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Comments
1) Clear, Professional Style
2) Deep, comparative
analyses of trends within a broad range of literature, rather than
step-by-step "name the trope" breakdowns.
3) Initial focus on
"classics": The English Literature Canon, important World Literature,
important films, theatre, opera etc., to be broadened as time goes on.
4) Intellectual culture.
5) Notability guidelines with citations.
6) Articles written by experts.
7) Responsible moderation.
I am not even close to being able to comprehend intelectual culture, so I am on a miss for that.
I am not a major or expert in anything, so I cannot contribute to anything they put up. It also seems to revolve around advanced Literature, so that is something I cannot help with.
After reading some more I realized their project is not for me at all, regardless if I want to help or not. I am just....as the person DrSunshine was going back and forth to in the Admin Bluprint thread described....garbage.
It seems to go too far to the serious side (some people don't want tropes to get articles. I just suggested a way that they could implement it and cut down on, "This is sorta an example", but yeah, I hope they allow tropes. Else it won't do well as a compliment to TVT)
Honestly, I think I would like to see a balance between the two. That, I think, would be a TVT-esque site at its best
Not attacking either site here, just pointing out some possible flaws
I like the idea, though, and I'd definitely read the site.
and because of this, they went too far off the other end.
All you can is just watch the repeating cycle of far-extreme ends.
Soon there's gonna be a spinoff of this new w/e site thing that didn't like the strict eliteness, then it's going to go the sextreme in the other direction.
peanutsYandere, Absurdly Sharp Blade and Deadpan Snarker", and everything must have a generally sound justification to be relevant, so tropes like "Something About Sharks" isn't just added on there everytime a shark pops up in the story? So tropes relating to key parts of a story and work are evaluated and reviewed, and not just posted and then forgotten about, and never explained?Pretty much this. I'll probably lurk anyway, though.
Description and analysis of English canon isn't necessary because so many other sources have extensive material on it; TVT is a casual database for a new age of media that reflects its userbase. As much as that reduces its potential as an academic source, I personally think there's far greater value in how its goals interact with its cultural elements.
I would agree that it needs touching up and some things could stand to be changed, but shifting focus like this just seems to stray too far in the direction of doing something so as to be taken more seriously. I don't think we should have to be like this; TVT is a reflection of the userbase and I think that's precious in its own right.
The site is... okay for what it is- a site for pure entertainment purposes. The basis of the site, cataloguing common trends in media and how, when and why they came into being, is a pretty good basis for a site, though, as well as helping people to understand another aspect of the media they enjoy. However, that's not what it's used for.
That's what this new site will be used for- attempting to catalogue these trends and show why they exist in their current and past states.
1.) What is going to set this website apart from other sources of Media Analysis? What will this site provide that I can't get anywhere else? (I do not consider TVT to be a Media Analysis website for the purposes of this comparison.)
2.) Given the requirement of articles written by experts, what is the plan to attract enough legitimately qualified people to put together a solid body of work in a reasonable time? (Perhaps a definition of "experts" would be helpful here.)
In regards to the thread itself, I would suggest a title change if you do not want discussion of TV Tropes. The current set-up is asking people to compare this new site to TV Tropes, which is just begging for anti or pro TVT derails.
I think the disparity between articles for the likes of English canon and more contemporary, lesser-known works is a reflection of the culture once again. And you can't just change the culture of the wiki; if you try to arbitrarily enforce notability like that, the current userbase will be alienated because they really don't care about English canon. I for one don't really give a damn one way or the other about HuckleBerry Finn, but then again I've read classic English literature and enjoyed it. But I don't see what traits such works carry that give them precedence over later (or earlier) works.
A part of it should be self-respect. We shouldn't have to follow the same standards as other sources because we don't follow the same literary culture. We're way different and there's nothing inherently superior about that, but there's nothing wrong with it either. As I noted above, a part of the beauty of TVT is how it so powerfully reflects the kind of media consumed today by primarily young, creative minds. Some of the obscure works TVT covers today might end up as tomorrow's canon. After all, literature isn't static. The entire concept of a literary canon is deceptively young, being a late 19th or early 20th century concept if my memory serves. Keep in mind that literary canon isn't decided upon democratically, but via painstaking argument and debate over months or years for the smallest alteration between a relatively small amount of people. Some establishments even have their own canon so as not to be established with a different canon.
Sound familiar?
The difference between Of Mice And Men and Neon Genesis Evangelion is that the former is ensconsed within powerful academic establishments. TVT can do one of two things:
- It can follow the lead of others, or
- It can be its own establishment
I'd much rather see it be the latter. We don't need more sources expousing the virtues of The Lord Of The Flies. Hell, fuck that book. It's an interesting read, but through it Golding is essentially saying "all people are inherently assholes", which isn't just uncharitable, but an aesop dropped like an anvil and almost hilariously presumptuous. What makes Golding qualified to tell us what human nature is? We have to question and challenge this kind of thing, and a part of that is perhaps even letting go of the concept of a literary or media canon.
