Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
Ask the Tropers is for:
- • General questions about the wiki, how it works, and how to do things.
- • Reports of problems with wiki articles, or requests for help with wiki articles.
- • Reports of misbehavior or abuse by other tropers.
Ask the Tropers is not for:
- • Help identifying a trope. See TropeFinder.
- • Help identifying a work. See MediaFinder.
- • Asking if a trope example is valid. See the Trope Talk forum.
- • Proposing new tropes. See TropeLaunchPad.
- • Making bug reports. See QueryBugs.
- • Asking for new wiki features. See QueryWishlist.
- • Chatting with other tropers. See our forums.
- • Reporting problems with advertisements. See this forum topic.
- • Reporting issues on the forums. Send a Holler instead.
Ask the Tropers:
openAvoiding an edit war.
On Happiest Season I found a Unintentionally Unsympathetic that didn't really explain how a character is mean to be sympathetic:
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Harper. She is understandably afraid to come out to her conservative small-town family, but it doesn't excuse that she lied to Abby about being out and continuously acted in a way that made Abby uncomfortable.
- There's also the unambiguously cruel way in which Harper outed Riley, which is largely brushed off but which other, thematically similar films have treated as a Moral Event Horizon.
- And the fact that she smashed Jane's painting.
So I took it to the clean up thread here. And most seemed to agree with me. So I cut it. However another troper York back added it here with no new additions, except a link to an un related site and the reason of "after the movie came out, the points made in Fan-Preferred Couple and Unintentionally Unsympathetic have been discussed on social media and by Aubrey Plaza herself, so these entries have been added back in." Which I don't thinks is allowed. They also unhid a Zero Context example I hid for Fan-Preferred Couple, which from my research I am not sure qualifies, without new info. Then whoseliner deleted the second bullet here
I am trying to avoid an Edit war.
Edited by BullmanopenPoorlyDisguisedPilot misuse?
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars had a couple, though it's not as evident as some given the show's anthology-style format.
- "The Gathering" through "A Necessary Bond" involve Ahsoka meeting a diverse group of young Jedi in training and helping them learn the ropes. None of the characters get another speaking role in the series, and it's very easy to imagine a TV show around them. One has to wonder if the involved Inferred Holocaust was a factor...
- "Secret Weapons" through "Point of No Return" is a completely self-contained mini-arc where the only main character to be present is R2, with everyone else being a crew of naturally kid-appealing droids and their commander.
Does Poorly Disguised Pilot require they produce the followup or Word of God they planned to? It seems speculative otherwise.
openParody Retcon
So, at the beginning of 2020, costanton11 removed this from Trivia.Cinema Sins:
- Parody Retcon: A common response to criticism is "it's satire" and claiming Jeremy is more of a character representing online critics who get anal-retentive over small details. This generally only comes up when they're called out for getting something wrong, while at all other points the complaints they make are their genuine views, mistakes and all, as evidenced in videos on Jeremy's personal channel. Jeremy also acknowledges mistakes, something he wouldn't need to do while in-character, and contradicts himself in several interviews, on Reddit and in his rant on a live-action remake of Winnie the Pooh in a Dear Hollywood video where he states the channel is not satire and should be taken seriously, which really reinforces the notion the "it's satire" and "he's playing a character" claims are just attempts at deflecting legitimate criticisms.
There was no edit reason, and it is actually a valid example. (Cinema Sins is notorious for pulling the Parody Retcon. They've even claimed at certain points that a certain percentage of all the "sins" they call movies out on are "intentionally wrong" as a joke, even though none of them are presented that way and the only way to know which is which is... well, can you prove the point wrong? Then it was on purpose and you just didn't get their biting satire!)
It feels like one fan just not wanting a negative trivia item on the page. Is it safe to put it back?
EDIT: Actually, it looks like there is an edit reason I missed, linking to the Complaints Cleanup thread, where Fighteer said he thought it didn't count as Parody Retcon.
But the thread also has no evidence or even attempts at arguing why it's actually wrong. And honestly, I'm not sure why or how anyone could possibly think that it is wrong. It literally says "people pointed out they made incorrect points and they responded by claiming they were just kidding." How is that not Parody Retcon?
The example could probably stand to be rewritten to be less complainy, and maybe make the point a bit better, but seriously... everyone knows Cinema Sins is guilty of this, even Cinema Sins.
Edited by Mimic1990openUnnecessary Jerkass subpages?
