Unfortunate Implications sources: Quantity vs Quality

I also don't believe that there is any fundamental imperative to capture as many UI examples as possible. This is a trap that we can fall into at TV Tropes: the need to seek out examples of audience reactions. Let them come organically and then weed out the bad ones.

Our overwhelming priority when looking at a YMMV subpage should be, "Are these examples valid?" I also think that the Complete Monster cleanup has lost the thread on this as well, but that's a separate conversation.

It's not like there's a shortage of opinions out there. Like assholes, most of them need a bit of a wash before they can be presented in polite company.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 23rd 2022 at 7:12:36 AM

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

Then in that case, why is it allowed on YMMV pages at all and isn't on-page examples only? Easier to curate, especially if we're just going to go ahead and discount smaller fanbases altogether.

I still take umbridge with the idea of prioritizing the opinions of certain people over the opinions of other people. It's still biased, just in a different way. Instead of niche echo-chambers, you're instead looking at mainstream news publications arguing often without really knowing the work, or popular YouTubers making surface-level criticism and, again, being equally prone to bias as everyone else. I feel like people are sort of skipping over that issue every time I bring it up. I trust community engagement more because it shows you more of the community's opinion, even if it's still niche at the end of the day. If this really is about the "prevalent opinion", we're going about it in the most counterproductive way.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 23rd 2022 at 7:24:36 AM

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Despite Figheer's personal opinion, either being labeled NOPE or Definition-Only Please are the next likely step if the ymmv-trope continues to attract unacceptably weird or negative examples.

(Edited due to edit. I already responded to "prevailing opinion" being about more than just fans on the previous page.)

Edited by crazysamaritan on Jan 23rd 2022 at 7:27:25 AM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Also other YMMV tropes tend to be less you know you can add anything or very weird or offensive stuff unlike here. (We can always just remove examples from their ) So no I don't think that comparison to other ymmv tropes that's being used is correct.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

I know it's not just about fans, but for works that don't have a percentage of non-fans involved in the discourse, it's sort of irrelevant? Again I bring up Warrior Cats. I've never seen anyone who wasn't a fan of the work discuss anything about the work, probably because it's non-mainstream and even people who don't like the writing (I.E, just about everyone you talk to online) sticks around for the characters, lore, and fan community as a whole. Not every work has a big enough reaction to have haters or neutral parties looking in, and in this scenario the prevalent reactions always come from the fandom. So I still think it's too exclusionary and counter-productive to treat every work the same way regardless of context.

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Edit: And yeah, we don't want to be flooded in nonsense arguments, but I do think that people are conflating "bad argument" with the websites they're posted on too much. Bad arguments can come from anywhere, and so can good arguments, and all I'm asking is for it to be decided on a case by case basis, not "Tumblr Bad".

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 23rd 2022 at 7:42:42 AM

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No, they cannot. There's a reason why I phrased it the way I did, "websites with a reputation to maintain", rather than "reputable websites". I'll turn this around on you (socratic method); why do we accept certain websites? What quality about them makes them different than social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

This sounds like it would very much lead to a slippery slope, unfortunately. Like what makes one group of social media citations better than another. (Left or right)?

Yeah uh at least a major publication has to at least fact check or they can get sued for something like this if they outright make stuff up.

Edited by miraculous on Jan 23rd 2022 at 4:48:59 AM

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

It's true that bad arguments can come from anywhere, but requiring people to find reputable sources to back up their examples is precisely so they can't randomly dig up a post they saw once as "evidence".

Most UI examples prior to the citation requirement were personal opinions with no way to determine if a consensus existed. When we added the requirement, we got a lot of "Rando Doofus' Tumblr Blog", and that simply pushed the problem out one step. Sure, professional reviewers can be full of shit, but it's much less likely than a tweet you found with a Google search.

We aren't a goddamn academic journal here. We don't employ research professionals. If we can't keep this stuff light and breezy, we shouldn't have it, and that includes making simple rules to ensure that Unfortunate Implications isn't full of garbage and whining.

Maybe some tropers could volunteer to form a UI review board or something, I don't know. We have the equivalent for other tropes.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 23rd 2022 at 7:54:48 AM

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

But it's not just "major publications" we accept citations from, and that's the problem. Several examples use examples from YouTube reviewers, for example, including comedians like The Nostalgia Critic, and nobody seems to take issue with those.

