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Regarding popular cultural references of "high culture" topics (literary, religious, philosophical, etc.), do the guideline and template even make sense? Both prongs of the choice presently offered seem inappropriate. On the one hand, it would be completely inappropriate to integrate reference to (say) a Biblical figure in a videogame into the main body of article on the Biblical figure. It would also be essentially impossible to have a meaningful "popular culture" section, because all that can really be sourced is a collection of isolated references - any effort to make a comprehensive statement or commentary would generally be original research. And do we really want to simply delete all popular culture references, which seems to be the only practical alternative in these cases? If we want don't want popular culture references in articles on high culture topics in cases where there are no commentaries or other things we can say about those references, we should say so plainly. -- Shirahadasha 13:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I fail to see the point of arbitrarily tagging articles for their trivia sections. I think most people can agree that the majority of articles on Wikipedia contain trivia in one form or another. I mean, that's the exact reason I use Wikipedia, to find information that I won't be able to find anywhere else. And, thus far, it hasn't let me down. Then is this just a campaign against the Trivia sections?
As for the argument that Wikipedia has to be a "scholarly" and "reputable" encyclopedia, I also must not concur. It's safe to say that Wikipedia, being an open source encyclopedia, will never be without flaw (or completely free for that matter). I mean, we must not forget that that's exactly what wikipedia is - an open source database - and that is what makes it so great and unprecedented. There will always be proponents and cynics (although I think everyone must know in the back of their minds that Wikipedia is a great source whether they admit it overtly or not!)
I have yet to see some good rationale and argument for why these tags are needed. Such tags will make people question the credibility of entire articles. To be fair, however, I must also admit that some trivia sections need cleaning up! aNubiSIII ( T / C) 21:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
81.152.43.179 20:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC) The Trivia Sections are the best pieces of information, usually rare and not known on other websites or encyclopedias. I believe that the section is very useful, and if you need quick facts it is very helpful.
Trivia sections are often the most susinct way to include a diversity of views and give a better all round view of a subject. The obsession with bland Britanica Encyclopedic style limits Wikipedia to be the lesser of the two and aspires to an undesirable goal - copying something that is already there. There are indeed stylistic problems with disorganised lists and trivia lists are more likely than many to fall apart structurally. However, advocates of this policy must realise that it is not being applied in a nuanced way, but in broad strokes of what is essentially - censorship. If you think lists are hard to organise efficiently and keep structured, try paragraphs! Seriously, lists are faster and easier which is sometimes a good thing.
I came across this discussion after having seen the tag a few times and found it an annoying preface to the most interesting section of an article I was reading. I decided to comment when, after reading a Jimmy Buffett article, I found almost no useful information except in the trivia section, that had this authoritarian brand above it about removing trivia. In fact, most of the rest of the article was trivial, much more so than the 'trivia' section! A list of dates in rambling and unreadable paragraph form. A bunch of random facts strung together in sentances without any context. I was trying to find out what 'Jimmy Buffett' means. Not when and where every tour was. Or worse, a 'neutral' version of his resume!. Why does David Cross reference him? What is the cultural phenomenon associated with him? Well, the parrotheads article gives some indication. But it is only slightly mentioned so was hard to pick out. Now obviously I could improve this article by editing the article myself - putting the parrotheads link more prominent and getting a bit more emphasis on the meaning instead of the paragraph sections of trivia. But, I know very little on this man and frankly don't care. The format of wikipedia is the problem. Or rather the format that some people are trying to make it become. I see that this 'remove trivia' brand is there to not help the article but to go backwards in the wrong direction.
There is something very arrogant about the rationale that lists are a preliminary stage in writing an article only. There is no evidence for that conjecture. It may also be a good way to plan out writing but it is not only that. Since when was wikipedia a final product? Since when was some bad prose listing with commas better than wrapped lines? Since when did bullets lack meaning and all sorts of "and" "also" "then" have signifigance. Not every writing is meant to be a British Poem. Poems also come in lists. Quality writing is not about having indented paragraphs. It is about using your letters - including the newfashioned letters of the computer bullet, italics, bold, wikilinks - effectively. To not use the tools at your disposal is bad writing, limited and weak.
