Eddie, may I point out that your metaphor there is absolutely brilliant while at the same time making the Grammar Nazi in me go batshit insane? *
That said, ...Or So I Heard is absolutely Word Cruft and can go the same way as IANMTU or So Yeah.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I'm cutting bad uses of this. Check out this sickeningly egregious example, from Fetish Retardant:
- Several (...Or So I Heard) K/S Slash Lemons (...Or So I Heard) mention (...Or So I Heard) that Spock's dick is green. Or So I Heard. I am not a Yaoi Fangirl! Don't judge me!
- Not limited to fanfics. Leonard Nimoy was asked if they were green. And yes, I said "they". Apparently, Vulcans have FORKED dicks.
Ugh.
edited 9th Aug '10 12:14:39 PM by Martello
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.It's possible that Eddie was trying to make a further level of pun, as a tick sucks blood. People make puns like that sometimes, ...Or So I Heard.
edited 9th Aug '10 12:15:09 PM by Twilightdusk
^^Terrible. We don't sign our entries in main articles anyway, so it's ridiculous for an individual troper to be embarrassed over their contribution, at least after it falls off the edit history.
Edit: I know it's possible that the pun was deliberate, but if so, it would have worked just as well with the proper spelling. And now let's stop with this pointlessness.
edited 9th Aug '10 12:16:26 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Wow, if I was actually right about that I should probably start betting on horses.
EDIT: And the fact that I'm derailing my own thread means I should probably go to bed.
edited 9th Aug '10 12:20:52 PM by Martello
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.I was just about to right "^^tic" but then I finished reading the sentence. Awesome right there.
Fight smart, not fair.I say you're all wrong. The REAL reason it's bad is because it's a personal comment in wiki word form. The word cruft part is suspect, because how many times would you post "Or So I Heard", and not mean it as "It's not something I know directly, I swear"? So even though it's a bad thing for pages, it's use is done correctly.
IANMTU just happened to be both word cruft and a personal comment.
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.The Word Cruft is valid, DQZ. Is there any context in which you could not take away ...Or So I Heard and still have a complete, understandable entry?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Am I the only one who("likes" might be too strong...) doesn't mind the various tics and memes that pop up on the site? Lend the place a bit of colour and identity, I find.
And, let's face it, they'll only be replaced by some other contextually meaningless phrase. The fight against So Yeah, ...Or So I Heard, I Am Not Making This Up, and others is really a fight against human nature.
Creed of the Happy Pessimist:Always expect the worst. Then, when it happens, it was only what you expected. All else is a happy surprise.I still think it's wordcruft, but the This Troper aspect is something I forgot to put in there. I'm editing my original post to make it point 3.
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.^^^ Daremo, remember that these are all memes and can be fought as memes. We are trying to discourage self-insertion across the main articles, to prevent them from looking like a bunch of random people talking to each other rather than the wiki talking to the reader. There is plenty of room within this framework for snark, humor, etc.
The purpose of this site is to catalogue tropes. It has never been about Gushing, Complaining, or the Memetic Mutation of the day. That we've let it accumulate this stuff is our collective fault, and while the pushback from people who came to think of it as part of the site is understandable, it can't let us sway our decisions.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Sigh... Why do I get the feeling that Word Cruft is going to be next JAFAAC or Character Named Tropes, with everyone scouring for anything that's even tangentially one and going "BLARG CUT IT CUT IT CUT IT!" every five minutes.
That's been going on for a long while. You didn't notice? Anyway, this is Word of God stuff, and calling "slippery slope" on it ignores the fact that it's somewhere we're deliberately trying to get.
edited 9th Aug '10 1:37:41 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"We have lots of contributors who are only tangentially aware of the big picture. They see a card put into play effectively, (because it's being used correctly) and assume that it is an all-powerful card that will always be effective.
IMNMTU was used effectively at first, then it was seen as something that was always funny and it became Word Cruft kudzu. So Yeah went the same route. So did "egregious", and "eponymous" and "titular". So did ...Or So I Heard. Just A Face And A Caption is the latest one.
You clear kudzu out of an infested area by cutting it away without mercy, and keeping it cut away. Taking a few half-hearted whacks at it and leaving the vast majority of it isn't going to work. Once it's gone, we can try to allow it back in a form that doesn't allow it unchecked spread.
Clearing out ...Or So I Heard isn't burning the garden. Clearing all trope pages of all examples would be burning the garden. And you don't get rid of kudzu by leaving it in patches.
Actually, you apply proactive measures to prevent the spread of weeds, once you notice them cropping up. However, if you let them go too long, the garden starts to become indistinguishable from the weeds, and excising them may require damaging some desired plants. This does not mean that excising them is futile.
edited 9th Aug '10 2:02:11 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"^^ You speak of one instance. I speak of the movement this one instance is a part of.
^ The problem there lies in deciding whether or not the garden is overrun or not. One of the main problems I had with the IAMNTU, was for a long time the main argument against it was "it's not funny and I'm tired of seeing it," which was an extremely one-sided view, a terrible reason for doing anything, and part of the reason there was such a massive backlash against the action.
In any case, we need to exercise caution, rather than saying "this is Word Cruft, it must be bad, axe it."
edited 9th Aug '10 2:06:38 PM by KnownUnknown
^^Exactly. In fact, very early Tuesday morning we are going to shut down just to run a script that will eliminate So Yeah from everything.
!!note!!
edited 9th Aug '10 2:07:14 PM by FastEddie
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

...Or So I Heard. It's everywhere on the wiki. I don't think we need it. My argument:
1. The main usage of it is to say, "This work has this trope, but I'm embarrassed about writing this because a man my age (or a woman of my intelligence, or whatever bullshit) shouldn't be watching this work." It's exactly the kind of faux-sardonic nerdspeak nonsense that turns "normal" people off from nerdkind. Just man the fuck up and describe the work. Nobody will even know which editor wrote it, anyway, unless they obsessively check the editing history.
"Oh my gawd, I can't BELIEVE that Twilightdusk put a trope instance in WITCH. That must make him a fag! I'm so going to go on the forums and make fun of him!"
That never happens in real life. Or at least I really hope it doesn't.
2. The other usage is to state that the example or entry is hearsay - the editor didn't learn this first hand, her friends told her about it or some such. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is the FUCKING INTERNET! Look it up. Do some damn research. Put it into Google or Wikipedia. It's not hard. Using it this way is the same as If I Recall Correctly, which also makes me see red.
3. It's basically part of the "This Troper" bullshit we all want to get rid of. There's no place for denial or admission of hearsay in the editorial voice.
I'm not saying that the actual page isn't a valid trope. But that doesn't mean it should be used while editing. My proposal - recommend not linking to it in the main page, and adding an Editing Tip about not using it to describe hearsay or claim that you aren't a fan.
Disclaimer: I don't know if Twilightdusk has ever edited anything about WITCH or even knows what it is. I just made that up because Twilightdusk is on the forums a lot, and I've seen several instances of ...Or So I Heard used when writing about WITCH. I don't even really know what WITCH is.
edited 9th Aug '10 1:10:53 PM by Martello
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.