TV Tropes - Enforced Crapsaccharine World

Turtle

I have no idea if there's been a thread about this already, and if there has I can't be bothered to search through thirty pages of discussion to find it.  Also if this in some way violates forum rules, then sorry, and disregard the following.

Does the fact that Darth Wiki has been effectively erased from existence cheese anyone else off?  Can't link to Wall Banger or Narm in the main pages anymore, and judging from yet another Crowner I just saw, Character Derailment is soon to follow.  Really?  Really?  There's a reason people rant so much.  Ranting is fun.  It lets you blow off steam.  Sure, there are some genuinely mean-spirited people, but no matter what you do, you're never going to stop them.

Yet we don't see Sugar Wiki under any kind of restriction whatsoever.  Maybe my dislike of people's Gushing About Shows They Like is just as strong as their objection to my Complaining About Shows I Don't Like.  So why are we still allowed to have a positive tone on the main page?  Shouldn't that kind of sappy nonsense be restricted to Sugar Wiki where it won't offend anyone?

Why even have a Darth Wiki?

Why even make the site a collaborative effort when the staff have made it clear that their opinions are the only ones that matter?

I'm not trying to be a smartass here, I honestly am curious.

Myrmidon

http://waybackmachine.org/jsp/Interstitial.jsp?seconds=5&date=1229607330000&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpmwiki.php%2FDarthWiki%2FComplainAboutShowsYouDontLike&target=http%3A%2F%2Freplay.waybackmachine.org%2F20081218133530%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpmwiki.php%2FDarthWiki%2FComplainAboutShowsYouDontLike

Turtle

Link didn't work for me.

Trash_Vortex

Forum's like this too. Thumped posts at the first sign of problems, disappearing threads with no explaination where the people within were going wrong, so they never learn anything from it, newbies come in gushing about how great and comparitively polite the place is, and then 2 or so days later they're in the angst thread and TU, complaining like everybody else. It was a sad sight to see.

RedEyedAbyss

"Yet we don't see Sugar Wiki under any kind of restriction whatsoever. Maybe my dislike of people's Gushing About Shows They Like is just as strong as their objection to my Complaining About Shows I Don't Like. So why are we still allowed to have a positive tone on the main page? Shouldn't that kind of sappy nonsense be restricted to Sugar Wiki where it won't offend anyone?"

In theory, yes. However, people react more strongly to negativity and it leaves a bigger mess to clean up. That being said, it is proper form to banish excess gushing to YMMV.

Turtle

The YMMV segregation is a whole 'nother issue, although it shares the same roots.

DYRE

I'm not really sure why people feel entitled to go onto a wiki which, theoretically, aims to be at least marginally informative, and then just bitch about how they don't like , most likely not even bothering to give any reasoning beyond XJustX.  That said, Sugar Wiki is equally pointless, but it doesn't generally cause edit wars, so for that reason it's considered much less of a problem.

Khwarizmi

YMMV tropes (which WallBanger and Narm are, in spirit if not in namespace) are not informative about the content of the work, only fan opinions.  The wiki is for the readers, not the tropers.

As for the forums, I think I've made my views on the whole "hugbox" complaint known enough times already.  Posts are thumped because we want to prevent stupid derails caused by rule breaking posts.

Glowsquid

"Forum's like this too."

I understand Fast Eddie's position that there are more than enough places to bitch about stuff, but the way he goes about it is quite silly. Does renaming a thread from "Steam sucks" to "Issues with Steam's execution" really change *anything*.

RedEyedAbyss

Honestly, I approve of YMMV. It was annoying to constantly see comments bashing a work on the main pages, particularly if I happened to like the work. Not to mention those attracted natter like houseflies.

Khwarizmi

^^ That wasn't Eddie, it was me.  What would you have rather I'd done?  I guess I could have deleted it altogether, but I thought that might be extreme.

Turtle

Why isn't "just leave it alone" an option?

^^Natter is yet another issue, and probably is at the root of this and YMMV segregation.  Suffice it to say that I'm unconvinced that Natter is inherently bad.

ClockworkUniverse

^Enough natter makes the wiki into a very badly-formatted forum. It's worse from a reader's perspective than from a contributor's perspective.

