Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia sections in articles

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[edit] Poll

I found a consensus to exist for the adoption of the proposal. The voting saw 43 votes cast, 27 in favour, offering a 62% majority. Although at the weak end of establishing consensus, I note Rje appears to have amended his vote, which would alter the result. It also appears a number of objections are grounded on the idea that people will continue to add trivia sections. I think those opinions can be somewhat discounted, since they don't address the proposal itself, which offers advice on how to deal with such circumstances. We don't abolish WP:AFD because people continuously add articles which require deletion.

The poll is archived at Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia sections in articles/poll. Steve block Talk 12:58, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Quite a few of the oppose votes were unaltered (ie. the editors probably didnt check back), after the proposal was clarified to the rest of our satisfaction. --Quiddity 17:15, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deco's suggested guideline

This is a suggested guideline, not a policy.

Avoid organizing articles as lists of isolated facts regarding the topic. A number of articles contain lists of isolated facts, often grouped into their own section labelled "Trivia", "Notes", "Facts", or "Other information". We often refer to these informally as trivia sections.

These lists can be useful for developing a new article, as it sets a low bar for novice contributors to add information without having to keep in mind article organization or presentation - just tack a new fact on to the list. However, as articles grow, these lists become increasingly disorganized and difficult to read. It is ideal to provide a logical grouping and ordering of facts that gives an integrated presentation providing context and smooth transitions. Whenever you see a "trivia section", take a look at each fact and consider how you might integrate it into the larger text, whether by inserting it into a section or adding a new section. Creating subsections to group items in the list may be helpful in the search for an ideal presentation. Integrating these facts may require additional research to establish further context, locate suitable references to cite, or identify relationships with other facts.

This guideline does not suggest removal of trivia sections. Instead, consider it a list of "facts pending integration" or "facts lacking sufficient context for integration". Seek to minimize it, but meanwhile leave it in place as a raw store of facts for both readers and editors to work with.

This is good, maybe a new draft should be named Avoid Lists of Facts? --Osbus 21:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I think this is a good adjustment to the original proposal. Case in point: I recently added a Popular references section to the Yeats article. This is quickly turning into the kind of long, unsatisfying list Deco describes. I'm planning on "delistifying" it in the near future, but it wasn't a bad way to collect some fun facts. —johndburger 23:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
That's why the final draft will look more like Deco's proposal than mine...good stuff. And when FAC nominators insist that the List of Random Facts they have is good, I can finally have a guideline of some sort to back me up.--Osbus 00:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I support this rewriting of the guideline. I'd like to see "This guideline does not suggest removal of trivia sections" removed, though (and change the next bit to "Trivia sections should be considered" or something). Tuf-Kat 05:55, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree, Avoid Lists of Facts is a good basis for a draft. Having lists of facts in an an article makes it look less encyclopedic. (Admittely, I hadn't opened an encyclopedia in the 17 years prior to viewing Wikipedia.) In an article about a political unit (country, state, etc...), a reference to a list of governors/presidents/grand-poo-bahs is useful, but the list itself does not belong in the article. A list of famous residents of a place, alumni of a school, members of an association can easily get out of hand, yet many articles have such. The draft should explain why those are not good content. GRBerry 19:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion this should just be part of WP:NOT. - TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 10:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia articles

I'm not yet decided on this proposal, but I was wondering what those in its favour suggest are done with articles dedicated to trivia, such as List of trivia lists. BigBlueFish 14:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

That list is an abonation of needed cleanup. Circeus 15:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Trivia

See Wikipedia_talk:Trivia for similar previous discussion. Circeus 15:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

