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

I think examples should be kept to an absolute minimum and naturally integrated into entries, and not be brackets full of character name potholes. The Villain Sue entry in Write a Complete Monster is a good example (no pun intended) of what I'm talking about.

Edited by ShootingStar7X on Feb 8th 2024 at 9:58:11 AM

Discussion is dead now. But yeah, we should find a compromise regarding the examples part. Especially considering how the MB page has still them. Should we remove those too?

Edited by Omega1065 on Feb 28th 2024 at 10:42:50 AM

Yeah, I think we should.

yeah, cut them. its not useful

That being said, I wasn't thinking of completely removing examples, but rather reducing them, keeping them minimal and integrating all with a few entries (Something similiar to what Shooting Star 7X proposed), for both the MB and the CM pages. What do you think? Should we tell the mods about this?

Edited by Omega1065 on Feb 28th 2024 at 3:13:07 PM

Is it alright if I get rid of the parenthetical examples on Write a Magnificent Bastard?

yea, do it.

Idk, I think that we should discuss with one of the mods first.

i mean we did on the CM page. We can get consensus here but i don't think we need mod approval

I say slash them too, they’re just as nattery on this page as they were on the other

Guess that we can do that now.

I agree with the "examples" scattered throughout the pages best to be removed. The MB one was free of those for ages, before recently people started adding that stuff, in an attempt to mirror the CM page. It makes the page look very messy and not streamlined to read.

Or alternatively, if we do keep those, they shouldn't be injected mid-paragraph. At the very least add those at the end of a paragraph like we do with quotes.

Edited by Snowy66 on Mar 9th 2024 at 4:24:41 AM

I've axed most of the parenthetical examples.

Fair enough.

Btw, I heard that someone in this discussion wanted to rename "Complete Monster" into something else. Do they still want to do that?

Honestly feels too late to change that and there’s no inherent issue with the current name.

Yeah, I vastly prefer "Complete Monster" over any other option.

the discussion wasn't around renaming Complete Monster, the trope. It was around renaming the page SoYouWantTo.Write A Complete Monster, on grounds that Complete Monster is a very specific TV Tropes things, and it would be less likely to devolve into pedantic natter if it was called something else. Someone suggested SoYouWantTo.Write A Purely Evil Villain. Before current cleanup it was even more focused on "how to qualify for the TV tropes CM page", instead of "how to actually write this trope", which is not really a useful writing advice page

Edited by Tremmor19 on Mar 10th 2024 at 8:49:13 AM

Something I'm 100% behind, by the way. Writing advice should be for how to write, not for how to get a character to qualify for an arbitrary category that no-one outside TV Tropes cares much about.

if i get general agreement, i can swap that over tonight. Mostly just removing the specific references to the CM page

I've agreed to a rename on a previous page, so there's my vote.

Looking at the index, I see a few things under the "epic fails" section that just feel like they’re bashing a work, mostly the ones that just list the name of a work as not great writing advice with no further elaboration.

For example, from SoYouWantTo.Write A Heroic Fantasy

The Epic Fails

• The Eye of Argon

Just listing the name of a work as something not to take advice from with no context doesn’t feel like a good example, and just seems bashy. What should we do about them?

Thoughts?

Edited by LarryT on Apr 2nd 2024 at 5:23:54 AM

Yeah, a complete ZCE. I see no reason to keep it.

(That said, The Eye of Argon is a famous So Bad, It's Good Snark Bait work... I doubt you'll find anyone who's offended by calling it bad. But it doesn't add anything, either.)

Bear in mind, The Eye of Argon was a first draft that got published without the permission of the writer (who was a teen). Saying "avoid being like this work" isn't really helpful because the work is such low hanging fruit.

Edited by SharkToast on Apr 2nd 2024 at 12:07:56 PM

Can I add my opinion on the "rename" issue? I personally don't think that this is necessary. I'm sure that everyone here is aware that "Complete Monster" is simply an alternative fancy name for Pure Evil types of villains, exclusive to this wiki. There are other wikis with very similiar rules regarding these types of characters (like the Pure Evil Wiki, with almost identical rules of qualification to the "Complete Monster" trope here). Maybe we can rename the page in "How to write a Complete Monster/Pure Evil Villain", since they mean the same thing. You said yourself that the only thing that would change is the name of the trope.

Do all So You Want Tos need the sections titled things like "Choices, Choices" and "Costume Designer"?