Troping user-generated content

The reason I didn't bring up the 3 trope minimum is because I'm assuming we don't want a bunch of pages for tiny works with only three tropes. I'm talking about the works themselves, not the trope lists on the pages themselves (which are pretty much always incomplete). If a work page only has 3 tropes, it means there are probably more tropes to add, and if not, maybe the work is too insignificant to trope.

If we went by that logic, Hotel Mario should list Sdrawkcab Speech because somebody reversed Mario's speech in a You Tube Poop. Reversing dialogue a form of "rearrangement" yet it is clearly not part of the source material.

There's nothing "too insignificant" to trope. Some works are just smaller than others. Would you call a 5-minute short-film made for a film festival "less significant" than, IDK... Sharknado 10? We don't weigh works on a scale of significance or importance. If a work has less tropes, it's either just a shorter work or is mostly untropeworthy.

You're also seriously misrepresenting Fighteer's argument. Games by their very nature are meant to be interactive and allow for a variety of experiences. That obviously doesn't include experiences that are external to the game itself, such as memes or fangames.

Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 11th 2021 at 7:38:44 AM

A YTP is a derivative work, not something made in a game engine using the game's assets.

If someone makes a Minecraft player skin that looks like a bikini, we do not list Adaptational Attractiveness as a trope.

More importantly, technical tropes (setting, production, adaptation) are not enough to qualify a work for an article. There must be narrative tropes: plot, character, etc. Some kind of story must be told.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 11th 2021 at 7:43:17 AM

I meant "insignificant" in terms of being able to find tropes, not in notability. That was a poor choice of words on my part.

I didn't know there were any guidelines about this beyond a vague "some works don't need pages, including many fanart, blogs, etc." Is this a policy or are you going by gut feeling?

edit: The "having a narrative" minimum was a possibility I considered earlier, but I dismissed it since we have pages for things as cryptic as Tennis for Two.

That said, we're kind of going off-track again. There is definitely UGC that meets that minimum of having narrative tropes, and we need a place to put it.

Edited by N1KF on Nov 11th 2021 at 7:09:43 AM

Works can lack narrative tropes. For example, can you really say that Pac-Man or Tetris have narratives?

Edited by Twiddler on Nov 11th 2021 at 5:08:11 AM

To recap, we've expressed

• some UGC is "tropable" (N1KF, Fighteer, TheBigCrunch)
  • some UGC does not need its own pages (N1KF, Piterpicher, Fighteer, Amonimus)
• UGC can be considered their own video games (SeptimusHeap, WarJay77)
  • alternatively, it shouldn't be (HeavyMetalHermitCrab)
• UGC can be comparable to Fan Works (N1KF, HeavyMetalHermitCrab, Synchronicity, jandn2014)
  • but this doesn't make sense (Delibirda, Fighteer)
• UGC that is "structurally different from the main game" is comparable to Game Mods (Amonimus)
  • UGC that isn't may be comparable to Roleplay (Amonimus)
  • they aren't Game Mods, technically (Fighteer)
• UGC could be troped as part of the main work (crazysamaritan, Amonimus)
  • this should not be done (Fighteer)
• UGC could get its own namespace (N1KF, Piterpicher, crazysamaritan)
• works must have unique narrative tropes (Fighteer)
  • disagree (N1KF, Twiddler)

So far the most agreeable points are that UGC can be tropable, and that UGC could get its own namespace. The conversation has kind of settled, so should we have a crowner to decide?

Decide what exactly, where to place UGC? The points look neat, but there are a lot of them. If you're proposing a crowner, may as well come up with an opening statement and the vote options.

Also to be more clear, I also subscribe to:

• "UGC shouldn't be considered their own video games", fangames go beyond the scope of UGC. If you've meant the namespace for fan-modes within a game like with Garry's Mod, I'm undecided to call them VideoGame/ or Roleplay/ (since they're not separate games), it depends on the general policy for those namespaces.
• "UGC can be comparable to Fan Works" (if count as Works).
• "Works don't need to have unique narrative tropes", No Plot? No Problem! exists for a reason. But they do need unique tropes.
• And by "UGC could be troped as part of the main work" I've meant specifically works that allow UGC by design, if not that's some form of Gameplay Derailment, or needs own page if it has a lot of defining tropes and is published.

Edited by Amonimus on Nov 13th 2021 at 11:49:10 PM

Yeah, that was a fairly vague suggestion. I suppose I'm lumping two slightly different questions together:

1. Is making pages for UGC in VideoGame (as is currently done) misuse of the namespace?
2. If so, where UGC should go on the wiki?

The problem I had with addressing the second is that I haven't really gotten a clear answer for the first, since it's a matter of semantics I suppose. Does it even make sense to use a crowner to find the definition of a namespace? Because that just seems kinda weird. I wouldn't be against it though.

