SugarWiki Items on YMMV Pages

As was discussion in this now locked Wiki Talk thread, there seems to be some confusion about Sugar Wiki pages being on YMMV pages. I, along with many others on this site, thought that it was all good to add Sugar Wiki examples unless the page specifically forbids it.

This has gone to the case where, in a TRS thread for Doing It for the Art, it was agreed that some misuse would be moved to a new page, called Development Heaven. It was described as YMMV and Sugar Wiki without anyone batting an eye.

However, as one mod pointed out, that is not the case. Sugar Wiki pages are never allowed to be crosswicked outside of the Sugar Wiki namespace and relevant pages. That means that Awesome Music has over 10,200 invalid wicks on YMMV pages alone, not to mention the countless moments pages entries. This thread is meant to continue the discussion but with a more clear thread title.

Edited by prettycoolguy on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:04:48 PM

Alright, let's go.

I'm of the mindset that Sugar Wiki should be kept separate, but not the moments pages that just so happen in to be in the namespace, because I personally think that segregating similar tropes like that is, frankly, a bizarre practice. If Tear Jerker, Nightmare Fuel, and Shocking Moments can be on YMMV, I see no reason why Funny, Awesome, and Heartwarming shouldn't be, for consistency's sake alone. (Well, that and the fact that I always saw their Sugar Wiki status as being more for the aesthetic than anything...)

Yeah, I agree. And there's really little point in starting a subpage for just one example if it's not something that absolutely needs separating like Trivia or YMMV (there it's objective content from subjective/behind the scenes stuff, while this is subjective from more positive subjective).

Maybe holding this policy isn't worth it anymore, then? If the distinction isn't that important in these cases and having lots of short pages generally cause more harm than good.

Edited by Piterpicher on Feb 9th 2022 at 9:23:50 PM

For the moments pages, Nightmare Fuel has it so that the main page is a regular-old YMMV item even though the subpages have the Darth Wiki aesthetic. The same change can be made to the moments pages but for Sugar Wiki, though that would require a consensus to be reached, of course.

[citation needed]

This is because the main article is in Main instead of Darth Wiki, although it has a redirect from there. Those should be swapped to fix the inconsistency.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:25:20 PM

That's the policy, but there's obviously people who don't know this policy exists, as well as several tropes that don't make much sense if you limit them to Sugar Wiki and subpages. There's enough overlap to the point where a whole TRS thread didn't even notice anything was wrong when discussing Development Heaven, and to the point where the letter of the rule seems to conflict with the spirit of some of the things added.

I wouldn't care about the Moments issue if, for example, the others were all Darth Wiki and thus the ruling was consistent across the board. Then the moments would always be on subpages and there'd be no conflict. The fact that some of them can go on YMMV while others can't has always been a subject of controversy for at least as long as I've been aware of the issue, and while I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with having a bunch of tiny, one-example subpages, there's also nothing inherently wrong with having them on YMMV either except that the policy disallows it for reasons.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:26:54 PM

The solution to that would be to consider taking some of those articles out of Sugar Wiki (or move more articles to it), not break our policy about What Goes Where on the Wiki.

We have almost never used "people don't know about this rule" as an excuse to eliminate a rule.

Edit: The simple fact is that Moments aren't tropes. They don't really fit with other examples and probably shouldn't be wiki articles per se, but this is something that's existed for ages and we probably can't change it.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:29:20 PM

Makes sense to me on that level.

Was there a consensus to make Nightmare Fuel a Darth Wiki item? I know a lot happened when the big changes to that item were made however many years ago, but I thought that it just extended to merging the purpose of the old Accidental Nightmare Fuel and High Octane Nightmare Fuel pages?

Right, taking them out of Sugar Wiki while keeping the aesthetic (like how Nightmare Fuel has the Darth aesthetic) would definitely be an easy solution there. Heck, for a while I thought Nightmare Fuel was Darth Wiki.

Like I said, I'm not campaigning against the rule itself, just that certain tropes don't seem to fit the spirit the rule was made for, which means something has to change.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:29:28 PM

The namespace styles are hard-coded, I think. We do have the ability to pick style themes in the namespace config page but I don't know if that actually does anything.

An alternative that hasn't been discussed much would be to have all Moments in one or two namespaces rather than one namespace per type, but that presents an indexing nightmare.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:31:36 PM

Moments pages are Audience Reactions first and foremost, and YMMV pages are meant to collect both subjective items and reactions that audiences have, so I don't see how moments pages clash with YMMV as long as gushing is kept in check.

Edit: The Moments namespace idea is valid, but I agree it would be a logistical nightmare.

Edited by prettycoolguy on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:33:32 PM

The Moments pages are specifically for gushing (and complaining). That's the point.

I don't see how any of them are for complaining. All of them are used to gush about how great the work is- Nightmare Fuel especially being a shoehorn magnet of the "badge of honor" variety. So again, there's genuinely no reason to segregate three of them when all of them have the same problems and are used for the same purpose (to talk about how the work makes you feel).

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:36:34 PM

I'm pretty sure it's always been put in SEO guides, the Google Panda algorithm even would ask "Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?" and penalise thin content spread on multiple pages when it could be on one, as people don't really want to read single paragraph pages these days. It's why I always advocate for Laconics being merged with pages as subtitle markup, for example.

I think the bigger sticking point is that Tear Jerker and Shocking Moments are regular old YMMV pages through and through, and those are also just Audience Reactions to moments. Whatever happens to the other moments should apply to these too.

Isn’t DMOS considered a Moments page? That would answer Jay’s comment about there being no complaining moments.

Shocking Moments was also created very recently (I believe as a result of the Holy Shit Quotient TRS) so that one’s a little more understandable.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:42:39 PM

Is it? I don't consider it as one because the other moments are all about the Emotional Torque, whereas DMOS is just "this thing sucks". If anything the real "complaining" one was Wall Bangers. The rules and purpose of that area are so different that I never considered it as a moment trope.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:43:31 PM

Well that's explicitly Flame Bait, it's not allowed anywhere or used anywhere anyways.

I always thought DMOS was a Moments page. I guess I was wrong.

Agreed. It's not really like those pages, more like a containment area (but you could also say moments are themselves a containment area).

DMOS is definitely a Moments page, but is obviously on the dark side. Nightmare Fuel is put there largely because it is "dark", not because it is complaining, but an argument could be made for having it in SW.

Don't stress too much on the "gushing" vs. "complaining" thing. I talk about it as a reason to segregate the examples, but the core reason is because "moments" are not tropes... not even rising to the same level as Audience Reactions, which represent patterns of fandom thinking.

"This is really awesome you guys" is even less a trope than, say, Shipping.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:45:50 PM

That's what happens when your name is a snowclone. Its purpose is gonna be muddied in that regard.

Edited by prettycoolguy on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:44:57 PM

I feel like "moments aren't tropes" is an argument that it shouldn't be listed on the main work page, which I don't think anyone thinks should be the case.

Stuff on YMMV, by definition, are not tropes because they're not storytelling devices and they can't be played with. They're either labeled Audience Reactions or YMMV items, but never tropes because they aren't. Moments pages fit this mold.

Edited by prettycoolguy on Feb 9th 2022 at 3:48:09 PM