That should be required reading for anyone participating in this debate. What's said there about Marduk could apply to just about any other article about a deity or other mythological figure:
  • Osiris: "In the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Hedwig's song "Origin of Love" mentions Osiris";
  • Apollo: "The original classic 1978 Battlestar Galactia series. The main character of the show was called Apollo. Who was an ace Viper pilot (space fighter planes seen throughout the series) and the Captain and strike leader of Galactica's Blue Squadron."
  • Quetzalcoatl: "In the computer game Rise of Legends, there is a playable race called Cuotl. There are also air units in this race's army called 'Quetzals'."
Etc, etc, etc, by way of Kokopelli, Ozymandias, Sigurd, King Arthur... (the list goes on). Adopting the Marduk solution (wiping it all off and depositing it on Marduk in popular culture) as general practice would enable such articles to give a much better impression (seriousness, rigor, perspective) than they do at the moment. Bolivian Unicyclist 12:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
It's a tenable solution. But, then, this is an encyclopedia, not an indiscriminate collection of information. I think editors are perfectly within their rights to delete random trivia factoids on sight. And I'd caution against avoiding "popular culture" sections altogether; these can be nice additions to articles, provided they are well written, academically sound, and analytical rather than exhaustive. I'm currently reading a book on Jeki la Njambè (sadly, we have no article yet), an oral epic of the Duala people of Cameroon, and the author devotes quite a few pages to interpretations in Cameroonian popular culture. So I guess I'm trying to say: If you've got something intelligent to say about Fujin in popular culture, say it. If all you have is the fact that a character in Final Fantasy VIII is named Fujin, keep it to yourself or put it in the Fujin (Final Fantasy character) article. But ghettoizing these sections to X in popular culture is akin to sweeping the dust under the rug. — BrianSmithson 13:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the pondered answer. Sigurd actually provides a very good example of what you say ("well written, academically sound, and analytical"). There's a "Adaptations and parallels" section that makes intelligent reference to Tolkien, Arthur, Greek & Irish legends, and reteliings by modern authors and tv shows; then comes "References in Popular Culture", which is a random list of four uses of the name Siegfried in various cartoons and video games (I'm assuming that's what they are -- there are no wikilinks to help you). One of these sections deserves to stay; the other warrants either ghettoization or eradication. And while ghettoization (sweeping under the rug, yeah!) might seem like a failure of resolve, it should stop the same cruft from re-appearing on the main article three weeks down the road. Bolivian Unicyclist 21:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I think there's a fairly fundamental difference between that essay and this proposal - it aims to establish standards for inclusion of relatively unimportant facts, while this proposal discusses the specific technique of organizing articles as unordered lists of facts, which may or may not actually contain trivial facts. I'd suggest renaming it, but "trivia sections" is what everybody calls them. Deco 13:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
No, it's not quite the same issue (yes, ambiguous terminology with the 'trivia'), but a list of "references in pop culture" factoids is the sort of thing that's likely to emerge from the project page's suggestion to produce "more targeted list[s] of closely-related items". It's the next problem down the line. Bolivian Unicyclist 21:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rename

I've renamed the proposal, as some of the oppose votes were b/c of the misleading title. Btw, when did this ever become a poll? Anyway, let the discussion continue. --Osbus 21:23, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citing sources

I agree with this proposal in general, as I strongly advocate eliminating such sections altogether. However, I can support this mild proposal for now, pending stronger wording in some future proposal stating that trivia sections should be deleted on sight. Nevertheless, the current policy skirts one of the major problems with trivia sections: The facts in them are almost never sourced as required by WP:CITE. Perhaps a stern warning could be added to the proposal regarding the absolute necessity of providing a source if you don't want your random fact about Napoleon's cat removed from the article. — BrianSmithson 14:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I doubt anyone will change their vote if I update it appropriately. Deco 11:59, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal in action

Today I put this proposal into action with the article on ER (TV series). I made two edits which decimated the trivia section of that article by moving the information from the trivia section into other sections of the text. If you wish, you may use that article as an example. There is still a trivia section in the article, however, it is greatly reduced from appoximately 20 items down to 5.
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 21:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

During a massive cleanup of The X-Files page, we did the same thing. Trivia that was valid/important to the show was incorporated into the appropriate section in a more encyclopedic manner. Any trivia that was felt unnecessary was moved to the talk page, so that people could discuss whether they thought it was valid or not (not much argument on these by the way). This has worked really well and the trivia section is reduced and the article is better partly because it's inflected with those interesting bits of info as you read. - Zepheus 00:23, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Creation of template and companion category

