Headscratchers Cleanup

Hang on, double checking and this is an insta-cut, because it's a Headscratcher's page for a trope, and those aren't allowed.

Could any of it be salvaged as an Analysis page?

Wait, does a Public Domain Character really qualify as a "trope"?

Yeah. It's in Main, and we wick it like a trope.

Maybe it should be better clarified as: Only work pages get headscratchers.

This thread has started to discuss whether the namespace should be kept. Since the discussion shifted from the original question, I suggest it be continued here.

Setting aside the issue of how Santa should be classified, the page has a lot of issues (i.e. bashing, meta questions). We should probably just cutist it.

Yeah, it seems too real-life-y.

Page was cut.

I found this on the Headscratchers for Glee season four. The initial question is complainy and the discussion gets very heated:

• Is it just me or does it seem absurdly hypocritical to having most of the glee club dog Chris Brown beating up Rihanna and Rachel swoon over the fact that Finn beat the hell out of Brody, all in the same episode? I mean, give Chris Brown all the hell you want (I'm right there with you), but don't then turn around and glorify violence in another scenario. Or is it somehow okay to beat someone into paste as long as they are the same gender as you?
  • Chris beating up Rihanna was domestic abuse. Finn vs Brody was not.
    • So it is okay to beat someone half to death as long as you and they are the same gender, then?
    • No. But are you seriously saying Finn beat Brody half to death? There's a huge difference between Brody's face with the one black eye and Rihanna's face which was bloody, bruised, swollen, swollen eye shut, had contusions, bloody lips.
    • Obviously there's a difference but if you're going to do it by degrees, then where's the line? Is it okay to give someone one black eye but not two? How many bruises is too many? How much swelling is an acceptable level of swelling before you've crossed the line? How much internal bleeding is justified? And what about those who don't bruise as easily as most people, is it okay to beat them more because the damage doesn't show as much? Do you see the issue with condemning violence with one hand and applauding it with the other?
    • That is exactly the point, there are degrees, there are differences. It's not hypocritical that the show did not treat Finn vs Brody and Chris/Rihanna as the same thing, because it ISN'T the same thing. All violence is not created equally.
    • Okay, so as I said above, where's the line? When have you gone too far? And how is trashing a hotel room to pound the hell out of someone who is barely fighting back not considered crossing it?
    • Have you actually seen the fight? Brody put his hands on Finn first, Finn punched Brody. Brody threw a lamp at Finn and tackled him which caused the rolling that caused the damage. Finn punched Brody one more time and then left. It was a total of two punches. Brody was not "barely fighting back". And whatever line Finn crossed with his two punches, it is a far cry from the line Chris Brown crossed when he beat up Rihanna and left her broken, bloody, swollen and bruised
    • How is what Finn did not considered domestic abuse? He confronted Brody to tell him to leave Rachel. Sure, Finn wasn't planning to use violence, but he was still planning to intimidate Brody. I'm pretty sure that trying to scare guys away from your ex-girlfriend is domestic abuse.
    • Domestic abuse is defined as between spouses and their partners. Finn vs Brody was not domestic abuse.
    • Yeah, what Finn did to Brody wasn't domestic abuse, but what about his actions towards Rachel. Finn wasn't trying to get Brody to come clean to Rachel. He was trying to get Brody to disappear from Rachel's life. At the end of their fight, Finn calls Rachel his future wife. This is clearly possessive behavior. I think a court of law would consider this to be domestic abuse, if not stalking.
    • If Finn went to Rachel and threatened her to stop seeing Brody, you might have a case. But he did not. AGAIN Domestic abuse is between a spouses/partner and their spouse/partner. Finn made zero contact with Rachel in the episode. While there was an altercation between Finn and Brody, they are NOT partners. There is NO CASE OF DOMESTIC ABUSE.
  • Plus, it can't be said that they were "glorifying" violence with the Finn and Brody thing. It seems to me that they did it fairly neutrally, leaning to Finn being the bad guy just by his sheer brutality and stupid words, but ultimately leaving it to the viewer to decide.
    • Did anyone ever condemn his actions? No. Did Rachel apologize to Brody after he told her what happened? No. Did the show in any way ever say that Brody didn't have that beating coming to him? No. Did Rachel swoon at the fact that Finn beat Brody senseless? Yes, she did. Did Rachel thank Santana for calling Finn in to "defend her honor"? Yes, she did. So we as an audience are free to feel whatever we feel about it (like we are with everything on the show), but the show wants us to feel like it was a good/romantic thing and a reason for Finn and Rachel's inevitable reunion.
    • Glorifying probably isn't the right word, but was definitely painted in a positive light.
• Okay, I know it's mostly new members now but still. Why did the Glee club have no problem with singing a Gary Glitter song but when it comes to Chris Brown they act like it's the worst thing ever? And why have Jake make such valid points for singing the song, only to have him turn around and sing a different one after all?

