Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trivia Cleanup/Archive 1

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Contents

Notes

  • 1- Remember: trivia isn't banned from Wikipedia, just discouraged. So don't just mark everything with too much trivia if the section is small.
  • 2- Problem areas seem to be television show episode articles: Simpsons, South Park, SpongeBob and Family Guy to name a few.
These shows in particular are all about in-jokes, subtle cultural references, and the like. RobJ1981 19:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Another note: if a trivia section is small (1-5 items, in my opinion at least), go through the trivia quick and don't just add the tag. As I've went through the category for large trivia, I've seen several articles marked for too much trivia... when they are small sections! As I stated above: trivia isn't banned from Wikipedia, so tagging every article with any type of trivia that is small isn't helping matters alot. RobJ1981 23:09, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

In a sense, they are composed of trivia. If they end up Bolderdized by the Trivia cleanup project -- thay might as well not have an entry on wikipedia at all.69.37.78.35 16:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No, no they are not. Modern media is by definition (like all art) self referential and canibalistic. That is, one builds upon the creative legacy that came before. Please read WP:Writing about fiction, and WP:EPISODE to see the kind of articles the encyclopedia requires. I also think the word you are looking for is bowdlerized. Cheers. L0b0t 17:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Core biographies/Cultural depictions of core biography figures

Something the editors here might want to check out: I raised the trivia section from Joan of Arc to a featured list as Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc and proposed this solution as a model for other core biographies.

One argument for keeping, organizing, and sourcing popular culture references (at least in certain articles) is instructional value. Educators who introduce a class to an otherwise unfamiliar subject could find that the students recognize Edgar Allan Poe from a Halloween episode of The Simpsons or that they recognize Alexander the Great from a computer game. These sorts of references transform blank faces into an interested classroom. Durova 01:42, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know this, but it still is not needed in many articles. In particular, large trivia sections for TV episodes is not really needed, and our project is trying to move those trivia bits into the appropriate place within the article. Nishkid64 18:36, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
From what I've seen so far the biggest problem with the television articles is the confusion between trivia about show Y or episode X and things that can be seen by anyone watching same. The television articles are chock full of trivia like "In this episode they make such and such joke." I feel that if anyone can see something in an episode then it is not unique or notable enough to have a place in the encyclopedia. Cheers. L0b0t 00:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I realize there are divergent points of view. This is one possible solution that I hope the editors here will bear in mind when they see a large list section. Durova 13:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
You might want to re-evaluate the guidelines for the T.V. shows referenced above in particular. Trivia sections seem to be disappearing wholesale69.37.78.35 17:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree

I was shocked when I found the trivia section to Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children completely removed. I was even more shocked to find a WikiProject behind it. Under goals, this project states the following:

Add useful trivia from sections into the article, then removing the trivia section altogether (when needed).

Trivia is not useful; it's not supposed to be. That would be an oxymoron. It is trivial, hence the name. If you were to remove all trivia deemed not useful, then we wouldn't have any trivia. I don't know how you feel, but isn't a good portion of Wikipedia and the concept behind it supposed to be adding what one person knows and others do not? "I know something that's not on the page, so I'll add it to the general knowledge of Wikipedia." It is still valid information that deserves a place. Not only is Wikipedia a wonderful source of information, it is interesting and often entertaining. If you remove all of these non-useful, but often interesting, tidbits of trivia, Wikipedia will be seriously hurt, in my opinion. If you feel that the main articles are feeling too cluttered, busy, or long, I would support moving the trivia from a main page to a separate trivia page. This way, the main pages are a more reasonable length, but the information would still be there for those who want it. If there are large trivia sections, the same that would be deleted under this project, they would most likely warrant their own page. If not, they could be consolidated into a more central area with trivia from similar pages. If it's smaller than that, it would probably be fine just staying on its main page. So, I disagree with this project and would like for it to cease operations, or at least change what it's doing. Thank you.  -Platypus Man | Talk 00:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I was the one doing that edit, I realized someone could disagree with it, that's why I posted the deleted section on the talk-page. Information that isn't useful in any way should not be in an encyclopedia. If the Trivia adds useful information to the article it should be kept, otherwise removed. Since this isn't a fansite, cluttering articles with things that aren't useful makes the articles worse. Perhaps the best thing would be to create a Wikitrivia or Trivipedia? The reason I didn't integrate anything was that i didn't find anything worth keeping. --Pax:Vobiscum 10:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I originally wrote the following on User talk:RobJ1981: "It's not so much that I'm completely against what was done to the article (I only noticed because a picture I uploaded was part of the trivia), I just don't like the whole Trivia Cleanup thing. True, there is a lot of the trivia out there that is not only useless, but boring and uninteresting. If someone says that a vehicle in a game looks a little bit like a real vehicle, only different, then who cares? I think that rather than trying to integrate trivia with an article and delete the rest, the quality of the trivia should be looked at. If something is complete speculation, coincidental, or irrelevant to the article at hand, then I see no problem with deleting it. Just because it cannot fit into the rest of the article is not a good reason to delete it; that's half the point with trivia, it doesn't fit in with the main subject, but it's still worth a mention. We need to either come up with strict guidelines as to what trivia should and should not be removed, come up with a new-page trivia policy (or something like that) to keep the trivia in a different location, or stop telling people to remove trivia." Also -- I feel we shouldn't create a Triviapedia; no one will ever go to it because no one ever goes out specifically for the sole purpose of trivia. They are reading the regular information and then see the trivia. I feel that they would navigate to a separate page, but not to a new Wiki. -Platypus Man | Talk 12:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I am in no way opposed to having interesting (trivial) facts in the articles. I am however, adamantly opposed to "Trivia" sections, for many of the same reasons we should not have "Criticisms" sections, the info should be written in prose form, not a list. Sections like those just serve as troll and cruft magnets, they make an article clunky and weighted with nice prose at the top and unwieldy sections at the bottom. By far the biggest problem I've seen with these trivia sections is that they become a repository for every young person (sorry if that sounds a little ageist) who comes along to add some little tid-bit that they saw on show X last night. The Simpsons and South Park episode articles are a great example of this. their trivia sections are full of things that anyone can see by just watching the damn show. "In this episode Homer eats pie." or "In this episode Cartman says Cheesy-Poofs." This is not trivia it's observation. If anyone can just watch a show and see thing X, then thing X, is not a good candidate for inclusion as notable trivia. L0b0t 13:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Way of Approaching Trivia

Hey, I'm new to the project but strongly support the goals. I've an idea for approaching trivia removal. It seems that the warning box about trivia doesn't have much of an effect. I propose going to various articles with long trivia sections and removing the more trivial trivia (pardon the pun) and trivia that is unsourced then adding to the talk page a note along the lines of: As part of the wikiproject to reduce the amount of trivia, I went through the trivia section and removed the more 'trivial trivia' and some trivia without references. If some of what I removed is deemed by the editors of this article to be necessary information, please find a way to incorporate it into the article proper, rather than re-adding it to the trivia section. Wikipedia does not outright ban trivia, but it strongly recommends that it not be included in articles. The guidelines state that trivia sections are particularly okay in new articles because they can add information before the article is formatted. However, once an article is as developed as this one is, the trivia needs to be removed from the trivia section and incorporated into the article proper. I strongly recommend that editors here try and do this if they want the trivia information to stay as there is a growing movement to remove trivia. More trivia may be removed if not incorporated. I've done this to a few articles so far... Everyone feel that this is a good approach? --The Way 02:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think posting on the talk page always needs to be done. Many talk pages are either non-existant or very small. Many editors on Wiki don't even use the talk pages. The too much trivia tag is good usually, but when vandals remove it with no reason...that's the problem. Or when people think trivia is cleaned up, when it's not. Or when people remove a few trivia things, and assume it's clean..so they remove the tag. I think Wikipedia should indeed outright ban trivia, but that's my opinion...and I somehow doubt it will ever happen. RobJ1981 04:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Posting the removed trivia to the talk page is the considerate thing to do. What if somebody is looking for it and doesn't want to wade through the history? Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 06:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
When people make other edits to articles, they don't post the removed information on the talk page to be considerate about the edit. If that was the case: talk pages would be flooded with everything the article used to have.... which would just make the talk page very cluttered. There is no reason at all to put the removed trivia on the talk page. It's removed for a reason, and doesn't need to be posted on the talk page period. RobJ1981 06:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
A typical edit does not remove correct information from an article. I would argue that anytime correct information is removed -- and it should be very rarely -- the information should be posted to the talk page, and this is doubly true when a whole chunk of information is removed at once. In the case of trivia, there are often people who'd rather not see it removed -- this is very different from the case of removal of incorrect facts, for example, or of simple article reorganization. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 14:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Like I said before, there is absolutely no reason to add any of it to the talk page. Many editors don't even read the talk page for one thing. Another thing (which I mentioned before): things that get removed from articles don't need to be moved to talk pages. Talk pages are for discussing changes to the article: NOT listing information that was removed. RobJ1981 17:10, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
If I remove something, I ususally copy it to the talk page. If I were to remove a large chunk of text all at once, I'd absolutely copy it. I'm not sure discussion and copy are mutually exclusive. (And surely the best way to encourage people to use the talk page is to make it more useful.) Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 09:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Provenance

This project by nature will involve people removing large chunks of articles they are not involved with, on topics they do not much care about. Regardless of Wikipedia's trivia policy (and Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles also says to avoid deleting them outright), this rubs me the wrong way. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 07:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

If I may quote from WP:OWN. "If you don't want your material to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it." It's not that we object to trivia, it's that trivia should be written as prose, not a bulleted list, and integrated into the article. The problem is the Trivia Section. It becomes a cruft magnet and makes an article look like it was written by a child. L0b0t 15:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, yes, and other people can mercilessly edit your removals into non-removals. :) I don't have a problem wth integrating trivia into regular article text, or even removing particularly trivial bits, but I do think the integrations and removals will be better-considered if they're made by someone interested in the article in question. Anyone else will have more difficulty judging what the people interested in the article will find trivial. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 06:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the standard is or should be what someone who has been working on the article thinks is important, rather, this is the time when an article needs an objective editor. WP:TRIVIA tells us

Ask yourself: would anyone at any time type this term in wikipedia's search engine, to find out what it means: if that eventuality would be less than marginally occuring, the topic seems not interesting enough to be included in wikipedia.

and

Similarly, "zero importance" results in "zero amount of space": even if a topic would be interesting, if it has no importance whatsoever, it is not included in Wikipedia. This excludes trivia from Wikipedia, when trivia are defined as information that is interesting without being important.

