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:::Great explantion. This could be added to the guideline. Thanks Cheeser! / [[User:Edgarde|edg]]<small> [[User_talk:Edgarde|☺]] [[Special:Contributions/Edgarde|★]]</small> 19:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC) |
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Strong objection to PixelFace's edit
I strongly object to this edit. This guideline is clearly about trivia sections, not just about lists of isolated facts. I feel that the whole reason the edit was made was to get around consensus. It has been long-standing practice to avoid trivia sections, and community consensus has not changed. For instance, Pixelface tried to get rid of Template:Trivia on TFD - see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Template:Trivia. This generated over 160KB worth of debate, with the majority of editors rejecting the notion that the template should be deleted, that trivia was necessary for Wikipedia or that calling material in articles "trivia" was an objectionable or insulting notion. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- I have made a small change, in the spirit of compromise. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- I've reverted further, to TDK's last version. Pixelface's change making this into a guideline about section titles is, even in compromise, contradictory and unnecessary; it also changes the intent of this guideline. The mere title of such a section is not the problem, as is stated in the next sentence. / edg ☺ ★ 13:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- Ta bu shi da yu: I'm very confused. The edit you say you object to seems to agree with your stance: Pixelface changed the opening sentence to avoid sections titled "trivia", which is what you've now added again. Furthermore it was an old edit from nearly 2 weeks ago which was reverted about 20 minutes after it was made, because it was deemed to be too narrow a definition of trivia. If you object to an edit from back then why have you now incorporated it again? If you want this guideline to be about sections titled trivia, why did that edit bother you to begin with? Does anyone understand what's going on here?
- Maybe he meant to link to the diff in which PixelFace's edit was reverted? Anyway, as was mentioned at the time, the title is part of the problem but it's not the only problem, and we should avoid wording that suggests that. I endorse edg's change. Mangojuicetalk 15:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I don't. My main objection is that it removed the summary that trivia sections should be avoided. Someone else reverted me, saying that "The *title* of the section is not the problem, as is stated in the next sentence. The change making this guideline about section titles, even in compromise, is contradictory and unnecessary". However, bit that they told me to look at was "Trivia sections should be avoided, but if they must exist, they should in most cases be considered temporary, until a better method of presentation can be determined". That doesn't contradict what I wrote! Please note that I never said that it's a bad thing to avoid lists of unrelated facts! But, the original guideline, which still holds, is that adding trivia sections should be avoided where possible. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- This guideline has nothing to do with the title of the section. The overview (first) paragraph, especially the first sentence, should be a summary of the specific guidance suggested in the remainder of the guideline. The rest of the guideline says specifically that it isn't referring to the section title at all, but to its contents. It never makes any mention of avoiding the title "trivia". If you think avoiding that title is important, then you should discuss that as a possible addition to the guideline; But don't just add something to the lead sentence that the rest of the guideline makes no mention of, and certainly don't continue to make that addition when there's clearly no consensus for it.
- What are you talking about? It is in the lead section! It doesn't have to be in the first paragraph. Sheesh. And there are many who oppose the changes being made here, and elsewhere. For instance, the majority of editors commenting on your page move request are opposing it. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- I'm a little confused. What is in the lead section? What doesn't have to be in the first paragraph? Could you be a little more specific? And no one opposed the change to "miscellaneous lists" being subject of the lead sentence. People are opposing the page move, not the lead sentence.
- Well, before reverting me please take the time to read the guideline. It specifically states "Trivia sections should be avoided, but if they must exist, they should in most cases be considered temporary, until a better method of presentation can be determined." - Ta bu shi da yu 07:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- Yes I know that, I wrote that sentence. What is your point?
- If you have a look at what you reverted, I compromised by saying that a list of unrelated facts should be avoided and trivia sections should be avoided also. As it states. That is my point! Your point is that my sentence does reflect the guideline, but it clearly does. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- Your edit referred to sections titled trivia. This is different from saying "trivia sections". "Trivia sections" was changed because it's too ambiguous and doesn't accurately describe the content we're trying to avoid. Furthermore this "compromise" is basically between you and everyone else. There is no need for that, as there aren't a significant number of people who object to the lead sentence as it stands currently. It's just you. If you feel the lead sentence needs to be changed somehow, then propose it and get a consensus. If it turns out that there's a significant dispute over it, then a compromise is a possible solution.
