Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
Ask the Tropers is for:
- General questions about the wiki, how it works, and how to do things.
- Reports of problems with wiki articles, or requests for help with wiki articles.
- Reports of misbehavior or abuse by other tropers.
Ask the Tropers is not for:
- Help identifying a trope. See TropeFinder.
- Help identifying a work. See MediaFinder.
- Asking if a trope example is valid. See the Trope Talk forum.
- Proposing new tropes. See TropeLaunchPad.
- Making bug reports. See QueryBugs.
- Asking for new wiki features. See QueryWishlist.
- Chatting with other tropers. See our forums.
- Reporting problems with advertisements. See this forum topic.
- Reporting issues on the forums. Send a Holler instead.
Ask the Tropers:
openWorks page made for a single video questions Web Original
I noticed someone made a trope page for AI Pajama Sam, which is based off of a youtuber (DougDoug) playing Pajama Sam in "No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside" using an AI voice program. I'm unsure why it exists or if it needs to, but I wanted to mention it since it feels odd it was made.
The video it was made for was a decently length one, but it is so far the only one Doug has made, and stuff it mentions can be done on his own Web Video page. Is this something that really should be done? The page itself is somewhat barebones and even has a character page now, but it feels unnecessary to make a page for a single video like that. I think it should be deleted for now, but wanted to get feedback on this.
Edited by keyblade333openMisplaced IKnewIt Entry? Web Original
In Trivia.Cell Spex, I Knew It! is now YMMV, but it's about CellSpex herself accurately predicting a meme. Should it still be moved to the YMMV page?
resolved What's the line between Bad Boss and Mean Boss? Web Original
In response to a previous query
, I recently moved all the examples of Bad Boss on Not Always Working's page to Mean Boss due to trope misuse. Now I'm considering moving the Mean Boss examples to a new page, but I'm wondering now if some of the Mean Boss examples counted as Bad Boss examples after all.
For instance (text copied from the article itself),
- This boss
expects a worker to clean up an active biohazard without any sort of protective gear, because calling the city about it would cost too much, yet loaning the worker equipment they're not trained in, or letting them buy the equipment themselves, would be illegal. The worker quits on the spot.
- This boss
tries to send an employee out for carts in the middle of a severe thunderstorm, and then screams at and fires them when they (rightfully) object. Luckily, Laser-Guided Karma kicks in right away when her boss finds this out, and, thanks to an extensive history of screaming in front of customers, she is immediately fired the next day for intentionally putting the employee's life in danger, and later gets thrown behind bars for assaulting her ex-husband over a lost custody battle.
- The bar owner in this story
refuses to reschedule a mandatory meeting (which turns out to be just an hour of patting herself on the back for the bar's performance during a busy period, ignoring the staff's efforts) despite a two-foot blizzard being forecast, and threatens to fire anyone who doesn't attend. Despite their obvious reservations, the poster manages to get in just one minute late... and gets a write-up for it. The poster quits on the spot. Those who failed to attend — most of the staff — are indeed fired, but promptly sue for wrongful termination and win; it also comes up that the staff weren't paid for attending the meeting. The Department of Labor gets involved, and not only is the bar forced to close, but the owner ends up having to sell her home and many of her possessions to cover legal fees, damages, and back pay. At the end, the poster notes that none of this would have happened if she had just taken their advice in the first place and rescheduled.
- The grocery store manager in this story
won't allow the poster, a lot attendant, to come in for a drink of water, despite being in the middle of a July heatwave in Florida. After four hours of this, a passing gentleman convinces him to go inside, offering to speak to the manager in person and even buy some water. The manager immediately spots the poster and fires him. However, said gentleman, who turns out to be the regional director, steps in, angrily berates the manager for her reckless endangerment of an employee and gives her a fourteen-day suspension — which soon escalates to her dismissal, as it turns out that she has been forcing underage employees to work longer than labor laws allow and denying them mandatory breaks.
- This supervisor
refuses to let the OP, whose Psycho Ex-Boyfriend is always waiting for her by the door at closing time, leave through an alternate exit, laughing in her face when she has had enough and threatens to quit. She does (sending her resignation to the "big boss" who completely understands), and even goes through the unemployment process... but the supervisor refuses to accept this and treats it as her going AWOL, finally calling her up and threatening to fire her if she doesn't show up for work, and ignoring her protests that she doesn't work there any more; the poster finally agrees to come in just to shut her up (but doesn't do so, obviously). After her number gets blocked, the supervisor starts sending employees to the OP's house to demand that she come in to work, though all they do is "chill" at her house (and get paid for doing so). The poster eventually moves (and the ex is dealt with legally).
The impression I get from Bad Boss in my last query was that BadBosses are willing to kill or let serious harm befall their underlings. Would you guys say these examples count?
Edited by DancouMaryuuopenHandling Fanfic Recs Who Break The "No Self-Recommendations"-rule Web Original
I was told to come here for this question, so I hope it's not a dumb one:
How is the breaking of the "No Self-Recommendations" rule handled in Fanfic Recommendations? Like, if somebody posts a fanfic rec of their own fic, is the entry in question just cut with a provided reason for the entry being cut, or does the user in question also get a warning?
I figure that it's probably just the former, or maybe even cut without having to provide a reason(?) because a self-recommend isn't a big deal in comparison to active policy violations, but I figure that it's better to ask anyway. I just want to know if I can just go ahead and cut such an entry or if there's more of a procedure to it.
Edited by MagmaTeaMerryresolved Would this count as an EditWar? Web Original
On Sep 5th 2021
, I removed the Trope Informed Wrongness from the YMMV page of the fifth episode of Helluva Boss, due to said entry being Trope Misuse as a result of misconstruing the events of the episode.
On Dec 30th 2022
, jOSEFdelaville added Informed Wrongness to the page again, but with a different entry. I believe this is also an example of misuse that misconstrues the events of the episode, as Millie wasn't the one who brought up the fact Moxxie had a gun, Moxxie himself did. Millie only said he didn't need to prove he was stronger physically after he lamented not being strong enough, saying basically to stick to his strengths when facing him this time. Moxxie was the one who said "I probably should have used this earlier, huh?" after remembering he had a gun on him, Millie's reaction being more exasperation when she sees him remember and make the comment. "I love ya hon, but for fucks sake."
Would it count as an Edit War if I removed the trope since I had already removed Informed Wrongness once before, even if it was a different entry?
Edited by RebelFalconresolved Re-added Hilarious In Hindsight shoehorn in spite of cleanup Web Original
Near the end of April on the Hilarious in Hindsight page for Zero Punctuation, rundownforge50 added this sub-bullet
to an example that just happened to offhandedly mention Garry's Mod. I figured this seemed like a shoehorn since it didn't strike me as something which later context has made all that much more amusing or entirely relevant to the context given in the parent bullet, so I raised it to the Hindsight Cleanup thread
and was cleared to cut the example
.
Fast forward to today and I check the page's history since it's in my pinned pages list, and I notice that the same troper had added the same example back
the day before, with superficially altered wording that really doesn't help the example's case for being an example of Hilarious in Hindsight.
Speaking to the substance of the example itself, perhaps it would have been an example of Hilarious in Hindsight if the player model was one that Yahtzee himself created and/or frequently used, but a quick glance at the linked workshop page tells me that it isn't. So as far as I'm concerned, the example still seems like a shoehorn.
I won't say one way or another if the readding of the example is a breach of the Edit War policy, if only because the passage of time between the deletion and readding makes it unclear from my perspective. But I'm assuming, given the linked approval from the hindsight cleanup thread, that I'm still clear to cut the example?
Edited by Akriloth2160openIs It Okay to Create a Page About ChatGPT? Web Original
The year 2023 is now the year of A.I., especially ChatGPT and AI Generated Artwork.
If it's okay to make, we could make it self-demonstrative, like so:
TropeGPT: Sure! Here's a page about ChatGPT on TV Tropes.
The Laconic page can also be self-demonstrative too:
A chatbot developed by OpenAI that can write whatever the user asks.
- Troper: How do I go back to the unabridged version?
TropeGPT: Here's a link that will take you back to the unabridged version.
Edited by Oxyrhynchus
open Etiquette on deleting contentious/false moments examples Web Original
Got something that has been bothering me for a few weeks and rather than go the edit route I thought I would get a proper consensus first before taking any action.
Over on the H.Bomberguy heartwarming page there is an example for his RWBY criticism video with two subpoints and one third point. Most of the second and the third dot points are potshots at the show or it's company disguised as compliments to HB and could easily be cut out without much controversy. It's the main entry that I have an issue with.
To summarize, in his video on RWBY HB portrays himself as having been a life-long fan of Monty Oum (RWBY's creator who was long deceased at the time of the video), and the heartwarming entry on his page is talking about how much respect HB has for Monty as a creator and a person. The problem is that this is a lie; whilst Monty was alive HB made a lot of outright venomous statements on Monty and his skills that contradict his claims about how he was always in awe of Monty's work and considered him a personal hero. This makes HB contentious in the RWBY fandom since a lot of people see him as pretending to respect Monty (or at the most generous obscure his previous hatedom which he's since backed down on) to make his criticism seem unbiased rather than someone who went into the show as someone who thought its creator lacked talent and thought it looked average at best. It touches on a sore spot in that community of haters of the show using Monty's name as a way to bash the show/it's remaining creators.
So to circle back to the entry, it's repeating the claim that HB respected Monty and his work. That is a lie as HB's own forum comments can attest to. Would that be enough to get the entry taken down, or does this still fall under a subjective opinion and so the entry stays? If so, would deleting the sub-entries which lean towards taking potshots at the show and it's fans be acceptable?
openEdit War Web Original
On the recap page for RWBY's final episode for Volume 9
:
- Full Metal Heart 20 added a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome entry tackling Ruby's ascension
.
- It was deemed misuse by Wyldchyld, who deleted it
about four hours after it was added.
- Full Metal Heart 20 re-added the entry, albeit worded differently
with no given edit reason.
openIs this really Woolseyism? Web Original
I found this in Manga Soprano. To my understanding a Woolseyism is a change that people like but I think this example is just "Blind Idiot" Translation.
In the Japanese version
So what do I do with this example?
Edited by mickey96open Not sure or not Web Original
Would Helluva Boss count as a Cosmic Horror Story, or at least Lovecraft Lite, because even in death someone who hates someone else can pay to have them killed in life and it's implied that Heaven may be just as bad as hell itself so any hopes of peace after death may not even exist.
Edited by coldcascadeopenAvoiding Edit War/RoCEJ Web Original
A while back I made this entry on the Forgotten Weapons YMMV Page putting in folder for length.
- Broken Base: Forgotten Weapons is associated with Headstamp Publishing, which publishes in-depth books about firearms history. In February 2022, they announced their latest book, a memoir by a foreign volunteer who fought in Ukraine in 2014/15 in the Azov Battalion. Unfortunately the Azov Battalion is controversial and the author was found to frequently post far right and neo-Nazi views, Ian insisted this book itself was non-political and his audience was sharply divided between those who wanted it published for the sake of the information and those who found financially supporting the author to be morally unacceptable. Ultimately the book was cancelled when the site used to run the funding campaign pulled out of the project and Headstamp decided not to find another funding site for it.
And a few days ago I noticed another user had made an edit to change it to this:
- Broken Base: Forgotten Weapons is associated with Headstamp Publishing, which publishes in-depth books about firearms history. In February 2022, they announced their latest book, a memoir by a foreign volunteer who fought in Ukraine in 2014/15 in the Azov Battalion. Unfortunately, author was found to frequently post far right and neo-Nazi views. Ian insisted this book itself was non-political and his audience was sharply divided between those who wanted it published for the sake of the information and those who found financially supporting the author to be morally unacceptable. Ultimately the book was cancelled when the site used to run the funding campaign pulled out of the project and Headstamp decided not to find another funding site for it.
Removing the section stating 'the Azov battalion is controversial' with the edit reason: "I guess that by now only chosen ones can view Azov as controversial."
Now I PMed them and they said they were okay if I reverted the change.
So two questions: 1)If I did revert it is an edit reason saying 'discussed this via PM' enough to avoid it being an edit war? 2) Should I revert it? I guess the edit reason was saying that given the Ukraine War, it's no longer acceptable to call them that but it was at the time, and it was their reputation as well as the specific person's postings that caused the controversy (Alas all the videos and comments on them were deleted from youtube after the incident so proving anything is difficult)
resolved Problematic Wall of Text example Web Original
I originally raised this on the Wall of Text cleanup thread
, but it's had no reply for two weeks, so I decided to raise it here.