As a part of the effort to reduce trivia categories and convert them into paragraph prose, we should identify and categorize articles whose trivia sections are just too large. For that reason, I am proposing a template (and category) we could use to mark articles with long trivia sections. Tell me what you think, and feel free to improve the template. —THIS IS MESSEDImage:R with umlaut.pngOCKER (TALK) 04:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

This article contains a trivia section.
Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.
Looks good to me.
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 10:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Great template! I'd love to use it.Agne27 04:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Can I use it now? - Zepheus (ツィフィアス) 05:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Please do. --Osbus 22:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Messedrocker...please make this template or tell us this template's location, we really want to use it. :) - LA @ 22:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC) Yes. Please. - Zepheus (ツィフィアス) 00:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Whoa. Didn't notice all this popularity. Well, here's your template: {{toomuchtrivia}}. Please enjoy and make good use of this template! —this is messedrocker (talk) 06:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Now that "Avoid trivia" is a guideline, I think this template may need to be reworded. When we say "the trivia is too large" we are implying that a small trivia section is ok, whereas the guideline is saying that we should be avoiding trivia sections altogether. I think changing it so that it is more consistent with the message contained in the guideline would be more appropriate. Maybe something like "To meet Wikipedia's guidelines regarding trivia section, this section may require editing. Please check this list to determine if any relevant points should be incorporated into the article, and remove any points that are not considered relevant. For further information please refer to Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles." Then rather than being categorised as "articles with long trivia secitons", they could be categorized as "articles with trivia sections". I know the wording I've suggested is rough, and needs some work, but maybe something along these lines might be ok. What do you all think? Rossrs 08:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Agree, I started a discussion on the Category talk:Articles with large trivia sections discussions page. In my opinion, as the guidelines suggests that trivia sections should be avoided altoghether, so the category needs renaming. --tgheretford (talk) 21:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'm wondering if this is a good approach.

Recently I've been moving trivia sections in their entirity to the talk page, and calling for anyone there to help integrate it into the article. Is this a good way to handle the problem? -- Digital Watches! 05:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a bit drastic personally. If there are many watchers, and they can take quick action in getting a section back on the article, it might be okay. But at least some of the items in a typical trivia list are of sufficient interest that I'd rather give the reader an unfiltered list than nothing at all. Deco 09:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps putting a note on the talk page without moving the trivia section would inform editors that this guideline exists. I appreciate that these lists can be considered as a way of holding information pending integration into the article, but a lot of editors add to the list in good faith, and I think they believe that they have achieved an aim, because they don't know that the aim is integration. Informing them would be more desirable than alienating them. If the message on the talk page noted the existence of the trivia section, and requested interested editors to work on integrating/eliminating - and contains a link to this article - it might help new editors understand what the aim is. Rossrs 14:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Or.... I just noticed the "the trivia is too large" template in the message above. I wonder if a "please help us integrate this trivia" template would be useful. Rossrs 14:21, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll reword the {{toomuchtrivia}} template, to include the word integrate. That should then cover both situations. -Quiddity 18:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Natch, someone already did, but the template above was subst'd. I'll re-transclude it. -Quiddity 18:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Cool. I'll use that from now on. Thanks for the advice. -- Digital Watches! 18:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
That's not exactly what I meant, though it is much better. I think the template could and should be a bit more direct and have made a suggestion above. Rossrs 08:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I'm confused

Is wikipedia pro or con with Trivia?TKGB 02:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a Trivial Pursuit game. —Centrx→talk • 04:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Neither really. Deco 04:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
They are considered a necessary evil. They serve a purpose, of allowing a space for people who cannot write well, to dump facts/contributions, without screwing up what is there. But, they should be integrated into the article or deleted by someone competant, ASAP. --Quiddity 05:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

