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Well, the alternative is to have those trope entries repeated for every single character in that category, which strikes me as very redundant and makes for boring reading.

I'm yet to see any rule or mod statement that prohibits the use of "general" folders. I know quite a few users actively dislike them, but none of them gave any good reasons for why they are or should be forbidden.

Tharkun 140: Such a rule does exist, though. How to Write an Example has it, if you scroll down. Hark:

"Examples Are Not General: Making a blanket statement on the behavior of '70s Live-Action TV may be interesting information, but it technically doesn't add anything new as an example. If you feel the information is important, then add it to the description (or the Analysis subpage) instead of the examples. Examples are about specific works and instances in them; the description is the general behavior of the trope."

That's a different concept.

What we're talking about here are tropes that apply to a group of characters, ie, a "general folder". Not general examples, which are forbidden.

Really it's more of a question of organization than validity.

^^ That refers to making generalizations in a trope's examples. The query is about whether a General folder on a character page, with tropes applying to all or nearly all the characters, is allowed. For example, on Characters.Fallen London, we have tropes about the groups followed by individuals in the group.

I think it's fine to have a general group folder, mainly for tropes like The Team/etc.

Yes, it is perfectly acceptable for groups to have tropes applying to all of them put together rather than repeated with each character. It's also very, very common, trying to "correct" it would be a way too big project.

Yeah, I think it's fine to have folders for those sort of examples. Keeps things condensed and all.

Aren't Fighteer and Willbyr discussing this on the forums?

Their discussion isn't quite the same. Willbyr mentioned moving tropes out of character folders and into a "multiple characters demonstrate these tropes" section if they applied to more than one character (but not necessarily all of them). I don't know the work in question, but they don't look like they're part of a group.

For the OP's question, I have no issue with a "general" folder grouping team-style tropes together.

^ Correct. The test case is here, where there are nearly 100 tropes that are exhibited in various ways by multiple characters, but none of the "team" style tropes like Five-Man Band. I think that in cases like this, it's easier to read and organize them by grouping them into separate folders than to have so many instances spread across the various character folders, which I took the liberty of doing. Fighteer's case is that each character's folder can be considered its own work page entry and thus it's more correct to have them listed individually by character.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that tropes that fit multiple characters are more fitting for the work page, and thus these trope entries wouldn't be on the Characters page to start with, but that's potentially a different argument. There's also the argument about how many of these on the page(s) in general are actually fitting for a Characters page, but that's an argument for that thread.

It won't be any skin off my back to revert what I did on that page if the consensus is to list them individually...I figured it's better to take the leap and force the discussion rather than not have it.

There's a rule: Examples Are Not General. I believe anything common enough to be general should go in the trope description, not examples.

The one example I recently removed, Outdated by Canon, was due to all such entries being examples of Jossed, not this trope. If you want to remove such general folders you should run it by somewhere, like ATT, to make sure it's ok to cut.

Do you have examples of general folders.

^ They're not talking about a "general example" like "this happens a lot in Chinese media", but a folder for tropes covered by more than one character, or tropes that apply to everyone in a team.

^^ Basically, OP misspoke (mistyped?): He's not asking about "general" folders, he's asking about folders covering multiple characters before delving into individual characters.

^^^^^ - Why not a trope sub-page for the work?

Where's the thread to discuss this?

^ Not sure what you're asking. The thread I referenced is Are these Character Tropes?

^^^ The sections in question are usually titled "in General", that's why I refer to it as "General section".

Anyway, I'm asking because I've seen some cases where the tropes are listed under both the "General section" and the individual characters' sections, which makes it even more redundant.

And I just came up with this "criteria" for trope organising, and now I'm wondering if I can change around the trope entries as I come across to fit these rule: collating the tropes in a general folder when there are no significant distinction between the trope application for each members, but when you can add context for each character, they can go on the individual characters' entries without being redundant.

For example, Blonde, Brunette, Redhead can probably go to the group trope because the only additional context you can give is which character has what hair colour. But with, say, Four-Philosophy Ensemble, you can add context to what each character's particular worldview and why they fit under the Optimist, Pessimist, Realist and Cynic labels.

Or if, say, the team is a group of bounty hunters, then Bounty Hunter can be listed in the collective group folder, but if all of them have DarkAndTroubledPasts, then this can go to the individual members unless they all share the same backstory.

Thoughts?

Bumping to see if there's any other thoughts to be had.

To clarify, I was like, If Tropiterra had various Action Girls for some reason, we maybe should make ActionGirl.Tropiterra.

I definitely don't think we need separate pages if multiple characters on a page fit underneath a trope, but I think that "general" sections are good when they're used to collect tropes that apply to the entire group, when otherwise you'd have several entries with exactly the same context. Like if you have multiple characters who are Childhood Friends, it's better to put it under a general section rather than several different entries just saying "X grew up with Y and Z" over and over.

If each entry has separate context, though, then I think it's best served underneath the character in question's section.

One Piece, for one, has a character page for both the Straw Hat Pirates in general and another one for its members.

I'm not saying they have to be in separate pages - more like the "tropes dealing with the group members in general" can be a separate section.