I must respectfully disagree. To many readers, these little facts add colour and interest to the article and can tie the main subject to other, often unexpected subjects. Putting them all in one section at the end of the article is the best place for them, because otherwise we would have to find appropriate places for them in the main body of the text, and it may not always be easy (or concise) to do this. "Trivia" is the accepted name for this sort of material. It is concise and descriptive. Perhaps the question is just how trivial a factoid needs to be to be included. We don't need every little bit of blather. Peter (Skyring)

Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote: Have you forgotten that most of us are not being paid to edit? That makes looking unprofessional quite natural. :-) Ec

--- "Alphax (Wikipedia email)" <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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 ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

I must also disagree. I find them neither ugly nor unprofessional. People are interested in trivia, it adds spice, and more importantly it can usefully spark connection-making and deep learning. Do we have a {WP:NOT} for "stuffy, conventional, dry, humorless, or bend-over-backwardsly professional"? Perhaps we should. Certainly any listed trivia must be *interesting*, and that's obviously an endlessly subjective judgment, but one we can work on without exorcising all trivia. Those bug me more than Trivia, and I've seen many more of them that are completely out of hand. But there was just a discussion (here, or on one of the Village Pumps, or somewhere, I forget) about developing policies to keep them trimmed to a reasonable and relevant length. I'd say, when people come across bits of trivia or popular culture references that obviously aren't interesting, they should be bold and just delete them.