Administrivia / Get Known

The Short Version

• You have to register to contribute to our site.
• New accounts may have to wait for approval and may have to wait to get full privileges.
• You must use a real email address and may not hide your identity while registering, such as with a VPN or public access point.
• You may only have one account at a time (with some exceptions).
• If you are suspended and make a new account, you will be permanently banned.
• Deleting your account is permanent and will not get you out of a suspension or ban.
• Commercial use of our site is prohibited. Creating an account for the purpose of self-promotion is prohibited.

---

The Basics

Welcome to TV Tropes Here, "Registering" (formerly called "Getting Known") means to create a user account on this site. Once you have registered, you will be an official member of the wiki: a troper.

There are two stages of registration: introductory and approved. All users, regardless of status, may read the site and manage their profile. Once verified and approved, you will be given the privilege to edit articles, post in the forums, and otherwise contribute. It was once that those who were not known possessed edit privileges, but, due to circumstances which are beyond our control, they may no longer do so. Good Night, Sweet Prince.

Logging in and out may be done by clicking on the profile icon on the top right of the main toolbar. You can also go directly to the login form using this link.

Happy troping!

---

How to Register

1. (Optional) From the header bar, select 'Join' or 'Login'.
2. From the login page, select the 'Signup' tab.
3. Normal registration:
   1. Enter your desired username, email address, and password. See below for the rules on valid usernames.
      • If your username is already in use, you must pick a different one.
      • If your email address is already in use, you may have an existing account with us. There is an option on the login form to recover your username.
   2. Confirm that you are a real person by completing the reCAPTCHA prompt.
   3. A verification email will be sent to the address you provided. You must click on the link or paste it into your browser to complete registration. Until you do so, you will not be able to log in.
4. Facebook registration:
   1. Log in with Facebook.
   2. Enter your desired username and password. See below for the rules on valid usernames.
      • If your username is already in use, you must pick a different one.
5. A moderator may review your account before approving it for full access to the site. See below for more information.

If you need support with registration, please contact us.

---

Post-Registration Process and Restrictions

After creating an account and verifying your email address, you may immediately:

• Read all areas of the site.
• Manage your profile settings and viewing options.
• Follow articles and forum topics.
• Subscribe for ad-free viewing.

In order to edit or post, your registration must be approved by a moderator, who will review your account to make sure that it complies with our policies. If we deny your request, you may still read the site as stated above. If you believe you were denied in error or have any other issue with the registration process, you may use the contact form to get help.

Once your account has been approved, there is a brief waiting period during which you may be subject to certain restrictions. We do this to help contain attempts to vandalize or spam the site.

• New accounts may not post in the forums for 24 hours after registration.
• New accounts may not make any forum post that contains an external URL.
• New accounts are limited in how many forum posts they can make in a short period of time.
• Wiki edits made by new accounts will be flagged in the Recent Edits report.
• New accounts may be monitored directly at moderator discretion.

If you violate any of our rules, you may be suspended. If this occurs, see What to Do If You Are Suspended to learn what to do. Do not make a new account or you will be permanently banned.

---

Account Controls and Maintenance

• To edit your profile, go here. You can change your site preferences, upload an avatar, and perform most of the functions listed below.
• To change your account password once you are logged in, head over to this page.
• To recover a lost password, go here and click the "forgot password" link. This requires that you have an email address associated with your account, and that you have access to that email account.
• If you created an account prior to the email verification requirement, you may associate an email address with it here.
• If you forget your password, and you do not have an associated email address, we may not be able to recover your account. You may use our contact form to request assistance. Please try to use the same connection (internet address) as when you were logged in to your account.
  • If we approve your request, your original account will be "reset", meaning that you will have to register it again with a valid email address.
  • If we deny your request, it is because we cannot associate your current information with your previous account. You will need to register a new account.

---

Registration Policies

• Your username (AKA handle) may only contain U.S. English letters, digits, and certain limited forms of punctuation.
  • If your handle doesn't start with a letter or contains any punctuation other than a hyphen (-), you will not be able to create a Tropers page for yourself.
  • If your handle starts with a digit or punctuation, or ends with punctuation, certain critical site functions will not work. We may request that you make a new account and/or block your account.
  • You cannot change your handle once you have created your account. We cannot transfer history, PMs, or any other data between accounts.
  • We are unable to support diacritics or any other non-English characters in handles.
  • Offensive or provocative handles may be refused at moderator discretion.
  • Handles that impersonate a real person or fictional character or that copy the title of a work or trope may be refused. Please be original.
  • Putting "trope" or "fan" in your handle is uncreative. Everyone's a troper and everyone's a fan of things. We won't reject these, but please be original.
    
    
• To register, you must provide a working email address. A message will be sent to that address to confirm your registration. You must click on the link in that email or paste it into your browser to activate your account.
  • The use of a disposable email address during registration will result in your account being denied.
  • We may use third-party services to evaluate the reputation of an email address. Addresses associated with spam or malicious activity may be denied.
  • Using a school or work email address is not recommended, as these are not guaranteed to be permanent. If you lose access to the email address associated with your account, you may not be able to recover it.
  • Using an email address that appears to be commercial in nature is not recommended. We may deny it since we do not permit commercial use of our site. You can contact us if you wish to appeal a denial on these grounds.
  • Any given email address may only be used for one account at a time. Changing the email address associated with an account will "release" the old one, letting you use it again.
  • Attempting to change the email address associated with an account before it has completed verification and approval may cause the account to become "stuck". We cannot fix it if this happens.
  • We do not currently offer the ability to remove the email address associated with an account, other than by deleting the account (see below).
    
