TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Self-Demonstrating Character Pages cleanup

Go To

Important note:

  • This thread is for discussing individual self-demonstrating character pages. However, it was determined that consensus regarding whether such pages are or aren't necessary or beneficial to the wiki needs to be determined before discussing individual pages, as stated in this mod statement, so this thread has been locked in the meantime. Please join the policy discussion in this thread on the Wiki Talk forum.

    Original post 
So apparently the self-demonstrating page I created for Charizard was deleted. I could somehow sense that the character articles were getting out of hand, but since nobody really had a problem with it I just decided to run with it.

However, this deletion hints that rules should be in place for self-demonstrating character pages, so does anyone have suggestions for what the rules should be?

I have a few:

  • Deadpool has one, no questions asked (even if everyone else's are deleted). Especially Charizard's.
  • The character must be able to speak English (or other intelligible languages), except for Rule of Funny (like with Groot's page). Charizard violated this rule. Kyoko's page is fine since she'd be speaking Japanese, for example, which is simply "translated" for reader convenience (largely based on the official subtitles).
  • There can be a forum thread where people can post their drafts and suggestions for character pages, similar to the Fanon Pokédex. In this case, new character pages can't be started without being reviewed in the thread. This is to avoid having the wiki oversaturated with pages for characters with boring personalities (like Shu Ouma) or ones with strange speech patterns that aren't for Rule of Funny purposes like Charizard. I can just imagine the chaos that would have ensued if other tropers had decided to follow my lead and create Pokémon Speak pages for about 30 other species of Pokémon.

Any thoughts?

Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 4th 2024 at 11:22:35 AM

DongwaChan (Apprentice)
#1101: Oct 13th 2024 at 10:19:24 AM

Let's move the lore stuff to another thread then and focus this thread on cleanup.

pizzastropes180 Charlie Disco from your wallet (Season 2) Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
Charlie Disco
#1102: Oct 13th 2024 at 10:29:26 AM

link it here when its up

"And for one night only...you can get your revenge."
2HeadedMoonOctopus Dr. Jr. from Berlint, Ostania (Unitroper) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Dr. Jr.
#1103: Oct 13th 2024 at 10:31:33 AM

Should the lore thread go in the Wiki Talk or Just For Fun section?

Check out The TV Tropes Character Crossover War! Moving to a new home soon
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)
#1104: Oct 13th 2024 at 10:32:31 AM

I mean, is it possible that you guys might do better without worrying about it being "self demonstrating"? Like, if you want to go forward with this project, I'm sure there's a way you can do it in JFF or Darth without violating the rules of this namespace?

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
2HeadedMoonOctopus Dr. Jr. from Berlint, Ostania (Unitroper) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Dr. Jr.
#1105: Oct 13th 2024 at 10:35:31 AM

[up][up][up][up] I proposed moving everything to the JFF namespace under JustForFun.The TV Tropes Character Crossover War, while cleaning up the actual character pages to reduce cross-links to characters from the same series or with significant overlap and removing any "script" elements.

The main things linking the TTCCW to the SD pages would be that clicking on characters' names would lead to their SD pages, and a rule that any prominent characters with new lore added have to have an SD page at the time of writing; if their page is deleted then they're killed in the story.

And then the SD index would have a link, i.e. "See also The TV Tropes Character Crossover War, which details what would happen if all these characters gathered for an epic battle for multiversal domination."

Edited by 2HeadedMoonOctopus on Oct 13th 2024 at 1:38:18 PM

Check out The TV Tropes Character Crossover War! Moving to a new home soon
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)
#1106: Oct 13th 2024 at 10:37:29 AM

Just keep in mind that it's also against the rule to host "original fiction" here. The Pantheon/ gets away with it, but only by grandfather clause... Just try not to get too deep into the weeds.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
pizzastropes180 Charlie Disco from your wallet (Season 2) Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
Charlie Disco
#1107: Oct 13th 2024 at 10:38:22 AM

idk that seems like a stupid way of showing people are permanetly killed

that and i think the admins would not take it too well no matter how lore it is-

"And for one night only...you can get your revenge."
2HeadedMoonOctopus Dr. Jr. from Berlint, Ostania (Unitroper) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Dr. Jr.
#1108: Oct 13th 2024 at 10:39:24 AM

Should there be a vote then? I just feel like scrapping this concept would be a disappointment bc of how popular it turned out to be. Maybe there can also be rules to make sure things don't get too excessive.

EDIT: For reference, the SD index is now ranked 34th when it was previously in the hundreds. I think a lot of people are genuinely having fun with the lore and I feel that some ways of getting rid of the lore could come across as an "anti-fun police" move. IIRC the whole SD namespace is actually a subset of JFF.

