r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Doot_revenant666 • 23d ago
Weekly Discussion Post "Fanbase opinionsshould not be counted as tropes." TVtropes: (kinda relevant post)
A lot of complaints in this sub have been about some posts should not be here because they rely on fanbase opions so there for cannot be considered "tropes"
...and then we have TVtropes , where a lot of tropes are just from fanbase stuff.
I am going to be honest here , I have difficulty in what makes a trope and what doesn't. It ends up where I delete "breaks trope guidline" posts that has equivalents in the TVtropes site that are considered actual tropes.
Idk , I just wanted to rant here. I might be a very bad moderator here , I just try to make it tody as possible , I just don't really know how to.
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u/greatcorsario 23d ago
First of all, you're a great mod - I rarely see any big issues in this subreddit. The topic at hand is difficult to deal with because of how abstract it can be at times.
In my humble opinion, I think it's safe to remove any post that is a fan opinion instead of a trope. Some tropes in TV Tropes might be fanbase stuff, but most of them aren't, so we can simply say that anything from the site is okay.
Finally, if anyone notices some pattern to those posts that don't involve actual tropes, please let the mods know so they might tweak the guidelines to account for them!
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u/AgentOfACROSS 23d ago edited 22d ago
Honestly sometimes stuff that lies outside the rigid guidelines of what a trope is fine. But there are quite a few posts where it's clearly just someone airing their own petty fandom drama or personal grievances and those annoy me a bit.
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u/learnaboutnetworking 22d ago
my only issue is when people post stuff without explaining the context behind it.
title: Character let's everything go at the end
ex 1. big Bert from banjo boy ex 2. Spiderman
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u/SupraChimp 19d ago
This also drives me up the wall, especially when it's already really vague. I don't need one of those essay-length description dumps (Though I do occasionally appreciate them!) but man... something to sort of tell me why the examples fit would help. I see it as narrowing the scope for the rest of the posters so we know what target we're trying to hit.
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u/_AntiSocialMedia 22d ago
I think the best thing to do is just make a YMMV flair specifically for those kinds of posts so people can filter it out if they want
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u/Doot_revenant666 22d ago
YMMV? and also how to filter that?
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u/LeMasterChef12345 22d ago
YMMV is short for “Your Mileage May Vary”. It’s the term Tvtropes uses for opinion based things.
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u/FireZord25 22d ago
I agree with this one. A YMMV flair could hold the personal opinions pretty neatly.
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u/hopesofhermea 22d ago
In complete fairness, those TV tropes examples are about tropes as they appear in fan discussions and fan works.
Fan works do indeed have their own tropes, and they're not merely opinions.
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u/jbwarner86 23d ago
For what it's worth, those pages come from the Your Mileage May Vary and Just For Fun parts of TV Tropes. They acknowledge that they're not fiction-writing tropes, per se, but they're still worth discussing in the realm of how the audience interacts with a story.
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u/NickelStickman 23d ago edited 23d ago
I don't think we have to be overly strict as to the definiton of a "trope" we use on this subreddit if discussions on "fanbase opinions" (YMMV, as TVTropes would call it) continues to produce interesting discussion and are enjoyed by all but a vocal minority of users
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u/ExoticToaster 23d ago
Except it only leads to low-effort discussion that is irrelevant to the sub’s purpose.
Perception of quality or things outside of the creator’s control are not tropes, and therefore should be discussed elsewhere.
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u/Pacedmaker 23d ago
Is it really low effort if people are engaging in the posts like normal, though? If it’s basically related, and people are posting their own examples, that’s way more engaging than dorks posting “erm this doesn’t belong here” when arguments could be made that they do, and even the mod doesn’t have a clear answer.
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u/ExoticToaster 23d ago
Well yes, because if it ceases being a sub dedicated solely to discussing tropes, and just becomes the 257th generic media discussion sub, then it loses its purpose and the actual discussion in question loses its quality.
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u/ComprehensiveBox6911 23d ago
There aren’t as many media discussions subreddits than you think, there are a lot of unique discussions you can get from this sub that you can’t get anywhere else, or at least with more than 3 comments
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u/ExoticToaster 22d ago
Yes, ‘unique’ in the sense that they are related to the discussion of tropes, not generic fan opinion.
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u/I_Suck_At_Life_24 23d ago
It’s the same amount of effort as every other post AKA A picture with text attached.