Also, I must stress that if the "trivia" are just things you may learn by watching the show, then they have no place here. I excised this gem from a South Park article just this morning "In this episode, Kenny has a computer." Cruft like that has no place in the encyclopedia and I feel we should have a zero-tolerance policy for nonsense like that. L0b0t 12:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

L0b0t makes a good point with his example from an episode of South Park. However, having just stumbled upon an edit-war which occurred earlier this month, centered around an episode of Family Guy, I take issue with the editorial decisions being made. Hell Comes to Quahog, in this case featured the opening sequence from The Electric Company -- a reference which I immediately recognized, but which many of the younger viewers of the show may have found mystifying. The pre edit-war version makes mention of this reference, but it was subsequently removed.
I submit that the trivia cleanup Project is making wikipedia less useful. Obviously I'm not an editor here, but I have been using the site frequently for more than a year now - most of the time I use it to learn more about the cultural references in television shows. Maybe other people find this to be trivial, but as a professional musician and someone who works in the entertainment industry I find these references invaluable. If the trivia cleanup project is working against this then I will probably leave for greener pastures, unfortunately. Cleaning up bad grammar and useless observations is very helpful, removing valid cultural information is not. 209.166.73.160 09:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Did you read the Wikipedia articles on trivia? From: Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles: Lists of trivia 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, adding a new section, or creating a more targeted list of closely-related items, such as Cameos or Continuity errors. 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. I think that describes things very well. It's not like this project is going against Wikipedia itself, it's helping improve it. What's the point of huge lists of trivia? Many times in trivia sections, it's obvious notes on the subject... that's certainly not trivia. Also in trivia sections: information that can easily be integrated in the article. Just because there is no trivia or pop culture reference section: doesn't mean it's not listed. While pop culture references and trivia are different things in most cases, both are still clutter if the list is huge. Take Family Guy for example, it has many references in each episode... but it's not always notable to list each and every one. Long lists = clutter and not helpful to the article. Go to a fan site of the show, for huge lists... not here. As I've stated before: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a fan's guide to every little note or trivia note. RobJ1981 22:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that the bulk of this show is unconnected non-sequitors parodying excruciatingly obscure cultural references. I'm not saying that every single one should be catalogued here, but that every Family Guy Episode article should include a Cultural References section with the most obscure references enumerated - maybe just the references which are older than 20 years or not well-known. I find it really convienient to be able to plug in a WP search in my firefox quicksearch and find out details on a reference in less than a minute. Apparently what you're saying is that I'm using WP wrong? But it's worked for a year now! It seems to me that if there are going to be articles for television shows then they should be written with the usefulness for their audience in mind instead of strict adherence to some arbitrary rules (which I'm sure are very well suited for scientific and historical articles).209.166.73.160 11:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Group Collaboration

I am absolutely enthralled that there is so much support for this newly created WikiProject. I want to thank all that have helped out so far, and I would also like to make a suggestion. I don't think we have enough people yet to have our own AID for this project (which would probably be deemed "Trivia Cleanup Drive", but I am asking for any other Wikipedians in or out of the project to make suggestions on possible collaborations on a certain group of articles that really need to be cleaned up. Thanks. Nishkid64 17:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that since the television articles are by and large the worst offenders in regards to trivia. Maybe pick one series at a time and just go through every article for that series. A series every week perhaps? I've been reading WP:EPISODE and EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE for episodes of Simpsons, South Park, Power Rangers, and Pokemon that I have seen, fails without a doubt. To whit: Content

(emphasis mine)

  • Content about television episodes must conform to Wikipedia content policies, including but not limited to Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research.
  • Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Avoid excessive trivia and quotations.
  • Extensive quotation from episodes is a violation of copyright and unlikely to be fair use.
  • Here are some ideas for what information to include about a television episode, where possible:
o The plot summary of the episode
o The episode's relevance in ongoing story arcs, if any
o How the episode was received by critics
o The episode's impact on popular culture
o Information on production and broadcasting of the episode
  • Elements which are best avoided in any episode article:
o A scene-by-scene synopsis. An overall plot summary is much better; the article should not attempt to be a replacement for watching the show itself, it should be about the show
o Particularly for comedies, no attempt should be made to recreate the humor of the show. This rarely works, and is contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia.

To me this particularly frustrating, as the Simpsons and South Park main articles are quite good and could be tweaked up to FA status without much trouble.L0b0t 13:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, Simpsons, South Park and Power Rangers are all good choices. Other group effort choices: Friday the 13th film series, Sonic video game series and Mega Man video game series. RobJ1981 19:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

"In popular culture"

I'm not a member of this project, as I find trivia sections strangely interesting. It's true you wouldn't pass an exam by reading them, but you might still know something other people don't. However, I would heavily applaud it if you could start getting rid of all those 'in popular culture' sections that seem to crop up on a number of articles. I don't think it's necessary to mention how many times something was mentioned in South Park. Some articles even have entire spin off articles detailing their mentions in "popular culture". Am I the only one who doesn't care when leprechauns were mentioned in The Simpsons?

I wonder if there should be another Wiki for trivia? Like the Wiki version of Schott's Original Miscellany, or something. --Stevefarrell 09:09, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm with you. Good trivia is actually really interesting, even though it's kind of irrelevant. But I don't even think good trivia should be included in most articles because it almost always leads to the inclusion of bad trivia, like "References in popular culture". People see a trivia section and they just start adding things like that like crazy. AFAIK, the spin off articles you mention were just created to appease the people who add that sort of stuff and keep it out of the main articles. Recury 12:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


I agree wholeheartedly about the pop cult sections. WP:EPISODE is very clear on this as well (see excerpt above), the article should discuss the episode's impact on popular culture, not pop culture appearances in the episode. Delete those sections on sight is my vote.L0b0t 17:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Popular culture sections are a big problem on Wikipedia. Many articles have insanely long sections for them. These sections need to either go, or be trimmed quite alot. RobJ1981 16:38, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


I've been cleaning up episode articles using WP:EPISODE, WP:NOT, WP:V, WP:OR, WP:RS, and WP:WAF as touchstones. Most of the articles on television episodes fail outright, but I've started with trivia and references to popular culture sections. This looks pretty cut and dried to me. Unless the show's creators said it in the media or a 3rd party source that passes muster with WP:V and WP:RS publishes it somewhere, it is original research and needs to be removed. No longer can we tolerate edits that restate jokes from the episode or say that a scene in the episode looks like a scene in another work or is a parody/homage of another work in its entireity Here are some of the relevant sections; the emphasis is in the original, I've highlighted the meat of it in green. Cheers. L0b0t 17:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:EPISODE, a guideline, instructs: "* Content about television episodes must conform to Wikipedia content policies, including but not limited to Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research.

Avoid excessive trivia and quotations.

  • Extensive quotation from episodes is a violation of copyright and unlikely to be fair use.
  • Here are some ideas for what information to include about a television episode, where possible:
    • The plot summary of the episode
    • The episode's relevance in ongoing story arcs, if any
    • How the episode was received by critics
    • The episode's impact on popular culture
    • Information on production and broadcasting of the episode
  • Elements which are best avoided in any episode article:
    • A scene-by-scene synopsis. An overall plot summary is much better; the article should not attempt to be a replacement for watching the show itself, it should be about the show
    • Particularly for comedies, no attempt should be made to recreate the humor of the show. This rarely works, and is contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia."

WP:NOT, a policy says: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information. That something is 100% true does not mean it is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. While there is a continuing debate about the encyclopedic merits of several classes of entries, current consensus is that Wikipedia articles are not simply: Plot summaries. Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic."

WP:V, a policy, is clear: "The policy:

Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources.

  1. Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reliable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor.
  2. The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it."

WP:OR, a policy, states: "

This page in a nutshell: Articles may not contain any unpublished arguments, ideas, data, or theories; or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published arguments, ideas, data, or theories that serves to advance a position.

That is, any facts, opinions, interpretations, definitions, and arguments published by Wikipedia must already have been published by a reliable publication in relation to the topic of the article."

WP:RS, a guideline, reads in part: "Popular culture and fiction


Articles related to popular culture and fiction must be backed up by reliable sources like all other articles. However, due to the subject matter, many may not be discussed in the same academic contexts as science, law, philosophy and so on; it is common that plot analysis and criticism, for instance, may only be found in what would otherwise be considered unreliable sources. Personal websites, wikis, and posts on bulletin boards, Usenet and blogs should still not be used as secondary sources. When a substantial body of material is available the best material available is acceptable, especially when comments on its reliability are included."

