The NRLEP and LRLEO criteria

There are very few circumstances where non-fiction and real life wouldn't be the same thing, and they mostly involve documentary tropes. The only kind of real life example I think could be uncontroversially applied to Unwitting Instigator of Doom is currently listed in the Folklore folder.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Feb 7th 2023 at 5:41:53 PM

Folklore would technically be considered fiction, would it not?

Yes, it would.

Yes, but my point was that if Mrs. O'Leary's cow had started the Chicago fire, it would be a real-life example that the NRLEP justification wouldn't apply to. (And since it was reported as fact for a long time it would also qualify as "non-fiction".)

Ignore.

Edited by MissConduct on Mar 18th 2023 at 9:14:18 AM

Is there a point where a trope's real life section is so long that voting to keep it is a problem? I ask because Awesome, but Impractical's section is so long it has multiple subpages, yet its crowner option is currently in the red when so many other tropes have been cut for shorter lengths. Boring, but Practical's section isn't quite as long, but it's also in the red despite being long enough to have several lengthy folders.

I'm not trying to complain btw, I'm just confused.

I obviously can't get into the voters heads but I don't think the length of the RL section is a huge factor when it comes to voting. There's people who genuinely enjoy reading RL devotions so I don't think length is something that would bother those people.

I don't think it's a valid to cut an RL section on its own either (although it could be used a sign that the trope is too common).

Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 20th 2023 at 3:54:18 PM

I see. Thanks for clarifying.

Is this the thread to continue the discussion about potentially decommissioning Too Common as an NRLEP reason, or does it need its own thread?

This is probably the place.

I'm going to stand firm and say that "Too Common" is a valid reason for a trope to get tried for NRLEP at least. We don't like or want general or weblink-only examples, and there's times when a trope has nothing but "Almost everyone has known a person like this" and "This guy from this article acted like this".^note Red links intentional, because that tends to happen to these sort of examples as years, decades wear on. If there gets to be an entire page of examples like this, that shows to me that this trope, while Truth in Television (which is a horrendous index full of ROCEJ violations and ZCE's but that's a story for another day), doesn't have any interesting anecdotes worth chronicling. For instance, Kids Hate Chores (which is NRLEP on Too Common). Yeah, that trope's definitely Truth in Television, but if every example was just "Kids do hate chores most of the time" and "This kid in this viral video doesn't want to do his chores", that, in my eyes, is a good candidate to get crownered at least.

I will also say that I think some people have trouble understanding the "Narrative/Characterization" category, even though that category has so much more clout to stay. For instance, I brought up Action Girl for NRLEP as Characterization (along with attracting creepy gushing), since the trope is for girls who are characterized as being badass and awesome and not damsels in distress, but it got a lot more traction for getting NRLEP'd when brought up as "Too Common". I'd prefer to leave things as they are, and let the crowner speak for which tropes the people want to be NRLEP. If people keep voting down tropes that are Too Common but nothing else, that speaks more to people thinking that those specific tropes aren't NRLEP worthy and not a problem with the system.

Edited by MissConduct on Apr 4th 2023 at 5:26:51 AM

tbh a news article or 404 occuring doesnt mean it didnt happen; wikipedia has a policy for using archive.org so i dont see why we cant do that here

also frankly "too common" (and "chairs" too) feels like a broad criteria especially when there are news articles, records, etc, but i think it is part of an issue where people dont like a trope for whatever reason and argue that the trope is ~chairs~

But it also doesn't mean it did happen. News articles, particularly those from sketchy news websites, aren't known for their dedication to quality, unwaveringly truthful journalism. And when a link leads to a 404, to an extent we just have to accept that once upon a time, there was a page that supported the RL example. Yes, the Wayback Machine does exist, but 1 - it doesn't have everything, and if the link was to something from a smaller or more niche site, or the page wasn't up for terribly long, there's a good chance that they didn't catch it at all, 2 - the Wayback Machine is very bad at capturing pictures and especially video, so if the centerpiece of the article was a pic or video, there's a good chance it's gone forever, and 3 - going through every page on this site looking for dead links is too big and meaningless a job, so we try to encourage people to not just link to offsite pages in the first place. Weblinks aren't inherently bad, we just don't want to encourage them.

The NoRealLife.Too Common page suggests that a reason that sometimes RL examples, when the page gets unwieldy enough, it marginalizes examples from fiction, which is what the wiki is for. Let's not forget that this site isn't "Real Life Tropes". If a tropes' RL examples would completely overwhelm the amount of fictional examples, and the extant RL examples are already off to a bad start, I'd say it's a solid candidate for NRLEP on Too Common. TV Tropes is not a lot of things that the bad actors of the RL sections want it to be, it's not a gossip magazine, it's not a place to preach your political beliefs, it's not an NSFW file-sharing site. And it's not a place for boring, dry, meaningless lists of "times this happened".

