[WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles

Thu Feb 23 09:53:52 UTC 2006

--- "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> They look ugly and unprofessional. Can we get a policy or something to
> suggest that they be renamed "Miscellaneous information" or merged into
> the rest of the article?

A guideline would be helpful. If something really is piece of trivia, then it
is very likely to be too trivial for an encyclopedia article about the topic
(as opposed to a "random facts" website, or a book about the topic). If it's
not, then we should try and merge it in elsewhere in the article (in cases that
I've looked at, it often can be), or just delete much of it outright. If people
are really desperate to keep trivial bits of information, split it out to a
subarticle, like [[Harry Potter trivia]], so that the main article isn't worse
off for it.

As an aside, yesterday someone added the following to the "References" section
of [[Zanzibar]]:

   The Earth levels on [[Halo 2]] Take place in "New Zanzibar"

This isn't the first time, either. Obviously, places in Africa are so exotic
that we need to list references to them from computer games if they're to have
any relevance to real people. Grr.

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com

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