All The Tropes:What we aren't

All The Tropes is a resource for discussing tropes and the works that use them. However, there are many things it is not, and this page will cover what falls outside our mission, besides what is obviously off-topic.

We are not a revenge or troll site opposing TV Tropes

This wiki is a fork of TV Tropes, done so for philosophical, creative, and legal reasons, as elaborated here. However, we have no desire to be party to any harassment, trolling, vandalism, or other mischief intended to do TV Tropes harm. This site is merely an alternative for those who do not wish to trope there for any reason. This does not mean you cannot submit content to both sites, but this will restrict what you can copy from there to here and vice versa, as explained here.

Although Fast Eddie stepped down as owner of TV Tropes as of November 2014 and its current owner is Drew Schoentrup, the same still applies. Even though Fast Eddie held our site in contempt, Drew does not, and while we understand if anyone still holds grievances against TV Tropes for one reason or another, we ask that any animosity not be expressed here regarding TV Tropes, as Drew has shown a willingness to extend us an olive branch which we wish to reciprocate. ATT Staff are currently cooperating with TV Tropes in ensuring troublemakers known to both our sites cause neither harm.

There are additional differences (and similarities), as will be explained in the subheadings.

We do not store Unpublished Works in the Main Namespace

TV Tropes allows for works that have not been officially published to be hosted in their Darth Wiki namespace. For us, they must be stored in the User namespace, as a subpage of your user page. While they don't really fulfill a purpose to others, they do help authors to create stories.

For more information, see here.

We do not store Troper Tales or Fetish Fuel

Troper Tales and Fetish Fuel were two subsections of TV Tropes. One could post personal anecdotes about tropes encountered in one's own life in the former, and in the latter about their fetishes. Both devolved into quagmires of disturbing, overly sexual, and downright creepy content that proved impossible to police, so both were banished from TV Tropes to offsite wikis.

We have elected not to host this content for the same reasons TV Tropes did.

We are not paper

A wiki has no space limits on how much content you add. In fact, feel free to add as much content as you wish, so long as it's within the project scope. However, we do have technical limits on how much content can be added before page loads and saves become difficult, so some pages may need to be broken up into subpages. That aside, we have no content limits for size reasons.

We are not officially affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation

We use many templates, some content, and even the same software as their websites do, but we have no connection to them whatsoever, and while we may emulate some things they do for technical or practical reasons, we are not affiliated with them in a technical or legal sense, though we do believe in the same free content reuse policy as they do, as that philosophy aligns with our own site mission.

We are not Wikipedia

While Wikipedia is an invaluable resource, and while material from there can be used here with proper attribution, we are not meant to have their formality, bureaucracy, or emulate their manual of style, as all those things we have tailored for our needs, not their own. Please read our other site policy pages to learn more about the rules and style work around here.

We are not Wiktionary

While this site does serve as a compendium of tropes and gives their definition, we are not a general purpose dictionary site like Wiktionary.

We are not Wikiquote

Wikiquote is a wiki of quotations from all sorts of sources. While we have our own sections of the sites dedicated for collecting quotations, this only applies to quotes about tropes, works (and from characters in them), and the creators of these works.

We have occasionally copied quotes from Wikiquote, but we (should) do so with attribution and only to illustrate the works where those quotes originate.

We are not Wikinews

Wikinews is a wiki for crowdsourced news reporting, which we are not, nor is our site mission to discuss current events. There are many forums and other sites dedicated to this purpose, but that is not within our site mission.

We are not Wikisource

Wikisource is a wiki for collecting copies of free-content licensed and public domain works for reuse and redistribution, and while we do have a source tab for works that fall under this scope, we do not have an interest in any source for something that does not apply to a work, trope, or creator of either, nor is this a place for storing copies of licensed material we have no legal right to retain copies of.

We are not Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is a wiki for images, and while we may use some of their content to illustrate the site's articles and layout, this is not an image repository for anything not within our project scope.

We are not Wikibooks

Wikibooks is a wiki for crowdsourced manuals and guidebooks for various topics, and while we can reuse their content with proper attribution and have sections for creating our own for on topic subjects, this is not an entire wiki dedicated to that purpose.

We are not Wikiversity

Wikiversity is a wiki for crowdsourced educational materials, and while we may provide some limited forms of this sort of thing in regards to tropes, works, and how to create both, it is not our primary site mission to provide these material, especially if they fall outside our project scope.

We are not Wikivoyage

Wikivoyage is a wiki for crowdsourced travel guides. While we do have pages for some cities and countries, we focus on how they are used in fictional works, not on what to see and do if you visit them.

We are not soapbox/advertisement space

While it's perfectly permissible to make a page for one's own work and trope it, this is not a place to write vanity articles or puff pieces. Also, since this is a community website, no one is allowed to remove civil criticism or objective fact from these pages, even if the work is something they hold high opinion of. We do have a YMMV subspace for subjective opinions, but this is not to become an edit war zone where any one editor tries to force their opinions or beliefs on others. We will tempban people who turn YMMV pages into edit-war zones, and in the past we have done exactly that.

