The Other Wiki. The wiki that most people are familiar with. The one that isn't the one you're on right now — This Very Wiki.
Wikipedia
is the most famous wiki out there, and is mostly responsible for inspiring the creation of other wikis (although it was not the first). It presents its information as an encyclopedia and focuses mainly on real-life information.
Given Wikipedia's role as a central information source, you can probably gain more info on the "what" of (for example) Star Wars or Star Trek from it than you can from actually watching the show, and that's nice. Here?
Here, you can get a glimmering of why the show is like that. Here, TV Tropes, or more specifically its tropers, care only about how things apply to fiction. Don't just spew facts; write down how those facts are applied to fiction: the memes, the archetypes, the ideas, symbols, and roles that get planted in people's heads and recur in fiction henceforth. Got the kernel of an idea bouncing around your head? Throw it down here and see what grows. If you're lucky, the TV Tropes neologism for it will catch on.
But back to Wikipedia, the main topic.
Wikipedia was started in 2001 by Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales. It is non-profit: it doesn't maintain a paywall, run ads, or mine user data for income. (It does ask for donations every December, though.) Jimmy Wales even made sure to cut financial ties with the organization — not taking a salary and paying his own way when he needs to participate in meetings and events — to make clear that Wikipedia is independent and that his only goal is for it to continue to share knowledge for free. Despite attempts by rival online encyclopedias to upstage it over the years and even predictions about its decline, Wikipedia remains the place to go for online references.
Wikipedia has rigid policies in that all articles must be notable, written from a neutral point of view, and correctly referenced, especially when it comes to articles about living people. Many regular editors treat it as Serious Business, and numerous flame wars have erupted on whether subjects are notable to be included on the site. In spite of this, most educators forbid students from using Wikipedia as a source due to concerns over plagiarism and poor referencing, as well as wanting students to develop their own research skills.
Since Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites ever, it gets thrown around in the media sometimes; see Wiki Tropes for that. (Small Reference Pools is in full force here.) Its fame has also come with its downsides, however: It faces censorship, and is literally Banned in China for refusing to edit, censor, and block content that governments and other powerful entities disagree with. It also gets hit with occasional bannings in places like India, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela, with Turkey's ban being lifted after a legal battle and victory in the country's supreme court. Additionally, numerous editors were banned for engaging in undisclosed editing on the behalf of political or corporate interests.
Jimmy Wales also notably started the second-most popular wiki website, Wikicities (later Wikia, and currently Fandom), which is where you'll find most wikis that aren't TV Tropes or Wikipedia; ones that cover subjects that are either too specialized or not notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia, such as articles on every minor individual in Pokémon. See The Wiki Rule for more on that. As of 2025 however, Fandom is no longer associated with Wikipedia or Jimmy Wales.
Wikipedia also has an entry on this very site. It also lists this site in its directory of alternatives, encouraging people to record their trope knowledge here, instead of there. See the We Are Not Alone Index for tropes that have Wikipedia articles.
Oh, and if you're a frequenter of both TV Tropes and Wikipedia, do not, under any circumstances, mix up the two!
