In an effort to keep the volume of threads in IP at a reasonable level, and to encourage creating threads that address genuine problems, we need to make some notes about when to request a thread and what constitutes valid reasons for a thread. These have been mentioned in some of the other IP procedure threads, but they're being listed here for quick reference.
- New IP threads don't require approval by the staff to be opened. Still, the staff can and will lock threads created with improper reasoning and warn the troper if needed. Please take time to review the guidelines below and make sure your request is solid before submitting it.
- A thread started within two weeks of the closing of a previous thread on the same page that doesn't have a concrete suggestion will be summarily closed.
- Any thread started for an unreleased work's page or subpage that already has a valid image will be summarily closed. See the "Special cases" folder for more guidance on unreleased works.
- If someone unilaterally deletes an image then, unless the image broke wiki rules (e.g. it was clearly NSFW), it should be immediately restored. No thread is required to approve this restoration. If an image is deleted in this way, please notify the mods as well.
- Also refer to: About Images and Copyright, How to Pick a Good Image, and Images On Wiki Pages.
- Going through IP for a page that doesn't have an image or an IP tag isn't obligatory, but it is strongly recommended. Otherwise, the image you put up may end up coming to the forum for work or replacement.
- Pages that have gone through IP should have a commented-out tag showing the relevant thread(s) and any related information. Always check for these before adding a pic or requesting an IP thread for a page. If a page does have a tag, please note its information when you start a thread.
- It's recommended to discuss image concerns and thread reasons in the threads that are pinned at the top of the forum before starting a new thread. They may be able to address the issue(s) without needing to start a dedicated thread.
- Keep the quality criteria listed below in mind when making an image suggestion.
- Work pages that don't have an image generally don't require an IP thread to upload one, but feel free to start a thread if you have multiple ideas.
- Animated GIFs can't be uploaded as page pics, so don't bother trying. (The pic on Creepy Changing Painting is a bit of HTML magic and not a true GIF, in case you're wondering.)
- In threads for specific pages, you may see people casting votes by referring to a post number and (if applicable) the number of the image in a given post. For example, "2" would refer to "the image in the second post", and "3.2" would refer to "the second image in post 3".
- We try to operate on "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, and we try not to change an image just for the sake of changing it. In reference to this, someone might call a suggestion a "lateral move". If the image on the page is not otherwise problematic, consider if your suggestion is a clear improvement before pitching it.
- It usually takes 5-7
votes for a pic to be considered to have consensus in a thread; pics can be put up with fewer
s, but usually only at a moderator's discretion. If/when a crowner is attached to a thread, it will decide the outcome of the thread.
- An option must have a minimum of a 2:1 vote ratio to be considered; this is referred to as having consensus for IP purposes.
- If a crowner ends with no options having consensus, the crowner and thread are considered to be failed and the thread will be closed unless there is significant ongoing discussion.
- Crowners normally run for 5 days, but can go longer if more time is needed, and can be closed early for the following criteria:
- At any point, if the leading option has a vote balance of 10 or more and no other options have consensus. This is referred to as "super-consensus".
- After 3 days, if the leading option has a vote balance of at least 8 and no other options have consensus.
- After 4 days, if the leading option is the only one that has consensus.
- Crowners can only be made by moderators and engineers, usually after discussion has stalled for a few days. Crowners can be requested by regular users by compiling and linking options in a post and hollering for it to be made into a crowner.
- Non-moderators can add crowner options to an ongoing crowner, but cannot edit options they didn't add, nor can they call or lock a crowner. If you add an entry to an ongoing crowner, please note this in the thread.
High-priority image issues
- A pic has been changed for a reason that may not be valid, or no reason at all, especially if the pic was chosen by a previous IP thread. These changes can sometimes be simply reverted by a moderator without a need for further discussion.
- If a pic was unilaterally removed then, as noted earlier in this post, it can be restored immediately without the need for a thread or IP discussion.
