UTW:Beginner's guide

If you are joining UnTrash Wiki for the first time or have problems understanding how the wiki works, this page is here to steer you in the right direction to keep you from doing something wrong and getting blocked, not knowing why.

The Very, Very Basic Rudiments of UnTrash Wiki
UnTrash Wiki, at its core, is a website about fiction and the roles, troupes, plots, and other various things within it. Inspired by TV Troupes, UnTrash Wiki strives to cover as many of these fictional elements as possible in a way simple enough for a newcomer to grasp without having to read twenty other pages just to understand one. To make reading more interesting, it also uses examples from real-life franchises to further help its readers understand the world of fiction.

How To Edit On UnTrash Wiki
If you'd like to help UnTrash Wiki grow by becoming one of its editors, then you can start by choosing what type of page you'd like to edit. Read the sections below about the types of pages there are on UnTrash Wiki to know how they work and what writing them is expected to be like.

UnTrash pages
"UnTrash" is a name given to troupes in fiction, meaning books, video games, anime, TV shows, and so on. An example of an UnTrash is All Just A Dream. This page is the model page for pages to be written in the future, being complete in every way: applied slidetext, a lengthy definition, examples from fiction, notes listed at the bottom of the page, and a See also section.

Role and UnTrash role pages
Roles are the "occupations" a character can take on in the story. Examples of roles are the Traitor, the Ace, and the Bully. Base roles are roles that are essential to general stories of any fiction form, like the Hero or Villain. UnTrash roles are those that aren't required to be in the story but are still added in to give it more personality and to give other characters someone to interact with. There are many more UnTrash roles than there are base roles.

Base roles and UnTrash roles are nearly identical in the way they're supposed to be written: a brief, comprehensible description of the role (the introduction), extra information about the role including what other roles are associated with it and UnTrashes or plots that the role appears in, and examples of the role in real-life fiction. If you want help with what a complete role page looks like, visit this or this.

Plot pages
Plots are recurring stories for fiction, mainly TV shows. A plot page should be written to be applicable to many stories that fall under the description of the plot, meaning it should use a universal description of the plot it's about. Plot pages on UnTrash are Boy Who Cried Wolf and New Sibling. If you visit either page, you will notice how they have the two sections titled Intro and Plot Sample. The Intro is much like the introduction to a role page while the Plot Sample uses a fake example of the plot. To complete a plot page, there should be a third section titled Examples of [plot title] that contains plots from real-life fiction.

Franchise pages
Franchises are real-life copyrighted entities owned by companies such as Nintendo, Marvel, and Disney. They range from comic books to video games to anime to TV series. It's best that you write a franchise page similarly to how Wikipedia would: include facts, important related events, and a short description of what the franchise is about. You don't need to write too much insightful information on the page as this isn't a wiki dedicated to that single franchise. Just write what you need to and don't put too much pressure on yourself to write a fantastic page in one go.

Quick Vocab Definitions
Since UnTrash uses some "slang" of its own that might not make immediate sense to you, here is a list of words you're bound to see at least once during your visit on UnTrash.

Ladder: A list that shows how UnTrashes and UnTrash roles are related to each other.

Mirror: A list of different possibilities for how roles can be played.

Playing: Another word for "occurring" or "appearing". UnTrash Wiki didn't create this one, but it's still useful to know what "playing" means.

Slidetext: A short remark that is put at the top of any UnTrash or role page that's related to the page's subject. Slidetext, if it's written in a single line (as it normally should be), should be like this, this, or this. If you're feeling fancy, feel free to write something like this or this for your slidetext.