Misused: What An Idiot

But we also have stuff like Parody Sue wicking Mary Sue a lot. Mentioning in trope descriptions shouldn't draw nearly as much trouble as saying "X is a scrappy because they're a Mary Sue" in a YMMV page.

Edited by Albert3105 on Jan 1st 2022 at 12:52:18 PM

Regarding cleaning up examples, are we using this thread or the existing clean-up thread in shorter-term projects?

The reason I ask is because works like RWBY have a mixture of legitimate examples, complaining misuse, and a discrepancy between what's on the WAI pages and what's on the YMMV pages — that matters because sometimes it's the YMMV pages that have the legitimate examples (and the WAI that has the misuse), but they the 'You'd Expect' formatting (which is kept to the WAI pages). I'm thinking that, before deleting entries from a YMMV page, the YMMV and WAI should be compared to see if the work has spread examples between the two places, bring all the examples together if that is the case, and then decide which ones need to be deleted for misuse, and which ones can be kept and transferred to Darth.

Is that how we're doing it?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 2nd 2022 at 2:30:52 PM

Btw if this is now Flame Bait. Why hasn't the icon come up yet?

It only appears for DarthWiki.What An Idiot and not Main.What An Idiot. I added both to the Flame Bait index as a stopgap until the latter is cut, but a Locked Pages request to remove the latter was submitted under the mistaken impression that both wicks were exactly the same, and a different mod removed the latter. If I added it back, I'd be edit warring.

Edit: A followup to a request to add it back said another mod was working on it, but if the other mod being referred to was me, then that's not true because I'd rather not edit war on a locked page.

Edit: Oh, I see which other mod was being referred to in the history of the Flame Bait index. Comment markup was used to see if the tag still appears, but if it doesn't, then it looks like the comment markup is preventing it from appearing.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 3rd 2022 at 7:19:26 AM

This trope is listed two times in a row in the Flame Bait index.

Got it, thanks.

Edited by FernandoLemon on Jan 3rd 2022 at 1:05:44 PM

The first is to Main.What An Idiot and the second is DarthWiki.What An Idiot. This is the only way to get the Flame Bait icon to appear for both. The former will be removed once it's dewicked; this is a stopgap to let people who don't follow TRS know that it's Flame Bait.

Someone went ahead and blanket deleted entries from a YMMV page I'm following which has the issue I flagged above (a mixture of entries split across the YMMV and WAI pages). So, I've just grabbed them and put them all together on the WAI page until they can be sorted to see what's misuse and what can be kept as a Darth entry — one of the entries will be a legitimate Darth entry (one was such obvious misuse that I didn't move it (the cited issue was raised and addressed in-universe because it turned out to be plot significant), and the other was a duplicate so didn't need moving).

So, are we double-checking to make sure we're not deleting something from YMMV pages that isn't on the WAI pages, but might be legitimate? Or are we just doing blanket deletes from the YMMV to concentrate on cleaning up the WAI pages, and leaving it for people to re-add entries to Darth later on once the work is finished?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 3rd 2022 at 6:34:29 PM

I am cross-checking examples for the most part and seeing if they are already on the appropriate page. If so, that's great, delete on YMMV with no issue.

For ones that are only on the YMMV, common sense prevails and, if the example is valid, it's moved to the appropriate page, with the correct formatting added if necessary. However, this is understandably a long process and with at least 3,000 wicks to go through in the YMMV pages, it's gonna take a while. I'm sensing a proper cleanup thread is becoming necessary to do this.

Also, here's a big question: what should we do with the entries/pages about Game Shows? None of the entries match the new formatting requirements and you couldn't really change it to it unless all the examples said "You'd Expect: for them to give the right answer." Plus it's kind of on choppy waters with the no real life examples rule. Should they be deleted outright, kept in some alternate format, or be moved to a new Audience Reaction about dumb game show answers?

I do think a proper clean-up is necessary before it's unleashed on Darth because there is definitely misuse on the WAI, and I don't think outright misuse is supposed to be encouraged on Darth pages, it's just that the requirements are more relaxed.

I thought we banned What An Idiot for game shows already?

Maybe we did.

And yeah, a cleanup thread seems useful here. We need a space to work at our own pace while discussing and analyzing the examples.

We never cut game show examples. I think reality show examples (i.e. Survivor) can still count as there's usually a narrative there (and reality shows, for the purpose of this wiki, are considered to not really be reality).

Shame cuz I love reading the Game Show pages but I also know they are really not fitting for the trope.

Yeah, there's a difference between whining that someone gave a wrong answer during Jeopardy and discussing something someone did on a show like Survivor.

My understanding there is that so many reality shows have so much Manipulative Editing that it's hard to tell what's real and what's not.

Whereas game shows involve real people engaged in real competitions (There's an actual federal law in the US against screwing around with the outcome of a game show), so it's hard to argue that they don't count as "real" for the purposes of No Real Life Examples, Please!

I agree, it'd be a shame to cut game show pages, but we can always archive them.

Edited by ImperialMajestyXO on Jan 3rd 2022 at 4:10:39 AM

Does this Invincible "What An Idiot" page count as well and need to be deleted?

I don't think we're allowed to do that (or at least not the histories.)

They can probably just be saved to the wayback machine, but yeah, we can't save the page histories.

Not after the first 15 entries, anyway. I don't think there's any rule against downloading them, though.

The game show entries can always be moved. What about a page titled “Game Show Gaffes” or something like that? It would make sense to put it in either Darth Wiki also or Just for Fun. It would just be a shame to lose them since a lot of them are hilarious, even if they do not fit their current page.

I actually can see an In-Universe version of that working. I know that there are works where a character goes on a game show and loses badly—I think there was a The Simpsons episode where Marge loses on Jeopardy, there's the "Weird Al" Yankovic song of course, and I know there are more. Anyone think that's a valid In-Universe trope idea?

I remember a Friends episode where Joey is invited onto a gameshow (Pyramid?) as a celebrity guest, and proceeds to screw up his partner's chance to win because he either doesn't know the words or comes out with insane answers at the worst possible moments.

There might well be an in-universe option.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 4th 2022 at 1:44:37 PM

That idea's kind of covered with Status Quo Game Show, where the idea is that characters fail badly at game shows because winning them would upset the status quo. Most examples detail their failure, but the trope's not necessarily about the failure, which can be confusing. The Weird Al example is not about the status quo, for instance.

This can all be about brought up in a potential TLP though. The real matter is what to do with the game show examples we already have.

Edit: And now I found out that Game Show Goofballs already covers this, which allows only In-Universe examples.

Edited by prettycoolguy on Jan 4th 2022 at 9:16:48 AM

I was wondering if it was already covered. Seems like a popular trope.

I know Game Show Goofballs was probably IUEO to prevent complaining, but if we don't have an issue with listing stupid answers, I wouldn't be opposed to allowing RL examples. But it might be too rude to the real life contestants. Plus sometimes the answers listed as stupid on the What An Idiot pages actually do make some sense.