Back in September, Noob Master created a bunch of work subpages for Jerkass, all of which can be seen by looking at the subpage list for the trope. Having looked through all of them, don’t most of the works seem like they have too little examples to deserve a subpage?
openIs it Mockguffin or not?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MockGuffin Except, instead of mistaking something worthless for a valuable item, the item itself is either discharged, damaged, or is actually worthless in one way or another, despite previous intel painted it as something important. Meaning smart people, did research, and either it became outdated, or they got wrong info.
openYMMV: Propaganda Piece
Why is Propaganda Piece classified as YMMV? The YMMV.Home Page entry doesn't explain this.
openIrrelevant potholes
I sometimes see a lot of irrelevant potholes on for example the names of characters. Like this one on Real Dreams are Weirder:
- In The Dragon Prince, Ezran wakes up and starts talking about a crazy dream he just had. Callum assumes that Ezran mistook recent events for a dream, but it turns out that he was talking about an actual dream:
Ezran: (yawns) I had a weird dream. Callum: It wasn't a dream, Ez. All of that was real. Ezran: Are you sure? There was this giant pink hippopotamus and I pulled its ear off? Because it was made of taffy. Callum: Uh, no. That- that was a dream. I thought you meant the elves, the smoke wolves, the dragon egg. That was all real. Ezran: Then I tried to thank the hippo for the taffy, but he couldn't hear me, because I was eating his ears!
It is completely irrelevant to the real dreams are weirder trope that Callum is a classical anti-hero or that the dragon egg is a macguffin. Is this allowed or should we remove potholes like this?
openThree amigos
Which is the correct place to list Three Amigos in the list of tropes? In the beginning, for "3", or in the "T" for "Three"?
openThey Are Billions / Characters Videogame
Just looking for some input, is this page relevant?
I've considered working on it, but considering that there is only one character with half a dozen cutscenes in which he talks, two hero-units and seven regular units with nothing but voicelines on orders (attack, move, etc.) and eight kinds of zombies with descriptions and gameplay behaviors I wonder if it's worth keeping at all?
Edited by StefrexopenEdit war brewing on YMMV.DigimonAdventure2020 Anime
YMMV.Digimon Adventure 2020 is currently embroiled in an Edit War over whether the Digidestined are Designated Heroes or not. there's been lengthy edit reasons for both sides and it's starting to get ugly. Shivader originally added the entry, and two other tropers removed it once it was readded twice.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=YMMV.DigimonAdventure2020
openNo Title
Sorry if this isn't really important, but Sagwafan 1996 has been adding examples of Draco in Leather Pants that seem to be misuse.
They also removed a Broken Base example here with this edit reason:
- I still like the first three seasons, but I thought S4-8 were okay, and S9-14 were awful.
Like I said, sorry if this isn't important.
openQuestion about I Have The High Ground and professional wrestling
So, to my reading, I Have The High Ground is about people who stand on almost impossibly high things mostly to look cool and also to imply they may have super powers or be super human.
Using the trope to describe wrestlers who use flying attacks off the turnbuckle is extremely prevalent among pro wrestler pages, but based on the way I read the trope in question it seems like misuse to me. For example, off Bengala's entry on Lucha Underground Former Roster ...
- I Have the High Ground: He demonstrated some great acrobatic moves, in particular using the mid rope to gain momentum.
Doesn't look like a proper example of the trope to me. Looking for feedback instead of just going in with a chainsaw though.
openEdit War Live Action TV
On YMMV.The Mandalorian S 2 E 8 Chapter 16 The Rescue, Vox Aquila added the following example:
DaFlabbagasta deleted it with the following edit reason:
Ambaryerno re-added it with this edit reason:
King Clark deleted it with the following edit reason:
Ambaryerno then re-added it again with this edit reason:
openTrolling or...? Live Action TV
Found this while looking at the Hide Your Lesbians page:
- In Modern Family, Haley’s bisexuality has never been explicitly stated on the show, and she hasn’t had any storylines on the show that would indicate she is bisexual.
If the character has never been stated to be bisexual, and there's no indication that she is, then does it really count as this trope? I don't understand why this was added.
openHelp! Literature
So I am very new. I'm trying to start a work page for a fanfic. I want to italicize but I don't know how to do it. I'm not tech savvy at all.
openFridge Cleanup?
I've been considering it for a while now, but should I start a "Fridge" cleanup effort?
There seems to be a lot of confusion lately about what qualifies as Fridge, how Fridge and Headscratchers differ, if the section is meant to be more subjective or more objective, etc. Not to mention other common issues, like first-person writing or nattery discussions.
My question is if a cleanup thread would be able to tackle the debates we keep having, or if we should instead have a Trope Talk discussion first before jumping into cleanup.
resolved Here's johnny?
Taylorswiftscat edited the quotes page for replacement scrappy, just as one of johnnyfog's socks did, along with johnny himself. They also edited a bunch of quotes pages and the WCW page.
They do seem suspiciously familiar with the wiki for a newcomer, based on my interactions with them.
Edited by SkyCat32openBan Evasion
I think Owah came back once more as Nickelback 10. Just compare their edit histories.
openGravedigging question?
Is it gravedigging to bring back up a discussion in TRS on Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy after 10 days with no further replies?
In general, what's the limit for reviving old discussions?
Per this ATT, examples on Pop-Culture Isolation that referred to whole genres were commented-out because supposedly Examples Are Not General requires each example to refer to exactly one work. But Pop-Culture Isolation is an audience reaction, not a trope, and the description says "celebrities, music genres, media or events are huge and significant in one subculture or ethnic group," so it's clearly meant to include broad trends. I suggest the "general" examples which have been commented-out be unhidden, since there's no efficient way to make them refer to exactly one work without losing information.