Wikipedia talk:Handling trivia/Archive 2

Yes --IceHunter 22:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

imported from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 16:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

In the course of my browsing today, I chanced upon the Moonlight Sonata article, about Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C#m, which contains (inter alia) the following pieces of information, under the sub heading "Trivia":

• Brazilian heavy metal band Viper made a version of the "Moonlight" Sonata with lyrics in their 1989 album Theatre of Fate.
• The first movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata figures in the first Resident Evil video game
• The videogame "Earthworm Jim 2" uses the complete first movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata as background music
• The videogame Jet Set Willy plays a small portion of the "Moonlight" Sonata during the introduction sequence
• A rendition of the Sonata, performed by Alan Wilder, is included as a B-side on Depeche Mode's single Little 15.
• A variation of this song is also on the first track of Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Beethoven's Last Night album.
• Yannis Ritsos has written a poem called Moonlight Sonata.
• The musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown features a song that uses the tune to Moonlight Sonata
• Bass player Stuart Hamm made a version of the "Moonlight" Sonata in his album Radio Free Albemuth using a two-hand tapping technique. He performed his rendition of the Sonata at a live concert with guitarist Joe Satriani in 2002 ("Joe Satriani - Live In San Francisco").

This is utter dreck which I have deleted with satisfaction, but it raises in my mind a bigger question: why does Wikipedia tolerate a "Trivia" subheading in articles at all? By definition, trivia is unimportant, non notable material. Is there not be a guideline saying "please don't include pointless trivia"? If there isn't, shouldn't there be? ElectricRay 00:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Electricray, the information that you deleted has now been rescued and expanded to become The Moonlight Sonata in popular culture. I found it to be an interesting page, and I'm glad the information wasn't lost. It isn't pointless trivia, it's a record of a piece's continuing popularity across multiple media. It's useful: if some horrid little kid told you that classical music was rubbish and that it was only old fogeys who liked it because that's all they knew, you could point them to that page and batter them into submission with a long list of how many "cool" recent artists have used or ripped off this one piece. You might feel that the worth and popularity and cultural importance of the sonata is self-evident but without firm supporting evidence, that could be dismissed as your assumption and what you were taught to see as important. The list provided hard supporting evidence of the piece's continuing relevance and popularity, and you deleted it. I think that your attempted deletion of that information was a piece of culturally-naive vandalism. If you were in a library and saw a book that you thought was pointless, would you start tearing out its pages to "improve" the library, or would you leave it there for someone who might actually be interested in it? ErkDemon 00:56, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I see "Trivia" or "Other information" sections as a group of small but interesting pieces of information that have not yet been expanded into complete sections. I don't think "completed" articles should necessarily have them, but they're a handy mechanism for corraling away little bits of info that need future expansion. Deco 00:32, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

...or just make a new page Moonlight Sonata in market-driven culture, pack plastic recycling bags with the content and eject it into deep space, retaining a subheading Main article: Moonlight Sonata in market-driven culture and the wording "The Moonlight Sonata's familiarity has generated many trivial references in market-driven culture." --Wetman 00:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't tell, Ray, whether your objection is to the content, or just the heading. If the latter, I agree; just change it to something more suitable, such as Quotations in popular culture. If it's the content, address it on that article's talk page (or boldly remove it); our policies already address such things. Still, the fact that the theme is recognizable enough (even in our post-musically-literate society) to be so often used in pop culture is a significant piece of information about this composition, even if the entire list is overkill. —Wahoofive (talk) 01:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Eww Eww Eww. Incorporate the info into the article somehow or I will come after you with a vengeance for making such headings. Even a different heading such as Uses... or Mentions in Popular Culture as is said above. If they're not all related to each other, then find a way to incorporate the info into the article. (Have you noticed yet that I hate these trivia sections?) — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Similar things were discussed at wikipedia talk:trivia - I'll move this discussion there too, when it's finished. --Francis Schonken 07:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I hate these. I hate them. I HATE THEM. Look at the last 50 edits to Marduk (as of this post): almost all of them are additions of such valuable gems as "In Namco's PS2 game Tekken 4, one of the playable characters is named Craig Marduk" and "In the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Evangelion pilots are chosen by a mysterious organization called the "Marduk Institute." The Institute is actually a front for SEELE, who are in possession of secret dead sea scrolls that fortell the fate of humanity and the end of the world.". Drivel, written by teenage boys, which has only the slightest tangential relevance to the topic of the article.

Look at the article right now. The crap now fills half of it—in spite of User:A Man In Black's valiant (but doomed) excision of the previous junk not three months ago—and it's only going to grow.

Okay, finished ranting. User:Wetman's suggested solution is the right one; the kiddies can scribble to their heart's content, and people who want to read about classical music or Mesopotamian mythology aren't distracted by poorly-written irrelevancies. —Charles P._(Mirv) 08:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Wetman's suggested solution is an excellent one, but for the fact that those opposed to "elitism" (etc.) would object to it. Yes, this trivia is dreary, as are "References in popular culture", which I've seen somewhere. How about the solution of a link from the (very shaky) article on Citizen Kane to "List of references to Citizen Kane in other work"? Failing that, a "Trivia" section is a good idea, given that WP is editable by all, and that thousands of earnest teenagers (of all ages) take this stuff seriously and will insist on sticking it somewhere. Better that it's labeled "trivia" than for it to muck up substantive sections of an article. And of course if some item within it is not trivial, people are free to move this item elsewhere, while leaving all the "Simpsons" references (etc etc etc) as they are. -- Hoary 08:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

All very good suggestions. Wetman, I have done as you suggested on the Marduk article - see now References to Marduk in Popular Culture and when I get a moment I will do the same for LVB. Hoary, I sort of see your point, but think there's a fine distinction between elitism and plain irrelevance - it would be equally irrelevant to the topic of Mesopotamian mythological figure - and deserving of jettison to the black expanses of deep space - that there was a character named Marduk in the Book of Kells.ElectricRay 09:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with Deco ElectricRay; I can't really go along with Wetman's idea, though. It would solve part of the problem, but another part of the problem is that trivia sections trivialise Wikipedia; making separate articles for them will do pretty much the same. Just delete them all. If something's trivial, then it doesn't belong in the article; if it belongs in the article, then it can't be trivial, and should fit into the appropriate place in the main text.

How about starting up "Trivipedia" for all the teenagers out there who add this rubbish? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Funny that you say you couldn't agree more with me, yet I disagree very strongly with you. I think it's fine to have these sections around and that they will, in time, develop into more integrated and expanded content. I might remove them from a published or stable version, but not from any working article. Your generalization about teenagers and proposed project are also offensive to the well-meaning contributors who add this content. Deco 22:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I was too hasty in tracing the writer of the original comment (aided by the absence of a space between comments). I've corrected it. Oh, and it wasn't my generalisation, though I repeated it, and pretty well stand by it. There are too many train-spotters here, and people who know (and care) about nothing other than the trivia of celebrities and popular culture. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

and its comments like that which keep wikipedia as the pile of shit it currently is (and is generally perceived as). those "well-meaning contributors" are dumb-ass schoolboys who play videogames all day, indulging them simply creates more cruft articles about Klingon etc that makes wikipedia = trivipedia already. gotta be harsh. KILL ALL CRUFT.

