To-do list:
- The Wiki Rule is now a Definition-Only Page, so references to the concept are fine, but examples must be removed. Example cleanup can be tracked using Sandbox.The Dewicking Rule.
a few years ago, and it was eventually added to the Tropes Needing TRS because, and I quote, "[a wiki's] existence is not very notable". Here is the Wick Check.
Percentages (70/70):
- Potholes = 13%
- Just a weblink = 71%
- Weblink + some details about the wiki = 13%
- Misuse = 3%
Analysis: 71% of the sample consists solely of links to wiki sites, just pure links. This is probably motivated by its description, which only requires an existing wiki about a work (with a tvtrope page) to count. The remainder is made up of potholes that mention the trope and other examples with links and a bit more meat on the bones. However, I struggled to find any relevance in these last ones, because they simply discuss the wiki's current state or a few details about it, topics that aren't actually connected to the work itself but to the fandom of the work. Two of them even ask the reader to help expand the wiki, using the trope as some sort of ad. Overall, it appears that the trope doesn't have much to offer as a trivia trope in its current state.
Suggestion:
- Making it a Definition-Only Page and removing all the standalone examples.
- As suggested here:
- Ban examples from being listed on work pages, but allow them on The Wiki Rule page itself.
- Make it a Just for Fun page.
- Rework the trope to be about when creators use a fan's wiki as a reference.
- As suggested in the Tropes Needing TRS post:
- Require examples that aren't hosted on wiki farms like FANDOM.
- Other suggestion are welcome.
Wick check:
With more than two-thirds of the sample, The Wiki Rule is a clear offender of the rule Weblinks Are Not Examples.- DracoInLeatherPants.Video Games: Kane, the leader of the Brotherhood of Nod in the Command & Conquer series. It doesn't help that his motivations seem to change every game, or that the developers themselves seem infected with Evil Is Cool.
- At one point in the first game, he tells the player that "people believe what the media tells them to believe… and I tell the media what to believe". Quite fitting that this is exactly what happens among the fandom — another cutscene has Kane MST the "origin of Tiberium" scene from the GDI campaign, interrupting it at one point to explain that, as opposed to Dr. Mobius finding it and naming it after the Tiber River the first meteor crashed near, Kane himself actually discovered it first and named it after the Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar. Now, if one were to look up Tiberium on Google, almost every result except the C&C Wiki won't even mention Mobius' version of its discovery and naming, much less assume that that's how it actually was discovered.
- Bare-Handed Puppetry: OobiEyes.com, a former online catalogue of unofficial Oobi puppets that closed in 2013, had a YouTube "partnership offer" that gave customers free Oobi eyes if they created web videos with their products. The result was a wide variety of Oobi tributes and spoofs appearing on YouTube, including entire series about bare hand puppet characters. Due to the former popularity of such videos, a wiki exists (of course it does!) for cataloging homemade films starring Oobi puppets.
- Characters.Kan Colle Eight: Sports a 16-inch twin gun mount in addition to her aircraft. The wiki even classifies her as an aviation battleship instead of a carrier.
- WesternAnimation.Ben 10 Omniverse: As noted by the show's official wiki, Clyde Fife is basically Napoleon Dynamite as a Ben 10 character.
- Crunchtastic: Strong Bad from Homestar Runner has coined "extracurriculariffic", and his Sblounskched! candy bar has a "crispety, cookety log" in the middle (a cookie center hollowed out to make room for more "candy matter"). There's a lot more. In fact the Homestar Runner Wiki has a page devoted to all the made-up words!
- Fanfic.The Greatest There Was Or Ever Will Be: In the grand tradition of the Internet, the fanfic has its own wiki here.
- UnusualEuphemism.Webcomics: This is yet another unintentionally hilarious element of Christian Weston Chandler's critically acclaimed masterpiece Sonichu. There are too many examples to list, but suffice it to say that the comic basically has its own vernacular based on the author's unusual usage of English. Examples include "pickle" for penis, "China" for vagina, and "raincoat" for condom. The CWCki has numerous pages about the words Chris comes up with, if you're really interested.
- Official Fan-Submitted Content: Within a loose view of the Disney Ducks Comic Universe canon, certain ideas or fancomics submitted to official creators' blogs and heartily approved by said official creators have got some credit, and are treated as such on the Wiki.
- Characters.Pokemon Diamond And Pearl Gym Leaders And Elite Four: In English: Fantina = Phantom. Plus, according to the PokéWiki her name is the same in both English and Spanish. In Spanish, though, Fantina comes from the more obvious word Fantasma note . The wiki also suggests the name is a reference to Fantine from Les Misérables.
- Trivia.Sam And Max: The Sam & Max Wiki.