To take out the geeky internet flavour of diversity that includes trivia, To change it to even more trivial 'facts' of dates in paragraph form... In short, this policy is not trivial. It represents an attack on what has made wikipedia great. Lists are susinct and trivia is diverse - one mans trivia is another's mandatory background. Open labelling of articles and sections is what allows wikipedia to encompass broad landscapes of information. We don't have to make every fact agree because we can put different sections which argue their own merit and allow disagreement. By limiting this honest labelling of trivia we remove the honesty from the debates. We censor those who want to contribute but don't want to impose their facts in the linear paragraph form that is so oppressive at times. I'd like to ask who instiuted this policy and how do I try to change it if I want to. What is this about a vote? Votes can change? 51% Agree that voting is great.-- Rusl 18:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, enough. In the last four days or so there have been a lot of attempts to edit the page to either (1) try to make it more explicit that this guideline doesn't actually advocate a hard-line stance against trivia, or (2) to try to counter that. I don't know about the rest of you but I'm sick and tired of being reverted. I've tried several times now to come up with compromises, because there is a feeling among a number of editors here that the guideline needs clarification. However, those that object to clarification (for what reason, I really can't understand - clarification is not a change in the guideline, after all) have not chosen to be at all productive, but simply reverted all attempts at anything, without engaging in meaningful discussion. That said, there is no reason to be rushing to edit the guideline, and discussion is long overdue here.
First, I think we can all agree that the guideline does not advocate for or against trivia - see Dcoetzee's descriptions of the guideline, which he wrote. Instead, this guideline is about the organization of information. We all agree, right?
Second, objecting to a clarification as "unnecessary" is just not sufficient, when others view the clarification as necessary. I think those of you against it will have to do better. From my perspective you are talking like the guideline is wonderfully written as is, and the clarification makes it less elegant or something, which I suspect is not your real objection.
I think the clarification is necessary so that when people act a bit over the top in removing trivia, we can point them to explicit language advising against it in the guideline they claim to be following. Without something like that in the guideline, especially when the guideline actively gives a justification for trivia removal, addressing that behavior problem becomes very difficult.
Okay. Finally, if I see any more reverts I'm going to WP:RFP. Enough is enough with that. Mango juice talk 03:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I have just looked at Tosca and noticed that the article with trivia category has been shoved at the front of the list of categories. If you have to have to categorise articles in this way, put it to the bottom of the list. Readers are going to be a lot more likelyto be interested in goign to other operas by Puccini than to other articles with trivia.
Please think of the effect on the usability of the articles being tagged. -- Peter cohen 18:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
As I've been hinting at for a couple of days, I think it's about time we started trying to work toward a common definition of "relevance", so that we can try to offer consensus guidance regarding it. I came across this page of Bill Clinton trivia, and I'd like to use it as a test case. What material from this list would we retain-and-integrate into a Bill Clinton article (hypothetically -- not necessarily into the specific one that exists right now), and what would we remove?
I've removed the entries from the list with obvious non-trivial significance and summarized the list here (to avoid copyright violation; incidentally, it appears to be a copyvio of IMDB's list: [1].) You may wish to refer to the full list linked above to evaluate each entry. I've made comments under each summarized entry as to how I'd treat them, and I ask others to add their opinions at the bottom. I hope this is a workable approach to this discussion.
Now to the nitty-gritty. Can we establish (and agree upon) a set of general rules that would adequately cover the above cases? We'll need to evaluate trivia sets relating to other subjects, too; video game trivia is likely to be very different from Presidential trivia, for instance. But we'll start with this.
Here's the initial list "things not meriting inclusion" I'd try to make from the above examples:
An additional rule to consider: can isolated traits (significant or otherwise) be included in the form of categories? (For instance, Category:coin collectors?) I'd be okay with this, although it'd be hard to pair citations with it: HTML comments next to the category tag is about the best I can think of, but that's not readily accessible to readers.
Also not yet covered: which basic descriptive traits are okay (i.e., stuff that might appear in an infobox)? I'm thinking this might be best left up to editors at specific Wikiprojects, such as the discussion of height at Template talk:Infobox actor/archive2.
I'm eager to hear others' views on this. It'd probably be best to add them below, to make it easier to see who's saying what. -- Father Goose 05:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I recommend two additional rules: ( WikiLen)
Actually, the "Clinton 42nd president" case, above is a good example of how a fact that seems like pointless trivia to a casual observer can be essential encyclopedia material. You might be forgiven for thinking that the exact number is irrelevant and tells us nothing meanigful about the subject, but the “President number” is a standardised, agreed biographical detail taught to US schoolkids, and it's something that they are expected to be able to find out and quote for school projects.
