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Ask the Tropers:
openStyle Savvy title confusion Videogame
About a month ago, VampireBuddha did a major overhaul of the Style Savvy series and split the individual games into their own pages. Which wouldn't be an issue in itself, except the new pages are under their European names of Style Boutique. I'm fairly certain that American titles take precedence here, but even if they don't, there's a mismatch between the franchise name and the individual games. This is potentially a bigger project than I want to take on right now; does anyone else want to take a look?
Pls stop calling everything Harsher In Hindsight
openMinmaxersDelight and SuperWeight have issues
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MinmaxersDelight
I'm not sure 100% what's wrong with the ordering, but D&D is mentioned about 4 different times in the 'Tabletop games' folder at random points, and a few 5e things are mushed in with the 3.5e section. I'd fix it myself but I'm not sure how to sort them since I only play 5e (and even then not much)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperWeight
The table is incredibly messed up, no idea how to fix this.
openOverlapping character pages due to misnamed work Web Original
Transformers: War for Cybertron is sharing its character page with the unrelated Transformers: War for Cybertron because someone misnamed the former. The show is actually called Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (also, I'm not sure if it counts as Web Animation if it's a Netflix original, since Castlevania isn't considered web animation, and War for Cybertron calls itself an anime).
Can I move it? And if yes, should it be to Transformers War For Cybertron Trilogy, Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy or Transformers War For Cybertron Trilogy?
openIs it okay for me to split this character subpage?
Hi. I happen to have noticed that Characters.Skyrim Other Characters was on the Overly Long Pages list.
Having gotten into the relevant game recently, I posted a few ideas to split on the thread concerning too long pages
, from the perspective of my time zone, a couple days ago, and I have yet to get an answer. When something explicitly needs a consensus, I'm the type who'd rather drop the possible modification entirely rather than do the thing unilaterally if I don't get any feedback.
PS: please put anything directly concerning the page split itself on the "too-long page repair" thread.
Edited by NazetrimeopenManchild or Psychopathic Manchild Videogame
Over the past year, there's been a minor edit war over whether Bowser is a Manchild or a Psychopathic Manchild.
This is his entry:
Bowser is a rich and powerful king, but still shows obvious signs of immaturity on a regular basis; he has nasty mood swings that scare even his most loyal servants, he never feels responsible for his failures, always looking for someone else to blame, and is never satisfied with what he already has, always wanting more. The best showcase of this is when he meets his younger self in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time: barely anything differentiates them in personality, showing that Bowser has barely evolved mentally since infancy.
Which trope is more appropriate?
openGame book Pages - Cleansing Required?
I've actually brought this up with another moderator, but decide to bring it here for a ... uhm, let's say, broader opinion, shall we?
So... on the Gamebooks main page
, there is a page dedicated for the What If… (Gamebooks), and its divided into 9 sub-pages of the various instalments.
Which is fine and all if the person who started the sub-pages bothered to make it complete, however its really, really noticeable that the sub-pages are unprofessionally written, severely lacking in details, and some of them doesn't even have tropes. And if it did, each page contains at most 2 to 4 tropes, which begs the question, do we really need these pages?
All those pages are started by Sideshow Jazz 1 3 years ago, and said troper have not been updating the pages he/she started. (circa 2017)
I'm suggesting we consolidate all the books into 1 page (like this one for Give Yourself Goosebumps) and send the rest to the Cutlist. What do you think??
Edited by RobertTYLresolved Famous Last Words
I noticed some people have said that Famous Last Words is too broad and often includes numerous examples of "things people happened to say before they died." I admit, I myself have added such examples. Is there an official rule on what can be included?
open Adjusting Your Glasses
Somebody really needs to explain to me what's going on with the Adjusting Your Glasses page. The description has an example as thesis thing going on, it's got four extra descriptions trying to make subtropes that are probably unnecessary, and because of all that most of the examples are ZCEs.
I really don't know what to do with this. There is a trope in here, but the page itself is bizarre.
openProblematic edit in YMMV.YandereSimulator
Recently, the troper Hashiriya R 23 made this
edit on YMMV.Yandere Simulator. Basically, he removed examples relating to YandereDev being annoyed about emails because:
"Removed all mentions of the "email issue" because it's becoming very clear at this point that the issue was a fabricated excuse from the get-go, and because the artwork that he used as an example of "kids sending in bad art" was drawn by someone that neither sent him an email, nor volunteered in the first place."
Even if this is true, these edits, from the top of the edit history, made one example not make grammatical sense, deleted an objective example, and turned an example into a ZCE.