In short, I'm saying that we shouldn't turn TVT into something that essentially already exists in unoriganised form. We'd just be streamlining something else that isn't TVT. Discussion of trope does exist, beginning with the concept of theme in high school English class. Abstracting that further and bringing it outside of an academic context was extremely clever and I'd hate to see it changed because we feel compelled to live up to the arbitrary standards of other media establishments.
Unless you're fat and wear glasses, in which case you'll get hit in the head with a rock.
However, it is a show that appeals to people interested in/obsessed with Anime. It also appeals to people with a love for shows with sci-fi bents, and for people who like to perv on youngish girls. (It also appeals to young girls.)
I have not, though, seen people discuss the patterns in media. I have seen them discuss the themes that emerge from said patterns- for example, the ideas behind the sacrifices in the Heroic Sacrifice trope- but I have never seen people discuss the meaning behind story arcs turning darker due to the appearance of a serious villain.
Check the trope pages for the likes of Older Than Print and Older Than Feudalism. You're bound to find quite a few that way.
However, the thing is, people who are fans of particular things come in
and edit. Their edits then draw in more people who are interested in
said thing. It does not reflect anything close to the tastes of the
general audience- it reflects the tastes of those who edit the wiki,
and those who are interested in said edits.
Keeping in mind that TV Tropes isn't exactly an obscure website and also includes pages on mainstream media. The level of detail and discussion of a work will reflect how well-loved (or loathed) it is amongst editors, but the cross-section of media within the site is indicative of media consumption amongst young Western people, particularly those who go beyond the mainstream. With the increasing availability of media via the internet and the ease of communication, that group is ever-expanding.
What I'm saying here is that TVT represents a wider movement in media consumption. TVT isn't the root of it, but it does reflect it courtesy of its contributor base being part of that root movement. It's certainly not the only website that reflects that movement, but it's the only one that does what it does. As it stands, TVT has some definite sociological value.
I have not, though, seen people discuss the patterns in media. I
have seen them discuss the themes that emerge from said patterns- for
example, the ideas behind the sacrifices in the Heroic Sacrifice trope-
but I have never seen people discuss the meaning behind story arcs
turning darker due to the appearance of a serious villain.
That all begins with discussion of theme, though, primarily because theme is what media is about. Patterns are fun, but a little beside the point unless they're discussed in direct comparison to other examples rather than as a whole, although, again, some trope pages discuss common uses for tropes. Utilisation essentially comes down to theme and these things in tandem are commonly discussed in literary circles. They simply aren't databased. When you get the opportunity, take a university literature class. I promise you'll be pleased.
that people there are generally not interested in producing
I think this results from a difference in expectation. TVT never pretended to be serious or academic. Look at the main page and read the mission statement and you'll see everything laid out.
example- their No Such Thing As Notability policy, which has led to
pages like Pokegirls (A near-90,000 character article set in a world in
which people rape personified mythical creatures) and Rapelay (A hentai
game built around the concept of raping people) being created.
I can see how some would see this as an issue, but I don't think there's enough of an objective case to claim that it should be changed. Besides, the wiki's goals lie in cataloguing tropes and works; why ignore a work because it's distasteful? Also keep in mind that work pages tend to get substance based not on how well-liked they are, but how much interest they generate. This includes how well-liked they are, but then you get pages like Sonichu, which is universally reviled but extremely fascinating as well.
Most work pages refrain from commenting on the quality of the works in any case, focusing on the content.
In any case, I'm all for improvement. But I don't think we should alter the wiki's goals based on external standards.
We're merely doing something different with the concept of the trope that TVTropes catalogues.
What I'm arguing against here is TVT aiming for higher quality via imposing more restrictive standards, which to my mind defeats the purpose. Or the concept that TVT, as it stands, could be considered something to be ashamed of. It has its flaws, but it's an astounding website with plenty of quality entries. I'm certainly not saying you shouldn't do something different based on the same concept.
That is not necessarily true. Have you seen, for example, the work done
on the All Vampires Are Sex Gods page? It goes into the history of the
trope- detailing how it evolved, and when it evolved. It is not perfect, by any means, but it was informative.
I think that's a little unfair, since vampire fiction (excluding folklore) is a product of the last 200 years and therefore easy to research and analyse. You can't do that for a lot of tropes because they're so old. You can't exactly timeline and make commentary on something like Heel Face Turn in the same way because we don't know exactly where it started. Nor do we have full understandings of the societies that used it in fiction. Anything predating Early Modern is essentially lost to us in terms of complete understanding since there's so many holes in literature from those past eras; fictional, historical and otherwise. We can't even always tell if we're being given the correct history.
In that particular aspect, you are literally asking the impossible for many tropes.
Actually, what are the- no, let's not go there.