Per Ask The Tropers, this thread will be used to reduce the number of old, poorly written drafts on the Trope Launch Pad
. We don't want to discuss on the drafts themselves because that will bump them and mix them with active proposals.
Sandbox for the project: Trope Launch Pad Discard Project
Sandbox for discarded drafts but viable ideas: Trope Idea Salvage Yard
The first sandbox page above contains drafts proposed in the thread that are still pending and drafts that we've decided to leave alone, either with no action or a bump.
The second sandbox page is for awful drafts but viable ideas. According to moderators, badly written but interesting/tropeworthy drafts
should remain on the TLP. Rather than allow low-effort drafts to clog TLP, though, the salvage yard was opened to keep just the ideas behind them, in one place.
On this thread, we will mention which drafts we think are unworkable, add enough bombs, and discard (nuke) them. Discarding requires at least 5 bombs. Among the features of "unworkable" drafts:
- There have been no edits for a very long time, or at all
- The draft is low-effort, containing atrocious spelling and grammar and/or little to no examples, e.g. NEVER saw THAT coming (!)
, Nut-Chuks
- The draft was seemingly created so the sponsor could complain
- The topic is People Sit on Chairs, Too Rare to Trope, a search query created by mistake, etc. and therefore not tropeworthy
- The topic is already sufficiently covered by one or more tropes or is a duplicate of a better-written TLP draft
- The draft is problematic in other ways, such being closely tied to a page that has been historically problematic, e.g. Fetish Fuel, Complete Monster
- There's no discussion currently occurring in the comments to improve the proposal
If we decide to discard a draft after discussion via this thread, whoever does so must provide the discard reason in the comment section of the draft, for transparency's sake. Those looking at the discards section won't think it was nuked for no reason.
Also, check out the sister project, Trope Adoption Drive
, where good drafts put Up for Grabs or abandoned can be grabbed, given a bit more improvement, and launched.
Edited by Tabs on Mar 24th 2022 at 12:02:43 PM
I copied the examples from Indestructium for my self. Most of them are already present anyway in Made of Indestructium. Some are missing, and I'll see how to insert them.
Anyway, all discarded drafts are still listed [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discards.php
? here]] to be read at anytime. Examples aren't lost if the draft is discarded before they are moved.
Edited by gc10 on Nov 9th 2019 at 4:37:23 PM
I'm pretty sure they don't disappear. When I first checked the Discarded Tropes
, there were 37 or 38 pages, now they're 42. And the oldest drafts, in the last pages, are still the same.
Well, the oldest Discards are from Feb 2018 onwards, so there was a removal of discards from before then but they might just be stored something I dunno.
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
- Why did you bump Four Season Affair TLP
? It's ready to nuke, but why did you bump that 2 year old TLP?
2 more until we hit 480! Wooo!
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/tlp_activity.php?filter=all&sort=latest&q=&page=481
Edited by Malady on Nov 9th 2019 at 6:36:00 AM
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576So, here are some other tropes to check.
-
Baby Episode: Already covered by Fountain of Youth.
-
The Battleaxe: "A formidable female, that you DON'T wanna mess around with." Bad name, and it's already covered by other tropes like Iron Lady.
-
Bruce Gi: An specific case of Whole Costume Reference.
- Bust Contrast Duo
: So, recently someone adopted this draft and has been working on it. Cool. But I found TWO other drafts with the same basic idea to discard.
-
I DON'T CARE: This is for documenting a stock phrase.
-
Projectile Parrying: Already covered by Parrying Bullets.
-
Stolen Valor: Already covered by Stealing the Credit.
Edited by ElBuenCuate on Nov 24th 2019 at 1:55:51 PM
These drafts need to be immediately bombed since there's an admonition against the creation of more 'Sliding Scale' tropes as per Moderator statement.
- Sliding Scale of Set Dressing
- Sliding Scale of Eye Detail
- Sliding Scale of Stealth Game Actiony-Ness
- Sliding Scale of Action vs Choice
- Sliding Scale of Stage Personas
- Sliding Scale Of Geographical Accuracy
- Sliding Scale of Stability vs. Chaos
- Sliding Scale of Reboots and Remakes
- Sliding Scale of Battle
I'm discarding Bruce Gi
.
I reread this thread up until page 24, to see if there are drafts that need to be discarded or mothballed:
-
IntersexMothballed
it's not mothballed, and some argue it is not tropeworthy. Theoretically it needs a single bomb to be discarded, but I'd rather not do that. Since some suggested of reworking it as Useful Notes, there is already LGBT Community: if we choose that way, couldn't we just rework the latter a bit? -
Relationship Won't Survive the AdventureMothballed
: it was suggested that it could be tropeworthy. It's not mothballed yet. -
Mattress MoneyMothballed
was proposed to be re-worked for greedy but short-sighted characters. It's not mothballed yet though. - Dummy trade gambit
. The draft is bad, but I understood the idea. As I said, I think it is already covered by other tropes. Does someone know better? So to understand if it can be just discarded or should be mothballed.
-
Reluctant FlashlightDiscarded
is Percussive Maintenance meets Ten-Second Flashlight. - Losing your voice
while many examples are already listed in Lost Voice Plot, they seem to be slightly different. Should we make a separate trope or just expand Lost Voice Plot?
-
Offscreen Training AgencyDiscarded
is The Bus Came Back meets Took a Level in Badass. - Tangentially Related Plot
it makes sense, but I think this one already exists too. What do you know?
