Misused: Administrivia.Definition Only Pages

While writing up this proposal for a category of "no examples on page, no examples in wicks" pages, I did see this Administrivia/ page that seemed to cover the same ground.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed a couple of problems:

1. While the description hints that tropes listed here supposedly disallow both on-page and off-page examples, 18^List All Men Are Rapists, Fan Dumb, Fetish-Fuel Future, The Firefly Effect, Functional Genre Savvy, The Good Guys Always Win, Hatedom, Hate Dumb, Informed Conversation, Level Breaker, Men Are Tough, Murderers Are Rapists, Regular Character, Silent Majority, True Art Is Ancient, True Art Is Boring, Whoring, You Would Make a Great Model have a number of wicks large enough to suggest that offpage examples are plentiful.
2. There doesn't seem to be a process for adding tropes to this page. Normally declaring a page exampleless and disallowing wicks is done in TRS or some other maintenance venue.
3. Many of the rationales given here seem questionable e.g I know that Explicit Content and Lolicon and Shotacon are exampleless because they started out as term definitions, and many of the tropes like Scenic Route were written at a time when examples were not always required.

In short, this requires some maintenance work.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I don't have much to say at the moment, but the category for pages that only allow wicks and forbid on-page examples is No On-Page Examples. Wicks for Definition-Only Pages are supposed to be restricted to references to the definition, and not full-fledged examples.

One thing that's been bugging me is that Accidental Nightmare Fuel's page says it's a Fan Speak page and examples for unintentional horror should be listed under Nightmare Fuel instead, but it's indexed under No On-Page Examples instead of Definition-Only Pages.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 2nd 2020 at 7:48:29 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

1. Definition-Only exists because of this thread. If, as a mod, you want to say "go ahead and do the cleanup indicated by the category", I'm fine with that. I haven't pushed since I'm only one voice.
2. My thought process was to keep using that thread for evaluating what should be added/stay and what should be removed or moved from one page in the Example Sectionectomy category to another. I came up with most of the distribution on a few rules of thumb so that I was consistent more than opinionated. There has been very little discussion on specific pages, but some things did get changed around.
3. That's all ~Luc's activity; they say it was guesswork.

"pages which only allow offpage examples" is No On-Page Examples. Definition-Only Pages doesn't allow for any examples anywhere, but does allow for wicks.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Hrm. Seems like we need to strip some explanations and some items from Definition-Only Pages, then. And say explicitly on page that a) one shouldn't list examples of these items on other pages (which would comprise yanking these items from the Audience Reactions, Trivia and YMMV.Home Page, too) and b) directly reference that thread on the page.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The terms sound backward to me. If you didn't tell me, I'd think it was the other way around- Definition Only not allowing wicks, and No On Page Examples allowing them. Maybe just me- I'd assume the terms "on page" is referring specifically to the trope page.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The categorization scheme is supposed to be:

• No On-Page Examples: Examples on the page aren't OK but they are OK on work pages.
• Definition-Only Pages: Examples aren't OK on the page and aren't OK on work pages.
• Flame Bait: Examples are OK on the page (or not) but aren't OK on work pages.

(Ugh. Example Sectionectomy which lists all of these says it's about tropes without an on-page example section ... but then goes on to list NRLEP and other things that do...)

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

You've got the gist of what I intended, but there's another layer to it as well; wicks within examples.

• NOPE: Examples on the page aren't OK but they are OK on work pages.
  • Can have wicks in examples for other tropes.
• Definition-Only: Examples aren't OK on the page and aren't OK on work pages.
  • Can have wicks in examples for other tropes.
• Flame Bait: Examples are OK on the page (or not) but aren't OK on work pages.
  • Cannot have wicks in examples for other tropes.

Exceptions made for In-Universe discussion by characters/narration, but not for Show Within a Show. If there's something that anyone can point to for improvement, I'd like to hear from them. I don't feel like I got enough feedback to be completely satisfied.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Flame Bait also isn't mutually exclusive with Definition-Only Pages. Some Flame Bait pages allow on-page examples, but the ones that are also on Definition-Only Pages don't.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 2nd 2020 at 7:23:56 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

So basically it's the following:

• Allows examples everywhere: Tropes, Trivia, Audience Reactions/YMMV.Home Page.
• Allows examples on the page but not off the page: ? (Some Flame Bait items)
• Allows examples off the page but not on the page: No On-Page Examples
• Allows examples neither off the page nor on the page: Definition-Only Pages and some Flame Bait items.

I am guessing that some confusion here stems from the fact that the whole system has been assembled piecemeal. That might also explain why the pages that define the concepts are dispersed over two namespaces.

