Consistent example style

Leading with the title of the work makes it easier to find the one you are interested in. Having to parse every line for the title is a pain. It also makes it easier to put all the examples from the show in one place. Cuts down on duplicates.

edited 31st Jan '11 3:10:43 PM by FastEddie

But is it necessary or desirable to have the title be literally the first word? Having it near the beginning of the sentence (and not potholed) strikes me as sufficient.

A lot of times I'll start a example:

• In Work A, such and such happened.

I find it reads more like a sentence and still hard the work as almost the first thing in the example making it easy to spot.

I fully support the "boring" version:

• Work A: Blah Blah.
• Work B: Blah Blah.
• Work C: Blah Blah.

Easier to scan, avoids duplicates, discourages potholing with no actual mention with the title whatsoever (I hate that, you must view the source to search), tidy, easy to clean up, added appeal of uniformity with when listing tropes in a given work, print-friendly (due to tropers being forced to mention the name of the work), eases alphabetizing, what else? It also works to crush many Word Cruft problems all at one. They will be forced to start the advertising after the name of the work; not as scannable. Good.

This well-intentioned notion that we need "variety" will ultimately fail. It's easy to make examples with placeholders now, but ultimately it will all be "In A..." "In B..." "In C..." If we're consistent with the variety principle, sharpening an article include making up these varieties for them to read more naturally—and that's for me is unnecessary hard work.

But that's just me.

Leading with the title of the work makes it easier to find the one you are interested in. Having to parse every line for the title is a pain. It also makes it easier to put all the examples from the show in one place. Cuts down on duplicates.

That's only true in cases of such extreme Word Cruft that the title slips down to the second line of the entry. Those are obviously bad, I can't even imagine any comprehensible entry that would have to do this.

In real text, my earlier examples would be like

• Alice and Bob do this in Show A where Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod
• Discussed in Show B where Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
• Repeatedly used in Show C Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud.

And the "fixed" examples would be like:

• Show A: Alice and Bob do this in when Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod
• Show B: Discussed this when Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
• Show C: Repeatedly used when Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud.

They are still in the first lines, and only 1-2 centimeter away from the indents, where you can still see them with the first glance. Whether they are on the front or in the middle of the first sentence, you have to read 3 lines.

Now imagine doing this with 40 entries in the list, instead of 3. That's roughly two screen heights. If you insist on adding an entry without reading the whole text or using a search bar, and you just want to skim through the first lines, your chance to miss 1 out of the 40 is roughly the same.

Not using the search bar is a bad editing habit, no matter which format we use, but using it instantly fixes the problems of both page formats.

Again, at least if they would also be alphabetized, it would mean something, but this way, not.

edited 1st Feb '11 2:20:24 AM by EternalSeptember

Personally I'm cool with titles being in the first sentence or first few words rather than the first words after the bullet point. Be even better if they're the first link in the sentence. Potholing to the title is incredibly annoying, but I don't think "Was done in Show X by Alice and Bob" gives people the idea it's acceptable to use "Was done by Alice and Bob". Seeing other people use the pothole does.

edited 1st Feb '11 4:44:22 AM by Tyoria

As I see it as long as the title is somewhere there in the first few words of the example it's cool. I'm all for order, but this whole

• Show X: Inverted. Season 2, episode 3, 14:07. Characters involved: Alice, Bob. Duration of trope influence: apprx. 5 episodes.

thing is really too much. Even assuming this is somehow better than writing in a way similar to how people actually communicate, we have so much more important things to demand our editors restrain themselves about (Justifying edits, YMMV potholes, word cruft, thread mode, walls of text...), and human tolerance for instructions is finite.

Our editors owe us at least to read and follow instructions, and we owe them not to rain instructions on them unless we have a very good reason to. This is not a very good reason.

edited 1st Feb '11 5:29:13 AM by TripleElation

Has anyone suggested that?

