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Ask the Tropers:
openRude edit reason on Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Makarovak 47 recently made an inappropriate comment while editing some content on the Criminal Intent page. I don't like conversation on the main page myself, but the last sentence told the offending contributor to "go to a fucking forum". I had sent them a message asking them not to do it again, but never got a response. It would not bother me so much if a) comments made on the edit reason weren't permanent, b) CI rarely (if ever) attracts such a hostile response and c) this weren't so out of character from what I've seen from them on here.
openA detail about the Comics Code...
The page for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has a recent edit about the Comics Code Authority, adding that among things that it wouldn't have authorized is "having a non-white hero protagonist".
Now, I don't know all the intricacies, and I don't doubt that would be against publishers' habits at the time the Code was applied, but I have serious doubts it was actually part of said Code itself. At least I don't find anything about it on the Wikipedia article
. I'd like some clarification about this.
openWhat... is MemeticBadass/ChuckNorris?
MemeticBadass.Chuck Norris seems to be... I don't know?
I thought it was maybe a listing of people/characters who had sufficient Memetic Badass-ness to have their own lists akin to Chuck Norris Facts, but even that doesn't seem to be the case. It just sort of seems like a rambling self-demonstrating page?
openLink to NSFW work
Our Centaurs Are Different has an example from a self-described NSFW game to which someone added a link. The former is fine, the latter isn't, right?
openHow do I make redirect pages of Mainspace tropes?
Reading Anti-Frustration Features, its lead paragraph mentions that the term is sometimes called "Quality of Life" features. But when I look below the Alternative Title(s) part below the page, there is no such thing as "Quality of Life" redirecting to this page.
How would I make a Quality Of Life page that redirects to Anti-Frustration Features? I want the alternative term to be displayed below, but when I tried to make the page myself, the site always redirects me to the Trope Launch Pad
Edited by DanteVinopenWham Line v. Wham Shot
Are the two tropes mutually exclusive? Wham Shot says it's a "purely visual version" of Wham Line, while Wham Line refers to the line of dialogue changing the scene all by itself.
But at TheOrderOfTheStick.Tropes V To Z, several bulletpoints of each trope are not only the exact same comics, but the same panels of the comic. I've seen it happen in other instances, too.
Should they be chopped and/or put in only one of the tropes?
openI Might Have Accidentally an Edit War Videogame
A user did an edit on Characters.Dead By Daylight, changing a descriptor if Ash J Williams from "An alone wolf" to "a lone wolf". This happened once before with the person adding back noting that "an alone wolf" is deliberate as it's a quote/reference to the series.
I did likewise, putting the descriptor back, but realized after I might have become edit 4 in an edit war since there was already one "remove and put back" sequence.
I think this falls under correcting incorrect information, but to be on the safe side I PMed the user who did the removing (who since replied they'd forgotten that from the show), added a commented out note explaining it's deliberate to prevent future well intentioned correcting, and posting here to head off any issues I myself might have caused.
Edited by sgamer82openWick check script
Would it be acceptable to make a script that scrapes the site for the purposes of making a wick check easier?
Specifically, this script would download the "Related" page for a single article, choose an appropriate number of wicks, and then download the page source for all such wicks. For all requests, the script would identify itself via the User-Agent header.
openProcedure to get unsourced trivia removed?
I found a trivia entry on a trivia page that I can't find a source for and I think is likely false. My question is, is there a procedure one can follow to get trivia entries removed? I'd remove it myself, but someone else added it and I don't want to start an edit war.
openWall-Of-Text
I just cleaned up Victoria, a show I've never actually watched. That's important to explain, because in doing so I came across two wall-of-text examples, and I've no idea if it's possible to trim them a bit.
(I also posted on the series discussion page, but given how rarely people check those pages...)
Anyway, here are the examples:
- While a relationship-bordering-on-romance between 18/19-year old Victoria and near 60-year-old Lord M is enhanced a bit for TV (having a much-younger actor playing Lord M helps, historians generally regarded the relationship as father-daughter (Weintraub, Longford, Hibbert, Hough, Woodham-Smith, Plowden, Macdonald) and Victoria herself frequently refers to him as such. Historians also generally note the political motivation behind Lord Melbourne, who instigated both the Lady Flora affair and Bedchamber Crisis, insisting to Victoria even after Flora's bodily invasion she was pregnant (this is contrary to the TV show, which shows Melbourne as cautioning Victoria about her claims.) Although such May-December Romances are often frowned upon in the modern era, especially when celebrities are involved, in Victoria's time it was not uncommon for people with such wide ranges in age to marry. Indeed, several histories chronicle a mad dash by 50-something relations of George III and William IV to marry and have male children by, in some cases, very young women in order to secure their place in the line of succession when it became clear that there would be no direct male heir to the current monarch (with the Duke of Kent, Victoria's father, the winner). However, marriage between the Queen and a non-royal would have never been allowed in those days, making Victoria's attempted marriage proposal on Lord M unlikely to have succeeded (although the series did establish that Victoria was considering maintaining a non-married relationship, with unambiguous comparisons made to the unmarried Elizabeth I's relationship to the Earl of Leicester; the series also touched on why taking the attitude "I'm the monarch, I make the rules" was not realistic). A dissenter of the idea it was not a romance is Daily Mail journalist A.N. Wilson, though Elizabeth Longford is often misquoted as calling the relationship as a romance when in fact she called it "one of the great platonic love stories of history.' Whatever the case, Victoria would later write after Melbourne was no longer her PM, "1st October, 1842. Wrote & looked over & corrected my old journals, which do not now awake very pleasant feelings. The life I led then was so artificial & superficial, & yet I thought I was happy. Thank God! I now know what real happiness means."