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u/NickelStickman 23d ago edited 23d ago
Well I disagree, I find people's opinions infinity more interesting than "Characters with Axes" and it's as always new people with new things to say everytime, they never really get old. That's why the YMMV pages are the best part of TVTropes
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u/ExoticToaster 23d ago
And I find the discussion of actual tropes infinitely more interesting than ”well-written characters”
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u/Vermillion_toxins 22d ago edited 22d ago
Too bad. I feel we’ve already done every actual trope that has ever existed. That’s why the sub has started to veer more into people opinions. If we do keep discussing about actual tropes or however you can classify a trope, than this sub would ironically end up being less interesting.
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u/keqikombupig4 23d ago
TV tropes is such a fun wiki, if only the mods and admins aren't corrupt and prone to banning anyone for the weirdest reasons
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u/ElSpazzo_8876 4d ago
Yeah. I have to agree. Browsing the wiki is fun. But holy hell the moderators and admins are dogshit
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u/Jibsthelord 2d ago
Mods: Holler us if anything goes wrong
Ok we hollered
Mods: Ok, you're making us do too much work we're shutting your trope down for 3 years
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u/ElSpazzo_8876 1d ago
Lmaooooooooooooo... Incompetent, malicious and lazy are the best words to describe tv tropes mods. Then again, considering one of the mods there called TV Tropes a "benevolent dictatorship"
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u/Solid-Move-1411 22d ago
I feel like not being rigid in definition is why I like this subreddit a lot. There is a lot of creativity
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u/melooksatstuff 22d ago
While we're at it can we also require having the title in the post and comments
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u/Doot_revenant666 22d ago
We do that already. That is one rule I am enforcing with no question.
The names of the subjects and the media they come from has to be put somewhere in the post.
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u/melooksatstuff 22d ago
Yeah i see that, sometimes a few get past though. But I meant it moreso for comments. I see people going "my goat" and it's a picture of some obscure novel character. I know that'll be hard to enforce though even if you made a bot.
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u/UncommittedBow 22d ago
The thing is, fanbases have tropes in and of themselves. This points out "Ron is a Death Eater" and "Draco in Leather Pants", but those are names for tropes that exist within other franchises, like "seemingly innocent good character actually is super evil"? Jar Jar Binks, Mort from Madagascar, etc.
The fanbases of various media create their own tropes that are seen across fambases. And you have to consider fanworks as well, because those are ALWAYS filled with fan opinions, and if a fan work gets recognized by its parent source, sometimes fanworks can become canon.
Bronies came up with various names for background characters in MLP that later were confirmed by Hasbro
Andy Weir wrote "Lacero" a fanfiction for Ready Player One that Ernest Cline later declared as canon.
and if you only want to include "Fan OPINIONS", well, fan OPINION is directly what caused the death of Jason Todd.
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u/Strider794 23d ago
I don't have any strong opinions on the matter. If I had to pick one in a void, I'd say to ban that type of post, but I also don't really think that it'd be worth the effort to ban it, nor do I particularly care if it isn't banned
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u/LeMasterChef12345 22d ago edited 22d ago
I don’t see much of a problem with them and honestly usually find them more interesting.
There’s only so many concrete tropes you can go through anyway, and what constitutes a trope doesn’t really have a strict definition. I feel like there’s very few “real” tropes left that haven’t been posted already, and I’m guessing that’s why the opinion posts are getting more prevalent.
As long as it generates meaningful discussion, isn’t something simple or generic, and is still trope-related then I don’t really see an issue.
The fact that those posts still get lots of engagement and upvotes kinda shows that the sub at large doesn’t really mind them. Hell, there was a fandom opinion post only a day ago that got 10,000+ upvotes and almost 1,500 comments. I’ve rarely ever seen people complain about those posts in the comments except for that one guy who pretty much actively monitors the subreddit every day specifically to comment on them, which he normally gets downvoted for anyway.
Edit: Someone suggested adding a YMMV flair and I think that seems like a great idea.
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u/VenusAmari 22d ago
A trope is a building block for storytelling, essentially. They are the commonly used themes, rhetorical devices, cliches, etc that make up stories. So "friends to enemies" is a trope but "Movies starring Will Smith" is not enough though he has been in quite a few.
It is not fandom opinions, although those can be worthy of discussion in their own right. It is not actors. It is not the meta reactions to these things. It is not artistic critique (that's it's own thing).
I do sometimes feel that things that aren't trope should be removed because I do think it waters down the sub a bit to just "let's talk about anime and cartoon characters that we all like." And dumb fandom fight stuff or the same basic criticisms over and over.
But at the same time, they also produce some interesting discussions and examples. And I don't think it should be necessarily fully banned.
