Can you trope content that is accessible in advance if you pay?

Some works' release model involves content that's accessible in advance to those willing to drop a bit of coin, like paid subscribers on Patreon or Webtoons's "Fast Pass".

For example, Batman: Wayne Family Adventures currently has three chapters available for free and three more unlocked if you're willing to drop some cents.

If these advance chapters can be troped, how? Should they be under spoiler tags until the free release? Or are they more analogous to advanced screenings of films and troping should be held off until they're released to the general public?

Well,its a legal release but not its not public yet,putting the tropes under the spoilers is best course of action for now

I'd say yes. Fundamentally, I think it's analogous to how we can trope works which we have to buy.

Yeah, I suppose it's analogous to the Disney+ $30 "premium price" vs. it becoming free after a certain period of time.

Should they be spoilered though?

Well I think Rwby uses that method. To avoid spoiling anyone who hasn't seen it in the free method.

It is completely fine to add trope examples for publicly released content even if that content is not free. The bar we place is that, in principle, anyone can view the work if they want to.

Contrast this with privately screened works or works hosted on sites that require invitations or logins. We generally do not allow troping of such things until/unless they are released to the general public. This is especially relevant for RPs that are hosted on private servers.

Obviously, web publication can blur those lines, but those are the broad standards that we apply.

What about scripts that are behind a paywall?

Asking because I'm curious.

Even behind a paywall it is still public,it has been released in a limited fashion

Now if the work itself was inaccessible and the only way to trope was throough leaks it would be a different story

RWBY and DEATH BATTLE! don't allow tropes from episodes that are exclusive to Rooster Teeth First subscribers. This is because the majority of these shows' fans don't have the subscription, so if they want to avoid spoilers, they wouldn't be able to follow the shows' pages. This would then mean that bad edits would be able to get through much more easily, since not a lot of people would notice them being added (NightmareFuel.RWBY used to be plagued by this issue).

If there is an agreed-upon standard for a particular work article, that should apply of course. I'm speaking generally.

These works (including many Patreon-supported ones) in which there is a paid membership that grants early access to content are tricky to create a standard for. In principle, anyone could buy a membership and see them, but it is not expected that the general public would do so. Ergo, they are not really "public" in the same sense as a film that shows in theaters or a TV show that plays on HBO.

Requiring spoiler tagging of early access content would seem reasonable... or it could be omitted entirely and the content only troped when it is available to everyone.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 11th 2021 at 6:54:41 AM

If early access content is included, there should be a notice about it in the page description.

I would say most content available on this site that has been troped is available primarily if you pay—so why not?

Certainly, but typically you pay one price for the whole work, or you don’t. The issue here is how to trope a work in which some installments are more accessible than others, because you can pay to view them early, or wait until they’re free later. If you want to wait, but still want to view tropes for the free installments, how do you avoid spoilers?

If you don’t want early access to, say, Black Widow (2021), you can just not go to its page. (I haven’t.) The whole film is available for more money now, or less later. Tropes for other MCU entries have their own pages; you’re not going to look for them on that page. But Batman: Wayne Family Adventures has (or might have) both free and paid installments troped on the same page. There’s a disconnect.

I think using both spoiler tags and a note in the description advising their purpose is good policy here.

Since this thread was opened, there have been these two ATTs on the topic.

Should we try and nail down a policy, or do a laissez-faire "leave it to the work's contributors to decide" approach? At the very least, I agree that if advance content is present on the page, it should be noted in the description as a courtesy.

I wouldn't object to writing down a potential policy for it.

Edited by gjjones on Jan 10th 2022 at 10:08:09 AM

I've always found it really odd how RWBY was given an exception when other works like theatrical movies don't have any sort of waiting period, and there are some shows permanently behind a paywall (e.g. Disney+). And the RWBY pages already cause a ton of problems, so letting people trope the show as soon as episodes drop shouldn't really change anything about how we handle them lol.

If a work is publicly available in some form is should be allowed to be troped.

We would guess the thought process was something like this: If a work is mostly freely available, then most of its audience will be people who aren't paying to see the newest content immediately, and we shouldn't be forcing them to deal with spoilers for stuff they are definitely going to see later when it becomes free. But if a work is only available for money, then troping the paid content (aka all the content) isn't particularly likely to spoil people beyond the baseline amount that troping anything can spoil people.

