History Administrivia / HowToDoAWickCheck

When a trope gets brought up in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop for being repaired or renamed, the issue of its use around the wiki will not only need to be described, but also backed up with evidence. If your thread states that there's a problem with the trope, such as (but not exclusively) the title [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant confusing editors into thinking the trope is something else]], the trope [[Administrivia/RidiculouslySimilarTrope overlapping too much with another trope]], or the "trope" in question [[Administrivia/NotATrope not being a trope at all]], supporting such claims will involve investigating, how correctly, and generally ''how'' a trope is being used around the wiki. In other words, have a look at how its wicks are behaving. In other other words, do a wick check.

When a trope gets brought up in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop for being repaired or renamed, the issue of its use around the wiki will not only need to be described, but also backed up with evidence. If your thread states that there's a problem with the trope, such as (but not exclusively) the title [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant confusing editors into thinking the trope is something else]], the trope [[Administrivia/RidiculouslySimilarTrope overlapping too much with another trope]], or the "trope" in question [[Administrivia/PeopleSitOnChairs not being a trope at all]], supporting such claims will involve investigating, how correctly, and generally ''how'' a trope is being used around the wiki. In other words, have a look at how its wicks are behaving. In other other words, do a wick check.

Often when a trope gets brought up in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop for being repaired or renamed, the issue of its use around the wiki will come up. Maybe someone will claim that the title is [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant confusing editors into thinking the trope is something else]], or someone will suggest that the title is lacking in the catchiness department and its proliferation is suffering as a result. To support or oppose such a point, you may want to look into how much, how correctly, and generally ''how'' a trope is being used around the wiki. In other words, have a look at how its wicks are behaving. In other other words, do a wick check.

Post to the existing thread in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop, or start a new one if there isn't one. Say you did a wick check. Explain what you were trying to check. For each article where you found a wick, '''copy and paste''' the line/sentence it appeared in (this allows other users to double-check your results) and state (preferably in '''bold''') which side of the case it weighs on. Conclude your findings with the relevant statistics.

You can find a page's list of wicks [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/InsertTitleHere here]] (replace "[=InsertTitleHere=]" with the actual title). To do this, use the "related" button, the second option in the top left of most pages. It's a list of other pages which have in-wiki links to that page. That is, a list of its wicks.

You can find a page's list of wicks [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/InsertTitleHere here]] (replace "[=InsertTitleHere=]" with the actual title). If there's already a thread in the Trope Repair Shop discussing the trope, you can just press the "get usage counts" button above the first post in the thread and it will take you to the same page. Another option is to use the "related" button, the second option in the top left of most pages. It's a list of other pages which have in-wiki links to that page. That is, a list of its wicks.

If, on the other hand, what you want to do is make some point about the ''quality'' of the wicks- the kind of context they arise in, whether they are using the trope correctly, whether they tend to be vague hand-waving or spot-on - you're going to need to actually go in there and look at them individually. Now, theoretically it would be best if you could just click on wick after wick and see how all of them are doing, but we do not recommend doing that if you value your sanity. Instead you're going to have to look at a representative sample.

* Inserting the wick numbers into [[https://www.random.org/ a randomizer]] and selecting specific wicks, based on the numbers, to check. This provides true randomization, but is also time-consuming, especially for longer wick checks with more counting to do.

* Scrolling up and down the list and stopping at random points. This is perhaps the least time-consuming option, good for collaborative efforts or checks done in bursts of activity. However, it takes some of the randomness away as the troper needs to still choose which wick to check. Care should be taken here to avoid unintentional bias or skewing.

You can check a smaller number of wicks if you feel you're not up to the task, but unless your results are very conclusive, they will likely be challenged on the basis of your sample not being large enough to be representative. As to randomly picking wicks, this is because going in alphabetical order is more likely to run across the results of some clean-up attempt, and generally taking a wick's attributes into consideration will likely skew the results. You may want to use an [[http://www.random.org/integer-sets/ integer set generator]] (set it to: "Generate [1] sets with [desired sample size] unique random integers in each; each integer should have a value between [1] and [total number of wicks]", then check the wicks with the numbers it gave you).

* Does the trope actually apply to the character/situation described?
* Is there a clear, correct explanation of how and why the trope applies? Or perhaps an explanation that is RightForTheWrongReasons, or an explanation that gives a [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant false impression]] of what the trope is, or [[Administrivia/ZeroContextExample no explanation at all]]?
* What kind of fandom/medium did the wick come from?
* Is the trope relevant in that particular context or [[Administrivia/SinkHole did someone apparently throw it in just because they could]]?

An alternate method of posting results is to sort the results by verdict so that e.g. all "correct" wicks are organized in one list and all "misuse" wicks are organized in a second list. This makes the results easier to visualize at a glance, unfortunately it takes a lot more work to do it this way.