- If a pic was unilaterally changed without discussion and no IP thread slots are available, post in this thread and then holler to notify the mods. We may be able to revert the changes without waiting for a thread.
- Not Safe For Work (NSFW)
- If you're unsure on whether a pic fits this or not, bring it up in this thread.
- Classic works of art containing nudity, such as Michelangelo's David or Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, don't necessarily fall into this, but appropriateness for the page in question is the key factor, and SFW options should be considered whenever possible.
- If an image is unambiguously NSFW and needs action, but there are no IP thread slots available to discuss it, post in this thread and then holler to notify the mods.
- The image is a spoiler. The age and/or infamy of the work the image originates from may prevent this from being considered a valid issue.
- Watermarking. A TV channel emblem on a screencap is a "bug", not a true watermark, and is permissible as long as it's not obtrusive.
- Meme-based images are not permitted as page pics. The sole general exceptions are Image Macro (for obvious reasons) and a work's Memes page, where they should only be considered if there are no better options.Other exceptions
- A page has an image that is obviously from the wrong work / programming block / network / etc.
- Copyright issues:
- The pic implies TV Tropes is claiming the copyright.
- The pic has been taken from a site that deals in copyrighted images or videos, especially if a watermark has been removed and/or the site is selling their content. Screencaps from videos from these sites are not permitted, either.
- The image is the entirety of a product for sale, such as a t-shirt design.
- Images from illegally obtained materials, such as leaks or camrips, are not allowed.
- Using an entire work:
- Basically, if it's copyrighted, we have to get permission to use it. This covers single-panel cartoons, photographs, entire comic strips and webcomics, and similar works. If permission is granted to use a work, it's always noted on the page in some fashion, usually in the caption and/or with the page tag. If an artist requests a specific way to display their connection to the pic, we'll do our best to honor it.
- The creators of xkcd and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal have given us carte blanche to use entire works as needed. Permission notices for such cases aren't required.
- Entire cards from card-based games like Magic: The Gathering are impractical but can be used. Using the art from these cards is fine.
- Any such work that's in the public domain is free to use.
- Some creators do not want their work used outside their control at all, but fair use means that we are not legally bound to honor this for the wiki's purposes, aside from the aforementioned restrictions. We'll honor a take-down request, but it's up to them to send it. We're not obliged to chase them down and ask them what their policy is. Fair use also allows us to use excerpts of works without seeking permission. In this case, the minimum needed to get the trope across should be used.
- Per the site owner, AI generated images are allowed on TV Tropes and will be treated just like regular images.
General reasons
- Multiple suggestions for a page without a pic. Single suggestions are currently being filtered through the Image Suggestion thread
instead of getting their own threads right off the bat.
- The current pic doesn't adequately demonstrate the trope. Examples of this include:
- Just a Face and a Caption (JAFAAC)—the pic shows an example of the trope but relies on familiarity with its subject(s) to make the connection to the trope evident.
- A pic that is nothing but text, or one where the text overwhelms the imagery. "May/Might as well be a page quote" is often used to describe this. There are exceptions (Spoof Aesop, for example), especially for dialogue-based tropes, but generally we want to have actual images as page pics with just enough text to support the expression of the trope.
- Poor image quality. Graininess, motion blur, and compression artifacts are three of the most common problems. Before starting a thread for this reason, see if the Quality Upgrade thread
can help find or create a nicer version of the image. Replacing images with a better-quality version is a free action, i.e. can be done without starting a thread.
- If the size value in a pic's coding is larger than the actual size of the pic, it will stretch the pic to that width which will introduce artifacts. Check the image's properties before starting a thread; if this is the issue, a change to the coding will fix it.
- The age of some works may make getting a truly high-quality image from them difficult. This will be taken into consideration when deciding on a pic.
