Discussion of TV Tropes

Obā-san · 2012-01-30 17:00:22

It renders the wiki an ill-informed fanboy wankathon.

I never really liked the Wiki.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 17:04:55

That describes most of the internet, honestly.

Really, I am not looking for a serious intellectual resource in TVTropes. I'm looking for a pop culture reference. It's not really successful at being that, either, though. Come to think of it.

Obā-san · 2012-01-30 17:05:57

It is, provided you define "Animu" as "Popular Culture".

Princess Alice · 2012-01-30 17:08:13

I found the wiki fun when I was 17/18 and I was obsessed with Doctor Who (which happens to be one of TVT's favorite obsessions) and I had a pretty much endless amount of time to waste because I was a shut-in who rarely left my computer after 8 PM.

Within a year or so I had pretty much lost interest in it, but I stuck around the forums because of IJBM.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 17:09:34

Anime is teh satans, amirite.

Obā-san · 2012-01-30 17:11:37

I find it dull for the most part, apart from a few series.

Rather like my opinion on video games.

Justice4243 · 2012-01-30 17:11:48

^^

Obā-san · 2012-01-30 17:12:56

KILL IT WITH HOLY WATER.

millercross · 2012-01-30 17:17:14

Really, I am not looking for a serious intellectual resource in TVTropes. I'm looking for a pop culture reference. It's not really successful at being that, either, though. Come to think of it.

Nobody is, except the staff, which declares it to be a writer's resource when it's convenient for it to be and then calls it a catalogue the next second. I think that while there's some good to be found in theory, it's shadowed by all the mediocre-ness and the shoddy approach to media.

Misery · 2012-01-30 17:18:26

I liked the wiki when I was 15...until a few years later the Sonichu page got taken down and the no negativity B.S.

Viani · 2012-01-30 18:27:41

I love the wiki, I just hate every other person that has ever hit an edit button on it that has a different opinion than me or decides to add things I don't agree with.

That's as honest I can be. I don't wank about stupid shit concerning ChangedDurrSucks, but they do.

I can't say I hate stupid people posting on the forums or editting the wiki since the word "Stupid" is so subjective that I can't fit every degree of stupid under one description, and because behaviors and opinions are stupid, not people...so either way...

The forums are an emohive and cynic's pool. Not only that, flushing everything down the toilet would improve the site by a lot.

millercross · 2012-01-30 18:40:31

I'd say that people can be lacking in intelligence just as well as attitudes and opinions.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 18:41:48

You could say that, but it's pointless to do so, as it's impossible to gauge over the internet in any meaningful way, and only has any use as insult or praise, depending.

Obā-san · 2012-01-30 18:43:28

I dunno, I've interacted in people online who definitely seemed unintelligent.

Like a bunch of posters in the Pony thread.

Justice4243 · 2012-01-30 18:47:02

Didn't some one break out the N-word in one of those threads?

millercross · 2012-01-30 18:48:23

You could say that, but it's pointless to do so, as it's impossible to gauge over the internet in any meaningful way, and only has any use as insult or praise, depending

It depends entirely on the logical thought processes they engage on, which can be seen and examined when people discuss things. It's not particularly impossible to measure, provided the individual's being honest.

Of course, that's just an aspect of intelligence, and someone who's shit at arguing could be, say, a good athlete, a good musician, a good physicist or whatever. But normally, the term stupid, while referring to a complete lack of intelligence, is normally used to mean "lack of argumental intelligence"

so yes, I can definetly call some people I've talked to on the internet stupid without doubting myself for a second.

Obā-san · 2012-01-30 18:50:32

^^In the Western Animation one, which is the worse of the two. They're both still chock full 'o stupid, and I suspect some of them are trolls.

And I'm shit at arguing, so I don't do it online. Though I try and not seem dumb.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 19:10:24

I'm bad at arguing, so I'm stupid?

Whatever you say, man.

millercross · 2012-01-30 19:15:49

QED

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 19:16:48

Abbreviations!

Obā-san · 2012-01-30 19:17:50

Abrevs? Totes amazeballs.

Manly McMacho · 2012-01-30 19:27:12

^Def.

I liked the wiki... until... the Sonichu page got taken down and the no negativity B.S.

¿Also, what about people who can be either great or terrible at arguing depending on the subject or context?