Edited by N1KF on Nov 13th 2021 at 2:44:21 PM

I think it would be useful to categorize UGC, then we can decide what to do with each type. In my view,

• Games created in a Game Maker (no main mode or insignificant) with its own page need separate VideoGame/ pages, and the parent page can have general examples, similar to Franchise/. ex: Roblox, Garry's Mod.
  • This is the one exception that I'd allow troping UGC on the main page. For the rest, either UGC gets its own page and also added to FanWorks/, or doesn't need to be mentioned.
• Modifications to a game that change the narrative and mechanics need a separate VideoGame/ page and be added to Game Mod Index, but they need to count as Work. ex: Amnesia: The Dark Descent stories.
  • Same logic applies to custom scenarios made in Level Editor. They may need a new index though.
• Deviations to a game that don't modify it, as in "house-rules" and "headcanon" fall into Not the Way It Is Meant to Be Played. Documented cases could fall into Roleplay/ or LetsPlay/, and undocumented cases shouldn't be mentioned. I like to think Pokemon Nuzlocke would get a page if it had even more rules.
• Fangames (not physically related to the game) go into VideoGame/.
• YTP goes into WebVideo/ and WebAnimation/.
• Memes and notable fanart go into Memetic Mutation.
• Changes to the story that don't require to own the game to experience it (entirely on a website, like text) go into FanficRecs/, and then into Fanfic/ if they get a page.

Looking at it, it's not that different from what the site does already.

Edited by Amonimus on Nov 13th 2021 at 12:25:30 PM

When making the thread I was mostly just considering the first two bullet points and their sub-bullets, so I think they'd be the only ones handled in this discussion.

Regarding listing common UGC tropes on parent works, I'm hesitant about the idea. This seems like it would go against Examples Are Not General unless you gave some examples, but then you'd have to decide which examples, and if not you'd end up with a list that would duplicate what's already on the UGC pages.

This is why I'm skeptical of tropes like Video Game Perversity Potential and Player Tic. "Players can do this" seems kind of like People Sit on Chairs, unless you frame it as an Audience Reaction.

Website is in a comparable situation. A page like YouTube could list examples for common tropes for works on the site, but I don't think we've decided whether or not this is a proper thing to do.

I wrote an entire paragraph here about how listing UGC examples in the Video Games folder would be weird, but I just realized there's usually a Fan Works folder in example lists. So that point is moot.

That realization does make me a bit more open to categorizing UGC as Video Games, but it still seems weird to me. I doubt many people would call a Minecraft adventure map a video game, so it seems weird to put it there. Visual Novels are closer in format to Video Games than UGC is, which would make it seem strange if UGC couldn't get its own namespace.

To get things moving, here is a crowner proposal, with three options (all compatible):

• allow UGC tropes on the source work's page and subpages
• give UGC its own namespace, decided by crowner (if not, I assume it keeps VideoGame)
• postpone this to allow for further discussion

edit: idea for a fourth

• treat UGC as Fan Works (meaning UGC is listed on Fan Works pages and their examples go in the Fan Works folder on trope pages)

Edited by N1KF on Nov 14th 2021 at 4:29:17 AM

I kind of don't see how the first two options are compatible with existing policy and practice.

If they're not compatible then how are they not compatible? I've been getting mixed messages throughout the thread so some guidance would be helpful.

The first one doesn't seem compatible because its troping derivative works on a parent work's page, like troping a Teen Wolf fanfic on the main show's page.

Personally, I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, but I know I don't like that idea (#1) for reason.

Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 17th 2021 at 5:50:35 AM

If the first option is agreed to be against wiki policy I'd be fine with limiting the crowner to the latter three options.

new crowner proposal, for clarity:

• give UGC its own namespace, decided by another crowner
• treat UGC as Fan Works
• postpone this to allow for further discussion

Edited by N1KF on Nov 17th 2021 at 10:38:12 AM

As for the second option before, the problem I see is that with the exception of fanfic we organize namespaces by medium. And I see no good reason to create more exceptions.

There isn't a blanket ban on derivative works on the original pages. In fact, sequels and official adaptations are often tropes on the page for the original work.

The first idea is not against the policy, if the UGC is assumed to be an official part of the work, like being able to play levels created by other players in Mario Maker.

I would go with the Fan Works option, but that doesn't really answer the question of how one might go about creating a dedicated article for the UGC. It needs to have some namespace.

To provide some more detail...

• I am not in favor of troping UGC in the article for the original work, although I can see the argument for it. After all, a Happy Wheels level is built and played in the game using the game's assets; it's not a discrete creative work. However, the article could be completely overwhelmed by the UGC.
• I am not in favor of putting UGC in the Video Game namespace. These are not discrete products, as noted above. They only exist in context with the original work that they are made/played in.

If we had the ability to create multi-level namespaces, we could do something like UserContent/HappyWheels/MyExplosiveLevel, but that's not within the capabilities of the current wiki design. Since we can't, I'm thinking of something like the current setup for Recap subpages: UserContent/HappyWheels as a parent index and subpages like UserContent/HappyWheelsMyExplosiveLevel, custom titled to "Happy Wheels: My Explosive Level".

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 18th 2021 at 11:03:23 AM

I like the recap setup idea

I think the current method of putting them into VideoGame/ is fine. Namespaces are organized by medium, being dependent on something else isn't really a factor and I suspect that some "mods" can actually run independently.

Until you get to Fanfic... If that was sorted by medium, all the examples would be Literature.

Also the varying different types of animation, and whatever manga counts as these days.

So there are cases where two very similar mediums are namespaced separately; this could end up as another such case.

The primary reason why I don't want these to go in the Video Game namespace is title conflicts, although we'd probably have to qualify them anyway. There's no functional difference between UserContent/HappyWheelsMyExplosiveLevel and VideoGame/HappyWheelsMyExplosiveLevel; it's more of an aesthetic choice.

Edited by Fighteer on Nov 18th 2021 at 4:49:43 AM

If we considered them works we'd probably name it like My Explosive Level Happy Wheels since the disambig comes last. If it comes first then it's closer to a Recap style.