It's also often used in Washington as an unambiguous way of identifying holders of the office: Etiquette in some circles says that past holders of the post retain the title of "President" (it's like being an Olympic Gold medallist, they don't take the title away from you when someone else wins), so if Clinton was to visit a university to give a speech, and the person introducing him wanted to avoid the confusion of referring to him as a "President”, the workaround would be to introduce him as "the 42nd President of the United States". It avoids confusion over whether you are introducing the sitting president or a previous president, and if so, which one. If you're the student tasked with making this introduction, you'll want to be damned sure that you get the number right, and the logical thing to do, to be absolutely sure, is to look it up in an encyclopedia.
The official “president numbers” have also become a useful disambiguation tool for distinguishing between President George Bush and his father ... President George Bush. If you're a White House staffer, it can be important to be able to yell out that you have “Bush 41” on the phone rather than “Bush 43”. At the moment, "President Clinton" is an unambiguous name, and his "42" isn't often necessary except for protocol, but if Hilary got the nomination and won, we'd then also have two living "President Clinton"s, both occupying the White House over the same dates – we'd have two President Bushes and Two President Clintons! Staffers and lawyers would find it handy to be able to distinguish between Presidential directives issued by "Clinton 42" and "Clinton 44". So Clinton's official "President Number" is exactly the sort of standardised information that should be listed in his encyclopedia entry, and an encyclopedia that didn't list it on his cv would be negligent.
I think the general rule ought to be: unless you know a subject extremely well, don't ever delete any information from it on the grounds of assumed triviality, because you won't necessarily be aware of the background details that are required to make that decision. Even if you have no use at all for a piece of information, there may be others out there who need it, and have a reasonable expectation of finding it listed here. ErkDemon 21:55, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
The reference to "popular culture" sections was recently removed [2] - I'm not sure what my opinion is, but given that there are large numbers of articles with these sections (many of which are labelled with the trivia template that directs here), it seems there ought to be some consensus here? Should we still be labelling these sections as trivia? Mdwh 23:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Pop culture sections should not be labeled as trivia, because they can contain notable information that doesn;t fit elsewhere. If there is some info there that isn't notable, then there are templates like Template:Fictionlist (for pages not primarliy about works of fiction that are taken over by lists of nonnotable fictional references) and Template:Fictioncruft (for articles about fiction that just have excessively nonnotable references all over). Template:Examplefarm might come in handy in some circumstances also. DreamGuy 20:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
A number of articles contain lists of isolated facts, often grouped into their own section labelled "Trivia", "Notes" (not to be confused with "Notes" sections which store footnotes), "Facts", "Miscellanea", "Cultural references", "Cultural depictions", "Subject in popular culture", "Other information", etc. This style guideline deals with the way in which these facts are represented in an article, not with whether or not the information contained within them is actually trivia...
I object to this revert by Matthew on the following grounds:
I ask that Matthew restore the deleted words. (As far as I'm concerned anyone else is also welcome to restore them.) -- Coppertwig 18:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
(<<<outdent) I agree with edgarde that there is no consensus. I suggest reverting to the longstanding wording: "Some trivia is especially tangential or irrelevant, and may not warrant inclusion at all." which apparently stood in this guideline with very little debate for about 3 months, and before that a very similar version, "Some trivia is especially tangential or irrelevant, and may not warrant merging." for another couple of months before that. (The sentence was introduced by Centrx 3 Dec 2006 with apparently no debate before or after. The change to "inclusion" was by Mangojuice 27 Feb and in my opinion leaves the meaning pretty much the same and is a slight improvement; again apparently no debate around that time.) Starting about May 28, the amount of debate increased and various versions of the sentence were substituted. The current version of the sentence, "Other entries may be too tangential, minor, or irrelevant for mention at all." appears to have been introduced on June 2 by Mangojuice (only about 10 days ago) but there's been a lot of debate and editing since then. Personally I prefer the version with "but keep in mind that opinions vary" but I think the longstanding wording stands a better chance of achieving consensus at this point in time -- or to put it another way, if no newer wording achieves consensus it makes sense to leave the longstanding wording. -- Coppertwig 18:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
"Other entries may be too tangential, minor, or irrelevant for mention at all."
