Table of Contents:
- Brevity Is Wit
- Circular Redirect
- Edit War
- Examples Are Not Arguable
- Examples Are Not Recent
- Repair, Don't Respond
- Three-Day Rule
- Weblinks Are Not Examples
Brevity Is Wit
Keep examples clear and brief. No one likes reading walls of text. However, don't just write something like: "This is done by [character] all the time." That's boring, and it doesn't describe anything to the reader. These are called examples; think of an example of a time that character used the trope!
Circular Redirect
A circular redirect is when a pages redirects to itself (whether directly, or via a chain of other redirects). Don't do this. Your browser will spit out an error page and the whole thing is somewhat cumbersome to fix. Please see Creating New Redirects for other guidelines.
Edit War
If you add something, someone changes or removes it, and you change it back, you're edit warring. Please never participate in an edit war; we don't want fights breaking out on pages. If you have disagreements with another troper, first private message them with your concerns. (Alternatively, start a new public topic on the article's Discussion page and send them a link to the topic.) If you need more people's opinions or you can't come to a consensus, post on Ask The Tropers or the forums.
Edit warring is grounds for suspension for all parties involved, no matter who started it.
Examples Are Not Arguable
When writing an example, don't precede it with words like "arguably", "possibly", or "to some". An example applies to a work, or it doesn't. Discussion about whether a trope applies should take place on discussion pages or forums, not on the page itself.
Inherently subjective tropes are called "Your Mileage May Vary" tropes and should be included on the article's "YMMV" subpage.
Examples Are Not Recent
Excited tropers may sometimes write examples with a time frame in mind, such as "In recent episodes..." or "Despite the attack in the 10th episode, the hero is still alive for now." Writing examples this way just means it'll have to be edited later. Examples should work even when someone reads them years from now.
Repair, Don't Respond
Have you come across an example that's wrong or incomplete in some way? If so, please make your edits to the original example, don't add a bullet underneath starting with "Actually..."
If the example shouldn't be included at all, just delete it. Be sure to leave an edit reason!
Three-Day Rule
The general rule of thumb for tropers in Trope Launch Pad, Trope Repair Shop, and Image Pickin' is to wait at least three days to gather opinions before adding a crowner, calling a crowner, or taking another kind of page action. The rule is designed to give dissenting opinions a chance to be heard.
Weblinks Are Not Examples
Sometimes examples include links to other websites. When you see them, think to yourself: Would the example still be clear to the reader if the link was removed? If not, it's a bad example and should be fixed.
URL links are not guaranteed to work forever, and the reader should never be forced to click on a link to understand why the example is on the page. Links should be used for supplementary material only.
