Rename: Banned In China

Courtesy Link: Banned in China.

The trope concerns censorship in any country over the world. It fails to be Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and is just a Take That! to a country whose censorship laws are different from those of America.

I propose something neutral and illustrative, like National Ban.

1) Trope names don't have to be Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

2) It's not a Take That! at China.

3) National Ban is even less clear.

@ Madrugada

1) Rename criteria: "Titles that sound like they ought to be Exactly What It Says On The Tin but aren't" — People visit the page (perhaps their first page on TV Tropes through google) expecting to find succinct information, but land on a page that contains many items not banned in China. Is that helpful?

2) Then why single out China? The "banned in Australia" and "banned in Germany" lists on that page are long too.

3) How so? At least National Ban is not misleading.

National Ban is hugely misleading since the first thing that occurs to me is trade embargos.

If National Ban is not a good name, we can think of another, like "Governmental Ban" or "Banned In Some Country".

Governmental Ban starts into things like weapons laws. This is a censorship trope.

Banned In Some Country is vague, long, and obtuse. It also sounds like you could be talking about made up fantasy laws where there are countries that ban toothpicks or something.

"Banned in China" is at least a common censorship stock phrase. Your suggestions are just plain confusing.

edited 15th Jun '10 11:46:13 PM by shimaspawn

How about this: "Banned by other Governments" "Banned on the other side of the World" "Censorship of Nations" "Banned in the Atlas"

Just bouncing off ideas here, because I think the guy DOES have a point: That trope deals with more countries other than Asian ones/a specific big Asian one...

@shimaspawn

"Banned In China" is at least a common censorship stock phrase.

Is that phrase used outside TV Tropes to refer to things specifically not banned in China? If so, then I guess the "pre-existing term" clause wins out.

edited 15th Jun '10 11:53:41 PM by Randalf

"Banned by other Governments" and "Banned on the other side of the World" don't work because often things are banned in their home countries.

"Censorship of Nations" sounds like you are actually censoring what a country is saying.

"Banned in the Atlas" sounds like Area 51 or something else Top Secret you aren't allowed to put on maps.

I'm not arguing that the trope shouldn't be named if something better is found, but it shouldn't be renamed something more obtuse just for the sake of renaming it.

edited 15th Jun '10 11:59:54 PM by shimaspawn

Yeah, I think could do better for a trope name. As it stands, the current title is not very encompassing regarding the trope. That is of course, unless we want to split the trope into the individual nation components.

The issue is though to come up with a good replacement name.

China is much more notorious for randomly banning things than other countries are. Hell, China banning weird things for weird reasons is a joke by this point.

^ As is australia. I agree with the OP, i was expecting a trope about chinese censorship from the title. Maybe Banned Elsewhere?

OK, how about "Banned Somewhere", which may be "obtuse", but which I still consider better than falsely specific titles like "Banned In China". Or "Banned by National Censorship", which is a mouthful but why not?

Also, as I understand, TV Tropes is a site that documents fiction, and it is not the site's mission to comment on some real-life country's censorship policy. To single out one country (no matter how "representative" it is) as the Trope Namer does not reflect well on the site at all.

edited 16th Jun '10 5:08:27 AM by Randalf

I don't really see it a take that, nor as overly specific. China is infamous for banning things. Australia too, though violence seems to be the big one over there.

Is there misuse in the examples? We often don't bother with renaming a somewhat unclear name if the trope itself is being used, and used correctly. See Germans Love David Hasselhoff.

Besides, Redirects Are Free. If you want to make a Banned In Australia redirect, then change all of the Australia related wicks to point to that redirect instead of the main page, more power to you.

@ Meeble:

The problem is not whether the trope itself is being misused; it is about the trope name being a false description of the trope — many of the items on the pages (like Wagnerian music or Barbie dolls) are precisely not banned in China.

And I have no intention of making "Banned in country X" redirects: why pick out any country at all?

P.S. I think the comparison with Germans Love David Hasselhoff is interesting: "Germans love D.H." is a complete statement that can be shown to be either true or false (and the trope description indicates that to be true). "Banned in China" is not a complete statement; it requires a subject: X is banned in China. When you draw the different items listed on the page, you will come up with statement like "Counterstrike is banned in China", which is patently false.

edited 16th Jun '10 6:45:13 AM by Randalf

The point of what I'm saying is this: If a name for a trope has been around for a while and has a good amount of usage (As this one does), we don't just rename it because someone comes up with a "better" name.

We need evidence to back up the sentiment that the name is so confusing that it is causing harm to the trope usage. Since there is a large list of examples from countries other than China, it is safe to say that there isn't misuse of the examples on the trope page itself. Similarly, after looking at some of the non-chinese examples on the work pages that link to Banned in China, it appears to be used correctly there as well.

This trope has been around for a while, has a good number of examples and related pages, and the examples listed seem to be using the trope correctly. In order to feel the need to "Repair" the trope, we need to first see how it is "broken". I have not found any evidence to support that at this time.

edit: Whoa, weird cut and paste failure there, sorry.

edited 16th Jun '10 6:56:43 AM by Meeble

So, just being a false representation of the trope is not enough to warrant a rename?

If I understand correctly, what you say boils down to "The page labeled "Banned In China" has been there for a long time, and contains lots of examples from outside China, hence the name is justified". The argument is baffling to say the least.

More along the lines of: "There is evidence backing up the assertion that the current name is not unclear enough to cause the trope to be misused. If evidence can be brought up to the contrary, then we'll talk about renaming."

Until then, Redirects Are Free... and adding more names for the sake of clarity and searchability is largely what redirects are for.

I'm the one who added the "Exactly What It Says on the Tin" clause to When To Rename A Trope. It's really meant for more obvious differences (i.e. The Viral vs Villian Forgot To Level Grind), not names where the difference is more like Baned In China (and other censorship happy places too). Naming a trope after the most prominent example and letting common sense extrapolate it from there is not what that rule covers.

And it's not a jab at the Chinese...it's a jab at their government if it's a jab at all. Governments a: don't have feelings to be hurt and b: tend to be Acceptable Targets no mater the nationality.

How is it a false representation of the trope? I've never been to the page before as far as I can tell, and I immediately understood that it had to do with frivolous governmental bans.

I mean, this is on the level of renaming Holodeck Malfunction because the malfunctions in question do not always happen on holodecks, but rather within simulators of any kind.

Vote keep.

edited 16th Jun '10 7:42:59 AM by savage

Randalf, I don't see why trope names need to be "neutral". Dan Browned is a precedent for Take Thats in trope names, and the Chinese government is far eviler than Dan Brown.

Re: Elle, I don't buy this Acceptable Target argument, or that anything is fair game as long as it "does not have feelings". Governments are made up by people and represent people, who are capable of feeling being unfairly stereotyped.

Re: savage, Holodeck Malfunction is a purely fictional trope; Banned in China is not. This is an important difference.

Re: silver 2195, If someone has issues with Dan Browned, let him or her speak out. Dan Browned is not my concern. And if being perceived as "evil" makes one an Acceptable Target on this site, the Complete Monster page will make, well, interesting reading.

edited 16th Jun '10 9:15:59 AM by Randalf

>implying that the Chinese government aren't bad guys.

To themselves, they certainly aren't. Although I'd argue that the chances of them taking offense at this particular article's title are next to none. And anyway, it's not even an offensive comparison per se; Chinese censorship is well known throughout the world and is a source of significant international disputes.

You could call it Banned In Indonesia or Banned In Myanmar but it wouldn't have the same instantly recognizable impact.