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Ask the Tropers:
openThe Slender Man Mythos cleanup
During the discussion for misuse and debatable use
of Slender Man Stand In, there was an idea from Warjay about the cleanup for Franchise.The Slender Man Mythos. I would like to bring this up due to the "nature" of the page in question, as not only is the page simply collecting media related to the Slender Man (regardless of their canon story) but the page is simply stating how broad and unique the universe is despite being otherwise.
Suggestions would be welcome if a possible cleanup is worth it (and if the Slenderman himself is worth keeping in the wiki).
openBounds of tropable material
I had some questions regarding what information is considered part of an official work for the purposes of troping.
I'm aware of how the basic guidelines work: examples need to draw from information present in a released work, while stuff that the author mentions elsewhere is considered Trivia and should be listed under Trivia entries such as Word of God, Author's Saving Throw, and the like. I am wondering precisely where the line is drawn.
For specific reference, I am looking at a Deviantart webcomic, so the "boundaries" there are a little loose by definition. There's the comic itself
, and that's obviously the work proper. The author also includes a few images describing additional lore and worldbuilding that don't appear in the comic itself, which are kept in a subfolder of the comic's main gallery
. I am not confident on whether this stuff would be considered part of the work, and thus tropable under the aegis of All There in the Manual or something like that, or Trivia.
openAuthor's Saving Throw vs Salvaged Story
Can someone explain the difference between these two tropes, because I'm wondering whether my understanding is correct? My understanding of Salvaged Story is when a sequel/prequel introduces a retcon that fixes an issue fans have with a previous instalment (using an example from the page itself, Now You See Me 2 retcons the details of the first film to stop the main characters from being examples of Designated Hero). But I've seen people put things under this trope that don't match it, such as a sequel simply having characters do something that fixes a problem that fans had with a previous instalment (again using examples from the page, the examples from The Kissing Booth trilogy sound more like the writers reacting to critics and telling a different story to fix those problems instead of using retcons). People are also just moving stuff from Author's Saving Throw to Salvaged Story as if they're the same thing. So can someone explain whether my understanding is correct or if I've been getting it wrong?
openPunctuation issue
Brian KT just made an edit (on a page that consistently puts periods and commas inside the final quotation mark), that moved a period outside the last quotation mark without doing anything else. My understanding is that this isn’t supposed to occur (first come, first served on style) so I’ve reverted the edit and sent a notifier.
Page edit history here
.
Troper edit history here
.
I don’t think I was the troper who added the example in the first place (it would have been long ago, if so), but am posting here to cover myself in case I did.
resolved Self-promotey language on creator page
sorry for the double post; coming across some things while wick cleaning.
Creator.Corgipon has some rather non-neutral and self-promotey language in its description, such as (emphasis mine):
- "Corgipon" is an American hobbyist web author, web artist, and somewhat underrated You Tuber."
- Her videos are often known for being either Pocketville-centric or Queen-centric, which she considers her special interests. These videos used to look quite amateur, but as for the latest video, she has shown to have adequate editing skills.
- She has also shown to have knowledge in the Japanese language, as shown in her Japanese fandubs of Adventures in Pocketville and an unofficial Japanese cover of the ending theme. The former turns out to have much better lip-syncing than the official dubbings.
Looking at the edit history and 1) the troper who created and wrote the page was Vanilla Flare and 2) Vanilla Flare is Corgipon, shown by this edit [1]
that Vanilla Flare later removed[2]
.
Is this ok/not against any site policy? Should these be re-written to be more neutral?
Edited by amathieu13openUnfortunateImplications and FlameBait
Since Unfortunate Implications is now Flame Bait, would it be prudent to purge all examples from the page itself? Or are those examples okay to place on the page?
I ask because an example was removed from a page, and said example was properly cited.
openDuplicate page
I'm not sure if this would be better suited for the Copy/Paste thread, since it's a copy/paste of content within TV Tropes itself, but the description for WebAnimation.Cupcakes Sergeant Sprinkles as well as the majority of the trope examples, page quote and image caption are almost word-for-word copies of those on the page for the fanfiction it's based on, changed just enough to reflect that it's talking about the video rather than the fic. Is there anything that should be done about this?
openWanted to bring up a case on a new user.
The main reason I'm bringing it up here instead of attempting to give a PM to them, is because they're currently edit banned for a rogue launch reason, so I wasn't sure if giving it there would work out.
But to get to what I mean, I wanted to bring up the, so far only, edit of new troper karryoke. Specifically, this edit
on The Angry Birds Movie. I removed the edit myself, but this edit just feels like a big mess of what not to do: a link-heavy ZCE that was placed on the top of the page (despite being an S-starting trope), that's also a YMMV trope. Plus, there's something about the way it's worded, as if these scenes are meant to be good parts of the movie.
openQuestion about moving a work page
So I brought up here
that the page for Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers contains a very outdated name. The series hasn't called itself that since March 18th, 2017
. Since then, it's called itself "SMG4", and in War of the Fat Italians 2021, it was established that "SMG4" doesn't stand for SuperMarioGlitchy4 but instead SuperMemeGuardian4. Should the page be renamed?
resolved Potential citation edit war
Vindicator Wes added this example
to an upcoming work. When it was commented out under the "no citation" rule
. Vindicator Wes uncommented it out with no other change
to the example. They claimed "it was clarified in the press release" in the edit reason, but nothing in the example itself suggests this.
openRude Troper
I recently sent The Worst Amy a stock ZCE notifier over an edit
they made to the newly-launched Significant White Hair, Dark Skin and they accused me in a DM of being a no-lifer over it. The name itself seems familiar, and I suspect this is not the first time they've gotten nasty at people over routine etiquette checks.
openDid I accidentally Edit War
So on YMMV.Wednesday there was this entry:
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In Stuck in the Middle, Jenna Ortega's character Harley quips, "If my family was a week, I'd be Wednesday."
