Talk:WikiTrivia

Are you For or Against the WikiTrivia project?

• For. Obviously, I think this is a great idea. Cast your votes.
  Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
  01:25, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
• For. Good idea for keeping trivia around somewhere. The volume of Wikipedia editors that wish to have the info available suggest there is a group of editors that might get involved. ●BillPP ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
• For. The main reason given for not creating WikiTrivia in the initial proposal is that Wikipedia should be able to contain this sort of information. This becomes more wrong every year — Wikipedia hates trivia lists, as it well should. A WikiTrivia project can provide a space for loosely structured articles not burdened by the need to be (in Wikipedia buzz) "encyclopedic", with priority on "entertainment value". / edg ☺ ★ 03:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
• For. Sounds like an excellent learning place with all those tidbits of trivia knowledge around --Ben^hello! 05:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
• For. Supported at WP:VP (22:48, 23 August), an excellent idea and way to respect the contributions of people who have an interest in pop culture and trivia, without constant friction over trivia sections in Wikipedia. See below for more comments. FT2 16:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

How it should work

New contributions

• A likely model would be more of an almanac. Topics need not be as comprehensive as (for instance) Wikipedia, as long as they are interesting to the editors. In time, WikiTrivia would establish its own editorial policies, including reasonable priorities (e.g. "entertainment value"), and distinctive visual style guidelines — one imagines the writing guidelines would remain relatively loose. / edg ☺ ★ 03:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Could you expand on what you mean by an almanac, in terms of what that means for the way the project would work?

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

05:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess by that I mean often-tabular data, some around a theme of "here's something interesting", some if it potentially useful. Here a list of entertainment references to subject, there a list of programmable Remote Control codes. Not strictly lists, but loosely organized, or organized in a way that would not exclude certain types of information or types of writing (cf. Wikipedia).

I'm not favoring the WikiCulture idea as it's a little too limited in scope and not too attractive for readers or editors. WikiTrivia, however, could be kind of the online Book of Lists. / edg ☺ ★ 11:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you just opened up a whole new can of worms. This was to be a place where Wikipedia's trivia sections could be moved to -- not an all-out "book of lists" with things like remote control codes. What you have in mind is significantly different from what the current proposal describes. Maybe you should write an addition to the current proposal and append it, as a new section, to the current content page.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

14:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I take it back. WikiTrivia would probably be a place for all the standalone lists that get removed from Wikipedia as well, not just Trivia sections removed from larger articles. That actually is in the proposal.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

05:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

If the goal is to create a system that would routinely link Wikipedia articles to their "trivia sections" on WikiTrivia (or their "cultural references" sections on "WikiCulture", and on that title let me just say "ugh"), this project is very unnecessary.

Creating a supplemental Wikimedia branch to simply segregate "trivia sections" from the mainspace is a needlessly complicated way to handle trivia sections. I doubt Wikipedia wants these in any form, but if they are somehow desireable, it should be handled within Wikipedia. / edg ☺ ★ 05:12, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, as you said, this would also be for standalone list articles. But the segregation of undesired trivia sections would also be an important function. That's what sparked this proposal in the first place. And yes, granted, if a trivia section is somehow desired in a Wikipedia article it doesn't need to be moved to this project; this is only for material that is deemed unworthy of Wikipedia.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

16:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Relationship to Wikipedia

• As far as Wikipedia is concerned, this should be a one-way process, since articles edited in WikiTrivia won't usually be correct for Wikipedia. / edg ☺ ★ 03:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• There should be a Wikipedia template to inform readers that a WikiTrivia article exists for a topic, and there should be a special template version for articles that have had a section moved to WikiTrivia.
  Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
  05:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe for the "article exists", not certain. The "having had moved" notice would be Talk page material at best — maintenance templates on Wikipedia shouldn't be permanent. / edg ☺ ★ 11:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Existing sites for this

Trivia can be moved to Wikia. There are 1000s of different wikis, so you can probably find a relevant one to put any piece of trivia. If you can't, then you can place the trivia in the temporary space at wikia:annex and the community there will find a new home for it on Wikia, or look after it until someone creates a relevant wiki. Angela 06:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I think most users would rather have something with more of a relation and similar design/model to Wikipedia, as well as the ability to create and edit articles on-the-fly. This would basically be a Wikipedia for Trivia. You can't possibly think Wikia is a suitable replacement.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

06:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikia would be adequate for the "WikiCulture" thing. Might do the job for WikiTrivia as well. I wouldn't rule it out, especially since most Wikia projects accept Interwiki links to w:. / edg ☺ ★ 12:25, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I would rule it out. Wikia uses a different model than Wikipedia. There are lots of projects whose material could've simply been placed on another public wiki instead, but there's a reason we create new projects under Wikimedia. People like and are used to the way Wikipedia works, its philosophies, etc.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

14:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of approach

WikiTrivia would probably be linked similar to Wiktionary or Wikiquotes: "WikiTrivia has further interesting information on the subject of X". This would not exclude trivia sections where appropriate (like Wiktionary and Wikiquotes don't mean Wikipedia lacks definition, etymology and quotations as applicable) but means only a few, and the most notable and supported, are needed.

In terms of how it'd work on WikiTrivia, I've started a page to discuss, at http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiTriva/policy_and_structure . FT2 17:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)