Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not TV Tropes

Essay on editing Wikipedia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For those not familiar, TV Tropes is a wiki that lists plot devices, tropes, and the like in all manner of fiction.

However, the fact that it is a wiki is where the similarity to Wikipedia ends. While Wikipedia does have articles on various plot devices and tropes, the intent is to give an encyclopedic outlook on how these elements are perceived.

Far too many Wikipedia articles over the years have taken the form "X in popular culture" (also: "X in fiction", "X in arts and media", "cultural depictions of X", etc.), which has caused many an editor to turn such articles into free-for-alls. Because a work of fiction is notable, that means that anytime anyone name-dropped it in another work, it's worth documenting, right?

While it is understandable on TV Tropes due to the nature of the wiki, that is not the case here.

Other elements that TV Tropes does that we don't:

  1. Long plot summaries
  2. Detailed character sheets that list every trope and plot device associated with a character
  3. Separating subjective content into its own sub-pages
  4. Giving trivia its own section, although it was prevalent and accepted here for a while
  5. Casual language is featured in articles, including profanity outside of quotations
  6. Long-winded discussions about whether an article should be renamed, cleaned up, merged, or deleted... oh, wait a minute
  7. In-jokes, at least not within articles
  8. Lists of memes associated with the work, although such memes may be covered here if their inclusion complies with policy
  9. CamelCase linking, although we did very early on
  10. Putting stinger jokes at the bottom of the page
  11. Allowing media analysis by editors; on Wikipedia, that violates the policy against original research
  12. Disregarding the notability of a subject as TV Tropes' mantra is "There Is No Such Thing as Notability"
  13. Marking certain details as spoilers; Wikipedia has neither hidden content about spoilers nor spoiler warnings in articles
  14. Requiring an account for editing, as well as for accessing the edit history and discussion pages of articles
  15. Once a subject is deemed to be too controversial, inappropriate or no longer worth covering, it is not allowed to be talked about or referenced at all
  16. Certain subjects are only allowed to be covered either in a limited capacity or once a specific time limit has passed
  17. References are not needed, as the work's plot is the reference, just like for our plot sections. However, references are not always featured in sections about real life, such as the work's production or reception.
  18. Information about living people that would run afoul of Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, such as reports of serious allegations against an individual that are either unsourced or sourced to user-generated content, which would be subject to revision deletion under criteria R2 on Wikipedia, depending on the seriousness of the situation
  19. Relying on ad revenue, and consequently needing to moderate or outright remove certain content to remain advertiser-friendly
  20. Being under a non-free license compared to Wikipedia's free license. Additionally regarding copyright, while Wikipedia is strict about nonfree content, even if the content is nonfree but not under all rights reserved, to the point where some articles are just without images, TV Tropes encourages editors to add images to some pages, with the only exceptions being if the copyright holder complains, if an appropriate image is considered to be too risky (like what is said at "No pic ever" over here), or if there are better images that illustrate specific tropes, like when looking for the scariest image for a Nightmare Fuel subpage.

In short, if you still want to visit TV Tropes despite these differences, you can go here.

On a closing note, "X in popular culture" can totally be a valid Wikipedia topic, if done correctly. That means that the article should be based on reliable, secondary sources which discuss the concept of x in popular culture. Additionally, TV Tropes can used as an alternate resource if necessary.

Compare the following examples of how such articles should not / should look:

See also

External links

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