Yeah, that might even be a bit ROCEJ-y from the get.

I just realized I copied a second question (the one about the show condemning Chris Brown, but not Gary Glitter), but that one also seems questionable.

I deleted the Glee headscratcher about domestic abuse. I looked around at the other headscratchers pages for Glee and found this under the Season Two Headscratchers. The discussion gets very heated and some insults are thrown out:

Cheating & Stupid

• Brittany cheats on Artie with Santana and they just talk. Artie calls her stupid and they break up. Unless they say Brittany has a mental disorder (which would make a good story line), Artie wasn't the worst.
  • Because Brittany honestly didn't know she was cheating. Artie could have told her that Santana was lying and taking advantage of her, but instead decided to insult the very thing that seem to affect her the most(That's what she wrote in her shirt after all).
  • Artie's line is "Why are you so stupid?" It's not meant to be cruel, it's an expression of frustration at Brittany's willful failure to see anything wrong with her behavior or Santana's manipulation. saying that something isn't wrong "because someone else said so" only lets you dodge responsibility for so long.
    • Artie could have said that. He could have call her naive, or he could have confronted her with Santana around, so he could have called her out. He willingly decided to call her stupid.
    • No, he spoke without thinking because he was growing frustrated because this was probably not the first time they've had this conversation. Yes what he did was bad but nowhere near unforgivable especially considering that his girlfriend has been cheating on for for some time. You can try to make him out to be the bad guy all you want but that doesn't make it true.
    • It's ultimately all YMMV. "probably not the first time they've had this conversation" is all speculation, while Artie might have know or suspected Brittany was with Santana, for all we know, this is the first time he has addressed the problem with Brittany. Besides, it's not the first time Artie has had a knee-jerk reaction like this, of the top of my head, he had done so with Tina three times, and is the second time he does with Brittany. Likewise, kettle and pot, you can try to make Brittany the bad guy, but it doesn't make it any more true.
  • I see it from Brittany's side because I have been there. Nearly everyone in my school called me retarded at some point and it was only recently where I have had a class where someone didn't say it and I had to get a lawyer to get rid of the problems. So considering what Brittany said about Arite being the only one to never call her stupid at some point (which is likely a hyperbole, though maybe not) probably felt like a punch to the gut.
  • I'm assuming that anyone old enough to read this page is aware that an angry comment made in the heat of the moment can really hurt someone. Artie was understandably frustrated and lashed out. Unfortunately, the insult he chose hit Brittany a little too close to home. He may not even have been aware of how Brittany feels about being called stupid: a lot of people put up a brave front about something that really bothers them. I personally make a lot of jokes about my appearance. That doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt if someone close to me pointed out how plain I am. Likewise, Brittany generally acts so carefree that it's not immediately obvious how self-consious she is about her intelligence. Having the one person who's never called her stupid do so, even if it was without thinking, had to have caused her a lot of pain.
• Unless some of the posters above originally hail from Carealot, asserting that calling someone "stupid" is an unreasonable response to their cheating on you is a bit hyperbolic. I mean it's barely a step above "doodie-head" on the scale of "terrible insults". "But she's got deep seated issues and that was the one thing blah blah..." Indeed. I'm sure it was quite hurtful, but you know what else is hurtful? CHEATING!
  • Sorry, but, by default, anyone who resorts to cheap-shots below the belt loses the fight, no matter who started it. Had Artie gone on trying to make Brittany understand that not because Santana says something makes it true, then yes, he would be entitled to be all pissed at her, but alas, the sympathy is switched when he starts insulting someone.
  • Anyone who commits fundamental breach of trust in a relationship, should expect stronger language than "stupid" from the wronged party. Unless the expectation is that Artie is meant to be Jesus Christ himself, it's somewhat unreasonable to expect his response in the situation to be calm explanation. If the argument is that Brittany is faultless because she didn't understand that she was cheating, then the same argument exempts Artie from blame (since how was he supposed to know that run-of-the-mill insult was going to wound her so deeply?). Lastly, calling someone who's just confessed to cheating on you because the other woman said it was ok "stupid" is more an accurate assessment of the situation than a cheap shot. There is no "you automatically lose the fight because you were insulting rule" That's not how the world works. If it was, then being a Karma Houdini would be as simple as making sure all your actions were horrible enough for people to call you names.
    • That's how trolls works, you know? And the one who breaks the rules is the one who gets in trouble, regardless of what started it. It looks bad because Artie started being reasonable and mature, and just suddenly called names. If he had started angry from the beginning, the shock would have been a lot less.
    • Trolls aren't exactly sympathetic are they though? They're also largely unsuccessful unless the audience is gripping the Idiot Ball. It also doesn't work if the troll is caught breaking the rules a la Brittany caught cheating. The only reason people see Artie as the villain is because the storyline was written to portray him as such and because Brittany is portrayed as the sympathetic Cloud Cuckoo Lander.
    • I'm not saying brittany is a Troll, just comparing the fact that whoever loses their temper first loses, like it happened here. And, purposely or on accident, this is like many other conflicts in Glee that have a grey area, the people who sympathize more with Artie will think he's the victim, people who sympathize more with Brittany think she was the wronged one, so let's agree to disagree, 'cuz there is no point in keeping discussing this.
• The part that annoys me here is when Brittany says that he was the only person that never called her that, but I can't imagine Mike, Tina, Sam or even Santana ever calling her stupid, it just doesn't fit with their personalities.
  • Santana calls her stupid all the time. I didn't understand why she would go to her for comfort.

