"Works About X" indexes

Thread current status:

• We have agreed by crowner to place a moratorium on new Works by Subject indexes until we can thoroughly go through the existing ones.
• We have created the Works About "X" Indexes sandbox to track progress.
• Works by Subject has been added to the TRS Queue for a batch thread.

Original post below.

Ursine Fiction

Recently we've had a proliferation of indexes like Ghost Fiction and Demon Works, and folks are questioning whether they're actually needed. The draft at issue for whatever reason attracted a Troper Critical Mass saying it wasn't needed, and the discussion turned to "well, what about these other indexes"?

Personally, I recall a rule against Search Generated Indexes, and I don't think "work is about bears" or "work is about ghosts" properly counts as a genre.

Edited by StarSword on Jan 18th 2024 at 12:46:01 PM

I was okay when it was ghosts and dragons and whatnot because those works usually employ similar tropes or are at least common enough to warrant some sort of designation. Once it got into random animals, toys, and less common mythical creatures, though... I started to start finding them to be pointless bloat that don't have any actual organizational purposes. Especially since the range of what gets considered "X Media" is too broad.

What if the bear is the villain? What if the bear is in an ensemble cast? What if a bear plays a major role but isn't a main character? Do those works count? The fact that we even have debates like this feeds into how uncertain I am about these indexes being useful. If you have to ask if a work counts, the index is probably too vague to be useful.

We have a Works By Subject short-term cleanup thread, but it is a good idea to discuss here before cleanup should continue.

I also agree that those indexes are useless, unless they are a legitimate genre and they focus on a certain element or plot point related to such. Indexes like Equine Fiction are salvageable.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Feb 2nd 2022 at 6:40:20 AM

Ghost Fiction and Demon Works actually seem to be sort of similar and have a point. And they have people who look for those kinds of stories. They're not even real creatures, so they're inherently there for a reason. They're both almost subgenres of fantasy, for one.

Even Pony Tale is an animal-related story people look for.

Ursine Fiction could be anything. And almost no one is looking for "Stories about a bear." Stories about foxes. Stories about...what, cows? Pigs? What do Babe and Charlotte's Web have to do with each other, other than: that's a pig. Okay, who cares?

Edited by Eiryu on Feb 1st 2022 at 2:43:05 PM

I think the difference is Demons and ghosts have common tropes and ideas within works dedicated to them. And it also is a useful index as people who like those works know where to look.

In contrast, you can do whatever the hell you want with a work about Ponies in it. Making a list of works that focus in them kinda pointless as it's just listing a bunch of random horse themed works.

I actually think horses are one of the few animals that actually tend to have some kind of cohesion in fiction, if that wasn't clear. Works about horses are almost inevitably about some kind of freedom/wildness/return-to-nature...thing. And Pony Tale is a specific trope on this wiki that I think is fine, especially if you read the description.

But people are just making indexes of works to make indexes of works and I just do not see the point.

Is their some way we can cleanup these indexes. As I don't think we need a lot of these. TRS?

A story about a supernatural creature will usually feature supernatural elements. Horses are an animal but are involved in some sports, and all follow the same trends as mentioned above. There are arguments to be made for these indexes (as well as against).

But if you're allowed to make an index that boils down to 'there's an important bear somewhere' then what's the line to be drawn? By this guideline, I could legitimately make an actual index about media that has (important) chairs somewhere.

Not just that, but it would lead to a slippery slope.

What about fiction about beings made from clouds?

Note that there's also Canine Fiction and Feline Fiction.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Feb 1st 2022 at 4:27:32 AM

So the question is, what do we do about it? Obviously, it will be for consensus to decide, but we could try something along the lines of what's already been done with Stock Phrases and Sliding Scales:

1, No new "Works About X" indexes will be accepted.

2, Existing "Works About X" indexes will be allowed to stay, but may require clean-up.

To be fair, these indexes do usually have a rule stating that whatever X is must be a major character or otherwise important to the plot and that simply having X in it doesn't count. For example, I wouldn't list Pokémon in Equine Fiction because though there are Pokemon based on equine animals, they are neither major characters nor important to the plot.

As for the Ursine Fiction proposal, the bombs are getting beyond a joke. Also, I'm not accusing anyone, but I'm starting to wonder if there's a bit of sockpuppetry going on, with people using multiple accounts to try and get it nuked into oblivion.

Edited by Clare on Feb 3rd 2022 at 4:30:29 PM

I agree with everything that's been said already, but to try and throw out a line somewhere, I'm wondering if the line should be drawn at supernatural creatures + symbolic animals.

My wording on that is probably not the best, because any animals can be "symbolic", so what's to say someone doesn't go create an index for crow works, but I'm not sure how else to word that.

ETA: Also, should we do a quick looksie at existing indexes to make sure they're being used correctly. I.E. works that prominently feature X.