Although these trivia sections should be thoroughly cleaned of cruft (and wontedly have far too many references to cover songs and other knock-offs generally unrelated to the topic), they provide a helpful way to give the reader bits of additional, characterizing information which might otherwise bog down the article's main narrative. I'm strongly in favour of trivia sections in biographical, film and music articles. I mean, what better way to fluidly let the reader know Frances Farmer let the studio shave her eyebrows off in 1936 but had rebelliously grown them back... and untrimmed... by 1937. This would seem, uhm, trivial to mention in the main text but adds context, depth and interest to the subject. Wyss 23:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Cruft should be stamped out. If something has had a genuine impact on popular culture, a sub-article should be created if not a sub-section (see, i.e. Nuclear weapons in popular culture, which grew out of just such a crufty-subsection). --Fastfission 20:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been having the same sorts of problems all over the place. Lilith, Chimera, Dragon, Dracula, Behemoth, Jack the Ripper, Werewolf, etc. etc. keep getting filled up with all sorts of trivial references to video games, anime, roleplaying game supplements, one off mentions in tv shows, incidental one off lyriucs in songs, etc. I remove this dreck constantly every day. One of the major problems is that it's difficult to have real consensus to remove them because so many kiddies all get together to try to claim that info is vitally important. "Castlevania is the most well known and important video game series of them all, so I am going to list all the details here." etc. About the only way I've been able to have any lasting sanity is to create Werewolves in fiction, Jack the Ripper fiction, liberally move the crap to disambiguation pages and then just give up on trying to keep the cruft out of that offshoot article. It's like segregation or something. Whenever someone puts crap in the main one I suggest the offshoot, and then the offshoot is total crap but oh well. I personally think Trivia headings should just not be used, and that it's very, very clear that trivial mentions... some character named after some mythical character, one off appearances in comic books, D&D or other RPG adapting something, Magic the Gathering card, Pokemon character, etc... do not belong in the main articles unless those articles are specifically about that fictioncruft and not the main topic. We desperately need stronger policy on this, and maybe, I don't know, something to make it more clear that this is supposed to be an ENCYCLOPEDIA and not just long fanlists of every silly trivial fictional reference you can think of. DreamGuy 22:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think that trivia helps pique the reader's interest. As for relevance, the word encyclopedia comes from the Greek words enkyklios paideia, meaning "general education," or "well-rounded education." Thus, in Wikipedia--the largest encyclopedia ever created--any knowledge can be included. Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged defines an encyclopedia as "a work that treats comprehensively all the various branches of knowledge and that is usually composed of individual articles arranged alphabetically". Stroll by a library reference section and you will find encyclopedias of agriculture, of computing, of slang, and so on. The inclusion of trivia shows just how much encyclopedic Wikipedia is. Besides, deleting trivia will turn off many contributors from adding other information to Wikipedia and possibly turn to vandalism. Further, many of the users who add trivia are younger. If we alienate them, we destroy our future.
  --Primetime 22:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

There are plenty of young people adding real encyclopedic content here. Alienating the bad contributors to keep the good contributors is a GOOD thing. Some people just are not cut out to write encyclopedias. This shouldn't be controversial, it just is. If their only contributions are to say that some pokemon character kind of looks like Pazuzu if you squint real hard, let the alienation proceed unfettered so we don't destroy our future by having the clueless kiddies running the show while knowledgable editors get alienated. I know I don't like having to play janitor to a bunch of people whose only experience in the world is videogames and anime who think articles on other topics can be improved with the latest kewl thing they saw. I'm here to write an encyclopedia. DreamGuy 17:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• If you want a trivia encyclopaedia, there's a far bigger one than Wikipedia - it's called Google. If some method of differentiation between trivia and useful information can't be imposed, we may as well give up on wikipedia and just use Google. It's a line call whether that's a better idea already. Now it's a sociological fact that anime heads will keep adding this stuff - it's not irrelevant to them - so the answer is to give them their outlet - a "references in popular culture" page which is referenced by, but doesn't form part of, a main article achieves that very neatly. Xbox nuts are not alienated, the page isn't disrupted - that sounds to me like a workable compromise. That's certainly the approach I'm going to take from now on. ElectricRay 23:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like it would make them very difficult to find. I don't think trivia authors would be too keen on that idea. I admit, though, that it is better than just deleting the information. --Primetime 08:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

maybe i didn't explain it properly: there would be a link on the page from the main article - very easy to find. see, for example, Marduk. ElectricRay 09:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't we distinguish between trivia that actually relate to the subject of the article, and trivia connected with persons or entities that just happen to have the same name? Many of the points in Marduk in popular culture don't relate to Marduk (that is the subject of the Marduk article) at all, they relate to fictional characters that just happen to have the same name, so they should surely go to a disambiguation page? --rossb 15:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• Many are expressing views I agree with, in effect, trivia's fine if it relates directly and helpfully to the subject, but the trivia sections are often used for content which is no better than link spam. Perhaps references in popular culture "see also" pages would give the cruft (cartoon characters who play Beethoven and so on) a home. Wyss 15:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• except that trivia is, by definition, trivial. If it's worthy of inclusion, is it "trivia"? ElectricRay 18:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• rossb, that was exactly what I was coming here to say. There is a distinction between material that really is important enough to a topic and just hasn't been integrated yet and that which isn't important to the topic. For example the WWII article doesn't need a trivia section remarking that it was referenced in X anime show. That's an extreme example, but not far off what is going on. Pop culture trivia or other things that aren't demonstrably important to the given topic should not be on the page, they should instead be in that pop culture topic's specific page. That makes it really easy to include important information in the right place. - Taxman ^Talk 16:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• By the way, we're having a specific and contested discussion of this at Talk:George Frideric Handel. -Sesquialtera II 17:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's my take, illustrated with two examples (though these are not editing suggestions for the LvB article):

"Helpful trivia":

• During the advanced stages of his deafness, while composing Beethoven aided his hearing by placing the end of a wooden pencil directly on the soundboard of his piano, then pressed his forehead directly on the other end and struck the keys. Sympathetic vibration transmitted the sounds of the notes through the bones of his skull directly to his inner hear.

"Unhelpful trivia"

• A retrogade chord progression based on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was used as the basis for a Beatles song by John Lennon. Wyss 14:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Trivia as a category does not belong. It means "unimportant" and suggests a waste of time. If soemthing is important then say so. Rjensen 16:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I do disagree with your interpretation of the working definition of trivia, however I continue to assert that there is a difference between informative trivia and spam-like cruft. Wyss 17:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The trouble this example is that a lot of people would assign those classifications the other way around: if the piece had actually said which Beatles song was based on BMS, then that would be interesting both to people interested in pop music and its history, and also to teachers trying to get pupils interested in classical music. And that's before we include all the Beatles fans out there. The second example might also have been interesting as context to modern court cases over plagiarism, copyright, the status of "original" works, the music industry's attitude to rights and privacy based on originality, the status of copyright protection on musical works versus performance rights on recordings, the justification for legally enforcing digital rights management systems, and so on. If that was an actual example it would be interesting and very quotable. IMO it would be useful trivia. Whereas knowing the exact method Beethoven used to stick a pencil up his nose or whatever when writing a piece wouldn't seem to be nearly so useful to people's daily lives. If I was to be deleting something, I'd have deleted the first item as pointless cruft and kept the second as useful knowledge (if it had mentioned the specific song).

The problem is that we have various editors cutting the heart out of Wiki by deleting things that they don't see as interesting, without having the relevant background knowledge. And yes, there's a certain amount of cultural snobbery involved. I don't personally care for video games and find references to them deeply boring, but I'd never dream of deleting information about them because I recognise that (as someone who doesn't know the medium) I'm not qualified to make editing decisions about it. I don;t know which games are culturally significant and which aren't. Lots of people regard video games as low-brow trash, but I know people only slightly older than me who regard films as "art" and anything made for television as "trash". I once knew someone who reckoned "art" meant representative oil painting, and poetry and novels and classical music were all just inconsequential light entertainment. In defence of some of the game-fanatics, at least they tend to be better behaved than the more "snobby" editors in that they tend not to be so quick to destroy other people's contributed information. They don't tend go around deleting material about classical music on the grounds that it's boring. They also understand the principle that if information is there it can be filtered, but once its deleted its gone. Future versions of Wiki may use different methods to filter the "front end" according to user preferences, but first you need people to load a critical mass of information onto the system.

Is it interesting that a Beethoven piece was used in a major video game? Actually yes, it shows that the piece is recognised as having a perceived worth that cuts across social and artistic boundaries, and I think the same goes for mentions of some of the better-known jazz reinterpretations of it. A strict classicist might prefer not to know that a piece has been "covered" by jazz musicians, but it's relevant. ErkDemon 00:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that trivia sections should be blamed on teenage boys. For example, the Richard Stallman article has a sizeable trivia section, and I doubt that many teenagers are really into him, as the oldest current teenagers were only born in the late 1980s (the youngest about 1992-1993). Also, most teenagers have probably never heard of Amiga. Adding trivia is probably more related to interest in the topic than age or sex. -- Kjkolb 17:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

One quarter of Gorilla article is taken by "popular culture" references, most of them bellow even trivial value. I suggest to always create leaf article when the amount of trivias reaches certain level. Since it is practically impossible to get rid of trivia at least they can be moved away from more serious encyclopedic stuff. Pavel Vozenilek 03:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Call the section Other notable facts and include only "helpful trivia". Delete the 'cruft and "useless trivia" or splice it out into a side article referenced by the main one. MPS 04:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that it may be hard to distinguish notable from cruft: most of the trivias come from very current American pop culture/games but some established memes or references from other cultures may be valuable. Having leaf page would be Second Best solution - main articles will stay clean, kids will have safe place to play and possible edit wars over trivia won't pollute the main article (this is real pain). Trivial pages may be linked together so checking them all at once would be easy. Pavel Vozenilek 14:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Is this sort of thing really so bad? I'm glad to see evidence that Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata still has an influence on popular culture. Plenty of Wikipedia editors heard their first notes of Wagner by watching Apocalypse Now. Popular references to Joan of Arc didn't get dumped from the page. They inspired me to translate lists of sculptures and paintings from French. The video games, manga, and television shows now have their own section at the bottom of a branching page about artistic representations of Joan of Arc. If this gets young people interested in history, if it leads them to George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare, then I'm all for it. Durova 23:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Using the initial trivia that so bothered ElectricRay, I came up with this to keep the trivia in while boiling it down.
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 22:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The Moonlight Sonata can be heard in popular culture. The musicians Alan Wilder and Stuart Hamm, the band Viper, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra used it in their compositions. The music can also be heard in the video games Resident Evil, Earthworm Jim 2, and Jet Set Willy. A poem was writen about the music by Yannis Ritsos. It can also be heard in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown musical.

