WikiTrivia/Archive 1

Initially this proposal was in Village Pump and in Wikipedia:Wikitrivia discussion. Following the suggestion of Mav and Dyprosia, i placed it here.

Wikilist proposal

I noticed that an important debate was raised due to the amount of Lists in the Wikipedia, namely list with curious classifications of people like List of multiracial people or List of queer composers. Other items like songs, for instance, were also subjected to furious listing. I would like, at this moment, to redraw from this discussion the lists concerning people by nationality, name or profession, as well as the various List of topics of…, because I think everybody agree with their value as an index. To summarize the discussion here:

some people consider every list useful and interesting
some people consider that most lists are interesting, but others are not encyclopaedic
some people consider that everything that includes trivia do not belong in wikipedia and argue for deletion

As for myself, I admit that I'm for the absolute removal of all the funny categories. But I also see a usefulness in them, for trivia-curious people, for somebody looking for a strange topic in Google, for the ones who simply love compiling things. I agree with lists (I made List of Roman laws and worked in List of Roman legions with Stan, for instance), but some are hilarious and take credibility from the wikipedia. But what is a funny category? This is highly personal and POV. So, to free wikipedia from all the trivia-(not encyclopaedic)-like lists, I propose the creation of a WIKILISTS or LISTIPEDIA or WIKITRIVIA, in the same philosophy as the Wikiquote or the Wiktionary. This, I think, would value the wikiproject in a whole, because it would prevent the proliferation of trivia in the wikipedia, and, at the same time, provide a space to the list mania to grow freely. The Wikitrivia, with all of us working on it, as potential to become a reference for everybody preparing for a QuizShow or the likes.

As for practicalities, I can't contribute much. I'm not a sysop nor I know anything about programming or creating wikipedias. I only suggest here that the format can be similar so the lists could be copy-pasted to the Wikitrivia. And if a Bot could transform every link to a link to the wikipedia it would be great.

I fear that if the Wikitrivia is not created, the VfD will be perpetually flooded with Lists to delete. Therefore, I would like to debate this idea with other wikipedians. To host the discussion, I created

Wikitrivia discussion

To finish I must say that I hate edit wars and getting involved in polemic issues. Those who know me here know that I'm not involved in disputes. If I'm suggesting this is not for creating attention about me, is because I really feel strongly that some lists should go. Somewhere. Wiki-greetings to all, Muriel Gottrop 09:00, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Response

As I've said before, in my opinion, this is an excellent idea. For one it will ensure that lists of all kinds, be they of unencyclopedic quality or not, or lists of encyclopedic relevance or not have a suitable place to go. Secondly the popularity of the site will be ensured; going from the number of lists featured on VfD it will have a lot of contributors! With the addition of general trivia content it will popularize the Wiki concept further too. I think some serious discussion needs be put in motion to make sure this happens :) Dysprosia 09:09, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

If we have to create another site for them, fine, but I still don't see why they need a seperate location. Could we somehow tag them in Wikipedia itself, so that they come out at lower locations on search results, and count seperately in the article count. Would that please those who are against the lists? - user:zanimum

I think this is an excellent idea for collecting up the various Lists of ... pages which seem to provoke such fury on the part of some people. There is also a discussion about unifying the various language-based Wikipedia databases; this is intended to make it easier to cross-link between them as I understand it. Maybe WikiTrivia, and similar "sub-Wikipedias", could likewise be unified so they could be referred to from within the main Wikipedia but still be treated as existing within their own distinct namespace. PhilBoswell 16:48, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Another project is not needed for this. Almanac-like information is perfectly valid to have in Wikipedia and is very complementary. The titles are almost always distinct and clear; nobody should expect to see an encyclopedia

article at a "List of..." titled page. If need be then lists can be tagged via a category system so that they do not "inflate" our article count. But lists and other almanac-like articles by themselves are very necessary; such as en:List of elements by name or en:List of countries by population. Lists are also used as a way to link new topics when parent topics have not yet been made. Nothing would be served by having a separate project. It is too late anyway since there are many thousands of lists that would have to be moved. --Maveric149 17:06, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I don't think all of the lists on Wikipedia need be moved, only perhaps some of the more rather esoteric ones. The most relevant ones could stay... Dysprosia 04:52, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