Ok, but what about public betas that some video games (particularly MMO games) deploy? They usually come with disclosure agreements to participators telling them to not spread the info of the latest patch until said patch becomes an official release. Otherwise, they would be considered Content Leaks.

A "public beta" by definition does not have an NDA. Closed betas and alphas frequently do. There is a substantial difference between completed content that is released for payment and pre-release content that is still being developed.

The key distinction is, as noted, whether the general public is expected to be able to consume the content, even if they have to pay for it; or if the content is restricted to a small group of people who are selected or able to pay for the privilege.

For RWBY, it is expected that most people will see it for free when it releases to the general public. That is the standard at which we should apply the "pre-release content" rule. It's similar with films that have invite-only premiers and, as noted, video games that have closed betas (although the latter also apply the condition that they may not be representative of the final product).

There are always going to be special cases that mess with any policy. Those should not be used to swing the policy one way or the other. The point is that TV Tropes, broadly speaking, should only describe content that is available to the general public, regardless of whether said public is required to pay to see it.

I still think we should have a specific policy regarding paywalled content.

What do you suggest? The only thing I want to do is note their inclusion in the description so people who think they're getting it for free aren't bamboozled by paywalled content.

I don't have any specific ideas, I just felt that we might need a policy because this is a big gray area that a policy might benefit.

I guess for starters, what does paywalled content mean? We need to nail down a concrete definition—if you can only watch a movie by paying for the DVD or subscribing to a streaming service, wouldn't that technically count as paywalled? Maybe we need to say online paywalled content, as just paywalled is a bit too broad.

Although I am not someone to listen to right now because I currently have a throbbing headache that is making it hard to think in detail. I don't know, maybe I commented prematurely.

I like your idea of requiring it to be noted in the description. That's a good start.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jan 11th 2022 at 11:59:13 AM

The key question that defines a "paywall" to me is whether it is expected that the mainstream audience will pay to consume the content or only a select few will get to see it before it's released for general consumption.

• A theatrical film debuts in a premier. You can't get in to see it without being invited. This isn't a paywall, but it is an exclusive event. Conclusion: Do not trope.
• A theatrical film releases to general audiences. Anyone can get in to see it for the price of a ticket. Conclusion: Okay to trope. Tag spoilers.
• A video game is in closed beta, requiring invitations and the signing of an NDA. Conclusion: Do not trope non-public information.
• A video game is in early access; anyone can pay to download and play it. Conclusion: Okay to trope, noting that the pre-release content may not be the final content. Avoid troping the story as much as possible, tag spoilers.
• A webcomic releases a week early for Patreon members. Conclusion: This is what is under inquiry.

How we document the commercial nature of the work depends on the default expectation associated with the format. If a TV show debuts on Netflix, you need a Netflix subscription to view it. This should be obvious, so no additional information besides "it is on Netflix" needs to be stated. The default assumption for a webcomic is that it is free. If it has a paywall for early access, this can be stated. "Updates weekly, early access for Patreon members."

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 11th 2022 at 12:15:29 PM

As I remember, RWBY was originally delayed 24 hours because it only FIRST members could view it, then RT shifted the delay to three days, then they went to a week. So RWBY ended up copying how some other works on this site manage the delays. Was Deathbattle one of them? I can't remember, and I don't follow the works that were used.

It was all about the paywall, though, and the fact that Rooster Teeth also asks YouTube reactors to delay uploading their video reactions by one week until it's out for the general public to watch.

There is one benefit to RWBY's delay that I've noticed (and I suspect other RWBY tropers may have as well), and that's mistroping — mistroping when it comes out and cleaning that, only for the same mistroping to occur all over again when it becomes available to the general public is definitely something that has happnened. However, that doesn't mean other works and fandoms will have the same issues, and it also needs to be balanced by the cost of cleaning entries that are added during the paywalled period. So, swings and roundabouts.

It therefore depends on how TVTropes wants to handle online content that has a temporary paywall in place.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 12th 2022 at 11:54:00 AM

Another example might be content on The Escapist, but in this case only the YouTube release is delayed; content is usually released simultaneously for free on the website, albeit with ads for non-members. These are fine to trope immediately.

I'm open to suggestions as to what our general policy should be for members-only early-access online content. My personal feeling is that such content should be walled off with warnings and/or spoiler tags.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 12th 2022 at 3:10:04 PM