Very nice. Encouraging folks to make the connections, group and copy edit. --Jake 22:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I dislike the heading "Trivia" as I assume that anything listed under such a heading will be, by definition "trivial". I'd prefer a "references in popular culture" or some such heading which is more descriptive. If the list is fairly short I guess it's ok, and if it gets too long, it can and should be moved to its own article. The thing that annoys me with so-called trivia is the fancruft, which is so hard to define. Everything from pop singer X's "favourite color is blue, he loves cats and lives with his Mom and 3 sisters", which should be deleted on sight, to obscure references that barely qualify as "popular culture" references and which are difficult to discern from more credible references simply because they are so obscure. In general I think that most facts about the subject should be worked into the article. If they can't be worked into the article, I suspect that they are superfluous - remembering that Wikipedia should be providing, strong, thorough overviews of subjects, rather than obsessively detailed analysis. We should not be about covering subjects in exhaustive detail, nor should we be encouraging the indiscriminate use of lists. Rossrs 13:58, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I inserted a new section header above your comment, since the preceding discussion is over 2 months old, and imported here from wikipedia:village pump (policy)

Note however,

1. I wrote a few days ago in the wikipedia:criticism guideline proposal:

   Don't make articles entirely devoted to trivia regarding a topic that has or should have its own wikipedia article: this follows from discussions e.g. at wikipedia talk:trivia: putting trivia in a separate article is generally not seen as a good way to tackle trivia issues.

   So, don't quite agree to see moving trivia to separate articles as a viable mode of operation regarding trivia: something should be in wikipedia or it shouldn't, moving it around to various pages, in order not to have to answer the question whether it should be in the encyclopedia at all is not really a "solution" IMHO;
2. See e.g. also Talk:Salome for some recent trivia-related discussion. Don't know whether I was too severe there, so comments are always welcomed;
3. Recently I came across Hitler in popular culture. I have no problem with that as a separate article, and maybe this is something in the vein of what you meant. Seen from the wikipedia:criticism proposal, the only problem with that article is that it is not properly linked from the Adolf Hitler article (well, the link is on the page, at the bottom, in small script, in a template... but not linked from a section that gives an overview of "reception history"-related matter). I'll try to remedy that, I'll see if I can come up with something viable, once I find some time to put myself to it (well, delicate stuff I suppose, don't want to be too hasty with such things).

--Francis Schonken 15:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that moving text to hide a problem is no solution. I think basically, delete it if it shouldn't be there. If keeping the information is justified, keep it, but in line with normal practice if it grows to an unwieldy length, branch it off to a new article, and link to it within the original article. Hitler in popular culture is exactly the type of thing I meant. Perfect example. Another example is List of references to Anne Frank in popular culture which I broke off from Anne Frank because most of the new information being added to the article was in this section, and it was engulfing the original article. Plus I thought much of the content was trivial. I don't think your comments at Talk:Salome were excessive by the way. A similar discussion is taking place at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Films ([1]) where I have made a similar comment. (fairly long windedly, but in my opinion, trivia is being added to numerous articles with abandon, while substantial gaps in encyclopedic information is being left unattended. As the trivia often gets added at the expense of legitimate, sourced information, this bothers me.) Rossrs 15:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Moving text to hide a problem is one thing, but moving text to solve a problem is different. The problem with "delete it if it shouldn't be there" is that maybe it should be somewhere else. A daughter article for references in popular culture would often be a good idea.

More generally, I don't think there should ever be a "Trivia" subheading. Tidbits like Frances Farmer's eyebrows can be in "Other information" or "Miscellany" or some such, or a more specific descriptive subheading if one is available. Even if, fairly evaluated, some of it actually is trivia, I think it looks bad for us to call it that. JamesMLane t c 08:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. My comment should have read "delete it if it shouldn't be on Wikipedia". Example: go to Eric McCormack and see what time of day his child was born. I don't honestly see anywhere on Wikipedia, where that information is required. Keep that he has a child, but delete what time the child was born. On the other hand, there is a lot of stuff I'd cringe to see in the Anne Frank article (and would remove immediately) but is fine on List of references to Anne Frank in popular culture. I'm not generally in support of deleting just because it doesn't fit in that article, but I can see that my comments could be interpreted that way. It depends how jarring the information is. If it doesn't fit in the article, however, I would not necessarily start a new article just to make a place for it, unless it warranted it. "Trivia" is a horrible, non-encyclopedic heading that equates to "trivial", but regardless of what the heading is called, "miscellany" etc will often attract the same type of content. Rossrs 09:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm very happy to find this discussion page on Trivia, because I don't think a Trivia section should be in the body of an article. I actually like the idea of a Trivia section on the Talk page, where editors can put "raw content" that can then be considered for inclusion in the actual article. As well, an organized section of "References to Anne Frank in Popular Culture" with BRIEF bullets on said pop culture references could be useful. More views: Trivia sections in Wikipedia

• Articles on films, television shows, and celebrities often have a section at the end called "TRIVIA", in which editors list unimportant, obscure details related (sometimes distantly) to the topic.
  • For example, in the Bill Clinton (former US president) article, there are 22 bullets of trivia, including information that he had "a male chocolate-colored Labrador Retriever named "Buddy" and a cat named "Socks"", that a television ad once depicted "Clinton and a voodoo doll", and that he makes a "thumb gesture".
• It can be argued that the inclusion of trivia goes against the core Wikipedia principles. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, "not an indiscriminate collection of information", "not a collection of ...trivia" or "A DUMPING GROUND FOR RANDOM INFORMATION" (all quotations from Wikipedia principles or policy pages, but emphasis added by editor).
• As well, Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy requires editors to cite "... verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible"; the policy pages state that "WIKIPEDIA IS NOT FOR UNCITABLE MATERIAL". It can be argued that trivia-type information often is not derived from authoritative sources (e.g., other encyclopedias, almanacs, respected publications, etc.). (also posted this on the Village Pump policy page on Aug 17, 2006)NatMor 15:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggested suggestions:

1. Don't call a section "Trivia" - it implies that un-encyclopaedia worthy material can be entered there.

   Alternative names may depend on content. "In popular culture" - "Facts and Figures" - "Miscellanea" - "Personal background" - "Notes" are all possibilities.

2. Only include information that belongs in an encyclopaedia.
3. If you see information that really is "trivia" be bold remove it.
4. If a section ("trivia" or otherwise) has grown so large as to over-balance an article, consider:
   1. Removing real trivia
   2. Splitting into sections
   3. Working the information into the article
   4. Creating a sub-article
   5. Any combination of the above.

Rich Farmbrough 14:18 8 June 2006 (UTC).

Nice idea. Elaborated a bit, and put it on the project page. Please improve as you think fit. --Francis Schonken 15:56, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Today I put this into action with the article on ER (TV series). I made two edits which decimated the trivia section of that article by moving the information from the trivia section into other sections of the text. If you wish, you may use that article as an example. There is still a trivia section in the article, however, it is greatly reduced from appoximately 20 items down to 5. (Cross posted Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia sections in articles).
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 21:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

"for example: "Air exists" is incredibly important, but that assertion has no interest"

The above sentence and the related explanation surrounding it doesn't seem right to me. We don't put in "air exists" in an article - NOT because its not "interesting", but because it is not useful to tell readers this - they know it already. Interest has nothing to do with it - some may not find ratios of nitrogen oxygen and lead interesting, but its definately useful information. Fresheneesz 03:27, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I added a section called, Specific guidelines for notability. Please feel free to comment or modify to taste. -Harmil 18:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The other is an accepted guideline that supports this one, and they should also perhaps be merged. —Centrx→talk • 16:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• completely agree [2] --Francis Schonken 17:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
• Also agree, though some refactoring of this page would need to occur (so as not to contradict/detract from guideline).--cj | talk 16:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Absolutely. >Radiant< 20:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Whoever does the merge needs to be very careful that the accepted guideline doesn't have content added to it that was not agreed to. violet/riga (t) 20:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

To me, the best solution to the trivia problem is just to create a wiki devoted entirely to it. WikiQuote makes good use of the quotes that don't belong in Wikipedia articles; WikiTrivia would do the same for all the mildy to very interesting pieces of trivia. We could then link to the corresponding WikiTrivia article. Readers would have access to the information, and the integrity of Wikipedia as a source of important knowledge remains intact.