Why is first person usage on Headscratchers pages said to be a bad thing? Just about anyone reading it knows instinctively that there are multiple people participating in a discussion about questions about the work which don't make sense to everyone, and then answers in response to help it make sense. So it's not like they're going to be confused by multiple people using "I" or "me" without reference to their usernames. Any discussion online or in real life needs first person usage of langauge to enable this. It's not a Main, YMMV, Trivia or any other type of page. It should be allowed for Headscratchers. Sometimes it's just impossible to participate without first person.

Edited by FlashSteps on Apr 10th 2021 at 10:19:47 AM

Because Headscratchers isn't supposed to operate as a forum with long debates. It's just supposed to be a Q/A page about the work.

Honestly, I'm not fond of that rule either because with so many answers that are WMGs by fans, it indicates they're not being assertive. It's not like not Quora or Stackoverflow where answers are definitely factual.

Although I will admit 1st person does make the page look less clean.

Edited by IndubitablyLeft on Apr 17th 2021 at 5:39:28 PM

So, what should we do with "Episodic Headscratchers"? That is, headscratcher queries and debates made before the work actually ends, often with the questions being answered by the work itself, making the debates boil down to...pretty much useless.

Personally, I'd delete any question that's eventually answered by the work, but I'd like some official statement on that.

I am against that. Not all people consume the entirety of a work, for whatever reason. Just answer the Headscratcher as "This is answered in X episode"

Sorry to be a broken record, but no one answered this— I've seen people replying, "A Wizard Did It" to Headscratchers. Is this allowed? I hope it isn't.

I'm not sure. We'd need some mod to explain things here.

So Headscratchers.Left Behind are pretty damn bashy. Judging by the repeated mentions of "bugs me", they're a holdover from IJBM.

My thought is that if literally all they're saying is A Wizard Did It, then that shouldn't be allowed, as it's the headscratchers version of a ZCE, if that makes sense. But I've seen plenty of answers using A Wizard Did It as a lead-up to explain how there's all this evidence that the work in question is just giving a quick "it's magic, we don't have to explain it," which does feel like a valid answer. There might be a better answer, but it's not something that needs to be zapped.

Headscratchers.Left Behind also has serious first-person issues and some minor formatting problems. It's short, though, so I'll give it a pass and see how it looks.

Alright, think I got everything. How's it look now?

Several of the entries on Headscratchers.Cinema Sins just seem to be “What are the origins of this running gag?” Is this valid, since there isn’t a storyline in the show?

So, uh, what's our stance on the long debates that can happen on these pages? Are they banned under the Conversation In The Main Page rule? If so, there's a lot of pages to clean, but I think we can fix a lot of problems by removing these debates and commentaries, removing any answer that has attracted enough natter to be questionable or provably untrue, and basically allowing the only things to be on the pages, well...questions and various answers to said questions.