- If you have a look at what you reverted, I compromised by saying that a list of unrelated facts should be avoided and trivia sections should be avoided also. As it states. That is my point! Your point is that my sentence does reflect the guideline, but it clearly does. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- Yes I know that, I wrote that sentence. What is your point?
- Well, before reverting me please take the time to read the guideline. It specifically states "Trivia sections should be avoided, but if they must exist, they should in most cases be considered temporary, until a better method of presentation can be determined." - Ta bu shi da yu 07:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- I'm a little confused. What is in the lead section? What doesn't have to be in the first paragraph? Could you be a little more specific? And no one opposed the change to "miscellaneous lists" being subject of the lead sentence. People are opposing the page move, not the lead sentence.
- What are you talking about? It is in the lead section! It doesn't have to be in the first paragraph. Sheesh. And there are many who oppose the changes being made here, and elsewhere. For instance, the majority of editors commenting on your page move request are opposing it. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- This guideline has nothing to do with the title of the section. The overview (first) paragraph, especially the first sentence, should be a summary of the specific guidance suggested in the remainder of the guideline. The rest of the guideline says specifically that it isn't referring to the section title at all, but to its contents. It never makes any mention of avoiding the title "trivia". If you think avoiding that title is important, then you should discuss that as a possible addition to the guideline; But don't just add something to the lead sentence that the rest of the guideline makes no mention of, and certainly don't continue to make that addition when there's clearly no consensus for it.
- Well, I don't. My main objection is that it removed the summary that trivia sections should be avoided. Someone else reverted me, saying that "The *title* of the section is not the problem, as is stated in the next sentence. The change making this guideline about section titles, even in compromise, is contradictory and unnecessary". However, bit that they told me to look at was "Trivia sections should be avoided, but if they must exist, they should in most cases be considered temporary, until a better method of presentation can be determined". That doesn't contradict what I wrote! Please note that I never said that it's a bad thing to avoid lists of unrelated facts! But, the original guideline, which still holds, is that adding trivia sections should be avoided where possible. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- Maybe he meant to link to the diff in which PixelFace's edit was reverted? Anyway, as was mentioned at the time, the title is part of the problem but it's not the only problem, and we should avoid wording that suggests that. I endorse edg's change. Mangojuicetalk 15:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- Ta bu shi da yu: I'm very confused. The edit you say you object to seems to agree with your stance: Pixelface changed the opening sentence to avoid sections titled "trivia", which is what you've now added again. Furthermore it was an old edit from nearly 2 weeks ago which was reverted about 20 minutes after it was made, because it was deemed to be too narrow a definition of trivia. If you object to an edit from back then why have you now incorporated it again? If you want this guideline to be about sections titled trivia, why did that edit bother you to begin with? Does anyone understand what's going on here?