WP:WAF, a guideline, tells us: "Wikipedia policy on verifiability requires that articles "rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." However, articles written from an in-universe perspective are overly reliant on the fiction itself as a primary source. Lacking as they are in any critical analysis of the subject, these articles may invite original research. In other words, lacking critical analysis from secondary sources, Wikipedia editors and fans of the subject often feel compelled to provide such analysis themselves. Consider this analogy: Would it be acceptable to write an article on flight based solely on watching birds flying? Furthermore, much of this analysis might seem on the surface to be quite sound. For example, assume that an editor creates an article on a starship recently introduced on a science fiction TV show. Using the episodes as reference, he or she writes, "Finn-class starfighters have purple shielding and can fly faster than Mach 3." But how do we really know that all Finn-class starships have purple shielding? What if there are green ones that just have not been introduced yet? And what if later episodes show that Finn-class starships come in slower or faster varieties, too? The editor has made an inference, based on limited fictional information. Framing things from the perspective of our own universe eliminates the problem altogether: "In Episode 37, Commander Kinkaid obtains a Finn-class starfighter with purple shielding. Vice Admiral Hancock calls the ship 'a real space ripper' and says that she can 'make it past Mach 3'."

New problem areas

Recently I've found out that Doctor Who episode articles have too much trivia, as does many episode articles for Invader Zim. RobJ1981 19:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Some of us involved in the Doctor Who WikiProject are aware of this issue, and are working it - the talk page archives contain mountains of discussion on the topic. Take a look at An Unearthly Child, the very first episode in the show, and then at the next few serials - this is the format we've been working towards. Those additional section ("In Print," "Production," etc.) were created out of the trivia section. --Brian Olsen 21:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Well that's good the project is working on it. I've mentioned problems with trivia to other projects and they just ignore it or say comments like "clean it yourself if it bothers you". Another problem area I just found today: Star Trek. I've went through some of the movies, and shows... and all of it so far, has too much trivia. RobJ1981 01:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Favourite so far

Just deleted the following sentence from the Earth article's "Earth in modern culture" section:

"Pictures of the planet are seen in many films, comic books and novels, and the words "Earth" and "world" are mentioned often in many contexts."

Good one. :) --Pax:Vobiscum 20:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow

Just found this project - I've been battling in a minor way on John Wayne and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - WP:V does not seem to phase some people, I am delighted to see others taking an interest in removing the trivia. May I sugest incorporating some of the above (section In popular culture, starting with the line "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. " into WP:TRIVIA in an effort to clean up and clarify that guideline? KillerChihuahua?!? 19:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is for Information, not Oligarchy

I have noticed a recent decline in the quality of many articles. Much useful and entertaining information is being lost. The Trivia Cleanup WikiProject is against what wikipedia stands for. Wikipedia is meant to be a people's encyclopedia. If you don not like what is on it, then that is just too bad. Wikipedia was meant to grow, not be deleted. If this was not an organized group, these actions would be considered vandalism. Even though trivia has no intrinsic purpose, it is enjoyable, which gives it a purpose. People have removed so much valuable content and protected their actions with hate words such as "fancruft" and "useless". I strongly disagree with this project and hope that it is ended and that all the bad that has been done (example) will be reverted. Don't crush the wikipede. Ocicatmuseum 01:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, perhaps you pasted the wrong diff? KillerChihuahua?!? 01:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
No, I did not. Ocicatmuseum 01:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
If everything was allowed on Wikipedia, there simply would be too much clutter and no end to what is on articles. There is trivia cleanup for a reason: Wikipedia isn't a place for every little trivia note. Encyclopedia means important content, not every note such as "Bart Simpson wore a different shirt for the first time ever in this episode". Wikipedia is meant to grow, but edits need to happen, articles can't just grow with lots of cruft and never be changed. Encyclopedia, not a fan's guide to trivia, period. RobJ1981 05:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not so much an anarchist, free-for-all collection of indiscriminate information as it is a very focused project to build a reliable repository of useful knowledge. While your opinion is romantic and egalitarian, I do not think that it makes for an accurate appraisal of the goals behind the Trivia Cleanup project. While I can't speak for any other participants, I think that the practice of removing, or, better yet, transforming trivia sections helps fight the longstanding trend toward quantity over quality. Most trivia bits are vapid factoids added without reference or consideration of relevance. These are added by well-intentioned contributors who are unaware of the reasoning behind Wikipedia's no original research policy. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 08:12, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Anetode, quality is much better than quantity. RobJ1981 20:04, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I think we can all agree on that. The question is whether the two are mutually exclusive. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 19:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Moderation

Okay, my last post #Wikipedia is for Information, not Oligarchy was extreme, but I do believe that there is such a thing as good trivia as mentioned in an above post, and that good trivia has a place in Wikipedia. There is also bad trivia, which should be eliminated. I do agree that in some cases there is too much trivia. Trivia should exist in moderation. Not too little, not too much. However, telling what is good and what is bad, and how much is too much can be difficult. If you are not sure, then you should probably leave it because it is much easier to delete it in the future than it is to revert it if a mistake has been made. No one is forcing anyone to read the trivia sections, so if you think that all trivia is bad trivia, then just don't read them. Don't let you your own dislike of trivia ruin everyone else's fun. Don't crush the Wikipede, but don't let it stray too far from its path either. --Ocicatmuseum 18:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

"Just don't read it" is not the solution here. If that was even close to being true (which it's not), Wikipedia would be a huge mess of ignored problems. Trivia Cleanup's purpose is to clean trivia, not just ignore it/not read it. It's not about hating trivia here, it's cleaning it. Not once is it mentioned on the project page that we hate trivia and want to remove it all. Also, if the trivia can be put into the article and make it look better: then it will be. Just because a trivia section doesn't exist for an article, doesn't mean the trivia notes are gone forever. RobJ1981 20:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
How about some moderation in adding every useless piece of information on popular culture ever? Recury 20:58, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree, the cruft needs to go. There are discussions started over here and here. Cheers. L0b0t 21:11, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information. Policy. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

A great example

Please take a look at the South Park episode article Make Love, Not Warcraft. It seems User:Michaelas10 has been a very busy bee and deserves kudos for taking a very crufty article and getting it to good article nomination status. This is the kind of editing we need more of. Cheers. L0b0t 22:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

That's just your opinion. In my opinion, that is now the WORST of all South Park articles. Cultural References is part of what makes South Park so popular and humorous. Who are you people to say what is encyclopedic and what is not? Why can't it include all the stuff that all the other 150+ articles about South Park episodes include? How can an article about an episode titled "Make Love, Not Warcraft" not mention that the title is a reference to the phrase "make love, not war"? I agree with the others like Ocicatmuseum and Ericpaulson that say this project is making Wikipedia worse. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.34.228.213 (talk) 06:52, 31 January 2007 (UTC).
Wikipedia is not a guide to every little note. I wish people would actually read Wikipedia trivia guidelines before saying things such as "this project sucks, I hate it and want it to go away, it's making Wikipedia worse". Fact: we didn't create the "too much trivia" template, and another fact: we didn't create this guideline: Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles. This project was created well after those, as a group to help clean the trivia problems in articles. (Look at just about any featured article or good article for that matter: there isn't a mass amount of trivia or pop culture references, which is another form of trivia.) Why in the hell does there need to mass lists for every little reference in a Family Guy episode (for example). Yes, the cartoon refers to many popular things: but that doesn't mean every single episode article has to have a list of them all. Same applies to South Park and other popular cartoon series. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia: not a guide to every little note that fans think are notable. RobJ1981 07:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Moderation Again

Yes, it is me again. I have noticed that some of the comments that have been posted on my comments have been very biased. For example, "How about some moderation in adding every useless piece of information on popular culture ever? Recury 20:58, 15 November 2006 (UTC)". This is very one-sided and shows no moderation whatsoever. Wikipedia is for neutral point of view, cooperation, and productive discussion; not one-sidedness, edit/revert wars, and mean comments. Also, what could be considered trivia can vary widely between people. Someone who does not care for classical literature may consider the whole article on The Odyssey to be trivia. After all, they will have no use for it. If something is entertaining, is that not a use? Wikipedia is like a tree. It must be allowed to grow, but it mus also be pruned and trimmed. Pruning and trimming are good if done in moderation by people who know how. Some people just grab a chainsaw and cut like mad without looking. If you have too many people doing this you may accidentaly cut the tree down. This project could do much good if done by expert gardeners, but there are just too many people with chainsaws. There are many users who are doing good, and I am sorry if I offend any of those in the process. I respect wikipedia's policies and hope to see them carried out wisely. Everything in moderation. Don't crush the Wikipede, but don't let it stray too far from its path either.--Ocicatmuseum 02:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't post any more mean comments or else you will just prove my point.--Ocicatmuseum 02:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
How about some moderation in using this talk page? Recury 02:26, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
What mean comments? We are speaking our opinions, and I haven't seen anything even close to being "mean". Mean comments are insults and personal attacks (which I've seen none of either). If you don't like the project: fine, no one is forcing you to agree with it. But you simply seem to want to upset users by insulting the project clearly several times. How is insulting a project helping things? If you don't like it, simply just move on. And is there any good reason why there needs to be a new section everytime you post? One section does the job, flooding the talk page with other sections is clutter and not helping things either. RobJ1981 02:51, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Cultural References discussion

Please check out the discussion on the need for cultural references sections here at:

Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Television episodes#Cultural references sections. Cheers. L0b0t 15:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Some notes and advice on cleaning trivia

As of now, there is 664 articles with too much trivia. Newest problem area: James Bond movies. "Miscellanea" sections that are trivia in disguise, are in some of the articles. I try to do my best at cleanup, but if I don't know the subject well I don't clean the trivia alot. So my suggestion is: if you know a subject well enough, clean the trivia the best you can. As of now here is the problem areas: James Bond movies, Friday the 13th movies, Power Rangers, Mortal Kombat video game series, Silent Hill video games, Star Trek movies and so on. RobJ1981 05:44, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is Ruined!!!!!!!!!!