If the most relevant ones stay in Wikipedia, then there isn't any reason to have a separate project since the most important lists will still be in Wikipedia. That rips the heart out of a project idea that was very weak to begin with. If you don't like lists then don't read them. If you think that they inflate our article count then propose that they be excluded from the count; it would be fairly easy to exclude any page with the word "list" in the title from being counted. Oh and one person's 'unimportant list' is another persons very important list. What would be the rule by which we determine importance'? --Maveric149 16:10, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, you make good points :) As to which lists should go and which should stay, I agree some choices may be fuzzy, but others may not be? For example, something like "Famous actors who have not had plastic surgery" may not be so appropriate in the Wikipedia, but in WikiLists/WikiTrivia, it may be... Maybe this all needs to be given a bit more focus and direction first... Dysprosia 21:47, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I am against this idea. What does it hurt to keep the lists in the main wiki? Why add an extra layer of complication? If the only problem with them is that they are clogging the VFD, then perhaps people should stop nominating them for deletion. - SimonP 03:14, Oct 28, 2003 (UTC)

I think that focusing on the "trivia" aspect rather than the "list" aspect would be the right justification for this project. en:List of elements by name is not trivia, but en:List of song titles phrased as questions and en:List of songs where the title does not appear in the lyrics certainly are. The idea of trivia in Wikipedia really bugs me... 130.57.22.69 21:20, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think this comment by 130 summarizes my own point of view and the reason i found to suggest this. Trivia lists and topics (aka lists important to some people and not important to other, as mav puts it) deserve their own space, and the wikipedia deserves to be free of them. What in wiki would be a perpetual fight in VfD, in Wikitrivia is welcome! Which lists are to be moved? I say everyone which is not an index to wikiarticles.

Examples to keep: Lists of people by name, nationality, etc; Lists of topics on subjects; Lists of incumbents...

Examples to go: the ones appearing in VfD for the last weeks, starting with the song title related ones!

As for mav's comment concerning dont read lists you dont like: i can read them and continue a wiki fan. But i think they ridicularize the project. Some are so ridiculous! You can argue: for you are ridiculous! I know!! That's why i proposed the WikiTrivia, a place where this things are most welcome, without jeopardizing the pedia "respectability". And i think that there are lots of other things that can be included in the Wikitrivia, like:

birthdays and deaths of fictional characters

fictional timelines

records

???

But all this, like Dysprosia points, needs guidelines and i agree with her.

Cheers, Muriel Gottrop 22:02, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

To some people, en:list of Roman legions is trivia, but to a certain (very :-) ) small group of scholars it's their life's work. However, I think one would be hard-pressed to find any person who would say en:List of song titles phrased as questions is important in any way. So I'll go out on a limb and say that "trivia" is what everybody agrees is trivia. That doesn't mean it's not interesting, and if it brings readers to wikipedia, it even serves a useful role (just consider that the Guinness book of world records was originally published to help settle bar disputes). So perhaps it's sufficient to have a designated trivia area/project that interlinks with the rest of the encyclopedia - have a Trivia or WikiTrivia on the Main Page that links to a Trivia Main Page, which in turn connects to the oddball lists and so forth. If it gets lots of energy, great, if not, that's OK too. Trivia fans have a well-developed sense of "good" vs "bad" trivia; even without the lash of academic standards :-), I think we can trust them to develop a designated trivia area into a good resource. Stan Shebs 00:55, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, but "trivia" is way too similar to other encyclopedia knowledge that we do want. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of encyclopedias; one of those encyclopedias can and should be a trivia one. Also, in the same way as Wikipedia is also an almanac and gazetteer, it can also be a place for trivia. Just name the pages correctly and when a category system is established, then tag them correctly. But any wiki list of songs, as you mention, needs to link to articles. How the heck can a user distinguish between existing vs non-existing articles from a list if it is on a separate wiki in a separate project? Would we then have a fork of every song article in order to remedy this? Or would we really confuse readers by splitting external wikimedia links into two colors?