The way I see it, if it isn't a valid reason to NRLEP by itself, it shouldn't be a category. It can still be a secondary factor for something with another major issue, like attracting Natter sometimes is, but not a full-on reason to remove on its own. The way it currently stands, having Too Common be a category gives the wrong impression of our priorities.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Apr 8th 2023 at 11:32:07 AM

I don't agree. "Too Common" tends to mean that it isn't worth noting- that it's just a thing that happens to people, without notable instances. If that isn't how we're using it, that's a separate issue.

I'd like to think that, but when the last several items that were crownered primarily for being Too Common all get kept by good margins, I start sensing that maybe the voters don't quite agree with that.

There's people who like reading RL sections regardless of the issues brought up. Some people just aren't concerned about certain things regarding RL cleanup or find value in the RL sections.

• irl folders are always at the bottom and ive yet to see any page solely become about irl examples
• while im p sure the notability requirement for tvt is now stricter, as before, even The Other Wiki allows for dead links to be retrieved via archive.org. really failing to see why that is an issue
• speaking of The Other Wiki policies there is a list of sites that are cleared to not be clickbait but given a lotta tropes coming thru the nlrep thread are called "gossip" im not sure if that is even feasible. (id be all for banning tmz tho)
• TV Tropes isnt just about TV stuff so i dont see where the issue is with having irl tropes
• irl things that happened = / = gossip
• how is using archive.org file sharing???

frankly this feels like a a repeat of Television Is Trying To Kill Us except around removing tropes

Edited by MsOranjeDiscoDancer on Apr 16th 2023 at 7:46:41 AM

Just a heads up, as this seems at least partly relevant...

Over on The Scrappy Cleanup thread, we have a subpage full of The Scrappy examples for a Reality TV show.

Reality TV is an awkward grey area for policy on NRLEP tropes, as it's not quite real - the show is edited to build a narrative. And there seem to be some NRLEP tropes that we're (informally?) comfortable using for contestants, especially when examples are partly "in-universe" and supported by something Person#1 says about Person#2 within the show.

(This show, RuPaul's Drag Race is even more of a grey area for that - as there's the contestant as a person, and then there's a drag queen persona they use, which is sometimes a fully-fledged fictional character)

However... I still think tropes like The Scrappy, based on negative Real Life audience reaction, should never be aimed at real people in these shows.

Would be good to get a consensus on this, as we have a growing number of examples for various reality shows.

Well, it's sticky for sure. The idea is that these tropes are only meant to apply to the on-screen character, and not the real person. Even in a reality show where people aren't putting on new characters, they're still playing a character thanks to editing, behind-the-scenes manipulations, and simply altering their personality to better suit a TV show (even if subconsciously).

But, I can definitely see it being hard to draw a line.

Yeah. In the example above, though, The Scrappy criteria mean that we're saying a contestant is consistently hated by the majority of the show's fans.

That's... not very pleasant to point at a real person.

Most of the Drag Race examples also seem to cross the line by bringing in convention behaviour, social media posts and other real life views that clearly aren't part of the work. But even when that's not explicit, it may still be part of the backdrop for Reality TV examples of this nature.

I'd really like to draw a line under The Scrappy and Rescued from the Scrappy Heap and say "no Reality TV" as well as "No Real Life", if folk can be persuaded.

Edited by Mrph1 on May 18th 2023 at 10:12:32 AM

I mean, I agree it's unpleasant but it's also a reality about how people engage with reality TV. People will have contestants they hate, and I personally believe that as long as the entry does not cross the line into real life and otherwise follows the other rules, it shouldn't be removed.

But I also understand that my metric for these things is different, and some people might find them too controversial to include.

As mentioned, I think the real challenge with The Scrappy tropes, in particular, is that the contestant's Real Life actions outside the work (including social media, press coverage etc.) continue to impact fandom in a way that doesn't happen with other works or 'characters'.

It's very hard for anyone - including TV Tropes - to draw a hard line on that, as the Drag Race examples show.

(And I'd definitely argue that putting The Scrappy against a TV personality acting as a judge - not a contestant - is misuse and breaks NRLEP. Because if we allow that for a Reality TV show, why not for any gameshow, chatshow etc?)

Edited by Mrph1 on May 18th 2023 at 10:56:50 AM

Guys, do you think that Terror Hero should be a NRLEP trope because it’s a characterization trope?

Wrong thread. You want this one.

Should indexes be removed from these? Also shouldn't they link to each other?

• Sandbox.NRLEP Gossip With Explanations
• Sandbox.NRLEP Impossible With Explanations
• Sandbox.NRLEP Morality With Explanations
• Sandbox.NRLEP Narrative With Explanations
• Sandbox.NRLEP Sex With Explanations
• Sandbox.NRLEP Too Common With Explanations
• Sandbox.NRLEP Too Controversial With Explanations