Is there a TV Tropes policy on making/adding to a page of your own work?

Simply ban authors from editing articles of their own works. This site is for fans, critics, and analyzers of works to interpret works; not for authors to preach what their work really means. The author can do that on his own terms away from the site.

There's no harm in authors adding tropes that are objectively present or even writing the description so long as they understand they don't "own" the page and their input matters no more than that of anyone else. If they do get possessive, we just ban them. (It almost never happens.)

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

This is why I am highly dubious about editing my own YMMV tropes. I agree with about the fact that the author can list objective tropes just as much as anyone else, but YMMV seems like a different story.

Not that it matters in my case, since it would go on Unpublished Works anyway, and I doubt anyone reads those.

"Almost never?" So it has happened, then?

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

Ironeye, I disagree. The author has his bias as a creator and a much greater knowledge base of his work then other editors which gives him unfair weight in editing an article. Even if done objectively these factors are impossible to eliminate. Assuming it is possible to suppress them to a minimum other authors could still potentially argue these points when there is a dispute putting egg on the author's face.

If the author does have a problem he can simply contact the forum, address it within his own story, or else address the controversy on his own blog and other editors can take that into account.

See, here's the part I can't figure out: how do you plan on identifying the author of the work if they don't identify themselves? If they don't and their edits are reasonable, no one could ever figure it out. If their edits are unreasonable, we ban them anyway, which means that the authors are (and must be, in such a situation, given that they're concealing their identity) held to the same standards as everyone else.

So, for the sake of assumption, let's say that the author identifies themselves. If they try to throw their weight around, they get banned (just like anyone else who would do such a thing on a page they don't have an attachment to). If they don't throw their weight around, they're they're making reasonable edits and not a problem.

Thus, the case where there are actual problems is when:

• The author identifies themselves
• The author makes edits that are questionable (but not overtly bad)
• No one questions it because they think the author knows better
• No one comes along after the author identifies themselves/makes the edits to correct the author's questionable edit, not knowing who made it (since they either didn't go back that far in the history, or never read the discussion page where the author identified themselves)

This is something that almost never happens. Also, making a rule that authors can't edit pages for their own works would just encourage them to not identify themselves, which doesn't actually help the "problem" that you're trying to fix.

@INUH: I recall at least one case, and I'm pretty sure there were at least one or two more. Most tropers understand the idea that no one has "ownership" over any page other than their personal troper page, so it's very rarely an issue.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

A covert author pretending to be someone else and abiding by the rules does minimal harm to the wiki and therefore is not a real problem. It is the same as a user who breaks the rules, gets permanently banned, and comes back as a sock puppet who stays out of trouble. Sure he is wrong but we do not have to re-write all the rules which got him banned because he found a way to evade punishment.

My argument is that an author editing wiki is in of itself unethical and should not be supported on tvtropes hence why, in my opinion, there should be a rule against it.

If you think that an author adding sufficiently unbiased objective information is a problem, you're welcome to attempt to convince people it's a big enough deal that we should make a rule we can't enforce for the principle of the thing. I personally doubt that you'll manage to get enough people to get a majority, much less a consensus, but I won't stop you from trying.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Agree with Ironeye, if it's objectively present, it's present.

Fight smart, not fair.

And just to reiterate, Exquisite Dead Guy's opinion is in no way our official policy (and in fact is nearly the polar opposite of said policy.)

TV Tropes is about collecting examples of storytelling tropes from any and all sources. As long as the examples are valid ones (and free of Natter and the like), we don't care who's contributing them, whether they have ulterior motives, or anything else.

I don't agree that editing pages related to one's own work is "unethical," but assuming for the sake of argument that it is, the next question is "...and so?" What, exactly, is wrong with evil, unethical people contributing valid and natter-free examples of tropes, from the perspective of TV Tropes' mission statement?

edited 18th Apr '11 5:41:28 AM by suedenim

Jet-a-Reeno!

edited 15th Sep '11 7:20:00 PM by doineedaname

Yes.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

edited 15th Sep '11 7:20:10 PM by doineedaname

Yes, just make it in the Fan Fic Namespace. So it would look like FanFic.Name Of Work Here.

Fight smart, not fair.

edited 15th Sep '11 7:20:23 PM by doineedaname

The index you want is: Fan Fics. Just edit the page and add a link to your fic's page on it. Make sure you put it in the right section.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

edited 15th Sep '11 7:20:33 PM by doineedaname

No, it goes on FanFic.Fan Fics. Not Main.Fan Fics. One is the index. The other is definitions. If it's a fanfic, it goes on that index no matter what sort of fanfic it is. After all, it can't be more AU than Thirty Hs.

edited 30th Apr '11 5:13:47 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Thanks

So...I was going through pages with wicks to Character Alignment tropes that shouldn't have them, when I found the Azula Trilogy page. It lists several character alignments and justifies it by saying "these were added by the author and can be considered Word of God." I wasn't really sure how to handle it, so I thought I'd take it here.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

If authors want to assign official alignments to their characters, that counts as a legit in-universe use of them and can stay.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Okay. I just wasn't sure if our YMMV pages were a valid place for authors to put Word of God.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

@Ironeye: After reading your post on April 18 about Tropers editing pages of their own works, I'm a bit nervous about mine. I do agree with you, though. I've enouraged people to edit my Unpublished Works page, and to discuss things in the Sandbox page. But...still... I'm afraid it might have the issues you identified, even though I have tried to be objective.

Might someone mind evaluating it, please?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/OneTrackMind

This thread has been very helpful to me, by the way. Although not allowing authors to edit pages of their own work seems a bit...counterproductive. I agree that it should likely be monitored and edited/worked on with others who aren't close to the work, though, but simply not allowing it at all discourages them to share their work - while standing a good chance of improving it when they do.

I was actually reluctant to share mine until very recently, not for fear of criticism, but because I didn't feel it warranted it the attention (and potential ego) that even an Unpublished Works page might be afforded. I, however, after losing my data, saw it as a way to share what I still had and to improve it through concrete feedback and the common language of Troperese.

edited 6th May '11 7:34:25 AM by punkreader

Punkreader, I'd personally say that the page on your work is unbiased and objective.

edited 6th May '11 8:12:15 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I agree with Mads: the page doesn't seem to have any "biased opinion" issues.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.