I removed it as it is not really hindsight for the work as it happened before the show and it was already on YMMV.Stuck In The Middle. However then this entry was added
:
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Having previously played the female lead in a Tim Burton movie with a hidden villain seeking death through supernatural means, it's funny how Christina Ricci plays the hidden villain in this—another Burton-related property.
I then
moved it
to YMMV.Sleepy Hollow 1999. Because again that is not really hindsight for Wednesday as it happened before this show. Now I forgot the other entry. I know that they are different entries about different examples but I am wondering if I accidentally Edit Warred and if I did would like to report myself.
open"Redlinks cleanup"
Is the latest redlink removal on Arthur valid? It's my interesting that we should link episodes to encourage page creation; the Arthur recap is still under development, and I've made a few pages for it myself. It wouldn't make sense to only cover certain episodes in a season.
openUnfixed mistakes on a trope page.
fearlessnikki recently added examples to Remade and Improved that don't qualify for different reasons. I've messaged the troper responsible and gotten no response. I can't remove the bad examples myself because I'm currently banned from editing, and I can't directly ask someone else to do it because that would be editing-by-proxy.
I've asked about this in a couple places, and I was advised to ask about it here. What, if anything, can I do about it?
Edit: Examples as requested:
- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Main.RemadeAndImproved#edit35149632
- Bridge to Terabithia, Carrie, and The Worst Witch are based on books and therefore ineligible.
- West Side Story is based on a Broadway musical and therefore ineligible.
- The Last House on the Left remake may be considered superior to the original by some, but not by a majority.
- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Main.RemadeAndImproved#edit35150098
- Hunchback of Notre Dame is ineligible because it's based on a book. The troper even acknowledges the book's existence.
openShould Recaps contain the episode title in the page URL/name?
When it comes to recaps, should the episode name be part of the title, and the page link?
Star Trek: The Next Generation S1E1 "Encounter at Farpoint" features the episode title as part of the page name, and the page title itself.
However, Columbo S 01 E 01 does not, instead having the page title as part of the description.
Which one is the right way of doing it?
openTroper is inactive?
I tried sending a PM to another troper, and got this message.
"The troper you are sending a message to is currently inactive. The message was not sent."
What does "inactive" mean here? Is it a catch-all term for having somehow shut down their account themself, being permabanned, etc.?
Edited by MarqFJAresolved Potential edit war
A Leaning on the Fourth Wall example was added to this page
that mentions that "a character considers himself to live in a story in which he's the main character". Because that sounds more like Medium Awareness than anything, I changed the trope name, while also cleaning up other mistakes on the page. The same troper who added the example changed the trope name back
to Leaning on the Fourth Wall because (paraphrased) "The character doesn't truly know he lives in a story. He just like to imagine he does."
Leaving aside how I was supposed to know the difference, would this be considered an edit war? The troper in question didn't PM me or add anything on the discussion page, they just changed the example back to how it was when they added it (even if it was just the name being changed).
Edited by UFOYeahopenSeemingly non-existent fanfic
I recently found the page for Dance Of Destiny, it claims to be a Pokémon fanfiction released on FanFiction.Net. The page doesn't link to the fic so I went to try and find it myself but I looked all over Fanfiction.net and I can't find the fanfic anywhere. Unless I am somehow missing something it seems that this fanfic doesn't exist. I don't know if it maybe was removed or it never existed, to begin with but I can't find it.
So what should be done then?
openNot too sure about starting a fanfic page about a Japanese fanwork Videogame
Hello Tropers,
Today I want to consider doing and creating a page for another Fan Fic of Touhou Project known as "Touhou Baseball in Heat Star 2007", by "Decorun-san" in Nico Video website, as seen here
. I cannot plan to translate everything and this is a Japanese work with No Dub for You (no English translation), and I'm the only one interested currently in making the page.
Question is, since I cannot simply just create a fan-work page by myself, for now I'm considering to instead put it in Sandbox. For now, I just decide to load up with a plenty of tropes based on analysis from a rough translation from what I got.
Can I get suggestions with how are non-English fan works are generally handled? Maybe if necessary you can redirect me to a forum topic if needed, but I'm just curious, honestly.
Thank you for your attention.
Edited by JustNormalMusicLover

I'm on a self-imposed hiatus due to reasons, but this should be brought to the mods' attention.
Walker 45 has edited Literature.Victoria, calling it "a deranged piece of Nazi propaganda" and the like. They have also made forum posts
expressing overwhelmingly negative views towards the work and saying they will remove all mentions of it from the wiki.
Requesting mod revert of Victoria.