Question about Character Sheets

My personal rule of thumb is if only one character exhibits the trope, it should probably only go on the character page. If more than one character exhibits it, it should go on both.

That's just me, though.

My rule is very simple - everything on the main page.

Character page? Optional but go for it if you want.

Eh, that leads to a very cluttered page sometimes. Particularly when the trope isn't all that interesting, like Blue Eyes.

edited 21st May '10 2:30:40 PM by ccoa

What if the character has a MegaCorp / N.G.O. Superpower / Badass Army / Amazon Brigade at his beck and call, with no other co-controllers? Do those entries go in his trope list?

PS: Just a reminder that the "Cast Herd case" question has yet to be properly answered.

edited 30th May '10 5:26:55 PM by MarqFJA

Bump, since some insist that only the characters page for No More Heroes covers Jerkass Woobie, not the main page as well.

Well, Jerkass Woobie applies to one character in the work (granted, it's the main character) and isn't much of a plot point. Besides, the game doesn't present Travis as a Jerkass Woobie: his life is indeed incredibly screwed up and you can feel sorry for him, but he is not a Woobie. He's a Jerkass. The description for The Woobie says it best: "Woobification of a character is a curious, audience-driven phenomenon, divorced almost entirely from the character's canonical morality." (Hey, since this trope is subjective, should it really be listed on main pages?)

I guess I'm just used to character-related tropes going on the character sheet. After all, the main page is here to describe the work, and the character sheet is here to describe the characters. I know that character sheets are optional - but if there is one, I believe character-related tropes should be there if they are not that important in the work itself.

edited 7th Sep '10 2:36:55 PM by Le_Shad

"and isn't much of a plot point"

Nothing says the main page just has to have those.

"Besides, the game doesn't present Travis as a Jerkass Woobie"

That's a reason to take it out, along with removing it from the character page. Not being an example is a perfectly legitimate reason to remove it.

Point one: You seem to miss that if there Ain't No Rule saying that character tropes can't be on the main page after a character page is created, then there's also no rule preventing others from removing them from the main page if they're on the character page.

Point two: What Le Shad is saying is that it's an objective character trait that isn't important to the plot, and to many he is not a woobie but simply a jerkass. It isn't in the game, but in people's perception of a character, in other words, and something to be noted with the character, not with the game.

But this is beside the larger point, the function of character pages. TO me the whole point of them is to remove all character specific tropes from the main page and increase readability. To accomplish that goal it has to be all, not decided be whether or not it's some tropers pet trope. There will certainly be tropes (like Unwanted Harem) that will need further discussion, but this isn't one of them.

First of all, I didn't mean Ain't No Rule, since that's a trope not a way the site works. Second of all, the reason for the removal is what I'm calling on.

Since the thread has been rezzed, I'd like to place a reminder of these two questions of mine, which have yet to be answered.

edited 8th Sep '10 10:12:58 AM by MarqFJA

I quote from your edit in the page history last night: "There is no rule that says the trope can only be listed on one page". That you think because it's a trope makes it not a valid description of that I fail to find polite words to describe.

The reason for the removal is that it's a character trope and the game has a character page, therefore that is where it goes- and as a corollary it's redundant to put it anywhere else, so that should be avoided.

Marq, I'm not sure what you're responding to in the first one, but as to the second, I'd say those all still go to the main page- they may be tied to the character, but they are not traits of the character.

edited 8th Sep '10 12:22:13 PM by Westrim

""There is no rule that says the trope can only be listed on one page". That you think because it's a trope makes it not a valid description of that I fail to find polite words to describe. "

What? How does what I write relate to "valid description"? What I meant obviously means there is nothing that says it only has be on one page. That means there is nothing that says it can't be on the main page and the character page.

If there is, it has to be more than just an opinion, and some notion of page size that applies to character pages as well.

edited 8th Sep '10 2:40:08 PM by DragonQuestZ

Question: If I visit the page that I have been repeatedly told exists for the sole purpose of cataloging the tropes that exist in the work, will I find all known tropes in that work?

Question: If someone was new to the site and reading through their first few pages, what do you think they would do? Do you think they are going to be namespace wizards? What if it is their first edit? Are they going to go to the character pages? Hell no and if they did then we would have a plethora of odd namespaces called "Plots" and "Settings" turning up too.

Is there any way to get some official word on this? Plus I'd like a ruling on what's happening on No More Heroes. I noticed I was getting into an edit war, but I still don't like the reasons given for removing the tropes (aside from not being an example).

I'd love a ruling on this.

Especially one that says "all tropes go on the main page, they can also go on the character pages if you like". I've no issue, as I've said before, with similar namespaces for plots and settings, as long as there is indeed a one stop shop for everything. When I'm wikiwalking I've got enough tabs open at once without needing to open up several just for one work (and bear in mind I've no interest in JBM, WMG, Troper Tales etc)

Character sheets don't describe the work, they describe the characters of said work. If a character trope isn't important in the work, but is still present, should it really be on the main page? When a character has blue eyes, rarely do you see Blue Eyes on the main page of the article if there is a character sheet.

I believe removing most of the character tropes from the main page (if there is a character sheet, of course) would made it clearer and more satisfying to read: information on a character is not always relevant to/important in the work itself. To take an example Dragon Quest Z and myself are in disagreement about, Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes indeed has an Alliterative Name, so it goes on the character sheet. However, it's not a trope that the work really makes use of, contrary to Animal Motifs, which is a character trope and influences the gameplay of the game and its universe. Thus my belief that Alliterative Name should be left on the character sheet and left out of the main page.

I'd like an official word on this too. I was just trying to be logical, but it's obvious my logic isn't everyone else's. After all, it depends on personal preferences, another reason why an official word would be great. I personally believe that leaving all character tropes on the main page renders the character sheets redundant and not that useful.

edited 8th Sep '10 5:21:12 PM by Le_Shad

"If a character trope isn't important in the work, but is still present, should it really be on the main page?"

