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Not a trivia collection

Per Jimbo's edit here, I think "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection" should be added here. --Eyrian 20:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

  • I think that's a little bit redundant, but I wouldn't oppose it. Even though WP:FIVE does not have a policy tag on it, I think the consensus is that it is treated at an equal, in regards to explicitly stated policy. Corpx 20:16, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd say that's very disputed, as recent AfDs would show. --Eyrian 20:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Wow, most valuable diff ever! I think Jimbo is right in this case, but unless it's an office action we should always evaluate ideas based on their merits, not who said them. — brighterorange (talk) 15:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah, what s/he said. Jimbo has gone on about this before, not to treat every word he says as the word of god. But only to carry the same weight as any other editor, unless he explicitly says otherwise. Mathmo Talk 23:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Draft of new section

I'd like to know what people think. --Eyrian 21:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

  • How does "Isolated facts that cannot be integrated into structured prose" permit any lists, either in articles or as articles? I think that current consensus is strongly against eliminating all lists. The vagueness of the word "inconsequential" also worries me. — brighterorange (talk) 22:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The word "inconsequential" sounds a bit vague to me. I also notice this draft doesn't differentiate between trivia within an article and article topics which as a whole might be considered to be trivia. For example, I think it's generally acceptable to include a few interesting trivia facts in an article that otherwise might not add much else to the article beyond making it more entertaining to read. On the flip side the consensus generally seems to be against having long lists of trivial facts that seem to have little in common beyond a cursory relation to the main topic.

How about something like this...


Just thought I'd throw in another stab at it. Dugwiki 22:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I think your entry is actually quite good, though I really feel that "inconsequential cultural references" belongs. I don't think the language is particularly different from "loosely associated topics" or "reliable sources'. It's impossible to dictate something as variable as trivia with an absolutely interpretable statement. It'll be up to those discussing the article to determine what inconsequential means in each case. --Eyrian 23:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The reason I took out the phrase "cultural references" is that it's not a necessary distinction. Think of it this way - if something is "inconsequential" or irrelevant to the article, then it doesn't matter if it's cultural or not. It probably shouldn't be there either way. So you don't need to distinguish between pop-culture or not-pop-culture. Just look at whether or not the information is actually relevant and useful to the topic at hand.
As far as the word "inconsequential", I thought it sounded a little too vague but that's just my personal opinion. If other people like it, though, that's ok by me. Dugwiki 15:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it is necessary. If it's not specifically there, it will be argued. --Eyrian 15:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I would say that, because such a large, large percentage of unnecessary trivia on WP consists of pop culture references, I would say that it makes sense to specifically include the words "cultural references" or "references in popular culture," even if it's something along the lines of "inconsequential details, including pop culture references." -- Kicking222 15:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I think "only indirectly related details should not.." is fine. But 'inconsequential details' or 'marginal related details' might be clearer. -Fnlayson 16:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I feel like "inconsequential" (like "indiscriminate") would cause a lot of trouble. If two editors are arguing over the inclusion of some fact, and one editor says it is "inconsequential" and the other says it is "consequential", where do they go from there? How do you argue that something is inconsequential? I feel like these arguments always boil down to ILIKEIT or IDON'TLIKEIT. — brighterorange (talk) 17:23, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. As I said, there are other problematic words, like "reliable" that are used. People will never agree on what it encyclopedic, what is independent, etc. That is why we have consensus; to determine what people think. I think that "inconsequential" has a specific dictionary meaning: Is important, or affects (has consequences) the subject. That gives people a solid platform to argue from. --Eyrian 17:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I always, always, mark trivia sections with the {{trivia}} tag. Sometimes, I even incorporate the trivia into the article. Thats where I get stuck. If trivia can be edited into an article and made important to the article, what constitutes as trivia? Another thing, Wikipedia is human knowledge. Trivia is human knowledge, and, if you think about it, half (or even more than, for that matter) of the articles on Wikipedia boil trivia in one way or another. Just a thought. --wpktsfs 16:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's helpful to think of trivia as something that is relative to a context. What might be trivial in one discussion could be important information in another more specialized discussion. So there are basically two types of things most of us probably want to avoid: Things that are overly trivial relative to the topic at hand, and topics that are so overly trivial that they don't reasonably support their own indepedent articles.
So while it's true that "all trivia is knowledge", it's not true that "all knowledge is trivial". In particular the less relevant a piece of information or knowledge is to the overall context, the more likely it is that it will be labelled as trivial. Also note that the more trivial something is the more likely it is that it has limited, less reliable references and notability. Thus you can also reduce the amount of trivia by insisting on notability, verifiability and on having no original research.Dugwiki 19:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm against any section that says "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection", simply because "trivia" is hard to define. One man's trivia is another man's facts. Any potential section should clearly define trivia, and Eyrian's draft explicitly avoids that. WP:NOT is an widely-cited policy, and should not be significantly changed without wide consensus, and a discussion at on the Wikipedia:Village pump. --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 03:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with brighterorange. Such language only leads to individual taste, which should never be a guiding factor when deciding what may or may not be encyclopediac. Certainly you can see all the AFDs that will pop up using "inconsequential" as the reasoning. The problem with that is articles can meet all other criteria set forth by their respective guidelines, and be deleted at whim by those who simply assert an extremely vague rationale. As bright said, I like this I don't like that. We see it already with rationales like "wikipedia is not a collection of indiscriminate information". That is not a rationale, imo, unless the individual specifically states what part of that respective section of WP:NOT the article is in purported violation of. AFD nominations are based often on summaries of policy, and not policy itself. This needs to change. (Mind meal 03:57, 4 August 2007 (UTC))
I like Eyrian's brief and to-the-point draft the best. It is most definitely a necessary addition. Bulldog123 20:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Without even going any further into this discussion you can easily tell there will be huge problems in writing policy for this because of as Eyrian said themselves: "While it is difficult' to give a precise definition of trivia". Adding such a section dealing with trivia would bring about huge potential conflicts, as such I oppose this. Mathmo Talk 23:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to examine this, a hybrid version:


I'd like feedback on this version, specifically. --Eyrian 16:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds ok to me. It's not trying to define what "trivia" is, but is simply saying that articles should be reasonably concise and on-topic, verifiable, and not be original research. It leaves details on how to achieve those goals to the individual articles and points to WP:TRIVIA as a style guide of what is currently expected. And it also is laying out in a bit more detail for policy what the WP:PILLARS means when it says "Wikipedia is not trivia collection". Dugwiki 17:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Still seems somewhat vague to me. We already have the trivia guideline. What is the need to incorporate this here? -Chunky Rice 17:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
To keep the encyclopedia clean and usable. Wikipedia is large and important enough now that removing and refining content is as important as adding it. This is a useful mechanism to safeguard that progressive editing. --Eyrian 17:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't really answer my question. Why is the existing guidline insufficient for this purpose? -Chunky Rice 17:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Because without a policy, every single AfD or trivia removal will be answered by a scream of "THAT'S NOT POLICY! JUST A GUIDELINE! THEREFORE IT IS MEANINGLESS!". Wikipedia is not a trivia collection. That is a fundamental principle of the encyclopedia, verified by Jimbo. This is an attempt to codify that sentiment. --Eyrian 18:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I think to clarify, there is currently a bit of a policy gap between the very broad statement in WP:PILLARS that just says "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection" and the style guideline WP:TRIVIA that says "if you want to include some trivia in an article here is how to go about it." What's missing is a policy statement that explains 1) the reasoning behind the WP:PILLARS statement on trivia, and 2)gives some general policy statements on things we can agree should almost always be done in regards to handling what appears to be possibly trivial information and topics.
In other words this is looking to complete a three tier structure regarding trivia - at the top level is the broad pillar statement "Wikipedia isn't a trivia collection". At the second level would be a policy paragraph here in WP:NOT that explains "This is very generally what we mean when we say we're not a trivia collection." And at the third level is WP:TRIVIA which is a detailed style guide that says "if you have information that might be called trivial, here is a good way to go about including it, if appropriate." Dugwiki 18:10, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Just because we don't have a section called "trivia" doesn't mean that it's not covered by policy. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information seems to cover this territory already, in a broad sense. The idea of mandating things be not in list form and whatnot seems better suited to a style guideline. -Chunky Rice 18:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
IINFO doesn't cover trivia. And the current proposal doesn't have any serious rules about list form. --Eyrian 18:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. IINFO doesn't even mention trivia or anything similar to the proposed draft. There are a few discussions on precisely that issue in the WP:NOT talk archives. The closest thing WP:NOT has in regards to a similar section is "not a directory of loosely associated facts". Dugwiki 18:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Of course it does. What is trivia, if not indiscriminate information? -Chunky Rice 19:02, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
No it doesn't. You're confusing the statement that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" with "Wikipedia does not include trivia". The two statements are very different. The first is saying that "Wikipedia reserves the right to discriminate against certain types of information, even if the information is accurate." The second statement says "Wikipedia should not include trivia" which isn't at all what the section or title are saying. IINFO is simply the "catch-all" category of WP:NOT, giving specific examples of types of information that Wikipedia can discriminate against which don't neatly fall under other sections of WP:NOT policy. I highly recommend looking up previous discussions on this topic in the talk archives of WP:NOT since this topic has been talked about in pretty great detail. Dugwiki 14:52, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Perhpas, then you could define trivia for me? Because unless you can narrow it down beyond "accurate information that isn't important enough to include in Wikipedia" then I don't know what the difference is. -Chunky Rice 16:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the phrase "indiscriminate information" makes any sense. How can information be indiscriminate? WP:IINFO does not use the word this way. — brighterorange (talk) 14:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it works to address the people that say "Wikipedia should contain all information" by clearly stating that Wikipedia does not contain all verifiable information. --Eyrian 15:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree, I'm just pointing out that the phrase "indiscriminate information" is nonsense. "Indiscriminate" in the policy refers to the way we collect information, not the information itself. — brighterorange (talk) 16:17, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's look at each point of the proposed guideline