There should be a guideline on this page saying that many trivia's that can't be integrated to the article, instead of being deleted, can be added into a "Notes" section; one such example can be seen in here. Michaelas10 (T|C) 23:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Such a solution isn't ideal because it's messy; it works in books, but not nearly as well in webpages. We shouldn't make readers flip back and forth between sections of the page. Johnleemk | Talk 15:49, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. I think this is a great idea as long as there are restrictions in place. For example, if a piece of trivia has a direct relationship to an important point made in an established section, it should be permitted. —Viriditas | Talk 03:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Most "notes" really shouldn't be trivia in the normal sense, but rather... notes that might put something in a better context, etc. You could see them as trivia, but they're supposed to aid other parts of the article, rather than just list information. -- Ned Scott 03:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Right. Trivia doesn't fulfill the role of a note. I'm inferring that some trivia might meet that qualification, and should be elevated to note status in a particular instance, however I'm already running into problems with grouping related trivia into new sections. I decided to do a little experiment on The Departed. I noticed that there was enough film homage in the trivia section to start a new subtopic, but before I had a chance to even rewrite it, an anon started to expand it tangentialy, in effect trivializing the trivia. I don't want to cry, so I am forcing myself to laugh at this spectacle. Perhaps someone is having a little fun at my expense. ;-). —Viriditas | Talk 07:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{toomuchtrivia}} and category rename discussion

I have started a debate at Template talk:Toomuchtrivia regarding whether the templates should be renamed, as per WP:AVTRIV guidelines. --tgheretford (talk) 00:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template

I've used the template a few times, and people just remove it without any comment on either the talk page or in their edit summaries. I guess people love those irrelevant trivia lists. What are we supposed to do? I'm going to go back to the bear article and try to fix it, but I expect that my hard work will be reverted by people who think that lists are the proper way to organize an article. Is there any recourse? What can be done about this? Mr Spunky Toffee 23:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I just got rid of the lists of trivia by incorporating the info into the article, removing a few irrelevant things, and turning lists into paragraphs. I wonder how long it will take for someone to revert my work. I hope no one does, and I hope this method will work to get rid of trivia and pop culture lists. Mr Spunky Toffee 01:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I love to get rid of trivia lists - merge the important items into the mainline sections, junk the rest - and I label my edit summaries as "Death to trivia sections!" That intimidates a few I hope ... Wasted Time R 01:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

I almost put it in the article.... The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 22:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Agressive trivia removal

Can you guys rein in User:L0b0t? He's agressively removing trivia sections from at least one article despite objections from editors of the page, and making no effort to actually integrate the text of the section into the article. Plus it's a new article (2006 World Series) we just haven't had time to make it very refined yet, but the section contains some useful information. Is this the way this guideline is intended to be used, to remove content from articles against the wishes of active editors of those articles? --W.marsh 23:34, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Is it sourced? KillerChihuahua?!? 23:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Looks to me like he's moving quotes out, not trivia. Wasted Time R 23:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox

It only just now occurred to me to post this here.

ATS This user avoids trivia sections

Hope you like it!--Drat (Talk) 10:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sectstub tags

I've noticed a few sectstub tags in trivia sections, which essentially goes against this guideline. I was wondering if we can do two things: run a bot to remove expansion tags from trivia sections; and add a small, polite proscription to the trivia and related expansion guidelines (?) asking editors to refrain from tagging trivia sections for expansion. —Viriditas | Talk 00:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Replaced outdated link to "importance" with WP:Notability

I noticed that in the "What is trivia" section, it said that "trivia is something that is interesting without being important", and linked to an importance guideline that is no longer active. The importance guideline was replaced with WP:Notability, so I updated that section to read "interesting without being notable" and used the notability link.

Hope that helps, but if there's a problem feel free to discuss or revert or ammend as desired. :) Dugwiki 17:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding suggested merger with Wikipedia:Trivia

I noticed that this guideline has a flag asking that it be merged with Wikipedia:Trivia. I do not recommend this, as Wikipedia:Trivia is an essay, not a guideline, and thus it is not clear that it has the consensus necessary to be merged into this guideline or vice versa. There are probably sections of the Trivia essay that could receive broad consensus, but there would need to be some discussion first to verify that interested editors generally agree with the section(s) you wish to merge.

