Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trivia sections/Archive 2

Replaced outdated link to "importance" with WP:Notability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that "trivia is something that is interesting without being important", and linked to an importance guideline that is no longer active.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

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

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

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


 * No, there was a discussion about these a month or so ago and consensus was that the appropriate parts of Trivia should be merged here. That is not to say that everything in Trivia should be merged, but the pages should be combined. See, which was linked from both pages. All that has been lacking is someone to take the time to do it. —Centrx→talk &bull; 18:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, ok, I didn't realize how old the merge tag is. I don't have a problem with appropriate parts being merged here, assuming those parts have consensus.  Dugwiki 18:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Aggressive Trivia Removal, Revisited
I am wondering about the policies of trivia removal where it applies to films. there is always information that is interesting while not necessarily notable in regards to the article itself (ie, Nick Nolte being an alternative choice for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars, etc.) I would imagine that certain trivia would be equivalent to post-production notes, as is usually seen on Bonus CDs of released DVD movies. I am currently making edits in the Children of Men (film) article, and I have been advised that all the trivia will be purged within 72 hours. Before then, I have seen info simply removed without discussion. Can I get some input on this issue?Arcayne 20:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * "The album art for the Pink Floyd album Animals is clearly referenced in the "Ark of Arts" scene. The building housing the depository is Battersea Power Station, the same factory pictured on the cover, and an inflatable pig is visible outside the window of the dining room.[28]" Things like this can go into "References to Pop Culture", something along those lines. The same thing can be done for pretty much every "trivia" fact, that it can be renamed something else.--Osbus 22:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As far as how to handle removal, if something is removed without discussion or reason given, and you disagree with the removal, you could probably simply revert the deletion and include a comment on the talk page asking for feedback as to why it was removed. It may turn out there was a legitimate reason for it, or it may turn out that it was just a random shot from the dark and nothing happens.


 * Of course, behind-the-scenes trivia that has no published reference cited for verification can be safely removed, and readded later if desired once a good source is found. (Note that IMDB trivia sections are not completely reliable, so should probably not be used as the sole source for verification.)  And in general it's usually better stylistically to try and incorporate facts into the article itself as opposed to using a bullet point list.  Massive bullet point trivia at the end of an article is usually more distracting than useful to a reader.  Dugwiki 16:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Any truly useful piece of trivia can be added to an article somewhere. To your example, a line could be added to the development section stating something to the effect of "Han Solo was one of the last of the major characters to be cast.  After auditioning many hopefuls (including Nick Nolte, Actor X, Actor Y and Actor Z), Lucas cast Harrison Ford." Rhindle The Red

Blah in Popular Culture, Blah in Fiction
There seems to be a proliferation of "insert topic name here in popular culture" sections, which to me is just another form of trivia. I'm not sure whether this page is an appropriate forum for discussing this, but I'd like to put forward the view that these sections completely lower the academic standard of Wikipedia and should be banned. Frequently, they are filled with geeky "trainspotter" or "uberfan" type observations. Let's take Styx for example. This is a topic on Ancient Greek mythology, and an idea that has permeated society and culture for yonks. Yet it's filled with a list of references in song by minor bands that most people will not have heard of. (Well, it was until I deleted this section in disgust). If it's not a band, it's a computer game or a TV programme. The same goes for "insert topic name here in fiction". The mere fact that something is worthy enough of an article in an encyclopaedia means that it's part of language, and people are going to refer to it. Does WP have to list every instance of these references? Does anyone agree with me or am I just ranting to myself? Gsd2000 16:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It most certainly goes overboard in some cases, but often those sections can be justification of notability. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 17:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

