RWBY Clean-Up

Stemming from this ATT discussion, there is a feeling that the RWBY pages could use a co-ordinated clean-up. While a lot of work has been done in the past, there are still outstanding issues that often don't make it through existing clean-up threads because it's a niche show that not everyone is familiar with.

Given that the work also attracts Edit War issues when misuse clean-ups are attempted (which has led to the long-term locking of the NightmareFuel.RWBY page) and shipping clean-ups are attempted (which has led to the long-term locking of the Characters.RWBY Team RWBY page), it looks like making a short-term project to organise and formalise this might be the way to go.

I've put together a sandbox of what I think the current state of play is with the work and its sub-pages. There are so many sub-pages, that I thought a Sandbox would be best. That way, if people feel things need to be moved around, they've got access to it.

I have not included individual franchise works in this thread, although I have listed the franchise page itself on the Sandbox (in the No Issues folder):

Sandbox Location: Sandbox.Web Animation RWBY Clean Up

I've never done one of these before, so any advice or feedback would be helpful. I'm aware I may have been a little over-organised on the Sandbox page, but I didn't realise just how many sub-pages this work has collected.

As I've put the sandbox together by myself, it may be that not everyone agrees with what I've listed. That's fine. At the moment, I just wanted to create a starting point to get discussion going.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 8th 2021 at 8:55:10 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Neat, I can get started on some crosswicking and fixing the Wall of Text issues right now. Is there anything else in particular that you want me to take a look at?

So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr

Thanks!

In terms of walls of text, I think the ShipTease.RWBY and Character pages are probably the main problems (including the Sandbox.RWBY Team RWBY page). I think they're also the main source of tropes that will need to be crosswicked.

The ship tease page might be a quick win actually, as it probably doesn't need too much editing. The character pages will need more effort.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 8th 2021 at 9:21:39 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Sorry what exactly is the problem with the franchise when it comes to crosswicking the page has over 4823 wicks I would say it is doing really well in that regard?

CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes

The WebAnimation.RWBY and it's A-Z trope pages are doing fine on the crosswicking. It's the character pages that don't get crosswicked, and they generally don't overlap with the work's main trope pages (for example, the Characters.RWBY World Of Remnant page, which I started crosswicking a couple of weeks ago, but haven't got very far yet).

I am aware that there is a Crosswicking clean-up project that is dealing with works that have very low crosswick counts. I didn't link to that clean-up thread on the sandbox because I don't want to take effort away from that project.

I've clarified on the sandbox that crosswicking is a character page issue, not a main work issue.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 8th 2021 at 9:32:58 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

But I am not seeing the exact problem RWBY isn't starving on wicks in fact it is doing extremly well we don't need to actively crosswick and just let it grow naturally at least that is what Wick says.

CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes

That's fair enough. It may be something we can take off the sandbox, if that's the case. Like I said in my post: I listed everything I was aware of to create a starting point, and opened up the floor to feedback on how accurate the sandbox is and what we need to focus on.

At the moment, the consensus is that RWBY keeps causing problems and needs sorting out, so I've put together all the issues that I've seen crop up into one place to enable us to decide what needs sorting out and what to prioritise.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 8th 2021 at 10:23:38 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

I mean yeah I can deffinitly agree that they do I still think the locks would have been the best solution but I guess this cleanup thread could help.

CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes

So, since I’ve been meaning to start this thread for quite some time, I would like to add some of my thoughts here.

I was concerned that RWBY was causing quite a few problems on TV Tropes, especially with regards to the complaining, Word Cruft and negativity. On the recap pages, I think episode-specific tropes should go there as opposed to the main work page to prevent any potential duplication.

For the Franchise page, I think we might need to format it using the Franchise.Marvel Cinematic Universe and Franchise.Star Wars as points of reference.

Thoughts?

Edited by gjjones on Aug 10th 2021 at 8:30:34 AM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

Regarding your mention of complaining, negativity and word cruft, if you want to add that information to the sandbox (especially regarding which pages you're thinking of — if you think it's widespread, you can put it in the General section of the Extensive folder), feel free to do so. The reason I did it as a sandbox and not in my original post, is so that anyone can edit it instead of just the original poster (me).

The Recap clean-up thread has been trying to figure out a consistent approach to recap pages, so I asked your question there.

On a personal level, I'm not a fan of deleting tropes from the main work page just because they appear on a recap page. Most people won't ever bother with recap pages unless they've already seen the work; casual viewers, people who don't want to be spoiled, or people who barely know the work, are much more likely to just skim through main work trope pages. As a result, using recap pages as the primary troping pages means a lot of tropes will effectively be 'hidden'. The work page is the primary page. Recap pages are just a nice extra for people who have seen the work or people who don't care about spoilers.

Avoiding duplication between the work page and character page makes sense because there's s distinction between what is a character trope and what is a story trope. However, a recap page is effectively just telling people which of the show's story and character tropes appeared in that specific episode. As such, I don't see the problem with a trope appearing on both the work and recap pages or both the character and recap pages (but there would be a problem if it appeared on all three).