- Trivia.Magic Kyun Renaissance: Magic Kyun! Renaissance Wikia.
- Trivia.Yu Yu Hakusho: This one and this one, although the former is much better. ► The second link is down
- Trivia.Fantasy Life: ReveriaExplorer, a database for every item in the game.
- Trivia.I Dont Want To Be The Hive Queen: Has one here.
- Trivia.Sky Children Of The Light: The Sky wiki is right here!
- Trivia.Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII: The Final Fantasy Wiki.
- Trivia.Changeling The Dreaming: The White Wolf Wiki and Changeling: The Dreaming Wiki.
- Trivia.The Lord Of The Rings: The One Wiki To Rule Them All, and The Tolkien Gateway.
- Trivia.Scape And Run Parasites: Scape and Run: Parasites Wiki.
- Trivia.Lovecraft Country: Lovecraft Country Wiki
- Trivia.Farm Ville: The Farmville Wiki.
- Trivia.Vib Ribbon: The Vib-Ribbon Wiki.
- Trivia.Assassins Creed: Here.
- Trivia.One Hundred Percent Orange Juice: The game has an official wiki.
- Trivia.Twelve Tails Online: The Thailand 12 Tails Online Wiki and Wikia's 12 Tails Online English Wiki.
- Trivia.Shadow Raiders: Shadow Raiders Wiki.
- Trivia.Urusei Yatsura: The Urusei Yatsura Wiki.
- Trivia.Boss Monster: Here you go.
- Trivia.The Moomins: Moomin Wiki
- Trivia.Realm Of The Mad God: Right here.
- Trivia.Redungeon: Redungeon Wiki | Fandom
- Trivia.Choushinsei Flashman: Covered as part of RangerWiki.
- Trivia.Danger Days The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys: The Danger Days Wiki, which covers the album, music videos, and comics.
- Trivia.Guyver: The Guyver Wiki.
- Trivia.Eureka Seven: Eureka Seven Wiki.
- Trivia.Akuma No Riddle: Has a wiki here.
- Trivia.A Thing Of Vikings: Has one located here.
- Trivia.Alchemy Stars: Here is the Fandom Wiki.
- Trivia.CSI: The CSI Wiki.
- Trivia.Welcome To The Game: Made before the game even came out, here.
- Trivia.Dragon Quest Builders: The Dragon Quest Wiki, Wikia Dragon Quest Wiki, and Dragon Quest Builders Wiki.
- Trivia.Ninku: Here it is.
- Trivia.Huntik Secrets And Seekers: Huntik Wiki
- Trivia.The Harlem Globetrotters: The Harlem Globetrotters Wiki.
- Trivia.Forever Knight: The Forever Knight Wiki.
- Trivia.My Little Pony Tales: My Little Wiki covers Generations 1-4.
- Trivia.Outlander: The Outlander Wiki.
- Trivia.Temple Run: The Temple Run Wiki.
- Trivia.Killing Eve: Killing Eve Wiki
- Trivia.Walker: Walker Wiki
- Trivia.Perplex City: Has a wiki Here.
- Trivia.Coconut Freds Fruit Salad Island: The Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island Wiki.
- Trivia.Fig Hunter: Here.
- Trivia.Wings Of Fire: The Wings of Fire Wiki and Animus Wiki.
- Trivia.Dragon Ball Z Battle Of Gods: The Dragon Ball Wiki.
- Trivia.GI Joe Extreme: Joepedia, the G.I. Joe Wiki.
- Trivia.Chronicles Of The Kencyrath: http://kencyr.wikia.com
- Trivia.Romantically Apocalyptic: Romantically Apocalypse Wiki
- Trivia.Ultima I: The Codex of Ultima Wisdom, and Wikia Codex of Editable Wisdom.
- Trivia.The Raven Cycle: The Raven Boys wikia. It's infamous among the fandom for being a lot more casual than a typical wiki (most character pages are just emotional rambling and fandom jokes rather than objective information).
- Website.Questden: The Questden Wiki serves as an summary and index for every quest and has a few extra articles on things like advice for running threads and archived links to the various fanart threads. ► Trivia tropes doesn't go on the main page, otherwise it's fine
- Trivia.Sword And Fairy: Softstar Wiki, shared with Xuan-Yuan Sword series.
- Trivia.Alien Trilogy: Xenopedia has information on Alien, Predator, and Alien vs. Predator.
- Trivia.Little Big Planet: There used to be one on LBPCentral, but it's been down for some time. In the meantime, there's also one on Wikia.
- Trivia.Ssalia And The Dragons Of Avienot: Has a wiki here, though without much activity.