In many cases these references need to be in the opposite article of the reference in my opinion. Ergo in the "album"-article of the song that references styx, not in the styx article. TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 18:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I would say that while these sections have a tendency to become bloated, they are in principle useful to demonstrate the popular media notability of the subject. It provides a way to in a paragraph or two list some (hopefully) important cultural references to the subject as a means of verifying for the reader its importance and popularity. Thus while I agree as a style point that you probably should limit the scope and size of these sections to a handful of key references, I don't think the sections should be banned entirely. Dugwiki 16:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I could very easily be convinced to ban the sections entirely. I am already convinced that the articles that are created by removing "...in popular culture" sections from the articles should be considered indiscriminate collections of information. Otto4711 19:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that WP:NOT#IINFO doesn't cover trivia. It specifically handles certain types of information that Wikipedia considers inappropriate and can therefore discriminate against, but it never mentions "trivia" or "random information", etc.  So if you're looking for a section of policy to handle questions on trivia, WP:NOT#IINFO isn't it.  See the talk page on WP:NOT for more discussion on that. Dugwiki 17:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think an excellent example of how this section should be done is Palpatine (an FA article). Yes, it is a bit lengthy, but very well sourced and does an excellent job of conveying the subject's notability in the real world. EVula // talk // &#9775;  // 17:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Or make it into a list. A great example is Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc. Garion96 (talk) 17:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * How about this: anything older than 2 1/2 centuries should not get trivia sections on stuff that's newer than 2 1/2 centuries? Curuinor 08:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I like the gist of that idea, but the cutoffs are a bit arbitrary. How about this rough guideline (not meant to be followed to mathematical precision!) - the percentage of the article devoted to "references in popular culture" should roughly reflect the percentage of the amount of time "popular culture" represents of the total age of the referenced object or concept.   So: "Superman in popular culture" is fair game for a bigger section, but "Julius Caesar in popular culture" would not be, and "The Moon in popular culture" would absolutely not be.  Gsd2000 12:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I completely agree with TheDJ's recommendation that pop-cultural references to encyclopedic topics are best handled by wikilinking from the pop-culture topic to the subject referenced. The importance of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing to the Drive-By Truckers' album Southern Rock Opera is MUCH greater than the importance of the album to our encyclopedic treatment of the event. Similarly, while the educational background of a fictional character from a television show may or may not be important to writing a fictional biographical article, there is surely no need for a section in the Tulane University article detailing which fictional sitcom characters were mentioned as having fictionally attended the school. I suggest discouraging "pop culture references" explicitly in this guideline. --Dystopos 21:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

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

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


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

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

In addition to the above comments, note that all information in Wikipedia is supposed to be referenced. So if information isn't verifiable or isn't referenced within the article itself (after giving sufficient time to produce such references) then it should be removed. That applies to everything, not just "trivia", so there's no need to single out trivia in regards to being "unverifiable". Dugwiki 15:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I do believe that we need to be more "aggressive", all to often people use the argument that if trivia can't be integrated (because for example it's non-encyclopaedic) then it should be left there, "forever". We need tot ake the approach like ATT: The burden of integration lies with those wishing to include the information, not with those seeking to remove the trivia. Matthew 12:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Isn't such a case covered by ATT already? I don't see why we need to make that part of this style guideline --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It is, that's for sourcing though, some trivia while sourced may be wholly irrelevant and un-integrable, I've seen people argue that if it's non-integrable it should be let there for an eternity, a clause like this would mean the people who want this type of trivia either have t a) fine a way to integrate and b) Make removal of irrelevancies easier. Matthew 14:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge suggestion
Earlier today, I rewrote the Trivia article pretty substantially. I think that it's probably a good idea to merge at least some of that essay here, but probably not all of it: to a degree, it's an opinion piece about why trivia is bad and how to avoid it, whereas this page has a more specific point. Still, I think that essay makes some points about trivia sections that are worth making here. Mango juice talk 03:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The "What is trivia?" section in the essay does a much better job of defining trivia than this one, and I would support bringing it over, except that in the guideline as currently written, the definition of trivia is just a confusing digression from a discussion of how to organize information in articles. The "trivia sections" being discussed here are really more like "miscellaneous information" sections, and may contain information that is not trivial at all.
 * I would suggest removing the current "What is trivia?" section and expanding "Guidance" to more fully discuss both integration and removal.  &mdash;Cel ithemis  01:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll give it a shot. I think the merger is a bad idea, since this page only supports the idea that unintegrated miscellaneous lists of information are bad, where as WP:TRIVIA actually supports the idea that unimportant information should be removed.  Mango juice talk 13:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


