Again: Enemy Mine

That discussion is locked, but it seems to have missed something major:

The phrase "Enemy Mine" is indeed a preexisting phrase that the work is named after. However, the article is specifically about the situation as exists in the work. The article is _not_ named after the phrase directly; the phrase just means "my enemy" and that isn't what the article is about.

So we have phrase->work->article.

And the reason for a rename is? Is this causing Misuse? A Lack of wicks?

There has to be a reason why you'd re-launch a TRS thread on this beside Trope Namer Etymology...

edited 21st Nov '10 10:59:25 PM by Ghilz

I wouldn't be surprised if it caused people to be thrown off about what it meant, even if it wasn't that often misused. It wouldn't hurt to clarify it further by changing the title.

I don't think renames should work that way. I don't think "maybe people are confused even if there is no evidence of people being confused," or "there's no reason not to make a different name even if the current one seems to be working just fine" are good reasons to re-name a trope. A re-name should be something done as a last resort when a trope name is demonstrably broken and causing visible problems of one sort or another.

Enemy Mine found in: 1315 articles, excluding discussions.

This title has brought 1,414 people to the wiki from non-search engine links since 20th FEB '09.

Brand new tropes, I think, can be changed for little reason. No one's seen them and they haven't got much presence. Even older tropes that show little usage. Something like this? No. This would need a good showing of severe misuse to consider changing.

Remember trope naming guidelines are guidelines, not inviolable laws of nature. They often point out why a trope name may not work. If a trope name is working, as this one clearly is, they go out the window. There's times for practicality, and times for principle, and leaping between the two as I do, it seems like practicality has this one well in hand, and indeed, has already legged it off into the distance.

edited 22nd Nov '10 1:56:29 AM by Daremo

It wouldn't hurt to clarify it further by changing the title.

Yeah it would. It's a VERY well linked trope. It going to take more than just a bit of etymology on a trope's name to have a change. Especially since no one has shown that there is any confusion.

You can go further than that, actually. Look the actual guidelines. They explicitly say that a trope should not be renamed if the current name is working. The criteria the guidelines list for why a trope may be broken are prefaced with a statement along the lines of "if the trope name is broken, here's some things that might be wrong with it".

In other words, one should not start a discussion for a rename by saying "hmm, the name is a bit unclear, I think." First you have to show that it's actually broken, and actually causing real problems for the wiki. Then you take a look at what the underlying cause of this broken-ness might be, which might be something like the name not being entirely clear.

Of course, most of the time, the people starting rename discussions don't seem to worry too much about any of that.

edited 22nd Nov '10 10:03:15 AM by girlyboy

Can we get a lock on this, too?