TV Tropes

In the past, TVTropes.org was once consisting of believers of more genuine democracy. Though resulting behaviors of the userbase were still around, the site was run on an interesting concept of patterns in the media that we consume. Back in the day, I had done the YKTTW (now referred to as Trope Workshop) entries for a few tropes, most notably Savvy Guy Energetic Girl and Monster Allies. Then the dark ages came, signified by how the admins would ban whoever they didn't like for arbitrary reasons, up to and including grammar errors on a site where that would easily be fixed by something they called Wiki Magic. I was one such victim of this inane practice.

More draconian practices would come into play, in an effort to manage organization for its own sake. The points the administration would have are undermined by their renaming tropes into more generic titles as well as their continued practices of banning users with the same arbitrary reasons, claiming they have no validity on the site, and also dismissing other sites as inferior copies. This isn't even getting into how the admins and key users such as LightySnake wanted to be claiming to be democratic, which is a disgrace to the idea of aiding the little guy, an idea contradicted by their elitism. Their brand of hypocrisy has resulted in a user named ChrisX being left feeling unwelcome just for his opinion of World of Warcraft. One additional note is that these ill practices of the TVTropes.org administration are intent on forcing everybody to be happy, despite how that asks for a stagnant, unstable position intolerant of different opinions.

Oh, and in case you think the site holds themselves to their high standards? The image I provide is of Game Breaker for Kid Icarus Uprising, a page that is VERY overdue for cleanup even without the example I highlight. Said example, it should be noted, basically claims that all 3 Powers can be used simultaneously, which long story short is not possible due to technical details that I won't go into detail about here, although I will to anybody who inquires. This is more evidence of why the site's suddenly draconian and democratic-in-name-only standards fail: it shuts out needed voices for calling out these problems.

The way things are, the needed reformation process is unlikely. TVTropes.org, which I henceforth prefer to call vanilla TV Tropes particularly due to the generic renaming of tropes, is unlikely to repent. It could happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

Reading and editing the site can be a fun experience, until you run afoul of the moderators who will then deliberately humiliate you by forcing you to post in what is essentially a penalty box thread of their forum, and explicitly beg forgiveness, even if there was a misunderstanding not your fault.

The new format is hard to read, the owners keep trying to force people to buy an ad pass, and main mods (Fighteer and Nombretado) target tropers to pick on. The website (and ads) give people viruses. Oh, and Fast Eddie is gone.

A lot of people have been migrating over to the Tvtropes fork, which, from what I've heard, is much better than the original. The old Tvtropes is hemorrhaging users.

I've been with TVtropes since its early days and, while disorganized, it was a fun time, a Wikipedia without all the strictness that came with editing. Yeah some of the examples were questionable but it at least gave some lesser known things like webcomics or web videos free advertising when you couldn't with Wikipedia. It was great... at least at first.

Over the years there was a management shift and they wanted the tropes to be more coherent which, okay, a bit sudden but I was down with and wanted to help where I could with that. But then came these overly strict rules where, not only would they punish you for misconduct as they should, but also... for grammar. No, I am not joking.

At some point, they apparently got too annoyed with correcting grammar of some of the tropers so figured to implement a rule that if you have continuous bad grammar, they'll mark that as a demerit against you. You get three, say goodbye to your account because apparently they think you're deliberately doing that and just want to get you out of the way as fast as possible. And it's not just that either. Did you do something by accident like say start an "Edit War" (Basically someone takes something down, you put it back up against without their consent)? Or did something another troper disagreed trivially with you who put a flag against you? Do you get a warning and explanation of what happen first at least? Well that would be what a sensible mod does. But with these folks, instant demerit! They don't care if it was unintentional, you broke a rule and must be punished! Sure you can agree not to do it again, but that demerit isn't gonna go away. You're marked until you either get two more (deliberately or by accident) before you get booted, the site goes down or, god willing, someone with brains takes over the operation and actually allow people fair chances WITHOUT acting like one-and-done-rule-break totalitarians.

But surely you can talk to them in a reasonable manner. HA! Nope! They, pardon my wording here, have their heads up their butts and think they're too important to listen to what you have to say. They will often twist your words to justify why they are right rather then a see if the problem warrants such severity and react accordingly. Try to ask them for help with something? Nope you "don't get it" and are banned. If you want to keep your account, you gotta get on your hands and knees and beg them to do so. Disagree or question them? Well clearly you deserve to be bounced for common sense. And you can just feel that smugness behind the computer screen. It the equivalent of kicking a puppy to them without breaking the law. After all, they run the site, who's gonna stop them?

And I'm sure they'll say "Well its for the efficiency of the site" or some crap like that. No, no it isn't, this is about keeping their laziness going and keeping their egos satisfied because if they truly were good mods like they claim they wouldn't keep people waiting two to three days at a time, would actually know what good grammar is rather then trying to force people to write the way THEY want, or really see if something's an accident (they keep tabs on your "crimes" when they suspend your account. And will list them when they bring you in) and if you're deliberately causing trouble or, y'know actually talk to people like they're not criminals. Oh but you got a grammar tally going, surely you're a troublemaker. And yes they do send some messages about that, but it isn't till you're brought in they spring that nasty surprise on you to add to your suspension. Ugh!