-
Alternate Event HistoryDiscarded
is redundant of Real Event, Fictional Cause. - Skeptical judge
is poorly written. I don't think it's covered by already existing tropes, but do you think it is actually tropeworty or not?
- Anachronistic Hindsight
: There's a single example. Discard or Mothball?
Edited by gc10 on Nov 16th 2019 at 2:25:51 PM
About Time Travellers Meet Punk Rockers
:
I don't know how many times I'll have to repeat this, and specifically about this draft.
It is considered not tropeworthy by some and it is considered tropeworthy by others. It was decided to be mothballed a while ago. It has 6 bombs, but it also has 4 hats. (All undeserved, imo.) That's two net bombs. It is still up, and deservedly so.
"Does someone have a different idea with it?"
Yes, I do. I think it's a rather niche, perhaps Forgotten Trope. It could be made less narrow by including other radical or edgy youth cultures du jour, for example emo teens.
You'd know this if only you had bothered to read the discussion here and especially comments on the draft.
I don't get your obsession with nuking potentially viable, interesting drafts.
Edited by XFllo on Nov 10th 2019 at 2:20:01 PM
I realised now the draft is actually in the Trope Launch Pad Discard Project with a different title, I just didn't notice it before.
I didn't realise the discussion there, my bad, but I wasn't obsessed with nuking a potentially viable draft at all. On the contrary, I did notice the fact that the draft was still up despite having 6 bombs, and I did realise that it was better to bring it up to be discussed instead of just nuking it right away, because someone might have had an idea with it.
I'm not obsessed with nuking viable drafts at all costs. Even if I myself had this proposal of a "self-discard timer", that doesn't mean I'm not careful before bombing or discarding tropes. I discard them if I'm sure they're redundant, not tropeworthy or simply put in the TLP by mistakes. In many cases I just bombed and didn't discard drafts exactly because I realised someone might have been of a different idea. The intent of this last post of mine isn't to get rid indiscriminately of any drafts I found. On the contrary, I wanted to understand if there was something else that could be done instead of just go ahead discard them. In some cases I just wanted to notify that some drafts proposed for being mothballed weren't later mothballed, I didn't mean to "threat" by saying "mothball this or I'll discard it".
Edited by gc10 on Nov 10th 2019 at 3:19:34 PM
Discarded Alternate Event History. I think Reluctant Flashlight isn't more than Percussive Maintenance and/or Ten-Second Flashlight. Perhaps the latter description can be expanded. I'm at "we have this I swear" with the Dummy trade.
I discarded all the sliding scales drafts in this post
except for one missing a bomb.
OK, this is a big one, but it's mostly bad and/or incomplete sliding scales.
Different is Scary I don’t know that it’s a trope so much as fact of life (plus, don’t we already have it in some form?), but this is a zero-effort post.
Childlike Wisdom This is basically Simple-Minded Wisdom with “child” replacing “perceived simpleton,” and I don’t know that it’s meaningfully different from Kid Has a Point either. (For some reason the Laconic says “layperson” instead of “child,” to boot)
Do The Sick Guy’s Job This is basically a more specific instance of Closest Thing We Got, as noted in the comments.
Year From Hell Trauma Conga Line with an oddly specific time frame. Hilariously, very few of the examples stick to that time frame.
Annus Horribilis The exact same idea as previous (Year From Hell), only this has the proper Latin term for it. The draft does very little besides define the term and provide a few examples, almost all of which are Real Life.
Wakefield Gambit This could be a trope if there are some fictional examples, but as it stands, this is just attempting to trope Real Life. The only example is the Trope Namer. Possibly Too Rare To Trope. Never updated.
And now, a metric ton of Sliding Scales!
Sliding Scale of Humanities Vs Sciences
Siding Scale of Game Mod Friendliness
Sliding Spectrum of Prose
Sliding Scale of Story Arcs
Sliding Scale of Villany vs. Humanity
…of Setting Scope
…Speed vs. Strength
…of Prostitution (SERIOUSLY?!)
…of Monster Friendliness
…Adulthood vs. Childishness
…Racing Game Realism
…Music Obscurity
…Superhero Scope
There’s also one about Dungeon Complexity, but it seems to be ongoing, and may get changed to a So you Want To entry. So we’ll see.
Edited by HeavyMetalHermitCrab on Nov 11th 2019 at 12:30:33 PM
"Different is scary" is TSBMS of Uncanny Valley. If you read the latter, it includes racism or even "pettier" reasons on why "different" individuals are perceived as scary.
And I'm an idiot, I misread "Anus Horribilis". :/
I'm discarding Sliding Scale of Monster Friendliness
"Wakefield Gambit" makes sense even though I personally can't think of examples. The problem is that mentioniong immediatly the Real Life case seems to break the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment.
Edited by gc10 on Nov 10th 2019 at 8:37:35 PM
Rename Wakefield Gambit to Discredit The Competition?
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
- I wonder if Attack Ads from politicians against other politicians, counts? Or if that's a subtrope or something.
- Discredit The Competition doesn't sound like you'd discredit yourself.
If that's needed, then the title should reference Boomerang Bigot and Hypocrite?
Also Offending the Creator's Own?
Edited by Malady on Nov 11th 2019 at 9:25:43 AM
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

Then, I'm discarding Indestructium
.