  • "that cannot be integrated into structured prose" this goes completely against the existing guideline for WP:LIST. There is no inherent reason for presenting material in structured prose, rather than in list format. My own inclination is that lists and tables are clearer and more encyclopedic--influenced by my preferences for scientific over humanistic rhetoric. For me, the clearest way of showing how the use of a theme develops is a time line, the best way for showing how many works are written on a subject is a list. A paragraph promotes vague generalisations. And many excellent WP articles on a wide range of subjects use the table format--history and politics come to mind. The very best writers can do as well with prose, but WP is not the preserve of particular skillful writers. We write our very guidelines as outlines or lists--and for good reasons.
So the proposal is in part the dislike for lists as a manner of presentation, and I don;t think we should let individuals of that stylistic bias compel their own preferred manner of writing.
  • isolated facts" The proposal is also in part that the accumulation of facts is not encyclopedic. Facts are rarely isolated. We have articles, such as a list of births in year 19XX, and even they are not isolated, they show what happens together, and indicate the connection between people and events. Lists or discussions of those creative works related because thy have similar plots, or characters, or themes, or are based on the same work, are not disconnected or isolated facts. Creative works are made by combining these elements--they are the fabric of what the work is. Lists or discussions of those in the same profession, or country, or education, are similarly not lists of disconnected facts--these are the ways in which humans define their lives.
  • inconsequential cultural references For example, Yale's influence on culture is a different matter entirely--Yale's influence on culture is the influence of the work done at Yale and by Yale graduates in the arts and other fields of civilized endeavor. We don't have any real articles of this orientation for any university, besides what's implied in the unviersity articles, and lists of X university people, and it would be a good series--an excellent idea--but it's separate. This article is on the effect that popular knowledge of Yale has on cultural artifacts--things written about Yale, or using Yale as a symbol, or as a theme. It is by the total accumulation of these themes that popular culture--contemporary culture-- is built. The orientation of these articles in WP is almost exclusively on what form of association: the artists, with some attention to the genre. They're easy to write. But the subjects of popular culture are also important. The different subjects that popular music or fiction or film uses indicates what the nature of the films or books or music is--its as important as the people who wrote it, as important as the technical aspects of the genre. These articles are harder to write. The individual items are minor in themselves in most cases--but the assemblage of them is not. In most genres, artists usually work on subjects--not all genres-- Abstract Expressionism comes to mind as an exception. But nobody just writes a love story. they write a love story about people of certain types in a certain setting. That a story refers to Yale indicates something -- they think it indicative, or they think that it will prove interesting.
  • do not belong in Wikipedia

since when does WP not write about the material? The glory of WP is that it covers all of it. Notoriously, one persons junk is another's deeply meaningful art. We cover all of what people care about that way. Some people find baseball teams relevant, some people find pokemon relevant, some Opera, and for these and for everything else there are millions who think that such indication is a sign of immaturity or arrogance. Now, the things their works are about are relevant too. The allusions they make in their works are relevant too. that is what culture is about. The place for accumulating knowledge about this is Wikipedia. Gathering is not OR; only interpretation is. WP is obvious place for the work, if not for the analysis, it's the place to collect the sources. So we see that every one of the individual parts of the proposal are wrongly conceived--except perhaps for the phrase "it is difficult to give a precise definition of trivia". This should be totally rejected as a misconceived and inadequate attempt to solve the problem of inadequate articles

So what are real problems?

  • the most "trivial" is the very word "trivia"--let's change it now; "cultural references" is a good phrase; so is "historical developments", or "uses in literature, etc." (I notice however, that a number of such articles have been proposed for deletion also on exactly the same logic as trivia., so the name change, however desirable, is unlikely to affect the goals of those proposing and supporting this section.)
  • the second is the lack of organization in many such sections--at the least, the genres should be separated, and the years arranged chronologically.
  • the third is the lack of generalizations--the people doing them have not bothered to find the existing literature, nor do they even know there is any. this isn't unique here--most WP articles have either no real referencing, or referencing without discrimination.
  • the fourth is the lack of specificity in examples. some of this is the failure to find & use what exact references there are in reviews and other discussions. Some of it is the informality of such supporting material for some topics-- games, for example, are much less carefully reviewed and studied than films--and there is a foolish prejudice here against using the existing sources, rather than pre-internet era formal sources. But even when this is cited exactly, it is still objected to. scenes in films are customarily cited in minutes and seconds, and this had been done in some cases. Some of it is a narrow view of primary sources, and a refusal to admit that the description of what happens in front of ones syses in a reproducible format that anyone can watch can be described from the face of it--the idea that a better account of a video program can be gotten from TV guide than from watching the program. That's pseudo-scholarly bias--no trained scholar would do anything of the sort, even in writing the most elementary of texts or essays for even a children's encyclopedia--she'd describe the work itself. As the 18th century scholar Samuel Johnson said at the end of the introduction to his edition of Shakespeare, put down the criticism, and read the works.

The first step to a rational policy on trivia that will build not destroy WP is to reject the proposal. DGG (talk) 09:39, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Just to reply, I'll first point out that the post above appears to be talking about the previous draft and not the most recent draft (as evidenced by the complaint about the phrase "isolated facts".

Also, to answer DDG's question "since when does WP not write about the material?", the answer is "since WP:NOT and the Five Pillars became policy." Note that the entire WP:NOT policy is specifically about things which Wikipedia should not write about. There are lots of things that, although true, do not and should not be included in Wikipedia, and this policy is specifically meant to help editors identify information and topics that should probably be removed.

