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I found a consensus to exist for the adoption of the proposal. The voting saw 43 votes cast, 27 in favour, offering a 62% majority. Although at the weak end of establishing consensus, I note Rje appears to have amended his vote, which would alter the result. It also appears a number of objections are grounded on the idea that people will continue to add trivia sections. I think those opinions can be somewhat discounted, since they don't address the proposal itself, which offers advice on how to deal with such circumstances. We don't abolish WP:AFD because people continuously add articles which require deletion.
The poll is archived at Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia sections in articles/poll. Hiding Talk 12:58, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I think you guys should stop friggin removing useful material from articles. If one person voted against you in your highly unscientific and biased poll then that is grounds for NOT removing anything. This project is an incredible disservice to Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.128.232.159 ( talk) 23:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC).
If you ask me, Wikipedia is trying to remove anything INTERESTING from their articles. For example, the page for the SNES game Earthbound is now stripped of all the interesting trivia bits and is just a plain, homogenized info page no different from any other info page for the game anywhere else. What's the point of even having editable pages if the only info allowed is boring, recycled, bland info you can get anywhere else? I'm sorry, but Wikipedia is going down the tubes- first pages get deleted for being "not noteworthy" now info is stripped away under bogus reasons, no doubt to cut down on text per page and save bandwidth.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.162.204.6 ( talk • contribs) 22:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I missed the poll, but I hereby register my strong objection to any policy, guideline, etc. encouraging the removal of trivia sections from articles, or their avoidance, for reasons already elaborated at length by other editors on this page. Kwertii 17:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that this guideline has been voted mostly by people who wanted it and made it. Most people who would oppose it, people who's not "in the know", is learning about it only after it's passed, from the warning messages that are appearing within every "Trivia" section of every article. Frankly, it sounds like one of such unpopular laws passed by stealth by some Parliament members. I feel that a policy or guideline that can have a such great impact on the whole Wikipedia -- and I can imagine groups of fanatics removing whole sections from articles feeling legitimate by this guideline -- should be announced to the public of Wikipedia on the top of every page just like meetings or fund rising. -- ElfQrin 07:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
When I tried voting on the idiotic idea to remove spoiler warnings, I was told that since I wasn't a regular "wikipedian", my vote wouldn't be counted. It seems the people who spend 24/7 on wikipedia have taken it upon themselves to set things up that now people's votes don't count unless you're part of the "elite" who have no lives. So, as usual, wikipedia will again institute another retarded policy that the "wikipedians" all love, but will remove anything even remotely interesting or useful from wikipedia, further making it useless. Sigh, I remember when wikipedia was good. Now it's just ass.
63.131.25.92
17:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Decisions on Wikipedia are not made by voting. — Centrx→ talk • 18:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
This is a suggested guideline, not a policy.
Avoid organizing articles as lists of isolated facts regarding the topic. A number of articles contain lists of isolated facts, often grouped into their own section labelled "Trivia", "Notes", "Facts", or "Other information". We often refer to these informally as trivia sections.
These lists can be useful for developing a new article, as it sets a low bar for novice contributors to add information without having to keep in mind article organization or presentation - just tack a new fact on to the list. However, as articles grow, these lists become increasingly disorganized and difficult to read. It is ideal to provide a logical grouping and ordering of facts that gives an integrated presentation providing context and smooth transitions. Whenever you see a "trivia section", take a look at each fact and consider how you might integrate it into the larger text, whether by inserting it into a section or adding a new section. Creating subsections to group items in the list may be helpful in the search for an ideal presentation. Integrating these facts may require additional research to establish further context, locate suitable references to cite, or identify relationships with other facts.
This guideline does not suggest removal of trivia sections. Instead, consider it a list of "facts pending integration" or "facts lacking sufficient context for integration". Seek to minimize it, but meanwhile leave it in place as a raw store of facts for both readers and editors to work with.
See Wikipedia_talk:Trivia for similar previous discussion. Circeus 15:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
As a part of the effort to reduce trivia categories and convert them into paragraph prose, we should identify and categorize articles whose trivia sections are just too large. For that reason, I am proposing a template (and category) we could use to mark articles with long trivia sections. Tell me what you think, and feel free to improve the template. —
THIS IS MESSED
OCKER
(TALK)
04:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Messedrocker...please make this template or tell us this template's location, we really want to use it. :) - LA @ 22:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC) Yes. Please. - Zepheus (ツィフィアス) 00:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
this is messedrocker
(talk)
06:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)It only just now occurred to me to post this here.
ATS | This user avoids trivia sections |
Hope you like it!-- Drat ( Talk) 10:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Whoops looks like you guys have a bit of a typo in there. That T should be an S.
ATS | This user believes real articles don't need trivia sections |
BOTH THE USERBOXEZ SUCK!!
- kozmic| sk8r 23:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that the instruction to avoid "trivia" sections shouldn't apply to pages that are about works of fiction, because these are often "involved" pieces with many subtexts and sly references where additional background knowledge can significantly improve someone's ability to "read" the piece. I think the appropriate precedent is literary criticism: If you visit the local bookshop and buy a copy of an old "classic" novel or collection of short stories intended for students ("Sherlock Holmes", Shakespeare, etc.), you'll probably find that the thing is fairly stuffed full of brief footnotes or endnotes explaining references that the modern reader might not be aware of but which help in the appreciation of the text, all of which have been considered interesting and significant enough to readers be worth devoting expensive paper to, and almost all of which could be be considered "trivia" by Wiki editors here. The researchers and historians who compiled it might be deeply offended to hear it called trivia, but that's the category it seems to fall under here, unless its reworked as a piece of prose. Where books have footnotes and endnote sections to handle this background material, the natural format for Wiki pages (which won't have the original material) seems to be a section near the end with bulletpoints. That's what people have been doing and it works. As with books, if someone just wants the overview and doesn't want the scattered background details, they can skip that section. I think that in some cases, the default Wiki advice of trying to work these disparate facts together into organised paragraphs can smack of pseudostyle: organising facts into smooth paragraphs so that they read better is fine, but clustering disparate facts together purely to demonstrate that we can produce something that writers would consider "professional" seems be pretentious, and putting style before content. People don't visit Wikipedia for the excellence of the writing, they visit it for the content. Sometimes there are interesting and suggestive facts that simply don't fit the body of the narrative, and where attempting to fabricate a new section of narrative around them would make the broader narrative less focused. Take the Wikipage on Shakespeare's Hamlet for example: this has is a nice trivia section with useful "Hamlet facts" (notable actors, dates, awards) that would be very difficult to incorporate in the main text, and probably shouldn't be ... it's reasonably neat, its small enough not to overpower the rest of the article, and yet its flagged as "unencyclopedic" and needing cleanup. I think that the ugliest thing on that page isn't the trivia list, its the way the "cleanup" tag splodges itself in the middle of the page.
