[WikiEN-l] Trivia and popular culture sections

[Peter Mackay]

> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org 
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guy 
> Chapman aka JzG
> My view is that when they wrote "Wikipedia is not an 
> indiscriminate collection of information" they had in mind 
> keeping the focus on what is actually important, rather than 
> running off after red herrings.

The keyword is "indiscriminate". "Unimportant" is nowhere merntioned.
Organising small but interesting facts into a trivia section, where there
are enough to warrant doing so, is hardly indiscriminate.

Sure, a lot of facts about old or uninteresting subjects need not be
included, but if they are uninteresting, then they are hardly trivia.
Trivia, by its very nature, is unimportant but interesting. If someone was
moved to put it in, then you should know your subject very well indeed
before deciding that it is useless to everybody.

For example, the Latin names of plants and animals are boring useless
clutter to me, and IMHO, we could make for a better, more streamlined, more
relevant encyclopaedia by removing such linnaecruft. But I'll bet London to
a brick that if I started to remove this rubbish, one or two people would
start getting agitated, saying that this unpronounceable, archaic nonsense
was useful and interesting.

Pete, exsapiens