- I've reverted further, to TDK's last version. Pixelface's change making this into a guideline about section titles is, even in compromise, contradictory and unnecessary; it also changes the intent of this guideline. The mere title of such a section is not the problem, as is stated in the next sentence. / edg ☺ ★ 13:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Ta bu shi da yu, please see /Archive 6#The definition of trivia. We just went through exactly this issue with Pixelface. I agree, a section being called "trivia" is bad, but having the first sentence of the guideline say that we should avoid sections called trivia implies that it is the only issue and it's not. I think this can be clarified in a way you'll find acceptable, but changing that first sentence is not the way to do it. Mangojuicetalk 12:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- Mangojuice, if "trivia section" does not only refer to headings titled ==Trivia== then "trivia section" obviously refers to the content of a section. WHY is the content being labeled trivia? That is why I asked for a definition of "trivia" for this guideline, which editors conveniently avoided. "Oh, this guideline is about trivia sections, not trivia" -- as if to deny the word "trivia" even exists in the phrase "trivia section". As long as this guideline exists, questions about the definition of "trivia" and which information constitutes "trivia" will come up again and again -- until the day it's designated an essay and this misguided "guideline" is forgotten. --Pixelface 19:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- Again, look at the guideline, read it, and say what exactly you find confusing about the notion of a trivia section as described there. From the guideline, "In this guideline, when we refer to a trivia section, we are referring to its content, not its section name. A trivia section is one that contains a disorganized and unselective list." Also, "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". So, what are you missing? Mangojuicetalk 20:49, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- "In this guideline, when we refer to a trivia section, we are referring to its content, not its section name. A trivia section is one that contains a disorganized and unselective list." Then why not call the guideline Sections with unorganized lists? WP:LIST already mentions unorganized lists. So this guideline is completely unnecessary. And shouldn't that sentence say "organization" instead of "content"? The word "content" contradicts your other quote from the guideline: "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" AKA "not with whether or not the content is trivia." So it's not about whether the information is trivial, it's about organization. Again, that is already covered by WP:LIST. --Pixelface 23:24, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- Please note: I have to make an apology here, because it appears that I have, embarassingly, made a mistake. I have an apology to Pixelface, because it appears that I actually largely agree with his change. This was pointed out to me by Mangojuice. Due thanks to Mangojuice. As it appears that, ironically, I cannot get anyone but Pixelface to agree with my change, I'll let this go. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
[Subject] in popular culture
These are not by definition trivia. Trivia is defined as matters or things that are very unimportant[1]. Whether the occurrence of a subject in popular culture is "very unimportant" is inherently subjective. Melsaran (talk) 15:29, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- "X in popular culture" sections can certainly be done well.
- Here's a good example: Broccoli in popular culture.
- Here's a terrible example: same article, 4 months earlier
- Here's today's. Note the typical and seemingly-inevitable undertow toward cruft. This is the problem. Someone felt a need to restore (or from their perspective, perhaps add for the first time) the following:
In the film 24 Hour Party People, the Tony Wilson character tells a tale explaining how the invention of broccoli funded the James Bond films.
- This factual, easily-sourced and verifiable information is not useful in an encyclopedic article about James Bond, Tony Wilson or broccoli. Yet trivialist arguments forbid its exclusion, and feverishly siding with them may be fans of this particular movie (at least if this movie has fans comparable to those of other "pop culture" topics). / edg ☺ ★ 15:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- An encyclopedia that lets anyone edit articles will always, ALWAYS accumulate "cruft", or whatever word you're using this week to disparage edits. And a template should not be spammed on over 5,000 articles by a bot run by someone who will never even look at the article again. Let people interested in the topic of an article tag the article if it needs to be improved. I don't know what "trivialist arguments forbid its exclusion" means. There is no "pro" trivia guideline. THIS is the page that seeks to forbid and exclude information that anyone labels "trivia." It's divisive by design. It seeks to organize all information into "trivia" and "not trivia" and exclude the information that's "not trivia." If someone doesn't like an edit, they can just remove it. They don't need this guideline, which amounts to an opinion of "I don't like it", to back them up. Editors should be evaluating edits based on the sources provided, the subjective concept of "importance" should not factor anywhere into it. --Pixelface 20:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- For new arrivals here I just want to mention I was never a big fan of the bot tagging.
- When you say there is no "pro" trivia guideline, that's because this is the guideline. The Wikipedia style guide is (obviously) not required to contradict itself. Having such a standard is not divisive "by design", even though some editors happen to object to the standard.
- I really believe that Wikipedia is not improved by the routine addition of lists of times editors have seen the subject on TV. Is this entirely unacceptable to you? Is the Broccoli article improved by adding anecdotes from everything that mentions broccoli?
- Additionally, I believe that appending facts to bullet lists does not by itself create readable documents. Articles are better read as text that makes points; not rambling lists of and also and also prettied up with bullets. I understand that some readers would prefer to learn all factual information from Powerpoint presentations; I don't feel such a design ideal is compatible with Wikipedia.
- Examples of a trivialist argument would include:
- All information improves Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia is not a trivia collection can be dismissed as simple a WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
- Rules should be implemented against the removal of trivia sections.
- Even if Trivia sections should not be kept, having rules against keeping Trivia sections in articles usually causes aggressive, premature deletion of valuable material without attempts at integration.
- "Deletionists" are disingenuous elitists who are out to destroy something.
- The authors of these guidelines clearly they don't understand their foolish anti-trivia rules are causing bullies to delete valuable material capriciously.
- The authors of these guidelines are biased against anything fun.
- The authors of these guidelines should relax their standards because Wikipedia will never be perfect, and no one takes Wikipedia seriously (or at least, no one should).
- Calling it "trivia" is not nice, and may hurt people's feelings.
- Trivia sections are the "best part" of many articles.
- et cetera, et cetera. This Talk page and its archive are filled with such arguments if you're curious to see more.
- If this enthusiasm for bullet lists and In pop culture sections were reflected by policy that encourages their inclusion, Wikipedia would basically become free webspace for uninformative, unreadable garbage.
If someone doesn't like an edit, they can just remove it. They don't need this guideline, which amounts to an opinion of "I don't like it", to back them up.
- Actually, a guide is needed to "back them up". Otherwise there would be unending disputes.
Editors should be evaluating edits based on the sources provided, the subjective concept of "importance" should not factor anywhere into it.
- I am confident that some information, while perfectly sourced and readily verifiable, is not needed. If verifiability is the only standard for inclusion of any information, then WP:NOT can be deleted or ignored, and articles can be long and rambling without limit, with effectively no editorial standard. If Wikipedia accepts all verifiable input, it is no longer useful as an encyclopedia. / edg ☺ ★ 21:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- Examples of a trivialist argument would include:
- Your concern about unorganized lists is already covered by WP:LIST. "Trivia" is not mentioned anywhere in the Manual of Style. If you want to craft a guideline called Wikipedia:In popular culture, or revamp the WP:IPC essay, be my guest. This guideline is not needed. Wikipedia existed for 5 years without it. Wikipedia allows anyone to edit and there is no longstanding policy against "trivia." I really don't care what you personally feel is "uninformative, unreadable garbage." Go add a "garbage" criteria to WP:NOT if it bothers you. Labeling "uninformative, unreadable garbage" as "trivia" isn't getting you anywhere. You just used a different label -- "trivia" -- a commonly used, semi-polite slur that labels information as unimportant to you personally in order to exclude it from an article. Wikipedia was launched in January 2001, and this essay was started May 26, 2006[2]. How did Wikipedia ever function for 5 years without it? The essay was turned into a guideline on August 25, 2006[3] after 27 people supported it and 16 people opposed it[4]. Wikipedia has over 5.3 million registered users. Shall we let 27 people decide how over 5 million editors should organize facts? Is there any proof that this guideline accomplishes anything? If "trivia" is the stuff one finds in Trivial Pursuit, then just about every article on Wikipedia has trivia. If someone goes to add a new fact to an article and it doesn't quite "belong" under an existing heading, it's likely they'll add it under a ==Trivia== heading. That's not a problem with Trivia sections, that's a problem with header names and the hierarchical organization of information and the idea that every fact has to "fit" in some "box." --Pixelface 23:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- There's a spectrum of opinion on this issue, but the discussion gets polarized very quickly. Most of those that speak out in support of trivia, trivia sections, popular culture sections/articles, and the like, are not for the destruction of Wikipedia through the abandonment of its encyclopedic standards and goals -- we just feel those standards can be applied carefully to broaden Wikipedia's depth of coverage, without sacrificing its quality. The picture you paint of "trivialists" is entertaining, but distorted.--Father Goose 00:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
- (e.c.) But on the other hand, popular culture sections can be problematic. People do seem to think that just about any fact can go in a section titled "popular culture," so it does have the same kind of problem as trivia sections. They tend to be disorganized and attract cruft, and often don't have any collective point. That said, they're fine if they're done right. I don't think the wording of the guideline necessarily needs to mention "[Subject] in popular culture" though - for one thing "Popular culture" would be more accurate, and for another, those sections are only sometimes problematic. Mangojuicetalk 15:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- edit conflict...It's already been established that "trivia" doesn't mean "unimportant" for the purposes of this guideline (and as a side note we would not need to address this repeated concern if the name were changed). However "in pop culture" is something I've been thinking about addressing for a while, for a different reason. The guideline endorses focused lists, yet lumps IPC in with trivia sections. This doesn't really make much sense. True that trivia sections sometimes contain "in pop culture" items, but true IPC sections really aren't miscellaneous lists. They should be addressed in some way, but not by equating them with trivia sections.
- I'm not sure what defines "true IPC sections," but I'm confident whatever they are, they're exceedingly rare. The overwhelming majority of "in pop culture" sections are unselective, irredeemable garbage dumps of music, movie, TV and video game references. So I think it's fair to lump them in with trivia section because they are--very precisely--"miscellaneous lists" and nothing more.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 17:09, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- edit conflict...It's already been established that "trivia" doesn't mean "unimportant" for the purposes of this guideline (and as a side note we would not need to address this repeated concern if the name were changed). However "in pop culture" is something I've been thinking about addressing for a while, for a different reason. The guideline endorses focused lists, yet lumps IPC in with trivia sections. This doesn't really make much sense. True that trivia sections sometimes contain "in pop culture" items, but true IPC sections really aren't miscellaneous lists. They should be addressed in some way, but not by equating them with trivia sections.
- A good IPC section has secondary sources discussing how the subject has effected popular culture or been used in different, significant ways. For example, discussing how piracy is a topic used in movies (the section in this example does need a bit of cleaning though). A bad IPC section is a list of references and even times that the topic's been mentioned at some point in a movie, TV show etc. In my experience the vast majority of IPC sections I've seen are the bad kind. Not everything has enough effect on popular culture to require a section on it. ●BillPP (talk|contribs) 17:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- That should go into a guideline. Too bad User:Eyrian/IPC was deleted. / edg ☺ ★ 17:51, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- It doesn't matter if an IPC section contains a mere list of references. The fact is that a list of pop culture references is not a miscellaneous list but a focused one. We're telling people that one possible way to fix trivia sections is to filter them into focused lists, yet IPC sections already are focused lists. I'm not addressing the question of whether or not such lists are appropriate, but it seems pointless to include them here. A separate guidelines for improving such sections would be more appropriate.
- The problem is that it's not focused. It could be focused but the only connection between the items is the subject and that it's been on TV/in a movie etc. It's just as disorganised as the lists that this guideline is trying to prevent, except it has a slight theme. IPC lists that are just a random collection of vaguely connected items are the kind of list which this guideline hopes to prevent. ●BillPP (talk|contribs) 20:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- (addendum) I think that if this guideline didn't cover IPC and other themed sections because of the loose connection between items, this is the kind of thing that would be exempt. It's a miscellaneous list by another name and there's no real reason why it shouldn't be covered by this guideline. ●BillPP (talk|contribs) 20:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- A good (if somewhat controversial) example is Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture, which systematically subdivides the list into different types of references and provides citations and so on. I think the important thing to qualify is the degree of connection between items and its relationship to the length of the list; if the list becomes long and the connection between the items is weak, it needs further organization. Dcoetzee 21:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Hodge-podge
I suggest the terms "hodge-podge" or "hodge-podge sections" be used. As the above conversation demonstrates, "[Subject] in popular culture" is just as problematic as "Trivia", however using the word "trivia" in the title of the this guideline lends the impression that the problem is primarily with sections titled trivia.
"Hodge-podge", in my opinion, is also a better choice than "miscellaneous facts" or "miscellaneous lists", which can be misconstrued in several ways. The term "hodge-podge" is easily understandable, descriptive, unambiguous, and straight to the point. I suggest "Avoid hodge-podge sections" as the title of this guideline and having a generic hodge-podge clean-up template {{hodge-podge}} along with clean-up templates geared to specifically to the most common kinds of hodge-podge sections such as {{trivia}} and perhaps a {{pop-culture}}. Neitherday 17:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
- Ok, that is definitely one of those terms that starts to sound really bizarre when you read it 8 times in two paragraphs. :) On a serious note, though, I think "hodge-podge" is probably a good description, but so are many others, and it's better if we stick to "trivia" in the title, since that's where the problem arises. "Trivia sections," "lists of miscellaneous information," "lists of isolated facts", "lists of loosely associated information", "hodge-podge sections", and so on, all refer to the same concept. I like the idea of using multiple descriptions as it gets the idea across better. Mangojuicetalk 17:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
"Hodge-podge" is a fairly obscure/imprecise word. The use of "trivia" (especially when characterized/refined by a few descriptive sentences) does the job fine. --Cheeser1 18:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Discussion of WP:NOT#TRIVIA
There is a discussion of whether WP:NOT#TRIVIA should be retained at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Removal of trivia criteria.--Father Goose 22:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
My $0.02
I know I'm entering this discussion a bit late, but I have a few points to make about trivia and about the future of this guideline.
- Firstly, I oppose trivia sections, not the inclusion of trivia itself. "Trivia" is inherently a completely subjective term; one could argue that all information which is non-essential to a subject's notability (including family history, schools attended, etc.) is a form of trivia, yet this info is standard in an encyclopedia article. We should include trivia-type information in articles, as long as it's sourced and verifiable.
- Nonetheless, we don't ever need sections headed "Trivia" at the bottom of the page. This creates an artificial and subjective division between "trivia" and "non-trivia", when, as I said, there's no objective definition of the term "trivia" itself. Trivia sections should be deprecated, and the information merged into the main body of the article, where appropriate. If it's significant or unusual enough to be included at all, it's significant enough to belong in the main article text, not in an arbitrary "trivia" section.
- I also oppose lengthy "X in popular culture" articles. These quickly develop into lists of when X appeared in novels, TV and films, without any reliable secondary sources to demonstrate that these appearances had any cultural significance. We don't need a long list of original observations along the lines of "Sheep in popular culture: In Episode 23 of Return of the Flatulent Gnomes, a sheep appeared on-camera during a number of scenes which were filmed on location in Wales." This stuff is textbook original research, and completely pointless. Popular culture references that are genuinely significant belong in the main articles on their subjects, along with adequate sourcing to demonstrate their significance.
I apologise if my comments aren't up-to-date with the current state of discussion on this issue; as I said, I haven't been heavily involved in this debate. WaltonOne 19:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- P.S: I support the proposed page move. It goes along with what I was saying above about the poor definition of the term "trivia". WaltonOne 19:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
- An example could be what I did today here on Chief Justice Murray Gleeson's article. Of the three facts in the "trivia" section, two were sufficiently relevant to be moved into the main text of the article (which I did), and the other was sufficiently unimportant that I removed it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Walton One (talk • contribs) 15:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
The value of Trivia
One aspect of Wikipedia which I appeciate is the unfiltered information about films. While relevance might be debated, as long as this information is verifable, it does have value to others.
Compared to the current standard for film information, IMDB, I feel that site does not have enough information, and, of course, no way for me to add revelant, important, and interesting details.
Finally, the word trivia implies triviality. While minor details about movies might seem so, to interested film watchers and students, any bit of information might reveal insight or inspire thought. And the word "trivia" is the accepted term for film details, so I suggest continuing using it. Swfong 22:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
- This guideline will make finding these same facts easier, and does not call for their removal. Please actually read the guideline before commenting. -- Ned Scott 18:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, the guidelines for trivia are actively discouraging adding trivia, which has resulted in fewer details and other information. I recommend not having any warnings about trivia. Please read into the context of these guidelines, not just the letter.Swfong 22:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
- Trivia, actual trivia, by definition doesn't have a place on Wikipedia. Then there's the "fun facts" or "miscellaneous" trivia. -- Ned Scott 02:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, the guidelines for trivia are actively discouraging adding trivia, which has resulted in fewer details and other information. I recommend not having any warnings about trivia. Please read into the context of these guidelines, not just the letter.Swfong 22:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Style guideline vs. content guideline
I just reverted this from {{Subcat guideline}} ("Content") to {{Style guide}}. This article has always been about how data should be organized within a document. It impacts on content because trivia sections by their organization may tend to invite data which some editors would want omitted for (among other reasons) being unimportant; however, this guideline does not speak directly to what actually is "important" or "trivial", so it is not a content guideline.
The issue of what "trivia" might be and whether it should be allowed probably belongs on WP:NOT (the central content policy) or perhaps a new content guideline. That subject has been kept out of this guideline, and I think it should stay out. / edg ☺ ★ 18:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- This is not a style guideline. Read the MOS; it is about punctuation, capitalisation, boldings/italics, spelling, layout, date formats, etc. Wikipedia:Trivia sections is about what to do with lists of miscellaneous facts. It does not say "you should format them like this" (that would be a style issue), but it says "you should integrate lists of loosely-organised facts into the text of the article and place them in a proper context" (that's a content issue). Compare with WP:RS. Melsaran (talk) 18:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- You are correct that WP:RS, about what one writes, is a content guideline.
- WP:AVTRIV is about How one writes, including where you place it, which is style. Wikipedia:Lead section and Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles, for example, are part of the Manual of Style. "Layout", as you mention, is related to WP:AVTRIV. / edg ☺ ★ 18:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
It's often a thin and arbitrary line we draw between style and content guidelines on Wikipedia. The only reason for having specific tags is for organization of the guideline, and doesn't impact how the guideline is supposed to be used. -- Ned Scott 18:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- I suppose that's so. My concern as stated above is that calling this a "content" guideline implies inclusion and exclusion, which is a contentious issue this document isn't suited to (and was never meant to) address. / edg ☺ ★ 18:54, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- *nods* I agree, and personally would call it a style guideline. -- Ned Scott 18:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- I concur. For the inclusion/exclusion reason. Better to avoid that misunderstanding, as it seems pretty common to me.
Wow, I didn't expect to start an edit war with my change... one revert, maybe, though it was my impression calling it a "style guideline" had never been controversial. It is a style guideline because it focuses on layout. It's easy to confuse it with a content guideline because it's specific to a type of content that is commonly laid out in a haphazard way -- but it still doesn't say "trivia is bad or good", it just says "don't arrange it in a miscellaneous list". Style guideline.--Father Goose 20:14, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- I agree that it's a style guideline, or more specifically, an article organization guideline, like the ones on Wikipedia:Article length and Wikipedia:Content forking - perhaps not so trivial as guidelines of punctuation usage, but still not about inclusion. Dcoetzee 20:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- I pretty much concur. Pigkeeper 01:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
- There seems to be general agreement on this so I've gone ahead and switched it back to style guideline.
- I pretty much concur. Pigkeeper 01:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
- I concur too. I'm the one who switched it to a regular guideline, back when Pixelface complained that this wasn't linked from the WP:MOS pages (which I have now rectified), and replaced the tag with {{essay}}. I remember the guideline was marked as a Style guideline for exactly the reason that it isn't about what content is appropriate, but rather about how to write articles well. Mangojuicetalk 14:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
This Guideline needs to be deprecated
How does one go about getting a Guideline deprecated? Perhaps a vote on this or another Talk page? Perhaps getting a Bureaucrat to make some sort of motion? Something else?... Especially for pop culture articles, this Guideline is just atrocious. It smacks of the influence of that common character type that loves to sit around tweaking and "improving" the Wikipedia model instead of putting their heads down and writing. JDG 22:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
- Have you found time to read this guideline yet? As it encourages writing, as opposed to simply appending without any process, you might find something to like in this guideline. / edg ☺ ★ 23:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
- "Have you found the time to read this guideline". It would be nice if you didn't always assume that people are idiots. Some people simply disagree with you. Anyway. I think JDG thinks that the focus should be more on generally improving articles than on creating specific guidelines for telling people how they need to do that. That's my interpretation at least. And I'd agree with that.
