

We have 6 agreements on Reality-Breaking Paradox (myself included even though I suggested it). Do we need any more votes to call it unanimous?

Ahem, this isn't Image Picking. Also, we need to know what to make with the old name.

I think the old name should either be a disambig, or should be about literal divisions by zero (of which there are a number of examples already).

I was only wondering.

Divided By Zero is a pretty well known phrase because of it memetic affiliation. I don't think it would be well received afterward if it was about literal divisions by zero.

I like RBP, so seven.

Literal divisions of zero, not sure what a disambiguation would point to aside from the random misuse that partially came from a weak description.

Edit: I'm not familar with the meme being referenced.

edited 30th May '13 11:03:44 AM by crazysamaritan

just do a google image search. Basically, anytime you divide something by itself or by zero, you create a black hole in the fabric of space and time.

Agree with Reality-Breaking Paradox.

Adding my own echo for RBP

Reality-Breaking Paradox works for me.

As for what to do with Divide by Zero, not sure. My first inclination is to use it as a redirect to RBP (or whatever is finally decided, if not that), and zap Real Life entries (or at least the ones talking about the mathematical concept).

While I don't see any problems with that, I'm not absolutely certain, hence "first inclination" and not "this is what should be done".

Thinking about it some more, "dividing by zero" in the literal sense is not a trope; it's an abstract mathematical concept that many people don't realy understand. So redirecting it would arguably be better than keeping it as a separate page.

That sounds good to me. Redirect Divide by Zero to Reality-Breaking Paradox.

Agreed on the redirect.

Yup, agreed on redirect. Do we need a crowner to make this official?

edited 31st May '13 4:06:56 PM by tryrar

Another vote.

Divide By Zero should be deleted because it's a preexisting term. It's not directly related to the subject, and as long as there's a redirect, there will be misuse as contributors think it's a separate trope.

As of this post there are 496 inbounds for Divide by Zero. There's no way it would get cut with that much traffic, so redirect is the next-best option.

We could at least clear the redirects Division By Zero and Divided By Zero since there are only 5 examples each.

We should at least do that much.

I want to see what Dividing By Zero is typically used for before making a decision about it's post-renaming featuring.

We'll probably need a crowner here too, since it's not a minor trope.

My own feeling is that after the rename, the description should have a note about the previous name and that literal division by zero isn't a trope, therefore there should be no examples for it.

I think it'd be better put the Divide by Zero meme as an example under Web Original, which would put it further out of view. For example:

• The "Divide by Zero" meme that cropped up on various Image Boards sometime in the mid-2000s (the earliest reference Know Your Meme has for it is in 2005). The idea was that dividing by zero, a mathematically weird operation, would break reality and cause bad (and funny) things to happen. The meme usually took the form of Image Macros with the caption "OH SHI--".

EDIT: Took off the pothole to the renamed tropes list.

EDIT 2: Removed reference to this being the former trope name.

edited 3rd Jun '13 11:07:05 AM by StarSword

I like that.

We don't generally have pages for memes, I think.

No, but they can still provide examples for tropes. I think.

We do have a smattering of older pages for memes namespaced to Web Original but I don't think we're making any more. As far as the potholes the first goes to the renamed tropes list (pothole can probably be removed without harm), and the other goes to an Analysis page on mathematical division by zero.

edited 3rd Jun '13 10:15:13 AM by StarSword

@45/46: I have to object in principle to mentioning "this was the Trope Formerly Known As X".