- In 2024, a minimum image size of 800px (400px on character pages) was instituted on the wiki image uploader, in an effort to increase the overall image quality on the site. Sometimes, an image is otherwise decent but a quality upgrade of that size cannot be found — this is not a valid reason to pull the image on its own, and threads to replace it must have alternative suggestions. New images smaller than 800px can be put on trope pages with Image Pickin' consensus, but only after an effort to find larger images comes up short.
- The current pic is taken from a multi-panel work such as a comic strip or webcomic and uses more than half of the source material.
- Fan-art on a work page instead of an image from the work itself.
- The current pic is overly fanservicey, especially in the Creator/ namespace. In the case of Fanservice tropes, pics should be as low-key as possible while still getting the trope across.
- Two trope pages have the same pic.
- While it's preferred that they be separate, a trope page can have the same image as a work page or a character image from a Characters subpage. In these cases, a thread should have at least one replacement suggestion for either page.
- Similarly, graphics can generally be reused among a work's subpages. Threads that address these will still be accepted, but should also have at least one replacement suggestion.
- You believe you have a suggestion that better illustrates the trope than the current pic (by Image Pickin' standards, not "This is a cooler pic.")
- A page marked as No Real Life Examples, Please! has a Real Life pic.Exceptions
- A YMMV or Audience Reaction page has a pic that is not In-Universe.Exceptions
- A page has an unusual image arrangement not chosen by an IP thread and you don't think it works well, e.g. having two images on a trope page or an image that's a janky collage. Some pages may have multiple pics for a reason, so check for an IP tag before starting a thread in this case.
Invalid reasons
- Trying to solicit ideas for an image. IP has a cap of 75 threads and is usually at or near capacity on any given day, so space can't be allotted for threads whose only purpose is to brainstorm.
- Not liking an image's art style, layout/design, or any Photoshopping or similar alterations that may have been made, provided they don't impact the pic's quality.
- Claiming that a particular work is over-/under-represented. This can have some impact on deciding on a pic, but should never be the main gist of a thread.
- Trying to argue that a pic you liked wasn't chosen in a previous thread, especially if it lost in a crowner, or trying to make an invalid argument that a pic doesn't work for a page even though it was chosen by a thread. Repeatedly doing this is considered griefing and is grounds for suspension from the workshop forums.
- Some trope pages feature Visual Puns or other jokey pics rather than something that actually demonstrates the trope, usually because these pages have been very hard to find a better pic for.Example Don't request a thread just because you don't like the joke; if you've got an actual example, that's fine. Also, see the "Don't change the pic" section on the page mentioned below.
General cases:
- Pages within the FanficRecs/, Fridge/, Haiku/, Headscratchers/, ImageLinks/, Laconic/, PlayingWith/, Quotes/, Trivia/, WMG/, and YMMV/ namespaces and disambiguations default to no pic; YMMV.Home Page and Headscratchers.Home Page are the only exceptions. Pages in the Analysis/ namespace default to BUPKIS status (meaning they won't have a pic unless a really good one is found; see Image Pickin' Special Cases for more details)
- Due to their exceptional subjectivity and persistent problems with images being poor quality and/or not illustrative, Moments pages (Awesome/, Funny/, Heartwarming/, NightmareFuel/, Shocking/, TearJerker/) are limited to one image.
- Pages for unreleased works keep the first image that is uploaded to the page when it's created, with further pre-release images relegated to an Image Links page. Changes aren't usually permitted until the work is released.
- This rule also covers any subpages for the unreleased work that allow images. As per policy, Moments pages for unreleased works do not allow images.
- Images may still be pulled if they fall foul of any of the standard Image Pickin' guidelines. Moments page images for unreleased works will always be pulled.
- If an image on one of these unreleased work pages is changed without discussion, it should simply be reverted. No thread is required. As this is enforcing wiki policies, the reversion doesn't count towards any edit war.
- Once the work is released, a thread may be created to decide which image is to be officially used on the page. See this Wiki Talk thread
for details.
