The NRLEP and LRLEO criteria

I've just recalled an idea I've mentioned once, but not sure how it'd work out. What about No Recent Examples, Please! on Real Life examples independently of NRLEP for tropes? If an example is RL from the last year or two, it's likely either a knee-jerk reaction to a hot controversy or a still-ongoing world event, or someone finding a funny article and trying to share it in some form. These can hardly be good examples until they get value in historical sense.

I like this solution.

what time period are you proposing? presumably a blanket ban for all examples less than, say, a year old, with longer periods being decided on a case by case basis?

I haven't thought on a specific time, first I'd like to consider if a blanket ban on recent RL examples for a minimum time is even feesable and reasonable.

If we'd say "No RL Examples that occurred less than two months ago", would it improve Too Controversial and Gossip and Stereotypes types of issues in significant manner?

Is there a policy about real-life examples when it comes to some death tropes?

Was wondering about the Real Life section of Please Wake Up, which seems like it might qualify as something that shouldn't have real-life examples, but that could be a knee-jerk reaction to the more upsetting content there, like the dead cat.

Question:

We've already crownered and decided on NRLEP for Anti-Air (on account of being too common and attracting military natter). There's several similar tropes that have been having similar problems (Anti-Cavalry, Anti-Infantry, Anti-Vehicle, and Anti-Armor) that have had enough support behind adding them to the crowner as well. There's a sixth sibling in this little "anti-something" military family, Anti-Structure, but currently it has no RL section. As it's very similar to other similar tropes getting crownered, and one even getting NRLEP, is it okay to add it to the crowner despite its lack of RL section?

Are those even tropes? They can be game mechanics, but "anti-air exists" is not really a trope.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 24th 2022 at 10:06:49 AM

At the very least I'd figure they'd make more sense as a single trope - Counter Unit or something like that.

Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors would be the closest, if we're describing RTS mechanics.

I should start a wiki where users can enter military natter without a need to cite sources ....

Many of the Strategy Game Tropes have a case of Missing Supertrope and could be merged together but that's be a TRS problem.

A suggestion I have is that the NRLEP mechanic should be the opposite. All tropes should be NRLEP by default, and people should instead suggest and vote on which tropes are allowed to have RL examples.

Edited by BlueXIII on Aug 25th 2022 at 2:20:50 AM

That seems a little... difficult, considering the reason we vote on these sections is because of the quality of their examples. We don't want to vote on a theoretical (at least not at the moment). How would we be able to judge "yes" or "no" if there were no examples to be found at all?

A section might be entirely harmless in theory, but could attract an editor with a specific wonk — would it then need to be banned again? Or what about Audience Reactions and Trivia tropes, which are about real-life phenomenon surrounding the work? Would they somehow not count as "real life"?

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 25th 2022 at 5:55:04 AM

This will effectively be the reverse of the problem, someone would have to make a convincing argument to "Allow RL" for tropes with no examples, somehow. Additionally, approved tropes would just as likely gather misuse.

Someone who wants a trope to have RL examples should be required to list at least one example of the trope in real life. Additionally, misuse or agenda-editing of RL examples should be punished harsher. Misuse already exists in RL examples anyway; it's sometimes why entire sections get removed.

Again, explain how it'd work for Audience Reactions and Trivia?

I think these sections are something people don't think about when thinking of real-life examples, but like... they absolutely are, because we're no longer talking about fiction anymore, the only difference is that stereotypical "real life" sections are more about, like, history and stuff. But any banning of "all real life examples" would need to account for this problem.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 25th 2022 at 7:41:30 AM

It wouldn't apply to Trivia and Audience Reactions.

We've operated on "RL allowed by default" for longer than many of us have been alive. There needs to be a damn good reason to reverse this policy.

See, now's the time to flip it around and ask why not include them. My point is that if we're gonna try and draw arbitrary lines as to what "counts" for this policy this isn't a policy we should have, since I can just as easily argue that if the wiki doesn't want any real-life examples then it should only be about tropes and nothing else. But since nobody actually wants to do something that extreme we're forced to try and justify why some sections are fine but others aren't if the default rule is to ban things.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 25th 2022 at 8:29:02 AM

I don't know. I'll have to come up with a reason eventually.

The fact that you feel the need to come up with a reason at all is the problem. A good policy won't need people jumping through hoops to explain why certain things are totally okay even if they objectively break said policy.

Is it controversial to say that Trivia and Audience Reactions should not have Real Life examples in the first place?

EDIT: My point was poorly made. I will retract it as I did not, and probably cannot, word it well.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Aug 29th 2022 at 5:10:03 AM

They are in their own tabs because they catalog Real Life events...

i don't want to blanket say that YMMV can never have RL examples, but i can't think of any offhand where i would encourage them.

Trivia, on the other hand, should be completely fine to have RL examples if they don't run afoul of any of the existing rules. Trivia entries are factual, there's nothing subjective about them, and they play no narrative role.

I blanked my original comment because it was poorly-written and I couldn't salvage it, but I will ask this.

and What would we do, then, with YMMV items (like Genre Turning Point for example) that aren't as contentious as stuff like Overshadowed by Controversy, for example? Should we also gut RL examples from those?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Aug 29th 2022 at 5:16:28 AM