[WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles

[Ben Yates]

I'd argue that for most people, the word trivia is pretty disconnected
from its epitemological roots, and in this case serves as a convenient
placeholder for a more precise descriptor that nobody's thought of yet
(and would probably be long and cumbersome).

On 2/24/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ben Yates wrote:
> > Wikipedia is not paper -- in a print encyclopedia, there's a limit on
> > the total information volume, so any trivia would push out something
> > more important; here, the contraints are easy navigability,
> > readability, etc.  I'm afraid I'm a bit baffled as to why /additional/
> > information at the end of an article upsets people so much, as long as
> > it doesn't make the rest of the article less useful.  If you don't
> > like trivia sections, don't read them.
> >
>
> The problem is not so much the fact that they exist as that the name
> "trivia" is meaningless. I mean, if this information is so "trivial",
> why bother including it? It should be "miscellaneous information".
>
> --
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--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com