The main complaint I've seen about trivia sections is that the complainants object to reading them: Well, the advantage of an explicitly marked trivia section is that people who want to read it can, and people who don't can skip over it knowing that they haven't missed any critical facts. People who already know a work well might only read the opening paragraph and the fact they were looking for, and then jump straight to the trivia section for juicy additional info, assuming that they'll already be familiar with all the "standard" facts. On the other hand, if the article is "improved" by sneaking these facts into paragraph form and disguising them as body text, they become stealth trivia, and make reading the article more difficult: you wouldn't know that the paragraph was trivia until you'd already gone to the trouble of reading it. Appropriate organisation is good, but sometimes we can organise inappropriately and try to force an artificial order on details that don't really deserve it. Sometimes appropriate organisation means setting aside a section for things that didn't fit the rest of the scheme.
I think that the use of the term "trivia" to refer to background information that doesn't appear in official publicity material or within the work itself, but which is interesting and arguably relevant to the work, probably originates with films. But film buffs often regards "film trivia" as something far from trivial -- the fact that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were having a tempestuous affair while filming Cleopatra is technically "film trivia", but its difficult to imagine a piece discussing the film in any depth without mentioning it. It's not in the shooting script but it provides interesting background context to what appears on the screen. It's not essential information, but it adds background feel for a work. Similarly, when you watch the Hamlet character agonising about life and death, its not essential to know that when Shakespeare wrote the play he'd recently lost his only son, Hamnet, to the plague, but stumbling across that sort of little snippet is part of what makes browsing Wikipedia so addictive: it's the wild-cards, and the idea that you are browsing something that isn't totally predictable and rigidly-organised according to standardised categories and rules: you don't just learn things that you didn't know ... you learn things that you didn't know that you didn't know. Encarta is a professional commercial encyclopedia, but when's the last time you heard someone admitting to being an Encarta addict? Wikipedia doesn't have to try to be more like existing online encyclopedias, the reason it's become so wildly popular is because its so different, and because of the sheer breadth of information that volunteers have put onto it, and because it's turned into a giant internet sponge, soaking up the most interesting information from the rest of the web. It's getting to the point where some people are starting to check Wikipedia for information before checking Google, and that's at least partly due to Wiki's inclusivity. ErkDemon 03:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
After considering closely the issue of trivia sections, I cannot support any suggestion that they be removed or integrated into other sections.
The problem is simple: there are frequently small facts and details that ARE trivial, that other often find useless or inapproprate for a "serious" article. Thus, they come along, and instead of moving the item to a "trivia" section where it might be appropriate, they instead delete the item altogether.
As a proof of concept, on five discrete occasions, an otherwise trivial fact was added to a fact section of a serious article to see what the result would be. On EVERY OCCASION, that trivial fact has been deleted by someone else who apparently feels it is not appropriate.
Trivia has its place. It needs to be here in Wikipedia. We ought to leave the trivia sections in place where they are, for trivial facts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.71.235.25 ( talk) 13:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC).
To anyone who defends trivia to the point they think nothing needs to be done about it, I give you this: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Gram_%28mythology%29&oldid=133775532 This is why trivia should be discouraged. Sure, sometimes it can help make a topic more understandable, and sometimes it's fun. But from what I've seen, it is usually just an excuse for someone to reminisce about movies they've seen or video games they've played. Historical trivia that leads people to related subjects is one thing, but a damn lot of users don't seem to be able to distinguish that from "oh, this item was mentioned offhand once in an anime that's relevant too!" (Or worse yet, in cases like this, it's a case of something being named after some mythological entity while having no other connection or similarity to it.) I think the mythology articles are some of the worst hit by trivia. Someone going to read about Norse gods, chances are they don't give a crap about what video games they've been referenced in. Now someone looking up those video games...they might be curious about the gods. But I'm pretty sure it's mostly one-way. Regardless, I agree with the approach that has been taken with some mythologies, and just having a single "reference in popular culture" article for an entire mythology...or in the case of heavily referenced characters, a separate article for the references, linked to from the main article for that character. I'd like to see that approach expanded to every article that has been overwhelmed by trivia.
You know, I'm not sure it's avoidable, given the nature of these lists (one or two items at a time added by passersby)...they end up getting choked with anime and game references. I'm not sure that's NPOV, really. But it isn't any one person's POV, it's just the tendency of these fans to hoard trivia has been piling crap onto articles piece by piece...