As to the complaint that this contradicts WP:LIST, please note that WP:LIST is, like WP:TRIVIA, a style guideline. Both have consensus and neither contradicts the other. One is saying that "if you can incorporate a fact into prose, that is generally preferable", while the other is saying "if you are using a list for something here is how to go about it." So the two are not in conflict. Likewise, the suggested draft isn't conflicting with either guideline. It's simply saying that articles should generally be concise and on-topic, and that large lists of otherwise unrelated facts should be avoided. It doesn't say lists of relevant facts are a bad thing, and a list that is on-topic can be appropriate depending on the article. So WP:LIST applies in situations where a list makes sense, while WP:TRIVIA and this proposed policy section both say that information and lists should be concise and on-topic to help keep articles as readable and efficient as possible for the reader. Dugwiki 18:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

we've been here before, about a dozen times. The wording, as distinct from the principle, of the five Pillars have no authority as the statement of policy. All arguments to that effect have been rebuffed and mostly retracted at AfD. I agree that " lists should be concise and on-topic to help keep articles as readable and efficient as possible for the reader." they should include the relevant content, and show it as fully as necessary to do it justice, and as concisely as possible as well. There are many ways to do lists. I pint out that "bare" lists without details and information given are also depreciated both in WP:LIST and at AfD. Its a balance, as all writing is. DGG (talk) 08:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
No, they're Wikipedia's fundamental principles. Policy implements those principles. Wikipedia is not a trivia collection. Are yo saying that this is incorrect? While I realize that "Jimbo says" isn't always a great argument, when it comes to dictating policy about Wikipedia is fundamentally about, I see him as being very, very relevant. What we're doing here is implementing that fundamental principle in formal policy, for those that must have everything laid out in rules rather than principles. --Eyrian 13:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
If Jimbo comes down here, as head of the Foundation and says, "This is the way things are," then his word is law. Sure. Until then, I see no reason to give his opinion any more deference than I would any other editor. -Chunky Rice 16:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes. In fact, I think we have considerable flexibility in how we as editors establish the "fundamental principles" of Wikipedia. For my part, I do think that we should get rid of many of the trivia and pop culture references. But "Jimbo says so" or "pillars say so" or "Master Control Program says so" are the emptiest of all arguments. Why do they say so? Maybe they are wrong? In my opinion the right way to draft policy is to first analyze why we think we need it. The policy then needs to be clear and objective, and be reasonably expected to be interpreted uniformly and to effect the change we believe we need. Deference to superstition as a justification for policy is very worrisome to me. DGG's analysis, on the other hand, is attractive because it attempts to get at the actual problems that make the encyclopedia less useful to readers and more difficult to build.— brighterorange (talk) 18:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
When you start your own encyclopedia, you can determine what it's about. Jimbo here is talking about the fundamental principles of the website he has chartered. That makes what he says pretty important. --Eyrian 18:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Here's the thing. He's given the reins over to the community to determine these issues, with the exception of when the Foundation steps in to lay down the law. That hasn't happened here, so his opinion doesn't carry any authority beyond that of any experienced editor. -Chunky Rice 18:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Draft revision three

Based on DGG's and other comments, I'd like to take a stab here at a new revision of the draft. Part of the sticking points on the previous version were that:

1) We don't want to imply that trivia as a whole isn't allowed. We also don't want to give a specific definition of what trivia is since there's no real consensus on that.

2) There was some concern about how WP:LIST and WP:TRIVIA might come into play. We want something that basically says "sometimes lists are ok, other times they aren't. Here are the relevant major guidelines."

3) It sounds like most or all of us agree that we should support the general principle that articles as a whole be on-topic, concise and efficient. The goal is to express a desire to keep "bloat" within articles to a minimum since that makes for more readable, usable articles.

4) Articles on particularly esoteric topics run a higher risk of failing to meet standards of verifiability, lack of original research and notability. Editors creating articles on fringe topics should pay particular attention to making sure they follow those policies and guidelines.

5) "Not a trivia collection" is mentioned in the five pillars but never explicitly mentioned in any policy pages. It would be useful to try and define in broad terms what that five pillars sentence means within a policy section (and WP:NOT seems to be the most appropriate policy to use).

So with all that in mind, here's another stab at the draft.


What do you think? 15:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this is worse than the previous version. The previous version avoided proclamations about the pillars, etc. and got straight to the point. I can't support this. --Eyrian 15:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I included a mention of the pillars since that is part of the rationale for including the section in the first place. In other words the title of the section and the reason the section was being considered for inclusion both stem from the fact that the five pillars say "not a trivia collection". If you think you have a way to explain that basis more concisely, though, please feel free to suggest it. Dugwiki 17:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Alternatively, if you really feel the pillars shouldn't be mentioned at all, it's easy enough to simply take the first sentence out entirely and start with "This does not mean that trivia is never allowed,..." I do recommend that either way, whatever the final wording, that it give a brief explanation of why the policy is in place (not just what the policy says to do, but also why it is useful to do it that way.) Dugwiki 17:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
The basis is that it's a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. Again, I feel that this new version is much weaker, and that the hybrid version is the best. --Eyrian 17:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok, well let me put it this way then. How do we know it is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia? The answer is "we know it is because it's stated in the five pillars". That's the only actual resource on Wikipedia that I'm aware of off-hand that we can point to that says it is, in fact, an overall guiding principle. Without that reference we have nothing to point to.
Now if you have another reference you'd prefer to use that I'm overlooking, feel free to post it. Or, like I said above, if push comes to shove you can simply remove the first sentence altogether if you really don't feel it's useful. You say the new version is "much weaker", so what exactly besides the mention of the five pillars don't you like? Dugwiki 18:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Aside from the pillars reference, I don't like that it lacks the last sentence about topics that are too trivial to have accumulated any analysis. The second paragraph I don't really see as useful, and detracts from the message by simply repeating other policies. Other than that, there aren't any major differences. --Eyrian 18:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Don't the vast majority of lists fail this last criteria? I mean, generally speaking, there's not a lot of analysis done about lists or notability about lists. But that doesn't mean that they don't serve a purpose here on Wikipedia. I think that consensus has well established that structured lists, in particular, are worthy of inclusion, despite the fact that they might not be independently notable or have any sort of anaylsis included. -Chunky Rice 18:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually the majority of lists don't fail the last criteria because most lists are (presumably) verifiable and not original research and are produced from outside published sources. Lists that are original research or aren't verifiable should be deleted if they can't be corrected. List articles are, after all, still articles and still need to meet the standards in that last paragraph.
Also, in reply to Eyrian above, it wouldn't bother me if the second paragraph were shortened and incorporated back into the end of the first paragraph. The main reason I separated this into two paragraphs was that I saw the two subtopics of "trivial information within an article" and "trivial topics" as being somewhat distinct. But if you think it reads better as a single paragraph with both notions, I'm ok with remerging them. Dugwiki 19:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Not the last criteria of this version. The last criteria of the last version that Eyrian wants reinserted. -Chunky Rice 20:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Could you list what you're talking about, specifically? Quote it? I've tried to be very careful in picking phrasings that don't bar lists. That's why I've moved away from my original draft, as there was a legitimate concern there. --Eyrian 20:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
(outdent) This part here, "Similarly, article topics as a whole should generally meet...notability guidelines, which can preclude topics which are as a whole so trivial they have little to no outside published analysis" My understanding of lists is that they don't necessarily need to show independent notability. Rather, that they derive notability from the subject they are a list of. So, if we have notable "subject X," then "List of subject X" is a perfectly valid article (particularly if structured), even though the list shows no independent notability or analysis. To disclose my bias, I'm actually in a protracted content dispute with someone over this issue where an editor keeps adding notability tags to a list because the list itself isn't discussed by secondary sources. -Chunky Rice 20:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
No, but the subject of the list needs to show notability. List of miniature wargames exists because Miniature wargaming exists. However (showing my intentions here), List of cultural depictions of trivia doesn't deserve an article unless cultural depictions of trivia does. I believe that's in accordance with what you find at WP:LIST. Lits are fundamentally about the same subject as their parent article. Therefore, their subject will be notable if the parent article demonstrates it. --Eyrian 21:05, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that we're on the same page as far as what's appropriate. I just don't think that the proposed language I quoted reflects that. -Chunky Rice 21:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how a list would be interpreted as a separate "topic" from its main article. --Eyrian 21:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • WP is not a trivia collection is in my opinion properly interpreted to mean that WP as a whole is not predominantly a trivia collection. Given the difficult of definiing trivia, that doesn't help much. I do not think we will findf any alternative that does help much, because we fundamentally disagree on the sort of material to be included. For example, I consider information about what minor characters appear in what movies to be minor, but above the bar for encyclopedic content. This sort of content runs into 4 problems, all of which were discussed in recent AfD: 1/is it encyclopedic content in the first place? 2/if so, is it appropriately presented in lists? 3/what sort of sourcing is needed for individual items--is the direct citing of dframes in the movie sufficient, as one of the place where primary sources should be allowed? 4/Is it necessary to show in each case that, say, the discussion of where Superman has apppeared in other movies to be notable?
It not uncommonly happens that ddiscussions on basic principles fail to reach agreement because of their effects on particular articles or article types, and I think this is going to be one of them. We can easily agree to avoid trivia, each having our own idea of what it is.
But as for point 4, which is the question Eyrian raised above, this could be interpreted to eliminate material on many topics, including most TV. Similarly, the popular music guidelines work on the basis of importance ofthe albums, not the extent to which there is analysis of them. Ditto with athletics. Is that intended? As I understand the intersection of V and N, the key point is simply to have verifiable information to write an article. There is no requirement for analysis anywhere in WP except in connect with plot summaries in NOT, and I think that is a mistake as well--I think the only requirement shouuld be brevity. But in all other contexts the requirement is information, not analysis. DGG (talk) 18:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with DGG that "analysis" isn't a requirement. Verifiability, lack of bias and so on are requirements, but there isn't actually a requirement regarding that something be "analyzed". Only that it have been reliably published previously, preferably by multiple independent sources. Note that in the draft I proposed above I didn't include the word analysis; I'd probably prefer to stick to other terms that actually do appear as policies and guidelines. Dugwiki 19:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
  • One thing I don't like about any of these versions is that each of them talks about how lists of trivia should be integrated into the body of the article. To me, that's really something that should be left to the style guideline. At a policy level we should be talking about what kinds of articles and content are appropriate, not how it should be formatted. -Chunky Rice 21:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually the most recent version three above doesn't talk about how to integrate lists of trivia. It just says that WP:TRIVIA gives guidelines on how to do it. That draft section itself though doesn't say when to use a list versus when not to use a list. (Unless I overlooked something.) Dugwiki 22:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, it says, "Large lists of inconsequential, indirectly related details should be avoided as they dilute and distract from their article's overall readability and utility." Which, in my reading, dictates style and not content. -Chunky Rice 22:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
The word "list" can be replaced there if desired. How about "large sections of inconsequential, indirectly related details should be avoided as they ...?" The point of that sentence isn't really supposed to be about lists vs prose. It's supposed to be a statement that the article should remain concise and efficient. In other words it's not a problem if the article has some trivia, but an article shouldn't just be a jumble of random trivial facts. Dugwiki 22:59, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
If that's the goal, why not just say, "An article should not be composed only of trivia." or something like that? That is much more content oriented, to me. -Chunky Rice 00:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Because it's also bad to have an article that is mostly random trivia. You don't want two paragraphs of pertinent information followed by two pages of rambling trivia. That's why I didn't use a word like "only", because I wouldn't want someone saying "well, this article isn't only trivia, it's got a paragraph that isn't." Some trivia is fine, even interesting. Too much is distracting and unfocussed. Dugwiki 14:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Then I'd still favor langauge along the lines of "An article should not be composed primarily of trivia." -Chunky Rice 16:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

"Trivia" is bad

One of the things that dogs this discussion, and plenty of others like it elsewhere on Wikipedia, is the word "trivia" itself. "Eugene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon" is trivia, no? Yet it's quite a relevant fact to Eugene Cernan, Apollo program, and even moon. It's relevant to more than a dozen other articles as well: [1].

Trivia is a matter of context. There are millions of seemingly-trivial facts on Wikipedia that are still completely relevant within specific, entirely encyclopedic articles. It's when these facts are presented without context that they become "trivia". Trivia is more a question of presentation than a term that could produce any kind of objective discussion. Relevance is the real issue.

I've been working on that issue for a few months now, with the help of other editors, in the form of WP:RELEVANCE. It's an attempt to characterize trivia according to relatively objective criteria -- by not trying to say what trivia is, but rather when something is trivia. The proposal's been refined quite a lot over the last few months, but could always use more input. I urge those debating the "trivia" issue here to help shape the Relevance proposal further.

Trying to get WP:NOT to ban trivia is an... indiscriminate approach. Trivia is the wrong problem to address, and WP:NOT is the wrong place to address it.--Father Goose 04:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

That proposal suffers from the same problem. You can give some guidance, but don't pretend that WP:RELEVANCE makes determining what trivia is all that much easier. There are the same problems with interpretation and subjectivity of "when" something is trivial. Even the example you cited there is subjective. Who's to say that Ford's depiction is relevant in one case, and not the other. Unless, of course, you're suggesting that every popular reference must be accompanied by a ref to an independent source indicating importance. If that's what you're saying (though I don't get that impression from the proposal), then I take it all back and agree fully. --Eyrian 13:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, the proposal as worded requires you to say exactly why it's relevant -- and if you say something that can't be verified, it can be tossed. I made that more explicit in the proposal just now. If you see other potential loopholes, let me know.--Father Goose 20:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The draft above doesn't define what trivia is, so I'm not sure how Father Goose's comment above actually applies to the current proposal. In fact, it sounds like his relevancy proposal is similar to the "concise and on-topic" wording used in the draft. (Notice that "on-topic" and "relevant" are basically synonyms in this context.) So Father Goose, are you complaining about something specific you don't like in the third draft above? Because I'm not really seeing much of a difference between it and what you're saying we should do. Dugwiki 14:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Also, I want to point out that part of the reason for the title of the section is that it's meant to match the language in WP:PILLARS where is explicitly says "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection". This is an effort to help broadly define what that sentence means, and point editors to the relevant guidelines. Dugwiki 14:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Draft revision four

Ok, fourth stab at the draft....


In this draft I tried to address a few comments made above:

- I shortened it slightly, to address the complaint it was a bit too long.

- I altered the phrasing a bit to include the concept of "relevancy", which seemed to fit the context and which was a word someone particularly liked.

- I changed the reference to "lists" to "large sections", since this proposal isn't really about lists per se. It's more about the idea that articles shouldn't be mostly rambling sets of factoids, and to advise fringe topic editors to be careful about notability and references.

So what do you guys think? Is this a little better than version three? I think we're making progress slowly, but I know I tend to be a little wordy so it might still be a bit long. And it does sound like while we're quibbling a bit over precise wording, we seem to agree on the core principles involved, so hopefully we're closing in on a compromise wording we can use. Dugwiki 15:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I really think the phrase "inconsequential details" is important. --Eyrian 15:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

What is the point of the second paragraph? -Chunky Rice 16:22, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess I should explain this a little more clearly. The word "trivia" can refer to two separate things: trivial information within an article, and trivial article topics. The first is an issue of keeping articles on-topic, while the second is an issue of keeping article topics notable. Since the two topics are handled differently by policy and guidelines, I thought it would make sense to make each topic its own paragraph.
Now that being said, it's quite possible to combine both statements into the same paragraph. Or you could eliminate the second paragaph if you really think it's redundant, although like I said sometimes when people talk about "trivia" they are referring to article topics and not trivia within an article. Dugwiki 15:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
The real problem here is that this is an attempt to create policy specifically named "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection". It breaks no new ground, policy-wise. It opens by saying "some trivia's okay, but there shouldn't be any list of random and irrelevant facts" -- which is just a repetition of WP:TRIVIA and WP:NOT#INFO. It then veers into WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:N in a paragraph that hasn't yet decided what it wants to say.
Since its admonishment against trivia is specifically "no random and irrelevant trivia", what you should be trying to do here, if anything, is add another bullet to WP:NOT#INFO:
  • Lists of trivia. Large lists of indirectly-related details should be avoided as they diminish articles' overall readability and utility.
That doesn't leave you with the juicy phrase "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection", but it says what you're saying in one line instead of eight.--Father Goose 18:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
To answer your question, FG, the reason for the phrase "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection" is that it is a verbatim quote from WP:PILLARS. The purpose of this section is to put into policy what that phrase actually means. Right now there is no policy that repeats the phrase. The closest thing we have is WP:TRIVIA, which is a style guideline. This policy section is intended to bridge the gap between the single sentence in WP:PILLARS and the detailed style guide WP:TRIVIA. Dugwiki 14:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Also, I should mention that the word "lists" was objected to because not all trivia is handled by lists. Perhaps a better sentence would be "Large sections of indirectly-related details should be avoided as they diminish an article's overall readability and utility." (Hmm, that's not a bad phrasing. I'll keep this in mind for draft five.) Dugwiki 15:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
If you're trying to build a fully-fledged "trivia policy" that is not boxed in by the limited mission of WP:NOT, I again urge you to contribute to WP:RELEVANCE. I see that most of what you've come up with here is already highly in tune with what's at Relevance, although Relevance is further along.--Father Goose 19:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The intent of this isn't to create a brand new guideline or policy page, but just to have a one or two paragraph overview to act as a bridge between WP:PILLARS and WP:TRIVIA. What you're doing with Relevance goes well beyond the scope of what I'm looking for. (I'm not saying your idea is bad, I'm just saying I'm only looking for a brief statement in policy.) Dugwiki 14:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it's important for PILLARS and NOT to be in concert, but if the pillars are a summary of policy, and NOT is policy, then shouldn't Pillars be the page referencing WP:NOT, and not the other way around? I think that inversion of priority and repetition of the phrase make the first sentence particularly awkward. — brighterorange (talk) 15:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It depends on what you mean by "referencing". It's ok for WP:NOT to say something like "WP:PILLARS says (fill in the blank). This is what that means." In fact five pillars is even already mentioned elsewhere in WP:NOT (eg "Articles still must abide by the appropriate content policies and guidelines, in particular those covered in the five pillars."). What I don't think WP:NOT should do, though, is try and replace five pillars or contradict it. Basically everything in WP:NOT should agree with the five pillars and hopefully enhance it by going into a little more detail on specific topics.
The reason therefore for mentioning Five Pillars in this draft is to give the reader an explanation of where the section's title and purpose stems from. By mentioning Pillars we're making clear that the phrase "not a trivia collection" isn't just random wording, but is specifically something already rooted in Five Pillars. Dugwiki 15:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, without the assertion that the Pillars are a policy summary (like in your version below) it is much less weird. — brighterorange (talk) 18:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Draft revision 5

I think we're getting closer, hopefully. Here's another revision. Since the previous one was still too wordy, I've shortened it and combined it into one paragraph.


(ed note - removed hyphen)

Hopefully this shortened version works better. It still states that it is trying to broadly explain the five pillars phrase "not a trivia collection", and points to the relevant style guidelines without going into detail on what exactly the word trivia is. It also defines the phrase in terms of relevancy to a discussion, which I like.

What do you guys think? Does it sound a little better? Dugwiki 16:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I like this version better. I don't see why "indirectly-related" should be hyphenated. I also find it a little strange that we threaten "closer scrutiny" for esoteric topics; this gives the impression that we apply our standards in an uneven way. Although that's probably true in practice, is it something that we want to bake into policy? (On the other hand we do already have have "exceptional claims require exceptional sources," which I wouldn't argue with.) — brighterorange (talk) 18:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies, Bright. You're right about the hyphen. I've removed it from the above draft. As far as the "closer scrutiny", I obviously wasn't trying to say we do things unevenly, but was just pointing out the risk of how it works in practice. I'm not completely against changing or removing that comment, though.Dugwiki 20:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be better if it was just the first two sentences. Talking about integration still makes me think it should be a style guidline. Also, when we start talking about things like "esoteric topics" we're getting into highly subjective (even more so than the defnition of trivia) judgments. I feel like it's best just to let WP:N, WP:V and WP:OR take care of these issues independently of this particular WP:NOT provision. There's nothing about "esoteric topics" that means we should treat them any differently from any other topic. -Chunky Rice 19:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Chunky. Bright said basically the same thing about esoteric topics, and I can see the point. I'll definitely consider removing or revising that part. As far as integration, I just thought the word sounded better than "included". Obviously this draft isn't going into any detail at all about what style to use how to accomplish the goal. It just points to the style guidelines for those details. So this section isn't a style guide, it just provides links to the related style guides. Dugwiki 20:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
What if I replaced "Directly relevant facts should normally be integrated using consensus guidelines including WP:TRIVIA and WP:LIST" with "See guidelines WP:TRIVIA and WP:LIST for details on how to incorporate directly relevant minor information into articles or lists." That leaves the possibly slightly changing details up to the guidelines but keeps the core policy idea that isn't likely to change here in this paragraph. Dugwiki 20:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I would prefer something much more streamlined, that states only the most general of principals, leaving the specifics to the guideline. This is based on your Draft rev. 5:
Trivia collections. As indicated in the Five pillars, Wikipedia is "not a trivia collection." An article should not be composed predominantly of minute details only indirectly related to an article's topic. Please see WP:TRIVIA for relevant style guideline information.
I'm also fine with the one line pointer to the trivia guideline. -Chunky Rice 18:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
We can substitute words all we please, and we'll have the same arguments: the discussion will now shift to the meaning of "indirectly related". some of us will argue that later uses of the same plot elements or even background elements are directly related, & others will deny it, and we won't have gotten anywhere. We all agree that WP is not a trivia collection. I interpret it as meaning that we should not in most articles include too much trivia. I don't think it necessarily means any more than that. DGG (talk) 22:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
As I've repeatedly said, I think that the "inconsequential details" bit is very important. Inconsequential is a defining characteristic of trivia. --Eyrian 22:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The history of "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection"

Some perspective can be gained by looking at how this phrase came to be part of the Five pillars. The genesis of this phrase was on May 25, 2006, when PatrickFisher reworded the first pillar to include "It is not a collection of source documents or trivia...". Before this time there was no mention of "trivia" in the five pillars. Notice that the word "trivia" was linked to Wikipedia:Notability. It is clear then, that the original meaning of "Wikipedia is not a collection of trivia" is "Wikipedia is not a collection of articles about topics which are not notable".

On September 18, 2006, Apantomimehorse changed the first pillar once again, in order to "make it more explicit that some non-encyclopeic content can go to sister projects". Unfortunately, he mistakenly left the first part of that sentence to read "It is not a trivia, a soapbox..."; the sentence was now ungrammatical, but the link still pointed to Wikipedia:Notability. Mjb noticed the error on September 28, and added the word "collection", but he also changed the "trivia" link to point to Wikipedia:Trivia; this in itself is a redirect to Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections (not that it is not "Delete trivia sections", and that the guideline itself says "Do not simply remove such sections..."). At this point the first pillar said "It is not a trivia collection...". The fact that he marked this as a minor edit seems to indicate he was probably not aware of the implications of what appeared to be a simple copyedit.

On November 3, Isogolem changed the wording to "Nor is Wikipedia an indiscriminate collection of information, a trivia collection...", and less than 2 hours later Centrx changed it to the present "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection...".

Note that at no time was there any discussion about the phrase on Wikipedia talk:Five pillars until less than a month ago: see Wikipedia talk:Five pillars#Wikipedia is not a trivia collection, and it is clear that there is no consensus for its meaning. Then in this discussion, Jimbo restates the phrase, and it now has the status of holy writ. WP:FIVE is now cited as a reason to delete articles and a reason to change policy, even though it seems clear that no policy changes were ever intended by this phrase.

All in all, it is an interesting study on how a seemingly inocuous restatement of the notability guidelines gets turned into a crusade to delete all articles, sections, and items which certain editors judge to be "trivia". DHowell 09:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice bit of research. I have been troubled about crusades on WP like the one against trivia, and it is interesting to see how these things get blown out of proportion. In this case, it looks like this just took on a life of its own. Another example is the crusade against neologisms. There are editors who will sit on the new article lists, and instantly nominate for deletion any article they consider a neologism, without any further consideration. They take the guideline to avoid neologisms to the extreme, and like trivia, this ultimately hurts the project more than it helps. It seems it's that crusades may initially start out with a reasonable scope, but the scope creeps, and the whole operation inevitably runs amok. Dhaluza 10:38, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
You make a pretty sound argument here. I too think we're alienating large numbers of editors and readers by going after this stuff. The fact that so much of it exists suggests that a lot of editors obviously see value in it. At the end of class last night we actually talked a bit about how we can and cannot use Wikipedia in academic settings and one of the things students seemed to really like is how they can learn interesting little tidbits of trivia or see the extent of various items' influences on popular culture. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 23:30, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Interesting, but I can assure you that there are other reasons to remove trivia. --Eyrian 14:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Like Dhaluza, I'm troubled by these mass deletion crusades; I think if a section can be reworked instead of deleted, it should be. I also worry that large numbers of editors are being alienated by this, as Le Grand Roi suggests. It takes a long time to create an article, but only moments to delete it in a mass purge. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Mjb noticed the error on September 28, and added the word "collection", but he also changed the "trivia" link to point to Wikipedia:Trivia; this in itself is a redirect to Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections" This is incorrect, Wikipedia:Trivia did not redirect to Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections until recently. Originally, Wikipedia:Handling trivia lived at that title. -- Ned Scott 07:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

"Inconsequantial" vs. "Minute"

Both are defined as "insignificant", but the former has a clearer meaning. I made the change, and was reverted. I think that my wording was clearer. --Eyrian 15:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"insignificant" would certainly be more useful than "minute" to someone trying to push forwards a large number of popular culture deletions on grounds of notability. Possibly you should pursue this chnage when you are not doing just that? Artw 15:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Why? Are there truly people defending inconsequential information? Why is a minor textual change to clarify "minute" so contentious? "Minute"'s best known meaning is small. A detail does not have physical size, and therefore cannot be small. Inconsequential is a better translation of that. That's all. Stop looking for the agenda. --Eyrian 15:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The difference would appear to be inconsequential (as would the accusation of cabalism...) >Radiant< 15:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • For my part I prefer the word "inconsequential" because the word "minute" can be read to mean "small in physical size". By contrast the word "inconsequential" implies "something that is not of consequence to the topic", which does not imply anything one way or another about the physical size of the information. In other words, "minute" could be read to mean "small in terms of word and sentence length", whereas "inconsequential" simply means "not having a significant effect on the subject". Since we're not so much worried about the length of the sentence as we are about not drifting into too many tangents, I think "inconsequential" is a slightly better word. Just my opinion. Dugwiki 16:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I would favour minutia, as in "Wikipedia is not a large collection of minutia", which IMHO is a far more useful directive than the rather broad and vague "Wikipedia should not feature things that are inconsequential". I like to think that we could all identify a list of minutia, whereas different things can be consequential to different people. Artw 18:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
  • No, inconsequential means something doesn't have an impact. That's something you can cite. If something doesn't affect something else, it's inconsequential. --Eyrian 18:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
FYI, the reason for the phrase "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection" is that that is the exact wording in WP:PILLARS. Dugwiki 19:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I've changed it to "Extremely minor" - which would be the same thing by raidants rationale, avoid the "size" related issue and I think is a better fit. Artw 19:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
There's no consensus for that, as there shouldn't be. Why would we exchange a word that has a clear meaning (i.e. has consequences) for one that is completely subjective? --Eyrian 19:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
"Minor" was not changed by anyone but you. I don't see how it's subjective. It's basically another synonym for minute, which one user objected too becuase of the sixze connutations. Your "consensus" for "inconsequential" consists of that comment and another, more neutral one. I see no problem with subjectivity, would you like to explain that more? Is there any problem with "Minor" other than it is not your prefered term? Artw 19:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
It's because minor is a completely subjective term. There is nothing even approaching a criterion for understanding. Consequentiality is something that can be based much more on fact; whether something affects something else. It's less ambiguous. --Eyrian 19:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
There's no consensus for either version. Both words are subjective. -Chunky Rice 20:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
All words that don't involve numbers are subjective. "Inconsequential" is considerably less so. --Eyrian 20:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Consequentiality runs the gamut from completely inconsequential to world shaking importance. Where any given fact crosses the line over from not consequential enough for inclusion is entirely subjective. I don't see how you can draw in a line in the sand on consequentiality any more than you can on significance. -Chunky Rice 20:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Consequentiality can be cited. You can claim that something affects something else, and that's the kind of thing that can be commonly found in a reference. Something "changed the perception". The word minor is much more fluid --Eyrian 20:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "affecting something else." Could you elaborate? -Chunky Rice 20:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Tipping my hand. A piece of information can be considered "inconsequential" if it doesn't affect something. Consequentiality can only be determined in relation. A piece of information is consequential to a subject if it has an effect on that subject. An effect is something that can be cited. --Eyrian 20:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm still not clear on how this would be applied. I'm not clear on what constitutes "affecting" something, particularly when we're talking about concepts. If a painting sells at a certain price at auction, does that affect the painting? Does the etymology of the word "computer" affect computers? Is it necessary to show a citiation specifically showing how the subject was affected by the fact? For example, basic biographical information. If a person was born in Anytown, USA, do we need to cite to some document that says how this affected their life or else it's trivia? -Chunky Rice 21:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Those are pretty obviously not inconsequential. And you can continue to throw up straw men all day, but that won't change the fact that such things will never be considered inconsequential. --Eyrian 21:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
"Consequential" is subjective... but less subjective than every other suggestion I've seen so far. Incidentally, we're discussing the same damn issues in three different sections on this page.--Father Goose 20:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"Large sections of..."

Is this really necessary? It seems to me that such things are problematic, regardless of size, and should be dealt with appropriately. --Eyrian 16:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually size is an issue. A reasonable amount of trivia that is particularly interesting to most readers can enhance an article, and it's possible that a small trivia section might work well. The more significant problems arise when an article begins to have large sections of it devoted to random facts instead of being a coherent cohesive piece on a topic. So therefore I think the "large sections" phrase is useful to distinguish between when an article has an acceptable amount of trivia versus having too much trivia cluttering it up. Dugwiki 16:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The point is, shouldn't trivia should always be integrated or deleted? A large, longstanding list might mean that the material can't be integrated, and should be deleted, but I don't think size is the important factor. Besides, it would still just read "should be avoided". --Eyrian 16:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
If "trivia" is integrated, it's still "trivia." Right now our definition of trivial is so shaky and subjective that I see this leading to people deleting facts they don't like out of the middle of a paragraph because they don't like them, citing this policy. -Chunky Rice 16:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
To put this another way, I think we have consensus that large sections of random information should be eliminated. However it's not clear there is consensus for having NO trivia, or that there is consensus that there shouldn't be LIMITED trivia sections in some articles. So I think the "large sections" phrase is useful to make sure the policy section meets the optimal editorial consensus. We're not trying to eliminate all trivia - just to keep it limited and focussed. Dugwiki 16:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the combined edits would reduce this section to a restatement of restatement of WP:NOTE or WP:V, which is not particularly useful to anyone. There are other policies for that, this section of WP:NOT is about stopping lists of minor factoids. Artw 18:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Why? I think the current section does a fine job of describing what trivia is, and gives advice on how to handle it. --Eyrian 18:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Less so after your edits. Artw 18:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
How so? --Eyrian 18:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Because, as mentioned above, they would make the section overly broad, so that we would lose the clear mandate for removing long lists of minor details. Menawhile unscrupulous editors might chose to use the broad wording as a deletion hammer. Artw 19:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
But deletion on those grounds could only happen to articles that are comprised solely of inconsequential details, anyway. --Eyrian 19:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Why Can't There Be Trivia?

I like to read trivia. I think that it's fun to read. So why can't trivia be on Wikipedia? Mollymoon 22:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree it can be useful. Not unreviewed garbage of course, but a section of 'fast-facts' is what many people come to wikipedia for. Alisson

I tend to disagree. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and how many reputable encyclopedias have "fast facts"? They make fan sites for that sort've thing. I think inclusion within the article text is an acceptable standard. Drumpler 06:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Replaced Radiant's one sentence trivia point with draft five above

I noticed Radiant put a "trivia" bullet point into WP:IINFO that simply said "See WP:TRIVIA for details]]" and nothing else. Since we've been going back and forth for a bit above about just such a section, but with more detail, I replaced Radiant's sentence with draft five above of the "not a trivia collection" paragraph. It basically advises the same thing regarding seeing WP:TRIVIA for more details, but also provides a broad rationale and grounding for the policy in WP:PILLARS. I think the extra reasoning is useful as a way to bridge the single sentence "not a trivia collection" in WP:PILLARS with the very detailed style guideline WP:TRIVIA.