¿Also also, how is this thread still alive?

Justice4243 · 2012-01-30 19:34:47

People started talking about TVTropes in another thread, so I directed them here.

millercross · 2012-01-30 19:42:02

¿Also, what about people who can be either great or terrible at arguing depending on the subject or context?

Well, nobody is perfect at arguing every subject, as every subject demands a degree of familiarity and understanding in order to properly form a position and an argument. So...I guess that's everyone?

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that you're not stupid if you can't argue (If we go by the usual definition of "Lacking in intelligence") but that it is so often used to mean "Lacking in argumental intelligence and logic" that it might as well be the definition used currently, really.

Tachyon · 2012-01-30 22:00:04

>Treating a ban like "killing someone online" seem very melodramatic to me.

Regarding that, the sufficiently determined ones just ban evade anyway, e.g. Shichibukai. You can't execute a person twice, unless they come back as a vampire or something.

Obviously that's assuming they figure how to evade their ban, but if they don't and they're determined, they will show up on a spin-off site.

>regarding anime and lolicon: I know more anime fans that find even vanilla hentai disturbing than those who find Lolicon okay. Those that do tend to be from Sankaku Complex, and fuck those people.

I think you're right, but there are definitely some tropers who post there, and often they're the same ones who accuse us of being anti-anime when we criticise a fanservice trope as well.

>That's a rather disinformed statement. anybody can see the wiki's problems. Between the lack of understanding ande deliberate misuse of terms such as Deconstruction, and the general "Hey, just because we're casual, we're allowed to dismiss intellectualism and actual thought and just be very basic" attitude, there're plenty of problems. Especially for a wiki that is supposedly preoccupied with the discussion of media.

Not just that; even as just a simple pop culture database there are still pervasive problems (tropers being possessive of their edits and afraid to delete other tropers' edits even if they're wrong, tropers using the main pages as a forum, shoehorned examples, poor spelling and grammar, unfunny memes, etc.) which need to be cleared up. So yes, the wiki does need fixing if it's going to be any good, but that's a voluntary thing. Nobody is obligated to care.

>But they lock threads that have no discussional merit, those threads aren't locked. No one can post in them at all except mods.

Every thread-to-be-approved gets seen on the mod board. What actually gets done about with the bad ones depends on what mod sees them first; some of us have been locking them, others just ignoring them, others zapping them.

I raised the subject on the mod board, and we will now be deleting the bad threads and leaving a note in their location explaining why they were a bad idea.

>Really, I am not looking for a serious intellectual resource in TVTropes. I'm looking for a pop culture reference.

Well, the idea isn't to be a superserious guide to anything, but to be an informal-but-informative resource that writers can make use of. And make no mistake, writers are using TVT as a resource, and, well. It's led to some very bizarre ideas about fiction. Tropers argue about this in Writers' Block all the time.

Besides, even as a reference guide to pop culture, we still want to be accurate.

>Nobody is, except the staff, which declares it to be a writer's resource when it's convenient for it to be and then calls it a catalogue the next second.

It's intended to be both.

If it were just a straight listing of tropes and what they do, that might be useful for a writer, providing it wasn't their primary resource, if only as a source of inspiration or a way to avoid clichés. It's when people try to take the same approach to writing as they do to troping that the wiki does actual damage.

>I dunno, I've interacted in people online who definitely seemed unintelligent.

>Like a bunch of posters in the Pony thread.

Love and tolerate.

But no, a lot of dumb stuff gets posted in those threads. But then, I've posted dumb stuff. I think it'd be just a wee bit hypocritical if I went around banning people just for being ignorant or making silly mistakes.

>Didn't some one break out the N-word in one of those threads?

Ugh. I wasn't aware of this.

The WA thread has always struck me as kind of terrible, but Anonus posted in there and thought it was OK, and I never followed it all that closely myself because I'm not really interested in whose country talks better?, who would win in a fight?, wait we're supposed to be discussing ponies aren't we, Pinkie is worst pony no she isn't yes she is, oh look, tits.

>I'm bad at arguing, so I'm stupid?

Being bad at arguing doesn't make a person stupid. It does mean that they should either work on being calmer and more rational or stay out of arguments, though.