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Getting back to this page, I think the minimal list of items that should be on Definition-Only Pages is basically the same as that on Sandbox.Fan Speak, i.e:

• Accidental Nightmare Fuel
• Badass
• Bishoujo
• Baka
• Dandere
• Dojikko
• Fetish Fuel
• Hentai
• Het
• "Holy Shit!" Quotient
• Kuudere
• Level Breaker
• Lolicon and Shotacon
• Misty May
• Netorare
• Oba-san
• Pettanko
• Spork
• Tenchi Solution

The other items either don't belong here at all or need more discussion before they can be added.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Aug 3rd 2020 at 3:00:27 AM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Just to be clear, again:

• My descriptions are free for anybody to edit if they're wrong.
• The descriptions were explicitly guesswork on my part.
• I expected them to be edited by others who knew more about why they were Definition Only.
• I only made an effort to have as many descriptions as I could find that seemed obvious to me at that moment.
• I explicitly chose not to remove or add anything, just to add descriptions, because I was trying to summarize what I understood of the reasoning.
• I'm still surprised that so few of them have been changed.

The sandbox was one of my resources while building the list. Why would anyone change them? There's nothing to contradict your opinion. I cannot prove you wrong and removing them myself is an Edit War.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Aug 3rd 2020 at 5:49:57 AM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

That would be pretty odd, given that Sandbox.Fan Speak was created less than a week ago. Unless you can time travel, of course.

Anyhow, beyond these on Sandbox.Fan Speak. Of the following entries (A to C):

• 24-Hour Trope Clock - More of an index than a trope More of a meta thing, like
• About the Author - Too common Ancient trope that may have been launched without examples and may not be deliberately in this state
• Alan Fridge - Too common, too trivial Ancient trope that may have been launched without examples and may not be deliberately in this state
• All Men Are Rapists - Too YMMV, too contentious, and a bunch of other obvious troubles This does allow offpage examples
• Anvil of the Story - Supertrope to broad subtropes This might actually be fine
• Asimov's Three Kinds of Science Fiction - More useful as a definition; while sterling examples of all three kinds exist, it's easier to just describe the concept and move on. It explicitly says that offpage examples are OK
• Attraction to Outliers - Too common; more of a supertrope for multiple subtropes than a trope of its own. This might actually be fine
• Audio Diegesis - More of a supertrope for multiple subtropes than a trope of its own. This might actually be fine
• Awesomeness Withdrawal - Too YMMV This clearly has many offpage examples
• Best is Average, Better is Best - Too common Ancient trope that may have been launched without examples and may not be deliberately in this state
• Blogosphere - Verges into material not suited to this Wiki. This might actually be fine
• Cantata - More of a Useful Note Genre page
• Chutney Music - We don't cover enough of it to provide many examples Ancient trope that may have been launched without examples and may not be deliberately in this state
• Conceit - Too common No so ancient trope that may have been launched without examples and may not be deliberately in this state
• Consistency - More of a supertrope for multiple subtropes than a trope of its own. Super-Trope
• Current Events Blog - Too common, not sufficiently fictional Ancient trope that may have been launched without examples and may not be deliberately in this state

So I am thinking that a lot of the entries here are pages that were launched without examples but not deliberately exampleless. Perhaps the title of this page is an issue - it does not clearly separate between things where we don't want examples, period, and things were we just forgot to add them.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Just so long as you're not blaming me, I'm happy. (Again, I'm not responsible in any way for what items are on what page; my BOLDness extended only to providing descriptions.)

As to your question, "because they're wrong" is a valid reason to replace them.

Side note: Totally removing the descriptions, rather than replacing them or removing the item they describe, is the one choice I'd be unhappy about. I don't mind being wrong, but I do prefer something only slightly wrong where a description should be to absolutely nothing, as the latter also indicates an absence of any effort to be understood.

I suspect that Alan Fridge is a case of "it's a fandom thing, and we probably need to describe it, but any examples would usually overlap with a Spurious Rumor trope". In any case, a logical candidate for removal to No On Page Examples.

Edited by Luc on Aug 4th 2020 at 8:43:38 AM

I can see keeping the reasons but they certainly need some correction.

Here's my idea: First, add a comment to the page source saying that pages should only be added after discussion either in TLP, TRS or Trope Talk. Second, add the items from Sandbox.Fan Speak that aren't on there. Third, go through the items listed and remove these that don't belong on the page.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Yeah. My list of possible removal candidates:

• About the Author
• Alan Fridge
• Asimov's Three Kinds of Science Fiction
• Awesomeness Withdrawal - Very much a YMMV thing, but otherwise non-objectionable
• Best is Average, Better is Best - With the caveat that I doubt we'll see any actual examples.
• Featurization - Mainly because the serials in question would be valid examples.
• The Firefly Effect - For YMMV only, obviously.
• Hollywood Board Games
• Internet Detective - In-Universe examples only, obviously.
• Post-Somethingism

And maybe merge Souvenir Edition with Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition?