DonZabu

Whenever this topic is brought up, I find myself thinking about TV Tropes and Fast Eddie's policies and mistakes in terms of character tropes. How's that for meta?

Khwarizmi

>Why isn't "just leave it alone" an option?

Because there's a big, pinned "no complaint threads" thread made by Eddie himself at the very top of VG which you'd have to be blind to miss?

Natter is ugly, unprofessional looking and often contradictory.  The wiki is not a forum; it exists to be read.

Turtle

Then I would once again pose the question: why is it a collaborative site?  Surely it would be easier to fulfill the site's "purpose" without foolish mortals getting in the way*?  If you want other people to edit the site, having differing opinions is the price you pay.

*Okay, now with this statement I am being a bit of a smartass, but still.

ClockworkUniverse

Yes, but it's not unreasonable to ask them to not make the articles about their opinions, since the articles are intended for the readers.

GLORIOUSLeader

Natter is bad. That's why YMMV is on its own page; to keep natter and excess complaining/gushing to its own segregated little spot. It actually works. 

And you can still link to Darth Wiki pages, you just have to go:

{{DarthWiki/Wallbanger}}

Myrmidon

It's possible to be a lighthearted wiki without natter. See the Transformers wiki, Rational wiki, and Uncyclopedia for examples.

Khwarizmi

Why is it collaborative?

Because three (two now that Gus is dead) admins attempting to locate and catalogue all the tropes in all of fiction ever wouldn't be able to make a site a fraction of the size that TV Tropes Wiki is?  Because it's fun to contribute?  Because not everybody feels the need to shoehorn their opinions in everywhere and have conversations in obviously inappropriate places?

It's not as if Eddie hasn't set up numerous places for people to express their opinions on the same site: Troper Tales, the Forums, Live Bloginations, Analysis Wiki, Reviews...  All hosted on TV Tropes, all funded basically out of his and Janitor's own pockets, plus donations.

GLORIOUSLeader

^^If we want to discourage negativity, then Uncyclopedia is not the best example. 

Myrmidon

Obviously.

Turtle

^^^^^When I said "can't," I wasn't referring to ability to do so.  I was referring to the fact that it's now against the rules.

^^^It really isn't all that fun to contribute when I'm tripping over myself making sure I don't violate one of the many pointless site policies while doing so.

ClockworkUniverse

^I don't think linking to Darth Wiki from a main article was ever not against the rules.

And the important rules are really "don't be a dick; don't edit war; don't make the article about your opinion."

DonZabu

How TV Tropes Works:

1. Some people overreact to something.

2. Some other people overreact to the overreaction.

3. In desperate fit to keep the peace, Fast Eddie and/or the other mods institute haphazard and over-reactionary policies in an attempt to quell the overreactions.

4. Some people overreact to those over-reactionary policies.

5. Some other people overreact to the overreaction.

6. Rinse and repeat.

Khwarizmi

I'm unaware of any pointless site policies.  There have been administrative decisions I've disagreed with, but there's always been a reason for them.

ClockworkUniverse

Mod Hat On

GuyInWhite, importing drama in either direction between TV Tropes and here is against the rules of both sites. Cut it out.

Mod Hat Off

Turtle

-Okay, but no one ever really wanted to link to Darth Wiki until stuff like Wall Banger and Narm got cut from the main site.  It's a problem now because pages that are extremely well-known and widely used within (and without) the community are as good as gone.
-Again, people don't bat an eye about opinions, just negative ones.  I could list a couple of pages off the top of my head that are biased toward a positive opinion on the work.  And frankly (with the understanding that my philosophy is "screw Troper's Law"), I like opinions.  They separate TV Tropes from Wikipedia.

ClockworkUniverse

I think Narm's getting revived, IIRC. Wall Banger was also a "don't list as an example" page, but people ignored it.

As for the second thing, TV Tropes isn't about opinions and nobody could criticize you for making an overly positive page more neutral.

Khwarizmi

There is a hell of a lot that separates TV Tropes from Wikipedia.  You try writing a Wikipedia article in the style of a TV Tropes page, see how long it lasts.

Turtle

The injection of opinions is an underlying factor in that style.