[up] I actually mean the reverse: WHEN the character's SD page is removed, THEN the character is killed in-story.

Edited by 2HeadedMoonOctopus on Oct 13th 2024 at 2:01:19 PM

Check out The TV Tropes Character Crossover War! Moving to a new home soon
DongwaChan (Apprentice)
#1109: Oct 13th 2024 at 11:34:21 AM

I believe its best we move a bit of the lore to the Just for Fun section and try to work around the "original fiction" bits.

2HeadedMoonOctopus Dr. Jr. from Berlint, Ostania (Unitroper) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Dr. Jr.
#1110: Oct 13th 2024 at 11:53:05 AM

[up]Sounds good! I think the lore stingers are mainly what need to be moved, and big stuff like Makima destroying SS. And any cross-links without connections. I'll create a thread for "lore cleanup" tonight.

As for this thread, I feel that there should be a blacklist for characters who CANNOT receive self-demonstrating pages. Namely:

  • Any character without speech capabilities, or that suffers from Pokémon Speak or One-Word Vocabulary (obvious)

  • Preschool Show characters other than Barney's unique case and Robbie Rotten, because they cause Sweetness Aversion in some tropes and invite unnecessary crossovers that lead to unwanted lore (e.g. if someone created a Dora the Explorer page, people would either hate it or be chomping at the bit to have Deadpool slice her head off, with very few people actually enjoying it. It's part of the reason Barney's page is the way it is in the first place)

  • Pro wrestlers (as they can too easily be conflated with the people playing them)

The preschool show bit might be difficult to handle, as for example there might be a Bluey character someone likes and isn't widely hated, and wants to give a page. So maybe it can be "characters with a significant Periphery Hatedom that overlaps with the site's demographic" instead.

Edited by 2HeadedMoonOctopus on Oct 13th 2024 at 2:56:35 PM

Check out The TV Tropes Character Crossover War! Moving to a new home soon
DongwaChan (Apprentice)
#1111: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:00:30 PM

How about pro wrestlers stay, as long as there are no references to their non-kayfabe behavior (or the already-existing three could be grandfathered in)

The alternative rule of "No characters with a significant Periphery Hatedom that overlaps with the site's demographic" could work.

Edited by DongwaChan on Oct 13th 2024 at 3:00:59 PM

pizzastropes180 Charlie Disco from your wallet (Season 2) Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
Charlie Disco
#1112: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:01:15 PM

thats why scott, hulk and bray got pages after all

"And for one night only...you can get your revenge."
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)
#1113: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:02:45 PM

We don't really need a list like that, it's more on a case-by-case basis anyway (it's about unique voice more than anything) and I especially think the second one is overblown (and doesn't really stack up in reality, as Barney is a specific case and not indicative of a broader pattern). Keep in mind that this thread exists to clean-up and remove pages we don't think cut it, not just to help create more.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
2HeadedMoonOctopus Dr. Jr. from Berlint, Ostania (Unitroper) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Dr. Jr.
#1114: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:04:40 PM

Sounds good!

So as far as SS goes, Elmo would be deleted since he's disliked by older viewers, while Cookie, Count and Oscar would stay since they have no such similar hate on. While it'll be discussed in more detail in the lore thread, the whole SS Sugar Apocalypse arc can easily be reworked to not focus on Elmo once it's moved to a JFF page.

I'll get to work on it all tonight, including the new blacklist. I do feel that a blacklist is helpful since, like with the Dora example, pages for hated characters would invite derailment and unnecessary lore (personally I found the Elmo page to be unreadable back when it was "normal", and a hypothetical Dora page would be just as awful.) Or if not, such pages can be moved to the Sugar Wiki.

Edited by 2HeadedMoonOctopus on Oct 13th 2024 at 3:07:36 PM

Check out The TV Tropes Character Crossover War! Moving to a new home soon
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)
#1115: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:05:53 PM

This is a solution in search of a problem. We don't need a "blacklist".

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
DongwaChan (Apprentice)
#1116: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:08:35 PM

[up] A case-by-case basis would work better, honestly.

As I said, we should move discussion of lore and creating pages to a new thread, so this thread can be used for clean-up.