So while I think it's worth discussing what parts of the essay might be worthy of guideline status, I do not recommend doing a full-out merger until such time as the Trivia essay can be considered elevated to guideline status. Dugwiki 17:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

No, there was a discussion about these a month or so ago and consensus was that the appropriate parts of Wikipedia:Trivia should be merged here. That is not to say that everything in Wikipedia:Trivia should be merged, but the pages should be combined. See [1], which was linked from both pages. All that has been lacking is someone to take the time to do it. —Centrx→talk • 18:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, ok, I didn't realize how old the merge tag is. I don't have a problem with appropriate parts being merged here, assuming those parts have consensus. Dugwiki 18:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aggressive Trivia Removal, Revisited

I am wondering about the policies of trivia removal where it applies to films. there is always information that is interesting while not necessarily notable in regards to the article itself (ie, Nick Nolte being an alternative choice for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars, etc.) I would imagine that certain trivia would be equivalent to post-production notes, as is usually seen on Bonus CDs of released DVD movies. I am currently making edits in the Children of Men (film) article, and I have been advised that all the trivia will be purged within 72 hours. Before then, I have seen info simply removed without discussion. Can I get some input on this issue?Arcayne 20:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

"The album art for the Pink Floyd album Animals is clearly referenced in the "Ark of Arts" scene. The building housing the depository is Battersea Power Station, the same factory pictured on the cover, and an inflatable pig is visible outside the window of the dining room.[28]"
Things like this can go into "References to Pop Culture" , something along those lines. The same thing can be done for pretty much every "trivia" fact, that it can be renamed something else.--Osbus 22:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
As far as how to handle removal, if something is removed without discussion or reason given, and you disagree with the removal, you could probably simply revert the deletion and include a comment on the talk page asking for feedback as to why it was removed. It may turn out there was a legitimate reason for it, or it may turn out that it was just a random shot from the dark and nothing happens.
Of course, behind-the-scenes trivia that has no published reference cited for verification can be safely removed, and readded later if desired once a good source is found. (Note that IMDB trivia sections are not completely reliable, so should probably not be used as the sole source for verification.) And in general it's usually better stylistically to try and incorporate facts into the article itself as opposed to using a bullet point list. Massive bullet point trivia at the end of an article is usually more distracting than useful to a reader. Dugwiki 16:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Any truly useful piece of trivia can be added to an article somewhere. To your example, a line could be added to the development section stating something to the effect of "Han Solo was one of the last of the major characters to be cast. After auditioning many hopefuls (including Nick Nolte, Actor X, Actor Y and Actor Z), Lucas cast Harrison Ford." Rhindle The Red

[edit] Blah in Popular Culture, Blah in Fiction

There seems to be a proliferation of "insert topic name here in popular culture" sections, which to me is just another form of trivia. I'm not sure whether this page is an appropriate forum for discussing this, but I'd like to put forward the view that these sections completely lower the academic standard of Wikipedia and should be banned. Frequently, they are filled with geeky "trainspotter" or "uberfan" type observations. Let's take Styx for example [2]. This is a topic on Ancient Greek mythology, and an idea that has permeated society and culture for yonks. Yet it's filled with a list of references in song by minor bands that most people will not have heard of. (Well, it was until I deleted this section in disgust). If it's not a band, it's a computer game or a TV programme. The same goes for "insert topic name here in fiction". The mere fact that something is worthy enough of an article in an encyclopaedia means that it's part of language, and people are going to refer to it. Does WP have to list every instance of these references? Does anyone agree with me or am I just ranting to myself? Gsd2000 16:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It most certainly goes overboard in some cases, but often those sections can be justification of notability. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