 * I have to agree but what we should be discouraging is too much trivia and trivia that isnt really that relevant or even factual. For example, speculation of the origin of characters, names, song lyrics, ect, where there is no reliable source backing it up. I consider this fancruft and not worth mentioning in a wikipedia article. Anything that says "may be a reference to..." or "could have significance to..." is generally original research and not really backed up by anything, this should be removed from trivia sections. Paradox CT 07:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * But the source of the "Vulcan salute" is *not* a trivial fact in relation to Spock. Sources of inspiration are an important part of any article about a work of art or fictional character.  Your example is covered by this guideline only in the sense that it's currently sitting in a big disorganized "trivia" section and should be better integrated with the article.  &mdash;Cel  ithemis  09:47, 20 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, this fact could actually be integrated into an article or section explaining what the salute means. much better than a trivia section. Paradox CT 06:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Paradox and Celithemis about this particular item. I will however also point out that the Spock article is shockingly bad.  It's badly organized, it goes into digressions (about, for instance, the Mirror spock, which should really be covered at the Mirror, Mirror episode page), it has some integrated useless trivia and some unintegrated useful trivia.  In short, the article needs major improving.  (Actually, I was so disappointed with it, I've nominated it to be an article improvement drive collaboration at WP:ACID.  Wikipedia can do so much better than that, especially on that topic.)  Mango juice talk 15:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I completely agree. IMO this is an absurd style guideline; one of the worst decisions I've ever seen from Wikipedia.  Often the trivia sections are the most interesting parts of the article if you already have a good idea of what the main thing is about. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.180.44.242 (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC).


 * You are spot on. But let's face it, Wp, since Jumbo has become absorbed in revenue producing projects, is increasingly in the clutches of anally retentive deletionistas. They just want the Wp to be a wasteland of no fun and articles on bible verses. I mean some twerp above is saying that trivia sections detract from the academic standard of Wikipedia. I suppose it might pass for academic at some institutions in North America but let's try to keep some sort of perspective. Albatross2147 13:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of sections
I don't support this change. It does occasionally happen that an entire section has nothing worth integrating -- most often when it has just been added and only has a couple of irrelevant items -- so it's not a good idea to categorically forbid deletion of entire sections. The guideline already quite strongly suggests integration rather than deletion of useful material, so there's little to be gained by this change in any case.  &mdash;Cel ithemis  00:34, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * People aren't getting the message... maybe it can be rewritten for what you mention, but I see people blank entire sections of 5+ items because "Trivia isn't allowed on Wikipedia" and so forth. But if someone's just adding 1 item to a new trivia section, that's pretty easy to integrate it or throw it out as not worth mentioning in the first place. Furthermore my edit didn't "categorically forbid" deletion of trivia, it just said doing so might annoy some editors, which it will. --W.marsh 00:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict with your change to your comment) Can you point to some specific examples? Examples in which pointing people to this guideline did not clear up the misconception, in particular?
 * It looks to me like you made this change to the guideline after a content dispute on The Shining in which the other editor actually did integrate much of the Trivia section, very much in keeping with this guideline, and you mistakenly restored stuff that had in fact been integrated elsewhere, so that at least is not evidence of a problem.  &mdash;Cel ithemis  00:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't really appreciate being Wikistalked... I've had this same dispute many times over people deleting trivia sections, on unrelated articles. The items in that case weren't integrated into the text... some were but the rest were just blanked. --W.marsh 00:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I had no intention of wikistalking; I was curious as to whether a particular issue had led to the change, and whether that might point to a different solution. It seemed instead to point to the change having arisen from a misunderstanding. I'd still be very interested in examples of someone still thinking trivia sections should be indiscriminately blanked even after reading this guideline, because I can't see how it can be read that way at all. It already says "Don't simply remove it, but seek to minimize it", after all.
 * The principle set out here -- basically "integrate anything that is at all useful, throw out material only if that's impossible" -- seems to me to fully cover what needs to be covered. If everything is useful everything should be integrated; if nothing is, nothing should be. Specific language about removing whole sections simply distracts from the basic principle and creates grounds for wikilawyering.  &mdash;Cel ithemis  00:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It wasn't a misunderstanding! Geeze. I didn't come here to have my edit history analyzed. --W.marsh 01:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * (outdent)OK. I apologize for bringing that up.  I'm still left in the same place, though: the guideline seems very clear already.  If I saw someone blanking a trivia section that contained stuff that should have been integrated, I would point them at this guideline to explain why that's not the right approach.  &mdash;Cel  ithemis  01:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that the "Don't simply remove it, but seek to minimize it" sentence in that paragraph already accomplishes the spirit of W.marsh's change, except for explaining why. Maybe that sentence could be changed instead?  But I do think the reason not to just remove a trivia section has more to do with seeing that there may be value in it, rather than the reaction other editors might have.  Mango juice talk 03:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Trivia by any other name would be just as unencyclopedic
I notice that there was some discussion above about "XYZ in popular fiction" sections, and I'm wondering if it's possible to get a consensus on how to treat de facto trivia sections that go by names other than "Trivia".