You can find a page's list of wicks [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/InsertTitleHere here]] (replace "[=InsertTitleHere=]" with the actual title). If there's already a thread in the Trope Repair Shop discussing the trope, you can just press the "get usage counts" button above the first post in the thread and it will take you to the same page. Another option is to use the "related" button in the bottom right of the cluster at the top of most pages. It's a list of other pages which have in-wiki links to that page. That is, a list of its wicks.

A "{{wick}}" is an in-wiki link to a page. For example, here is a wick to the "Protagonist Centered Morality" Trope: ProtagonistCenteredMorality. Wicks can also be {{Pot Hole}}s, where the text linked to the page is not the page's actual name, [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality like so]].

* Is the trope being used for either [[GushingAboutShowsYouLike Gushing]] or [[Administrivia/ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike complaining]] about the work?

* Is there a clear, correct explanation of how and why the trope applies? Or perhaps an explanation that is RightForTheWrongReasons, or an explanation that gives a [[IThoughtItMeant false impression]] of what the trope is, or [[Administrivia/ZeroContextExample no explanation at all]]?

Often when a trope gets brought up in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop for being repaired or renamed, the issue of its use around the wiki will come up. Maybe someone will claim that the title is [[IThoughtItMeant confusing editors into thinking the trope is something else]], or someone will suggest that the title is lacking in the catchiness department and its proliferation is suffering as a result. To support or oppose such a point, you may want to look into how much, how correctly, and generally ''how'' a trope is being used around the wiki. In other words, have a look at how its wicks are behaving. In other other words, do a wick check.

Often when a trope gets brought up in the TropeRepairShop for being repaired or renamed, the issue of its use around the wiki will come up. Maybe someone will claim that the title is [[IThoughtItMeant confusing editors into thinking the trope is something else]], or someone will suggest that the title is lacking in the catchiness department and its proliferation is suffering as a result. To support or oppose such a point, you may want to look into how much, how correctly, and generally ''how'' a trope is being used around the wiki. In other words, have a look at how its wicks are behaving. In other other words, do a wick check.

Post to the existing thread in the TropeRepairShop, or start a new one if there isn't one. Say you did a wick check. Explain what you were trying to check. For each article where you found a wick, '''copy and paste''' the line/sentence it appeared in (this allows other users to double-check your results) and state (preferably in '''bold''') which side of the case it weighs on. Conclude your findings with the relevant statistics.

* Is the trope relevant in that particular context or [[SinkHole did someone apparently throw it in just because they could]]?

* Is the trope being used for either [[GushingAboutShowsYouLike Gushing]] or [[ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike complaining]] about the work?

If there are significant results in any of those areas, you may be able to use them to illustrate a point you are making. For example, if you claim a trope's name is insular, your case becomes stronger if most of the wicks in the sample have to do with comic books (unless, of course, it is a comic-book-exclusive trope by definition). If you claim that the trope is neutral and does not induce ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike, your case becomes stronger if you can show that most wicks are from pages matter-of-factly pointing out that the trope applies without judging the work it applies to.

# The number of wicks should be either the square root of the total number of wicks or 50, whichever is larger.

* Is there a clear, correct explanation of how and why the trope applies? Or perhaps an explanation that is RightForTheWrongReasons, or an explanation that gives a [[IThoughtItMeant false impression]] of what the trope is, or [[ZeroContextExample no explanation at all]]?

* Is there a clear, correct explanation of how and why the trope applies? Or perhaps an explanation that is RightForTheWrongReasons, or an explanation that gives a false impression of what the trope is, or [[ZeroContextExample no explanation at all]]?

* Is the trope relevant in that particular context or [[SinkHole did someone apparently just throw it in because they could]]?
* Is the trope being used for either of [[GushingAboutShowsYouLike Gushing]] or [[ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike complaining]]?
* Is the trope being used as a verbal tic or StockPhrase?

Post to the existing thread in the TropeRepairShop, or start a new one if there isn't one. Say you did a wick check. Explain what you were trying to check. List the wicks you checked, and for each wick explain which side of the case it weighs on (in '''bold''' for easy reference). Conclude your findings with the relevant statistics.

You can find a page's list of wicks [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/InsertTitleHere here]] (replace "[=InsertTitleHere=]" with the actual title). If there's already a thread in the Trope Repair Shop discussing the trope, you can just press the "get usage counts" button above the first post in the thread and it will take you to the same page. Another option is to use the "Related To" button in the bottom right of the cluster at the top of most pages. It's a list of other pages which have in-wiki links to that page. That is, a list of its wicks.

You can find a page's list of wicks [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/InsertTitleHere here]] (replace "[=InsertTitleHere=]" with the actual title). If there's already a thread in the Trope Repair Shop discussing the trope, you can just press the "get usage counts" button above the first post in the thread and it will take you to the same page. It's a list of other pages which have in-wiki links to that page. That is, a list of its wicks.