In many cases these references need to be in the opposite article of the reference in my opinion. Ergo in the "album"-article of the song that references styx, not in the styx article. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 18:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I would say that while these sections have a tendency to become bloated, they are in principle useful to demonstrate the popular media notability of the subject. It provides a way to in a paragraph or two list some (hopefully) important cultural references to the subject as a means of verifying for the reader its importance and popularity. Thus while I agree as a style point that you probably should limit the scope and size of these sections to a handful of key references, I don't think the sections should be banned entirely. Dugwiki 16:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I could very easily be convinced to ban the sections entirely. I am already convinced that the articles that are created by removing "...in popular culture" sections from the articles should be considered indiscriminate collections of information. Otto4711 19:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Except that WP:NOT#IINFO doesn't cover trivia. It specifically handles certain types of information that Wikipedia considers inappropriate and can therefore discriminate against, but it never mentions "trivia" or "random information", etc. So if you're looking for a section of policy to handle questions on trivia, WP:NOT#IINFO isn't it. See the talk page on WP:NOT for more discussion on that. Dugwiki 17:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I think an excellent example of how this section should be done is Palpatine#Palpatine in popular culture (an FA article). Yes, it is a bit lengthy, but very well sourced and does an excellent job of conveying the subject's notability in the real world. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Or make it into a list. A great example is Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc. Garion96 (talk) 17:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
How about this: anything older than 2 1/2 centuries should not get trivia sections on stuff that's newer than 2 1/2 centuries? Curuinor 08:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I like the gist of that idea, but the cutoffs are a bit arbitrary. How about this rough guideline (not meant to be followed to mathematical precision!) - the percentage of the article devoted to "references in popular culture" should roughly reflect the percentage of the amount of time "popular culture" represents of the total age of the referenced object or concept. So: "Superman in popular culture" is fair game for a bigger section, but "Julius Caesar in popular culture" would not be, and "The Moon in popular culture" would absolutely not be. Gsd2000 12:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should we go further - trivia and policy?

My two cents on the wording of the {{trivia}} template and what people are saying on that talk page (and this may be a bit controversial), if indeed, trivia should be avoided in Wikipedia, as worded in the aforementioned template at the moment, it does to me swing to imply that any trivia should not be added to Wikipedia. If this is the case, shouldn't we implement the fact that trivia should not be included in Wikipedia (as unencyclopedic) and more than likely fail attribution guidelines through either being unverifiable, original research, likely hoaxes or urban legends. I feel this sort of thing wouldn't be encyclopedic and therefore have no place in an encyclopedia.

My suggestion therefore is we should be more aggressive and insist on reliable sources (as per WP:ATT) for trivia to be included in the body of an article or insist on its removal from an article, or go further and make it part of WP:NOT, maybe as avoid organizing articles as lists of isolated facts regarding the topic (to quote from Osbus on an unrelated topic)? --tgheretford (talk) 23:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. 1: We avoid trivia SECTIONS, not trivia per se. 2: Much of what usually is marked as trivia in many cases can still be usefull information. 3: For many average editors it can be very hard however to distinguish trivia from important data. As such the sections are usually handy "dump" places for them. And interested editors who cleanup the articles usually know what to do with it. Delete, or rewrite somewhere in prose. You could say that trivia sections have a purpose in developing an article, but don't belong in FA quality articles I guess. We have many types of stylistic issues in wikipedia that are not allowed in articles, yet there is not a downright ban on them. It's one of the problems of a developing encyclopedia with unexperienced editors contributing. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 00:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles should not have "dump" sections. If people want to dump random crap somewhere to figure out if it belongs in an article, they should do it in the talk page, not in the body of an article. And as to your statement that editors who clean these up usually know what to do with this crap... unfortuately, that's not true. Look at Richard Nixon, for God's sake. On my screen, I see 7 pages worth of trivia, including such valuable bits of info as "Nixon's favorite dinner was a chicken casserole dish" and "Neil Young's song Campaigner contains the line "Even Richard Nixon has got soul". --Xyzzyplugh 19:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

What we should do however, is merge some of the Trivia Essay sections that we link to now right into this article. Trivia was indeed a very useful essay once, but I think it's clear that much of it's use is now covered by this page and the template. Let's take from it what's useful, and then move the essay page to this page. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 00:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

