First-person writing means to talk about yourself (with pronouns such as "I", "me", "my", etc.) while narrating a story. On TV Tropes, this type of writing is frowned upon, for the following reasons:
- It's a form of Conversation in the Main Page and Word Cruft. Using "I" to refer to you while writing the example distracts readers and may cause other editors to start replying to the example to the point where it turns into Thread Mode. We do not like when that happens, because wiki pages are not places for people to talk to each other. Take It to the Forums or the Discussion page.
- The articles are about the subject, not you. TV Tropes is about listing fictional events (and sometimes Real Life), not your personal experiences with the tropes. Wiki policy states that There Is No Such Thing as Notability, but that doesn't mean that events from your personal life are tropable material, unless you're a famous public figure. We used to have Troper Tales on this site to collect such personal anecdotes, but it got too out of hand after a while.
- We want Main articles to look like they were written by one person. Entries filled with first-person writing make the articles look sloppy. Although Darth Wiki and Sugar Wiki have some pages that allow this (as long as tropers sign their examples), we don't do this practice on the main wiki.
Another form of first-person language is the use of "this troper" (or something similar) in an attempt to make the entry look like it's written in third person. This is also not allowed, as you are still editing in first person.
In a similar vein, don't use "you", "you're", or other second-person language if you're talking to other examples. It might instigate a bullet point with "I". This does not apply when referring to the reader(s).
With that said, not every usage of first-person writing is a break of policy. It's acceptable in these circumstances:
- When you're writing a self-demonstrating article and are talking as the article itself. This is common with certain indexes and image captions. Similarly, it's used on self-demonstrating character pages, where you're writing as the character talking to the audience.
- Some pages specifically allow first-person writing, such as certain parts of Darth Wiki and Sugar Wiki.
- First person is also allowed on your own troper page, and on other tropers' troper walls.
The important thing to keep in mind is that first-person writing is used to make the articles all about the person writing, rather than the tropes and the media we're discussing here. Using it as a description/caption gag or in designated areas is acceptable as long as you confine it to those areas.
See also Auto-Erotic Troping, which is about a troper entry pimping their own works, regardless of the use of first-person writing.
