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If the work in question is still accessible in some way (legally), then a page can be made for it or continue to exist. This is of course provided that it has enough context and tropes to have an actual page.
In terms of your second question, secondary sources are fine. Personal recollections are less fine, because there's no way to verify what someone is saying (unless you have the secondary source).
I believe works that are no longer accessible are treated like Unpublished Works, and can get a Darth Wiki page
@Willowleaf24 - I’m not sure that’s correct as we have The Day the Clown Cried in mainspace even though it’s never been publicly screened.
Edited by Exxolon@Arctimon - On point 1 that’s not really answering my question. For example Natty Comics was taken offline and the available archive is technically a copyright violation and could be taken offline by the original artist if they filed a takedown. By your criteria the page should be deleted again. It’s also inconsistent as if you suggest in point 2 we can rely on secondary sources for unpublished works but if the primary source is taken down for a published work we have to delete the page?
Edited by ExxolonIs the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine not legal? And I would assume that if the Natty Comics author hasn't issued a takedown since the comic five years ago, then they probably won't.
What do you mean by a secondary source? I'm referring to things like the Wayback Machine or secondary hosting sites.
The questions you're asking don't have cut-and-dry answers. They're going to vary based on a case by case basis. In terms of Natty Comics, it still exists and is accessible in some way, so the page should stay.
I don’t know enough about the Archive / Wayback to comment on its legality to be honest and the point is while the author hasn’t issued a takedown to the unofficial archive they could as it’s unauthorised and a copyright violation. By your criteria that would be grounds for a page deletion here.
When I refer to a "secondary source" I’m talking about something referencing the work like a review, forum discussion, parody etc. - something that is evidence the work exists / or existed.
I don’t think “case by case” works here - hence I was wondering if we actually had policy covering this - else I could easily make a case to delete Clown as we can’t verify its existence or the tropes on the page even though it’s in the Library of Congress
I might take a look at the thread but at the moment it seems that pages that get caught by this issue stay or go at the whim of the individual mod who looks at them - that seems off to me.
But that movie does exist. It was screened, it's documented, and it has tropes based off of what has been documented. It literally does.
I think what Fighteer said in that thread that Synch is a good start:
A major work, like a TV show, novel, or mainstream video game never really "disappears". There are reviews of it, people remember it, it may be archived in various places or streamed; there may be Let's Plays of it. There's more than enough evidence for its existence even if it suddenly stops being distributed, played, sold, or whatever.
Less prominent works like fanfics and roleplays have a much more tenuous existence. If there is only one source, it may not be archived or mirrored in any way that someone could reasonably find. "Anything you put on the Internet is there forever" may be a meme, but in truth there's so much content that it's entirely possible for obscure material to quietly slip away.
If it can be demonstrated that there is zero information publicly accessible about a work in this category: nobody's seen it, read it, played it, reviewed it, put up a video about it, etc., then it could be said to no longer exist and it would be a candidate to cut from our wiki. But only in that case.
And it doesn't depend on the mod; just because there's not anything official written down doesn't mean that they don't try to come to a consensus on this sort of thing.
Edited by Arctimon

Do we have a policy on this? If a work exists / existed but is inaccessible for some reason can we make / keep a tropes page on it? There are two scenarios that come to mind:
1 - the work was available and a trope page was created about it but at some point the work stopped being available - withdrawn / deleted / purged etc.
2 - the work was withdrawn / deleted / purged before we made a page about it, but there exists sufficient evidence from secondary sources and direct recollections from people who saw it allowing us to create a page based on those.
For context an example of type 1 is when Natty Comics was deleted from the internet, someone deleted our page on it as it was no longer online, even though we created the page based on the work when it was existent. I had to petition for its reinstatement and provide proof that it had existed before I was able to get the page restored.
So what is our policy on these works?
Edited by Exxolon