Welcome To TV Tropes - Television Tropes & Idioms

"The wiki is going where it is going. Hang on for the ride."

— Fast Eddie, our patron saint here on Tv Tropes Wiki

Hello and welcome! We like having newcomers around here and hope you'll stay around and contribute. You may not have a choice on that though. To make things easier for you, here are some tips for contributing.

Spoiler covering and Folder preference

To choose whether or not you want to browse the wiki with spoilers on or off, and with folders open or closed by default, go to this page

(accessible only if you're a known troper

); this also controls your preferences for our fora (see below for more on that).

Basic navigation

The toolbar to the left contains the index, and links to tools and ongoing discussions.

"Troperville" is for discussions and other community pages.
"Editing" is for help on formatting, useful templates, and the sandbox, where you can test out the markup and make sure you've got it all straight before you start fiddling around with the pages themselves.
"Tools" is the toolbox. Here you can Get Known, look at the master indexes, and upload media.
"Toys" has some nifty scrips that generate pitches, story ideas, or trope titles.

The toolbar at the top is for editing pages. It changes depending on what kind of page you are viewing.

"New edits" is a list of recently edited pages. The default is the last 100 edits; you can change this at the bottom. (This wiki moves along at a pretty good clip, so if it's been more than about two hours since you've checked Recent Changes it's likely that the list has completely rolled over.) A red dot indicates a page that's been edited since you last looked at Recent Changes.
"Page history" is a list of recent edits for the page you're currently viewing.
"Related to..." runs a search for this page's title. It lets you know how many other pages link to this page.
"Edit page" lets you modify the current page's content.
"Discuss" links to this page's discussion. This is where you go if you have a question, a suggestion, or a problem with an example or the entry itself. Don't put your objections into the page itself, as that's Conversation In The Main Page and will be axed. New items go at the bottom, separated by a line (----), unless otherwise stated, and remember to sign your post ("Your Name":, then your comments).
"View Source" lets you see the page's wiki code. Helpful for some advanced techniques like moving pages.
"Forum" links to the forums. The forums are for discussion and socializing that are outside the scope of the wiki proper. They're still new, so join up and help them grow.

The navigation bar at the top has the search box and a random page link. Try out the "random item" button. It'll help you find pages you might never have looked at otherwise and is a good way to kill time. The lower Google search box gives you another way to find pages.

Adding to the wiki

Editing pages: See a typo? Want to add an example? Click on the "edit page" button. An edit page will load. The large text box shows the page's current markup. Make your changes there. When you're done, double-check your work for spelling and grammar, markup errors, and organization. If you want, type in an "Edit Reason". It's helpful for other people looking at the page history. The "preview" button shows you what the page should look like, without saving those changes. You do not (and should not) "add index markup" unless it's a new page. Click save.

There is a standard way to format examples. Titles are italicized. Use two separate apostrophes around the title: ''The Price Is Right'' for The Price Is Right. Episode titles are in quotes: "Brittle Bullet". See How To Write An Example for details on examples. Really, take a look at it.
Links to other pages are easy. If it is two or more words, use WikiWords. If it is one word, use double curly brackets: {{Jeopardy}}
The bottom of the edit page has a button for handy markup reminders. The full markup is explained in Text Formatting Rules.
See Tips For Editing for details.
Don't use Hot Linked images. Go ahead and use the Media Uploader.

Adding new series, books, games, actors, producers, etc.: (In other words, anything that isn't a new index or trope.) All new entries are welcome, as There Is No Such Thing As Notability. However, don't just paste in the Wikipedia entry. Write something original.

Look for the series to make sure you aren't duplicating a previous page.
Add the title to the relevant index(es):

Series for live action television.
Animated Series for American or European cartoons.
Noteworthy Anime for anime (Japanese cartoons) . The title is more of an in-joke; a series need not be "noteworthy" before you add it.
Eastern Animation for animations from all other non western countries. (Russia, etc)
Videogames Of Note for videogames.
Comic Book Tropes for comic book series, characters, or teams.
Film for movies.
Notable Webcomics for webcomics. Just like for anime, There Is No Such Thing As Notability, despite the title; all webcomics go here.
Manga for manga.
Same for Authors, Actors, Producers, Mangaka, and Networks, and many others. You can find the full list under Media and Creators.

Click the new red link you made and edit the page. The Program Entry Template is a good place to look for formatting tips.

Adding new tropes: Please don't just add a trope to the index, as these tend to be duplicates. If you have a good trope idea, go to You Know That Thing Where...

and pitch it to the community.

