Troping user-generated content

Yes, and FanFic/ is an anomaly I would love to get rid off. So it's not a good counterargument.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I want it to be very clear that these works "belong" to the parent work. In Recaps, we do this by putting the work title before the episode title. What I don't want is for these to get "lost" and start floating around as independent articles.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

That ship has sailed.

I've been staying out of this thread so far, but I think that we're talking about multiple different concepts here. While it's theoretically possible for a random Game Maker level to be troped, the far more common case is a Game Mod that makes significant changes to the game it's based on. The two are hardly equivalent.

The term "User-Generated Content" refers specifically to content created in and for a product that is designed as a toolbox for creating games, maps, levels, etc. Examples include Roblox, Happy Wheels, Mario Maker, Minecraft, and so on. Game mods are not the same thing. Often, mods can be part of UGC, but they are a distinct concept.

If you build a Minecraft adventure map and post it for download, that is not a mod. It's UGC.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

This is one of those things where we have to consider whether it's possible to write an actual decently-sized unique page on something. Making a page for every individual Mario Maker level is obviously not workable, especially if 90% of the tropes on those pages are going to be the same.

I would say that when user-generated content lacks its own distinct tropes, or when there's tropes very common to user-generated content from a particular system, it should just be lumped together on that system's main page as a trope for the system. For example, if there's a bunch of Mario Maker levels that show some shared trope, that should go on the Mario Maker page itself, maybe with subpoints for a few examples.

On the other hand, if there's plainly enough there to support a page about a level that won't be 90% identical to most other hypothetical Mario Maker level pages, then it could in theory get its own page. This would be comparable to a full-rewrite mod like eg. Piratez (or like Half-Life was before it became its own game.)

This is probably true for Mario Maker, but there's a pretty wide range of game maker things. There's absolutely Roblox games that can support their own pages.

Also, I'd say that the dividing line for "does this deserve its own page" isn't the number of tropes but the number of tropes distinct from the game-thing used to make it. If it shares its tropes with the majority of other things made in eg. Mario Maker, then it's not really a distinct work; its tropes should be covered on Mario Maker's page, perhaps in a section on "tropes shared by Mario Maker games" or the like (because they're really tropes related to Mario Maker.)

On the other hand, if it has meaningful tropes that don't belong on the general Mario Maker page because they're distinct to this specific level, then that suggests that it's its own work and could in theory be covered on its own page (although as mentioned I doubt this is true very often, if ever, for Mario Maker specifically, since the freedom it offers is limited.)

Edited by Aquillion on Nov 20th 2021 at 4:47:06 AM

This is why I think that our first priority is to make a trope article for the concept, and explain how it differs from Fan-made content, such as fanfic, mods, and let's plays. I'm satisfied with restricting the examples of UGC to recap articles or recap-equivalent.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If we do that, we should clearly draw distinctions between fan fiction, game mods, Let's Plays, roleplays, and user-generated content, since each takes content from an original work and uses it in a different manner.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 23rd 2021 at 4:31:30 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Let's see if I can do this.

Derivative content

Derivative content is any material arising from or related to a discrete creative work that is not specifically and entirely a part of that work. For purposes of this discussion, the term "licensed" includes works that are in the public domain. Specific categories of derivative work may include:

• Adaptation: A licensed derivative work that changes the medium, story, or setting. Example: Les Misérables was adapted from a book to a play.
• Expanded Universe: An adaptation that is (usually) not within official continuity but is labeled as part of a body of similar works that share a product identity. Example: Han Solo at Star's End is part of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
• Fanwork: Any unlicensed derivative work that does not claim Fair Use exemptions. Note that copyright enforcement generally ignores fanworks unless the authors attempt to earn revenue or otherwise gain market advantage from them.

Derivative works vary in terms of how they affect continuity:

• Prequel / Interquel / Sequel: A derivative work that exists in the same continuity as the original and can be placed in an In-Universe chronological sequence (before, during, or after, respectively).
• Reboot / Remake: A derivative work that creates a new, independent continuity with the same or similar premise as the original. A remake generally attempts to reproduce as much of the original as possible.
• Spinoff: A derivative work that expands upon a character, setting, or plot device from the original and is generally in continuity with it. Example: Solo is a spinoff of Star Wars.

