Severe decay, complaining gateway: Completely Missing The Point

Completely Missing The Point is supposed to be about a character reacting to a major revelation by latching onto some minor detail (e.g. nitpicking grammar in a death threat to them). The problem is that the vast, vast majority of uses on the wiki are basically duplicating Misaimed Fandom or otherwise complaining about some vaguely defined group that is totally wrong about how to interpret some work (or, in many cases, how they should be acting in the first place). As a result, it nearly always brings natter with it and often degenerates into Broken Base flame wars.

At this stage, the title is basically dead in the same way as Rape The Dog and I Am Not Making This Up. There are over 1900 wicks and despite efforts to try and keep the main page on topic (no matter how big and ugly a banner, about one in four submissions are of the bad use), policing such a huge number of links is less than feasible. I strongly suggest finding a new title for the original trope, changing all the proper usages of the title over, and killing this page.

The problem is that the name itself is general, and names that do not define parameters often get misused due to people not knowing there are supposed to be specifics.

Where are you getting your definition? From the trope page:

A character completely misses a really obvious point, usually for comic effect but can also be used to demonstrate a growing imbalance in the character's personality.

PlayingWith.Completely Missing The Point and previous discussions about what to do with it when it became clear people were misusing it.

@Shale: That still doesn't justify some of the wicks, which readl ike this (and are what the OP is talkng about):

Completely Missing The Point: Yahtzee constantly decries internet fanboys, saying the developers he criticizes are adults who don't need defending. Then the comments to his reviews will be full of mindless ZP fanboys who compliment the review before they could have even watched it and defend Yahtzee from anyone who disagrees with him.

Clean 'em up when you find 'em. It's not only allowed, it's encouraged.

Page itself doesn't seem to be too bad. Anyone willing to keep a close watch on it while cleanup is going on?

I say it should be renamed to Comically Missing the Point. Then it will be at least clear that it's about doing it for laughs instead of claiming people are being stupid.

But the existing name is entrenched, so I suggest splitting (if just making it a redirect isn't an option).

"Completely Missing The Point is supposed to be about a character reacting to a major revelation by latching onto some minor detail (e.g. nitpicking grammar in a death threat to them)."

Well, if we were to change the name to something more specific to this, "Correcting Your Death Threat's Grammar" could work, if we're basing it on this definition. Or "Completely Nitpicking The Point". Perhaps even "Not Seeing The Big Picture" or "Missing The Main Problem", though these two could be easily confused with something else as well.

How about "Distracted By The Trivial?

I've definitely seen this used as Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

For example, in a debate between Tropers, A might pose an argument, B counters it with an argument, then A points out that B's argument doesn't technically address A's point at all. In this case, A would pothole their response as Completely Missing The Point, to emphasize their opinion that B's is a red-herring rebuttal.

edited 20th Nov '10 10:51:09 AM by Stratadrake

I like Comically Missing the Point. It's intuitive, it doesn't have the problems Completely Missing The Point has where it's a common figure of speech not usually used to describe a character reacting within a work as opposed to reacting to it, and it's close enough to the original that remembering the change wouldn't be a problem.

I note that even the page image thinks this trope is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Madrugada: With over 1900 wicks (and probably about a quarter to half, maybe more, misuse - just a guess), that'll take a while.

edited 20th Nov '10 5:19:12 PM by Leaper

Yeah, it will. It'll take even longer if you just leave the ones you find, and I leave the ones I happen across, and everybody else does the same thing, waiting for an organized drive t get rid of them.

So you oppose a rename on that basis?

Depends on his position along the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Vs Pragmatism.

No. I'm saying that if we rename it, those bad wicks will still have to be cleaned up.

Clean up as you find them, and whether it's renamed or not, the wicks will be correct.

edited 21st Nov '10 2:07:14 PM by Madrugada

But if we do change it to, say, Comically Missing the Point, then couldn't we change Completely Missing The Point in order to accommodate the meaning the bad wicks thinks it has? After all, it's getting used with a specific definition in mind; why not create it to help them?

^ That's an audience reaction, not a trope.

Yeah, I would say maybe even start a new subtrope for whatever Completely Missing The Point was supposed to mean. CMTP is obviously suited for supertrope status, in its use in everything from non-sequitur picture captions to debates on these forums. Whatever it started out as being should be a specific subtrope now...

What these are are examples of Don't Shoot the Message.

The wick count has gone up from 1900+ to 2200+ since 1st of October.

This thread expired after 60 days of inactivity.

What do we do with this thing?

I agree that it needs to be improved. It's excessively used for no reason after perfectly valid examples with a minor typo that is usually an Incredibly Lame Pun. Maybe it should be changed and the in-universe ones should be put on a new trope, like people said earlier in the thread.