Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia

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

message: ====Dispute in policy====
The wording Wikipedia is not a collection of trivia was removed from the policy page Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not on grounds that included the following:
*That is it not policy. This concern is somewhat self-contradictory since Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is itself policy.
*Consensus is not proven. This is disputable since there is substantial precedent, but it may be argued that there has been a change in the consensus that had previously existed. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interestingly, Wikipedia is not a trivia collection was restored to WP:NOT#TRIVIA within the last hour, albeit using the "Trivia sections" language. I would like it to remain, but since it has been removed at least three times in the past month, I am not confident it will last long. / edg ☺ ★ 15:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And it's removed again. That didn't take long. / edg ☺ ★ 15:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reason for this guideline

message: The wording Wikipedia is not a collection of trivia was removed from the policy page Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not on grounds that included the following:
*That is it not policy. This concern is somewhat self-contradictory since Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is itself policy.
*Consensus is not proven. This is disputable since there is substantial precedent, but it may be argued that there has been a change in the consensus that had previously existed. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interestingly, Wikipedia is not a trivia collection was restored to WP:NOT#TRIVIA within the last hour, albeit using the "Trivia sections" language. I would like it to remain, but since it has been removed at least three times in the past month, I am not confident it will last long. / edg ☺ ★ 15:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And it's removed again. That didn't take long. / edg ☺ ★ 15:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Dispute in policy

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

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

message: ====New emphasis====
There has never been a guideline on Wikipedia defining "trivia" strictly in terms of unimportant content that may be excluded. Prior guidelines have tended to limit trivia by leaning heavily on Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections (a style guideline regarding the arrangement of data, not its inclusion), and the tendency of trivia to be excludeable as unsourced, unverifiable or original research.
This is a new emphasis — well-sourced, easily verifiable content can still be trivia. There seems to be a demand, but whether there can be a consensus remains to be seen. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Problems with having this guideline

message: There has never been a guideline on Wikipedia defining "trivia" strictly in terms of unimportant content that may be excluded. Prior guidelines have tended to limit trivia by leaning heavily on Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections (a style guideline regarding the arrangement of data, not its inclusion), and the tendency of trivia to be excludeable as unsourced, unverifiable or original research.
This is a new emphasis — well-sourced, easily verifiable content can still be trivia. There seems to be a demand, but whether there can be a consensus remains to be seen. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New emphasis

message: In defining Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia:Five pillars contains the phrase Wikipedia is not a trivia collection. While often considered a de facto policy, Five pillars is not defined as such, and only summarized other existing policy. Also, Five pillars does not detail this instruction.
So this guideline is still needed. / edg ☺ ★ 14:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Redundancy

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

message: I think we do need a page for this, or we will be fighting about it indefinitely. But the present proposal is in any case too vague to be meaningful, and will be subject to continual attempts to adjust it for the various positions. There are however possible trivia guidelines that might be supportable, and that would at least approximate the present consensu--divided though it is. It would need to be
1. worded neutrally. This means avoiding the word Avoid, and not including the word not (this doesnt mean it should be called "Include trivia" either. And I don't like the word "trivia" which I think prejudges the issue. But it may be impossible to avoid it. So:  "WP:Trivia in articles" perhaps or just "WP:Trivia" In articles, though, I like the suggestion on another page on at least renaming to avoid using the word or synonyms, and certainly not calling any section of an article "Trivia" ,
2. it should say specifically what is no trivia at all: later versions of adaptations of literary works are absolutely not trivia, significant uses of significant artistic of cultural themes of characters in other significant works are not trivia, significant details about the production of artistic or other works are not trivia, biographic details of significance to the career or the character of a person are not trivia, monuments or memorials to significant cultural figures are not trivia, etc. In each case the key term is "significant" (which needs expansion, or we'll be fighting over that).  
(copied from VPP--we really need to hold this discussion one place or another. and I agree about not changing any redirects, until we have something that has some sort of consensus or at least viability) DGG (talk) 22:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay. Let's not do it here then. Having this space just splinters the discussion further. / edg ☺ ★ 00:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: what kind of a page is necessary

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