- Trivia.Bleach Ultimate Alien: Bleach: Ultimate Alien Wiki. Be warned, it is very much incomplete, so some wiki magic love is much appreciated.
- Trivia.Yu Gi Oh Forbidden Memories: Yugipedia (which forked from the old wiki in 2018).
- Trivia.How To Be A Werewolf: The How to Be a Werewolf Wiki. It could use some help as it just recently was created. ► This example was made in 2020
- Trivia.The Descended: Brian has considered making one to keep track of it. Currently averted, though—Brian considers his TV Tropes page to be detailed enough that he doesn't need a wiki of his own. ► Trivia trope can't be played with.
- Trivia.Hellfire Commentaries: Averted; they started a wiki, but eventually scrapped it in favor of a TVTropes page. ► Trivia trope can't be played with.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 3rd 2023 at 1:47:12 PM
I guess wikis are in a situation similar to Fan Art.
I'd like to apologize for all this.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
There's definitely a weird gray area with "things fans objectively do, but that feel a bit too objective and neutral to be YMMV".
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
def only and YMMV, because the tendency is interesting but any given example is likely less substantive than a Zero-Context Example. I support it being YMMV because a fan deciding to make a wiki is an Audience Reaction, and some people will never engage with wikis or indeed create them - then there are the (obscure, probably, but innumerable) works that never get wikis.
Edited by andrewthetroper on Jul 27th 2023 at 11:32:38 AM
The pessimist sees a dark tunnel, the optimist sees a light, the realist sees two lights and the engineer sees three idiots.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'm now in favor of moving this to Audience Reactions for the reason you gave.
I'm not convinced being "too objective and neutral for YMMV" is a problem because things fans objectively do is the entire point of the Audience Reactions index. Subjectivity is more required for YMMV.Home Page than Audience Reactions, as seen by other Audience Reactions that are based on actions other than opinions, like Self-Imposed Challenge.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 27th 2023 at 4:58:48 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
Voting for audience reactions
Edited by Siegfried1337 on Jul 27th 2023 at 4:47:20 AM
MB Pending | MB Drafts | MB Dates
Captain of USS Bajor
Definition-only, but I'm going to disagree with exiling it to YMMV. Some wikis are in fact officially backed: e.g. the wikis for Paradox Interactive's 4X games are all hosted on a company-run site.
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
Definition-only for me.
A good number of links for almost any popular work are to the Fandom Wiki anyways.
Edited by Nen_desharu on Jul 27th 2023 at 7:58:17 AM
Kirby is awesome.
def only
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
audience reaction
technically anything a fan does to engage with a work or in reaction to a work could be classified as an audience reaction, but we don't classify everything that falls into those buckets as such and I don't see the need to here when the interaction is as surface level as consolidating info about the work
She / Her
to audience reaction. I'm good with definition only too to a lesser extent.
Def-only.
I have some objections against making this definition only. The ZCE rules are about how much information is necessary to establish that something is a valid example; here instead we seem to be using it as a text limit, which isn't the purpose of the policy at all.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
to making it an audience reaction. A wiki existing is not an opinion.
Holding off on the def-only option, until there's more thorough discussion.
CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I mean, I already pointed out that these do not count as ZCE. That isn't the issue here. The issue is the lack of a clear point beyond just documenting something people can Google in 5 seconds.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Yeah, the OP's argument is that the concept itself is off-mission, rather than anything about ZCEs. Someone on the first page (not the thread creator) called the wicks ZCEs and was already corrected for it (as mentioned in the post above this one).
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 28th 2023 at 3:22:31 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Examples that just go "This has a wiki" aren't very interesting, and I wouldn't be sad to see them go.
That said, I could see the appeal of keeping some examples somewhere on TV Tropes, like this on Homestar Runner:
" is incredibly thorough about any information concerning the site. Want to know what each character is dressed as in every Halloween toon? Go there. Want to know what computers Strong Bad used? They got it all sorted out. Want to know obscure stuff like Bubs' shady deals? They got it. The Brothers Chaps have admitted they sometimes use it for reference about their own work, have donated to it for years, adopted a character's fan nickname from the wiki (the Visor Robot) into canon, and even acknowledge its existence in several toons (such as "Fan Costumes 2016"). Taken up to eleven with the StrongBadActual Twitter account, which is probably the only one whose relevant Wiki documents all its posts in detail.Responding to a few of the suggestions:
- If we have a Definition-Only Page we should probably have a page for Fan Wiki before The Wiki Rule, because I'm not really convinced TWR is useful as a definition. How often do we bring up the statistics of fan wikis anyway?
- I wouldn't support listing on-page examples with no new requirements. To avoid being a boring link farm, there needs to be some significance. A fun idea would be to make it a page for gushing about fan wikis. (The Wiki Rules?)
