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:
resolved The Ugly Barnacle Western Animation
Since The Ugly Barnacle page is based on a joke from SpongeBob SquarePants, should it be in the Just for Fun namespace?
resolved Should Nightmare Retardant limited to something meant to be scary?
The latest example make me think it's on advance state of Trope Decay.
- Though the Gecko in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots are a force to be reckoned with in combat, they would have been a hell of a lot more frightening if they didn't moo like cows while attacking.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Gecko isn't suppose to be scary. The worse offender are these entries.
- In fact, just take something that you find scary in mind. Take a long hard look about what it is and why you are afraid of it. Examples?
- Dem Bones - Walking skeletons... technically what you are. (That just became unintentional Fridge Horror, didn't it?)
- Malevolent Masked Man - The same things trick-or-treaters wear.
- Giant Spiders - spiders and insects are never bigger than a dinner plate because those're the limits of exoskeletons - sea spiders aside (not that you'll ever see one of those in your life, of course) - and open circulatory and respiratory systems.note They don't have circulatory systems as you generally think of one. It's a blood-like liquid called hemolymph that essentially is sloshed around inside the body cavity, immersing the organs to keep them oxygenated and fed. It's terribly inefficient, much like their respiratory system, and if you scaled it up the hemolymph would essentially pool at the bottom and the dang thing would die in very short order. Life is not a Xerox machine; "enlarge original" is not an available function. Furthermore, the bigger a spider is the more harmless it is. Those dinner-plate spiders? Completely harmless, unless you have an allergic reaction to them. Besides, spiders will only ever bite you to defend themselves.
- Snakes - also mostly harmless, and even if they're not? Knee-high boots. They'll only ever bite you to defend themselves, usually after some sort of prominent threat-display which gives you a chance to back away and not get bitten like an idiot.
- Elephants and hippopotamuses (hippopotami?). Both are very large animals more than capable of killing you in half a dozen different ways if they feel like it. Both are so incredibly goofy-looking that in fiction they're more or less relegated to the comic relief of the animal world.
- Dolphins, who are considered ridiculously cute critters, despite the fact that they're known to kill sharks.
- Chimpanzees, those really funny act-so-much-like-humans animals most folks just seem to adore, have been known to kill people and are among the few species on the planet other than humans that conduct actual wars: chimp social groups will, if their ranges overlap, routinely launch into insanely vicious, bloodbath-level wars. No, really: kidnappings, infanticide, cannibalism (including literally drinking the blood of their enemies), torture, and completely indiscriminate killing have all been observed. The longest known chimpanzee war took four years to resolve - from 1974 to 1978 - and is known as the Gombe Chimpanzee War.
- Baboons, as well, even though they have teeth made of scimitars and Ebola, and are one of the few animals that are habitually sadistic, torturing other creatures (especially lion cubs) for fun, which not even humans do (normally).
So basically, instead of (from laconic) "Meant to be scary, but isn't." some examples are more of "Does not meant to be scary, and it isn't, but I think it should". It is no longer about audience reaction, it's WMG.
resolved Signature Song Aversion
The Beatles' entry on Signature Song is the following: "Averted. The Beatles have so many iconic songs that it's next to impossible to single out just one as their signature. Even picking out signatures from individual albums isn't much easier a task." Given that Signature Song is a YMMV trope, I don't think it can be averted. Not to mention that there are definitely some Beatles songs that are better known than others.
resolved Edit war?
On Infinity Blade, Super Waitei re-added an example for Damage-Sponge Boss that was originally removed by me for being misused. Does this count as an edit war and do I have permission to remove the example again?
resolved Total Drama Island
Why was the Total Drama Island Page changed from a redirect, given that the Total Drama Page currently covers all the seasons?
resolved JustForFun.TheLoudHouse
The Just For Fun page for The Loud House consists only of Myers–Briggs results for the characters. Is this a valid use of the namespace?
Edited by costanton11resolved Found a complain in Headscratchers.GhostMaster
There's only one entry on Headscratchers.Ghost Master (don't count the "I agree" second bullet). Since this is so old that the name of original poster is lost in time, I would like to think that this is one made when it was Just Bug Me. Since it isn't a question and is just complaining, cut list it?
resolved SelfDemonstrating Namespace
On Wick Namespace Migration, it says that Self-Demonstrating/ is not a namespace that should be used for wicks. However for Deadpool, the Comic Book/ namespace, which is the original medium, is currently a redirect to the Self-Demonstrating page. Should anything be done with this?
resolved TV Shows on DVD Web Original
Website.TV Shows On DVD needs a head-to-toe update, in the wake of these news. (Not to mention, the YMMV page consists of nothing but a Trivia Trope...)
Edited by dsneybufresolved Fandom Beserk Button misuse
Per this discussion of the Fandom Berserk Button trope, which reiterated that the trope refers to common objective mistakes that annoy fans, such as using the wrong spelling of a character's name, or thinking that the title referred to the main character, I removed this example from YMMV.John Lennon, as it is not an objective mistake:
- Fandom Berserk Button: Many people react very badly if you mention his assassin by name, and there is an ongoing movement to discourage people from doing so.
However, recently, a similar example was added to the page:
- Fandom Berserk Button: Do not mention the name of his killer.
What should be done with this?
