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
- Subjective / 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:
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.
- 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.
Edited by Mrph1 on Mar 26th 2024 at 6:20:01 PM
Hey Arnold! doesn't have a clear place to put Abner (the pet pig) and currently has the organizational decision to do "Adults Part 1" and "Adults Part 2".
Would something like this be better?:
- Boarding House (Abner goes here)
- Arnold Shortman
- Pataki Family
- Helga G Pataki
- PS 118
- Simmons' Class
- Others
- Other Kids
- Recurring Adults
- One-Shot Adults
Pataki Family only has three members outside of Helga, so if the recurring adults page would be small enough with adults from the Boarding House and PS 118 moved, that page could be foregone, with Helga's page becoming a subpage of PS 118.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'm in favour of this.
Meito Anizawa, Anime Tenchou
From what I remember about the show, sounds good
I'm helping!
Characters.PN 03 contains only one character (there were others but they had no tropes and had to be commented out)... we're gonna have to merge this, aren't we? (And scrub the hell out of the main page too while we're at it, it looks so 2010...)
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
he/him
Is there a policy against creating Characters pages with commented out character placeholders, in the same way that pre-commented trope examples are prohibited?
I'm assuming that there is, but want to double-check.
The first proper episode of Drag Race México launches in ten days and they've just done the usual "Meet the Queens" pre-season prologue, interviewing each of the contestants. That gives us enough to create a page troping many (but not all) of their drag queen personas.
(I think the same applies to the second season of its sister show Drag Race France)
We won't get anything more on the remaining drag queens until episode one, so we could launch a page that just lists the ones we do have examples for - but it'd be simpler to list them all in order and comment out to keep the cast list in the right order, if that was permitted.
(Last time this came up the page was already created before anyone flagged the zero-trope and ZCE characters, so we had no decisions to make - we just commented them out)
I think I remember coming across a rule saying that it is against TV Tropes' editing rules to do that.
Likes video games
I would like to report that I found this character sheet page is formatted very badly, it doesn't list any tropes for each character. But I don't know about this webcomic, I can't fix by myself.
Edited by namsan on Jun 13th 2023 at 3:46:16 AM
Reposting this because it didn't get any responses.
I've gone through the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis pages on my sandbox herenote , mostly just cleaning up non-character tropes, though there were a few misused tropes. Posting to see what others think before making the changes.
Here's my proposed update for the OP from the previous page as well, if anyone wants to give feedback on that.
- ZCE problems
- Improper indentation and natter, including subbulleted and slashed tropes
- Misused tropes and subjective tropes on the main page
- Spoiler markup abuse
- Even problems that should be non-existent, like the use of {{Curly Brackets}} for wicks, completely empty folders, and the lack of alphabetization
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. If you are not certain if a specific trope goes on a character page, you can ask the Are these Character Tropes? thread.
If you have concerns with a Character Specific Page, they have their own separate cleanup thread.
he/him
I'm certain this needs cutting, but would be good to get another view so it's not unilateral:
Spider-Man: Clones: Spider-Skeleton
It's a skeleton. Not an animated skeleton, or an object with personality. The skeleton of a character who never appears prior to their death.
The only tropes are Posthumous Character (misuse, as they're not developed in the subsequent story - they're just dead before it starts) and Red Herring (not a character trope).
Nuke it?
Friends forevermore
Nuke it.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
he/him
& Nuked, with a link to this thread as part of the edit reason
he/him
A general question, which I don't think I've asked here before:
For works pages, we actively avoid Fan Myopia and write for an audience who may not be familiar with the work. How much of that should apply to Characters pages too?
I'm assuming that examples need to work on that level, not least because of crosswicking.
But should character intros (for individual characters or the page as a whole) be written on the assumption that the reader doesn't know the work? There are quite a few that seem to assume knowledge - especially when they're huge, sprawling works or franchises with multiple character sheet pages.
the Retromancer
Character pages have nearly the same rules as work pages do. No ZCE. Crosswicking when possible. Descriptions generally should contain intros so anyone unfamiliar can get who they are. Recaps are optional, but I'd rather be as brief as possible. Spoiler markup is not allowed above the examples.
Edited by Amonimus on Jun 16th 2023 at 7:41:52 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Spawn's character page has dozens of folders that are either empty or contain only Zero Context Examples.
Meito Anizawa, Anime Tenchou
Comment out the ZCEs and empty folders (including folders that would be empty after commenting out the ZCEs)
"Leftover items still have value!"
he/him
I've been adding this as a comment for that scenario:
%% As per Administrivia/HowToCreateACharacterPage, every character must have at least one listed trope that's not a Administrivia/ZeroContextExample. All characters who don't meet this requirement have been commented out. Add more tropes or add more context to any existing ZCE tropes before uncommenting them.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 18th 2023 at 10:50:19 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Since nobody weighed in, I like the update. Heck, if you want I can go ahead and do it myself, since I'm the OP and all.
I can add that comment markup too, if you want?
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
he/him
Sounds good to me - thanks!
If we're signposting both of the other Character page threads from here, it'd be good to have the same sort of links from pinned posts on those threads as well, wouldn't it?
Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 18th 2023 at 9:06:50 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Probably!
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
he/him
Just wondering about this one...
Characters.Spider Man Across The Spider Verse and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse were both redirecting to the same character hub - Characters.Spider Man Spider Verse - until June 16th, when RT1986 turned them into film-specific hub pages.
Which is fair enough, and makes sense (even if it does seem to be unilateral).
Each link is accompanied by a note listing characters in that category, though - some of which (presumably those considered main characters?) are in bold.
Is that formatting as per the guidelines? I don't know about the note approach, but bold for the listed character names - and with no on-page explanation of why - feels odd?
Also, on a minor point, should a characters page wikilink the work page in its heading when they share a name and the namespace (E.g. WesternAnimation) link is automatically displayed anyway? I've never been entirely sure it's needed in that scenario.
Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 18th 2023 at 9:24:06 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Gave the OP an update, including changing the top section. Anything else I should add / change?
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
he/him
Just realised that Administrivia has an exception on allowed tropes for actions strongly associated with the character. So maybe amend to:
"Unless they're recurring character traits (distinctive things that the character does repeatedly), tropes should normally fall under"
?
Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 18th 2023 at 9:48:22 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Ah, good point
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Oh good catch, yeah that wording looks good. I also agree with the addition of the commented out note regarding ZCEs or lack of examples.
Edited by Hello83433 on Jun 18th 2023 at 6:40:47 AM
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
I don't know if this is brought up in this thread yet or not, but Characters.Hindu Mythology needs to get fattened up.
This page have 3 folders. Two folders concerning works that already have their own pages and have merely 4 characters listed between them. The other one is straight up empty.