This project has ruined wikipedia. It has made Wikipedia far less entertaining. Many interesting articles have been removed. Many more articles have been ruined, or at least greatly reduced in quality. Wikipedia is a tree that is killing itself from the inside out. Save Wikipedia, delete this project. All members shoul quit, reverta all edits, undelete all deleted articles, and apologize on their user pages! Death to this project! Long live trivia!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.18.49.29 (talk) 11:44, 20 November 2006

How can a tree kill itself? Recury 15:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
It is symbolic. A part of wikipedia is destroying the whole.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.18.49.29 (talk) 12:14, 20 November 2006
Please sign your post with four tildes (~) per WP:SIG. This makes it easier to follow discussions. Cheers. L0b0t 16:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Consider us tree trimmers then, I guess. Recury 16:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I somehow think the user didn't read Wikipedia's policies on trivia. RobJ1981 16:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

FANTASTIC analogy. We prune that Wikipedia may flourish and grow. Cheers. L0b0t 16:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Did anyone else notice this new project? As I checked the history of the user that made this section, I found this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia. Aren't new projects supposed to be in the user space, until enough support is gained? RobJ1981 16:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Can one speedy a project? This seems to violate WP:POINT and is at cross purposes with established policies and guidelines, WP:AVTRIV in particular. Cheers. L0b0t 16:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and tagged it prod. Let's see where this goes. L0b0t 16:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
The prod was incorrect. It has now been listed for deletion at the proper venue, Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Trivia. Any input pro or con is most welcome. Cheers. L0b0t 22:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia has been deleted. Long live Wikipedia. L0b0t 17:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Articles with trivia in their name

I think these should probably go: The Beatles trivia and Pink Floyd trivia. Well it's interesting, but it's still a huge page of trivia. RobJ1981 17:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe those should stay. The only reason why they got separate articles for that was because it was elongating the main article. These trivia sections are quite huge, and would have probably doubled the length of The Beatles or Pink Floyd. Nishkid64 19:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay, what about Survivor trivia here: List of Survivor statistics and trivia. Survivor is indeed a popular show, but overall this page is just a list of fancruft in my opinion. What's that Wikipedia policy? I know it involves... Wikipedia isn't a collection of information. That page seems to violate it (in my opinion at least). RobJ1981 22:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
While I don't see the value of those articles, I think removing them would piss off too many people to make it productive. Better focus on removing smaller trivia sections and then go after the big ones. Since they aren't disrupting the main articles I don't think we should care too much. Pax:Vobiscum 08:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I highly disagree with this concept

I was absolutely stunned to find this project. I find it counter-intuitive and destructive to remove trivia from articles and clutter other articles with "toomuchtrivia" tags. The trivia section often contains the most interesting and enlightening information, and info that you would not find elsewhere. Trimming this down is destructive and downright vandalism. Ericpaulson 02:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Did you even take the time to read Wikipedia's policy on trivia sections? Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles. This project isn't going against any polices and is certainly not vandalism. Also: one too much trivia tag isn't clutter. There is many maintenance tags on Wikipedia, and the too much trivia tag was around way before this project even started. Also: please put new talk sections at the bottom of talk pages next time, that's where the proper place for them. RobJ1981 02:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment Damocles

Hi, I've been editing Wikipedia on and off, and think trivia/lists in articles are a big problem when they dominate the article. I've edited the Damocles article diff. What do you think about spinning of trivia to their own lists? It keeps the trivia around (for those who like this stuff), but keeps it out of the main article. I also done something similar with a list of "fictional rebellions" on Rebellion. I know this will create many "List of references to...", "List of fictional...", etc., but I think it's better than the alternative of letting it accumulate. Any comments?-Kristod (talk) 11:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not too sure about it, because it falls under this tag in my opinion: {{cleanup-laundry}}. A list page is fine, if it's done properly...but basically a copy and paste of the sections into a list page = bad. Moving one clutter to another place to be cluttered isn't much of a solution to me at least. RobJ1981 19:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I don't like the List-solution myself thats why I asked this project about comments/suggestions. I tried clean up the Damocles page, but about one day after I removed trivia references, they started popping up again. List of references to Damocles is a bit dubious, about one or two items on that list are noteworthy. The main idea is to remove clutter, and keep the information somewhere, for the trivia fans. I think "Clutter somewhere else" = slightly better than clutter in the article. -Kristod (talk) 20:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
It's still clutter, and doesn't belong. Wikipedia articles shouldn't be clutter that was moved from another article. Trivia fans need to realize Wikipedia isn't a trivia guide: Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles. RobJ1981 22:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Who is still active with the project?

I'm making this post, to see how many members are active (or not active) with trivia cleanup. Category:Articles with large trivia sections doesn't seem like it's going down much. Also, this talk page isn't very active . If people aren't interested in the project anymore, remove your name from the list. I'm hoping this encourages people to help cleanup again, articles are in need of trivia cleaning still. I will probably post on user talk pages if this doesn't get alot of responses. RobJ1981 05:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm still active. Although, it doesn't seem like much, I've completely cleaned trivia from 3 articles. Doing it right sure takes a lot of time. I don't talk much on this page, because much of it is people complaining and us telling them its Wikipedia policy. I'd like to see a gameplan for how to go about cleaning trivia and such. - Zepheus <ツィフィアス> 06:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm still here fighting the good fight and pissing of legions of spotty fanboys and lonely canadian college kids. Cheers. L0b0t 14:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not, but I might be at some time in the future. Trivia cleanup almost always involves arguing and I just haven't been in the mood lately. Recury 18:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
As a note, I will probably need to just go to talk pages of editors if no one replies in a few weeks (just in case they haven't been on due to holidays, and didn't see this yet). RobJ1981 21:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I've never been involved with this project (or any project for that matter), but I think I'd really like to be. Before I do, I just want to make sure that I have a good understanding of what the project is about. There are pages like The Godfather that seem to be filled with trivia that is almost entirely fancruft. Do people really care to see every time that The Godfather was referenced in a movie (e.g. Natural Born Killers, You've Got Mail)? Would everyone agree that these violate W:NOT? Have you guys been deleting all The Simpsons fancruft on virtually every page in existance? :) When you do it, do you leave a discussion on the talk page? Are these causing revert wars? On a page like The Godfather, it's stopping them from even getting a Good Article status on an article with top-importance status. Mikeliveshere 13:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
From what I've seen, there hasn't been any major revert wars over trivia. Comments are left on talk pages sometimes, but not always. Many times talk pages are inactive in the first place, so posting there doesn't help many editors anyway. Culture references are useful to a point sometimes... I suppose, but it's not notable to list each and every one of them. Some are fine, but alot is just cruft and needs to go. RobJ1981 05:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Well I just posted on some talk pages, asking if they were active or not. Hopefully some inactives became active again. The trivia needs to go down, and not be such a mess. I do what I can, but I'm not an expert on each subject. RobJ1981 06:35, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm still active, but havn't really been on Wiki alot lately. Exams, holidays etc...but I'll fall back into the swing of things again soon! Icseaturtles 07:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Well one response from numerous talk page posts: not a good sign. Trivia is a big issue on Wikipedia still, and only a few can't fix the problem. RobJ1981 08:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


I'm still somewhat active, I try to do a few articles per week. Pax:Vobiscum 15:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect Trivia

I think a trivia fact on this page Honda Insight is wrong. Check the discussion to see the exact quote. XYZ CrVo 15:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Trivia Standard

I would say that adopting the following two standards would make W:Trivia a lot more clear.

1. The subject of a trivia tidbit should be the subject of the article.

2. Passive voice is bad.

This means that if a trivia piece on article X is "X is referenced in Y." that trivia should immediately be moved to the page on Y and should read "Y references X." At that point, it should become the responsibility of the editors that are working on page Y to cite that trivia and hopefully integrate it into the article when appropriate. My plan of attack will likely be to move trivia to the subject's talk pages and suggest they cite and integrate. If it a subject I know about or have interest in, I will probably stick around to help them do so. Would everyone agree that we're trying to find appropriate homes for trivia, rather than just completely remove it? Mikeliveshere 16:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

My intitial reaction to this is - it depends. I'm thinking if, for example, a major motion picture references a local indie rock band. That bit of information would probably belong on the band's page, as important to their notability, but maybe not on the film's page. So "X is referenced in Y" may sometimes be more relevent to X than it is to Y. --Brian Olsen 17:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I completley agree. My formula's too generic, but I still think I'm on the right track. For example, in the example that you created, the sentence would still probably need to be "The band gained significant notoriety when it was referenced in such and such movie.", so the band would still be the subject of the sentence. Mikeliveshere 20:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Passive voice, without a supporting "A says X is referenced in Y" reference, is usually a sign of original research. Moving it from one page to another won't help. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
I think most people would agree that trivia sections are usually nothing but OR anyway. That being said, I don't think the project's goal should be to cite every piece of trivia. Like I said, I think it makes sense to move it to the talk page for the subject and put the burden on them to cite and integrate the trivia into the article. Mikeliveshere 20:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Playmania

This page has a lengthy trivia section, and when the trivia tag is added, the same 2 editors that control the page keep removing it. Keep an eye on it and try to fix when possible. Booshakla 19:03, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I will try to keep an eye on it. Remember to put the warning tag for removing maintenance tags on the user's talk page (if it hasn't been done yet). RobJ1981 00:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Family Guy trivia issues

