Getting rid of Drinking Games

On the recently started (spoilers:by me) Drinking Game cleanup thread, some tropers have raised concerns that the namespace could encourage users to get drunk and risk getting alcohol poisoning. Also, some pages had (thankfully removed) satemates by underage tropers say that they did the games with real alcohol, basically making this Troper Tales 2.0. Is there any value in keeping the Drinking Game namespace?

I don’t think that people are actually stupid enough to follow the Drinking Games, but they are a big magnet for complaining.

Now your just be silly,or concern trolling

New theme music also a box

I agree with getting rid of JustForFun.Drinking Game and its subpages. First of all, even if those tropers on the DrinkingGame.My Immortal and DrinkingGame.The Room scoresheets weren't underage, it and its kin are borderline encouraging viewers to not only bash what they think are the lowest parts of a work, but to get drunk to the point of alcohol poisoning (and yes, sometimes we have to assume Viewers Are Morons).

Rock'n'roll never dies!

Um...they're absolutely not concern trolling. Here's the thread, read the comments, people are genuinely worried about this namespace.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 5th 2020 at 5:19:35 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I'm in favor of keeping Drinking Games, but I think we should add a disclaimer warning people not to actually attempt them.

..Until we actually have evidence that is negatively effecting our users I'm saying removing it because of the fear it could lead to someone poisoning themselves is really dumb

New theme music also a box

That's a Hope Spot for the Drinking Games... but still doesn't resolve the complaining. Some of the most well-edited drinking games are from works that are in the "controversial works" sandbox in my signature.

Encouraging users to "drink so these bad works can be more bearable" is more worse than "brag about yourself using a trope."

Edited by ccorb on Sep 5th 2020 at 5:32:51 AM

Rock'n'roll never dies!

I'm honestly don't think nuking the namespace is the best idea. Most of the works whose drinking games were mentioned were already infamous and complaining-prone, and the Drinking Games don't contribute to that. Scoreboards definitely should be axed when found, and that underage drinking claim is concerning, but not enough to get rid of the namespace.

But there's evidence that people do play these games, like the tables that are (or used to be) on pages like DrinkingGame.My Immortal- which is a list full of people getting sick, engaging in Alcohol-Induced Idiocy, or being unable to get a few chapters into the story without having to stop drinking.

Relatedly, there's a Drinking Game page for Tv Tropes Itself. Not only is it woefully outdated, but the entire game is to read TVT while getting drunk. Anyone else see the potential problem here?

And yes, they do contribute to the complaining. Read the pages. A lot of them are extremely bashy toward the work.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 5th 2020 at 5:32:34 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Isn’t there an Administrivia called “Troping Under the Influence”?

Yes, it's Troping Under the Influence. It says, "Don't edit while doing alcohol/drugs, or there will be Alcohol-Induced Idiocy that may get you suspended and your contributions cut."

Edited by ccorb on Sep 5th 2020 at 5:39:12 AM

Rock'n'roll never dies!

I disagree that we should get rid of the subwiki outright, unless a lawyer comes in and says there's no real legal defense in the event some kid's parents want to take legal action. I think it definitely needs a rename, because there's a real possibility (and observable reality!) that people will think these are serious drinking games that you could do and "have fun." I'm surprised there hasn't been any legal issues with concerned parents over this (considering what happened with other "adult" oriented material such as our various rape tropes).

The whole point of these pages is to list out whenever something noticeably odd occurs frequently. So I'd imagine that we could come up with some name that doesn't sound like it's encouraging people to drink booze.

If we can't, or if people think we could keep it with its current name, then I'd like to propose programming a banner at the top of all Drinking Game/ pages to clarify that TV Tropes does not condone underage drinking and that readers should note that these pages are just for fun and are not actual drinking games meant to be played. The point, after all, of these pages is to list out actions frequently done in the work and so it's practically guaranteed that people drinking along to these "games" will get intoxicated. "Drink responsibly" and all that.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Even if we keep them with a banner the namespace itself needs massive cleanup; troper-tales esque score-charts, bashing, exaggerations, etc. While maybe we can be safe with warnings and cleaning, it's still a lot of work and certain pages, like DrinkingGame.TV Tropes, sort of encourage Troping Under The Influence just by virtue of existing as, like I said, the game involves going on a Wiki Walk. If you actually drink while doing so...well, that can cause a lot of issues. And not playing the game just ends up making it pointless, as you're not actually getting any fun out of finding a million ZCEs and natter.