Edited by DongwaChan on Oct 13th 2024 at 3:13:39 PM

2HeadedMoonOctopus Dr. Jr. from Berlint, Ostania (Unitroper) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Dr. Jr.
#1117: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:13:13 PM

On-topic: in any case, can a case be made for deleting Elmo? Or say a hypothetical Dora page? The whole "cringe" thing is a matter of personal taste, so I don't think it'd be sufficient grounds on its own. Suppose unnecessarily deep crossovers were banned, then the best thing I can think of to make Elmo's page more readable to people who dislike him would be to have the non-SS characters with a Commonality Connection with Elmo roast him, e.g. "Elmo treats Anya like Anya is stupid", "Riki's littlepons hate Elmo for some reason", "ELMO'S STUPID BABY SHOW SEGMENT GET ON ANIMAL'S NERVES", etc.

Edited by 2HeadedMoonOctopus on Oct 13th 2024 at 3:15:06 PM

Check out The TV Tropes Character Crossover War! Moving to a new home soon
DongwaChan (Apprentice)
#1118: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:14:44 PM

[up] We could go with the option of moving some characters to Sugar Wiki like how Darth Vader and (for obvious reasons) Barney are on Darth Wiki, but obviously salvaging Elmo's page would be complicated, so I think the current option is to part it out (moving the lore section to another character's page, for example).

Edited by DongwaChan on Oct 13th 2024 at 3:15:35 PM

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)
#1119: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:15:17 PM

I mean, as you said, "cringe" is subjective and doesn't mean much. We delete the pages if we think that they're poorly written or uninteresting. The crossover stuff doesn't matter here since again it, at best, needs a separate thread and has nothing to do with how we decide which pages should and shouldn't be there. Elmo has a unique voice that allows a page in his perspective to be somewhat interesting, even if you personally dislike it (IDK why people would click on a page for a character they find annoying, personally)

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 13th 2024 at 3:15:45 PM

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
DongwaChan (Apprentice)
#1120: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:17:42 PM

[up] On second thought, Elmo's page could honestly stay. And, as I've said, I agree that we need a separate thread for discussing the creating of character pages and the whole "lore".

2HeadedMoonOctopus Dr. Jr. from Berlint, Ostania (Unitroper) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Dr. Jr.
#1121: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:27:36 PM

[up]I just got an idea to classify characters in the main SD namespace, Sugar Wiki, or Darth Wiki depending on the character and series. One big ramification of this is that it'd help keep crossover interactions nice and sorted out, which would be discussed in the other thread. Before any big sweeping changes, I'll make annotated samples for what such pages could look like after cleanup and moving, with a Sugar Wiki example (Elmo), a neutral example (SpongeBob) and a Darth Wiki example (Megatron or Hades). This would have more to do with contents and lore than keeping/deleting pages so I'll discuss it in more detail when I make the new thread.

Edited by 2HeadedMoonOctopus on Oct 13th 2024 at 3:28:59 PM

Check out The TV Tropes Character Crossover War! Moving to a new home soon
jandn2014 SMILE! from somewhere in Connecticut Since: Aug, 2017 Relationship Status: Hiding
SMILE!
#1122: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:34:35 PM

Just... we really just don't need lore on self-demonstrating pages. Does anyone other than, like, three or four users on this thread care about all of this? TV Tropes runs on consensus, and we can't go around making sprawling changes on the whims of only a few people.

2HeadedMoonOctopus Dr. Jr. from Berlint, Ostania (Unitroper) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
Dr. Jr.
#1123: Oct 13th 2024 at 12:36:04 PM

[up]Counterpoint: the index's ranking jumping up from the hundreds to 34th place.

Anyway, new thread here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17288479900A52919100&page=1

In the end, I feel like the most important question is whether the lore in its current state breaks any rules, which is the opening question for the new thread.

Edited by 2HeadedMoonOctopus on Oct 13th 2024 at 3:41:26 PM

Check out The TV Tropes Character Crossover War! Moving to a new home soon
IkeaHan Franchouchou Sponsor from Kamurocho, Tokyo Since: May, 2021 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Franchouchou Sponsor
#1124: Oct 14th 2024 at 3:00:25 PM

Self-Demonstrating: Character Page Ideas

I thought it'd be nice to have a page where I could sort out ideas for pages I wanted to write, and wanted other folks to have somewhere they could collect or write ideas.

Character Specific Page cleanup
AK47Productions Since: Feb, 2013
#1125: Oct 16th 2024 at 8:02:50 PM

I'm extremely hesitant to actually remove other people's ideas from the ideas page, but I will say right now that Uraraka already had her page deleted a while back for not having a distinctive voice. Just because Makima got her page revamped doesn't mean a second attempt will work out for everyone else.

Also ditto for the idea of Mario, as pointed out he's a iconic Heroic Mime save for short soundclips over the years and I'm not sure how viable a page based off of his movie-self would be. Honestly, I struggle to see any Mario character outside of the villains could have viable pages.


Total posts: 1,793
Top