In addition to the above comments, note that all information in Wikipedia is supposed to be referenced. So if information isn't verifiable or isn't referenced within the article itself (after giving sufficient time to produce such references) then it should be removed. That applies to everything, not just "trivia", so there's no need to single out trivia in regards to being "unverifiable". Dugwiki 15:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I do believe that we need to be more "aggressive", all to often people use the argument that if trivia can't be integrated (because for example it's non-encyclopaedic) then it should be left there, "forever". We need tot ake the approach like ATT: The burden of integration lies with those wishing to include the information, not with those seeking to remove the trivia. Matthew 12:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Isn't such a case covered by ATT already? I don't see why we need to make that part of this style guideline --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
It is, that's for sourcing though, some trivia while sourced may be wholly irrelevant and un-integrable, I've seen people argue that if it's non-integrable it should be let there for an eternity, a clause like this would mean the people who want this type of trivia either have t a) fine a way to integrate and b) Make removal of irrelevancies easier. Matthew 14:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge suggestion

Earlier today, I rewrote the Wikipedia:Trivia article pretty substantially. I think that it's probably a good idea to merge at least some of that essay here, but probably not all of it: to a degree, it's an opinion piece about why trivia is bad and how to avoid it, whereas this page has a more specific point. Still, I think that essay makes some points about trivia sections that are worth making here. Mangojuicetalk 03:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The "What is trivia?" section in the essay does a much better job of defining trivia than this one, and I would support bringing it over, except that in the guideline as currently written, the definition of trivia is just a confusing digression from a discussion of how to organize information in articles. The "trivia sections" being discussed here are really more like "miscellaneous information" sections, and may contain information that is not trivial at all.
I would suggest removing the current "What is trivia?" section and expanding "Guidance" to more fully discuss both integration and removal. —Celithemis 01:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I'll give it a shot. I think the merger is a bad idea, since this page only supports the idea that unintegrated miscellaneous lists of information are bad, where as WP:TRIVIA actually supports the idea that unimportant information should be removed. Mangojuicetalk 13:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Continuity and factual errors

What is the policy on factual errors and continuality errors in film pages. Personally i think that these are unencyclopedic and belong on nitpick sites and IMDB rather than wikipedia. the page for Blades of Glory (film) has a factual errors section which many people consider unnecessary for the wikipedia article. Also some other articles list continuity errors like an IMDB page. Whats the wikipedia policy on this? --Paradox CT 07:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

No official policy, IMO: you have to work it out with the other editors and come to a consensus. A good approach might be to insist on reliable sources attributing some importance to those errors. Or, fork off the section, but don't abandon the fork. Mangojuicetalk 12:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Value of trivia

As a relative latecomer to this discussion, I'd nevertheless like to add my two cents' worth. First of all, I personally feel that Wikipedia sometimes tries too hard to be a "quality encyclopedia" on par with the likes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. While I understand the motivation, not only is that unrealistic with inexperienced authors (yours truly included) contributing; it is not necessarily the only, or even the best, way to maintain a body of information.

As a reader, part of what I find so addictive about Wikipedia is that the articles are more than just a dry collection of facts. While I fully agree that neutral POV should be maintained, "trivia" that is generally classified as "unencyclopedic" or "unimportant" can still add value to an article. The bottom line, IMHO, should be that if a tidbit of information enriches the user's experience, then that tidbit deserves to be included.

Obviously, that is an impossible criterion to evaluate objectively. To pick an example out of a random trivia section, the Spock article states: "The Vulcan peace sign (the Vulcan salute), employed by Spock, is a modification of the sign used by Kohens, the Jewish priestly class. Actor Leonard Nimoy devised this gesture and the accompanying greeting ("Live long and prosper," "Peace and long life") based on his own Jewish heritage.

This certainly meets my definition of trivia. It is not material information about the character of Spock, yet the first time I came across it, I went "how about that" and ended up delving into several articles about Jewish religion and history. In the end, I learned something I would not otherwise have, I felt enriched, and I got more joy out of reading the article. I feel there would have been a real loss if that piece of trivia were to be removed from the Spock article due to a well-intended, but IMHO misguided Wikipedia guideline. Facts that are encyclopedic, such as Spock's birthdate, may "belong" better, but do not enrich my Wikipedia experience as much.

