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I remember bringing that up before, but I don't think anything was ever really said in an official way.
I think it was formatted like that purely for fun.
It needs to be rewritten. It's kind of hard to parse the definition in the page's current state.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
For what it is worth, I don't have a problem reading it and I think it is still pretty clear what the trope is about. However I admit that I always fall on the side of keep things the same, so I'm not always the best judge of these.
Bumping this because really. The entire page sounds like Conversation in the Main Page or it should belong to Forum Games. Should we move it to TRS?
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
The current page - both the description and the examples - reads more like a Self-demonstrating article or a Just for Fun one.
I think the basic format is fine and could work. I kinda think it's a clever way of getting across the ambiguity of the trope. That said, if it was reformatted to be uniform to the rest of the wiki, I wouldn't lose sleep. I just happen to like originality.
The problem, however, is the overly-indulgent tone. It comes across as joke trying way too hard. For example, what if we rewrote the first sentence from this:
to this
To paraphrase The Simpsons, it's mildly amusing the first time you see it and less and less so as you go on. By the end of the page, the conceit is just downright painful to read.
I'm also seeing, most notably in the Live Action TV folder, that many tropers are not even bothering with the courtroom style and just entering examples in the normal way. This gives a rather schizophrenic tone to the entire page.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
It being original still conflicts with Administrivia.First Person Writing. If the examples are funny, I propose making a DarthWiki.Race Court or JustForFun.Race Court and clear up the "Your Honor, the prosection calls" thing.
I think maybe this thread
deals with stuff like this.
^No, for the problems that the format has, its form of first-person writing is not one of them. From that administrivia:
"With that said, not every usage of first-person writing is a break of policy. It's acceptable in these circumstances:
When you're writing a self-demonstrating article and are talking as the article itself. This is common with certain indexes and image captions. Similarly, it's used on self-demonstrating character pages, where you're writing as the character talking to the audience."
There's a difference between using "I" to actually mean yourself and using "I" to be the voice of a character. The page is definitely the latter.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy SoundCloud
The page is not marked as Self-Demonstrating Article, and the examples on page are written like the tropers "present" them and not from the article's supposed character.
Edited by Amonimus TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
^ Self demonstrating trope articles only alter the description and/or folders, never the trope examples.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
^ Which is my point, aside Neglectful Precursors not being a Self-Demonstrating Article in the first place.
Edited by Amonimus TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
I notice that Neglectful Precursors is formatted as a sort of Court Room style of submitting evidence. I'm wondering if this is kosher?