IDK. Maybe we can convert them into bingo games.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 5th 2020 at 5:44:20 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I mean, I'd be all for cutting the namespace just for the fact that it's yet another relic from the era of when TV Tropes had basically no standards. A Drinking Game namespace wouldn't fly today.

Add in the evidence of encouraging drinking and being a magnet for complaints and I see no reason to not cut them.

My main concern with a warning is that it might increase the appeal of doing the drinking game to some people. Wikipedia has a good essay on this idea. An alternative to completely cutting the namespace is to nuke it and then start it over, locking all the pages in it and have each drinking game approved by a mod in a forum thread.

Edited by GoosefromWikipedia on Sep 5th 2020 at 2:47:56 AM

I'm OK with ridding the namespace because I think it's a little off-mission for this wiki to host drinking games. there's Drinking Game Zone and other websites. Even so, Drinking Game is an extension of Just for Fun, so a drinking game section (edit: or bingo, that actually sounds fun) about a specific work can go right on that tab.

Edited by Tabs on Sep 5th 2020 at 2:51:33 AM

Again, my issues with it are that it’s outdated and attracts complaining by nature.

Edited by PurpleEyedGuma on Sep 5th 2020 at 5:51:45 AM

Get a mod hook a crowner to decide the fate of the namespace?

Something else WarJay brought up in the cleanup thread is that for works with Watch It for the Meme value (such as The Room, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)), salvageable parts would be memetic scenes ("You're tearing me apart, Lisa," "I DID NAT HIT HER," Silver somehow throwing you into space, and Mephiles killing Sonic and being revived by Elise's True Love's Kiss), while any random scene/glitch would just be cut.

Otherwise, It's No Use to keep this namespace. It's The Artifact from our Wild West days.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

Here's the crowner. Hollering a mod to hook it.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

I agree, but the question in this thread was whether to keep them at all. Many, if not all, of these pages need at least some clean up. I don't think we have anyone vocally curating or monitoring these pages at the moment. (I mean, like, personally doing so. I realize there's the other thread.)

Regarding DrinkingGame.TV Tropes... I think we could just cut that outright. For the reasons you've mentioned but also the fact that this isn't really a work. It doesn't seem to fit with the rest of that subwiki at all.

None of the "games" are meant to be actually played. They all list stuff that frequently happens in the work. Honestly, if it weren't for the score cards proving it, I would not have believed it that people took these "games" seriously. IMO they're "obviously" not meant to be played, but evidently people take them seriously.

I seriously doubt that. This isn't about doing a cool thing (the "cool thing" in Do Not Do This Cool Thing), nor would we be imposing on people (the "do not" in Do Not Do This Cool Thing). We'd be telling people that hey this is just a bunch of stuff that happens frequently in this work. Taking a shot every time X happens would guarantee getting dangerously intoxicated because X happens all the time in the work and that's the whole point of the list. A banner would at least cover our asses, so to speak.

Just Bugs Me was outdated and attracted complaining but instead of getting rid of it we renamed it to Headscratchers. I don't see how those two concerns mean we should cut it outright.

Edited by WaterBlap on Sep 5th 2020 at 5:06:33 AM

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

When you get to the point that basically every page in the namespace needs cleanup, is it even worth the effort? What could possibly be left afterwards?

Is that really something worth documenting? Really?

The regular work pages for these works do the job fine, only without the complaining.

Just to clarify, I'm not proposing we "Add a disclaimer at the top of every page on the namespace saying to play responsibly" but rather it should say not to play at all and to drink responsibly. I also think it would be important enough to program it as an auto-banner like with YMMV or trivia pages.

Evidently people find the worth in it. Otherwise they wouldn't have started doing it in the first place.

Also note that this subwiki is in Just for Fun. It isn't supposed to be taken seriously at all.

Moreover, if you like tropes, which are themselves frequently occurring patterns, then it makes sense that you would also be interested in other frequently occurring patterns. I don't see how this could possibly be construed as off-mission.

This seems to assume that any page that needs even a small amount of cleaning would instead need to be cut outright. (If you're not under that assumption, then why say "What could possibly be left [after cleaning]"?) However, that is not how TV Tropes has ever worked. Cutting is for when we completely give up on something. Just because a page needs cleaning does not mean it's better off just cutting.

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EDIT: Since we're discussing cutting an entire sub-wiki, I suppose an announcement ought to be made in ATT? I have no idea who's interested in this sub-wiki, but they might not notice if it's kept to Wiki Talk.

Edited by WaterBlap on Sep 5th 2020 at 5:24:34 AM

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty