Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia

New proposal

Title

At this time, nothing links to Wikipedia:Avoid trivia, so creating a new proposal under this title is not disruptive. This essay is intended to become a proposed content guideline. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Reason for this guideline

Dispute in policy

The wording Wikipedia is not a collection of trivia was removed from the policy page Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not on grounds that included the following:

• That is it not policy. This concern is somewhat self-contradictory since Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is itself policy.
• Consensus is not proven. This is disputable since there is substantial precedent, but it may be argued that there has been a change in the consensus that had previously existed. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
• Should not be a guideline. In several places it was opined that the principle is good, but it should not have become part of policy. This proposal is to create a guideline.
• This became policy in an illegitimate way. If so, this proposed guideline may one day be elevated policy. It is my expectation however that enough opposition exists to all limitations on trivia that this will not happen soon.

/ edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, Wikipedia is not a trivia collection was restored to WP:NOT#TRIVIA within the last hour, albeit using the "Trivia sections" language. I would like it to remain, but since it has been removed at least three times in the past month, I am not confident it will last long. / edg ☺ ★ 15:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

And it's removed again. That didn't take long. / edg ☺ ★ 15:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Confusion with style guideline on trivia sections

The guideline Wikipedia:Trivia sections (itself under much dispute) is often incorrectly cited as reason to exclude information deemed unimportant in an article. As of this writing, there is no policy or guideline that clearly says trivia may be removed. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Growth of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is large and important enough now that removing and refining content is as important as adding it. This keeps the encyclopedia clean and usable. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Problems with having this guideline

New emphasis

There has never been a guideline on Wikipedia defining "trivia" strictly in terms of unimportant content that may be excluded. Prior guidelines have tended to limit trivia by leaning heavily on Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections (a style guideline regarding the arrangement of data, not its inclusion), and the tendency of trivia to be excludeable as unsourced, unverifiable or original research.

This is a new emphasis — well-sourced, easily verifiable content can still be trivia. There seems to be a demand, but whether there can be a consensus remains to be seen. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Redundancy

In defining Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia:Five pillars contains the phrase Wikipedia is not a trivia collection. While often considered a de facto policy, Five pillars is not defined as such, and only summarized other existing policy. Also, Five pillars does not detail this instruction.

So this guideline is still needed. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Contributions

During the time this guideline is being developed, contributions should be consistent with the intent of this guideline. As a guideline is not required to contradict itself, opposing arguments should be brought up in policy discussion in the relevant forums, and on this Talk page. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Still needed

In my opinion the FAQ section is quite shakey. When inclusion is not justified may need a little expansion, tho it should not duplicate a large number of explicit "bad reason" examples from WP:AADD. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to include ( or at least reference) Be Bold. I don't think this policy should say that editors should just start deleting things willy-nilly, but the truth is that sometimes you have to get rid of two or three sentences to remove a trivia section and improve the whole article. Although this is more of the "how to deal with trivia" rather than explicitly "why trivia is bad for wikipedia", BB is a general ground rule on which both ideas stand. In short, BB is an important policy, and I think it's good for it to be mentioned here.

Also, in the "Information is always Important section", I think it should highlight that information is important, but it should stress that it is the information's relevance to the current article that establishes it's purpose for being included. Some of the illustrative examples provided at Wikipedia:Handling_trivia#Types_of_trivia_items helpful for making clear how relevancy is important, especially the "Connective Trivia" section. --Nick Penguin 17:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd like to be a bit more assertive — barely actionable as currently written — but there is much objection to the possibility that a trivia exclusion policy may overstimulate some passionate deleter. Often it is easier to see information that doesn't belong than to notice what has gone missing, so I feel rather measure twice, cut once about this.

In all this time I haven't really looked at WP:HTRIVIA. I'll head there next. / edg ☺ ★ 17:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Name

I would suggest a title change to something like "Trivial information." As has already happened at VP (policy), people will confuse this with WP:TRIVIA.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:38, 09/23/2007

That may be a good idea. There was, however, a time when we had WP:HTRIVIA and WP:AVTRIV. The possibility of redirecting one of the familiar shortcuts to this guideline might simplify things for some editors, especially those who cite WP:TRIVIA as an admonition against unimportant information. / edg ☺ ★ 15:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd support changing a couple of TRIVIA's previous redirects to point here, pending some more discussion to guage this against WP:ROC. A few editors believe in addressing the larger issue of relevance rather than specifically targeting trivial information. I myself am undecided on that one.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:02, 09/23/2007

Not ready to hijack redirects because this may surprise a few editors unpleasantly, and besides there isn't yet any evidence of support for this proposal, especially at WP:VPP. Also don't want to rename while the article is new (if ever) — presents a moving target, harder to get familiar with. / edg ☺ ★ 17:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

what kind of a page is necessary

I think we do need a page for this, or we will be fighting about it indefinitely. But the present proposal is in any case too vague to be meaningful, and will be subject to continual attempts to adjust it for the various positions. There are however possible trivia guidelines that might be supportable, and that would at least approximate the present consensu--divided though it is. It would need to be

1. worded neutrally. This means avoiding the word Avoid, and not including the word not (this doesnt mean it should be called "Include trivia" either. And I don't like the word "trivia" which I think prejudges the issue. But it may be impossible to avoid it. So: "WP:Trivia in articles" perhaps or just "WP:Trivia" In articles, though, I like the suggestion on another page on at least renaming to avoid using the word or synonyms, and certainly not calling any section of an article "Trivia" , 2. it should say specifically what is no trivia at all: later versions of adaptations of literary works are absolutely not trivia, significant uses of significant artistic of cultural themes of characters in other significant works are not trivia, significant details about the production of artistic or other works are not trivia, biographic details of significance to the career or the character of a person are not trivia, monuments or memorials to significant cultural figures are not trivia, etc. In each case the key term is "significant" (which needs expansion, or we'll be fighting over that). (copied from VPP--we really need to hold this discussion one place or another. and I agree about not changing any redirects, until we have something that has some sort of consensus or at least viability) DGG (talk) 22:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Let's not do it here then. Having this space just splinters the discussion further. / edg ☺ ★ 00:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Shutting this down

There's not much need for this. I'm revert it to the redirect from which it came. If any of this text is useful, it can be dug out of the page history. / edg ☺ ★ 00:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)