Yes.

"When a character has blue eyes, rarely do you see Blue Eyes on the main page of the article if there is a character sheet."

That just means it is done that way, not that it's supposed to. A lot of those should also be listed on the main page.

I would believe that it is a valid use of the Character Sheets to put character-specific tropes there rather than the main page, considering that the namespace was originally created as a place to put information that was cluttering up works pages.

History lesson: Once upon a time, our Neon Genesis Evangelion article was really short, believe it or not. Some fan, bless their heart, looked at the stub and said "This won't do" so they wrote a longer description of the series which included mini-biographies and character analysis for every named character except the penguin. As the article expander rode off into the sunset, the townsfolk looked at his work and said, "Great, now the article is too long! You have to scroll for ten screens just to get to the trope list." But they didn't want to just throw away all this writing that the mysterious troper put so much love into, so a compromise was reached:

Every named Neon Genesis Evangelion character would get their own article, linked from the main page.

This, however, would not work as a permanent solution, as non-fans of NGE were constantly wondering why Shinji deserved his own article while Luke Skywalker didn't. These pages were suggested on the Cut List (the old cut list, which was a regular old page that anyone could edit, and Fast Eddie or Janitor would periodically sweep through and manually delete listed items) several times and debated with no consensus.  ^Aside

The current characters namespace was the solution to this thorny dilemma.

Hell no and if they did then we would have a plethora of odd namespaces called "Plots" and "Settings" turning up too.

Synopsis and Recap say "hi".

That history lesson just says character descriptions should be on those pages, not tropes.

Dragon; try to keep up. You made an edit comment that read in part "1There is no rule that says the trope can only be listed on one page," my entry 33 noted that as you saying Ain't No Rule, you asked what I was talking about in entry 34 and said "2since that's a trope not a way the site works", I responded by quoting your edit comment in entry 36 and saying that that analysis was so off I did not know how to respond politely.

I guess I'll try being polite. Ain't No Rule is a trope that describes the action of doing something that is not specifically prohibited, (which you did and said you did in quote 1) regardless of whether it is something that is logically disallowed like duplicating tropes across pages for the same media because you want to. I in no way said that was the way the site worked, I said that was the way you were working (thus "valid description"). And you're still going on, saying there Ain't No Rule that it can't be on multiple pages, never mind that not having character tropes on the main page is the whole point of a character page. I doubt that people would want the tropes on the main page AND the character page was even considered when they were created.

Yes, page size issues are a concern for character pages, but they can be split by cast herds- how do you propose we split, say, Warhammer 40k? No More Heroes is unlikely to face that issue, but it's tropes should still go in toe places designated for them, not on the main page whenever a troper feels like it.

Some Sort Of Troper, the wiki is going to have a bit of a learning curve; witness the rise of the crowners. I for one appreciated the extra depth of the auxiliary pages once I found them, making. We can't format everything to accommodate brand new people, and I submit that an extremely long page, even folderized, is far more intimidating to a new troper (and even more so to a new editor: I still have trouble with long pages) than several different pages of more reasonable length and perhaps folder names more specific than tropes A-D.

Dragon again, the reason for removing the trope is that it's already present on a page for the game and is not important to the plot; only the character and people's perception thereof.

The problem Addy is redundancy. In one breathe you say that everything should be available on one page, then in the next list a few you think shouldn't be. You've gotta pick: everything on the main page or everything on the pages intended for them? And understand there are several media where one page with everything simply isn't structurally possible.

Let me show another viewpoint: as someone who does read auxiliary pages, it is annoying and wastes my time if there are multiple entries for the same trope, especially if it's not even reworded. Why should I have to wade through redundancy for the sake of those who want to ignore the auxiliary pages and have everything on main pages, just to get the extra tropes about the characters and the plot tropes? Put it one place or the other, not both.

Well there I went, being long again. I'll third the motion for an official response and refrain from responding to the posts made while I was typing for now.

edited 8th Sep '10 7:09:59 PM by Westrim

I meant only that if there isn't a rule, you're trying to enforce just a personal policy, not something that is actually a policy.

You and me both did that, Dragon Quest Z.

edited 9th Sep '10 4:24:00 AM by Le_Shad

No, you're enforcing a policy that doesn't exist. I'm enforcing that the policy doesn't exist (at least at the moment). That isn't personal, since it's not a policy until either the hive mind or an admin decides so.

Still, by constantly adding the trope back, you did try to enforce another personal policy, since nothing says that character tropes have to be on the main page. We were both wrong here.

"Hell no and if they did then we would have a plethora of odd namespaces called "Plots" and "Settings" turning up too."

Synopsis and Recap say "hi".

In full they say "Hi. We have in depth descriptions but no trope list and our in a separate namespace because we are not cataloging tropes ourselves but add extra description to understand single trope entries in better context."

They also go on to comment on how lovely they fit into your post because that makes it seem that the overriding point of these subpages is further analysis and description and that the NGE example points out that the information moved was not the trope list but long character descriptions.

Interesting feature, how they can talk like that.

Now, if there are works where the nature of the characters within them has no influence on the overall tone of the work, they must be some pretty boring works. We are not about knowing the plot, the fact that the character has a certain personality might not impact on the plot... if it's a completely plot driven work with no character study whatsoever... but it still impacts on tropes, themes and how we understand them.

Length does not confuse people. Nobody gets lost on a long rode in a straight line. Not knowing that something exists and where it would be will confuse people. At the moment, there is not a definite concept of what tropes belong on a character page. Any point relating to a character could be on there and being able to accurately describe them may not work without including more than just what is on the Characterisation Tropes list.