Two articles with the same image... Darths and Droids, and: Min Maxing

Darths And Droids, Min-Maxing

That is a lot of text. That is bad. But, I think this image is an exception. That's what Darths And Droids is: funny captions on Star Wars screenshots. Without the speech bubbles it's just movie screenshots.

Vote to remove from Min-Maxing, keep on Darths And Droids.

edited 14th Nov '10 2:07:54 AM by rodneyAnonymous

Why?

This is a great example of Min-Maxing, and I imagine it is rather hard to find another picture actually showing the trope this clearly,

Darths And Droids on the other hand is a comic, so there are more than enough picture from which we can pick a page image.

edited 14th Nov '10 2:14:45 AM by eX

If the text were in Spanish, the image still represents Darths And Droids, but it doesn't communicate the idea of Min-Maxing.

edited 14th Nov '10 2:23:12 AM by rodneyAnonymous

If you don't think that represents Min-Maxing then obviously you don't understand the trope.

When was there a rule that we can't have the same image for two things?

Sometimes a picture is just perfect for two things at once.

I don't think that represents Min-Maxing.

edited 14th Nov '10 3:01:02 AM by rodneyAnonymous

And that's not the picture up there right now. Speech bubbles are part of the image and the text alone doesn't work as well without the image. I really don't think you get the point of images.

Skills for selecting a good image do not include berating people.

Captions appear in places besides a box under an image. Look at any good page image with text on it: it would be a good image without the text. (But hopefully the text makes it even better.)

edited 14th Nov '10 3:29:51 AM by rodneyAnonymous

That is not true. In a good image with text the text and image work in harmony with each other. It doesn't have to be a good image without text at all. All Men Are Perverts is a great example. Without text it wouldn't make sense. It's the combination of the two that works. Evaluating the elements individually is counter productive.

"Without text it wouldn't make sense."

That is a red flag that it isn't a good image. I'm sure there are exceptions.

I really don't see the point in arguing with you if you're just going to cherry pick lines. It's about the whole of a thing not just a part. The same with the argument.

That response is relevant to every sentence of your post.

Without the text, it doesn't represent Darths And Droids either. It's just some picture of R 2 D 2.

Like shimaspawn said, the text is part of the picture. The concept is rather abstract, so I doubt anyone will find a picture that can adequately explain without words.

For the comic on the other hand, how about the panel with the "Jar Jar, you are a genius" line? That sums up the comics intention, making fun of the prequel trilogy, pretty good, I think.

"Without the text, it doesn't represent Darths And Droids either."

Ugh, that is extremely literal. That observation is made in the OP. No one is suggesting putting up the image with empty speech bubbles or saying the image must absolutely make 100% clear sense without text or it is terrible. Just, ask: how important is the text to the image? If the text was in a language you couldn't read, would the image make any sense? That is a worthy consideration.

edited 14th Nov '10 4:18:18 AM by rodneyAnonymous

If the text would be in language you don't understand, it wouldn't represent Darths And Droids either. Bottom line, sometimes text is essential to understand a picture, so your complainant that only the text makes it an example of the trope isn't really helpful, because I sincerely doubt we will find a better representation of this trope that works with less text.

edited 14th Nov '10 4:21:25 AM by eX

"If the text would be in language you don't understand, it wouldn't represent Darths And Droids either."

I disagree. That represents Darths And Droids. At least, it sort of does. If the real comic were in Wingdings, it would be all the way. But the comic is in English.

edited 14th Nov '10 4:26:42 AM by rodneyAnonymous

I guess then we have to agree to disagree. For me, that's just a picture of R 2 D 2, nothing more.

So my vote is, keep the picture for Min-Maxing, unless you find a better one, change the one for Darth And Droids, since there are more than enough to choose from.

Exactly. If there is a problem with having two pages witrh the same image, swap the Darths And Droids image.

I can't think of an image that can properly get across Min-Maxing without using text in some way. This one seems to do the job perfectly well.

Which words make the difference between "This Is Totally Darths And Droids" and "This Is Just R2D2"? NM, whatever, but that is wrong, images should stand alone without text, if Min-Maxing can't be represented by an image it doesn't need an image.

edited 14th Nov '10 4:43:28 AM by rodneyAnonymous

All of them.

It's not the exact wording that matters, it's that it gets across the feel of Darths And Droids. There are loads of other images that do that (namely most other images that are taken from Darths And Droids). This particular image (with it's captions, of course), however, is a perfect example of Min-Maxing which will be harder to properly replace.

That's a personal opinion. Unless there is some sort of guideline or rule about this I wasn't aware of, there's no objective problem with captions or speech bubbles.

edited 14th Nov '10 4:49:06 AM by MadeOfAxes

The rule of thumb is that images can have dialogue, but the picture needs to accompany the dialogue. In other words, would the dialogue work just as well as a quote instead of a picture? In the case of All Men Are Perverts, the picture does illustrate along with the dialogue. Making it a quote wouldn't work. It should also be relatively quick and snappy dialogue, not a whole speech.

To me, this picture we're debating is kind of borderline. While it does rely on the picture a bit, just changing a bit of the dialogue would make it a fine quote.

Rodney, saying that a page image must work without any text except the caption is faulty. Following that rule would mean that there would never be a page image on any dialogue trope, ever, because it's the text in the page image that illustrates the trope. A good page image illustrates the trope. It may do that with or without text. A page image that is bad because of the text is one where the picture is unnecessary.

Using All Men Are Perverts:

Would the image work with the speech bubbles removed? Yes, but not very well.

Would the text work without the image? let's see:

"I just realized my X-ray vision is gone."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."

Nope, doesn't work. The whole is better than the sum of its parts.

edited 14th Nov '10 10:11:58 AM by Madrugada

In the case of All Men Are Perverts, if one removed the text we would still have a picture that illustrates the trope - a picture of a man eye-humping a scantly clad woman.

Without the text we'd have three people standing around and no real idea of where he was looking. It would be a rather meh image.

No idea where he is looking? Can't follow eyelines for yourself or something?

Remember when I didn't insult people to make my points? I liked that better.