I see the aforementioned "XYZ in popular culture" in location articles, and "Person life" section in biographies, and more often than not, they're trivia sections with fancy names. Examples are:
 * Alphabet City, Manhattan
 * Djibril Cissé
 * Cristiano Ronaldo

My initial urge is to just remove those sections outright, as I sometimes do with poorly sourced and crufty trivia sections, but cultural references can be an evidence of a place's notoriety, while "Personal life" sections are often properly sourced. And for some people, like Anna Nicole Smith, the personal lives are exactly what make notable.

Here's what I propose:
 * 1) Treat cultural references sections as trivia unless the prevalence of cultural references in itself is notable enough to be a subject of non-trivial coverage in notable publications. The article should be about the references, not a listing of them.
 * 2) Likewise, treat personal life sections as trivia unless the persona life, or an aspect thereof, is in itself is notable enough to be a subject of non-trivia coverage in notable publications. In such a case, the section shouldn't be titled "Personal life". Stuff from fluff pieces or tidbits from weekly newspaper columns is probably trivial. A.C. Green's celibacy probably isn't trivial. Wayne Rooney's visits to prostitutes may not be trivial, but they probably aren't worth an entire subsection either.

Thoughts? Ytny (talk) 08:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't care for the trivia policy one bit, and interpreting it to also cover personal life, popular culture, and anything that can be colorably called trivia is exceeding the mandate of the 62% consensus. I question whether the original consensus is authority enough to begin with to justify editors chopping up such a longstanding and integrated wikipedia tradition as trivia sections.  When done right trivia is not a collection of random facts, it is a set of poignant or illustrative items of note that set a thing in context.  To integrate it into the body of the article, or to bulk it up with all the connectors and explanations is to miss the point.  "Encyclopedic" doesn't mean Wikipedia has to look like the Britannica -- if it did we could read that.  If it's good enough for newspaper articles, books, and other authoritative sources, why isn't trivia good enough for Wikipedia?  If a section of the article, any section, is poorly organized or uncited or irrelevant, it should be improved.  But if you cut out all the color Wikipedia becomes very dry, and of less value and interest to everyone. Wikidemo 09:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * You don't get it. There is nothing wrong with Trivia, unless it simply doesn't have relevance. A list of all the restaurants that ever appeared in The Simpsons is pointless on it's own right. However if an episode specifically revolves around all the restaurants in Springfield, then it again has value. The line is very fine. The biggest problem is that Trivia sections (by whatever name) tend to become dumpsites for every little teeny tiny ( often fictional ) fact that ever occured. Just like not all people are notable, not every small little fact is notable. To judged wether or not it IS notable, a good guide is to see if you can work it into a good set of prose within the article. If you can, the fact is usually important enough to be in Wikipedia, if it's not, then most of the time it just doesn't have any place in Wikipedia. And AGAIN, wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a book, guide, newspaper, etc. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Before we stray too far off-point, let me say in response to Ytny: yes, that's basically the essence of this policy, and that covers some of the points made at the Trivia essay. As for "popular culture" sections, I take a dim view of them, because they basically still serve as miscellaneous information sections, and therefore should be avoided per this guideline.  Put another way, a popular culture section sets almost no bar at all for inclusion of information, just like a 'trivia' section does.  Mango juice talk 14:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I realize my proposal is hardly groundbreaking, but it seems that a personal life section is practically an invitation for bullet points about a celebrity's cars and houses and significant others. At the same time, some people's private lives are notable (and not just interesting), so it would be nice to see where we can draw the line. Ytny (talk) 18:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm my eyes drawing a line in the sand is a bad idea. It hinders creativity just as much as it gets rid of the "pointless" information. In any article it is always about finding the correct balance. It's process of time, and it will never be 100% finished i guess. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Stop Removing Trivia Sections!
The whole point of wikipedia is that it is an online, hypertext referenced, encyclopedia that "anyone can edit". This is not a paper encyclopedia. For all practical purposes, Wikipedia has an near-unlimited amount of space and the extra bytes a trivia section adds is inconsequential.