This cartoon has many cultural references (also called: pop culture references), and it's simply a form of trivia. Listing all (or even many) of them is just cruft in my opinion. Any epxerts on the show out there, want to help clean the articles? Category:Family Guy episodes is where you can find them all. I thought South Park and a few others had trivia problems, but Family Guy certainly is the worst when it comes to huge trivia sections (when it comes to cartoon series at least). This is another good example of why TV episode articles are a bad idea on Wikipedia. RobJ1981 20:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I was about to say, "I wish someone would just start a Family Guy Wiki, transfer all this cruft, and then we could just delete all this trivia of off Wikipedia." But it already exists (link). I propose transferring this cruft to that wiki and deleting it from here. It's a fairly big project. - Zepheus <ゼィフィアス> 20:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
This is another good example of why TV episode articles are a bad idea on Wikipedia. - Amen to that. It's not just Family Guy. The Simpsons and South Park are two others which, of the top of my head, are littered with useless trivia. -- Qarnos 00:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Fully agree with you all. Another problem is articles on various celebrities and TV shows having their "spoofs" on family guy listed, like saying "Press Your Luck was mentioned on episode 23 of Family Guy". It's borderline spam IMO. Booshakla 22:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Price is Right pricing games

Check out some of these when you can. Pretty much every pricing game has a trivia section of at least 10 items, much of which isn't close to notable or even NPOV. And there is a stubborn editor that almost always reverts the edits, reguardless of reason. Thought I'd give a heads up, there aren't really any tags on the articles. Booshakla 22:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Newsflash: Wikipedia has really big servers

Its true, their servers are oh so big that trivia does not need to be needlessly deleted! I know it may sound strange but there is now no need to delete other's work! Yes its true, after you've watched an episode of South Park you can in fact visit the wikipedia page and find out about all the cultural references without having to read the episode summary! I know this is going to take a lot of getting used to, but the servers are in fact REALLY BIG!!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.128.232.159 23:05, 12 February 2007 (talk)

If I may direct your attention to WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NOT, WP:RS, WP:EPISODE, WP:Writing about fiction, and WP:AVTRIV for the many, many, many reasons the trivia has no place in a general purpose encyclopedia. There are any number of outlets for fans to express their opinions, share trivia, and their love of a favorite show. There is a dedicated The Simpsons wiki, Family Guy wiki, South Park wiki, et al that are much better suited for the trivia and in-jokes that you crave. Cheers. L0b0t 03:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Decentralization - a beaurocrats favorite tool. Why bother having any useful information on any page? "The destruction of words is a beautiful thing" - 1984.

A simple plea

I stated my case that trivia can at times be a valid addition to various topics. I'd like to ask each member of this project to simple poke around on the members' contributions, and see if they're actually making Wikipedia better, or just hacking away at various topics. The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park are being brutalized. Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, mythology sections all are full of references to popular culture, but haven't been touched yet. If you believe after your review that you're strengthening Wikipedia's foundations then I hope you'll continue. But if you see some evidence a of slash and burn mentality that just simply doesn't like certain topics and wants them dead by neutering them to the point at which they become pointless, I hope you'll remove you name and your support from this project, and that it stops. 69.37.78.35

You are correct that trivia can at times be a valid addition but it has to be added in the proper way, this is covered quite well at WP:TRIVIA, and WP:AVTRIV. Trivia also has to be properly sourced per WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:RS. I'm sorry if this bothers you, but these are the policies and guidelines that all editors must follow. There are many, many, many resources for fan based speculation, opinion, and comment but the the general purpose encyclopedia is NOT one of them. You might like to visit the dedicated wikis for Family Guy, The Simpsons, and South Park, where the trivia and cultural references are encouraged and welcomed. Cheers. L0b0t 19:52, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Fair and valid. I will carefully read those references above when I have the time, and try to see if I then agree with the changes I've seen in my favorite Wikipedia articles. You know, I've never even seen the Trivia tag. Maybe it should be used more aggressively, so people would know more about the existence of this project. Thanks for not calling me a troll and just cutting me off. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.37.78.35 (talk) 20:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

No problem, I wouldn't dream of calling you a troll. I should also add that you are more than welcome to try to change the rules you don't agree with, just start a topic on the talk page of the particular rule. Here are some shortcuts to get you started:

I hope these links are helpfull. Cheers. L0b0t 20:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Language like "hacking away" "brutalized" "slash and burn" and "neutered" is not the language of someone interested in a discussion. Recury 20:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I used strong words, you people can cut very fast, I don't have time to formulate careful arguments, look up the proper spelling of bowdlerize, etc. Opinion follows, mine and mine alone: You just like cutting the "icky" stuff. That's why I call it a plea -- I ask you all to look within.
Side note: Bowdlerize has no entry in wikipedia. I only know the word from a reference in the Wikipedia entry for Morel Orel, a cartoon I have never seen. Trivia to the rescue. 69.37.78.35 20:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't care how much "time" you have. On Wikipedia, you discuss things civilly and you assume good faith. Saying that we "hack away" at articles is not assuming good faith, it's assuming we are trying to "brutalize" your favorite articles. We aren't. Recury 20:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I must confess I'm quite fond of hyperbole myself. Bowdlerize can be found in our sister project Wiktionary. If you want to link to the wiktionary instead of wikipedia you can use this tag [[Wiktionary:word you want to link to]], which gives you this Wiktionary:word you want to link to, if you would like the word wiktionary to be invisible do this [[Wiktionary:word you want to link to|]] , which produces this word you want to link to. Cheers. L0b0t 20:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

"In popular culture" articles and trivia articles

In my opinion, articles that are just big trivia sections are even more damaging than trivia sections in articles. All the reasons against trivia sections in articles apply to full articles about trivia. The one main reason against removing trivia, that it could be incorporated into the article, is significantly weakened, because the information is no longer in the same article and is therefore not readily available to editors who want to incorporate it. Furthermore, these articles aren't watchlisted by established users, so they tend to be completely out of control. I've recently nominated a few of these for deletion (not listing the debates, I'm not trying to canvas for that) and they do seem headed towards deletion. I've also written an essay at Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles that talks about this issue, and I invite you all to contribute if you have anything to add. In response to a post above, I think it's important to go after the biggest, most bloated trivia sections rather than keeping our focus small: those are the most damaging ones. Mangojuicetalk 04:01, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Advice please: Fictional portrayals of the Japan Self-Defense Forces

I'd like some input on Fictional portrayals of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The list started as an ever growing section to the main Japan Self-Defense Forces article that I eventually moved off into its own article partially due to its growing length, and partially because I thought the presence of a list of every tangential mention of the JSDF in any game, anime, or manga detracted from the purpose of the entire article. Honestly though, I'm starting to get tired of all these lists of trivia and pop culture mentions consisting mainly of "xxxxx was featured in xxxxxxx", which seem to me to be almost a form of internal spamming for the pop culture articles in question. Anyhow, I'm thinking of putting the list up for deletion, just wanted some input on whether other editors think it's appropriate before I get jumped by a bunch of angry fanboys/fangirls. Thanks. -Loren 05:09, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe it should be deleted. A good example of listcruft/fancruft/useless trivia. RobJ1981 06:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I've put the article up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fictional portrayals of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. -Loren 04:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

<toomuchtrivia> tag

There's been some effort at updating the wording of the template to more accurately reflect what the guideline actually is. CovenantD 23:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit summaries

I'm pretty new to this project (and Wikipedia for that matter), and I wondered if there is any guideline to edit summaries provided? If not, it might be a good idea to use summaries like Cleanup as part of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia Cleanup|WikiProject Trivia Cleanup]]. This might attract more people to the project. --Anna512 (talk) 12:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Although that's a good idea for attracting new people to the project, I think the edit summary would be better used explaining - in detail - why each entry was removed (see, for instance, diff). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 07:24, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Something I've noticed

Is it just me, or are trivia/pop culture sections getting bigger? Example: Cars_(film)#Script_references. I will post more when I come along them. This is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed somehow. Otherwise people are just going to continue making these massive sections. RobJ1981 06:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Kids. What can you say? I'll usually make a first pass to weed out the totally irrelevant and uncited, then come back in a week or so and try to deal with the rest, either by moving them to relevant areas or removing them. In articles where I've managed to eliminate such sections, they often stay gone. CovenantD 06:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Good point. I'm surprised I got a reply quick. Usually it takes a bit, since this talk page is slow at times. RobJ1981 06:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
It's failing because it was probably a bad idea from the beginning, and most people prefer to keep a separate trivia section rather than forcing them into other paragraphs. The minority who wanted this guideline is struggling to make it work. I can hardly call this a consensus. --ElfQrin 13:24, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't be discouraged. There are articles in which lists of trivia and cultural references make the article less of an article and more like a laundry list. The effort includes subtle nuances like putting the trivia cleanup tag on the page, moving the trivia to the talk page, eliminating (or just tagging) un-cited items, etc. It all helps. And since WP is a living, changing, growing entity, some amount of anti-statis is to be expected. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 13:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

