Like this:
With a madatory, big “WARNING: TV Tropes Link!” alert message in front of it.
How many otherwise productive hours could have been saved by this simple, easy-to-follow rule?
Please, for the love of whatever, and for all the stuff I have to get done and can’t spare the time getting sucked into this insidious website, let this rule be enacted.
I clicked it. Damn you.
Oh, thanks a lot. I was going to weed the garden and make lunch for my children, but they can just forget about it now.
Hmmm. ~49 views, and 2 responses. The hamsters at TV Tropes must be getting a workout this morning.
I hate the way people just provide a link to that site instead of discussing ideas here. It’s kinda like how wikipedia has ruined pub banter. I hate the internet.
Two clicks isn’t enough. I just mention the site and the trope name to search on. Even then I feel bad knowing that some poor souls are going to lost the rest of the afternoon.
I remain awed by TV Tropes. It explains the mechanisms of fiction better than any effort that I know of.
I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not. It really is a lovely website, though.
Damn you, OP!
I’d heard of TV Tropes but never actually visited the site. Now I’m hooked on it.
Damn you! Damn you to Hell!
It was my link in the arrow thread that started this, wasn’t it? I should probably feel guilty or something.
When it comes to feeling guilty, “or something,” I typically opt for “or something.”
This bothers me, too. It can be a useful resource but a list isn’t the same thing as a discussion.
I’m as much a fan of time-wasting trivia sites as anyone, but I don’t find TV Tropes to be that interesting.
Ditto. I did find it an engrossing site several years ago but as the place has grown the quality of the trivia has deteriorated. Bigger does not always equal better.
I don’t want to click the link, could someone explain what “TV Tropes” might be, please?
It is a website that talks about commonly observed themes, plot devices and similar in popular media - not just television but also films, animation, comics and so forth. It is addictive in part because the descriptors are cleverly named and written but also because you will recognize them from something you’ve seen and read and want to read more. Also, every page links to other pages and once you’ve started reading the temptation to follow the links is strong. And there are a lot of tropes/pages to look at.
If you don’t ever watch television or films or read comics or sci-fi you’re probably safe - but then you’re probably not on the Internet either.
Actually, the biggest driver to me that makes me have to keep reading is that the descriptions are not self contained, but require cross referencing to understand.
“Monkey dancing is a trope where you see a monkey and he dances, which is sort of like monkey swinging, but not quite, and is similar to monkey pole dancing. However, do not confuse it with donkey dancing.” *
Now in order for me to really grasp what was said, I have to look up monkey swinging to see why it is different, I have to look up monkey pole dancing, because that’s just weird. And I have to look up donkey dancing to figure out why donkeys are mentioned at all in a discussion of monkeys**. And each one of those articles requires 3 or more other lookups in order to understand what they are about, and it just explodes from there.
That’s why I find it annoying.
*Not actual example. Totally made up.
** “It’s supposed to be Monkey Kong, you idiot!”
So many threads in Cafe Society aren’t really discussions, though, just lists. “Name some movies with this unusual characteristic!” While I do sometimes take part, they don’t often have a lot of interesting discussion in them, and they’d be just as well served by a TV Tropes link as a bunch of Dopers throwing out names three or four times in a row.
It’s totally work safe. It’s just a time waster. A very fun time waster.
Sorry, doesn’t go far enough. Just ban linking to tvtropes.org entirely. We’re the SDMB liberals, and we know what’s good for you.