Sorry if that was a little long winded. I'm all for separating out trivia. It's easier to just delete it though Andy Christ 09:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
My 2¢ is that the "rationale" section kind of came off pompous, essentially that if you don't have a full paragraph scuplted to pseudo-journalistic standards, your contributions don't count. I think thats silly. I'm with the top objection, however I think that if those same smaller contributions BELONG in a cohesive section, they should be put there, not simply a bullet for bullet's sake. Now I'll sit the hell down and shut the hell up. Xodiaq 18:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I believe this guideline needs to be made clearer. Some see it saying that Trivia sections need to be integrated and removed completely with unworthy information removed. Others see the guideline justifying lists of facts and trivia that can't be integrated into the rest of the article. Which is it? The guideline needs to be much clearer what the end aim is. E.g. No trivia section or a section containing what's left after the integration. The rationale for the guideline suggests the aim is to have no trivia section as that's what's causing the problem, setting a "low bar". If this is the reason then it should say "integrate information and remove section" more clearly. ● BillPP ( talk| contribs) 17:47, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm really having trouble agreeing with this guideline (and I'm finding it hard to believe there is consensus on this subject at all, but that's another argument). The guideline does say "avoid" creation of trivia sections, but that can say to me trivia sections should be avoided, but that they are, in very limited cases, inevitable. The "cultural references" trivia, for example. For most articles, one or two cultural references are, yes, too trivial. However, for cultural subjects that have a major influence on other culture, there is a meaningful context for the information in that given section. It would be silly to say that the information contained is "isolated" if there is a great deal of it that is meaningful. In such a case, it would be difficult and senseless to integrate an entire "trivia" section into other parts of its article. -- Roehl Sybing 03:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that trivia is a sensible and illuminating part of many wikipedia articles on popular culture, such as games, films, and actually even history. The trivia section is an engaging way to let readers see how an otherwise apparently dry or obscure piece of history or science has actually affected their lives. I agree that there may be a problem with "too much trivia" and lazy editing, but this is not the way to address it. Trivia is a much-loved and informative feature of Wikipedia.-- Jaibe 08:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
To put in my two cents. I personally go straight to triva sections. I like them. They tell me those little bits of information that I can't really find anywhere else without a great deal of scouting. They are one of the reasons I like Wikipedia. If you try to pepper those references where they don't belong elsewhere in the article, it just makes me not want to bother and I never get these little bits of information. True, it doesn't belong everywhere and things like oxygen or the like should definately not have them, but when your dealing with episodes of a television show filled with minor references that some people missed, they can come here and find them out. I'm not about to read the entire article about a show I just watched, but I do go and see the triva section to find out some of the referances I didn't get. IrrTJMc 05:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Encyclopedias cover what it notable, important and educational. Trivia, by its very definition, isn't notable or important. I can certainly understand people liking trivia, but maybe what they ought to do is start up a Wikitrivia project instead of shoving it all into what are supposed to be encyclopedia articles.
DreamGuy
09:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Let me first say that I have no definite position on a general policy for trivia sections. (Yes, they are often bad. They are also often amusing and raise interest. And they are sometimes a good place to store facts before integrating them in the article. There may be articles that warrant persistent Trivia sections, but I do not know of any myself.)
However, the stupid (literally) robot that edits tons of articles to add the ugly, condescending and useless template {{ trivia}} is something I definitely oppose. There are thousands and thousands of human editors of Wikipedia, who are perfectly able to take an intelligent decision, whether a specific article can take a trivia section in its current state.
A robot is a machine. A robot has no clue. A robot cannot and should not tell a thinking human how to change a particular article.
Can someone tell me if it is possible to revert the damage the robot already has done? Or is the only solution to change the {{trivia}} template to "blank", to remove the blot from all pages where it was added? Mlewan 17:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
If the tag isn't needed in a specific case, then it can simply be removed. The bot won't edit a page it has already edited. The number of articles that will need the tag removed I'm guessing will be relativly small, if any really. Also note that for small trivia sections (less than 512 bytes) it won't add the tag. More discussions on this same bot can be found: [1], [2], and [3]. -- Android Mouse 19:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Improving the wording would definitely be a help, but it would not solve the other problems:
To me, anyone of the above points on its own is good enough a reason to revert the robot added tags. Mlewan 04:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think mass-tagging of trivia sections helps the problem.
I'm not a fan of Trivia sections per se (and I think my edit history shows this), but they serve a few well-acknowleged purposes:
In other words, trivia sections are useful as long as they are deleted. However, 10,000 {{ toomuchtrivia}} tags will not make editors eliminate trivia sections; it just introduces a new eyesore.
Here is an article that's rife with trivia; however, it doesn't have a any identifiable Trivia section. Widespread tagging will tend to drive trivia underground, creating more articles like this, which are harder to read, and harder to clean up.
A better solution — albeit, one harder to automate — would be message Talk pages of users who have contributed to a trivia section, with newbie-friendly (gentle, easy to understand) advice on how to edit better. / edgarde 21:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Mlewan, if you dislike the wording of Template:Trivia, it can be edited, and the best place to discuss those changes is at Template talk:Trivia. If you think that trivia tagging is a bad idea regardless of the wording, the thing to do would be to make your case as calmly as possible in a WP:TFD nomination, but I suspect that won't be successful. I think there might be some benefit to having the tag on the talk page instead, but it's got its plusses and minuses, and having such tags on the article seems to be standard, so it's an uphill battle there. Obviously, if there are specific instances where the tag isn't appropriate, it can simply be removed, and I don't think anyone would object much. In most cases, the tag has been put on articles with a significant trivia section, though, so if tagging is a reasonable thing at all, those tags are reasonable. Mango juice talk 14:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I want to ask for the opinions of a few editors on the issue of moving trivia to talk pages. Specifically, should this page present it as an option or, alternatively, encourage it? As I see it, the pros and cons of moving trivia to talk pages are as follows:
As should be rather clear from the above, I oppose the idea of moving trivia to talk pages. I think it is better to simply delete it when deletion is justified, integrate it when possible, and leave it for someone else to handle in the remainder of cases. So, what does everyone else think? -- Black Falcon ( Talk) 06:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
If you have doubts about whether your fact is suitable for inclusion, place it on the talk page instead where other interested contributors can help consider its inclusion and locate suitable references.