- From his comment it does not sound like he has read the guideline at all. -- Ned Scott 02:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- To answer JDG's question, you don't. Currently this guideline has widespread support by community and by related guidelines. -- Ned Scott 02:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- I'm not sure you can claim widespread community support for this guideline. Various people have expressed disagreement with some aspect of this guideline, including JDG, Equazcion and myself, and I'm not aware of any determined effort to reach a consensus. Also, related guidelines are not this guideline, so either they're redundant or don't speak directly to these issues. James pic 09:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- edit conflict... To Ned: It's entirely possible that he didn't. But I'll assume he did, just for the sake of optimism and good faith. Anyone who doubts this though could simply ask him in a polite and civil manner.
- To JDG: You can't really vote on whether or not to deprecate a guideline, cause there just isn't a process for it. There isn't even a process for accepting a guideline to begin with. Someone just tags a page one way or the other, according to how he perceives the current consensus. It turns out to pretty much be a majority rule. For instance, I could say this guideline is disputed; but if more people don't like me saying that than do, then there's nothing I can do about that. So get a majority together somehow, and get them to keep paying attention to this page, and then you can change things. Until then you just have to chip away at it little by little, and be happy winning your tiny battles.
can you rename the trivia sections to "Other Info" or "Other Misc. Facts?" then there's no more trivia, but the content remains. i dunno just trying to make everyone happy (impossible!) :) --Scottymoze 03:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- To Ned Scott: "Widespread support"? To the question "are a lot of people in favour of this guideline?" the answer is of course yes. However, the opposite question "are a lot of people furious about what they perceive as the stupidity of this guideline?", the answer is equally certainly yes. Therefore claiming "widespread support" is slightly misleading. Mlewan 14:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- The section titles themselves aren't what has everyone all bothered, Scotty. It's their contents. So changing the title won't really do much... sorry.
- I totally oppose this motion. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
"It smacks of the influence of that common character type that loves to sit around tweaking and "improving" the Wikipedia model instead of putting their heads down and writing". I'm not sure what you're trying to get across here- the majority of people who improve articles (note the lack of sarcastic quotes) spend a lot of time integrating trivia to make it readable and accessible. It takes an enormous amount of time and patience to integrate large bulleted lists throughout an article. This guideline is intended to save everyone some work and to present articles in a more easily readable fashion. It may seem like a wonderful idea to set a ridiculously low bar for contributions, but in all honesty, getting rid of this guideline would be like getting rid of guidelines telling people to wikify, use proper grammar, or provide sources.-Wafulz 17:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- No it wouldn't. People would still do whatever they think they need to do to improve articles -- and for experienced editors, that can mean integrating trivia, getting rid of trivia, or discouraging trivia. This guideline is just over one year old. Wikipedia got along fine without it all those prior years. It's definitely not quite as important as grammar.
- Wikipedia got along fine with some pretty bad versions of things like WP:RS, but now we have better, stronger policies and guidelines to help us along. Trivia sections are completely unencyclopedic in presentation, and provide a format in which unencylopedic content can amass in an article. By encouraging editors to contribute content in a proper presentation (integrated into the article), we avoid having to do twice the work (one editor tacking info onto some list of data, another having to integrate it properly). It ensures that we spend less time tidying up stuff that should never have been left untidy, and avoids an open door for irrelevant or unremarkable chunks of data to be tacked onto articles haphazardly (people can and do leave such things on the talk page, frequently, saying "can somebody integrate this into the article?").
- Let me make an extended analogy - I have a silverware drawer. I do not throw all of my silverware in it, I have a little thing that separates forks, knives, and spoons. Now if we all share such a drawer, we should expect people to put their silverware in the correct spot. It (1) keeps things tidy and (2) prevents people from throwing forks and knives and cups and pencils in the big mess of a drawer, waiting for somebody to come sort it out and get rid of the stuff that doesn't belong there in the first place. --Cheeser1 17:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
- I think we're all very familiar with the argument against trivia, thanks, but there's really no need to get into that yet again.
- Be bold.