Trivia sections provide a way of connecting information to other articles. This is the whole point of HTML. Removing these connections lowers the value of Wikipedia to its users.

Trivia sections are way that everybody who has experience with a subject can add value to Wikipedia as a whole. As long as the trivia entries are accurate it increases the total knowledge about a particular subject. They serve to demonstrate how many subjects are inter-related. The "in popular culture" segments serve to show the relevance of academic information to the everyday lives of people. It helps readers unfamiliar with a subject connect to it in a personal way.

Removing these sections makes the encyclopedia less user-friendly. It discourages visitors from contributing. Many Wikipedia editors get their start by providing small entries to Trivia sections and use the practice to eventually write full articles.

I find efforts like this to be pedantic elitism hinding under a banner of "making Wikipedia more Encyclopedic." I refer to Wikipedia precisely because it is different than the Encyclopia Brittanica and the like. While I am a staunch supporter of NPOV and accuracy, I will fight to the best of my ability attempts to make Wikipedia more like outdated paper encyclopedias such as the EB. Let's leave the paper encyclopedia model in the twentieth century.

In summary, the ability of Wikipedia articles to be expanded by including trivia sections is one of the great strengths of it's open-edit, online model. Attempts to remove such articles are detrimental to Wikipedia in the long term. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.215.78.126 (talk) 00:54, 6 April 2007 (UTC).


 * If your interest is in browsing from topic to topic via trivia connections, try using the "What links here" feature. As for making Wikipedia "like" a paper encyclopedia, let me say that isn't the goal of this policy: rather, this policy is about making information well-organized and relevant to the topic.  But ultimately, you have to agree, some information just falls below the importance threshold.  I see your point about openness, but I question if people really go on from adding trivia snippets to writing and editing whole articles very much.  Mango juice talk 10:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * What is needed is something like Wikipedia, that doesn't have these stuck-up people who want to change Wikipedia to fit their vision, regardless of what the contributors want. Utterly and totally absurd.  There is something seriously and fundamentally wrong when the votes of 27 people can destroy the work of thousands of people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.180.44.242 (talk) 02:44, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

I agree that we should stop removing trivia. If there are interesting facts about something, you can read them at a glance in a trivia sectionj. If they are buried in the main subject text they are easily overlooked and forgotten. 203.206.34.141 12:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * On the flip side, one can argue that if a fact is easily overlooked and forgotten then it's probably not interesting enough to include in the article in the first place. Including facts that aren't interesting or useful to understanding the subject can be detrimental to the overall impact of the article as a whole by making it too lengthy and complex for readers to enjoy.


 * My take is that a trivia section only makes sense for miscellaneous facts that are indeed interesting but that don't actually fit in the context of the rest of the article. At the very least facts which also seem to belong in other article sections should go there and not in a miscellaneous catch-all section. Dugwiki 15:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Then we should start by deleting the innumerable articles on fat-arsed baseball players whose only claim to fame is trivia masquerading as "In 1994 he was credited as having the 17th largest buttocks in the American League and the most tobacco spits on third base in any year." Albatross2147 13:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You are aware that we're a work in progress? Contributors may not be able to find a place for their additions, or a way to rearrange the article to as it stands at that - especially if they're inexperienced, and we encourage newbies to edit. --Kizor 14:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)