- I really like the idea of having Acknowledged Fan Wiki or a similar trivia item.
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Concerns over how useful The Wiki Rule is as a definition is why I wasn’t sold on D-O, for the record.
to having Fan Wiki at least. Can go over the others later once I’m not on mobile.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Making new pages would be a job for TLP, not TRS. Plus, I don't see how Fan Wiki would be any different from The Wiki Rule aside from the name and somewhat narrower scope, considering the latter is already mostly being used for fan wikis.
As for Acknowledged Fan Wiki, that would definitely require TLP because gathering examples would include gathering information examples of The Wiki Rule don't usually have (specifically, the Word of God or Word of Saint Paul acknowledgement, which isn't part of The Wiki Rule's definition and thus isn't usually listed in examples' text). The Homestar Runner Wiki entry may have that information and would work as a starting point, but most other examples aren't written like that.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 28th 2023 at 5:07:40 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
I think The Wiki Rule was meant less as "this work has a wiki" per se than as a parallel to The Magazine Rule ("everything has a wiki/magazine"). But the latter has far more presence in fiction - so the distinction didn't work in practice.
Edit: Actually, looking at The Magazine Rule, it says it was named after The Wiki Rule, so shrug.
Edited by nrjxll on Jul 28th 2023 at 4:51:11 AM
![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
Ninja'd by nrjxll, but...
Fan Wiki having a different name is the point. If we made The Wiki Rule into a Definition-Only Page, it would lose its significance of pointing out that everything has a wiki. Therefore a rename would be fitting.
I'm aware TRS can't launch new tropes, but I suppose my concern would be that interesting examples (such as the Homestar Runner example) would be lost if they were removed without being transferred anywhere. The best way to prevent that would probably be to use a sandbox page, then let TLP use the text for examples when the appropriate drafts are made.
I wasn't really aware whether Sugar Wiki or Just for Fun pages needs to go through TLP, but it makes sense. Especially for the "pseudo-tropes" which list work examples, like Most Wonderful Sound.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I've thought about it a bit more and changing the definition to specifically refer to fan wikis for specific works and changing the name accordingly would probably solve the problems that led to on-page examples being removed. The fact that the examples that were brought up in the ROCEJ cleanup thread would no longer be valid if we limit the definition this way means we could probably bring back on-page examples and crosswick examples that match the revised definition.
I think I'm starting to lean toward narrowing the scope to fan wikis for works and changing the name to match the revised definition.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 28th 2023 at 5:38:46 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
I can get behind that.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Eh, I still don't see much of a point to just listing fan wikis...
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I mainly fix indentation issues
Yes, if we're going to end up with the same "just a link to a fan wiki" example, then reducing the scope of the trope wouldn't make a difference. I think it really needs another requirement (like the author acknowledging the fan wiki) or anything else outside of the existence of a wiki.
ValdoOn the topic of Zero-Context Example, I do wonder if this is more of a case of Weblinks Are Not Examples.
Edited by FernandoLemon on Jul 28th 2023 at 3:36:34 PM
I'd like to apologize for all this.
Crown Description:
- The Wiki Rule is about how the Internet is capable of generating a fan-made wiki on virtually any topic imaginable (movies, books, TV series, comics, fortune cookies, etc.). It is an 11-year-old trivia trope consisting largely of external links and Potholes. This was brought up in a trope talk a few years ago, and it was eventually added to the Tropes Needing TRS because, and I quote, "[a wiki's] existence is not very notable". Here is the Wick Check.
- 71% of the sample consists solely of links to wiki sites, just pure links. This is probably motivated by its description, which only requires an existing wiki about a work (with a tvtrope page) to count. The remainder is made up of potholes that mention the trope and other examples with links and a bit more meat on the bones. However, I struggled to find any relevance in these last ones, because they simply discuss the wiki's current state or a few details about it, topics that aren't actually connected to the work itself but to the fandom of the work. Two of them even ask the reader to help expand the wiki, using the trope as some sort of ad. Overall, it appears that the trope doesn't have much to offer as a trivia trope in its current state.
- What should be done with The Wiki Rule?
I'm in favor of making this definition-only, and I agree with what was said about how fan works don't count as production Trivia.
Edit: Oh, right, and keeping it in Trivia would be the default even if we make it definition-only (what was said about Concept Art being a definition-only Trivia page is accurate), but maybe YMMV would be better since it's about fan creations and not production. I don't think this counts as a regular trope either way since it's not part of the work (which tropes have to be, but Trivia and YMMV don't have to be) in addition to not being production trivia.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 27th 2023 at 2:43:08 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.