If anyone else would be interested in creating such a project, let me know. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 07:34, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I've proposed this before (half-jokingly, but it would be a good idea) and we could also move 90% of lists there. Some people just prefer (or only have attention spans capable of) getting information from neat 1-3 sentence bulletted points. It'd be a win win situation. --W.marsh 19:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Support I think a number of interestring but non-notable in Wikipedia facts would be better placed in a separate project to compliment Wikipedia, as WikiQuote and Wiktionary do. --tgheretford (talk) 12:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, not exactly, but here's what I'm seeing. Unlike Google, wikipedia has the ability and even the tendency to consolidate trivial information into new analysis. It is a kind of research tool that no one else has. If I am interested in the influence of the Moonlight Sonata on popular culture, how the hell am I going to find all the downstream references? I can't. But on wikipedia, people are bringing the references straight to me. All right, they're greasy and mis-spelled. But we can fix that, as ______ has demonstrated above.

Rather than spend our energy trying to eliminate the creation of trivia sections, or (even more hopelessly) trying to encourage the trivia providers to make organic contributions to the article, we could simply use the trivia sections as raw material for the articles. Because there is a great deal of material there. This is not to say that some of isn't dreck, but when you read that nine different metal bands have referred to the same 19th-century hydrologist (or whatever), you do, in fact, have an insight that no other reference material is going to provide. Ethan Mitchell 19:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

How do you know that it's not common for bands to refer to 19th-century scientists, it just hasn't been added to the other articles? How do you know it's not more common for rock bands or science fiction books to mention the person, but it just hasn't been added? The data isn't useful if you don't have more complete information, which is what the article is supposed to provide; otherwise, it's just mildly interesting, trivially. —Centrx→talk • 04:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Ethan, I think what you're missing is that some people don't have anything more to contribute to the project, so they come up with jihads now and again to go and "clean up" what is already here. My suggestion is to let them do it. The people that get this bug up their collective posteriors are generally the type who will fight to the death to protect "the project" as they see it. My own personal feeling is that it should first be filled with information, and when it is not found lacking, the information therein should be cleansed.

This whole "proposed policy" is stupid on its face. You can't define "interestingness" objectively. I just, for example, expanded an article on sodium alginate. I can think of few stupider articles to have in the encyclopedia. And yet, it is "important" because we all probably consume a lot of it, and maybe, possibly, somebody will come looking here for an idea of what it is.

So anyways, Ethan, leave it be. People are going to go nuclear on it whenever they please, and threaten you with RFAR for being "divisive" or "polemical" [sic] if you disagree with them. ... aa:talk 14:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe that pieces of information that are relevant, and are featured in the film belong on the page, even in a section labelled trivia. e.g. "The character of Bill is an author of a book called "The Glowing", which is a reference to the Stephen King novel The Shining." If I was researching the film in question, it would be interesting to know this fact. Perhaps the label of trivia is incorrect, but it is still a term used, particularly in IMDB. Of course, some articles go too far e.g. List of trivia from Pulp Fiction but some of the content does belong on the main page, even if it is trivia.

I'm running into a similar issue in Futurama episode articles. I think that the various items listed under "Cultural references" (as we label them) are useful information and helpful to someone who is watching the show and saying "Where did that come from?" These references make up a large part of the comedy in the show and I think are helpful to viewers who haven't seen the original media but I haven't come up with a good way to integrate them as prose into the article. Of course this has lead to most of those pages getting the toomuchtrivia tag. Anyone have suggestions on how to handle this, I want to make the articles better! Stardust8212 20:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a seperate article such as List of cultural references from Futurama? That way the main article remains concise, and the people who are looking for the references can easily find them from the main page. Just a suggestion, of course!Desdinova 21:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Why is this information encyclopedic at all? It may be "useful" or "interesting", but this is not a theme-encyclopedia (as, say, memory alpha is). It's an encyclopedia. Why do we need the minutiae, nuts and bolts from futurama? We don't even have that much information on the bible. Perhaps you should take a look at something like the Accelerando technical companion. It's essentially what you're talking about. ... aa:talk 17:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not here to argue whether the minutiae of Futurama belong on Wikipedia, and if you think there isn't enough information on the bible then maybe that is something that needs to be fixed. My point is the information is there already and I think it would be great if the information could be organized in a way that is useful, interesting and compliant with this proposed guideline. Maybe your solution would be to simply delete all of it but I think there has to be a better way and since the subject was being discussed I thought I'd join in. The technical companion does look similar to what we already have distributed throughout the episode pages but are you suggesting that the information (Cultural references aka "trivia") belongs somewhere besides wikipedia (like a wikibooks for television and movies?) or in a similar article on wikipedia similar to what Desdinova suggested above? Something like that did previously exist but was voted for deletion, iirc. Sorry, I seem to be pulling away from the film topic, I originally only meant to add that the same problems existed in television episode articles. Stardust8212 20:14, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. As the "proposed" policy states, trivia is not encyclopedic. So, make your own "Futurama Apocrypha Book", publish it at wikibooks, no harm, no foul. What's wrong with that? ... aa:talk 22:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with the OP and think that when it comes to film and television in particular, trivia sections should be the exception to the rule. People love finding out all sorts of interesting tidbits related to this film or other - why else do you think commentaries and the trivia sections on DVDs are so popular? Yes, some can get grouped into sections such as "References in Popular Culture" or "Pop Culture References," but some remain simply interesting little bits of info.RoyBatty42 02:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm with you ... to a point. IMDb has scads of trivia on films, and anyone can post. Here, the article is about the movie (or series), and I've seen some movie pages in which the level of trivia is both mind-boggling and truly ad nauseam. "The band Violent Sneezes recorded a song called 'Burning a Virgin Scotsman,' which is a reference to this film." I mean, come on. I think the Trivia sections ought to be limited to the film or series itself. NOT everything about everything that can be related to the film. Just like the External Links sections, editors need to keep them brief and on-topic. Just my 2wo cents. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 02:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, anyone can SUBMIT to IMDB but all submissions must be approved by their staff and they seem to have fired most of their staff about 2 years ago. I quit submitting items to them because none of it was getting posted anymore. If you look at the trivia for many of their entries, from what I've seen much of it isn't that recent.

I think it also depends on the size of the article. Something like Star Wars must have a huge amount of trivia and pop culture references that could not only be subdivided into their own articles, but also by medium. Yet if you read the wiki guide about trivia, it actually encourages it as a start point for information that can then be merged into the main article, a section of it or another article altogether. Some, even moderators, seem to have forgotten this and go on their jihads against any and all trivia sections. RoyBatty42 18:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thing is, some cannot be grouped with "References to/in pop culture" such as the behind the scenes info (guess I just suggested the soon to be popular "Behind The Scenes" sections for all TV & Film entries). And when those get too unwieldy for the main article they can be shifted off to seperate articles.RoyBatty42 19:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur with the sentiment that trivia, per se, is unimportant, non-notable, non-encyclopedic information and does not belong in a separate "trivia" section of any article. In almost every case, the trivia can be merged with the rest of the article. In many cases, the "trivia" is information that properly belongs elsewhere in the article. In other cases, the "trivia" is not trivial at all but could form the basis of a subheading or expansion of an aspect of the article. It seems that it is often just easier to make a list of facts and lump it under a "trivia" heading. Any information that would remain after merging the "trivia" is, in fact, trivia and really does not need to be in the article. Agent 86 22:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

• That is a good point. Sticking random facts in a 'trivia' section can be indicative of editor laziness. In most cases, those facts either have a place in the prose on the page, or are irrelevant. >Radiant<

I concur completely. In a nutshell, if it is not trivia, it belongs in the article. If it does not merit mention in the article proper, it does not belong in the article at all. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I have begun to put together a proposal for Wikitrivia, and I would appreciate any input you can give me. Chris Griswold (☎☓) 14:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I just created a site called WikiQuickFacts. It is supposed to consist only of short articles like flashcards format we used when we study for exams. I wrote a Google Gadget and desktop apps to deliver these short articles to users' computer.

