No Real Life Examples, Please

Template:Trope
For some tropes, having Real Life examples can be fun and sometimes even informative. However, *this* particular trope should not have any examples from Real Life. Note that a work portraying real life is still a work - such examples are about how the work portray real life, not about real life itself. What happened in a certain conflict according to a certain movie or book is usually *far* less ambiguous than what *really* happened in that same conflict.

Real Life does not have an author in the same way as a film or other work does, and we see real life from the inside rather than from the outside. Thus, tropes that are objective in works are often highly subjective in Real Life. And since trope pages are not discussion forums, a debate about who is right and who is wrong is a distracting (and maybe even destructive) case of Natter or Edit War. Thus, you may notice that most of the pages on this list are the negative tropes, oftentimes pertaining to morality, violence, religion, and other controversial issues that people are likely to get heated about. Yes, there is No Such Thing As Notability, but when we discuss Real Life, the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement takes primacy here.

An objective trope turning YMMV is not enough to earn it this tag. In general, we trust people's common sense and ability to follow the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment. This trope comes up where real life examples are likely to derail the page into huge debates or come across as offensive or even harassing.

For example, let's say a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu walk into an internet café. All three of them start editing TV Tropes, and they all start adding Real Life examples to Scam Religion. The Christian adds Islam and Hinduism, the Muslim adds Christianity and Hinduism, while the Hindu adds Christianity and Islam. Then they suddenly all feel outraged with TV Tropes, for having their own religion listed as being a scam. (Meanwhile, someone adds Church of Happyology and gets sued. And so on.) Even without considering the fact that we can't see the universe from the outside and that seeing the narrative of the story from the outside is necessary for that trope -- let's just not go there.

And thus, most tropes don't allow Real Life examples. If you have any questions about this, or feel the trope doesn't need this tag, take it to the trope's discussion page. Or to its YKTTW discussion if it hasn't been launched yet.

Finally, when a page becomes too controversial to even have fictional examples, a Locked Pages and an Example Sectionectomy may follow. Do note that, when a page is given an Example Sectionectomy, then it doesn't allow examples of any category or medium, so listing it there will suffice. Listing a completely exampleless page here is redundant, as well as misleading. Even if examples most likely happen in Real Life only, adding the No Real Life Examples tag and/or listing it here will give the impression that fictional examples are allowed, when they're likely not either.

Other times, a page may simply be on this list for other reasons. Perhaps a list of Real Life examples would be too long and redundant to be worth adding. Or maybe it's one of those technical tropes that work in fiction but don't work in Real Life. It may also be an Audience Reactions that only admits In-Universe examples. In any case, it's to be pointed out that having real life examples is only *tolerated*, rather than encouraged. So if there's a page where it's asked to not have examples from real life, no matter the reasons (or lack thereof), tropers are expected to not add them at all.

1. ↑  the barista says to them, "What is this, a joke?"