- Beyond the usual amount of fictionalization and rearranging of events that is inevitable in any biographical production, of particular debate among some fans is the veracity of the romanticizing of the Lord Melbourne-Victoria relationship. In the series, the much-older Lord M clearly falls for the young queen, and Victoria becomes so dependent upon Lord M that she prevents a new government from being formed in order to get him back as Prime Minister and, later, travels to visit him alone at his family home with the intent to propose marriage. Academic scholarship (Wientraub, Longford, Hibbert, Hough, Woodham-Smith, Plowden, Macdonald)generally regard Victoria's relationship with Lord Melbourne as fatherly-daughter, as Victoria calls him in her diaries frequently. The Daily Mail journalist A.N. Wilson in his biography of Victoria (which the show is partly based on) claims Victoria and Lord Melbourne were more than father-daughter, but this is not the consensus among actual academicians. The fact it was for a time an Intergenerational Friendship, with Victoria's diaries continually referring to the two discussing personal interests and things as mundane as hairstyles and looking at paintings together, is not denied by anyone. Victoria's diaries after 1840 are available in almost complete form, and Charles Greville - who called Victoria's relationship with Victoria sexual - actively hated Victoria, who was distressed when his gossipy and often inaccurate diaries about her was released. Whatever the case, it is interesting to note her feelings only a couple years after marrying Albert: "The next day she (Victoria) pulled down some of her old diaries, perhaps to recall Lezhen’s part of her life, and came to a passage in 1839 where she had written of her ‘happiness’ with Melbourne. Now, with both Melbourne and Lezhen gone she noted ‘1st October, 1842. Wrote & looked over & corrected my old journals, which do not now awake very pleasant feelings. The life I led then was so artificial & superficial, & yet I thought I was happy. Thank God! I now know what real happiness means." (Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert By Stanley Weintraub)
If you'd rather discuss at the discussion, at least this query served as a plug...
openAm I the only one that feels that call of duty zombies YMMV Page needs cleanup Videogame
Link here https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/CallOfDutyZombies
Ok, let's not beat around the bush: this YMMV Page is kinda messy: It has chevkov's gun in this section for some reason... It Also has a few "as noted above/as noted below" that end Up being confusing as heck. And things like this:
Scrappy Weapon: The SMR, with excellent reason. Bad power, low capacity, arduous reload speed, semi-automatic and worst of all, it has a glitch that makes aiming down the sights exactly the same as hip firing, giving it almost nonexistent accuracy. It was never even patched during the lifetime of Black Ops II. Yeah, good luck aiming down the sights across 50 feet. After an update, the SMR FINALLY started to redeem itself in its Pack-a-Punched form, which gained improved accuracy. The Springfield, a weapon so weak it can't even one-shot a zombie in the chest on round 1. That in itself is inexcusable, but even worse is that the ironsights are off, requiring you to aim slightly to the left of what you want to shoot, otherwise you'll miss. On that note, the Kar98k. The only two things it has over the Springfield are that it can be bought off the wall on most Wa W maps for 200 points, and it doesn't have misaligned ironsights. Other than that, it's just as pathetic. Go ahead, try Pack-a-Punching it. It'll totally be worthy of the name Armageddon. In general a good chunk of starter weapons become this, due to fact that they become weaker as time goes on..
Sadly, I have barely any knowledge about call of duty zombies' story or Gameplay. If someone that was familiar with this series could help... It would be appreciated. Maybe splitting the YMMV page in two could also help
Edited by RAHDRONopenIs Jossed Trivia?
I found Jossed on a Trivia page, but I've never seen it there before. The Jossed page itself doesn't help either way.
openShould SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated get its own page?
Self-explanatory really but, since THQ Nordic announced an HD remake for SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom a few days ago, should it get its own page like with Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited Trilogy? It's been confirmed that the remake will feature cut content from the original game and the addition of online multiplayer modes.
openWant to ask this in hopes of preventing an EditWar Videogame
So, in Unbuilt Trope I recently added the example of how Resident Evil 4 codified the Press X to Not Die trope and how it mainly existed to play up the Survival Horror elements and keep the player on their toes during cutscenes.
