There is a moratorium on merging character pages, so don't ask for that.
Character pages are a large chunk of the wiki, but they're often filled with problems that don't get resolved. These problems include:
- Zero Context Examples
- Indentation problems, including bulleting tropes under supertropes or tropeslashing
- Spoiler tag misuse
- A lack of alphabetization
- Empty character folders
- Plagiarized character descriptions
- Misused tropes, or tropes that don't belong on character pages
- Broken or incorrect formatting
- References to Dummied Out content for video game characters.
- YMMV / Trivia trope mentions
Per How to Create a Character Page, character pages should only include tropes that describe the characters. These tropes should fall under Characterization Tropes or one of its related indexes, Unless they're recurring character traits (distinctive things that the character does repeatedly).
If you're unsure what counts as a character trope, you can ask about that at Are These Character Tropes
.
All characters must have at least one contextualized trope for their section or folder to be visible. If you find a character that has no contextualized tropes present, comment out the entire section and add this tag:
There is a moratorium on merging character pages, so don't ask for that.
Other relevant threads:
- Problems with pre-existing images on Characters page need to go via Image Pickin'
. Low quality images can usually be upgraded without discussion, but don't change or delete images without Image Pickin' approval.
- Contentious characters attracting complaints and exaggerations (e.g. when their status as The Scrappy starts impacting examples for other tropes) have their own thread
.
- Character-Specific Pages have their own separate cleanup thread
- Self-demonstrating character pages also have their own thread
.
- Inanimate objects and locations on character pages have their own cleanup thread
- Character pages for Reality Show contestants are on-topic here, but there's also a dedicated Reality Show cleanup thread
which deals with the No Real Life Examples, Please! grey areas these shows create, and may sometimes be a better place to discuss them.
- Character pages for the Marvel Cinematic Universe have a dedicated thread here
.
Edited by kory on Aug 31st 2025 at 3:59:59 AM
SMILE!
I’d just move the good examples to the main work page and cut that page.
Characters.To Live And Die In LA is a whole mess and a half. I'm not sure if there are enough examples to keep, but I doubt it.
Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢Henshin Heroes Rangers has a mountain of ZC Es, plus entries for YMMV/trivia tropes. Also, I did spot an entry with tropes joined with a slash...
And found yet another bad character sheet. Can Magica Madoka Veneficus Puella be salvaged in any way? There are loads of ZCE's.
Characters.Big Brother has a fancruft problem. At least four sub-pages, if not most or all of them, are infested with redundant chains of synonym descriptors.
When Characters.Big Brother 19 The Jury was reported to the too-long pages thread
, my Hedge Trimmer efforts couldn't make it short enough before I got tired and disgusted, and it got split
into Characters.Big Brother 19 The Jury 01 To 03, Characters.Big Brother 19 The Jury 04 To 06 and Characters.Big Brother 19 The Jury 07 To 09, all still plagued with Wall of Text entries parroting each other.
Characters.Big Brother 11 was reported to the zero context example thread
for too many gushy or bashy sounding entries along the lines of "So-and-so is (insert long list of synonym adjectives)" that tells us nothing about what so-and-so said or did to qualify for the trope. Again, I tried to cut down on the number of redundant adjectives, but no matter how many or how few adjectives there are, they're still Zero Context Examples.
Edited by Miss_Desperado on Oct 11th 2020 at 11:52:13 AM
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.Characters.Slipping Between Worlds is improperly formatted. Instead of headers, characters are bulleted, with their tropes as subbullets.
Also, there are tons of ZCE's.
Already finished commenting out ZCE for Fighting Foodons. There were so many...
Characters.Night Terror is a mess. Lots of ZCEs, improper use of spoiler tags, potholed character names (with all of the links being dead anyway)...
As per Trope Repair Shop
decisions, Your Cheating Heart has been turned into an index, Infidelity Index. We need help to remove wicks from all the Characters pages listed here
and replace them with another adultery trope if applicable.
Artifact Database needs serious help. Tons of ZCE's, tons of tropeless character listings, and I saw a case of a subbulleted trope.
I am currently giving Characters.Back To The Future some much needed attention. Among the issues Im fixing are Martys brother and sister (two very minor characters) having empty folders.
Updating my report on the Big Brother problem: Characters.Big Brother 16 The Jury has dialogue-based tropes (e.g. Deadpan Snarker) with entries along the lines of "So-and-so is clever and witty" without a hint of what so-and-so said; two tropes on the same bullet point; pothole-altered trope names (e.g. [[ActionGirl Action Guy]]); more rambling fancruft like what's on Big Brother 19; and perhaps some other problems that I overlooked via my eyes glazing over after taking a few Hedge Trimmer whacks at the aforementioned problems. I moved the Your Cheating Heart entry to Bastard Girlfriend to remove the link to the converted index.
Edited by Miss_Desperado on Oct 17th 2020 at 3:12:47 AM
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.Characters.Sendokai Champions is really weird. Much of it consists of walls upon walls of pure ZCEs, but then there’s two character entries that are in pretty good shape, and far better than anything of the others.
Edited by jandn2014 on Oct 17th 2020 at 2:04:15 PM
Characters.Zombie Exodus has ZCE's, subbullets, subbulleted ZCE's, tropes joined with a slash that are also ZCE's...
Yeah, definitely slight.
Edited by Berrenta on Oct 18th 2020 at 10:34:56 AM
Berrenta, I get the feeling the page you linked has a slight ZCE issue.
I might run through it later, at least to see if there's anything to salvage.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