I just want to throw out a question ... should we add a sentence stating that trivia sections generally should not be moved to an article's talk page? I've seen multiple instances where someone moves the trivia section to the talk page and then never again edits that page. That doesn't really solve anything. Maybe something like ... Do not move trivia sections to article talk pages simply for the purpose of removing them from the article unless you intend to personally integrate it later on. -- Black Falcon ( Talk) 22:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I really wish this policy would be revoked...ErkDemon says it perfectly above. Afabbro 18:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest that (at least) one of the problems lying behind the issue of what to do with “trivia” – and where to do it – is because the term “trivia” is being used in too broad-brushed a manner? It may be that there are three categories of trivia which I’ll call “significa”, “minutiae” and “cruft”, each of which perhaps should be handled differently.
There are a variety of ways these cases could be handled and I’m not going to prescribe one. However, one possibility would be that significa would be kept in a “To be worked in” posting on the talk page, minutiae directly enterable in a “Trivia” (“Related trivia”?) section, in the article, and cruft, well, perhaps nuked on sight (or perhaps gently guided toward a more relevant article, depending on how well dinner was sitting with us). This particular approach would, IMO, leave the article looking less like a construction site. On the other hand, it could be argued that it would be preferable to leave a significa entry in the article as a sort of “stub”, inviting any editorial hand to work it in, while minutiae should be moved to the talk page for discussion and development before going “prime time”. (Cruft, of course, would be mulched.)
Askari Mark
(Talk)
19:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Why is WikiPed against trivia sections? People like me don't wanna read big long articles for interesting facts when you could put them all together for quick reference. 67.176.14.100 00:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)Dizzy Rick
Every second bloody article I look at now seems to have this tag attached which merely serves to highlight the fact that there is a section in the article entitled "Trivia". The number of articles with the template attached seems to have increased at an exponential rate!
I suggest that instead of wasting time attaching the template to lots of articles that responsible editors instead solve what ever it is they perceive to be problematic! -- Mal 08:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with this policy and know many other people who do as well. The policy is pointless. The vast majority of users like trivia and find it pertinent to the articles. The editors of the individual articles should determine whether or not the specific trivia is correct or not and relevant or not, and not some irrelevant wikipedia-wide policy. How do we go about changing this? 219.169.90.2 17:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Those who keep saying that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia are wrong. Wikipedia doesnt match the dictionary meaning of Encyclopedia. What kind of encyclopedia gets updated almost daily? Wikipedia has out-grown its encylopedia tag. The use of the word "unfortunately" or "fortunately" is against wikipedia policy. To show respect to the deceased is against wikipedia policy. I reckon we should have a hideable trivia section on each article to comply with the policy of not showing trivia on articles. Tri400 23:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Personally I'd just like to state that i damn well hate this whole page, and yes that's sort of considered "not a neutral point of view". I hate it because I know there are a number of articles that have very relevant information in trivia sections that doesn't fit properly anywhere else. And i hate it because user's who have nothing relevant or better to contribute are running around throwing it into every possible article, when there are so many more important things to be doing - one which, I would have thought, would be fixing the information so that the banner didn't need to be there in the first place. But somewhere I know that the policy is going to stand, so I will go against it in the only way I know how. A page I was on recently had your "wonderful" triva banner on it - making the page look so much better I'm sure. But the thing I had an issue with was that at the bottom of the page, it had been added to the category of "Articles With Large Trivia Sections". Now there are a lot of users who are happy to say that they speak bullshit, but for you guys its just a case of denial. Considering the article in question, Vince Russo, had a grand total of 6 bullet points in it, I wouldn't class this as a large trivia section. 6 is not large. If you so whole-heartedly want to tag every single article that comes into this grouping with this unneccessary banner, then at least try and get the category right, becuase this is just one aspect of this debate which I consider in the wrong. Legitimately in the wrong I should say, I'm not going to get into everything else which is wrong with it.
PS. Because you decided to place the userbox on this page as an example, "Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia sections in articles" has been added to "Category:Articles with large trivia sections". Man, you guys are reeeel smart. -- SteelersFan UK06 05:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I've just removed the following text:
“ | Note that this guideline does not necessarily advise the wholesale removal of trivia sections, which may be useful in the process of constructing an article but should be integrated into the article over time. | ” |
I'm not sure what is being attempted here, but I find it rather nonsensical. does not necessarily advise offers the most cause for concern. That reads to me as a hostage to fortune. I'm also disturbed at the phrase should be integrated into the article over time, which again offers a hostage to fortune. How long a period of time? Is each entry treated individually, with it's own clock ticking, or can the whole section be tackled at once? Further, I think that what is trying to be communicated here already is, in the nutshell, which reads: Lists of facts, as found in trivia sections, are better presented within the context of the text rather than in a section of unrelated items. Hiding Talk 07:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
With respect, I suspect that some of the editors here are those who would interpret this guideline as the reason their excuse trivia wholesale without attempting to integrate it. Personally I think the removed text was redundant, because it describes something about the guideline that can be easily verified by reading the rest of it. However, the guideline really doesn't suggest that trivia should be categorically removed. Keep in that we can't simply disallow trivia because judgements over what is important enough for inclusion are fundamentally subjective and should in the end be decided by consensus (see WP:HTRIV). That said, I myself am for the wholesale removal of trivia sections in cases where they are especially bad, with the idea of following WP:BRD if someone objects to it. Mango juice talk 18:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
<=== Reset indent -- It would be nice if changes were proposed and discussed here and not discussed by an edit war on the guideline page.
What I have seen is many factoids are actually summaries of other articles that are already linked to the article containing the trivia section. I don't understand why this is needed in most cases since the reader only needs to look at the what links here to get the information. Also many factoids are actually historical facts that belong in a history section. Easy to move around and cleanup. The few random comments that would remain after converting most points to inline prose are generally not sourced and can be removed without any damage to the encyclopedic content. Vegaswikian 20:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
<=== Reset indent -- Oops, I mistakenly read "this is necessary" as "this is unneccessary", so I apologize for my most recent edit comment about it being used "opposite from its normal meaning". Nonetheless I would ask to be provided with a little more detail here, if you can: "This is necessary because..."-- Father Goose 18:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
I found a consensus to exist for the adoption of the proposal. The voting saw 43 votes cast, 27 in favour, offering a 62% majority. Although at the weak end of establishing consensus, I note Rje appears to have amended his vote, which would alter the result. It also appears a number of objections are grounded on the idea that people will continue to add trivia sections. I think those opinions can be somewhat discounted, since they don't address the proposal itself, which offers advice on how to deal with such circumstances. We don't abolish WP:AFD because people continuously add articles which require deletion.
