So You Want To... Clean up a namespace?

The "So You Want To" namespace has seen a lot of low-quality pages for as long as it's been around. Common problems include unfinished pages, walls of text, and needless gushing in some places, which make for a very uninformative read. This thread is dedicated to cleaning the pages in the namespace up.

To start with, I believe we should clean up the index itself first. The redlinks obviously need sorting out, but should the "suggested pages" at the bottom stay around?

Edited by GoldenCityBird on Jul 13th 2022 at 8:19:57 PM

As for pages which need cleaning up, I have two in mind:

• SoYouWantTo.Write The Next Omori is very bare-bones, and seems to exist to simply gush about the work in question.
• SoYouWantTo.Write A Five Man Band is entirely based on the "Five-Man Band Classic" which hasn't been proven to exist in the wild, and may be too long to read comfortably.

I'll get to work on fixing/cutting them once we have consensus on what to do with them.

The FMB one might be salvageable. We can talk about common types of these bands and how to make the dynamic work.

Cut SoYouWantTo.Write The Next Omori. That's too poorly written and many entries are poor.

On the Wiki Talk thread I suggested punting all the red links and "suggested pages", and possibly all the "under construction" pages, to a sandbox or other separate page.

I also think we should consider creating a "meta" page, SoYouWantTo.Write A So You Want To Page, laying out guidelines for writing a good SYWT page in both concept and specifics (and maybe better explaining the purpose of each section than SoYouWantTo.See A Template does now).

Regarding specific existing pages, as noted on the Wiki Talk thread pretty much all the "Be the Next [X]" pages should probably be scrutinized to see if there's anything there other than gushing. Ideally those pages, if they're to exist at all, should focus on specific tropes and other elements those works do that caused them to resonate with audiences and what lessons one can take from that that can apply to their own work, as opposed to simply telling people how to ape the work whole-cloth because it's the most awesomest work in the history of ever and the more like the work you are the better.

Edited by MorganWick on Jul 13th 2022 at 8:34:07 AM

These are under the suggested pages. They seem a little complainy to me:

• Avoid Being the Next Dan Brown
• Avoid Being the Next J. J. Abrams
• Avoid Being the Next Michael Bay
  • Avoid Being the Next M. Night Shyamalan

: I am 100% in favour of punting the non-pages, but the "under construction" pages should be looked at on a case-by-case basis (just like how you suggested doing the Write the Next X pages).

The meta page sounds like a good idea.

Yep, that looks like complaining.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought they came off complainly. Easy cut to any negativity towards real life creators.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Jul 14th 2022 at 10:09:06 PM

I guess my point is to suggest that pages should have to meet a minimum quality/usefulness standard to make the main list.

Honestly, all of the "The Greats", "Epic Fails", and "Proceed with Caution"s are gushing and bashing.

I can see the utility in having a section to discuss examples that are considered to be well done and those that are considered poorly done. It just needs to handled in an objective manner.

The question is can it be done in an objective manner? Historically these sections have been havens for gushing about works the troper likes and bashing ones that they don't. How do you objectively prove a work did something well? Also, a lot ofthe extant examples in these folders are ZCE's, like we should already know that this fanfic ruled and this season of that TV show sucked.

I know the Magnificent Bastard thread has used the SYWT page as way to illustrate how the trope can be used in different ways (for the Greats section) and to describe characters who almost qualify, but fail for a specific reason (for the Treat with Caution section).

I don't know how that should apply to other tropes that aren't rigidly approved like MB, though.

I think it could be easy to do it for Genre pages. To qualify as a "Great" it would have to be a seminal work, a Genre Turning Point, or a Genre Relaunch. For "Pitfalls" it would be a Genre-Killer. For "Treat with Caution" it could be a work that was well liked at the time, but is now Condemned by History or hit by Seinfeld Is Unfunny.

Edited by RustBeard on Jul 14th 2022 at 4:28:23 AM

I honestly think it'd be better for the SYWTW page for MB to be scrapped and replaced with an Administrivia page like Administrivia.Complete Monster

Granted, Complete Monster also has a SYWT page, it just doesn't have a "Greats" or "Treat with Caution" section.

The Omori page has been cut. Going through the "Needs Expansion" pages, here are the first few:

• SoYouWantTo.Write Dialogue seems to be alright.
• SoYouWantTo.Name A Work seems too brief to be broken up by header markup, but doesn't seem like an expandable concept.
• SoYouWantTo.Write An Abridged Series seems to be OK, barring the Pitfalls section, which doesn't seem to be that specific to the Abridged Series genre.
• SoYouWantTo.Write An Adventure Story is a mess; the Necessary Tropes is just the Hero's Journey structure, the Choices are very generic, and there's only one potential subversion. (Sandbox?)
• SoYouWantTo.Write An Alternate Continuity is also way too barebones, with empty headers making up most of the screen space. (Sandbox?)

Suggested this back in the Wiki Talk thread about this, but I think it'd be best to rename SoYouWantTo.Write The Next Doctor Who "SoYouWantTo.Write The Next Doctor Who Story", since it's about writing scripts for the show rather than coming up with a successor series.

Maybe "SoYouWantTo.Write A Doctor Who Story" would be a better name, if only because it's shorter but still gets the point across.

Yeah, that actually works much better.

Any input for the pages mentioned above? (I'll get to moving and tweaking the DW page later)

Edited by GoldenCityBird on Jul 18th 2022 at 5:13:12 PM

I'm going to submit the "greats" and "epic fails" sections on Write a Kid-Friendly Series as my thesis as to why the greats and epic fails sections are a bad idea and very toxic and really should be removed entirely. Every "great" is a ZCE, expecting everyone to already know how great, say, The Boxcar Children is without explaining its appeal or the things people like about it. All of these so called "greats" have been added as unilateral edits, without any discussions of their merits and whether they should really be considered the greatest children's media of all time. The entire section on Creators is taking these creators' entire bodies of work and monolithically declaring it not only great, but great children's series (Phil Lord & Chris Miller, for instance, aren't exclusively kid friendly in their output.) It also takes up, like, a third of the page.

The "epic fails" are nothing but piling on Snark Bait shows. It's the same few works/episodes Tropers have been bashing since, like, 2012, and again they were added unilaterally (even though I doubt these guys in particular would have been vetoed by committee, it still ought to have been done). As well, although these are slightly more detailed than the greats, it speaks too much in general terms (like "insulting scripts" and "doesn't treat its audience right") that unless you're already super familiar with these unpopular shows, there's no lesson you can take from these epic fails.

As I doubt we can maintain any semblance of quality with these sections, I strongly advise for their removal. In general they're pretty Fan Myopic and serve as an echo chamber for lionizing shows our tiny circle of Tropers like and bashing shows Tropers don't.

Edited by MissConduct on Jul 28th 2022 at 12:41:56 PM

Honestly, I don't mind cutting them either. I do think it's unfairly lionizing /taking a jab at a work or characters when the basis of said Greats/failures could just be in the actual to do list?

Yeah, we're above that sort of "good work / bad work" thing nowadays.

I can definitely see what you mean. Way too YMMV in my opinion for a So You Want To. I'm in favor of a cut.