Certainly, a good article should be structured with the most important stuff up front and clear so that a reader searching for the basic facts can find them quickly. But many readers want wider and deeper, indeed even trivial, coverage of some subjects, and there's no reason not to give them that when we can. Wikipedia is not paper. We don't have any space limitation here, so why limit the information in an article to what's significant or relevant by some standard that was created for paper encyclopedias? But integrating such trivia into the "main" body of the article is exactly the wrong thing to do, precisely because it will bloat what might otherwise be a clean, concise, article with distracting facts that most readers won't want. Isolating such things in a clearly labelled "trivia" section lets us serve both readers perfectly: the casual reader knows what to skim over, and the in-depth trivia hound will know where to look. Many of the quality standards of traditional encyclopedias have good reasons, but others just don't apply here at all, and limiting the scope of an article by some standard of significance or relevance is one that should not apply here. -- LDC 21:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, the draft of Wikipedia:Relevance is ready. Tear it to pieces.-- Father Goose 04:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Was there ever an edit on WP:NOTE which put up "WP:NOTE= a multitude of secondary sources" Has the page-protection been lifted yet? No? My glasses are playing up, I clicked on WP:TRIV and it seemed to me that the – Text at WP:TRIV read "Any material not supported by sources yet may be challenged and removed at any time", or not, or then someone must have removed it. Again, I clicked on WP:REL and, again, Then the text what was read at WP:REL read, "Any material not supported by sources may/yet may be challenged and removed at any time", — whilsst, having a typo or two didnt look right, I would agree. Those edits to those pages, if they exist, are lost/not lost in pertinence/impertinence,(WP:Iar goes on for ever), but, then, notice, not once is the word T----- mentioned. – User: Newbyguesses - Talk 04:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Being ((BOLD)) - (not meaning to shout, please refactor if that helps,)
- eliminate reference(s) all to the trivia "word".. (Its a label and labels dont describe anything experiential)
AVOID TRIVIA is akin to Dont do bad stuff which is more naturally expressed as "Do good stuff" ?/! So WP:TRIV speedy-deleted and WP:REL rules.
The policy proposal/ policy/ policy page/ policy proposal page/ could read "in toto"
Material, not supported by sources, may be challenged and , removed at any time.
alternatively, AND more positively, - Write well, from good sources.
and even this (radical) -
If the reader is challenged, its working. If the reader challenges, you work. ?/! — User: Newbyguesses - Talk 04:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The approach taken by WP:HPTRIV is fine, and this article-page points there. Seems to have it covered. So The relevance guideline fits in where it fits, when fully formulated. The current version of this article page has no only one references to "Trivia" in the text, but still gets the idea across that all material must be relevant, and researched if necessary.
Newbyguesses -
Talk
03:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
suggesting - "This style guideline deals with the way in which these facts are represented in an article." - leave in - but take out - "not with whether or not the information contained within them is actually trivia, or if trivia belongs in Wikipedia." -
This latter sentence fragment seems to me to give no useful information, and also wrong in the context of the paragraph it appears in and also the article it appears in.
Appearing at the top of the page, where it should be, is this - "You may be looking for Wikipedia:Handling trivia, to which WP:TRIVIA formerly pointed." - This is the only guideline I know about that deals with "if trivia belongs in Wikipedia"; or else, what other Shortcut or Link is there to such a debate, which in any case, is not part of the subject of this project-page. User: Newbyguesses - Talk 00:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Quote -->This is good, maybe a new draft should be named Avoid Lists of Facts? -- Osbus 21:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC) -->endquote.
It think {not with whether or not the information contained within them is actually trivia, or if trivia belongs in Wikipedia} needs to be spelled out, as a courtesy to readers who come to this article looking for exactly that information. / edgarde 04:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the term "trivia section" in the title is fine. It's easy to understand, and (within the limits of a title) summarizes the point in a memorable way.
You can have a more accurate title by including Avoid organizing articles as lists of isolated facts only loosely regarding the topic in the title. But I think Avoid trivia sections gets it across pretty clearly. / edgarde 04:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Newbyguesses, am I to understand that what you'd like to see is a guideline something along the lines of "Use lists of information in articles, but avoid irrelevant information"? If so, that essentially contradicts what the current guideline states. There are definitely places where lists are okay, but they're best for defined sets of closely-related things, not for agglomerations of facts.-- Father Goose
I added a statement about Dick Enberg erroneously blaming 49er backup offensive lineman Chuck Thomas for a bad snap resulting in a 19-yard field goal miss by Mike Cofer, and that it was corrected to retiring center Randy Cross mid-way through the 4th quarter. With the recent crackdown on trivia, last week I removed all but one line mentioning the NBC error, which was then placed as a parenthetical in the summary. The next day, I saw that it was reverted. I just deleted that trivia entry again a few minutes ago; but need to know what I need to do in order to avoid having to do this again. WAVY 10 01:26, 21 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 6 | → | Archive 10 |
Regarding popular cultural references of "high culture" topics (literary, religious, philosophical, etc.), do the guideline and template even make sense? Both prongs of the choice presently offered seem inappropriate. On the one hand, it would be completely inappropriate to integrate reference to (say) a Biblical figure in a videogame into the main body of article on the Biblical figure. It would also be essentially impossible to have a meaningful "popular culture" section, because all that can really be sourced is a collection of isolated references - any effort to make a comprehensive statement or commentary would generally be original research. And do we really want to simply delete all popular culture references, which seems to be the only practical alternative in these cases? If we want don't want popular culture references in articles on high culture topics in cases where there are no commentaries or other things we can say about those references, we should say so plainly. -- Shirahadasha 13:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I fail to see the point of arbitrarily tagging articles for their trivia sections. I think most people can agree that the majority of articles on Wikipedia contain trivia in one form or another. I mean, that's the exact reason I use Wikipedia, to find information that I won't be able to find anywhere else. And, thus far, it hasn't let me down. Then is this just a campaign against the Trivia sections?