For the same reasons, we also do not permit authors to recommend their own stories on fanfic recommendation pages, or add them to pages like So Bad It's Horrible, So Bad It's Good or any other similar Audience Reaction page. The author is not the audience; any such additions are considered to be dishonest self-promotion and are subject to immediate deletion/reversion, regardless of any excuse or Parody Retcon offered to "explain" why it was done.

We also do not permit advertising of any sort, including spam, either by bot or by a human editor. It will be removed with prejudice and the poster permanently banned without warning. (Our wiki host occasionally holds fundraisers, which do not fall under this prohibition.)

We are not a personal blog, web host, memorial site, or social network service

While there are subpages and fora where on site topics can be discussed, they are not meant for use as blogging about's one's personal life. Any blogging services provided in wiki will only be for writing about topics relevant to the project.

We also do not provide web hosting of any kind, nor do our service providers, unless they themselves elect to offer it, and in that case, we are not a place for such needs in any event.

If a troper dies, their page may be archived and brief comments paying respects to their memory are permissible where appropriate, though this is not meant to be a shrine to anyone in particular.

We are not Facebook or Twitter, nor a dating service, and we ask all tropers use those services instead of our site for that purpose. You may form friendships while editing, which we encourage, and all tropers may feel free to pursue them further via other venues.

We are not censored

While we do not host pornographic imagery (as it is out of our site scope), we may allow NSFW links for illustration of certain topics, which are permissible so long as they relevant and properly labeled. OK, so we're a little bit censored, but not very much.

We also may discuss works and tropes of an adult nature, and so long as the discussions remain civil and on topic, they will not be censored. We discourage the use of profanities in these discussions; there's usually other ways to say the same things, and our reading audience does include people under the age of majority. See our policy on Academic Freedom for details.

This does not give anyone carte blanche to post absolutely anything here, though. Quoting from our policy on Academic Freedom, "If it's not on the topic of creative works, it never belonged on the site in the first place." Also, we are not a government, and so constitutional protections of freedom of expression do not apply to us. We are allowed – and in some cases required – to restrict what may be discussed here. Just because someone has a desire to exercise their freedom of expression on any matter other than tropes or troping doesn't mean we have to provide them with a venue to do so.

We may block your account for Censorware (or manual censorship) of certain language if it would destroy context (such as quotes from a work). This is done to protect the wiki from damage. See ATT:No Lewdness, No Prudishness and ATT:Strong Language Usage Rules.

We are not an anarchy

While we felt TV Tropes had too heavy handed an administration, we do have rules as well, we just prefer not to enforce them unless need be, and we try to assume good faith and be patient with those who make mistakes.

However, we do enforce polices on showing other tropers basic courtesy, a manual of style for pages, and certain common sense guidelines, like not posting criminal content. Again, we assume good faith and do not enforce the rules with an iron fist nor do we make up new ones as we go along.

We prefer to make decisions regarding site direction and policy by consensus, though certain technical matters may be decided by our hosting provider and staff. The community is always free to solicit advice, criticism, and suggest changes or alternatives.

We are not a place for fandom wars

While this wiki covers many works with wide fandoms, we have no desire to play host to any conflicts in those fandoms, nor do we wish to see anyone with any agenda try to make this wiki play host to their POV. We may mention these POVs when covering certain tropes or when discussing the work, but we intend to stay neutral on the whole. We encourage these fandoms to take their arguments to better places to discuss these differences.

Also, we do not want propagandists for these fandoms trying to demonize any work, people in the fandom(s), or the reverse and remove all criticism unless it is clearly unsubstantiated or outright false, nor turn any page into a shrine.

We are not a "reception wiki"

According to the definition used by Miraheze, a "reception wiki" exists to let people post about works that they really like or dislike (usually one or the other, depending on the particular wiki). While we do have Audience Reactions pages (YMMV, Funny, Heartwarming, Awesome, Tear Jerker, and others), they are not the focus of this wiki, and contentious pages of any sort are monitored more closely than other pages are.

Writing well-thought-out and grammatically-coherent pages in the Analysis and Reviews sections, as small as they are, is much preferred here to simply posting bullet-point lists about what people like or dislike about a work. All The Tropes:Complaining About Shows You Don't Like goes into more detail about this.

While our readers and Tropers can choose to read contentious pages such as Gushing About Shows You Like and So Bad It's Horrible, the majority of Tropers don't, choosing to focus on troping instead.

We have also had core policies in place here without change since we founded the wiki. One of those core policies is tolerance for others: "You may not agree with an editor, but you should always be able to respect another editor." Doxxing and edit wars are frowned upon here; if you aren't willing to at least pretend to be tolerant, you probably won't be comfortable at All The Tropes.