Edited by Hello83433 on Feb 1st 2022 at 1:28:58 AM

Here's a whole list of works by subject:

Works by Subject

Yeah, the bombs on that one are nonsense. I was the first to bomb it when it was in an unusable state and I didn't expect it to take off like it did, or else I would've held off. I can't retract it without giving it a hat or else I would.

My only question about the scope is... how major is major? How prominent does the character have to be?

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 1st 2022 at 4:31:35 AM

Something like Care Bears count as Ursine Fiction (and the name says so), but not Pokémon despite the latter having species based on bears (including Snorlax to some degree).

There's also the definition of "bear." Are pandas bears? Are koalas bears? Taxonomically, the former are bears, but the latter are not bears but marsupials.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Feb 1st 2022 at 4:35:37 AM

Now that I'm looking at this discussion, I feel a bit regretful that I actually launched Equine Fiction and contributed to the issue, even if it was successful.

Anyway, everyone is correct, the line does have to be drawn somewhere. Don't know where though. Maybe obscure stuff which doesn't really have an impact on the work possibly?

I think the work should be about the creature for it to count. To use an example I looked through Bovine Fiction and saw that Jack and the Beanstalk is listed because of the cow he trades. Although the cow kicks off the plot and has a prominent role(kind of), I would not say Jack and the Beanstalk is Bovine Fiction.

I remember one that I fought against was Skeleton Stories, which was discarded and then spontaneously restored by the creator... and I guess discarded again since I can't find it??? The big problem there was not only that skeletons weren't all that interesting or meaningful, but also that everyone kept asking if certain characters qualified.

From a work point of view, I think decommissioning these pages as a whole is easier from a labor standpoint than continuously having to debate what works count/what indices are valid and clean.

From a troping point of view, I'm not sure it's really our job to point people towards works that are about xyz. We can point them to works that use xyz and how they use them in the Our Monsters Are Different, Animal Tropes subpages and the like, but I don't think "this work is about a cow" has any categorization value.

Another related issue is index bloat. For those not in the know, indexing starts to act funky at ~30 indexes, so cutting back on more superfluous ones would be ideal. Hotel Transylvania for example has three indexes from these: Vampire Fiction, Mummy Media, and Werewolf Works.

And it pains me to bring this up, but the 'representation media' indices (eg. Asian-American Media) are functionally chairs for the same reason.

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 1st 2022 at 3:48:00 AM

Eh, at least people are likely to find the representation ones useful. I can't imagine anyone scrolling down Bovine Fiction looking for more cow-related stories unless they're writing a very specific essay.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 1st 2022 at 4:50:08 AM

See, that's my biggest thing. Vampires and Werewolves are kinda bloating which is an issue, but people look for those things in stories, at least. No one looks for books about cows.

IDK if I'd say "no-one", but I do agree that those are a little too pushing it. My solution is basically keep works about x related to fictional creatures (ex. vampires), things which are real but have not yet been integrated into society as well as in the works (ex. robots), or other indexes about human representation, and cut anything that's not part of that.

Edited by Piterpicher on Feb 1st 2022 at 10:59:28 AM

Oh, I don't know. I could be a large-animal veterinarian curious about how works portray them. Maybe I really liked Home on the Range as a kid and want more works like that. Or I could just be a furry. I am sure someone will find them useful in some way; I'm more concerned that said usefulness is not in line with our mission/vision.

This might be an OK compromise. Another one might be to make whatever, but de-index them (similar to what was done with Franchise Actors).

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 1st 2022 at 4:00:36 AM

Tossing in my two cents that "Works About X" indexes are extraneous and lead to index bloat.

x6: This was what I was going to say.

If the argument for having say, "Ghost Stories" as an index is that they have similar plots and themes, then is this not then serving a similar function to a trope page about the tropes in question?

Or better yet, a genre. If what people really are trying to use these indices for is to see works that are connected thematically or feature similar tropes, then we're now talking about a genre. Genre pages are fine to me, because they are more specific than just a list of works that may just have a superficial mention of the thing the index is about.

Equine Fiction to me doesn't make that much sense (especially as it includes mythical creatures, which I'd argue are rarely within the same genre at all of non-magical depictions). But a page describing the genre of fiction that is targeted to young kids (often girls) that has the themes of freedom, breaking convention, etc.? That would work for me.

Edited by amathieu13 on Feb 1st 2022 at 5:08:58 AM

@20: The thing is, vampire stories etc. usually fit into a generally recognizable genre, like "vampire who fights crime" ➡️ Vampire Detective Series. I.e. there's thematic and plot commonalities beyond merely "vampires are important to the plot". "Vampires are important to the plot" is adequately addressed by Our Vampires Are Different, why does it need to also be an index?

EDIT: Or this stuff. Something like "horse freedom symbolism" is tropable and might be a legit subgenre, stories about equestrian sports are tropable (although possibly not sufficiently distinct from sports fiction to need a subpage), but "horses are important to the plot" really isn't.

Edited by StarSword on Feb 1st 2022 at 6:28:14 AM