Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Trivia

message: *"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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Let's look at each point of the proposed guideline

message: 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: .
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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  "Trivia" is bad 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: Interesting, but I can assure you that there are other reasons to remove trivia. --Eyrian 14:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title: The history of "Wikipedia is not a trivia collection"

message: 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)
replies: text: "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)
replies: text: 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)

text: *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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: "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)
replies: text: 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)

text: There's no consensus for either version.  Both words are subjective.  -Chunky Rice 20:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All words that don't involve numbers are subjective. "Inconsequential" is considerably less so. --Eyrian 20:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you mean by "affecting something else."  Could you elaborate? -Chunky Rice 20:44, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: "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)
thread_title:  "Inconsequantial" vs. "Minute" 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text:  Less so after your edits. Artw 18:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  How so? --Eyrian 18:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  "Large sections of..." 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Why Can't There Be Trivia?