Those are my individual thoughts on the matter. As always, I'll adopt whatever the consensus decision is about this.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 10th 2021 at 2:57:01 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

So, with the inevitable premiere of Volume 9, we may have to do something about those spoiler tags for the eighth volume on all the RWBY pages. Thoughts on what to do with these?

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

I'd keep Volume 8 spoiler-tagged until Volume 9 concludes.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I see. What about the main work pages?

Edited by gjjones on Aug 21st 2021 at 9:14:01 AM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

I just assumed we do what always do: when the first episode of the new volume is about to air, update the "current volume only is spoiler tagged" warnings to specify what the current volume is, and remove the previous volume's spoiler tags at the same time. That's for the sub-pages, however (the ones that tend to rely on people having watched the show, like Moments Pages, Recap Pages and Character Pages).

As far as I know, the main work pages have more extensive spoiler tagging because the expectation is that people who don't watch the show may check out those pages.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 22nd 2021 at 9:21:08 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Also, Michael Katsuro said on this ATT:

For example, the Series.Stranger Things page has a hidden note that says:

Edited by gjjones on Aug 22nd 2021 at 4:23:22 AM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

Yeah, that's how recap pages are supposed to be used.

The only thing that goes on Recap pages are things that are specific to that episode. If something is about the story or the character, it's not episode-specific. The exception might be if an episode is noted as the point where something was first introduced (and it would only ever be referenced there, and not in any other episode recap), but that's not going to be common.

Recap pages are a way of capturing all those "one-off" (episode-specific) things people like cluttering up character and main work pages with, which they shouldn't be doing outside a recap page.

What you need to make sure you're not doing is removing a story trope from the main work page just because it appears on an episode recap page somewhere. It'll almost always need to be the other way around (removing it from the recap page because it should be on the main work or character pages).

That may not be the case for all works on the site, but there is a reason why it's the case for RWBY. The staggered release dates of RWBY volumes is why the pages have a warning for sponsors (who get early content) to not trope an episode until it's become publicly available (a week later). The Recap pages do not have that restriction. As a result, sponsors can start troping an episode immediately, which leads to it getting treated like a main work and character page for the first week of an episode's release. That almost always requires a lot of clean-up, as a result.

So, for RWBY at least, it's always much more likely that something will need to be removed from the recap page and moved to the main work or character pages than the reverse.

That doesn't mean the reverse won't sometimes happen, it's just that it's not as common.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 22nd 2021 at 9:42:59 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

I’ve added a note where the episode-specific tropes should go in the sandbox. In this case, it's the recap pages. If there are any other ideas, please let me know here.

Edited by gjjones on Aug 22nd 2021 at 4:39:29 AM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

What about Extensive issues, the "general issues" section, alongside crosswicking and wall of text?

Edit: I was responding to your original post; it looks like you rewrote it while I was posting. Where you placed it makes sense.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 22nd 2021 at 9:45:18 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Since we've mentioned spoilers before, I think we can try removing the spoiler tags on some entries that don't have story-breaking spoilers on the main sub-pages. Any ideas?

Edited by gjjones on Aug 30th 2021 at 8:10:28 AM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

Okay, I've cleaned up the Analysis.RWBY page.

The sandbox issue with the page was:

• Analysis.RWBY: The page states to avoid speculation. A quick glance through the page shows a lot of speculation and fanon, however.

---

I had a think about how best to reflect a completed update on the sandbox, and what I've done is this:

Sandbox Location: Sandbox.Web Animation RWBY Clean Up

I've moved the Analysis.RWBY section from the Minor folder to the Completed folder without removing the information that put it onto the sandbox in the first place. What I've done is added a link to this post, so people have a way to find out what was done to the page. I suggest we do that as we go, so we've got a bit of an audit trail to follow should there be any issues along the way. As a result, the entry now looks like this:

• Analysis.RWBY: The page states to avoid speculation. A quick glance through the page shows a lot of speculation and fanon, however. Clean-up report here.

---

At the top of the Analysis.RWBY page is a note to keep speculation to Wild Mass Guess and not there. So, what I've done with this page is the following:

Disclaimer: I have not removed anyone's analysis from the page. The changes were solely to remove speculation (which was entirely limited to the list of character inspirations, and not to any analysis), to remove some jossing behaviour (which is WMG activity), to correct an inaccurate reference to a Norse myth (not the show itself), and to reorganise some bad layout to make it readable. I have corrected one or two things (for example, the show didn't say Salem killed her daughters, both parents were at fault), and updated some obsolete information (for example, we now know a bit more about Nora's back story).

