Talk:Red herrings

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Revision as of 21:50, 10 October 2021

Any defenders of this page?

The topic doesn't seem notable to me, and it definitely needs a better commando name if it stays, because the examples on the page are not red herrings. --Jay (Talk) 17:39, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

I'll live up to my name, sure. IF there are more examples than just the two currently listed and IF a better name can be settled on, I think this is a fine concept for a page. TBC often make real-world references that I just don't get nor care to look up, and occasionally it turns out that something that sounds like such a reference is actually just completely made up and not a real thing at all. I would say that the page's scope would be something to the effect of "single mentions of something that sounds specific but does not exist in the real world and is never further explained in-universe", though I'm not sure how to condense that into a good page title. — Defender1031*Talk 17:44, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Just as a follow-up, I was also thinking that perhaps "Stockton" from Hremail 2000 would also fit the scope, though after checking, it seems we currently have it listed as a "likely refers to" and it would require reopening the whole "Art" vs. "on" debate. On the other hand, the concept that this page seems to be going for is EXACTLY the reason I thought it was "Art" rather than "on" despite there not being any athlete with that name, because this is the kind of thing TBC do a lot. — Defender1031*Talk 17:54, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

"Things that sound like references but aren't" is an extraordinarily vague concept, and so subjective that I can't imagine a solid criteria for adding items. "Lem Sportsinterviews" could be a reference to a man named Lem, but it's probably not. "Fat Dudley" could be a reference to someone, or maybe not. These type of comments simply aren't informative, would everything that is not an explicit reference be linked here? It seems to me that it goes without saying that TBC simply made up most names on the site. Also I agree that these are not red herrings, in particular that term implies intention by the author which we are assuming here.

Maybe something like "realistic-sounding names" (similar to Normal-Human Characters) is what you're talking about? But even then TBC often use names from their childhood or personal lives (see Ripberger, Beehan) so it's quite possible that there are references or inside-jokes we simply are not privy to. And furthermore I don't see how this page would be linked to from other articles; it is not good practice to have orphaned pages on the wiki. Would we add a "Not References" section to articles and simply link every name of a character or place that is *not* an inside-joke or real-world reference? -- Bleu Ninja 18:01, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

This is not a good commando page. -61.204.232.1 23:39, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

What qualifies as being on this page is incredibly subjective, like said earlier a lot of things could be considered "false real world references" or whatever. Even still this definitely doesn’t feel notable enough to be an actual page. TheOneAndOnlyDanky 02:33, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

There was actually a page with a similar name not unlike this one. RickTommy (edits) 03:28, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

FWIW I think foxwolf was the creator of that page too (twice)

You're right. I only vaguely remembered that page, but it was originally created by the StarFox account and then recreated under Wolf O'Donnell. At least that name made more sense. Bleu Ninja gave a pretty good explanation of why this page probably can't work, at least without an extremely well-defined scope. --Jay (Talk) 12:20, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I stand by my just-over-a-year-ago self (and my just-over-a-year-before-that self) from Talk:False references. This page as a concept is very subjective, and could grow to encompass basically everything that isn't a known reference. And declaring these as "red herrings" is speculative, as these could be obscure references we don't know of. Gfdgsgxgzgdrc 21:09, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Is this concept any less subjective than nondescript nouns or overdescriptive nouns? It seems like it's similar to those... basically stuff that's referred to as if they're things that exist without any further explanation or elaboration. I'd think of calling it something like "Unelaborated Nouns" or something in that direction. — Defender1031*Talk 21:50, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Date

I'm back to add to the article on a better device. Wasn't there a sbemail where Strong Bad says people already ruined a specific holiday on some random date? Wolf O'Donnel 04:48, 8 October 2021 (UTC)