All The Tropes Wiki Project

[Bob Schroeck]

Sofaspud wrote:

Seconding "AllTheTropes"; one of my gripes about the existing TVTropes
site is that so much of it relies on in-jokes and prior knowledge -- the
classic one I keep mentioning to my roommate as bad design being the
Tomato In The Mirror trope, because the name of it in no way says what
it is -- and if it's up to me, even just as one vote, I'd like to
help nudge this wiki into sticking with clear names that state exactly
what they mean.  AllTheTropes does that most clearly out of the choices
listed, I think.

I think you and your roommate need to watch The Big O.  Then you'll get the "Tomato in the Mirror" thing.  Seriously though, sometimes I like the cultural shibboleth names, sometimes I don't.  However, language is so varied, I'm not sure if we can have a clear policy on page names that would meet the ideal of "fun name that everyone understands."

The thing is, "Tomato in the Mirror" derives from "Tomato Surprise", a phrase that's been used in publishing circles since at least the late 1970s (I created the "Tomato Surprise" page on TVT, inspired by a set of writer's guidelines I got circa 1980 from George Scithers, then-editor of Analog magazine, in which he described the trope under that name).  "Tomato in the mirror" is just a logical subtrope -- where the surprise is something about yourself.  It's not opaque once you know the language the writers themselves use.

Which is a point that I helped drive into a semi-policy at TVT and I hope becomes explicit policy at ATT:  if writers or editors or other creative folks already have a name for it, we use that name; we don't make up one we like better because we don't understand theirs.  Part of the point of an article is creating that understanding, after all.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.