As for the argument that Wikipedia has to be a "scholarly" and "reputable" encyclopedia, I also must not concur. It's safe to say that Wikipedia, being an open source encyclopedia, will never be without flaw (or completely free for that matter). I mean, we must not forget that that's exactly what wikipedia is - an open source database - and that is what makes it so great and unprecedented. There will always be proponents and cynics (although I think everyone must know in the back of their minds that Wikipedia is a great source whether they admit it overtly or not!)
I have yet to see some good rationale and argument for why these tags are needed. Such tags will make people question the credibility of entire articles. To be fair, however, I must also admit that some trivia sections need cleaning up! aNubiSIII ( T / C) 21:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
81.152.43.179 20:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC) The Trivia Sections are the best pieces of information, usually rare and not known on other websites or encyclopedias. I believe that the section is very useful, and if you need quick facts it is very helpful.
Trivia sections are often the most susinct way to include a diversity of views and give a better all round view of a subject. The obsession with bland Britanica Encyclopedic style limits Wikipedia to be the lesser of the two and aspires to an undesirable goal - copying something that is already there. There are indeed stylistic problems with disorganised lists and trivia lists are more likely than many to fall apart structurally. However, advocates of this policy must realise that it is not being applied in a nuanced way, but in broad strokes of what is essentially - censorship. If you think lists are hard to organise efficiently and keep structured, try paragraphs! Seriously, lists are faster and easier which is sometimes a good thing.
I came across this discussion after having seen the tag a few times and found it an annoying preface to the most interesting section of an article I was reading. I decided to comment when, after reading a Jimmy Buffett article, I found almost no useful information except in the trivia section, that had this authoritarian brand above it about removing trivia. In fact, most of the rest of the article was trivial, much more so than the 'trivia' section! A list of dates in rambling and unreadable paragraph form. A bunch of random facts strung together in sentances without any context. I was trying to find out what 'Jimmy Buffett' means. Not when and where every tour was. Or worse, a 'neutral' version of his resume!. Why does David Cross reference him? What is the cultural phenomenon associated with him? Well, the parrotheads article gives some indication. But it is only slightly mentioned so was hard to pick out. Now obviously I could improve this article by editing the article myself - putting the parrotheads link more prominent and getting a bit more emphasis on the meaning instead of the paragraph sections of trivia. But, I know very little on this man and frankly don't care. The format of wikipedia is the problem. Or rather the format that some people are trying to make it become. I see that this 'remove trivia' brand is there to not help the article but to go backwards in the wrong direction.
There is something very arrogant about the rationale that lists are a preliminary stage in writing an article only. There is no evidence for that conjecture. It may also be a good way to plan out writing but it is not only that. Since when was wikipedia a final product? Since when was some bad prose listing with commas better than wrapped lines? Since when did bullets lack meaning and all sorts of "and" "also" "then" have signifigance. Not every writing is meant to be a British Poem. Poems also come in lists. Quality writing is not about having indented paragraphs. It is about using your letters - including the newfashioned letters of the computer bullet, italics, bold, wikilinks - effectively. To not use the tools at your disposal is bad writing, limited and weak.