Edited by costanton11resolved wikiword request goof
I accidentally clicked on the WikiWord request button of a page (Rich Idiot With No Day Job) instead of the To Do button, and didn't realise until I'd already typed my note in and hit Enter.
Is there anything I can do to cancel the request, or do I have to just wait and trust that the admin who fields the request will realise what happened and not action it?
(I mean, it's going to be pretty obvious that what I entered isn't just the page title with different punctuation. Just the admin's probably going to be puzzled about what I was thinking.)
Edited by PaulAresolved Creator Killer
Some examples on Creator Killer seem to list examples of the creator doing something illegal or unethical as a creator killer, rather than the quality of their work, as specified in the trope description. Should this be fixed?
resolved TearJerker/Elysium
TearJerker.Elysium has only one example and it break at least three rules.
It use spoiler tag in moment page (Spoilers Off), it's All Blue Entry and Chained Sinkhole, and it's Zero-Context Example using It Makes Sense in Context as excuse.
Should I send it to cut list?
resolved Pachinko Genre-Killer...in the West?
There's this entry in Genre-Killer. I already ask in discussion page, but nobody reply.
- While pachinko and pachislot spinoffs of video games have been a longtime industry that largely went without much backlash, Konami's gambling and parlor branch began marketing a new Castlevania pachinko spinoff subtitled Erotic Violence along with a Metal Gear Solid pachinko spinoff that used the iconic final confrontation between Naked Snake and The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in its trailer. Both of these games massively tainted the genre, especially in the eyes of Western fans of Konami's properties, effectively killing any and all good reputation the pachinko industry had, with all licensed pachinko games going forward, regardless of series or company, being met with virtually nothing but seething hatred. Both of the aforementioned pachinko spinoffs coming off the heels of other big-name Konami controversies certainly do not help the pachinko genre's reputation in the slightest.
(the bold is done by me) I'm pretty sure there's no Western market of pachinko to start with, so Western fans piss at pachinko industry should be no factor at all. I'm thinking of remove this entry, but would like to ask first if anybody know if Japanese pachinko fans really mad with this? I mean, Konami's fans sure hate it, but they aren't same group with pachinko's fans. To me this sound like "non-fans are really mad at this" without fans' input.
Edited by Kuruniresolved Edit warring on Series/TheMuppetShow
On The Muppet Show, Geoduck removed the existing example of Who Writes This Crap?! and replaced it with a sentence claiming that the show contains many examples but not describing any of them, with no edit reason. I put the example back, with an edit reason explaining why. Geoduck just repeated the same edit, again with no edit reason.
I think I remember correctly that the border line of edit warring is around here somewhere?
resolved Planning a page for one of my works Literature
I have a story that I am planning on making a page for. I currently have drafts of the first five chapters on deviantart, but things in them are subject to change in the final product. I ask if I should put it in the Darth Wiki because of this, or if it is okay to post it as part of the main site while acknowledging the posted chapters are not the final versions?
Edited by Zerukinresolved Thinking about moving a page Webcomic
A while back I created the page for DNA. I think it needs to be moved because their are some unrelated works with the same name that also have pages. Although I am not sure what to move it to. Also I have never moved a page before. I was thinking of moving it to WebComic/DNATheWebComic. Is there being works pages with the same name for unrelated works a good reason to move it? And if so, what should I move it to?
Edited by legendaryweredragonresolved Proving Unfortunate Implications
So, there are two entries I want to make to the Unfortunate Implications page.
The first is a Tabletop Games entry, referring to the Vistani of Ravenloft and the Aperusa of Spelljammer, both of whom are based on gypsy stereotypes, with the Aperusa in particular being particularly negative/offensive in their portrayal. The second is a Comic Books entry about Black Panther, specifically pointing out that M'Baku the Man-Ape has come under fire since the late 1990s because of his unfortunate resemblance to the "African people as apes/monkeys". If you search "M'baku racist" on Google, you will hit a dozen articles reporting that the character was stripped of his original comic books name & costume because it was deemed too racist.
Both times, I have been denied due to "lack of citation". What do I actually need to say to prove my point?
For comparison, these are the entries as I have written them so far:
- In Marvel's Black Panther, one of the titular African superheroes' few enemies from his homeland of Wakanda is M'baku, a member of a rival tribe who has also gained superpowers through mystic rites associated with his tribe's totem animal. The problem is that his totem animal is the White Gorilla, and M'Baku's supervillain name is thus The Man-Ape, as he runs around in a gorilla-themed costume. The long history of demonizing African men by comparing them to gorillas has led to ever-increasing backlash against the character in recent years - both he and his brother were killed off in the comics, for a time at least, and the 2018 feature film has promised to not use M'baku's super-villain name or his costume.
- The Black Panther/Storm romance was also criticized on these grounds, with many arguing that the two characters had no preexisting connections or any real chemistry, and that they were simply thrown together because both were strong, independent black characters.
- The Aperusa are "Space Gypsies" and, thusly, are a misogynistic pack of cowardly thieving con artists who are incapable of sincere faith in any deity, instead loudly professing worship for the god whose priest has most recently performed something beneficial for the tribe, only to convert the instant another cleric does so. No, this isn't hyperbole. It's not even exaggerated. It's all taken directly from their entry in the Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium, which can be seen online here.
Yet another page still locked from the recent update; Gasshole is currently unavailable to edit.