Feel free to comment or revise or revert, of course. I think draft five was pretty well close to consensus, so hopefully this version is also acceptable to Radiant (whose sentence I replaced but who didn't comment on draft five). Dugwiki 15:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I object, in principal, because I don't think that there's consensus to add this section at all. What's the rush? If we find a consensus version, it will be added. If not, it won't. Putting this in now creates a presumption in favor of having the provision, requiring consensus to remove it when there was no consensus to add it in the first place. I won't revert, but I don't approve. -Chunky Rice 18:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Father Goose reverted to Radiant's one sentence version, apparently not noticing that he gave his support above to the longer version. I therefore reverted Father Goose's change. (Note that the one sentence version doesn't say "all there is to be said". It gives no actual justification or explanation for the policy and just pointed to a guideline.) Dugwiki 21:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd still nix the last line: as worded, it's both open-ended, not clearly having anything to do with trivia, and recommends no action. If you're aiming to say something about "trivia articles", you'll have to find something concrete and consensual to say.--Father Goose 23:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok, fair enough. I'm removing the last sentence regarding articles on trivial topics. That sentence doesn't actually say much other than "follow existing policy and guidelines", so I guess it may as well be taken out. Dugwiki 14:59, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Some examples, with old version links, might be helpful here. Give an example of a trivia list before it was turned into an article, and an example of an article that degenerated into a trivia collection. Also, give examples of what "Directly relevant" means and what "large sections" and "minute details" mean. All these terms are vague at the moment, and open to misinterpretation. Who judges whether something is directly relevant? Are small sections allowed? Are 'large' details allowed (as the theoretical opposite to 'minute' details). Without examples, people will wrangle endlessly over this, and, no, examples are not instruction creep. Here are some examples to start people off: Tyrannosaurus in popular culture, Cultural depictions of dinosaurs, Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture and Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc. There should be examples there, in the page history, of trivia collections and articles. The other thing to note is that it is surprisingly difficult to define trivia. Seriously, try it. It should be made clear that it is not trivia per se that is bad, but the sourcing (especially secondary sourcing) and the presentation of facts as collections of separate facts, rather than as points within the structured prose of an article. It should also be mentioned that trivia collections can be turned into lists. The current paragraph only points at WP:TRIVIA and WP:LIST. At the moment, someone could interpret this paragraph as meaning "delete trivia". It needs to be explicitly stated that only the trivial parts of a trivia collection should be deleted. The notable parts should be retained and integrated. Carcharoth 17:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Examples are a good idea, but should the examples appear here or should they appear in the more detailed guidelines WP:TRIVIA and WP:LIST? Perhaps the section should say "see WP:TRIVIA for examples" and then put the specific examples you want in the guideline. Dugwiki 18:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, also above Carcharoth suggests "it should be made clear that it is not trivia per se that is bad, but the sourcing (especially secondary sourcing) and the presentation of facts as collections of separate facts, rather than as points within the structured prose of an article. It should also be mentioned that trivia collections can be turned into lists." I should mention that in an earlier draft I did have a sentence fragment that said something like "not all trivia is bad, but articles should not consist primarily of only marginally related facts". It was pointed out that getting into this level of small detail on the style of an article is better suited to the style guidelines because they go beyond the intended scope of the policy page. Also, style guidelines tend to be slightly less stable than policy pages, and so we want this section to be something that is broadly true in a general sense and not likely to change over time. Therefore the details of how and when to incorporate trivia within an article versus putting it in a list is better suited to the guidelines, and the policy can simply say in general terms that an article shouldn't just be random collections of facts somehow connected to a topic. Dugwiki 19:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
My concern here is that WP:NOT is sometimes pointed to as an example in deletion debates, but a clear distinction should be drawn between WP:NOT articles that can be fixed, and those than can't ever be fixed. In other words, discourage people at AfD from pointing at this as a justification for deletion. Anyone saying delete on the basis of this trivia clause would have to show that it is not possible (or no-one has tried) to fix the problems. Carcharoth 19:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, theoretically, attempting to correct mistakes instead of hitting the delete button is the better option when it's available. That's true not only in regards to trivia but other things. For instance, it's usually better to try and add references to an article than to simply delete it if it looks like there's a reasonable chance references can be located. Similarly in a case of bias it's usually better to try and change the article to removed biased language than to delete the whole article. So what your describing doesn't just apply to the trivia section but applies to a lot of other things.
What about if I change the first sentence to read "When Wikipedia:Five pillars says that Wikipedia is "not a trivia collection" we mean that while some unusual tangential facts in an article can be interesting, large sections of minute details only indirectly related to an article's topic should be avoided as they diminish its overall readability and utility...." That would make it clearer that we're not advocating having no trivia at all; just that things need to be kept focussed. Dugwiki 20:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
As per my comments back in the draft 5 section, I really don't like this "when/we" language. The first sentence should be simple factual statement, "Five pillars states, blah blah." Followed by the policy statement, "Unusual tangential facts blah blah" Further, I've come to the conclusion that the entire exercise trying to define trivia is fruitless. you really can't do it without using extremely POV words like, "unusual." -Chunky Rice 21:09, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I've just read the big discussion further up, with the five draft wordings, and a lot of what I want to say has already been said there. Dugwiki, any wording to clarify things, as you proposed, would be great. Carcharoth 21:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

See, this is what I'm talking about. Inserted without any consensus to do so, now impossible to remove. -Chunky Rice 14:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

To reply to Chunky, good point on the style of the phrasing. I'll see if I can shift the language to avoid "we" and be more direct. As far as "defining what trivia is", the section isn't attempting to do that. It's going out of its way not to define what trivia is. All it's trying to do is clarify what the five pillars sentence means, and to point editors to the appropriate guidelines. Finally, in terms of lack of consensus, it sounds like you'd prefer slightly different wording but haven't actually disagreed with the main gist of the section. So I'm pretty sure there is consensus to have this section in place, albeit possibly with some minor wording revisions. Therefore deleting the entire section isn't necessary. Dugwiki 14:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm still not certain that it's at all necessary though if it does go in, I wanted to have input on the language. And given that the language is not final, I think that insertion was very premature. No reason not to take it out completely until final language is determined, at the very least, assuming that consensus is reached to add it at all. -Chunky Rice 15:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I took Chunky's advice and reworded it slightly to remove the "we" and also to say that some trivia can be ok but large amounts aren't. Hopefully that improves the phrasing a bit and makes clear we're not saying "remove all trivia everywhere". Dugwiki 15:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like Eyrian objected to the statement "some trivia is ok" and reverted it out. That's fine, although he also I think unintentionally also reverted the change from "we say" to "meaning". I changed the latter back and kept the rest of Eyrian's revert intact. Dugwiki 15:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
We shouldn't be shifting the language around on the policy page back and forth. This is why the addition was premature. Let's hammer it out here and add it back when done. -Chunky Rice 15:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I see Chunky again removed the section because of his above concern about the language changing. For reference, here is the wording of the section as it was when he removed it.


So, any further objections to including the draft? Any more changes to make? Dugwiki 17:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I like it Corpx 17:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Not that it matters. I was reverted again. Like I said. Added without consensus, now entrenched. Much like the section in Five Pillars was, as outlined above. I'm sure it's clear, but I'm perturbed at how this was strongarmed into the policy without any clear consensus that I can see.
That said, I still don't like the bit about integrating trivia. -Chunky Rice 17:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
What if the word "integrated" is changed to "handled"? So the sentence would read "Directly relevant facts should be handled using consensus guidelines including WP:TRIVIA and WP:LIST". It means the same thing but doesn't imply anything one way or another about the form trivia should take (ie list versus prose). Dugwiki 18:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
If all you're looking for is a way to refer to the guidelines, I prefer language like, "Please see WP:TRIVIA and WP:LIST for relevant style guideline information." Points people in the right direction without itself making any proclamations itself. -Chunky Rice 18:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok, so how about if the last sentence is changed to "Please see WP:TRIVIA and WP:LIST for relevant style guideline information" ? Dugwiki 19:50, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Here's my proposed version:
It's short and to the point with a minimum of editorializing. -Chunky Rice 21:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm wary of using WP:NOT to "store" the explanation of a line found on a different page (WP:FIVE). The way you phrased it -- "consequently" -- is even worse, because that implies that WP:TRIVIA follows from WP:FIVE, when I believe the opposite is true. The line "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection" in WP:FIVE seems to have been spurred by the creation of WP:TRIVIA (which does not say anything as broad as "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection"), so I'd say that "principle" was snuck into WP:FIVE as an overly-broad interpretation of a recently-created guideline.
That said -- no, Wikipedia is indeed not a trivia collection. I have mixed feelings about the new entry being proposed for WP:NOT here. It properly explains that "not a trivia collection" only has a narrow meaning (no trivia lists) -- but the phrase in the absence of that explanation can easily be taken to mean "Wikipedia does not permit trivia", which is disastrously broad. I'd rather remedy the broad phrase itself instead of having both it and an explanation that narrows its scope again.--Father Goose 20:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)


Regarding minor semantic changes to the new trivia section

For reference, as I type this the trivia section currently reads:


