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All-Purpose Policy and Meta discussion: Administrivia.Trope Repair Shop

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Before making or posting in a thread, read the Trope Repairing Guidelines to see whether a thread you're considering making actually should be made, as well as what is and isn't allowed in an open thread.

This thread is a metathread for Trope Repair Shop discussion. Things like TRS policy, what is needed in a TRS opening post, questions about whether a certain topic is TRS-worthy and questions about why a thread wasn't opened go here.

Some guidelines for when/whether to use TRS:

  • If the trope is fine, but has some bad examples, feel free to clean them up or to start a cleanup project at Projects: Short-Term. Trope Repair Shop is for when cleaning isn't sufficient.
  • If you think there's something wrong with the trope that systematically attracts improper examples, start a discussion at Trope Talk. Use a Wick Check to see whether there's an issue present (and if there is, what the issue is). The following methods are two possible ways to do a wick check (though not necessarily the only ways):
    • You can go ahead with the Wick Check without a discussion if you know what you're looking for. While it's not mandatory, feel free to ask someone for help confirming that you got the issue and the numbers correct.
    • Consult the Wick Check Project thread to collect evidence if you need help.
  • Depending on a trope (or non-trope) in question, a wick check may be determined to not be required, such as for tropes that are not thriving (per the standards for trope health listed on the Wick page). However, there is no problem if you want to do one anyway.

For a more detailed introduction to this forum, click here.

For related projects, see Wick Cleaning Projects and the Wick Check Project.

For a list of wiki pages related to thread outcomes, see the following:

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 12th 2025 at 11:35:13 AM

themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#3476: Jan 13th 2022 at 6:16:18 AM

[up] Oh sorry. I thought the thread was closer to closing than it was.

If anyone wants to assist with the cleanups go ahead. I actually might do the You Make Me Sic one myself.

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
GastonRabbit C'est la vie. (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
C'est la vie. (he/him)
#3477: Jan 13th 2022 at 2:13:58 PM

I think the only wick cleanup left for the Wiki Tropes thread is migrating Main.Describe Topic Here to JustForFun.Describe Topic Here. The rest involves handling a couple of merges between pages that don't have too many wicks (that I know of, at least).

Hand Hiding Sleeves and Creepy Cool Crosses have more wicks than You Make Me Sic, but they strike me as the type of cleanup jobs that would be more time-consuming than difficult, since the former is being cut (meaning wicks would at most have to be sandboxed for the tropes that were Yarded by that thread), and the latter had its name changed only slightly to Creepy Crosses, meaning examples that fit the revised definition wouldn't take long to sort (if they have to be sorted at all due to how close the names are), and examples that don't fit the revised definition can just be deleted.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 13th 2022 at 4:19:23 AM

I got a rock for Halloween.
amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#3478: Jan 13th 2022 at 3:32:12 PM

Was there ever a wick clean for Five-Man Band now that it has been redefined? I'm doing some wick cleaning for other threads and have come across several ZCE (of the Type Labels Are Not Examples variety) that I thought the thread said were no longer allowed

Edited by amathieu13 on Jan 13th 2022 at 6:32:38 AM

MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#3479: Jan 13th 2022 at 3:36:04 PM

[up]Clean up is still on going. It’s being conducted in this thread. Most of the namespaces haven’t been cleaned yet.

Macron's notes
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#3480: Jan 13th 2022 at 3:39:42 PM

Right. Tropes with pre-existing cleanup threads typically take the cleanup to those threads, since usually the issue is pervasive enough to need more time and discussion than the slot-scarce nature of TRS allows.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
Amonimus the "Retromancer" from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the "Retromancer"
#3482: Jan 13th 2022 at 8:17:38 PM

Noting here that I Thought It Was Forbidden talks about two separate topics, one is a Faux Dangerous Forbidden Technique and the other sounds like Protagonist-Centred Morality. The wick count is pretty poor, so I may take it later.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#3483: Jan 14th 2022 at 4:08:13 AM

I'm making good progress on You Make Me Sic, so that should be done soon.

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#3484: Jan 14th 2022 at 5:57:42 AM

And now I just cleaned out all the You Make Me Sic wicks, so that thread will probably be closed imminently.

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#3485: Jan 14th 2022 at 6:03:28 AM

Triple post, I know, but the thread has been closed!

~Miss Conduct

~Wuz

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
MissConduct (Septatroper)
#3486: Jan 14th 2022 at 11:27:12 AM

Have we ever considered moving the "pending final action" threads (where we've already decided what needs to be done, it's just the doing it that needs done) to their own forum? Admittedly it's always a bit of a bummer to see that at once there's only like, ten real discussions going on in this forum at once and everything else is just cleanup. I feel like we'd get through that massive list of Tropes Needing TRS faster. Maybe something like "Post TRS Cleanup"?