The poll is archived at Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia sections in articles/poll. Hiding Talk 12:58, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I think you guys should stop friggin removing useful material from articles. If one person voted against you in your highly unscientific and biased poll then that is grounds for NOT removing anything. This project is an incredible disservice to Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.128.232.159 ( talk) 23:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC).
If you ask me, Wikipedia is trying to remove anything INTERESTING from their articles. For example, the page for the SNES game Earthbound is now stripped of all the interesting trivia bits and is just a plain, homogenized info page no different from any other info page for the game anywhere else. What's the point of even having editable pages if the only info allowed is boring, recycled, bland info you can get anywhere else? I'm sorry, but Wikipedia is going down the tubes- first pages get deleted for being "not noteworthy" now info is stripped away under bogus reasons, no doubt to cut down on text per page and save bandwidth.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.162.204.6 ( talk • contribs) 22:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I missed the poll, but I hereby register my strong objection to any policy, guideline, etc. encouraging the removal of trivia sections from articles, or their avoidance, for reasons already elaborated at length by other editors on this page. Kwertii 17:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that this guideline has been voted mostly by people who wanted it and made it. Most people who would oppose it, people who's not "in the know", is learning about it only after it's passed, from the warning messages that are appearing within every "Trivia" section of every article. Frankly, it sounds like one of such unpopular laws passed by stealth by some Parliament members. I feel that a policy or guideline that can have a such great impact on the whole Wikipedia -- and I can imagine groups of fanatics removing whole sections from articles feeling legitimate by this guideline -- should be announced to the public of Wikipedia on the top of every page just like meetings or fund rising. -- ElfQrin 07:57, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
When I tried voting on the idiotic idea to remove spoiler warnings, I was told that since I wasn't a regular "wikipedian", my vote wouldn't be counted. It seems the people who spend 24/7 on wikipedia have taken it upon themselves to set things up that now people's votes don't count unless you're part of the "elite" who have no lives. So, as usual, wikipedia will again institute another retarded policy that the "wikipedians" all love, but will remove anything even remotely interesting or useful from wikipedia, further making it useless. Sigh, I remember when wikipedia was good. Now it's just ass.
63.131.25.92
17:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Decisions on Wikipedia are not made by voting. — Centrx→ talk • 18:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
This is a suggested guideline, not a policy.
Avoid organizing articles as lists of isolated facts regarding the topic. A number of articles contain lists of isolated facts, often grouped into their own section labelled "Trivia", "Notes", "Facts", or "Other information". We often refer to these informally as trivia sections.
These lists can be useful for developing a new article, as it sets a low bar for novice contributors to add information without having to keep in mind article organization or presentation - just tack a new fact on to the list. However, as articles grow, these lists become increasingly disorganized and difficult to read. It is ideal to provide a logical grouping and ordering of facts that gives an integrated presentation providing context and smooth transitions. Whenever you see a "trivia section", take a look at each fact and consider how you might integrate it into the larger text, whether by inserting it into a section or adding a new section. Creating subsections to group items in the list may be helpful in the search for an ideal presentation. Integrating these facts may require additional research to establish further context, locate suitable references to cite, or identify relationships with other facts.
This guideline does not suggest removal of trivia sections. Instead, consider it a list of "facts pending integration" or "facts lacking sufficient context for integration". Seek to minimize it, but meanwhile leave it in place as a raw store of facts for both readers and editors to work with.
See Wikipedia_talk:Trivia for similar previous discussion. Circeus 15:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
As a part of the effort to reduce trivia categories and convert them into paragraph prose, we should identify and categorize articles whose trivia sections are just too large. For that reason, I am proposing a template (and category) we could use to mark articles with long trivia sections. Tell me what you think, and feel free to improve the template. —
THIS IS MESSED
OCKER
(TALK)
04:38, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Messedrocker...please make this template or tell us this template's location, we really want to use it. :) - LA @ 22:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC) Yes. Please. - Zepheus (ツィフィアス) 00:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
this is messedrocker
(talk)
06:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)It only just now occurred to me to post this here.
ATS | This user avoids trivia sections |
Hope you like it!-- Drat ( Talk) 10:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Whoops looks like you guys have a bit of a typo in there. That T should be an S.
ATS | This user believes real articles don't need trivia sections |
BOTH THE USERBOXEZ SUCK!!
- kozmic| sk8r 23:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that the instruction to avoid "trivia" sections shouldn't apply to pages that are about works of fiction, because these are often "involved" pieces with many subtexts and sly references where additional background knowledge can significantly improve someone's ability to "read" the piece. I think the appropriate precedent is literary criticism: If you visit the local bookshop and buy a copy of an old "classic" novel or collection of short stories intended for students ("Sherlock Holmes", Shakespeare, etc.), you'll probably find that the thing is fairly stuffed full of brief footnotes or endnotes explaining references that the modern reader might not be aware of but which help in the appreciation of the text, all of which have been considered interesting and significant enough to readers be worth devoting expensive paper to, and almost all of which could be be considered "trivia" by Wiki editors here. The researchers and historians who compiled it might be deeply offended to hear it called trivia, but that's the category it seems to fall under here, unless its reworked as a piece of prose. Where books have footnotes and endnote sections to handle this background material, the natural format for Wiki pages (which won't have the original material) seems to be a section near the end with bulletpoints. That's what people have been doing and it works. As with books, if someone just wants the overview and doesn't want the scattered background details, they can skip that section. I think that in some cases, the default Wiki advice of trying to work these disparate facts together into organised paragraphs can smack of pseudostyle: organising facts into smooth paragraphs so that they read better is fine, but clustering disparate facts together purely to demonstrate that we can produce something that writers would consider "professional" seems be pretentious, and putting style before content. People don't visit Wikipedia for the excellence of the writing, they visit it for the content. Sometimes there are interesting and suggestive facts that simply don't fit the body of the narrative, and where attempting to fabricate a new section of narrative around them would make the broader narrative less focused. Take the Wikipage on Shakespeare's Hamlet for example: this has is a nice trivia section with useful "Hamlet facts" (notable actors, dates, awards) that would be very difficult to incorporate in the main text, and probably shouldn't be ... it's reasonably neat, its small enough not to overpower the rest of the article, and yet its flagged as "unencyclopedic" and needing cleanup. I think that the ugliest thing on that page isn't the trivia list, its the way the "cleanup" tag splodges itself in the middle of the page.