Now I understand that there is some discussion back and forth over some very minor semantic changes to the wording. My advice would be that rather than making these minor changes directly in the policy document, discuss them here first. That way we don't have someone change a word, then someone else reverts it or changes it to something else. I'd recomend haggling out the exact semantics of changes in this thread first. That way you'll know if the change you want to make is something the rest of the editors are ok with. Dugwiki 20:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I would agree, but can we revert it back to the way it was before the changes began? Artw 20:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
As it stands is fine. --Eyrian 20:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
To be honest I kind of lost track of which version is which, Artw. They're all kind of similar sounding. If you could paste the version you prefer here, then if people like it we can reinsert it. Or if people like the current version we can keep that instead. Dugwiki 20:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Does it strike anyone else that the way it's written seems a bit pedantic, or at least unnecessarily wordy? I'm just saying, in general the rest of the page is pretty easy to read, and get the gist of the first time around, I find that with this section, even though I completely understand the policy, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means. Is there a way to simplify this, not so much to put it in oversimplified language, but just to make it more straightforward and to the point? Also, I'm not sure it's necessary to reference the five pillars, as it is generally accepted that policy pages such as this are meant to explain and elaborate on the five pillars. Most other parts of the page don't make reference to the five pillars, which seems to work for the overall flow of the passages. I don't see what the reference here accomplishes. Calgary 21:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Just another note, I think we could easily replace the word "inconsequential" with "insignificant", as they pretty much mean the same thing in this context, and one is no more subjective than the other. Also, the statement "Relevant facts should normally be handled in accordance with relevant guidelines such as WP:TRIVIA and WP:LIST." doesn't really mean anything, does it? I mean, isn't it a given that non-trivial information should be in accordance with WP:TRIVIA? Is it even worth saying? Calgary 22:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
No problem with "insignificant" here. Artw 22:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Simplify it

Like Calgary said.

  • Drop "five pillars" -- have 5P reference/link to this section of WP:NOT, not the other way around.
  • Drop insignificant, irrelevant, inconsequental, and all the other subjective terms; loosely-related describes all trivia lists anyway, and WP:TRIVIA explains the rest.
  • Drop the second link to WP:TRIVIA. Also drop WP:LIST because it doesn't give any useful instructions regarding trivia lists, whereas WP:TRIVIA does talk about how to create focused lists out of trivia sections.

Result:

  • Trivia collections. Large sections of indirectly-related details should be avoided as they diminish articles' overall readability and utility.

--Father Goose 23:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I prefer this to the current version. -Chunky Rice 23:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree, this is a much better version. Straightforward and to the point. Calgary 23:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Simple, elegant, to the point, I like it. Artw 00:02, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Again, "inconsequential" is important. Aside from that, it's fine. --Eyrian 01:18, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
"Inconsequential" is synonymous with "trivial". The very usage of the word "trivia" denotes something that is incinsequential. I don't really think it's necessary to restate it. Calgary 01:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
While I would agree, I think it usefully clarifies the scope of what trivia is. The first question is always "what is trivia". It would be helpful to provide some guidance in that regard, i.e. words like inconsequential. --Eyrian 03:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, just for reference, wiktionary defines trivia as "insignificant trifles of little importance, especially items of unimportant information ". Now, words like "inconsequential" and even "trivial" can seem very subjective when used in certain contexts. Now I think we're pretty clear on what trivia is, and we need to make it clear that the standard by which we are judging it is not its value, which is subjective, but is indeed its relevance to the main subject. Now, indeed trivial information is usually of little value, but relevance is an objective standard that has a direct impact on the value of the information, so it's something we can judge easily and with a uniform view. Now, if you ask me "indirectly-related details" does a pretty good job of summing up relevance (or rather, irrelevance) in a few words. I don't think "inconsequential" contributes as much because someone could easily say that details are inconsequential, but should the need arise to explain why the details are inconsequential, it ends up being because of the fact that they relate so indirectly to the main subject and to each other. Calgary 04:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Father Goose, I quote Dugwiki's opening comment in this section: "My advice would be that rather than making these minor changes directly in the policy document, discuss them here first. That way we don't have someone change a word, then someone else reverts it or changes it to something else. I'd recomend haggling out the exact semantics of changes in this thread first. That way you'll know if the change you want to make is something the rest of the editors are ok with.". -- Ned Scott 06:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I know, but it's so much more fun to be bold. And it did have a lot of "yes" votes; I wanted to get it on the page before the wrangling over the additional adjustments left it stuck in committee for the next week.--Father Goose 06:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
It does seem that most people agree with the short version, unless someone objects soon, I think it would be reasonable to make the change. Calgary 06:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
More fun? Please don't have "fun" with policy pages. -- Ned Scott 06:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
AAAAAH, bad faith on my part or something, because apparently I thought there was a change (in meaning) that wasn't there at all. Sorry about that, everyone. -- Ned Scott 06:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
No need to apologise when it turns out OK, the current revision (06:53, 23 August 2007) looks good. Newbyguesses - Talk 07:01, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Yep, no problem.--Father Goose 07:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The only quibble I have is that I disagree with Father Goose about not mentioning five pillars here. After all, the main point of the section is to clarify what the phrase "is not a trivia collection" in WP:PILLARS means. I'm ok with the other aspects of the shorter version. So I think I'd prefer -


It's still simpler than the current version, which is good, but keeps the explanation of where the phrase "trivia collection" is coming from. Without that sentence readers might get the wrong impression that we're simply making up the trivia collection phrase out of thin air. Dugwiki 14:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, should we add a link to WP:NOT#IINFO to WP:TRIVIA and/or WP:PILLARS at the appropriate place? Right now I don't think either of those pages links to the new WP:NOT section. A single link at the first mention of "trivia" in both documents would probably work. Dugwiki 15:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, if you're trying to explain Pillars, do it at Pillars. I just changed Pillars' "not a trivia collection" to link here (WP:NOT#TRIVIA) instead of to WP:TRIVIA. The words "trivia collection" aren't chiseled in stone, although I don't oppose them; their use in WP:FIVE or here still doesn't represent anything more fundamental than the explanation provided here with them.
Having WP:TRIVIA link here on the first mention of "trivia" isn't useful, since all this does is summarize WP:TRIVIA, which I was already reading. WP:TRIVIA shouldn't defer to WP:NOT on the subject of trivia when all it does is defer back to WP:TRIVIA. For the time being, I put the link to here at the top of TRIVIA's "See also".--Father Goose 17:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
User:DugWiki has a good point, the guidelines ought to be in agreement and support each other as far as possible.
User:Father Goose has a couple of good points - pointing one guideline at another which points straight back to the other does not achieve much unless both guidelines have at least something truly insightful to say. Second point, the words *trivia collection* are not chiseled in stone - there is much divisiveness over just the words, yet many Wikipedians, myself included, would like to have some more clear-cut guidance on "relevant", "important", "insignificant", "related", "vaguly connected", "irrelevant" and such concepts and the words used to describe them. In particular, what is relevance, which was supposed to be addressed by a project Wikipedia:Relevance of content, currently stalled due to edit-protection and bickering. Newbyguesses - Talk 22:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, my overall view of what trivia is, based on a simple black and white criteria would be this:
Trivia is material, the knowledge of which does not affect a person’s understanding of the main subject.
Or, to use an alternate phrasing:
Trivial details are arbitrary facts which, although they may be related to the main subject, have no bearing on a person’s overall knowledge of the subject. This, of course, does not apply when the information is clearly of widespread interest.
Now, this is, of course, far from an authoratative definition, and there are probably plenty of situations where this wouldn't be applicable. The problem is, I think we all pretty much know what trivia is, but we can't agree on how to describe it. Calgary 23:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we should just link it as: trivia. -Chunky Rice 23:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm certainly willing to compromise and accept the version that's on WP:NOT as I type this. I'd personally still like to have a reference to Pillars here, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. I also am ok with the changes Father Goose outlined to place links from WP:PILLARS and WP:TRIVIA to here.
As far as trying to define what trivia actually is, that would go beyond the scope of WP:NOT. It's not necessary for WP:NOT to define what trivia is, but rather to describe in very general terms what it is we're looking to avoid related to trivia (ie rambling sections or articles of facts with little cohesion). The specific details of exactly how this can be done falls into the guideline realm of WP:TRIVIA. Dugwiki 16:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
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