[WikiEN-l] dueling templates

[Brock Weller]

Trivia is not encyclopedic. That said the information in trivia
sections isn't always destined to remain trivia, it could ascend to
actually worthy of being in an article. But having a section like that
is a giant magnet for dumping crap thats not ready for prime time.

On 9/10/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/10/07, David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Brock, I've commented from time to time that the intent of at least
> > some of the people who are trying to delete trivia sections and
> > popular culture sections is to remove material on the significance of
> > themes and structure because of their personal view that such
> > information can never possibly be encyclopedic. A good deal of the
> > material in so called trivia sections is of this nature. People have
> > said I'm over-generalizing, that nobody wants to remove it all.
> >
> > Many trivia section contain some junk as well, but to say that
> > everything in every one of them is worthless--well, I think you have
> > just confirmed what I've been saying. You do want to remove it all.
> >
> > Personally, I'm there to write an encyclopedia for general use, not
> > just a collection of information for my own private purpose. WP:OWN
> > usually means articles, but you think you own wikipedia.  If you want
> > your own wiki, limited to what you wish to have in an encyclopedia,
> > branch WP, and work at a project where you can safely call yourself
> > "we".
>
>
> I can't pretend to speak for Brock, but as someone who opposes the existence
> of trivia sections, I think a miscommunication has taken place. Perhaps
> Brock and a few others think otherwise, but if you ask me, the problem is
> usually not the content; it is how the content is organised. I do not like
> trivia sections, but I never remove them wholesale unless all the
> information in them is clutter (should, say, [[lesbian]] have a trivia
> bullet-point along the lines of "character Y in sitcom X was a closeted
> lesbian"? That information may be useful in [[sitcom X]], but not in
> [[lesbian]]).
>
> The usefulness of information depends almost as much on its context,
> location and presentation as it does on the information itself. "George W.
> Bush is the President of the United States" is almost always a useful thing
> to know, but it is more useful in articles like [[United States]] than
> articles like [[gecko]]. Trivia sections are a very poor way of presenting
> information, and almost always lead to bad organisation of our information.
>
> Eradicating trivia sections is not an end in itself; it is a means to better
> presenting and contextualising our information. Wholesale removal of the
> content in trivia sections defeats this latter end; removal of clutter and
> moving around potentially useful information is what serves the end we have
> in mind.
>
> Johnleemk
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-- 
-Brock