Discussion Main / TheBermudaTriangle

Nope. The Bermuda Triangle is a stock setting; that entry looks more like one of the You Would Not Want to Live in Dex tropes.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The Other Wiki dates the origins of the Bermuda Triangle legend over twenty years earlier than the alleged Ur-Example from 1974. George X. Sand's article "Sea Mystery At Our Back Door" from Fate magazine was first published in 1952 and is widely believed to be the first time anyone suggested that disappearances in the Triangle had a paranormal cause; the article is also noted to have also been the first to map out the Triangle region.

The misuse claim, as it currently stands, I find untrue and lacking proof*

. The description itself is perfectly clear that information about the Triangle is "according to fiction and Urban Legend" and not a word is explicitly said about any of this happening in Real Life, nor does it appear that there is as great a need for explicitly mentioning that it's a myth as was suggested.

Ultimately, no matter what we put in the description, people can still go on anywhere else and profess belief in whatever outlandish garbage they want, be it this, Who Shot JFK?, 9/11 being an inside job, or Scientology.

What's the actual harm in somebody suggesting it's real, anyway? Is that actually damaging enough to the wiki for people to be concerned in and of itself? This page exists to outline a trope—not to discredit an obvious Urban Legend, no matter how false it is.

Edited by SeanMurrayI

Very well, the Ur-Example reference is out. However, the trope page should be about the trope, not about a discredited urban legend. There's no "allegedly" going on here: In all these works, the massive disappearances are very real. Hell, I have personally been abducted more than once by bermuda triangle aliens... while playing computer games, of course.

No, in all these works, they include The Bermuda Triangle in a particular way. That's the trope. That's what this page and its wicks focus on.

Seriously, you don't need to keep crusading to include specific references that show this trope is fictional; the description already makes that part clear, anyway (As it says, "According to fiction, urban legend, and (on occasion) conspiracy theories..." Note the absence of the words "fact" or "real life" from that phrase), making your additions needlessly redundant. Even so, if somebody truly wants to believe that something that's already stated on the page to be based in fiction and involving aliens, eldritch abominations, Atlantis, and paranormal activity is completely real, telling them outright that it's not wouldn't change their minds, anyway.

Edited by SeanMurrayI

Calm down. The goal should be to optimize the trope description. Playing edit war doesn't make either version preferable, and you calling me a "crusader" for not yielding to your edit-warring & harsh language is not any argument in favor of your version.

Actually, your own argument is in favor of my version of the trope description, not yours. Indeed, "in all these works, they include The Bermuda Triangle in a particular way. That's the trope." And my version of the description capture this better than yours does.

Your version and the first 3/4 of my version say the same thing, except that mine is clearer and doesn't have the misleading negative attitude of your version.

Regarding the last 1/4, I don't think it's redundant. There's a lot of people who think the triangle is a real phenomenon simply because that's what they have heard. My version teach these people some interesting facts, while your version on the other hand merely give them some snotty attitude. Several TV Tropes pages have taught me stuff I didn't know before¨, and I think this is a really good thing. Including such information is not a bad thing, and your critique was that I was singling out a specific work - something that I have already fixed.

I am calm. Nothing I have said has been the least bit hostile or "harsh" towards you or what you say. I just simply do not agree with what you are saying, and the arguments you put forward are just not very convincing.

All in all, your intentions, while perfectly well-meaning, are peripheral to what the page itself is supposed to be. This is supposed to be a trope page about The Bermuda Triangle as it appears in fiction. The page doesn't give anybody a "snotty attitude." It simply states what trope readers of the page have come across and what the trope deals with; that is the primary purpose of the page description for a trope—not to point out or explain what discrediting evidence there is for something that nobody anywhere on the wiki is calling the least bit factual, anyway.

Your objective to share "interesting facts" about the real Bermuda Triangle sounds much more appropriate and better suited for a Useful Notes page. This page here, however, is intended to cover a trope in fiction and media. There's no reason why we should be going onto a tangent about actual who published what hoax and who exposed it on what is only supposed to be a trope page about it appearing in fiction. We have other tropes about other untrue things in our world and history, but we don't go off on tangents on Who Shot JFK? to teach all the people who believe in a Kennedy assassination conspiracy the "interesting facts" of the Warren Commission Report, for instance. That sort of purpose is what we created Useful Notes for.

Just like we have Big Applesauce to focus on the trope about how New York City appears and behaves in fiction and media and New York City to teach people the interesting facts about the real New York City, I think we might want to consider The Bermuda Triangle to focus on the media trope and The Bermuda Triangle to focus on the interesting facts. If you want, both you and I can work together on writing up a Useful Notes page about the interesting facts and history behind the Bermuda Triangle hoax itself and its exposure. I'd even say there are a few wicks at present for The Bermuda Triangle that can be better suited for such a potential Useful Notes page. I think that's fair.

Additional changes you are making to the description aren't really that great, either. The Bermuda Triangle is a trope about a specific location mapped out on Earth, but in your markup the fact that it's somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean is buried in the middle of the second paragraph at the end of the description. Above all, that should be the very first thing people read about the trope, just as it is on the other wiki, especially seeing that it's the trope's most obvious and most objective component. Otherwise, it makes for a less direct outline for people to follow.

Edited by SeanMurrayI

Your arguments would have been reasonable under other circumstances, but as it stands they are not. Started a thread at TRS so we can get input from other people as well.

I would like to add a real life example, of a famous incident that occurred in the triangle. Specifically the Flight 19 incident, where five torpedo bombers went missing without a trace in the triangle, as well as the rescue plane sent to find them. No cause has ever been determined. It remains one of the greatest maritime / aviation mysteries of all time. A certain troper has a problem with this. However similar tropes, have real life examples. I think it would improve the article. Does anyone else have an issue with the addition?

The trope is about fantastic, unrealistic occurrences in the region, and no one can give an accurate example of the kind of stuff outlined here in real life; that's why this is on the No Real Life Examples index.

According to The Other Wiki, the leading theory on Flight 19 is that it ran out of fuel while the aircraft was over the water, while the model craft deployed for the search and rescue operation had a known history of explosions due to vapour leaks when heavily loaded with fuel (such as for a potentially long search and rescue operation, as was the case here), which is believed to have happened here, as well.

As this trope description already states, the number of incidents in the real Triangle is no more significant (or unusual) than in any other part of the ocean of similar size and weather. Any Real Life examples here would only amount to a whole lot of nothing special, unlike examples from fiction and media, which are all much more fantastic and actually fitting with the trope description.

Edited by AaronAAardvark

"Statistically speaking, the number of disappearances in this particular region are no higher or lower than any other part of the ocean of similar size and weather" is a factually wrong statement regularly made by the United States military (most prominently the Coast Guard) concerning a subject that they are incredibly reticent to talk about (most Freedom of Information Act requests never being answered). Since the methods of TV Tropes are historically to just edit out what is known to be inaccurate, no one would have a problem with me correcting that inaccuracy, would they?

Edited by VampireYoshi

By "factually wrong statement", that implies that you have tangible facts and sources with which to support your own claims. A sourceless claim of unanswered FoIA requests is not conclusive evidence that what you are claiming to be "factually wrong" is necessarily true.

But since you're bringing this up here, would you care to actually share those tangible facts and sources? That way, we know not to question what you are claiming.

Edited by SeanMurrayI