To take out the geeky internet flavour of diversity that includes trivia, To change it to even more trivial 'facts' of dates in paragraph form... In short, this policy is not trivial. It represents an attack on what has made wikipedia great. Lists are susinct and trivia is diverse - one mans trivia is another's mandatory background. Open labelling of articles and sections is what allows wikipedia to encompass broad landscapes of information. We don't have to make every fact agree because we can put different sections which argue their own merit and allow disagreement. By limiting this honest labelling of trivia we remove the honesty from the debates. We censor those who want to contribute but don't want to impose their facts in the linear paragraph form that is so oppressive at times. I'd like to ask who instiuted this policy and how do I try to change it if I want to. What is this about a vote? Votes can change? 51% Agree that voting is great.-- Rusl 18:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, enough. In the last four days or so there have been a lot of attempts to edit the page to either (1) try to make it more explicit that this guideline doesn't actually advocate a hard-line stance against trivia, or (2) to try to counter that. I don't know about the rest of you but I'm sick and tired of being reverted. I've tried several times now to come up with compromises, because there is a feeling among a number of editors here that the guideline needs clarification. However, those that object to clarification (for what reason, I really can't understand - clarification is not a change in the guideline, after all) have not chosen to be at all productive, but simply reverted all attempts at anything, without engaging in meaningful discussion. That said, there is no reason to be rushing to edit the guideline, and discussion is long overdue here.
First, I think we can all agree that the guideline does not advocate for or against trivia - see Dcoetzee's descriptions of the guideline, which he wrote. Instead, this guideline is about the organization of information. We all agree, right?
Second, objecting to a clarification as "unnecessary" is just not sufficient, when others view the clarification as necessary. I think those of you against it will have to do better. From my perspective you are talking like the guideline is wonderfully written as is, and the clarification makes it less elegant or something, which I suspect is not your real objection.
I think the clarification is necessary so that when people act a bit over the top in removing trivia, we can point them to explicit language advising against it in the guideline they claim to be following. Without something like that in the guideline, especially when the guideline actively gives a justification for trivia removal, addressing that behavior problem becomes very difficult.
Okay. Finally, if I see any more reverts I'm going to WP:RFP. Enough is enough with that. Mango juice talk 03:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I have just looked at Tosca and noticed that the article with trivia category has been shoved at the front of the list of categories. If you have to have to categorise articles in this way, put it to the bottom of the list. Readers are going to be a lot more likelyto be interested in goign to other operas by Puccini than to other articles with trivia.
Please think of the effect on the usability of the articles being tagged. -- Peter cohen 18:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
As I've been hinting at for a couple of days, I think it's about time we started trying to work toward a common definition of "relevance", so that we can try to offer consensus guidance regarding it. I came across this page of Bill Clinton trivia, and I'd like to use it as a test case. What material from this list would we retain-and-integrate into a Bill Clinton article (hypothetically -- not necessarily into the specific one that exists right now), and what would we remove?
I've removed the entries from the list with obvious non-trivial significance and summarized the list here (to avoid copyright violation; incidentally, it appears to be a copyvio of IMDB's list: [1].) You may wish to refer to the full list linked above to evaluate each entry. I've made comments under each summarized entry as to how I'd treat them, and I ask others to add their opinions at the bottom. I hope this is a workable approach to this discussion.
Now to the nitty-gritty. Can we establish (and agree upon) a set of general rules that would adequately cover the above cases? We'll need to evaluate trivia sets relating to other subjects, too; video game trivia is likely to be very different from Presidential trivia, for instance. But we'll start with this.
Here's the initial list "things not meriting inclusion" I'd try to make from the above examples:
An additional rule to consider: can isolated traits (significant or otherwise) be included in the form of categories? (For instance, Category:coin collectors?) I'd be okay with this, although it'd be hard to pair citations with it: HTML comments next to the category tag is about the best I can think of, but that's not readily accessible to readers.
Also not yet covered: which basic descriptive traits are okay (i.e., stuff that might appear in an infobox)? I'm thinking this might be best left up to editors at specific Wikiprojects, such as the discussion of height at Template talk:Infobox actor/archive2.
I'm eager to hear others' views on this. It'd probably be best to add them below, to make it easier to see who's saying what. -- Father Goose 05:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I recommend two additional rules: ( WikiLen)
Actually, the "Clinton 42nd president" case, above is a good example of how a fact that seems like pointless trivia to a casual observer can be essential encyclopedia material. You might be forgiven for thinking that the exact number is irrelevant and tells us nothing meanigful about the subject, but the “President number” is a standardised, agreed biographical detail taught to US schoolkids, and it's something that they are expected to be able to find out and quote for school projects.
