During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
Pickering. Story sounds pretty short but he's definitely nasty.
Meant it more for Sal than Maria. Sal was already a psychopath before getting drained.
"I'll show you the Dark Side." CM actors and kills
Jim Pickering.
Cutting Ma-Ma. I think this is a case like OUAT Jafar or Lotso where the person who she was in that sad backstory just flat out ceased to exist the deeper she delved into her life of evildoing. She doesn't seem to have that love for her dead boyfriend in the movie proper - she's in love with the power she wields and the high she gets off of lording over other people's very lives as a drug lord, which she adopted as a sort of way to fill the void left behind by Eric's murder. Her redeeming quality from the backstory has been discarded, burned, and buried by the present day, and in such there's nothing redeemable or mitigating about her.
edited 30th Sep '17 2:21:10 PM by ANewMan
I know I am being obstinate, but nobody has given any justification for the length problem. Conciseness is not just a virtue, but a policy listed in the How To Write An Example page.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman![]()
Can you elaborate which policy is being violated here? We've all had a longstanding policy of making the entries long enough to encapsulate how the villain counts and what they do in story to justify it. We haven't had a problem there so far.
Like I said before, I don't think it's good practice for our decisions to be subject to arbitrary personal preference based upon one mod's personal preference. It's an issue here because the entries we right have to hit upon a very particular set of criteria and justify the example. Bad examples like "this guy is a rape and murderer' was partially what this sort of thread was designed to stop
edited 30th Sep '17 2:26:18 PM by Lightysnake
Here's my writeup for Hatch.
- Michael Vey: Dr. Charles James Hatch, the Big Bad of the series. He was once the CEO of Elgen Incorporated until the MEI, a device that was meant to scan for disease, malfunctioned and killed several unborn children, with only seventeen surviving and gaining electric powers. Despite being scapegoated for an incident that wasn't entirely his fault, he proves to be completely unsympathetic throughout the series. After learning about the electric children, which he calls "Glows," he saw their potential to regain his position and more. In his quest to find the Glows, he would use bribery to gain their loyalty, and when that failed, he resorted to using the Glows' loved ones as leverage. He killed Zeus's family and made him think he did it to mold him into a ruthless killer. He held Tanner's brother hostage so that he could use his power to take down airborne planes, which has been a constant source of PTSD for him. When threatening their loved ones doesn't work, he imprisons them and would have Nichelle torture them, as Ian, Abigail, and McKenna learned the hard way. Despite kidnapping Taylor and Sharon Vey, he almost convinces the former that he's a good guy by reuniting her with her long-lost twin sister, but he shows his true colors when he orders Talyor to use her power on a motocross biker while he's doing a dangerous stunt. He later captures Michael and offers to let him see his mother again, but under a Sadistic Choice where he must kill Wade. When Michael refused, he had him sent to Cell 25. He later disobeys Chairman Schema's orders to release Michael's mother to fulfill his personal agenda. After a Bungled Suicide from Tanner that would have killed him and the other Glows, he ordered the guard watching him to be sent to the Rat Bowl to be devoured by electric rats, something he later attempts on Michael. Schema attempts to kill Hatch after finding out he disobeyed him, but he usurps Schema and has him strung upside down. When a lover of Schema's protests, Hatch has her hung in his place, which leads to her dying from having blood rush to her head. After Tara's powers had developed enough for her to create illusions, he tricked Michael into revealing the location of the resistance's base and orders an airstrike, and could have succeeded in killing everybody if not for the Voice's foresight. After finding out that the Electroclan slipped from his grasp again, decides to have the head of the Elgen Guard, Welch, executed for the failure, despite knowing full well that he's close to Quentin, which prompts him, Tara, and Torstyn to release him behind his back. After the invasion of Tuvalu is a success, he has the country's Prime Minister locked in a monkey cage and has his tongue removed to further mock him. After learning that Quentin was the one that set Welch free, he vows to subject him to the same fate he forced on the Prime Minister while having Torstyn and Tara sent to the Rat Bowl, despite his previous claims of making the world a better place for the Glows. He makes a deal with J.D., a ship captain and former friend of Gervaso, to have the Electroclan in his clutches. His plan is to eat Michael after killing him and his allies except for Taylor, who he offers to J.D. as a sex slave. He successfully captures the Electroclan and forces them to watch people get eaten by the Electric Rats, and he chooses the crew of the Joule after they let the Electroclan hijack the sub. He then has Zara, a Glow that can briefly copy other Glow powers, read Cassy's mind with Taylor's power to learn the location of the Voice, the location of the hideout, and the identity of the leader of the resistance, Carl Vey. He orders another strike on the resistance, this time succeeding, but orders Sharon Vey captured so that he can use her as leverage against Carl. With the leader in his clutches, he gives the Electroclan one last chance at life if they attack Carl for making them electric and ruining their lives, but they are Defiant to the End. As he prepares to have Zara finish off the Electroclan, Michael, after being presumed dead throughout the final book, comes to end things once and for all. He tries to kill Michael, only for his fully-developed powers to No-Sell his guards and Zara. In his final moments, he shows to be a Dirty Coward by abandoning his Glows and begging Michael for his life, and Michael decides to give him a quick, painless death since anything else would have been stooping to his level.
Agreed (maybe not QUITE that much, but at least 3/5).