On the YMMV page for Crash Thompson, there's this lengthy sub-bullet listed under Broken Base:
- Crash's tendency to put certain albums at #1 on his "Worst of" lists that others felt weren't nearly as deserving of the spot as others. Many were surprised that Doug Walker's Wall parody album was even included on the list at all considering very few people even cared about it and many saw the segment as little more then an excuse for Crash to vent about his own disillusionment with Channel Awesome (which he applied to in the past), likewise in the "Worst of 2020" list some thought Crash was stretching by calling the "Living the Dream" music video for Five Finger Death Punch as being "anti-masker", and him trying to use a select few Youtube comments as an excuse to condemn the whole band as being rather unfair, not to mention Crash's repeated insults towards the band's own fans over the years in his reviews of their albums has led some to believe that he just wanted an excuse to rant about the band again and that accusing them of causing deaths was going too far, not to mention impossible to factually prove (plus seeing blaming a band for something that a few of their fans do as rather unfair), not to mention Crash slagging the band for their views (or at least what he thought they were) and penalizing them for it by putting them at #1 came off as hugely hypocritical to some considering he put Deftones "Ohms" on his "best" list despite one of their members (guitarist Stephen Carpenter) outright revealing himself to be not only an anti-vaxxer/anti-masker but a flat-earther as well (in addition to a whole bunch of other crazy conspiracy theory nonsense), yet Crash didn't penalize their album in the same way. For what it's worth, Crash himself later admitted in one of the "Rock Coliseum" videos that he regretted going as hard on both albums as he did, admitting that even if they were bad they weren't really worth all the anger he directed at them.
Originally, I was aiming to heavily gut this example due to its reliance on weasel words and what I initially interpreted as reaching for complaining via an appeal to hypocrisy (an appeal to hypocrisy which isn't even accurate even with the later context, considering that Crash actually did speak out against Carpenter in the same "best of" video). Other than maybe removing the attempt at drawing a double standard concerning Ohms, I'm wondering how exactly this can be trimmed to be easier on the eyes and less complain-y, if not cut completely.
Edited by Akriloth2160resolved Regarding conflicting external sources... Web Original
Hello. It took me a while to get my mind on about this, but I would like to politely ask question to get help.
It's about Fire Emblem on Forums - I was trying to do a little editting as can be shown here.
However, after than there is this edit, which says that the GM actually said that the game has not been completed.
After a bit of reviewing, I would assume they're right, I just realize that there are two contradicting possible external sources for this.
First, the source that came from the hub page
shows the game as completed, however, the actual game itself is indeed not yet marked as completed
. I think while it's external source and I can't help about it right now, I would like to mention the fact that a contradiction that has confused me was indeed present.
I'm sorry for having to point this, it might seem minor but it has mislead me into typing error. Forgive me for the incorrect edit, but the troper "IcyTea" and the person who told them are actually correct, so I'll just respect and accept their edit decision for now.
So the only problem here is trying to confirm. The latter edit is more preferable, right? I'm aware that I cannot re-edit it back because that would been an edit war that can be punished. I'm just unsure, and apologizes if this case wasn't that simple. I promise that the intent is to clarify and help. Thank you for understanding.
openFormatting for a WMG page Web Original
Hi folks, I made a WMG page for the first time ever at Outside Xbox (for the purpose of their TTRPG series' only). I divided some of it by folders as I know is done for some topics on other pages (perhaps getting ahead of myself there) ... but the formatting seems off when I compare it to a couple of other pages of similar sorts. Could anyone please advise? Kind regards - captainmarkle
Edited by captainmarkleopenWhen to know a page needs cleanup? Web Original
I've been looking over the page for Hamsters Paradise, as I've been following that particular work, and it seems to me that it could use a little help. Mostly in the grammar department, maybe with the spoiler tagging as well (At the moment it's just the stuff related to the original sketches that spoilered, though it's a little inconsistent. I'm also wondering if it's worth spoilering entries related to the Harmster and Baywulf sagas since they're a little heavier on plot details than the rest of the work).
At the same time, I'm not entirely sure if the issues are great enough that it needs a Cleanup topic, or any discussion at all as opposed to just fixing it myself. Is there a good way to know where to draw the line?
openA page for Ask Mario Web Original
So, I was thinking that there should be a page for the YouTube series "Ask Mario". However, I think that would be hard to make all by myself even if I started the page myself, which I could. So, if I do make this page, I would appreciate any help anyone else can offer, be it trope examples or subpages, which this page will definitely need. Please let me know your thoughts and thank you in advance.
Edited by LaughsWithGophersopenIf a bird fluffs itself up after being dried off, does that count as Fluffy Dry Cat? Web Original
In one Backyard Birds Of Australia video, Cheeky Boy, one of the Laughing Kookaburras, shook himself off to dry, and all his feathers puffed up. Due to having feathers rather than fur, does this count as Fluffy Dry Cat?
Edited by queenieAG

The trope description meanders along far too many tangents to what should be a description of the trope in fiction itself...feels like most of this should be moved to an Analysis page?
Edited by DarthWalrus