Troping Let's Plays

I'm guessing resistance to change.

(Currently at exactly 2.00:1. We've been thinking of this as a formality for months; we should've remembered there's a trope for that.)

Many crowners are magical like that, but I'm not going to comment further on the userbase.

It could be that the people inclined to vote no were already following the thread and thus voted early. We have six more days for the casuals to filter through.

To be clear, when you open something to a voting process, you should probably expect that someone will disagree and may even overturn the thing you're voting for. It can sometimes be good to judge the position of a general populace and steer your content towards a direction that'll be more relevant with them and less with what you want, but it really depends. I did upvote, but mostly out of personal reasons (since the namespace has less than 0.1% of pages, while every page in it can be put elsewhere or cut), would likely downvote if that wasn't the case (since I did say once I think an an arbitrary-seeming namespace split should be acceptable if there's still some distinction and at least 0.1% pages on the wiki in it).

I had a feeling this would happen with the crowner. Didn’t something similar happen with Disney/ and Discworld/?

I have added a yes vote to depreciation of the Let's Play namespace and moving of examples elsewhere.

I think video reviews could go into Blog, as well.

I've voted no on depreciating the namespace, as troping Let's Plays is how I came to this website in the first place, and I believe the persona one puts on, and the choices/ideas they make while playing through a game and putting it online is worthy of troping, due to how transformative and unique it makes one's playthrough of a game.

So far, it looks like there's consensus to get rid of it, but I will be strongly against this idea to the bitter end.

We are not eliminating the troping of Let's Plays. We are merging them with Web Video, Blog, etc., since Let's Play is not a valid media namespace. That's what the crowner is about.

We are, separately, removing articles for LPs that violate our rules about troping real people because they lack sufficient transformative creative content, but that does not require a crowner.

Edited by Fighteer on May 28th 2022 at 1:25:39 PM

I'm still voting no, if only because I believe there's a solid line differentiating Web Video content and Let's Play content. For example, I think it would be quite strange to see Marble Hornets and StephenPlays share a namespace, when one is about a guy playing through video games, and one is a found footage series about fighting a tall magical mannequin. Really, the only things are that are the same about them are that they both are on YouTube.

By that standard, we should have different namespaces for documentary films, comedies, and superhero films. The namespace is the medium, and the medium is a video that is published on the web. Let's Play is a style (or genre, depending on your point of view) and that is not how we use namespaces (mostly).

Edited by Fighteer on May 28th 2022 at 1:27:22 PM

And to that note, I think it's questionable that "guy playing a video game" is even tropeable according to our site standards. If he's just playing a game and giving his thoughts on it without any added embellishments, or doing bits / using a persona, then there isn't anything there for us to trope. Opinions and reactions on games are not themselves tropeworthy (at least not outside of YMMV).

Which is why removing the Lets Play namespace makes sense. Most Lets Players don't do that, especially if you move out of youtube and go to Twitch and streaming. So having a namespace for a few makes less sense than documenting the few that push the genre into something more under Web Video

Edited by amathieu13 on May 28th 2022 at 7:58:25 AM

Voted the denamespacing up. We try to make namespaces according to mediums, and having two namespaces for Let's Play and Web Video does not fit that scheme.

Also, I keep forgetting to mention this point, but we don't make articles about individual Let's Plays; the articles use the name of the channel or person conducting the LP, and that makes them not individual works but collective works under the channel's identity. Thus, the channel is what we should be concerned about with the namespace, which is why Web Video is more appropriate.

Yes, while there are several pre-recorded "Let's play"s that use lots of edition and voice overs to make jokes and even coherent stories, the amount of edition don't really makes them any different from Web Video at that point.

What does this say about LetsPlay.Twitch Plays Pokemon subworks?

Actually, we do: there's LetsPlay.Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 and LetsPlay.Daikatana.

I downvoted because namespaces aren't strictly mediums. I don't see how Let's Play is any less distinct than Light Novel or Web Animation.

I recall Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) being brought up for potential cleanup and nothing happening. Daikatana from what I see is all real-life troping.

I'd argue against LightNovel/ and WebAnimation/, but that's off-topic and we'll be unable to reasonably move those in forseeable future.

The fact that both of those exist isn't an argument that they should.

And again, at least Web Animation and Light Novels are always tropeable in terms of their content.

Lets Plays on the other hand are far more spotty. That, to me, is the biggest mark against the namespace.

The two Let's Plays cited above are an insanely bad use of titles.

First of all, there is not just one LP of Sonic (2006) or Daikatana. There are probably hundreds. So titling it in this way, as a subpage of the work, gives the incorrect impression that it is a part of that work instead of a derivative work.

If we want to trope individual LPs, as opposed to the general body of work of a particular LP'er — which is again why I say these belong in Web Video — then the title must be sufficiently precise to distinguish it from the many, many, many other LPs of the same original work.

So, if, and I must stress the word if, we allow the Let's Play namespace to remain, we would have to change the titling scheme. To use the example of LetsPlay.Sonic The Hedgehog 2006, it could be LetsPlay.SonicTheHedgehog2006Pokecapn, custom titled "Let's Play: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) (Pokecapn)" or something like that.

This same rule applies to anything else. A Machinima series like Freemans Mind is a single, distinct work, and so it's fine to put in that namespace. However, we would not title it Machinima.Accursed Farms or Machinima.Ross Scott, since those are the channel and the creator, respectively. Channels should exclusively reside in the Web Video namespace and work like Music articles, where they double as creator articles.

From there, we could have specific articles for individual works by those creators, much as we might have specific articles for music albums or music videos, if there is sufficient tropable content to justify them.

Edited by Fighteer on May 31st 2022 at 9:10:21 AM

We're past a week and it's 37:12. Should it be called?

Seems the moves and cleanup would be best served in the existing Web Video thread.

Edited by RallyBot2 on Jun 4th 2022 at 10:58:43 AM

Bumping this. An ATT debate has been ongoing about whether or not to keep or cut RT Game's page, and the issue of what is and isn't tropable has come up again.

I'm going to use this as an opportunity to ask for help with the Troping Online Content Creators sandbox. Started a space on the sandbox for what the page may look like—although I'm having trouble coming up with opening text.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jun 30th 2022 at 6:42:15 AM

Bumping this again. I unfortunately still have not gotten to writing a draft for , and after a failed attempt at starting one, I actually would like to ask a question to the mods specifically before I do any of that: what is your opinion of my proposal to have a formal Administrivia page regarding troping Let's Plays and other similar online content?

I personally think it would be helpful to formally draw the line as to what is and isn't tropable in the form of a rules page, but I want to make sure the mods are OK with this proposal. If they are not, I will cutlist the sandbox page I created.