This project is failing badly

The number of articles which contain, or which are entirely laundry lists, is growing exponentially. For every one you might be fixing, 100 more are written. You are trying to stop a river by standing in it. --Xyzzyplugh 21:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well help out then. People in the project don't always spend all their free time online (and) on Wikipedia just cleaning up trivia. Trivia is a big problem on Wikipedia, and like many things: it takes time to clean it up. RobJ1981 03:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Your enthusiasm and positive encouragement are appreciated. It's nice to have one's work recognized. Thank you. I wish you the best as well.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 04:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The most important part of my comment was, "You are trying to stop a river by standing in it". If 10 articles, or 100, or even 1000 articles have unwanted content, a small group of editors can clean them up. When the number goes into the tens of thousands, with more pouring in every day far far faster than this small group could ever remove it, then it's time to face the fact that a larger wider scale effort is the only one which will work. This has to be dealt with at the policy level. The same issue has been faced in the past with articles inevitably sprouting ever-growing amounts of generally pointless external links, so we ended up with an extensive guideline page, Wikipedia:External links which bans most of them and limits others. WP:NOT also says, "On articles about topics with many fansites, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate" (in order to stop people from posting links to all of them). Articles still continue to sprout too many external links, and always will, but anyone can easily remove them, quoting policy, and they stay removed as long as any experienced editor is watching.
There is no such policy regarding lists of trivia. The closest we have is Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles, which actually places no limits on trivia at all. Wikipedia:Trivia is attempting to form such a policy, consider becoming active in forming that policy and trying to get it accepted.
In addition, I am trying to make some sort of simple attempt of at least banning the worst forms of trivia, what I refer to as "less than trivia" or "not even trivia", by adding a bit to WP:NOT. See WT:NOT#Proposal_to_add_to_Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information.
Without actually formulating some policy on this issue, you're trying to empty a river with a bucket. --Xyzzyplugh 06:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
What is it with you and rivers? :) --Future Fun Jumper (TIC) 08:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

An idea to reduce the problem

I was thinking of setting up a volunteer section on the project page (similar to what other projects have done). It could either be setup by letter, page number or your personal preference (such as.. if you are an expert at a subject, then you can volunteer to clean those articles). What does everyone think? Let's breathe some life into this talk page again. RobJ1981 20:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

A trivia discussion at the TV project

If anyone cares to comment: [1]. It's a discussion about cultural references section (which are basically trivia). RobJ1981 05:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Silver Surfer in popular media deletion notice

I created article Silver Surfer in popular media on the basis of the Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles policy and the comment on its GA nom which suggested that the trivia section was an obstacle to an otherwise good article.Thus deleting SS in popular media would be in direct contrast to your goals of helping improve articles by removing trivia. Either trivia should be allowed within a separate article or it should be in the main article but it shouldn't be needlessly deleted. Many contributions to wikipedia are to these "useless trivia" sections so you're doing a grave injustice to the community as a whole by simply deleting information obtained through collaborative effort. It can be deleted on the basis of lack of references as that undermines wikipedia's verifiability and if that's the issue then I'd only be happy to copyedit and reference the article. Please see Batman in popular media and Spider-Man in other media to see that this is not a useless singular page but is instead common with mainstream comic characters. Granted that this page is not as detailed or relevant (partly because the character is not as popular or recognised) but I hope to improve it to a similar standard. Zuracech lordum 08:59, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Trivia is useless. The sections breed useless information and giant lists. Cultural references are the same thing, but they should be allowed under special conditions. If the subject really has contributed to popular culture, show that in prose. A simple paragraph or two telling about how X has changed or affected the world isn't too bad. Lists like you have, on the other hand, do not contribute anything good. It's just a place where people can dump and trivial mentions or the character or make up random pieces of information that never happened. These pages need to be deleted, but they probably won't due to the people who love to place crap in them. TTN 14:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Isn't there a policy for "other crap exists"? Just because other superhero have similar articles, that doesn't mean Silver Surfer should. I can understand a small section in the main article. But a whole article on it, is simply both listcruft, and useless trivia. Is it really that notable, every time a song has a reference to Silver Surfer? I don't think so. Same goes for TV mentions and so on. I took a look at the Batman article: it's a decent list of Batman media: such as Batman cartoons, TV shows, video games and so on. The Silver Surfer article isn't anything like that (nor I doubt it could be). If I remember right: there has been only 1 or 2 video games, 1 cartoon series, and that's about it (besides the main comic book series). An appearance/pop culture reference list isn't as notable as an actual media list. RobJ1981 19:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
There is such a policy statement but that is by the by. The examples are apples and oranges. The examples given detail the characters portrayal in "other media" (so films, TV, toys, etc.) while the Silver Surfer entry is a list of mentions. It is a whole different ball game and a trivia section gone mad. The A-Team version of one of these got deleted the other day. So there is a critical difference. One way (appearances of the character) work and the other (anything just mentioning them) is liable to cause problems. (Emperor 20:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC))
Apologies for accusations such as "grave injustice to the community as a whole". Without knowing it, I managed to sound like the very unreasonable editors that I so thoroughly detest. I understand the concerns put forward and agree that removing the article deletion notice without any effort to improve the article was incorrect. Zuracech lordum

I'm not so sure I agree

Personally I don't care much for long lists of trivia in articles. Like most of you I agree that it clutters up articles. However, I'm not quite sure that I agree as to the methods proposed by this wikiproject, viz. by being a deletionist of 'crap' articles. I happen to like 'crap' articles as it gives me justification to remove trivial content from the main article onto it, and then explain why it was removed (clearly showing to the fellow contributor that the information was already taken note of in the specially designated article). Hypothetically 'crap' articles also provide sources that I could mine for more information, which is not to insinuate that this is my chief use of them but I have used them on occasion for that.

More or less, I am yet to be convinced that the methodology of this wikiproject will be beneficial. I certainly believe that you are helping in removing distracting content. But does it need to be purged entirely?

I'm am largely concerned about all the editors that barely spend time contributing because they are too busy reverting edits in order to remove content which is continually re-entered in by fellow wikipedians only because it was removed (or because they are new and don't see it there).Why can't we modify the system so that just as there are discussion pages there are also "trivia" pages? Or at least create some way of distinguishing trivia pages, i.e. Silver Surfer in popular media, acknowledging that they aren't proper wikipedia articles just as User pages aren't articles although they are run off the same engine? b_cubed 03:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Monthly categorisation of Category:Articles with large trivia sections

Given the current size of Category:Articles with large trivia sections, might it be a good idea to subdivide that category by the month in which the tag was added? It would require modifying Template:Trivia, creating the monthly categories, and enlisting the help of SmackBot to fix any tags that are missing a date parameter.

My question is this: is it worth it? Android Mouse Bot 3 has begun an automated process of tagging articles with {{trivia}} at the rate of 4 edits per minute. Since it started on May 20, it has tagged over 5000 articles. That's probably the biggest monthly maintenance backlog aside from speedy deletions. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 07:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it could help. RobJ1981 15:25, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I made a request at the {{trivia}} talk page to add the date as part of the box code like the template {{unsourced}} is. But, to my knowledge, no changes have been made. If those changes were made, a bot could go through to time stamp the boxes like bots have done with the unsourced template. --myselfalso 16:51, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Update. The {{trivia}} template has been modified and the category is currently subdivided by month. It is also being considered for renaming at CfD. Lastly, Rich Farmborough, the operator of SmackBot, has agreed to add the {{trivia}} template to the list of maintenance tags that the bot currently dates (though it may take a few days). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 16:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

McDonald's Article

We should keep an eye on the McDonald's_restaurants article. The trivia section is getting substantially larger by the minute. I have tried to group a few bullets and make them into a separate paragraph. - A Raider Like Indiana 23:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The section needs to be removed. I can understand some of it being kept in a notes section of some sort, but it's just a cluttered mess as it is now. RobJ1981 09:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

You just admitted trivia is relavent and worthy of being placed in an article." I can understand some of it being kept in a notes section of some sort" Shame on you people for censuring information and truth just because you don't like what it says. what next are you going to change wikipedia into an epic poem of your saving the rest of us from the unworthy "notes" in the trivia section, or maybe saving us from truth or something like that.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.14.129.149 (talk)

Toupee

The article Toupee has a seriously bad list of "toupee wearers" that used vioilate BLP (until they removed all the living people) and now is just a list of useless trivia. VanTucky 22:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Plus I noticed this: Toupee#Toupees_in_Popular_Media. The article is in need of massive cleaning in my opinion. RobJ1981 22:35, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

London Underground Trivia

For some reason, while most articles with "trivia" in the title have been deleted, this one just keeps making the cut for some reason. There is no reason for this page to be on here, look at the intro, it actually says "this is info not important enough to be on the main article". The cultists have flooded the afd, and it got a "keep" consensus the last time (despite a lot of requests for a merge or deletion). In addition, there is also an "in popular culture" page for London Underground. This is absurd and needs to change. We should try to get rid of these articles sometime. Dannycali 03:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, check this AFD when you can Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/B-52_Stratofortress_trivia, it is not looking good for now, as the cultists and not realizing that trivia is not allowed here, especially a whole article of it. Please vote delete and get the cultists to realize that trivia is not acceptable here. Dannycali 02:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

In popular culture category

Category:In popular culture.This needs a good cleaning in my opinion. At current count: 126 articles, as well as 13 subcategories. I've been putting the ones I see as the worst in AFD. I'm sure there could be some decent articles in the category (or subcat), but overall: most of it seems to be a culture section that was moved to an article on it's own. Condensing is the key: condense sections to notable items (if they exist). Moving a list of trivial items to an article on it's own, isn't helping things. RobJ1981 17:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

"Relevance of content" proposal

As has been noted by several members of this project, Wikipedia does not have much of a policy on trivia. There's WP:TRIVIA, but it limits itself to discouraging trivia sections, and does little to distinguish trivia from substantive content. The proposal at Wikipedia:Relevance of content is an attempt to close this gap.

