Needs Help: Chain Reaction Destruction

Chain Reaction Destruction has a very severe case of ZCE infestation, one which I think is big enough that just going through it to hide the no-context examples isn't enough to address — there's evidently some sort of problem at the root here, and besides that just hiding or removing all the examples would cut a very significant part of the article.

(In fact, when I tried to comment out the ZCEs the first time around, the overload of ampersand tags caused the preview window to glitch out and fail to display correctly.)

The basic concept of the trope is that, after being defeated, a boss, enemy, structure or other entity is wracked with a series of explosions, which may or may not be followed by a large final detonation. Note that, due to the nature of the trope, simply saying "X explodes" isn't sufficient context — if Emperor Evil's battleship goes up in a single big fireball after defeat, that's not this trope. Examples need to specify that a series of multiple smaller explosions occurs.

With that in mind, I'll split examples on the page into three categories: valid examples, pure ZCEs, and partial ZCEs that say that an explosion happens but don't provide any further detail.

The page is divided into sections based on the specific nature of the explosions. Since this turns out to affect the distribution of context-poor examples, I'm keeping these divisions here.

I'm also opting to ignore the real life section.

Thus, out of 226 examples, we have:

• 174 ZCEs, about 76.99% of the total.
• 13 partial ZCEs, 5.75%.
• 39 valid examples, 17.26%.

I'm sure the problem is clear.

One notable thing is that the "Series of explosions followed by something other" category has the highest ratio of valid examples on the page. Out of its twelve entries, nine provide acceptable context — an even 75%, nearly inverse of the page's overall ratio. The "other media" section also does decently, with seven valid examples out of fifteen (that is, about 46.67%).

My conclusion is that the high granularity of the trope's soft splits is a leading cause in this proliferation of zero-context entries. Since each spells out a very specific type of explosion sequence, I suspect that editors assume that each entry's context is already implicitly provided by the section it's in and simply don't consider providing any themselves. By contrast, the last two sections don't tell you what extremely specific thing they contain and, thus, they place more pressure on their examples to actually explain themselves.

My recommendation is to simply tear out all the ZCEs and send this to the launch pad to try to accumulate more properly fleshed examples. I also strongly recommend removing the soft splits entirely (besides the video games and non-video games sections, I mean). Firstly, as I said, I think they're actively to the page's detriment. Secondly, once all the ZCEs are gotten rid of, it honestly won't have enough examples to justify this degree of granularity.

Opening.

This has about 200 wicks, which isn't much, but I'm curious if a wick check would demonstrate the same propensity for ZCE. If it does, I'd be completely on board with kicking it back. Otherwise, maybe we can find enough valid examples in the wicks to re-flesh the page.

Not a bad idea, actually.

Here's the wick count: since I was specifically looking for the presence or absence of ZCEs, I stuck to work and character pages (that is, I skipped mentions in other tropes' pages and in Awesome/, Fridge/, etc. pages because they don't seem useful to this particular goal), but checking every eligible page.

It turns out that one particular misuse is fairly common — broadly used to refer to a thing exploding and setting off nearby things that also explode.

So, out of 164 checked links, we have:

• 31 that could, with some sprucing up, be brought over to the trope's page. There may or may not be overlap with the examples already there, I don't know, I haven't had time to check.
• 14 examples of misuse where a thing explodes, the explosion sets off some other thing, and so on down the chain.
• 3 cases of misuse where someone hiding a lot of explosives to set off at a later date.
• 2 cases of this being used to just refer to a self-destruct of some sort.
• 2 cases of this being used to refer to Disaster Dominoes.
• 11 cases of assorted misuse.
• And 102 cases of plain old ZCEs.

In light of that:

• I don't think that simply bringing over valid examples into the page will be enough to bring it up to standard by itself, although regardless of what we end up doing we should probably do that anyway.
• The "series of exploding things" misuse variant is common enough to be worth noting. Do we have some other trope that covers that?
• The Disaster Dominoes and Natural Disaster Cascade examples should be rewicked properly, which I'll do myself later.

I think we should remove soft-split, bring the valid examples, remove all ZCEs and misuse, and maybe send back to TLP if the trope is still in poor shape.

Definitely undo the softsplit.

Would a rename help?

Remove the split for sure, and a run through TLP for good examples can't hurt.

As for a rename, seems "Chain Reaction" is misleading. Hm. Multiple Smaller Explosions? Defeat Means Small Explosions? Something for the TLP folks to discuss?

to removing the soft split, and maybe running through the TLP if needed.

for removing the soft-split, rename, and maybe running through the TLP if needed.

As of the new name suggestion, how about Post Defeat Mini Explosion Chain?

Remove the soft split and rename, at least.

Yeah, a rename is probably a good idea. I think the external wick check definitely shows that the current name is confusing people about what the trope's about.

Post Defeat Mini Explosion Chain is a touch clunky, but I feel that it's the clearest of the current suggestions.

to the rename as well.

I mean, if we send this back to TLP, it's the TLP's job to worry about the title. The suggestion would work as a placeholder, but if someone finds something better while there, that's great too.

I'm okay with the split/rename chain. I feel like we could have a better name, but my brain's running on empty - Post Defeat Mini Explosion Chain is A-OK for now.

Remove the soft split, and bring back to TLP.

We have 9 people saying to remove the trope soft split, 7 to rename, 4 to send to TLP for more examples.

Shall we have a crowner with those three options now to collect more votes?

Sure, why not. We can at least make the want to rename clear in case the unlaunch doesn't happen.

I'm fine with a crowner. I'll defer to another mod to make it since I'm kind of worn out right now.

I advertised the crowner on ATT.

Though since we're going back to TLP, shouldn't we just worry about titles there?

I'd say yes.

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.