TV Tropes
| Wiki | |
|---|---|
| Name: | TV Tropes |
| Owner/Maintainer: | |
| Dates: | 2004(?) – present |
| Topic: | tropes and genres |
| URL: | http://tvtropes.org/ |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
TV Tropes is a wiki dedicated to cataloging common (and uncommon) tropes in fiction, with extensive examples from thousands of series, listed (and occasionally argued over) by fans. While the site began as a collection of tropes in television shows, it has expanded over time to include examples from all varieties of media, including TV shows, movies, anime and manga, written literature, commercials, video games, web comics, fanfic, and real life.
An earlier version of the site was linked on Metafilter on March 11, 2004 (accessed 1/2009); that version is viewable on the Internet Archive. According to one commenter, it was started by Buffy and TWoP fans.[note 1]
An emerging convention is that one should not link to a TVTropes page without warning, since a reader clicking unawares may be sucked into a wikiloop by the site's addictive nature.[note 2] [note 3]
The site has seen its share of drama among users, moderators, and admins. Edit wars are common when fan biases take center stage, particularly on the YMMV page and especially when it comes to shipping and divisive characters. On a broader scale, entire pages have had to be cut due to being seen as flamebait or just distasteful after the admins started cracking down on lewd material.
Luckily, the admins and moderators do take notice of fan biases, reminding users what a certain trope is not[note 4] or even locking down certain pages to user edits to prevent edit wars.
Forks
TV Tropes has spawned several forks, including All The Tropes,[1] hosted on the Miraheze wiki farm and originally a Wikia (later Fandom.com) version existed as well. These forks have happened for several reasons, such as wanting censorship policies that are less strict than TV Tropes, wanting censorship policies that are more strict than TV Tropes, and disliking a change to TV Tropes's choice of license. All The Tropes itself has also been forked into Tropedia[2] and The True Tropes Wiki,[3] both hosted on the Fandom wiki farm.
Notes
- ^ "Yeah, a lot of the early influence came from buffistas.org, and another faction from Television Without Pity." - darksasami on Metafilter comments, September 29, 2007 (accessed 1/2009)
- ^ For example, comment by thefourthvine: "Warning: cherry_ice and I have determined that TVTropes is a black hole. If you click on this link, there is a chance you will never escape from the website. Leave a message for your loved ones before you click. Also, it's a good idea to pack a lunch." in Woobies Wanted post, 27 Feb 2010. (accessed 03/2010)
- ^ xkcd also references the TV Tropes time sink phenomenon here.
- ^ For example, "Faux Action Girl" does not mean a girl who loses a single fight or gets captured once