The proposal has undergone several rounds of feedback and revision, and was recently relocated from Wikipedia:Relevance due to a dispute over its placement on that page. I invite all contributors to the Trivia Cleanup project to help establish a common standard for relevance on Wikipedia. Thanks.--Father Goose 03:19, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Subdivide

I think it would be easier to get rid of trivia if people could find trivia articles that they have knowledge about. I know a lot about comic books, so I can fix comic articles that have trivia in it. I couldn't fix a trivia section in an article about Russian theology or something like that. If there was some way to look up articles with a trivia section by a category or something that would make it easier to find articles that each person knows they can help fix. Anyone know how to do that? -Freak104 04:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

challenge to the present role of the project

Let me respond briefly-- In the case of articles and sections like Pac-man and the like, a point could be made that that the page or heading"trivia" is not really necessary, for the entire discussion of pacman is about the subject IPC-- that's the inherent locus of the subject. For influence of X, then you are right that in general more academic titles are much better--and i would be suggesting them except the same parties have nominated several such articles and seemed it would just confuse the discussion. I'm not sure about Miltonic tradition--this is really over-formal and would sound strange to most WPedians. But there's a third point: the influence of Milton on literature, music, and so on, is a perfectly sound and delmited set of topics. But there is also the influence of Milton on non-literary things. The total sum of references and allusions in even the most trivial of places indicates the impact on the world as a whole, not just the literary or creative part, for it is assumed the viewer/reader will understand. And all of these allusions are related to each other--the set of them, how they are used, why people who have never read the works still use and understand them, is a topic, and the topic is best shown by the collocation of the findable references.

I'm not a specialist in this subject in the least, but I am a bibliographer. I once collected 18th and early 19th century references to Samuel Richardson's works--in the pre internet era, by systematic searching of likely places and by following leads, working in libraries which had perhaps 90% of the possible sources. I didn't work on visual references--I do not have the knowledge of the sources and the tools. And I could never work on 20th century media references at all, for the same reason. But for everything since about 1990, this is different now, and the place to do it is Wikipedia. There is a sense in which this is OR, but for the topics WP concentrates on, it's a logical extension. Gathering is not OR; only interpretation is. Even if WP is the not the place for the work, it's the place to collect the sources,. I don't want to do this work, but I don't want to destroy the sources for it. I am as a librarian horrified by the speed at which we are destroying access. I will still have access as an admin, and the material should certainly be transferred to another wiki--I can help with that but do not have the time to work on it or organize it-- and it is unnecessary--it could have been kept right here.

The question is how to build these up. The current way of deleting them first is so much the wrong way to go, that it is about this that I am fighting. I have things both at WP and in the RW I should be doing rather than defending or rewriting these, things I could do much better than this. So will those here help preserve some of it? Will those here, for example, help with the Eiffel Tower article, and categorize the ones you know. And then look for the sources for them individually? will you perhaps look for books discussing this to add to the references for the articles?

Will you -- even -- be prepared to say at some of the AfDs, "keep, and edit." ? DGG (talk) 05:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, my view on the matter is the same as it's basically been since the start. Wikipedia isn't a trivia or pop culture guide. If a pop culture list must be made (as an article): put it in paragraphs, not just a massive list that never ends. Also: don't just move a cluttered section to a new article, thinking that helps... because it doesn't. Lots of these lists have existed for a while, with no attempts at cleanup. Why exactly should a keep and edit note be on AFDs? I've seen many times, people promise to cleanup articles (that were in AFD, in general: not these pop culture lists), and it doesn't happen. I'm not saying everyone makes false promises: but many do. I suppose people could attempt to clean these up, but the majority doesn't have the time to do so... or frankly it's not worth doing. I certainly don't have the time to do it, so whatever. More power to you, if you can attempt to fix them. As of now: I've seen only a select few wanting them kept. Many times: they just want the list kept, and don't understand it's a cluttered mess. That's part of the problem here. So until a majority wants change, my view stands as it is. Perhaps you could suggest a pop culture wiki? Then that would solve the problem here, and they would have a decent home. RobJ1981 06:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
We have a pop culture wiki right here. It's been suggested and implemented, and all that is necessary is to keep people from trying to destroy it. I recognize that's a rather strong opening sentence, but really, I want to understand why you think this is inappropriate for a contemporary general encyclopedia? To me, all of video games is pop culture. All of popular music (needless to say), all of sports, all of video, all of comics, all on manga, even most of film, and of fiction. What else do you call these things? The intellectual progress of mankind? the development of science? the serious effort of resolution of political and economic problems, and of doing the work of the world? I have yet to see the person who doesn't engage in some part of it; few of us could in practice live without a greater or lesser degree of involvement. Of all the inventions for discussing and providing information about this that have ever been attained, wikipedia is the best. We should improve it, extend it, and do it better.
It is not my main concern here. My main concern here is exactly in the opposite direction, of trying to improve the coverage of the more academic content, and of the people who engage in them. I hardly thought I'd be in the position of defending it! But I realise that to ensure the inclusion of the content that concerns me, I must ensure the inclusion of the content which concerns others. The way to improve WP is to improve the content of all types. I want to encourage the people who know more than I about these things to improve their articles, and the way to do it is not to destroy what there is.
All knowledge starts with the accumulation of facts, and then their categorization, and then their organization and the understanding of the patterns and the development and the significance. the coverage of these topics is only at a crude point, yes. We won;t get it better by destroying what there is.
What should an individual WPedian do? Improve the articles that concern themselves and that they know to improve, add the articles that they can--and assist everyone else to do likewise. I want to do something about the articles of those graduate students pretending to be notable scientists; people who pretend to make notable video games are not my concern. I do not go around saying, for example, that baseball is of no intrinsic significance and that all articles which do not treat it in a sociological and historical way should be removed. I let those who care about baseball decide which level of leagues they wish to include, and what they think a player must do to be notable, and what an article about one should consist of. If these articles do not meet your standards, add the content you think should be there, if you have the interest & the time & the skill. If not, keep to what you do have the interest and time and skill for. For example, you say on your user page you like Marvel comics. Improve the articles on them, and let them be a good example to others. If you like, offer advice to those working on other comics. But don't destroy their articles. Left to myself, if i were making a wiki to suit my own interests, I might eliminate the whole category of comics. But I don't own the wiki, and I have no desire to recast it according to my own views. DGG (talk) 06:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
First off I'd like to point out to DGG that Wikipedia is probably the largest up to date source for comic book information. Users being able to change the articles allows for them to be updated as soon as new issues come out. Also, most accredited university classes won't allow Wikipedia to be used as a cited reference. So Wikipedia as a reference about comics is more notable than being a reference for anything in school (despite the few art/literature classes that deal with comics as the art they are).
My next point is that in his arrogant way DGG does have a point, we should each fix the Trivia problem in articles we each understand. Is there some way for us to find a specific category of articles with trivia in them? -Freak104 14:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if I sounded arrogant, but there have been altogether too many simultaneous discussions of this, and I'm getting a little tired , and yes, exasperated at needing to say it all in some many place to meet the simultaneous comments. Freak104 confirms my uninformed guess that WP is a prime source of comic book information, which I consider an excellent thing. Now it remains to make some use of this by organizing it. Listing things by series and creators and major characters is the obvious first step. Discussing it by themes and allusions is the next. Fully analyzing this is of course OR, but collecting the material already in WP and finding outside references to support it is not. this is what the so called trivia sections now do in a primitive way, and the job now is to do it better. By analogy with other genres I know, and using the basic ideas of organising information familiar to librarians and bibliographers, the first step is to make articles on the various themes and so forth, collect the instances, group them in what logical way the material suggests, reference them exactly to the primary sources from which they came, and then look for additional sources discussing them. Then one normally looks for analogs in other media and genres, and adds them, to show the significance of the material to those not primarily interested in the form, working n a similar fashion. simultaneously one connects the material used in this genre, to articles based on the other genres. Some think there is probably a level of use too minor to be accounted for, but I think the history of scholarship shows otherwise. Most notably, it is the study of the minutia in paintings, that they are ascribed to their proper artists and the historical development of each artists work discerned--this is the basic method of art history. Similarly in literature, there is no allusion in Shakespeare too minor to illuminate Shakespeare, and every trifle has been studied. The day will come for comics too. The material here will be the initial aid in research until more sophisticated work becomes general. I apologize that I have probably repeated all the cliches of such work, but I do not mean to condescend or imply that they are not well known to anyone--I think this a good place to set down a general indication what can be done with such material in general, and hope those knowing the various fields will elaborate and correct.
for finding this material in WP, the systematic way is to assume that each major work has related material in other articles, and to simply look for it all item by item with a search engine. I know its tedious, but it helps to start where experience suggests there will be much to be found. DGG (talk) 10:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree completely with DGG on this. Although my own personal interests are the opposite of "popular culture", and I have little knowledge of it, I realize it is very important for some. I think his point that in the future this will be much more important than it is now, for future generations to understand this present world, is well taken. Much as I look back at 100 or 200 year old encyclopedias to get a glimpse of a vanished world, people will do the same for Wikipedia. It is an extremely useful way to capture this material. I have one family of articles that I maintain that accumulate tremendous volumes of this sort of information (I was going to even call it cruft here, but I will resist). I do not like it and I think it detracts from the general scholarly tone I am aiming towards. Nevertheless, this information is valuable to someone, and probably will be more so in the future. So I segregated it off into its own set of articles. And I aim to keep accumulating this material in daughter articles (like a lint filter on your dryer). Still available, but not clogging up my main article. I have previously wondered about special categories for popular culture or other ways to better manage it, sort it, find it and organize it. I was attacked for such silly notions. Nevertheless, this information exists, people are interested in it, people want to place it in articles, and people want to be able to see it, and will want to look at it in the future. Because of the unique features of Wikipedia, we can accommodate all of these desires and needs. Our goal should not be to ape Encyclopedia Britannica; that is a silly goal and a lost cause. We should think about how we can produce a resource as useful as possible to the greatest number.--Filll 11:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
DGG and Filll make good points, but what I'm asking for is an easier way to accomplish what they're saying. This project isn't to delete trivia, it is to incorporate trivia sections into the articles in constructive ways so that the information is conserved (as Filll pointed out to be very important). I would not be able to properly incorporate trivia for some articles that DGG would have an easy time with, and vice versa. This is the third time I am asking this, but I think it is an important question to seriously help this project: Is there some way to search by category the articles with trivia sections? If this is not currently possible, could someone please make it possible? I don't know programming, otherwise I'd try to do it myself. Freak104 16:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
This project isn't to delete trivia, it is to incorporate trivia sections into the articles in constructive ways so that the information is conserved (as Filll pointed out to be very important). I personally feel the project's role is to cleanup trivia madness, and remove it altogether when needed. Wikipedia shouldn't become a guide to trivia, if it doesn't need to be. While I'm for fixing trivia articles when needed (or when possible): some deletion needs to happen. We can't just save everything (by moving it elsewhere in the article, or moved to a new article), just because people disagree with things being deleted. As for your question on the category: I don't think there is a way to search through them. You can view them, through the category itself...but that's it I believe. RobJ1981 01:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I guess I didn't explain my position too well in my last post. I agree with Filll that most trivia should be incorporated into the article, but I also agree with RobJ1981 that some should be deleted. There are some trivia sections that include pointless trivia that really should be deleted. The members of this project have to walk the fine line between saving too much and deleting too much. Freak104 14:33, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Toupee