The main complaint I've seen about trivia sections is that the complainants object to reading them: Well, the advantage of an explicitly marked trivia section is that people who want to read it can, and people who don't can skip over it knowing that they haven't missed any critical facts. People who already know a work well might only read the opening paragraph and the fact they were looking for, and then jump straight to the trivia section for juicy additional info, assuming that they'll already be familiar with all the "standard" facts. On the other hand, if the article is "improved" by sneaking these facts into paragraph form and disguising them as body text, they become stealth trivia, and make reading the article more difficult: you wouldn't know that the paragraph was trivia until you'd already gone to the trouble of reading it. Appropriate organisation is good, but sometimes we can organise inappropriately and try to force an artificial order on details that don't really deserve it. Sometimes appropriate organisation means setting aside a section for things that didn't fit the rest of the scheme.
I think that the use of the term "trivia" to refer to background information that doesn't appear in official publicity material or within the work itself, but which is interesting and arguably relevant to the work, probably originates with films. But film buffs often regards "film trivia" as something far from trivial -- the fact that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were having a tempestuous affair while filming Cleopatra is technically "film trivia", but its difficult to imagine a piece discussing the film in any depth without mentioning it. It's not in the shooting script but it provides interesting background context to what appears on the screen. It's not essential information, but it adds background feel for a work. Similarly, when you watch the Hamlet character agonising about life and death, its not essential to know that when Shakespeare wrote the play he'd recently lost his only son, Hamnet, to the plague, but stumbling across that sort of little snippet is part of what makes browsing Wikipedia so addictive: it's the wild-cards, and the idea that you are browsing something that isn't totally predictable and rigidly-organised according to standardised categories and rules: you don't just learn things that you didn't know ... you learn things that you didn't know that you didn't know. Encarta is a professional commercial encyclopedia, but when's the last time you heard someone admitting to being an Encarta addict? Wikipedia doesn't have to try to be more like existing online encyclopedias, the reason it's become so wildly popular is because its so different, and because of the sheer breadth of information that volunteers have put onto it, and because it's turned into a giant internet sponge, soaking up the most interesting information from the rest of the web. It's getting to the point where some people are starting to check Wikipedia for information before checking Google, and that's at least partly due to Wiki's inclusivity. ErkDemon 03:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
After considering closely the issue of trivia sections, I cannot support any suggestion that they be removed or integrated into other sections.
The problem is simple: there are frequently small facts and details that ARE trivial, that other often find useless or inapproprate for a "serious" article. Thus, they come along, and instead of moving the item to a "trivia" section where it might be appropriate, they instead delete the item altogether.
As a proof of concept, on five discrete occasions, an otherwise trivial fact was added to a fact section of a serious article to see what the result would be. On EVERY OCCASION, that trivial fact has been deleted by someone else who apparently feels it is not appropriate.
Trivia has its place. It needs to be here in Wikipedia. We ought to leave the trivia sections in place where they are, for trivial facts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.71.235.25 ( talk) 13:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC).
To anyone who defends trivia to the point they think nothing needs to be done about it, I give you this: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Gram_%28mythology%29&oldid=133775532 This is why trivia should be discouraged. Sure, sometimes it can help make a topic more understandable, and sometimes it's fun. But from what I've seen, it is usually just an excuse for someone to reminisce about movies they've seen or video games they've played. Historical trivia that leads people to related subjects is one thing, but a damn lot of users don't seem to be able to distinguish that from "oh, this item was mentioned offhand once in an anime that's relevant too!" (Or worse yet, in cases like this, it's a case of something being named after some mythological entity while having no other connection or similarity to it.) I think the mythology articles are some of the worst hit by trivia. Someone going to read about Norse gods, chances are they don't give a crap about what video games they've been referenced in. Now someone looking up those video games...they might be curious about the gods. But I'm pretty sure it's mostly one-way. Regardless, I agree with the approach that has been taken with some mythologies, and just having a single "reference in popular culture" article for an entire mythology...or in the case of heavily referenced characters, a separate article for the references, linked to from the main article for that character. I'd like to see that approach expanded to every article that has been overwhelmed by trivia.
You know, I'm not sure it's avoidable, given the nature of these lists (one or two items at a time added by passersby)...they end up getting choked with anime and game references. I'm not sure that's NPOV, really. But it isn't any one person's POV, it's just the tendency of these fans to hoard trivia has been piling crap onto articles piece by piece...