I think this site is the perfect area where Wikipedians can put these trivia, short articles.

What do you think?

Patrick

Useful facts and specific trivia are not the same thing, and while I think your site is a good idea, I do not think it serves the purpose we need. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 04:47, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This is sorta in response to the entry above (Trivia Sections in Film Articles?) that dealt with TV trivia (Futurama) instead - for a really good example of how trivia that can pile up quickly for TV shows can be handled, check out how it was handled for List of Arrested Development episodes. The show racked up more pop culture references in each episode than most shows do in entire seasons. It also had it's own continuing series of show specific jokes (like Buster never saying someone's name, only "Hey, brother/nephew/mom/etc") or in-jokes.

So all of it was shifted to the individual episode entries, following rather elaborate plot summaries.RoyBatty42 19:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I think there's some merit to first dumping trivia onto the talk pages so they can be sourced, cleaned up and grouped. However, I do have one small concern if this is the to be remedy for newbies dumping questionable trivia - they are confusing to find. I can remember when I first started coming to wikipedia and keep seeing references to "use the talk pages." Only there weren't any as far as I could see. Hitting the only thing that said "talk" was the tab reading "my talk."

This might seem laughable, but if you want them to take the extra steps to put their trivia on the "discussion" page it's something to consider. Or perhaps if this is such a big concern (some on wiki sure seem to have a bug up their asses about it), a new tab should be added to the basic template for "New Info" or at least change "Discussion" to "Talk." It can be very confusing when even the official wiki guides continually refer to them as "talk" pages instead of "discussion."

I noticed the essay says that WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE includes categories of information that are excluded because of "lack of importance" or "trivia". This appears to be a misreading of that section of policy. The reasons stated for most or those types of information have little to do with whether or not something is trivia. In fact, the word trivia does not appear at all in WP:NOT!

Rather, the Indiscriminate Collection section describes types of information that it explains as being excluded either for stylistic reason (eg FAQs are better written in prose form), liability reasons (Wiki is not a How-To guide and can't be expected to give advice on how to do things), and veriability reasons (It's impossible to verify things you made up in school).

So to say that WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE deals with trivia is an incorrect and common misconception. I'd recommend also taking a look at a discussion on this topic at the WP:NOT talk page at [3]. Thanks! Dugwiki 17:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

No, trivia is an indiscriminate collection of information. WP:NOT does not need to specifically enumerate every possible case of indiscriminate information. Also, your misreading of the remainder of the section is inaccurate. All of those listed there are because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. How-to's are forbidden regardless of whether they contain legal or medical advice; pages describing how to tune a guitar or how to cook turkey are also not allowed. WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE specifically states that something 100% verifiable can still not be appropriate for Wikipedia, so it has nothing to do with verifiability. Etc. —Centrx→talk • 18:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree with your assessment and would refer you to the discussion of this issue I mentioned above at [4]. Notice that nowhere in WP:NOT are words like "trivia" or "cruft" mentioned, let alone in the WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. In fact, this section specifically says that "While there is a continuing debate about the encyclopedic merits of several classes of entries, current consensus is that Wikipedia articles are not simply:...." That sentence implies that this section of policy is specifically enumerating certain classes of entries which have consensus as being troublesome types of information, and that the section should not be read to refer to other types of information which may or may not have consensus on how to handle them.

So while you might feel that trivia should be included in this section of policy, the fact of the matter is that it is not included. That's not to say that articles which are trivial can't be eliminated for other reasons, such as a lack of verifiability or suitable reference or possibly a lack of notability. But WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE can not be used to justify deleting "trivia" when that specific policy makes absolutely no mention of trivia at all. Dugwiki 17:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

There need not be a specific enumeration of every single thing that qualifies as indiscriminate information for it to be indiscriminate. Although, see also Wikipedia:Five pillars. "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection", which is to some extent exactly what WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE is referring to. —Centrx→talk • 16:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You're misreading what WP:NOT:IINFO actually covers. It is not attempting to define "indiscriminate information". It is, rather, trying to define some specific types of information that Wikipedia does discriminate against. The stated reasons for the discrimination have nothing to do with the "trivia" phrase in the Five Pillars, though, and you'll notice that the word "trivia" doesn't appear anywhere in WP:NOT. I think the confusion might stem from the common-day use of the phrase "indiscriminate" to mean random or trivial. In this case, though, it refers instead to "information which can be discriminated against" or "inappropriate information". Dugwiki 17:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it gives examples of indiscriminate information, but those do not include all possible kinds of indiscriminate information, and trivia and random information is only a kind of especially indiscriminate information. Indiscriminate includes trivia, and trivia is the least discriminate kind of "facts". —Centrx→talk • 00:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, you are misreading this section. In the introductory paragraph it specifies that "While there is a continuing debate about the encyclopedic merits of several classes of entries, current consensus is that Wikipedia articles are not simply:...." That sentence makes no sense unless you take it to mean that it is laying out areas which have editorial consensus. How to handle trivia clearly is not one of those areas, which is presumably why it has not (yet) been included in WP:NOT. As a further example, consider that an attempt to add a bullet point regarding almanac style information to this section likewise failed after only one day of inclusion due to lack of consensus.

So while you are taking the word "indisicriminate" to mean "trivial" or "random", that is not how this section uses it. It is instead talking about "that which can be discriminated against", or in other words "that which is not appropriate due to existing policies". Dugwiki 18:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I interpret that the adjective 'indiscriminate' is applied on 'collection' and not 'information'. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate (thoughtless) collection of articles on the classes listed at WP:NOT#IINFO, but that doesn't mean the information itself is indiscriminate (if you take 'indiscriminate' to mean trivial). In other words, Wikipedia cannot contain all facts in the world; it must pick and choose discriminately. I agree that in WP:TRIVIA, "for lack of interest and/or importance" should be changed because it is not the overall reason. Take the first class at WP:NOT#IINFO, lists of FAQs. By definition, a list of FAQs is a discriminate collection of (interesting and important) information, containing only those questions that are repetitively asked. But a FAQ item cannot be included until it is rephrased into neutral prose. Analogously:

1. By default, every haphazard list is an indiscriminate collection of information. This includes lists titled "Trivia".
2. If such a list is transformed into well-written paragraphs (that synthesize) the information, then it is now a discriminate collection of information. Whether these newly-formed paragraphs themselves are suitable for inclusion into a Wikipedia article is another debate.

So just citing WP:NOT#IINFO in an AfD is not enough; if you cite it you have only said that Wikipedia should not contain everything possible, but you have not said why the particular information is not fit for inclusion. Unless you mean that the list itself is an indiscriminate collection of information, which is a problem that can be rectified regardless of the notability of the list contents (you would be saying that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of indiscriminate collections of information). A listed item inside a trivia section is not automatically indiscriminate, and the items inside such a list must be considered individually. Deletionists should not be able to argue with "this information is indiscriminate" - what does that even mean? Are they talking about the grouping of said information, or the information itself? Okay, it's most likely the latter, but the distinction should be kept in mind.

(I am not well-versed in Wikipedia policy, and I'm trying to formulate reasoning for Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles and related topics.) Pomte 06:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a good way of putting it, Pomte. The gist of this section is that "not everything that's true should be in Wikipedia", and then it lays out some specific types of information that might be true but shouldn't be included in Wikipedia articles. If a trivia-specific policy is ever added to Wikipedia, I'm pretty sure WP:NOT#IINFO is where you would want to place it. The problem is that there isn't enough consensus yet on what exactly trivia is or how to handle it to add a trivia section to policy, which is why WP:NOT#IINFO doesn't include it, at least not yet. So referring to WP:NOT#IINFO for trivia sections is jumping the gun a little bit. If and when a trivia policy is crafted, that's the a likely place for it to show up, but so far it's not in there due to lack of demonstrated consensus. Dugwiki 17:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've written a bit of a personal essay at User:Mangojuice/Trivia. Much of what I've written duplicates things that are written here. I didn't want to be so bold as to effectively replace this entire essay with my version, so I'm bringing my personal essay to the attention of the other editors of this page here. Any thoughts? I feel that some parts of this essay are bad... why does it spend so much time describing whether an article topic is important, for instance? And the suggestions are relatively open-ended and don't give the best guidance. Ultimately I'd like to merge thoughts I've had that are accepted and wanted into the text of this page. Mangojuice^talk 05:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I like your part on connective trivia. I just read this page for the first time and haven't participated in any discussion here, so I don't know if others would object to merging in that part, but I would be for it. - Peregrine Fisher 04:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• I applaud your rewritten version of this page, it really sums up the whole trivia problem well, and gives solid suggestions for dealing with trivia. — Krimpet (talk/review) 18:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It struck me that the basic problem with these "trivia" sections is the inability of editors to avoid the list format. This in turn is a problem that arises from an exaggerated fear of drifting into original research. This is what makes trivia sections "trivial", and makes editors turn out disjointed lists instead of coherent text.

