Truth in Television cleanup

I've found that some entries in the Truth in Television index are problematic. Common issues are:

• Not adequately explaining why an entry is TIT (in other words, Zero Context Examples).
• Misuse, particularly shoehorning tropes that are impossible in Real Life
• ROCEJ violations
• Natter and sub-bullets (Only one example is needed)

Edited by LaundryPizza03 on Nov 23rd 2020 at 3:10:23 AM

Accidental Pervert does have a Real Life section (for now) that isn't relying on ableist stereotypes, so if we wanna keep it on Truth in Television, it can easily be rewritten to be like "People can act inappropriately due to misinterpreting a situation as sexual when it isn't, mistaking somebody's age, etc" instead of assuming only autistic people make such mistakes.

Edited by mightymewtron on Oct 6th 2020 at 1:28:33 PM

Okay, I swapped it out for the only entry that doesn't violate Weblinks Are Not Examples:

• Accidental Pervert: This happens often enough in stores that companies have studied how to prevent it from happening. Customers who do this tend to leave the store quickly without buying anything. In his book Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping (2000), Mr. Underhill expounded on the dangers of "butt brushes" (if the aisles are too narrow and people brush up against each other when they pass, they tend to leave the store)

Dont we already have a cleanup for this.

There's one for Television Is Trying to Kill Us.

No, I don't think so. There is no open Projects thread mentioning this page in the title.

I may have come up with a valid replacement for the Breast Expansion entry:

• Breast hypertrophy is a rare condition where the breasts become abnormally large.

The V section has a number of questionable examples. I've already cut two vampire tropes and Vagina Dentata as those are known to be impossible in real life.

Already brought this up on ATT, so here it is here too.

• Made of Evil: Some individuals throughout history who seem to have taken enjoyment only out of how much they could directly and indirectly harm people and/or the environment, and societies constructed on the concept of racist hatred and genocide and killing. No more will be said, and no real life examples (except for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany) should be discussed because what people and societies are such is incredibly subjective for the most part.

Made of Evil is for characters who are literally made of evil, which is impossible in real life. Cut.

Edited by LaundryPizza03 on Nov 4th 2020 at 3:56:12 AM

Honestly this page is bloated with tropes that are pretty obviously real, like tropes pertaining to morality for example.

I think this page might need a trip to TRS. Should I get a wick count going?

Why?

I replaced the shoehorning example in the OP with the Made of Evil one, which is definitely impossible.

• Dystopia: some people compare North Korea to Nineteen Eighty-Four, which itself was based on contemporary totalitarianisms turned Up To Eleven.

Isn't this calling a real life location a dystopia, which is a fictional concept like utopia? The Weasel Words don't help.

Necroing the thread thanks to 's suggestion. The Truth in Television pages have long been a troublesome zone for much of the same reasons explained in OP. I think a good way to handle cleanup would be to go through it alphabetically and see which ones need work.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

aside from mopping up ZC Es by hiding them and taking out anything voted NRLEP, i believe we had a similar cleanup effort for Television Is Trying To Kill Us; let me see if i can find the old thread

of note is that Television Is Trying To Kill Us was moved to the Just for Fun namespace, should it be the same here?

I've always considered it some sort of JFF or psuedo-JFF page, more informative than others but not outright serious. Though TBH a lot of unoffensive entries are just kinda... obvious? Like, what value does it bring to note that "Jerkasses are common" and "people like to dye their hair" or "not all quarterbacks are assholes" (to use entries on the J to L page). Most of these entries feel less informative and more... boring, or cheesy, or treating people like they're dumb.

One of the tropes listed there that really bothers me is Sealed Good in a Can. Like, first of all, how the hell does a seed vault factor into things, and second, where's the "truth" to be found if it hasn't been opened?

In all seriousness there are some pretty big shoehorns in there, even disregarding the trivial things that people have known about since the beginning of time.

Edited by Coachpill on Dec 7th 2023 at 1:19:54 PM

thats the same issue we had with Television Is Trying To Kill Us iirc; both people who were the biggest defenders of it left the site at some point when it was made a problem page by TRS

i feel like "important macguffin stored for future use in case of catastrophe" is another trope

though now i get the image of all the plants talking like Zordon...

That's a big problem, a lot of examples are very Chairs-y. Like The Alleged Car for instance, no one for a second thought that junker cars don't exist. Do we need to point out things that are obvious?

What's throwing me on that one is that Sealed Good in a Can is supposed to be for good aligned creatures sealed away, and while the seed vault is good for the environment, the seeds themselves have no moral alignment. They're just seeds.

Edited by MissConduct on Dec 8th 2023 at 12:17:34 PM