This whole thing is a very bad idea since it is way too similar to what we want in Wikipedia to begin with. I happen to find en:List of song titles phrased as questions to be an interesting list - it is a place where I can go to find out the title of a song of that category that I am vaguely familiar with, but I can't remember the name. Which reminds me; this is also something that category tags are supposed to do. So it would be stupid to create a project for something to solve a problem that will be addressed using an as-yet-to-be-stabilized feature. Even then esoteric lists will still be interesting and useful since extra info can be added to each listing. --Maveric149 03:07, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

But any wiki list of songs, as you mention, needs to link to articles. Uh, what articles would the entries in en:List of song titles phrased as questions (etc.) link to? We're going to have an article about every song ever written? How much is there to write about the average song? Is there really that much to write about "Bob's Uvula Who?" by Green Day? 130.57.22.69 23:41, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Many songs are notable enough for their own article, most, as you point out, are not. That was not my point, BTW. Simply replace "songs" with anything else one may list (the bands for linked on that page for example). --Maveric149 00:09, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Dear mav, do you really feel that's important to keep the lists as they are? Dont you see that without them, the wiki is a better place? You are only thinking about loosing info in the wikipedia, but this is not going to happen!The information wouldn't be lost: like in wikiquote, there would be links for the wiki-articles. And picture this: a wiki project where we could put maps of fictional countries, fictional bios of characters, lists of everything, records, a year log for every fictional thing, etc, etc... Wouldnt it be nice? -- Muriel Gottrop 12:09, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Other than obscure lists, none of that is trivia (any new fiction created by Wikimedians would be at a completely different project - Wiktion - while any notable fiction created outside of Wikimedia would be covered by Wikipedia). Wikiquote was a bad idea for a project that only exists because a developer responded to a personal request to set it up. Now the project is languishing with only a dozen or so daily edits. What would have been wrong with page names in Wikipedia like "Quotes of Fu Bar"? Then all the links to the person's article and other Wikipedia pages would be either red/ blue wiki links. But Wikiquote already exists so there is little point in shutting it down. It still is a bit of a waste of a domain name and IP address. We could have simply not counted any page with "quotes" in the title as an article and also removed those pages from turning up via the random page function. I fail to see how Wikipedia is at all better without lists -- especially if a great number of the items listed do not yet have Wikipedia articles! How the heck is a person on Wikitrivia going to know that the wiki links to Wikipedia articles actually lead to an article and not an edit page? --Maveric149 17:08, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Ok, i give up. I cant be stubborn, that's a flaw of mine. Nobody else is interested in this anyway and if you think that's a bad idea, i have to trust you. You know the wiki-meanders a lot better than me. Maybe when the listing gets really out of hand. Cheers, Muriel Gottrop 16:00, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have to say, even if a separate Wiki of Lists is a bad idea (I'm not totally convinced), we do need to have some kind of filter to remove trivial lists. What happens when I do a search on, say a name, and it pops up 28 pages, only one of which is an article about the person, and the remainder are "List of white people", "List of people that have tried a cigar", List of people born with one eye who subsequently recovered AND retired from the NHL" ? Perhaps one such "filter" could be to require an introductory paragraph on what a developed list includes and intends to accomplish, and then a requirement that a valid source be cited for every entry on the list, especially if persons are involved. Am I (or any peerson using Wikipedia) going to trust some fool to list "people who have had a homosexual experience"? That is just a troll bait page, not a valid list — unless each person listed is linked to a source that can be traced and the information confirmed (or at least attributed). I would be happy to work on a Wikipedia Style page for rules governing "Lists" just to get this issue less time consuming on the VfD page - 24.94.82.245 17:24, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC) - Forgot I have to log in here - Marshman 17:32, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Category tags (when implemented with an advanced search function) will solve that. --Maveric149 19:12, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'd rather see a new tab for each article called "Trivia" and a new prefix for it. For example: trivia:Portland,_Maine might be the trivia article for the encyc. article for Portland, Maine. I also recommend that this seperate article exist in list form (like discussions) with a [+] next to the edit tab to easily add trivia. Trivia just does not deserve a seperate entity at all in my opinion.