For example, in the AfD nominated article Pterodactyls in popular culture, you have a section of "Films" that contains stuff like:

• The horror film Pterodactyl.
• One Million Years BC
• The Land That Time Forgot
• Petrie in The Land Before Time films is called by most a pterodactyl, though he may be a pteranodon, and so is Pterri on Pee Wee's Playhouse.
• Rodan, a 160ft long pteradon attacks japan.
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, both of which are sequels to Jurassic Park (Which did not feature pterosaurs)

Would it be so terrible to replace this list with a section that read:

Pterosaurs are sometimes used as monsters in motion pictures. In One Million Years BC, pterosaurs anachronistically menace humans in a fictional prehistory; while The Land That Time Forgot uses The Lost World motifs to show humans encountering a place where prehistoric life survives. In Pterodactyl, a cache of living pterosaur eggs is discovered by scientists, while Rodan uses a pterosaur as a body model for a standard kaiju monster wreaking havoc in Japan. The Jurassic Park franchise resorted to recombinant DNA to bring pterosaurs back to life and threaten human beings.

I think this is obviously preferable. Some might object because it is "unreferenced" and to the extent that it (pretty minimally) interprets the plots of the works discussed, "original research." But since all of these films discussed have articles of their own, the place for references is in their articles in chief; for this passage Wikilinks are good enough. The "original research" objection raises epistemological questions; but I think that the sort of minimal interpretation needed to give this text a topic sentence and provide a synopsis of the relevant portions of the plot is both desirable and inevitable. It is in any case better than losing information.

Turn the lists into texts, and boldly summarize and point out what's relevant or interesting. That would be my recommendation. - Smerdis of Tlön 20:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Yup, that pretty much sums up WP:AVTRIV. However, I don't think you've embarked on any real original research in that paragraph. I just think it's something that can be a problem. Mangojuice^talk 20:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A list is much easier to read and to pick out unreferenced claims in case someone does go through to reference each film. In the list there is no description for One Million Years BC, but the same thing can happen in the paragraph by someone adding a generic sentence like "Pterodactyls also appeared in One Million Years BC," which is just as uninformative. The only advantage of the paragraph is deletionists are less likely to spot it as trivia. When you're listing off dozens of examples with a description for each, it's obvious that list format is more appropriate than prose. I don't think it's as much a fear of interpretation as it is laziness or neglect, or the thought that "anyone who has seen the film will know why it is listed, or I am not a good writer, so why bother?" –Pomte 00:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you show us what you would do with the pterosaur list, that you consider preferable to Smerdis of Tlön's rewritten version?

I strongly prefer prose in most cases, and Smerdis of Tlön's example is a good demonstration of why: the list was deeply boring to me, while the paragraph, by drawing connections and making comparisons between items, becomes interesting. Of course, when people turn lists into prose by simply taking the bullets out, the results are usually awful. —Celithemis 00:44, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer the sentences to be split into list items. The use of "while" to connect those references is dubious; it doesn't suggest any non-trivial connection between them, not like "Film A portrays as them as dangerous, while Film B portrays them as non-threatening." –Pomte 21:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• May I submit that if it is difficult to construct a sentence of prose that would establish a connection, that no worthwhile connection exists which would merit the inclusion of the material in the article in the first place? I mean, if there's nothing that can be said^* about pterodactyls with reference to Rodan, then linking to pterodactyl from Rodan is all the only connection we should draw.
  *Note: Ultimately, this should read as "if there's nothing that has been said" -- to avoid original research). --Dystopos 15:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

In this particular example, I much prefer the "honest" list to the "fake" prose. To me, trying to invent context just for stylistic reasons is to place obstacles between the information and the reader who wants it. It also makes things more difficult for the reader who is not interested in the info: If they hate trivia, they know that they can safely skip a bullet list without losing anything that's important to the narrative flow of the article ... but if you "prosify" the trivia, you turn it into stealth trivia, which bogs down the article and makes it less efficient. Currently, a reader can skip the bullets and read the prose to obtain the key narrative information, then go back to the bullets later if they feel like it. If the whole thing is solid linear prose, skipping paragraphs is more dangerous, because you won't know what's in those paragraphs until you read them, and its more difficult to remember which parts you skipped. An encyclopedia isn't an essay contest, and people generally don't visit for the quality of the writing, but for the information. If I'm interested in the occurances of Pterosaurs in the movies, the original list with links to those movies' Wikipages does the job admirably.

The other danger of converting the thing to prose is that if some consider the information to be of borderline interest, they may consider the new paragraph to be dragging the rest of the article down, and to be someone's personal take on the subject and delete it altogether as uninteresting original research. Conversion to prose is sometimes a preliminary step to deletion. It's sometimes easier to defend the continued retention of a list of objective related facts as being NPOV than a synthesised mini-essay that ties together those same facts, because one only has to defend the raw information on its own merits. ErkDemon 18:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Due to this article's straightforward name and shortcut (WP:TRIVIA), editors commonly point to it instead of WP:AVTRIV/WP:TRIV) when referring to Wikipedia's policies on trivia. However, WP:AVTRIV is the guideline page, and this page (although practical and well-written) is subordinate to it. There are various ways I can think of to address this:

• Change the shortcuts (and possibly the article title) so WP:TRIVIA points to the guideline page, not this one.
• Mention the policy page much more prominently at the beginning of this page. Maybe something like "The official guideline on trivia in Wikipedia articles can be found at Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles. This essay offers practical advice on how to act within that guideline."
• Merge the two pages. This would require a lot of work, as this page's material would have to be upgraded from "Essay" to "Guideline" status. I think I prefer them separated, anyhow: that page states the policy concisely; this page is more concerned with detailed practical advice.

--Father Goose 04:19, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, if I go ahead and implement the first suggestion, would "Handling trivia" be an okay title for the page? WP:HTRIV and/or WP:HTRIVIA okay for shortcuts?--Father Goose 08:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

• Do not change the redirects because many past discussions link to these with shortcuts so they would no longer be accurate, and editors are used to them. I think the second suggestion is the best for now. Expand the dablink at the top just a little because the essay box below that is pretty clear. –Pomte 21:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I did check what pages link here, and which linked to WP:TRIV. Although some clearly meant to refer to this page, I also saw quite a few WP:TRIVIA links within discussions of trivia sections, referring to WP:TRIVIA as though it was the official page on the subject (which it is not). Just about all the links I saw to Wikipedia:Trivia (the full article name) seemed to denote understanding that this was an essay page and not the policy page. Most of the links I saw to WP:Trivia and especially to WP:TRIVIA seemed to refer to it as though it was a policy page. Too many editors seem to be "used to" pointing to the wrong page.

As for whether old discussions would point to the right place, well, too many of them don't point to the right place in the first place, and that's the problem I want to address. There is precedent for changing what WP shortcuts point to; a note would have to be put at the top noting that the shortcut was changed, and the existing "you may be looking for" covers the remainder.

As it is, the present article was more or less completely replaced by Mangojuice recently (and bravo; good change), which means the old discussions speak of now fall upon a very different page anyway. Wikipedia is a fluid construction. I feel it's more important to address the ongoing problem of mis-references to WP:TRIVIA than to decide this attractive nuisance should be set in stone.

So. I'll detail my proposals a little further. I think:

• The page should be moved to Wikipedia:Handling trivia
• Wikipedia:Trivia should point to the new title, in keeping with a standard move
• WP:TRIVIA should be redirected to Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles
• WP:Trivia should probably also be redirected there, although I won't insist on it
• The appropriate notes about the changed shortcuts should be added to the top of Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles.