- There are a handful of pages whose pics are from works that would violate the content policy; see the Special Cases page for the list. Likewise, there are several pages whose pics are from works whose content features material that contains bigotry, prejudice, or similarly intolerant viewsnote . In both cases, the images on these pages illustrate their respective tropes and are to be left on their pages unless/until an equally illustrative image from a non-problematic work can be found.

Text version:
Is the page on Image Pickin' Special Cases?
- If yes, start a thread.
- If no, does it already have an image?
- If yes, is it a Moments (Awesome, Awesome Art, Awesome Music, Funny, Heartwarming, Nightmare Fuel, Shocking, Tear Jerker) subpage?
- If yes, does it have multiple images?
- If yes, start a thread.
- If no, do you have any replacement suggestions in mind?
- If yes, start a thread.
- If no, use the Moments Images Cleanup Thread
.
- If no, start a thread.
- If yes, does it have multiple images?
- If no, do you have more than one suggestion in mind?
- If yes, start a thread.
- If no, is it a work or creator page?
- If yes, just add your suggestion.
- If no, use the Image Suggestion Thread
. (If the page doesn't have an IP tag, you can also just add your suggestion, but this isn't recommended.)
- If yes, is it a Moments (Awesome, Awesome Art, Awesome Music, Funny, Heartwarming, Nightmare Fuel, Shocking, Tear Jerker) subpage?
Edited by Willbyr on Sep 22nd 2025 at 7:42:31 AM
Not exactly topic-relevant, but I do hope that the new software coders can get around to making folders work in forum posts, because it would certainly help make huge stickied OPs like this thread's much less of an immediate Wall of Text on every page of the thread.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.I've added Ensemble Dark Horse and its subpages to the "multiple threads" list in the OP...we've had a grand total of 9 threads about it and its subpages and very little has been accomplished in them.
Explaining Your Power to the Enemy is right to left. What's out policy? Flip on site?
Eh, I went ahead and flipped it anyway. Pretty sure that's what to do.
edited 18th Feb '15 8:34:45 PM by Rethkir
For the record, I still consider flipping manga images a makeshift solution at best because of the precedent it sets (among other things).
Regardless, that image seems pretty weak in the sense that it's all talk and no show. Perhaps it would be worth starting a thread to look for a replacement?
edited 18th Feb '15 8:47:09 PM by MrL1193
Speaking of flipping, is there any standard policy in place to decide how we deal with images that have a non-English reading order? There's some minor controversy in this thread
over whether flipping manga images is kosher or not. We might want to just decide on how we want to handle it so we don't have to discuss it at length every time somebody suggests a manga image.
The issue isn't manga, exactly. (Often with that medium, it doesn't even matter, because there are zero or one speech bubble(s), they are arranged "top to bottom" and read correctly anyway, etc.)
The issue is images with a non-English reading order. I am not sure how we would "draw a line" anyway. Any edits that improve clarity are good edits.
edited 25th Feb '15 11:42:37 AM by rodneyAnonymous
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.Speaking personally, I've always been confused about the reading order of right-to-left images. Putting in a note would not help, since like many Internet readers I make up my mind on whether to read an article in a few seconds.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman![]()
Well, in the thread I linked there are one or two guys who would dispute that. I mean, I agree with you and think that modifying manga images to conform to English reading order to improve readability is fine, but I just think it would be good to have it listed officially somewhere. That way when these sorts of discussions crop up we can just point and say "Official policy is to make them read left-to-right for easier readability".
Dispute what?
And why does there need to be an "official rule" for everything? Of course images should be as clear as possible, and mods have said over and over that editing images is fine. Wanting a particular work type to be exempt seems bizarre.
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.Well, I guess some people are confused when they see a RL image and don't know what to do. If we at least had some official suggestion or guideline or at least label it as one of the valid reasons to change an image instantly, or a valid reason to start a thread if flipping isn't simple, then I at least think it would help more of us get on the same page rather than waste time in IP debating it.