Before adding your first suggestion, take a look at YKTTW Guidelines. Follow those guidelines and the experience will go a lot smoother for everyone.
The check marks indicate new posts. A double check mark indicates a new YKTTW.
The pencil button on the upper left corner lets you edit your post. If you edit someone else's post, your name will overwrite theirs, so add the original poster's name into the post if you do this.
If bizarre things start happening, don't worry. When you reload the page they usually work themselves out. Be patient and keep trying.
If a post has more than one reply, but the replies don't show up, click the "show replies" button until they show up.
If you put a link to a picture in your post, it might be rendered. Use small images or text links to the picture.

Adding redirects: Stop and think. Most of the pages that end up being cut are unnecessary redirects. These redirect pages get cut most often:

Misspelling redirects. "The Beetles" redirecting to "The Beatles" isn't needed. If one of these sticks around and someone misspells it on another page, the link won't show up as being misspelled. We're pretty casual around here but we do want the pages to look professional, so this is problematic.
Pluralized redirects. "Fruit Carts" redirecting to "Fruit Cart" is generally frowned upon. Using curly brackets duplicates the functionality and saves space. ({{Fruit Cart}}s will give you a link to Fruit Cart with the "s": Fruit Carts.) The only time a pluralized redirect is acceptable is if the noun is in the middle of the trope's name, and simply adding an "s" to the end makes it grammatically incorrect, i.e. Book Of Shadows, or if the spelling changes in the pluralization, as in nouns ending in "y".
Acronym and initialism redirects. "ATLA" redirecting to Avatar The Last Airbender would be cut. Acronyms will never be used in isolation. The full title of the work always gets used first before switching to an acronym; don't assume that everyone else draws the same meaning from an acronym as you.
These redirects are needed:
- International English to American English and vice versa. "Color Coded For Your Convenience" goes to "Colour Coded For Your Convenience". For the record, the wiki is completely neutral on International English versus American English - we don't have a default; it's first-come, first-serve. Leave the variations alone when you see them, but feel free to write your own additions in whichever version you use.
- Adaptation title changes. The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya goes to Suzumiya Haruhi.
- Confusing trope titles. We like clever titles, but to make searching easier, we have a simpler name as a redirect.

Tools

"New Edits", "Recently New", and "Launches" are great for checking new additions. Many regular tropers check them every day. You'll be surprised how quickly your entry works its way into the troper hivemind.
"Get Known" will put a cookie on your system so that your YKTTW posts are automatically signed by you, your edits are attributed to you, and many other things. If you plan to contribute, it's a good idea to do this as soon as possible.
"Indexes" is an index of our indexes, which list tropes by category.
"Media Uploader" requires an uploader account. On that page is a link to ask for one. Use this page carefully.
"Inbound Links" is a list of other websites that have linked to the wiki recently.
"Images List" is a listing of all the images on the server. No duh.
"Referral Count for This Page" counts how many other sites have linked to the page you're on.
"Orphaned Entries" are pages without indexes.
"YKTTW Salvage List" is a list of popular You Know That Thing Where... suggestions that have lost steam and need attention.
"Cut List" is where pages are proposed to be deleted. Posting a page here does not automatically delete it and you can make a case for keeping a page there.

The community

Our Forums are a good place to shoot the breeze. If you're told to Take It To The Forums, try it out. There are some interesting topics there. Here's the link.
Made Of Win is where users point out pages, edits, lines, or pictures on the wiki that they find to be totally awesome.
Contributor Announcements occasionally has important general messages.
Wiki Tech Wish List is a place to suggest upgrades to or report problems with the site or markup. If you have solutions for technical problems, suggest them here.
Ask The Tropers is where you ask everyone about the site, or media in general. Again, this is not where you propose new tropes; that's YKTTW.
The Wiki Sandbox is your place to test the markup and practice formatting. Feel free to obliterate, modify, add, or scramble the code on the page. Just don't expect your contibution to the page to endure.
If you want, add your details to Where Are You From, Troper Demographics and What Are The Contributors Real Names. This is purely optional, so if you're uncomfortable giving out personal information about yourself, don't sweat it.
Tropes Of Legend will give you an idea of the tropes that keep popping up all over the site.
Check out Generally Recognised Tropes for the tropes that we didn't think of.

Rules and policies

There are very few concrete rules here. We like to use democratic ways of solving problems. Administrative Policy sums the rules up.
Causing major problems will get you banned. Bans are rare, but play nice anyway.
Spoilers are our bread and butter here. Check out Spoiler Policy for how to use spoilers.
The readership of this wiki is international. Americans, two-thirds of the people reading what you write live in another country. If you live in a Commonwealth country, two-thirds of your audience will need at least some setup for a joke about, say, the PM of Australia. Despite the fact that an abnormally large percentage of tropers are multi-lingual, we stick to English on all pages but those specifically designated for another language (look for a flag icon near the top to indicate what language a page is available in). This is because that English is a language most tropers know.
Most of the other tips are just guidelines. There are a few pages that are Just For Fun or very old that violate the guidelines. Don't worry about it.