Here's a start: Change "He tries to kill Michael, only for his fully-developed powers to No-Sell his guards and Zara. In his final moments, he shows to be a Dirty Coward by abandoning his Glows and begging Michael for his life, and Michael decides to give him a quick, painless death since anything else would have been stooping to his level." to "He tries to kill Michael, and in his final moments, proves to be a Dirty Coward by abandoning his Glows and begging Michael for his life.
edited 30th Sep '17 2:30:56 PM by ACW
Yeah, the first sentences need to go to begin with.
Anyhow, here is my deal. This thread after a rocky start has settled in with an established process for writing examples and moderators adding them. There have been a few complaints lately about this thread supposedly having an in group bias and while we didn't find much about it I did notice that some proposed examples tended to recount a villain's deeds in a synopsis like fashion that has dramatically lengthened the examples, an impression bolstered by some discussions here about "updating" existing example entries in a way that does not change their status as a Complete Monster and which some people (32 Footsteps for example) had concerns about. I had mentioned such an issue before but it was mostly skipped over.
Thus I've requested that some examples not be added so that we can have a serious talk about the length issue. I've asked my fellow moderators and didn't receive much input but some commented that they perceive entries as fairly long and detailed. We also do not have in fact the obligation to add examples (or modify them) when asked for.
Moderator fiat is not something that is done lightly, but it can be done. I do not disagree with the inclusion of any example, but examples must comply with the abovementioned conciseness policy. I did offer some suggestions here and didn't get much specific input. If the current detailed entries are in fact necessary to demonstrate the trope I'll retract the objection.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanMy issue is...is this a genuine problem that has been raised consistently that we're ignoring? Because we have a pretty consistent policy of keeping them as concise-and often under 300 words- as they can due to the nature of the trope itself. Some villains have more evil deeds than others, stretched throughout longer works.
And in many cases, to understand what the villain does, one has to provide a context which is not always easily done given the natures oft he works.
edited 30th Sep '17 2:59:30 PM by Lightysnake
Likewise. There have been a scant few instances where some users have said that individual additions didn't help the entries. There has not been, to my knowledge nor recollection, any sort of influx of people claiming the entries are too bloated or long as a general issue, and it's something we addressed in the past with the attempt at a word limit save in pretty extreme cases where it's remarkably difficult to discuss the villain without a lengthier writeup.
I don't think we've breached that.
I do have an issue. And so does the policy. It does exist because history indicates that readers prefer to read shorter things. Most readers aren't tropers so you cannot always expect a complaint for every problem, so we have a policy as a proxy.
The trope is not meant to be a catalogue of all evil things someone does, just the ones that make someone heinous by the standards of the story. The examples I've requested edits to include deeds that are not that evil or unneeded details about the plot that may describe how someone is a villain but not how they are considerably more heinous than others.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman"The trope is not meant to be a catalogue of all evil things someone does, just the ones that make someone heinous by the standards of the story."
Oh, no arguments here. Believe me, if we listed all the deeds of, say, Palpatine or Joker, their entries would be novel-length.
Honestly though, is 300 too long? And most aren't even that long. Wow, it's weird to find myself arguing in favor of LONGER entries
BTW, I looked at the entries you mentioned (Colorless King; Poughkepsie; Persona; Knack), and they're all 230 or so at most.
edited 30th Sep '17 3:18:15 PM by ACW
A 'Yes' to Pickering.
There have been no issues raised around here about the length of entries being an issue. Every now and then, someone posts an overly long write-up, as the above write-up is an example of, and we give feedback and get it cut down.
The "policy" that is spoken of has been set by the thread users. Anything under 300 is no issue, and any that ARE above 300 need to have darn good reasons for being such, and as is? Pretty much all entries meet that criteria.
We have gone over these parameters before, and attempting to change them now would not only send extremely divisive messages, but also annoy and upset several people, myself included. No one has brought these issues to us, so as is? It's looking like YOU are the only one with a problem with the write-up's lengths, Septimus.
edited 30th Sep '17 3:25:18 PM by Ravok
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!The trope is not meant to be a catalogue of all evil things someone does, just the ones that make someone heinous by the standards of the story. The examples I've requested edits to include deeds that are not that evil or unneeded details about the plot that may describe how someone is a villain but not how they are considerably more heinous than others.
And I believe we stick to the policy by and large. If there are points where the entries need to be trimmed of deeds that aren't that bad, that's fine, but by and large this seems a matter of personal preference. We haven't seen a widespread issue from readers or other tropers.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/HowToWriteAnExample
Here's the article is question:
First, we do have the section: "Keep it Brief"
Then right below it ...But Not Too Brief: "Remember, examples sections are more than just long lists of shows or tropes — they are here to serve as examples. If you don't explain how a show used a given trope, what have you really said? Remember, nothing is Self Explanatory unless it is Exactly What It Says on the Tin (even then, err on the side of readers are morons and explain it anyway). Unless it provides context, an example is just a series name floating in space, probably not worth much to anyone who doesn't already remember it (and what's the point of telling people something they already know?). Oh, and most of us are pretty sick of Two Words: Added Emphasis Sink Holes, so please don't do that either. It's easy to assume that everyone else is familiar with the same things you're familiar with, but this is usually not the case, so think before you break out the internal jargon and Fan Nicknames without explanation. There are still some people who don't know It Was His Sled. "
I think the latter is what we're mostly adhering to at this point.
And let me reiterate, and I hope Lighty, Ravok, Scraggle and others will back me up on this: I've consistently (to the point of annoyance for some, I'm sure
) stated when I think a writeup is too long; there were some old writeups that I either revised or requested revision because they were too long. Keamy comes to mind, as does El Patron; I think there were others too.
Nice find Lighty.
edited 30th Sep '17 3:27:37 PM by ACW