The above is just one example of a perhaps difficult to define, yet real, reason why I can spend hours jumping from link to link on Wikipedia. I've hardly felt compelled to do the same with any traditional encyclopediae I've come across. --Stian Oksavik

I have to agree but what we should be discouraging is too much trivia and trivia that isnt really that relevant or even factual. For example, speculation of the origin of characters, names, song lyrics, ect, where there is no reliable source backing it up. I consider this fancruft and not worth mentioning in a wikipedia article. Anything that says "may be a reference to..." or "could have significance to..." is generally original research and not really backed up by anything, this should be removed from trivia sections. Paradox CT 07:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
But the source of the "Vulcan salute" is *not* a trivial fact in relation to Spock. Sources of inspiration are an important part of any article about a work of art or fictional character. Your example is covered by this guideline only in the sense that it's currently sitting in a big disorganized "trivia" section and should be better integrated with the article. —Celithemis 09:47, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this fact could actually be integrated into an article or section explaining what the salute means. much better than a trivia section. Paradox CT 06:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Paradox and Celithemis about this particular item. I will however also point out that the Spock article is shockingly bad. It's badly organized, it goes into digressions (about, for instance, the Mirror spock, which should really be covered at the Mirror, Mirror episode page), it has some integrated useless trivia and some unintegrated useful trivia. In short, the article needs major improving. (Actually, I was so disappointed with it, I've nominated it to be an article improvement drive collaboration at WP:ACID. Wikipedia can do so much better than that, especially on that topic.) Mangojuicetalk 15:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of sections

I don't support this change. It does occasionally happen that an entire section has nothing worth integrating -- most often when it has just been added and only has a couple of irrelevant items -- so it's not a good idea to categorically forbid deletion of entire sections. The guideline already quite strongly suggests integration rather than deletion of useful material, so there's little to be gained by this change in any case. —Celithemis 00:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

  • People aren't getting the message... maybe it can be rewritten for what you mention, but I see people blank entire sections of 5+ items because "Trivia isn't allowed on Wikipedia" and so forth. But if someone's just adding 1 item to a new trivia section, that's pretty easy to integrate it or throw it out as not worth mentioning in the first place. Furthermore my edit didn't "categorically forbid" deletion of trivia, it just said doing so might annoy some editors, which it will. --W.marsh 00:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict with your change to your comment) Can you point to some specific examples? Examples in which pointing people to this guideline did not clear up the misconception, in particular?
It looks to me like you made this change to the guideline after a content dispute on The Shining in which the other editor actually did integrate much of the Trivia section, very much in keeping with this guideline, and you mistakenly restored stuff that had in fact been integrated elsewhere, so that at least is not evidence of a problem. —Celithemis 00:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't really appreciate being Wikistalked... I've had this same dispute many times over people deleting trivia sections, on unrelated articles. The items in that case weren't integrated into the text... some were but the rest were just blanked. --W.marsh 00:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I had no intention of wikistalking; I was curious as to whether a particular issue had led to the change, and whether that might point to a different solution. It seemed instead to point to the change having arisen from a misunderstanding. I'd still be very interested in examples of someone still thinking trivia sections should be indiscriminately blanked even after reading this guideline, because I can't see how it can be read that way at all. It already says "Don't simply remove it, but seek to minimize it", after all.
The principle set out here -- basically "integrate anything that is at all useful, throw out material only if that's impossible" -- seems to me to fully cover what needs to be covered. If everything is useful everything should be integrated; if nothing is, nothing should be. Specific language about removing whole sections simply distracts from the basic principle and creates grounds for wikilawyering. —Celithemis 00:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
It wasn't a misunderstanding! Geeze. I didn't come here to have my edit history analyzed. --W.marsh 01:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
(outdent)OK. I apologize for bringing that up. I'm still left in the same place, though: the guideline seems very clear already. If I saw someone blanking a trivia section that contained stuff that should have been integrated, I would point them at this guideline to explain why that's not the right approach. —Celithemis 01:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that the "Don't simply remove it, but seek to minimize it" sentence in that paragraph already accomplishes the spirit of W.marsh's change, except for explaining why. Maybe that sentence could be changed instead? But I do think the reason not to just remove a trivia section has more to do with seeing that there may be value in it, rather than the reaction other editors might have. Mangojuicetalk 03:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
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