Fanworks come in several different forms depending on medium and presentation. Some fan-made derivatives may claim Fair Use exemption from copyright infringement claims if they are substantially transformative and do not act as a market substitute.

• Fanfic: A written creative work that uses content from an original work without permission.
• Fan art: As above, but in a drawn or illustrated medium.
• Reaction Video: The video publication of the experience of watching or listening to an audiovisual work. These are so popular that YouTube has created special rules for them.
• Let's Play: The video publication of the experience of playing a video game. Some IP owners are less permissive of Let's Plays than others and may block them or claim revenue from them.
• The Abridged Series: A visual work (typically animated) is re-cut and sometimes redrawn to retell the original work in a shorter format and with new(ish) dialogue. Often relies on parody exceptions to copyright laws for legal distribution.
• Review: Reviews are derivative works but are generally considered Fair Use of the original material.
• Roleplay: The online publication of the experience of playing a Tabletop RPG. Since these games are meant to be played and shared, roleplays are typically exempt from copyright unless they infringe in other ways.
• Liveblog: In this specific case, the online, written publication of the experience of watching/reading/playing a work. Liveblogs usually don't reproduce content from the original in an infringing way.

Finally, we come to video games. There are additional ways that derivative works can be created for them. In all cases, these are tropable only if they contain original, narrative content that is not directly derived from the experience of playing the base game.

• Let's Play: See above.
• Game Mod: Code or other content that modifies the experience of playing a video game, up to and including creating an entirely new video game.
• User Generated Content: Content that is created in and for a product that is designed as a toolbox for creating games, maps, levels, etc. Examples of such products include Happy Wheels, Mario Maker, and Minecraft.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 24th 2021 at 2:27:21 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The Fan Fic section needs the references to copyright removed - some fanworks do assert fair use. Just say "Any derivative work that is not officially considered part of the main work franchise" or something like that.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The "without permission" thing is crucial. I don't care if fanfic authors claim to be exercising Fair Use. They are almost certainly wrong, but that is not the important distinction.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

There are also some authors that tolerate or allow fanworks but don't consider them part of the main franchise. That wouldn't be addressed by your definition.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The distinction between an Expanded Universe and fan fiction is that the former is officially licensed. Affirmative permission is given and the works are allowed to be sold for money.

I don't care how tolerant an author is about you using their material; they won't be so happy if you start making money off of it. I'm sure there are edge cases, but those don't disprove our distinctions, which apply 99.99999999999 percent of the time.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 24th 2021 at 9:33:59 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I don't think we need the implied separation between copyright infringement and Fair Use (especially as Fair Use depends a lot on local laws), and I don't think the Abridged Series entry really describes what the format is.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Fair Use is a specific exception to copyright. TV Tropes is located in the US and subject to US copyright laws.

I am not very familiar with abridged series, so I tried to paraphrase the article. Feel free to offer a correction. My understanding from a quick Google search is that they are widely considered to be infringing and thus cannot be monetized.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The wiki is subject to US copyright law, but the works we have articles on may not be subject to US copyright law. For example; a book that violates American copyright can be published in other countries where it isn't a copyright violation. We would not be making an article for such a hypothetical work in the Fanfic/ namespace, but in the Literature/ namespace because it was published without violating copyright. Therefore...

Fanworks come in several different forms depending on medium and presentation. Some fan-made derivatives may claim Fair Use exemption from copyright infringement claims if they are substantially transformative and do not act as a market substitute.

• The Abridged Series: A visual work (typically animated) is re-cut and sometimes redrawn to retell the original work in a shorter format and with new(ish) dialogue. Often relies on parody exceptions to copyright laws for legal distribution.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

It really isn't our job to determine the copyright status of every work we have an article for. In almost all cases, whether it is an adaptation or a fanwork should be obvious. There is a valid case to be made that having a separate namespace for fanfics causes more problems than it solves, but we aren't debating that in this thread.

I made the suggested edits to my post.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 24th 2021 at 2:29:12 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Okay, I just made a TLP for User Generated Content here. Hopefully I'm doing this right.

