"Overtroped" as a concept

This is something that I notice happening with very popular works where wikimagic is in overdrive on the work page leading to too many tropes being listed. This can range from misuse, like the same trope being listed for superficially similar-looking tropes or examples being mentioned twice, once for the super- and once for the subtrope, etc. The reason is the sheer number of users which increases the number of "fails" as well as making it harder to peer-review because of the length of the example lists. I am just coming from Recap.Game Of Thrones S 6 E 9 Battle Of The Bastards where I am compelled to remove more content than I am to add which is an odd thing.

The opposite (and more frequent) situation is an "undertroped" work which happens when there are not enough users to catch all potential tropes.

Anybody else noticing this phenomenon?

Edited by eroock on Jan 31st 2019 at 5:24:48 PM

Yeah, I agree. In principle, Trope Overdosed works should be works that are well, tropey, that make intentional use of genre conventions. In practice, works on there are works that are popular, no matter how tropey in feeling they are.

Tropes Are Not Good, but everyone thinks they are. If this is a problem, it's pretty intractable. People come here primarily to savor the media they enjoy- for me, troping is a lot about reliving works I like. That enthusiasm is hard to rein in, and it seems like it would upset a lot of people to do so, even if it might make for "better" articles.

See also RWBY Nightmare Fuel and Steven Universe What An Idiot. Those show up time and time again in various threads.

Yeah, it's definitely a thing that happens. By far the most prone with the "new, hot thing". So many tropers who want to chill their favourite work so much that they add anything that could potentially fit, in a rush to get it on the page so more people can find out about it as soon as possible.

Sometimes I wonder if there should be a global 24-hour waiting period from the first release before any example is allowed to be added to the wiki.

I a minded to disagree on this. "A lot of tropes are added" isn't a problem and doesn't need fixing and there is nothing putting a "too many" before "tropes being added". Cataloguing tropes and their examples is the raison d'être of TV Tropes, not some optional extra.

That tropes are frequently misapplied is a thing, though.

It's not about troperiffic works getting their due share of tropes added. It's the phenomenon that hype seems to relax users' cautiousness/second-guessing about if a trope applies or not. Users feel the need to add "anything that moves". There may be some other psychological reasons involved, I am not an expert. Just noticing pattern and would like to know if we have this conceptualized already or should in some administrivia terms.

I don't see a problem with that. It matches the principle written here: There Is No Such Thing as Notability

"TV Tropes Wiki was started by fans. People, that is, who like stuff. You will see that articles work better here when they are about something you like. This is a little bit of a shock to folks that are used to cynicism about the media. It takes a minute or two to get used to."

and

"We have examples ranging from media as diverse as Film to Fan Fiction and everything in between. Removing tropes, examples... anything... because of "notability" stifles the wiki. It can intimidate new writers who wanted to put in an example they liked and had it shot down."

Fans tend to gush about things they like, so naturally they add more tropes in this case. And that's ok. There is no "standard" or "maximum" number of tropes to add to a page, nor should it depend on the work's perceived "tropeyness" or something. As long as the trope applies, it can be added, even if it results in dozens and dozens of them.

Edited by Asherinka on Feb 9th 2019 at 2:52:15 PM

^ I was referring to misuse of tropes in order to get any content in. Are you saying we are sanctioning this behavior for the sake of user appeal?

Shoehorning likely occurs from a percentage of all tropes. I'd expect to see a page of a hundred tropes have a dozen or two shoehorns, while a page with only twenty tropes has only two-three. The more tropes there are, the more likely one is misused, but I don't think it is exponential like you imply.

^^ Nope, I said "As long as the trope applies". The first post in this thread mentions works with "too many tropes", and the title mentions the concept of being "overtroped", I was mainly replying to that. I believe there is no such thing as too many tropes

^ This. The page that has more tropes has more misuses, but I don't think there's some sort of non-linear relationship here. Misuses should be corrected, as always.

That's actually written on the page I cited in my previous post as well:

"This is a double-edged sword. Someone could add an example they made up and there is really nothing you could do to stop them. If the discussion finds an example to be purely fictional then it might get deleted, might. That's the way of things. But remember, we're here to have fun. Don't let this stuff burn you out."

Edited by Asherinka on Feb 12th 2019 at 12:09:43 PM

^^The more tropes there are, the more likely one is misused

^The page that has more tropes has more misuses

I would argue that the amount of misuse is not related to the amount of tropes found but to the amount of overzealous tropers you throw at it.

An example:

• Work A provides 200 tropes but is not popular. So 30 editors added their content and we end up with 140 tropes listed on page A.
• Work B provides 200 tropes and is extremely popular. So 200 fanboys and fangirls added their tropes. We end up with 210 tropes listed on page B.

If your assumption is right then page B should show about 50% more misuse than page A (140 versus 210). I would put my money on page B showing a notable higher amount of misuse of tropes (400%?) than page A. That's what I call "overtroped" due to popularity. That's my experience. I don't think there is a way to prove it, so it remains a hypothesis. Just thought it was worth discussing.

Edited by eroock on Feb 16th 2019 at 4:28:54 PM

Sure there is. Find a work page (A) with ~100 tropes and less than 100 editors. Then find a work page with ~100 tropes and more than 200 editors (B).

If I'm right, page B will have less than double the number of misuse that page A has, and if you're right, page B will have more than double the misuse. Note that commented-out examples don't count, and using a supertrope instead of a subtrope does.