Edited by Luc on Aug 6th 2020 at 7:13:46 AM

I've removed these entries. I agree with removing these in ^ as well, but need more comments on the other items in [1]

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Yeah, remove ancient pages that were launched before examples were required, but never gained any later on. It might be worth adding them to Pages Needing Wicks and Tropes Needing Examples if they aren't on there already.

Also move pages that allow off-page examples but not on-page ones to No On-Page Examples.

Edit: Maybe I'm overthinking this, but the index's description for Chutney Music comes across as discouraging people from making pages for the genre and musicians who perform it. I'm not familiar with the genre, but I checked and while Wikipedia doesn't have a lot of coverage of chutney musicians, there's some, and recordings are still being made (i.e., it's clearly not Deader Than Disco).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 6th 2020 at 12:05:47 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I don't think that Chutney Music belongs here at all. I also agree that some of the entries here are better off at Tropes Needing Examples ... perhaps that should be listed as a "not to be confused with" on Example Sectionectomy.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I meant to include Chutney Music in my vote to remove ancient tropes that simply never attracted examples — sorry if I ended up being vague about that.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Ah, sorry. Used history of the Main.Fan Speak page, plus threads discussing the creation that predated my activity. Forgot to check future pages. No, that was my activity. That's why I always distance myself from your "reasons"; you're ascribing these reasons to me or to a pattern of behaviour that I used to determine how to assign the pages. I cannot find threads where consensus was reached to verify your reasons so I don't support their inclusions. I chose not to have individualized reasons when I revised the index and explained why the description of the page is sufficient. I cannot prove you wrong and removing them myself is an Edit War.

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• 24HourTropeClock - Meta concept, belongs on Definition-Only.
• About the Author - I'm not clear on what context would be appropriate. Can I get three examples?
• Alan Fridge - I'd be fine with removal from Sectionectomy, but we need more examples than Doctor Who.
• All Men Are Rapists - Discussed, unresolved; All Men Are Rapists had failed the benchmark of 100 wicks. Given the Unfortunate Implications, do we want it to be wicked on work pages? I'm fairly against it and would prefer to remove those wicks. — Also, it isn't YMMV.
• Anvil of the Story - I had proposed the idea of Exampleless Supertropes as a separate category from Definition-Only. TRS thread created that trope knowing that every example would be duplicated in subtropes. D-O or new category are both fine to me.
• Asimov's Three Kinds of Science Fiction - I'm not certain this page is something we need. Each type of Science Fiction is worth a trope, but summarizing his trio isn't worth a page in my opinion.
• Attraction to Outliers - D-O or Exampleless Supertropes are both fine to me.
• Audio Diegesis - D-O or Exampleless Supertropes are both fine to me.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal- Used to fail 100 wick benchmark. What's your proposal? Remove from Sectionectomy entirely?
• Best is Average, Better is Best- an advertising trope; I'm fine with the removal from Sectionectomy.
• Blogosphere - I'm not clear on what context would be appropriate, so keep as D-O?
• Cantata - I'm not clear on what context would be appropriate, so keep as D-O?
• Chutney Music - again
• Conceit - I think this is just another term for Trope.
• Consistency - D-O or Exampleless Supertropes are both fine to me.
• Current Events Blog - I think it is supposed to be a work index page, but we don't tend to trope opinion/news works?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Ideally, Chutney Music would be set up like other genre pages (Rock, Electronic Music, etc.) instead of being definition-only. Since Septimus said Cantata is also a genre page, it would probably be a similar case.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 8th 2020 at 1:18:48 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I've removed Chutney Music and Cantata and will do so now for Alan Fridge as well.

Otherwise:

• Asimov's Three Kinds of Science Fiction and Best is Average, Better is Best were already removed.
• On About the Author there are a few not very good examples in the wicks.
• All Men Are Rapists may need a trip to TRS to sort it out, but for now I am thinking removal - it clearly has offpage examples.
• On Anvil of the Story, Trope and Conceit I'd say leave it ... although I wonder if this is the type of page we ought to index on Fan Speak. Some discussion on these lines is here. And it should probably say that it doesn't allow offpage examples - an index listing at the bottom "Definition-Only pages" isn't enough.
• Attraction to Outliers, Consistency and Current Events Blog stay, seems like.
• Audio Diegesis ... ehh, upon reconsideration I am thinking removal actually. It sounds like it could in theory have offpage examples. This index is solely about pages that can't.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: Remove entirely I'd say. Or start a Short Term Project cleanup.
• Blogosphere can stay but the rationale needs tweaking.

