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- 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.
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- 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.
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Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 12th 2025 at 11:35:13 AM
Start it and folks can pitch in! 172 wicks would need to be checked, not including the gendered redirects. Idk how those get addressed.
Sometimes I throw a few redirect wicks into the wick check and just note in the comment that it came from a redirect. Like, typically it doesn't make a difference but it at least adds some potential variety.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
I use an "Unclassifiable" folder for those types of wicks.
Why would they be unclassifiable? Lol
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Well, the term is a catch-all I use for stuff like indexes, "see also" mentions in descriptions, etc. By "unclassifiable", I mean "cannot be classified into a category of usage".
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 13th 2022 at 12:35:13 PM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallSure, my point is that a redirect wick is just... another wick. Same patterns, just under a slightly new name. So I just don't understand why a redirect wick would be "unclassifiable" any more than a normal wick.
Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 13th 2022 at 12:38:08 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
I still don't quite understand the specifics of what you're saying but that's because I'm exhausted and I have to get to sleep soon anyway. I'll just leave it there I guess.
FWIW I just skip over redirects when I do wick checks. I think I misunderstood your original comment.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 13th 2022 at 12:42:51 PM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallAll I'm saying is that if there's enough redirect wicks to make a dent then I check a few wicks from that redirect and just say where I got them from. That's really it, lol. But hey I feel you mate get some sleep ~
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Oooohhhh. I did misunderstand you. I thought you meant when, say you have Trope A with Trope B as a redirect and Trope B is listed as a wick itself in the wick list. I didn't realize you meant checking the wicks of a redirect. That's absolutely fine, actually probably recommended to get a bigger picture of a trope's problems.
I really do need sleep.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 13th 2022 at 12:46:25 PM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall@Yindee it's not the wick check that's daunting. I could check 170 wicks on my own. It's that once we start on the path of fixing this trope, we're going to have to finish. 30,000 wicks to sift through regardless of the end goal (dewick, move to new tropes) is going to take a lot of effort and hands. Seeing how other large projects go, that's a multi-year endeavor and idk if I want to open that can of worms at this time
Edited by amathieu13 on Sep 13th 2022 at 1:08:35 PM
Ah yeah. Good point. Has a project of that magnitude ever been accomplished before?
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailI mean, look at Up To Eleven. It had a similar wick count. The cleanup was basically abandoned because it would be difficult, but then it did get cleaned. Someone just has to be willing to do it.
Edited by Walkinshadows on Sep 13th 2022 at 1:20:22 PM
I wouldn't say Up To Eleven was "abandoned", rather, everyone agreed to just make it a casual "remove them if you want to" thing. However, that's also because it was a pothole magnet / stock phrase and hardly ever used as a normal trope.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallPaging ~Vampire Buddha regarding the next entry on the TRS Queue, since I closed the thread for The Lost Woods.
I got a rock for Halloween.@redirects: Considering that wick counts include wicks from redirect, if we're to check 172 wicks from Nice Guy, shouldn't that include ones from the redirects as well? When I did the wick check from The Mean Brit, half came from the main title, the other half came from the redirect, Mean Brit.
Okay, I did some math. If you want it to be proportional to the number of wicks, you'd have to check the following:
Eh, the way I do it is that I take the original number (in this case, 170) and just substitute some wicks with the redirects. I don't worry about adding up the exact right number; nobody cares that much.
Did another wick cleaning roundup.
Fewest wicks remaining: Angry Black Man (667), Sequel Difficulty Spike (622), Sequel Difficulty Drop (457), Corrupt Hick (380), McLeaned (149)
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
Indeed I did! 29527 (Nice Guy) + 9413 (Nice Girl) + 138 (Nice Gal) = 39078
sqrt 39078 = 198
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailIf that's the case, then, whoops. I can recrunch my numbers in the morning (for my own entertainment/satisfaction).
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailThere's no need to make it an exact science, I just grab like 10 or 20 of them lol
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallWith redirects included in the main counts, they can be naturally included by simply rolling a number that's high enough; if a page has X links with Y from redirects, if you roll a number between X-Y and X the resulting link should come from one of the redirects. The only reason why you'd need to do anything else special is if the redirect is an Internal Subtrope or otherwise there to catch a particular use pattern.
Edited by MorganWick on Sep 15th 2022 at 6:44:51 AM

everytime I stumble across Nice Guy, I know it needs TRS, but with almost 30000 wicks.....it's so daunting. And yet I know the longer we wait, the worse it'll get. Ugh