[WikiEN-l] My favorite Wikipedia article ever

[John Vandenberg]

On 7/8/07, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/07/07, Rob <gamaliel8 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 7/7/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > > One of my old favorites is up for deletion right now, for the fourth
> > > time, and looks likely to go the way of the dodo this time around.
> > > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Prime_%28person%29>. Just in time
> > > for the release of the new Transformers movie, too.
> > >
> > > It was heavily referenced, non-controversial, and a fun little piece of
> > > trivia. I really don't understand why some editors feel the need to get
> > > rid of such stuff. There are days that Wikipedia makes me depressed.
> >
> > Why can't it be heavily referenced, non-controversial, fun little
> > piece of trivia in the article for the character?  Why do we need an
> > article just for him or for every fun little piece of trivia someone
> > comes across?

Including trivia like this in other articles would result in it being
removed due to WP:TRIVIA.  Keeping it separate means that readers wont
find it unless they are searching for more obscure information or
browsing out of interest.

> Trivia is by definition... trivial. Do we want a trivial encyclopedia?

Trivia is not so easily defined; it is often said that one man's
trivia is another man's treasure.  Even if we accept trivia to mean
trivial factoids, including them in an encyclopedia does not make the
entire work trivial; rather it becomes extensive, cumbersome when it
is in print, and yet still treasured on the bookshelf.

Think of works like the Guinness Book of Records and Wikiquote; they
are entirely trivia, yet they are invaluable when assessed as a whole.
 EB1911 articles also include a lot of trivia, and sometimes even the
articles can be called trivial. (see [[Accius]])

Excluding trivia from an encyclopedia is what makes it trivial.

--
John