However, not a day later I checked back and see someone had replaced Resident Evil 4 with Clock Tower in the example. I don't want to change it, mainly because I never played Clock Tower myself so I can't say anything.
Can anyone verify if it's a better example for this trope or should be reverted back? Since I don't know anything about Clock Tower I don't want to get into a possible edit war over this. All I really know is that Press X to Not Die didn't really take off until RE4 did it, even if other examples existed earlier.
openDoubts for when to use Alas poor villain
I was wondering: When does an antagonist qualify for Alas poor villain? Does It need to be invoked by someone in the series itself or it:when's simply When the viewers pity them? It's because the full metal alchemist manga/ Brotherhood homunculi has gotten a ton that, no offense feel more like whitelisting Than Alas, Poor Villain
Edited by RAHDRONopenFound a suitable image...now what?
So I ask on Image Pickin if an image is suitable, they say it is and...now what? Do I add it myself or do the staff add it?
openarticle cut request declined
Since the cut request for Bola Idiota was declined, I'd like to ask why, since I think the reason made a good argument for it to be cut and it doesn't have a massive number of inbounds. Also, it's an incorrect name, so to make it a redirect to preserve the inbounds would legitimize bad translations. The one wick it has is actually on the page itself; the content was moved & improved upon at Bola del Tonto, which is an accurate name. "Bola Idiota" is using idiota as a personal adjective to describe the ball, giving it an inherent level of intelligence rather than actually reflect the trope. This literal word-for-word translation can be seen in the actual page for Bola Idiota itself. I don't see why it wasn't cut.
openDo Rick & Morty count as Decoy or Supporting Protagonists? Western Animation
The user by the name of Mack Wylde keeps trying to shoehorn the following trope into the Rick and Morty page numerous times over the past few months. I delete it with a reason proving why it can't apply, so they wait a few weeks and try to sneak it back in.
- Decoy Protagonist: Sort of. The series seems to really be about the Smith's family dynamics and not just about Rick and Morty and their adventures.
- Supporting Protagonist: Rick and Morty. The series may center on their adventures but it seems to be more about their family dynamic rather than the two of them alone.
First off, the series is called Rick & Morty. Rick and Morty are the two main characters of the franchise and appear in every episode in one way or another. The overarching storyline does involve Rick's family and their own disfunctional problems from time to time, but the focus remains around Rick and Morty themselves. Rick and Morty appear in every episode, while Beth, Jerry, and Summer may not appear at all.
I already debunked the numerous attempts to throw in Decoy Protagonist because the absolute very first scene in the Pilot episode starts with Rick barging in on Morty in his room. The laconic itself proves this can't apply just by that alone.
Finally, the way it's worded isn't even sure about itself. "Seems to be" are three words that indicate there's no objectively concrete proof that it is.
I finally decided to take it here before this one-sided edit war escalates any further.
Edited by DRCEQopenTwo very minor issues
1) So according to Administrivia.How To Write An Example, "descriptions of events in an example should usually be written in present tense." The troper PF
changed the wordings of some tropes from present tense to past tense; for example, in the Executive Meddling Anime page
, he changed the sentence "Masashi Kishimoto reveals that" to "Masashi Kishimoto revealed that".
2) Also from Administrivia.How To Write An Example, the troper Rich4
has an issue with Adding Multiple Tropes With A Slash, particularly on the Naruto Hokages Character page
. Take a look at how, under the "General" folder and "First Hokage - Hashirama Senju" folder, they added "World's Best Warrior / World's Strongest Man".
I think that these are very minor offenses. So, personally, I want to fix these mistakes myself, because they're both such fixable edits, but I fear that if I correct these, I'd be causing an Edit War. Would I be causing an Edit War if I correct these examples? Any advice on what to do?
Edited by mouschilight

Here's something that's been confusing me for a while. Okay, so I don't know what's the best way to properly ask this, but I'll give it a shot: Is it true that Broken Ace should be used instead of The Ace, rather than in addition to? I'd ask the same thing about Jerk with a Heart of Gold instead of Jerkass, Genius Ditz instead of The Ditz, etc.
I'm pretty sure I've seen this question asked before, but I can't remember what the answer was. Does it really depend on the character? For example, the character page for Squidward from SpongeBob uses both the Jerkass and Jerk with a Heart of Gold tropes, which really confuses me because how kindhearted he is depends on the writer (he is by default a cynical, pessimistic, narcissistic grouch but has shown himself able to warm up to others and the title character on numerous occasions, but only if the plot demands it).
This is overall confusing and I can't seem to find a rule about this in administrivia pages whatsoever. :/