Needs Help: Wildfire Franchise

(This is amathieu13's OP, posted with the permission he gave on the TRS Queue page. No category was listed so I went with "Needs Help")

Woo boy. Strap in.

WF is supposed to cover media franchises that had a lot of activity before quickly dying out/ceasing production. During the drafting process there were several definitional issues raised to determine the criteria for deciding whether a work fits. The following are the most clear criteria:

• must be a franchise
• has to cease production/die out within 3-5 years from the publication/distribution of the first work that started the franchise
• No Recent Examples, which was defined as being within 10 years from the present. This was to help limit people jumping the gun.
• Revived franchises can count

Based on these criteria Wildfire Franchise Wick Check shows that out of the 51 examples of the trope, only 7 are definitively correct. Depending on how we define things, misuse is anywhere between 55%-86%. The following are the issues presented in the misuse.

• Problem 1: What's a franchise
  • Many of the examples are defining franchise as a media franchise, which can be defined as any work that has more than one entry in it, regardless of medium. We'd probably consider this a series (book series, film series, etc). This is different from the sitewide definition, a.k.a. a "transmedia franchise", i.e. spans multiple different medium. If we go with def 2, then those that fall under def 1 are misuse.
  • A related issue is people considering lines within a franchise as sub-franchises. For example, individual Sonic, Mega Man, and Pokemon game series are listed as examples despite being part of much larger and very much not dead franchises. Which definition should be used?
  • Personal opinion: stick with the site definition. A book series stopping publication of a series after 5 years is normal, especially if it was a planned trilogy. But by the broader definition, it could be considered a wildfire franchise. Some examples on the list like Rio and Power Stone only have two works in their "franchise".
• Problem 2: Revived Franchises
  • Bit of a contradiction in the description where the description both says "Franchises that were revived years after they initially "burned out" can qualify" and "If the franchise is still around at that point, odds are that it isn't an example."
  • What should weigh more in this case? How much time in between the franchise death and revival will be enough? Should there be further criteria to decide (i.e. if the revival happened 20 years ago and the franchise died soon after that counts, but if the revival is still currently happening it doesn't?) Should revivals even count considering the issues that discussing them introduce?
• Going past the 5 year limit
  • Many examples just outright ignore the 5 year limit on the trope. I think it's because it is written more like a description than an actual hard criteria that needs to be followed: "After three to five years, the franchise just... stops." Can also be caused by the revival issue: if we can classify a 3 yr dormant period in a franchise as a genuine break, then anything after would be considered a revival.

• we keep the trope and work out the kinks:
  • find more definitive answers to the questions and issues listed above
  • have a forum thread dedicated to checking whether an example fits or not since a lot of the misuse could've been avoided with doing the bare minimum wikipedia search
  • I also suggest modifying the No Recent Examples policy for this one to be further back: Franchise start must be at least 20 years ago and the last entry cannot be within the last 10 years.
• we cut our losses and yard the trope. Figuring out the answers to the questions above may be tricky and time consuming. Given how recent the launch was and how few examples even are correct, we wouldn't be losing much. Also, NGL, I'm a little annoyed since issues with the trope were pointed out several times, with the trope even being sent back to the TLP at one point and some concerns about the OP rushing it raised.

Opening. I am not sure how I feel about this but I don't think it's something we need. I think if it was was rushed with that many issues with its definition then it should be cut and yarded

Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 4th 2022 at 2:12:59 PM

I supporting yarding the trope

As I said in my closing section, we could work on this some to make it better, but my true feeling is for yarding this

Fixed title. There's gotta be a record for shortest launch-to-TRS time.

I agree that this isn't really a useful thing to note; some things are just fads and it's not worth making a Main/ page to document that. The 'killer/revival' pages are perpetual thorns in our side and this is another one of those.

I'll also add that the disparity between the site's definition of 'franchise' (three media namespaces) and the broader colloquial meaning (anything in a series) has made problems for us before (eg. preemptive Franchise/ pages).

If we must keep it in some way kick it back to TLP (again) where these issues should have been clarified in the first place.

Edited by Synchronicity on Mar 4th 2022 at 1:14:16 PM

A look at examples make them all sound like Franchise Killer.

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 4th 2022 at 10:14:50 PM

I'd return it to the TLP.

The trope was very much rushed out of the TLP without being fully ready, and I'd rather it get its kinks hammered out and figured out there, rather than trying to fix something that's got a million holes and issues in it here in the TRS.

Edited by Tonwen on Mar 4th 2022 at 1:32:59 PM

I already sent it back but I thought it was fine since I don't think anyone requested for it to be sent back again but looks like that wasn't the case.

I don't see the big need to yard it necessarily; it's so new that if we kick it back to TLP it still technically has a sponsor. And that way there's a possibility of the issues either being fixed... or the draft being discarded. But I think we should give it another shake because I think the main issue with this is the lack of time and proper discussion, rather than a fundamental flaw with the concept. It might be doable- but needs way more discussion, from a lot more people.

Changed my above comment to clarify that I think it should be sent back to the launchpad rather than yarded.

I would only put TLP out there if the original proposer or someone else stated they wanted to tackle this here in this thread. Without that assurance, we'd just have another draft kicking around the TLP for god knows how long.

So until that happens, I'm sticking with yard.

~Nitro Indigo, sorry to bother you, but are you willing to TLP this again? If not, then yard I guess.

Yard for now. As a side-note, I thought the Sonic Adventure example didn't fit - the two games are considered part of the main series instead of their own sub-series - but I wasn't sure if I should remove it. I'm in favour of only allowing entire franchises rather than sub-series.

I'm happy with yarding it myself. In fairness, I may have contributed to the issue by suggesting examples that didn't exactly fill the definition of a franchise (see the Pokémon Ranger example).

@Nitro Indigo I mean, The Sonic Adventure and Pac-Man World games count as their own subseries considering their subtitle. Unless you consider Heroes, Shadow or even 06 as "Adventure games", there really isn't anything close to it. 06 is the closest contender, which is why fans often give it the "Sonic Adventure 3" nickname, while others think the games' reputation alone is enough to not deserve such a title.

Edited by Duludubi on Mar 4th 2022 at 7:15:15 AM

I'm not actually sure if the correct definition noteworthy to begin with so I don't know how sending it back to TLP would improve things.

see problem 1 in the original post

I'd prefer to just cut it. That said, if people think it merely needs help from TLP. we should Yard it unless someone in this thread is willing to sponsor the draft.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 5th 2022 at 11:21:03 AM

I'd cut it, franchises being popular and one day stopping isn't a trope, it just happens naturally to all that aren't Cash-Cow Franchise. Move examples to Franchise Killer and Sequel Gap that apply and are not there already.

I agree with moving examples there if any apply.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 5th 2022 at 11:59:27 AM

So for the eventual crowner are the options:

• cut (the idea itself is chairs so no need to save)
• cut and yard (the idea is salvageable if someone were to work on it)
• cut and TLP (the idea is salvageable and someone in this thread wants to take it on)

?

Edited by amathieu13 on Mar 5th 2022 at 2:37:27 PM

Yarding and TLP are free actions that can be done independently from TRS, and TLP isn't even an option if nobody is willing to sponsor, so if nobody suggests otherwise the page can be cut. The only open question is if it really needs to be yarded after cutting.

so cut vs. cut and yard, then?

Yeah, that's what it boils down to.

I mean, I guess?

It's a free action to yard something. Technically it's not even something we need to vote on. But I guess it doesn't really matter.