For the record, my flag is firmly in the "don't butcher an image if all you need to understand it is a simple note" camp. And for an addendum I have another flag in the "please assume that the small percentage of readers who have never heard of manga will be smart enough to pick up on it, note or otherwise" camp.
I'm in the same camp(s) as the above poster. And whatever I would've said on the matter, has been already said by other posters, perhaps better than I would've put it.
It's not about "having heard of manga". It's about actually being familiar and comfortable with the reading order. For someone who isn't used to it, even while reading a manga right to left, it takes a while to adjust.
I think flipping an image to read left to right should be considered a free action as a quality upgrade, because that's what it is. Faithfulness to the source material means nothing compared to the clarity of the image, and if all images read in the same direction, overall clarity is better than if some images are read in the other direction.
It's also impossible to tell by the image itself which order to read it in. A lot of manga are flipped. There are a lot of webcomics in Western order that are indistinguishable from manga. As far as the wiki is concerned, having more than one way to read images is just random.
Check out my fanfiction!
Then I should clarify that 1) I meant someone other than the original creator, and 2) flipping does not seem to be the rule among English-language publishers of manga, as it wasn't prevalent. Most of the flipping that I've seen happened to doujinshi, to be precise.
edited 26th Feb '15 3:52:02 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.For simplicity's sake, I'll cite what you just said, then.
edited 26th Feb '15 8:27:20 AM by AnotherDuck
Check out my fanfiction!We edit images all the time to suit our needs. Take a look at Metaphorically True. We severely edited that comic so that everything could be legible at 350, cutting dialog from two frames into one and editing the area around Yoda's ear to make those panels blend together. It's no different from flipping right to left images. Could you imagine how annoying it is to read an image that's backwards without understanding why? Imagine if an article is written that way. So what if it's flipped? Illustrating the trope clearly is far more important that staying faithful to the source material.
Expression of the trope and clarity to the reader are the most important concerns for our purposes. My personal preference is for an image to be edited as little as possible other than resizing, but if extensive edits are what it takes to make a suggestion work, then that's fine. I don't generally have an issue with flipping manga images, but if things like text in speech bubbles can be swapped around without hurting the overall flow of such images, or using an image that is easily read in either direction, I'd prefer to go in those directions, and then experiment with flipping if those can't be done.
But then a lot of times you'll have manga pages with awkward bubble placement. For example, let's say you have three bubbles, two on the right and one on the left, with the following lines of dialogue.
"There's something I must reveal." "The one who has been possessed this whole time..." "...is you!!!"
In this instance, the "wham line" is in the third largest bubble on the left. If you were to only flip the speech bubbles to be read left to right, then you'd have an issue because the big bubble's on the left, but the flow of conversation would no longer be right.
Not that I'm advocating flipping a whole image, but that's just why flipping only dialogue is a bad idea.
In terms of "we've severely edited images in the past, so it's okay", that should be the exception, not the rule. If we can help it, we should refrain from editing images as much as possible, and in the case of manga pages, I think readers are smart enough to figure it out. I'm kind of disappointed that a lot of people on here are asking for "clarity" while assuming that Viewers Are Morons and that anyone who comes to this site that doesn't happen to go on the forums is a goldfish who will poop their pants and cry if they see an image that reads right to left. People are smarter than you give them credit for.
As for who flips manga left to right, Viz stays right to left while Tokyo Pop I believe used to flip left to right, but switched when they realized that manga fans were rightfully pissed off. Which means that if we flip from left to right, that makes us the bad guys.
Flipping entire mangas has problems we don't usually encounter when it comes to illustrating tropes. For a story whether a character is right or left handed might be important. We don't care about that, unless it's a trope about handedness. There's also stuff about cultural accuracy, like driving on the right or left side of the road. We don't care about that, unless that's what the trope is about.
Just quit it with the ridiculous hyperboles.

Yeah, I don't like that much and rodney suggested to change this in the New Design thread
. It does sort-of resolve the image title collision issues, though.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman