TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Ask The Tropers

Go To

Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help. It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread for ongoing cleanup projects.

Ask the Tropers:

Trope Related Question:

Make Private (For security bugs or stuff only for moderators)

SeptimusHeap MOD (Edited uphill both ways)
2013-12-29 01:03:51

This seems a bad way to make a Self-Demonstrating article - a person who doesn't scroll down by habit won't find any description, period.

Move to put the description back on top.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
battosaijoe Since: Jan, 2010
2013-12-29 02:02:39

I think the main page should be in standard format. However, I see no reason why it can't be moved to the Self-Demonstrating namespace, as I have seen done with other articles.

Fighteer MOD (Time Abyss)
2013-12-29 09:42:22

It can be copied to the Self-Demonstrating namespace, but the main article needs to be readable first. I restored it to the latest correct version and put notes in the edit history and Discussion.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
ShanghaiSlave Since: Mar, 2012
2013-12-29 14:17:48

removed from Self-Demonstrating Article index and removed The Stinger at the end.

off-topic, but why is the clearer name a redirect?

Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?
Fighteer MOD (Time Abyss)
2013-12-29 14:33:10

That would be a topic for TRS. I prefer a clearer title, but "backwards aging" seems a bit more Benjamin Button than Merlin.

Edited by Fighteer "It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
SeptimusHeap MOD (Edited uphill both ways)
2013-12-29 14:36:22

I guess that the 1700+ inbounds will be a stumbling block for a rename.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
ShanghaiSlave Since: Mar, 2012
2013-12-29 14:47:47

^^ i dunno about the trope namer, the merlin i think of is the one with Arthur. whom i know to be a wizard but don't know about how he aged.

^ I was curious as to how it got a Trope Namer instead of a proper name, checked the discussion and there was no YKTTW, so i guess this is pretty old like Xanatos Gambit and others.

Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?
Candi Since: Aug, 2012
2013-12-29 15:57:23

In T.H.White's The Once and Future King, Merlin ages backwards. I suspect that's where the trope name comes from.

(Disney adapted the first arc into The Sword and the Stone. The following arcs get dark fast.)

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
crazysamaritan MOD Since: Apr, 2010
2013-12-29 16:05:22

That's the right Merlin, and it was even incorporated in the Disney version, albeit not emphasized. Probably deemed too complicated for children. Part of the problem might be that "aging backwards" and "living backwards in time" aren't really the same trope at all, they just have similarities that cause them to be mistaken for one another.

((Ninja'd by Candi!))

Edited by crazysamaritan Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Fighteer MOD (Time Abyss)
2013-12-29 17:17:15

My understanding of classic Merlin is that he lived backwards in time; all of his knowledge of the future came because he traveled from there to the past, as opposed to most of us who travel forward in time. I never quite got how he interacted with people; maybe he could temporarily reverse his time flow.

Anyway, that trope is significantly different from being born as an old man and getting younger, but otherwise still traveling the same direction on the time axis as everyone else.

Edited by Fighteer "It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
crazysamaritan MOD Since: Apr, 2010
2013-12-29 18:54:36

Merlin Sickness is currently doing both jobs.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Candi Since: Aug, 2012
2013-12-29 22:47:30

Is Merlin Sickness supposed to have the folders in reverse order? (I personally find it annoying.) I don't want to flip them if they're supposed to be that way.

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
ShanghaiSlave Since: Mar, 2012
2013-12-30 03:40:47

it was reversed when it was Self-Demonstrating, no one would probably mind if you flipped it now that Self-Demonstrating it in the Main namespace is forbidden.

EDIT: also, thanks for the explanation.

Edited by ShanghaiSlave Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?
crazysamaritan MOD Since: Apr, 2010
2013-12-31 22:17:07

Wait... I thought one of the reasons for the Self-Demonstrating namespace was to put Self-Demonstrating versions of tropes on that page. Merlin Sickness was just fixed, instead of moving the self-demonstrating stuff to the other page.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Candi Since: Aug, 2012
2013-12-31 22:38:49

Anyone else mind if I flip them back to standard order?

A revert would be a bit of a pain at this point; I did some namespacing, and put in information on a Literature link-as-example.

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
Top