Sorry if that was a little long winded. I'm all for separating out trivia. It's easier to just delete it though Andy Christ 09:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
My 2¢ is that the "rationale" section kind of came off pompous, essentially that if you don't have a full paragraph scuplted to pseudo-journalistic standards, your contributions don't count. I think thats silly. I'm with the top objection, however I think that if those same smaller contributions BELONG in a cohesive section, they should be put there, not simply a bullet for bullet's sake. Now I'll sit the hell down and shut the hell up. Xodiaq 18:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I believe this guideline needs to be made clearer. Some see it saying that Trivia sections need to be integrated and removed completely with unworthy information removed. Others see the guideline justifying lists of facts and trivia that can't be integrated into the rest of the article. Which is it? The guideline needs to be much clearer what the end aim is. E.g. No trivia section or a section containing what's left after the integration. The rationale for the guideline suggests the aim is to have no trivia section as that's what's causing the problem, setting a "low bar". If this is the reason then it should say "integrate information and remove section" more clearly. ● BillPP ( talk| contribs) 17:47, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm really having trouble agreeing with this guideline (and I'm finding it hard to believe there is consensus on this subject at all, but that's another argument). The guideline does say "avoid" creation of trivia sections, but that can say to me trivia sections should be avoided, but that they are, in very limited cases, inevitable. The "cultural references" trivia, for example. For most articles, one or two cultural references are, yes, too trivial. However, for cultural subjects that have a major influence on other culture, there is a meaningful context for the information in that given section. It would be silly to say that the information contained is "isolated" if there is a great deal of it that is meaningful. In such a case, it would be difficult and senseless to integrate an entire "trivia" section into other parts of its article. -- Roehl Sybing 03:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that trivia is a sensible and illuminating part of many wikipedia articles on popular culture, such as games, films, and actually even history. The trivia section is an engaging way to let readers see how an otherwise apparently dry or obscure piece of history or science has actually affected their lives. I agree that there may be a problem with "too much trivia" and lazy editing, but this is not the way to address it. Trivia is a much-loved and informative feature of Wikipedia.-- Jaibe 08:43, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
To put in my two cents. I personally go straight to triva sections. I like them. They tell me those little bits of information that I can't really find anywhere else without a great deal of scouting. They are one of the reasons I like Wikipedia. If you try to pepper those references where they don't belong elsewhere in the article, it just makes me not want to bother and I never get these little bits of information. True, it doesn't belong everywhere and things like oxygen or the like should definately not have them, but when your dealing with episodes of a television show filled with minor references that some people missed, they can come here and find them out. I'm not about to read the entire article about a show I just watched, but I do go and see the triva section to find out some of the referances I didn't get. IrrTJMc 05:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Encyclopedias cover what it notable, important and educational. Trivia, by its very definition, isn't notable or important. I can certainly understand people liking trivia, but maybe what they ought to do is start up a Wikitrivia project instead of shoving it all into what are supposed to be encyclopedia articles.
DreamGuy
09:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Let me first say that I have no definite position on a general policy for trivia sections. (Yes, they are often bad. They are also often amusing and raise interest. And they are sometimes a good place to store facts before integrating them in the article. There may be articles that warrant persistent Trivia sections, but I do not know of any myself.)
However, the stupid (literally) robot that edits tons of articles to add the ugly, condescending and useless template {{ trivia}} is something I definitely oppose. There are thousands and thousands of human editors of Wikipedia, who are perfectly able to take an intelligent decision, whether a specific article can take a trivia section in its current state.
A robot is a machine. A robot has no clue. A robot cannot and should not tell a thinking human how to change a particular article.
Can someone tell me if it is possible to revert the damage the robot already has done? Or is the only solution to change the {{trivia}} template to "blank", to remove the blot from all pages where it was added? Mlewan 17:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
If the tag isn't needed in a specific case, then it can simply be removed. The bot won't edit a page it has already edited. The number of articles that will need the tag removed I'm guessing will be relativly small, if any really. Also note that for small trivia sections (less than 512 bytes) it won't add the tag. More discussions on this same bot can be found: [1], [2], and [3]. -- Android Mouse 19:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Improving the wording would definitely be a help, but it would not solve the other problems:
To me, anyone of the above points on its own is good enough a reason to revert the robot added tags. Mlewan 04:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think mass-tagging of trivia sections helps the problem.
I'm not a fan of Trivia sections per se (and I think my edit history shows this), but they serve a few well-acknowleged purposes:
In other words, trivia sections are useful as long as they are deleted. However, 10,000 {{ toomuchtrivia}} tags will not make editors eliminate trivia sections; it just introduces a new eyesore.
Here is an article that's rife with trivia; however, it doesn't have a any identifiable Trivia section. Widespread tagging will tend to drive trivia underground, creating more articles like this, which are harder to read, and harder to clean up.
A better solution — albeit, one harder to automate — would be message Talk pages of users who have contributed to a trivia section, with newbie-friendly (gentle, easy to understand) advice on how to edit better. / edgarde 21:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Mlewan, if you dislike the wording of Template:Trivia, it can be edited, and the best place to discuss those changes is at Template talk:Trivia. If you think that trivia tagging is a bad idea regardless of the wording, the thing to do would be to make your case as calmly as possible in a WP:TFD nomination, but I suspect that won't be successful. I think there might be some benefit to having the tag on the talk page instead, but it's got its plusses and minuses, and having such tags on the article seems to be standard, so it's an uphill battle there. Obviously, if there are specific instances where the tag isn't appropriate, it can simply be removed, and I don't think anyone would object much. In most cases, the tag has been put on articles with a significant trivia section, though, so if tagging is a reasonable thing at all, those tags are reasonable. Mango juice talk 14:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I want to ask for the opinions of a few editors on the issue of moving trivia to talk pages. Specifically, should this page present it as an option or, alternatively, encourage it? As I see it, the pros and cons of moving trivia to talk pages are as follows:
As should be rather clear from the above, I oppose the idea of moving trivia to talk pages. I think it is better to simply delete it when deletion is justified, integrate it when possible, and leave it for someone else to handle in the remainder of cases. So, what does everyone else think? -- Black Falcon ( Talk) 06:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
If you have doubts about whether your fact is suitable for inclusion, place it on the talk page instead where other interested contributors can help consider its inclusion and locate suitable references.