Furthermore, Hashiriya has had a history of problematic edits on the page. In particular, he added a bunch of memes that were memeing about Yanderedev himself, instead of the game, which we have since deleted.
Edited by KappaclysticaopenNobody Poops and aversions
I don't know whether to go to Trope Talk, Wiki Talk, or Trope Repair Shop, so I just went here.
So I was alphabetizing Nobody Poops and adding a few examples, when I noticed that aversions were listed on the Video Games folder despite that the page itself said that aversions (and straight examples) are too common to list, so you should only list parodies, lampshades, etc.
Also, on several works' pages like Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, they list aversions for Nobody Poops.
openCreate page button
I was thinking could we create a dedicated "Create page" button on the wiki?
I mean having to edit the url of an existing page to create a new page really doesn't make sense.
1. Creating a page is a fundamental function so there could be a fundamental button for it. Having to modify an existing page to make a new page, is like having to turn on the dishwasher to use the stove. It doesn't make any sense since couldn't the stove just have a button of its own to turn itself on rather than having to operate another appliance.
2. Having to modify the url of a an existing page can be complicated based on what characters you have to add/remove and where. Do I remove these characters? Do I add these characters? Which part to I focus on removing and adding characters.
3. Having a "Create Page" button would make it so much easier to make a url for it and make it less likely that you'll mess up the url for the new page by manually changing an old one. The create page would do all the work for you rather than "Do I change these characters or these characters?"
If this feature is implemented this would make it easier to contribute to the wiki. I mean you wouldn't have to worry about messing up a url to create a new works page. I mean if you know about a show for example that hasn't been added yet, you could right then and there add it before you forget.
Basically it'd make adding works so much more efficient.
openShould this be troped?
Found on YMMV.Metroid Prime:
- Harsher in Hindsight: The tales of developers sleeping on couches in the office and consuming massive quantities of fireball candy to get the game finished is a lot less appealing to the current industrial standards in which developers from multiple companies such as Riot and Netherrealm studios are working their staff into what can be charitably called sweatshop conditions.
I feel like this is in a gray area considering it's not talking about the game itself.
open(Accidental?) Incentive to Suicide in the "Serious Business" page
So, i was looking through the Real Life section of the Serious Business page and stumbled upon this paragraph.
"Life itself. It's so much serious business because there are people who strive to give it meaning, even during hard times. It's even more serious when people will shame those who hate how their lives are and are seeking to end it for their misfortunes, whether serious or not."
Now, i THINK this is accidental, but the wording made it sound like people who want to end their lives because they hate it and/or are going through hard times are making the correct choice. Again, this might be a mistake since it specified those who are doing Suicide Shaming, and it could just be a critique to those who do that, but i still think it should be changed since one could interpret it as an outright incentive to suicide as a solution (Like i did).
Edited by LalapolpolpolopenBroken Aesop removal?
This was deleted from The Last of Us Part II by Throwaway219 without explanation.
- Broken Aesop: The game's central theme of the cycle of revenge is concluded when Ellie, at the last possible moment, convinces herself to spare Abby instead of giving into her desire for revenge. While intended as a touching moment, it falls apart because Ellie has through to this point killed far more people in the forms of mooks the player has been fighting, none of whom have the personal reason for her to kill like with Abby, outside of the few instances where it’s an act of self defense. As a result, Ellie's abandonment of her quest for revenge at the literal last possible moment comes off as a case of complete Moral Dissonance. In addition, Abby completely breaks the theme of the cycle of revenge by managing to actually succeed in killing Joel. Despite not feeling any better for doing so, and subsequently losing several friends due to Ellie's rampage, she ultimately escapes her conflict with Ellie in one piece (her injuries from her ultimately unrelated battles with the Rattlers and Seraphites not withstanding, in fact Ellie being there actually saves her from them) while Ellie loses her fingers and thus her last connection to Joel in their Final Battle. It ends up coming across as Ellie being punished for attempting the same thing Abby did to her in the first place, while Abby manages to effectively escape any personal consequences for her actions. At the end of the day, she managed to achieve her vengeance and start a new life for herself, while Ellie's life ends up ruined despite actually ending the cycle herself.
Throwaway219 has already been brought up
for suspect deletions. I PM's then asking to explain the deletion but haven't heard back. I feel it could be reworked to be less wordy and complainy but I don't see anything objectively wrong with the entry warranting deletion. Should this be added back?
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
openAbout the High-Functioning Autism page
For some reason, the Useful Notes page on autism is called High-Functioning Autism.
This is weird, because the page is about the whole spectrum, not high-functioning autism in particular.