• Character Inspirations folder: Removed the speculation from the character inspirations — I went hunting around the Internet for several before I removed them, just to confirm they're definitely fan theories still and have not been confirmed. Yes, some feel so sensible that we're all convinced to the point of it being fanon, but that doesn't stop it being speculation.
• Motif Symbolism folder:
  • The show having fire be only a positive force (when Cinder's introduced in the pilot episode) was never a thing, leading to a bad example indentation effectively "jossing" it — which is WMG activity. However, the paragraph was mostly about the Light motif in the show, with fire sort of shoehorned into it in places. As a result, cleaning that up to make it light-centric barely changed the content. The biggest change is the removal of the jossing behaviour (the sub-bullet).
  • "Blake's Relationships" was a bit messy, so I've cleaned it up. I haven't rewritten it, but I have cleaned some of the problematic sentences.
  • The eyes' motif: Mostly, just minor grammar edits here.
• Ozpin and the Branwens, Norse Myth folder: Cleaned up some misrepresentation of the Huginn & Muninn myth, and added a bit of clarifying text to the Yang reerence to show how the connection between the myth and the characters is being made there (since it made no attempt to explain the link, leaving it a bit Fan Myopia). I also updated the entry with some information from later volumes (like Salem's "the second eye is blinded" reference).
• Missing Parents folder: I reorganised this for readability because the example indentation was a bit messy. I also did a minor clean up the claim that Salem killed her children (as in, blaming her and absolving Ozma), given that the episode indicated they were collateral death caused by the proximity of the fight. I also updated the Ren/Nora entry since we now know a bit more about Nora's situation, and expanded Fox and Oscar's entries to provide a bit more context.
• The rest of the page I've barely touched, except to clean up a few grammar issues.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 5th 2021 at 6:58:53 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Okay, so while I like the RWBY character pages just fine, I will admit that I tend to also see the Wall of Text issue. For starters, I was just skimming through the JNPR page and this entry for Nora's folder confuses me:

---

• Weapon Of Choice: When Ren and Nora first meet, it's in Ren's home village where Nora is living as a starving, terrified street urchin. When the village is destroyed by a Grimm attack, Ren's Semblance soothes them both and prevents the Grimm from finding them. Ren hands the frightened Nora a toy wooden hammer that is lying on the ground and tells her that, from now on, they will protect each other. Since that day, the two have been inseparable, to the point where Nora starts plotting on their first day in school to ensure that she and Ren make the same team as each other. Her weapon is a giant war-hammer, based on the toy war-hammer that Ren once gave her; it reflects her continued loyalty to Ren while allowing her to take full advantage of her Semblance, which makes her super-strong when hit by lightning.

---

The entry feels way too long and I think this may be a recurring thing with other Weapon Of Choice entries as well. Maybe someone else can explain it better why it is the way it is, but I thought the trope only went over what their main weapon is, not going into extensive detail why they have that weapon in the first place.

Maybe the issue is that I didn't give the trope a good enough read through, but I could still really use a more in-depth explanation for the trope and why the entry is this long.

Edited by ssjSega on Sep 6th 2021 at 4:16:36 AM

I agree, we may need to trim this down.

Also, now that the Hate Sink trope is turning into an index/supertrope combo, we'll have to figure out some way to remove the HS examples if the subtropes are listed on the character and/or main work pages. Any ideas?

Edited by gjjones on Sep 12th 2021 at 6:57:43 AM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

Sorry, I haven't visited here for a bit because work is very hectic right now (I'll have more time in October).

Yes, walls of text are a big issue on RWBY pages. It's been added to the sandbox as one of the larger issues that needs addressing, as there are walls of text on almost every page.

My suggestion would be to start cleaning up walls of text on the Sandbox.RWBY Team RWBY page. I think that's the last thing left to do there. Once the walls of text are cleaned up, we can probably send it back to the Edit Locked Pages request thread and ask the mods to switch it back into the locked live page. That'll leave us with one less page to deal with.

Regarding the Weapon Of Choice entry on Team JNPR's page, I suspect that may be a hold-over from when the early days of the character pages. Originally, the pages treated the weapons like characters, giving them their own folders and therefore sometimes repeating content between the character's folder and their weapon's folder. When we merged them into a single character folder, some of the repeated content was just merged together rather than pared down.

Then again, a number of tropers do have a habit of writing lengthy entries. I'm actually one of the culprits there, but I've been working on shortening my entries, and working on wall of text posts has helped me find ways to reduce my overall entry sizes. Being active on the Laconic clean-up thread has helped me there, too.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 25th 2021 at 5:34:18 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Sorry for the double-post.

gjjones, I created a section on the sandbox for any issues that crop up as a result of clean-up threads. I would think that those clean-up threads will catch the vast majority of those issues. I'd expect us to only have to deal with something that might need people familiar with the work to look at (which your mention may well be an example of). Either way, feel free to add anything you come across to the sandbox.

I don't have to be the only person editing it. Anyone can edit it.

Sandbox.Web Animation RWBY Clean Up

My advice, however, would be for us to focus on one thing at a time (either one thing each, or everyone tackles one subject at a time, however people want to do it) and not jump around in a haphazard manner, otherwise we'll just keep adding to the list and never get anything done.

That's why I'm suggesting we start with the Sandbox.RWBY Team RWBY page. We've already done most of the updating and clean-up that it was originally created for. The only thing left to do is reduce all the walls of text. We can give it back to the mods at that point to be swapped in to the live page, delete the sandbox and then move on to something else.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 25th 2021 at 5:51:10 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

I'm thinking we might want to add something like a "Save the dates" note. For example:

• 2022: Premiere year for RWBY Volume 9, unless it's delayed.

Thoughts?

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.