Anyone would find that format too much. The suggestion to put work title first for me is just a logical organisation, just like how we group them by medium.

There is a problem however, when an example is not restricted to one work. The musical version of High Octane Nightmare Fuel, for example. It's fair to include individual artists (e.g. David Bowie or Sigur Ros) but there are genres and scenes devoted entirely to this trope (e.g. FDM or Drone Doom).

No, that was an illustrative exaggeration.

Look, even if it's an excellent idea, this is just not the best time. We probably have a lot of editors on the fence regarding whether they stay or not because of the radical (daily!) changes to how YMMV works and looks; just look at all the locked threads in the wiki talk forum. Saying "and from now on here is your new example template", on top of it all, just to make the example list a little prettier...

edited 1st Feb '11 6:21:17 AM by TripleElation

Something like it has been suggested before with tropes that appear in a single or a few episodes. And its been suggested in this thread that tightening the rules so much that we will start driving away editors in general Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.

Anyway I firmly on the side of don't pothole the work and keep it within the first 3-5 words of the example anything more than that is making examples boring to read.

edited 1st Feb '11 6:17:25 AM by Raso

I actually find the "Show A: Blah, Show B: Bleh, Show C: Bluh" format harder to read, because it doesn't flow nearly as well as sentence (or at least sentence fragment) structure. It makes it easier to find a specific example, but if you already know what you're looking for, just ctrl+f and be done with it (as long as the source work isn't potholed, which I agree is terrible).

I agree. When I'm reading the examples for information, which is usually the case, I prefer a more natural sentence structure. It feels less like reading a technical manual. If I want to add an example, I'll use ctrl+f to search the page, not scan the list.

What's certain is the title of the work must be mentioned, and not merely potholed. This title is preferably very close to the beginning.

I don't usually interpret the title behind the colons as a part of the "flowing, natural sentences," but I don't feel that strongly about it. So long as the two rules I mentioned are followed, I'm a happy man.

Agreed. "In Author's Name of Work, ..." is adequate, and what I usually do.

edited 1st Feb '11 8:02:00 AM by Fighteer

I agree as well, and feel that "No potholing work titles" should be a part of the official guidelines.

I'd say "no arguments there", except I'm not 100% sure there's no legitimate use for potholing works. It's just that none come to mind. Still, doing it in an example in lieu of mentioning the work by name is definitely bad form.

edited 1st Feb '11 8:09:13 AM by TripleElation

Potholing a character name to a work is bad. Potholing an excerpt or quote to the work is horrible. Potholing an author to a work is poor form but could in theory work in some cases.

I'd second what ccoa said, both the preference and the reasons.

I tend to use either the format Fighteer posted, or

• In Work, by Author ... .

The impression I was under was to do that for short stories or things unlikely to get their own page.

The only excuse for potholing work titles, that I can think of, is when said works are not the subjects of the article.

For example on Expy, the title of the original work that got expied. Like:

• Turnip Fitzhugh in the Pink Carnation series resembles Bertie Wooster.

In this case, Jeeves And Wooster is not the show that causes the example of the trope, no one will want to add Bertie Wooster as an example, because he is not an Expy on his own, he was just referenced in relation to another article, and the focus is on the characters, so mentioning the title would be distracting.

That's fair.

Ok, ES has found the one place that a Pot Hole for a work is acceptable. Otherwise, it's bad form and should be discouraged.

Madrugada said:

'd second what ccoa said, both the preference and the reasons.

I tend to use either the format Fighteer posted, or

• In Work, by Author ... .

I think there's a moral to be drawn from the fact that the mods aren't all in 100% agreement on the "correct" format (but are in agreement that the name of the work shouldn't be a pothole)

Well, we have decided on one thing to add to the style sheets, and if we don't come up with anything else, at least this has been productive. We have all become unified in our disdain of Pot Holed titles. Where do we post this for the general knowledge of the wiki though?

edited 1st Feb '11 12:06:29 PM by shimaspawn