    
• By registering, you understand and agree that any IP addresses you use will be logged and may be employed by us to establish your account's identity.
  • We may use third-party services to screen your IP address for potential abuse, at our discretion.
  • The use of a VPN, TOR, or anonymizing proxy during registration, for any reason, is prohibited.
  • The use of public access points, commercial or government networks, highly dynamic IP addresses, or other shared networks may result in your registration being denied. If one of these is your only way to reach the Internet, contact us and we'll try to work it out.
    
    
• Creating multiple accounts in rapid succession may be viewed as an attempt to circumvent our security checks. Please do not do this.
  • If your registration appears to fail, contact us before trying again. We may be able to fix it.
    
    
• We no longer permit active tropers to make additional accounts without contacting us first.
  • If there's something wrong with your account such that you can't log in, we may be able to fix it.
  • If you don't like your old account for some reason, let us know so we don't think you're pulling some kind of shenanigan. You can also delete it (see below).
  • If there are multiple persons in your household who wish to register, same thing. Tell us. We can't tell you apart and if one of you gets in trouble, the others may also be subject to the same penalties. I Have This Friend doesn't work on us.
    
    
• If you have been suspended (see What to Do If You Are Suspended) from any part of the wiki, do not create a new account. Doing so is considered ban evasion and will result in all handles you create or have created being permanently banned.
  • Asking someone to register and edit on your behalf will get them banned as well.
  • If someone contacts you on social media and asks you to deliver a message on their behalf, direct them to contact us instead. You risk being tarnished by association.
  • Deleting your account and making another one will not get you off the hook for a suspension. It will get you permanently banned.
    
    
• If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us as soon as you can. You are responsible for everything done with your account unless you notify us that there's a problem.

---

Deleting Accounts

In your profile, there is a 'Delete Account' link. Clicking this will permanently delete all personal information from your user profile and deactivate your account. Your username cannot be used again by you or anyone else. We cannot restore your account after this happens, so be sure you mean it.

What is deleted

• Your linked email address, if any
• The link to your Facebook profile, if any
• Your encrypted password
• Customized profile information including your forum signature, location, etc.
• Your wiki and forum watchlists (aka your "following" lists)
• Your personal to-do list
• Your avatar gallery is hidden but the images remain on our server.

What is not deleted

• Your username
• Your personal Tropers page, although nobody else can edit it
• User Content that you have contributed, including wiki edits, discussion comments, images, video examples, Ask The Tropers posts, forum posts, reviews, liveblogs, TLP drafts, private messages, etc.
• Logs of your activity, including IP addresses
• Records of any restraints (suspensions, bans) that were made against your account

Additional information

• When you contribute User Content to TV Tropes, it is permanently and irrevocably licensed to us.
• We may delete User Content at our sole discretion. We have no obligation to do so.
• We require history data, including IP addresses, to make and enforce moderation decisions.
• We do not currently have the technical ability to rename or "anonymize" accounts. Your username will remain associated with your activity on TV Tropes.
• Deleting your account in order to get around a suspension or ban doesn't help you. We'll still ban any new accounts you make.

---

Privacy Notice

After registering and logging in, your login information will be stored in a cookie on your device(s). If you do not have cookies enabled, certain features may not work properly. To delete the cookie, log out.

We may use third-party services to check the reputation and validity of your email address. We may use third-party services to check the reputation and geolocation of your IP address. TV Tropes makes no representation as to the privacy of these services.

TV Tropes uses the https protocol and password encryption to protect information you transmit to us. We are not responsible for the security of your device or your Internet connection. If you believe that your registration information, including password, has been compromised, please notify us.

Note: Some of our security measures were not in place prior to 2016. If you registered or logged in before then, you should consider changing your TV Tropes password as well as any accounts that share your TV Tropes password.

All information collected during registration, including email and IP address(es), is used only to identify you to us, help you manage your account, and help us make moderation decisions. TV Tropes does not sell or make any other commercial use of your registration information. For more information, see our privacy policy.

TV Tropes uses third-party advertising providers. While we may request that our ad providers not show certain types of content, what they display is not under our direct control. The privacy policies of ad providers are also not under our control. If you see an advertisement that is malicious or offensive, you may report it in this thread. If you would like to remove most advertisements and contribute directly to our site, you may subscribe here.

---

Known Issues with Registration

The following are technical and other issues that are known to exist with registration. We are continually working to correct them and improve the registration experience.

• If you attempt to register the same account more than once with different email addresses, or change your registration email before your account is approved, the process may fail.
• In certain circumstances, you may receive multiple emails indicating approval or denial.
• Registering or logging in using Facebook integration may occasionally fail or appear to hang.

If you have these or any problems with registration or logging in not mentioned in this article, you may send a message to The Staff using our contact form.

---