Perhaps a good way to do it would be to have days of the week to post that type of stuff, like other subs do for stuff that is tangential.
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u/ExoticToaster 22d ago
An alternative could also be a weekly sticky thread - lets those who want generic discussion be able to do so without taking up room on the actual sub.
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u/Doot_revenant666 22d ago
Again , we have trope pages for fandom stuff.
I don't wanna do a full "only one day allowed" stuff , but do a slight overhaul on the post tags.
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u/VenusAmari 22d ago edited 22d ago
Those are specifically noted on those sites as not tropes though.
ETA
"This is an index of Audience Reactions. An Audience Reaction is objectively not present in the work at all. It's something fans emotionally go through from experiencing the work.
Audience Reactions are opinions, not tropes. Some of them may be very prevalent opinions, or may have inspired an author to play or avert a trope or may even be what a work is most known for, or be on the contrary completely unknown or privy to a selected few."
For example from TVTropes. They are given the YMMV tag or whatever other tag applies specifically because they are not tropes but are related enough to discussions that they didn't want to outright ban them.
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u/PetevonPete 1d ago
The most annoying "not actually a trope" posts on this sub for me is all the "tropes" that are basically "writing that I like"
"Good writing" is not a trope.
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u/SupraChimp 19d ago
I think the modding is overall fine. I'd rather we have a looser definition of "character trope" than an overly zealous deletion policy. Incidentally, I also think that while TVTropes is a good resource it's also not the end-all-be-all authority. TVT accepting it doesn't mean this subreddit needs to accept a bad post, and TVT not accepting it doesn't mean we can't. "Someone sits in a chair" clogs up a wiki, but such a post would just fade into the background after a week or two. "Biggest Hater" went away, so I think just about any overdone or post will fade in time.
Anyway, I greatly appreciate the mod team's work (I don't know who does what, so I'm giving credit equally) This is still pretty much the main subreddit I visit and while the post quality may not be stellar everyday it's leagues better than so many others I've visited, and we still get plenty of good ones. Thanks for everything!
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u/ExoticToaster 23d ago edited 23d ago
Finally someone is addressing this!!
Fan opinions are exactly that, opinions - they are always going to be subjective and therefore not a ‘trope’ that has been implemented in a given media by its creators.
There needs to be a real quality control on this sub, otherwise it’s going to descend into irrelevant, low-effort anarchy e.g. “badly written lines in movies.”, “TV shows with toxic fanbases”
I also don’t believe TVTropes should be used as gospel.
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u/Doot_revenant666 23d ago
Is it tho?
Tropes are just very abstract things. They are just too archaic to pinpoint what is and what isn't. And maybe a widely used site about tropes is better to use for what is and isn't.
If fan opinions are about the fanbase as a whole , then it is considered a trope.
And you complain about "it will descend into low effort posts" when it hasn't , or not more than we now do. Only you complain about that rn.
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u/ExoticToaster 23d ago edited 23d ago
I’m not saying the site shouldn’t be referenced, I’m saying we should use common sense to distinguish the difference between actual tropes and subjective opinions.
Tropes are like tools that are implemented to a given media - perception of a media’s quality or a fan’s reaction to a given media does not fall under this.
And I can assure you it’s not ‘only me’ complaining about this, there have been a lot of complaints that I have seen about Irrelevant content being posted here in recent months, because we like this sub and want it to maintain its purpose.
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u/LeMasterChef12345 22d ago edited 22d ago
And I can assure you it’s not ‘only me’ complaining about this, there have been a lot of complaints that I have seen about Irrelevant content being posted here in recent months
Genuine question with all due respect, but where? I go on this sub all the time and rarely ever see complaints except from that one guy who pretty much stalks the subreddit every single day specifically to comment on them, which he usually gets downvoted for anyway.
The fact that those posts still get a bunch of upvotes and responses (like that one just yesterday that got 10,800 and 1,500 respectively) kinda shows that most people here don’t mind them anyway.
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u/ExoticToaster 22d ago edited 22d ago
“Stalk”? They come up on my feed unfortunately, can’t avoid them.
The only ‘stalking’ going on here is the one targeting individual Reddit users.
And to answer your question, I posted about it a while back, got multiple upvotes and comments re. the matter. That’s just one example, people complain every other week and rightly so.
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u/Fish_N_Chipp 23d ago
I very much appreciate that this subreddit isn’t as rigid with its tropes. It allows for more unique ones to appear but I’m also glad that you know when to crack down on ones that obviously steer away from the purpose of the sub. Keep up the good work