This is an article which has two trivial sections, one about a list of toupee wearers that is self-referential, and the other as a huge "in popular culture list". Good luck removing it, I tried and failed. VanTucky (talk) 03:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal at Village Pump

I have proposed a strategy for dealing with trivia sections on mature articles; see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#A nontrivial matter of Trivia. There's no reason for a mature article to have a Trivia section in the article body, and in most cases the {{Trivia}} tags are completely ignored. I suggest that in cases where no maintenance has been performed for some months, these sections ought to be moved to the article talk page, from which interested parties can carry out the merger of any useful information at their leisure. Frankly, it doesn't seem likely that these trivia sections will ever be merged into the article prose or filtered to remove cruft otherwise.

Comments are welcomed and encouraged. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:18, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

BOO to you.

I can't belive your trying to censure information from wikipedia. I mean after all wasn't This thing started under some hippie ideal or something. Wikipedia claims to be an encylopedia, in other words a text that contains information on subjects. Hey trivia is information. Information people want to know and information people find relavent.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.14.129.149 (talk)

Yeah, BOO! I just read the article on singer Leslie Feist. Near the end, there's a trivia section with just two pieces of information - not uninterestingly ones, but difficult to ingetrate in the article. What's also in that section? A big banner saying "Trivia sections are discouraged"! Pathetic!!! Yeah, sure those two trivia points are too much! The beginning of the end! Wiki will be ruined! Really, you wannabe policemen here sure try to get all fun out of Wikipedia. And there's also already lots of bureaucrats running around, adding no information at all, but reversing entries of well meaning users just because this or that rule wasn't closely enough followed. There's a point about "instruction creep" somewhere. "Instruction creep"? My, uh, donkey! It's more like instruction stampede! This soon will come to a point were nothing meaningful can be done anymore, but thousands are in discussions every minute debating why it can't be done. Looking back at the 'progress' at Wikipedia over the last years, I have the sure feeling that this project is going down because too many are working here more at satisfying their ego and their thirst for power than at improving the content. Grrr.89.182.24.165 01:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

EEK! There's the explanation for that idiotic banner: "This template was spammed across thousands of articles (it exceeds 10,000 articles) by a bot that was written by an editor who hates trivia lists." See what I meant above? Just another wannabe tyrant conducting his own dirty war just because he doesn't like trivia! Those people add nothing to Wikipedia, they only want to annoy others, just for the thrill of it. BOO! 89.182.24.165 01:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Integrating the Trivia section from the Leslie Feist article took hardly any more effort than you spent deleting the {{trivia}} template and subsequently complaining on multiple Talk pages. Three simple edits [2] [3] [4] integrated these items properly.
I'm not certain why you feel so strongly that Wikipedia should not have style guidelines, but your characterization of people who integrate trivia sections as simply wanting to annoy people is unreasonable. It would be really nice if you helped out with this. It's just not that hard. / edg ☺ ★ 02:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"Lacks content"?

Has anyone else noticed that what the trivia tag looks like has changed? It now says that the article lacks content. I think this will hurt the effort to clean up the trivia sections, because it is using derogatory wording. I believe that it should go back to saying that the section contains trivia and that trivia needs to be incorporated. I know that the link points to trivia needing to be cleaned up, but a lot of people might not click the link and just delete the tag. -Freak104 05:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

It says the information in this section lacks context. However, would you be more open to "The information in this section is poorly organized"? See the discussions at Template talk:Trivia.--Father Goose 14:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Whoops! My bad. I guess I should really not make such statements when I'm practically falling asleep. Sorry, everyone. -Freak104 16:11, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The Family Guy "cultural references" sections

Seriously, something needs to be done with these. They aren't even articles, just a listing of whatever crap happened on the show, most of which isn't notable whatsoever. Biggspowd 21:09, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

These should be left alone or even expanded, its almost the only reason that I, and i'm sure many others read those particular pages. -Shogun 04:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
There is a Family Guy wiki (if I remember right). They should be moved there. Just because Family Guy features numerous culture references: doesn't justify massive lists of them on Wikipedia. It's clearly trivial, plus going way too much into the plot for a 20 minute cartoon. If I have time, I'll look for the Family Guy wiki. Then perhaps a link to the article there could be included in external links for episode articles here? RobJ1981 04:28, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
The Family Guy wiki has maybe 2-3 active editors. They don't seem to have their transwiki act together, not that I'm an expert in these matters.
Dunno what good it would do, but you could bring this up on Wikipedia's Family Guy WikiProject. It's also not very active. / edg ☺ ★ 04:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
It's not going "too much into the plot" because the cultural references are separate from the plot. Considering how much of Family Guy's content is comprised of such references, I'd consider any article on Family Guy episodes incomplete without an explanation of the references, just like it'd be incomplete without a plot summary.--Father Goose 05:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, not too much about the plot: too much about the episode in general. The sections are both trivial and way too many episode details. A 20 minute popular cartoon doesn't need to be so detailed when it comes to that, period. Since Family Guy revolves around them: the sections describe basically every scene in the show, which isn't something suitable for Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not meant as a scene by scene guide. Look at any featured or even good article, for a TV show (or TV episode, or even movie) and you will see it's not even close to what any Family Guy episode article is. Just about every Family Guy article is a cluttered mess of references. Until something is done, it will just continue to be this way. It might be "useful" to some, but that doesn't justify it's notable for Wikipedia. RobJ1981 05:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
You might want to link the destination articles in your edit summaries, like so:
[[wikiasite:familyguy:Death Has a Shadow]] → wikiasite:familyguy:Death Has a Shadow
Also, expect objections. The defenders for Culturally significant words and phrases from Family Guy were very angry, and given to villification. / edg ☺ ★ 05:23, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Homer's Phobia is an FA that contains a "Cultural references" section. I would expect any Family Guy episode FA (if we ever get one) to have a "Cultural references" section as well.
Separately, one of the rationales against detailed plot synopses (that they're not fair use) would not apply to a "Cultural references" section, as it is not reproduction of copyrighted content, but commentary on it.--Father Goose 06:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Looking at this discussion, I'd like to propose a rethinking of priorities. Category:Articles with trivia sections is already massive and more articles are being tagged every day. Do you really want to spend your efforts in a revert war over Family Guy episodes? I'd say our efforts can be better spent cleaning the trivia sections to be found in w:Special:Whatlinkshere/Family Guy. These are likely to be less controversial (most folks editing Ernest Hemingway‎, for example, will recognize that a two second appearance of the author in one episode of the Family Guy doesn't belong in that article and will thank you for removing it). I have made a general proposal about this in a new section on this page below. Sbacle 15:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I doubt everyone is focused on Family Guy episodes, so I don't see an issue here. On a side note: season 1 episodes for Family Guy are now clean. The relevant information has been moved to the Family Guy wiki. I hope to do the rest of the seasons, later this week. My goal is: all are done by the end of the month. I see that some of the culture references and trivia exist at the Family Guy wiki already, so that saves some time. To comment on the FA of a Simpsons article: cultural references are indeed fine if it's in prose form. But the big issue is, people would rather have cluttered lists (and rarely attempt to clean them). This applies to TV episode articles, as well as many "in popular culture" lists that are on Wikipedia. RobJ1981 13:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
If "people would rather have cluttered lists", why is that the issue? And why do you consider a single-topic list automatically cluttered?--Father Goose 02:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth, at least one Cultural references section has been well prosified. No sources tho. / edg ☺ ★ 03:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring

It appears cultural references sections are being restored to these articles by Grande13, with somewhat confusing Edit summaries like "cleaned up trivial joke retelling". [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Some of these do have additional cleanup, but most are simply restoring Cultural references sections. / edg ☺ ★ 03:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

rewording

I point out that there is no agreement within the WP community on goal 3 as presently worded. Many such articles are in fact deleted at AfD, some are kept. the wording is therefore divisive and propagandistic--and not supported by present policy,. On the other hand, the removal of unimprovably weak articles of the nature is very much supported by policy. I suggest rewording as "the deletion of unimprovable..." This should satisfy even those urging deletion of such articles, as they generally think that almost all such articles are not improvable. Its better to have a goal on which everyone can agree. DGG (talk) 04:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed goal 3 altogether. Some trivia based articles are indeed useful, so it was wrong to add that there. I hadn't looked at the project page for a bit, otherwise I would've removed it earlier. RobJ1981 22:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)