I'll end with the snapshots and the example of my last days on the site. I got brought in for the aforementioned "Edit War" and "Grammar Tally" (The last of which was in March for the former btw). They send me to a forums on the site called "Get Help With English" (_) where I have to prove I know good grammar through proxy examples. I try but they just seem to suspiciously keep finding something wrong with my wording (at one point finding an example with nothing wrong about it. I asked and they never answer me. Good job mods. Nice professionalism there). I go back to the main forum at one point to ask when they'll clear me. They get belligerent to me and tell me to go back to the other forum. After a few days, I do the exercise, thought I was in the clear because they were talking with others beyond my post several days after I posted my examples. No sooner then I go back to the main forum to ask them about it, a mod suddenly swoops down and list some mistakes out of the blue. I complain, they "thump" me and give me a warning. I calm down and just simply ask them if "they can please just tell me when I clear the exercise on the Get Help forums so I don't have to keep jumping between the forums, that's all, thank you" and go back to the exercise... And next thing I know I'm banned because I wasn't "cooperating". Yeah I got banned for daring to ASK for help like a decent human being and they were too lazy to see if I had really did the tasks like they wanted.

The final insult came when I try for an appeal through an email, I explain myself and the situation, try to tell them it was a misunderstanding. Surely someone there is reasonable... well I wouldn't be here if that was the case. I get an automated message essentially telling me "Tch, we're too lazy to deal with you and your just trash to us at this point. Have fun being unfairly banned." And that was it, my account is forever locked all because I wasn't "cooperating" as they wanted and rightly questioned them. Oh I'm sure they'll see this and spin it "Oh he was a repeat offender" Or "Wasn't really listening to us". I assure you I was just a simple troper enjoying the site, trying to improve the tropes the best I can (even re-working old examples), never got into any trouble with other tropers for the seven years I was there (the most I did was disagree with one YMMV example, when they didn't budge I just erased the example and went on. Oh but that was a crime in their eyes they didn't see till now). Never tried to start problems and, if anything, I actually MEDIATED things to keep folks out of trouble. But did they list that while going over my account? Nope, only the negativity, never the positives. What a joke of a system.

I can't stop anyone from joining the site, but I can warn you what you're getting into. Have fun, but be wary of the mods: they are not your friends, they DO NOT care about you in the slightest, are snobby and unreasonable, corrupt as all get out, love to shift the rules to their whims and always looking for reason to ban you and if they get it, expect you to grovel like a dog to them. Also, and this could be paranoid rambling, but I get the feeling they likewise have a hacker on hand too. The reason, I had some proof against their wrongdoing. After I tried for the appeal and sent said proof to them, it mysteriously went missing on my computer after I was denied and I know I didn't delete it. It would explain how they monitor their security for ban evaders. If so, nice try guys, I got it saved on thumb drives, so screw you.

I do have a message for the mods if they are reading this though: I hope you enjoyed having that laugh at my expense because you can add that to your bad karma and I will not be shedding any tears if misfortune should happen to your precious site that you can't recover from. Plus if you have any brains you'll add a grammar program to the preview if you're that bent out of shape over it. Least you can justify your stupid punishments that way if no one uses it. Jackasses.

[Enclosed are the snapshots from said last day on the site forum experience and the appeal I made with the email. They are not doctored.]

I guess anime fans are more passionate because you will be overloaded with anime examples, no matter the trope. I don't really have much of an interest in anime because I never got into it, so I mostly use it for video game tropes.

It would be nice if they had more examples I could relate to but it is amusing anyway.

Well for one jackasses (to TV trope) -ez surnames are white. Italians, French, Greeks are not (not that I've seen anyone who has suggest otherwise, but they're stupid so they might be thinking that). They also idiotically think "bro" is white slang. No it ain't. It's Latin (NUYORICAN - Puerto Ricans are Nuyoricans are not the same).
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I want the CEO to insult me to my face, like his little mods who do his dirty work. I can probably steal his woman. No woman wants a little weiner traitor like him anyway. Anyways, the first ban I got I was never given a reason for it. And I've never broken a rule. I may have had disagreements with certain tropes. However... I've never broken any rule, and I always kept each trope in accordance to what the show or music or video or movie portrayed. Apparently a few people are incapable of doing their job.

Thirdly, in the wake of my banning, an $#*! by the names you'll see in the picture, didn't even address me, respectively by my name, and called me "ban evader." Twitter, instagram, Debate.org, youtube, have not treated me with this disrespect.

Beside, note to the CEO *pees on you* - I'm more famous than you bro! I've gotten likes from the likes of Sofia Coppola, the "Seinfeld" official Twitter (on Twitter), from other famous celebs. Not you. And to the two who called me that, girl is just bitter cause she secretly craves it with me, and the guy - well he's a loser who lives in his mom's basement.

TV Tropes is an excellent site that provides an entertaining service - as well as one that's likely very useful to authors, game designers, animators, and any other media creators - for free. I like to browse TV Tropes whenever I need to kill some time, or when I want to see what my favorite games and shows look like through a more analytical lens. I've added some images of a TV Tropes page to illustrate how pages for popular pieces of media tend to look. (However, pages for less well-known works tend to be smaller simply because there are fewer people working on them, so keep that in mind.) In summary: Yeah, it's a good site. It does what it was made to do, and it does it well.