We actually have a cleanup thread linked in the OP. That's where this discussion originated, as the example someone took issue with was seemingly only discredited for using blogs as citations, despite those blogs making incredibly deep and researched arguments beyond "cat book racist". I'm still arguing in favor of curation, I just don't like how certain sites are essentially blacklisted while other equally-problematic ones (like, again, YouTube) seemingly get a free pass for being more "reputable".

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 23rd 2022 at 7:58:28 AM

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The issue here is that well we can remove bad ymmv tropes normally. This one specifally cites not do that if it has a citation so letting in anyone and everyone's social media account would create chaos.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

Wait, where does it say that?

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Isn't their at least a general rule to not remove then if they have a citation. Like the reverse of removing them if they don't.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

Then you can cite me as taking issue with "just anyone with a YouTube channel". Some channels could work (essentially network mirror channels), but the average "guy with a YouTube account" (like Atun Shei Films) is more comparable to a blog.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Well, that's why the cleanup thread exists. We're still curating the ones that have citations, and I'm of the opinion that if something is blatantly wrong you can just cut it with an edit reason, so I don't see why removing outright bad examples with or without citations would be a big deal either way. But that is sort of a personal opinion of mine rather than any sort of guideline.

Alright, yeah; I still disagree with your take on this, but you're nothing if not consistent in your argument. If we ended up applying a "only reputable news sources" rule, that would be a lot less of a headache than what we have now, even if I'd still think it's the wrong direction.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 23rd 2022 at 8:13:00 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

You could say the same thing about Twitter accounts though. There are people (especially verified accounts) who may curate the tweets they make and use threads to relay information. I remember a debate about Jacob Chapman specifically, as he is a reviewer attached to a professional anime review network but espoused an anime opinion on his Twitter instead of his blog.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

"Jacob Chapman's personal Twitter account" is still the Atun-Shei situation. Again, it isn't about the person, it's about the platform. Chapman's boss has no way to remove a Twit when the company gets pushback from Chapman's opinion. An opinion given on a "professional anime review network" account is better, but then I have to ask why aren't they linking to an article about the opinion?

Here's a convoluted situation in which it would be acceptable to use a Twitter post: The creator of the work (Word of God source) confirms that the Unfortunate Implication claims are legitimate issues with enjoyment of the work. In that case, it is the fact that we are getting WoG confirmation which trumps the platform where the opinion is given. Feel free to cite WoG from whatever platform, because it is the creator publicly acknowledging that audiences objectively have a grievance with the work. Word of Saint Paul or Dante probably should still be restricted to "websites with a reputation to maintain", such as professional news agencies.

Professional reporting/news services have to deal with "how many people there are to publicly call it out" when they get stuff wrong, to a degree that personal blogs just don't worry about. The fact that they have a reputation and audience to maintain with a broad consumer base means that they (referring to agencies that have developed a staff to support their reporting, something better than National Enquirer, but it doesn't have to be the "mainstream media") must remove controversial arguments that don't receive enough support to justify keeping the claims intact.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Starting to wonder if we should make a crowner for UI on what we should do with it.

I still don't see what the problem with requiring two sources for an example is. It's a vastly more objective standard than trying to determine what makes a "credible" source, and I don't think it's a particularly onerous demand for academic rigor or whatever.

Because it would flood the site with extreme views from both sides.

You can find any two crazies who believe something

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

And you can find one crazy who believes something even easier, if we wanna play that game.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 23rd 2022 at 11:20:45 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Sure but as pointed out major publications usually have to do research for interest of not getting in trouble themselves. Can't say the same thing for random social media posts.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

And the ones that do use research?

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Yeah but that unfortunately seems to be taking a stab in the dark for which would count and which wouldn't with no one to verify and feedback it. Publications at least have several people who have to go through the article first before it's posted (Editors). Can you say the same about a random blog post?

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

We would have to exclude publications by Moral Guardians, including those that are "reputable," as well.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Jan 24th 2022 at 11:39:02 AM

Kirby is awesome.

I don't see what a Moral Guardian has to do with anything, anyway? By nature they complain about surface level content and things being "too adult/violent/sad/etc" for their babies. Those things aren't Unfortunate Implications by any stretch of the imagination, so they're sort of irrelevant in this case.

Parents complaining that a show is "too violent" isn't the same as someone complaining about the show having sexist implications or racist stereotyping.

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