Everybody's dead, Dave.
It was a little bit difficult to understand that WMG theories are meant to be jokes based on this programme note. I get it now, but the wording used to really confuse me. I think some people who make WMG entries still don't get the joke. Eh, I don't really know what I'm talking about. Sorry if I've annoyed anybody.
Edited by 122.60.153.169 H.B. Ward
That one guy.
Just make an entry like this:
[[WMG: Summary of the theory]]
Description of the theory.
And add it to the page in question.
For commenting, you add a comment in a subbullet.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Is it okay to post a WMG that contradicts other ones?
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Yes.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Walking the Earth
What, if anything, should be done when a reply to an entry is just work bashing? For example on the Hack Slash page, there's this example, in relation to Bomb Queen, which seems to be a Love It or Hate It sort of series:
- Hack/Slash doesn't suck though.
- Another tie-in to the opposites theory! :D
Remove. Complaining is not what these pages are for.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Space General
Where do serious guesses go? Based on the description of the Analysis namespace it doesn't seem like they're supposed to go there.
{Star Trek}** exists in large part because of Tsar Nicholas II Romanov was assassinated and I don't know how to feel about that Hide / Show Replies
They can go here as well.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Maybe we should create a new trope for serious theories. But what constitutes serious?
I would say you need to have Canon backing up your theory to post it in the first place, and if Canon contradicts the theory, it should be removed.
This leaves comfortable overlap between WMG and sensible theories, so long as it doesn't go as far as saying someone's a time lord in a work other than Doctor Who.
The page does say the "deadly serious" theories still fall under the umbrella of WMG. I'd say that if it's clear it's meant in that light, feel free to debate its validity.
but it does create confusion, I'm with Old Nameless, we need a trope for perfectly serius, sensible theories. also serious theories tend to get lost in the sea of time lord accusations.
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Pittsburghmuggle
There ought to be something about Wild Mass Guessing about kids shows. Now and then you have someone come along and take out WMGs that they feel disrupts the spirit of the kid's show. The stuff about Mister Rogers always having just come back from a drug deal at the beginning of the show, or that Steve from Blues Clues could skiddoo into porn are all valid WMGs, but now and then folks take them off.
My own argument is that if there's a preschooler who is mature enough or enough of a prodigy to be reading TV Tropes, they can handle what's on there. However I'm sure the folks taking the things off are offended adults.
Edited by pittsburghmuggle "Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
Spoilers seem really pointless for a WMG page, yet I see them pretty frequently. I'd love to add a note here discouraging spoiler tags, since almost anybody interested in wild theories about the work is already going to have consumed it. Perhaps an exception could be made for in-progress serials, though even that seems overly cautious. I know it's not a big deal, but it just makes things less readable for little reason.
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(Of course, the same thing applies to Headscratchers and Fridge. The "emotional" sub-pages are more of a tossup since someone might conceivably want to check it out to see how awesome/scary/touching it is before checking out the work, but really YMMV is the only one that pretty clearly needs to be spoilered just as much as the main page.)
"The dead serious, the crazy-yet-scarily-accurate theories, and the out there with no basis theories all fit in WMG. Don't remove them just because they are Jossed or had barely any relation to reality."
There should be emphasis on this. I've saw a lot of jossed/confirmed entries in the WMG pages being deleted, even if the guidelines say the contrary.
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So does this mean that there shouldn't even be notes saying that a theory was Jossed or otherwise contradicted, since the pages are supposed to be the theories and supporting evidence?
Personally the way I see WMG pages (specifically the way I've seen them used on this site by many people) is as a discussion section for any theory, as crazy as it may be. I know the description says otherwise, but refuting a theory or offering up "what about x" questions doesn't seem like a big deal as long as it's not mean-spirited or interrupting the initial presentation of the theory by the original author. The important part is absolutely not deleting someone's theory or otherwise being unreceptive to some silly talk.
Pittsburghmuggle
Don't know if this should be added to this, but now and then on the WMG for a preschool kids show there are people who take the more adult minded WMGs out or say "It's just a kids show!"... I always want to say "You show me the three-year-old surfing TV Tropes and reading the WMG pages and we'll talk."
Edited by pittsburghmuggle "Freedom is not a license for chaos" -Norton Juster's The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics
Skulls are Awesome
This page doesn't have advice on how to add a WMG note. Not sure if the convention is to add my guess at the top or the bottom of the existing list. Could we have at least a pothole pointing to helpful advice here? Thanks ...
What the hell is an aluminum falcon? Hide / Show Replies
For what it's worth, back when I created this page years ago, goofy pun name included (though it was much smaller and didnt have crosslinks to individual articles, which is a godsend cause did that page get LONG...) the intent was just to feature some popular theories within a particular thing's fandom.
The keyword was a degree of existing fame (or infamy...) in the fandom, regardless whether the theory held up under actual scrutiny. It was not a carte blanche for lol random humor (X is Y because they have a tie and brown hair!) although I noticed that thankfully died down a few years ago after people stopped comparing every character to whatever FOTM character was popular at the time (The Doctor being a major one). Not to poopoo on someone's fun of course, but I feel that made it somewhat more useful to the average user who didnt want to go hunting down a 20-minute youtube vid to explain some meme they heard.
Just my two cents.