UTW:Need help?

If you're new or it's been some time and things have changed, this page is here to point you in the right direction. This Q&A page may answer questions that you have about UnTrash Wiki, how the site works, and the most important pages to read. If not, sorry.

(This page was written by TheMajorCrunch.)

Do you source information for pages from anywhere outside of your personal experiences with fiction?
Rather than do research with the help of places like TV Troupes or, God forbid, Wikipedia, I have a history of using a couple of AI chatbots who tell me things I don't know or want to learn more about. I formerly chose Google's bot Bard before transitioning to Chatbot UI from Vercel. If you're interested, give the chatbots a query for them to return an in-depth response. Just don't ask questions with wording personal to UnTrash like Anime Cool, 9999 DMG, or Noice — the bots will have no clue what you're talking about.

I have an idea for UnTrash Wiki. Where should I go to submit it?
Discuss it with me on my talk page. Since I don't 100% own the place, I can't guarantee working it out in full. Still, if you give me some coding help on whatever your idea if it needs code, I'll look into what I can do for you. I'm pretty open to new features that can make UnTrash Wiki a more functional and informative site. Don't be shy about sharing your thoughts. I won't bite. I've been trained not to.

Is there a difference between "change info", "reworded info", and "rewrote info"?
First of all, you don't have to feel pressured to write edit summaries the way I do. You go with whatever wording you want to as long as it helps understand what you did. Secondly, I categorize the three somewhat separately, though I may use them interchangeably. "Change info" is the most common. It means I just tweaked some words here and there. "Reworded info" is when I replace some words with synonyms. "Rewrote info" is when a page's main idea is kept after the information is more heavily edited than by "changed info".

Is there a place where all the UnTrash Writing pages get together and have a party?
Well, no. The closest thing UnTrash Wiki has to that is the UnTrash Writing Pages category. The UTWP banner automatically adds to each page, so you won't see it while you're editing.

So... UnTrash. Why?
I really like the name. Over the years, it became something I stopped questioning and I recommend you do the same. Joking aside, the idea of calling tropes UnTrashes is one I understand can raise some eyebrows. The Fun Fact list briefly explains this, but I'll give the backstory in more depth. The biggest inspiration for this website came from TV Troupes. Back when I was an on-and-off reader of the site, I got frustrated with the insider lingo often used by articles. I then came up with the idea of documenting tropes, roles, and plots in fiction with language that's more accessible to new readers. Because I was afraid people would dislike my fiction wiki for being too much like TV Troupes, I named it UnTrash Wiki. To finally answer the question heading this section, I associate the word "trope" too much with "cliché", which gives the impression of being overused in fiction. As not every trope UnTrash Wiki discusses is tired like a true cliché, they needed to be given a new name, so I called them UnTrashes.

Where can I check the pages that need help?
Pages in need have banners that describe their issues. Each banner places a category on the page, so every article with one problem (like being too short) is gathered onto that category's list. There is no single page for all troubled articles since manually updating it would be too time-consuming. Automatic updating is a feature that is more suited for UnTrash Wiki Version 52, which will likely be implemented if the domain ever goes up.

Where can I find definitions for UnTrash's jargon?
Right here.

Why are so many pages short or underdeveloped?
I'm only one man, leave me alone. Until I can get some help around here, many of those articles will have to stay stumps. In the case of UnTrashes and some roles like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, I might not have that much knowledge on the subject beyond what's already there. Having more active editors will bring more experience with fiction to the site.