It's also often used in Washington as an unambiguous way of identifying holders of the office: Etiquette in some circles says that past holders of the post retain the title of "President" (it's like being an Olympic Gold medallist, they don't take the title away from you when someone else wins), so if Clinton was to visit a university to give a speech, and the person introducing him wanted to avoid the confusion of referring to him as a "President”, the workaround would be to introduce him as "the 42nd President of the United States". It avoids confusion over whether you are introducing the sitting president or a previous president, and if so, which one. If you're the student tasked with making this introduction, you'll want to be damned sure that you get the number right, and the logical thing to do, to be absolutely sure, is to look it up in an encyclopedia.
The official “president numbers” have also become a useful disambiguation tool for distinguishing between President George Bush and his father ... President George Bush. If you're a White House staffer, it can be important to be able to yell out that you have “Bush 41” on the phone rather than “Bush 43”. At the moment, "President Clinton" is an unambiguous name, and his "42" isn't often necessary except for protocol, but if Hilary got the nomination and won, we'd then also have two living "President Clinton"s, both occupying the White House over the same dates – we'd have two President Bushes and Two President Clintons! Staffers and lawyers would find it handy to be able to distinguish between Presidential directives issued by "Clinton 42" and "Clinton 44". So Clinton's official "President Number" is exactly the sort of standardised information that should be listed in his encyclopedia entry, and an encyclopedia that didn't list it on his cv would be negligent.
I think the general rule ought to be: unless you know a subject extremely well, don't ever delete any information from it on the grounds of assumed triviality, because you won't necessarily be aware of the background details that are required to make that decision. Even if you have no use at all for a piece of information, there may be others out there who need it, and have a reasonable expectation of finding it listed here. ErkDemon 21:55, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
The reference to "popular culture" sections was recently removed [2] - I'm not sure what my opinion is, but given that there are large numbers of articles with these sections (many of which are labelled with the trivia template that directs here), it seems there ought to be some consensus here? Should we still be labelling these sections as trivia? Mdwh 23:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Pop culture sections should not be labeled as trivia, because they can contain notable information that doesn;t fit elsewhere. If there is some info there that isn't notable, then there are templates like Template:Fictionlist (for pages not primarliy about works of fiction that are taken over by lists of nonnotable fictional references) and Template:Fictioncruft (for articles about fiction that just have excessively nonnotable references all over). Template:Examplefarm might come in handy in some circumstances also. DreamGuy 20:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
A number of articles contain lists of isolated facts, often grouped into their own section labelled "Trivia", "Notes" (not to be confused with "Notes" sections which store footnotes), "Facts", "Miscellanea", "Cultural references", "Cultural depictions", "Subject in popular culture", "Other information", etc. This style guideline deals with the way in which these facts are represented in an article, not with whether or not the information contained within them is actually trivia...
I object to this revert by Matthew on the following grounds:
I ask that Matthew restore the deleted words. (As far as I'm concerned anyone else is also welcome to restore them.) -- Coppertwig 18:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
(<<<outdent) I agree with edgarde that there is no consensus. I suggest reverting to the longstanding wording: "Some trivia is especially tangential or irrelevant, and may not warrant inclusion at all." which apparently stood in this guideline with very little debate for about 3 months, and before that a very similar version, "Some trivia is especially tangential or irrelevant, and may not warrant merging." for another couple of months before that. (The sentence was introduced by Centrx 3 Dec 2006 with apparently no debate before or after. The change to "inclusion" was by Mangojuice 27 Feb and in my opinion leaves the meaning pretty much the same and is a slight improvement; again apparently no debate around that time.) Starting about May 28, the amount of debate increased and various versions of the sentence were substituted. The current version of the sentence, "Other entries may be too tangential, minor, or irrelevant for mention at all." appears to have been introduced on June 2 by Mangojuice (only about 10 days ago) but there's been a lot of debate and editing since then. Personally I prefer the version with "but keep in mind that opinions vary" but I think the longstanding wording stands a better chance of achieving consensus at this point in time -- or to put it another way, if no newer wording achieves consensus it makes sense to leave the longstanding wording. -- Coppertwig 18:24, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
"Other entries may be too tangential, minor, or irrelevant for mention at all."
