All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XXI

[robkelk]

In case anybody is wondering why we have a Community Portal where we list things that need to be fixed, instead of just watching the films/shows/cartoons / reading the books/comics and doing the fixes ourselves, I've added this to the top of the Community Portal.

As for why we have these lists instead of simply fixing problems ourselves:

If a person takes in one work of fiction each week (that means, for example, reading an entire novel series or marathoning an entire television series or an entire web comic run, not reading a single book, watching a single episode, or reading a single strip), and that person has 80 years in which he or she can understand and appreciate fiction between becoming literate and becoming senile, then that person can experience 4,160 works - assuming the person never repeats a favourite work.

As of August 29, 2021, this wiki listed 6,375 pages in Category:Film. another 2,912 pages in Category:Literature and more works in the categories for the other media that we cover here.

This means that it is impossible for a single person to experience all works of fiction (without substantial life extension measures that do not appear to be forthcoming any time soon). It's simple grade-school math.

So, no, we cannot go and read or watch it ourselves - life is literally too short for that to be possible. We must rely on people reading and acting on these lists in order to alert people who are already familiar with the works in question that there's an issue.