Additionally, many autistic people disagree with the use of the terms "high-functioning" and "low-functioning", because it carries Unfortunate Implications. For example, calling someone "high-functioning" implies that they should be able to adapt to society and act "normally" (read: like a neurotypical/non-autistic person), and that if they have difficulties due to their autism, it's a failing on their part (imagine someone saying "You should be able to handle this, you're high-functioning!). It also dehumanizes low-functioning people and suggests that they're "lesser" compared to the higher-functioning ones.
The preferred terminology is "support needs" (e.g. "low support needs" instead of "high-functioning) since it acknowledges that even people with milder autism may occasionally require support and accommodations, while not belittling those who do have more needs.
Here's an image that kinda explains it
◊, and here's a somewhat more in-depth article
.
So, how about swapping the current title and the redirect, Autism? And maybe add a section explaining why functioning labels are bad (I'd do it myself, but a. the page is locked, and b. it feels weird adding that when the page's title uses functioning labels).
Edited by ZuxtronopenWhat An Idiot: Terminator
Tropers.Cieloazul created WhatAnIdiot.Terminator yesterday and immediately began adding dozens upon dozens of "examples". Most of these examples seem to be personal cases of Fridge Logic (for example: "Skynet should have sent multiple Termintors", "Sarah shouldn't have told the police/hospital about the future", "The T-1000 should have used its shapeshifting more", etc, etc.). If you look at the original edits, he or she added a LOT of these nitpicks as examples of What An Idiot.
Being somewhat versed in the lore of the Terminator franchise myself, I took a chainsaw to a large number of these examples because some of them are even explained in the movies. (For example, it's explicitly stated in the second film that Sarah told the police about the crushed robot from the first film, only for Cyberdyne to cover up its discovery.) I thus deleted a large number of these "examples".
I addition to adding more for the rest of the Terminator films this morning, Cieloazul also readded one of the original ones I deleted (regarding the first chase scene in Dark Fate, where Grace throws metal bars at the Terminator).
Truth be told, I honestly think it's more appropriate to delete most (if not all) of the examples on the page, as most of these are examples of "narrative convenience" and not really What An Idiot. For example, Cieloazul tried to list EVERY SINGLE MOVIE for only having one Terminator sent back to one time period at a time, even though the Terminator Twosome trope is literally the basis of the entire franchise.
(NOTE: I brought up this concern on the Discussion page yesterday, and Cieloazul has thus far completely ignored it.)
Edited by NubianSatyressopen Long list of ways to spot a FakeCharity
Fake Charity has a long series of bullets about Real Life fake charities, added by a mix of tropers rather than a single person. It reads to me like beyond the scope of the site, plus it's not about examples of the trope but instead in general. Checking to see if that's the read other people have before bringing out the ax and fire.
- Ways you can spot a fake (or potentially fake) charity:
- It is not registered with your local/state/provincial/federal government.
- Charity watchdog sites either do not list it, or have listed it as suspicious.
- A representative who is collecting for the charity either cannot or will not answer any questions you have.
- They ask for donations using wire transfers, cash, money orders, prepaid cards and the like.
- They don't provide either a mailing address or a physical address, or they do, but it's fake.
- They don't provide a phone number, or they do, but it's fake, or no one ever answers.
- You're made to feel guilty, or like you're selfish/a bad person/etc. if you don't want to donate, or don't want to donate now.
- A collector either cannot or will not supply identification, or their identification is bogus.
- They keep hounding you for donations, even after you've told them to stop calling or sending you mail.
- Their website looks almost exactly like that of a legitimate website, but the details concerning where to donate and whom to donate to are different.
- It purports to help a local fire or police department or hospital, but the actual fire department/police department/hospital has no knowledge of this charity or fundraiser.
- They solicit donations from you via email campaigns. Generally speaking, real charities don't solicit donations through email. (This could be a variation of the classic 419 Scam.)
- They ask for donations via store or online gift cards or online currencies such as iTunes. Once again real charities don't solicit donations in this way.
- They ask for wiring of money through a wiring service like Western Union. Once again this is also not typically a way that a real charity would solicit money.
- You get an email asking for financial help for a sick child (or occasionally adult), often sent as a Chain Letter, and (more importantly) with no information (such as an address, whether the child in question is being tended to at a hospital or at home, a diagnosis, a prognosis, perhaps the name of a doctor or hospital, etc.), but what is included is information on where to donate money to, usually via wire transfer.
- They don't accept material donations like food, razor blades, or clothing even when they say they intend to use the money on such items. note While many real charities also don't accept material donations, the legit ones will usually provide helpful information to other charities that do.