I just want to throw out a question ... should we add a sentence stating that trivia sections generally should not be moved to an article's talk page? I've seen multiple instances where someone moves the trivia section to the talk page and then never again edits that page. That doesn't really solve anything. Maybe something like ... Do not move trivia sections to article talk pages simply for the purpose of removing them from the article unless you intend to personally integrate it later on. -- Black Falcon ( Talk) 22:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
I really wish this policy would be revoked...ErkDemon says it perfectly above. Afabbro 18:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest that (at least) one of the problems lying behind the issue of what to do with “trivia” – and where to do it – is because the term “trivia” is being used in too broad-brushed a manner? It may be that there are three categories of trivia which I’ll call “significa”, “minutiae” and “cruft”, each of which perhaps should be handled differently.
There are a variety of ways these cases could be handled and I’m not going to prescribe one. However, one possibility would be that significa would be kept in a “To be worked in” posting on the talk page, minutiae directly enterable in a “Trivia” (“Related trivia”?) section, in the article, and cruft, well, perhaps nuked on sight (or perhaps gently guided toward a more relevant article, depending on how well dinner was sitting with us). This particular approach would, IMO, leave the article looking less like a construction site. On the other hand, it could be argued that it would be preferable to leave a significa entry in the article as a sort of “stub”, inviting any editorial hand to work it in, while minutiae should be moved to the talk page for discussion and development before going “prime time”. (Cruft, of course, would be mulched.)
Askari Mark
(Talk)
19:10, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Why is WikiPed against trivia sections? People like me don't wanna read big long articles for interesting facts when you could put them all together for quick reference. 67.176.14.100 00:43, 29 May 2007 (UTC)Dizzy Rick
Every second bloody article I look at now seems to have this tag attached which merely serves to highlight the fact that there is a section in the article entitled "Trivia". The number of articles with the template attached seems to have increased at an exponential rate!
I suggest that instead of wasting time attaching the template to lots of articles that responsible editors instead solve what ever it is they perceive to be problematic! -- Mal 08:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with this policy and know many other people who do as well. The policy is pointless. The vast majority of users like trivia and find it pertinent to the articles. The editors of the individual articles should determine whether or not the specific trivia is correct or not and relevant or not, and not some irrelevant wikipedia-wide policy. How do we go about changing this? 219.169.90.2 17:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Those who keep saying that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia are wrong. Wikipedia doesnt match the dictionary meaning of Encyclopedia. What kind of encyclopedia gets updated almost daily? Wikipedia has out-grown its encylopedia tag. The use of the word "unfortunately" or "fortunately" is against wikipedia policy. To show respect to the deceased is against wikipedia policy. I reckon we should have a hideable trivia section on each article to comply with the policy of not showing trivia on articles. Tri400 23:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Personally I'd just like to state that i damn well hate this whole page, and yes that's sort of considered "not a neutral point of view". I hate it because I know there are a number of articles that have very relevant information in trivia sections that doesn't fit properly anywhere else. And i hate it because user's who have nothing relevant or better to contribute are running around throwing it into every possible article, when there are so many more important things to be doing - one which, I would have thought, would be fixing the information so that the banner didn't need to be there in the first place. But somewhere I know that the policy is going to stand, so I will go against it in the only way I know how. A page I was on recently had your "wonderful" triva banner on it - making the page look so much better I'm sure. But the thing I had an issue with was that at the bottom of the page, it had been added to the category of "Articles With Large Trivia Sections". Now there are a lot of users who are happy to say that they speak bullshit, but for you guys its just a case of denial. Considering the article in question, Vince Russo, had a grand total of 6 bullet points in it, I wouldn't class this as a large trivia section. 6 is not large. If you so whole-heartedly want to tag every single article that comes into this grouping with this unneccessary banner, then at least try and get the category right, becuase this is just one aspect of this debate which I consider in the wrong. Legitimately in the wrong I should say, I'm not going to get into everything else which is wrong with it.
PS. Because you decided to place the userbox on this page as an example, "Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia sections in articles" has been added to "Category:Articles with large trivia sections". Man, you guys are reeeel smart. -- SteelersFan UK06 05:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I've just removed the following text:
“ | Note that this guideline does not necessarily advise the wholesale removal of trivia sections, which may be useful in the process of constructing an article but should be integrated into the article over time. | ” |
I'm not sure what is being attempted here, but I find it rather nonsensical. does not necessarily advise offers the most cause for concern. That reads to me as a hostage to fortune. I'm also disturbed at the phrase should be integrated into the article over time, which again offers a hostage to fortune. How long a period of time? Is each entry treated individually, with it's own clock ticking, or can the whole section be tackled at once? Further, I think that what is trying to be communicated here already is, in the nutshell, which reads: Lists of facts, as found in trivia sections, are better presented within the context of the text rather than in a section of unrelated items. Hiding Talk 07:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
With respect, I suspect that some of the editors here are those who would interpret this guideline as the reason their excuse trivia wholesale without attempting to integrate it. Personally I think the removed text was redundant, because it describes something about the guideline that can be easily verified by reading the rest of it. However, the guideline really doesn't suggest that trivia should be categorically removed. Keep in that we can't simply disallow trivia because judgements over what is important enough for inclusion are fundamentally subjective and should in the end be decided by consensus (see WP:HTRIV). That said, I myself am for the wholesale removal of trivia sections in cases where they are especially bad, with the idea of following WP:BRD if someone objects to it. Mango juice talk 18:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
<=== Reset indent -- It would be nice if changes were proposed and discussed here and not discussed by an edit war on the guideline page.
What I have seen is many factoids are actually summaries of other articles that are already linked to the article containing the trivia section. I don't understand why this is needed in most cases since the reader only needs to look at the what links here to get the information. Also many factoids are actually historical facts that belong in a history section. Easy to move around and cleanup. The few random comments that would remain after converting most points to inline prose are generally not sourced and can be removed without any damage to the encyclopedic content. Vegaswikian 20:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
<=== Reset indent -- Oops, I mistakenly read "this is necessary" as "this is unneccessary", so I apologize for my most recent edit comment about it being used "opposite from its normal meaning". Nonetheless I would ask to be provided with a little more detail here, if you can: "This is necessary because..."-- Father Goose 18:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)