Anonus · 2012-01-30 22:06:32

I haven't really seen the worst of the WA one, although I admit it does seem far more straight-faced and less silly than the YF one. (And it has had bouts where it annoyed me; the gap between seasons saw the thread get dominated by fanfiction talk that got spun off into another thread, and after that there was an absurdly long debate about Trixie, who I never found very interesting.)

Justice4243 · 2012-01-30 22:15:30

Butbutbutbut, Trixie/Twilight!

Anonus · 2012-01-30 22:16:23

Silly Justice, they don't care about shipping that much! :P

Justice4243 · 2012-01-30 22:17:38

Heh.

ProfessorGator · 2012-01-30 22:18:36

Didn't they have an absurdly long debate about the dragon from Dragonshy at one point? That was rather unpleasant, and I felt a little uncomfortable with both sides there.

I just hope all this drama stops soon. I don't think there's anything I can really do about it, though.

Tachyon · 2012-01-30 22:18:43

Trixie = the Vriska of MLP?

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 22:19:23

Nobody is obligated to care.

That's really all I'm saying.

I think that one of the problems the staff has in general is treating tropers as a resource rather than as people, if you understand what I mean by that.

Anonus · 2012-01-30 22:20:21

^^^And whether or not the guests at the Grand Galloping Gala deserved to have their party crashed by the mane six.

...man, I ought to stop yammering now.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 22:21:12

The Blue Horse is stalker as fuck.

Anonus · 2012-01-30 22:23:41

"The Blue Horse" is the aforementioned Trixie. She's only appeared in one episode so far ("Boast Busters"), though I think she's supposed to come back at some point.

Tachyon · 2012-01-30 22:26:47

>I think that one of the problems the staff has in general is treating tropers as a resource rather than as people, if you understand what I mean by that.

I don't think this is merely a problem with the staff. I think it's a pain that a lot of other tropers seem to perceive the staff that way, when we're volunteers same as them.

My position on that is that if we want the wiki to be good, we all need to work together to do it. Nobody is obligated to help, but I don't think tropers who don't help out are really in a position to complain that other people aren't fixing the site.

I'm cool with you guys because you already said you don't particularly care.

>The Blue Horse is stalker as fuck.

And severely out of character. She was just a one-off antagonist.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 22:27:08

I've just taken to calling them "The [color] Horse" because I get the names mixed up and then people are like "that's not RARITY that's APPLEJACK you DUMBASS" and it's annoying because yeah.

Tachyon · 2012-01-30 22:32:08

I think most fandoms do that.

It's not an ANIME it's a VIDEO GAME SERIES you DUMBASS

It's not WHOVIANS it's DOCTOR WHO FANS you DUMBASS

She doesn't use PUNCTUATION you DUMPASS DUMBASS also YOU GOT THE TEXT COLOR WRONG

Viani · 2012-01-30 22:36:43

It's not GREEN its Green#789922 you DUMBASS

Tachyon · 2012-01-30 22:41:00

DAMN STRAIGHT

Anonus · 2012-01-30 22:41:27

^^^You're an outsider and most of the characters have the same body type so I don't blame you, really.

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 22:42:58

I don't really get mad at people for confusing Letty Whiterock and Cirno. It's just odd to me that people are so defensive about stuff like that.

Anonus · 2012-01-30 22:44:05

It's called "obsessive devotion".

Salix Babylonika · 2012-01-30 22:44:47

But I'm obsessed with tons of things and....

well no, I totally get like that sometimes.

I'M A HYPOCRITE. R U SHOCKED BRO.

Justice4243 · 2012-01-30 22:49:44

"And severely out of character. She was just a one-off antagonist."

I was going to find an image or macro response, and then I found this:

The rest is a nice, warm, inviting blur.

Viani · 2012-01-30 22:51:01

Is the blue one supposed to be an antagonist?

Tachyon · 2012-01-30 22:52:54

Yes, the blue one was an antagonist in one episode.

Princess Alice · 2012-01-30 22:53:17

Trixie = the Vriska of MLP?

That's a good analogy, actually. The endless debates over Trixie in the WA pony thread were just as pointless and annoying as the endless debates over Vriska in the MSPA thread.

Anonus · 2012-01-30 22:55:14

...at least Vriska is actually more relevant to her work of origin than Trixie is.

Obā-san · 2012-01-30 22:56:42

The Bronies I know IRL are generaly less fanwanky than the ones I know online.

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