On the subject of pre-release work pages

Pre-release work pages is a hot-button issue that has spawned many an ATT thread because they're magnets for shoehorned tropes and speculative troping, especially when they get YMMV pages made for them.

Now that the introduction is out of the way, let's discuss this, shall we?

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Relevant discussions:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=71762&type=att https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=72565&type=att https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=72807&type=att

I'll repeat what I said earlier:

If it were up to me, here's how I would handle things:

• Pre-release, production has not started yet: do not give it its own page. It may be mentioned in a creator, franchise, or predecessor's page (the latter two depending on whether it's the only such film), but not at length. Issues with casting, scripting, budgeting, and other things can affect what would otherwise be a done deal.
• Pre-release, production has started: give it its own page. It may only have a tropeless main page (for inbounds and curious readers), a laconic (since rewriting it when necessary involves little work), and a WMG page (for speculation, which is fun and permissible).
• Upon release, go nuts.

Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!

My own personal opinion wavers between "create an outright ban on these pages" and "Create with as many tropes as possible (and legit) from the trailer, then lock immediately".

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I'd say outright ban since Trailers Always Lie. Half the tropes we get from any trailer could be completely invalid once the movie actually premieres.

"pre-release" is misleading, because works get canceled, stuck in Development Hell, never intended for development, abandoned in the studio, and delayed... And until the Creator rescues the work, pays for a release, or makes enough copies to keep the copyright, only fragments of the official work are available.

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The common thread here is that the works are Unreleased.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Thank god, finally.

I vote outright ban. There's definitely a whole set of trailer-specific tropes out there, but even a lot of those require the final product for comparison. More to point, it would eliminate so much pointless editing drama.

Whatever we decide on, it should affect more than just entire pages for full upcoming movies.

The rules should also affect upcoming DLC in an already-released game or an upcoming Grand Finale of a current show.

Agreed.

If pre-release film pages are to be prohibited to be created/edited by the general public of the wiki, I propose that any further troping of unreleased films (or works, if everyone agrees to totally ban it for games and TV shows too) should be treated like we treat Complete Monster: any tropes about the trailers themselves etc. must be discussed and approved in megathreads (perhaps YMMV in one megathread, work pages on another) before a moderator can create the page before the release of the work.

Edited by Albert3105 on Feb 14th 2019 at 5:35:09 AM

That seems like unnecessary makework, IMO. Is it really so hard for people to just completely wait until the damn thing is out?

^ I agree.

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Judging by the backlash, I keep ending up on the wrong side of vocal troper opinion spectrum with my inclusionism, whelp.

Now a different procedural question: If the moderators close this thread with a pass, should the currently existing pre-release works pages be locked as a Grandfather Clause, sent to Darth Wiki to redirect the speculation off the main pages, or cut and recreated from scratch on release day? All of these options were suggested in the original ATT threads (and not by myself).

(retracted something to do with Works' Pages Are a Free Launch)

Edited by Albert3105 on Feb 14th 2019 at 8:05:36 AM

By existing, you mean pages like Frozen 2? I say to cut it.

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This is already sounding like another exact rehash of the ATT threads, where a Vocal Minority of approximately 6 people express frustration.

Edited by Albert3105 on Feb 14th 2019 at 8:06:54 AM

Works' Pages Are a Free Launch already prohibits works pages for works that aren't out yet:

As long as these... works exist, are published... and are not porn, then they have a right to a page.

Italics mine.

Retracted that.

The way I see it, the page will have to be rewritten from scratch, or something near it, after the work is released. If it is Speculative Troping, keep it to the forums. Unless you're making it a Just for Fun thing with wild speculation that will be tossed once we see the real work.

Can the WMG pages for unreleased works be exempt from this proposed ban, since speculation is the whole point of WMG pages?

That's the only type of page I'm willing to accept for unreleased works, so long as we limit these works to "works that are definitely coming out" and not "eh this work doesn't exist but maybe one day it will".

The problems with the other pages (speculation, shoe-horns, and knee-jerk reactions) don't apply to WMG.

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As The Shelf of Movie Languishment shows, that line isn't black-and-white.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I know... but we need some line. Forbidding WM Gs for these works seems foolish, assuming they are works that will eventually be released.

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There is no reason to not have a page for an unreleased work once a trailer (or something similar) is out. At that point, there is material about that work that can be troped. The main page (Film/ or VideoGame/ or whatever) should be created at that point. WMG for pre-release theories is fine too.

Moments subpages should probably not be allowed, since that usually just leads to "every single line from the trailer is Awesome or Funny."

YMMV, if allowed, has to be heavily limited due to large amounts of pointless hype/complaining that has little to do with the work.

Except that a majority of examples added to pages based on trailers and the like are often either shoe-horns or speculation. Trailers Always Lie, remember.

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I'm not saying keep the shoehorns/speculation, but there is definitely something tropeable about the work at that point. It just needs to be kept to only confirmed material. See Aladdin (2019) for how it can (mostly) work. The YMMV page is still a hellhole though.

While I would agree that we should keep the pages free of non-examples, we have plenty of evidence to show that a lot of tropers either can't or won't wait for anything to be confirmed before going off and adding examples. The Aladdin page is one example of the contrary, but it's in the minority as far as I'm aware.

I just don't find that keeping these pages around is worth the time and energy investment needed to keep them clean of unfitting examples posted out of hype. If people won't calm down and add examples when they can be sure these examples actually fit, then I'd rather prevent the problem entirely than keep worrying about cleanup.

The YMMV page for Aladdin should be cut, regardless.

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