Otherwise, D-G:

• Dainty Combat - More of a supertrope for multiple subtropes than a trope of its own. I don't see a reason for this to disallow any examples. Was there a TRS?
• Dandere - Anime fanspeak term covered by other tropes This might actually be fine, apart from a listing on Fan Speak
• Dateline - Too common This might be fine
• Delicate Is Beautiful - Too common, too YMMV This might be fine
• Dodgy Time Stamp - Too common Seems like one of these ancient tropes that were launched without examples. TRS?
• Dojikko - Anime fanspeak term covered by Cute Clumsy Girl This might be fine
• Double Post - Too common One of these web tropes that might be fine for this page
• Editing Works - More of a supertrope for multiple subtropes than a trope of its own. Might be fine
• Entrance - Too common Seems like one of these tropes that were launched without examples
• Explicit Content - Too common, too YMMV, or runs into too NSFW Might be fine, but the rationale is wrong - it was meant from the get-go to be a definition-only page
• Fabula and Sujet - More of a supertrope for multiple subtropes than a trope of its own. Might be fine
• Fact/Opinion/Argument - Important in differentiation. Not important in anything else. Might be fine
• Fan Dumb - Too contentious, too YMMV This has clearly a lot of wicks
• SugarWiki.Favorite Trope - Too contentious, too YMMV, too personal. Might be fine
• Featurization - Examples are more then covered by outside lists. Seems like one of these items that were launched before examples were needed
• Fetish Fuel - Too YMMV, too NSFW Fine addition
• Fetish-Fuel Future - Too YMMV, too NSFW Has many offpage wicks
• Fiction Never Lies - More of a supertrope for multiple subtropes than a trope of its own. Seems OK
• Ficton - Providing examples seems rather pointless Seems OK
• The Firefly Effect - Too YMMV, too contentious This clearly has offpage examples
• Flog - Too common nowadays One of these web tropes that might be better exampleless
• Full Bleed - More of a Useful Note that's sufficiently common to fit in the main namespace. Seems OK
• Functional Genre Savvy - Too common This clearly has many offpage examples
• Fusion - More of a supertrope to multiple subtropes Seems OK
• Gaita Zuliana - We don't cover enough of it to provide many examples Genre page
• Gaze - A concept which is effectively more of a supertrope for multiple subtropes than a trope of its own. Seems OK
• The Good Guys Always Win - Too common Has lots of offpage examples

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Aug 10th 2020 at 1:48:47 AM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Bump. Any comments on ^?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Sorry; I thought I had responded already. Since more feedback is better, I've also pinged tropers who may feel impacted by this discussion.

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We should be consistent and apply that to all pages in this category. How's this for a banner: !Please do not add examples to work pages, this merely [[Administrivia/DefinitionOnlyPages defines the term]].

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Then let that be its own thread.

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• Dainty Combat had the notice added in 2012, the second edit, even. ~King Zeal created the page.
• Dandere is already on Anime Fanspeak, is that a subindex?
• Dodgy Time Stamp being sent to TRS is fine, but very low priority. Maybe add to the waiting list?
• Entrance is a page I would've expected to be an index of several types of entrances, such as Dynamic Entry and Big Entrance, or maybe both entering and exiting a scene, to include Exit, Pursued by a Bear.
• Fan Dumb is marked Flame Bait and doesn't have examples on-page, so that puts it as a Definition-Only page. It is likely that a short-term project is needed to clean wicks.
• Featurization seems redundant to Compilation Movie, since my understanding of the idea is characterized by the way Doctor Who was introduced to American PBS by editing the story arcs into a single "movie" (very, very badly edited).
• Fetish-Fuel Future has less than 100 wicks. That was my arbitrarily rule that I could consistently apply. Oldest edit is by ~The Mysterious Troper
• The Firefly Effect has less than 100 wicks. That was my arbitrarily rule that I could consistently apply. Oldest edit is by ~petrus4
• Functional Genre Savvy has less than 100 wicks. That was my arbitrarily rule that I could consistently apply. Oldest edit is by ~Dragon Ranger
• Gaita Zuliana is definitely a genre page.
• The Good Guys Always Win had the notice added in 2010, the oldest current edit, by ~Troacctid.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I think Gaita Zuliana can definitely be removed as a genre page. At this point I think we can remove all the remaining genres except Lemon, Lime, Lolicon and Shotacon (per the content policy), and Satyr Play (for which there is only one complete example): Medieval Ballads, Mummers, Sonnet, Spex, and Text Parser.

Featurization is a duplicate of Compilation Movie and should be brought to TRS.

Wasn't Fetish-Fuel Future also made DO after The Second Google Incident? I think the title is misleading since it is actually unrelated to Fetish Fuel.

The Firefly Effect is not Flame Bait; it could be made No On-Page Examples.

Functional Genre Savvy shouldn't be DO.

The Good Guys Always Win could be restricted to lampshades and discussions of the trope.

Can I go on to the next batch?

I'm back!