Certainly, a good article should be structured with the most important stuff up front and clear so that a reader searching for the basic facts can find them quickly. But many readers want wider and deeper, indeed even trivial, coverage of some subjects, and there's no reason not to give them that when we can. Wikipedia is not paper. We don't have any space limitation here, so why limit the information in an article to what's significant or relevant by some standard that was created for paper encyclopedias? But integrating such trivia into the "main" body of the article is exactly the wrong thing to do, precisely because it will bloat what might otherwise be a clean, concise, article with distracting facts that most readers won't want. Isolating such things in a clearly labelled "trivia" section lets us serve both readers perfectly: the casual reader knows what to skim over, and the in-depth trivia hound will know where to look. Many of the quality standards of traditional encyclopedias have good reasons, but others just don't apply here at all, and limiting the scope of an article by some standard of significance or relevance is one that should not apply here. -- LDC 21:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, the draft of Wikipedia:Relevance is ready. Tear it to pieces.-- Father Goose 04:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Was there ever an edit on WP:NOTE which put up "WP:NOTE= a multitude of secondary sources" Has the page-protection been lifted yet? No? My glasses are playing up, I clicked on WP:TRIV and it seemed to me that the – Text at WP:TRIV read "Any material not supported by sources yet may be challenged and removed at any time", or not, or then someone must have removed it. Again, I clicked on WP:REL and, again, Then the text what was read at WP:REL read, "Any material not supported by sources may/yet may be challenged and removed at any time", — whilsst, having a typo or two didnt look right, I would agree. Those edits to those pages, if they exist, are lost/not lost in pertinence/impertinence,(WP:Iar goes on for ever), but, then, notice, not once is the word T----- mentioned. – User: Newbyguesses - Talk 04:17, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Being ((BOLD)) - (not meaning to shout, please refactor if that helps,)
- eliminate reference(s) all to the trivia "word".. (Its a label and labels dont describe anything experiential)
AVOID TRIVIA is akin to Dont do bad stuff which is more naturally expressed as "Do good stuff" ?/! So WP:TRIV speedy-deleted and WP:REL rules.
The policy proposal/ policy/ policy page/ policy proposal page/ could read "in toto"
Material, not supported by sources, may be challenged and , removed at any time.
alternatively, AND more positively, - Write well, from good sources.
and even this (radical) -
If the reader is challenged, its working. If the reader challenges, you work. ?/! — User: Newbyguesses - Talk 04:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The approach taken by WP:HPTRIV is fine, and this article-page points there. Seems to have it covered. So The relevance guideline fits in where it fits, when fully formulated. The current version of this article page has no only one references to "Trivia" in the text, but still gets the idea across that all material must be relevant, and researched if necessary.
Newbyguesses -
Talk
03:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
suggesting - "This style guideline deals with the way in which these facts are represented in an article." - leave in - but take out - "not with whether or not the information contained within them is actually trivia, or if trivia belongs in Wikipedia." -
This latter sentence fragment seems to me to give no useful information, and also wrong in the context of the paragraph it appears in and also the article it appears in.
Appearing at the top of the page, where it should be, is this - "You may be looking for Wikipedia:Handling trivia, to which WP:TRIVIA formerly pointed." - This is the only guideline I know about that deals with "if trivia belongs in Wikipedia"; or else, what other Shortcut or Link is there to such a debate, which in any case, is not part of the subject of this project-page. User: Newbyguesses - Talk 00:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Quote -->This is good, maybe a new draft should be named Avoid Lists of Facts? -- Osbus 21:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC) -->endquote.
It think {not with whether or not the information contained within them is actually trivia, or if trivia belongs in Wikipedia} needs to be spelled out, as a courtesy to readers who come to this article looking for exactly that information. / edgarde 04:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the term "trivia section" in the title is fine. It's easy to understand, and (within the limits of a title) summarizes the point in a memorable way.
You can have a more accurate title by including Avoid organizing articles as lists of isolated facts only loosely regarding the topic in the title. But I think Avoid trivia sections gets it across pretty clearly. / edgarde 04:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Newbyguesses, am I to understand that what you'd like to see is a guideline something along the lines of "Use lists of information in articles, but avoid irrelevant information"? If so, that essentially contradicts what the current guideline states. There are definitely places where lists are okay, but they're best for defined sets of closely-related things, not for agglomerations of facts.-- Father Goose
I added a statement about Dick Enberg erroneously blaming 49er backup offensive lineman Chuck Thomas for a bad snap resulting in a 19-yard field goal miss by Mike Cofer, and that it was corrected to retiring center Randy Cross mid-way through the 4th quarter. With the recent crackdown on trivia, last week I removed all but one line mentioning the NBC error, which was then placed as a parenthetical in the summary. The next day, I saw that it was reverted. I just deleted that trivia entry again a few minutes ago; but need to know what I need to do in order to avoid having to do this again. WAVY 10 01:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)