Edited by MissConduct on Jan 14th 2022 at 2:31:42 PM

Amonimus the "Retromancer" from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the "Retromancer"
#3487: Jan 14th 2022 at 11:29:45 AM

We did consider just moving them to Long-Term. Not sure what the official stance on it, but it's probably not going anywhere because people won't clean the misuse if it's not somewhere visible.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#3488: Jan 14th 2022 at 11:30:42 AM

We've talked about it; it usually doesn't work, though. Keeping the threads open indefinitely is annoying, but it also encourages people to actually do the work to close them, whereas bumping the cleanup to another thread usually doesn't work unless it's a trope with a pre-established cleanup thread (or where the actions the thread took weren't major enough to need to stay open any longer, like with Never Live It Down). If anything I can see it just encouraging people to get to a solution as fast as possible so the thread will close.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Synchronicity MOD (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#3489: Jan 14th 2022 at 11:31:00 AM

[nja] We don't want to do that anymore. It's been shown time and time again that unless a trope has a preexisting, active cleanup thread, closing a TRS without the work being finished causes cleanup to stall (case in point: Those Two Bad Guys, which was brought back precisely for that reason, and everything on TRS Wick Cleaning). It's an 'out of sight, out of mind' thing.

I, personally, like the principle of 'if you want more slots to free up, help close existing projects'. That was the whole idea behind the thread cap, and moving the starred threads elsewhere just works around that.

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 14th 2022 at 1:32:57 PM

themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#3490: Jan 14th 2022 at 11:42:02 AM

Yeah, I'll be honest, the main reason I cleaned out the You Make Me Sic wicks was because I wanted to open a slot. (Actually I was hoping that "Funny Aneurysm" Moment would go next so we could finally start a discussion on what to do with the Hindsight tropes.) I plan to do some more wick cleaning if I have time/more understanding of what I am cleaning out.

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#3491: Jan 14th 2022 at 11:44:18 AM

That's why I've been at least trying to plow through Stuffed into the Fridge. It's an older thread with more wicks to deal with, and personally it feels more rewarding to help close threads like that than ones that only have a 100-something wicks and everyone working on it. One of these days I might try and count up all the wicks we've checked and kept to get a more accurate number of how many wicks we actually have left, since the 900-something number seems more daunting.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 14th 2022 at 2:49:52 PM

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#3492: Jan 14th 2022 at 11:54:53 AM

Eh, I figured You Make Me Sic is a start considering I don't usually do a lot of wick cleaning. Eventually I'll move on to the more daunting threads.

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#3493: Jan 14th 2022 at 11:59:48 AM

Hey, not judging. I sort of dove into the deep end when my first attempt at wick cleaning was for a trope whose thread I don't think I ever actually posted on, and it was tons of wicks at that, but by plunging into it how I did I sort of just forced myself to learn to take on big projects. (If anyone's curious, my first wick cleaning was for Fragile Flower). But obviously smaller ones need to be cleared out too, and if that's what you're more comfortable doing then by all means.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#3494: Jan 14th 2022 at 12:02:00 PM

I have been working on Everythings Better With Monkeys, Hypnotize the Princess, and Mage Species in different intervals to try to close those threads. Should be to finish at least one of them by next week.

Macron's notes
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#3495: Jan 14th 2022 at 12:03:16 PM

Oh, and speaking of smaller projects... once I can make the Word Salad thread, that one'll be super easy because the solution doesn't require cleanup at all, just a trope page.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Amonimus the "Retromancer" from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the "Retromancer"
#3496: Jan 14th 2022 at 12:08:22 PM

When there was the Standard Status Effects rename, I could do like over a hundreds of moves per day. Maiy because I had way more free time or focus than currently. So my stance on cleanups is basically whenever everything else isn't needed.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Infitroper Since: Oct, 2016
#3497: Jan 14th 2022 at 3:37:03 PM

How did we end up with 51 threads?

MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
(she/her)
#3498: Jan 14th 2022 at 3:41:33 PM

This sometimes happens when two people create a thread at roughly around the same time.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jan 14th 2022 at 6:42:04 AM

Macron's notes
GastonRabbit C'est la vie. (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
C'est la vie. (he/him)
#3499: Jan 14th 2022 at 5:04:14 PM

I'm already against clocking starred threads because I think their cleanup projects should be finished before the threads are closed. I made an exception to my preference for keeping starred threads open during cleanup for Never Live It Down because the only change was making it NRLEP, which is already something that doesn't require TRS.

As for what I've been doing as far as cleanup goes, I've been sorting through Sandbox.Vendor Trash (which I made for sorting examples between Shop Fodder and Better Off Sold) off and on, and I'll probably work on Hand Hiding Sleeves soon because the fact that it's being cut means most examples can probably be deleted (but if there are any examples that fit into the tropes that were Yarded, I'd sandbox them).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 14th 2022 at 7:06:19 AM

I got a rock for Halloween.
Acebrock He/Him from So-Cal Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: My elf kissing days are over
He/Him
#3500: Jan 14th 2022 at 7:40:52 PM

If I keep going at my current rate "Romantic" Two-Girl Friendship should be fully dewicked tomorrow or the day after.

But I may wait until the number of threads is down to fifty again because I intend to grab a slot for Yaoi Guys/Token Yuri Girls afterwards (they have completed wick checks and both feel like Beta Couple but gay to me) and well, rapid dewicking like this is tiring and taking a break couldn't hurt.

My troper wall

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