- Of course, what can muddy the waters here is that even legitimate charities have been officially censured for the "hard sell" tactics used by paid agents; one of the most respectable names in the business, Oxfam, and several other big names, were publicly exposed by the UK's Charity Commission (the overseeing body) for their use of "chuggers" note the disparaging term "charity mugger", used for paid agents soliciting donations and for their use of third-party call centres and agents who were paid by commission and were not too scrupulous over making sales. The results were horrendous
. the chuggers used both the inculcating-guilt scam and the persistent nuisance calling of people who had already told them not to.
- Various "watchdog" sites such as Charity Navigator
, CharityWatch
, and BBB Wise Giving Alliance
rate real-life nonprofits on their transparency, accountability, and efficient use of funds.
- One common complaint about crowdfunding websites such as GoFundMe
is that it's very easy for any scammer to post a sob story and receive donations. The sites do have fraud reporting tools, but they also can be lax about following up on how people use the donations they receive.
- Of course, this is every bit as illegal as conning people out of their money by any other means, and people have gotten jail time for it
when they've been caught.
- Of course, this is every bit as illegal as conning people out of their money by any other means, and people have gotten jail time for it
- Be wary of charities or fundraisers you've never heard of that pop up all of a sudden in the wake of a natural disaster or some other type of humanitarian crisis. While some of them are legitimate, at least an equal number of them are the result of Con Artists looking to take advantage of the chaos, and take advantage of the generosity of people who want to help. And you might not be able to tell which is which until it's too late. If you want to make donations towards disaster relief organizations, your best bet is to find a reputable charity through one of the aforementioned "watchdog" sites.
openQuestionable Examples on "Unbuilt Tropes"
Found this here on https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UnbuiltTrope/Literature
"A Confederacy of Dunces: Though written in the 1960s and published in 1981, John Kennedy Toole's masterpiece unbuilds the crackpot ideas and philosophies that emerged from the Internet, and the kind of people who promote them. Ignatius is a predecessor of those very crackpots: he promotes the idea of returning to feudalism and conservatism, predating the modern "Dark Enlightenment" movement, but is a lazy slob who leaches off his mother and spends his time watching cartoons and movies just to complain about their "degeneracy". And it's all but stated he engages in pseudo-intellectual nonsense just to stick it to his liberal activist girlfriend."
The thing is, I just feel uncomfortable about finding some Unbuilt Trope example of something that exists in real-life and not just in the world of tropes and conventions (in fact, the entry explicitly states it is referring to something in real life). It's like saying that so-and-so shows an Unbuilt example of communism or any other real-life theories and movements with real life impact.
To further build upon questionable examples purporting to have found Unbuilt examples of real life movement, here's some other entries on just that page itself:
"The Moviegoer has a series of insightful and utter deconstructive extrapolations about the flaws of 60's counter culture but the book was published in 1961, well ahead of the popular outbreak of what he was describing."
"A good forty years or so before the concept of The Man began to take root in the public consciousness, it is discussed without being named in the 1922 novel One of Ours. Progressive young Gladys takes a moment to ruminate on how protagonist Claude Wheeler's asshole brother Bayliss is one of the type of people who run the world.
— “She believed that all things which might make the world beautiful—love and kindness, leisure and art—were shut up in prison, and that successful men like Bayliss Wheeler held the keys.” "
(I don't even think this is an example of Unbuilt Trope)
openDragalia Lost character info
Over time, the Characters.Dragalia Lost subpages seem to have gradually grown to include more and more character stats on them. As of now, each character has listed:
- Voice actors
- Element (only for main characters and alternate versions, as characters are already sorted by element to begin with)
- Rarity
- Unit Type
- Weapon Type
- Co-Ability
- Chain Co-Ability
- Shareable Skill
- Debut
I really think most of these are out of place for the site; with the abilities and skills turning into Walkthrough Mode. And the text takes a bunch of space, getting much worse if a character has multiple versions to document (see Characters.Dragalia Lost Main Characters for the worst of it).
I'm tempted to just take a chainsaw to this stuff myself, but I'm worried that it'll just be put back and head toward an edit war. And I could use some input on what stays and what goes.

FixFic.Fanfiction:
I worry these violate Examples Are Not General unless it lists at least one example of such fic.
Relating, most of the Starlight Glimmer examples were deleted as "evenge fics at best, and accusation fics at worst. If they truly were fix fics, they would have actually fixed what the author perceived as a problem, but instead they made them worse." Was that valid? How can we tell where it crosses to whick for and are they incompatible? And if Starlight getting karma un-fixes the Season 6 finale where's she's essential to it's happy ending, what then?
Mostly I'm asking if listing genres of fanworks per fandom need specific examples to be valid?
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught