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"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
No, the other one.
It's all about collective work.
Since tropes are all about what happens in fiction, that's where we get the information. There's meta stuff and Audience Reactions too, but it all relates to fiction in the end. So we just watch and read and play a bunch of stuff. Considering there are quite a few tropers out there, we manage to stock up on information on this large scale. It's not really more complicated than that.
The structure is generally something we agree upon after discussions. For instance, for identifying tropes, usually someone thinks of a pattern they've seen in several works, head over to YKTTW and type up a proposal for describing that trope, along with a few examples. Then other people add their own thoughts and examples to it until we have something people agree is a proper trope with a good page, and launch it to the main wiki. If stuff doesn't work one way or another we bring it up for discussion as well, and see what can be done about it. There are a lot of workshops for that.
If you want to start, I'd suggest starting small, with what you know. Read up on what's written about some show you're watching. Then if you find trope examples that could need a better description or some other edit (like typos), you can fix that and get used to the system. Adding tropes isn't hard if you follow the pattern you see (which isn't entirely foolproof, since there are patterns of misuse as well, like Zero Context Examples).
A simple pair of do and don't: Don't be afraid to try to help out, and do listen to advice if you happen to do something wrong.
We're forgiving of mistakes from people who're willing to learn. You can read up on How to Write an Example, and don't forget the last point. And read other guides we have for various things, depending on what you want to help out with.
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Hello all. I've been on this site for quite some time and I must say: I am IMPRESSED. The meticulousness of the classification and definitions of the tropes are second to none. I ask you: how do you do it? Where do you get your information? If I am to effectively contribute to TV Tropes, I need to know the do's and dont's of troping.
Scientia Potentia Est.