--Father Goose 07:50, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that people are unaware of what they link to, though that does give insight into the amount of thought they put behind their comment, and their attitude towards trivia. It'd be counter-intuitive if Wikipedia:Trivia, WP:TRIVIA, and WP:Trivia link to different places. This wouldn't be a standard move because you're proposing retargeting redirects, so Wikipedia:Trivia should redirect to Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles as well. The edit history of WP:TRIVIA suggests potential opposition. Ask for more opinions at WP:VPP I guess.

The way to "Handling trivia" is to avoid trivia sections in articles, isn't it? That sort of begs for a merge, but a merge would take a lot more time than this proposal. This essay is like a guide or FAQ or outside commentary to the guideline, and if this sort of status is made clear they should be able to function separately. This can be a subpage of WP:AVTRIV, but that would imply that this is a guideline. So I think "Handling trivia" is a good explanatory name. –Pomte 08:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's been a week and I haven't heard objections. Cowabunga.--Father Goose 06:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved. --Stemonitis 19:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I happen to be a person who appreciates random trivia for the sake of it but I also recognise it's ability to completely undermine an educational article. As such I am here to ask what it would take to make the removal of trivia (i.e. this page) a guideline. What steps need to be taken? Or how do we revoke the Avoid Trivia? But do something.

The current state of afairs is too nebulous, to ill-defined. If there's no beter way to phrase a fact I can just list it as trivia regardless of the guidlines. The guidelines simply ask me to avoid it, so if I can't avoid it then it's all right.

Let's firm this up and set a guideline. Padillah 12:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure you can avoid it. What is a case in which you can't possibly avoid a trivia section? If the rest of the educational article is substantial, a trivia section at the bottom can't undermine it seriously. You can consider them to be 2 separate articles even. If a fact can't easily be placed into the main article, then put it on the talk page, or put it in an existing trivia section and wait for someone else to do it, and consider whether this means the fact is inappropriate for the article. For existing trivia, I think you can righteously move the entire section into the talk page and then start working from there.

I think the "Avoid trivia" guideline is fairly well-defined for most situations, and trivia should be taken on a case-by-case basis to tell exactly what sort of trivia and how worthy it is. This essay is like a how-to extension of that; does it really advocate removing trivia outright, instead of just avoiding it? –Pomte 21:20, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Like Pomte said, Wikipedia's trivia policies are never going to be completely resolved, because "trivia" has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Everyone's got a different sense of what is and isn't too trivial for a given subject, and the existence of a "trivia" section neither signifies that the information should be kept or deleted. This essay doesn't state that trivia should be removed; it just elaborates on the principles laid out in Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles.

The "avoid" page was adopted as policy because, if nothing else, trivia sections display a lack of organization and context -- so they're bad from a stylistic point of view. But neither page says "nuke trivia" or "keep trivia" outright, and they never will. When encountering trivia, excercise judgement, and turn bullet points into prose where you can.--Father Goose 22:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think I see what is causing the problem: the definition of trivia. As Pomte (and the "Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles" ) note the case by case nature of facts makes any susbstantial rule nearly impossible. Then is there a guideline regarding lists of facts? The current guideline is not sufficient (see the talk page on the trivia header for arguments). People assert that removing trivia is not a guideline and so they get to leave it in. If that's the case then why the "avoid trivia" nonsense? Something firm and resolute needs to be established regarding the treatment of these sections and it looks like it should start with their definition. "Try not to" is not as resolute as you might think. Padillah 20:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Keeping in mind, of course, that guidelines are meant to reflect consensus, not to overrule it. --Dystopos 20:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion, which follows, was reverted with the edit summary "this should not become an essay about judging importance":

A useful test for a detail that may seem trivial is, "does this detail increase the scope or richness or depth of the reader's comprehension of the article's subject?"

Of course if you can't tell what's trivial but you're "handling" trivia nevertheless, and if you think relevance is "elitist" as someone did above, then it's not a question that would occur, I imagine. --Wetman 00:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It might just be a question of wanting to keep the essay from trying to cover too many subjects at once. There is an active proposal at Wikipedia:Relevance that you might want to weigh in on.--Father Goose 03:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that was my intention in the revert. I think the test Wetman added is good common sense, but it also doesn't really help: it's basically just asking if the information enhances the article, but wouldn't help anyone make up their mind if they weren't sure, nor convince others of their point of view. The more time the essay spends in that section, the more it looks like the point of this essay is to discuss what information is appropriate and what isn't, which really isn't the point. Mangojuice^talk 04:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

GOD, I hate this anti-trivia policy! F.ex. in punched cards the trivia section contains several artists making punched cards art. That, by my intellectual standards (if such a thing can be perceived), makes a pattern, which makes a fact. Whether a fact is trivial or not is up to the readers who esteem the text, not the readers who don't esteem it. In my life it has been a consistent pattern that my interests (s.a.f.ex. Wikipedia like activities) has defined a trivial or irrelevant by the majority of the humankind. Shall we then treat the majority of the humankind the same way, by creating a boring pattern into which everything must fall, making Wikipedia pleasant just for us? No. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW, sometimes you can't realize what's relevant, before it's too late. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Instead, I propose this: Category:Coherency templates. An article must be coherent. This means that a "trivia" section should be small and well structured, and relate to other main articles, such as the punched cards art relating to some kind of crap arts, otherwise the article becomes incoherent. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I love Trivia or "Facts and Figures", there often are notable things about a subject that aren't worthy of a full paragraph of text, or inclusion in the main article. Often Trivia deals with superlatives that are still important to the subject matter. I agree with Rursus - if Trivia wasn't so important to mankind - we wouldn't always be using words like "#1, First, the World's ____, Greatest, Fastest....". Some users of Wikipedia really would love to have every article match their template.

The definition of trivia is inherently POV. One person's trivia is another persons' vital information. Trollderella 01:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

• This stems from our age-old policy that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Or, to put it otherwise, WP is not a data dump. As an encyclopedia, we try and focus on what's important. >Radiant< 09:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

"Importance" has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Notability is distinct from "importance" and notability only applies to the topics of articles, not the content of articles. And "importance" is matter of opinion. --Pixelface 20:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes extensive trivia lists simply exist merely to point out that the article's subject has permeated popular culture. So replace the list with a simple statement. Pick a few of the best items to use as footnotes instead of cluttering the text.

Here's an example, where I removed a long but boring "In popular culture" section from the pop-culture article Shaken, not stirred. —Michael Z. 2007-08-02 23:24 Z

The following seems like a case of POV:

This is an essay. It is not a policy or guideline; it merely reflects the opinions of some of its author(s). Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page.

It should be re-worded it so it doesn't reflect POV rather NPOV. Mr. C.C. 18:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

{{essay}} is a standard heading on pages like this that haven't undergone the more rigorous process of promotion, discussion, debate, and alteration needed to become an "official" guideline. Sometimes just a page with some "unofficial" ideas on it is fine.--Father Goose 20:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

For this reason, this tag should never be used on articles. >Radiant< 13:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

That raises the question what is this article? Someone wanted to turn it into a Help page a few months ago. It seems to be widely accepted (tho present company will disagree), and it's linked from {{Trivia}}, several WikiProject guidelines, and several Wikipedia space guidelines as if it were another guideline. It's been at {{essay}} status for as long as I can remember (which isn't very long, but still).

Aren't essays in Wikipedia space that fail to become something supposed to be removed? / edg ☺ ★ 14:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

First off, remember that pages in Wikipedia: space are not articles. And, no, essays do not get "removed". You may be thinking of {{proposal}}s - but even they are not typically removed if they fail, but are more often marked as {{historical}} or {[tl|rejected}}. Essays are not subject to that. Mangojuice^talk 14:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• (edconf) "Article" refers to pages in the main namespace. Essays in Wikipedia namespace are plentiful (although we're working on cleaning that up). And there are plenty of guidelines that link to other pages that aren't guidelines, that's not problematic either. In essence, does this page state anything useful that isn't covered in Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections? >Radiant< 14:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Case in point, Tiesto was recently edited that his contribution of a song to an MMORPG -- namely Granado_Espada( which are multi-million costs in development ) is somehow too unimportant to be mentioned. I don't want to get into a revert war but who would be in the right in this? 18:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why you think there's a definitive answer. You have an edit disagreement, work it out among yourselves. If you need broader input, I suggest WP:3O. Mangojuice^talk 16:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Generally speaking, if you can't fit the information into the body of the article and need to create a separate sentence like "Also, Kudrow prefers plaid scarves to paisley bandanas", then you're probably dealing with unimportant trivia. If the item bears any importance to the subject, then there's a call for a paragraph or so explaining the importance. --Dystopos 17:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes that paragraph (or section) can take quite a lot of research to properly construct, however, so inserting a non-trivial fact into a trivia list is a reasonable interim measure.--Father Goose 20:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• There remains a distinction between the limits of our contributors and the limits of explanation. Facts which fall on the first side should be incorporated into the text. Those which fall on the other should be removed. The essay already states this. --Dystopos 04:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Note, I originally posted this on the talk page of CAT:TRIVIA, not knowing that this page already existed to facilitate such a discussion. Rather than rewrite this, I'll add it to this page as well, in hopes that it's purpose will better be served here. --Nick Penguin 22:30, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello everyone, and thank you for trying to deal with some of this massive problem. I've been working at the trivia pandemic for a couple of weeks now, and I thought it would be a good idea to list some ideas on how to make fixing trivia a lot easier. In general, this would be a list of advice/observations, aimed at helping get pages off this Category page. Please add anything you have found useful and provide feedback on older ideas.

