The Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment exists to prevent tropers from making agenda-based edits or bringing up irrelevant controversial issues, but it's not always obvious if something breaks the rule or not. This thread serves the purposes of:
- Getting consensus on cutting overly controversial edits.
- Rewriting biased examples to be more neutral.
- Pre-emptively clarifying if a possible example actually violates the rule, or if it's okay to add.
- Making sure that the rule isn't just being used as an excuse to write a Zero-Context Example ("Some people think that X is Y, and that's all we have to say about it.")
Notes regarding edits related to current political figures
- Current political figures should not be a subject of any trope example on the wiki, except when they meet all three of the following criteria:
- When the work in question specifically mentions the real life individual.
- When the entirety of the example has to do with the portrayal of that individual in the work.
- When the work is fictional.
- Alternatively, when a current political figure has a creative role themselves, such as writing or acting in a work, we give them no more nor less treatment then we would any other creator.
- Additionally, please make sure to take out any examples of Harsher in Hindsight or Hilarious in Hindsight regarding current political figures. A political event that may be seen positively by some people may be seen negatively by others.
Other relevant threads and pages
- The Troping Works That Promote Bigotry
thread, for cleanup involving pages for bigoted works.
- The Pages Attracting Edits That Promote Bigotry sandbox, for pages that attract ROCEJ violations that are bigoted in nature.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 19th 2024 at 12:40:14 PM
As a compromise, how about we leave the basic gist of the new paragraph there, but I rewrite it to be more generic/less inflammatory? Like make it so it doesn’t mention specific modern events like COVID and BLM? Just say cyberpunk saw a popularity resurgence thanks to the issues it tackled resurfacing and leave it at that.
Edited by chopshop on Nov 18th 2020 at 3:36:49 AM
Punk has an inherently political slant, and I believe cyberpunk does as well. Acknowledging that isn't bad, but we should keep that bit non-specific and just note the resurgence of the genre in America in light of heightened political tension.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Ben Shapiro is attracting some agenda-based editing. Perhaps inevitable with a polarizing pundit, but I think it goes a bit far when you slip in inflammatory stuff like "he's a racist, sexist, homophobic bigot" on the YMMV page as if it were objective fact and rewrite the laconic to say "he's usually wrong".
Edited by Morgenthaler on Nov 23rd 2020 at 4:08:35 AM
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Honestly, I question if anything he’s produced is the kind of creative work that warrants a page.
Perhaps, but if we were to go down that route we should at least be consistent. We have pages on political commentators varying from Glenn Beck to Keith Olbermann. Do their programs qualify as creative media? Probably. Are their pages more trouble than they are worth? That's an open question.
Edited by Morgenthaler on Nov 23rd 2020 at 4:20:36 AM
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"I know for a fact Ben Shapiro has written fiction, but honestly we can probably cut his page for being a controversy magnet. Same with the others. Though to be fair Olbermann and Beck have not been relevant in years as a politics guy myself, so there would most likely be less arguing on their pages (maybe Beck because I think his news group is still around.)
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall![]()
I'm not interested in a Flame War, Lighty. You can take whatever highly ideological and inflammatory stances you'd like under the pretense of moral objectivity.
The issue on the table right now is whether it's worth having these type of pages because of the mudslinging they attract, not whether they conform to anybody's personal beliefs.
If you honestly have to ask that question, I'd suggest you read Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment first. It's not our job to lecture people.
Edited by Morgenthaler on Nov 23rd 2020 at 10:24:53 AM
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"So I found Bryan Fischer. Is their any reason we need a page to a right wing fundamentlist nutjob when the entirety of the thing is bashing him (not saying the bashing of his shitty beliefs is wrong but it seems weird to have a page on something like this without a narrative and will clearly inflame people).
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
From a look at his page, his material isn't "creative" in the sense we use to refer to works with tropes deliberately used anyway.
You can get that point across without sneering insults and implicitly goading me to debunk them. I'm not interested. And I'm not even a steadfast supporter of the guy. I find his Holier Than Thou personality to be unpleasant.
Edited by Morgenthaler on Nov 23rd 2020 at 10:21:23 AM
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"If you're taking this as insults, it's not intended towards you. I'm not going to pretend a guy who called a transwoman "sir" repeatedly to her face for the sole purpose of being insulting isn't a bigot, though.
If the YMMV causes problems, then cut it, but as long as total creeps have those, people are going to use them to discuss real life controversies. In Shapiro's case, this seems to be a case of "does accurately describing him/his views sound insulting?"
Edited by Lightysnake on Nov 23rd 2020 at 8:33:23 AM
This is reminding me of the Stonetoss garbage all over again. If all we have to talk about are his political opinions, and those opinions are so heated that we cannot discuss them neutrally, then the safest option is to cut the page. Luckily we probably won't attract attention from him or his followers, though, so it might not need to be PRLC'd.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.All things considered, until now YMMV.Ben Shapiro actually looks pretty even-handed towards his detractors and supporters, describing him as both a Memetic Badass and a Memetic Loser. But if it's just going to incite flaming and theological arguments disguised as political ones, cut the entire thing.
Just sent a notifier to the editor.
Edited by Morgenthaler on Nov 23rd 2020 at 9:02:56 AM
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
I should mention that the Memetic Badass/Memetic Loser example is wrongly formatted. You're supposed to have one trope per bullet point, not two.

Edited by SebastianGray on Nov 18th 2020 at 9:11:52 AM