Troping Non-Fiction Works

This thread is following on from a discussion at this thread.

I do not at all believe we should be troping Non-Fiction works. As far as I'm concerned, TV Tropes is a website about troping fiction, hence the fact we also trope non-fiction is way too far off-mission (and off-scope) for this site. Then again, that's just one guy's opinion - maybe some people disagree with me on this. Hence, this thread is for discussion on whether we should trope non-fiction works, whether it be some of them or all of them.

What would this argument imply for Useful Notes?

Useful Notes aren't being troped, or at least I don't think they ought to be.

Anyway for the most part there's already some consensus about cutting any work that isn't made with creative intent. We do it all the time.

The issue is that Non-Fiction works can still have creative elements and intentional tropes. Autobiographies, game shows and talk shows use specific liberties, mechanics, narration and style, which we keep labeling as creative input. Some Let's Play pages are preserved as Web Video with similar reasoning. The consensus wasn't that if it's not an imaginary setting it's not allowed.

Edited by Amonimus on Feb 2nd 2024 at 9:49:56 PM

To add to this, the trope Narrative-Driven Nature Documentary exists for a reason. Popular science series like Nature and Nova do their jobs of educating the public better when they can construct something akin to a narrative that gets the viewer to engage with the material, rather than just being a dry recitation of facts and figures.

Sure. I'm just making the point that many non-fiction works are entirely choppable. I don't think we need to go on some rampage, but there's already measures in place to make sure that the pages are actually tropeworthy.

We have this and this thread on the topic (they seem to be mixed up), so I don't have an issue if any specific work page is brought up and cut because it has no intentional additions.

There's no need for a policy change here. As stated, we already require that non-fiction works have some form of narrative content that goes beyond merely presenting facts as they occur(red). We also have cleanup threads specifically for the purpose of determining what does and does not qualify under the rules.

If we want to expand the non-fiction guidance on Real Life Troping, that might be worthwhile.

But I'm not sure there's an appetite to remove all non-fiction works from the wiki. As noted, we've already got cleanup and policies to keep them on track.

I do wonder what the status of history podcasts are. I listen to some of these myself, and I really do recommend things like the works of Mike Duncan, but the tropability is a tricky proposition.

Yeah no I think cutting things like Docudramas, Biopics and other fictionalised versions of real events would be silly. A lot of these are still fictionalised versions of real events.

Docudramas and biopics are fictionalized works and are fair game for troping, as long as we remember to trope the depictions of the people involved, not their real-life counterparts.