Don't just add it to the main paragraph: Sometimes this is the only inviting spot in the article to put a given fact, but please consider it before you add it. Even if it can't go anywhere else, is this really the best spot for it? Maybe you would be better off creating a new section for several related facts.

Creating a new section out of trivia: Sometimes several of the sentences in the trivia section will be loosely related, but do not quite fit one another. Look at some other parts of the article and find another sentence or two that would fit with these ones, and create a new section. The aim here is to make the new section more focused, not just to "rename the trivia section", so you will probably have to edit some of the individual sentences, not just cut and paste them all together. In general, I would advice having at least three sentences or two small paragraphs before creating a whole new section.

Facts already somewhere else in the article: These are things that have been added to the main text by someone, but also independently been added into the "trivia" section. Often these duplicates can be dealt with by deleting the item from the trivia section, and perhaps merging a few words here and there. Generally these are very quick to fix.

Stuff not relevant to this article: Sometimes people have added a one line blurb that has little or nothing to do with this article, and would be more appropriate in another article. These can be fixed quickly by just moving the sentence/blurb to the other article. However, often you will discover that the piece of trivia is already in the other article, and so if the information isn't appropriate for the article you initially discovered it in, it can be removed.

Stuff that should be removed outright: Obviously this is extremely difficult to define, but it is clear that some facts have no relevance to a particular actual article. Thus, because each article is different, you have to use your brain to figure out if a fact should be removed. Try moving it to the talk page, see what happens.

Retagging the article: So you've just dealt with a trivia section, and now instead of having a trivia problem, it has some other problem. More often than not, it is a lack of citations. Before you "finish" with an article, don't forget to leave an appropriate maintenance template so other people can easily find (and improve) the article where it is needed.

Where's the Trivia?: Once or twice I've found an article that has a trivia tag, but it really doesn't look like there's a trivia section that needs to be fixed. Checking the page history can reveal that different authors have already dealt with the problem over time. Take a look at the over all article, try and cleanup a few random things and remove the tag if it no longer needed.

Multiple Trivia sections: Sometimes there are two (or even three) places on the same article that have the trivia tag. This is probably not how the tag is supposed to be used, so maybe try and merge one trivia section into the article and let someone else do another section. If all else fails, merge the two trivia sections so that the stuff is at least consolidated into one place.

Work systematically: If you plan of working on a lot of articles with trivia section, the best thing to do is pick a given month/section of articles that have trivia sections, start at the top and work your way down. First, this gives you a goal ("please let me get to the end of this section", and a sense of accomplishment ("I can't believe I fixed 27 articles that start with the letter D!). If all else fails take a break. It's not like wikipedia will self destruct if the trivia isn't fixed by tomorrow.

Cooliris Preview: By far this is the tool I have found the most useful while fixing trivia articles. This is a plugin for Firefox and Internet Explorer that allows you to open a link in a preview window, within the same window. Essentially, this lets you view a link without leaving the same page, so when you are dealing with a huge list of articles, you can quickly check one, and you do not need to open it in a new tab/window, which allows you to look at pages faster. Here's a brief overview of the plugin: http://www.cooliris.com/Site/previews.html , and a Firefox tutorial video from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jt_mHvFzaY

Very long trivia lists (Movie/Tv shows/Baseball etc): I've noticed that these articles tend to have massive trivia lists (some not all), so much so that they can be very daunting. Needless to say, these are not ten minute fixes, and you will have to dedicate some time to fixing it. Remember that you don't need to leave an article in perfect shape, so maybe fix a few items and leave it for someone else to finish up.

Album details: Sometimes with albums, there are various "facts" that might be better served elsewhere. Sometimes you can fix these by adding them as details/footnotes to specific songs. Other times they can be merged into the main paragraph or another related article.

Anyways that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Please help solve the trivia problem by adding suggestions/ideas/revisions to previous suggestions. Remember that the problem won't go away by itself, and wikipedia needs people like you to help improve it's quality. Thank you again for your contributions, and happy editing! --Nick Penguin 17:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a wikiproject proposal for trivia and a fresh look at trivia policy by the admins. Support the wikiproject proposal. Add your name to the list here: [wiki project proposal for wikitrivia] Please send this link to other users that you feel would be interested. ThanksOzmaweezer 14:09, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

This proposal has since been turned into Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia and Popular Culture. --Nick Penguin 06:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not see the "trivia problem" having to do with the quality of individual facts, but rather that trivia sections prevent the individual facts contained within to be evaluated independently as a useful, relevant or curious fact. Since so many different types of facts are found in trivia sections, and many of these are often similar enough to warrant the creation of a new section, I think it makes sense to provide a collection of useful and acceptable section headings that could be used to help integrate trivia sections into the rest of the article.

As a result of some discussion on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trivia_and_Popular_Culture, I have created the following chart, which reflects some of the pragmatic solutions the myself and others have found while fixing articles with trivia sections. In general, I divided articles into different subject types and provided some suggestions for each. I also made a collection of all purpose headings, which seem to be applicable in multiple article types.

Please help improve the quality of these suggested headings and the table itself, by criticizing current and suggesting additional the entries. If this chart is acceptable (or no one objects in a reasonable amount of time), I would like to integrate it into the "Recommendations for handling trivia " section. --Nick Penguin 21:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Courtesy notice - a new discussion at Template talk:Trivia#Proposal_to_modify_or_move_template - Wikidemo 23:38, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

In the "Connective trivia" section, the following example is used: Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia. We point out that this is a good piece of connective trivia, because it connects Ella Fitzgerald with the city. My question is, how is it trivia at all? In a person's biography, the city in which they're born doesn't seem very trivial, and in an article about a town, the fact that one of the most important vocalists of the twentieth century hails from there doesn't seem very trivial either. Could we use a better example there, or am I missing something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by GTBacchus (talk • contribs)

Well, maybe it's better to describe that as an example of connective information. It might be trivia in the sense that it appears in a trivia section, even if the information isn't trivial. I had a hard time thinking of a good example there -- my point was, I wanted to show what kind of connective information was important to both ends, so as to distinguish this from the other kinds. Mangojuice^talk 04:31, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess the "famous residents" section could be construed as a trivia section, although it says of her: "The city is famous as the birthplace of legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald...", while in her article, the fact is in the first sentence under biography. I'll try and help think of another example. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Trivia sections#Proposal to integrate some content from WP:HTRIV --NickPenguin_(contribs) 16:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Has everyone read this page?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Trivia_and_Popular_Culture/Discussion

Here are some interesting external web sites concering trivia.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/22/wikipedias-identity-crisis-keep-or-delete-trivia/

http://billso.com/2008/03/18/should-wikipedia-include-trivia/

http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354

http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354&mode=comment&intent=readBottom

http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354&mode=comment&intent=readBottom

http://www.includipedia.com/blog/2008/03/10/inclusionists-versus-deletionists-on-wikipedia.html

http://www.includipedia.com/

http://www.includipedia.com/wiki/Includipedia:About

http://www.includipedia.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://blog.shankbone.org/2008/12/22/trivia-section-on-wikipedia--an-american-dad-christmas-illustration.aspx

http://www.impactlab.com/2008/03/24/wikipedia-identity-crisis-part-2-keep-or-delete-trivia/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080111152140AA8xEth

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiTrivia Ozmaweezer (talk) 04:11, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the article had not made this clear. In the first paragraph it says "It is not reasonable to disallow all information that some editors feel is unimportant, because that information could be important to some readers." While many latter discussions suggest "if something is unimportant then you should be bold and remove it". So, after all, is is just based on that "if no one opposes, then you're right, it is unimportant"?--Inspector (talk) 05:04, 20 November 2012 (UTC)