I am once again bumping this thread.

The User-Generated Context draft has been slowly growing.

Also I probably should have mentioned this four months ago but I split part of the UGC draft into the Player Content Index, which would index UGC works with pages like the ROBLOX and Minecraft maps.

This thread has really slowed down. I paused talking about this, until a related trope was launched, inspired by crazysamaritan's post:

The UGC draft came to a status I'd considered launching, but I found some problems with both that draft and the other:

• It occurred to me that the User-Generated Content draft isn't about the UGC itself, but the platform for sharing it. The name is misleading, so I'd consider renaming it to something like Content Sharing Platform.
• There's no page for the subject of UGC itself. While my Player Content Index draft may be about UGC, the "index" part suggests it just serves as an index, like Game Mod Index. Perhaps it should be expanded to have more description and take the name User Generated Content instead, since it's a page about the actual content being generated.
• I'm unsure where to take the UGC draft, as mentioned in a comment. The trope involves content creation and content sharing, which could be their own tropes. (There was also a third thing, but I don't think it needs to be addressed here.)

If the name UGC isn't taken by the Player Content Index, it could perhaps serve as an supertrope for content creation and sharing within a video game.

I'm wondering if this thread has suggestions of how to manage these pages.

It was brought to my attention that we previously had "Non-Canon" example subpages in work pages, which were removed by this Wiki Talk and this cleanup.

Which makes even more apparent to me that we could stick to the "don't trope what's not present in the work, if an example comes from a custom content, make a page / Fanfic Rec for the mod or cut the example". Relevant to this discussion.

Edited by Amonimus on Dec 12th 2022 at 9:19:39 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I don't think the decision to cut the Non-Canon pages affects this directly, because unlike other Fan Works, player content is made and accessible within the work itself.

This case wasn't brought up in the original Non-Canon thread. I think the difference both here, and perhaps in page quality is important enough, that it would be preferable to get more opinions before cutting the content. Which I guess is gonna happen in this thread.

The work pages known to be affected this kind of trimming are listed on Sandbox.User Generated Content. I updated the page with more info, which should be enough to figure out which ones have on-page UGC examples, and which ones are also known to reference specific levels.

And thanks for bringing the old project to my attention. I wrongly assumed the project was completed, but it looks like it still hasn't been closed.

So I've read the discussion on namespace and I'm still not sure about this case: if I want to create a page for user-made Battle for Wesnoth campaigns, what namespace they should be located at?

• VideoGame/ doesn't feel right because the official campaigns are put in Recap/.
• At first, I want to put them on Recap.Battle For Wesnoth along with the official ones, but I'm not sure if that is allowed.

Anyway, Wesnoth can be added to the sandbox; both the main page and its subpages have examples from several UGC at the moment.

"Your father was an average fighter, Kal-El, but he was a brilliant scientist!"

Before I launch the first TLP draft I should note that I changed the name from User Generated Content to Player Creation Sharing to make it clear the trope is from the source work and not about the UGC itself. I figured this was a good idea since Game Mod has apparently suffered from misuse, being used for both original works and their derivatives.

The name User Generated Content would probably be used for a page directly about the content itself.

We haven't decided on that yet. For Everybody Edits Flash, I put examples from user-made worlds on the main page, and examples from official campaigns on the Recap page. That's a bit weird now that I think about it.

I haven't made any pages for player-made worlds because I'm waiting for this thread to decide where to put these pages.

---

Player Creation Sharing has been launched. I got no feedback on the new name, and no response to the 24 hour launch notice, so I assumed it was fine to launch. As a sidenote, the other draft, Player Content Index has remained inactive since March.

Can we finally figure out where to put UGC? Before continuing, do we still need a trope/index about UGC itself before deciding on a policy?

Edited by N1KF on Dec 18th 2022 at 11:13:06 AM

Revived the second draft, now renamed from Player Content Index to User-Generated Content after I realized we still need a page about the concept and not just an index.

It feels weird doing this stuff with like, almost no feedback. I feel like I'm writing this to nobody. Hopefully the new draft will get some feedback soon.